The Miami Tribe, originating from the area south of Lake Michigan, were farmers and traders who lived in villages and were divided into clans. They had friendly relations with the French and formed the Miami Confederacy to defend against the Iroquois. They fought on both sides during the American Revolution and were eventually defeated by a larger, better-trained force. They lost most of their land and were relocated to Oklahoma, but some remained in Indiana and formed the Miami Nation of Indiana.
The Miami Tribe is a group of Native Americans originating from the area south of Lake Michigan in Indiana, Ohio, and Illinois. The name Miami is used in several places in the United States, such as in Florida, but those names are derived from other Indian terms and not the Miami Indians. The tribe’s name is believed to come from a word meaning “people of the peninsula”.
Members of the Miami tribe lived in villages in the woods and along rivers. They built huts covered with bark and woven mats and canoes fashioned from single trees, usually butternut. Some of the largest villages were placed at strategic points along rivers, providing an ideal environment to control the trade routes of the various neighboring tribes. In addition to trading, hunting, and fishing, the Miamis were farmers whose primary crop was corn. During the winter, people followed the buffalo and migrated to the prairie lands south of their settlements.
The Miami tribe was divided into clans, but unlike many tribes which had matrilineal clans, a Miami clan membership was based on the father. Marriage within the clan was prohibited and children belonged to the father’s clan, even if the marriage ended. Each clan had a hereditary chief who acted as a diplomat and was not allowed to join war parties. War chiefs were elected to lead the tribe into battle.
The first European contact the Miami tribe had was with French hunters, and they maintained friendly relations with the French, often siding with them during times of war. As a defense against their enemies, the tribes comprising the Iroquois Confederacy, the Miamis united with allied tribes to form the Miami Confederacy. When the Iroquois tribes supported the British during the French and Indian Wars, the Miamians immediately joined the French troops.
The loyalty of the Miami tribe was not always consistent and tended to support the side that was most beneficial to their cause. In 1763, they fought with the French against the British in Pontiac’s Rebellion, and then joined the British to fight against the colonists in the American Revolution. Even after the Americans’ victory, the Miamis united under a war chief named Little Turtle to attack the settlers in an attempt to stop further white settlement.
Little Turtle was a military genius who used decoys, covert attacks and developed many guerrilla warfare methods which are still used by modern armies. When the settlers’ death toll rose to over 1500, George Washington sent a militia to deal with the warriors of the Miami tribe. Little Turtle led his men to defeat not only this militia but a second, larger command as well. In response, a unit of more than 3,000 soldiers was raised and trained to end the conflict.
Little Turtle realized that the white settlers would not be driven off the land and that this larger, better trained force would wreak havoc on her people. She advised for peace, but his advice was not taken and the warriors elected a new war chief. As Little Turtle predicted, the Indians were defeated at the Battle of the Fallen Timers in 1790 and forced to sign the Treaty of Greenville, in which they relinquished most of their lands and agreed to move further west into Indiana.
Over the next several decades, the Miami Tribe lost most of its land in Indiana and was eventually relocated to tribal lands in Oklahoma, which is now the headquarters of the Miami Nation; the only federally recognized tribe in Miami. About 150 Miami natives were allowed to remain in Indiana. There they gradually lost rights to their native lands and in 1897 lost their official recognition and special status with the government. Despite this, the descendants of the Miamis who remained in Indiana formed the Miami Nation of Indiana.
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