 The Ojibwa are one of the Anishinaabe, Algonquian-speaking tribes who settled and flourished around the Great Lakes.The word "Escanaba" roughly translates from Ojibwe and other regional Algonquian languages to "land of the red buck", although some people maintain that it refers to "flat rock".As a European-American settlement, Escanaba was founded in 1863 as a port town by surveyor Eli P. Royce.