Papers presented by Zada Ballew since 2019

2024 Providence, Rhode Island

"A Company of Kin: Pokagon Village and the Business of Tribal Nationalism, 1821-1841"

Abstract:

This paper offers an Indigenous business history of the Indian Removal era from the perspective of one of the wealthiest Potawatomi villages in recorded history. Pokagon Village was founded by a company of Potawatomi and their kin in the early nineteenth century to pursue collective economic sovereignty in their remaining homelands. Organizing themselves into a village allowed this “company of kin” to trade locally, bargain collectively, and hold lands and other resources communally amidst a landscape that was becoming checkered with American yeomen farmsteads. Pokagon Village, by many accounts, was a success–for it was the largest gathering of Potawatomi on some of “the most valuable land” in the Michigan Territory, demonstrating a shared commitment to creating and sustaining this Native venture despite U.S. American commercial expansion into their territory. By the signing of the Indian Removal Act in 1830, it was clear Pokagon Village was not in a state of “savagery” nor decline, as federal Indian policymakers insisted, but, instead, highly “civilized” and growing in size, status, and wealth, offering its Indigenous community, as well as their immigrant neighbors, opportunities to live, work, and worship within its sovereign borders. But little did the people know their prosperity would not last. Within a single generation, the Pokagon Village founded near present-day Niles, Michigan was born, prospered, and liquidated, forcing its residents to rebuild their national economy on privately owned and publicly taxed lands in present-day Silver Creek Township, Michigan. By tracing the rise and fall of Pokagon Village, this paper reveals the early nineteenth century origins of a commitment to the ancestors and descendants of this company of kin that has sustained Pokagon Potawatomi business for centuries.