People

Chief Waubonsie

Chief Waubonsie (also spelled Waubonsee) led a large Potawatomi band whose village stood in the Big Woods south of Batavia, on the east side of the Fox River — the most thoroughly documented Native village in the immediate Kane County region, and closely related to the smaller band of Chief Nickaway recorded at the site of Dundee, Illinois itself. (Source: RootsWeb: Kane County, Illinois — Native American history)

Known Activities

Waubonsie's council village, described in the 1908 History of Kane County (Joslyn & Joslyn), stood on ground later known as the McNamara Farm and held more than 1,000 people — squaws, papooses, and warriors, in the source's period language — at the time the first Euro-American settlers arrived. The band's seasonal pattern was to summer on the Fox River and travel south to winter along the Illinois and Kankakee rivers, returning each spring. (Source: RootsWeb: Kane County, Illinois — Native American history)

Waubonsie himself was described as an imposing figure, standing over six feet tall, who lived in a substantial permanent structure — a cedar-post wigwam roughly 20 by 30 feet with a connecting hall — distinct from the temporary wigwams that made up the rest of the village. At least one of his sons, Neuqua, is recorded as having become a young chief in his own right. (Source: RootsWeb: Kane County, Illinois — Native American history)

A 1987 map published in the Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History locates "Waubonsee's" village among several named Potawatomi settlements strung along the mid-Fox River as of 1830, alongside villages led by Shaytee, Naysosay, and Awnkote. During the Black Hawk War of 1832, Waubonsie is recorded as having taken a pro-American stance, in contrast to the conflict's namesake. (Source: HistoryOnTheFox.com: Fox Valley Native Villages, c. 1830)

Following the 1833 Treaty of Chicago (1833), Colonel Nathaniel Lyon relocated Waubonsie's band to Council Bluffs, Iowa in the fall of 1835 or 1836. Waubonsie reportedly readied his people for departure but, at the last moment, chose not to go himself — Lyon left with the band without their chief. The rootsweb source notes "there is more to this story" without elaborating further. (Source: RootsWeb: Kane County, Illinois — Native American history)

Sources