England and other northern latitudes had to rely on cached food. Northerners developed a practice of going hungry for several days at a time. Historians hypothesize that this practice kept the population down, according to Liebig's law of the minimum. The southern Algonquians of New England relied predominantly on slash and burn agriculture. They cleared fields by burning for one or two years of cultivation, after which the village moved to another location. This is the reason the English found the region relatively cleared and ready for planting. By using various kinds of native corn (maize), beans and squash, southern New England natives were able to improve their diet to such a degree that their population increased and they reached a density of 287 people per 100 square miles as opposed to 41 in the north. Scholars estimate that, by the year 1600, the indigenous population of New England had reached 70,000–100,000. Midwest The French encountered Algonquian peoples in this area through their trade and limited colonization of New France along the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. The historic peoples of the Illinois Country were the Shawnee, Illiniwek, Kickapoo, Menominee, Miami, Sauk and Meskwaki. The latter were also known as the Sac and Fox, and later known as the Meskwaki Indians, who lived throughout the present-day Midwest of the United States. During the nineteenth century, many Native Americans from east of the Mississippi River were displaced over great distances through the United States passage and enforcement of Indian removal legislation; they forced the people west of the Mississippi River to what they designated as Indian Territory. After the US extinguished Indian land claims, this area was admitted as the state of Oklahoma in the early 20th century. Upper west Ojibwe/Chippewa, Odawa, Potawatomi, and a variety of Cree groups lived in Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Western Ontario, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Canadian Prairies. The Arapaho, Blackfoot and Cheyenne developed as indigenous to the Great Plains. List of historic Algonquian-speaking peoples Algonquin Abenaki Missiquoi Pennacook Arapaho Beothuk Blackfoot Cheyenne Chowanoke Cree Gros Ventre Illinois Kickapoo Lenape Munsee Wappinger Unami Meskwaki Menominee Mahican Maliseet Mascouten Massachusett Mattabesic Mattabessett Podunk Tunxis Paugussett Quinnipiac Unquachog Miami Mi'kmaq Montaukett Mohegan Nanticoke Piscataway Nacotchtank Narragansett Nipissing Nipmuc Odawa Ojibwe Mississauga Passamaquoddy Penobscot Pequot Potawatomi Powhatan Sauk Shawnee Chalahgawtha Hathawekela Kispoko Mekoche Pekowi Secotan Roanoke people Croatan Wampanoag Weapemeoc Plains Cree Footnotes Further reading Melissa Otis, Rural Indigenousness: A