Location: The Miami are a North American Indian tribe which inhabited an area to the south and west of Lake Michigan when the first Europeans entered the area in the later 1600s. The people were relocated to Oklahoma in the mid-1800s by the whites. Today the two main groups of Miami are found in Oklahoma and in Indiana.
History: The Miami people seemed to have evolved out of the prehistoric Fisher and Huber people who lived around the southern Lake Michigan area. The Miami moved west of the Mississippi River with the Illinois people in the 1660s because of the fear of raiding Iroquois bands. During the 1680s however, the Miami people began to move back to the southern end of Lake Michigan. By 1750 large numbers of the Miami people could be found near the present day cities of Fort Wayne, Lafayette, and Vincennes.
The Miami people were allies with English during the American Revolution, and some continued fighting the Americans after the war was over. This fighting continued until the Greenville Treaty was signed in 1795.
Most of the Miami had sold their land to American settlers by 1820, and were moved to reservations in Missouri. In 1846 the remaining Miami were forcibly moved to Kansas and then again to Oklahoma in the 1870s.
Language: The Miami language is classified in the Central Algonkian linguistic group. The Miami and Illinois languages are very similar and only have minor dialectical differences. The Miami language has been considered dead since about 1965, but some Miami still have a limited vocabulary in the language.
Daily Life: The Miami were a hunting and farming people. They grew crops such as maize, beans, melons, and tobacco. The people would also collect nuts and fruits from the forests and prairies. Their meat was usually deer or bison, but small game was also hunted. After planting crops in early June most of the village would leave on five week buffalo hunt, and during the winter the tribe would break up to hunt deer. The Miami also kept dogs as pets and sacrificial animals.
Though this page has been carefully researched, the author does not claim expertise on the Miami.
Please send questions, comments, and corrections to emuseum@mnsu.edu and include the URL.
If you are Miami, your feedback is much appreciated.
Miami Nation of Indiana: http://www.miamiindians.org/
Miami Tribe of Oklahoma http://www.miamination.com/
Written by: Chad Coleman