Ottawa Indians

   A tribe of the Algonquian family. First mentioned in Champlain's narrative, 1615. The explorer met a party of these Indians on French River. They were called the Cheveux Relevés, because of their peculiar method of dressing the hair. They occupied Manitoulin Island from about 1615 to 1650; were attacked and dispersed by the Iroquois the latter year, and settled West of Green Bay. They were keen fur traders, and throughout the greater part of the seventeenth century continued to bring down quantities of furs from the west to Montreal by way of the Ottawa River. Fought under Pontiac in 1763; made peace with Sir William Johnson at Niagara in 1764. A few thousand are now scattered on reservations in Ontario.

   Index: F Keen for trade and cheap goods, 259; entertained at Quebec, 310. Hd Sioux offer to attack, 148.

   Bib.: Pilling, Bibliography of Algonquian Languages; Champlain, Voyages; Parkman, Conspiracy of Pontiac; Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes of the United States; Jesuit Relations, ed. by Thwaites. See alsoSulte's papers in the Royal Society of Canada Trans., 1903 and 1904.