Home > Multicultural America: > Ojibwa

The Ojibwa, or Chippewa as they were also known, are numerically the largest Native American tribe in the United States and Canada. A member of the Algonkian language family, they are spread out around the western Northern Great Lakes region, extending from the northern shore of Lake Huron as far west as Montana, southward well into Wisconsin and Minnesota, and northward to Lake Manitoba. The archaeohgical records show evidence of Indian fishing around 2500 B.C. In those early times, the Ojibwa lived in numerous, widely scattered, small, autonomous bands.

French-Canadian traders bought beaver furs from the Chippewa from 1620 through 1763, until the French were conquered by the British. British trappers, fur traders and Jesuit missionaries (Blackrobes) entered the area and the fishery trade and territorial wars with the Europeans began. In 1783, the Treaty of Paris ended the American Revolution and established the...