(Redirected from Ottawa (people))
The 'Ottawa' (also 'Odawa', or 'Odaawaa'), meaning "''traders''," are a
Native American and
First Nations people. They are related to but distinct from the
Ojibwe nation. They lived near the northern shores of
Lake Huron. There are approximately 15,000 Ottawa living in
Michigan,
Ontario, and
Oklahoma. The Ottawa language is considered a divergent dialect of the
Ojibwe, characterized by frequent
syncope. The
Ottawa language, like the
Ojibwe language, is part of the
Algonquian language family.
Like the Ojibwe, the Ottawa usually refer to themselves as ''Nishnaabe'' (''
Anishinaabe'', plural: ''Nishnaabeg'' (''Anishinaabeg'')), meaning ''original people''.
The Ottawa and Ojibwe were part of a long term alliance with the
Potawatomi tribe, called the
Council of Three Fires and which fought the
Iroquois Confederacy and the
Sioux. The Ottawa allied with the
French against the
British and the Ottawa
Chief Pontiac led a
rebellion against the British in
1763. A decade later, chief
Egushawa led the Ottawa in the
American Revolutionary War as an ally of the British. In the 1790s, Egushawa again fought the United States in a series of battles and campaigns known as the
Northwest Indian War.
The name in its English transcription is the source of the place names of
Ottawa, Ontario and the
Ottawa River, even though the Ottawa's home territory (at the time of early European contact), but not their trading zone, was well to the west of the city and river named after them. For several other places named for the Ottawa, see
Ottawa (disambiguation).
Odawa Communities
★
Walpole Island, on
unceded territory between
Ontario and
Michigan
★
Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma
★
Grand River Bands, Michigan
★
Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians [1], Michigan
★
Burt Lake Band, Michigan
★
Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, Michigan
★
Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, Michigan
★
Wikwemikong,Ontario, Canada
External links
★
"Ottawa History" Shultzman, L. 2000. ''First Nations Histories''. Accessed: 2006-03-28.