Slocum appealed to her white brothers, Joseph and Isaac Slocum, for help with her petition to United States Congress for exemption from removal. To gain sympathy from members of Congress, Slocum's lawyer, Alphonzo Cole, of Peru, Indiana, portrayed her as an old woman who had endured years of hardship and captivity and only wished to remain near her family—both white and Indian. U.S. Congressman Benjamin Bidlack of Pennsylvania, who introduced the House resolution was sympathetic to her cause and stressed the importance of Slocum staying close to her white relatives, although she had met only a few of them. On March 3, 1845, Congress passed a joint resolution that exempted Slocum and twenty-one members of her Miami village from removal to reservation lands in the Kansas Territory. Slocum received a land grant of 620 acres (one section) of land in Indiana. With Congressional approval of her petition, Slocum and the members of her Miami village were able to continue living on their land in Indiana. They were among the 148 individuals who formed the nucleus of the present-day Miami Nation of Indiana.