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Ottawa seal

   Along with the Ojibwe and Potawatami, the Ottawa first arrived on the east side of Lake Huron sometime around 1400. While the Ojibwe and Potawatomi continued west towards Sault Ste. Marie, the Ottawa remained near the mouth of the French River and on the large Islands in Lake Huron. Over the years. the Ottawa lived in many places but always considered Manitoulin Island as their original homeland. This island was on the route between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic coast, and the Ottawa used the birchbark canoes to travel great distances for trade. In 1615 their villages were concentrated on Manitoulin Island, but they began relocating to Mackinac (upper Michigan) during the 1630s. By 1649 they had left Manitoulin Island. Iroquois attacks forced them to move to Green Bay (Wisconsin) in 1651 and then to the south shore of Lake Superior in 1658. They remained there until they returned to Mackinac in 1670. As the French and their allies drove the Iroquois from the Great Lakes during the 1690s, some Ottawa returned to Manitoulin Island where they have remained ever since.

Indian Encampment on the Ottawa River

   Indian Encampment on the Ottawa River) However, the majority stayed at Mackinac until 1701 when most left for Detroit and Saginaw Bay. They spread south into northern Ohio with one village located as far east as Venango in western Pennsylvania. The Ottawa at Mackinac stayed until the soil wore out in 1741, and they relocated to Grand Traverse Bay in lower Michigan, with some bands moving as far south on the east side of Lake Michigan at the Grand River. A few bands settled on the opposite side of the lake at Milwaukee and spread into northern Illinois. The Wisconsin and Illinois Ottawa were removed with the Potawatomi to southwest Iowa in 1834. By 1846 they had merged with the Potawatomi and moved with them to Kansas. The Ohio and Detroit bands of Ottawa were removed to Kansas 1831-34. Some chose allotment and citizenship in 1867 and remained in Kansas while the remainder moved to northeast Oklahoma. However, the vast majority of the Ottawa were not removed and still live in the northern part of lower Michigan or southern Ontario.

Ottawa man

   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 Ottawagroups 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.

Ottawa fur trader	Name Ottawa comes from the Algonquin word "Adawe" meaning "to trade" and originates from their role as traders even before contact.

Ottawa home

   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.

   When the French organized an alliance to fight the Iroquois in 1687, the Ottawa and Wyandot became the "eldest children of Onontio," the French governor of Canada, and when they spoke in the councils of the alliance councils, their words carried weight. By 1685 Ottawa middlemen were supplying two-thirds of the fur at Montreal. It was no accident the Iroquois tried to break the alliance in the 1690s by offering a separate peace to the Ottawa, or that the Ottawa and Wyandot were the first tribes the French invited to Detroit in 1701. Ottawa influence declined after the French defeat and British takeover of the Great Lakes in 1760. The Ottawa's "fall from grace" was probably the most important reason for the Pontiac Rebellion in 1763. Other tribes had tried to organize an uprising against the British, but no one responded. But when an Ottawa chief called for revolt, every tribe listened and most joined, because the Ottawa would be leading it.