Chippewa Indians in Wisconsin

Tony Gulig, Department of History

University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

(262) 472-5148

Guliga@uww.edu

Facstaff.uww.edu/guliga

“Ojibwe,” “Chippewa,” “Anishinabe?”• Anishinabe is the Chippewa or Ojibwe peoples’ name for themselves.

Translated into English is means the “original people,” or the “people spontaneously created.”

• Ojibwemowin (the language) was mistakenly shortened to “Ojibwe,” and applied as a name, likely by early French traders in the immediate contact period

• “Ojibwe” became “Chippewa” during the transition from French to English regimes in North American. The name “Chippewa” came into customary use by the early eighteenth century, and is used in all their treaties with the federal government.

• The term “Chippewa,” is currently used in the official name by which every Anishinabe band in Wisconsin is known to the federal government. As federally recognized Indian tribes and bands, each tribe or band possesses the ability to change their name.

From Loew, Native People of Wisconsin

Lewis Cass, 1825 Treaty Commissioner

Henry Dodge, 1837 Treaty Commissioner

From Loew, Native People of Wisconsin

The first page of the Chippewa Treaty of 1854 (La Pointe, Wisconsin), reprinted in Satz, Chippewa Treaty Rights.

From Loew, Native People of Wisconsin

Wisconsin Chippewa Reservations—the Impact of the 1854 Treaty

Reservation Original Size (in acres)

Estimated Size in 1935 (in acres)

Red Cliff 7,321 5,176

Bad River 124,332 90,855

Lac Courte Oreilles

70,000 43,416

Lac du Flambeau 70,000 54,673

St. Croix not established until 1934

1,200

Mole Lake not established until 1934

1,700

From Loew, Native People of Wisconsin