Seasons of Change: Labor, Treaty Rights, and Ojibwe Nationhood by Chantal Norrgard (review)

IN HER DETAILED AND WELL-RESEARCHED ANALYSIS of the connection between Ojibwe labor and treaty rights, Chantal Norrgard builds on the work of Alice Littlefield, Brian Hosmer, William Bauer, and Colleen O’Neill by demonstrating that there is a correlation between a tribe’s labor practices and its resistance to the United States. By blending the methods of labor historians and ethnohistorians, she examines the labor practices of the Ojibwe located near Lake Superior at the turn of the twentieth century. She illuminates the ways in which the tribe used their traditional labor practices not only to resist the U.S. government but also as a way to maintain a level of tribal sovereignty.

Before delving into her analysis of Ojibwe labor in the context of treaty rights, Norrgard provides her readers with a foundation of traditional Ojibwe labor before the introduction of the fur trade. Ojibwe culture revolved around a belief in the “good life” or bimaadiziwin. This life revolved around shifting labor practices that were directly correlated to the Lake Superior climate. The Ojibwe had a variety of hunting and gathering practices throughout the spring, summer, and fall and lived on their stores in the winter. Norrgard articulates that in order for this bimaadiziwin to survive the Ojibwe had a reciprocal relationship with the animal world, which was important for the continuation of successful hunting, as they needed to give back to animals for their sacrifice. Norrgard illustrates that this way of life changed after the introduction of the fur trade, which is the focus of her study.

After she lays out the foundation of Ojibwe labor she dives into the heart of her argument. She contends, “Thinking about Ojibwe labor as part of a dynamic, shifting history enables us to consider how labor was defined by a variety of economic activities and how it became intertwined with American Indian assertions of sovereignty over time” (4). In order for Norrgard to demonstrate how labor and treaty rights played a crucial role in Ojibwe Nationhood she divides her analysis thematically. The topics she covers focus on the evolution of traditional labor practices, such as fishing, and ones that began at the end of the nineteenth century, such as the expansion of tourism. Each one of the themes she covers broadens our understanding of Ojibwe treaty rights and their sovereignty.

Many of the changes that occurred within Ojibwe culture with regard to labor happened simultaneously with other changes in labor. Norrgard demonstrates that while the Ojibwe hunted and trapped game for an income, they also began to fish commercially. Much like the tribes of the north-western United States the Ojibwe struggled to maintain their rights to fish. As Norrgard notes, because of the fishing rights guaranteed to the tribe in the treaties of 1837 and 1842, many Ojibwe continued to fish commercially off-reservation. Members of the tribe believed that commercial fishing was merely an extension of their older practices despite the fact that it “was oriented around the extraction of resources for the capitalist market” (64). As the private fishing industry expanded in Lake Superior, both Minnesota and Wisconsin began to pass regulations on the industry that greatly limited the tribe’s ability to maintain their own fishing industry. Norrgard provides an analysis of two seminal cases in Wisconsin, Re Blackbird and State v. Morrin, which demonstrate the tribe’s efforts at resisting the government restrictions imposed on them and how the state continued to try to limit the tribe’s jurisdiction over fishing rights. While the Ojibwe still faced challenges with regard to fishing rights, Norrgard mentions that today, “walleye warriors” refers to tribe members who continued to fish despite the challenges posed by the state (82).

With Seasons of Change, Chantal Norrgard has successfully established that the practices of labor historians should not be separate from those of Native American history. She demonstrates how traditional labor practices and the maintenance of treaty rights allowed the tribe to...