years. i do not know where they get some of the stories. they are very short, less than a page. it is exactly what it says. and i don't of the rebellion. sometime in the latter part of the 19th century, people want a little bit of humor and fun about this or two. it is still a piece with the memorialization effort. thank you. [applause] >> you are watching american history tv all weekend every weekend on c-span3. join the conversation, like us on facebook at c-span history. the home to 38 federally recognized native american tribes. this nation is one and has a strong presence here. join us as we visit their cultural heritage that are to

learn more about the history and how they are working to preserve their culture. >> we have been through a lot of trials and tribulations. each generation that comes along has to think about what they are doing and how it is going to impact the next seven generations. we cannot only think about ourselves. when visitors come through here they will be able to see that we have made hard decisions, sometimes we have had our backs against the wall. >> we have 30,000 tribal members. each day that we are here we are working to preserve our culture and provide services for our tribal members.

the section of the museum we are standing and i was her introductory section. in this section we introduce the oral tradition of the seven fire prophecies. we chose to begin the exhibit with this philosophy because it is one that foretold things that happened to the citizens of over many centuries. each of these fires conserve as a guidepost throughout the rest of the museum to me to keep these big milestones or shifts in the history of our people. in each off with our, fire is when a prophet came to our people and foretold something that would happen. the early fires had to do with our moving inland from the extreme east coast of the united states. nova scotia, maine, that area. rental were told that we were to move inland. we would move inland and no we were in the place that we were meant to be that the creator made for us when we found food that grew in water.

when we arrived in the great lakes we found wild rice moving in the middle of the lake. prophecy was foretold that a light skinned race would and and visit our people that that race would either come with the face of a friend or the face of a file and that we would need to be careful because those two faces are very similar and one could lead to a great time of collaboration and flourishing or with the focus would be a time of destruction and complete cultural loss. we know have it worked out for most native people. european arrival did not bode well for many tribal nations. there were also prophecies effort told the cultural left that would happen when our children were taken away and put into boarding schools. up to thise fires point have a declension there. andwas a seventh fire

prophecies ever told of a generation that would come along and go back along the path of the ancestors and pick up the things that they were forced to leave behind. the language, the culture, the traditions, the ceremonies. believe that we are in this time now. that is part of what this museum exhibit is. people coming here to learn about their history and culture. each one of these fires is represented in the museum space and we were introduced these concepts to give people an indication that we are moving through time and that these things were foretold. we are in our treaty section. we made the choice to have an entire section set aside for treaties. are the most treaty tried in u.s. history. we signed more than any other tribe. we signed more than 40. the recently signed some many is that our leadership structure was always pretty diffused.

we did not have one chief at the top. ly were also geographical spread across the stores -- shores of lake michigan. over into northern indiana and even into illinois. having a directly -- geographically diverse tribal space and each village not having one person was a decision-maker but usually a council means that when the federal government came to negotiate these treaties, they would want one person to sign for all of the potawatomi in the region. it doesn't not hour. they refused to do so. often you would see a treaty that was signed that the wording is almost exactly the same from one village to the next. they were signed within days of each other. the point was that one village leader, even though nearby potawatomi villages were considered their kinsman and

they saw them as family, they did not see themselves as having the authority to speak for the village. by necessity, the federal government had to have a lot of separate treaty negotiations. being the most treaty tried in history, what we thought we would do is look at the various kinds of treaties that were signed and show that evolution. our first treaties are peace treaties. that is all it entails. nothing was included about land or territory. ae next kind of treaty reservation treaties. the set up areas where treaty is that they would stop the fighting but curtail some of the rangeland that this particular tribe or village had access to.

keeping people confined to a small area but still within our homeland. the third countries that we signed which came around with when congress and passed the indian removal act of 1830, they were the removal treaties. they were no longer interested in ending a war. they were no longer interested in keeping the tribe confined to one particular area, still in the ancestral homeland. the federal policy at that point was complete removal. tribes had to not live among civilized people. they had to be completely removed to west of the mississippi river. was, inrience with that a village by village basis. saw thebal leaders writing on the wall and negotiated the best possible treaty they could. some fled rather than deal with removal or the federal government at all. and dug their heels in

said, this is my homeland and you're not going to remove me. case with our particular tribal village that a lot of our ancestors came from. they were forcefully removed. miles to aalk 660 reservation in kansas. tribal members often signed with an x and their clan symbol. we chose those treaties because not only being important to the history of the tribe they were also beautiful pieces and beautiful pieces of art that people can look at and see that not only does this have historical significance but it just a beautiful piece.

the actual removal started to happen around 1833. for us, this. extends into the late 1830's, even into the 1840's. of this dispersed era, there are today nine distinct potawatomi tribe that are distinct nations. era whereuse of this some villages signed treaties at one.e moving them , some were able to negotiate treaties to stay in the great lakes with a restricted some weren, forcefully removed. this particular section of the museum, we really highlight one particular removal, it is referred to as the trail of death. it happened the same year as the

cherokee trail of tears. we left our homelands within a few days of each other. this is a particularly heartbreaking and gutwrenching removal. moved ontors who were this removal were ones who had refused to negotiate with the federal government. agents called a treaty council and ask people to meet in twin lakes, indiana. they went out to different village leaders. when they arrived they were thrown into a church and the doors were locked and they were told they were going west in three days whether they liked it or not. there were not enough provisions, not enough water, not enough wagons or horses for people to make the removal somewhat comfortable. they sent out tribunes for 100

of 50 mile radius and grandmother every -- gathered every potawatomi they could find and three days later we were marched out at the end of a barrel of the gun. our ancestors had to walk 660 miles from our homeland in northern indiana to a reservation kansas. provisions, it was not a great time of year, there was not clean water, more than 40 died in most of them were babies. and most of them were babies. pushing yourself day-to-day even when your strength and health was waning. it was a tragic part of our history. it left its mark on the community. this is something that we are very aware of. i would not say there is a pride. there is a pride of understanding this history and holding it's a.

-- it sacred. is the best documented removal for the potawatomi. we had an artist who was living with us at that time named george winter. he was from england. all the sketches you see our field sketches he did. the individuals that you see that we have cutouts made of, these are not just general faces. these are portraits he sketched of people on the removal. everything from a the long train to funeral scenes to aery day camp scenes mass. we had a priest who was removed with us and he said mass. he gave last rites to those who are passing away. he left a journal behind. the conductor of the

removal who left a journal behind. we had two different journals and an artist to us getting this removal. that is why this is the best recorded and best-known potawatomi removal. in this section we are displaying a total of 86 sets of moccasins area each pair represents 10 people who were forcefully removed on the trail of death. these were all made by community members, tribal members. we sent out a call asking people to make them. some people have been making moccasins for years and did it on this. others it was the first time they have made a set of moccasins. it was a great work for them to get engaged with their culture and their community in the way they never have had a chance before. we are really proud of the moccasins we are able to display in this section. it was important to have that connection back, to remind visitors who come that this is a tragic story and we had

tremendous loss of life and culture through this but we still remain. we still adore. these are the descendents of the people on the removal were showing their pride and showing their commitment to remembering the history of their ancestors through these places that they took the time and put the heart into making. the section we are in now is the territory.al in the we were in a reservation in kansas for 40 years. after losing our land because of a broken treaty, we removed a final time, or fourth time, to indian territory. when we arrived here we purchased our reservation. there was already a tribe living here. the ia new that but failed to mention that only purchased the reservation. we were promised that this would

be our land forever and that we would never be inundated with non-native people. this would be our forever home. you're on your fourth removal you do not believe that anymore. life in indian territory was not easy. we were a great lakes people trying to survive on the plains of central kansas and oklahoma. this is the era of the wild wild west. if you think about it, there were tribal police. you had a lot of outlaws who came here because the only jurisdiction was back in kansas city or little rock. area.mes gang was in our the dalton gang. there was a lot of violence in our territory at this time. we had a few tribal members who were stabbed. many were shot. it was a very violent place.

we have been moved here and we were considered on our own. we did not have an indian agent. we were no longer connected to an agency. we were considered u.s. citizens. we were u.s. citizens who could not vote. we can pay taxes. we could not sit on a jury but we could be found guilty in a court of law. in the federal records we were referred to as qualified citizens. uasi citizens. be for act would not another 15 or so years. the indian citizenship act that made all native people u.s. citizens was not until 1924. there was no legal precedent for what it meant to be a native american and a u.s. citizen. we were figuring it out as we went. constitution was

drafted in 1936. it was adopted in 1938. it was a constitution that was written by the bureau of indian affairs. it really left a lot of government control. they had to have final say over amendments and things like that. be recognizedto by the federal government as a sovereign nation, as a federally recognized native american tribe. it did not give us a whole lot of freedom to construct our laws and government the way we saw fit. ourselves in the early 2000's to completely restructure our constitution. we took the department interior out of it. we do not need to have approval to have a constitutional amendment. we created our legislative

structure so that we had representation for tribal members not just here in oklahoma but nationwide. we look at the things that were important to us as unique, sovereign nation and put that into our foundational document. us it was important to take the federal government out of it. to havenot need day-to-day say on how we run our affairs here. we are capable of doing so and we have proven so that we can be successful. we try to have a lot of interaction in the museum. it engages our younger generation. ofallows us to showcase some the information that would be hard for people to grasp otherwise. this is our allotment map. what we are seeing here, all of these pink and red squares are allotments that were made to tribal members in our two different moves. one was in 1872 and the other

was in 1887. if you want to see what piece of land your particular tribal member who was your ancestor owned, you can test that person's name and it will highlight all of the parcels that that person was allotted. this is important because it allows people who may not know -- have grown up around here to see where the land was. look at drive out and it and get a connection with weather ancestor was living. it helps people understand the tribal base at this time. if you look at the map here, the area in red was our tribal jurisdiction. this was our reservation at that time. see, almost all the allotments are in the southern part of the reservation. there are few along the river. choice. not by we were forced by the federal government, even though we purchased this entire

reservation, to take are allotments in areas that they found the best for us. you see in area that the north that was allotted was open to in the land run of 1891 and was taken away. as it moved from indian territories to the state of oklahoma, law was passed that abolished all reservations and indian territory. it was a requirement for statehood. they pass a law that did that. it meant that there were no more reservations and oklahoma. there was private land that was owned by native americans and there was land owned by non-native. as we are moving into a more modern era, for the tried to tried to regain its jurisdiction, we go to a -- through a process.

tribalhere we have our enterprises, whether they be our casinos or a grocery stores, we have to go back and just like any other person. we purchase it. we buy it like any other private individual and we file paperwork with the bia to move that land from a fee status, private land ownership, to a trust status. it moves it back into sovereign tribal territory. that means the jurisdiction of that land is the tried and the federal government. it takes the state government and the county government and all municipality governments out of the authority for that piece of land. that is what tribes across the country are doing now, going back and in areas where they have tribal presence via treaty, going back and in purchasing this land just like anyone else

and putting it through that fee to trust process. it can take years. it is often expensive to go through. that is our land. that is what allows us to have sovereignty and jurisdiction over this land. it is something that is a really important goal. history is messy. american history is messy. it is not something that is had glowing patriotic things. there are these horrible times in our history. to be able to say, our people endured this, we survived this, look at us today. i think it is a great story of perseverance. it is a great story of not only our community but what native people in general have had to overcome through various points in u.s. history.

>> are cities tour staff recently traveled to oklahoma. learn more about shawnee and other stops on our tour at c-span.org/cities tour. were watching american history tv all weekend on c-span3. gunston hall a national historic landmark in virginia was home to one of the lesser-known sanding fathers, george mason. american artifacts, we visit the property along the potomac river to learn about his and his time as a slave owner. he drafted the 1776 virginia declaration of rights, was a delegate to the federal convention in philadelphia, but refused to sign the constitution because it did not include a bill of rights. >>