The Kaskaskia (Miami–Illinois: Kaaskaaskia) were a historical Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. They were one of about a dozen cognate tribes that made up the Illiniwek Confederation, also called the Illinois Confederation. Their longstanding homeland was in the Great Lakes region. Their first contact with Europeans reportedly occurred near present-day Green Bay, Wisconsin, in 1667 at a Jesuit mission station.
The Chicago Portage was an ancient portage that connected the Great Lakes waterway system with the Mississippi River system. This connection provided comparatively easy access from the mouth of the St. Lawrence River on the Atlantic Ocean to the Rocky Mountains and the Gulf of Mexico. The approximately six-mile link had been used by Native Americans for thousands of years during the Pre-Columbian era for travel and trade.
During the summer of 1673 members of the Kaskaskia, a tribe of the Illinois Confederation, guided French explorers Louis Jolliet and Father Jacques Marquette, the first known Europeans to explore this part of North America, to the portage. A strategic location, it became important to European exploration in the Midwest, resulting ultimately in the foundation of Chicago.
The Illinois Confederation, also referred to as the Illiniwek or Illini, were made up of a loosely organized group of 12 or 13 tribes who lived in the Mississippi River Valley. Eventually, member tribes occupied an area reaching from Lake Michigan to Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas. The five main tribes were the Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Michigamea, Peoria, and Tamaroa. Other related tribes are described as the Maroa (which may have been the same as Tamaroa), Tapourao, Coiracoentanon, Espeminka, Moingwena, Chinkoa, and Chepoussa. By 1700, only the Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Michigamea, Peoria, and Tamaroa remained. Over time, these tribes continued to merge, with the Tamaroa joining the Kaskaskia, the Cahokia joining the Peoria, and with a portion of the Michigamea merging with the Kaskaskia and the remainder merging with the Quapaw.
The spelling "Illinois" was derived from the transliteration by French explorers of iliniwe to the orthography of their own language. The tribes are estimated to have had tens of thousands of members, before the advancement of European contact in the 17th century that inhibited their growth and resulted in a marked decline in population.
Miami–Illinois or Wabash (endonym: myaamia, [mjɑːmia]) is an Indigenous Algonquian language that is spoken in the United States, historically in Illinois, Missouri, Indiana, western Ohio and adjacent areas along the Mississippi River by the Miami and Wea as well as the tribes of the Illinois Confederation, including the Kaskaskia, Peoria, Tamaroa, Cahokia, and possibly Mitchigamea. Although the last native speaker died in 1989, there has been an effort by the Myaamia (Miami) Nation of Oklahoma and the Miami Nation of Indians of the State of Indiana (a nonprofit organization) to revive the language and preserve their native heritage by teaching it to young and old members. As of 2016, it is estimated that around 500 members of the tribe use the language on a regular basis.