While known to outsiders as "Ottawas," community members much prefer the term Odawak (singular Odawa). Gitche-Manitou placed the Ottawas on the land of the Great Lakes basin. The Ottawa River in the east, the shores of the lakes to the south, the Mississippi River on the west, and the height of land whence all the rivers flow northward on the north were provided by Mother Earth as boundaries of their territory. Here, guided by the surety of the Medicine Circle and the omnipresence of Gitche-Manitou, and through the benevolence of Mother Earth, the Ottawas lived.
All knowledge came from Gitche-Manitou. Contact with the spiritual world was through the medicine man and Nanabush, who spanned the gulf between Gitche-Manitou and the Ottawas. Nanabush was a paradox: while perceived as godlike, he harbored all the weaknesses of human beings. The mythology, legends, and stories painted against this backdrop formed the philosophical foundation of the Ottawa world.
Enandahgwad, the Law of the Orders, governed the Ottawas. Gitche-Manitou was foremost, and Earth, his wife, was the mother of all nature. Their natural children were the plants. The animal kind were brothers and sisters. Human beings were last in the order—the least necessary and most dependent of beings.
Teachings were formalized. The Ottawas learned of the Circle of Life, which was divided into four quadrants representing the four stages of life, the four directions, and the four seasons. Animal kind shared the circle. For an Ottawa, the east was the eagle, spring, the place of enlightenment. The south invoked the robin, summer, the place of innocence. The west depicted the buffalo, autumn, and introspection, while the north held images of the bear, winter, and the place of great wisdom. For an Ottawa, the four hills of life—infancy, youth, adulthood, and old age—were seen in relation to one another and to the responsibility pertaining to each. Only in living each hill completely did the Ottawas see their lives in balance.
The Ottawas created the tools for survival. They developed bows and arrows, the birchbark canoe, toboggans and snowshoes, buckskin clothing and footwear, wigwams, and copper tools. The knowledge of the medicinal properties of plants was given to the Ottawas for the health of the nation.
As the Ottawas survived and the environment sustained them, family units grew, communities formed, social structures became ordered, and the people organized themselves in clans. The Ottawas say they have always been here, but scientists say they came here thousands of years ago; just how many thousand is a matter of debate.
In the eighteenth century Ottawa community life was in tune with the cycles of the natural world. Spring found them at home making maple sugar to barter with traders. In summer, they planted corn, potatoes, peas, beans, and pumpkins. In July, they traveled to the nearest British garrison to receive their annual presents of clothing, blankets, and implements. The fall brought the harvest, which was followed by the annual trip to the wintering grounds on the southern shore of Lake Michigan.
Less than four hundred years ago, the Wemitigojiwuk (the French) entered the land of the Ottawas. This changed the Ottawa way of life forever. By 1634, they were the middlemen in the trade with the French. This precipitated conflict with the Haudenosaunee (Iroquoian) Confederacy and the Assistaronon (Algonquin) Nation and the dispersion of the Ottawas from their ancestral lands in modern Ontario. The Ottawas and Wendot (Hurons) pushed westward until, by 1654, the Ottawas reached Dakota Territory. War with the Dakotas sent the Ottawas back to Chequemagong Bay, Lake Superior; to Keewanaw; Manitoulin Island; and to Sault Ste. Marie. The center of Ottawa territory became Michilimackinac in 1673 with the return of the Kiskakon, Sinago, Sauble, and Nassauketon clans.
The French moved into Ottawa territory. Traders and missionaries joined the Ottawas at Chequemagong in 1665 and later at Michilimackinac and St. Ignace. In 1687, an Ottawa chief warned his people that the French intended to enslave them. The Ottawas' allegiance to the French drew them into continuous wars with the enemies of the French. In 1759, the British defeated the French at Quebec. This was a devastating blow to the Ottawas. Life would never be the same. The Ottawas were caught between two former enemies, the British and the Americans.
It has been said that the Ottawas were already a nation when the United States was taking its first breath of life. However, the Americans never treated the Ottawas as a nation. The American commissioners at Fort McIntosh, in 1785, informed the Indians that they had no rights. Subsequent American negotiators maintained the same attitude. The chiefs of the Ottawas responded by joining with other Indian nations in refusing to sign treaties unless the confederacy of tribes was involved.
The Ottawas sent a delegation to President Thomas Jefferson in 1809 and to the secretary of war, William Eustis, in 1811 explaining the desperate state of the Ottawa people and expressing disappointment in the treatment they were receiving from American officials. Their frustration led to their allegiance to the British in the War of 1812.
In 1812, Ottawa warriors defended their homes, lands, and way of life. Some of the Ottawas' greatest warriors, led by Assignack (Blackbird), included Mucketebennessy (Black Hawk), Keshigobenesse (Day-bird), Mokomanish (Knife That One Does Not Care About), and Eshuagonabe (Looking Back). These ogemuk (leaders) fought to protect the Ottawa villages along the Maumee from the "burn and destroy" operations perpetrated by the American troops on Indian towns on the Wabash. They defended the Niagara frontier in the mud, mosquitos, and sickness side by side with British soldiers, Canadian volunteers, and other Indian allies. They followed Tecumseh at the Battle of Moraviantown and continued to hold the line against the Americans on land and at sea until the end of the war.
The Ottawas found that in peace, their contribution was forgotten. Those on the American side of the line were left to deal with the desire of the Americans for their land, and in the 1830s many fled to Canada or were transported to the American West. Canadian Ottawas found themselves working with the British in establishing settlements devoted exclusively to the Christianization, civilization, and education of Indian people. They returned to what they regarded as their ancestral island, Manitoulin, only to have to sign it away by treaty in 1862.
The Ottawas have survived. They have become schooled landowners and have participated in all facets of American and Canadian life. Their language has been preserved. Many follow traditional teachings, and they still believe that they are the people Gitche-Manitou placed in the Great Lakes basin.
Andrew Blackbird, History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan: A Grammar of the Language and Personal Family History of the Author, by Andrew J. Blackbird, Late U.S. Interpreter (1887; reprint, Petoskey, Mich.: Little Traverse Regional Historical Society, 1967); James M. McClurken, Gah-Baeh-Jhagwah-Buk: The Way It Happened (East Lansing: Michigan State University Museum, 1991); Helen Hornbeck Tanner, ed., Atlas of the Great Lakes Indian History (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987).
Cecil King
Odawa
Queen's University
Kingston, Ontario
