# N05_E18 Great Lakes pilot: 1795–1836 treaty, route, and removal crosswalk **Research date:** 2026-08-09 UTC **Sector:** `N05_E18` **Canonical geometry:** 24 latitude bands × 24 longitude bands = 576 sectors; `N05_E18` spans 37.5°–45.0° N and 75°–90° W. This note does not redefine the cell. **Pilot position:** Great Lakes nine-sector octagon centered on the N05_E18 working anchor at Merrillville, Indiana. **Selected next unresolved path:** The prior 2026-08-09 hydrologic/Indigenous crosswalk identified primary treaty, land-cession, removal, and community-grounded corroboration as the next unresolved path. This run therefore searched the National Archives treaty register and two Archive.org historical syntheses for the 1795–1836 transition, and checked a modern machine-readable USGS daily-values path for a nearby N05_E18 station. It does not duplicate the earlier 1882 Porter/Lake County narrative or NLDI crosswalk. ## Research question What can be documented about treaty and route anchors linking the southern Lake Michigan–Kankakee–Calumet region to the broader Potawatomi/Great Lakes network between 1795 and 1836, and what does a reproducible modern station query show about the availability of a nearby hydrologic series? This is a source and boundary crosswalk, not a cell-wide population, land-use, hydrology, connectivity, or cultural score. ## Search envelope - **Modern place names and features:** Merrillville, Lake County, Porter County, Calumet region, Kankakee River, Lake Michigan, Chicago, St. Joseph, Turkey Creek, and nearby USGS stations. - **Historical names and variants:** Potawatomi, Pottawatomi, Pottawatomies, Prairie band, Kankakee, Camp Tippecanoe, Tippecanoe River, St. Joseph, Chicago treaty, Great Sauk Trail, Vincennes Trace, Wiggins Point, McGwinn's Village, and Council Bluffs. - **Target variables:** historical institutional profile; treaty/land-cession chronology; transport and water-linked connectivity; settlement/removal transition; modern hydrologic-series availability. - **Target bands:** `1500-1800`, `1800-1950`, and `2000-present`. ## Raw observations ### A. National Archives treaty-register observations The National Archives page states that the series **Ratified Indian Treaties, 1722–1869** has been digitized and made available through the National Archives Catalog. Its register provides the following relevant item identifiers: | Treaty date | Register no. | Register description | National Archives item | |---|---:|---|---:| | 1795-08-03 | 23 | Wyandot, Delaware, Shawnee, Ottawa, Chippewa, Potawatomi, Eel River, Wea, Kickapoo, Piankashaw, and Kaskaskia at Greenville | `170281462` | | 1803-06-07 | 36 | Delaware, Shawnee, Potawatomi, Miami, Eel River, Wea, Kickapoo, Piankashaw, and Kaskaskia at Fort Wayne on the Miami of the Lake | `90029845` | | 1809-09-30 | 57 | Delaware, Potawatomi, Miami, and Eel River at Fort Wayne | `12013184` | | 1816-08-24 | 82 | Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi at St. Louis | `170281487` | | 1821-08-29 | 117 | Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi at Chicago | `100378017` | | 1826-10-16 | 146 | Potawatomi near the mouth of the Mississinewa upon the Wabash | `121651643` | | 1828-09-20 | 154 | Potawatomi at Mission upon the St. Joseph, Michigan Territory | `122643087` | | 1829-07-29 | 155 | United Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi of the waters of the Illinois, Milwaukee, and Manitoouck Rivers at Prairie du Chien | `170826601` | | 1832-10-20 | 172 | Potawatomi of the Prairie and Kankakee at Camp Tippecanoe, Indiana | `146290832` | | 1832-10-26 | 175 | Potawatomi, Wabash and Elkhart Bands, at Tippecanoe River, Indiana | `146756261` | | 1832-10-27 | 177 | Potawatomi, St. Joseph, Cold Water, Wabash, and Elkhart Bands, at Tippecanoe River, Indiana | `146925340` | | 1833-09-26 | 189 | United Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi at Chicago, Illinois | `155390860` | | 1834-12-04 | 193 | Potawatomi, Comoza's Band, at Lake Maxeeniekuekee, Indiana | `124450593` | | 1834-12-10 | 194 | Potawatomi, Muck Rose's Band, at Tippecanoe River, Indiana | `124450598` | | 1836-03-26 | 200 | Potawatomi, Mesquawbuck's Band, at Turkey Creek Prairie, Indiana | `148017343` | | 1836-08-05 | 208 | Potawatomi near Yellow River, Indiana | `12013177` | | 1836-09-20 | 212 | Potawatomi, Mematway's and Chequawrako's Bands, at Chippewanaung, Indiana | `148026068` | | 1836-09-22 | 213 | Potawatomi, Mosack's Band, at Chippewanaung, Indiana | `148026435` | | 1836-09-23 | 214 | Potawatomi of the Wabash at Chippewanaung, Indiana | `148026533` | These are register/catalog observations only. The treaty clauses, cession boundaries, reservation clauses, signatures, and attached maps were not extracted in this run. Catalog identification must not be treated as proof of any particular clause or boundary. ### B. Archive.org source metadata and historical synthesis observations #### B1. Otho Winger, *The Potawatomi Indians* (1939) Archive.org metadata identify the item as *The Potawatomi Indians*, creator Otho Winger (1877–1946), publisher The Elgin Press, 1939, identifier `potawatomiindian00wing`, 170 scanned images, and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign as contributor. OCR page markers place the relevant passages at printed pp. 34–39 and 57–61. The OCR reports, in a later historical synthesis: - an 1821 Chicago treaty involving a strip in northern Indiana; - 1826 land and Michigan-road provisions, including a stated agreement to build a mill on the Tippecanoe and provide a miller; - 1828 St. Joseph, 1829 Prairie du Chien, and October 1832 Camp Tippecanoe cessions and reservations; - a 1833 Chicago treaty involving more than five million acres in Illinois and Wisconsin and west-of-the-Mississippi land arrangements; - restriction of reserves and removal arrangements, with most Prairie Potawatomi described as moving west by 1840 and Indiana/Michigan Potawatomi moving during the late 1830s; - a Great Sauk Trail entering Indiana near present-day Dyer, passing near Valparaiso, and continuing toward southern Michigan and Detroit; - a route from the Green Bay country around southern Lake Michigan joining the Sauk Trail; - a route from the Calumet region toward Kankakee; and - a statement that an important Indian village was located at what is now Merrillville, then called Wiggins Point and later McGwinn's Village, with multiple trails leading from it. The source describes the Kankakee River as a major Potawatomi travel route and describes a short portage near present-day South Bend connecting the Kankakee outlet toward the Mississippi with the St. Joseph and Great Lakes system. These are reported historical observations from a 1939 synthesis, not direct measurements of route traffic or a modern network statistic. #### B2. Al Stone, *The Pottawatomis: History and Folklore of the Indians of Kankakeeland* (1960) Archive.org metadata identify the item as *The Pottawatomis: History and Folklore of the Indians of Kankakeeland*, creator Al Stone and associated Mark Twain School (Kankakee, Illinois), date 1960, identifier `pottawatomishist00ston`, 54 scanned images, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign contributor, and OCR page-number confidence 62. Relevant OCR page markers are printed pp. 26–31. The OCR reports, in this 1960 regional synthesis: - a sequence of treaty entries for Greenville (1795), Fort Wayne (1809), St. Louis (1816), St. Joseph (1828), Prairie du Chien (1830), Chicago (1832 and 1833), and Tippecanoe (1832), with acreage and payment figures reproduced by the author; - named reserved sections associated with several Potawatomi families and villages in the Kankakee-area account; - a statement that the 1833 Chicago treaty was followed by removal arrangements and that the Kankakee-area departure occurred in 1836; and - descriptions of villages, trails, fishing, canoe travel, and river-valley settlement context. Because this source is a 1960 local synthesis and the OCR was not independently checked against the scanned page images during this run, its acreage, payment, named-person, and departure claims are retained as reported claims with medium-to-low confidence. They are not used as numerical inputs. ### C. Modern USGS station-series availability observation A machine-readable request was made to the USGS Daily Values Web Service for nearby station `04092977` (Turkey Creek at 61st Avenue at Merrillville, Indiana), parameters `00060` (discharge) and `00065` (gage height), date range `2020-01-01` through `2022-12-31`. The returned JSON response contained a valid query record and disclaimer that provisional data are subject to revision, but `timeSeries` was an empty array. This is `searched_no_series` for that exact request. It is not evidence of zero discharge, zero gage height, missing water, or absence of a station record outside the requested parameter/date combination. The USGS current-conditions page for `04092977` identifies the station as Turkey Creek at 61st Avenue at Merrillville and labels displayed current data as provisional and subject to revision. The page reported a most recent instantaneous value in its search result, but that current-page value is not used as a historical-period measurement here. ## Source interpretation 1. The official National Archives register establishes a primary-source retrieval path for treaty items that explicitly names Potawatomi bands and places relevant to the Great Lakes pilot: St. Joseph, Chicago, Prairie du Chien, Camp Tippecanoe, Tippecanoe River, Turkey Creek Prairie, Yellow River, and Chippewanaung. It does not establish the contents or geographic footprint of each treaty without item-level extraction. 2. Winger's 1939 synthesis places N05_E18's Merrillville-area anchor within a broader network of trails and waterways connecting the Calumet, Kankakee, St. Joseph, Chicago, southern Lake Michigan, and Detroit directions. The evidence is related to historical connectivity but is not equivalent to route density, travel volume, or a fixed-cell transport measure. 3. Stone's 1960 synthesis adds a regional treaty/removal chronology and named village/reservation leads, but its local-history framing and OCR uncertainty require primary treaty and community-grounded corroboration before use in a score or causal interpretation. 4. The exact USGS daily-values request demonstrates a bounded availability gap for one nearby station/parameter/date combination. The empty result must remain explicit and must not be converted to a physical zero. 5. The historical and modern records converge only at the level of a possible water-linked network context and a research path. They do not measure the same variable, use the same boundaries, or support a direct time-series comparison. ## Derived observations (not scores) ### D1 — Geography crosswalk | Evidence | Spatial footprint | Relation to fixed `N05_E18` | Comparability | |---|---|---|---| | National Archives register entries | Treaty locations and named bands across the Great Lakes/Old Northwest | Potentially intersects or connects to N05_E18; exact boundaries not extracted | Catalog-level primary-source lead | | Winger route narrative | Regional trails, Calumet, Merrillville, Kankakee, St. Joseph, Detroit, Chicago | Includes the working anchor and connected corridors; broader than one cell | Qualitative historical connectivity | | Stone Kankakeeland narrative | Kankakee-area villages, reservations, treaties, and removal | Southern corridor relationship; broader and partly outside the cell | Qualitative, OCR-limited | | USGS `04092977` daily-values query | One modern point station and one exact parameter/date request | Nearby point within the pilot context; not a cell aggregate | Machine-readable availability check only | ### D2 — Bounded transition sequence ```text 1795: Greenville treaty register entry names Potawatomi among participating nations → 1809: Fort Wayne treaty register entry names Potawatomi and neighboring nations → 1821: Chicago treaty register entry names Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi → 1826–1829: register entries connect Potawatomi land and mission activity to the Wabash, St. Joseph, and Prairie du Chien networks → 1832: Camp Tippecanoe, Tippecanoe River, and related treaty items name Prairie, Kankakee, Wabash, Elkhart, St. Joseph, and Cold Water bands → 1833: Chicago treaty register entry names United Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi → 1836: register entries name Turkey Creek Prairie, Yellow River, and Chippewanaung bands → 2026: exact USGS daily-values request for nearby station 04092977 returned no time series for the requested parameters and dates ``` This is a source-organized sequence, not a continuous chronology, population series, or causal model. ### D3 — No score derived No cell-wide water value, route density, population estimate, Indigenous population value, land-cession area assigned to N05_E18, energy measure, constraint score, adaptive-capacity score, or `provisional_quadrant` is derived. The official catalog register is not a clause extraction; the historical syntheses are geographically and methodologically mismatched; and the modern query returned no series for the exact request. ## Model classification ```yaml provisional_quadrant: unresolved classification_status: not_assigned reason: treaty clauses and boundaries have not been extracted; historical route evidence is qualitative and cross-boundary; the modern station query returned no series for the requested parameter/date combination; primary Indigenous/community-grounded corroboration remains incomplete confidence: unresolved_for_quadrant ``` `provisional_quadrant` is a model output and is intentionally not treated as an archival fact. ## Confidence and missingness ### Observation confidence - **National Archives register dates, descriptions, and identifiers:** high for the catalog page as retrieved on 2026-08-09; item contents and boundaries remain unverified. - **Winger item metadata:** high for Archive.org catalog metadata; historical claims medium because they are a 1939 synthesis and OCR excerpts were used as locators. - **Winger route and Merrillville passages:** medium; printed page markers are present in OCR and the claims are bounded to the source, but original scan-image verification was not completed here. - **Stone item metadata:** high for Archive.org catalog metadata; OCR historical claims medium-to-low because the item reports OCR page-number confidence 62 and scan-image verification was not completed here. - **USGS empty-series response:** high for the exact request and returned JSON structure; it says nothing about other date ranges, parameters, methods, or local office records. ### Missingness codes - `treaty_item_not_extracted`: official item identifiers located, but clauses, signatures, maps, and cession/reservation boundaries not yet read. - `geographic_match_uncertain`: treaty, county, corridor, and route footprints do not equal the fixed cell. - `qualitative_only`: historical route and settlement descriptions have no standardized traffic, density, or rate measure. - `ocr_locator_not_image_verified`: relevant Winger and Stone passages were located in OCR but not fully checked against page images in this run. - `historical_measure_not_available`: no continuous 1795–1836 route, discharge, population, or transport series was found in this bounded run. - `searched_no_series`: exact USGS `04092977`, parameters `00060,00065`, 2020–2022 daily-values request returned `timeSeries: []`. - `source_bias_requires_corroboration`: both historical syntheses use later local or institutional framing; neither substitutes for treaty text or Indigenous/community-grounded history. - `not_searched`: treaty clauses, reservation maps, agency correspondence, archaeological datasets, and community-authored sources were not exhaustively searched in this run. No missing field is treated as zero, and archival silence is not treated as absence. ## Falsification and alternative explanations The route pattern could reflect political control, military logistics, treaty coercion, land speculation, commercial capital, colonial road building, Chicago's market position, or later highway/rail alignment rather than water-linked geography alone. The treaty chronology does not demonstrate that physical connectivity caused institutional or cultural outcomes. A boundary-sensitive test must compare treaty footprints, route corridors, watersheds, and the fixed 24 × 24 cell without collapsing them into one unit. ## Unresolved gaps and next search path 1. Open the nine most relevant digitized National Archives items at page/image level, beginning with `122643087`, `170826601`, `146290832`, `146756261`, `146925340`, `155390860`, `148017343`, `148026068`, and `148026533`; extract treaty clauses, named places, reservation language, dates, signatures, maps, and boundary descriptions. 2. Retrieve the treaty image files or catalog derivatives for those items and record page/image identifiers; do not rely on the register description as the treaty content. 3. Crosswalk cession and reservation geographies against the fixed `N05_E18` cell and the nine-sector Great Lakes octagon; preserve cross-boundary coverage and uncertainty. 4. Add Indigenous-authored, tribal-government, community-curated, archaeological, and primary administrative corroboration for Potawatomi, Miami, Illinois, and neighboring communities. 5. Inspect Winger and Stone scan pages directly for the Merrillville, trail, treaty, and removal passages before treating any OCR-located claim as page-verified. 6. Query USGS/WDFN/NWIS with station-specific metadata, alternate parameter codes, daily-value availability, and bounded date windows for `04092975`, `04092977`, `04092990`, and `04093000`; preserve empty responses as searched missingness. 7. Keep the quadrant unresolved until comparable raw-observation tables, explicit missingness, formula version, alternative explanations, and matched-sector checks exist. ## Provenance register 1. **National Archives, American Indian Treaties: Catalog Links.** The page identifies the digitized series `Ratified Indian Treaties, 1722–1869` and lists the treaty dates, descriptions, and item identifiers used above. Retrieved 2026-08-09. . 2. **National Archives Catalog item: Potawatomi at Mission upon the St. Joseph, 1828.** Register item `122643087`. Treaty content not extracted in this run. . 3. **National Archives Catalog item: United Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi at Prairie du Chien, 1829.** Register item `170826601`. Treaty content not extracted in this run. . 4. **National Archives Catalog item: Potawatomi of the Prairie and Kankakee at Camp Tippecanoe, 1832.** Register item `146290832`. Treaty content not extracted in this run. . 5. **National Archives Catalog items: Potawatomi at Tippecanoe River, 1832.** Register items `146756261` and `146925340`. Treaty content not extracted in this run. ; . 6. **National Archives Catalog item: United Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi at Chicago, 1833.** Register item `155390860`. Treaty content not extracted in this run. . 7. **National Archives Catalog items: 1836 Potawatomi bands at Turkey Creek Prairie, Chippewanaung, and related Indiana locations.** Register items `148017343`, `148026068`, and `148026533`. Treaty content not extracted in this run. ; ; . 8. **Otho Winger, *The Potawatomi Indians*.** Elgin Press, 1939; Archive.org identifier `potawatomiindian00wing`; OCR file and scanned item metadata. Relevant OCR page markers: printed pp. 34–39 and 57–61. ; . 9. **Al Stone, *The Pottawatomis: History and Folklore of the Indians of Kankakeeland*.** 1960; Archive.org identifier `pottawatomishist00ston`; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign contributor; 54 scanned images; OCR file. Relevant OCR page markers: printed pp. 26–31. ; . 10. **USGS Daily Values Web Service.** Exact request: station `04092977`; parameters `00060,00065`; `2020-01-01` through `2022-12-31`; returned valid query metadata and `timeSeries: []`. . 11. **USGS current conditions page for station 04092977.** Station identity and provisional-data context. . 12. **Fixed grid and active procedure.** Canonical sector geometry and research rules: `ghojualamanchu/sectors/N05_E18_MERRILLVILLE.json`; `08-research-sop.md`. ## Record limits This is a bounded N05_E18 research result. It adds an official National Archives treaty-register retrieval path, a page-located but not fully image-verified 1795–1836 route/treaty/removal synthesis crosswalk, and an exact modern USGS empty-series observation. It does not establish treaty clauses, cession or reservation boundaries, a cell-wide historical connectivity value, a population estimate, a causal claim, a derived score, or a `provisional_quadrant`. No secrets or private data are included.