POTAWATOMI INDIANS. The Potawatomi Indians, an Algonquian group whose name meant "people of the place of fire," were first encountered in the region of present Green Bay, Wisconsin. Between 1836 and 1841, because of the advance of white settlement, they sold their lands and began moving west of the Mississippi River, where they located in the areas of present Kansas and Oklahoma. About 1852, however, a group of Potawatomis, associated with the Kickapoos, migrated to Texas, where they settled along the headwaters of the Sabine and Trinity rivers.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Frederick Webb Hodge, ed., Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico (2 vols., Washington: GPO, 1907, 1910; rpt., New York: Pageant, 1959). Anna Muckleroy, "The Indian Policy of the Republic of Texas," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 25-26 (April 1922-January 1923).
