Prairie Band Potawatomi becomes 1st federally recognized tribe in
Illinois
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[April 24, 2024]
By HANNAH MEISEL
Capitol News Illinois
hmeisel@capitolnewsillinois.com
 Nearly 200 years after Native Americans were forced out of Illinois, the
Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation has become the first federally recognized
tribal nation in the state after a decision from the U.S. Department of
the Interior last week.
The move represents the first victory in the tribe’s larger effort to
regain the approximately 1,280 acres of its ancestral land in Illinois
via legislation in both the General Assembly and Congress.
But the tribe first had to spend $10 million over the last 20 years to
repurchase the first 130 acres of the Shab-eh-nay Reservation, located
in what is now DeKalb County, that the federal government illegally sold
out from under Chief Shab-eh-nay around 1850.
Nearly two centuries later, Prairie Band Chairman Joseph “Zeke” Rupnick
– a fourth-great grandson of Chief Shab-eh-nay – signed paperwork on
Friday that allows the Department of the Interior to place those 130
acres into a trust, which gives the tribe sovereignty over the land.
Rupnick said he’d heard the story of his ancestral land in Illinois
“ever since I was a child” from his grandparents, and said his mother
started the push to reclaim the Prairie Band’s land three decades ago
when she was the tribe’s chairperson.
“For me to actually get it accomplished and signed, honestly, words
couldn't describe the feeling that I had that, you know, when I actually
completed that task,” he told Capitol News Illinois on Monday, adding
that the credit should be shared with his entire counsel and tribal
membership more broadly. “And now the real work begins.”
Prairie Band leaders initiated the process with the federal government
30 years ago, Rupnick said, even before the tribe made the three
purchases of private land that make up the 130 acres signed over on
Friday. In 2004, the tribe purchased a house located on the historic
reservation, then in 2006 it bought a 128-acre farm. More than 13 years
passed until the tribe could buy another house in the area.
After a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that found Native American tribes
still have a claim to their reservations unless Congress took specific
actions to disestablish a reservation, the Prairie Band re-filed its
land trust application with the Department of the Interior last year.
A bill pending in the Illinois House would also give the Prairie Band
tribe the title to the approximately 1,500 acres that make up Shabbona
Lake State Park, located a little less than 20 miles southwest of
DeKalb. Shabbona Lake State Park is named for Chief Shab-eh-nay and
covers much of the Prairie Band's original reservation.
But other parts of the Prairie Band’s ancestral lands are now occupied
by private homes, the titles to which are “clouded” due to old treaty
disputes, Rupnick said.
“Right now, if you did a title search, and you had a house that was
within the boundaries of that reservation, that title search would come
back and say that sale is subject to the concurrence of Shab-eh-nay
and/or his descendants,” Rupnick told Capitol News Illinois earlier this
year.
To clear up those claims, the Prairie Band tribe has proposed federal
legislation that would allow the current occupants of those homes to
keep those properties, and even to pass them on to their descendants.
But if those homeowners ever choose to sell, the federal legislation
would give the tribe a right of first refusal to purchase.
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Joseph “Zeke” Rupnick, tribal chairman of the Prairie Band
Potawatomi Nation, speaks at a news conference at the Illinois
Capitol in February. (Capitol News Illinois photo by Peter Hancock)
In a podcast interview with Capitol News Illinois released in March,
Rupnick told the story of how the Prairie Band lost its land over time –
and how the federal government betrayed Chief Shab-eh-nay in a land
grab.
In 1833, the Potawatomi signed the Treaty of Chicago, ceding nearly all
its Illinois land along the western shore of Lake Michigan except the
two square miles in DeKalb County preserved for the tribe in an earlier
treaty.
Though the Potawatomi had bought a 30-by-30-mile reservation in what’s
now Kansas with money they received for ceding their Illinois land,
Chief Shab-eh-nay and about 20 to 30 other members of his extended
family stayed behind in Illinois.
But when the chief took a trip to the Prairie Band’s new home in Kansas
to see how the tribe was settling in, the General Land Office of the
U.S. government pounced.
“Once he got back here (to Illinois), that's when he discovered that
people were living in his house,” Rupnick said. “They actually picked up
his house and moved it to another location, and people were living in
it.”
Rupnick said Chief Shab-eh-nay tried to fight the land grab in the court
systems, but the courts ruled he had abandoned his land, giving the
General Land Office authority to sell it.
“And they allowed the settlers and whoever else to live there,” Rupnick
said.
Rupnick told Capitol News Illinois on Monday that the Prairie Band would
pursue agreements with existing fire protection districts and police
departments to continue delivering services to the 130 acres that are
now controlled by the Prairie Band.
If the land transfer of Shabbona Lake State Park is approved by the
General Assembly, Rupnick said the general public wouldn’t notice much
difference, as the tribe would pursue agreements with the state’s
Department of Natural Resources for management responsibilities of the
park.
But the Prairie Band would have to file another application with the
Department of the Interior to get any additional acreage added to the
land trust so the tribe would have sovereignty over it.
“Kind of ironic, isn’t it?” Rupnick said. “The land that was carved out
by treaty, that was owned by the federal government for Shab-eh-nay and
his descendants, was sold by the federal government, then the nation had
to go back, repurchase that land and now we signed over title to the
federal government again.”
Capitol News Illinois is
a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service covering state government. It is
distributed to hundreds of newspapers, radio and TV stations statewide.
It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert
R. McCormick Foundation, along with major contributions from the
Illinois Broadcasters Foundation and Southern Illinois Editorial
Association.
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