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C H A P T E R F O U R The Story of the Federal Recognition of the Grand Traverse Band T he story of the federal recognition of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians begins with the end of treaty times, when federal government bureaucrats, including the secretary of the Interior, practicedapolicythatwouldlaterbecalled“administrativetermination”—where federal officials illegally refused to acknowledge the government of the Grand Traverse Band beginning in the 1870s. No act of Congress, no treaty, and no agreement—nothing—authorized this action.Andyet itwas sufficient to deprive the Grand Traverse Band community of its bargained-for trust relationship with the United States for over one hundred years. Perhaps in large part due to the egregiousness of administrative termination, the Grand Traverse Band became the first Indian tribe to be formally acknowledged by the Bureau of Indian Affairs’s administrative recognition process in 1980. Federal Government Recognition of the Grand Traverse Band in Treaty Times The United States’ dealings with the various Indian political units during the mid-nineteenth century, when the two major treaties involving the Grand Traverse Band were signed, were very complicated. The Anishinaabek 84 | | 85 understood their political authority and often tried to explain it to the baffled Americans, who just wanted one big tribe and a few big leaders with whom to negotiate. But Michigan Anishinaabek politics were not so simple. As the ogemuk and their speakers explained, again and again, the combined Ottawa and Chippewa “Nation” did not exist as a viable political unit. There were two different “tribes,” Ottawa and Chippewa, who really were peoples grouped by language and culture.These “tribes” elected speakers during treaty negotiations to represent them in their language only. The most significant political unit in treaty negotiations, from the point of view of the Anishinaabek, was the regional confederacy of villages. Hence, the treaty signatories on each treaty are differentiated by region: the Grand Traverse Bands, the Little Traverse Bands, the Grand River Bands, and so on. HenrySchoolcraft,theMichiganIndianagentfrom1822to1841,understood the political structure of the Anishinaabek enough to know that the regional confederacy was the key political unit for dealing with outsiders, such as in a treaty negotiation, but that the real political power lay with certain important village ogemuk. At Grand Traverse in 1838, for example, Schoolcraft knew that Aishquagonabewas the mostvisible and respected ogema in the region, followed 86 | chapter 4 by his nephew Aghosa. For this reason, he sent Peter Dougherty to these men first to secure a mission in the Grand Traverse Bay region. George Manypenny and HenryGilbert took extra time to learn this political structure during the 1855 treaty negotiations, but they did eventually learn. They agreed in the treaty to dissolve the organization known as the Ottawa and Chippewa nation or tribe, a legal fiction, and to deal with the regional confederacies—often called bands—from then on. And these men, and their successors, did so for a decade or more after the ratification of the 1855 Treaty.1 Michigan Indians as Michigan Citizens In 1850, the State of Michigan amended its constitution to include a provision that would create unintended complications for the Michigan Anishinaabek. The constitution of 1850 extended state citizenship and voting rights to Anishinaabek , provided that they were “civilized male[s]” and “not a member of any tribe.”2 According to Richard White, “In 1860 the Attorney General of the State of Michigan would argue that the framers of the constitution intended to enfranchise only this mixed blood, nontribal population [living apart from Indianvillages], not the entireOttawa,Chippewa, and Potawatomie population of the state.”3 The language of the provision, using the words “civilized” and invoking tribal membership, could reasonably be read in the 1860s to draw the line in the way the state attorney general argued. But the provision usually would be interpreted in ways that would be much more detrimental to the Michigan Anishinaabek. While the 1855Treaty dissolved the fictionalOttawa andChippewa nation, it was most certainly intended to preserve the political status of the various bands.The 1850 Michigan constitution complicated that intention.One area of complicationwasvoting. Right away, HenryGilbert, the Indian agent, organized and encouraged Anishinaabe voting in state elections, while others sought to keep the Indians out of the polls. Both used the treaty documents and the language of the constitution to support their arguments about the eligibility of Indian voters.4 Thesesameargumentswouldalsobeusedtosetthestagefortheadministrative termination of the Grand Traverse Band and...

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