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Buffalo Rock State Park

Location of a Miami tribe village in the 1680s. The river bluff trail features spectacular views of the river valley.

Historical Marker
Illinois State Historical Society

Buffalo Rock, now Buffalo Rock State Park, is said to have served the French as an early military, trading and missionary post. LaSalle and Tonty, after building Fort St. Louis on Starved Rock during the winter of 1682-1683, gathered almost 4,000 Indian warriors at the front of Buffalo Rock and formed a confederation against the Iroquois. Among the tribes in the confederation were the Miami who built their own fort on Buffalo Rock

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What's The Story

Many of the tribes living around the Great Lakes were threatened by the Iroquois, who sought to dominate the fur trade. Some of the Miami living near Green Bay in the mid-17th century, moved in 1683 to the Illinois River valley to join LaSalle’s confederacy, which they believed afforded protection from the Iroquois. The confederacy included the Illinois, Miami, Wea, and Piankashaw. Charlevoix, a Jesuit priest, reported that some of the Miami built a fort atop Buffalo Rock, upriver from LaSalle’s Fort St. Louis on Le Rocher.

To learn more:

Temple, Wayne C. 1966. Indian Villages of the Illinois Country. Illinois State Museum Scientific Papers, Volume 2, Part 2.