Tamarowa

The Tamarowa, or Tamaroa, were a principal tribe of the Illinois Confederation, whose members called themselves the Inoka. Their name derives from the Illiniwek word tamarowa, meaning cut tail. They held both Mississippi banks around the confluence with the Illinois and Missouri, later gathering near Cahokia in a village of about six hundred lodges.

A nearby mission founded in 1689 drew in the Cahokia, but the combined settlement soon shrank to ninety dwellings through disease, alcohol and war. In 1703 the Tamaroa united with the Kaskaskia at the Kaskaskia River mouth.

A later chief led a renewed Kaskaskia-Tamaroa-Cahokia alliance that joined the American patriots in the Revolutionary War. In 1818 Tamaroa leaders signed the Treaty of Edwardsville, ceding much of Illinois, and 1830s removal treaties carried their descendants beyond the Mississippi into the Peoria community.