Meskawki

The Meskwaki, called Fox by Europeans, were an Algonquian people associated with Wisconsin’s Fox River, a waterway between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi.

French efforts to secure the waterway helped bring about the Fox Wars in 1712. In 1728 the French king ordered their extermination. In 1730 French forces and their Indigenous allies killed or captured many Meskwaki in Illinois. Survivors found shelter among the Sauk, with whom they allied against the French in 1735.