The Separate People: the Piankeshaw

Members of this tribe were present at many historical events.  They were among the signatories to the Great Peace of Montreal of 1702, and in 1799, during the Siege of Fort Sackville (Vincennes), a Piankeshaw leader named Young Tobacco offered to fight with his men alongside George Rogers Clarke.  Clarke politely turned him down, saying that he didn't want the Piankeshaw to be mistaken for British auxiliaries and killed during the battle.  Perhaps this was a good thing, considering the allegations against Clark regarding his treatment of Native captives, but we'll get to that later.

The word Payangitchaki comes from a Miami word meaning "those who are separate".  Modern ethnographers have tried to find a connection between the Piankeshaw and the Miami, but Piankeshaw oral tradition indicates no such connection.  When the French first encountered them in the early 17th century they were located near the Vermillion and Wabash Rivers in present-day Indiana.  Earlier tradition places them on the Kankakee River and even earlier, the Mississippi.  Likely they were one of those tribes frequently displaced during the Beaver Wars.  Incessant war had driven them from river to river until they finally found a home in what is now Illinois, and from there Indiana.  There, they allied with the Miami, the Wea and other tribes and were close partners to the French in the fur trade.  

The Natchez and Chickasaw Wars took their toll on the Piankashaw people, who maintained their alliance with the French.  Disease was another factor in reducing their population.  In 1770, they allowed the Delaware to use part of their land.  1775, they ceded a large tract of land on either side of the Wabash River in what is now Indiana and Illinois to the Wabash Land Company for a supply of trade goods.   By 1854, they had removed to Kansas and consolidated with other Illini tribes such as the Peoria.  By 1857, they ceded their last remaining lands in Kansas and removed to Oklahoma.  Today, they are represented by the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma.