A Tale of Two Miamis

As we've already seen, place, tribal and personal names or titles in this area can be confusing.  The Wyoming Valley in Pennsylvania gave its name to the state of Wyoming in a round about way.  Three different men carried the title Half King.  And we've already discussed Little Turtle of the Miami, leading some to wonder if Miami, Florida might not be named for that Miami tribe.  Well, think again.

Little Turtle's Miami were an Algonquian-speaking people whose name for themselves means "people downstream".  Like many tribes in the eastern United States, they descended from the Mississippian Culture.  During the Beaver Wars of the 17th century, they migrated from what is now Wisconsin to the upper Wabash River in northwestern Ohio.  They were constantly embattled by the much stronger Iroquois tribes out of the New York area.  When French missionaries encountered them, they were living on the banks of Lake Michigan.  They were organized into groups or bands, rather than a tribe as a whole.  The French established a trading post at what is now Fort Wayne, Indiana and relations between Whites and the Miami were peaceful.  During the turbulent 18th century, as French power in the region gave way to British, the Miami coalesced into three major bands, the Wea, Piankeshaw, and Miami, with their principal chief being Little Turtle.  Their main village was Kekionga. 

During the Revolution, some Piankeshaw supported the Patriots.  Most of the other Miami supported the British but were not hostile to the Americans.  This wasn't enough for the Americans.  An attack on the Miami village of Kekionga touched off the series of events leading to the Battle of the Wabash, which we've already discussed.  While some Miami leaders agreed to the Treaty of Greenville, others supported Tecumseh's confederacy several years later.  The Treaty of Mississinwas of 1826 forced the Miami to cede most of their eastern lands to the United States.  But the treaty did allow individuals to hold their land as private property and become citizens.  Many Miami managed to linger in Indiana until 1846, when most of them were finally removed, first to Kansas and then to Indian Territory in Oklahoma.  Today, the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma is a federally recognized tribe.  The Miami who remained in the east have also applied for federal recognition, but have not been successful.

Meanwhile, the Mayaimi of Florida were long gone by the time of Indian Removal.  The Mayaimi lived around Lake Mayaimi, now Lake Okeechobee until the 17th century.  There name, as given to them by surrounding tribes, meant "big water", which Lake Okeechobee undoubtedly is.  Only a handful of words from the Miami language were recorded before it became extinct.  Like other peoples who were off-shoots of the mound builder cultures, the Miami lived in towns, practiced agriculture and dug canals to use as waterways for their canoes, their preferred method of transport.  At the beginning of the 18th century, raiders from Carolina (it was not divided up North and South at the time) frequently raided Mayaimi territory.  Their main mission seems to have been to capture Natives to sell as slaves in markets from Boston to the Caribbean.  The remaining Mayaimi fled to shelter with the Spaniards along the Florida coast, or even migrated to Cuba.  When the Spanish turned Cuba over to the British for the first time in 1763, the remaining Mayaimi fled to Cuba, where their descendants still may reside.  It is these Mayaimi who gave their name to Miami, Florida.