Ozaawindib (late 1700s‒?)

Ozaawindib was a prominent figure among the Cass Lake Ojibwe in the early 1800s. As an agokwa (a person deemed male at birth who took on women’s roles), she interacted with white travelers and traders in Minnesota and was active in conflicts with the Dakota. In 1832, she led Henry Rowe Schoolcraft and his expedition to the headwaters of the Mississippi. As a result, Schoolcraft gifted her a medal to designate her chief of the local Ojibwe.

Ozaawindib (also spelled Ozawindib, Ozawondib, and Ozaw-wen-dib, also known as Yellow Head) was born in the late 1700s to an unknown mother and the Minnesota Ojibwe leader Wiishkobak (also known as The Sweet). Wiishkobak was a chief of the Leech Lake Ojibwe, heading a village of about sixty people in 1820.

Little is recorded of Ozaawindib’s early life. She was an agokwa, an Ojibwe term that refers to a person designated male at birth who takes on the roles of a woman. Though Ojibwe people respected such individuals and honored their identities as women, Ozaawindib’s father attempted to convince her to return to the role of a man.

Sometime between 1792 and 1800, Ozaawindib attended a meeting of Ojibwe and Dakota people hosted by trader Joseph Réaume. The meeting was an attempt to resolve the conflict between the two groups. At first, things seemed to go well, but the Dakota followed Ozaawindib and the other Ojibwe after they left. Ozaawindib fired arrows at the Dakota until her companions were able to reach a safe distance.

In 1800, Ozaawindib encountered John Tanner, a white American who had been kidnapped and raised by Ojibwe people from a young age. Though she had already had multiple husbands in the past, Ozaawindib sought Tanner’s hand in marriage. She courted him by bringing him moose meat, but Tanner was disgusted by Ozaawindib and rejected her advances. In the end, Ozaawindib decided to marry a man named Wenji-dotagaan instead. She became his third wife.

When a group of Leech Lake Ojibwe left to attack the Dakota on the prairies in 1832, Ozaawindib headed to Fort Brady at Michilimackinac to inform the Americans. On the way along the Brule River, she met Henry Rowe Schoolcraft’s expedition. Interested in finding the headwaters of the Mississippi River, Schoolcraft hired Ozaawindib as a guide. She led them to a lake known in Ojibwe as Omashkoozo-Zaaga’igan (meaning Elk Lake—not to be confused with the lake known in English as Elk Lake). Schoolcraft decided to rename the lake after the Latin words “veritas” (truth) and “caput” (head), creating the name Lake Itasca—the “true source” of the Mississippi.

After returning with Ozaawindib to the village where she lived on Cass Lake, Schoolcraft gave her a medal. This was a symbol indicating that she would be recognized by the United States government as a chief of her band.

It is not recorded when Ozaawindib died. She is remembered in Ojibwe place names such as Ozaawindibe-Zaaga’igan (Ozaawindib Lake, also known as Lake Plantagenet) and Ozaawindibe-Ziibi (Ozaawindib River, also known as the Schoolcraft River) as well as in English place names such as Yellow Head Point on Lake Itasca and Ozawindib Lake in Itasca State Park.