The Mascouten (also ''Mascoutin'', ''Mathkoutench'', ''Muscoden,'' or ''Musketoon'') were a tribe of Algonquian-speaking Native Americans located in the Midwest. They are believed to have dwelt on both sides 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 ...

, adjacent to the present-day

Wisconsin Wisconsin () is a state in the upper Midwestern United States. Wisconsin is the 25th-largest state by total area and the 20th-most populous. It is bordered by Minnesota to the west, Iowa to the southwest, Illinois to the south, Lake M ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rockf ...

border, after being driven out of Michigan by the Odawa. The accounts of the ''

Jesuit Relations ''The Jesuit Relations'', also known as ''Relations des Jésuites de la Nouvelle-France'', are chronicles of the Jesuit missions in New France. The works were written annually and printed beginning in 1632 and ending in 1673. Originally written ...

'' frequently refer to the Mascouten as the "Fire Nation" or "Nation of Fire". One Jesuit writes: "The Fire Nation is erroneously so called, its correct name being ''Maskoutench'', which means "a treeless country," like that inhabited by these people; but as, by changing a few letters, this Word is made to signify "fire," therefore the people have come to be called the Fire Nation." Their name apparently comes either from a Fox word meaning "Little Prairie People" or from the Sauk term ''Mashkotêwi'' ("

Prairie Prairies are ecosystems considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and a composition of grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the ...

") or ''Mashkotêwineniwa'' (" Plains Indians") and ''shkotêwi'' ("fire") which would fit the Jesuits statement. Historians do not know what they called themselves (

autonym Autonym may refer to: * Autonym, the name used by a person to refer to themselves or their language; see Exonym and endonym * Autonym (botany), an automatically created infrageneric or infraspecific name See also * Nominotypical subspecies, in zo ...

). The Huron knew them also as ''Atsistaeronnon'' ("people of the fire"). They are first mentioned in historic records by French missionaries, who described the people as inhabiting the southern area of present-day

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

. The missionaries reported the Mascouten as being more populous than all the Neutral Nation, the Huron, and the Iroquois nations, put together. In 1712, the Mascouten united with the Kickapoo and the

Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

, after almost being exterminated by the French and the Potawatomi. Survivors migrated westward. The Mascouten are last referred to as a band in historic records in 1779, when they were living on the

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 present-day

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 ...

) with peoples of the

Piankashaw 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 Pers ...

and the Kickapoo. The surviving Mascouten are noted in United States records of 1813 and 1825 as being part of the Kickapoo Prairie Band. The city of

Mascoutah Mascoutah is a city in St. Clair County, Illinois, United States, named for the Mascoutens, a tribe of the Michigan Indians. The population was 7,483 at the 2010 census. According to the US Census Bureau, the population was estimated at 7,994 i ...

was named in 1839 after the Mascouten tribe. The village of Moscow, Iowa County, Wisconsin is said to have been named after the Mascouten tribe.

References

;Notes ;Bibliography *Johnson, M. and Hook, R. ''The Native Tribes of North America'', Compendium Publishing, 1992. *"Wisconsin Historical Society." Wisconsin Historical Society. N.p., n.d. Web. 24 Feb. 2013. .

External links

Mascouten history
*
Wisconsin Historical Society
{{authority control Native American tribes in Illinois Native American tribes in Wisconsin Native American tribes in Iowa Native American tribes in Michigan Algonquian ethnonyms Kickapoo tribe