Before its settlement by European Americans, the Sheboygan area was home to Native Americans, including members of the Potawatomi, Chippewa, Ottawa, Winnebago, and Menominee tribes. In the Menominee language, the place is known as "Sāpīwāēhekaneh," "at a hearing distance in the woods". The Menominee ceded this land to the United States in the 1836 Treaty of the Cedars, a treaty reached after years of negotiation about how to accommodate the Oneida, Stockbridge-Munsee, and Brothertown peoples who had been removed from New York to Wisconsin. Following the treaty, the land became available for sale to white American settlers. Migrants from New York, Michigan, and New England were among the first white Americans to settle this area in the 1830s, though the French had been present in the region since the 17th century and had intermarried with local people. One 19th century settler remarked: "Nearly all the settlers were from the New England states and New York." Lumbering was the first major industry, as trees were harvested and shipped to eastern markets through the Great Lakes.