The land that became the village of Fredonia was originally inhabited by Native Americans, including the Potawatomi tribe, who surrendered the land to the United States government in 1833 through the 1833 Treaty of Chicago. While many Native people moved west of the Mississippi River to Kansas, some chose to remain and were referred to as "strolling Potawatomi" in contemporary documents because many of them were migrants who subsisted by squatting on their ancestral lands, which were now owned by white settlers. One such group was led by Chief Waubeka, who maintained a winter camp in the Ozaukee County community that bears his name as late as 1845. Eventually the Potawatomi who evaded forced removal gathered in northern Wisconsin, where they formed the Forest County Potawatomi Community.
