The Story Of The Chippewa Indians

This single-volume book provides a narrative history of the Chippewa tribe with attention to tribal origins, achievements, and interactions within the United States. Unlike previous works that focus on the relationships of the Chippewa with the colonial governments of France, Great Britain, and the United States, this volume offers a historical account of the Chippewa with the tribe at its center. The volume covers Chippewa history chronologically from about 10,000 BC to the present and is geographically comprehensive, detailing Chippewa history as it occurred in both Canada and the United States, from the Great Lakes to Montana to adjacent Canadian provinces. Written by a Chippewa scholar, the book synthesizes key scholarly contributions to Chippewa studies through the author's own interpretive framework and tells the history of the Chippewa as a story that encompasses the culture's traditions and continued tenacity. It is organized into chronological chapters that include sidebars and highlight notable figures for ease of reference, and a timeline and bibliography allow readers to identify causal relationships among key events and provide suggestions for further research.

Reproduction of the original: History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan by Andrew J. Blackbird

This single-volume book provides a narrative history of the Chippewa tribe with attention to tribal origins, achievements, and interactions within the United States. Unlike previous works that focus on the relationships of the Chippewa with the colonial governments of France, Great Britain, and the United States, this volume offers a historical account of the Chippewa with the tribe at its center. The volume covers Chippewa history chronologically from about 10,000 BC to the present and is geographically comprehensive, detailing Chippewa history as it occurred in both Canada and the United States, from the Great Lakes to Montana to adjacent Canadian provinces. Written by a Chippewa scholar, the book synthesizes key scholarly contributions to Chippewa studies through the author's own interpretive framework and tells the history of the Chippewa as a story that encompasses the culture's traditions and continued tenacity. It is organized into chronological chapters that include sidebars and highlight notable figures for ease of reference, and a timeline and bibliography allow readers to identify causal relationships among key events and provide suggestions for further research.

Reproduction of the original: History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan by Andrew J. Blackbird

Blackbird (Mack-e-te-be-nessy) was an Ottawa chief's son who served as an official interpreter for the U.S. government and later as a postmaster while remaining active in Native American affairs as a teacher, advisor on diplomatic issues, lecturer and temperance advocate. In this work he describes how he became knowledgeable about both Native American and white cultural traditions and chronicles his struggles to achieve two years of higher education at the Ypsilanti State Normal School. He also deals with the history of many native peoples throughout the Michigan region (especially the Mackinac Straits), combining information on political, military, and diplomatic matters with legends, personal reminiscences, and a discussion of comparative beliefs and values, and offering insights into the ways that increasing contact between Indians and whites were changing native lifeways. He especially emphasizes traditional hunting, fishing, sugaring, and trapping practices and the seasonal tasks of daily living. Ottawa traditions, according to the author, recall their earlier home on Canada's Ottawa River and how they were deliberately infected by smallpox by the English Canadians after allying themselves with the French. Blackbird finds Biblical parallels with Ottawa and Chippewa accounts of a great flood and a fish which ingests and expels a celebrated prophet. He includes his own oratorical "Lamentation" on white treatment of the Ottawas, twenty-one moral commandments of the Ottawa and Chippewa, the Ten Commandments and other religious material in the Ottawa and Chippewa language, and a grammar of that language. Henry Rowe Schoolcraft appears in the narrative in his role as an Indian agent.

This book tells the story of the Chippewa Indians in the regions around Lake Superior-the fabled land of Kitchigami. It tells of their woodland life, the momentous impact of three centuries of European and American societies on their culture, and how the retention of their tribal identity and traditions proved such a source of strength for the Chippewas that the federal government finally abandoned its policy of coercive assimilation of the tribe. The Chippewas, especially the Lake Superior bands, have been neglected by historians, perhaps because they fought no bloody wars of resistance against the westward-driving white pioneers who overwhelmed them in the nineteenth century. Yet, historically, the Chippewas were one of the most important Indian groups north of Mexico. Their expansive north woods homeland contained valuable resources, forcing them to play important roles in regional enterprises such as the French, British, and American fur trade. Neither exterminated nor removed to the semiarid Great Plains, the Lake Superior bands have remained on their native lands and for the past century have continued to develop their interests in lumbering, fishing, farming, mining, shipping, and tourism. Now, for the first time in three hundred years, white domination is no longer the major theme of Chippewa life. The chains of paternalism have been broken. The possessors of many federal and state contracts, confident in their administrative ability, proud of their Indian heritage, and well organized politically, the Lake Superior bands are determined to chart their own course. In bringing his readers this overview of the Chippewa experience, the author emphasizes major themes for the entire sweep of Lake Superior Chippewa history. He focuses in detail on events, regions, and reservations which illustrate those themes. Historians, ethnologists, other Indian tribes, and the Chippewas themselves will find much of interest in this account of how previous tribal experiences have shaped Chippewa life in the 1970's.

Reproduction of the original.