The Mexican Kickapoo () are a binational Indigenous people, some of whom live both in Mexico and in the United States. In Mexico, they were granted land at Hacienda del Nacimiento near the town of Múzquiz in the state of Coahuila in 1850. A few small groups of Kickapoo also live in the states of Sonora and Durango. The Mexican Kickapoo often work as migrants in Texas and move throughout the Midwest and the Western United States, returning in winter to Mexico. They are affiliated with the federally recognized tribes of the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas, Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma, and Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas.
In 1979, the Mexican Kickapoo who were dual residents requested clarification of their status, as they had no clear legal status in either the United States or Mexico. An act was passed in 1983 by the United States Congress, which recognized them as a distinct subgroup of the Kickapoo Tribe of Oklahoma. It also granted federal recognition to the Kickapoo Traditional Tribe of Texas. A 1985 law gave the Texas band the option of selecting Mexican or U.S. citizenship. Some 145 of the tribe members chose to become U.S. citizens, and the remaining 500 or so chose to obtain Mexican citizenship.
Reservation
The hacienda occupied by the Mexican Kickapoo is located about 32 km northeast of the city of Múzquiz, and is called by them El Nacimiento de la Tribu Kikapú (The Birthplace of the Kickapoo Tribe). Their property contains around 17,300 acres of semiarid land sourced with water from the Río Sabinas.
Government
The Mexican Kickapoo traditionally have a president of the ejido (common lands), who is supported by a council of elders for making business decisions, but, a larger assembly made up of the heads of families decides all important, tribal political matters. This assembly chooses the community leadership. They have no representation in local, state, or federal Mexican politics.
Social organization
The Kickapoo kinship system is based on patrilineal clans, by which inheritance and property are passed through the paternal line. Children are considered born into the father's clan. Fourteen of the original 17 clans are remaining: Man, Berry, Thunder, Buffalo #1, Tree, Black Bear, Eagle, Brown Bear, Buffalo #2, Fire, Water, Raccoon, and Fox. Marriage possibilities are based on affection; however, the clan system regulates the possibilities of each individual.
The Kickapoo are matrilocal, meaning that young couples live in housing compounds and living arrangements near the woman's mother and grandmother. Women not only maintain, but also build the dwelling shelters. Women gather the materials to build their housing and are responsible for all housework.
Language
The Mexican Kickapoo speak the Kickapoo language, which is a Fox language, part of the large Algonquian languages family. They also speak Spanish and English; typically, these are not learned in school, but rather through exposure.
Economic development
Traditionally a hunter-gatherer people, in the early 20th century, the Kickapoo began switching to agriculture. By the 1930s, they had developed a modern system of farming. Due to significant droughts in the 1940s, the Kickapoo became migrant farm workers in the United States, abandoning agriculture on their own land. In the 1950s, they began transforming their own farms into grazing lands for cattle raising.
Both men and women do migrant farm labor. When they are living in Mexico, only the men participate in the livestock trade.
History
Northern origins
Kickapoo comes from their word Kiwigapawa, which roughly translates into "he moves from here to there." The tribe is part of the central Algonquian group, and has close ethnic and linguistic connections with the Sac and Fox. The Kickapoo were first recorded by Europeans in about 1667-70 as residing at the portage between the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers. Under pressure from the Menominee, the Kickapoo and their allies moved south and west into southern Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, and northern Iowa.
A treaty dated 7 June 1803 between the U.S. government and the Delaware, Shawnee, Potawatomi, Miami, Eel River, Wea, Kickapoo, Piankeshaw, and Kaskaskia tribes occupying the country watered by the Ohio, Wabash, and Miami Rivers and a subsequent treaty dated 7 August 1803 ceded lands previously granted in the Treaty of Greenville in 1795 by General Anthony Wayne, and Fort Wayne and Vincennes, Indiana. By these treaties and succeeding treaties in 1809, 1815, 1816, 1819, and 1820 the tribe ceded all their lands on the Wabash, White and Vermilion rivers and moved into Missouri along the Osage River.