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The Odawa (pronounced /oːˈdɒwə/ in Canadian English) or Ottawa, said to mean "traders," are a Native American and First Nations people. They are one of the Anishinaabeg, related to but distinct from the Ojibwa nation. Their original homelands are located on Manitoulin Island, near the northern shores of Lake Huron, on the Bruce Peninsula in present day Ontario Canada and in the state of Michigan. There are approximately 15,000 Ottawa living in Michigan, Ontario, and Oklahoma. The Ottawa language is considered a divergent dialect of the Ojibwe, characterized by frequent syncope. The Ottawa language, like the Ojibwe language, is part of the Algonquian language family. They also have a smaller tribal groups or “bands” commonly called “Tribe” in the United States and “First Nation” in Canada. The Odawa nation formerly lived along the Ottawa River but now live especially on Manitoulin Island.

Tribe name

Odaawaa (syncoped as Daawaa, supposedly from the Anishinaabe word adaawe, meaning “to trade,” or “to buy and sell”) is a term common to the Cree, Algonquin, Nipissing, Montagnais, Ottawa, and Ojibwa. The Potawatomi spelling of Odawa and the English derivative “Ottawa” are also common. This name was applied to the Ottawa because in early traditional times and also during the early European contact period, they were noted among their neighbors as intertribal traders and barterers, dealing "chiefly in cornmeal, sunflower oil, furs and skins, rugs and mats, tobacco, and medicinal roots and herbs."

Like the Ojibwa, the Odaawaa usually refer to themselves as Nishnaabe (Anishinaabe, plural: Nishnaabeg (Anishinaabeg)), meaning original people.

Language

The Ottawa language is considered one of several divergent dialects of the Anishinaabe language group, noted for its frequent syncope. In the Odaawaa language, the general language group is known as Nishnabemwin, while the specific language is called Daawaamwin. Of the estimated 5,000 ethnic Odaawaa and additional 10,000 people with Odaawaa ancestry, an estimated 500 people in Ontario and Michigan speak this language, with strong revitalization efforts underway, especially in Oklahoma.

Early history

The Odaawaa, together with the Ojibwa and the Potawatomi, were part of a long-term tribal alliance called the Council of Three Fires, which fought the Iroquois Confederacy and the Sioux. In 1615 French explorer Samuel de Champlain met 300 men of a nation which, he said, "we call les cheueux releuez" near the French River mouth. Of these, he said: "Their arms consisted only of a bow and arrows, a buckler of boiled leather and the club. They wore no breech clouts, their bodies were tattooed in many fashions and designs, their faces painted and their noses pierced." In 1616 Champlain left the Huron villages and visited the "Cheueux releuez" westward from the lands of the Huron Confederacy. There were many wars and disputes of the Odaawaa with other tribes; for example, the tribe once waged war against the Mascoutens.

The Odaawaa allied with the French against the British, and Odaawaa Chief Pontiac led a rebellion against the British in 1763. A decade later, Chief Egushawa led the Odaawaa in the American Revolutionary War as an ally of the British. In the 1790s, Egushawa again fought the United States in a series of battles and campaigns known as the Northwest Indian War.

The name in its English transcription is the source of the place names of Ottawa, Ontario, and the Ottawa River, even though the Odaawaa's home territory (at the time of early European contact), but not their trading zone, was well to the west of the city and river named after them. It is also the source of the name for Tawas, Michigan, and Tawas Point, which reflect the syncope-form of their name.

Due to the extensive trade network maintained by the Odaawaa, much of the North American interior nations are known by the Odaawaa names rather than by the nations’ own names. For example, these exonyms include Winnebago (from Wiinibiigoo) for the Ho-chunk, and Sioux (from Naadawensiw) for the Dakota.

Modern history

The population of the different Odaawaa groups is not known with certainty. In 1906 the Ojibwa and Odaawaa on Manitoulin and Cockburn Island were 1,497, of whom about half were Odaawaa; there were 197 Ottawa under the Seneca School, Oklahoma, and in Michigan 5,587 scattered Ojibwa and Odaawaa, in 1900, of whom about two-thirds are Odaawaa. The total Ottawa Tribe is therefore about 4,700.

Known villages

The following are or were Ottawa villages:

Odaawaa governments

Recognized/status

• Walpole Island, on unceded territory between Ontario and Michigan
• Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma
• Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, Michigan
• Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, Michigan
• Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, Michigan
• Wikwemikong, Ontario, Canada
• Sheshegwaning, Ontario, Canada

Unrecognized/non-status

• Burt Lake Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, Michigan (currently recognized by Michigan)
• Grand River Bands of Ottawa Indians, Michigan (currently recognized by Michigan)
• Gun Lake Band of Grand River Ottawa Indians, Michigan (currently recognized by Michigan)
• Mackinac Bands of Chippewa and Ottawa Indians, Michigan
• Maple River Band of Ottawa, Michigan
• Muskegon River Band of Ottawa Indians, Michigan
• Ottawa Colony Band of Grand River Ottawa Indians, Michigan (currently recognized only as part of the Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians of Michigan)

Notable chiefs

• Chief Pontiac. An Ottawa chief, born about 1720, probably on Maumee river, Ohio, about the mouth of the Auglaize. In 1769 he attended a drinking carousal at Cahokia, Illinois, where he was assassinated by a Peoria Indian.
• Chief Negwagon. A chief of the Ottawa of the Michilimackinac region of Michigan, commonly known as Little Wing, or Wing, and also called Ningweegon.

See also

• Ottawa (disambiguation) for several places named for the Ottawa.

References

1. Beck, David (2002). Siege and Survival: History of the Menominee Indians, 1634-1856, p. 27. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0803213301.
2. ^ Burton, Clarence M. (ed.) (1922). The City of Detroit, Michigan, 1701-1922, p. 49. The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company.
3. Wurm, Stephen A., et al. (eds.) (1996). Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas, p. 1118. Walter de Gruyter & Co. ISBN 3110134179.
4. Williamson, Pamela, and Roberts, John (2nd ed. 2004). First Nations Peoples, p. 102. Toronto: Emond Montgomery Publications. ISBN 1552391442.
5. Vogel, Virgil J. (1986). Indian Names in Michigan, pp. 46-47. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0472063650.
6. Barnes, Celia (2003). Native American Power in the United States, 1783-1795, p. 203. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN 0838639585.

Further reading

• Cappel, Constance, The Smallpox Genocide of the Odawa Tribe at L'Arbre Croche, 1763: The History of a Native American People. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2007.
• Cappel, Constance (ed.), Odawa Language and Legends: Andrew J. Blackbird and Raymond Kiogima. Philadelphia, PA: Xlibris, 2006.

External links

• "Ottawa History" Shultzman, L. 2000. First Nations Histories. Accessed: 2006-03-28.
• More on the tribe

• Algonquian peoples
• Languages of Canada
• Native American tribes in Michigan
• Native American tribes in Oklahoma
• First Nations in Ontario
• Algonquian languages
• Languages of the United States
• Indigenous languages of the North American eastern woodlands
• Algonquian ethnonyms