Fox (tribe)

The Meskwaki (sometimes spelled Mesquakie) are a Native American people often known to Anglo-Americans as the Fox tribe. They have been closely linked to the Sauk people of the same language family. In the Meskwaki language, the Meskwaki call themselves Meshkwahkihaki, which means "the Red-Earths," related to their creation story. Historically their homelands were in the Great Lakes region. The tribe coalesced in the St. Lawrence River Valley in present-day Ontario, Canada. Under French colonial pressures, it migrated to the southern side of the Great Lakes to territory that much later was organized by European Americans as the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa.

The Meskwaki suffered damaging battles with French and their Native American allies in the early 18th century, with one in 1730 decimating the tribe. In the 19th century, Euro-American colonization and settlement proceeded by the United States. They forced the Meskwaki/Fox south and west into the tall grass prairie in the American Midwest. In 1851 the Iowa state legislature passed an unusual act to allow the Fox to buy land and stay in the state. Other Sac and Fox were removed to Indian territory in what became Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska. In the 21st century, three federally recognized tribes of "Sac and Fox" have reservations.

The name is derived from the Meskwaki creation myth, in which their culture hero, Wisaka, created the first humans out of red clay. They called themselves Meshkwahkihaki in Meskwaki, meaning "the Red-Earths".

The name Fox later was derived from a French mistake during the colonial era: hearing a group of Indians identify as "Fox", the French applied what was a clan name to the entire tribe who spoke the same language, calling them "les Renards." Later the English and Anglo-Americans adopted the French name, using its translation in English as "Fox." This name was also used officially by the United States government from the 19th century.

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