Miami people

The Miami are a Native American nation originally speaking the Miami–Illinois language, one of the Algonquian languages. Among the peoples known as the Great Lakes tribes, they occupied territory that is now identified as north-central Indiana, southwest Michigan, and western Ohio. The Miami were historically made up of several prominent subgroups, including the Piankeshaw, Wea, Pepikokia, Kilatika, Mengakonkia, and Atchakangouen. In modern times, Miami is used more specifically to refer to the Atchakangouen. By 1846, most of the Miami had been forcefully displaced to Indian Territory. The Miami Tribe of Oklahoma are the federally recognized tribe of Miami Indians in the United States. The Miami Nation of Indiana, a nonprofit organization of self-identified descendants of Miamis who were exempted from removal, have unsuccessfully sought separate recognition.

Name

The name Miami derives from Myaamia, the tribe's autonym in their Algonquian language of Miami–Illinois. This appears to have been derived from an older term meaning "downstream people." Some scholars contended the Miami called themselves the Twightwee, supposedly an onomatopoeic reference to their sacred bird, the sandhill crane. Recent studies have shown that Twightwee derives from the Delaware language exonym for the Miamis, tuwéhtuwe, a name of unknown etymology. Some Miami have stated that this was only a name used by other tribes for the Miami, and not their autonym. They also called themselves Mihtohseeniaki. The Miami continue to use this autonym today.

Name	Source	Name	Source
Maiama		Maumee	later French
Meames		Memilounique	French
Metouseceprinioueks		Myamicks
		Nation de la Grue	French
Omameeg		Omaumeg	Chippewa
Oumami		Oumamik	1st French
Piankashaw		Quikties
Tawatawas		Titwa
Tuihtuihronoons		Twechtweys
Twightwees	Delaware	Wea	band

History

Prehistory

Early Miami people are considered to belong to the Fisher Tradition of Mississippian culture. Mississippian societies were characterized by maize-based agriculture, chiefdom-level social organization, extensive regional trade networks, hierarchical settlement patterns, and other factors. The historical Miami engaged in hunting, as did other Mississippian peoples.
Written history of the Miami traces back to missionaries and explorers who encountered them in what is now Wisconsin, from which they migrated south and eastwards from the mid-17th century to the mid-18th century, settling on the upper Wabash River and the Maumee River in what is now northeastern Indiana and northwestern Ohio. By oral history, this migration was a return to the region where they had long lived before being invaded during the Beaver Wars by the Iroquois. Early European colonists and traders on the East Coast had fueled demand for furs, and the Iroquois – based in central and western New York – had acquired early access to European firearms through trade and had used them to conquer the Ohio Valley area for use as hunting grounds, which temporarily depopulated as Algonquin woodlands tribes fled west as refugees. The warfare and ensuing social disruption – along with the spread of infectious European diseases such as measles and smallpox for which they had no immunity – contributed to the decimation of Native American populations in the interior.
Historic locations

Year	Location
1658	Northeast of Lake Winnebago, Wisconsin
1667	Mississippi Valley of Wisconsin
1670	Head of the Fox River, Wisconsin; Chicago village
1673	St. Joseph River Village, Michigan ,
	Kalamazoo River Village, Michigan
1703	Detroit village, Michigan
1720–63	Miami River locations, Ohio
	Scioto River village, Ohio
1764	Wabash River villages, Indiana
1831	Indian Territory

European contact

When French missionaries first encountered the Miami in the mid-17th century, generating the first written historical record of the tribe, the indigenous people were living around the western shores of Lake Michigan. According to Miami oral tradition, they had moved there a few generations earlier from the region that is now northern Indiana, southern Michigan, and northwestern Ohio to escape pressure from Iroquois war parties seeking to monopolize control over furs in the Ohio Valley. Early French explorers noticed many linguistic and cultural similarities between the Miami bands and the Illiniwek, a loose confederacy of Algonquian-speaking peoples. The term "Miami" has imprecise meaning to historians. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the term "Miami" generally referred to all of these bands as one grand tribe. Over the course of the 19th century, "Miami" came to specifically refer to the Atchakangoen band.
Around the beginning of the 18th century, with support from French traders coming down from what is now Canada who supplied them with firearms and wanted to trade with them for furs, the Miami pushed back into their historical territory and resettled it. At this time, the major bands of the Miami were:

Atchakangouen, Atchatchakangouen, Atchakangouen, Greater Miami or Crane Band at the confluence of the Saint Joseph , Saint Marys and Maumee River on the western edge of the Great Black Swamp in present-day Indiana – this place was although called saakiiweeki taawaawa siipiiwi
Kilatika, Kilatak, Kiratika called by the French, later known by the English as Eel River Band of Miamis; autonym: Kineepikomeekwaki moved its location from the headwaters of the Eel River down to its mouth at the Wabash River
Mengakonkia or Mengkonkia, Michikinikwa ' people
Pepikokia, Pepicokea, later known as Tepicon Band or Tippecanoe Band; autonym: Kiteepihkwana, their main village Kithtippecanuck / Kiteepihkwana moved its location various times from the headwaters of the Tippecanoe River to its mouth into the Wabash River – sometimes although known as Nation de la Gruë or Miamis of Meramec River, possibly the name of a Miami–Illinois band named Myaarameekwa that lived along the Meramec River
Piankeshaw, Piankashaw, Pianguichia; autonym: Peeyankihšiaki lived in several villages along the White River in western Indiana, the Vermilion River and Wabash Rivers in Illinois and later along the Great Miami River in western Ohio, their first main village Peeyankihšionki was at the confluence of Vermilion River and the Wabash River – one minor settlement was at the confluence of the main tributaries of the Vermilion River, the second important settlement was named Aciipihkahkionki / Chippekawkay / Chippecoke and was situated at the mouth of the Embarras River in the Wabash River, in the 18th century a third settlement outside the historic Wabash River Valley named Pinkwaawilenionki / Pickawillany was erected along the Great Miami River
Wea, Wiatonon, Ouiatanon or Ouaouiatanoukak; autonym: Waayaahtanooki or Waayaahtanwa, because their main village Waayaahtanonki was at the riverside where a whirlpool was in the river, under the term "Ouiatanon" was both referred to a group of extinct five Wea settlements or to their historic tribal lands along the Middle Wabash Valley between the Eel River to the north and the Vermilion River to the south, the ″real″Quiatanon at the mouth of the Wea Creek into the Wabash River was their main village

In 1696, the Comte de Frontenac appointed Jean Baptiste Bissot, Sieur de Vincennes as commander of the French outposts in northeast Indiana and southwest Michigan. He befriended the Miami people, settling first at the St. Joseph River, and, in 1704, establishing a trading post and fort at Kekionga, present-day Fort Wayne, Indiana, the de facto Miami capital which controlled an important land portage linking the Maumee River to the Wabash River.
By the 18th century, the Miami had for the most part returned to their homeland in present-day Indiana and Ohio. The eventual victory of the British in the French and Indian War led to an increased British presence in traditional Miami areas.
Shifting alliances and the gradual encroachment of European-American settlement led to some Miami bands, including the Piankeshaw, and Wea, effectively merging into what was sometimes called the Miami Confederacy. Native Americans created larger tribal confederacies led by Chief Little Turtle; their alliances were for waging war against Europeans and to fight advancing white settlement, and the broader Miami itself became a subset of the so-called Western Confederacy during the Northwest Indian War.
The U.S. government later included the Miami with the Illini for administrative purposes. The Eel River band maintained a somewhat separate status, which proved beneficial in the removals of the 19th century. The Miami nation's traditional capital was Kekionga.

Locations

French years

1718–94 Kekionga, Portage of the Maumee and Wabash rivers, Fort Wayne, Indiana
1720–49 Portage of the Miami River, St. Joseph and Kankakee rivers
unknown – 1733 Tepicon of the Wabash, Fort Ouiatenon, Lafayette, Indiana
1733–51 Tepicon of the Tippecanoe, headwaters of the Tippecanoe River near Warsaw
1748–52 Pickawillany, Piqua on the Great Miami River in Ohio
1752 Headwaters of the Eel River, southwest of Columbia City, Indiana
1752 Le Gris, Maumee River, east of Fort Wayne

British years

1763 Captured British at Fort Miami as a part of the Pontiac's Rebellion
1774 Warriors participated in Lord Dunmore's War in Ohio
1778 Kenapacomaqua, Wabash at the mouth of the Eel River, Logansport, Indiana
1780 October – Agustin Mottin de La Balme headed a raid of Detroit. Stopped and raided Kekionga. La Balme withdrew to the west, where Little Turtle destroyed the raiders, killing one third of them, on November 5.