IL Returns Stolen Tribal Land In DeKalb County

DeKALB COUNTY, IL — Illinois is transferring roughly 1,500 acres in DeKalb County’s Shabbona Lake State Park to the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation to correct an injustice dating back to the mid-1800s.

"We are proud to once again call this land home," said Joseph "Zeke" Rupnick, chairman of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation based in Mayetta, Kansas.

Under Senate Bill 867, which Gov. JB Pritzker signed into law Friday, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources will continue to maintain the park and keep it open to the public after the transfer.

The action returns to the Potawatomi territory in the same area that was ceded to Chief Shab-eh-nay in a treaty with the U.S. government in 1829. Nothing ever altered that treaty, but when Shab-eh-nay and his people left for several years to visit family in Kansas, the government sold the land to white settlers.

The 1,500 acres in the legislation are not entirely the same soil that the U.S. took from Chief Shab-eh-nay. The boundaries of his original 1,280-acre reservation now encompass hundreds of acres of privately owned land, a golf course and county forest preserve. Returning the original land would undoubtedly put the transfer into an interminable legal wrangle.

While the land will continue to be a park, Rupnick has not ruled out constructing a hotel, noting the area has 150 campsites and draws 500,000 visitors a year.

“This landmark legislation puts Illinois on the right side of history — fostering a partnership with Indigenous communities and returning what was wrongfully acquired,” said state Sen. Mark Walker, D-Arlington Heights, who sponsored the legislation, in a news release.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.