Fox (tribe)

"Outagamie" redirects here. For the wisconsin county, see Outagamie County, Wisconsin.

The Fox tribe of Native Americans are an Algonquian language-speaking group that are now merged with the allied Sac tribe as the Sac and Fox Nation. The Fox called themselves Meshkwahkihaki or Mesquakie. The name Fox originated in a French mistake applying a clan name to the entire tribe, and was perpetuated by the US government.

The Fox originally lived east of Michigan along the Saint Lawrence River. The tribe may have numbered as many as 10,000 but years of war with the French-supplied Hurons reduced their numbers and forced them west first to the area between Saginaw Bay and Detroit in Michigan and then to Wisconsin. In Wisconsin the Fox gained control of the Fox River system. This river was vital for fur trade between French Canada and the interior of North America, because one could navigate from the Bay of Green Bay in Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River. By going down the Fox River to Lake Winnebago, through the Wolf River one could reach a small portage (at the present day city of Portage, Wisconsin) to the Wisconsin River. From the Wisconsin River, traders could reach the Mississippi River and ultimatley the rest of the continent. When the French had first contact with them they estimated that the Fox numbered about 6,500. By 1712, they were down to 3,500 when the First Fox War broke out with the French (1712-1714). The Second Fox War of 1728 found the remaining 1500 Fox reduced to 500 who found shelter with the Sac and brought French animosity to that tribe. The First Fox War was purely economic in nature. The French merely wanted rights to use the river system to gain access to the Mississippi. The Second Fox War was genocidal because the Mesquakie continually refused to allow traders onto the Fox and Wolf rivers.

Members of the Fox tribe spread through southern Wisconsin, and the Iowa-Illinois border. In 1829 the government estimated there were 1500 Fox (along with 5500 Sac). Some of them were involved with some of the Sac in the Blackhawk War when they refused to give up their lands in Illinois.

Fox who had successfully fled west of the Mississippi River were known as the "lost people" by the Dakota.

The Sauk and Mesquaki (Fox) were induced to sell all their claims to land in Iowa in a treaty of October 1842. They moved west of a temporary line in 1843 and to land in Kansas in 1845.

Many Meskwaki later moved to a settlement near Tama, Iowa that was started about 1856. Soon after the Sauk were forced to a reservation in Indian Territory, now Oklahoma. By 1910, there were only about 1000 Sac and Fox altogether and, even by 2000, their number was less than 4000.

Background and history

Meskwaki means "The people of red earth". The Meskwaki are of the Algonquian origin from the Eastern Woodland Culture areas. Their language is a dialect of the same larger language spoken by the Sauk and Kickapoo. The tribe has been historically located in the St. Lawrence River Valley, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri and Iowa. Meskwaki were called “Renards” (The Fox) by the French – the tribe's first European contact in 1666 – but have always identified themselves as “Meskwaki”. The Anishinaabe peoples called the Meskwaki Odagaamii, meaning “people on the other shore,” which the French also adopted as “Outagamie” as a name for the Meskwaki. This name survives today for Outagamie County of Wisconsin.

Meskwaki and Sauk are two distinct tribal groups. Linguistic and cultural similarities between the two tribes have made them often associated throughout history. Terminology established by the United States Government continues to treat the Sac & Fox as a single political unit despite their separate identities. ii Meskwaki fought against the French in what is called the Fox Wars (1701-1742). The Meskwaki resistance of French rule was so effective that the King of France signed a decree commanding the complete extermination of the Meskwaki — the only edict of its kind in history of a Major and full standing army on one particular Native American tribe. The Sauk and Meskwaki allied in 1735 to fend off Europeans and other Indian tribes. Both tribes moved southward from Wisconsin into Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri.

After the Black Hawk War of 1832, the United States officially combined the two tribes into a single group known as the Sac & Fox confederacy for treaty-making purposes. Then a series of land cessions under the name of “Sac & Fox”, the Sauk and Meskwaki lost all lands and ultimately were removed to a reservation in east central Kansas in 1845 via the Dragoon Trace. But some Meskwaki remained hidden in Iowa with others coming back within a few years. In 1856 the state of Iowa enacted a law allowing the Meskwaki to stay. The U.S. government however tried to force the tribe back to the Kansas reservation by withholding treaty-right annuities. Government officials declared that the Mesquakie coudn't own land because legally Indians weren't people.

In 1857, the Meskwaki purchased the first 80 acres in Tama County. Ten years later, the U.S. finally began paying annuities to the Meskwaki in Iowa, an act that gave the Meskwaki a formal identity as the Sac & Fox of Iowa. The jurisdictional status was unclear since the tribe then had formal federal recognition with eligibility for BIA services but also had a continuing relationship with the State of Iowa due to the tribe’s private ownership of land which was held in trust by the governor. For the next 30 years, the Meskwaki were virtually ignored by federal as well as state polices. Subsequently, they lived a more independent lifestyle than other tribes confined to regular reservations that were strictly regimented by federal authority. To resolve this jurisdictional ambiguity, in 1896 the State of Iowa ceded to the Federal Government all jurisdiction over the Meskwaki.

External links

• The 1730 Mesquakie Fort

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