The Little River Band of Ottawa Indians are headquartered in Manistee (meaning Spirit of the Woods), MI on the eastern shores of Lake Michigan (Big Lake), in the northeastern section of the Lower Peninsula, 70 miles southwest of Traverse City. In 1999 they reported a tribal membership of 2,675 with a then unemployment rate of 59% and of those employed, 26% living below the poverty guidelines.

The Little River Band Ottawa received their federal recognition/reaffirmation of status in September, 1994 pursuant to congressional legislation, P.L. 103-324 along with the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa and the Pokagon Band Potawatomi.

Ottawa, Odawa, Odawu, generally means “trader” but some report it as being a shortened version of an Ottawa phrase meaning “at home anywhere people”. Historically, there are not bands referred to as the Little River Band Ottawa. Rather, the modern day members of this new tribe are descendants of and politically successors to nine (9) Ottawa Bands who were party to the Treaties of 1836 and 1855 of a total of nineteen bands listed as Grand River Band Ottawa. Some of these 19 bands were party to the Treaty of 1821 and paid an annuity in 1979 under federal land claims docket # 40-K, but not those now known as Little River Band Ottawa.

Following the 1855 Treaty, all of the Ottawa Bands located from the Manistee River south to Grand River near or on the eastern shores of Lake Michigan were relocated to reservation lands in Mason and Oceana Counties. The permanent villages of the Grand River Bands Ottawa including those 9 Bands now considered as Little River, were located on the Thornapple, Grand, White, Pere Marquette and Big and Little Manistee Rivers in Michigan’s western Lower Peninsula.

The remaining historic 10 Ottawa Bands are seeking federal recognition or reaffirmation of status as the Grand River Ottawa independently, and are currently headquartered in Grand Rapids, MI.

Following the Ottawa and Chippewa Treaty of Detroit in 1855, the federal government interpreted the terms of the treaty as “administratively terminated” as a tribal entity, i.e. the Ottawa and Chippewa Tribe. However, it was later proven that you can’t dissolve something that never existed in the first place. The Ottawa/Chippewa Nation as a tribal entity only existed in the minds of federal government folks for the convenience of treaty negotiators.

Since there was never a Ottawa/Chippewa Nation, that existed an entity the government hadn’t terminated anything. We all realize the authority for rule and representation of the Ottawa and Chippewa Anishnabek rests at the village or band level, NOT at an Indian Nation level. Grand Council or Inter-Tribal Meetings were called for from time to time, but not for matters of negotiating the ceding of lands and related rights where the local village and bands resided.

However, this faux pas coupled with the Homestead Act of 1862 and the General Allotment Act of 1887, not to mention unscrupulous land speculators, most Little River Ottawa families lost title to their individual allotted lands and collectively all lands held in common trust. The could not rely on any federal protection from these developments and the state and local governments were often the violators, along with big business and church groups coveting the lands.

In a nutshell, the Homestead Act of 1862 was enacted by Congress and it promised ownership of 160 acre tracts of public land to a head of a family after they had cleared and improved the land and lived on it for five years, ala “squatters rights”. By 1934, when the General Allotment Act of 1887 was repealed and the Indian Reorganization Act enacted, NONE of the Grand River or now Little River Bands owned any lands collectively or had any held in “trust status” by the federal government.

It was a good enough reason for the Bureau of Indian Affairs to rationalize why they did not extend the opportunity for the Lower Peninsula Ottawa and Potawatomi to reorganized in the 1930s and establish “federally recognized tribal status” as it is now known.

Like Sault Ste. Marie Tribe, Grand Traverse and Lac Vieux Desert (to an extend) and later followed by the Huron Potawatomi and Gun Lake Pottawatomi; the Little River Ottawa, Little Traverse Odawa and Pokagon Potawatomi, begun their long stressing process of righting this wrong/oversight which finally bore fruit in 1994 with reaffirmation of their status as a federally recognized tribe.

They have adopted their tribal constitution, bylaws and corporate charter, have identified nine counties as their service area which include: Lake, Manistee, Wexford, Ottawa, Newaygo, Oceana, Kent and Muskegon counties.

Their tribal council is an elected body with an Ogema (Chief) aka Tribal Chairperson. The reporting having 380 acres of land in trust status in 1999 which they are utilizing for economic development and government headquarters primarily and with another 220 purchased tribal lands for housing and 1400 more acres for future tribal development.

The tribe has ardently developed their infrastructure to provide increasing membership services and they opened the Little River Casino two years ago. They recently announced that they will be expanding the operations with another 223,000 square feet as part of a $55 million dollar hotel and resort as well. Presently, the Little River Casino is the largest employer in Manistee County employing 600 individuals with another 200 projected when construction is completed and services expanded.

The Little River Band of Ottawa offer educational scholarship services, clinical health, behavioral health and substance abuse programs, early childhood projects, child welfare protection, law enforcement services and elderly initiatives, among others.

The tribe has made significant progress in many, many areas over the past seven years and considered a real boom for Manistee County economic and employment development across the board.

They continue with their long and short term planning initiatives in a variety of areas. The are reorganizing or creating new departments and policies such as a Grants and Contracts Program. They Little River Ottawa have quiet vision and determination and they shall succeed in their endeavors.

Like all other Michigan tribes, they too as affected/effected by the social problems and woes of the greater dominant mainstream society, such as crime, substance abuse, potential crime, gangs, et al. They will likely adopt additional programs and polices to address these issues within appropriate Anishnabek cultural, traditional, spiritual and community nuances.