Benjamin Hendre Bertrand was born June 25, 1812 in Berrien Country, Michigan to Madeline Bourassa and Joseph Bertrand. Like his cousins Joseph and Jude Bourassa, Benjamin attended the school at Carey Mission at the age of 7. He later transferred to a private school in Detroit, Michigan and then reunited with his Bourassa family at the Choctaw Academy at White …
The event known as “Bleeding Kansas” was a period of guerilla warfare, in what was then known as the Kansas Territory, which started in 1854 and lasted until 1859. The violence was sporadic, mostly small-scale and unorganized, but led to mass terror erupting within the Kansas Territory. The conflict arose after passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the question of …
Like many French-Canadian settlers with ties to the Potawatomi, the Brunos were once successful fur traders and trappers. Anthony Bruneau was the son of a French settler and an unknown Blackfoot woman from around Browning, Montana. Anthony was born in Canada, and family records indicate the Potawatomi may have adopted him. Anthony married a woman named Julia, and they had …
The Burnett family has a long, rich history with the Potawatomi people. French fur trader William Burnett settled on the St. Joseph River near Niles, Michigan, after the Revolutionary War. He established two successful trading posts and eventually married Kaukima, daughter of revered Potawatomi leader Nanaquiba and sister to Topinabee. Kaukima and William had seven children: James, Abraham, John, Isaac, …