By the mid-1830s the Ottawa and Chippewa people of the Michigan Territory sought negotiated treaty agreements with the United States.

[4] The 1836 Treaty of Washington was signed between the Anishinaabe of the Michigan Territory ceding some 13,000,000 acres of land to the US federal government.

In exchange, the Anishinaabeg were to receive annuity payments, supplies and a guarantee they could hunt and fish for perpetuity.

Beginning in February 1848 and ending in April 1850, the members of the Burt Lake Band used their annuity money from the 1836 treaty to buy six separate parcels of land totaling 375 acres.

In October 1900, he used the writ to demand that Sheriff Fred Ming remove the residents of Indian Village.

This historic recognition existed before the 1836 Treaty of Washington and continued through 1917 when a lawsuit involving the Burt Lake Band was decided by federal Judge Clarence Sessions.

Since 1985, the band has petitioned the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to regain its recognition, as the community has held together culturally for these decades.