A new art installation planned for the area near the Heritage Park marina is being hailed as the largest to commemorate the 660-mile forced removal of the Potawatomi people known as the “Potawatomi Trail of Death.”
The artwork, entitled “Fire Keepers Circle” will be of painted wood, concrete and steel and evokes a blanket encircling a small gathering space.
The painted background consists of a representation of the route the Potawatomi people were forced to take from Indiana to Kansas nearly two centuries ago.
The piece contains 859 holes cut in the metal, representing the number of Potawatomi tribe members that made the trek. Another layer will consist of metallic feathers designed by members of the community.
‘They weren’t looking to come to Kansas’
The artists, Leah Yellowbird and Aaron Squadroni from Grand Rapids, Minnesota, were selected from among eleven native artists with tribal affiliations who submitted proposals.
“As a stop on the historic Trail of Death this sculpture is envisioned as a place of warmth and renewal where current band members can gather and reflect or visitors to the park can learn about Potawatomi culture and history,” Yellowbird and Squadroni said in a joint statement.
The Trail of Death began in 1838 when militia members rounded up hundreds of members of the tribe near Twin Lakes in northern Indiana and forced them southwest, eventually to Sugar Creek near Osawatomie, Kansas.
Along the way, 42 people died, mostly children and the elderly, according to an account on the Potawatomi Nation’s website.
Deaths continued at the Sugar Creek settlement, where cholera and other diseases ripped through the community, killing more than 670, said Jon Boursaw, Citizen Potawatomi Nation District 4 Legislative representative.
Boursaw’s great-great-great grandfather, Daniel Bourassa, and seven members of his family were on the trail, Boursaw said. Both his great-great-great grandparents and five of their children died there.
“It’s a feeling that’s hard to describe to be on the trail and realize what my ancestors went through to get to Kansas. They weren’t looking to come to Kansas. It was a forced removal,” Boursaw said.
He added he is heartened by the scope of the art installation planned for Heritage Park, 16000 Pflumm Road, in Olathe.
There are more than 70 markers of various sizes in parks, cemeteries and roadsides along the trail, many of them the product of Boy Scout Eagle projects, he said, but the new artwork will be the largest and in a popular park location.
Piece expected to be installed by next summer
The Fire Keepers Circle installation will be next to a smaller stone marker, which was dedicated in 2013, commemorating what might have been a stop along the trail.
“It will be the most prominent marker on the trail from Indiana to Kansas,” he said. “As a result we take great pleasure and pride in the fact that Johnson County is going to this effort to commemorate it.”
Every five years, a convoy of 20 to 30 tribe members retrace the trail, stopping along the way to see the markers and talk with residents.
The last time this was done was in 2023, when the Johnson County park district hosted a gathering in Heritage Park.
Boursaw said he expects a good turnout next summer, when the installation is tentatively scheduled for a ribbon cutting celebration on July 19.
JCPRD did outreach to Native communities and artists
Park officials are working with the county museum team to create interpretive panels for the installation to tell the history.
The art also has a community engagement component, allowing members of the tribe to submit designs for the work’s metal feathers representing Potawatomi resilience.
The park district did extensive community outreach on the art, engaging many direct descendants of the trail survivors, said Susan Mong, the district’s superintendent of culture.
The artwork is a part of the district’s 2022 Art Master Plan.
“We identified it early as a way to use public art to draw visitors to the history and engage them in a meaningful way,” Mong said.
Park officials put out a call for artists with a native American background and means of proving it, she said. Eleven who met those qualifications submitted proposals.
The district budgeted a $100,000 commission for the artists.
This story was originally published by the Johnson County Post.
