Note 108 — Chapter III

The Chippewayan and Chippewa belong to two distinct Indian families. The former are of Athabascan (or Tinneh) stock, and range from Hudson Bay to the Pacific, and from the Saskatchewan to the Arctic. The Chippewa (Ojibwa, Saulteurs, see our volume ii, p. 79, note 38) are the largest and most important branch of the Algonquian family, first being encountered by the French at the outlet of Lake Superior. According to tradition, their original habitat was the St. Lawrence, whence they passed slowly westward to the Great Lakes. At Lake Superior they divided, one portion going north and west to Lake Winnipeg, the other following the southern shore of the lake. For many years their chief settlement was at La Pointe on Chequamegon Bay. As allies of the French they joined in the French and Indian War and in Pontiac's Conspiracy—see J. Bain (ed.), Alexander Henry's Travels (Boston, 1901), pp. 79-106. They also aided the English in the American Revolution and the War of 1812-15. In the eighteenth century they drove the Sioux from the upper waters of the Mississippi, and the band known as Pillagers established themselves on Leach Lake. For the boundary between them and the Sioux see ante, p. 152, note 98. See Minnesota Historical Collections, v, for complete history of this tribe. In Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, there are still about twenty thousand of these people, besides a large number in Canada.—Ed.