Potawatomi Burial Ground, Sugar Creek Mission, Linn County, Kansas

Sugar Creek Mission, also known as St. Mary’s Mission and St. Philippine Duchesne Memorial Park, is the end of the Potawatomi Trail of Death.

Location via Google Maps

In 1838, 859 members of the Potawatomi nation were forcibly removed from Indiana at gunpoint by the U.S. government. The group was forced to travel 660 miles from their Indiana home to eastern Kansas. This was the largest forced removal of natives in Indiana history. The route they were forced to walk is known as the Trail of Death.

Map

“The deportation of Chief Menominee and his tribe of Potawatomi Indians from their reservation at Twin Lakes in Marshall County, in September, 1838, is one of the darkest pages in the history of Indiana. The farther in time we get away from this event the clearer this will appear…” – Benjamin Stuart, Indiana journalist

Forty-one members of the Potawatomi Nation died on the way to Kansas. Twenty-eight of them were children. A few were left behind or escaped, but the rest ended up on former Kanza land at the newly founded Sugar Creek Mission.

The Kanza weren’t the only people living in Kansas. Linn county is rich in archeological sites, both destroyed and untouched, dating back to the Early Ceramic period.

Potawatomi Burial Ground at Sugar Creek Mission

In addition to the losses on the Trail of Death, hundreds of members of the Potawatomi Nation died here at Sugar Creek Mission during the ten years it was active. The crosses at the park represent more than 600 who died and were buried here.

Each cross at this site is inscribed with 100 or more names and the years the individuals died. Like on the Trail of Death, many who died here were children.

Sugar Creek Mission Rises From The Ashes

After losing nearly half of their families, the Mission Band Potawatomie (now Citizen Band or Prairie Band) were forced to move again, this time 125 miles to St. Mary’s Mission in St. Mary’s, Kansas. The buildings at Sugar Creek Mission were burned to the ground and what happened here was nearly forgotten for 140 years.

A Kansan named Bob White remembered his father talking about a nun and the Potawatomi Indians who lived nearby. Many others also remembered hearing stories about the natives and the nun who lived with them, and the evidence of a prior settlement was all over the ground.

In the 1980’s, Bob helped organize a committee to purchase of the land, and then he helped make the original signs that marked different spots at Sugar Creek Mission. During the project, the nun who lived here was declared a saint. Today the signage at this site bears three names: Sugar Creek Mission, St. Mary’s Mission, and St. Philippine Duchesne Memorial Park.

The park is currently managed by a volunteer who recently received an award for his service.

Father Benjamin Petit

“O Lord, who will speak on behalf of the Indians? Who will be their advocate in the face of all the wrongs committed upon their people? – Father Benjamin Petit

Father Benjamin Petit was a French lawyer, priest, and missionary who was sent to Indiana in 1837 to serve the Potawatomi. They gave him the nickname “Chichipe Outipe,” meaning “duck’s head” or “little duck.”

Petit was known for his compassion for the Potawatomi and their plight. While he did want them to convert to his religion, he also worked hard to master their language, and used his legal background to try to stop their removal. He called the actions of the U.S. government “a crime against justice—in a country which prides itself upon liberty.”

Father Petit was not ready on the day the government ordered the Potawatomi to begin what would become known as the Trail of Death. He did not agree with what was happening to them and did not leave with them.

“Then my dear church was stripped of all its ornaments, and at the moment of my departure I called all my children together. I spoke to them one more time; I wept; my listeners sobbed. It was heart-rending. We, the dying mission, prayed for the success of other missions, and we sang with one accord: In thy protection do we trust, O Virgin, meek and mild.” – Father Benjamin Petit

Father Petit must have immediately regretted his decision not to accompany his friends. Even though he was opposed to the forced removal of Potawatomi people, not being with them felt wrong. He caught up with his imprisoned friends three days later and was with them the rest of the way to Kansas.

“We were orphans,” they said to me, “and as if in darkness, but you appeared among us like a great light and we live.” – Father Benjamin Petit

Father Petit baptized dying infants and blessed the graves of those who died on the two month trek. He would later die at age 27 from the same fever (probably typhoid) that killed many of the Potawatomi on the long walk.

“I am no longer French. I was never American. I am Potawatomi.” – Father Benjamin Petit

St. Rose Philippine Duchesne

Rose Philippine Duchesne was a nun who helped establish a forced education school for Potawatomi children here.

According to some, Rose was outraged at how the Potawatomi were treated by the U.S. government, and when she heard of Father Petit’s death, she begged to go to Sugar Creek Mission to be with them. She wanted to help the Potawatomie, but she was in her 70’s and lacked the strength to do much but pray.

Rose was known by the Potawatomi as “quah-kah-ka-num-ad,” or “woman who prays always.” She was later canonized by the Catholic church for her work. Even though she was only here for a year, the park was given the name St. Philippine Duchesne Memorial Park. She is the only Catholic saint who lived in Kansas.

“She is here just to suffer, for she has aged much in this short time and is sometimes like a little child. She no longer has the fine mind of other days. She is feeble; her limbs are swollen; her digestion is poor. I fear she will have a stroke. To tell the truth we cannot understand how the Father Superior could have insisted on bringing her here. But he said that she would pray for the missions…All she can do at present is pray, sometimes lying for a little while on her bed, and knit stockings.” – Mother Elizabeth Galitzin

Memorial Park?

This park was intended to tell the story of the Potawatomie and their forced relocation and attempted annihilation of their culture. The story of the Trail of Death is told here, and there is a small sprinkling of Potawatomi words and feelings found in the signs. But the main story told is mostly the white person’s version of the story—of Catholic leaders and converted natives, of pioneer progress through forced labor, of stereotypes and cultural assimilation. The traumatic and inhumane actions performed by the U.S. government against the Potawatomi Nation are mostly whitewashed here.

Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, or “She who bumps into things,” died 168 years before the Potawatomie were forced to walk to Kansas, and they probably knew nothing about her.

“Indian princess” is a false representation of Native women and is considered derogatory and offensive by some.

Was the log cabin built with forced labor?

AMDG, or Ad maiorem Dei gloriam, is the Latin motto of the Society of Jesuits, and it means “For the greater glory of God.”

Fort Scott was closed in 1853, and the U.S. Cavalry may have never escorted anyone to California.

Neswake (Fletcher of Arrows) was an influential and distinguished orator who was forced to leave Indiana for Kansas in 1837 with a smaller group of Potawatomie people.