America’s Most Notorious Frontier Massacres: The History and Legacy of Shocking Attacks between Native Americans and Settlers by Charles River Editors

Author:Charles River Editors
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Charles River Editors
Published: 2024-12-13T00:00:00+00:00

An engraving of a tree believed to mark the site where the massacre started

Since they had burned down the Agency House, which had served as the local trading post, there was little reason for the Potawatomi to remain around Fort Dearborn and the settlement that eventually became Chicago. Instead, they chose to go elsewhere, including places like Detroit, to trade furs. Their elders had warned this would happen, but the younger warriors had forged ahead without thought to the future. Even as they began leaving the Chicago area, the Potawatomi were beginning to realize the British were not their friends, and that only the American government had the authority to make treaties regarding their lands and claims of territorial ownership.

While details remain sketchy, the handful of residents who had made the Kinzie house their temporary abode boarded a boat and left the fort and its nightmarish memories behind 18 days after the massacre. They left Ouilmette and his family as the sole remaining inhabitants of Chicago.

The Kinzie family was placed under the protection of Chief Topenebe until November, and they were subsequently escorted to Detroit and given over to the British as prisoners of war. John Kinzie was paroled, only to be taken into custody again, and was finally released when the War of 1812 concluded.

In spite of the massacre and the immense loss of life on both sides, Kinzie did the unthinkable by returning to Chicago in 1816, just four years later, when the second Fort Dearborn had been built and was again occupied by American troops. The first school teacher, William Cox, also arrived in 1816 and taught in what was left of the bake-house at the former Fort Dearborn. In 1832, Capt. John Whistler’s son, Major William Whistler, returned to Fort Dearborn. He was the second generation of that family to be stationed there.

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