Tribe name[edit]

Odaawaa (syncoped as Daawaa, is believed to be derived from the Anishinaabe word

adaawe, meaning to trade, or to buy and sell); this term is common to the Cree,
Algonquin, Nipissing, Montagnais, Odawa, and Ojibwe. The Potawatomi spelling of
Odawa and the English derivative Ottawa are also common. The Anishinaabe word for
Those men who trade, or buy and sell is Wadaawewinini(wag). Fr. Frederic Baraga, a
Jesuit Catholic missionary in Michigan, transliterated this and recorded it in his
A Dictionary of the Otchipwe Language as Watawawininiwok, noting that it meant men
of the bulrushes, associated with the many bulrushes in the Ottawa River.[4] But,
this recorded meaning is more appropriately associated with the Matwackariniwak, a
historical Algonquin band who lived along the Ottawa River.

Their neighbors applied the Trader name to the Ottawa because in early traditional
times, and also during the early European contact period, they were noted as
intertribal traders and barterers.[5] The Odawa were described as having dealt
chiefly in cornmeal, sunflower oil, furs and skins, rugs and mats, tobacco, and
medicinal roots and herbs.[6][7]

Like the Ojibwe, the Odawa usually identify as Nishnaabe (Anishinaabe, plural
Nishnaabeg Anishinaabeg), meaning original people.

The Odawa name in its English transcription is the source of the place names of
Ottawa, Ontario, and the Ottawa River. The Odawa 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. The tribe is the namesake for Tawas City,
Michigan,[citation needed] and Tawas Point, which reflect the syncope-form of their
name. Ottawa, Ohio is the county seat of Putnam County, developed at the site of
the last Ottawa reservation in Ohio.

Language[edit]
Main article Ottawa dialect
The Odawa dialect is considered one of several divergent dialects of the Ojibwe
language group, noted for its frequent syncope. In the Odawa language, the general
language group is known as Nishnabemwin, while the Odawa language is called
Daawaamwin. Of the estimated 5,000 ethnic Odawa and additional 10,000 people with
some Odawa ancestry, in the early 21st century an estimated 500 people in Ontario
and Michigan speak this language. The Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma has three fluent
speakers.[8]

Early history[edit]
Oral histories and early recorded histories[edit]
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Mid-18th century sketch of an Odawa family by British soldier George Townshend

According to Anishinaabeg tradition, and from recordings in Wiigwaasabak (birch
bark scrolls), the Odawa people came from the eastern areas of North America, or
Turtle Island, and from along the East Coast (where there are numerous Algonquian-
language peoples). Directed by the miigis (luminescent) beings, the Anishinaabe
peoples moved inland along the Saint Lawrence River. At the Third Stopping Place
near what is now Detroit, Michigan, the southern group of Anishinaabeg divided into
three groups, the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi.[9]

There is archaeological evidence that the Saugeen Complex people, a Hopewell-

influenced group who were located on the Bruce Peninsula during the Middle Woodland
period, may have evolved into the Odawa people. The Hopewell tradition was a widely
extended trading network operating from about 200BCE to 500 CE. Some of these
peoples constructed earthwork mounds for burials, a practice that ended about 250
CE.[10] The Saugeen mounds have not been excavated.
The Odawa, together with the Ojibwe and Potawatomi, were part of a long-term tribal
alliance called the Council of Three Fires,[11] which fought the Iroquois
Confederacy and the Dakota people. In 1615 French explorer Samuel de Champlain met
300 men of a nation which, he said, we call les cheueux releuez (modern French
cheveux relevez (hair lifted, raised, rolled up)) near the French River mouth. Of
these, he said Their arms consisted only of a bow and arrows, a buckler of boiled
leather and the club. They wore no breech clouts, their bodies were tattooed in
many fashions and designs, their faces painted and their noses pierced.[6] In 1616,
Champlain left the Huron villages and visited the Cheueux releuez, who lived
westward from the lands of the Huron Confederacy.[9]

The Jesuit Relations of 1667 report three tribes living in the same town the Odawa,
the Kiskakon Odawa, and the Sinago Odawa. All three tribes spoke the same language.
[12]

Fur trade[edit]
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Due to the extensive trade network maintained by the Odawa, many of the North
American interior nations became known by names which their trading partners used
for them, rather than by the nations own names (autonyms). For example, these
exonyms include Winnebago (from Wiinibiigoo) for the Ho-Chunk, and Sioux (from
Naadawensiw) for the Dakota. From the start of the colony of New France, the Odawa
became so important to the French and Canadiens in fur trade that before 1670,
colonists in Quebec, (then called Canada), usually referred to any Algonquian
speaker from the Great Lakes region as an Odawa. In their own language, the Odawa
(like the Ojibwe) identified as Anishinaabe (Neshnabek) meaning people.

Wars and refugees[edit]

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Odawa warrior with gunstock war club

The Odawa had disputes and warfare with other tribes, particularly over the
lucrative fur trade. For example, the tribe once waged war against the Mascouten.
In the mid-17th century the Odawa allied with other Algonquian tribes around the
Great Lakes against the powerful Mohawk (of present-day New York) and their
Iroquois allies in the Beaver Wars. The traditional balance of power in the region
had been destroyed by the European introduction of guns and other weapons, changing
economic risks and rewards. This disruption produced novel disastrous unintended
consequences. All indigenous peoples on both sides were disrupted or decimated;
some groups, such as the Iroquoian Erie, were exterminated as tribes. By the mid-
17th century, the tribes were more severely affected by disease than warfare.
Lacking acquired immunity to the new European infectious diseases, they suffered
epidemics with high fatalities.

In 1701 the French colonists built Fort Detroit and established a trading post.
Many Odawa moved there from their traditional homeland of Manitoulin Island near
the Bruce Peninsula,[9] and Wyandot (Huron) also moved near the post. Some Odawa
had already settled across northern Michigan in the Lower Peninsula, and more bands
established villages around and south of Detroit. Their area extended into present-
day Ohio.

With movements of the tribes in relation to warfare and colonial encroachment, the
tribes settled in roughly the following pattern Sandwiched between the French, in
the north and west, and the English, in the south and east, the Miami settled in
present-day Indiana and western Ohio; the Ottawa settled in Northwest Ohio along
the Maumee, the Auglaize, and the Blanchard rivers; the Wyandot settled in Central
Ohio; the Shawnee in Southwest Ohio; and the Delaware (Lenape) in Southeast and
Eastern Ohio.[13]

In the mid-18th century, the Odawa allied with their French trading partners
against the British in the Seven Years' War, known as the French and Indian War in
the North American colonies. They made raids against Anglo-American colonists. The
noted Odawa chief Pontiac has historically been reported to have been born at the
confluence of the Maumee and Auglaize rivers, where modern Defiance, Ohio later
developed. In 1763, after the British had defeated France, Pontiac led a rebellion
against the British, but he was unable to prevent British colonial settlement of
the region.[14]

A decade later, Chief Egushawa (also spelled Agushawa), who had a village at the
mouth of the Maumee River on Lake Erie where Toledo later developed, led the Odawa
as an ally of the British in the American Revolutionary War. He hoped to build on
their support to exclude the European-American colonists from his territory in
northwest Ohio and southern Michigan.[15] The defeat of the British by the United
States had a far-ranging influence on British-allied Native AmericanFirst Nations
tribes, as many were forced to cede their land to the United States.

Following the Revolutionary War, in the 1790s, Egushawa, together with numerous
members of other regional tribes, including the Wyandot and Council of Three Fires,
Shawnee, Lenape, and Mingo, fought the United States in a series of battles and
campaigns in what became known as the Northwest Indian War. The Indians hoped to
repulse the European-American pioneers coming to settle west of the Appalachian
Mountains, but were finally defeated.[15] In a campaign during 1794, Anthony Wayne
built a string of forts in the upper Maumee River watershed, including Fort
Defiance, across the river from the site of Pontiac's birth. While the British had
encouraged this effort, they did not want to get drawn into open conflict again
with the United States and withdrew from offering direct support to the Native
Americans. Wayne's army defeated several hundred members of the Indian confederacy
at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, near the future site of Maumee, Ohio and about 11
miles upriver of present-day Toledo.