Kikapoo
Kikapoo
The Kikapoo are Algonquian speakers who in 1649 began moving south and west from their homeland in the central Great Lakes region under pressure from the Iroquois. By the late 1700s they reached southern Illinois only to be forced west of the Mississippi in 1819 by encroaching settlement and military losses. There they splintered into groups, some staying on their Missouri reservation while others continued to move south and west, spreading across Oklahoma and Texas. The Missouri group traded for land in Kansas, where they remained to become one of the three federally recognized Kikapoo tribes. In the 1830s unrest in Texas drove the fiercely independent Kikapoos to Mexico, where they were granted land in exchange for protection of Mexican settlements. In 1852 the Mexican Kikapoo established a traditional colony at Nacimiento. Approximately 2,000 of the 3,500 modern Kikapoos live in traditional settings, divided among Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, and Coahuila, Mexico. Their economy is based on casino operations, seasonal migrant labor, and farming.
See alsoMexico: 1810–1910 .
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fabila, Alfonso. La tribu kikapoo de Coahuila. México, D. F.: Instituto Nacional Indigenista, 2002.
Jablow, Joseph. Illinois, Kickapoo, and Potawatomi Indians. New York, Garland, 1974.
Solveig A. Turpin