AUGUST 15, 1812

POTAWATOMI ROUT U.S. TROOPS IN BATTLE OF FORT DEARBORN

In 1803, the U.S. Government built Fort Dearborn in what is now Chicago as part of a strategic effort to protect lucrative trading in the area from the British. The fort sat in territory long controlled by the Potawatomi. On this date, over 50 U.S. soldiers and 41 civilians, including 9 women and 18 children, were ordered to evacuate Fort Dearborn. This group, comprising almost the entire population of US citizens in the Chicago area, marched south from the fort along the shoreline of Lake Michigan until they were attacked by about 500 warriors. Over 60 of the evacuees and 15 Potawatomi were killed. The dead included Army Captain William Wells, who had come from Fort Wayne with Miami Indians to assist in the evacuation, and Naunongee, Chief of the Village of Potawatomi Ojibwe. In the 1830s, the Potowatami in Illinois were forcibly removed to lands west of the Mississippi.

Sources: “Battle of Fort Dearborn,” Illinois State Historical Society.  Retreived 10/12/2023, Battle of Fort Dearborn marker information (historyillinois.org)

Photo: User JeremyA, 10/9/2010.  Defense by Henry Herring, 1928. This sculpture adorns the wall of the southwestern bridge tender's house on Michigan Avenue Bridge in Chicago, Illinois.  Permissive Use.