“From the time I can remember, we’d go out in the woods or pastures to pick plants for supper or to heal wounds. I didn’t even realize we did things that were considered ‘different’ until I was in college.”
Allen County resident Dani Tippmann grew up absorbing her Native American, Miami, heritage at her mother’s knee. When her own kids were in school, she saw how easy it was for Native Americans to be erased from history.
“My kids would come home and tell me their teacher said the Miami people left Fort Wayne in the 1800s, and that made me even more passionate about making our culture known,” Tippmann says. “Our people have a past, but we are of the present, and we’re going into the future. The Miami people are here in this Fort Wayne community.”
Today, Tippmann is one of five Allen County Folklife Scholars who are part of the Allen County Folklife Study focused on honoring, sharing, and preserving their cultural heritage through the arts. The study is made possible by a partnership between Traditional Arts Indiana and @artsunitedgfw, as well as a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (@neaarts). It began in Spring 2022 with the contracting of five Folklife Scholars like Tippmann who are members of different cultures, including Black/African American, Burmese, Indian, Latinx, and Native American.
At Arts United's 2022 Taste of the Arts Festival (@tastefortwayne) on Aug. 27, the public will have an opportunity to meet these scholars and experience their stories, traditions, dances, food, and more. Learn more on the link in our bio. by Charlotte Ewing
ARCH Fun & Free Lecture: Myaamiaki neehi Myaamionki: Miami People and Miami Land June 4, 2024 College TV Fort Wayne on YouTube Logan York, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, will present a deep look into the history and heritage of this place now known as Fort Wayne, Allen County and Northeast Indiana and update our understanding of how that heritage lives on today. Consider this presentation an extra contribution adding to the recognition of the 200th year since Allen County was established this month in 1823.
Each summer, Myaamia Center staff travel to both Noošonke Siipionki ‘Miami, Oklahoma’ and Kiihkayonki ‘Fort Wayne, Indiana’ to participate in the Miami Tribe’s Eemamwicki educational programs. This year’s program theme is kiikinaana ‘Our Homes.’ Over the course of a week, participants are led through a series of activities to learn about the places at the center of Myaamia life today and throughout history. To learn more about Myaamia homes, click here: niikinaana – Our Homes (FAQ)
As many celebrate ašiihkiwi ‘Earth’ and its ecology tomorrow for Earth Day, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on the importance of Earth’s changing ecology to Myaamiaki ‘Myaamia people.’ The Myaamia Kiilhswaakani ‘Myaamia Lunar Calendar’ reflects the ecological changes of the Myaamia traditional homelands. Each month is determined by the phases of the moon and focuses on a specific change in the ecology taking place during that time period. Myaamiaki ‘Myaamia people’ often rely on these specific changes to keep track of time and seasons.
Gretchen Spenn, a senior from Fort Wayne, Indiana, spent her senior year conducting research for her project, “Wiihsinitaawi, ‘Let’s Eat!’ While studying nutrition and dietetics at Miami University, Gretchen wanted to explore the sovereignty and peoplehood of the Miami Tribe through Myaamia food and recipes. Gretchen compiled her research into a cookbook that she hopes to someday share with the Myaamia community with the goals of encouraging community members to use Myaamia foods and recipes in their everyday lives, as well as create and contribute their own culturally significant recipes to the book.
[Each year, seniors in the Myaamia Heritage Program spend the year working on an independent research project, encouraging them to use the knowledge they’ve gained from the Myaamia Heritage Program and their coursework at Miami University to give back to the Myaamia community.]
Senior Spotlight: Peepinšihšia ‘Abby Strack’, a senior from Fort Wayne, Indiana, spent her senior year conducting research for her senior project, “Who are the Miami?” While studying primary education at Miami University, Abby was interested in exploring how to share her Myaamia identity with students in the classroom. She developed this project into an in-class activity, where students learn about her Myaamia identity, and then they highlight one of their identities to share with classmates. Abby hopes to use this curriculum in her future classrooms after graduation.
[Each year, seniors in the Myaamia Heritage Program spend the year working on an independent research project, encouraging them to use the knowledge they’ve gained from the Myaamia Heritage Program and their coursework at Miami University to give back to the Myaamia community.]
Miami Presents: History of the Miami Tribe by Miami University Alumni Association Streamed live on Apr 13, 2022 on YouTube.
Just one video in the Myaamia Center Webinar Series Miami University and the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma first connected in 1972 when Chief Forest Olds, having heard about a university in Ohio that shared a name with his Tribal nation, showed up on campus unexpectedly during a visit to Cincinnati. What came of that surprise encounter is a now 50-year-long partnership between the two Miamis - one they plan to commemorate throughout 2022 including with this series of webinars. Join us to learn more about the Miami Tribe, the relationship between the Miami Tribe and Miami University, as well as the relationship outcomes, including the work of the Myaamia Center and the Myaamia Heritage Program.
The sovereign Miami Tribe of Oklahoma is centered in what is today northeast Oklahoma but maintains many ongoing connections to their historic homelands that include what is today western Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, southern Michigan, and southern Wisconsin. This presentation will follow the path of the Miami Tribe from the era before contact with Europeans, through the maelstrom of colonization, and conclude by providing an overview of how this history affects the educational needs of Miami Tribe citizens today.
George Ironstrack is a citizen of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and the Assistant Director of the Myaamia Center at Miami University. He has participated in Myaamia language renewal projects as both a student and a teacher since the mid-1990s. Examples of his writing and editing can be found on the Myaamia Community Blog: aacimotaatiiyankwi.org.
On this date in 1846, 175 years ago, the forced removal of the Miami Tribe began in Peru, IN. Follow and read the Myaamia Community Blog to learn more about this forced removal and its ongoing impact on Myaamia people.
In October 1846, the Miami Nation, the last tribal nation in Indiana, was forcibly removed by the United States military to a new reservation west of the Mississippi River, in present-day eastern Kansas. However, not all Myaamia (Miami Indian) people were removed to the Miami Reservation.
As the Miami Nation prepared for their forced removal, Myaamia leaders had secured the exemption of four Myaamia bands (the Richardville, Godfroy, Meshingomesia, and Slocum/Bundy bands), numbering approximately 150 people. The Richardville Band was exempted in the Treaty of 1838 and the Godfroy and Meshingomesia bands were exempted in the subsequent Treaty of 1840, which authorized Myaamia removal. The Slocum/Bundy Band was exempt five years later, in 1845, through an Act of Congress.
In the four years after removal roughly 109 additional Myaamia people, most of whom had walked back from the Miami Reservation, received further exemptions from Congress. These 259 Myaamia people and their descendants became known as Indiana Myaamiaki or Indiana Miamies.
Telling Our Story: A Living History of the Myaamia has lots of Miami Indian history. The Home page states: Telling our Story: The Living History of the Myaamia provides teachers and home schooling families with a curriculum for teaching Myaamia (Miami Tribe) history to grades 3-12. The curriculum includes primary sources, images, videos, and lesson plans, which are all linked to the relevant content standards for Ohio, Indiana, and Oklahoma. As a whole, the six sections of this curriculum address Myaamia history beginning with the pre-contact period (pre-1600s) and concluding with contemporary issues. This curriculum is a living document and more lessons will be added over time. Be sure to check back regularly! Please email or call, with questions or comments, George Ironstrack at the Myaamia Center at Miami University – ironstgm@miamioh.edu, 513-529-5648.
The Aacimotaatiiyankwi website has many interesting pages, one in particular with links to more articles is titled: Removal Commemoration Meehkweelintamankwi Aanchsahaaciki ‘Remembering Our Forced Removal’ the page states: October 2021 will mark 175 years since this momentous and tragic event began on October 6, 1846. The 1846 removal took nearly a month to complete, but the impacts of removal continue to be felt by all Myaamiaki no matter where we live today. Meehkweelintamankwi Aanchsahaaciki ‘Remembering Our Forced Removal’, a year of remembrance and commemoration, will begin during our Winter Gathering at Home event (February 12-13, 2021) and will continue with monthly activities through February 2022.
Picking Up the Threads of Our Knowledge: Revitalization of Myaamia "Miami Indian" Language & Culture posted Mar 21, 2022 by IU Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology on YouTube. After 100 years of forced removals, population fragmentation, land loss, and boarding schools the language of the Myaamia people fell into a state of dormancy. In the 1990s, the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma initiated a national effort to revitalize Myaamiaataweenki and created programs to help breathe new life into the language. The story of reclamation and revitalization of Myaamiaataweenki demonstrates the restorative healing effects that language and cultural revitalization continues to have for Myaamia people. Speaker: George Ironstrack, citizen of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma and Assistant Director of the Myaamia Center at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. Originally presented September 2021. Event co-sponsored by Themester 2021: Resilience, an initiative of the IU College of Arts and Sciences.
An American Indian tribe that was forced to relocate from Indiana in the mid-19th century has announced plans to open an extension office in Fort Wayne to provide historic preservation consulting and cultural programming in the tribe’s ancestral homeland. Chief Douglas Lankford and other leaders of the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma are scheduled to visit Fort Wayne on Friday to welcome community members to the tribe’s first cultural resources extension office, The News-Sentinel reported. Copied from Miami Indians opening extension office in Fort Wayne published January 19, 2015 on NativeTimes.
CREO Cultural Resources Extension Office has two staff members and more information on the Fort Wayne office and 10 acres of land purchased in November 2015. Their website states: The (CREO) promotes the knowledge of myaamia history, language, culture, and traditions. The office forwards community development in the myaamia ancestral homelands through serving local Miami Tribal citizens in Indiana, working with local governments and organizations to maintain and protect our Tribal sovereignty and our cultural identity. The CREO forwards the goals of the Miami Nation in Indiana.
The De Rome family by Wilkins, Cleo Goff Publication date 1972 on Archive.org has information on the Indiana-Purdue Regional Campus at Fort Wayne occuping a part of the DeRome Reserve, land granted by the government to Princess Maria Christina, a half breed Miami Indian, by the Miami Treaty of October 23, 1826. See our De Rome Family section.
If you have ancestors from Indian Territory or Oklahoma or are interested in Oklahoma history, you are in for a treat. We’ve partnered with the Oklahoma Historical to digitize nearly 15 million new pages of Indian Territory and Oklahoma newspapers, bringing in more than 20 million pages! These papers date back to 1844 when Oklahoma was still Indian Territory.
In 1828, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which forcibly relocated thousands of Native Americans to reservation lands in Indian Territory (which later became Oklahoma). By 1880, more than 60 Tribal Nations inhabited the area.
Miami Indians of Indiana : March 27, 1866 ... by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Indian Affairs; Windom, William, 1827-1891; Speed, James, 1812-1887; Miami Tribe. Treaties, etc. United States, 1854 June 5, Publication date 1866, on Archive.org
Journal of Captain William Trent from Logstown to Pickawillany, A.D. 1752 : now published for the first time from a copy in the archives of the Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland, Ohio, together with letters of Governor Robert Dinwiddie ; an historical notice of the Miami confederacy of Indians ; a sketch of the English poet at Pickawillany, with a short biography of Captain Trent, and other papers never before printed by Trent, William, 1715-1787?; Goodman, Alfred Thomas, 1845-1871; Dinwiddie, Robert, 1693-1770, Publication date 1871, on Archive.org.
The early settlement of the Miami country by Ferris, Ezra, Publication date 1897, on Archive.org. PREFACE. The following letters were not originally written for the Indiana Historical Society, or printed by it, but it is deemed proper to publish them in connection with the earlier work of the Society because the author, Dr. Ezra Ferris, was a charter member of the Society, and the editor, Oliver B. Torbet, who induced him to write them, was also a member. The Independent Press , of Lawrenceburg, Ind., was started in the fall of 1850, the first number appearing on October 18, of that year. The proprietors, Henry L. Brown and James E. Goble, attended to the mechanical and business departments, and employed Mr. Torbet to conduct the editorial department. Mr. Torbet was ambitious to make the paper popular, and wisely undertook to secure a series of historical articles from Dr. Ferris, who was acknowledged on all sides to know more of the early history of that region than any other person. As the Press was a Whig paper, and Dr. Ferris was a very earnest Whig, the arrangement was speedily made, and the first article was ready for the Press on December 12, 1850. The paper was sold to Rev. W. W. Hibben on August 22, 1851, but the letters were continued for some time afterwards, as appears by their dates.
The Miami Indians on page 156 in Pamphlets 7th Series by Public Library of Fort Wayne and Allen County, Publication date 1954, on Archive.org.
FOREWORD The Miami Indians occupied the land lying about the confluence of the St. Joseph and the St. Mary's rivers near the present site of Fort Wayne. Their contact with the early settlers, both pacific and otherwise, was intinnate and constant until their final removal shortly after 1840. This pamphlet is a reproduction of the article "Miami" in the HANDBOOK OF AMERICAN INDIANS NORTH OF MEXICO, edited by Frederick Webb Hodge, Bulletin 30, pp. 852-54. Abbreviations have been spelled in full, and minor textual changes have been made to facilitate reading. There is also a Part 2.
by Charlotte Ewing
