MESKWAKIES

Kee-shes-wa, painted by Charles Bird King

MESKWAKIES. True name of the FOX. The word meaning "red-earth" people was corrupted by the French who called them Renards, or "Foxes," actually only one clan of the tribe.

Meskwakies originally lived in the lower peninsula of Michigan. In 1667, when the French first met the tribe, they were living in villages along the Fox and Wolf rivers in east-central Wisconsin. Hunting parties ranged into northern Illinois, however, and by 1700 Meskwakie hunters frequently hunted bison on the prairies of northern Illinois.

Painting by Karl Bodmer

War between the Meskwakies and French began in 1712. Fighting continued for over a decade. Meskwakie war parties so disrupted the French fur trade in northern Illinois and Wisconsin that the French sent several expeditions against the Meskwakie villages.

Native American tribes were experts in obtaining dyes for their clothing from native plants. Photo courtesy: Hubbell Trading Post, National Historic Site, Ganado, Arizona

During the summer of 1730 some of the Meskwakies attempted to abandon their villages in Wisconsin. In October 1732, led by the war chief Kiala, the Meskwakies successfully defended themselves against a large war party of French-allied Indians, but during the following spring they abandoned the village and returned to Wisconsin. They sought sanctuary among the SAUK at Green Bay. After 1733 the Meskwakies and Sauk lived together, first in Wisconsin, then in the lower Rock River Valley of northwestern Illinois, and finally in Iowa.

Today, people from the Meskwakie settlement near Tama, Iowa, form part of the modern Native American community.