Footnotes
Henry King, Keokuk, Iowa Territory, to John Chambers, Burlington, Iowa Territory, 14 July 1843, in Territorial Papers of the United States, the Territory of Iowa, reel 56; “Interview between Joseph Smith & the Pottowatomie Chiefs,” ca. 1856, in Historian’s Office, JS History, Draft Notes, July 1843; Dunham, Journal, 14 July–26 Aug. 1843; JS, Journal, 26 Aug. 1843; Clayton, Journal, 28 Aug. 1843; Letter to Paicouchaiby and Other Potawatomi, 28 Aug. 1843.
Carter, Clarence Edward, and John Porter Bloom, comps. Territorial Papers of the United States. 28 vols. Washington DC: United States Government Printing Office, 1934–1975.
Historian’s Office. Joseph Smith History Draft Notes, ca. 1839–1856. CHL. CR 100 92.
Dunham, Jonathan. Journals, 1837–1846. Jonathan Dunham, Papers, 1825–1846. CHL. MS 1387, fds. 1–4.
Clayton, William. Journals, 1842–1845. CHL.
Clayton, Journal, 4 Apr. 1844; 3 July 1844; 18 Aug. 1844. Clayton likely made some adjustments to the text when he wrote the fair copy of the minutes and discourse from this meeting, as he had done with other portions of the council records from the Nauvoo era. (Historical Introduction to Council of Fifty, “Record.”)
Clayton, William. Journals, 1842–1845. CHL.
For a full record of the Council of Fifty under JS, see “Part 1: March–June 1844.”
The French Creole population had a long history of cultural and political alliances with the Potawatomi; these ties commonly resulted in marriages between French traders and Potawatomi women. These traders and their descendants often served as intermediaries and interpreters between the Potawatomi and American settlers and government officials. The interpreter mentioned here may have been the same interpreter who came to Nauvoo in July 1843 and returned with Jonathan Dunham in August 1843. Dunham described him as “a white man half English, & half French, formaly [formerly] from Canada, and since the last war has lived with the Potawatomies— Married a Squaw, sister to the Chief.” That description fits Madore Beaubien. The son of a French father and an Ottawa mother, he resided in Chicago before moving to live with the Potawatomi in 1840. (Dunham, Journal, 18 Aug. 1843; Edmunds, “Potawatomis on the Frontier,” 342–343; Edmunds, Potawatomis, 221–222, 227–228; Hurlbut, Chicago Antiquities, 334–335; Gale, Reminiscences of Early Chicago and Vicinity, 137; Beaubien, “Beaubiens of Chicago,” 98–99.)
Dunham, Jonathan. Journals, 1837–1846. Jonathan Dunham, Papers, 1825–1846. CHL. MS 1387, fds. 1–4.
Edmunds, R. David. “Indians as Pioneers: Potawatomis on the Frontier.” Chronicles of Oklahoma 65, no. 4 (Winter 1987–1988): 340–353.
Edmunds, R. David. The Potawatomis: Keepers of the Fire. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978.
Hurlbut, Henry H. Chicago Antiquities: Comprising Original Items and Relations, Letters, Extracts, and Notes Pertaining to Early Chicago; Embellished with Views, Portraits, Autographs, Etc. Chicago: By the author, 1881.
Gale, Edwin O. Reminiscences of Early Chicago and Vicinity. Chicago: Fleming H. Revell, 1902.
Beaubien, Frank G. “The Beaubiens of Chicago.” Illinois Catholic Historical Review 2, no. 1 (July 1919): 96–105.
As the fur trade declined in the early nineteenth century, the Potawatomi became increasingly dependent on annuities from the United States government. This left them vulnerable to unfavorable treaties that gradually stripped them of their lands in what would become Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. The passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830 and the Black Hawk War of 1832—in which the Potawatomi sided with the United States—led to a final treaty, signed in 1833, in which the Potawatomi traded their lands east of the Mississippi River for land along the Missouri River, between Independence, Missouri, and present-day Council Bluffs, Iowa. However, in 1837, tensions between the Potawatomi and the Missourians led to the removal of the Potawatomi to lands in modern-day Iowa and Kansas. (See Edmunds, Potawatomis, 215–222, 229–254, 264–272.)
Edmunds, R. David. The Potawatomis: Keepers of the Fire. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978.
William Clayton reported that the council members “had a very pleasant and impressive interview” with this delegation. JS probably invited the Potawatomi to the church conference that was held two days later, on 6 April. JS’s journal records that during the conference, “4. Lamanites & interpretor came in and took a seat on the stand.” Clayton identified the Indians as members of the Potawatomi tribe. According to Wilford Woodruff, eleven Indians were on the stand when John Taylor was speaking. (Clayton, Journal, 4 Apr. 1844; JS, Journal, 6 Apr. 1844; Woodruff, Journal, 6 Apr. 1844.)
Clayton, William. Journals, 1842–1845. CHL.
Woodruff, Wilford. Journals, 1833–1898. Wilford Woodruff, Journals and Papers, 1828–1898. CHL. MS 1352.