Billy Caldwell, Jr. , baptized Thomas Caldwell[1] (March 17, 1782 – September 28, 1841), known also as Sauganash, was a British-Anishinabe Pottawatomie (Mohawk) fur trader who was commissioned captain in the Indian Department of Canada. He negotiated a treaty for the United Nations of Chippewa, Ottawa and Potowatomi with the United States, and was a leader of a Potowatomi band at Trader's Point (Iowa Territory). Born in a Mohawk refugee camp near Fort Niagara, Billy was the son of a Anishinabe-Pottawtomie (possible) Mohawk mother and William Caldwell, a Scots-Irish immigrant to North America and a Loyalist British officer during the American Revolutionary War. He became multilingual, learning Mohawk, English, French and Potowatomi.
After moving to the United States in 1818, Caldwell became a fur trader and negotiated with numerous tribes. He acted as a translator and negotiator between the government and American Indians. In 1829, Caldwell represented the Chippewa, Ottawa and Pottawatomie in negotiating the Treaty of Prairie du Chien with the United States. For his work, the US granted him a 1600-acre tract, known as the Caldwell Reserve, along the Chicago River. Eighty acres is included within the Cook County Forest Preserve.
Together with Alexander Robinson, Caldwell also negotiated the Treaty of Chicago in 1833 for the United Nations Tribes. This led to the final removal of American Indians from that region, to west of the Mississippi River. In 1835, Caldwell migrated with his people from the Chicago region west to Platte County, Missouri.
As a result of the Platte Purchase in 1836, Caldwell and his band were removed to the area of Trader's Point (Pointe aux Poules) on the east bank of the Missouri River in the Iowa Territory. While living at Trader's Point, Caldwell led a band of approximately 2000 Pottawatomi. Their settlement became known as Camp Caldwell. In 1841 Caldwell died; scholars believe it may have been because of cholera.
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Billy Caldwell was born in 1780 Anishinabe -Pottawatomi speaking mother, and William Caldwell, a Scots-Irish immigrant to North America in 1773.Cite error: Closing </ref> missing for <ref> tag; see the help page After recovering, he went to Fort Niagara in New York, where he fought with the partisan Butler's Rangers against colonists in New York and Pennsylvania. He was resettled as a Loyalist in Upper Canada, being granted land and helping develop the town of Amherstburg. His son Billy Caldwell lived his first several years with his mother and her family in Windsor - Detroit Southern Michigan /Ontario.
In 1783, his father married Suzanne Baby (daughter of Jacques Baby dit Dupéron).[2] In 1789, when Billy was seven, the senior Caldwell took the boy to live with him and his Canadian wife, to give him a Canadian education. Billy was given a Jesuit - Canadian education, and his stepmother reared him and her own children in the Catholic faith. Billy learned to speak both Anishinabe - Pottawatomiwin, English and French. Although Billy worked on his father's farm as he was growing up, he wanted a different life.
In 1797 at the age of 15, Billy Caldwell entered United States territory for the first time, to learn the fur trade business (he traded for much of his life). He kept his British Canadian loyalties and learned Potowatomi, an Algonquian language, for dealing with the peoples near Lake Michigan.[1]
In 1812, after the Fort Dearborn Massacre, Caldwell at age 30 returned to Canada to enlist in the British service and looked for his father's help to obtain a commission. The senior Caldwell by then was a Lieutenant Colonel and gained commissions for his sons by his wife. The regular army did not accept Billy Caldwell, but he was commissioned as a captain in the Indian Department. By then he had become influential among the Ojibwa, Ottawa and Pottawatomi, who inhabited the area around Lake Michigan.[3] Severely wounded in his first combat action, Caldwell, Jr. recovered and participated in several more battles along the northern frontier. He was disgusted that the First Nations allies were abandoned by the British at the Battle of the Thames, when General Proctor made an early retreat before the US forces.[3]
In 1814 the Canadians appointed his father as Superintendent of Indians for the Western District, a position for which the younger Caldwell had competed as well. He was appointed second to his father.[3] In 1815 Amherstburg, Ontario's Commandant, Reginald James, suspended Caldwell, Sr. because of problems in supplying the Indians and appointed the younger Caldwell as Superintendent. The Indian Department quickly realized he could not manage the work and "eased him out" the following year, in 1816.[3]
The younger Caldwell received a plot of land in early 1818 after his father's death, but decided to return to the US. He settled in the Fort Dearborn area (now Chicago); he had long been recruited by Americans because of his influence with the local tribes.[3] He worked hard to gain the Americans' trust. At the same time he continued to work with a local fur trade firm. In 1825 Caldwell sought an appointment to become a justice of the peace. In August 1826, Caldwell served as a judge in Peoria County, Illinois's first election. Also in 1826, he was recommended to the Governor of Illinois to hold the Justice of the Peace position for Peoria County. That year, he became an appraiser for the estate of John Crafts, a local trader who passed away during the year of 1825. In 1827, Caldwell worked for the United States to secure information related to a possible Winnebago uprising.[3]
In 1829, Caldwell became one of several chiefs to represent the United Nations of the Chippewa, Ottawa, and Pottawatomie in negotiations with the United States in the Treaty of Prairie du Chien. The Winnebago were negotiating a separate treaty at the same time. "Through his involvement in the process, he became recognized as a chief of the United Nations." As told later by Alexander Robinson, Caldwell's long-time friend, the US Indian Agent to the United Nations, Dr. Wolcott, arranged for both Robinson and Caldwell to be promoted as chiefs to fill two vacant positions. Wolcott wanted to have chiefs who would favor the treaty, fearing that without all the chiefs' positions filled, the United Nations would not sign. Robinson and Caldwell each received large land grants from the US under the treaty for their part in influencing the other chiefs to sign the land cession.[3]
Caldwell was given 1600 acres on the Chicago River. In 1833 he helped found the first Catholic Church in Chicago, Saint Mary of the Assumption. It was located at what is now Lake Street west of State Street.[4]
That same year, again with Robinson, Caldwell was one of the chiefs representing the United Nations of the three tribes in negotiating the Treaty of Chicago. By this the Pottawatomie ceded the "last of their Illinois and Wisconsin lands and their last reservations in Michigan."[5] This resulted in Caldwell and his band migrating west to Missouri. The treaty provided for a $10,000 payment each to Caldwell and Robinson, with Caldwell to receive a $400 lifetime annuity and Robinson one of $300 annually. Before the US Senate ratified the treaty in 1835, it reduced the lump-sum payments to the men to $5000 each, but left their annuities intact.[4]
The United States awarded Caldwell's Reserve, 1600 acres on the Chicago River, to Sauganash as a result of his services in negotiating the 1829 Prairie du Chien treaty.[4] In 1833, likely due to the declining fur trade and development opportunities, Caldwell began selling off his land by contracting with the land speculator Arthur Bronson from New York. According to his land patent, to be legally binding, each deed had to have a president's endorsed signature upon it. All unsold parcels were to be reserved for Caldwell's heirs forever, in trust with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The land patent was not completed until 1839, and the deeds did not gain a president's signature until 1841, after Caldwell and his band had left the area for the West.[4]
In all, six land sales took place from Caldwell's Reserve. These land transactions included: 80 acres to George W. Dole and Richard Hamilton in June 1833 for $100; 160 acres to Richard Nicolas, Sarah Amantus, Eleanor Hamilton, and infant heirs of Richard Jo and Diana W. Hamilton in July 1833 for $200; 160 acres to Philo Carpenter in July 1833 for $200; 720 acres to Arthur Bronson in 1833 for $900; 160 acres to Captain Seth Johnson in November 1833 for $200; 80 and 160 acres, respectively, to Julius B. Kingsbury in November 1834 for $300. To date, the Northwest 80 acres of Caldwell's Reserve were never legally conveyed for sale with a president's signature of approval. They are included within the Cook County Forest Preserve.[4]
Caldwell married La Natte about 1804, who died after the birth of their first child, Alexander. She was the niece of the powerful Potowatomi chief, Mad Sturgeon.[1] Alexander died in 1832 in his twenties from alcoholism.[3]
Caldwell married again, but his second wife also died within a year after the birth of their first child.[1]
Before leaving the Chicago area, Caldwell married a third time, on November 18, 1834. His bride was Saqua (also called Masaqua) LeGrand, a woman of Pottawatomi and French descent. They had a daughter and son born after they migrated west. Only the son, Pe-y-mo, survived to adulthood. Later in the nineteenth century, Pe-y-mo entered the historical records when trying to sell the last 80 acres of Caldwell's Reserve in Chicago.[4]
In 1835, Caldwell and his band of Potawatomi left the State of Illinois for Platte County, Missouri.
In 1836 as a result of the Platte Purchase, Caldwell and his band were removed from this reservation to Trader's Point on the east bank of the Missouri River in the Iowa Territory. The Potawatomi band of an estimated 2000 individuals settled in a main village called "Caldwell's Camp", located where the later city of Council Bluffs, Iowa developed. (This was on the opposite bank from the present-day city of Omaha, Nebraska.)
From 1838 to 1839 Caldwell and his people were ministered to by the notable Belgian Jesuit missionary Pierre-Jean De Smet. The Jesuit priest was appalled at the violence and desperation that overtook the Potawatomi in their new home, in large part due to the whiskey trade. After De Smet returned to St. Louis, the mission was abandoned by 1841. [7][8][9]
Caldwell died on September 28, 1841, and his wife Masaqua in the winter of 1843. Together they had one surviving son, Pe-y-mo. Pe-y-mo had his own family, living for some time with the Kickapoo in Kansas. He became a naturalized citizen of the United States in the late nineteenth century.[4]
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