Clintonville lies within ancestral Menominee territory. In the Menominee language, it is known as "Omīniahkan," "place where pigeons are hunted". It was ceded to the United States by the Menominee in 1836 through the Treaty of the Cedars, an agreement to sell over four million acres to the United States as part of the negotiations about how to accommodate the Oneida, Stockbridge-Munsee, and Brothertown peoples who were being removed from New York to Wisconsin. After this, the area around Clintonville became available for purchase by white American settlers.