Timeline story
Potawatomi fire-keepers and the Ohio Valley wars
The Potawatomi (Bodéwadmi, "keepers of the fire") are an Anishinaabe people of the western Great Lakes, part of the Council of Three Fires with the Ojibwe and Odawa.
Their towns stood around Green Bay, the St. Joseph River, Chicago and Milwaukee, and later in northern Indiana and Illinois. None was in Kentucky.
Their Kentucky tie is membership in the Northwest alliance of nations that fought American settlement north and south of the Ohio from the 1780s until 1794.
In June 1791 Kentucky volunteers under Brig. Gen. Charles Scott struck Wea and Kickapoo towns on the Wabash. Scott's report names no Potawatomi town. The Potawatomi signed the Treaty of Greenville in 1795.
- The Potawatomi (Illinois State Museum, Midewin exhibit) on museum.state.il.us (opens in a new tab)
- Scott's Wabash Expedition, 1791: Scott's report (Project Gutenberg) on gutenberg.org (opens in a new tab)
- Treaty of Greenville, August 3, 1795 (Avalon Project, Yale) on avalon.law.yale.edu (opens in a new tab)
Cite this story
Published . Last revised .
Chicago
Snowden, Shannon. "Potawatomi fire-keepers and the Ohio Valley wars." Kentucky History Drive. Published September 27, 2026. Last revised October 12, 2026. https://kyhistorydrive.com/stories/potawatomi-fire-keepers-and-the-ohio-valley-wars/.
MLA
Snowden, Shannon. "Potawatomi fire-keepers and the Ohio Valley wars." Kentucky History Drive, published 27 Sept. 2026, last revised 12 Oct. 2026, https://kyhistorydrive.com/stories/potawatomi-fire-keepers-and-the-ohio-valley-wars/.
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