The Peoria are
Algonquian-speaking people. Their ancestors traditionally lived in what are now the state jurisdictions of
Illinois,
Ohio,
Michigan, and
Missouri. The Peoria are related to, and partially descended from, the
Cahokia people, not to be confused with
Cahokia Mounds. The Peoria were one of the many
Illinois tribes encountered by early French explorers, Father
Jacques Marquette and
Louis Jolliet. French
Jesuit missionaries converted tribal citizens to
Roman Catholicism. After 1763 France ceded its Illinois Country and other territories east of the Mississippi River to the British, who had defeated them in the
Seven Years' War. Like many of the French colonists in villages in this area, the Peoria migrated southwest into
Missouri Territory. The US pressed for
Indian Removal from areas desired by European-American settlers, who kept pushing west, and President Andrew Jackson signed the act of that name in 1830. By the 1832 Treaty of Lewisville, the Peoria ceded
Missouri lands in exchange for land in
Kansas near the
Osage River, which was then part of Indian Territory. In 1851, an
Indian agent reported that the Peoria and the Kaskaskia, along with their allies, had intermarried among themselves and among white people to such an extent that they had practically lost their tribal identities. An 1854 treaty recognized this as a factual union and classified these groups as the
Confederated Peoria. The treaty also provided for opening the Peoria-Kaskaskia and the Wea-Piankashaw reserves in Kansas to settlement by non-Indians. == Namesakes ==