Dennis Esquivel, Odawa-Ojibwe artist
The Odawa (also Ottawa or Odaawaa //), said to mean "traders," are a Native American tribe and First Nations band. They are one of the Anishinaabeg, related to but distinct from the Ojibwe and Potawatomi people. Their original homelands are located on Manitoulin Island, near the northern shores of Lake Huron, on the Bruce Peninsula in the present-day province of Ontario, Canada and in the state of Michigan, United States. There are approximately 15,000 Odawa living in Ontario, Michigan and Oklahoma.
The Odawa language is considered a divergent dialect of the Ojibwe, characterized by frequent syncope. The Odawa language, like the Ojibwe language, is part of the Algonquian language family. They also have smaller tribal groups or “bands” commonly called “Tribe” in the United States and “First Nation” in Canada. The Odawa people formerly lived along the Ottawa River but now live especially on Manitoulin Island.
- 1 Tribe name
- 2 Language
- 3 Early history
- 4 Modern history
- 5 Known villages
- 6 Governments
- 7 Notable Odawa people
- 8 See also
- 9 Notes
- 10 References
- 11 External links
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, Odawa, and Ojibwe. The Potawatomi spelling of Odawa and the English derivative "Ottawa" are also common. The Anishinaabe word for "Those men who trade, or buy and sell" is Wadaawewinini(wag), which was recorded by Fr. Frederic Baraga in his A Dictionary of the Otchipwe Language as "Watawawininiwok," but he recorded it as meaning "men of the bulrushes", from the many bulrushes in the Ottawa River. This recorded meaning is associated with the Matàwackariniwak, a historical band of Algonquins living about the Ottawa River. Their neighbors applied the "Trader" name to the Ottawa because in early traditional times, and also during the early European contact period, they were noted as intertribal traders and barterers. They dealt "chiefly in cornmeal, sunflower oil, furs and skins, rugs and mats, tobacco, and medicinal roots and herbs."
Like the Ojibwe, the Odawa usually refer to themselves as Nishnaabe (Anishinaabe, plural: Nishnaabeg / Anishinaabeg), meaning "original people."
The name in its English transcription is the source of the place names of Ottawa, Ontario, and the Ottawa River. The Odawa'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. The tribe is source of the name for Tawas City, Michigan, and Tawas Point, which reflect the syncope-form of their name. The county seat of Putnam County, Ohio is named Ottawa, and is located at the site of the last Ottawa reservation in Ohio.
The Odawa language is considered one of several divergent dialects of the Ojibwe language group, noted for its frequent syncope. In the Odawa language, the general language group is known as Nishnabemwin, while the Odawa language is called Daawaamwin. Of the estimated 5,000 ethnic Odawa and additional 10,000 people with Odawa ancestry, an estimated 500 people in Ontario and Michigan speak this language. The Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma has three fluent speakers.
The Odawa, together with the Ojibwe and Potawatomi, were part of a long-term tribal alliance called the Council of Three Fires, which fought the Iroquois Confederacy and the Dakota people. 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 is archaeological evidence that the Saugeen Complex people, a Hopewell-influenced group who were located on the Bruce Peninsula during the Middle Woodland period, may have evolved into the Odawa people. Some of these peoples constructed earthwork mounds for burials, a practice that ended about 250 CE.
Wars and refugees
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The Odawa allied with the French against the British in the Seven Years' War, known as the French and Indian War in the North American colonies. They made raids against Anglo-American colonists. The famous Odawa chief Pontiac has historically been reported to have been born at the confluence of the Maumee and Auglaize Rivers in modern Defiance, Ohio. In 1763, after the British had defeated France, Pontiac led a rebellion against the British, but he was unable to prevent British occupation of the region. A decade later, Chief Egushawa led the Odawa in the American Revolutionary War as an ally of the British. The defeat of the British by the United States had a far-ranging influence on Native American/First Nations tribes.
In the 1790s, Egushawa fought the United States in a series of battles and campaigns together with other regional tribes in what became known as the Northwest Indian War. The Indians hoped to repulse the European-American pioneers coming to settle west of the Applachian Mountains, but were finally defeated. In a campaign during 1794, Anthony Wayne built a string of forts in the Maumee River watershed, including Fort Defiance, across the river from the site of Pontiac's birth. Wayne's army defeated an Indian confederacy at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, near present-day Toledo.
Treaties and removals
In 1807, the Odawa joined three other tribes, the Ojibwe, Potawatomi and Wyandot people, in signing the Treaty of Detroit. The agreement, between the tribes and William Hull, representing the Michigan Territory, gave the United States a portion of today's Southeastern Michigan and a section of Ohio near the Maumee River. The tribes were able to retain small pockets of land in the territory.
The population of the different Odawa groups is not known with certainty. In 1906, the Ojibwe and Odawa on Manitoulin and Cockburn Island were 1,497, of whom about half were Odawa; there were 197 Odawa under the Seneca School, Oklahoma, and in Michigan 5,587 scattered Ojibwe and Odawa, in 1900, of whom about two-thirds are Odawa. The total Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma is about 4,700.
The following are or were Odawa villages:
Former villages not on reserves/reservations
Former reserves/reservations and their villages
- Auglaize Reserve, Ohio – Oquanoxa's Village
- Blanchard's Fork Reserve, Ohio – Lower Tawa Town, Upper Tawa Town
- North Maumee River Reserve, Ohio – Meshkemau's Village, Wassonquet's Village, Waugau's Village
- Obidgewong Reserve, Ontario – Obijewong, Ontario (located 2.5 kilometres (1.6 mi) east of Evansville, Ontario)
- Ottawas of Blanchard's Fork Indian Reservation, Kansas – Ottawa
- Ottawas of Roche de Bœuf and Wolf Rapids Indian Reservation, Kansas
- Roche de Bœuf Reserve, Ohio – Nawash’s Village, Tontaganie's Village
- South Maumee River Reserve, Ohio – McCarty's Village ("Tushquegan")
- Wolf Rapids Reserve, Ohio – Kinjoino's Village ("Anpatonajowin" (Aabitanagaajiwan))
Current reserves/reservations and associated villages
- Grand Traverse Indian Reservation and Off-Reservation Trust Land, Michigan – Peshawbestown
- Little River Indian Reservation, Michigan – Manistee, Muskegon
- Little Traverse Bay Indian Reservation, Michigan ("Wequetonsing" (Wiikwedoonsing)) – Charlevoix, Cross Village, Harbor Springs/L'Arbre Croche ("Waganakisi" (Waaganaakizi)), Middle Village, Petoskey
- M'Chigeeng 22 Indian Reserve, Ontario – M'Chigeeng (formerly known as "West Bay")
- Ottawa OTSA, Oklahoma – Miami
- Point Grondine Indian Reserve, Ontario – Beaverstone
- Walpole Island 46 Indian Reserve, Ontario (Bakejiwanong [Bkejwanong]) – Foreplex, Myersville, Wallaceburg, Walpole Island, Williamsville
- Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve, Ontario – Buzwah, Kaboni, Maiangowi, Murray Hill, South Bay, Two O'Clock, Wabozominissing, Wikwemikong, Wikwemikonsing
- Zhiibaahaasing 19 Indian Reserve, Ontario (formerly known as "Cockburn Island 19 Indian Reserve")
- Zhiibaahaasing 19A Indian Reserve, Ontario – Zhiibaahaasing
- Recognized/status Odawa governments
- Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, Michigan (formerly Northern Michigan Ottawa Association, Unit 2)
- Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, Michigan (formerly Northern Michigan Ottawa Association, Unit 7)
- Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, Michigan (formerly Northern Michigan Ottawa Association, Unit 1)
- M'Chigeeng First Nation (formerly "West Bay First Nation")
- Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma
- Sheshegwaning First Nation, Ontario
- Walpole Island First Nation, on unceded territory of Walpole Island located between Ontario and Michigan
- Wikwemikong First Nation, located on the Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve, Ontario
- Zhiibaahaasing First Nation, Ontario (formerly "Cockburn Island First Nation")
- Other recognized/status governments with significant Odawa populations
- Aamjiwnaang First Nation (Sarnia), Ontario
- Aundeck-Omni-Kaning First Nation (Sucker Creek), Ontario
- Chippewas of Kettle & Stony Point, Ontario
- Chippewas of Nawash Unceded First Nation, Ontario (formerly "Cape Croker First Nation")
- Chippewas of the Thames (Caradoc), Ontario
- Garden River First Nation, Ontario
- Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians of Michigan (formerly Gun Lake Band of Grand River Ottawa Indians and as part of Northern Michigan Ottawa Association, Units 3 and 4)
- Mattagami First Nation, Ontario
- Mississauga First Nation, Ontario
- Saginaw Chippewa Tribal Nation, Michigan
- Saugeen First Nation, Ontario
- Serpent River First Nation, Ontario
- Sheguiandah First Nation, Ontario
- Thessalon First Nation, Ontario
- Whitefish Lake First Nation, Ontario
- Whitefish River First Nation, Ontario
- Unrecognized/non-status Odawa governments
- Burt Lake Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, Michigan (formerly Northern Michigan Ottawa Association, Unit 8, currently recognized by Michigan)
- Genesee Valley Indian Association (formerly Northern Michigan Ottawa Association, Unit 9)
- Grand River Bands of Ottawa Indians, Michigan (formerly Northern Michigan Ottawa Association, Unit 3, currently recognized by Michigan)
- Mackinac Bands of Chippewa and Ottawa Indians, Michigan (currently recognized by Michigan)
- Maple River Band of Ottawa, Michigan
- Muskegon River Band of Ottawa Indians, Michigan (formerly Northern Michigan Ottawa Association, Unit 5)
- 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) (formerly part of Northern Michigan Ottawa Association, Unit 3)
- "First Nations Culture Areas Index". Canadian Museum of Civilization.
- Canadian Oxford Dictionary
- Baraga, Frederick. (1878). A Dictionary of the Otchipwe Language, I, 300.
- Beck, David (2002). Siege and Survival: History of the Menominee Indians, 1634–1856, p. 27. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 0-8032-1330-1.
- Burton, Clarence M. (ed.) (1922). The City of Detroit, Michigan, 1701-1922, p. 49. The S. J. Clarke Publishing Company.
- 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 3-11-013417-9.
- Anderton, Alice, PhD. Status of Indian Languages in Oklahoma. Intertribal Wordpath Society. 2009 (16 Feb 2009).
- Williamson, Pamela, and Roberts, John (2nd ed. 2004). First Nations Peoples, p. 102. Toronto: Emond Montgomery Publications. ISBN 1-55239-144-2.
- "The Archaeology of Ontario-The Middle Woodland Period". Retrieved 10 July 2009.
- Vogel, Virgil J. (1986). Indian Names in Michigan, pp. 46-47. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 0-472-06365-0.
- Barnes, Celia (2003). Native American Power in the United States, 1783–1795, p. 203. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press. ISBN 0-8386-3958-5.
- "Treaty Between the Ottawa, Chippewa, Wyandot, and Potawatomi Indians". World Digital Library. 1807-11-17. Retrieved 2013-08-03.
- "Domain Default page". Sheshegwaning.org. Retrieved 2012-08-31.
- "mackinacbands.com". mackinacbands.com. Retrieved 2012-08-31.
- Cappel, Constance, Odawa Language and Legends: Andrew J. Blackbird and Raymond Kiogima, Xlibris, 2006.
- Cappel, Constance, The Smallpox Genocide of the Odawa Tribe at L'Arbre Croche, 1763: The History of a Native American People, Edwin Mellen Press, 2007.
- Wolff, Gerald W., and Cash, Joseph H. The Ottawa People, Phoenix, Arizona: Indian Tribal Series, 1976.