Ojibwa people from the present Upper Peninsula of Michigan and northern Wisconsin began moving into the Chicago region in the 1760s as part of the tribal mobilization accompanying Pontiac's uprising (1763–64). A prominent leader known as Le Grand Saulteur, from the Sault Ste. Marie district, maintained a community at Chicago for several years. By 1810, the Ojibwa, known to Americans as “Chippewa,” were a component of multitribal villages along the western side of Lake Michigan from the Calumet River of Indiana to the Manitowauk River in Wisconsin. Within this area, the Ojibwa became part of the group usually described as “The United Tribes (or Nations) of Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi ” in a series of peace and land cession treaties with the federal government during the period from 1816 to 1833. The final treaty called for the cession of their remaining territory in northeastern Illinois and Wisconsin. The treaty also abolished all their reservations in Illinois as well as southwestern Michigan, and provided for the natives' removal to land west of the Mississippi River. By that time, the United Nation was largely amalgamated and recognized as Potawatomi.

Helen Hornbeck Tanner