Native Americans were the first to live in the area. Originally, the land was part of the Great Dakota Nation, but when the Ojibwa arrived from the Great Lakes region, the tribes began to clash over the land. The Ojibwa were armed with knives and guns traded to them by white settlers and fur traders, and after years of bloody warfare the Ojibwa had forced the Dakota to give up all their land east of the Mississippi River, and north of the Crow Wing River, land which did not include what is now Eden Prairie.