SR0896 102ND GENERAL ASSEMBLY

SR0896 LRB102 26597 MST 37330 r

SENATE RESOLUTION

WHEREAS, The Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation is a federally-recognized Indian tribe that originally occupied homelands in southern Wisconsin, northern Illinois, and northwestern Indiana; and

WHEREAS, Members of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation were signatories to the 1829 Treaty of Prairie du Chien, which reserved two sections of land near Paw Paw Grove, Illinois for Potawatomi Chief Shab-eh-nay and his band; and

WHEREAS, Shortly thereafter, the Potawatomi people of northern Illinois were removed from their homelands in connection with the U.S. Indian Removal Policy of the 1830s; and

WHEREAS, The Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation relinquished nearly all of their initial 28 million-acre homeland in the Great Lakes area when the Treaty of Chicago was signed only three years later; and

WHEREAS, The 1833 Treaty of Chicago did not cede the Shab-eh-nay Reservation to the U.S., but instead it reaffirmed the reservation established for Chief Shab-eh-nay and his band in the 1829 Treaty of Prairie du Chien; and

WHEREAS, Because the land reserved for Chief Shab-eh-nay and his band in Illinois was expressly reserved by the U.S. Senate when it ratified the Treaty of Prairie du Chien in 1829, the land belonged to Chief Shab-eh-nay and his band despite the removal of most of his tribe to lands in Kansas; and

WHEREAS, In 1849, while Chief Shab-eh-nay was away visiting relatives in Kansas, the U.S. General Land Office illegally sold the land and passed the title to non-natives; and

WHEREAS, Since then, individuals, the State of Illinois, the DeKalb county government, and corporate entities assumed ownership of lands within the Shab-eh-nay Reservation and continue to occupy Shab-eh-nay's lands to the present day; and

WHEREAS, The current non-Indian occupants within the Shab-eh-nay Reservation should not be held liable for occupying the land; and

WHEREAS, The federal government has admitted that it violated federal law when it sold the Shab-eh-nay Reservation in 1849; and

WHEREAS, Only Congress can affirm the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation's authority within the reservation, resolve any damages owed to them, and clear the land title of the state, county, and local residents; and

WHEREAS, The Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation seeks a complete resolution of all issues relating to the Shab-eh-nay Reservation through congressional recognition of its land ownership and the taking of land by the federal government; therefore, be it

RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE ONE HUNDRED SECOND GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we support the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation's efforts to regain possession of Chief Shab-eh-nay and his band's land that was illegally sold by the federal government in 1849; and be it further

RESOLVED, That we encourage the federal government to enact legislation to address the ownership of the Shab-eh-nay Reservation reserved for Chief Shab-eh-nay and his descendants under the Treaty of Chicago in 1833.