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I

n the early 1600s, when Samuel de Champlain first explored the St Lawrence beyond Hochelaga, the North American continent was peopled with a series of small nations with amorphous borders. These peoples had highly ritualized communications among them and long-standing enemies and trading partners. Champlain could not know that the Algonquin nations that he met were in the middle of border skirmishes with the Iroquois nations to the south, but he realised quickly that he had to choose sides when his meeting party was attacked. He stood with the Algonquin, thereby establishing himself as an ally. Soon he began trading with them on the Kitchisipi River, the name the Kichispirinis and the Weskarinis had for the lower Ottawa.

Among Champlain's party was an adventuresome Frenchman named Jean Nicollet de Belleborne, and he volunteered to live with the Algonquin on Allumettes Island. Over the next years, he lived with the Hurons and the Nipissing as well, learning their languages and customs. He became a valuable emissary to the French and a legendary character travelling in a brightly coloured Chinese robe. He was not the first Frenchman to choose to live with the Algonquin, nor was he the only one. Etienne Brulé and Nicolas du Vignau were others from around the same time who accepted to be exchanged for an Algonguin chief's son named Savignon. The chief's son went to Paris, and upon his return characterized the French as strange people who argue loudly but don't fight.

With the help of these men the French began to build up the human resources to explore further inland. When they got as far as Lake Huron, Champlain observed a small band that had exceptionally good beaver pelts to offer in exchange. Upon inquiry, he learned that these were the Adawe, or Ottawa, a word that means 'trader'. Champlain's curiosity was piqued and he discovered that the Ottawa, who lived on Manitoulin Island, were a small nation that had found a niche for itself as traders along the rivers that joined the Great Lakes and even those ones that were home to the Cree in the Hudson Basin. They carried goods among the peoples of the Great Lakes and were respected everywhere they went. As a result, their influence was way out of proportion to their numbers.

Champlain encouraged trading with the Ottawa, and the French had only to meet the Ottawa at the Huron villages on Lake Huron. With this development, the need of men like Nicollet, Brûlé and Vignau changed. They did not have to explore, and soon the French became reliant upon the Ottawa for their excellent pelts that in many cases came from as far away as Sault Ste. Marie and from the rivers of the Cree.

The Ottawa would pick up French products and trade them for furs, spreading the French goods as far as Sault Ste. Marie and into the Hudson Basin to the Cree. The French remained active partners with the Ottawa, helping and encouraging their trading. They supplied them with steel weapons and hunting equipment, and in one case this caused a serious incident in which the French successfully intervened, avoiding conflict. The Ottawa, being traders, always looked for negotiated solutions to problems, but were willing to turn to war where necessary. When they came up against the Winnebago on the western shores of Lake Michigan, their steel tools were resented and the Winnebago refused to cooperate or to let them trade in their territory. The Ottawa sent negotiators, but these ambassadors were simply eaten. Stunned by the rebuff, the Ottawa reported the incident to the French and prepared for war. The French, concerned that a war would not help trade, sent the legendary Jean Nicollet to meet with the Winnebago. He arrived in 1634, and no doubt he was wearing his famous brightly coloured Chinese robe, and was likely the first European they had ever seen. His novelty probably contributed to saving him from sharing the fate of the Ottawa ambassadors and he succeeded in negotiating a peace between the Ottawa and the Winnebago.

French trading patterns were seriously disturbed by the British capture of New France in 1629, not because of the British directly, but because the British traded with the Iroquois, not with the Algonquin and Huron. As a result, during the three years that they held New France, before the French king negotiated it back, they turned to the Iroquois to bring them furs. Also, the British and the Dutch readily gave firearms in exchange for furs, something that the French had refrained from doing until then. When the French took New France back, they discovered that the Iroquois were not willing to give their newfound territory up. It was inevitable that the Great Lakes tribes, allied with the French, would form an alliance against the Iroquois, and it was inevitable that the French would begin to trade arms with this new alliance. Unlike the Iroquois, which was a federation, the alliance needed leadership and the natural leaders were the Ottawa. As traders, they were known and respected by the other partners. They also provided its greatest single leader in the person of Pontiac.

Had the Iroquois never ventured into the French trade route, the political map of North America might have evolved much differently. The French and the Great Lakes nations grew closer in the face of the Iroquois and the British, but nation after nation was dragged into the conflict on one side or the other. These included the Nipissing, Ojibwe, Shawnee, Miami and Cherokee and involved a total of 20 nations, extending into the Mississippi Valley and out west. During this whole period, the Ottawa maintained a leadership role and the French support was constant. Sadly, though, when the sides were becoming tired of the battle in the 1690's they discovered that the beaver had recovered to huge numbers and caused a collapse of their price on the French market. By itself this would perhaps have been nothing more than a market correction, except that King Louis XIV decided that the reduced value of the trade would be a good time for him to listen to the advice that he had received from the Jesuits. They had told him that the fur trade had caused great instability in the New World, and so he passed an edict banning it in the Great Lakes region. Of course, this caused greater instability, since the alliance and the economy had become dependant on trade. Even the techniques of tying an arrowhead on a shaft had been forgotten in places and ammunition had become essential, not just for warfare.

Somehow the Ottawa leader Pontiac managed to keep a loyal alliance going in support of the French despite this action of the King, and the alliance maintained after the King's edict had ended. The damage was done, though, and the French influence was on the wane. Had the French crown been of a different mindset, a large, French-speaking indigenous culture might exist today, stretching into the middle of the continent.

The Ottawa River first began to be called by that name during the Beaver Wars, and was first recorded by the cartographer Bernou in 1680. It is fitting that the river carries the name that the original occupants had used to express the concept of exchange, and that it also commemorates a people who proved themselves in a time of difficulty.

Sources: The Algonquins -Daniel Clement.
Ottawa History -Lee Sultzman.
Commission de toponymie, Quebec.

Joseph Graham has written a book that features a select number of stories of Laurentian places and how they got their names. To learn more, click here.

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This material may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written permission of the author. © Joseph Graham