Ottawa people

North American tribe of the Algonquian language family and of the Subarctic culture area. They formerly lived in the region of the upper Ottawa River, Canada.

The Ottawa carried on an extensive intertribal trade along the area's water routes.

The tribe's rules of moral conduct, embodied in 21 precepts, resembled the Ten Commandments.

About 1650 the Ottawa were driven out of their territory by the Iroquois and took refuge on Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron, Canada.

They later moved to the southern shore of Lake Superior, but were obliged to return to Manitoulin Island when they were attacked by the Sioux. Subsequently they extended their territory until they controlled all of lower Michigan, parts of Ohio and Illinois, and an area on the Canadian side of Lake Huron.

During the colonial period the Ottawa fought on the side of the French, and one of their chiefs, Pontiac, achieved wide renown as a leader in warfare against the British.

During the American Revolution and the War of 1812, the tribe was allied with the British against the Americans.

French explorers were the earliest Europeans to explore present-day Ontario, Canada. When the explorers arrived, they saw the tepees of the Ottawa people. Published in 1842, this lithograph portrays a native village of the Ottawa, known as Île de Michilimackinac. Library of Congress

In 1870 several bands of Ottawa moved to the Indian Territory, in what is now Oklahoma, and soon lost their tribal identity. The majority of the Ottawa remained in Michigan, first on reservations, and then in scattered communities where many still reside.

In 1990, 7522 people in the United States claimed Ottawa ancestry.

"Ottawa (people)," Microsoft® Encarta® Online Encyclopedia 2000 http://encarta.msn.com © 1997-2000 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved

Ottawa Indians

The Ottawa Indians originally lived along the Ottawa River in eastern Ontario and western Quebec. They moved into northern Ohio around A.D. 1740. They speak a form of the Algonquian Indian language and so are related to the Delaware, Miami, and Shawnee Indians. They were enemies of the Iroquois and never really trusted the Wyandot because they were related to the Iroquois.

Political alliances were complicated and changed with the times. Some Ottawas were allies of the French until British traders moved into the Ohio country. Many Ottawas moved into northern Ohio so that they could trade with the British. They lived in villages along the Cuyahoga, Maumee, and Sandusky rivers. But the British were not content just to trade. Unlike the French, the British wanted to build forts and towns. They wanted to take the Indian's land.

Pontiac was the most famous chief of the Ottawa Indians. In 1763 he led a number of Indian tribes in an attempt to drive the British from their lands. They took nine out of eleven British forts in the Great Lakes region. The Indians could not defeat the strong British forts at Detroit (Fort Detroit) and Pittsburgh (Fort Pitt). Pontiac's War came to an end after Colonel Henry Bouquet led a large army from Fort Pitt into Ohio forcing the Indians to make peace. Sadly, peace did not last long.

During the American Revolution, the Ottawas fought for the British against the Americans. But when the British surrendered, they turned their backs on their Indian allies. The Ottawas continued to fight the Americans.

General Anthony Wayne defeated the Ottawas and other Ohio Indians at the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. They surrendered most of their lands in Ohio with the signing of the Treaty of Greenville.

In 1833 the United States forced the Ottawas to give up their few remaining lands in Ohio. They were sent off to a reservation in Kansas

Text from the Ohio Historical Society Site

Ottawa

They remember a mysterious tin box given them by British traders shortly after the war, which they were told not to open until they got back to their villages. They did as instructed, but there was nothing inside other than a strange brown powder. Immediately afterwards, an especially deadly smallpox epidemic broke out which decimated their villages in northern Michigan.

Population

The Ottawa were never a large tribe, probably no more than about 8,000 in 1600 before contact. Although heavily exposed to Europeans through the fur trade, their population suffered far less the Huron from epidemic. This was probably due to the fact that the Ottawa did usually not live in large villages during the winter. The British in 1768 estimated them at about 5,000. Later estimates had difficulty separating Ottawa from Ojibwe. The Canadian census in 1910 gave 1,497 Ottawa-Ojibwe on Manitoulin and Cockburn Islands, half of which were Ottawa. The United States that year listed 197 Ottawa in Oklahoma, 2,750 Ottawa-Ojibwe in Michigan (two-thirds Ottawa), and 683 others - total 3,465.

Canada currently has more than 4,000 Ottawa, mostly with the Ontario First Nations on Cockburn, Manitoulin, and Walpole Islands. There are another 10,000 Ottawa in the United States. Although the Ottawa have signed 24 treaties with the United States, most groups have not had federal recognition since the 1860s. Only two Ottawa groups presently have this status: Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma with 400 members; and the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan. The 9,000 members of the Northern Michigan Ottawa Association are one of the largest groups of Native Americans in the United States without federal recognition.

Names

Ottawa comes from the Algonquin word "Adawe" meaning "to trade" and originates from their role as traders even before contact. Variations are: Atawawa, Odawa, Outaouacs, Outaoua, Tawa, Tawaw, and Utawawea. The Ottawa became so important in the French fur trade, that before 1670, it was common practice in Quebec to call any Algonquin from the Great Lakes an Ottawa. In their own language, the Ottawa (like the Ojibwe) refer to themselves as Anishinabe (Neshnabek) meaning "people." Other names for the Ottawa were: Andatahourat or Ondatawnwat (Huron), Dewagunha (Mohawk), Udawak (Penobscot), Ukuayata (Huron), Waganhae or Waganis (Iroquois), Watawawininiwok (Ojibwe), and Wdowo (Abnaki).

Sub-Nations

During the late 1600s, there were four to five Ottawa divisions: Keinouche (Pickerel), Kiskakon (Kishkakon) (Bear), Nassawaketon (Fork People, Nation of the Fork, Nassauaketon, Nassauakueton, Ottawa de la Fourche), Sable, and Sinago (Akonapi) (Gray Squirrel). These were subdivided into numerous local bands.

Culture

Some Americans do not think of the Ottawa as an important tribe. There were never very many of them, and their culture language was almost identical to the more-numerous Ojibwe and Potawatomi. Between 1615 and 1763, the Ottawa were one of the most important tribes in North America, but their homeland was remote to the British colonies on the Atlantic seaboard. When the Americans reached the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes, the Ottawa's time had passed, and their role in the history of the United States after 1775 was small. A trading tribe even before contact, the Ottawa were businessmen before they ever met a European, so they immediately recognized the opportunity presented by the fur trade and attached themselves to it and the French. They soon became indispensable. Paddling their birchbark canoes for great distances, the Ottawa became the "French connection" to other Algonquin in the Great Lakes and brought the furs they collected to the Huron villages where the French were. The Huron provided warehouse space and protection from the Iroquois, but the Ottawa were the sales force who went out and got the business. Recognizing this, the French built their trade around the Ottawa and Huron. The Iroquois destroyed the Huron in 1649, but the Ottawa and some of the Huron (now called Wyandot) fled west and continued business as usual.

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