In 1965, as a Second Year Medical Student, I made my first journey to the United States, and first travelled to see the Black Hills of Dakota. In Sioux City, Iowa I visited the Indian museum and met Lakota Indians. …Like Ernesto Che Guevara, I have travelled much to see the poverty of the indigenous tribes of the Americas as he did as a medical student, which greatly influenced his political development..He was also a Lynch, Ua Loingsig (Ó Loingsigh) – now Lynch, Lynchy, Lynskey, Lindsey, the old aristocracy of Dalaradia, and a descendant of Congal Claen, so his ancient origins lie in Ulster…and the Belfast area in particular…The family became prominent in later Medieval times as one of the fourteen Tribes of Galway, mostly of Anglo-Norman origin, with whom they intermarried, having taken the Norman-French name de Lench in Normandy. Che’s great-great-great-great grandfather Patrick Lynch (born 1715, date of death unknown) was an Irish emigrant who became a significant landowner in Rio de la Plata, which is now part of Argentina. He was born in Galway and was the second son of Captain Patrick Lynch of Lydacan Castle and Agnes Blake. In 1749, in Buenos Aires, he married Rosa de Galayn y de la Camara, a wealthy heiress. He was successful enough to pass on his substantial lands to his descendants.

I had managed to obtain a job on a building site owned by the Indiana Realtor Roy Mc Nett at Fort Wayne, and for this I will be eternally grateful. The area had once been inhabited by the Potawatomi Indians. Fort Wayne was named after Anthony Wayne (January 1, 1745 – December 15, 1796) the United States Army general and statesman, of Ulster-Scots descent, whose grandfather had been a distinguished British Officer. Wayne adopted a military career at the outset of the American Revolutionary War, where his military exploits under George Washington and fiery personality quickly earned him a promotion to the rank of brigadier general and the title of “Mad Anthony” Wayne. He was born near Paoli, Chester County, Pennsylvania, where I later stayed with my friend W.Paul Loane, of the O’Loanes of Ulster..

After the war, Wayne returned to Pennsylvania and served in the state legislature for a year in 1784. He then moved to Georgia and settled upon the tract of land granted him by that state for his military service. He was a delegate to the state convention which ratified the United States Constitution in 1788. In 1791, he served a year in the Second United States Congress as a U.S. Representative of Georgia but lost his seat during a debate over his residency qualifications and declined to run for re-election in 1792.President George Washington recalled Wayne from civilian life in order to lead an expedition in the Northwest Indian War, which up to that point had been a disaster for the United States. Many American Indians in the Northwest Territory had sided with the British in the Revolutionary War. In the Treaty of Paris that had ended the conflict, the British had ceded this land to the United States. The Indians, however and as usual, had not been consulted, and resisted annexation of the area by the United States. The Western Indian Confederacy achieved major victories over U.S. forces in 1790 and 1791 under the leadership of Blue Jacket of the Shawnees and Little Turtle of the Miamis. They were encouraged and supplied by the British, who had refused to evacuate British fortifications in the region as called for in the Treaty of Paris.

Washington placed Wayne in command of a newly-formed elite military force called the “Legion of the United States”. Wayne established a basic training facility at Legionville to prepare professional soldiers for his force. Wayne’s was the first attempt to provide basic training for regular U.S. Army recruits and Legionville was the first facility established expressly for this purpose. He then dispatched a force to Ohio to establish Fort Recovery as a base of operations. On August 3, a tree fell on Wayne’s tent. He survived, but was rendered unconscious. By the next day, he had recovered sufficiently to resume the march. On August 20, 1794, Wayne mounted an assault on the Indian confederacy at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, in modern Maumee, Ohio (just south of present-day Toledo), which was a decisive victory for the U.S. forces, ending the war. Wayne then negotiated the Treaty of Greenville between the tribal confederacy and the United States, which was signed on August 3, 1795. The treaty gave most of what is now Ohio to the United States, and cleared the way for that state to enter the Union in 1803.The Removal period of Potawatomi history began with the treaties of the late 1820s when the United States created reservations. Billy Caldwell and Alexander Robinson negotiated for the United Nations of Chippewa, Ottawa and Potowatomi in the Treaty of Praire du Chien of 1829, by which they ceded most of their lands in Wisconsin and Michigan.

Also known as The Council of Three Fires, the People of the Three Fires and the Three Fires Confederacy, the United Nations of Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi Indians, or Niswi-mishkodewin in the Anishinaabe language, is a long-standing Anishinaabe alliance of the Ojibwe (or Chippewa), Ottawa (or Odawa), and Potawatomi Native American tribes and First Nations.Originally one people, or a collection of closely related bands, the identities of Ojibwa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi developed after the Anishinaabeg reached Michilimackinac on their journey westward from the Atlantic coast. Using the Midewiwin scrolls, Potawatomi elder Shup-Shewana dated the formation of the Council of Three Fires to 796 AD at Michilimackinac.In this Council, the Ojibwe were addressed as the “Older Brother,” the Odawa as the “Middle Brother,” and the Potawatomi as the “Younger Brother.” Consequently, whenever the three Anishinaabe nations are mentioned in this specific and consecutive order of Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi, it is an indicator implying Council of Three Fires as well. In addition, the Ojibwa are the “keepers of the faith,” the Odawa are the “keepers of trade,” and the Potawatomi are the designated “keepers/maintainers of/for the fire” (boodawaadam), which became the basis for their name Boodewaadamii (Ojibwe spelling) or Bodéwadmi (Potawatomi spelling).

Though the Three Fires had several meeting places, Michilimackinac became the preferred meeting place due to its central location. From this place, the Council met for military and political purposes. From this site, the Council maintained relations with fellow Anishinaabeg nations, the Ozaagii (Sac), Odagaamii (Meskwaki), Omanoominii (Menominee), Wiinibiigoo (Ho-Chunk), Naadawe (Iroquois Confederacy), Nii’inaawi-Naadawe (Wyandot), Naadawensiw (Sioux), Wemitigoozhi (French), Zhaaganaashi (British) and the Gichi-mookomaan (the United States).

Through the totem-system and promotion of trade, the Council generally had a peaceful existence with its neighbours. However, occasional unresolved disputes erupted into wars. Under these conditions, the Council notably fought against the Iroquois Confederacy and the Sioux. During the Seven Years’ War, the Council fought against the English settlers; and during the Northwest Indian War and the War of 1812, they fought for the British Crown against the United States. After the formation of the United States of America in 1776, the Council became the core member of the Western Lakes Confederacy (also known as “Great Lakes Confederacy”), joined together with the Wyandots, Algonquins, Nipissing, Sacs, Meskwaki and others.

Over the years, the US reduced the reservations under pressure for land by migrating European Americans.The final step followed the Treaty of Chicago, negotiated in 1833 for the tribes by Caldwell and Robinson. This facilitated the forced removal of the Illinois Potawatomi to Nebraska and the Indiana Potawatomi to Kansas, both west of the Mississippi River. The removal of the Indiana Potawatomi was documented by a Catholic priest, Benjamin Petit, who accompanied the Indians on the Potawatomi Trail of Death. Petit died while returning to Indiana. His diary was published by the Indiana Historical Society in 1941.

Many Potawatomi found ways to remain, primarily those in Michigan, and others fled to their Odawa neighbors or Canada, under the protection of the British Crown, to avoid removal. When walking through downtown Milwaukie in August 2011 with my colleagues  Michael McCullough, Maynard Hanna and Gordon Lucy of the Ulster-Scots Agency, Michael stopped us to read a tribute to the Potawatomi. This was known to have been an Indian council place, the chosen spot believed to have been rising ground in the vicinity of modern Wisconsin Ave. and Fifth St. Thus the name Milwaukie given to it by the Potawatomi. They have now returned to their ancestral lands and own a successful Bingo and Casino facility in Milwaukie, which I visited the following year with the wonderful Kathy Ward of the Milwaukie Irish Fest. She also took me to the beautiful Indian Museum. The Potawatomi use the money they earn from the Bingo and Casino facility for community development. And I have written to them in their own language to tell them of my own birth town, Bangor, Light of the World. Perhaps we can bring them back to the Commonwealth.