ern Wisconsin. Taking advantage of the epidemics, which decimated the Illinois and Miami, populations between 1718 and 1736, the Kickapoo left Wisconsin entirely and pushed south into the buffalo prairies of northern Illinois and Indiana. For the most part, the Kickapoo still remained aloof from Europeans in general and were content to allow other tribes (Miami, Fox, Sauk, and Illinois) to handle their diplomatic and trade relations with them - even the French. Throughout the 1700s, the Kickapoo's loyalty appears to have been more with the tribes of the French alliance than the French themselves. For this reason, Kickapoo warriors participated in the French war with the Chickasaw between 1732 and 1752, not for the sake of the French, but as allies of the Miami and Illinois. When British traders began visiting Ohio for direct trade during the 1740s, the Kickapoo were interested in the trade goods which where usually cheaper and of higher quality than what the French could offer. Even then, the Kickapoo traded mainly through the Miami, and there was little direct contact.Since 1724 the main purpose of the alliance between the Prairie Kickapoo and the Fox and Sauk had been their war west of the Mississippi with the Osage. Instead of slackening, this conflict had grown in intensity over the years until the Osage were being forced to retreat south across northern Missouri beyond the Missouri River. Still unfriendly with the British, the Kickapoo had maintained their ties with the French traders who were located west of the Mississippi in Spanish Missouri, Louisiana having been given to Spain in 1763. Competition between rival traders meant, however, that the Kickapoo and their allies would be well armed, and neither the French, Spanish, nor British could cut the trade to stop the warfare. In 1763, a group of Kickapoo moved across the Mississippi and established a village just north of St. Louis. Supported by their relatives in Illinois, the ...
