香蕉影视

Published: April 13, 2017

By Annette Brill Bergstresser

ELKHART, Indiana (Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary) — Char Mast (MACF 2016) recalls the moment she realized she had a deep historical connection to the story of the   — a connection she had not been aware of before.

It was a cool summer morning in late June 2015, and Mast was standing at the base of the south of Plymouth, Indiana — the first stop on a seven-day pilgrimage following the trail on which armed militia forcibly marched 859 Potawatomi Indians from their ancestral home in northern Indiana to eastern Kansas over eight weeks in the fall of 1838.

Retired Fulton County historian Shirley Willard had just finished sharing an overview of the story with the 16 participants in the pilgrimage — a summer course of Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (香蕉影视) in Elkhart, Indiana — when she mentioned Chief Shipshewana, who had been forcibly removed from the LaGrange County area.

Suddenly Mast, who grew up in Miami County, Indiana, and now lives in Goshen, Indiana, remembered that her ancestors had bought land in LaGrange County. She texted her mother to ask about the date, and the response came quickly: “1844.” Her heart sank.

“I realized I had a thread in this story that I never knew about — a family connection. All of a sudden it became much bigger than a story about the Potawatomi and their removal, and I had a sense of conviction about not having known that story,” she reflected.

Mast said that hearing the Trail of Death story emerge as the group traveled from the first campsite to the end of the journey in present-day Osawatomie, Kansas — reading journals from the removal, prayerfully walking a few miles of the route each day and also listening to descendants of those who were deported from Indiana — helped shape her desire to learn more about the Potawatomi and her own family roots.

“That’s been my journey over the last couple of years: How do I carry this piece, and what does it mean for me?” she continued. “What do I do with a story that I thought was simple and now it’s complex? I need to keep paying attention to the ways in which I can be changed by this story.”

Educating the next generation

Mast also felt a growing sense of call to be part of sharing the story of the Potawatomi, adding the perspective of her own personal history. As part of her coursework toward a Master of Arts in Christian Formation degree, she wrote a 10-day curriculum about the Potawatomi people and culture that culminates in visits to the first three campsites on the Trail of Death. She chose to write for fourth grade, since fourth-graders in Indiana are required to study their state’s history.

Among other sources, Mast drew from the website of the of what is now southwestern Michigan, with whom she’s begun to connect. (This band was not part of the forced removal.) She also included how her own story ties in with the larger story, noting that the Potawatomi expulsion cleared the land for white settlers to establish cities such as Elkhart and Goshen and for Mennonite and Amish people to start new communities on the rich farmland.

“I hope that through the curriculum, kids will learn the story from more than just one perspective and realize that there are complexities in it,” she said. “They might not look at it in the same way.”

Following the pilgrimage, Mast approached Adam Friesen Miller, a fourth-grade teacher at in Goshen, with the idea of piloting her curriculum. Friesen Miller, who wasn’t familiar with the Trail of Death, jumped at the opportunity to supplement his existing curriculum and implemented Mast’s materials that September.

“Social Studies isn’t stressed as much as Language Arts and Math, and there are not a lot of good resources out there,” he said. “I was looking for something to give my curriculum direction and purpose, and Char’s piece provided that.”

Friesen Miller invited Mast to be a guest presenter when the class studied the curriculum, and she and Friesen Miller co-led the students on the Trail of Death field trip — a trip Mast’s mother, Edna Mast, also participated in.

Friesen Miller said he observed his class engaging the material in “a healthy and hopeful way” during the field trip. He recalled a meaningful experience involving a litany from the curriculum that the class read aloud together at each historical landmark they visited.

At the landmark at — the final stop of the field trip and the location of the first death on the trail — the group remembered together that they had talked about Shirley Willard and her son having raised money to place that historical marker.

“Up to that point the adults had been leading the reading of the litany, but when we got to the last site, two or three girls asked whether the students could lead the litany that time,” he shared. “That was really powerful.”

“It makes me think about my hope for the direction that our state goes with this story — that we would tell the story and be honest about our history,” he continued. “For these kids, that is now part of their story, as Indiana residents, that they’ll be teaching their families and children one day.”

A public apology

In preparation for the current school year, Friesen Miller did some supplemental reading over the summer to create additional learning materials on the history of the Potawatomi and other local Indigenous groups that would lead up to Mast’s curriculum.

This year, the commitment of Friesen Miller and his current fourth-graders has gone deeper, as Willard engaged them to help the Trail of Death Association and the Fulton County Historical Society plan a public gathering to remember, lament and apologize for the forced removal. According to Friesen Miller, Willard had invited former Indiana Governor Mike Pence to issue a formal apology for the Trail of Death when he was in office, but he declined; she has since appealed to Eric Holcomb, the current governor.

The one-time event — titled — will take place at 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 22, at St. Joseph Catholic Church, 1310 Main Street, Rochester, Indiana. Mennonite Church USA leaders have accepted an invitation to send a representative to speak on behalf of their constituency. Guests will include descendants of Potawatomi who were on the Trail of Death; the band later became the Citizen Band of the Potawatomi and is now based on Oklahoma.

In preparation for the event, Friesen Miller’s fourth-graders created skits using Potawatomi voices to help others learn about the Trail of Death. They will hold a public presentation on Thursday, April 13, at 6:30 p.m. at Bethany Christian Schools, 2904 S. Main St., Goshen.

Friesen Miller’s longer-term goals include working to share the Potawatomi story and the experience more widely.

“I’ve become pretty passionate about needing to do something to make this experience accessible to other schools in northern Indiana — not just Bethany,” he said, noting that he’d like to see the local historical society offer a Trail of Death field trip to school groups so that the responsibility of planning the day would not fall on the teachers.

Mast, who graduated from 香蕉影视 in 2016 and attends Walnut Hill Mennonite Church in Goshen, continues to remain engaged with the stories “of people who had been my neighbors and the Pokagon Band who continue to be my neighbors” and how they connect to her Mennonite faith and family history.

“I hope to keep offering this story,” she said. “I don’t know where it’s going to go, but as it continues to come up, I feel I need to keep honoring the requests to share it.”

Trail of Death 2017

香蕉影视 will offer The Trail of Death: A Pilgrimage of Remembrance, Lament and Transformation this summer for the second time. The journey will take place June 1–9 and be led by Katerina Friesen (MDiv 2016), sessional instructor; George Godfrey (Citizen Potawatomi Nation), president of the Potawatomi Trail of Death Association; and Rich Meyer, historian and educator.

All three leaders were involved with the 2015 pilgrimage. Friesen carried a large role, researching connections between the forced removal and the Doctrine of Discovery (which was the basis for the removal), and coordinating the route, logistics and the interactions with Potawatomi descendants.

Participants can take the course for three credit hours of graduate study ($2,035), as auditors ($955), or for no credit ($550). Meal costs are included in the pilgrimage fee. Registration for the pilgrimage is open until May 1; it is limited to 15 participants. To learn more or register online, see www.ambs.edu/trailofdeath.

Photos

• At the Chief Menominee Statue south of Plymouth, Indiana, Char Mast (at right) introduces Shirley Willard (at left), retired Fulton County historian, to a group of fourth-graders from Bethany Christian Schools in Goshen in September 2015, as part of presenting the Trail of Death curriculum she wrote. Willard has been pivotal in raising awareness of the Trail of Death. (Credit: Annette Brill Bergstresser)
• George Schricker, a poet, songwriter and storyteller from Plymouth, Indiana, led Adam Friesen Miller’s fourth-grade class from Bethany Christian Schools in singing a song he wrote about Chief Menominee during a class field trip on the Trail of Death in September 2015. (Credit: Annette Brill Bergstresser)

Abbreviated announcements

Trail of Death Event: A public gathering to remember, lament, and apologize for the forced removal of Potawatomi from Indiana will be held Saturday, April 22. The event, sponsored by the Trail of Death Association and the Fulton County Historical Society, will begin at 2 p.m. at St. Joseph Catholic Church (1310 Main Street, Rochester). Mennonite Church USA has accepted an invitation to send a representative to speak on behalf of its constituency. See: 

The Trail of Death: A Pilgrimage of Remembrance, Lament and Transformation: June 1–9, 2017, a summer course of Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Indiana. This nine-day pilgrimage traces the route of the 1838 forced removal of Potawatomi people by the U.S. military from their ancestral homeland in northern Indiana to present-day Osawatomie, Kansas. Pilgrims will remember the history of this expulsion through reading journals from the removal, prayerfully walking a few miles of the route each day and meeting with descendants of those who were deported. Pilgrims will examine what it means to inhabit lands from which others were expelled, what priorities and theologies fueled that expulsion and what it means to seek God's shalom in our moment and place in time. Leaders: Katerina Friesen, sessional instructor; George Godfrey (Citizen Potawatomi Nation), president of the Potawatomi Trail of Death Association; and Rich Meyer, historian and educator. This course can be taken for credit or audit. See: ambs.edu/academics/trail-of-death

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