Based in North Dakota around the Pembina River, they are part of the Ojibwe, one of the Anishinaabe peoples, who occupied territory west of the Great Lakes by that time.
The Ojibwe, also known as Chippewa, an Indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, lived near the Great Lakes at the time of European and African contact.
Many settled in the area around the Pembina River in northeastern North Dakota, where the Little Shell Band of Chippewa were living in the nineteenth century.
[1] Due to intermarriage with French-Canadian fur trappers over the years, this settlement became a center for the Métis people, who developed their own culture, related to, but separate from, the French and Ojibwe.
It claims to be a successor apparent of the Pembina Band of Chippewa Indians, but it is not recognized as a Native American tribe by the US federal government nor by North Dakota.