Page 18 - Fur Trade program Curriculum

the center of the Miami country. The Miami appealed to LaSalle to help them rid their
country of the Iroquois. Responding to their pleas, he met a band of Iroquois warriors
and so completely bewildered them by his threats that they waited for dark to steal away
in the safety of the night. After this unusual victory by LaSalle, the Miami gave their
allegiance to the French. They also agreed to make peace with the Illinois and in 1681
removed themselves to an area near Lake Peoria.

Father Louis Hennepin when visiting a Miami village wrote:

This village, as I have intimated, consists of three several nations, viz. Miamis,
Maskoutens and Kikabeaux. The first are more civil than the other and better shaped, as
well as more liberal. They were long hair over their ears, which looks well enough. They
are accounted valiant men amongst their neighbors; but are so cunning, that they seldom
return from their warlike expeditions and booty. They are apt to learn anything, for they
love to hear the European’s talk; and Father Allouez told me, that they had such a violent
desire to be instructed, that they often disturbed his rest to ask him questions about what
he had told them the day before. They go stark naked in the summertime, wearing only
the kind of shoes made of skins of bulls; but the winter being pretty severe in their
country, though very short, they wear gowns made of skins of wild beasts, or of bulls,
which they dress and paint most curiously as I have already observed.

Miami men were of medium height, well built, heads rather round, composure
agreeable, and swift runner. The women wore deerskins, while the men were usually
tattooed from head to foot. The lodges they lived in were covered with rush mats. They
did most of their traveling by land rather than canoe. The Miami worshiped the sun and
thunder, both of which played an important part in their lives, for they realized that sun
and rain were needed to make their crops grow.

Potawatomi

Closely related to the Ottawas and Ojibwas, the Potawatomis are an Algonquian-
speaking people who originally inhabited the Great Lakes region. Initial French records
suggest that prior to 1640 the Potawatomis occupied the southwestern quadrant of the
lower peninsula of Michigan, but during the Beaver Wars, which began in the 1640s,
they fled attacks by the Neutrals, first seeking refuge from the Neutrals and Iroquois. By
1675 the Potawatomis had emerged as one of the dominant tribes in the Green Bay
region. During the colonial period Potawatomi warriors consistently supported the
French in their warfare against the British, often journeying to Montreal to join French
expeditions against New England. Meanwhile, many Potawatomi women married
French traders or coureurs des bois, and those unions produced growing numbers of
mixed-blood or Metis children, many of whom assumed positions of leadership within
the tribe.

During the 18th century many Potawatomis moved back toward their old homeland,
occupying the region from modern Milwaukee through Chicago and across southern
Michigan to Detroit. Potawatomi tribespeople also established villages down the Illinois
River as far south as Lake Peoria, and at the headwaters of the Kankakee, Tippecanoe
and Maumee Rivers in Indiana. Participants in the fur trade, Potawatomi villages