Illinois (Indians)

ILLINOIS (INDIANS)

ILLINOIS (INDIANS). The Illinois Indian tribe (they identified themselves as inoca, perhaps meaning "men"; the French later called them Illinois, and they are commonly referred to today as Illini) moved from Michigan to Illinois and Wisconsin by the 1630s. Illinois traders first contacted the French in 1666 at Chequamegon Bay, Lake Superior. The Illinois and Miami, speaking central Algonquian dialects, separated shortly before Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet arrived in the Illinois country in 1673. With more than 13,000 members by the mid-1650s, the tribe divided into a dozen subtribes. Dramatic population losses resulted from war, disease, Christianity, monogamy, alcoholism, and emigration. Illinois vulnerability was a consequence of dependency on their close allies, the French. As their numbers deteriorated, they combined into fewer subtribes (Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Michigamea, Moingwena, Peoria, and Tamaroa) and withdrew to the southwest, collecting along the east bank of the Mississippi south of the Illinois River. By 1736 the Illinois numbered just 2,500, and 80 in 1800; the last full-blood and his relatives left the state in 1833.

The Illinois constituted a tribe, not a confederacy, and maintained a tribal chief; the subtribes, however, often operated independently. Influential leaders included Rouensa, Chicago, and Ducoigne. Each man could marry several women, and would locate his families near his father. The tribe reckoned descent through the male line, and individuals became members of a clan and a moiety (division). The male role required prowess as hunter and warrior; and women tended to their dwellings, children, gathering, and agriculture. Men enjoyed a power and status advantage over women, but women employed considerable influence in their own realm.

In early spring the Illinois traditionally gathered in large semipermanent villages to plant crops and engage in communal buffalo hunting. Spring also saw them launch small war parties against such enemies as the Fox, Sauk, and Sioux. In the fall, they divided into small hunting villages of 200 or 300 cabins. Most Peorias moved west of the Mississippi River after 1765; eventually a few Kaskaskias joined them. Today, the Peorias, descendents of the Illinois and the Miamis, live in Peoria, Oklahoma.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Blasingham, Emily J. "The Depopulation of the Illinois Indians." Ethnohistory 3 (1956): 193–224, 361–412. A most re-liable examination of the depopulation of the Illinois tribe.

Callender, Charles. "Illinois." In Handbook of North American Indians. Edited by William C. Sturtevant et al. Vol. 15: Northeast, edited by Bruce G. Trigger. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 1978. A useful and authoritative account by an anthropologist.

Zitomersky, Joseph. French Americans—Native Americans in Eighteenth-Century French Colonial Louisiana: The Population Geography of the Illinois Indians, 1670s–1760s. Lund, Sweden: Lund University Press, 1994.

Raymond E. Hauser