THIS study was stimulated by research on Indian land claims. The emphasis in the research was on the occupancy by Indian communities of lands ceded as bounded tracts to the United States; it involved using historical source material to trace the occupancy by specific peoples of a number of circumscribed areas in the old Northwest Territory from the beginning of the historical period to the time of treaty making. Among the Chippewa of the upper Great Lakes and Mississippi headwaters the period comprehends the years between 1640 and the middle of the 19th century... ... Four main divisions of Chippewa [he Bungee (or Plains Ojibwa), the northern Chippewa (or Saulteaux), the southeastern Chippewa and the southwestern Chippewa] had emerged by the onset of the 19th century. These divisions together occupied a vast territory including almost the entire region between the lower peninsula of Michigan, adjacent parts of Ontario, and the plains of eastern Saskatchewan. This territory in the United States included lands adjacent to the northern parts of the upper Great Lakes and the entire region of the headwaters of the Mississippi (see Map 1). In Canada, Chippewa occupied the entire Lake Superior drainage, the northern Lake Huron drainage, and even portions of the upper Ottawa River. Almost the entire Lake Winnipeg region was occupied by Chippewa, and also other parts of the Hudson's Bay drainage including the upper Hays River. This territory, great in extent and diversity, had been occupied as a result of a series of migrations and conquests beginning in the ninth decade of the 17th century, originating in a rather small area adjacent to northern Lake Huron and eastern Lake Superior of which the great fishery at Sault Ste. Marie was the center. The most far ranging of these divisions was the Bungee, or Plains Ojibwa, who adopted a bison hunting economy and resembled other northern Plains tribes in important facets of their political and ceremonial organ... -- Amazon.