According to legend, Odawa war chief Pontiac was murdered by a member of an Illinois tribe during a council meeting in what is now Joliet, and in revenge the Odawa and Potawatomi attacked an Illinois village near Starved Rock. The Illinois were said to have fled to the top of the rock, where, surrounded by enemy tribes and unable to obtain food or water, the entire village starved to death, giving Starved Rock its name. Period documents, however, indicate that Pontiac was killed at a trading post at Cahokia, Illinois, by a Peoria Indian, and that the Illinois, expecting attack from Pontiac's allies, took refuge with the British at Fort de Chartres in southern Illinois, 275 miles from Starved Rock. Since 1673, when European explorers first saw the rock, two sieges took place on the bluff, in 1684 and 1722, and the legend is understood as a loosely based reinterpretation of the 1722 siege. Descendants of the Illinois Indian Alliance are now part of the Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma.