Geneva church to host presentation on the Potawatomi people
The public is invited to a special “Friday Features” program on the past, present and future of the Potawatomi people in the Fox Valley and DeKalb County region.
The free presentation will be held at 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 25, at the Unitarian Universalist Society of Geneva, 110 S. Second St.
Lynn Steele of the church’s Social Justice team will offer an overview of the history of the Potawatomi in the area, concentrating on Chief Shabbona and his band in DeKalb County, and explain why the land they purchased in 2006 was recognized as the Prairie Band Potawatomi Reservation this last April — the first Native American reservation in Illinois in 175 years.
While working on a land acknowledgment statement for the church, Steele was surprised to find that the prairie Potawatomi people he knew while growing up in Kansas were descendants of the Indigenous people who were in the Fox Valley before white settlers arrived.
The Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation has been in the news this past year because the federal government has acknowledged that the land reserved for Chief Shabbona in two separate treaties had been illegally auctioned to white settlers in 1849.
That year, Chief Shabbona had left his home to visit the friends and relatives in Missouri and Kansas. When he returned, he found that his dwellings had been removed and the land had been sold.
“It is important that we understand the history of the Potawatomi here in order to know why there is now a reservation back in Illinois after the Indigenous people were removed following the Black Hawk War,” Steele said. “Revisiting this history will help us welcome the return of a Native American presence in our state. It will also help in understanding the legislation pending at the state and federal level to restore the reservation to one closely resembling the original protected land that was illegally sold.”
About the Unitarian Universalist Society of Geneva
Founded in 1842, the Unitarian Universalist Society of Geneva is the oldest church in town, part of a centuries-old liberal religious tradition that values reason and free thought over dogma and creed. Led by the Rev. Scot Hull, it is a unique religious voice in the community, offering services and religious education programs that draw on diverse spiritual traditions, as well as outreach initiatives that advance social justice causes locally and around the world. Learn more at www.uusg.org.