Ottawa OTTAWAHISTORY© [Note: This is a single part of what will be, by myclassification, about 240 compact tribal histories (contact to 1900). Itis limited to the lower 48 states of the U.S. but also includes thoseFirstNations from Canada and Mexico that had important roles ( Huron,Assiniboine, etc.).This history's content and style are representative. The normal processat this point is to circulate an almost finished product among a peergroup for comment and criticism. At the end of this History you willfind links to those Nations referred to in the History of theOttawa.Using the Internet, this can be more inclusive. Feel free to comment orsuggest corrections via e-mail. Working together we can end some of thehistorical misinformation about Native Americans. You will find the egoat this end to be of standard size. Thanks for stopping by. I look forward to your comments... Lee Sultzman.  Enter your search terms Webdickshovel.comtolatsga.orgSubmit search form OttawaLocation Along with the Ojibwe and Potawatami, the Ottawa first arrived on theeast side of Lake Huron sometime around 1400. While the Ojibwe andPotawatomi continued west towards Sault Ste. Marie, the Ottawa remainednear the mouth of the French River and on the large Islands in LakeHuron. Over the years. the Ottawa lived in many places but alwaysconsidered Manitoulin Island as their original homeland. This island wason the route between the Great Lakes and the Atlantic coast, and theOttawa used the birchbark canoes to travel great distances for trade. In1615 their villages were concentrated on Manitoulin Island, but theybegan relocating to Mackinac (upper Michigan) during the 1630s. By 1649they had left Manitoulin Island. Iroquois attacks forced them to move toGreen Bay (Wisconsin) in 1651 and then to the south shore of LakeSuperior in 1658. They remained there until they returned to Mackinac in1670. As the French and their allies drove the Iroquois from the GreatLakes during the 1690s, some Ottawa returned to Manitoulin Island wherethey have remained ever since.However, the majority stayed at Mackinac until 1701 when most left forDetroit and Saginaw Bay. They spread south into northern Ohio with onevillage located as far east as Venango in western Pennsylvania. TheOttawa at Mackinac stayed until the soil wore out in 1741, and theyrelocated to Grand Traverse Bay in lower Michigan, with some bandsmoving as far south on the east side of Lake Michigan at the GrandRiver. A few bands settled on the opposite side of the lake at Milwaukeeand spread into northern Illinois. The Wisconsin and Illinois Ottawawere removed with the Potawatomi to southwest Iowa in 1834. By 1846 theyhad merged with the Potawatomi and moved with them to Kansas. The Ohioand Detroit bands of Ottawa were removed to Kansas 1831-34. Some choseallotment and citizenship in 1867 and remained in Kansas while theremainder moved to northeast Oklahoma. However, the vast majority of theOttawa were not removed and still live in the northern part of lowerMichigan or southern Ontario.Population The Ottawa were never a large tribe, probably no more than about 8,000in 1600 before contact. Although heavily exposed to Europeans throughthe fur trade, their population suffered far less the Huron fromepidemic. This was probably due to the fact that the Ottawa did usuallynot live in large villages during the winter. The British in 1768estimated them at about 5,000. Later estimates had difficulty separatingOttawa from Ojibwe. The Canadian census in 1910 gave 1,497 Ottawa-Ojibweon Manitoulin and Cockburn Islands, half of which were Ottawa. TheUnited States that year listed 197 Ottawa in Oklahoma, 2,750Ottawa-Ojibwe in Michigan (two-thirds Ottawa), and 683 others - total3,465. Canada currently has more than 4,000 Ottawa, mostly with theOntario First Nations on Cockburn, Manitoulin, and Walpole Islands.There are another 10,000 Ottawa in the United States. Although theOttawa have signed 24 treaties with the United States, most groups havenot had federal recognition since the 1860s. Only two Ottawa groupspresently have this status: Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma with 400 members;and the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan.The 9,000 members of the Northern Michigan Ottawa Association are one ofthe largest groups of Native Americans in the United States withoutfederal recognition.Names Ottawa comes from the Algonquin word "Adawe" meaning "totrade" and originates from their role as traders even beforecontact. Variations are: Atawawa, Odawa, Outaouacs, Outaoua, Tawa,Tawaw, and Utawawea. The Ottawa became so important in the French furtrade, that before 1670, it was common practice in Quebec to call anyAlgonquin from the Great Lakes an Ottawa. In their own language, theOttawa (like the Ojibwe) refer to themselves as Anishinabe (Neshnabek)meaning "people." Other names for the Ottawa were:Andatahourat or Ondatawnwat (Huron), Dewagunha (Mohawk), Udawak(Penobscot), Ukuayata (Huron), Waganhae or Waganis (Iroquois),Watawawininiwok (Ojibwe), and Wdowo (Abnaki).Language Central Algonquin - identical to Ojibwe and almost thesame as Potawatomi.Sub-Nations During the late 1600s, there were four to five Ottawa divisions:Keinouche (Pickerel), Kiskakon (Kishkakon) (Bear), Nassawaketon (ForkPeople, Nation of the Fork, Nassauaketon, Nassauakueton, Ottawa de laFourche), Sable, and Sinago (Akonapi) (Gray Squirrel). These weresubdivided into numerous local bands. Villages and Bands 1615 to 1855MichiganAegakotcheising, Anamiewatigong, Apontigoumy, Cheboygan, Keweenaw,L'Arbre Croche, Machonee, Manistee, Menawzbetaunaung, Michilimackinac(Mackinac), Middle Village, Muskegan, Obidgewong, St. Ignace, SaintSimon, Waganakisi (Waganaski, Waganukizze), Wequetonsing.OhioAgushawas, Blanchard's Fork, Meshkemau, Ogontz, Oquanoxa, Roche deBoeuf, Tawa Town, Tondagonie (The Dog), Tushquegan (McCarty), Waugau,Wolf Rapids.OntarioCockburn Island, Ekaentoton, Manitowaning, Manitoulin Island,Sheguiandah, Sheshegwaning, Walpole Island (Bkwjwanong), West Bay,Wikwemikong.WisconsinChequamegon, Milwaukee (Ojibwe, Ottawa), Mitchigami, Shabawywyagun.Other VillagesKajienatroene, Maskasinik, Nikikouek, Niscak, Otontagen, Ouacheskesouek,Outaouakamigouk, Sagnitaouigama, Talon, Thunder Bay. Villages and Bands 1855KansasOttawa of the Osage (Blanchard's Fork and Roche de Boeuf from Ohio).MichiganAegakotcheising, Cheboigan, Flat River, Fort Village, Grand Rapids,Grand River Valley, Griswold Colony, Maple River, L'Arbre Croche Ottawa,Middle Village, Old Wing Colony, Ottawa Colony, Thorn Apple River,Village of the Cross. Current Ottawa GroupsCanadaCockburn Island First Nation, Sheshegwaning First Nation, Walpole IslandFirst Nation, West Bay First Nation, Wikwemikong First Nation.United StatesBurt Lake Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, Consolidated BahwetigOjibwe and Mackinac, Grand River Band of Ottawa Indians, Grand TraverseBand of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan, Little River Band ofOttawa Indians, and Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians, OttawaTribe of Oklahoma.Culture Some Americans do not think of the Ottawa as an important tribe. Therewere never very many of them, and their culture language was almostidentical to the more-numerous Ojibwe and Potawatomi. Between 1615 and1763, the Ottawa were one of the most important tribes in North America,but their homeland was remote to the British colonies on the Atlanticseaboard. When the Americans reached the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes,the Ottawa's time had passed, and their role in the history of theUnited States after 1775 was small. A trading tribe even before contact,the Ottawa were businessmen before they ever met a European, so theyimmediately recognized the opportunity presented by the fur trade andattached themselves to it and the French. They soon becameindispensable. Paddling their birchbark canoes for great distances, theOttawa became the "French connection" to other Algonquin inthe Great Lakes and brought the furs they collected to the Huronvillages where the French were. The Huron provided warehouse space andprotection from the Iroquois, but the Ottawa were the sales force whowent out and got the business. Recognizing this, the French built theirtrade around the Ottawa and Huron. The Iroquois destroyed the Huron in1649, but the Ottawa and some of the Huron (now called Wyandot) fledwest and continued business as usual.When the French organized an alliance to fight the Iroquois in 1687, theOttawa and Wyandot became the "eldest children of Onontio,"the French governor of Canada, and when they spoke in the councils ofthe alliance councils, their words carried weight. By 1685 Ottawamiddlemen were supplying two-thirds of the fur at Montreal. It was noaccident the Iroquois tried to break the alliance in the 1690s byoffering a separate peace to the Ottawa, or that the Ottawa and Wyandotwere the first tribes the French invited to Detroit in 1701. Ottawainfluence declined after the French defeat and British takeover of theGreat Lakes in 1760. The Ottawa's "fall from grace" wasprobably the most important reason for the Pontiac Rebellion in 1763.Other tribes had tried to organize an uprising against the British, butno one responded. But when an Ottawa chief called for revolt, everytribe listened and most joined, because the Ottawa would be leading it.This, more than anything, says who and what the Ottawa once were. History The Ottawa's first meeting with the French was a brief encounter at themouth of the French River in 1615 with Samuel de Champlain. At the time,Champlain was enroute to the Huron villages at the south end of LakeHuron and gave little attention to what he thought was just anothergroup of Algonkin. His attitude quickly changed when he realized howmuch fur the Ottawa could provide. Although the Huron had beaver intheir homeland, it was not enough to supply the French, but the Ottawa,through their trade with tribes to the north and west, had access to anenormous amount, and it was better fur since colder weather causedbeaver to grow thicker coats. The Ottawa had fought with the Huronbefore the French arrived, but mutual self-interest ended theirtraditional hostility (probably the only time when the fur trade causedpeace in the Great Lakes). The system of the Ottawa and Nipissingbringing fur to the Huron to trade to the French worked so well it wasnot necessary for the French to travel beyond the Huron villages. By the1620s French trade goods were reaching the Ojibwe at Sault Ste. Marieand the Cree to the north on the rivers flowing into Hudson Bay.Reaching west to find more fur, Ottawa and Huron traders encountered theWinnebago at Green Bay (Wisconsin). Angry about the steel weapons theOjibwe were using to take hunting territory from them, the Winnebagorefused to either trade or allow Ottawa to travel beyond their villages.The Ottawa tried negotiations, but the Winnebago killed and ate theirambassadors. Seeing the Ottawa and Huron preparations for war, theFrench sent Jean Nicollet to the Winnebago villages in 1634 to arrange atruce. When Nicollet arrived at Red Banks on the south shore of GreenBay, he was the first European the Winnebago had ever seen whichprobably saved him from the same fate as the Ottawa ambassadors. He gotthe Winnebago to agree to a peace with the Ottawa, and Huron whichlasted for some time and opened Lake Michigan to the French fur trade.To take advantage of this, the Ottawa began leaving Manitoulin Islandand moving west to Mackinac. Around 1640, the relocation brought warwith the Assegun (Bone Indians), and the Ottawa and Ojibwe drove theAssegun across the Mackinac Strait to lower Michigan.The Assegun did not accept their defeat and continued to raid the Ottawavillages around Mackinac, so the Ottawa drove them south along the eastside of Lake Michigan to the Mascouten's original homeland in southwestMichigan. The Mascouten welcomed the Assegun and formed an alliance withthem against the Ottawa. Meanwhile, the Huron were trading with theNeutrals's and Tionontati who lived to the south and west of them. Forobvious reasons, the French at first were reluctant to sell firearms toNative Americans. However, in 1629 the British captured Quebec and heldit for three years cutting the supply of French trade goods. Sensing theweakness of their enemies, the Iroquois attacked the Algonkin andMontagnais who, with French help, had driven them from the upper St.Lawrence River in 1610. This was the beginning of the Beaver Wars(1630-1700), 70 years of intertribal warfare for control of the furtrade. By the time Quebec was returned to the French in 1632, theAlgonkin and Montagnais were retreating, and the Iroquois were close tocutting the trade route through the Ottawa Valley to the Great Lakes. Torestore the balance of power, the French began providing firearms, butthe Dutch countered with their own sales to the Iroquois creating anarms race between the rival tribes.The French weapons soon found their way from the Huron to the Tionontatiand Neutrals who were exhausting the beaver in their homelands and usedthese weapons to take hunting territory from the tribes in lowerMichigan (Mascouten, Fox, Sauk, Potawatomi, and Kickapoo). With onlytraditional weapons, the Michigan tribes needed allies - explaining whythe Mascouten had welcomed the Assegun when they were fleeing theOttawa, but the Ottawa had no trouble finding their own allies. Becausethis warfare did not interfere with the fur trade, the French didnothing to prevent it. What little they knew about it was learned fromthe Huron. Unfortunately, the Huron did not distinguish between theAlgonquin tribes in lower Michigan and, borrowing the Ottawa name forthe Potawatomi, referred to all of them as the Assistaeronon, or FireNation. In 1641 the Huron told their Jesuit missionaries that 2,000Ottawa and Neutrals warriors had recently destroyed an Assistaerononfort in southwest Michigan killing all of its warriors and taking 800women and children prisoners.The Ottawa were living at Mackinac when the Iroquois overran the Huronin 1649. The Huron not killed or captured fled to the Neutrals andTionontati, but within two years these tribes had met a similar fate.The Iroquois adopted what remained of their beaten Iroquian-speakingfoes, but nearly 1,000 Tionontati and Huron eluded them and fled northto the Ottawa villages at Mackinac. Having absorbed thousands of formerenemies, the Iroquois were in danger of a revolt as long as one group ofthem remained free, and in 1650 they pursued the Wyandot (Tionontati andHuron refugees) to Mackinac. The attempt at capture failed, but certainthey would try again, the Wyandot and Ottawa left Mackinac in 1651 andmoved to an island at the entrance of Green Bay. The Winnebago hadalmost been annihilated by wars with the Fox and Illinois and could notresist the relocation of refugee tribes to Wisconsin, but there was alsonothing to stop the Iroquois, and their attack on the Wyandot and Ottawain 1652 almost succeeded. The Ottawa and Wyandot formed an alliance withthe Potawatomi and moved to their fortified village of Mitchigami. TheIroquois returned in 1653, but their assault could not take the fort.During the siege, the Iroquois ran out of food and were forced toretreat. Returning to New York, they were attacked by the Mississauga(Ojibwe) who killed almost half of them, but this was one of the fewdefeats the Iroquois suffered during this period. By 1656 they haddefeated and absorbed the Erie and finished driving the remaining tribesfrom lower Michigan. The survivors joined the other refugees inWisconsin adding to the misery and overcrowding. After another Iroquoisattack in 1655, the Ottawa and Wyandot were ready to leave Green Bay.The Wyandot left in 1658 and moved inland to Lake Pepin on theMississippi.The Ottawa left the following year and moved to either Lac CourteOreilles or the Ojibwe villages at Chequamegon and Keweenaw on the southshore of Lake Superior. Besides distancing them from the Iroquois, thisprovided better access to the Cree north of Superior. This wasimportant, because through all of the turmoil, the Ottawa had neverstopped their fur trade with the French. The Huron defeat had left theFrench fur trade in shambles and in danger of being overrun themselves.But the Iroquois wanted to control the French, not to destroy them, andto the success of their war against the Erie, the western Iroquois(Seneca, Cayuga, and Onondaga) offered peace to the French in 1653. TheFrench quickly agreed and, to protect this peace, halted their travel tothe Great Lakes. Despite this, the French tried to keep their fur tradegoing by inviting former allies to bring their furs to Montreal. Withthe Iroquois controlling the Ottawa River, this was very dangerous, buthaving acquired a taste for French trade goods, the Ottawa and Wyandotwere willing to try. Enlisting the help of the Ojibwe, they formed largecanoe fleets to fight their way past the Iroquois. The French peace withthe Iroquois ended in 1658 after the murder of a Jesuit.As war resumed along the St. Lawrence, two French fur traders tried torenew trade with the Great Lakes. Ignoring French law, Pierre Radissonand Médart Chouart des Groseilliers joined an Ottawa tradingparty on their return to the Great Lakes. They became the firstEuropeans to see Lake Superior when the Ottawa took them to Chequamegon(La Pointe). They spent the winter with them, but it was a terribleexperience. The Ottawa found it difficult to grow corn at this locationand, to keep from starving, were reduced to eating their mocassins. Inthe spring, Raddison and Groseilliers travelled overland to the Dakota(Eastern Sioux) villages to trade. When they got back to Quebec in 1660,they were arrested and had their furs confiscated for defying the travelban, but their brief visit had made the Dakota aware of the value oftheir fur, and afterwards they would not tolerate the Wyandot on theMississippi. After threats, the Wyandot left Lake Pepin in 1661 andjoined the Ottawa at Chequamegon.Although they managed to defeat a Wyandot convoy in 1659, the Iroquoiscould not stop the heavily-armed canoe flotillas coming down the OttawaRiver and decided to go after their source. When they realized theOttawa and Wyandot were both on the south side of Lake Superior, theysaw a chance to destroy them with a single attack, but they first had topass undetected through Ojibwe territory. They did not make it, and in1662 the Ojibwe, Nipissing, and Ottawa surprised a careless Iroquois warparty west of Sault Ste. Marie and annihilated them. The Iroquois neveragain attempted to attack the Ottawa and Wyandot while they lived onLake Superior. Although often close to starvation, the Ottawa andWyandot had finally found a refuge from which they could collect furs totrade to the French. By 1664 the French had tired of living in fear ofthe Iroquois and decided to change this. Canada came under royal controlthat year, and a regiment of soldiers was sent to Quebec. Within a yearthey were making attacks on the Iroquois homeland. There was no longerreason for the French not to travel to the Great Lakes, and in 1665Nicolas Perot, Jesuit Claude-Jean Allouez, and 6 other Frenchmen, joined400 Ottawa and Wyandot on their return. They reached Green Bay inSeptember.Father Allouez went to Chequamegon where he established the mission ofLa Pointe du St. Esprit for the Huron and Ottawa converts which theJesuits had made before 1649. French attacks in New York forced theIroquois to sign a peace in 1667 which included French allies andtrading partners in the Great Lakes. French traders and missionariesafterwards could now reach the Great Lakes unmolested, and Allouez wasjoined at Chequamegon in 1669 by the Father Jacques Marquette. Theentire region at this time was plagued by starvation, epidemic, andwarfare. Unable to reach the Ottawa and Wyandot on Lake Superior,Iroquois war parties had roamed through Wisconsin before 1667 attackingany tribe supplying them with fur. Between Iroquois raids, competitionfor the resources around Green Bay had the refugee tribes fighting eachother over hunting territory. The south shore of Lake Superior waslittle better. The Dakota at the west end of lake had fought with theOjibwe for many years, and they were not happy when the Ottawa andWyandot had moved to the area in 1661.This uneasy peace might have continued if the peace with the Iroquoishad created a rapid expansion of the French fur trade. To preventintertribal warfare near Green Bay which hurt their trade, the Frenchbegan mediating disputes. They succeeded, but in ending one war, theFrench inadvertently created another. As expected, the refugee tribesstopped fighting each other and started hunting for fur. The onlytrouble was that 20,000 refugees crowded into a small area had managedto kill and eat almost every living creature around Green Bay, and tofeed themselves and find fur for the French, they were forced to huntfarther west on lands claimed by the Dakota. Within a short time, theGreen Bay tribes (Fox, Sauk, Mascouten, Kickapoo, Miami, and Potawatomi)were fighting the Dakota in western Wisconsin. Without the advantage ofthe firearms and steel weapons the refugees had gotten from the French,the Dakota did very well. The French started calling them the Iroquoisof the west.The fighting between the Dakota and Green Bay tribes spread to theOttawa and Wyandot at Chequamegon, and the Dakota, who already hadenough enemies from Green Bay, asked the Ottawa for a meeting in 1669 tosettle their differences. The Dakota came to the meeting bearing thecalumet, a sacred pipe and a sign of peace which all tribes wereexpected to honor, but the Ottawa killed and ate them. For violating thecalumet, the Dakota captured Sinago, the Ottawa chief responsible, andburned him alive. Father Marquette concluded that Chequamegon was nolonger the best place for a mission, and in 1670 he convinced the Ottawaand Wyandot to leave Chequamegon and settle near his new mission at St.Ignace on the north side of the Mackinac Strait. The relocation proved alittle premature when the Seneca attacked and burned St. Ignace and thenearby villages in 1671.However, this was the Ottawa's last brush with the Iroquois for a sometime. The mission was rebuilt, and having come full circle in theirmovements, the Wyandot and Ottawa stayed at Michilimackinac (Mackinac).Some groups of Ottawa moved past and reoccupied their old villages onManitoulin Island. The French presence became permanent, and in a treatysigned at a Grand Council held at Sault Ste. Marie in 1671, SimonDaumont claimed the entire Great Lakes for France. French missionaryefforts slowed after Louis XIV got into an argument with Rome in 1673.Father Marquette left that year to explore the Mississippi and thenremained among the Illinois for two years. He became ill and diedreturning to Mackinac. He was buried along the east shore of LakeMichigan. As was their custom for one of their own, the Ottawa went tothe site of his grave a few years later, disinterred his bones, and tookthem back to St. Ignace.Disaster struck the Ottawa in 1670 when the British opened their firsttrading posts on Hudson Bay. Before this, the Cree had been the Ottawa'smost important source of fur, and this ended when the Cree could tradedirectly without Ottawa middleman. But the Ottawa adjusted and got theOjibwe to make up the difference. This required the Ojibwe to expandwest along the north and south shores of Lake Superior to find newhunting territory. Since their loyalty was unquestionable, the Frenchencouraged the movement of the Ojibwe to block British access fromHudson Bay to tribes in the Great Lakes. By 1685 the Ottawa and Ojibwawere supplying two-thirds of the fur reaching Montreal. The initial pushwest by the Ojibwe was along the north side of Superior which tookterritory from the Assiniboine. Although the Assiniboine spoke the samelanguage and were closely related to the Dakota, they had been enemiesbefore the fur trade. The fur trade aggravated this. Although engaged ina three-way struggle with the Green Bay tribes and Ojibwe in westernWisconsin, the main threat to the Dakota after 1670 was from theirunfriendly Assiniboine relatives to the north who had allied with theCree. This allowed Daniel DuLhut (Duluth) to arrange a peace in 1680between the Saulteur Ojibwa and Dakota, but this did not include theGreen Bay tribes or the Keweenaw Ojibwe who remained at war with theDakota.However, it allowed the French to begin trading with the Dakota. Theywere already a dangerous opponent without firearms, and the last thingthe refugee tribes wanted was for the French to start arming theirenemies. When they moved to Mackinac in 1670, the Sinago Ottawa had notforgotten the Dakota had killed their chief. To retaliate, they formedjoint war parties with the Potawatomi, Fox, and Sauk. Although there wasfighting in western Wisconsin, French traders were making regular visitsto the Dakota and the situation became explosive. In 1682 the Ojibwe andMenominee warriors of chief Achiganaga murdered two French traders inupper Michigan. DeLhut attempted to bring the culprits to justice at aEuropean-style trial, but the Ottawa and Saulteur Ojibwa let it be knownthere would be serious trouble if Achiganaga's punishment was toosevere. In the end, DeLhut was only able to execute one Menominee (asmall tribe) rather than offend important allies. In 1680 the Illinoishad rekindled the Beaver Wars when they killed the Seneca chief Annanhaaduring a meeting at Mackinac.The murder had taken place in an Ottawa village, the Iroquois did notblame them and went after the Illinois. The trouble had started afterRobert La Salle had built Fort Crèvecoeur on the Illinois Riverin 1680. To find more fur, the Illinois had extended their hunting intoland (Ohio, Indiana, and lower Michigan) claimed by the Iroquois. ASeneca protest at Mackinac led to the murder, and in the fall, theSeneca attacked the Illinois villages. This forced Henri de Tonti andthe other French at Fort Crèvecoeur to flee to Wisconsin, butthey got little sympathy from the French at Green Bay and would havestarved if the Potawatomi had not fed them. Competition between Frenchfur traders was as treacherous as any intertribal rivalry, and the GreenBay traders in 1679 had tried to prevent La Salle from trading with theIllinois by encouraging the Miami and Mascouten (enemies of theIllinois) to settle at Chicago.For this reason, Perrot and the other Wisconsin traders did notintervene while the Seneca tore the Illinois to pieces during the nextfew years, and did not really care much about the trouble La Salle andTonti had gotten themselves into down in the Illinois country. In anycase, the Green Bay traders were still trading with the Dakota and hadenough trouble with the Wisconsin Algonquin. The Ottawa and others wereangry with the French, fighting the French, and had interest in anotherwar with the Iroquois. As a precaution, the Ottawa on Manitoulin Islandreturned to Mackinac, but the fighting spread, and the Ottawa could notremain neutral after the Seneca attacked Mackinac in 1683. To the southin the Illinois country, Tonti was struggling to keep the fur tradeafloat in the midst of a major war. In 1682 he built Fort St. Louis(Utica, Illinois) on the upper Illinois River. When completed, heinvited the Illinois and Miami to settle nearby to trade and help defendit.The Iroquois noticed this concentration of their enemies and attackedFort St. Louis in 1684. Their failure to take the fort is considered theturning point of the Beaver Wars. Elated by this victory, the Frenchtried to form an alliance against the Iroquois, but its first offensivewas so ineffectual, Joseph La Barre, the governor of Canada, panickedand signed a treaty with the Iroquois conceding most of Illinoiscountry. He was replaced by Jacques-Renede Denonville, a man with morebackbone, who ordered the rival French traders to cooperate with eachother. Denonville strengthened old forts, built new ones, and armed theAlgonquin. The alliance he created (Ottawa, Wyandot, Ojibwe, Illinois,Miami, Fox, Sauk, Kickapoo, and Mascouten) took the offensive in 1687, adate coinciding roughly with the start of the King William's War(1688-97) between Britain and France. The Ottawa were more than just apart of the Great Lakes alliance. Along with the Wyandot, they were itssenior members, the "eldest children of Onontio," the Frenchgovernor of Canada.While the French attacked the Iroquois homeland in New York from Quebec,alliance warriors pushed the Iroquois across the Great Lakes. After hugebattles fought between canoe fleets on Lakes St. Clair and Erie, theIroquois were on the defensive by the 1690s and nearing defeat. Tryingto break the unity of the alliance, they offered the Ottawa a separatepeace and access to British traders. The offer was refused, but it musthave been tempting. The Algonquin victories brought most of the easternGreat Lakes under the control of the French and their allies. This hadonce been excellent beaver country until it had been overhunted. Butwhile the tribes had been fighting each other, no one had been huntingthe beaver, and the area had recovered. Despite the fighting, the furtrade actually increased dramatically, and success created disaster...too much beaver fur on the European market and a dramatic drop in itsprice.As profits plunged, Louis XIV decided it finally was time to listen tothe Jesuit complaints about the evil effects the fur trade was causingamong Native Americans. On the verge of destroying the Iroquois, heissued a proclamation in 1696 suspending the fur trade in the GreatLakes. Since the fur trade was what held the alliance together, it was acatastrophe, and the French lost control of their allies, especially theOttawa since they were the most dependent on trade. In Wisconsin, theAlgonquin renewed their warfare with the Dakota, and a conspiracy formedamong the tribes at Green Bay and Mackinac (the Ottawa were the maininstigators) to expel the French if they would not stop their trade withthe Dakota. French traders were robbed and murdered, and even thehighly-respected Nicholas Perot was tied to a stake by the Mascouten whowere ready to burn him alive. Saved by the Kickapoo, Perot leftWisconsin afterwards and never returned.Britain and France ended their war in 1697, but fighting between theIroquois and the Great Lakes Algonquin continued. Since the Treaty ofRyswick had placed the Iroquois League under British protection, theFrench were anxious to make peace to avoid another confrontation withthe British, but the alliance had many scores to settle. Without trade,the French had no influence, and the Iroquois peace offer to the Ottawaaroused suspicion among their allies that the French would abandon themand make their own peace. Using every means at their disposal, it tookthe French until 1701 to convince their allies to agree to a peace. Theink was hardly dry before the Queen Anne's War (1701-13) began in Europeand spread to North America. Most of the fighting was in New England andCanadian maritimes, and except for the Mohawk, the Iroquois honoredtheir promise to remain neutral.Which was a blessing for the French, because their alliance with theGreat Lakes Algonquin had come undone after the suspension of trade. Theurgent pleas for relief from Quebec went unanswered until permission wasfinally given to open one new post. In June, 1701 Antoine de la MotheCadillac, the commandant at Mackinac, arrived at Detroit and built FortPonchartrain. Cadillac blamed the Jesuits for the suspension, so he tookspecial delight in inviting the Ottawa and Wyandot at Mackinac torelocate to Detroit. Most of them accepted, while some Ottawa bandsreturned to Manitoulin Island. With their converts gone, the Jesuitswere forced to close the St. Ignace mission. Saulteur Ojibwe also wentsouth and established villages on Saginaw Bay. The Mississauga relocatedeast of Detroit in southern Ontario. The Mississauga on the north sideof Lakes Erie and Ontario were especially annoying to the Iroquois, anddespite the peace in 1701, the fighting between them had continued. TheLeague appealed to the French to make the Mississauga stop, but theywere busy with the war in the east with the British. The French wouldhave done better to pay more attention, because the Iroquois solved theproblem by offering to trade with the Mississauga, and the Mississaugamoved closer to Niagara Falls, not to fight, but to trade. The Iroquoiswere neutral, but they sensed the French weakness and offered trade totheir other allies. In so doing, they came closer to destroying theFrench with economic warfare than they had with military force.British trade goods were less expensive and of higher quality, and theOttawa and Ojibwe began taking their furs to New York. Cadillac saw whatwas happening, but all he could do was to invite more tribes to move toDetroit. The area quickly became crowded, and even the Ottawa, Wyandot,and Ojibwa - normally on the best of terms - began having occasionalskirmishes over territory. The Sable Ottawa had remained at Mackinac andwere fighting the Dakota. The French wanted to stop this, but the Ottawaignored them. This apparently angered the Miami and Wyandot in thevicinity who had honored the French request. When they saw the Ottawapreparing a war party to send against the Dakota in 1706, they decidedto attack the village when the warriors left. A Potawatomi warned theOttawa, and they struck first. Five Miami chiefs were ambushed, afterwhich the Ottawa attacked the Miami village driving its occupants intothe French fort. Before it was over, 50 Miami, 30 Ottawa, a Frenchpriest, and two French soldiers were dead, and the war had spread to theOttawa and Miami at Detroit.Cadillac ordered La Pesant (French for Fat One) to come to Detroit andface trial. La Pesant complied but arrived in regal fashion with a largeescort. The Miami wanted a harsh punishment imposed, but Cadillac had aproblem very much like DuLhut in 1682. Somehow, La Pesant, a fat oldman, managed to escape from French custody and paddle back to Mackinac.The Miami were furious, but the French could not afford to offend theOttawa. Despite the presence of Fort Ponchartrain, the British andIroquois continued making inroads into French trade and allies, andCadillac invited more and more tribes to Detroit adding to the tensesituation. Eventually, 6,000 Ojibwe, Wyandot, Ottawa, Potawatomi, Miami,Illinois, Osage, and Missouria were living near Detroit. The final strawwas added in 1710 when Cadillac invited the Fox. 1,000 Fox came eastfrom Wisconsin accompanied by many of their Mascouten and Kickapooallies.Before the Beaver Wars, Detroit had been part of the Fox homeland, andwhen they returned, they were not shy about informing the Ottawa andother tribes of this. The Ottawa and others were in no mood to listenand demanded the French send the Fox back to Wisconsin, but Cadillacignored this. Fighting occurred between the Fox and other French allies,and when Cadillac was called back to Quebec for a meeting, the Ottawaand Potawatomi decided to take care of the Fox by themselves. In thespring of 1712, they attacked a Mascouten hunting party in southernMichigan, and the Mascouten fled to the Fox. When the French orderedthem not to retaliate, the Fox attacked Fort Ponchartrain. Ottawa,Wyandot, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi warriors arrived and attacked the Foxfrom behind. Very few Fox escaped the slaughter, but the ones that didwent back to their relatives in Wisconsin and made the French and theirallies pay dearly for the massacre.To the delight of the Iroquois and British, the Fox Wars (1712-16 and1728-37) were civil wars between members of the French alliance. TheFirst Fox War ended in a draw with both parties angry and distrustful.The Fox continued to annoy the French and their allies, and when theFrench proposed extermination as a solution to the "FoxProblem," the Ottawa and other members of alliance agreed. However,as the war went on, the Fox were close to extinction. It also appearedthe Sauk, who had protected the Fox, would suffer the same fate, andFrench allies began to have doubts and wonder who would be next. At ameeting in Montreal in the spring of 1737, the Ottawa said "they nolonger wanted to eat the Fox." This was enough to end the war. Whenthe Ottawa and Potawatomi asked the French to forgive the Sauk and theMenominee and Winnebago made a similar request for the Fox, the Frenchwere forced to agree. The restrictions on the fur trade were lifteduntil after the death of Louis XIV in 1715. Coureurs de Bois (unlicensedtraders) were legalized, and trading posts established at Mackinac, LaBaye, La Pointe, Ouiatenon, St. Joseph, Miamis, Pimitoui, De Chartres,Niagara, Sandusky, and Vincennes, but it was too late and not enough.The Ottawa and Ojibwe at Saginaw had started trading with the Britishduring 1717, and to shorten the distance Great Lakes tribes had totravel, the Iroquois in 1727 had allowed British traders to build atrading post in their homeland at Oswego. Some of the Ottawa were drawneast and settled along Beaver Creek in western Pennsylvania. In 1728,80% of the beaver at Albany came from French allies. The French werealso having serious problems along the lower Mississippi River. In 1729the Natchez had risen in revolt and killed 200 Frenchmen. In a war asbrutal as the Fox War, they were defeated, and most fled to theChickasaw. French demands for the Chickasaw to surrender the Natchezwere refused and led to a war during which the Chickasaw closed thelower Mississippi to French trade. There seemed to be no combination ofallies the French could assemble which could break the Chickasawstrangle-hold on French commerce. Meanwhile, a war had started in 1737along the upper Mississippi between the Ojibwe and Dakota which wouldcontinue for more than a century. While this ended most French tradewith the Dakota, the Ojibwe seized northern Minnesota and made up thedifference.For the Ottawa, the years of separation took the bands at Mackinac,Detroit, and Manitoulin Island down different paths. The Ottawa becamethe dominant tribe at Detroit. Among the most loyal of the Frenchallies, their warriors raided the pro-British Cherokee and Chickasaw tothe south. However, the Wyandot had many relatives who had been adoptedby the Iroquois (1649-56) and this was hard for some of them to ignore.Orontony's faction of the Detroit Wyandot refused to participate in araid against the Cherokee. This was bad enough, but Orontony in 1738helped the Cherokee ambush a Detroit war party which earned him thehatred of the other tribes at Detroit. He left Detroit for northernOhio, settled on the upper Sandusky, and began trading with the British.Meanwhile, the Mackinac Ottawa were becoming closer to the Ojibwe thantheir relatives at Detroit. The soil at Mackinac was exhausted by 1741,and they crossed over to lower Michigan and settled at L' Arbre Crocheon Grand Traverse Bay. Their villages eventually stretched from LittleTraverse Bay to the Grand River with some bands moving across LakeMichigan to southeastern Wisconsin.The King George's War (1744-48) followed the pattern as the Queen Anne'sWar with most of the fighting being in New England and eastern Canada.An important difference was the British capture of Louisbourgh in 1745followed by a blockade of the St. Lawrence River which cut the supply ofFrench trade goods to the Great Lakes. French authority collapsed, andthe British were close to taking the Ohio Valley without firing a shot.Warriors from the Detroit Tribes went east with the Ojibwe and otherFrench allies to help the French defend Quebec from a British invasionwhich never came. Their departure left the French with few allies tokeep British traders out of Ohio. Orontony concluded a peace with theCherokee and Chickasaw in 1745 and gave permission for Pennsylvaniatraders to build a blockhouse near his village. The Detroit tribes hadenough warriors to challenge this, but during 1746 they were fightingwith the Fox, Sauk, and Mackinac Ojibwe. Their leader in this war was ayoung Ottawa war chief named Pontiac (Pondiac).Orontony burned the French trading post at Sandusky in 1748 and startedto attack Detroit, but the other Wyandot did not help. Worried aboutretaliation, Orontony abandoned his village and moved to the White Riverin Indiana. His people did not return to Ohio until after his death. In1750 the French built a fort at Sandusky to limit Orontony's Wyandottrading with the British. But the struggle for Ohio was just beginning,and the next conspiracy which the French faced was more dangerous. Ohiowas claimed by three powers on a collision course: Iroquois by right ofconquest; French by right of discovery; and British since the Iroquoishad been placed under their protection by the Treaty of Ryswick (1697) -something the Iroquois had never requested. None of these claimantsactually lived in Ohio or controlled of the tribes that did.The Ohio tribes ( Shawnee, Delaware, and Mingo) nominally were members ofthe Iroquois Covenant Chain, but they had left Pennsylvania to distancethemselves from the Iroquois and had no wish to be dominated by anyone.They also wanted to trade with whomever they pleased, and this openedthe door for the British to go to Ohio and trade directly with theresident tribes. The lure of British trade goods was irresistible to theMiami chief Memeskia - called La Demoiselle by the French and OldBritain by the British. Memeskia signed a treaty with the British atLancaster in 1748 allowing them to build trading posts in Ohio.Afterwards, he sacked his French trading post on the Wabash River andmoved his people from Indiana to a new village in western Ohio,Pickawillany (Piqua, Ohio). After the British built a trading postthere, he invited the other Miami, as well as Kickapoo, Illinois andPotawatomi, to come to his village to trade.The French took this in stride until they asked the Detroit tribes toattack Pickawillany and force the other Ohio tribes to expel the Britishtraders. But the Ottawa and other tribes at Detroit were also thinkingof trading with the British and excused themselves because of a recentsmallpox epidemic. The French realized how serious the situation hadbecome, and in desperation, Charles Langlade, a French Métis(mixed blood), organized a war party of 250 loyal Ottawa and Ojibwe atMackinac. In June, 1752 his warriors attacked Pickawillany. ThirtyMiami, including Memeskia, were killed, and the British trading post waslooted and burned. Langlade's warriors then boiled Memeskia's body andate it. This left few doubts among the French allies of what awaitedthem if they broke with the alliance to trade with the British.By that fall the rebels had made their apologies to the French andrenewed attacks on the Chickasaw. The French began construction of aline of new forts across western Pennsylvania to keep British tradersout of Ohio. The Shawnee, Mingo, and Delaware were not part of theFrench alliance and did not want to be. They protested to the Iroquoiswho turned to the British. In 1753 Virginia sent a young militia majornamed George Washington to demand the French abandon their new forts.This was refused. The following year, Washington brought some Virginiamilitia along, and the fight he got into with French soldiers startedthe French and Indian War (1755-63). Washington was quickly surroundedand surrendered, but the British were determined to remove the Frenchforts. They assembled an army under General Edwin Braddock, anexperienced soldier, but unfortunately a man of incredible arrogance whothough fighting with savages was beneath him.In the spring of 1755, Braddock's army moved slowly west towards FortDuquesne (Pittsburgh) cutting its own road through the wilderness. theFrench could only assemble a force of 600 warriors and 300 FrenchCanadians to face Braddock's 2,200 men, but it was enough. In July, justsouth of Fort Duquesne, Braddock blundered into an ambush which killedalmost half his command, including himself. Pontiac led the Ottawa inthis battle. Afterwards, Ottawa warriors went east and participated inthe French campaigns in northern New York. During the siege of FortWilliam Henry in 1757, they contracted smallpox and brought this back totheir villages that winter. The resulting epidemic during the winter of1757-58 took most of the Great Lakes tribes out of the war. Quebec fellto the British in September, 1759, and the French had lost the war andNorth America. Montreal surrendered the following year, and that summerand fall, British soldiers occupied French forts in the Great Lakes andOhio Valley. Only the Fort de Chartres and the Illinois country remainedunder French control.French allies did not resist the takeover, since the French had run outof powder at Detroit, and they hoped the British would supply them. InSeptember Pontiac met with Major Robert Rogers and his Rangers beforethey reached Detroit and, after making certain they knew they were onhis land, gave them permission to proceed. William Johnson, the BritishIndian Commissioner, hoped to continue the French system of dealing withthe alliance tribes, but he was overruled by Jeffrey Amherst, theBritish commander in North America. Amherst considered the practice ofannual gifts to chiefs as bribery and ordered it discontinued. He alsoraised the prices of trade goods and restricted supply (especiallygunpowder and rum) and then left Johnson to deal with any problems.These were not long in coming. At a Detroit meeting in 1761 with thetribes of the old French alliance, Johnson learned the Seneca werecirculating a war belt calling for an uprising.Hardly surprising, since Amherst had just given some Seneca lands atFort Niagara to his officers for their service in the war (lateroverruled by London). The effect of the trade restrictions wasdevastating. The tribes were dependent on trade goods, and basic skills,such as fashioning arrowheads, had been lost. Crowding near the tradingposts had exhausted the hunting, and several tribes were in danger ofstarvation. Some commanders provided as much powder and lead from theirfort's supplies, but this was far from adequate. Tensions built, andduring 1762 the Detroit tribes (Ottawa, Wyandot, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi)were close to fighting the Shawnee. William Johnson had squashed theSeneca plot in 1761, but afterwards two additional war belts from theIllinois and Caughnawaga (Christian Mohawk at Montreal) began making therounds. The small response to these lulled the British into a sense offalse security.Technically, France and Great Britain were still at war, and althoughmany of the French allies had agreed to peace with the British, mostthought of these as a temporary. During the summer of 1762, there wasdrought in the Ohio Valley, followed by epidemic and starvation thatwinter. All that was needed for a revolt was unity, and this wasprovided by a new religious movement centered around the teachings ofthe Delaware Prophet, Neolin (Enlightened One). From his village nearthe Ohio River, Neolin began preached the rejection of trade goods and areturn to traditional native values. The British dismissed him as the"Impostor," but he gained a large following among the Delawarewhich spread to other tribes. The Delaware were respected as"grandfathers" (original tribe of all Algonquin), but they hadnot been members of the old French alliance and did not have thepolitical credentials to lead a revolt.But the Ottawa did, and Neolin's most important convert was Pontiac, theOttawa chief at Detroit whose mother was an Ojibwe. He was also a leaderof the Metai (Grand Medicine Society), a religious society in most GreatLakes tribes. Hoping to restore French rule, Pontiac made Neolin'sreligion anti-British. That winter, his messengers went in secret to theother tribes in the Ohio Valley and Great Lakes carrying war belts andasking for their support. Since an Ottawa chief was speaking, alllistened. Pontiac gained promises of support from the Ottawa, Ojibwe, Kickapoo, Illinois, Miami, Potawatomi, Delaware, Seneca,Shawnee, and Wyandot, but how quietly he did it is questionable. Rumorsreached the British, and Amherst sent reinforcements to Detroit, but henever realized how widespread the revolt would be. On April 27th, 1763 awar council was held on the Aux Ecorces River. Pontiac addressed therepresentatives urging them to rid themselves of "these English,these dogs dressed in red."The uprising began in May and quickly captured eight of the twelveBritish forts west of the Appalachians: Sandusky (Sandusky, OH); St.Joseph (Niles, MI); Michilimackinac (Mackinac, MI); Miamis (Fort Wayne,IN); Ouiatenon (Lafayette, IN); Venango (Franklin, PA); Le Boeuf(Waterford, PA); and Presque Isle (Erie, PA). Fort Edward Augustus atGreen Bay was abandoned by its garrison bringing the total to nine. Onlythree forts survived - Detroit, Niagara and Pitt, but they weresurrounded and cut off. Only the L' Arbre Croche Ottawa, Menominee,Sauk, Fox, Winnebago, and Iowa refused to participate and sent wampumbelts to the British pledging their loyalty. Fort Michilimackinac wouldhave been a massacre, if Charles Langlade and Father du Jonais had notintervened and saved some of the garrison. The Ottawa arrived too lateto loot the trading post and were given the British prisoners ascompensation. They later escorted them and the garrison from Green Baysafely to Montreal. The Miami were also careful with their Britishprisoners, but others were not as fortunate. After surrounding FortPitt, the Delaware, Shawnee, and Mingo attacked the Pennsylvaniafrontier killing over 600 settlers. William Johnson got the Mohawk toretaliate and the eastern Delaware were taken out of the war.Pontiac had taken for himself the responsibility of capturing Detroit.He had the support of the Detroit Potawatomi and Wyandot, SaginawOjibwa, and some of the Mississauga from Ontario, but he was facing a120-man garrison augmented by 40 British traders and two armedschooners. Since a direct assault would cost too many lives, Pontiactried deception. Accompanied by a large group of warriors carryingconcealed short-barrel guns under their blankets, he entered the fort onMay 7th by asking for a meeting with the commander, Major Henry Gladwyn.However, Gladwyn had been warned by an informer (believed to have beenCatherine, a young Ojibwe woman rumored to have been his mistress). Theentire garrison was armed and ready, and sensing this, Pontiac did notto give the signal for the attack. Two more tries were made to take thefort by surprise, but the gates remained closed, and on May 9th all hellbroke loose. There was no assault, but the fort came under fire, whilewarriors combed the countryside killing all of the British civiliansunfortunate enough to still be outside. The French were not harmed.During the siege which followed, Pontiac moved his village to the westside of the Detroit River to reinforce the Potawatomi and completelysurround the fort. With only a three-weeks supply of food, Gladwyn senta schooner to Fort Niagara for help. Meanwhile, Captain Donald Campbelland a Lieutenant McDougal volunteered to go to Pontiac's village tonegotiate a truce. Pontiac gave them protection when they arrived butwould not allow them to return to the fort. By now, Pontiac realizedthere had been an informer, and his suspicion fell upon Catherine. Hesent some warriors to get her. They took her to the fort first, andGladwyn allowed them to enter, but with Campbell and McDougal being heldhostage, he could do nothing to save her. The warriors left withCatherine and took her to Pontiac. She was beaten but surprisingly notkilled. Hated by her people, Catherine became an alcoholic afterwardsand died alone. An Ojibwe tomahawked Campbell to avenge a relative, andembarrassed by his failure to protect his hostages, Pontiac most likelyarranged for McDougal to escape. Pontiac had hoped the French at Detroitwould join the revolt, but they remained neutral. The British were notthe only ones short of food during the siege, and Pontiac's warriorsbegan taking what they needed from the French. Pontiac issued promissorynotes on birchbark for their losses, and for years afterwards, theDetroit tribes honored these notes carrying Pontiac's otter sign.News spread slowly, and on May 13th a routine supply fleet of 20 bateauxand 96 men under Lieutenant Abraham Cuyler left Fort Niagara for Detroitunaware of what was happening. By May 28th they came ashore to make campat Point Pelee just east of Detroit and were attacked by the Wyandot andoverwhelmed. 56 were killed, and only four were taken prisoner. Cuylergot 40 of his men into two boats and escaped. He sailed across the laketo Fort Sandusky but found it destroyed and headed back to Niagara tospread the alarm. Two days later, lookouts at Detroit spotted the supplyfleet coming up the river flying a British flag. As the fleet drewclose, the gates were opened, but one of the British soldiers rowing thelead bateaux suddenly attacked the warrior next to him and both felloverboard fighting. The ruse was discovered, and during the melee whichfollowed, the schooner Beaver opened fire and forced the "reliefships" to retreat.By the time the other schooner reached Fort Niagara, its commander,Major Wilkens, did not need to be told there was an uprising. He wassurrounded, and 90 men sent to clear the Niagara Portage was wiped out.However, he loaded the ship with 60 soldiers and all the supplies itcould carry and sent it back to Detroit. It arrived at the entrance ofthe Detroit River on June 23rd but was becalmed next to Fighting Island,just south of the fort. That night it was attacked by 800 warriors, butthe British were waiting and fought them off. Forced to drop downstreamto wait for favorable winds, it did not reach the starving garrison atDetroit until June 30th. Besides much needed food and additional men,the schooner brought the first news of the Treaty of Paris and the endof the war between Britain and France. This was relayed to Pontiac, buthe thought it was a lie. Several fire rafts were launched from upstreamto destroy the two schooners which were Detroit's only link to theoutside. Some of these barely missed.On July 30th, 20 barges commanded by Captain James Dalyell reachedDetroit loaded with supplies and 280 men, including Rogers Rangers.Enroute from Niagara, Dalyell had destroyed the Wyandot villages atSandusky and lost 15 men. However, he was still spoiling for a fight andinsisted on an immediate attack. Gladwyn gave his consent, and thatnight, Dalyell slipped out of the fort with 247 men and headed towardsPontiac's village. Crossing Parent's Creek just as dawn broke, he raninto an ambush. The British lost 70 killed and 40 wounded at the Battleof Bloody Brook. Among the dead was Dalyell, who lost his head(literally). It might well have been the entire command if RogersRangers had not fought a rear-guard action to cover the retreat. Thefighting at Detroit slowed after this. Pontiac sent messengers to Fortde Chartes asking for French help, but an answer arrived on October 20thconfirming the peace treaty and advising him to quit. On October 31st,Pontiac agreed to a truce with Gladwyn and withdrew to his winterhunting village on the upper Maumee River in Indiana.When the Pontiac Rebellion began, most British soldiers on this side ofthe Atlantic were fighting in the West Indies, and it took time beforethey could be sent west against the uprising. Niagara was harassed notunder any real danger, but the situation at Fort Pitt was as desperateas Detroit and became worse after smallpox broke out among thedefenders. While assembling a relief force, Amherst wrote the commander,Captain Simeon Ecuyer, suggesting that smallpox blankets be given to theShawnee, Delaware, and Mingo surrounding the fort. Ecuyer took this asan order, and the resulting epidemic spread from the Shawnee to tribesin the southeast which were not part of the uprising. Colonel HenryBouquet's 460-man relief force fought off an ambush during a two-daybattle at Bushy Run in August, 1763 and reached Fort Pitt. The Delaware,Shawnee, and Mingo retreated into Ohio but continued their raids intoPennsylvania.In November, Amherst was replaced by Thomas Gage, and William Johnsonwas back in control. The British also announced the Proclamation of 1763halting further settlement west of the Appalachian crest. Gage lowerprices and increased the supply of trade goods, and this ended most ofthe complaints which had led to the uprising. As British reinforcementsarrived, the Pontiac Rebellion began to collapse. In the summer of 1764,Colonel John Bradstreet was sent with 1,200 men to relieve Detroit.Reaching Niagara in July, he halted to lend his "support" toWilliam Johnson's peace conference, a large meeting with 2,000representatives from 22 different tribes. The Seneca were conspicuous bytheir absence until Bradstreet sent a message telling them to "showup or else." They came and signed. The conference concluded,Bradstreet departed on August 6th escorted by Mississauga andCaughnawaga warriors.On August 23rd at Presque Isle (Erie, PA), he met with the Wyandot,Shawnee, Delaware, and Mingo and concluded a peace with them. Pontiachad not returned to Detroit that spring and was still on the upperMaumee. Without him, the Wyandot, Potawatomi, and Ojibwe were ready toquit. Bradstreet continued west intending to attack the villages at themouth of Maumee but learned they were also ready for peace. They weretold to meet him at Detroit. At the conference held at Detroit onSeptember 7th, the Detroit Ottawa, Potawatomi, Wyandot and Ojibwa madepeace with the British. The Miami, Saginaw Ojibwe, and westernMississauga also signed. Gage rejecting Bradstreet's treaty with theOhio tribes because Johnson had not been consulted and instructed him toinvade northern Ohio. He left Detroit and landed at Sandusky. Afterdestroying some abandoned villages, he started south. At the same timeBouquet moved west from Fort Pitt, trapping the Delaware and Shawneebetween. In November, the Delaware and Shawnee signed a peace treatywith the British at Coshocton, and the rebellion was over.That is except for Pontiac. Throughout 1764 he remained on the upperMaumee and tried to organize a second uprising in the west to keep theBritish out of the Illinois country. War belts were sent to formerFrench allies on the lower Mississippi asking them to stop the Britishfrom moving up the river to Illinois. The Tunica and Choctaw forced theBritish to fight their way past Baton Rouge. At the same time, theKickapoo turned back the expedition Bradstreet had dispatched to Fort deChartres. Although the Illinois were outspoken in their support of theFrench, Pontiac had to threaten them to win a promise of support. Hethem went with 400 warriors to Fort de Chartes to ask its commander,Louis St. Ange for support and gunpowder. St. Ange urged peace and hadno powder to give him.Pontiac returned to the upper Maumee and pondered his next move. In May,1765 the Kickapoo attacked the British expedition of George Croghanenroute to take over the Illinois country. Croghan was captured, butthree Shawnee chiefs in his escort were killed. The Kickapoo did notwant a war with the Shawnee, so they took Croghan to Fort Ouiatenon andgave him to the Miami. The Kickapoo then asked the Miami to speak ontheir behalf to the British about "covering the Shawnee dead."The Miami did as asked, and the British took care of things. Meanwhile,the Miami also arranged a meeting that summer between Croghan andPontiac at Ouiatenon. Pontiac agreed to "bury the hatchet" andwent with Croghan to Detroit in October to sign a peace. That samemonth, the French flag was lowered for the final time at Fort deChartres and replaced by the British Union Jack.In July, 1766 Pontiac met with William Johnson in New York to signanother treaty promising to never fight the British again and confirmingthe Detroit agreement of the previous year. The failure of the rebellionand his subsequent capitulation to the British did enormous damage toPontiac's reputation. At a meeting in Ontario in 1766, Ottawa warriorsopenly defied him, but no one took his surrender harder than theIllinois. During this meeting, Pontiac got into an argument and stabbedthe Peoria chief Matachinga (Black Dog). The wound was not fatal butMatachinga did not forgive him. Pontiac left Detroit in 1767 and movedto the Kankakee River in northern Illinois. After the Iroquois ceded theOhio Valley at Fort Stanwix in 1768, there were rumors he was trying toorganize another uprising. His differences with the Illinois grew evenworse following another bitter argument at one of their councils whichhe attended that year.In April, 1769 Pontiac went to St. Louis to see his old friend St. Angewho was now working for the Spanish. To mark the occasion, he wore theFrench uniform which had been given him by General Louis Montcalm in1757. After a few days, he decided to visit the mixed French andIllinois village of Cahokia across the Mississippi. St. Ange warned himthis could be dangerous, but Pontiac was both fearless and known toenjoy a drink. On April 20th he went to Cahokia with his bodyguards.After a considerable drinking, they ended up in the establishment of aBritish trader named Williamson where Pontiac got into an argument witha young Peoria warrior named Pina, a nephew of Matachinga. Pontiac leftand walked out to the street, but Pina followed and tomahawked him frombehind. He then stabbed him for good measure and left him dead in themuddy street. When they sobered up, the bodyguards looked for Pina butwere driven out of town by the Illinois.St. Ange buried Pontiac with honors at his fort on a hill overlookingSt. Louis. The exact location is unknown. There were rumors Williamsonhad given Pina a barrel of whiskey to murder Pontiac. Although theBritish were suspected, the wrath fell upon the Illinois. Had he lived,Pontiac would have been surprised how much respect he still commandedwithin the old alliance. Afterwards, Minavavana, the Ojibwe chief atMackinac, came to Cahokia looking for Williamson. Not finding him, hekilled two of his employees. A general war followed against the Illinoisduring which the Ottawa, Ojibwe, Potawatomi, Kickapoo, Fox, Sauk,Mascouten, and Winnebago united to avenge Pontiac. The Illinois werealmost exterminated. The Peoria made their last stand at the site of theold French Fort St. Louis, but they were surrounded by Potawatomi. Theydied from starvation, which has since given this sad place the name ofStarved Rock. Only 300 Illinois managed to reach safety with the Frenchat Kaskaskia. The victors afterwards divided the lands of the Illinoisamong themselves.The death of Pontiac was the end of Ottawa power and influence. They hadonce been the leaders of the French alliance, but after the PontiacRebellion, only the Wyandot retained their old authority. The Britishnever really forgave the Ottawa and soon bypassed them as middlemen inthe fur trade to trade directly with the Ojibwe. There is also a goodpossibility that the British attempted to destroy them by the same meansSimeon Ecuyer had used against the Delaware and Shawnee at Fort Pitt.The L' Arbor Croche Ottawa had not joined Pontiac in 1763 and evenrescued British prisoners at Fort Michilimackinac, but they were of thesame tribe as Pontiac. They remember a mysterious tin box given them byBritish traders shortly after the war, which they were told not to openuntil they got back to their villages. They did as instructed, but therewas nothing inside other than a strange brown powder. Immediatelyafterwards, an especially deadly smallpox epidemic broke out whichdecimated their villages in northern Michigan.The Proclamation of 1763 was unpopular in the British colonies. Withinfive years, American pressure forced the British to seek cessions fromthe Iroquois at Fort Stanwix which opened the Ohio Valley to settlement,and at best, Pontiac had bought only a few years for the Ohio tribes.After 1763, American frontiersmen (Long Knives) simply ignored theproclamation and squatted on native lands. The British could not stopthem, and the few efforts they made became a cause for the AmericanRevolution (1775-83). To protect their own homeland from settlement, theIroquois surrendered lands occupied by other tribes which they did notcontrol, and the British gave this land to a people who were about toseparate from them. The resulting war lasted almost 50 years and costthousands of lives. Shawnee protests to the Iroquois over the treatywent unanswered except for threats of annihilation if they opposed it.In 1769 the Shawnee made overtures of alliance to the Illinois (thosewho remained), Ottawa, Wea, Piankashaw, Miami, Mascouten, Kickapoo,Potawatomi, Wyandot, Delaware, Ojibwe, Cherokee, and Chickasaw. They meton Ohio's Scioto River in 1770 and 1771, but William Johnson preventedan alliance with threats of a war with the Iroquois. Frontiersmen pouredinto western Pennsylvania and West Virginia. When the Shawnee opposedsettlement of their hunting grounds in Kentucky, there was war.The British decided to wash their hands of the entire affair andwithdrew or reduced their garrisons in the west to sit back to watch thetwo sides fight it out. Lord Dunmore's War (1774), between Virginiamilitia and the Shawnee and Mingo, has been called the opening battle ofthe American Revolution. When the war actually began the following year,the British ceased being neutral, armed the Ohio tribes, and encouragedthem to attack American settlements along the Ohio River. The Ottawa innorthern Michigan were remote to this conflict and were not involvedexcept for occasional support for their Detroit relatives. Most of theearly fighting was done by the Shawnee and Chickamauga Cherokee, but asreds and whites exchanged raids and counter-raids across the Ohio, moretribes were drawn in, and the British at Detroit happily supplied them.A major escalation occurred during the summer of 1778 when, takingadvantage of the small British garrisons in Illinois, George RogersClark and 200 Kentucky militia captured Kaskaskia, Cahokia, andVincennes without a fight. Clark won over the local French population,and the Americans were in control of Illinois country.Colonel Henry Hamilton, the British commander at Detroit (known as the"hair buyer" in Kentucky because he paid for American scalps)gathered a small army of Canadians and Detroit warriors (includingOttawa) and recaptured Fort Sackville at Vincennes that fall. Clark,however, made a mid-winter march across southern Illinois and attackedHamilton at Vincennes forcing him to surrender in February, 1779.British and French prisoners were spared, but Clark hated Indians, andthe warriors were executed with tomahawks. The British launched a majoroffensive in the spring of 1780. While one force attacked the Spanish atSt. Louis, Captain Henry Bird left Detroit with 600 warriors. Addingothers as he moved south through Ohio, he had 1,200 when he crossed theOhio River. During the next three months, there was death anddestruction all over Kentucky. American retaliation during the nextthree years drew almost every tribe in the Ohio Valley into the war onthe side of the British.The Revolutionary War ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1783, but thefight for Ohio continued until 1795. There was a lull in 1783, when theBritish asked their allies to stop attacking the settlements, but theywere encouraging an alliance to keep the Americans out of Ohio. Theyalso refused to leave their forts in the region until the United Statespaid the compensation required by the treaty to British Loyalists(Tories). Saddled with huge debts from the war, there was no way theAmericans could do this unless they could sell the land in Ohio. TheBritish, of course, were aware of this and waited for the inevitableeconomic collapse. During a meeting at Sandusky in 1783, the British gotthe alliance they were seeking. It membership would eventually include:Ottawa. Canadian Iroquois, Wyandot, Miami, Delaware, Shawnee, Ojibwe,Potawatomi, Kickapoo, Fox, Sauk, and Chickamauga Cherokee. The western(Northwestern) alliance was a formidable barrier to the settlement ofOhio, but the Americans dismissed it as a British plot (which it was)and tried to deal with the individual tribes. Their first target werethe Iroquois in New York who had been badly mauled by American armiesduring the war. After concluding a second treaty at Fort Stanwix in 1784verifying their cession of Ohio in 1768, the Americans tried to confirmthis with the Ohio tribes at Fort McIntosh in January of 1785. The firsttreaty between the Ottawa and the United States, it was also signed bythe Delaware, Wyandot, and Ojibwe. A similar agreement was made with theShawnee at Fort Finney (Greater Miami Treaty) the following year, butneither of the treaties represented the alliance which, backed by theBritish, opposed settlement north of the Ohio.Unfortunately, the American representatives who signed did not representthe frontiersmen, who simply ignored the treaty and moved onto nativelands. There were 12,000 settlers living north of the Ohio River in 1785with more coming, and short of civil war, the government could not stopthem. When alliance warriors tried to expel the squatters, the warresumed. The first council fire of the alliance was at the Shawneevillage of Waketomica, but this was burned in 1786 by Kentucky militiaand was moved to Brownstown, a Wyandot village near Detroit. InDecember, 1788 the Americans made a final try for a treaty with thealliance and asked for a conference at Fort Harmar. The alliance wasdivided on its response, but the Wyandot convinced the Detroit Ottawa,Delaware, Potawatomi, and Ojibwe to attend. The other members remainedhostile, and fighting continued throughout the summer with the Shawneeand Miami raids into Kentucky and the Kickapoo ambushing an army convoyon the lower Wabash. Even the soldiers building the council house forthe Fort Harmar meeting came under attack from the Saginaw Ojibwe andOttawa.The Fort Harmar Treaty (January, 1789) established the Muskingum Riveras the boundary of settlement, but this was not honored by the eitherfrontiersmen or the hostile faction of the alliance. Fighting resumedwith the militant Miami and Shawnee dominating the alliance, and theAmericans decided to resolve matters with military force. Their firstoffensives of Little Turtle's War (1790-94) ended with the worst defeatsever suffered by American armies at the hands of Native Americans. Ledby the Miami war chief Little Turtle, alliance warriors defeated JosiahHarmar in 1790 and Arthur St. Clair in 1791. But the Americans could notafford to quit, and President Washington sent Anthony Wayne west to takecommand in Ohio. Americans called him "Mad Anthony," but theOttawa would call him Chenoden (The Strong Wind).For two years, Wayne made careful preparations to destroy the alliancevillages in northwest Ohio. Meanwhile, American peace commissioners madefurther attempts to resolve the dispute by treaty. The Shawnee murderedthe first two American representatives in 1792, but the Delawareprotected the delegation which arrived in 1793. The negotiations reachedan impasse, but the alliance was having serious problems feeding its2,000 warriors for extended periods. The Sauk and Fox left as a result,the Wabash tribes made a separate peace after the Americans capturedmany of their women and children, and the alliance had only 700 warriorswhen it faced Wayne at Fallen Timbers in 1794. After their defeat, thealliance warriors saw the British close the gates of Fort Miami to themrather than risk a confrontation with Wayne. The British had decided tosettle their differences with the United States and in November signedthe Jay Treaty agreeing to withdraw from their forts on Americanterritory.Abandoned by the British, the Detroit Ottawa and other members of thealliance signed the Treaty of Fort Greenville in August, 1795 ceding allof Ohio except the northwest. Since their villages were either on theMaumee in northwest Ohio or the Huron River in southeast Michigan at histime, the Detroit Ottawa did not lose any land in exchange for the$1,000 they received, but the defeat of the alliance led to socialdisintegration and breakdown of tribal authority after the GreenvilleTreaty. The Shawnee chief Bluejacket tried to resurrect the alliancecouncil in 1801 but was opposed by Little Turtle and the other"peace chiefs" who were trying to reach an accommodation withthe Americans. They had an impossible task. The Americans kept whittlingaway at native lands, and peace chiefs were often in danger of beingkilled by their own people. At Fort Industry in 1805 the Ottawa andothers surrendered their claim to the Western Reserve in northern Ohioto the Connecticut Land Company for $16,000.At Detroit in November, 1807 the Ottawa, Ojibwe, Wyandot, and Potawatomiceded seven million acres of southeast Michigan. In exchange, theDetroit Ottawa received $3,333, an annuity of $800 for tenyears, and a 28,800 acre reservation in Ohio on the Maumee River aboveRoche de Boeuf. A treaty signed at Brownstown the following year took alittle more, and as they were being pressed into an ever smaller space,the Ohio and Detroit Ottawa asked the Ottawa a L'Arbre Croche forpermission to move in with them - they were refused. After the Americanpurchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, there was talkof war along the upper Mississippi during the next two years. About thistime, a prophet arose among the Shawnee with a message much likeNeolin's in 1763 - reject trade goods and return to traditional ways.His name was Tenskwatawa (The Open Door), but Americans found thisdifficult to pronounce and simply called him "The Prophet."There were several other prophets at this time, including Trout, theOttawa visionary at Mackinac, but Tenskwatawa's brother was Tecumseh, aspell-binding speaker and respected Shawnee chief.Tecumseh added a political cause to his brother's new religion ...nofurther land cessions to the Americans, and to make this point, he builthis village at the treaty line on the abandoned grounds of FortGreenville. The Prophet's following grew but met resistance from thepeace chiefs. There was also a cool reception in the northern GreatLakes. When Tenskwatawa's messengers visited Mackinac in 1808, theOttawa listened but had their own prophet in Trout, and the Metai (GrandMedicine Society) felt their authority was threatened by this newreligion. Tecumseh meanwhile had been busy building an alliance, and in1808 got the support of the British for this. Facing the growingopposition of the peace chiefs, he and the Prophet moved their capitalto Tippecanoe in western Indiana. During the first winter in thislocation, a large group of the Mackinac Ottawa and Ojibwe came toProphetstown to listen to Tenskwatawa. They picked a bad time. Thewinter was unusually harsh, and there was not enough food. Epidemicstruck during which many Ottawa and Ojibwe died but few Shawnee. Theyleft disillusioned planning to attack Prophetstown until dissuaded byMichigan governor William Hull. Their participation in the War of 1812(1812-14) was limited to helping the British defend Fort Michilimackinacin 1814 from the Americans.In 1809 the peace chiefs ceded millions of acres in treaties signed atFort Wayne and Vincennes. When Tecumshe heard, he disavowed thetreaties, promised they would never be carried out, and threatened thechiefs who signed with death. In 1810 his Wyandot followers executed onechief who had signed, Leatherlips, and sent the wampum belts of the oldwestern alliance to Tippecanoe. Meeting at Brownstown, the peace chiefscondemned the prophet as a witch. Tecumseh met twice with William HenryHarrison, governor of the Northwest Territory, but these almost ended inarmed confrontation, and sensing war was coming, Tecumseh went south inthe fall of 1811 to add the Cherokee, Creek, Chickasaw, and Choctaw tohis cause. While he was absent, Potawatomi raids in southern Illinoisprovided Harrison with an excuse to raise an army and march onProphetstown in November. Tippecanoe was not as important as an American military victory but forthe damage it did to Tenskwatawa's reputation as a prophet. WhenTecumseh returned that January he had less than six months to rebuildhis alliance before the War of 1812 began in June. Tecumseh and hiswarriors joined the British, and their presence around Detroit sounnerved General Hull that he surrendered his command in August to amuch smaller British force. With this victory, many of the DetroitOttawa, Potawatomi, and Wyandot went over to Tecumseh and remained withhim until he was killed at Battle of the Thames in 1813. The War of 1812ended in stalemate between Great Britain and the United States, but forthe tribes of the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley, it meant total defeat. Ittook two treaties for all of the Ottawa to make peace with the Americansafter the war: the Second Treaty of Fort Greenville (July, 1814) and theTreaty of Spring Wells (September, 1815). There were no land cessions inthese agreements. A treaty signed in 1816 with the Ottawa west of LakeMichigan only asked they surrender any claim to lands in westernIllinois ceded by the Sauk and Fox in 1804.The treaty signed at Miami Rapids (Fort Meigs) in September, 1817 wasthe first land cession by the Ottawa after the war. The Ohio Ottawaceded their Ohio lands in exchange for two reservations: Blanchard'sCreek and the Little Auglaize River (34 square miles total). The landwas not granted but merely reserved for their use in exchange for anannuity of $15,000 for ten years. Boundaries were adjusted at St.Marys in 1818 for which the Ottawa were to receive an additional$1,500/year forever. Meanwhile, other treaties were slowly strippingthe lands of the other Ottawa bands. In July, 1820 the L'Arbre CrocheOttawa and Mackinac Ojibwe surrendered St. Martin's Island in Lake Huron(plaster of Paris deposits) in exchange for an unspecified amount oftrade goods, while at Chicago the year following, they joined with thePotawatomi and Ojibwe to cede most of southwest Michigan. The Treaty ofPrairie du Chien (1825) established tribal boundaries in Wisconsin,Iowa, Minnesota, and northern Illinois, but treaties signed at Green Bay(1828) and Prairie du Chien (1829) took back most of what had beenassigned to the Ottawa west of Lake Michigan.After the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830, pressure grew toremove the tribes still east of the Mississippi. The Blanchard's Forkand Little Auglaize Bands ceded their Ohio reserves in 1831 and agreedto remove to Kansas. The Roche de Boeuf and Wolf Rapids also ceded theirreserves but delayed their agreement to removal until they couldnegotiate with other Ottawa in Michigan and Canada about moving in withthem. Nothing came of this, and in 1833 they signed a second treatyagreeing to Kansas. Both groups (about 500 souls) were assigned 34,000acres along the Marais des Cygnes River just south of the Shawnee inwhat is now Franklin County, Kansas. The Blackhawk War (1832) hastenedthe departure of the remaining tribes. In August, 1833 the Ottawa andOjibwa west of Lake Michigan joined the Prairie Potawatomi to cede theirlast lands in Illinois and Wisconsin. All three agreed to move tosouthwest Iowa. By 1846 Iowa was a state and they agreed to a newreserve north of Topeka, Kansas. The Ottawa and Ojibwa moved also,became part of the Prairie Potawatomi, and still reside in Kansas.Two treaties signed by the Michigan Ottawa resulted in their beingdeclared legally dead. In 1836 they ceded their remaining land in upperand lower Michigan for a series of reserves, $30,000 per year for 20years, $350,000 in cash, and payment of $300,000 in debts. Sofar so good, but the treaty signed at Detroit in 1855 (all bands werenot present) created an imaginary Ottawa and Chippewa Nation. Thesigners agreed to 80 acre allotments and the dissolution of thenon-existent tribe. Fraud during the allotment process by 1860 had costthe Ottawa most of their remaining land and became so obvious thefederal government was forced to intervene. However, nothing was done torestore tribal status, and the result has been almost 150 years of legalbattles. In 1905 the Michigan Ottawa successfully sued the United Statesin the Court of Claims for redress for fraud and treaty violations, butwhen the Indian Reorganization Act was passed by Congress in 1934, theMichigan Ottawa were not allowed to organize under its provisions. OnlyGrand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa has regained federalrecognition, and this took them until 1980.Kansas was admitted as the 34th state in 1861, and the Blanchard's Forkand Roche de Boeuf bands in Franklin county could see their days werenumbered. In June, 1862 they agreed to dissolve their tribal government,become citizens, and accept 160 acre allotments. The excess lands wereto be sold to whites for not less than $1.25 per acre and 20,000acres were to be donated to Ottawa University to ensure the education oftheir children. However, many could not agree to the end of tribalrelations, and in 1867 signed a treaty selling their Kansas land andagreeing to move to the Indian Territory. They purchased land from theShawnee in northeast Oklahoma, but lost most of this in 1891 to theallotment required by the Dawes Act. The educational benefits from the20,000 acres given to Ottawa University in 1862 were never realized, anda lawsuit to recover the value of the donation and compensation forlands sold illegally by Indian agents was finally settled in 1965.Meanwhile, the Oklahoma Ottawa organized under the Indian ReorganizationAct in 1936. Twenty years later the government tried to terminate theirtribal status, and if this had succeeded, there would have been 24treaties between the United States and a tribe which did not exist.However, it did not happen, and Pontiac's people are hidden but verymuch alive. First Nations referred to in this Ottawa History: AlgonkinCherokeeDelawareErieFoxHuronIroquoisKickapoo Mascouten'sMenomineeMiamiMontagnaisNeutralsNipissingOjibwePotawatamiSaukShawneeTionontatiWinnebago Comments concerning this "history" would be appreciated. Direct same to Lee Sultzman. Histories Site FirstNations Index  |
|
