Pottawatomie Indian Agency.

The Potawatomi Indians, originally from Canada, moved to Michigan in the mid seventeenth century, and then, as the result of pressure from other Indian tribes, moved to other locations around the western Great Lakes region. By the time of the influx of European Americans into the Northwest Territory in the early nineteenth century, the military victories of the U.S. Army over the Indians required that the Potawatomi migrate westward across the Mississippi River to Missouri, Iowa, and the Indian Territory. By the 1860s, treaties between the U.S. government and the Potawatomi offered these Indians the choice to become American citizens and to receive an equitably divided portion of the remainder of the funds left in the Potawatomi annuity account. Those who accepted the offer registered their names in the receipt book microfilmed in this collection, and henceforth became known as the Citizen Band Potawatomi.