Peoria Tribe
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The Peoria are a Native American people. They are enrolled in the federally recognized Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma headquartered in Miami, Oklahoma. The Peoria people are the remnants of the nations which constituted the Illinois Confederation. The Peoria Tribe were located east of the
Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the main stem, primary river of the largest drainage basin in the United States. It is the second-longest river in the United States, behind only the Missouri River, Missouri. From its traditional source of Lake Ita ...
and north of the
Ohio River The Ohio River () is a river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing in a southwesterly direction from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to its river mouth, mouth on the Mississippi Riv ...
. In the colonial period, they traded with French colonists in that territory. After 1763, when the British took over those lands following victory in the
Seven Years' War The Seven Years' War, 1756 to 1763, was a Great Power conflict fought primarily in Europe, with significant subsidiary campaigns in North America and South Asia. The protagonists were Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of Prus ...
, the Peoria were moved west across the Mississippi. In 1867 their descendants moved to
Indian Territory Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United States, ...
with remnants of related tribes and were assigned land in present-day Ottawa County, Oklahoma. The land which they were assigned belonged to the Quapaw, who were made to cede this land for the Peoria and Miami.


Language and name

The Peoria speak a dialect of the Miami–Illinois language, a Central Algonquian language in which these two dialects are mutually intelligible. The name ''Peoria'', also Peouaroua, derives from their autonym, or name for themselves in the Illinois language, ''peewaareewa'' (modern pronunciation ''peewaalia''). Originally it meant, "Comes carrying a pack on his back." No native speakers of the Peoria language survive. Revitalization efforts for the Peoria Language were initiated in August 2022 by a 10-week online course offered by the tribe. Along with the Miami language, a smaller number of historic members of the Peoria tribe of Oklahoma once spoke related Algonquian languages of Cahokia, Moingwea, and Tamaroa.


Government

The Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma is headquartered in Miami, Oklahoma. Their tribal jurisdictional area is in Ottawa County, in the northeast corner of the state. Of the 3,713 enrolled tribal members, some 777 live within the state of Oklahoma.


Economic development

The Peoria issue their own tribal vehicle tags and operate their own housing authority. The tribe owns one casino and the Peoria Ridge Golf Course. The estimated annual economic impact of the tribe in the area is $60 million. Tribal businesses, the Peoria Gaming Center, Buffalo Run Casino and Hotel, and Joe's Outback are all located in Miami, Oklahoma, their tribal lands.


History

The Peoria are Algonquian-speaking people. Their ancestors traditionally lived in what are now the state jurisdictions of
Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...
,
Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...
,
Michigan Michigan ( ) is a peninsular U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, Upper Midwestern United States. It shares water and land boundaries with Minnesota to the northwest, Wisconsin to the west, ...
, and
Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...
.History.
''Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma.'' 2007 (retrieved 8 Feb 2009)
The Peoria are related to, and partially descended from, the Cahokia people, not to be confused with Cahokia Mounds.Vaugh-Roberson, Glen
Peoria.
''Oklahoma Historical Society's Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture.'' 2009 (retrieved 8 Feb 2009)
The Peoria were one of the many
Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...
tribes encountered by early French explorers, Father
Jacques Marquette Jacques Marquette, Society of Jesus, S.J. (; June 1, 1637 – May 18, 1675), sometimes known as Père Marquette or James Marquette, was a French Society of Jesus, Jesuit missionary who founded Michigan's first European settlement, Sault Ste. M ...
and Louis Jolliet. French
Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...
missionaries converted tribal members to
Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
. Father Jacques Gravier, superior of the Illinois mission, compiled the most extensive bilingual
dictionary A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged Alphabetical order, alphabetically (or by Semitic root, consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical-and-stroke sorting, radical an ...
of Kaskaskia
Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...
and corresponding French terms, nearly 600 pages and 20,000 entries. After 1763 France ceded its Illinois Country and other territories east of the Mississippi River to the British, who had defeated them in the
Seven Years' War The Seven Years' War, 1756 to 1763, was a Great Power conflict fought primarily in Europe, with significant subsidiary campaigns in North America and South Asia. The protagonists were Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain and Kingdom of Prus ...
. Like many of the French colonists in villages in this area, the Peoria migrated southwest into Missouri Territory. For instance, Ste. Genevieve and St. Louis were founded in that era by French colonists from east of the river who did not want to live under British Protestant rule. In 1818, after the United States (US) had taken over former British territory east of the Mississippi following their gaining independence, they pressed the Peoria to sign the Treaty of Edwardsville, which provided for the cession of Peoria lands in Illinois to the US. The US pressed for Indian Removal from areas desired by European-American settlers, who kept pushing west, and President Andrew Jackson signed the act of that name in 1830. By the 1832 Treaty of Lewisville, the Peoria ceded
Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...
lands in exchange for land in
Kansas Kansas ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to the west. Kansas is named a ...
near the Osage River, which was then part of Indian Territory. The tribe suffered from introduced new
infectious disease An infection is the invasion of tissue (biology), tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host (biology), host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmis ...
s and intertribal wars in new areas of resource competition. In 1849, remnant members of the Kaskaskia, Peoria, Piankeshaw, and Wea tribes formed a confederacy under the Peoria name. The confederation included the last members and descendants of the Cahokia, Moingwena, Michigamea and Tamaroa tribes, who had assimilated with the Peoria many year before. The Pepikokia also joined, having merged with the Wea and Piankashaw in the later part of the 18th century.Simpson, Linda. "The Tribes of the Illinois Confederacy." May 6, 2006.
Accessed November 27, 2016.
In 1851, an Indian agent reported that the Peoria and the Kaskaskia, along with their allies, had intermarried among themselves and among white people to such an extent that they had practically lost their tribal identities. An 1854 treaty recognized this as a factual union and classified these groups as the Confederated Peoria. The treaty also provided for opening the Peoria-Kaskaskia and the Wea-Piankashaw reserves in Kansas to settlement by non-Indians. After the
Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...
, most of the confederated tribe signed the 1867 Omnibus Treaty. By this means, the US federally government purchased land from the Quapaw tribe and relocated the majority of the Confederated Peoria tribe onto a reservation in
Indian Territory Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United States, ...
, part of present-day Ottawa County, Oklahoma. Congress enacted a law to unite the Miami tribe, then also in Kansas, and assign them to lands with the Confederated Peoria. In 1893, under the Dawes Act, the US broke up communal lands in Indian Territory to speed assimilation and make more land available for sale to non-Indians. Allotments were made to enrolled heads of households over the next few years, to extinguish Indian claims and enable the territories to be admitted as a state. In 1907, after admission of Oklahoma, any "surplus" land as determined by the US in former Confederated Peoria territory was transferred to Ottawa County, which could sell it. Under the Dawes Act and Curtis Act of 1898, the US government conducted registration of tribal members in order to make individual allotments of land to heads of families. They believed that encouraging subsistence agriculture was the way to bring the tribal members into European-American practices. It also enabled them to break up the communal culture and make land available for sale to whites. At the same time, they forced tribal governments to dismantle before Oklahoma was admitted as a state. The Peoria lost much of their land in these transactions and suffered with the pressure to give up their culture. For decades, the
Bureau of Indian Affairs The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), also known as Indian Affairs (IA), is a United States List of United States federal agencies, federal agency within the U.S. Department of the Interior, Department of the Interior. It is responsible for im ...
appointed tribal chiefs, who previously had been selected by hereditary roles. The federal government changed its approach during the President Franklin D. Roosevelt administration, after realizing the adverse effects of those actions. In 1934 it passed a law encouraging federally recognized tribes (generally those who had been on reservations) to reorganize their governments, encouraging a constitutional, representative model similar to that of the US and states. Similarly, the Oklahoma Indian Welfare Act was passed in 1939. Under that, the Confederated Peoria reorganized and re-established its historical form of council government. During the 1950s, the US government changed policies again, promoting Indian termination to end its special relationship with tribes that it believed were ready to be independent. It terminated the Peoria tribal government, which lost federal recognition in 1959. Tribal members objected and began the process to regain federal recognition, because it provided important education and welfare benefits. They regained federal recognition in 1978. The Miami tribe was never 'terminated'. Descendants of the Piankeshaw, Kaskaskia, and Wea, who were all members of the Illinois Confederacy, are also enrolled in the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma.House, Office of the Law Revision Counsel
''United States Code 2006, Volume 15''.
§1224, page 986


Namesakes

*The city of
Peoria, Illinois Peoria ( ) is a city in Peoria County, Illinois, United States, and its county seat. Located on the Illinois River, the city had a population of 113,150 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of municipalities in Ill ...
, and the surrounding Peoria County are named after the tribe that traditionally lived in that area. *The Peoria War occurred in their historic territory but is named for the town, as the tribe had migrated to Missouri before this conflict occurred. * Paola, Kansas, and Peoria, Oklahoma, are named directly for the tribe. * Many other places named Peoria and some U.S. Navy ships were named after the town in Illinois.


Notable Peoria people

* Charles Edwin Dagenett (1873–1941), founder and leader of the
Society of American Indians A society () is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. ...
* Ruthe Blalock Jones (b. 1939), Shawnee/Peoria artist and educator * Moscelyne Larkin (1925-2012), Peoria/Shawnee ballerina


See also

* Sagamite (native food)


Notes


References


External links


Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma
official website

* ttp://www.rootsweb.com/~itquapaw/illinois/illinois.html "The Tribes of The Illinois Confederacy" Rootsweb
Peoria Historical Society
Google Cultural Institute

* *

restricted access {{DEFAULTSORT:Peoria Tribe Algonquian ethnonyms Algonquian peoples Federally recognized tribes in the United States Native American tribes in Illinois Native American tribes in Kansas Native American tribes in Missouri Native American tribes in Oklahoma Ottawa County, Oklahoma