In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

The Kawbawgam Cases: Native Claims and the Discovery of Iron in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan by Rebecca J. Mead The southern shore of Lake Superior is a beautiful but rugged and isolated region that inhibited early Anglo-American settlement and still poses significant challenges for its inhabitants. In 1840, seasonally nomadic groups of Algonkian-speaking Natives and the mixed-race peoples of the fur trade occupied the area, but after the discovery of valuable mineral resources the situation changed rapidly. Although the Native peoples had mined copper for several thousand years, they did not use iron, probably because intense heat is needed to extract and work the ore. 1 When the first Anglo-American surveying and prospecting parties came to the area, local Natives guided them to the fabulously rich deposits of the Marquette Iron Range but the prospectors shared little of the subsequent wealth. Charlotte Kawbawgam’s story reveals, however, that Anglo-Americans did not always appropriate Native resources without gratitude or payment. Kawbawgam’s efforts to obtain compensation from the Jackson Iron Company for services rendered by her father Matji-gijig (“Bad Day”) in locating the Marquette Iron Range culminated in three Michigan Supreme Court cases in the 1880s and a landmark decision.2 In the “New Indian History” paradigm, scholars minimalize preconceptions about Native victimization, degradation, and “vanishing” to 1 Susan R. Martin, “The State of Our Knowledge about Ancient Copper Mining in Michigan,” The Michigan Archaeologist 41, no. 2-3 (1995): 119-138; Charles E. Cleland, Rites of Conquest: The History and Culture of Michigan’s Native Americans (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992), 18-19. 2 “Marji Ge[e]sick” is the name given to Matji-gijig in court records and is retained in that context. (Similarly, “Kawbawgam” is Kobogum when referencing the final legal case). There are many variants on Matji-gijig’s name in American sources, and I thank Kenn Pitawanakwat of the NMU Center for Native American Studies for suggesting this version. The Michigan Historical Review 40:2 (Fall 2014): 1-31©2014 Central Michigan University. ISSN 0890-1686 All Rights Reserved 2 The Michigan Historical Review emphasize adaptability, hybridity, and performativity. All human beings must have decisions (i.e., “agency”), but they do so within larger institutional and cultural systems (i.e., “structures”) which constrain their choices. As James Spady wrote in a recent book review essay, “Ultimately . . . a historiographic return to Native Americans will restore the full and complex agency of Indians in the history of North America and will require understanding the varied and contested power dynamics of imperialism and colonization.”3 Many studies have demonstrated efforts by Native peoples to redress grievances through the legal structures of dominant societies. Native peoples in Latin America quickly learned to use colonial administrative and legal structures to protect their rights. In the United States, much Native policy has resulted from legal actions and decisions, including the Cherokee Nation cases in the 1830s, in resistance to removal. Although Andrew Jackson circumvented those decisions, they established foundational relations and principles of US-Native law and helped Charlotte Kawbawgam win her case.4 In the Kawbawgam cases, the plaintiffs ultimately received little in material compensation, but was that their primary goal? Charlotte Kawbawgam and her allies asserted historical agency, tested the legal system to see if and how “the master’s tools” (i.e., the same legal structures that were so often oppressive) could be used to defend their rights, and they prevailed.5 3 James O’Neil Spady, “Reconsidering Empire: Current Interpretations of Native American Agency during Colonization,” Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 10, no. 2 (2009). 4 For Latin America see, for example, Matthew Restall, Lisa Sousa, and Kevin Terraciano, Mesoamerican Voices: Native-Language Writings from Colonial Mexico, Oaxaca, Yucatan, and Guatemala (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 62-93. For the Cherokee Nation cases see fn 56. For Native resistance to removal in the Upper Great Lakes region, see Susan E. Gray, “Limits and Possibilities: White-Indian Relations in Western Michigan in the Era of Removal,” Michigan Historical Review 20, no. 1 (1994): 7191 ; James McClurken, “Ottawa Adaptive Strategies to Indian Removal,” Michigan Historical Review 12, no. 1 (1986...

pdf

Share