Ogemakeketo was said to be born in Aug 1794.
Ogemakeketo was described by Louis Campau as being at the treaty council in September 1819. "He was not yet 25, handsome, and about five feet, ten inches tall. His band lived at the place where the Pine River joined the Chippewa and Tittabawassee rivers, Ephraim Williams later claimed near present-day Midland." [The Daring Trader by Kim Crawford, page 147]
Ogemawkeketo's rebuttal to speech by Lewis Cass. "Your young men have invited us to come and light the Council fire. We are here to smoke the pipe of peace, but not to sell our lands. Our American Father wants them. Our English Father treats us better. He has never asked for them.Your people trepass upon our hunting grounds. You flock to our shores. Our waters grow warm; our land melts like a cake of ice; our possessions grow smaller and smaller; the warm wave of the white man rolls in upon us and melts us away. Our women reproach us. Our children want homes: shall we sell from under them the spot where they spread their blankets? We have not called you here. We smoke with you the pipe of peace." [Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America by Michael John Witgen, 2022]
" Late in the afternoon of September 24 [1819] 114 chiefs and head men signed, or more properly, affixed to the treaty their signature-clan symbols, or totems, or made an X by their names as written out by the governor's men." "Ogemawkeketo and Kawgagezhic...appeared as signatories, their names spelled slightly differently from those given here." [The Daring Trader by Kim Crawford, page 163]
"One of the chiefs present at the council was Ogemawkeketo, who had been a young and powerful speaker for the Saginaw tribe back in 1819. Ogemawkeketo had reportedly become an alcoholic and his health was poor by 1835, but he understood that that treaty language required the individual Flint River reservations were for people of Indian descent. Since no such person had claimed these sections, Ogemakeketo argued, the land should revert to the Chippewa. If the U.S. government or any white individuals wanted this land, they could buy it from the Indians, the chief maintained." [The Daring Trader by Kim Crawford, page 227]
From "Chieftanship Among Michigan Indians, by Emerson Greenman, Michigan History Magazine, vol. 24, 1940, page 373.
Ogemawkeketo died in 1840.
From his memorial page on Find-a-grave:
"Born under the name Little Elk, O-ge-ma Ke-ga-to (or Ogemaw Keketo) did not become chief by lineage. He was a well respected warrior and highly regarded because of his oratorical skills. Because President Madison was demanding to have more council with the Ojibwa clans, Little Elk was elected to be chief speaker at the age of 21 by tribal council. In doing so, he became Ogemaw Keketo, which means 'chief speaker'."
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