Illinois Confederation

The Illinois Confederation, also referred to as the Illiniwek or Illini, were made up of 12 to 13 tribes who lived in the Mississippi River Valley. Eventually member tribes occupied an area reaching from Lake Michicigao (Michigan) to Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas. The five main tribes were the Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Michigamea, Peoria, and Tamaroa. The name of the confederation was derived from the transliteration by French explorers of to ''Illinois'', more in keeping with the sounds of their own language. The tribes are estimated to have had tens of thousands of members, before the advancement of European contact in the 17th century that inhibited their growth and resulted in a marked decline in population.

The Illinois, like many Native American groups, sustained themselves through agriculture, hunting, and fishing. A partially nomadic group, the Illinois often lived in longhouses and wigwams, according to the season and resources that were available to them in the surrounding land. While the men usually hunted or participated in war, the women cultivated and processed their crops, created tools and clothing from game, and preserved food in various ways for storage and travel. Not officially a Confederation, the villages were led by one Great Chief. The villages had several chiefs who led each individual clan. The Illinois people eventually declined because of losses to infectious disease and war, mostly brought through the arrival of French colonists.

Eventually, they reorganized under the name of the Confederated Peoria. They are now known as the federally recognized "Peoria Tribe of Indians" and reside in present-day Oklahoma.

Name

French missionaries who documented their interactions with the tribes note that the people referred to themselves as the ''Inoka''. The meaning of this word is unknown. Jacques Marquette, a French Jesuit missionary, claimed that ''Illinois'' was derived from ''Illini'' in their Algonquian language, meaning 'the men'. Louis Hennepin claimed the aforementioned men were a symbol of maturity and strength, and representative of the prime of a man's age.

In the 21st century, however, linguistic research demonstrates that ''ilinois'' derives indirectly from ''irenweewa'', meaning 'he speaks in the ordinary way'. While the Ojibwa, who occupied neighboring areas around the eastern Great Lakes, pronunciation for this concept sounded to the French like, ''ilinwe''. ''Ilinwe'' is the singular form of ''ilinwek''. The French explorers who first heard it recorded it in various transliterated forms, such as "liniouek", "Aliniouek", and "Iliniouek". The singular form evolved into the commonly known "Illinois".

History

Formation

The Illinois Confederation comprised 12 separate tribes who shared common language and culture. These tribes are the Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Peoria, Tamaroa, Moingwena, Michigamea, Chepoussa, Chinkoa, Coiracoentanon, Espeminkia, Maroa, Tapouara. Of these 12, only the Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Michigamea, Peoria, and Tamaora remain; others were lost as distinct tribes to disease and warfare. When the Illinois were first documented by Europeans in the 17th century, they were said to be a population of about 10,000 people. Although the number has significantly reduced, many of their descendants are today part of the Peoria Tribe of Miami, Oklahoma, as part of the merged Confederated Peoria Tribe.

Interactions with Europeans

It is thought that when the French first encountered the Illiniwek tribes, there were as many as 10,000 members living in a vast area stretching from Lake Michigan out to the heart of Iowa and as far south as Arkansas. In the 1670s, the French found a village of the Kaskaskia in the Illinois River valley (the later site of present-day Utica), a village of Peoria in present-day Iowa (near the later site of Keokuk), and a village of the Michigamea in northeast Arkansas.

The Kaskaskia village, also known as the Grand Village of the Illinois, was the largest and best-known village of the Illinois tribes. In 1675 the French established a Catholic mission, called the Mission of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin, and a fur trading post near the village. The population increased to about 6,000 people in about 460 houses. Before long, however, Eurasian infectious diseases and the ongoing Beaver Wars brought high mortality to the Illiniwek, causing their population to plummet over the coming decades.

The French named the area ''Pays de Illinois,'' or "Illinois country", which came to be a common name in referring to the homeland of the Illinois. The early French explorers, including Louis Jolliet, Jacques Marquette and René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, produced accounts that documented the first discovery of the Illinois. Because of these developments, the Illinois tribes became well known to European explorers. European colonization, values, and religion began to affect the tribes.

In the late 17th century, the Iroquois, to expand their region and control the fur trade, forced the Kaskaskia and other Illinois out of their villages. They relocated to the south. Although the Illinois fought back against their primary enemy at the time, the wars scattered and killed many of their members. Eventually they reclaimed some of their lands.

In the early 1700s, the Illinois became involved in the conflict between the Meskwaki, also known as "Fox", and the French, known as the Fox Wars. In 1722, the Meskwaki attacked the Peoria for having killed the nephew of one of their chiefs, and forced them onto Starved Rock. The Peoria sent out messengers asking for help from the French, but by the time they reached the site, many of the Peoria warriors had been killed. The French and their Illini, Miami, Potawatomi and Sac allies continued to battle the Meskwaki, but were unsuccessful until 1730. That year they besieged a Fox village on the Sangamon River and conducted a brutal attack.

By the mid 1700s, the 12 or 13 tribes of the Confederation had dwindled to five: the Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Michigamea, Peoria, and Tamaroa. European diseases drastically reduced the numbers of the Illinois. The wars had arisen due to the conflicts between tribes for resources and trade goods, or were initiated by European explorers looking to expand their land. The remaining descendants of the Illinois Confederation have merged with the Peoria and are known as the Peoria Tribe of Indians and reside in Ottawa County, Oklahoma.

Dissolution

Some of the Illinois people's prominent enemies were the Lakota (Sioux), Osage, Pawnee, Sac and Fox Nation and Arikara to the west and the Quapaw, Shawnee, and Chickasaw to the south. Although these tribes were consistent threats, the Iroquois became the most pressing enemy of the Illinois beginning in the late 1600s. The Iroquois, looking for new hunting grounds after exhausting their own resources, killed or captured many Illinois people through their war parties. This capture of land and people eventually pushed the Illinois out of the Great Lakes region and into present-day Kansas. Other than the internal conflict among the tribes themselves, the Illinois also faced threat from European forces that stirred conflict with them and started wars, some of in which the Illinois were recruited as allies.

Additionally, with the expansion of European and Iroquois contact, the Illinois were exposed to a variety of new diseases that caused high mortality among them. Through war and foreign disease, the Illinois population drastically declined to a village of about 300 people by 1778. Pushed out by the Iroquois and Shawnee and facing more numerous European settlers, the Illinois accepted a reservation in 1832 at the Big Muddy River south of Kaskaskia. But within a few months, they ceded the rest of their territory and migrated in order to settle on a reservation in Eastern Kansas.

In 1854, the Illinois merged with the Wea and Piankashaw nations, renaming themselves as the Confederated Peoria Tribe. In 1867, they resettled in a new reservation in Northeast Oklahoma and were eventually joined by members of the Miami Tribe, who became an official part of their new confederation in 1873. Lasting about 50 years, the United Peoria and Miami Tribe dissolved in the 1920s. The remaining members of the Peoria Confederation reorganized, seeking federal recognition by the U.S. government, and were officially acknowledged by 1978. The remaining descendants of the Illinois Confederation are today found within the Peoria in Ottawa County, Oklahoma

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