Osanamon

Osanamon is an Indigenous name recorded for the Vermilion River, which flows east from the Illinois prairie to the Wabash. Its name refers to the reddish pigment known as vermilion. Near the river's meeting with the Wabash stood an important village of the Piankashaw, a Miami-speaking people. In 1731 the French officer Vincennes brought some Piankashaw from the Vermilion to settle near his fort downstream; others remained or returned to their communities along the river.