A Brief History of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma

The sovereign Miami Tribe of Oklahoma is based in Miami, Oklahoma in the northeastern corner of the state.  The population of the Nation is 4,000, and citizens can be found living in all 50 states as well as outside the boundaries of the United States.  The Tribe’s population is concentrated in northeastern Oklahoma, eastern Kansas, and northern Indiana.  This reflects the historical experiences of a tribe that suffered a series of forced removals from our historic homelands – in what became the states of Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan – to lands lying west of the Mississippi in what would become the state of Kansas, and then from Kansas to Indian Territory, which later became the state of Oklahoma.

In our language, the Miami Tribe’s name for ourselves is Myaamia, which means  “the Downstream People.” Our story begins at a place we call Saakiiweeyonki, near where the St. Joseph’s River empties into Lake Michigan.  At some point in our distant past, our ancestors first emerged onto our homelands at Saakiiweeyonki.

From the village at Saakiiweeyonki, they descended into the Waapaahšiki Siipiiwi (Wabash River) valley building communities at major confluences and portages from Kiihkayonki (Ft. Wayne, Indiana) downstream to Aciipihkahkionki (Vincennes, Indiana).  Together these villages maintained a common language, hunting and farming cultural practices.  They often came together to collectively defend themselves and negotiate peace with neighboring tribes and Europeans.

Over generations, the Myaamia extended their cultural roots deep into the soil of the Wabash River Valley.  The people drew their sustenance from the wetlands, prairies, woodlands, river bottomlands, and the plants and animals that lived in these places.  During the long summers, villages grew miincipi (corn) and other vegetables.  They dried, processed, and stored these agricultural products to last throughout the year.  The men of the villages helped in minor ways with the farming, but most of their time was spent hunting moohswa (White Tailed Deer), lenaswa (Bison), miihšiiwa (Eastern Elk), and the wide variety of smaller animals and birds that populated the Waapaahšiki Siipiiwi and the hunting grounds to the east and west.  During the winter, larger villages broke into smaller hunting bands and moved into winter camps located on or near the hunting grounds.  In the early spring, the women and children moved to the sugar maple groves to collect sap and process the liquid into maple sugar that they ate, stored, and traded.  Following the return of warmer weather, the Myaamia began their agricultural cycle again with the clearing and planting of their fields.

These vital cycles of planting, harvesting, hunting, gathering, and processing governed the lives of the Myaamia for generations.  The rhythms of these cycles reflect an ecologically-based existence in an ancestral homeland we call Myaamionki (Place of the Miamis).  For the Myaamia, our land and the ability to care for our basic needs is the foundation of communal life, and is the basis of our physical and mental health as a people.

Myaamionki  has always been vital in sustaining our community.  Our lands continue to serve as the place by which our language and cultural practices sustain the general wellbeing of our people.  Our language and culture are essential in preserving our unique worldview and indigenous knowledge system for future generations. Our identity as a people is intrinsically tied to the places we call home historically and today.

Our ancestors’ lives in our homelands shifted dramatically in the generations following first contact with Europeans and the birth of the United States of America.  In 1846, half of the six hundred or so Myaamia – who had survived the years of war, disease, and settlement perpetrated by the newcomers – were forcibly removed from our homelands and settled west of the Mississippi on lands in Indian Territory (current day Kansas).  These lands were not the wooded river valleys of the northern Waapaahšiki Siipiiwi, but over time the tall grass prairies west of the Mihsisiipiwi (Mississippi River) became home.  Along the watershed of the Marais des Cygnes River, the Myaamiaki rebuilt their homes, planted their corn, and hunted deer and bison as they always had. As Myaamia people worked to transform this new place into Myaamionki (the Place of the Miami), new groups of settlers began pressuring the Myaamiaki to give up our lands and move yet again.

From the end of the 1860s into the 1870s, many Myaamiaki were forced to leave their homes in Kansas and move to new lands to the south in Indian Territory (current-day Oklahoma).  In northeastern Oklahoma, Myaamiaki were graciously allowed to find a new home on lands that the Osage and Quapaw people had called their own for generations.  In addition to living with the Quapaw and Osage, the Myaamia found themselves living next to other tribes who were originally from the Great Lakes region: the Wyandot, Peoria, Ottawa, Seneca-Cayuga, and Shawnee.

Northeastern Oklahoma is the seat of government for the sovereign nation of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma.  However, all of the lands where the Miami have lived over time are still referred to as “Myaamionki” (the Place of the Myaamia).  The Nation maintains a 1,400-acre land base and many tribal businesses in and around Miami, OK.  Through its land base and businesses, the Miami Tribe seeks the resources necessary to care for its elderly and young people and to maintain the integrity, both cultural and political, of the Nation.

Today, our Nation is a strong and vibrant community.  We share a common history, but we are not a people trapped in the past.  Instead, we work diligently to make choices and changes built solidly on the foundation passed to us by our predecessors.  If you have the opportunity to visit us in Miami, Oklahoma know that you well be greeted as an honored guest with open and generous arms. “piintikiilo neehi wiitapimiloome” (come in and sit with us!)

FAQ: Origins of the name Twigh Twee?

In many historical works readers encounter the term Twigh Twee as one name for Myaamia (Miami) People.  So where did this unique name come from?  The short answer is that we don’t know for sure.  The longer and more complicated answer is a little more interesting.

Cecaahkwa (Sandhill Crane): mark of the Myaamia in 1701

When we go back to early historical record and look for references that include the term Twigh Twee, we only find this term being used by people who historically lived to our east: Delaware, Shawnee, Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), Pennsylvanians, and Virginians.  We have yet to encounter a French source that uses this term to refer to Myaamia people.  Nor do we find references from Ojibwe, Potawatomi, Ottawa, Wyandot, or other peoples who historically lived to our north and west.

In 1824, C.C. Trowbridge recounted one story that perhaps explains the origin of this term.  Trowbridge’s two main sources of information were the Myaamia leaders Pinšiwa (Jean Baptiste Richardville) and Meehcikilita (Le Gros) and one or the both of them shared the following story with him.

Early in our history, the Myaamia “discovered the Cherokees and were in the habit of making war on them.”  [The Cherokees traditional homelands lie in what is today northern Georgia, Alabama, and the western Carolinas.]  The Myaamia had made three successful raids on the Cherokees when they decided to make a retaliatory raid.

The Cherokee war party journeyed until they reached a large river.  [Pinšiwa and Meehcikilita did not name this river, but it seems likely that this was the Kaanseenseepiiwi (Ohio River).  One of our war trails to the Cherokee and Chickasaw homelands crossed the Kaanseenseepiiwi near what is today Cincinnati.]   On the near bank of this large river, the Cherokee war party  discovered a single trail and upon crossing they found many tracks, which they followed.  Eventually they encountered a mark “blazed upon the side of a tree.” It was the head and neck of cecaahkwa (the Sandhill Crane). 

Eventually the Cherokee war party came to prairie where they saw two cecaahkwa, which they drove before them as they crossed the grassy meadow.  The Myaamia were lying in ambush on the opposite side, and as the Cherokees approached the cecaahkwa began to cry out in fright.

At that moment, the Myaamia charged the Cherokees and the cecaahkwa, caught in the middle began to cry out even louder “twau twau, twau twau” as they flew off.  Every Cherokee in the war party was killed except one, who returned to his village and “told his friends that they need not wonder at their frequent defeats, for they were conquered, not by men, but by the Twau twau’s who could fly off at will.”[1]

This name seems to have taken root among many eastern tribes: the Delaware, Shawnee, Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), and likely among the Cherokee as well (although we have yet to encounter a Cherokee reference to this story or the Twigh Twee name).  These groups then passed this name on to the English.  As a result, many of the early English documents refer to the Myaamia as Twigh Twees or Twigtwees.  Tribes to our north and west seem to not have used this term.  They used Myaamia, the downstream people, and this is the name that was passed to the French.  So most of the early French documents refer to us as the Miamis, which they spelled in a multitude of different ways.[2]

Symbol of community by Julie Olds (Miami Tribe of Oklahoma).

In a few cases, both today and in the past, Myaamia people adopted the name Twigh Twee to refer to themselves.  However, early in the 20^th century, Gabriel Godfroy clearly stated the name “to-wä-to-wä” was a name that other tribes used to refer to the Myaamia.[3]  Today, the majority of Myaamia people use Miami, “Miam-uh,” or Myaamia to refer to ourselves.  Cecaahkwa (Sandhill Crane) continues to bea key symbol of community for Myaamia people.

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[1] Charles C. Trowbridge and W. Vernon Kinietz, Meearmeear Traditions (Ann Arbor [Mich.]: University of Michigan Press, 1938), 6.  Later in the text Trowbridge states “The Cherokees are the only Indians against whom they maintained a war for any time.”  By the 1800s, Myaamia relations with the Cherokee had vastly improved. Pinšiwa met with Cherokee leaders either in Baltimore or Washington D.C. and learned about their efforts to reorganize their nation.  After the forced removals of 1846 and 1873, the Cherokee became close neighbors of the Myaamia.

[2] David J. Costa, “Miami-Illinois Tribe Names” in Papers of the Thirty-First Algonquian Conference, John D. Nichols, ed. (University of Manitoba Press, 2000), 44-45.

[3] Costa, “Miami-Illinois Tribe Names,” 44.