Trail of Death: The Potawatomi Removal of 1838
By Marcus Whitfield
Length3h 56m
About this audiobook
Every September morning the people could remember, the thud of a pestle in a walnut-log mortar carried across the Yellow River. In 1832 it still did. Smoke rose straight from the bark roofs of the Potawatomi villages in northern Indiana, a boy scraped a raccoon hide with a mussel shell the way his uncle had shown him, and the year ran on its old round: maple sugar in February, corn in April, the green corn feast in August, furs when the nights turned cold. The people called themselves Neshnabé, the true people, and Bodéwadmi, keepers of the fire.
But the traders' credit books were filling, and treaty by treaty, from the council at Chicago in 1833 on, the land was signed away. In September 1838 Indiana militia forced more than eight hundred Potawatomi out of their homes and onto the road west. They were marched for two months to the Osage River country in what is now Kansas, and more than forty died on the way, many of them children.
From there the wagons roll on to a winter arrival, and the story stays with the survivors: the mission schools, the struggle over land in Kansas, the long memory of the march, and the road reclaimed by their descendants.
In the new country, they planted corn again.
Audiobook details
GenreHistory
Length3 hrs 56 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateSep 19, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Chapter 1: The Yellow River Country
2Chapter 2: Chicago, 1833
3Chapter 3: Pottawattamie Prairie
4Chapter 4: The Drumbeat of Removal
5Chapter 5: The Wagons Leave
Show all chaptersShow less
6Chapter 6: The Corps of Discovery of the Dead
7Chapter 7: Winter Arrival
8Chapter 8: The Mission Schools
9Chapter 9: The Kansas Land
10Chapter 10: The Long Memory
11Chapter 11: The Road Reclaimed
12Chapter 12: The Corn Grows Again
13About the Author
More from Marcus Whitfield
The Revolution Within: Native Nations and the War for America, 1775-1783Marcus Whitfield4h 52m$6
The Termination Era: The Postwar Assault on Native SovereigntyMarcus Whitfield4h 17m$6
The Timucua and the Spanish Missions of Florida: The First Mission FrontierMarcus Whitfield4h 18m$6
The First-Time Founder's BlueprintMarcus Whitfield6h 9m$11 · $0.00
The First-Time Founder’sMarcus Whitfield6h 23m$8 · $0.00
A Brief History of IntelligenceMax S. Bennett12h 18m4.6 (6.6K)$29 · $0.00
Ghosts of HiroshimaCharles Pellegrino8h 59m4.5 (877)$23
Lily's PromiseLily Ebert, Dov Forman8h 54m4.6 (16.1K)$29 · $0.00
On Democracies and Death CultsDouglas Murray10h 38m4.6 (6.5K)$29 · $0.00
Across the RiverKent Babb11h 40m4.6 (927)$29 · $0.00
Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir - Israel, Palestine and BeyondJohn Lyons12h 37m4.6 (1.4K)$33 · $0.00
BeyondStephen Walker15h 39m4.6 (3.2K)$33 · $0.00
Kings and PawnsHoward Bryant10h 9m4.6 (678)$29 · $0.00
No EscapeNury Turkel9h 30m4.6 (809)$28 · $0.00
Jubal Stone: U.S. Marshal: Blood Trail To Hell: A Western Adventure NovelCasey Nash3h 42m4.6 (3.2K)$18 · $0.00
Fall and RiseMitchell Zuckoff17h 23m4.6 (9.8K)$40 · $0.00
The SurvivorJosef Lewkowicz, Michael Calvin9h 22m4.6 (2.5K)$29 · $0.00
Always FaithfulThomas Schueman, Zainullah Zaki12h 12m4.6 (977)$29 · $0.00
The State of Society in France Before the Revolution of 1789 (Annotated)Alexis de Tocqueville17h 25m4.6 (1.2K)$2 · $0.00
All the Gallant MenDonald Stratton, Ken Gire5h 55m4.6 (11.8K)$24 · $0.00
Medgar and MyrlieJoy-Ann Reid10h 52m4.5 (27.8K)$29 · $0.00
The History of the Peloponnesian War (Annotated)Thucydides24h 3m4.6 (1.1K)$2 · $0.00
Where the Birds Never SingJack Sacco10h 31m4.6 (3.8K)$29 · $0.00
Serviceman J: The Untold Story of an NZSAS SoldierJamie Pennell5h 51m4.6 (452)$24 · $0.00
Valley of the BirdtailAndrew Stobo Sniderman, Douglas Sanderson10h 1m4.6 (2.4K)$29 · $0.00
You may also like
VéraStacy Schiff18h 14m3.9 (1.4K)$28 · $0.00
The Great HungerCecil Woodham-Smith18h 23m4.3 (2.3K)$28
The Bosnia ListKenan Trebinčević, Susan Shapiro10h 47m4.4 (2.3K)$20 · $0.00
World in BetweenKenan Trebincevic, Susan Shapiro8h 47m4.4 (443)$29 · $0.00
A Thousand Trails HomeSeth Kantner8h 2m4.4 (524)$20 · $0.00
What Is the WhatDave Eggers20h 28m4.3 (90.3K)$30
Queen of ExilesVanessa Riley17h 51m4.0 (2.2K)$40 · $0.00
One Hundred And Four HorsesMandy Retzlaff10h4.3 (1.2K)$29 · $0.00
We Crossed a Bridge and It TrembledWendy Pearlman6h4.6 (5.2K)$24 · $0.00
The Road From HomeDavid Kherdian5h 55m4.0 (1.4M)$24 · $0.00
IgifuScholastique Mukasonga3h 25m4.3 (838)$15
The Survivors of the ClotildaHannah Durkin11h 20m4.1 (479)$29 · $0.00
The Unanswered LetterFaris Cassell15h 32m4.3 (1.6K)$23
Prague WinterMadeleine Albright15h 23m4.2 (10.6K)$33 · $0.00
The Last ManMary Wollstonecraft Shelley19h 1m3.6 (12.4K)$3
The Memoirs of Madame Vigée LebrunLouise-Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun8h 37m4.1 (387)$2 · $0.00
12 Years A SlaveSolomon Northup10h 8m4.3 (308.2K)$1 · $0.00
BarracoonZora Neale Hurston3h 50m4.2 (49.1K)$6 · $0.00
OliverSyd Hoff9m4.2 (1K)$4 · $0.00
Lion of the SkyRitu Hemnani4h 22m4.1 (291)$20 · $0.00