03/29/2026
Minavavana, a Chippewa chief, addressing trader Alexander Henry, as recorded by Henry, 1761 In this address to an English trader named Alexander Henry, Minavavana, a Chippewa or Ojibwa chief, warns the English that France's defeats during the French and Indian War do not mean that England can assert sovereignty over Indian lands. This document refers to what is called alternately the “Seven Years War” and the “French and Indian War” (1754–63), in which the English fought with the French over colonial territory in the Ohio Valley. Native Americans sided with the French, with whom they had better trading relations, and who were not as aggressive as the British in taking Native lands. However, by early 1760 the tide turned in favor of the British, and Native Americans became more eager to make peace with the apparent victor.
Mineweweh / Minavavana / Le Grand Saulteur / Ninkaton [born c.1710; died autumn 1770 at Michilimackinac], principal Ojibwa war chief of the area around Michilimackinac and Mackinac Island, father of northern Ojibwa Chief Kinonchamek, he was 6 feet tall; ally of the French; captured Michilimackinac with Chief Madjeckewiss on June 2, 1763; when Michilimackinac was reoccupied by the British he moved west through Illinois and Wisconsin; met Pontiac in the Illinois Country with the French in the fall of 1765; Grand Chief Mivanon was visited by 15 chiefs sent from the French in 1766; he arrived in Cahokia [East St. Louis] in April 1770 to avenge the murder of Pontiac; Minavavana killed two servants of a trading company; his camp was attacked by a British war party at Michilimakinac in the fall of 1770 and he was knifed in his tent (Peckham: 164, 265, 317; Petrone: 30; Quaife 1958: 141; DCB vol. III: 529-530, vol. III: 452; PSWJ vol. XII: 228). Source : Rootsweb.
