Mitchigamea or Michigamea or Michigamie were a tribe in the

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

Confederation. Not much is known about them and their origin is uncertain. Originally they were said to be from

Lake Michigan Lake Michigan is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is the second-largest of the Great Lakes by volume () and the third-largest by surface area (), after Lake Superior and Lake Huron. To the east, its basin is conjoined with that o ...

, perhaps the

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

area. Mitchie Precinct,

Monroe County Monroe County may refer to seventeen counties in the United States, all named for James Monroe: * Monroe County, Alabama *Monroe County, Arkansas * Monroe County, Florida * Monroe County, Georgia *Monroe County, Illinois *Monroe County, Indian ...

in Southwestern Illinois takes its name from their transient presence nearby, north of the French

Fort de Chartres Fort de Chartres was a French fortification first built in 1720 on the east bank of the Mississippi River in present-day Illinois. It was used as the administrative center for the province, which was part of New France. Due generally to river floo ...

in the

American Bottom The American Bottom is the flood plain of the Mississippi River in the Metro-East region of Southern Illinois, extending from Alton, Illinois, south to the Kaskaskia River. It is also sometimes called "American Bottoms". The area is about , most ...

along the Mississippi. One of their villages in the American Bottom, inhabited from 1730 until 1752, is one of the region's premier

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...

s; it is known as the "

Kolmer Site The Kolmer Site is an archaeological site in the far southwest of the U.S. state of Illinois. Located near Kaskaskia and Prairie du Rocher in western Randolph County, it lies at the site of an early historic Indian village from the French per ...

". It is suggested that the people later moved to

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...

under pressure from the

Iroquois The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...

. Their best-known chief was

Agapit Chicagou Chief Chicagou, also known as Agapit Chicagou, was an 18th-century Native American leader of the Mitchigamea. He visited Paris and participated in the Chickasaw Wars. 'Agapit' may be a corruption of "Akapia," a Miami-Illinois term for the chie ...

. Benjamin Drake, writing in 1848, records that the Michigamie, along with the other bands in the Illinois Confederation, had been attacked by a general confederation of the Sauk, Fox, Sioux, Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatamies, along with the Cherokee and Choctawa from the south. The war continued for a great many years until the Illinois Confederation was destroyed. Drake records that by 1826 only about 500 members of the Confederation remained. Drake implies that the war came about due to the cruelty of the Illini towards their prisoners, frequently burning them, and even feasting on their flesh when killed. 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 ...

say: "At 5 miles from the village, I found the Tamaroa, who have taken up their winter quarters in a fine Bay, where they await the Mitchigamea, -- who are to come more than 60 leagues to winter there, and to form but one village with them."

Language

Their language was the

Mitchigamea language Mitchigamea or Michigamea was a language spoken by Mitchigamea people. In 1673, Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet used a Mitchigamea man, who only spoke Illinois poorly, as a translator between the Illinois-speaking French, and the Siouan-speak ...

References

External links

Lenville J. Stelle, ''Inoca Ethnohistory Project: Eye Witness Descriptions of the Contact Generation, 1667 - 1700''
Great Lakes tribes Illinois Confederation Native American tribes in Illinois Native American tribes in Michigan Siouan peoples {{NorthAm-native-stub