Society and culture
The Ottawa spent most of the year in small villages of wigwams, or dome-shaped houses covered with bark or animal skins. During the spring women planted food crops, including corn (maize), potatoes, peas, beans, and pumpkins. They also gathered blueberries and strawberries and tapped trees for maple syrup. Men added to the food supply by hunting and fishing. After the fall harvest they headed to their winter hunting grounds to stalk deer and other small game.
The Ottawa were known as great traders among their Indian neighbors. (Their tribal name is often translated as “to trade” or “the at-home-anywhere people.”) Men of the tribe built sturdy birch-bark canoes. They used these boats to travel on rivers and lakes to trade with other Indian peoples throughout the northern Great Lakes region. The Ottawa dealt in furs, skins, corn, roots, herbs, and other valuable goods.
History
The Ottawa, Ojibwa, and Potawatomi were probably once a single tribe, but they separated in prehistoric times. After their first meeting with the explorer Samuel de Champlain in about 1615, the Ottawa became trading partners of the French. From them the Ottawa obtained guns, cloth, metal tools, and other European goods in exchange for furs. The tribe's success in the fur trade brought them in conflict with the powerful Iroquois tribes. Iroquois attacks pushed the Ottawa westward in the mid-17th century. By about 1670, however, they had returned to the Lake Huron region. Many were soon living at Mackinac in present-day Michigan.
The Ottawa joined the French in fighting against the English in the French and Indian War (1754–63). Even after the French were defeated, the Ottawa continued to fight. They were led by Pontiac, a brilliant war chief. Pontiac wanted to build an Indian confederacy to drive the English from the Great Lakes region. He won the support of many tribes, including the Potawatomi, Ojibwa, Kickapoo, Illinois, and Miami.
In Pontiac's War (1763–64) the Indian confederacy killed thousands of English settlers and took over many English forts. But they were unable to take two of the most important English posts, Fort Pitt and Fort Detroit. By the end of the year Indian support for the confederacy began to fade. Pontiac was murdered by a Peoria Indian in Illinois in 1769, setting off a bitter war between Indian tribes.
After the American Revolution (1775–83) the Americans tried to take control of Ottawa territory. The federal government pressured the Ottawa to give up their lands and move to reservations to the west. In 1831 one group agreed to move to present-day Kansas. They were later resettled in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma), where they became known as the Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma. Others settled in Ontario, Canada, where the Canadian government gave them several small reserves. Most of the Ottawa, however, remained in present-day Michigan.
More than 6,000 Ottawa lived in the United States at the end of the 20th century. The majority live in Michigan, though some make their home on the tribe's Oklahoma reservation. Another 3,500 Ottawa live in Canada, mostly in Ontario.