The Mingo people were an Iroquois group that migrated west to the Ohio River Valley in the mid-eighteenth century 1750s and formed their own distinct identity there. This conflicted, however, with the hordes of white settlers, who vied with them for control of the region, and a series of battles ensued, with the Mingo led by Chief Logan. Despite some pockets of resistance, the Mingo were crushed, and the surviving members of the group mixed with the larger Shawnee and Miami peoples. The Mingo were finally defeated by the United States in 1831 and forced to move to a reservation in the West.
The Mingo language (native name: Unyææshæötká') is a Northern Iroquoian language of eastern Ohio, western Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. It is a polysynthetic language with an extremely complex verb, closely related to Seneca, Onondaga and Cayuga. There has been increasing interest in recent years, especially among Mingo descendants, in revitalizing the language.
Mingo (or Minko) is also the title of a Chickasaw chief. Black Mingo Creek in coastal South Carolina (near Indiantown ) is named for the Chickasaws, as it was sort of a hunting reserve for the chief.
See also Minqua.
