The Nations' Own Accounts: The Pokagon Band and the Citizen Potawatomi on This Valley

The modern nations in their own published voice, as of November 2026

The Pokagon Band, in its own words, on its own site: The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians' official website opens, as of November 2026, under the heading “Rooted in our homeland. Guided by our teachings. Serving our people and sharing our culture with the world.” It presents the Band as living the Seven Grandfather Teachings — “Wisdom, Love, Respect, Truth, Honesty, Humility, and Bravery” — and states its own history in one sentence: “Our people have lived in the Great Lakes region for generations as the Keepers of the Fire. Our story includes both struggle and resilience, from surviving forced removal in the 1800s to celebrating the restoration of our sovereignty in 1994.” The same homepage describes its Center of History & Culture as “where traditions come alive,” and its Tribal Council as the body that “represents the voice of the Pokagon Band,” elected by its citizens to “carry forward our teachings, protect our sovereignty, and guide our community.”

The Pokagon history, as the Band's own fund tells it: The Pokagon Fund — which states on the page itself that it and the Pokagon Band “are two separate and distinct entities,” and that its brief history is posted “to pay homage to the tragedies and triumphs of the Tribe's past” — records that the Pokagon Band is a federally recognized tribe with over 6,000 citizens as of September 2023, based in Southwest Michigan and Northern Indiana with governmental operations in Dowagiac, Michigan. It tells the valley's deep frame in the nation's own terms: together with the Ojibway and the Odawa, the Potawatomi migrated over 500 years ago to the Great Lakes region and loosely organized as the Three Fires Confederacy — the Ojibway the Keepers of Tradition, the Odawa the Keepers of the Trade, and the Potawatomi the Keepers of the Fire, the name itself meaning “The People of the Place of the Fire.” Of the removal era it records that in 1830 Congress passed the Indian Removal Act directing that all American Indians be relocated west of the Mississippi, and that “for the Potawatomi this was a devastating development.” Of the present it records that on November 18, 2016, the Bureau of Indian Affairs approved taking 166 acres of the Band's ancestral homeland in the city of South Bend into trust — “the first sovereign tribal land to be taken into trust in the state of Indiana” — in the same St. Joseph River valley in which New Carlisle stands.

Why the Pokagon story is a staying story: The federal record of the Band's 1994 restoration states its purpose as reaffirming the federal relationship and acknowledging the Pokagon Band as a distinct federally recognized tribe, describes the Band as descendants of, and political successors to, the Potawatomi bands that signed at least eleven treaties — among them the Treaty of the Mississinewa on the Wabash (1826), the Treaties of St. Joseph (1827 and 1828) and the Treaty of Chicago (1833) — and records the fact on which the modern Band stands: in the Treaty of Chicago of 1833 the Pokagon Band was the only Potawatomi band that negotiated a right, by a supplementary article dated September 27, 1833, to remain in Michigan rather than remove west. The Band's own site dates the restoration of its sovereignty to 1994; the marker record of the same history notes that September 21, 1994, the date its federally recognized status was reaffirmed by an act of Congress, is now recognized as Sovereignty Day by the citizens of the Pokagon Band.

The Citizen Potawatomi Nation, in its own published voice, on the Bourassa line: The Citizen Potawatomi Nation's Cultural Heritage Center, in its family history of a founding Citizen Potawatomi family — published on the Nation's own site, potawatomi.org, and updated January 27, 2025 — traces the Bourassa (in its spellings, also Bourissa) family from French fur traders to “current service to their Nation.” It records that Daniel Bourassa II, born at Michilimackinac in 1780, married Theotis Pisange (Aranwaiske), a Chippewa/Ottawa woman and niece of Chief Shabbona, and that “they settled near the Yellow River in Indiana” and had twelve children, named in the Nation's own list: “Joseph Napoleon, Mark, Jude, Lazarus, Stephen, Gabriel, Eloy, Alexander, Daniel III, Jaques, Elizabeth, and one child that passed away.” Lazarus Bourassa — the Lazarus Bourissa of the New Carlisle townsite — stands in the Nation's own published genealogy as a son of that Yellow River household. The Nation's account continues that Daniel II, Theotis and seven of their children lived outside Potawatomi Chief Menominee's village in northern Indiana in the late 1830s and “were forcibly removed on the Trail of Death in 1838,” Daniel II becoming the first to sign the Muster Roll before “the 660-mile forced march west began”; that their son Joseph Napoleon had removed a year earlier, in 1837; and that Jude Bourassa went to court in 1837 attesting he had rights to remain in Indiana, was unsuccessful, and left the Great Lakes region on August 17, 1840.

The Nation's account of its interpreter, at fair size: In a second Cultural Heritage Center history, “Bourassa the Interpreter,” the Nation quotes its Cultural Heritage Center director, Kelli Mosteller: “It's distinctly possible that someone born in the woodlands of Indiana who made the march along the Trail of Death and lived in pre-Civil War Kansas ended up in Oklahoma after 1872” — the removals, she notes, “happened over the course of decades, not centuries,” and “forced the Potawatomi south from their ancestral homelands in Indiana and rippled across the lifetimes of hundreds of individuals.” The article records that Joseph Napoleon Bourassa, born in March 1810 to Daniel Bourassa II and Theotis Pisange, spoke English, French and Potawatomi from a young age, became known as “Bourassa the Interpreter” and served as translator in councils and treaty negotiations; that he attended Carey Mission School in Michigan and Hamilton College in New York and transferred to the Choctaw Academy of Kentucky to study law in the early 1830s; that he was on a removal conducted by George H. Proffitt in 1837, and that his family, living in Chief Menominee's village on Indiana's Yellow River in 1838, was forced onto the Trail of Death, both his parents dying in the years immediately following removal; and that with his brother Jude he signed the treaty of 1846, and signed the 1861 treaty that gave the Citizen Band United States citizenship and individual land allotments. The family history adds the consequence in the Nation's own words: “Instead of upholding the grace period on taxation, Potawatomi lost most of their allotments due to failure to pay taxes,” and preserves Joseph's own 1866 words on white encroachment: “It seems to me the course taken in settling our affairs, being so slow, is in breaking the law.”

The limit of the nations' own published record, printed as a finding: In the Citizen Potawatomi Nation pages read for this section — the Cultural Heritage Center's Bourassa family history and its “Bourassa the Interpreter” history, searched on potawatomi.org and potawatomiheritage.com — Lazarus is named in the family's list of children, but no page read narrates Lazarus himself, his Carey Mission schooling, or his Indiana scholar grant and the quarter-section that became the New Carlisle townsite. That townsite account comes from the town's and the state's published record, not from the Nation's own voice, and the two are not merged here. What the Nation's own voice does establish, whole, is the family, the valley and the removal that the townsite grant sat inside.

Present-day status, as of November 2026: Two federally recognized Potawatomi nations carry this valley's story in their own published voices. The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians (Pokégnek Bodéwadmik) is federally recognized, its sovereignty restored in 1994, headquartered at Dowagiac, Michigan, with over 6,000 citizens as of September 2023, governmental services across southwest Michigan and northern Indiana, and sovereign trust land in South Bend, Indiana, taken into trust in 2016. The Citizen Potawatomi Nation is a federally recognized tribe headquartered in Shawnee, Oklahoma — the address its own site carries in 2026 — governed from the community its people reached after the 1867 treaty and the move to Indian Territory in the early 1870s; it is the successor to the Mission Band of Potawatomi originally located in the Wabash River valley of Indiana, and its Cultural Heritage Center actively publishes the founding families' histories, the Bourassa history among them, in the Nation's own name.

Sources:

1. Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians, official website (pokagonband-nsn.gov), read November 2026: homepage headings and tagline, the Seven Grandfather Teachings list, the Keepers of the Fire history sentence including forced removal and the 1994 restoration of sovereignty, the Center of History & Culture description, and the Tribal Council description.
2. The Pokagon Fund, “A Brief History of the Pokagon Band” (pokagonfund.org): the Fund's own statement that it and the Band are separate and distinct entities; over 6,000 citizens as of September 2023; Dowagiac governmental operations; the Three Fires Confederacy account; the Indian Removal Act of 1830; and the November 18, 2016 approval of 166 acres in South Bend as the first sovereign tribal land taken into trust in Indiana.
3. United States House of Representatives report on the Pokagon Band restoration act (S. 1066, 103rd Congress, 1994), via govinfo.gov: purpose of reaffirming the federal relationship and acknowledging the Band as a distinct federally recognized tribe; descent from signatories of eleven listed treaties including Mississinewa (1826), St. Joseph (1827, 1828) and Chicago (1833); and the supplementary article of September 27, 1833 by which the Pokagon Band alone negotiated a right to remain in Michigan.
4. Historical marker record, “Avoiding Removal — The Pokagon Band of Potawatomi” (hmdb.org): Leopold Pokagon's amendment to the 1833 Treaty of Chicago, Catholic Potawatomi remaining in the St. Joseph River Valley, and September 21, 1994 reaffirmation of federal recognition, now Sovereignty Day.
5. Citizen Potawatomi Nation, Cultural Heritage Center, “Bourassa family history,” potawatomi.org, published September 16, 2020 and updated January 27, 2025: Daniel Bourassa II and Theotis Pisange at the Yellow River in Indiana, their twelve children including Lazarus, the family's removal on the Trail of Death in 1838 and the Muster Roll, Joseph Napoleon's 1837 removal, Jude Bourassa's unsuccessful 1837 court claim and August 17, 1840 departure, the brothers' schooling and treaty signings, the 1861 treaty and allotment tax losses, and the quoted 1866 Bourassa letter.
6. Citizen Potawatomi Nation, “‘Bourassa the Interpreter’ spoke often for Potawatomi of Indiana and Kansas,” potawatomi.org, February 7, 2019: Kelli Mosteller's quoted remarks, Joseph Napoleon Bourassa's languages, interpreting, Carey Mission School, Hamilton College and Choctaw Academy schooling, the 1837 Proffitt removal, the Menominee's-village Trail of Death account, and the 1846 and 1861 treaty signings.
7. Citizen Potawatomi Nation, official website (potawatomi.org), read November 2026, for present-day Shawnee, Oklahoma headquarters and the Nation's active Cultural Heritage Center publishing program; and the Citizen Potawatomi Nation history summary: successor to the Mission Band of Potawatomi Indians originally located in the Wabash River valley of Indiana, the 1867 treaty, and resettlement in Indian Territory by the early 1870s near present-day Shawnee.