The Tamaroa were a Native American people in the central Mississippi River valley of North America, and a member of the Illiniwek or Illinois Confederation of 12 or 13 tribes.
The name "Tamaroa" is a derivative of the word tamarowa meaning "cut tail" in Illiniwek and relates to a totemic animal such as bear or wildcat.
The tribe was further reduced by its exposure to "...European diseases and liquor and by warfare with the Chickasaw and Shawnee.
As a consequence of the forced Indian removal in the 1830s, their descendants are to be found mostly in Oklahoma, as the Confederated Peoria Tribe.
Thus, an unknown number of Tamaroa descendants were included in the Peoria reservation residents who were allotted land, beginning in 1889.