As of September 2013, it has been 175 years since the forced removal of the Neshnabe people resident in Marshall County, Indiana. Here is the account of the removal as given by R. David Edmunds in The Potawatomis, Keepers of the Fire: page 267.
“ . . . Governor David Wallace of Indiana authorized Senator John Tipton to raise one hundred armed volunteers and to remove the Potawatomis west by force . . . the volunteers
quickly surrounded the chief’s [Menominee’s] village. Menominee and several other leaders were placed in custody, and the remaining Potawatomis were forced to enroll for removal . . . and on September 4, 1838, more than 850 Indians started west for Kansas.
The trip west was a disaster. Menominee refused to make the journey and was forced from his village at gunpoint. The food issued to the emigrating Indians was so bad that many of the volunteers refused to eat it and
Apparently, the death toll of forty-two was to be only the beginning as Menominee’s people arrived at the start of winter on open prairie with no food, shelter or even wood to build fires. Those few who survived did so only through the mercy of a church mission some miles away. Legends of America.
On Sept 23 to 28, 2013, a commemorative caravan will take place. The Fulton County, Indiana, historian, Shirley Willard has posted information about this caravan and the removal at the
Fulton County Historical Association website.