Wikibooks: Introduction to Anishinabe Culture and History/A Brief History

• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Subjects: Hudson; Hudson Bay; anishina*
• Online Access: https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Introduction_to_Anishinabe_Culture_and_History/A_Brief_History

TOC This chapter is a brief overview of the history of the Anishinabe tribe and their traditional homelands. = Creation and migration = Anishinabe is often translated as first man original man or good person . (The plural Anishinabeg or Anishinaabeg means first people .) In the Anishinabe creation myth Git chi e Man i to Creator or Great Mystery lowered the original man down from the heavens as the ancestor of all North American tribes. There are many interesting parallels between Anishinabe mythology and the bible including the naming of all the creatures of the earth by an Adam figure and a great flood. According to oral tradition the Anishinabe originally lived near an ocean a belief also held by the Ottawa and Potawatomi. Because of this shared heritage the three tribes are collectively known as the Three Fires. It is unclear whether this was the Atlantic near the gulf of the St. Lawrence or the shores of the Hudson Bay but the latter is considered more plausible by most. Less disputed is the Anishinabe s migration west to Lake Superior and the Apostle Islands. =In the United States= = The 17th and 18th centuries = The first probable encounter between the Anishinabe and the Europeans occurred sometime in the 17th century. This first contact was probably with the Jesuits. Further contact ensued with the French Voyageurs (fur traders and explorers) then British fur traders and explorers and finally the U.S. government and her citizens. Trading the rich resources of their lands to the Europeans especially beaver pelts for goods such as firearms ignited a fierce competition and arms race between tribes that would end in war. With the help of the firearms the Anishinabe pushed the Fox tribe south into Wisconsin fighting with the Dakota and Winnebago (Sioux) was especially brutal but the Anishinabe eventually succeeded in forcing them to the southwest and claiming the resource abundant northeast of Minnesota Wisconsin and Michigan for their own. There were also several European epidemics during this time notably ...