Caldwell, Billy

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: James A. Clifton, “CALDWELL, BILLY (possibly baptized Thomas) (Sagaunash),” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 7, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/caldwell_billy_7E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    •  Indian Department official and merchant; b. 17 March, c. 1780, in the vicinity of Fort Niagara (near Youngstown, N.Y.); d. 27 Sept. 1841 at Trader’s Point (near Council Bluffs, Iowa).
    • Billy Caldwell was one of the frontier personalities who were born out of passing liaisons between British men and native women and who spent their lives on the social boundary between British or American and Indian institutions. The natural son of William Caldwell, a captain in Butler’s Rangers, and a Mohawk woman whose name is unknown (she was a daughter of Rising Sun), Billy Caldwell was abandoned by his father while an infant. Ordered west to Detroit, the elder Caldwell left Billy to spend his childhood among the Mohawks near Niagara and later on the Grand River (Ont.). About 1789 he brought the boy into the family created by his marriage to Suzanne Baby at Detroit. There Billy Caldwell received a basic education aimed at making him into a family retainer, the manager of the Caldwell farm on the south side of the Detroit River. He rejected the status of second-class son, however, and crossed into American territory to enter the fur trade.
    • Until 1820 Caldwell identified himself as a “true Briton,” remaining faithful to the values he had acquired in the Detroit River border communities where he was raised, in spite of the fact that his father never recognized him as his rightful eldest son. By early 1812 he was reputed to be especially influential among the powerful Potawatomi, Ottawa, and Ojibwa communities around Lake Michigan, so that both American and British officials vied for his services in the coming war. Spurning overtures from Governor William Henry Harrison of Ohio, during the winter of 1812–13 he made his way back to Amherstburg, Upper Canada, and there he obtained a commission as captain in the Indian Department.
    • BCaldwell was influential in aiding the negotiation of the final series of treaties signed by the United Bands of Potawatomis, Ottawas, and Ojibwas of Wisconsin and Illinois, which ended in 1833 when they ceded their last block of lands at the Treaty of Chicago. His services no longer needed, he was then abandoned by his American patrons and thereafter entered the full-time employ of the united bands. He migrated with them to western Missouri and Iowa where he made his final home, managing their business affairs and negotiating on their behalf with American officials until his death of cholera in 1841.
  • Proven United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=1129
  • Find A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/26795273/billy-caldwell