Ogimaag: Anishinaabeg Leadership, 1760-1845

5. The Contest for Chiefly Authority at Fond du Lac

183 5 The Contest for Chiefly Authority at Fond du Lac A person who is an expert hunter, one who knows the communications between lakes and rivers, can make long harangues, is a conjurer and has a family of his own; such a man will not fail of being followed by several Indians.—Andrew Graham Anishinaabeg ogimaag did not claim coercive power, but they held important roles in mediating conflicts over the use of community resources, including fisheries, hunting grounds, maple sugar stands, and garden plots. European American fur traders and military officials had learned that when they wished to build in Native communities, they should make formal requests to the chief and council and present appropriate gifts on an annual basis. Although the traders and military officials seem not to have made the connection, these gifts created and maintained fictive kinship ties necessary for neighbors to coexist peacefully. Native people also considered these gifts to be compensation for the resources given up for the location of buildings and the support of the foreigners who inhabited them. When these or other outsiders refused to seek permission, present gifts, or share their food in times of need, the Anishinaabeg considered it a grave insult. Missionaries in particular often neglected to participate in appropriate gift exchange, largely because their cultural context and sense of mission discouraged an understanding of Anishinaabeg cultural norms. The first mission society to have a long-term presence in the western Great Lakes after the departure of the Jesuits in 1763 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 184 The Contest for Chiefly Authority at Fond du Lac was the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (abcfm). Founded in 1810, the abcfm incorporated two years later. Based on the benevolent and charitable societies appearing on the East Coast in the wake of the Second Great Awakening and inspired by the thrilling stories of British missionary work in India, the American Board “represented a new phase of organizing activity” as it “sought to join clergy and Fond du Lac Indian community, 1837. Used by permission of the Northeast Minnesota Historical Center, Duluth mn, s3045b3f4 Edmund F. Ely Papers. The Contest for Chiefly Authority at Fond du Lac 185 public in a religious crusade of global proportions.” The founders believed that involvement in mission activities, whether as actual missionaries or through donations, promised to revitalize Christian religion and spread it to those who lived in ignorance of Christianity. The actual birth of the abcfm took place at the Andover Theological Seminary, where a group of zealous young student evangelicals formed a secret society called the Society of Inquiry on the Subject of Foreign Missions. They carefully screened prospective initiates, took meeting notes in code, and laid surreptitious plans for promoting missions to the “heathen .” After news of their association leaked out in the pages of the Panoplist, an evangelical periodical, the group publicly organized , and the Panoplist, later the Missionary Herald, tantalized its readers with missionary exploits in an effort to encourage other young people to join the cause or donate resources for its support.1 While scholars William McLoughlin and Clara Sue Kidwell have examined the abcfm’s missionary work among southeastern tribes, historians have paid less attention to their work among Ojibwe peoples, perhaps because the Panoplist had little to celebrate in relation to these abcfm efforts.2 Many Ojibwe communities forced abcfm personnel out after only a brief stay. For example, the station at Sandy Lake, Minnesota, operated for only two years (1833–34), and that at Yellow Lake, Wisconsin, for three (1833–36).3 On the other hand, the mission at La Point and Bad River, Wisconsin, had a longer life.4 Founded in 1833, mission operations remained open until 1870.5 These missions ran schools that were coeducational, with roughly equal numbers of male and female students, and provided instruction in the Ojibwe language.6 Furthermore, the abcfm put a great deal of effort into these missions, as indicated by their publication of no less than fourteen texts in the Ojibwe language between 1835 and 1847.7 In her path-breaking work To Be the Main Leaders of Our 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28...