The 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe on this site was decisive, leading to the loss of Potawatomi homelands and the removal of Indians from Indiana. At gunpoint, about 850 Potawatomi passed this location on September 12th, 1838, on a 660-mile trek known as the Trail of Death because so many, mostly children, died along the way. After two months, about 750 Potawatomi arrived at what is now Osawatomie, Kansas, joining those who had gone earlier. A 26-year-old Potawatomi and interpreter on the Trail of Death was Nan-Wesh-Mah. After his father died, he had been adopted by a half-white older cousin, Abraham Burnett, a merchant at Fort Wayne who had fought on the Indian side at the Battle of Tippecanoe, and Nan-Wesh-Mah was given his adopted father's name, sent to school, and grew up as Abram Burnett. He farmed near Topeka, Kansas, and died in 1870. Many Potawatomi were later removed from Kansas to Oklahoma.
