Yellow River (Indiana)

Significant portions of the Yellow River's course have been straightened and channelized; the river's present-day course is considered to begin at a confluence of agricultural ditches in southeastern St. Joseph County, approximately north of the town of Bremen. The river initially flows southwardly into Marshall County, past Bremen; then generally southwestwardly, returning to its naturally winding riverbed and flowing through the city of Plymouth; and westwardly in a substantially straightened course through Starke County, past the city of Knox. It flows into the Kankakee River in southwestern Starke County, approximately west of Knox near the town of English Lake. ==Watershed==

The Yellow River is bounded by the St. Joseph River of Lake Michigan on the north, flowing through Elkhart, Mishawaka, and South Bend. To the east is the Elkhart River, a branch of the St. Joseph, all flowing to Lake Michigan, through the lower lakes to the St. Lawrence River and reaching the North Atlantic. On the south and the southeast, it is bounded by the drainage of the Tippecanoe River. The Tippecanoe River flows southward into the Wabash River, emptying into the Ohio, then into the Mississippi River, expelling its waters into the Gulf of Mexico. To the southwest is the Iroquois River a tributary of the Kankakee River, as is the Yellow River. The Yellow River is the second-largest tributary of the Kankakee. The Iroquois River is larger and joins the Kankakee across the border in Illinois. The Kankakee River joins the Des Plaines River south of Joliet, Illinois, forming the Illinois River. Together they flow the length of the state of Illinois before joining the Mississippi River, north of St. Louis. ==History==

Potawatomi Main Poc was a warrior and chief among the Yellow River Potawatomi first coming to notice at the Treaty of Greenville (July 1795), which was to bring peace to the frontier. Within a year, Main Poc was leading raiding parties across the Mississippi into Spanish Territory. By 1804, Main Poc and Turkey Foot were raiding throughout the Midwest and deep into Tennessee and Kentucky. When they reached across the Mississippi to attack the Osage in what had become the U.S.'s Louisiana Territory, the American military called for a council. Main Poc and Turkey Foot did not attend and kept traveling out of their Yellow River communities to raid other Indian villages. He had become known to the Indian Agents as early as 1791 as a leader among the Twin Lakes Potawatomi. In 1820 he got Isaac McCoy, a Protestant Missionary to come to the Yellow River. Menominee was a religious chief and he planned to combine the teaching of Tecumseh and the Prophet with Roman Catholicism. He was seeking a way for his people to cope with the growing number of settlers. The Carey Mission was established on the St. Joseph River, north of the Twin Lakes in the area where Niles, Michigan now stands. In the 1830s, Carey's mission declined and was replaced by a Roman Catholic Mission. In 1833, the fathers expanded their mission to the Yellow River Potawatomi. These two communities would be the heart of the resistance to removal. Notawkah (Rattlesnake) was the leader of the village east of the Yellow River, south of Plymouth. He moved to Kansas when chief Menominee refused to leave Indiana in 1837. Mackahtahmoah (Black Wolf) was chief of the western village, near the Starke and Marshall county lines. Pepinawah was another chief among these villages. ==Towns and cities==

• Bremen • English Lake • Knox • Plymouth ==See also==