The Kickapoo people ( Kickapoo: ''Kiikaapoa'' or ''Kiikaapoi''; es, Kikapú) are an Algonquian-speaking Native American and

Indigenous Mexican Indigenous peoples of Mexico ( es, gente indígena de México, pueblos indígenas de México), Native Mexicans ( es, nativos mexicanos) or Mexican Native Americans ( es, pueblos originarios de México, lit=Original peoples of Mexico), are those ...

tribe The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide usage of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. This definition is contested, in part due to confli ...

, originating in the region south of the

Great Lakes The Great Lakes, also called the Great Lakes of North America, are a series of large interconnected freshwater lakes in the mid-east region of North America that connect to the Atlantic Ocean via the Saint Lawrence River. There are five lak ...

. Today, three

federally recognized This is a list of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States of America. There are also federally recognized Alaska Native tribes. , 574 Indian tribes were legally recognized by the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) of the United ...

Kickapoo tribes are in the United States: the Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas, the

Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma The Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma is one of three federally recognized Kickapoo tribes in the United States. There are also Kickapoo tribes in Kansas, Texas, and Mexico. The Kickapoo are a Woodland tribe, who speak an Algonquian language.Kuhlman, ...

, and the

Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas The Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, based in Eagle Pass, is a federally recognized tribe that uses revenue from its gaming and business operations to provide housing, education, and social services to its members. The tribe has been held a ...

. The Oklahoma and Texas bands are politically associated with each other. The Kickapoo in Kansas came from a relocation from southern Missouri in 1832 as a

land exchange A land exchange or land swap is the exchange of land between two parties, typically a private owner and a government. These parties may include farmers, estate owners, nature organizations, and governments. Land swaps may also take place between two ...

from their reserve there. Around 3,000 people are enrolled tribal members. Another band, the Tribu Kikapú, resides in

Múzquiz Municipality Múzquiz is one of the 38 municipalities of Coahuila, in north-eastern Mexico. The municipal seat lies at Santa Rosa de Múzquiz. The municipality covers an area of . As of 2005, the municipality had a total population of 62,710. Of these, 242 ...

in the northern Mexican state of Coahuila. Smaller bands live in Sonora, to the west, and Durango, to the southwest.

Name and etymology

According to some sources, the name "Kickapoo" (''Giiwigaabaw'' in the

Anishinaabe language Ojibwe , also known as Ojibwa , Ojibway, Otchipwe,R. R. Bishop Baraga, 1878''A Theoretical and Practical Grammar of the Otchipwe Language''/ref> Ojibwemowin, or Anishinaabemowin, is an indigenous language of North America of the Algonquian lan ...

and its Kickapoo cognate ''Kiwikapawa'') means "stands here and there," which may have referred to the tribe's migratory patterns. The name can also mean "wanderer". This interpretation is contested and generally believed to be a folk etymology.

History

Pre-1800s

The Kickapoo are an Algonquian-language people who likely migrated to or developed as a people in a large territory along the southern

Wabash River The Wabash River (French: Ouabache) is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed May 13, 2011 river that drains most of the state of Indiana in the United States. It flows from ...

in the area of modern Terre Haute, Indiana, where they were located at the time of first contact with Europeans in the 1600s. They were confederated with the larger

Wabash Confederacy The Wabash Confederacy, also referred to as the Wabash Indians or the Wabash tribes, was a number of 18th century Native American villagers in the area of the Wabash River in what are now the U.S. states of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio. The Wabash ...

, which included the

Piankeshaw The Piankeshaw, Piankashaw or Pianguichia were members of the Miami tribe who lived apart from the rest of the Miami nation, therefore they were known as Peeyankihšiaki ("splitting off" from the others, Sing.: ''Peeyankihšia'' - "Piankeshaw Per ...

and the Wea to their north, and the powerful

Miami Tribe The Miami ( Miami-Illinois: ''Myaamiaki'') are a Native American nation originally speaking one of the Algonquian languages. Among the peoples known as the Great Lakes tribes, they occupied territory that is now identified as North-central Indi ...

, to their east. A subgroup occupied the

Upper Iowa River The Upper Iowa River is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed May 13, 2011 tributary of the Mississippi River in the upper Midwest of the United States. Its headwaters rise ...

region in what was later known as northeast

Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to th ...

and the Root River region in southeast

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

in the late 1600s and early 1700s. This group was probably known by the clan name "Mahouea", derived from the Illinoian word for wolf, ''m'hwea''. The earliest European contact with the Kickapoo tribe occurred during the

La Salle Expeditions LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second largest city in the United States. La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * La (musical note), or A, the sixth note * "L.A.", a song by Elliott Smith on ''Figure ...

into

Illinois Country The Illinois Country (french: Pays des Illinois ; , i.e. the Illinois people)—sometimes referred to as Upper Louisiana (french: Haute-Louisiane ; es, Alta Luisiana)—was a vast region of New France claimed in the 1600s in what is n ...

in the late 17th century. The French colonists set up remote

fur trading The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals have been the most ...

posts throughout the region, including on the Wabash River. They typically set up posts at or near Native American villages. Terre Haute was founded as an associated French village. The Kickapoo had to contend with a changing cast of Europeans; the British defeated the French in the

Seven Years' War The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) was a global conflict that involved most of the European Great Powers, and was fought primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. Other concurrent conflicts include the French and Indian War (175 ...

and took over nominal rule of former French territory east of the Mississippi River after 1763. They increased their own trading with the Kickapoo.

1800s to present

The United States acquired the territory east of the Mississippi River and north of the Ohio River after it gained independence from the United Kingdom. As white settlers moved into the region from the United States' eastern areas, beginning in the early 19th century, the Kickapoo were under pressure. They negotiated with the United States over their territory in several treaties, including the Treaty of Vincennes, the

Treaty of Grouseland The Treaty of Grouseland was an agreement negotiated by Governor William Henry Harrison of the Indiana Territory on behalf of the government of the United States of America with Native American leaders, including Little Turtle and Buckongahelas, ...

, and the Treaty of Fort Wayne. They sold most of their lands to the United States and moved north to settle among the Wea. Rising tensions between the regional tribes and the United States led to

Tecumseh's War Tecumseh's War or Tecumseh's Rebellion was a conflict between the United States and Tecumseh's Confederacy, led by the Shawnee leader Tecumseh in the Indiana Territory. Although the war is often considered to have climaxed with William Henry Ha ...

in 1811. The Kickapoo were among the closest allies of Shawnee leader Tecumseh. Many Kickapoo warriors participated in the

Battle of Tippecanoe The Battle of Tippecanoe ( ) was fought on November 7, 1811, in Battle Ground, Indiana, between American forces led by then Governor William Henry Harrison of the Indiana Territory and Native American forces associated with Shawnee leader Tecum ...

and the subsequent

War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States, United States of America and its Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom ...

on the side of the British, hoping to expel the white American settlers from the region. The 1819 treaty of Edwardsville saw the Kickapoo cede the entirety of their holdings in Illinois comprising nearly one-half area of the state, in exchange for a smaller tract on the Osage river in Missouri and $3,000 worth of goods. The Kickapoo were not eager to move, partly as their assigned tract in Missouri was made of rugged hills and already occupied by the Osage, who were their hereditary enemies. Instead, half of the population traveled south and crossed onto the Spanish side of the Red river in modern day

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

. The US government quickly mobilized to prevent this emigration and force their removal to Missouri. This remnant of Kickapoo remained in Illinois under the guidance of

Kennekuk Keannekeuk (c. 1790–1852), also known as the "Kickapoo Prophet", was a Kickapoo medicine man and spiritual leader of the Vermilion band of the Kickapoo nation. He lived in East Central Illinois much of his life along the Vermilion River. One s ...

, a prominent, nonviolent spiritual leader among the Kickapoo. He led his followers during the Indian Removal in the 1830s to their current tribal lands in Kansas. He died there of smallpox in 1852. The close of the war led to a change of federal Indian policy in the

Indiana Territory The Indiana Territory, officially the Territory of Indiana, was created by a congressional act that President John Adams signed into law on May 7, 1800, to form an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 4, ...

, and later the state of

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

. White American leaders began to advocate the removal of tribes to lands west of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it fl ...

, to extinguish their claims to lands wanted by white American settlers. The Kickapoo were among the first tribes to leave Indiana under this program. They accepted land in

Kansas Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to th ...

and an annual subsidy in exchange for leaving the state.

Language

Kickapoo is dialect of the

Fox language Fox (known by a variety of different names, including Mesquakie (Meskwaki), Mesquakie-Sauk, Mesquakie-Sauk-Kickapoo, Sauk-Fox, and Sac and Fox) is an Algonquian language, spoken by a thousand Meskwaki, Sauk, and Kickapoo in various locations i ...

closely related to dialects spoken by the

Sauk people The Sauk or Sac are a group of Native Americans of the Eastern Woodlands culture group, who lived primarily in the region of what is now Green Bay, Wisconsin, when first encountered by the French in 1667. Their autonym is oθaakiiwaki, and th ...

and Meskwaki people. They are classified with the Central Algonquian languages, and are also related to the

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, Ill ...

. In 1985, the Kickapoo Nation's School in

Horton, Kansas Horton is a city in Brown County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 1,523. History Horton was founded in 1886. It was named for Albert H. Horton, chief justice of the Kansas Supreme Court. On Januar ...

, began a language-immersion program for elementary school grades to revive teaching and use of the Kickapoo language in kindergarten through grade 6. Efforts in language education continue at most Kickapoo sites. In 2010, the Head Start Program at the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas reservation, which teaches the Kickapoo language, became "the first Native American school to earn Texas School Ready! (TSR) Project certification." Also in 2010, Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia participated in the elaboration of a Kickapoo alphabet. The Kickapoo in Mexico are known for their

whistled speech Whistled languages use whistling to emulate speech and facilitate communication. A whistled language is a system of whistled communication which allows fluent whistlers to transmit and comprehend a potentially unlimited number of messages over l ...

. Texts, recordings, and a vocabulary of the language are available. The Kickapoo language and members of the Kickapoo tribe were featured in the movie '' The Only Good Indian'' (2009), directed by Greg Wilmott and starring

Wes Studi Wesley Studi ( chr, ᏪᏌ ᏍᏚᏗ; born December 17, 1947) is a Native American ( Cherokee Nation) actor and film producer. He has garnered critical acclaim and awards throughout his career, particularly for his portrayal of Native American ...

. This was a fictionalized account of Native American children forced to attend an

Indian boarding school American Indian boarding schools, also known more recently as American Indian residential schools, were established in the United States from the mid 17th to the early 20th centuries with a primary objective of "civilizing" or assimilating Na ...

, where they were forced to speak English and give up their cultural practices.

Writing system

A Kickapoo alphabet was developed by Paul Voorhis in 1974 and was revised in 1981. A new orthography is used by the Kickapoo Language Development Program in Oklahoma.

Sounds

Consonants

Eleven

consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced wi ...

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...

s are used in Kickapoo: * The voiceless sounds can sometimes be voiced as . * in word-initial position can also be aspirated as . * // can also be pronounced as .

Vowels

* The eight

vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (leng ...

sounds in Kickapoo are: short and long . * Sounds , can be phonetically heard as

allophones In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...

and can be heard as .

Tribes and communities

Three federally recognized Kickapoo communities are in the United States in Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma. The

Mexican Kickapoo The Mexican Kickapoo ( es, Tribu Kikapú) are a binational Indigenous people, some of whom live both in Mexico and in the United States. In Mexico, they were granted land at Hacienda del Nacimiento near the town of Múzquiz in the state of Coahui ...

are closely tied to the Texas and Oklahoma communities. These groups migrate annually among the three locations to maintain connections. Indeed, the Texas and Mexican branches are the same cross-border nation, called Kickapoo of Coahuila/Texas

Kickapoo Indian Reservation of Kansas

The tribe in Kansas was home to prophet Kenekuk, who was known for his astute leadership that allowed the small group to maintain their reservation. Kenekuk wanted to keep order among the tribe he was in, while living in Kansas. He also wanted to focus on keeping the identity of the Kickapoo people, because of all the relocations they had done. The basis of Kenekuk's leadership began in the religious revivals of the 1820s and 1830s, with a blend of Protestantism and Catholicism. Kenekuk taught his tribesmen and white audiences to obey God's commands, for sinners were damned to the pits of hell. Once the Kickapoo people got relocated to Kansas they resisted the ideas of Protestantism and Catholicism and started focusing more on farming, so they could provide food for the rest of the tribe. After this had happened they remained together and claimed some of the original land that they had before it was taken by Americans. The Kickapoo Indian Reservation of Kansas is located at in the northeastern part of the state in parts of three counties:

Brown Brown is a color. It can be considered a composite color, but it is mainly a darker shade of orange. In the CMYK color model used in printing or painting, brown is usually made by combining the colors orange and black. In the RGB color model us ...

Jackson Jackson may refer to: People and fictional characters * Jackson (name), including a list of people and fictional characters with the surname or given name Places Australia * Jackson, Queensland, a town in the Maranoa Region * Jackson North, Qu ...

, and

Atchison Atchison may refer to: Places In the United States: *Atchison, California, a former settlement *Atchison, Kansas, a city *Atchison County, Kansas *Atchison County, Missouri People with the surname * Bob Atchison (born 1941), Canadian drag race ...

. It has a land area of and a resident population of 4,419 as of the 2000 census. The largest community on the reservation is the city of Horton. The other communities are: * Muscotah * Netawaka * Powhattan * Whiting * Willis

Kickapoo Indian Reservation of Texas

The Kickapoo Indian Reservation of Texas is located at on the Rio Grande on the U.S.-Mexico border in western Maverick County, just south of the city of Ciudad Acuña, as part of the community of Rosita South. It has a land area of and a 2000 census population of 420 persons. The Texas Indian Commission officially recognized the tribe in 1977. Other Kickapoo in Maverick County, Texas, constitute the "South Texas Subgroup of the Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma". That tribe formerly owned of non-reservation land in Maverick County, primarily to the north of Eagle Pass, but has sold most of it to a developer. It has an office in that city.

Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma

After being expelled from the Republic of Texas, many Kickapoo moved south to

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

, but the population of two villages settled in

Indian Territory The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans who held aboriginal title to their land as a sovereign ...

. One village settled within the

Chickasaw Nation The Chickasaw Nation (Chickasaw: Chikashsha I̠yaakni) is a federally recognized Native American tribe, with its headquarters located in Ada, Oklahoma in the United States. They are an Indigenous people of the Southeastern Woodlands, original ...

and the other within the

Muscogee Creek Nation The Muscogee Nation, or Muscogee (Creek) Nation, is a federally recognized Native American tribe based in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The nation descends from the historic Muscogee Confederacy, a large group of indigenous peoples of the South ...

. These Kickapoo were granted their own reservation in 1883 and became recognized as the Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma. The reservation was short-lived. In 1893 under the Dawes Act, their communal tribal lands were broken up and assigned to separate member households by allotments. The tribe's government was dismantled by the

Curtis Act of 1898 The Curtis Act of 1898 was an amendment to the United States Dawes Act; it resulted in the break-up of tribal governments and communal lands in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma) of the Five Civilized Tribes of Indian Territory: the Choctaw, Chickasa ...

, which encouraged assimilation by Native Americans to the majority culture. Tribal members struggled under these conditions. In the 1930s the federal and state governments encouraged tribes to reorganize their governments. This one formed the Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma in 1936, under the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act.Annette Kuhlman, "Kickapoo"
, ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture'', Oklahoma Historical Society, 2009 (accessed 21 February 2009) Today the Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma is headquartered in

McLoud, Oklahoma McLoud is a town in northwestern Pottawatomie County, Oklahoma, United States, and is part of the Oklahoma City Consolidated Metropolitan Area. The population was 4,044 at the 2010 census, a 14.0 percent increase from the figure of 3,548 in 20 ...

. Their tribal jurisdictional area is in Oklahoma,

Pottawatomie The Potawatomi , also spelled Pottawatomi and Pottawatomie (among many variations), are a Native American people of the western Great Lakes region, upper Mississippi River and Great Plains. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, a m ...