Before contact with Europeans, the Kickapoo lived in northwest Ohio and southern Michigan in the area between Lake Erie and Lake Michigan.  By 1658, the Kickapoo had been forced west into southwest Wisconsin.  About 1700, they began to move south into northern Illinois and by 1770, had established themselves in central Illinois (near Peoria).  Most were forcibly removed by the military in 1834.  They eventually wandered south and west until they were spread across Oklahoma and Texas all the way to the Mexican border.  Currently, there are three federally recognized Kickapoo tribes:  the Kickapoo of Kansas, the Kickapoo of Oklahoma, and the Kickapoo of Texas.

The Kickapoo believe they and the Shawnee were once part of the same tribe which divided following an argument over a bear paw.  The Kickapoo language is virtually identical to Shawnee, and culturally the two were very similar except for some southern cultural traits which the Shawnee had absorbed during the years they had lived in the southeastern US.  The Kickapoo were skilled farmers and used hunting and gathering to supplement their basic diet of corn, squash, and beans.  Many Indian agents in the 1800's were amazed just how well the Kickapoo could farm.

The most distinctive characteristic of the Kickapoo was their stubborn resistance to acculturization, and it is difficult to think of any other tribe which has gone to such lengths to avoid this.  Years after the eastern tribes with the famous names had given up the fight, the Kickapoo were still in the midst of the struggle to preserve Native America.

From the beginning, the Kickapoo distrusted Europeans.  French traders rarely were allowed to visit their villages, and the Kickapoo refused to even listen to the Jesuits.  Later, the British and Americans had no better luck with them.

Corruption and mismanagement of Kickapoo lands by the Federal Government was so bad that in 1905, roughly half of the Kickapoo's left Oklahoma and returned to Mexico.  The Kickapoo's of Kansas have about 500 members and still live on the lands form the 1832 treaty.  Only 19,200 acres in a checkerboard pattern remain of their original 768,000 acres.  Tribal government is located in Horton, Kansas, and was organized under the Indian Reorganization Act (1934).  In 1951, they barely managed to avoid a government attempt to terminate their tribal status.