One of the small group of tribes comprising the Illinois division of the Algonquian linguistic family, the Miamis emerged as a pivotal tribe only during the French and British imperial wars, the Miami Confederacy wars of the eighteenth century, and the treaty-making period of the nineteenth century. The Miamis reached their peak of political importance in the Indian confederacies which blocked the Northwest Territory in the 1790's and during the War of 1812. Their title to much of the present state of Indiana enabled them to make advantageous treaties and delay emigration until the late...