Site of the Last Camp of the Tribe of Pottawattomie Indians under Chief Baw Beese Moved to Iowa 1840
Here and his surrounding domain, Chief Baw Beese and his people remained in their ancestral land, complacently disregarding the terms of the treaty whereby western reservations were provided for the Potawatomi.
Since there was then no white settlers to dispute possession, no move was made to eject them &, unmolested, they pursued the even tenor of their ways.
The chief was said to have moved to Adrian, Michigan in the spring of 1864. He died there on July 12, 1889.
But the final days of Baw Beese are disputed. According to another account, he died in exile in the pine forests near Georgian Bay, Canada, after having left the reservation. Other accounts report his being killed in a raid by Sioux, or having a natural death at a very old age on the Kansas reservation, where the Potowatomi were finally required to settle. Baw Beese never signed a treaty with the United States, although he did abide by the Treaty of Detroit of 1807. The line between present-day Lenawee and Hillsdale counties was established as the boundary between the settlers and natives. Because of that treaty, he welcomed the white settlers to Hillsdale County but treated them as tenants. Hillsdale County Historic Society
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