Native Chief John Okemos

TITLE: Native Chief John Okemos
ARTIST: John Vasquez
DATE: 2023
TYPE: Mural

ABOUT: According to a Facebook post made by the artist John Vasquez, "Finished up “Chief John Okemos” just in time for the Fourth of July. He was one of the Chiefs that signed the Treaty of Saginaw. This year please remember our history as a country, the backs this country was built on. Natives of [the] Americas were displaced, neglected, and sacrificed so this country could be built and we should always be mindful [of] that. The Hawk represents Protection as it looks over [the] right shoulder of Okemos.
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We have come along way but we have a long way to go."

John Okemos was a Saginaw Chippewa Chief born in 1775 who lived through several battles while fighting with the British Forces in the war of 1812. He would later go on to sign the Treaty of Saginaw with several other Native American Chiefs, ceding more than six million acres of land to American colonizers in order to prevent future violence over land disputes. Chief Okemos would later marry his wife, Waindegoquayzance and have four children. 

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