[Map] Designates 1838 'Trail of Death' route from Indiana to present day Osawatomie, Kans.
In September 1838 over 850 Potawatomi Indian people were rounded up and marched at gunpoint from their Indiana homeland. Many walked the 600-mile distance, which took two months. More than 40 died, mostly children, of typhoid fever and the stress of the forced removal. Their young priest, Rev. Benjamin M. Petit, also became ill on the trail and died shortly thereafter near this location in St. Louis.
Dots on Trail are some of the 48 places where the Potawatomi people camped one night or more on the forced removal, according to the official journal kept by a government agent.
Approximate route of Father Petit & Potawatomi escort Abram Burnett (Nan-Wesh-Mah) to St. Louis in January 1839. Petit died a month later.
People shown here were all Potawatomi painted by artist Geo. Winter in 1837. All went to Kansas in either 1837 or 1838. Reproduced with permission of Tippecanoe County Historical Association, Lafayette, Indiana.
Map by T. Hamilton, Fulton County Historical Society, Rochester, Indiana, 1996.
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