Indians of the Western Great Lakes 



They Are Still Here 



by Helen Hornbeck Tanner 



The original inhabitants of the western Great Lakes, 

 now commonly called "Indians" or "Native Amer- 

 icans," have left traces of their presence as long as 

 ten or twelve thousand years ago in this region, though 

 the record of continuous existence is clearly evident for 

 the last four thousand years. For Indian people who still 

 live near Chicago and Lakes Michigan, Superior, and 

 Huron, their traditional history consequently covers 

 many centuries of time in North America. By contrast, 

 all other present-day inhabitants are hut recent 

 immigrants whose homelands are across the oceans on 

 other continents. 



To appreciate the native American perspective 

 regarding regional history of the western Great Lakes, 

 it may be helpful to use the device of an imaginary long- 

 run film that would cover 250 years an hour, and so take 

 sixteen hours to record the 4,000-year span of time. All 

 the actors would be Indian people for more than four- 

 teen of those sixteen hours. If the film began at 8 a.m. 

 and ended at midnight, the first French explorers 

 would not appear in the present Chicago area until 

 about 10:40 p.m., and American settlers would not ar- 

 rive on the scene until about 1 1:25 p.m. In this long- 

 range view of the regional past, Americans who have 

 all come from other parts of the world represent a thin 

 surface-layer of very recent but nevertheless traumatic 

 developments that rapidly transformed the western 

 Great Lakes country. 



The many centuries of time before the arrival of 

 Europeans were not static for the original inhabitants. 

 The lakes and river systems, along with the overland 

 trails, provided a communication system that kept na- 

 tive communities of the western Great Lakes in touch 

 with the Atlantic Seaboard, Gulf Coast, Rocky Moun- 

 tains beyond the Great Plains, and the north country 

 towards Hudson Bay. The frequency of such contacts 

 varied over the centuries, as population centers formed 

 and later broke up when groups dispersed and moved 

 about. Alliances fostered intercommunity contacts, 

 while enmities created barriers. 

 6 The greatest era in the past history of eastern 



North America occurred during the period around A. D. 

 II 50, when a flourishing metropolis with a population 

 estimated at 10,000 existed at Cahokia, Illinois, across 

 the Mississippi River from present St. Louis, Missouri. 

 Including satellite towns and ceremonial mounds on 

 both sides of the Mississippi, the regional population 

 may have been as high as 40,000. Cahokia was well 

 placed in the middle course of the Mississippi River, a 

 main artery of north-south travel, and close to en- 

 trances of both the Missouri and Ohio rivers. By land 

 trails to the Southwest, Cahokians traded with other 

 prosperous and highly developed towns in present 

 Louisiana and east Texas. 



Native people throughout the western Great 

 Lakes had contacts with Cahokia and built their own 

 local mounds, but did not live in villages large enough 

 to maintain the complex society of the great cere- 

 monial and trade center on the Mississippi River. The 

 people on the upper Illinois River, around the base of 

 Lake Michigan, and in southwestern Michigan lived in 

 the hinterlands. The impressive city of Cahokia was 

 not an enduring metropolis, but dwindled and broke 

 into smaller hamlets by A.D. 1300, during a period 

 when similar population decline and dispersal was 

 occurring in other sectors of the present United States. 

 One distant offshoot of Cahokia was established in 

 southeastern Wisconsin at present Azatlan, where 

 signs of the mounds and palisaded fortifications are still 

 visible. 



Helen Hornbeck Tanner is a research assixiate at tiie Newberry 

 Library's D'arcy McNickle Center tor the Study ot the American 

 Indian. She has written extensively in the Held of Indian studies 

 and has ser\ed as an expert witness in cases presented before the 

 Indian Claims Commission and as historical consultant in other 

 cases ot tribal litigation. Dr. Tanner has also been guest lecturer on 

 Indian history tor the Field Museum's Adult Education Program. 

 Alias of Great Lakes Indian History, edited by Dr. Tanner and pub- 

 lished in 1987 by the University of Oklahoma Press, was awarded 

 the Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin Prize by the American SiKiety for 

 Ethnohistory as the best book in the field ot ethnt>history published 

 in 1987. 



