"The Illinois Indians, also known as Illini or the Illiniwek, were a group of independent tribes sharing a common language and a common origin. The Illinois language belonged to the central Algonquin group, along with the Miami, whom the Illinois Indians closely resembled. "The word 'Illinois' is the French version of the Algonquin term for 'men'. Most American Indian tribes, in their own language, referred to themselves simply as 'the men' or 'the people.'" This group is sometimes referred to as the Illinois Confederacy. They were very loosely associated and were not politically organized into a formal confederacy like the Iroquois or Creeks. The Confederacy label was probably applied because the individual tribes were often camped in the same location when encountered by the early missionaries and explorers."According to the writings of the early Jesuits in the area, the Illinois tribes were believed to have occupied the area along the upper Mississippi for some time prior to contact. The Illiniwek association with the French began as early as 1667 when some of the Indians visited a trading post established along the Fox River in central Wisconsin. "When first contacted by the Europeans, these tribes inhabited a roughly triangular area extending south and west from the Chicago River into what is now Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas. A hundred years later, their boundaries were formed approximately by the Wisconsin, Ohio, Wabash, and Mississippi rivers. This area was referred to by the French as "The Illinois Country."

"In 1673, the Illinois Confederacy included about twelve tribes: Kaskaskia, Maroa, Cahokia, Peoria, Tamaroa, Tapouaro, Coiracoentanon, Espeminka, Moingwena, Chinkoa, Chepoussa, and the Michigamea. "By 1700, all but the Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Michigamea, Peoria, and Tamaroa had disappeared from the territory, through either original misidentification (some of the groups designated as tribes may have been only subdivisions of a tribe) or absorption into other tribes. As their populations diminished, these tribes, too, merged: the Tamaroa and Michigamea joined the Kaskaskia, and the Cahokia merged with the Peoria.

"With increasing pressure from the tribes on the East, as the Iroquois were forced West pushing the Great Lakes tribes ahead of them, the Illinois tribes concentrated in the face of hostilities. After a Kaskaskian Indian killed the Ottawa chief, Pontiac, in 1769, provoking enmity of the Lake tribes, the Illinois took refuge for a period with the French at the village of Kaskaskia. It was at this time that the Sauk, Fox, Kickapoo, and Potowatomi began to move into the territory vacated by the Illiniwek.

"During the latter part of the eighteenth century, the remaining Illinois, their populations greatly diminished, inhabited an area along the Kaskaskia and Big Muddy rivers in southern Illinois, while some members of the combined tribes were moving across the Mississippi River into reservation lands on the Missouri Territory. "In 1832, the last of the Illinois lands were ceded to the United States government and the survivors withdrew across the Mississippi River. Only eight Kaskaskia warriors were included in the group that settled with the Peoria in Kansas. Two hundred Peoria and Kaskaskia were reported on the reservation in 1840. By 1851, the Indian agent reported that their tribal identification had been lost and only a few remained. By the end of the century, the Illiniwek were essentially gone except for the Peoria Indian Tribe of Oklahoma which numbered a little over 400 in 1956.

"The Illiniwek lived by combining hunting, fishing, farming, and gathering in a yearly cycle. About the first of April they returned to their semi-permanent village sites spread along the river banks. Here, they lived in bark or reed-mat-covered framework lodges, apparently four of five families in a single lodge, probably all part of one extended family. "In the fall, the whole tribe moved onto the plains on foot for the long winter buffalo hunt..."February was the accepted time of year for war and raiding parties. These were generally small, led by a war leader, and followed strict policing rituals. Taking captives was considered more honorable than killing the enemy, and a successful raiding party returned without losses. Slaves were apparently common, and captured women and children were often adopted into families to replace lost members." Weapons included bows and arrows, considered superior to the gun because they could fire more rapidly, as well as clubs and hatchets (tomahawks). Metal knives and hatchets and guns were available although not plentiful. Arrow points and spear points were made of stone or of metal and glass obtained from fragments of European materials. Shields formed of several layers of buffalo hide were carried by war and raiding parties.

"Games such as lacrosse, gambling, races, and dances were a part of religious ceremonies as well as recreation. Games were played between groups within a village or tribe or between different tribes. Education of the children was treated as a game. "Dress was kept to a bare minimum. Except for moccasins and a loincloth or skirt of some type, both sexes normally wore little clothing for everyday. Buffalo-skin robes were added during severe weather. Special occasions called for additional adornment in clothing, jewelry, body painting, and hair dressing and ornamentation.

Little is known of the details of the Shawnee's expulsion from the Ohio Valley during the first part of the Beaver Wars (1630-1700). Blame is usually placed with the Iroquois, but the Shawnee may also have warred at some earlier period with the Erie and Neutrals. The Shawnee lacked firearms and were forced to abandon most of the upper Ohio Valley during the late 1660s. Rather than retreat en mass to Wisconsin, they dispersed into four groups. One group of Shawnee retreated west towards the Illinois country, where they became known to the French as Chaskp (Chaouesnon). In 1683 there were almost 3,000 of this western group of Shawnee living in the vicinity of the French trading post at Fort St. Louis on the upper Illinois River. Allied with the Miami and Illinois, the Shawnee continued their war with the Iroquois, and in 1684 the Seneca attacked the Miami, because they had allowed some of these hostile Shawnee to settle near their villages in northwest Indiana.

For a period of 70 years following its conquest by the Iroquois during the 1660s, the Ohio Valley (Indiana, Lower Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, and western Pennsylvania) was almost entirely uninhabited. The Iroquois never occupied the area but preferred to use it as a private hunting preserve. Freed from the pressure of its former human population, the Ohio Country quickly became a prime hunting territory. Although the Iroquois prevented permanent settlements, small groups of Shawnee returned frequently to the Ohio Valley to hunt, so during their many years of exile, the Shawnee never completely surrendered the claim to their homeland. Meanwhile, they were proving to be unwelcome guests in their new locations. Despite the common threat posed by the Iroquois at the time, the crowded conditions near the French trading posts in Illinois eventually provoked a violent confrontation between the Shawnee and Illinois Confederacy in 1689. The Shawnee soon left the area to join their relatives in Tennessee, but forever afterwards, they had a strong dislike for the Illinois and often returned to raid their villages.

After nearly a century of separation, the different bands of Shawnee were coming back to their original homeland, but the moves toward their eventual reunion were not always smooth. One group of Pennsylvania Shawnee continued south and, after making peace with the Cherokee in 1746, resettled the Cumberland Basin. The peace, however, did not include the Chickasaw, and the Shawnee were attacked and driven from Tennessee after a battle near Nashville in 1756. Afterwards, they moved north to Ohio where most of the other Shawnee were living at the time. Meanwhile, a large group of Cumberland Shawnee had settled in 1745 at Shawneetown which was near a new French fort on the Ohio in southern Illinois. The location proved to be too exposed to attack by the Chickasaw, and after only two years, they left and moved to western Pennsylvania. By 1758 all of the Shawnee, except for the few still with the Creek in Alabama, were living along the north side of the Ohio between the Allegheny and Scioto Rivers.

Large groups of Shawnee had left Ohio in 1773 and 1779 and settled in southeast Missouri. The Spanish appreciated them as a means of checking the Osage and a defense against the Americans east of the Mississippi. Spanish emissaries came to Ohio in 1788 to urge more Shawnee and Delaware to emigrate, and more groups left. In 1793 Baron de Carondelet, the Spanish governor of Louisiana, gave the Missouri Shawnee a 25 mile square land grant near Cape Girardeau. Groups of Ohio Shawnee joined them

By 1800 there were more Shawnee in Missouri than Ohio. The Missouri Shawnee maintained close ties to the Delaware who settled with them, but both tribes had problems with the Osage who had a nasty habit of taking other people's horses. There were also problems with the Kaskaskia (Illinois) east of the Mississippi who, because of memories of earlier wars with the Shawnee, usually refused to allow the Shawnee to hunt or travel across their territory to visit their relatives still in Ohio. This erupted into open warfare during 1802 when the Shawnee attacked a large Kaskaskia hunting party. The Kaskaskia lost so many of their few remaining warriors, they never again challenged the Shawnee's right to move as they pleased through southern Illinois.

After years of conflict with the American army and other tribes, several hundred Missouri Shawnee and Delaware left the United States in 1815 and moved to Texas where, once again, they were welcomed by Spanish as a barrier against the Americans. They became known as the Absentee Shawnee.

Missouri entered the union as the 24th state in 1821, and the federal government moved in 1825 to extinguish the Shawnee claims under the Spanish land grant. In November the 1,400 Shawnee in Missouri agreed to a treaty signed at St. Louis with William Clark (Lewis and Clark fame and George Rogers' brother) exchanging their lands near Cape Girardeau for 2,500 square miles in eastern Kansas. They also received $14,000 in moving expenses plus $11,000 to pay debts owed to white traders. Further provision was made to allow any of the 800 Ohio Shawnee who so desired to join them in Kansas. When they settled on the south side of the Kansas River the following year, the Shawnee became the first of the eastern Algonquin tribes to settle in Kansas. Problems arose, however, when the very traditional Black Bob's band balked at uniting with the Ohio Shawnee. Instead of moving to Kansas after the treaty, they went south and settled in Arkansas. During the next two years, all efforts (including bribery) failed to persuade them to move. After threat of military force, they settled at Olathe in 1833.

"The Illiniwek," compiled by Judi Johnson, Assistant Curator of Ethnography, Illinois State Museum.
http://crusader.cso.uiuc.edu/~bohlmann/illini.html

"The Illini Confederation: Lords of the Mississippi Valley," compiled by Bob Fester (bob.fester@jal.cc.il.us)
http://members.tripod.com/RFester/index.html

"Illinois-The Indian Tribes of North America," compiled by John R. Swanton.
http://www.mdc.net/~cherokee/illinois.txt

"The Kaskaskia Indians," compiled by James Mooney from the Catholic Encyclopedia.
http://www.knight.org/advent/cathen/08608b.htm

"Shawnee History," Lee Sultzman,
http://www.dickshovel.com/shaw.html