ble.Before contact with Europeans, the Kickapoo lived in northwest Ohio and southern Michigan in the area between Lake Erie and Lake Michigan. Beginning in the 1640s, the Algonquin tribes in this region came under attack from the east, first by the Ottawa and Iroquian-speaking Neutrals, and then the Iroquois. By 1658 the Kickapoo had been forced west into southwest Wisconsin. About 1700 they began to move south into northern Illinois and by 1770 had established themselves in central Illinois (near Peoria) extending southeast into the Wabash Valley on the western border of Indiana. After wars with the Americans and settlement of the Ohio Valley, they signed treaties during 1819 ceding their remaining land east of the Mississippi River and relocated to southern Missouri (1819-24). Initially, most moved to the lands assigned them, but many remained in central Illinois and refused to leave until they were forcibly removed by the military in 1834. Fewer than half actually stayed on their Missouri reserve. Several bands wandered south and west until the Kickapoo were spread across Oklahoma and Texas all the way to the Mexican border (and beyond). In 1832 the Missouri Kickapoo exchanged their reserve for lands in northeast Kansas. After the move, factions developed, and in 1852, a large group left and moved to Chihuahua in northern Mexico. Apparently, there were Kickapoo already living there by this time. Others joined these Mexican Kickapoo between 1857 and 1863. Few remained in Kansas. Between 1873 and 1878, approximately half of the Mexican Kickapoo returned to the United States and were sent to Oklahoma. Currently, there are three federally recognized Kickapoo tribes: the Kickapoo of Kansas the Kickapoo of Oklahoma and the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas.By 1660 almost all Great Lakes Algonquin were living as refugees in mixed villages in Wisconsin. Intermarriage and mixed populations made accurate counts impossible. The French estimat...
