Fox Tribe

The Meskwaki (sometimes spelled Mesquaki), also known by the European exonyms Fox Indians or the Fox, are a Native American people. They have been closely linked to the Sauk people of the same language family. In the Meskwaki language, the Meskwaki call themselves ', which means "the Red-Earths", related to their creation story.

The Meskwaki suffered damaging wars with the French and their Native American allies in the early 18th century, with one in 1730 decimating the tribe. Euro-American colonization and settlement proceeded in the United States during the 19th century and forced the Meskwaki south and west into the tallgrass prairie in the American Midwest. In 1851 the Iowa state legislature passed an unusual act to allow the Fox to buy land and stay in the state. Other Sac and Fox were removed to Indian territory in what became Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska. In the 21st century, two federally recognized tribes of "Sac and Fox" have reservations, and one has a settlement.

Etymology

The name is derived from the Meskwaki creation myth, in which their culture hero, ''Wisaka'', created the first humans out of red clay. They called themselves ' in Meskwaki, meaning "the Red-Earths".

The name ''Fox'' later was derived from a French mistake during the colonial era: hearing a group of Indians identify as "Fox", the French applied what was a clan name to the entire tribe who spoke the same language by calling them "les Renards". Later the English and Anglo-Americans adopted the French name by using its translation in English as "Fox." This name was also used officially by the United States government from the 19th century.

Ethnobotany

Historically the Meskwaki used ''Triodanis perfoliata'' as an emetic in tribal ceremonies to make one "sick all day long," smoking it at purification and other spiritual rituals. They smudge ''Symphyotrichum novae-angliae'' and use it to revive unconscious people. They used ''Agastache scrophulariifolia'', an infusion of the root used as a diuretic, also using a compound of the plant heads medicinally. They eat the fruits of ''Viburnum prunifolium'' raw and cook them into a jam. They make the flowers of ''Solidago rigida'' into a lotion and use them on bee stings and for swollen faces.

History

Meskwaki are of Algonquian origin from the prehistoric Woodland period culture area. The Meskwaki language is a dialect of the Sauk-Fox-Kickapoo language spoken by the Sauk, Meskwaki, and Kickapoo. It belongs to the Algic language family, and thus descended from Proto-Algic.

The Meskwaki and Sauk peoples are two distinct tribal groups. Linguistic and cultural connections between the two tribes have made them often associated in history. Under US government recognition treaties, officials treat the Sac (anglicized ''Sauk'' term) and Meskwaki as a single political unit, despite their distinct identities.

Great Lakes region

The Meskwaki gained control of the Fox River system in eastern and central Wisconsin. This river became vital for the colonial New France fur trade through the interior of North America between northern French Canada, via the Mississippi River, and the French ports on the Gulf of Mexico. As part of the Fox–Wisconsin Waterway, the Fox River allowed travel from Lake Michigan and the other Great Lakes via Green Bay to the Mississippi River system.

At first European contact in 1698, the French estimated the number of Meskwaki as about 6,500. By 1712, the number of Meskwaki had declined to 3,500.

Fox Wars

The Meskwaki fought against the French, in what are called the Fox Wars, for more than three decades (1701–1742) to preserve their homelands. The Meskwaki resistance to French encroachment was highly effective.

The First Fox War with the French lasted from 1712 to 1714. This first Fox War was purely economic in nature, as the French wanted rights to use the river system to gain access to the Mississippi. After the Second Fox War of 1728, the Meskwaki were reduced to some 1500 people. They found shelter with the Sac, but French competition carried to that tribe. In the Second Fox War, the French increased their pressure on the tribe to gain access to the Fox and Wolf rivers. Nine hundred Fox (about 300 warriors and the remainder mostly women and children) tried to break out in Illinois to reach the English and Iroquois to the east, but they were greatly outnumbered by a combined force of French and hundreds of allied Native Americans. On September 9, 1730, most of the Fox warriors were killed; many women and children were taken captive into Indian slavery or killed by the French allies.Carl J. Ekberg and Sharon K. Person, ''St. Louis Rising: The French Regime of Louis St. Ange de Bellerive,'' Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2015, pp. 25–26

Midwest region

The Sauk and Meskwaki allied in 1735 in defense against the French and their allied Indian tribes. Descendants spread through southern Wisconsin, and along the present-day Illinois-Iowa border. In 1829 the US government estimated there were 1,500 Meskwaki along with 5,500 Sac (or Sauk). Both tribes relocated southward from Wisconsin into Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri. There are accounts of Meskwaki as far south as Pike County, Illinois.

The Anishinaabe peoples called the Meskwaki ', meaning "people on the other shore", referring to their territories south of the Great Lakes. The French had adopted use of this name, and transliterated its spelling into their pronunciation system as ''Outagamie''. This name was later used by Americans for today's Outagamie County, Wisconsin.

Kansas and Oklahoma

The Meskwaki and Sac were forced to leave their territory by land-hungry American settlers. President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830 passed by Congress, authorizing US removal of eastern American Indians to lands west of the Mississippi River. The act was directed mainly at the Five Civilized Tribes in the American Southeast, but it was also used against tribes in what was then called the Northwest as well, the area east of the Mississippi and north of the Ohio River.

Some Meskwaki were involved with Sac warriors in the Black Hawk War over homelands in Illinois. After the Black Hawk War of 1832, the United States officially combined the two tribes into a single group known as the Sac & Fox Confederacy for treaty-making purposes. The United States persuaded the Sauk and Meskwaki to sell all their claims to land in Iowa in a treaty of October 1842. They moved to land west of a temporary line (Red Rock Line) in 1843. They were removed to a reservation in east central Kansas in 1845 via the Dragoon Trace. The Dakota Sioux called the Meskwaki who moved west of the Mississippi River the "lost people" because they had been forced to leave their homelands. Some Meskwaki remained hidden in Iowa, with others returning within a few years. Soon after, the U.S. government forced the Sauk to a reservation in Indian Territory present-day Oklahoma.

Iowa

In 1851 the Iowa legislature passed an unprecedented act to allow the Meskwaki to buy land even though they had occupied it by right before and stay in the state. American Indians had not generally been permitted to do so, as the U.S. Government had said that tribal Indians were legally not US citizens. Only citizens could buy land.

In 1857, the Meskwaki purchased the first in Tama County; Tama was named for '' Taimah'', a Meskwaki chief of the early 19th century. Many Meskwaki later moved to the Meskwaki Settlement

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