Ouiatenon
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Ouiatenon Waayaahtanonki |
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|---|---|
| Village | |
 Ouiatenon
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| Coordinates: 40°24′3″N 86°57′36″W / 40.40083°N 86.96000°WCoordinates: 40°24′3″N 86°57′36″W / 40.40083°N 86.96000°W | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Indiana |
| County | Tippecanoe |
| Settled | c. 1680s |
| Destroyed | 1 June 1791 |
| Elevation | 600 ft (200 m) |
| Highest elevation | 600 ft (200 m) |
| Lowest elevation | 500 ft (200 m) |
Ouiatenon (Miami-Illinois: waayaahtanonki) was a dwelling place of members of the Wea tribe of Native Americans. The name Ouiatenon, also variously given as Ouiatanon, Oujatanon, Ouiatano or other similar forms, is a French rendering of a term from the Wea dialect of the Miami-Illinois language which means "place of the people of the whirlpool", an ethnonym for the Wea. Ouiatenon can be said to refer generally to any settlement of Wea or to their tribal lands as a whole, though the name is most frequently used to refer to a group of extinct settlements situated together along the Wabash River in what is now western Tippecanoe County, Indiana.
By the late 17th century the Miami speaking peoples, of which the Wea were a part, had begun to return to their homelands in the Wabash River Valley, an area they had earlier been driven from by the eastern Iroquois. The several tribal bands of Miami separated as they settled the valley, with the Wea occupying the middle Wabash Valley between the Eel River in the north and the Vermilion River in the south. Of the Wea's five major settlements, Ouiatenon was the largest concentration; it was described in August 1791 by U.S. General James Wilkinson as "the chief town of the Ouiatenon Nation."
The Ouiatenon site was favorably located for trade and habitation, being situated on a fertile plain near what was considered to be the head of deep water navigation on the Wabash River. It was also well supplied with fish, plentiful near the mouth of Wea Creek, and with wild game in the surrounding prairie and woodlands. Ouiatenon consisted of two large villages and two or three smaller ones located along or near the Wabash River between the mouth of Wea Creek in the east and mouth of Riviere de Bois Rouge (later Indian Creek) in the west, a distance of between four and five miles (8 km). One village, located on the north bank of the river opposite the main Ouiatenon town, was chiefly inhabited by Kickapoo.
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Wikipedia