From Berries to Orchards: Tracing the History of Berrying and Economic Transformation among Lake Superior Ojibwe

In 1938 Florina Denomie, an Ojibwe woman from Bad River Reservation, wrote an essay for the Works Progress Administration's Chippewa Indian Historical Project. She stated:

One of the leading industries of the Chippewas of Lake Superior is blueberry picking. This, of course, like other occupations which are the endowments of Nature, is seasonal, and outside of the more substantial industries, such as farming and lumbering, blueberry picking ranks first in point of dollars and cents.¹

Denomie was speaking of berrying in 1938, but that she chose to pursue this topic as part of a historical project speaks to the persistence and importance of berrying as a commercial industry for Ojibwe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and one of many forms of labor that had strong links to their identity as indigenous people.

Ojibwe have relied on berries as a form of sustenance throughout their history. In response to the growth of the market economy in the nineteenth century, Ojibwe harvested berries for sale or found work picking berries for large regional produce enterprises in addition to harvesting them for subsistence. Berry picking also held (and holds) social and cultural meanings, linking families and communities as individuals continue to recall berry-picking stories or the significance of their time together in the berry camps. Yet despite this long history of how berrying sustained Ojibwe, little has been written on its history and significance as a treaty right and a form of labor that enabled Ojibwe to carry on their cultural and social values in the face of historical change.

In light of these contexts this article explores the history of berrying as a significant example of how Lake Superior Ojibwe weathered economic transitions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It looks at the emergence of the berry industry surrounding the Fond du Lac, Red Cliff, and Bad River communities, beginning with Ojibwe relocation to these reservations in the mid-nineteenth century and ending with World War II, when the market for berries changed drastically as a result of the mechanization of agriculture. The history of berrying in these communities speaks to the manner in which Ojibwe adapted and intertwined differing forms of labor in dynamic ways. More important, berrying stories—accounts by Ojibwe of berrying experiences—provide insight into the meanings of these transformations.²

Because Ojibwe reserved the rights to gather as well as hunt and fish in treaties with the United States in 1837 and 1842, the story of the transformation of these activities holds significant political weight as it relates to tribal self-determination. The history of economic transformation preceded the treaties and would continue to play an important role in Ojibwe persistence. For more than two centuries Ojibwe engaged in commerce via the fur trade, transforming activities such as hunting and trapping to meet the demands of regional and global markets and trading surplus commodities such as wild rice and maple sugar to Europeans in exchange for goods. When they reserved gathering, hunting, and fishing rights in treaties, Ojibwe leaders reserved the right to survive off the land as they had done for an extended period of time in a manner that would allow them to continue contemporary economic practices, including the commoditization of specific natural resources for commercial purposes. They saw the stipulation of these rights as a way to ensure their future economic and cultural perseverance while enabling them to navigate future changes on their own terms within the constraints caused by American colonialism.

Historian Brian Hosmer has argued that indigenous cultures "had and have the power, indeed the flexibility, to adapt to market capitalism, and in a way that stops short of outright disintegration or loss of a sense of cultural distinctiveness."³ Treaties and treaty rights were an important part of this process of adaptation because they represented Ojibwe political identity as an indigenous people. These rights were reserved with the purpose of ensuring the continuity of Ojibwe lifeways and culture even as they changed over time. Though the federal and state governments increasingly encroached on...