Illiniwek
You may be looking for Chief Illiniwek, a symbol of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.The
Illiniwek (also known as the
Illini,
Illinois,
Illinois Confederacy, etc.) were a group of six
Native American tribes in the upper
Mississippi River valley of
North America. The most populous
tribes were the
Kaskaskia, the
Cahokia, the
Peoria, the
Tamaroa,
Moingwena and the
Michigamea.
When
French explorers first journeyed to the region from
Canada in the early
17th century, they found the area inhabited by a vigorous, populous
Algonquian nation who called themselves "Illiniwek", which means "men." This the French rendered as "Illinois". What we know today about the Illiniwek comes to us mainly from the
Jesuit Relations. The
Relations were the reports which these missionaries who lived among the various native nations sent back to their superiors in France.
In the seventeenth century, the Illiniwek suffered due to a combination of European diseases and the expansion of the
Iroquois into the eastern
Great Lakes region. The Iroquois had hunted out their traditional lands and sought more productive hunting and trapping areas. They needed these furs to purchase European trade goods, upon which they had grown dependent.
According to a story recorded by historian
Francis Parkman in
The Conspiracy of Pontiac (1851), a terrible war of retaliation against the Illiniwek resulted from the 1769 murder of the
Ottawa war chief
Pontiac by a Peoria warrior. According to the tale, the Peorias were practically wiped out as a result at what is now
Starved Rock State Park. This legend was debunked by historian
Howard Peckham in 1947, although it is still sometimes repeated in non-scholarly sources. There is no evidence that there were any reprisals for Pontiac's murder.
As a consequence of
Indian Removal, the descendants of the Illiniwek are now found in
Ottawa County, Oklahoma as the
Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma.
*
NPS Site on the Illiniwek*
Illinois Confederacy*
The Illinois*
Tribes of the Illinois/Missouri Region at First*
The Illini: Lords of the Mississippi Valley Contact (1673)*
The Tribes of The Illinois Confederacy*
Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma*
Ilimouec Ethnohistory Project: Eye Witness Descriptions of the Contact Generation, 1667 - 1700
