Indigenous communities have inhabited Sugar Grove Township and Illinois for thousands of years. The earliest known Paleo-Indian group was the Clovis Culture, around 12,000 years ago. The Clovis (spear) point, their identifying artifact, has been found throughout our state, sometimes embedded in the bones of Mastodons.
The Irenweewa (French: Illinois) Confederation was the next identifiable Indigenous group, which was a loosely organized union of 12 tribes, the most prominent being the Cahokia, Kaskaskia, Michigamea, Peoria, and Tamaroa tribes. They spoke the Algonquian language called Myaamia (Miami). Irenweewa roughly translates as ‘he speaks in the ordinary way.’ The Confederated groups could easily understand each other, with only different pronunciations of some words, making it easy to organize. The word Illiniwek is a French translation of “same speakers.” Early missionaries and explorers documented the Confederation and recorded that they also referred to themselves as Inohka.
When Europeans first identified the group in the 1600s, they estimated a population of 10,000 people with villages from Lake Michigan to Iowa and along the Mississippi River. However, European diseases and warfare greatly reduced their population. In 1832, the Illinois Confederation merged with the larger “Peoria Tribe of Indians” and moved with them that year to Kansas. By 1868, the Consolidated Peoria relocated to Oklahoma, where they maintain their tribal headquarters today. – J.L. Panagopoulos