Chief Noahquageshik

Overlooking the Grand River in downtown Grand Rapids is a bronze statue of Chief Noahquageshik of the Ottawa Anishinable tribe.

If the chief were here today, he might recognize the irony in erecting a statue of him on the land that he was forcibly evicted from.  Like many eastern tribes, the Ottawa didn’t want to relinquish their ancestral land and were willing to accommodate the growing influx of white settlers all around them.

Many tribes adopted western ways, living in cabins and frame houses, farming rather than hunting, sending their children to schools, and converting to Christianity.  But it was never enough. Under the Indian Removal Act (1830), all Native Americans were subject to forcible deportation to lands west of the Mississippi River.

Chief Noahquageshik and the Grand River Ottawa tribe initially refused to sell their land to the U.S. government, but when the government threatened to forcibly remove them to Kansas, they relented.

He was never able to return to the land that he loved.

October 27, 2018