Billy Caldwell
He had worked to gain the boundary long promised by the British between white settlers and Indians, but never achieved it and instead acquiesced to American purchase and Indian removal, leading his followers personally across the Mississippi, as evidenced by his signing of the 2nd Treaty of Prairie du Chien and his inclusion on the Removal Muster Rolls of 1837.
After moving to the United States in 1818, Caldwell became a fur trader and learned Potawatomi, an Algonquian language; he negotiated with numerous tribes in the Lake Michigan area.
The US had appointed the two mixed-race men as chiefs in 1829 to fill vacant positions, to encourage the United Nations Tribes to sign the cessions.
His father was William Caldwell, a Scots-Irish immigrant who came to North America in 1773 and served as a Loyalist soldier in the war.
In addition to clearing land for his own farm, he helped develop the town of Amherstburg, in present-day Ontario.
[7] Billy Caldwell Jr. was considered the left hand of the Great Leader Tecumseh, one of North America's greatest European resistance movements.
In 1812, after the Battle of Fort Dearborn, Caldwell at age 32 returned to Canada to enlist in the British service; he looked for his father's help to gain a commission.
He was disgusted that the British abandoned their First Nations allies at the Battle of the Thames, when General Proctor made an early retreat before the US forces.
In addition, through this period Caldwell had worked with the British in the hope they would deliver the long-promised boundary between European and First Nations settlement, but each war ended with their ceding more land to the Americans.
He settled in the Fort Dearborn area (now Chicago); he had long been recruited by Americans because of his influence with the local tribes.
He later said that Dr. Wolcott, the US Indian Agent to the United Nations, arranged for both Robinson and Caldwell to be selected as chiefs to fill two vacancies.
[10] Robinson and some other Métis remained in Illinois on their private tracts of land, but most of the United Nations Tribes removed to Missouri and then to Iowa.
[12] The US had awarded Caldwell's Reserve, 1600 acres on the Chicago River, to Sauganash in 1829 as a result of his services in negotiating the Prairie du Chien treaty.
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.
To date, the Northern 160 acres of Caldwell's Reserve were never legally conveyed for sale with a president's signature of approval.
[13] Caldwell married Nannette about 1804, who gave him at least four children, three daughters all baptized by Father Stephen Badin, and a son Alexander.
His bride was Saqua (also called Masaqua) LeGrand, likely a Métis woman of mixed native and French descent.
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.
From 1838 to 1839, Caldwell and his people were ministered to by the notable Belgian Jesuit missionary Pierre-Jean De Smet, based in St. Louis, Missouri.
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.
