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The Miami Nation of Indiana (also known as the Miami Nation of Indians of the State of Indiana) is a group of individuals who identify as Miami and have organized as a 501(c)(3)nonprofit organization. The group's headquarters are at Peru, Indiana.
The Indiana Miami, or Eastern Miami, signed a treaty with the United States on June 5, 1854; however, its federal recognition was terminated in 1897. The United States Congress has consistently refused to authorize federal recognition of the Indiana Miami as a tribal group separate from the Western Miami, the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma.
Organization
In 1846, when some of the Miami people living in Indiana were forcefully removed to reservation lands west of the Mississippi River, the tribe split into two groups. The eastern group became known as the Miami Nation of Indians of the State of Indiana; the western group became the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. The United States government has recognized the western group's tribal government since 1846. The Indiana Miami were recognized by the federal government as a tribal group in a treaty made on 5 June 1854; however, its federal recognition was terminated in 1897. The divide between the two groups continues to exist. Subsequent migration between the two areas has made it difficult to track tribal affiliations and further complicated the Miami's history and governing authority.[1][2][3]
On September 30, 1937, the Miami Nation of Indians of the State of Indiana was established as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charitable organization in Indiana. The Indiana Miami's tribal organization and government, headquarters at Peru, Indiana, are independent from the western tribe, but it lacks federal recognition as a separate tribal group.[2][4] The eastern group has an elected government that is led by an executive committee. Brian J. Buchanan is the Chief of the Miami Nation of Indians of the State of Indiana.[5] Tribal enrollment is based on lineal descent, and applicants must be biologically connected to a current tribal member or to someone listed on the tribal rolls from 1854, 1889, or 1895.[citation needed]
Frances Slocum Cemetery in Wabash, Indiana. Generations of Miami Nation of Indians of the State of Indiana are buried at this site.
The Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, a federally recognized tribe with headquarters in Miami, Oklahoma, has an estimated membership of 4,800; about 500 of them live in Indiana.[3] In January 2015 the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma announced its intention to open a cultural resources extension office in May 2015 in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to provide historic preservation consulting services and cultural programming to serve its members in Indiana.[3][6]
History
Treaties made with the Miami between 1818 and 1840 ceded tribal lands in Indiana to the federal government; however, provisions were made to allow some Miami families to remain in the state. After the Miami removed to reservations in the Kansas Territory in 1846, the Indiana Miami began efforts to assert their rights as a separate tribal group, which they achieved under a treaty made in 1854; however, their status as a federally recognized tribe was terminated in legal rulings made in 1897. Since that time, the Indiana Miami have continued legal efforts to reinstate their status as a federally recognized tribal group.
The Treaty of St. Mary's (1818), a series of agreements with the Miami and other tribes, relinquished Indian land in central Indiana and Ohio to the federal government, but a parcel of land in northern Indiana was reserved for tribal use. The treaty also allotted portions of the Miami reservation lands in Indiana to individual members of the tribe, a move that would protect many of them from removal in 1846.[7][8] In 1826 the Miami tribe signed the Treaty of Mississinewas and agreed to cede to the United States government most of their reservation lands in Indiana, including the land ceded under the Treaty of St. Mary's (1818).[9] As part of the compensation provided under the Treaty of Mississinewas, twenty land grants were given to the families of Chief Jean Baptiste Richardville and other Miami families, although the tribe had formerly held the land in common. The rest of the tribe was granted hunting rights on open land that became the property of the United States, but most of this land was soon parceled out to settlers.[10]
Treaty agreement between the federal government and the Miami from 1828 to 1840 ceded the Miami's tribal reservation land in Indiana and began preparations for the tribe's removal.[11][12][13] Under the treaties made with the Miami, individuals and families who received allotments of land in Indiana were allowed to stay. The remainder of the tribe removed to reservations west of the Mississippi River, first to Kansas Territory in 1846, then to Indian Territory, now a part of present-day Oklahoma, in 1871.[14] In all, less than one half of the Miami tribe removed, and more than one half of the tribe either returned to Indiana or were exempt from removal under the terms of the treaties.[15]
The original members of the Indiana Miami date to October 6, 1846, when the major removal of the Miami began at Peru, Indiana.[15] Individual land allotments granted under federal treaty agreement exempted 126 Miami from removal, including 43 members of Jean Baptiste Richardville's family and 28 members of Francis Godfroy's family. The remaining 55 individuals were family members of Metocinyah. In 1845 the Congress passed a resolution that allowed 22 descendants of Frances Slocum and her husband, Shapoconah (Deaf Man), to remain in Indiana. The 148 individuals in these family groups became the nucleus of the present-day Miami Nation of Indiana.[16]
Additional names were added to the Indiana Miami's tribal rolls in the 1840s and 1850s. In 1847 a total of 17 members of the Eel River band of the Miami were added to the eastern Miami list and allowed to remain in Indiana; 101 more names were added to the group's tribal rolls in 1850. In all, about 250 Miami were living on an estimated 5,000 acres of Indiana reservation lands, most of it in Miami, Wabash, Grant, and Allen counties, by mid-century.[17] In 1852 Congress bypassed the Indiana Miami's tribal government to add 68 names to the tribe's annuity rolls. These included more of Chief Richardville's relatives and the followers of Papakeechi (Flat Belly), another Miami leader, but neither of the two groups had lived with the Indiana Miami or participated in their community activities.[18]
After the Miami removal in 1846, the federal government considered the Miami tribal government in the Kansas Territory as the tribe's sole governing body, and closed the Miami agency offices in Fort Wayne, Indiana.[19] Shortly thereafter, the Miami leadership living in Indiana, began efforts to assert their group's tribal status as separate from the western Miami. As a federally recognized tribe, the Miami were exempt from federal removal from their lands; their treaty lands could not be sold without the U.S. president's permission; and their lands were exempted from taxation. Tribal members were not considered U.S. citizens and could not become citizens without congressional approval.[20]
A treaty made on June 5, 1854, identified the eastern Miami in Indiana as a tribal government that was separate from the western Miami in the Kansas Territory, gave the two groups the authority to negotiate separate treaties, and confirmed the Indiana Miami's rights to determine their own tribal membership.[21][22] The treaty also restricted annuity payments to individuals listed on tribal rolls approved by the Miami tribal council, and replaced annuity payments under previous treaties with a new annuity fund for Miami tribal members. Interest from the new fund was used to make annuity payments to the Miami until 1881, when the remaining funds were equally divided among the tribal members.[23] Despite these treaty agreements, Congress authorized the addition of 119 more names to the Indiana Miami's tribal lists in 1858 and 1862, which made these individuals eligible for a share of the Miami annuity payments without the prior approval of the Miami tribal council. On September 20, 1867, U.S. Attorney GeneralHenry Stanbery affirmed the status of the Indiana Miami's tribal government and allowed the tribe to remove the names of some of the unauthorized Miami from their tribal membership rolls.[24]
In 1872, Congress passed legislation to allow the Miami reservation near Peru, Indiana, to be allotted into individual farms.[25] The 5,468 acres of land was divided among 63 eligible Miami into allotments of 77 to 125 acres. This Indiana land was exempt from taxation, mortgage, and subsequent sale until January 7, 1881, when the individual owners would become U.S. citizens and could dispose of the land if they chose to do so.[26] In 1891 Gabriel Godfroy, the son of Francis Godfroy, sold his 220-acre farm at Peru to Benjamin Wallace, and the farm became the center of the winter headquarters for several traveling circuses.[27] In addition to farming, many of the Miami found work in the Peru area on the railroads and tending the circus animals and farms.[28]
The late 1890s marked a period of significant change in the status of the eastern tribe. In 1895 the Indiana Miami settled legal claims for the annuities paid to some of the unauthorized Miami from 1851 to 1867 that amounted to $48,528. In 1896 the Indiana Miami established "The Tribe of Miami Indians of Indiana," who successfully filed legal claims to collect an estimated $80,715 in interest on the annuities paid to the ineligible Miami.[29] That same year the Indiana Miami from the Peru area also began legal action to have state taxes that had been imposed on their Indiana lands returned to them. The group argued that they were a federally recognized tribal group, not U.S. citizens, and were not subject to state taxation. Assistant U.S. Attorney General Willis Van Devanter disagreed. On November 23, 1897 he ruled that the Indiana Miami had not been recognized as a tribal group since 1881, when the annuity fund established under the treaty of 1854 was fully distributed. From Van Devanter's point of view, the payments made in 1881 ended the Indiana Miami's tribal relations and gave its members U.S. citizenship and individual control of their Indiana land.[30] Because the Indiana Miami were no longer recognized as a tribal group, which meant the loss of the federal treaty benefits, the federal government was unwilling to assist them in their claim against the state of Indiana. Between 1909 and 1911 the Indiana Miami continued their efforts to gain federal tribal recognition, but were unsuccessful. A bill authorizing their federal tribal status passed the U.S. Senate, but the U.S. House of Representatives failed to pass the legislation.[31][32]
After passage of the Indian Reorganization Act (1934) the eastern Miami renewed efforts to seek federal tribal recognition.[33] On September 30, 1937, the Indiana secretary of state approved a tribal organization named the "Miami Nation of Indians of the State of Indiana." However, Congress consistently refused to authorize federal recognition for the Indiana Miami every year from 1938 until 1942, when the tribal council temporarily suspended their lobbying efforts during World War II.[34] The group resumed activities after the war. In 1966 and 1969 the Indiana Miami were awarded additional settlements for land cession treaties made between 1809 and 1818 that amounted to a total of $2,500 paid to each of the 3,066 members enrolled on its tribal registers.[35]
In 1980 the Indiana legislature, who recognized the eastern Miami, voted to support federal recognition.[36] In July 1984, the Indiana Miami filed a formal petition for federal recognition with the Bureau of Indian Affairs;[37] however, on July 12, 1990, they were informed the group did not meet two of the seven criteria needed to achieve federal recognition: "sufficient evidence of governance" and "evidence of a distinctive community."[38] Additional documentation was provided to substantiate the petition, but the Bureau of Indian Affairs confirmed the determination against federal recognition for the tribe on June 9, 1992. Subsequent legal efforts failed to reverse the decision.[39]
In 1991, Indiana's US senator, Richard Lugar, introduced a Senate resolution (S.R. 538) to recognize the Indiana Miami at the federal level, but he withdrew support due to constituent concerns over gambling rights. Under the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (1988) Native Americans were allowed to establish casinos on their lands in states that allowed Class III gambling. Federal recognition of the Indiana Miami would allow the tribe to establish casino gambling in Indiana; however, the Indiana legislature debated and rejected casino gambling in the state in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Federally recognized tribes in other states have established gambling casinos and related facilities on their sovereign lands.[40]
On July 26, 1993, federal judge Robert Miller ruled that the federal government recognized the Indiana Miami in the 1854 treaty and did not have the authority to terminate status in 1897. He also ruled that the statute of limitations had expired to appeal their status, which triggered a series of further rulings on the case.[41] But in 1996, the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma changed its constitution to permit any descendant of people on certain historical rolls to join, and since then hundreds of Indiana-based Miami have become members. Today the Oklahoma Miami tribe has about 5,600 enrolled members.[citation needed] However many other Indiana-based Miami still consider themselves a separate group that has been unfairly denied separate federal recognition. The Supreme Court of the United States refused to review the tribe's appeal in 2002.[39].The Miami Nation of Indiana does not have federal tribal recognition, but the state legislature introduced Senate Bill No. 311 in 2011 to formally grant state recognition to the tribe, with the sole authority to determine its tribal membership.[42][43] The bill did not advance to a vote.
↑ James H. Madison (2014). Hoosiers: A New History of Indiana. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press and the Indiana Historical Society Press. p.123. ISBN978-0-253-01308-8.
↑ Donald F. Carmony (1998). Indiana, 1816–1850: The Pioneer Era. The History of Indiana. Vol.II. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society. p.555. ISBN0-87195-124-X.
Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States government for the relocation of Native Americans who held original Indian title to their land as an independent nation-state. The concept of an Indian territory was an outcome of the U.S. federal government's 18th- and 19th-century policy of Indian removal. After the American Civil War (1861–1865), the policy of the U.S. government was one of assimilation.
Little Turtle was a Sagamore (chief) of the Miami people, who became one of the most famous Native American military leaders. Historian Wiley Sword calls him "perhaps the most capable Indian leader then in the Northwest Territory," although he later signed several treaties ceding land, which caused him to lose his leader status during the battles which became a prelude to the War of 1812. In the 1790s, Mihšihkinaahkwa led a confederation of native warriors to several major victories against U.S. forces in the Northwest Indian Wars, sometimes called "Little Turtle's War", particularly St. Clair's defeat in 1791, wherein the confederation defeated General Arthur St. Clair, who lost 900 men in the most decisive loss by the U.S. Army against Native American forces.
The Miami are a Native American nation originally speaking one of the Algonquian languages. Among the peoples known as the Great Lakes tribes, they occupied territory that is now identified as north-central Indiana, southwest Michigan, and western Ohio. The Miami were historically made up of several prominent subgroups, including the Piankeshaw, Wea, Pepikokia, Kilatika, Mengakonkia, and Atchakangouen. In modern times, Miami is used more specifically to refer to the Atchakangouen. By 1846, most of the Miami had been forcefully displaced to Indian Territory. The Miami Tribe of Oklahoma are the federally recognized tribe of Miami Indians in the United States. The Miami Nation of Indiana, a nonprofit organization of self-identified descendants of Miamis who were exempted from removal, have unsuccessfully sought separate recognition.
The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was a treaty which was signed on September 27, 1830, and proclaimed on February 24, 1831, between the Choctaw American Indian tribe and the United States Government. This treaty was the first removal treaty which was carried into effect under the Indian Removal Act. The treaty ceded about 11 million acres (45,000 km2) of the Choctaw Nation in what is now Mississippi in exchange for about 15 million acres (61,000 km2) in the Indian territory, now the state of Oklahoma. The principal Choctaw negotiators were Chief Greenwood LeFlore, Mosholatubbee, and Nittucachee; the U.S. negotiators were Colonel John Coffee and Secretary of War John Eaton.
The Treaty of Greenville, also known to Americans as the Treaty with the Wyandots, etc., but formally titled A treaty of peace between the United States of America, and the tribes of Indians called the Wyandots, Delawares, Shawanees, Ottawas, Chippewas, Pattawatimas, Miamis, Eel Rivers, Weas, Kickapoos, Piankeshaws, and Kaskaskias was a 1795 treaty between the United States and indigenous nations of the Northwest Territory, including the Wyandot and Delaware peoples, that redefined the boundary between indigenous peoples' lands and territory for European American community settlement.
Tribal sovereignty in the United States is the concept of the inherent authority of Indigenous tribes to govern themselves within the borders of the United States.
The Sac and Fox Nation is the largest of three federally recognized tribes of Sauk and Meskwaki (Fox) Indian peoples. Originally from the Lake Huron and Lake Michigan area, they were forcibly relocated to Oklahoma in the 1870s and are predominantly Sauk. The Sac and Fox Oklahoma Tribal Statistical Area (OTSA) is the land base in Oklahoma governed by the tribe.
The Peoria are a Native American people. They are enrolled in the federally recognized Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma headquartered in Miami, Oklahoma.
Jean Baptiste de Richardville, also known as Pinšiwa or Peshewa in the Miami-Illinois language or John Richardville in English, was the last akima 'civil chief' of the Miami people. He began his career in the 1790s as a fur trader who controlled an important portage connecting the Maumee River to the Little River in what became the present-day state of Indiana. Richardville emerged a principal chief in 1816 and remained a leader of the Miamis until his death in 1841. He was a signatory to the Treaty of Greenville (1795), as well as several later treaties between the U.S. government and the Miami people, most notably the Treaty of Fort Wayne (1803), the Treaty of Fort Wayne (1809), the Treaty of Saint Mary's (1818), the Treaty of Mississinewas (1826), the treaty signed at the Forks of the Wabash (1838), and the Treaty of the Wabash (1840).
The Treaty of Mississinewas or the Treaty of Mississinewa also called Treaty of the Wabash is an 1826 treaty between the United States and the Miami and Potawatomi Tribes regarding purchase of Indian lands in Indiana and Michigan. The signing was held at the mouth of the Mississinewa River on the Wabash, hence the name.
The Treaty of St. Mary's may refer to one of six treaties concluded in fall of 1818 between the United States and Natives of central Indiana regarding purchase of Native land. The treaties were
Frances Slocum was an adopted member of the Miami people. Slocum was born into a Quaker family that migrated from Warwick, Rhode Island, in 1777 to the Wyoming Valley in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania. On November 2, 1778, when Slocum was five years old, she was captured by three Delaware warriors at the Slocum family farm in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Slocum was raised among the Delaware in what is now Ohio and Indiana. With her marriage to Shepoconah, who later became a Miami chief, Slocum joined the Miami and took the name Maconaquah. She settled with her Miami family at Deaf Man's village along the Mississinewa River near Peru, Indiana.
The Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma is one of three federally recognized Kickapoo tribes in the United States. There are also Kickapoo tribes in Kansas, Texas, and Mexico. The Kickapoo are a Woodland tribe, who speak an Algonquian language. They are affiliated with the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, the Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas, and the Mexican Kickapoo.
The Brothertown Indians, located in Wisconsin, are a Native American tribe formed in the late 18th century from communities descended from Pequot, Narragansett, Montauk, Tunxis, Niantic, and Mohegan (Algonquian-speaking) tribes of southern New England and eastern Long Island, New York. In the 1780s after the American Revolutionary War, they migrated from New England into New York state, where they accepted land from the Iroquois Oneida Nation in Oneida County.
The Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians is a federally recognized Native American tribe of Odawa. A large percentage of the more than 4,000 tribal members continue to reside within the tribe's traditional homelands on the northwestern shores of the state of Michigan's Lower Peninsula. The historically delineated reservation area, located at 45°21′12″N84°58′41″W, encompasses approximately 336 square miles (870 km2) of land in Charlevoix and Emmet counties. The largest communities within the reservation boundaries are Harbor Springs, where the tribal offices are located; Petoskey, where the Tribe operates the Odawa Casino Resort; and Charlevoix.
Indian termination describes United States policies relating to Native Americans from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s. It was shaped by a series of laws and practices with the intent of assimilating Native Americans into mainstream American society. Cultural assimilation of Native Americans was not new; the belief that indigenous people should abandon their traditional lives and become what the government considered "civilized" had been the basis of policy for centuries. What was new, however, was the sense of urgency that, with or without consent, tribes must be terminated and begin to live "as Americans." To that end, Congress set about ending the special relationship between tribes and the federal government.
The Potawatomi Trail of Death was the forced removal by militia in 1838 of about 859 members of the Potawatomi nation from Indiana to reservation lands in what is now eastern Kansas.
Indian removals in Indiana followed a series of the land cession treaties made between 1795 and 1846 that led to the removal of most of the native tribes from Indiana. Some of the removals occurred prior to 1830, but most took place between 1830 and 1846. The Lenape (Delaware), Piankashaw, Kickapoo, Wea, and Shawnee were removed in the 1820s and 1830s, but the Potawatomi and Miami removals in the 1830s and 1840s were more gradual and incomplete, and not all of Indiana's Native Americans voluntarily left the state. The most well-known resistance effort in Indiana was the forced removal of Chief Menominee and his Yellow River band of Potawatomi in what became known as the Potawatomi Trail of Death in 1838, in which 859 Potawatomi were removed to Kansas and at least forty died on the journey west. The Miami were the last to be removed from Indiana, but tribal leaders delayed the process until 1846. Many of the Miami were permitted to remain on land allotments guaranteed to them under the Treaty of St. Mary's (1818) and subsequent treaties.
Menominee was a Potawatomi chief and religious leader whose village on reservation lands at Twin Lakes, 5 miles (8.0 km) southwest of Plymouth in present-day Marshall County, Indiana, became the gathering place for the Potawatomi who refused to remove from their Indiana reservation lands in 1838. Their primary settlements were at present day Myers Lake and Cook Lake. Although Menominee's name and mark appear on several land cession treaties, including the Treaty of St. Mary's (1818), the Treaty of Mississinewas (1826), the Treaty of Tippecanoe (1832), and a treaty signed on December 16, 1834, he and other Potawatomi refused to take part in subsequent land cession negotiations, including the Treaty of Yellow River (1836), that directly led to the forced removal of Menominee's band from Indiana in 1838.
Menominee Tribe v. United States, 391 U.S. 404 (1968), is a case in which the Supreme Court ruled that the Menominee Indian Tribe kept their historical hunting and fishing rights even after the federal government ceased to recognize the tribe. It was a landmark decision in Native American case law.
Madison, James H. (2014). Hoosiers: A New History of Indiana. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press and the Indiana Historical Society Press. ISBN978-0-253-01308-8.
Rafert, Stewart (1996). The Miami Indians of Indiana: A Persistent People, 1654-1994. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society. ISBN0-87195-111-8.
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