Rez Life: An Indian’s Journey Through Reservation Life

Treuer is on Indian Point, the western part of Lake Mille Lacs, fishing with Sean Fahrlander and Fahrlander’s brothers, Marc and Mike. Mille Lacs, which is based in east central Minnesota, is a big place, but the reservation is not. The lake is 206 square miles, however; it is the second largest in the state and one of the largest in the United States. Lake Mille Lacs has been inhabited for around 9,000 years by the Dakota, the Ojibwe, and other tribes. The first European to settle at Lake Mille Lacs was the Franciscan priest, Father Louis Hennepin, who was taken captive in 1680 by the Dakota. He remained with the tribe for five months and recorded what he saw—particularly “the wealth of the land and the people” (52-53). According to legend, it was a lover’s quarrel that drove the Dakota from the lake. However, it would be another century after this supposed quarrel before all the Dakota moved westward and out of northern and central Minnesota.

Representatives from Mille Lacs signed the Treaty of Prairie du Chien in 1825, which was intended to be a treaty between the local tribes. Fighting between the Dakota and the Ojibwe along the Minnesota River over trapping and hunting rights had hindered trade and settlement in the region. By 1837, the fur trade was in trouble. The beaver, otter, and muskrat “had been trapped to near-extinction” (54). Meanwhile, more white settlers were coming from the East. Out west, the Dakota had colonized the plains and were using their command of the horse to aid them. There were no natural resources, neither the rice beds nor “untapped trapping grounds,” that they could bring under their control (55). So, the Ojibwe agreeably went to the treaty table in 1837. The federal government offered to give the tribe money in exchange for land. The tribe was also promised the rights to “hunt, fish, and trap […] without interference or restriction” (55). The treaty did not mention logging. This mattered because “the virgin white pine forests of the upper Mississippi” helped “fuel the growth” of the Midwest for 50 years (56).

Another clause in the treaty guaranteed the lands and waters in the territory at the pleasure of the US president. In 1850, President Zachary Taylor used his executive authority to cancel the clause. Taylor, who had been in the military for 40 years, was antagonistic toward Indigenous nations. He defended a fort from Tecumseh during the War of 1812 and fought Native Americans during the Black Hawk War, receiving Chief Black Hawk’s surrender. Taylor also fought in Florida during the Seminole Wars. As a result of Taylor’s removal of the clause, Indigenous tribes had “no rights to hunt, fish, or gather” on ceded lands (57). Meanwhile, the vast forests in the Midwest were diminishing daily.

In the 1840s, just a few years after the 1837 treaty, the US government tried to remove the Ojibwe. Valuable mineral deposits, mainly of copper and iron ore, were discovered in the Lake Superior watershed, and the government wanted to mine them. President Taylor ordered the removal of the Ojibwe in 1850 and sought to place them out West. The government claimed that the reasons for removal were to limit potential conflict between Indigenous people and white people, to get tribes away from whiskey traders, and to place the Ojibwe in areas that were more conducive to “civilizing” them.

Chief Buffalo and other leaders fought back, citing the treaty of 1842 which guaranteed the Ojibwe “access to their land and the right to stay” (57). The government refused and ultimately denied the Ojibwe annuity payments in the forms of food, traps, money, and blankets, traps, and money. The Ojibwe were forced to Sandy Lake, about 300 to 500 miles away from their original settlements. An estimated 630 Ojibwe people “starved, froze, and died of disease at Sandy Lake in the winter of 1851” (57).

In 1855, the Mille Lacs Band signed another treaty with the federal government. The government guaranteed the band 60,000 acres near the south end of Mille Lacs Lake. The northern half was occupied by loggers. By 1862, more white settlers were arriving “into the fertile Minnesota River valley with the encouragement of the U.S. government” (58). As more farmers were taking up Dakota territory, the Dakota faced starvation. The US government was not fulfilling its promises to the tribe, so the Dakota decided to rid themselves of white settlers. On August 17, 1862, a party of tribe members attacked a nearby farm, killing three men and two women. The next day, Dakota warriors ransacked the Lower Sioux Indian Agency, killed everyone there, and overtook the agency.

By the end of the conflict, between 400 and 800 white people were dead, as were “many more Dakota” (59). It has been recorded as the largest civilian death toll due to “foreign attack” until the September 11 terrorist attacks. In the aftermath, the government sentenced 300 Dakota to the death penalty. 38 Dakota were hanged in Mankato, Minnesota. This was “the largest mass execution in the history of the United States” (59). For a century, the Dakota endured hardship, while white Americans enjoyed extraordinary prosperity by comparison. The Department of the Interior opened Mille Lacs Reservation to loggers, breaking the terms of the treaty that the Mille Lacs had signed with the federal government. Soon thereafter, white farmers moved in. Although Mille Lacs Band members complained, the government was indifferent to their concerns. Many of the Mille Lacs were displaced and sent to White Earth Reservation, which had been newly established out west.

Many Indigenous nations did not know about their treaty rights for the first half of the 20th century. Until 1934, most reservations were under the control of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), missions, and Indian agents. Indigenous Americans did not have attorneys and were too busy trying to survive as food sources dwindled. Meanwhile, the Indian Reorganization Act (IRA), attempted to set up tribal governments like town governments, except that the nations would have federal protection of “special rights” (64). There was little discussion, however, of treaty rights, and few tribes, due to repeated demoralization, pressed for them—that is, until the winter of 1974 when Fred and Mike Tribble “decided to test the limits of those rights” (65).

The Tribble brothers belonged to the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe in northern Wisconsin. They left their reservation and cut a hole in the ice at Chief Lake. There, they began to spear fish. Before leaving the reservation, they notified the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) about what they intended to do. Officers from the WDNR were there when the brothers arrived. After they were arrested, they sued Lester Voight, the head of the department, claiming that they still had the treaty rights secured by Chief Buffalo. This meant that the brothers and other tribe members could hunt or fish wherever they wished. Other Ojibwe joined their fight for treaty rights, both on and off the reservation. A federal district court judge ruled against them in 1978, but the Ojibwe still fished. White protestors formed committees to prevent Indigenous Americans from exercising these treaty rights.

On April 26, 1987, white protestors threw rocks at Ojibwe fishers who were fishing on Butternut Lake. These protestors often chanted, “Save a Walleye…Spear an Indian” or “Save Two Walleye—Spear a Pregnant Indian.” Indigenous Americans were harassed and shot at. In the same year, two white men, Bruce Currie and Pat Coughlin, set off two pipe bombs targeting Ojibwe fishers. Currie denied that he was racist, claiming that he was only goofing around.

The tension calmed when studies revealed that off-reservation spearfishing had no significant impact on walleye populations. Considering that the walleye attracted tourist fishers, those who protested treaty rights now had no cause to worry. In an interesting turn of events, the same white protestors joined with Ojibwe activists to protest the development of Crandon Mine due to concerns about mine waste polluting the walleye fisheries. The Sokaogon Ojibwe and Forest Potawatomi bought the mine with $16.5 million in casino profits and shut it down.

In other states, tribes followed the example set by the Wisconsin Ojibwe and fought for their treaty rights. In Washington and Oregon, tribes pressed for whaling and salmon harvesting. In Michigan, tribes claimed “commercial fishing rights in the Great Lakes” (67). Others in the Southwest wanted access to sacred grounds. Not everyone was as successful as the Ojibwe in securing their treaty rights, however.

The Mille Lacs Band made a claim for their treaty rights in 1990. The state of Minnesota had interfered with their fishing, hunting, and gathering rights. Four years later, the District Court of Minnesota affirmed the band’s treaty rights.

It was the casino at Mille Lacs that brought in the flush of money needed for infrastructure: roads, modern housing, elder housing, a tribal school, a new clinic, and a museum that operated in partnership with the Minnesota Historical Society. Also, to maintain their treaty rights, the tribe held a top legal team on retainer.

Treaty rights create limitations, encourage particular harvest methods, and set seasons that may seem unfair to those who are not Indigenous. Also, many of those who protest treaty rights are poor. However, according to Treuer, what people are unable to understand about treaty rights related to fishing extends equally to what they don’t understand about other rights. Fishing and hunting are privileges for which most people must pay, usually in the form of licenses. When someone is convicted of a felony, they lose that privilege. Some anti-treaty groups claim that they are following the teachings of Martin Luther King, Jr. by working to provide white people with “equal rights.” They have also claimed that Indigenous fishing methods, which require spears and nets, “are tantamount to raping the land” (78). Thus, many anti-treaty protestors are aligned with environmentalists on the issue of treaty rights.