Fish in the Lakes, Wild Rice, and Game in Abundance

by McClurken, James M.; Cleland, Charles E.

• ISBN13: 9780870134920
• ISBN10: 0870134922
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2000-03-01
• Publisher: Michigan State Univ Pr

Summary

On 13 August 1990 members of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe filed a lawsuit against the State of Minnesota for interfering with the hunting, fishing, and gathering rights that had been guaranteed to them in an 1837 treaty with the United States. In order to interpret the treaty the courts had to consider historical circumstances, the intentions of the parties, and the treaty's implementation. The Mille Lacs Band faced a mammoth challenge. How does one argue the Native side of the case when all historical documentation was written by non- Natives? The Mille Lacs selected six scholars to testify for them. Published here for the first time, Charles Cleland, James McClurken, Helen Tanner, John Nichols, Thomas Lund, and Bruce White discuss the circumstances under which the treaty was written, the personalities involved in the negotiations and the legal rhetoric of the times, as well as analyze related legal conflicts between Natives and non- Natives. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor delivered the 1999 Opinion of the [United States Supreme] Court.

Author Biography

James McClurken is an ethnohistorian specializing in Great Lakes Native Americans in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries

Table of Contents

Foreword	p. vii
Primary Testimony Presented on behalf of the Mille Lacs Band in Minnesota v. Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians (97-1337)
Preliminary Report of the Ethnohistorical Basis of the Hunting, Fishing, and Gathering Rights of the Mille Lacs Chippewa	p. 1
An Overview of Chippewa Use of Natural Resources in Historical Perspective
The Western Chippewa in the Early Nineteenth Century
The 1837 Treaty of St. Peters
The 1842 Treaty of La Pointe
Chippewa-American Relations 1825-1850: A Clash of Cultures
The Treaty of Fond du Lac-1847
Attempts to Remove the Chippewa
The Mille Lacs Chippewa in the 1850s
The Reservation Policy and the Treaty of La Pointe-1854
The Treaty of Washington
The Treaties of 1863 and 1864
Off-Reservation Hunting, Fishing, and Gathering in the Post-Treaty Era
Statement of general Conclusions
The Regional Context of the Removal Order of 1850	p. 141
White Population Growth in the Minnesota Region
Political Leadership in Minnesota Territory
Pressure for Removal
Implementing the Removal Order
Tragedy at Sandy Lake
Removal Efforts in 1851
Suspension of the Removal
The Watrous Investigation
The Pleasure of the President
Remnants of the Removal
Beyond the Removal Policy
Mille Lacs Treaty Rights at the End of the Removal Period
Summary and Conclusions
Why Call It the Removal Order of 1850?
Were the Mille Lacs Ojibwe Subject to the Removal Order of 1850?
How Many Ojibwe Were Actually Removed?
The 1837 Treaty of St. Peters Preserving the Rights of the Mille Lacs Ojibwa to Hunt, Fish, and Gather: The Effect of Treaties and Agreements since 1855	p. 329
Mille Lacs and the Treaty of 1855
Treaties of 1863 and 1864
Implementation of the 1863 and 1864 Treaties
The Nelson Allotment Act, 1889
Congressional Acts and the Mille Lacs Reservation
Supporting Testimony
The Mille Lacs Band and the Treaty of 1855	p. 463
The 1837 and 1855 Chippewa Treaties in the Context of Early American Wildlife Law	p. 486
The Translation of Key Phrases in the Treaties of 1837 and 1855	p. 514
Appendix
Minnesota, et al., Petitioners v. Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians et al.; No. 97-1337 Opinion of the Supreme Court	p. 525
Index	p. 547
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