Nature Bulletin No. 388-A   September 26, 1970
Forest Preserve District of Cook County
George W. Dunne, President
Roland F. Eisenbeis, Supt. of Conservation

****:INDIAN TRIBES OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY

The white men found many tribes inhabiting what became the 
Northwest Territory in 1787, and all but one belonged to the largest and 
most important Indian family, the Algonquians. The powerful Shawnee 
occupied most of the Ohio valley and its tributaries extending south into 
Kentucky, West Virginia and Tennessee. Tecumseh and his brother, 
"The Prophet", were Shawnee.

The Iliniwek, called 'Illinois" by the French, was an Algonquian 
confederacy which had, for a long time, occupied most of this state 
except the northwestern part and the Wabash valley. In addition to 
several small bands it included the Kaskaskia, Peoria, Cahokia, 
Moingewena, and the Michigamea. The latter, whom Father Marquette 
found living in Missouri and Arkansas, were finally forced to move 
back into southern Illinois.

The nearest kin of the Iliniwek were the Miami. They shifted around a 
lot and at times there were big Miami villages at Starved Rock, 
Chicago, and in Michigan, but their principal territory was in the 
Wabash valley from the Ohio River to Fort Wayne. They were divided 
into bands such as the Piankeshaw, Wea, and Eel River.

In Wisconsin were the Winnebago but they belonged to an Indian 
family with languages radically different from the Algonquians -- The 
Siouans. Before DeSoto discovered the Mississippi, the Siouans had 
migrated westward from what is now eastern United States and that 
must have caused a terrible turmoil ! One main group moved down the 
Ohio River and then split. The Quapaw or Arkansea (the "downstream 
people") went south along the Mississippi to the Arkansas River. The 
Omaha or "upstream people" went north and up the Missouri where 
they eventually formed four tribes Omaha, Osage, Kansa and Ponca.

The other main group of Siouans took a northerly course along the 
Great Lakes. The warlike Dakota, or Sioux, continued on into 
Minnesota. The Iowa, Missouri, Oto, and Mandans went southwest 
across the Mississippi but the Winnebago stayed in Wisconsin.

Later, four closely related Algonquian tribes -- the Outagami (called 
Reynards or Foxes by the French), Sauk or Sac, Mascouten and 
Kickapoo -- were driven west from Michigan into Wisconsin by the 
Ottawa and Iroquois. The Sauk and Foxes extended their territory into 
Illinois along the Rock River. The Kickapoo finally established 
themselves in eastern Illinois.

Extending from the St. Lawrence River, Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, 
southward into Pennsylvania, were the Iroquois "Five Nations" -- 
Mohawk, Oneida, Onandaga, Cayuga and Seneca -- a powerful warlike 
confederacy with a highly developed political system. In 1722 they 
were joined by the Tuscarora of North Carolina who, like the Cherokee, 
also belonged to the Iroquoian Family. The Iroquois traveled the Great 
Lakes in war canoes to massacre in the Huron, Ottawa, and especially 
the Illinois, because these Indians traded with the hated French.

The Potawatomi, Ottawa, and Chippewa or Ojibwa, were three large 
Algonquian tribes which considered themselves one people. In 1762, 
led by the Ottawa chief, Pontiac, they captured all of the 13 British forts 
except Detroit, Pitt and Niagara. They spread until they occupied all the 
shores of Lake Michigan and, as the Iliniwek became weaker, the upper 
valley of the Illinois River. It was the Potawatomi who committed the 
Fort Dearborn Massacre in 1812.

A good classroom project would be to mark, on a map, the territories of 
these tribes .