Don Wildman

That's basically the first step in really beginning what we will see is a clearance of this land.

Ten years later, I'm sure there are many events between this time, but there is the Black Hawk War.

The summer of 1832, Sauk leader Blackhawk, if you wondered where the hockey team gets their name, this is it, and his community of mostly women and children returned to their ancestral homeland in the northern Illinois.

Agents involved, right?

Before we get to that, I just want to point out that a lot of people join this effort.

This is a very famous conflict going on.

And one is a young man named Abraham Lincoln who goes up to join this effort against this.

He never actually does fight, but he tries to and signs up for it.

The next year, 1833, comes the second Chicago Treaty, even more consequential.

The U.S.

was not at war with the Anishinaabe people, but they took advantage of the outrage over Black Hawk and that war to force a treaty with them.

passing a law that allowed the commissioners to purchase all remaining land held by the Anishinaabe people in the lower Lake Michigan area.

How much land are we talking about there?

I have 5 million acres.

So the American government and the Pottawatomie exchange five million acres of land west of the Mississippi for land in northeast Illinois and southeast Wisconsin.

We've done an episode on the Trail of Tears, you know, all around in many parts of this world.

And in that episode, I said to people, do not forget that this happened elsewhere.

This Trail of Tears is an idea more than a specific one.

And this is one of those Trails of Tears, right?

This is the Anishinaabe people in a procession west.