Tamaroa tribe

The Tamaroa were a Native American tribe in the central Mississippi River valley of North America, and a member of the Illiniwek or Illinois Confederacy of twelve to thirteen tribes.

An Algonquian-speaking group, like the rest of the Illiniwek, they lived on both sides of the Mississippi River in the area of the confluence with the Illinois and Missouri rivers.

The Jesuit Relations say: "At 5 miles from the village, I found the Tamaroa, who have taken up their winter quarters in a fine Bay, where they await the Mitchigamea, -- who are to come more than 60 leagues to winter there, and to form but one village with them."

Two leaders of the Tamaroa were among those who signed the treaty of 1818, by which the various groups of the Illiniwek ceded about half of the present state of Illinois to the United States. Descendants of the Tamaroa later merged with other, larger tribes of the Illiniwek, such as the Peoria. As a consequence of the forced Indian removal in the 1830s, their descendants are to be found mostly in Oklahoma, as the Confederated Peoria Tribe.

External links

• Tribes of the Illinois/Missouri Region at First Contact (1673), US GenNet
• Linda Simpson, "The Tribes of The Illinois Confederacy", Rootsweb
• Lenville J. Stelle, Inoca Ethnohistory Project: Eye Witness Descriptions of the Contact Generation, 1667-1700, Parkland College, 2005