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255 chapter 12  The Apostle Islands National Lakeshore and the Native Americans On May 10, 1962, a resolution of the Bad River Tribal Council requested that the secretary of the Interior and the governor of Wisconsin initiate studies into the feasibility of “the establishment of a National ShorelineRecreational Wildlife Area consisting of approximately 20,000 acres of land within the Bad River Reservation north of the Village of Odanah and U.S. Highway 2.” The resolution opened up a complex series of legal, institutional, and political issues regarding the Chippewa (also referred to as Ojibwe in some documents) with which the state of Wisconsin, the U.S. Department of the Interior, Congress, and the two Wisconsin tribal councils grappled for eight years. These issues were rooted in the history of the Chippewa people, the treaties they signed with the U.S. government, and the experiences of the two reservations, Bad River and Red Cliff, that were involved in the establishment of the lakeshore. History of the Chippewa The Chippewa call themselves the Anishinaabeg (First People) and currently occupy areas of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Ontario in Canada (where they are known as Ojibwe). They are not the original residents of the area but relocated sometime between the late 1500s and early 1600s from an area along the northeast Atlantic coast, likely the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. Anthropologists state that they were driven out by more aggressive members of the Five Nations (the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca Tribes) securing their hold on the fur trade with the new European arrivals. The Anishinaabeg say that the tribe was led by a vision to follow the intermittent appearance of the sacred Miigis shell, which rose from the eastern sea, giving 256 issues and policy studies life and warmth to the people, only to sink and rise again further west. The sun reflecting off the shell gave the people both wisdom and the color of their skin. The people followed the shell to the Straits of Mackinac, in Michigan, where the tribe split into three groups: the Ottawa remained at the straits, the Potawatomie turned south along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan (where they live today), and the Chippewa continued on west and north. It is likely they arrived on the shores of Madeline Island in Chequamegon Bay in Lake Superior, which they called Monjngwunakuaning—the place of the golden-breasted woodpecker. Some spiritual leaders state that they were returning to their original home, rather than a new place. They later moved east, where Jean Nicolet found them living around the eastern end of Lake Superior in 1643. By 1679, however they had returned westward and established villages along the south shore of Lake Superior, along Chequamegon Bay, throughout the Apostle Islands, and in Keweenaw Bay in Michigan, having displaced the original inhabitants in battles still talked about (the original residents moved further west and are now known as the Lakota, or Sioux). The Chequamegon Bay area was a clear power base for the tribe by the turn of the century. French fur traders found small, semi-nomadic bands connected through extensive clan linkages. In the winter they hunted and trapped. In the spring they harvested maple syrup and in the fall wild rice, carefully returning a third of the harvest to the waters to ensure the next year’s crop. Some crops were planted, to be gathered green if necessary, and berries and plants were collected and preserved. The Chippewa became keen participants in the fur trade and by the eighteenth century were dependent upon regular trade for their livelihoods, a trade that survived battles between European countries over whose colonies these were. Most tribes in the Midwest backed the French over the British in the 1740s and the British over the Americans in the War of Independence. At the end of each war, they were essentially considered by the victors as “conquered,” because in each case their former allies made no treaty provision for their native troops. After the British surrendered the colony to the new American government, the Native Americans became subject to the American government ’s disposition. The Americans were not interested in the potential for trade, although the tribes most certainly were, given their dependence upon trade goods for many basic necessities. Instead, the Americans were far more interested in the land as private property for a growing American population. After the Americans had established their presence in the Lake Superior [3.17.154...

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