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Peoria Indian Tribe History
Peoria (through French Peouarea,
from Peoria Piwarea, 'he comes carrying a pack on his back': a
personal name. Gerard). One of the principal tribes of the Illinois
confederacy. Franquelin in his map of 1088 locates them and the Tapouaro
on a river west of the Mississippi above the mouth of Wisconsin river,
probably the upper Iowa river. Early references to the Illinois which
place them on the Mississippi, although some of the tribes were on Rock
and Illinois rivers, must relate to the Peoria and locate them near the
mouth of the Wisconsin. When Marquette and Joliet descended the
Mississippi in 1673, they found them and the Moingwena on the west side of
the Mississippi near the mouth of a river supposed to be the Des Moines,
though it may have been one farther north. When Marquette returned from
the south, he found that the Peoria had removed and were near the lower
end of the expansion of Illinois river, near the present Peoria. At the
close of the war carried on by the Sauk
and Foxes and other northern tribes
against the Illinois, about 1768, the
Kickapoo took possession of
this village and made it their principal settlement.
About the same time a large part of the Peoria crossed
over into Missouri, where they remained, building their village on
Blackwater fork, until they removed to Kansas. One band, the Utagami,
living near Illinois river, was practically exterminated, probably by the
northern tribes, during the Revolutionary war (Gatschet, Sauk and Fox MS.,
B. A. E., 1882). Utagami, according to Dr Wm. Jones, may mean the Foxes
who were known to the northern Algonquians as Utugamig, 'people of the
other shore.' The Foxes claim to have annihilated the Peoria for the help
they gave the French and other tribes in the wars against them (the
Foxes). The main body of the Peoria remained on the east bank of Illinois
river until 1832, when, together with the other tribes of the old Illinois
confederacy, they sold to the United States their claims in Illinois and
Missouri, and to the consolidated tribes, under the names of Peoria and
Kaskaskia, was assigned a reservation on Osage river, Kansas. In 1854 the
Wea and
Piankashaw united with them,
and in 1868 the entire body removed to Indian Territory (Oklahoma), where
they now reside.
The Peoria made or joined in the treaties with the
United States at:
Edwardsville, Ill., Sept. 25, 1818;
Castor Hill, Mo., Oct. 27, 1832;
Washington, D. C., May 30, 1854, and Feb. 23, 1867.
The early estimates of the numbers of the Peoria are
altogether unreliable, and later estimates shed no light on their
population from the fact that several Illinois tribes were then
consolidated under the same name. In 1736 Chauvignerie estimated the
Peoria at about 250 souls. They were so nearly exterminated soon afterward
by the northern tribes that about the year 1800 Gov. William Henry
Harrison of the Northwest Territory could find only 4 men of the tribe
living. In 1829 the Indians consolidated under that name numbered 120.
According to the report of the Indian Office the Peoria and allied tribes
in Oklahoma numbered 192 in 1906.
The books presented are for their
historical value only and are not the
opinions of the Webmasters of the site.
Handbook
of American Indians, 1906
Index of Tribes or Nations
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