Piankeshaw

The Piankeshaw, whose Miami-Illinois autonym Peeyankihšiaki means those who split off, were a band of the Miami nation that dwelled apart along the middle Wabash River, between the Wea and the Kickapoo. Their first village stood at the mouth of the Vermilion River, another near Vincennes, and in the eighteenth century they founded Pickawillany on the Great Miami River in Ohio.

Allied with the French, they generally sided with the Americans during the Revolutionary War and held aloof from the Northwest Indian War, winning a proclamation of protection from President George Washington.

Raids nevertheless drove many from Vincennes after the Battle of the Embarras River in 1786, and in 1818 their chief Chekommia sold the remaining lands by treaty. The survivors merged with the Wea, Kaskaskia and Peoria into the Confederated Peoria.