Lake Superior Ojibwe

The Lake Superior Chippewa (Anishinaabe: Gichigamiwininiwag) were a large historical band of Ojibwe (Anishinaabe) Indians living around Lake Superior; this territory is considered part of northern Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota in the United States. They migrated into the area by the seventeenth century, encroaching on the Eastern Dakota people who historically occupied the area. The Ojibwe defeated the Eastern Dakota and had their last battle in 1745, after which the Dakota Sioux migrated west into the Great Plains. While sharing a common culture and Anishinaabe language, this group of Ojibwe was highly decentralized, with at least twelve independent bands in this region.

In the nineteenth century, the leaders of the bands negotiated together as the Lake Superior Chippewa with the United States government under a variety of treaties to protect their historic territories against encroachment by European-American settlers. The United States set up several reservations for bands in this area under the treaties culminating in one in 1854. This enabled the people to stay in this territory rather than remove west of the Mississippi River, as the government had attempted. Under the treaty, the bands with reservations have been federally recognized as independent tribes; several retain Lake Superior Chippewa in their formal names to indicate their shared culture.

Sometime earlier than 1650, the Ojibwe split into two groups near present-day Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. This is believed to have been one of the stops which their prophets predicted in their migration; it was part of the path of the Anishinaabe, which they had traveled for centuries, in their passage west from the Atlantic Coast.

The Ojibwe who followed the south shore of Lake Superior found the final prophesied stopping place and "the food that grows on water" (wild rice) at Madeline Island. During the late 17th century, the Ojibwe at Madeline Island began to expand to other territory: they had population pressures, a desire for furs to trade, and increased factionalism caused by divisions over relations with French Jesuit missions. For a time they had an alliance with the Eastern Dakota.

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