This numerous people lived far away from the frontiers of the colonial
war period, hence are not often mentioned in the early history of the
United States. The original habitation of the Ojibwe in Wisconsin is
supposed to have been at La Pointe, a town no longer in existence, in
Ashland County, near Lake Superior. The first reference to them in
history is in the Jesuit Relation of 1640 when they resided at Sault
Ste. Marie. It is thought that Nicolet met them either in 1634 or
1639. Father Allouez found them at Superior, Wisconsin, in 1665-67.
According to Perrot,[89] in 1670-99 those Ojibwe on the Lake Superior
shore of Wisconsin cultivated corn and were living peaceably with their
neighbors, the Sioux. About this time they first obtained fire-arms,
and pushed their way westward fighting with the Sioux and the Meskwaki.
The French established a trading post at Shangawawmikong, afterwards
La Pointe, in 1692, which was the most important Ojibwe settlement in
Wisconsin.
In the early years of the eighteenth century, the Ojibwe succeeded in
driving the Meskwaki from northern Wisconsin, when the Meskwaki joined
forces with the Sauk Indians. The Ojibwe then turned their attention
to the Sioux, driving them across the Mississippi and as far as the
Turtle Mountains in North Dakota. The Ojibwe took part in frontier
settlement wars up to the close of the war of 1812. Those living within
the United States made a treaty with the Government in 1815 and have
since remained peaceful, with the exception of a minor uprising among
the Pillager Band of Ojibwe on Leech Lake, Minnesota. Most of them live
on reservations or allotted land in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and
North Dakota. There was a small band of Swan Creek and Black River
Ojibwe who sold their lands in Michigan in 1836 and went to live with
the Munsee, in Franklin County, Kansas.
It was represented to the writer that the Pillager Band of Ojibwe
should be quite interesting and primitive since they were the only
unsubdued Indians left in the United States. They are supposed to
have revolted during the Civil War, when Government attention was
concentrated on determining whether or not, the Union should be
preserved. They pillaged a small town, killed the inhabitants, took all
of the food stores and fled to Bear Island in Leech Lake, Minnesota,
shown in plate 60, fig. 1. Again, while the United States was at war
with Spain in 1898, the Ojibwe complained bitterly about certain
irregularities in regard to the disposal of the dead and fallen timber
on Leech Lake Reservation. They accused white speculators of firing the
woods to create a class of timber known as dead and down timber, thus
depriving them of their winter livelihood in logging operations.[90]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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