The boots are named after the Chippewa Indians from Wisconsin.
The name is a Chippewa word meaning "first" or "he goes before," and is said to have been chosen at the request of the Pioneer Iron Company as an equivalent for "Pioneer."
Among the many different tribes were the Sioux, Chippewa, Kickapoo, Menominee, Mascoutin, Potawatomi, Winnebago, and Sauk and Foxes.
In 1712 the slaughter of a band of Foxes near Detroit was the signal for hostilities which lasted almost continuously until 1740, 1 and in which every tribe in the Wisconsin country was sooner or later involved either in alliance with the Foxes or with the French; the Chippewa, always hostile to the Foxes, the Potawatomi and the Menominee sided with the French.
Here was buried the Chippewa chief, Hole-in-the-Day (c. 1827-1868), or Bagwunagijik, who succeeded his father, also named Holein-the-Day, as head chief of the Chippewas in 1846.
