HARRIS

Region: Escanaba, Menominee & the Green Bay Shore

This hamlet iwould hardly be noticable were it not for the massive casino complex which has sprung up south of the higheay. Three miles south of the highway is the Hannahville Potowatami Reservation.
What an amazing turnaround for a tribe, the Potawatami of the Hannahville Potawatami Reservation! The reservation didn't even have electricity until 1966, or paved roads until 1978.

Profits from the casino have allowed the tribe to increase build a new school, medical facility, housing, a water treatment plant and expand tribal
services. Kinship networks and community ties mean much more in Native American cultures than among the individualistic descendants of go-getting Yankee Protestants, who are willing to move away from their families to follow their fortunes. Gambling has been a boon to Indians because it enables them to live together rather than going off to urban jobs.

Over the centuries the Potawatomi gradually were forced westward by the Iriquois from the Atlantic Coast. U.S. troops brutally forced most Potawatomi out of Michigan in the 19th century, most famously as part of the Trail of Tears under Andrew Jackson's administration.

But a Potawatomi band fled to a spot near the Upper Peninsula's Cedar River near Harris. Eventually this small band came into conflict with white hunters and were rescued by a Methodist missionary, Peter Marksman, and his wife, Hannah (hence "Hannahville"). The Marksmans allowed the Potawatomi to live on their land until they secured land in Harris Township that became the present reservation. They were later joined by other Potawatami who returned from reservations in Iowa and Kansas where the U.S. government had sent them. Living on the plains had painfully disrupted the way of life of a people whose culture was based on the eastern forests.

Return to Escanaba, Menominee & the Green Bay Shore

PLACES AROUND HARRIS TO

Eat Sleep Camp