North American Indian people living mainly in Oklahoma but also in Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa, U.S. They are distinct from but united with the Sauk (Sac) as the Sac and Fox Nation.
Their name for themselves is Mesquakie (or Meshkwahkihaki, meaning "People of the Red Earth"), and their language is of the Algonquian family. They are believed to have originated from the Great Lakes region. Both the Sauk and the Fox were living in Wisconsin at the time of first European contact. Their permanent villages
near fields in which women cultivated corn, beans, and squash
were occupied in summer; in winter they hunted bison on the prairies. A chief and council administered tribal affairs. Families were grouped into clan s. Religious life centred on the Grand Medicine Society, whose members enlisted supernatural aid to heal the sick and ensure success in warfare. In the 18th century the Fox joined with the Sauk to war against the French and English. Though unconquered, they retreated south to Illinois and later west to Iowa. In 1832 Black Hawk led a group of Fox and Sauk in an unsuccessful attempt to return to their Illinois lands. In the 2000 U.S. census some 4,200 people claimed Sac and Fox descent.