Kickapoo

Before contact with Europeans, the Kickapoo lived in northwest Ohio and southern Michigan in the area between Lake Erie  and Lake Michigan. By common tradition, the Kickapoo and Shawnee believe they were once a single tribe but separated after an argument over a bear's paw. When the white man pushed west, the Kickapoo migrated, first to Wisconsin, then Illinois. By treaty, they were relocated to southern Missouri, but less than have stayed, wondering south and west. Fiercely independent, many Kickapoo people fled all the way to Mexico rather than surrender to the Americans. Of those that went to Mexico, approximately half returned to the United States and were sent to Indian Territory in Oklahoma. Currently, there are three federally-recognized Kickapoo tribes: the Kickapoo of Kansas; the Kickapoo of Oklahoma; and the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas.