thumb|350px|Painted hide with geometric motifs, attributed to the Illinois Confederacy by the French, pre-1800. Collections of the [[Musée du quai Branly.]]
The Illinois Confederation, also referred to as the Illiniwek or Illini, were made up of a loosely organized group of 12 or 13 tribes who lived in the Mississippi River Valley. Eventually, member tribes occupied an area reaching from Lake Michigan to Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas. The five main tribes were the Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Mitchigamea, Peoria, and Tamaroa. Other related tribes are described as the Maroa (which may have been the same as Tamaroa), Tapourao, Coiracoentanon, Espeminka, Moingwena, Chinkoa, and Chepoussa. By 1700, only the Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Michigamea, Peoria, and Tamaroa remained. Over time, these tribes continued to merge, with the Tamaroa joining the Kaskaskia, the Cahokia joining the Peoria, and with a portion of the Michigamea merging with the Kaskaskia and the remainder merging with the Quapaw.
The spelling "Illinois" was derived from the transliteration by French explorers of to the orthography of their own language. Both French explorers and missionaries usually referenced them as "Illinois," but also used the terms "Eriniouai, Liniouek, Aliniouek, Iliniouek, Ilinois, and Ilinoués." The tribes are estimated to have had tens of thousands of members, before the advancement of European contact in the 17th century that inhibited their growth and resulted in a marked decline in population.
The Illinois, like many Native American groups, sustained themselves through agriculture, hunting, and fishing. A partially nomadic group, the Illinois often lived in longhouses and wigwams, according to the season and resources that were available to them in the surrounding land. While the men usually hunted, traded, or participated in war, the women cultivated and processed their crops, created tools and clothing from game, and preserved food in various ways for storage and travel. Not officially a Confederation, the villages were led by one Great Chief. The villages had several chiefs who led each individual clan. The Illinois people eventually declined because of losses to infectious disease and war, mostly brought through the arrival of French colonists. Eventually, the remnants of these tribal groups reorganized under the name of the Confederated Peoria. They are now known as the federally recognized "Peoria Tribe of Indians" and reside in present-day Oklahoma.
Name
French missionaries who documented their interactions with the tribes noted that the people referred to themselves as the Inoka. The meaning of this word is unknown. Jacques Marquette, a French Jesuit missionary, claimed that Illinois was derived from Illini in their Algonquian language, meaning "the men". Louis Hennepin claimed the aforementioned men were a symbol of maturity and strength, and representative of the prime of a man's age.
History
Formation
The Illinois Confederation comprised 12 separate tribes who shared common language and culture. These tribes are the Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Peoria, Tamaroa, Moingwena, Michigamea, Chepoussa, Chinkoa, Coiracoentanon, Espeminkia, Maroa, and Tapouara. Of these 12, only the Kaskaskia, Cahokia, Peoria, Tamaora, and Michigamea remain; others were lost as distinct tribes to disease and warfare. Although the number of Illinois has been significantly reduced by colonization and genocide, many of their descendants are today part of the Peoria Tribe of Miami, Oklahoma, as part of the merged Confederated Peoria Tribe.
For centuries, the Chicago region was home to a succession of Native nations whose histories overlapped and intertwined. The Illinois Confederation first dominated the area, followed by Miami groups and, by the eighteenth century, Potawatomi communities who established villages along the region’s rivers and marshlands. These nations engaged in trade with French newcomers, formed kin networks with Métis families, and navigated the shifting politics of British and American expansion. A series of early nineteenth‑century treaties forced the cession of their lands, but Native presence did not vanish. Indigenous families remained in and around Chicago, and by the mid‑twentieth century the city had become a major center of urban Indian life, shaped by federal relocation programs and the creation of institutions such as the American Indian Center.
Interactions with Europeans
thumb|This Painted Skin represents the [[Thunderbird (mythology)|Thunderbird, before 1800' its location is not given, but the style strongly suggests this hide was painted at the same time, and perhaps by the same artist, as the lede art.]]
When the French first encountered the Illiniwek tribes, as many as 10,000 members were thought to be living in a vast area stretching from Lake Michigan west to the heart of Iowa and as far south as Arkansas. The early French explorers, including Louis Jolliet, Jacques Marquette and René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, produced accounts that documented the first discovery of the Illinois. Because of these developments, the Illinois tribes became well known to European explorers. European colonization, values, and religion began to affect the tribes.
In the late 17th century, the Iroquois, to expand their region and control the fur trade, forced the Kaskaskia and other Illinois out of their villages. They relocated to the south.
In the early 1700s, the Illinois became involved in the conflict between the Meskwaki, also known as "Fox", and the French, known as the Fox Wars.
Additionally, with the expansion of European and Iroquois contact, the Illinois were exposed to a variety of new diseases that caused high mortality among them.
In 1854, the Illinois merged with the Wea and Piankashaw nations, renaming themselves as the Confederated Peoria Tribe. Men, on the other hand, could receive status through their achievements in battle and demonstrating courage and bravery. Within their communities, these people were called the ikoneta. As according to culture, they dressed in clothing similar to other women; they also were tattooed and taught the language patterns that were specific to women. Ikoneta folks held many similar roles in society to other women in work and care of the home and even in times of war, they also have held unique roles as spiritual leaders or as manitou. According to Hauser, the ikoneta as a group were neither specially "honored nor despised" within their communities, but generally were accepted as a part of life at least until religious pressures from Catholic colonizers.
French Catholic colonizers, such as Pierre Deliette and Father Jacques Marquette, upon encountering ikoneta individuals in Illiniwek bands, wrote about them using the term berdache, which means "passive partner in sodomy, boy prostitute"; this term has always been offensive to Indigenous peoples. While some ethnographers consider the ikoneta to have been transgender or bisexual, according to the Native American conferences a more accurate and appropriate descriptor would be two-spirit.
Religion
People of all social roles and positions were very religious, relying on spiritual guidance to dictate every aspect of their lives.
Traditions
thumb|Illiniwek Village State Historic Site, [[Clark County, Missouri ]]
The Illinois men and women practiced dream seeking, a ritual in which young boys and girls of about fifteen years of age would paint their face and isolate themselves to fast and pray as a means to reveal to them a specific spirit guardian upon which they would depend to guide them for the rest of their lives.
Society
Economy
The economy of the Illinois people was based on agriculture, hunting, and fishing. They depended heavily on agriculture, and generally had villages located near rivers where the soil was most fertile. As time passed, traders and missionaries began to settle among the Illinois and their formerly self-sufficient economy became increasingly dependent upon their French allies.
Because a true confederation refers to different groups of people who, although linked as one nation, are culturally distinct, the Illinois, in the direct definition of the word, are more a segmented tribe rather than a confederation.