Ottawa Tribe History, Culture, and Facts

Native to the East Coast of Northern America, the Ottawa tribe or Odawa people are an Algonquian-speaking tribe.

The name Ottawa means (to trade) because they were noted as barterers and intertribal traders.

The origin of this tribe could be traced down to the Manitoulin Islands.

We, however, review the historical development, culture, and facts about the Ottawa tribe.

Ottawa tribe history

Pre-colonial contact

Following the Anishinaabeg tradition, and reports in the birch bark scrolls (Wiigwaasabak), the Ottawa people came from the eastern regions of North America and from an area called Dawnland near the East Coast.

Guided by the luminescent (miigis) beings, the Anishinaabeg peoples migrated inland near the Saint Lawrence River.

At the “third stopping area,” which is close to today’s Detroit, Michigan, the southern band of Anishinaabeg split into three groups, the Odawa, the Potawatomi, and the Ojibwe.

Archaeological evidence show that the Saugeen complex people, a Hopewell-influenced band situated on the Bruce Peninsula during the Middle Woodland era, may have emerged as the Ottawa people.

Many built earthwork mounds for burials, a custom that stopped in 250 CE.

The Ottawa, together with the Potawatomi and Ojibwe, were in unity on a long-term tribal alliance called the Council of Three fires, which battled with the Iroquois Confederacy and the Dakota tribe.

Colonial contact

In 1615 the Ottawa people had their first encounter with the Europeans. French explorer Samuel de Champlain met with the tribe close to the French River mouth.

He detailed descriptions of the Ottawa tribe, saying, ” Their weapons consisted of a bow, arrows, a club and a buckler of boiled leather, their torsos were tattooed in many styles and fashions, they had their faces covered with paints and noses pierced.”

After five decades of relationship with the French, the Jesuit Relations of 1667 recorded three tribes dwelling together: the Kiskako Ottawa, the Ottawa, and the Sinago Ottawa.

All of them communicated in the same language.

From establishing a New French colony (Canada), the Ottawa people became very valuable to the French in the fur trade enterprise.

The French constructed Fort Detroit in 1701 at Detroit in Michigan and established a trading quarter there.

Due to this development, numerous Ottawa people relocated there from their native homeland.

As Ottawa began to leave its traditional homeland, it spread out south of the Great Lakes into the Midwest.

On account of the broad trade network controlled by the Ottawa tribe, many of the North American inmost nations became recognized by the names their business partners called them instead of the nations’ original names.

For instance, these exonyms include Winnebago from (Wiinibiigoo) for the Ho-Chunk people and Sioux from (Naadawensiw) for the Dakota people.

Other furs sold were martem, fox, otter, raccoon, muskrat and deer. In exchange for goods sold, the Ottawa people collected knives, traps, cloth and bedspreads, needles, kettles, jewelry and ornaments, and alcohol and firearms.

The most valuable good was the beaver fur.

18th-19th century

Wars and Treaties

From the beginning of the mid-18th century, the Ottawa tribe allied with their French trading partners in opposition to the British in the French and Indian War of 1754-1763, conducting strikes against Anglo-American settlers.

Shortly after the Treaty of Paris brought the war to an end, Ottawa chief Pontiac started to mobilize a group of Indian American tribes against the British.

The territory formerly controlled by the French was now under British control.

The tribes in the Great Lakes region worried about losing their French associates and the inflow of colonists from the east of the Appalachian Mountains inhabiting their territory.

Pontiac was bent on fighting the British and started what is known as the Pontiac Rebellion (1763-1766).

The Ottawa stormed Fort Detroit in May 1763, starting a rebellion.

It was recorded that by the late fall of 1763, Pontiac’s army had decimated and captured more than 600 people.

Fort Sandusky, a British-only garrisoned fort, was also taken by the Ottawa warriors that same year.

Ultimately, the British military invaded and defeated Pontiac’s forces in 1764.

However, Chief Pontiac surrendered after two years of defeat.

Removal

Throughout the American Revolution, the Ottawa tribe allied with the British, aspiring to stop the inflow of Americans into their land.

But, it never stopped.

In 1795, under the Treaty of Greenville, the Ottawa people and other members of the Western Confederacy relinquished all of Ohio but the northwest region.

Detroit Ottawa merged with three other tribes in 1807, signing the Treaty of Detroit with force from the United States.

The consensus between the tribes and William Hull, representing the Michigan Territory, gave the United States a vast portion of present-day southeastern Michigan and a piece of northwest Ohio along the Maumee River.

Numerous Ottawa groups moved into northern Michigan.

However, the tribe retained tribal control over small pockets of land in the territory of the Maumee River.

The first treaty in 1817 involving land cessions after the War of 1812, the Ohio Ottawa gave their lands, taking reservations at Blanchards Creek and the Little Auglaize River, estimated to be 34 square miles.

These reserves, for which they collected annuities for ten years.

Tension continued to increase against the Ottawa people as the white settlers moved into the area.

Following the passing of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the United States government planned for the Ottawa people to cede their reserves in 1831.

Modern history

The population of the various Ottawa groups has been evaluated.

As of 1906, the Ojibwe and Ottawa on Manitoulin and Cockburn islands were 1,497, of whom half were Ottawa.

197 Ottawa were recorded as associated with the Seneca school in Oklahoma, where some Ottawa had lived after the American Civil War.

At the start of the 21st century, the estimated number of registered members of the federally recognized Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma numbers up to 4,700.

There are about 10,000 Ottawa people in the United States, the majority of them in Michigan.

Others can be found living in Ontario, Canada.

Ottawa Tribe Culture

Food

Like many other Native Americans in the Great Lakes region, the Ottawa people practiced a mixed, seasonal economy majorly on fishing, horticulture, hunting, and gathering wild vegetables.

The women grew maize, squash, and beans in the summer.

The men fished with nets, hunted, and set traps for deer, bears, rabbits, and other wild animals.

In the winter seasons, small bands lived in smaller camps for the hunting of large animals.

Settlement

The Ottawa tribe lived in large, permanent, enclosed towns near river banks and lake shores.

They built rectangular houses with half-barrel-shaped roofs covered with sheets of cedar bark.

When going for a long hunting trip, mat-covered cone-shaped tents were used.

The Ottawa community often had people of another tribe, such as the Huron, Potawatomi, and Ojibwa, living among them.

Religion

People attempted to acquire guardian spirits through their dreams or vision quest.

They believed in a supernatural being (the Master of Life), as well as various good and bad spirits.

Among these spirits are the Underwater Panther, a spirit of the waters, and the Great Hare, which is believed to have made the universe. Native doctors existed basically for healing purposes.

The early efforts of the Jesuits to convert them were unsuccessful.

But in the late eighteenth century, the Anglican church, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, and Baptist missionaries witnessed a fantastic success in converting them to Christianity.