Early Migration

Odawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi nations each have their own creation stories. One Potawatomi creation story as written by Chief Simon Pokagan asserts that Anishinaabe people emerged from an unnamed inland lake. In Pottawatamie Book of Genesis, he writes:

[Ki-ji Man-i-to (The Great Spirit)] led [the Divine Council] into a great wilderness to Sa-gi-i-gan, a beautiful inland lake. And as He stood upon the shores thereof in the presence of them all, His eyes flashed waw-saw mo-win (lightning)! The lake became boiling water! The earth trembled! He then spake in a voice of thunder: "COME FORTH YE LORDS OF AU-KEE (the world)!" The ground opened. And from out of the red clay that lined the lake came forth Au-ne-ne gaie Ik-we (man and woman) like kego (flying fish) from out the water!

Prior to European contact, Anishinaabe people moved westward from their homes on the eastern shore of Turtle Island (North America). Some stayed as far east as what is now called Lake Ontario, while others traveled as far west as present-day Minnesota and Saskatchewan. The arrival of European Americans and expansion of the fur trade precipitated what have been termed the “Iroquois wars” of the late seventeenth century, which in turn rippled into the Great Lakes region:

The latter half of the 17th century saw unprecedented inner-tribal war in the Great Lakes. The Haudenosaunee (Iroquois), suffering great losses to their populations due to war and diseases, set out to rebuild their numbers through war with the Wyandot. After the destruction of Huronia in the 1650s, Wyandot bands fled west. Many took refuge with Odawa peoples in upper Lake Huron. Haudenosaunee war parties pushed both the Odawa and Wyandot as far west as present-day Minnesota. By the 1680s, Odawa, Ojibwe and other Anishnaabek began to push back the Haudenosaunee, eventually striking their villages in New York by the late 1690s. In 1701 the Great Peace of Montreal ended what is known as the Iroquois Wars but not after numerous tribal communities had been rearranged or severely altered, such as the Wyandot. —Eric Hemenway, Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, Department of Repatriation, Archives and Records

The fur trade and the expansion of European powers that were vying for control of North American resources continued to shape life among Anishinaabe tribes in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Indigenous groups throughout the Great Lakes region retained cultural and political structures while accommodating European traders into kinship networks and economic systems. The fur trade also influenced where and how people lived as the Anishinaabe navigated waterways, seasons, and land to secure animal pelts and exchange goods at trading posts. The map below shows how the Odawa utilized the resources of the Great Lakes region at the turn of the nineteenth century.

Reservations and Removal

Throughout the nineteenth century, the United States pursued a policy of removing Indigenous people from their lands by force, through social and political pressure, or through treaties. For the Potawatomi of Indiana and Illinois, removal resulted in the loss of the majority of their land in the Great Lakes region. For example, in the Treaty of Chicago in 1833 (below), several Potawatomi villages in the Great Lakes region—some of which included members of the Ojibwe and Odawa—ceded land in exchange for annuity payments. The many signatures on the treaty reflect a decentralized leadership that arrived in Chicago with conflicting goals. The treaty forced many Potawatomi to migrate to Nebraska, Kansas, and later Oklahoma. Other Potawatomi communities stayed in the Great Lakes, where remaining Potawatomi lands became reservations in Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin. To learn more about treaties, visit Indians of the Midwest.

The lands of the Ojibwe and Odawa were also drastically reduced by treaties, leaving reservations located in present-day Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and North Dakota, and reservations throughout Canada. By the 1850s, the United States government had shifted from a policy of removal to one of allotting reservation lands to individuals in an effort to sell off and further reduce Indigenous land. Allotments also constituted a way to civilize Indigenous people, as private land ownership was a hallmark of Euro-American ideas of civilization.

Into the early twentieth century, Anishinaabe in the Midwest faced employment discrimination and limits to commercial farming and subsistence hunting, gathering, and especially fishing. Fishing and hunting rights were guaranteed in many treaties Indigenous nations signed with the federal government, but attempts to practice these rights would become deeply contested, resulting in federal court rulings. One way to make an income involved participating in the tourist economy of the northern woods. For example, tourists from all over the United States visited Petoskey, Michigan, to see Anishinaabe actors perform a play based on Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's The Song of Hiawatha. The performance took place at Round Lake with a stadium that could fit about 1,000 people at a time. On the lower level of this structure, there was an Indian Craft workshop where local Anishinaabe would sell their handmade crafts to tourists.

Relocation and Endurance

From the late-nineteenth well into the twentieth century, the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs funded Christian and secular boarding schools with the purpose of civilizing and assimilating Indigenous people into white, Christian society. Like the other hundreds of boarding schools across the country, Holy Childhood of Jesus Indian Boarding school in Harbor Springs, Michigan required Odawa and Ojibwe students to wear Euro-American dress and hairstyles. Students were forbidden to speak their Native language, Anishinaabemowin, or practice any Native traditions. Many students experienced multiple forms of abuse while at the schools, resulting in inter-generational trauma for many tribal communities. Boarding schools like Holy Childhood significantly damaged the transmission of Indigenous culture and languages across generations, and since the second half of the twentieth century tribal groups have continued to advocate for cultural self-determination.

In 1956, the Bureau of Indian Affairs expanded a relocation program to encourage Indigenous migration from reservations to urban areas like Chicago. Promotional materials emphasized improved job training and job placement and showcased families and individuals who found an improved quality of life through the program.

While the relocation program proved beneficial for some, others considered the program another example of forced migration and did not experience improved conditions in cities. In Chicago, a growing American Indian community founded cultural organizations like the American Indian Center and mobilized around common social causes.

Watch the Bureau of Indian Affairs "Chicago Story"