Algonquian Indians

The Algonquian Indians are a variety of groups of Native Americans who all speak languages closely related to one another. The Algonquian language family is one of the largest in native America. Indians who spoke one of the many Algonquian languages have lived across eastern North America from the Atlantic Ocean to the Rocky Mountains and from northern Canada to the Carolinas.

The Algonquian Indian groups who lived in modern-day Ohio stayed mainly in small farming villages. Maize or corn was their most important crop. Some of the tribes who either lived in or near Ohio and belonged to the Algonquian Indian language family included the Shawnee Indians, the Delaware Indians, the Miami Indians, the Eel River Indians, the Ottawa Indians, the Wea Indians, the Potawatomi Indians, the Sauk Indians, and the Piankashaw Indians. Most Algonquian tribes allied themselves with the French until that country lost its North American colonies in the French and Indian War (1756-1763). Fearing white settlement of their lands, most of these people then sided with the English in the American Revolution and the War of 1812. By the 1840s, most Algonquian Indian tribes had ceded their claims to the land east of the Mississippi River.