Carey Mission

Carey Mission was established in December 1822 by Baptist missionary Isaac McCoy among the Potawatomi tribe of American Indians on the St. Joseph River near Niles, Michigan, United States.

[1] Lewis Cass, the second governor of the Michigan Territory, signed the 1821 Treaty of Chicago on August 29, 1821, with the chiefs of the Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi nations.

McCoy, who had previously traveled to Detroit and petitioned Cass to provide funds for Indian missions in the 1821 Treaty, secured the position of teacher.

[3] They emigrated from the vicinity of Fort Wayne, Indiana, to a point about one mile west of the present city of Niles, and by the following year they had built six mission houses.

"[5] During the period from 1827 to 1829, southwestern Michigan began to be actively settled, and the Carey Mission declined,[1] as a result of the U.S. policy of Indian removal.

The treaty stated that its purpose was "to consolidate some of the dispersed bands of the Potawatamie Tribe in the Territory of Michigan at a point removed from the road leading from Detroit to Chicago, and as far as practicable from the settlements of the Whites".

Very few dared to venture beyond the older settlements, until McCoy boldly entered into the heart of the Indian country, and began his mission school among the Pottawottomies who dwelt on the river St. Joseph.