n of their original habitations.

According to Hiram W. Beckwith, the Potawatomi were the most populous
tribe between the lakes and the Ohio, the Wabash and the Mississippi.
Their debouch upon the plains of the Illinois has already been
mentioned. This was about the year 1765. The confederacy among them, the
Kickapoos and the Sacs and Foxes, resulted in the extermination of the
old Illinois tribes, and after that extermination, the Kickapoos took
possession of the country around Peoria and along the Vermilion river,
the Potawatomi of eastern and northern Illinois, while the Sacs and
Foxes went farther to the west. After the treaty of Greenville in 1795,
the Potawatomi rapidly absorbed the ancient domain of the Miamis in
northern Indiana, swiftly pressing them back to the Wabash, and usurping
the major portion of the small lake region in the north end of the
state. They had now become so haughty and insolent in their conduct as
to refer to the Miamis as "their younger brothers," and the Miamis, by
reason of their long wars, their commingling with the traders, and their
acquisition of degenerate habits, were unable to drive them back. In
1810 and 1811, Tecumseh and the one-eyed Prophet were eagerly seeking an
alliance with their treacherous chiefs. A demand was made upon
Tecumseh for the surrender of certain Potawatomi murderers and horse
thieves who had invaded the Missouri region and committed depredations,
but Tecumseh replied that he was unable to apprehend them, and that they
had escaped to the Illinois country. The Potawatomi were now living in
mixed villages west of the present sites of Logansport and Lafayette,
and the southern limits of their domain extended as far down the Wabash
as the outlet of Pine creek across the river from the present city of
Attica.

[Illustration: Shaubena, the best of the Potawatomi Chiefs, and a
follower of Tecumseh. By Courtesy The Chicago Historical Society]

The Potawatomi loved the remoteness and seclusion of the great prairie,
and many of their divisions have been known as the "prairie" tribes.
They seem to have lived for the most part in separate, roving bands,
which divided "according to the abundance or scarcity of game, or the
emergencies of war." Encouraged by the English, they joined in the
terrible expeditions of the Shawnees and Miamis against the keel-boats
on the Ohio, and against the settlements of Kentucky. They were
inveterate horse-thieves. Riding for long distance