The Odawa[1] (also Ottawa or Odaawaa /oʊˈdɑːwə/) are an Indigenous North American people who primarily inhabit land in the Eastern Woodlands region, now in jurisdictions of the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada.

[2] After migrating from the East Coast in ancient times, they settled on Manitoulin Island, near the northern shores of Lake Huron, and the Bruce Peninsula in the present-day province of Ontario, Canada.

[3] In the 21st century, there are a total of approximately 15,000 Odawa living in Ontario, Canada, and in Michigan and Oklahoma (former Indian Territory, United States).

This large family is made up of numerous smaller tribal groups or "bands," which are commonly called a "Tribe" in the United States and "First Nation" in Canada.

[4] Odawaa (syncoped as Daawaa, is believed to be derived from the Anishinaabe word adaawe, meaning "to trade," or "to buy and sell").

[6] The Odawa were described as having dealt "chiefly in cornmeal, sunflower oil, furs and skins, rugs and mats, tobacco, and medicinal roots and herbs.

The Odawa home territory at the time of early European contact, but not their trading zone, was well to the west of the city and river named after them.

In exchange the Odawa received "hatchets, knives, kettles, traps, needles, fish hooks, cloth and blankets, jewelry and decorative items, and later firearms and alcohol.

"[14] Up to the time of Nicolas Perrot, the Odawa had a monopoly on all fur trade that came through Green Bay, Wisconsin, or Sault Ste.

They allegedly did "their best to exploit" the tribes in those areas "who did not use the canoe, by bartering with them bits of iron and steel and worn-out European articles for extravagant quantities of furs."

For example, "the Crees gave the Ottawas 'all their beaver robes for old knives, blunted awls, wretched nets and kettles used until they were past service.

The European introduction of guns and other weapons to some of their trading partners had disrupted the traditional balance of power in the region and changed economic risks and rewards.

Some Odawa had already settled across northern Michigan in the Lower Peninsula, and more bands established villages around and south of Detroit.

The Odawa chief Pontiac[17] has historically been reported to have been born at the confluence of the Maumee and Auglaize rivers, where modern Defiance, Ohio, later developed.

[18] A decade later, Chief Egushawa (also spelled Agushawa), who had a village at the mouth of the Maumee River on Lake Erie (where Toledo later developed) led the Odawa as an ally of the British in the American Revolutionary War.

The Indians hoped to repulse the European-American pioneers coming to settle west of the Appalachian Mountains, but were finally defeated.

While the British had encouraged the Native American efforts, they did not want to get drawn into open conflict again with the United States and withdrew from offering direct support to the tribes.

Wayne's army defeated several hundred members of the Indian confederacy at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, near the future site of Maumee, Ohio and about 11 miles upriver of present-day Toledo.

In the winter of 1751–1752, Charles Langlade began assembling an allied war party of Odawa, Potawatomi, and Ojibwe warriors who traveled to Pickawillany.

Afterward the Odawa released the Miami women and left for Detroit with four captured Englishmen and more than $300,000 worth (in today's dollars[when?])

[20] In 1795, under the Treaty of Greenville, the Odawa and other members of the Western Confederacy ceded all of Ohio to the United States, except the northwest area.

Jane Willetts Ettawageshik devoted approximately two years of study in the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians community.

The following are or were Odawa villages: By the end of the eighteenth century, the Ottawa in Ohio were concentrated in the northwest area along the Maumee River (which has its mouth at Lake Erie.)