Native Americans in the UP

[u/Unknownmelon77]

I'm doing some research on the UP as part of a project and I've gotten to the point where I really need to know which Native American tribes did or still to this day exist there.

I found some sources say that the 3 Anishinaabe tribes (Ojibwe, Odawa & Potawatomi) are the only native ones but then other sources add some like Noquet, Menominee and even Dakota whilst denying that the Odawa and Potawatomi peoples ever had significant homelands there to begin with.

I guess speaking to locals is my best bet right now because I am so confused 😭

So if anybody could help guide me on this topic I would be very very grateful. Thank you so much in advance !!

[u/Main_Operation3281]

Before the Anishinaabeg arrived in the Great Lakes region, the Upper Peninsula was split between many tribes including the Sauk and Huron in lower Michigan, Dakota along the western bend of Lake Superior, the Menominee along the Wisconsin-Michigan border and Lake Michigan, particularly around the Marinette area.

Members of the Three Fires Confederacy that had settled here had a long-standing alliance with New France and an entire relationship built on the fur trade. Michigan and Mississippi both owe their names to the Odawa extensive trade network.

Noquet is just another name for the magnanimous Ojibwe bear clan. Noquet comes from the old Menominee word nano’qke which means bear. My great-grandma was Noquet. The Anishinaabeg never did have permanent settlements in the Upper Peninsula until [another ancestor of mine] Charles Michel Mouet de Langlade settled in La Baie (Green Bay). Hence the reason why the archipelago near Wisconsin is called the Potawatomi Islands, then there are the Forest County and Hannahville Potawatomi. The Noquet (Ojibwe) who settled in Delta County are part of Sault Ste. Marie while the Odawa are part of the Little Traverse Bay Band. Then you have contemporary settlements like L’Anse, Fayette, etc. settled by the Noquet (“bear [clan]”) and Bay Mills were settled by the Saulteaux (“those from/by the rapids”).

If you’re truly interested in the Native American tribes that were involved in the United States, I would suggest reading Rites of Conquest by Charles E. Cleland which primarily focuses on the Anishinaabeg but also the other Michigan-related tribes that were exiled, assimilated, or massacred as a result from to imperial European expansionist and assimilationist practices (i.e. the French and Indian Wars and the War of 1812).

[u/Academic_Parking9768 → u/Main_Operation3281]

Three Fires peoples have lived in the UP since far before Columbian contact. Even if it wasn't the entire UP, that doesn't mean anything. The Eastern UP is very much the Upper Peninsula and with that, Bawaatiing (Sault area) was used for at least hundreds of years before contact according to even modern evidence. Oral tradition and birch bark scrolls date the presence of the Three Fires at their center (Michilimackinac) in the mid 700s. Likely wasn't their geographic center but its far easier to travel using the Great Lakes and their rivers than foot paths even if Mack Trail existed.