Eras

Native American Era (pre-1830s)

pre-1830s

Before Euro-American settlers arrived at what became Dundee Township in the mid-1830s, the land along the Fox River was home to Potawatomi villages — part of the Council of Three Fires alliance with the Ottawa and Ojibwe nations. This era covers that Potawatomi presence, the pressures that led to its forced end, and the direct, site-specific evidence that a Potawatomi band lived on the ground that later became Dundee itself. It closes with the 1833 Treaty of Chicago and the removal that followed in 1835–36 — the same years the first Euro-American settlers were arriving to claim the same land. (Source: RootsWeb: Kane County, Illinois — Native American history; HistoryOnTheFox.com: Fox Valley Native Villages, c. 1830)

A note on sourcing: most of what follows comes through settler-era filters — an 1899 rootsweb transcription of the 1908 Joslyn History of Kane County, an 1878 pioneer reminiscence, and a regional local-history blog drawing on the 1987 Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History. No Potawatomi-authored account of this period has yet been located for this wiki. Facts here should be read as what settlers and their descendants recorded, not as a complete or Native-centered history. Filling that gap — through tribal historical resources, archaeological surveys, or Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation records — is flagged as an open research gap.

Key Themes

A village at Dundee itself. The most direct evidence connecting this era to this exact place comes from Jesse Oatman, an early Dundee Township settler who arrived around 1835. He described a Potawatomi village located "80 rods below the brickyard" — about a quarter mile — on the east side of what became Dundee: six wigwams housing roughly 25 people, under a leader identified as Chief Nickaway. Oatman's account, recorded in the 1908 Joslyn county history, is the only source found so far that places a Native settlement at a specific, named location within what is now Dundee/East Dundee rather than the surrounding region. (Source: RootsWeb: Chief Nickaway (Kane County, Illinois))

A regional network of Fox River villages. Nickaway's band was described as related to a larger band led by Chief Waubonsie, located in the Big Woods south of Batavia — a well-documented village of over 1,000 people on the Fox River near present-day Aurora. A 1987 map in the Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History locates several named Potawatomi villages strung along the mid-Fox River in 1830 — Waubonsee's, Shaytee's, Naysosay's, and Awnkote's, plus at least two more unnamed villages to the north — consistent with Nickaway's band occupying a position further upriver, at Dundee. The seasonal pattern recorded for Waubonsie's band was to summer on the Fox River and winter south along the Illinois and Kankakee rivers, returning north each spring — a rhythm likely shared by the smaller bands nearby, including Nickaway's. (Source: HistoryOnTheFox.com: Fox Valley Native Villages, c. 1830; RootsWeb: Kane County, Illinois — Native American history)

Land under legal cession but still occupied. Federal treaties through the 1820s and early 1830s progressively ceded Potawatomi land to the United States, but treaty terms generally allowed Native residents to continue using the land until it was surveyed and sold — a process that in the Fox Valley was still years away even as the first squatter-settlers arrived in 1833–34. This overlap, not empty wilderness, is what pioneer accounts of "primitive Indians" and "wild Indian territory" (see Kane County, Illinois and Elgin, Illinois) were actually describing. (Source: HistoryOnTheFox.com: Fox Valley Native Villages, c. 1830)

The Black Hawk War as backdrop, not local conflict. Friction between squatters and Native residents elsewhere in the Fox Valley — notably a fatal 1832 dispute over a mill dam blocking fish from reaching a Potawatomi village on Indian Creek, south of Kane County — helped trigger the Black Hawk War of 1832. No source found so far documents comparable violence at Dundee itself; Chief Waubonsie in particular is recorded as having taken a pro-American stance during the war. The war's aftermath directly opened the door for Euro-American settlement: the Pioneer & Frontier Era (1830s–1850s) page already notes that Dundee's founding settlers arrived "in the immediate aftermath of the Black Hawk War," when former Native lands were first opened to homesteading. (Source: HistoryOnTheFox.com: Fox Valley Native Villages, c. 1830)

Removal, 1833–1836. In September 1833, representatives of the Potawatomi, Ottawa, and Ojibwe were called to Chicago and signed the Treaty of Chicago, ceding their remaining land in northern Illinois and southeastern Wisconsin to the United States. Removal did not happen all at once: bands left in stages over the following years, with Colonel Nathaniel Lyon relocating Chief Waubonsie's people to Council Bluffs, Iowa in 1835 or 1836. Waubonsie himself reportedly delayed his own departure. Some bands and individuals later returned east, only to be removed again; Chief Shabbona, a prominent figure elsewhere in Kane and DeKalb counties, spent his final years watching land the government had granted his band get taken from him regardless. (Source: RootsWeb: Kane County, Illinois — Native American history; RootsWeb: Chief Shabbona reminiscence)

Notable Figures

  • Chief Nickaway — Led the Potawatomi band recorded at the specific site that became Dundee; the only Native leader directly placed on this land by a named eyewitness (Jesse Oatman).
  • Chief Waubonsie — Led a much larger, better-documented band on the Fox River in the Big Woods near Aurora, related to Nickaway's band; took a pro-American stance in the Black Hawk War; removed to Council Bluffs, Iowa in 1835–36.
  • Chief Shabbona — Prominent regional Potawatomi leader remembered in Kane and DeKalb county pioneer accounts for his friendliness toward settlers; his own reserved land was later taken from him despite treaty guarantees.
  • Jesse Oatman — Dundee Township settler (arrived c. 1835) whose firsthand description of Nickaway's village is the key source tying this era directly to Dundee's location.

Key Events

  • 1832 — Black Hawk War. Regional conflict triggered in part by settler encroachment on Potawatomi land in the Fox Valley; opened former Native lands to Euro-American homesteading in its aftermath. See Pioneer & Frontier Era (1830s–1850s).
  • September 1833 — Treaty of Chicago (1833). Potawatomi, Ottawa, and Ojibwe representatives cede remaining northern Illinois land to the United States.
  • 1833–1834 — Squatter settlement begins. Euro-American settlers, including future Dundee Township pioneers, begin arriving on land still occupied under treaty-guaranteed use rights.
  • 1835–1836 — Removal to Council Bluffs, Iowa. Waubonsie's band and others are relocated west under Col. Nathaniel Lyon; this overlaps directly with the arrival of Dundee Township's first documented settlers (see Pioneer Settlement of Dundee Township, 1830s).

Open Research Gaps

  • No Potawatomi-authored or tribally-sourced account of this land has yet been located; all current sourcing is filtered through settler recollection.
  • The exact location of Nickaway's village ("80 rods below the brickyard") has not been matched to a modern address or mapped against present-day East Dundee — a natural candidate for a future Map-type page once village records or a period plat map are located.
  • No archaeological survey of the Dundee area specifically (comparable to the 1987 St. Charles burial-ground discovery or the 1987 Oswego bison-bone dig) has been found; this is a targeted-source-fetch candidate.
  • Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation (the federally recognized successor tribe, based in Kansas) maintains its own tribal history resources that have not yet been consulted for this page.

Sources