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C H A P T E R T H R E E The Story of the Dispossession of the Grand Traverse Band Land Base T he 1855 Treaty of Detroit intended to solidify the Anishinaabe land base did not help at all. In perhaps the worst case of mass fraud and incompetence inAmerican Indian political and legal history, theGrand Traverse Band suffered the near-complete dispossession of their lands. Anishinaabe Property Rights before the Treaties The Anishinaabek of the Grand Traverse Bay region lived in a complex system of property and land use for hundreds of years before the negotiation of the first American treaties. The origin story of the confederation of the several Ottawa villages with two Chippewa villages that would become the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa villages is instructive. By the eighteenth century, the center of regional trading andAnishinaabe politicswas the Mackinac Straits. During this century,theOttawaandChippewainformallydividedtheLowerPeninsulagoing north and south from Mackinac,with theChippewa people staying toward the Lake Huron shore and the Ottawa people keeping to the Lake Michigan side. Mackinac would remain a critical summer village where Anishinaabe people 56 | | 57 and others might congregate for trade and for other reasons. At this time, the villages that would be affiliated with the Waganakising Odawak (the L’Arbre Croche people) and the Grand Traverse Band formed as this group of Ottawa people moved south. There are two stories as to the possible reason for the placement of two Chippewa villages on the Ottawa side of Michigan. The first, and perhaps less likely, is that some Chippewas assisted the Ottawas who drove out the Mascoutens, who occupied the western half of the northern Lower Peninsula. The Ottawas who then occupied the region rewarded these Chippewas with rights to some territories there. The second story, retold by Andrew Blackbird, the leading Michigan Ottawa historian of the nineteenth century, is that a young Ottawa murdered a Chippewa at Mackinac. The Ottawas chose to avoid retribution from the Chippewas by offering territories in the Grand Traverse Bay region to the Chippewas.1 If nothing else, these stories demonstrate the link between politics and territory as to theGrandTraverse BandOttawas andChippewas.A brief recap of Anishinaabe land use and history detailed in earlier chapters is necessary here. TheGrandTraverseBayAnishinaabeland-usepatternswereseasonal.During 58 | chapter 3 the summer, the Anishinaabek would congregate in fishing and gardening villages along the coast of the bay and Lake Michigan.After harvest and before the snows, the Anishinaabek, dividing into smaller familial hunting units, would retreat inland to lakes and rivers in Michigan. Favorite places included the Manistee and Grand River valleys in mid- and southern Michigan. Many Grand Traverse people would travel by canoe to northern Indiana and Illinois. Duringthewinter,theAnishinaabekwouldrelyonstoredvegetablesandberries, and some hunting and fishing for sustenance. In the spring, around early to mid-March, the Anishinaabek would begin returning to the bay area to harvest maple sugar. In March, the food stores would be at their lowest point, and maple sugar could become a major part of the Anishinaabe diet until the hunting and fishing season started in the latter part of spring.The favorite places for sugaring included the swampy lakes area on the east shore of the Grand Traverse Bay. During the sugar seasons, some summervillages that might otherwise be occupied most of theyear could appear to be entirely abandoned.2 After the six- to eight-week sugaring season ended, the Grand Traverse Anishinaabekwould return to their larger summervillages,where the hunting and fishing would begin, and the key crops would be planted for the summer. Thesummervillageswouldserveasabaseforthesummer,buttheAnishinaabek would move around the Great Lakes region during this period. Many Indians would travel to favorite hunting, fishing, trapping, and gathering places in the region,while returning periodically to the summervillage to tend to the gardens. At this time, the Grand Traverse Anishinaabek would engage in the dynamic and lucrative summer trading season based in Mackinac, but extending as far east as Montreal and as far south as Chicago. The Ottawa, in particular, were well-known as traders. The governmental and property-rights structure at this time was based in the family or hunting units, and their respective territories.3 Father Baraga wrote that “Each family of this tribe has a certain hunting region, to which the members of the family have a particular and exclusive right. Intrusions on these tracts are the most common source of disputes among the Indians, and sometimes also of bloodshed.”4 The leading family member...

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