The fate of the individual nations that had been part of Tecumseh’s confederacy in the years after his death illustrates what the world looked like without the political protection he had been trying to build.

The Potawatomi had been among the most committed participants in the confederacy.

After Tecumseh’s death and the end of the war, they faced the accelerating pressures of American settlement in Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois.

Treaty after treaty reduced their land base.

The Trail of Death of 1838 — the forced removal of the Potawatomi of northern Indiana — killed an estimated 42 people out of a group of approximately 850, with many more dying in the years that followed from the disruptions of relocation.

The Kickapoo, another major confederacy nation, resisted removal more actively than most.