Burt Lake burn-out

Unlike the political organization found to exist within Native American societies in other areas of North America, the Ottawa (Odawa) and fellow Chippewa (Ojibwa) people of northern Michigan existed as separate small bands of Indians, some migrating with the change in weather, others living in small (100–200 people) fixed villages.

The area of Indian Point on Burt Lake's western shore has been shown by archaeologists to possess pottery fragments that date back over 500 years.

McGinn had summoned the county sheriff, Fred Ming and his deputies to remove all villagers from the land he now claimed to own through his purchases of (supposed delinquent) "tax titles.

"[8] Ming and his deputies sat the household possessions of the nineteen families in front of their cabin homes and one by one, McGinn set fire to the houses.

[9] In 1911, the United States Attorney General, on behalf of the Burt Lake Band, instigated legal action against John W. McGinn in the Eastern District Court of Michigan-Bay City, Michigan.

[10] It was the federal government's claim that the Burt Lake Band had been granted the Indian Village area land by treaty and should not have been evicted for non-payment of property taxes.

[3] The first sovereign nations the newly created United States of America dealt with was the North American-based "Indigenous People" who had arrived first in the New World.

The 1789 adopted United States Constitution followed the established European tradition begun by the French in North America of dealing with the Native People encountered in the new country as separate and sovereign nations.

[11]The Territory of Michigan was organized as part of the Northwest Ordinance of 1789, one of the first acts signed by President George Washington under the newly ratified United States Constitution.

Section 14, Article 3 stated: The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians; their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and, in their property, rights, and liberty, they shall never be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars authorized by Congress; but laws founded in justice and humanity, shall from time to time be made for preventing wrongs being done to them, and for preserving peace and friendship with them.

[4] The group of Ottawa and some Chippewa people who gathered along the western shoreline of the large inland body of water first known as Cheboigan Lake began to make a permanent village there by the early 1800s.

Schoolcraft believed that the Ottawa and Ojibwe (Chippewa) people would be better off learning subsistence farming, and that meant giving up their widespread hunting lands.

[6] At that time, the Ottawa and Chippewa people of the Michigan Territory knew that they needed to deal with the federal government since there was an ever-increasing number of white settlers encroaching upon their hunting lands.

The system of the "company store" was such that when the fur trade began to dwindle in the early 1830s, the Native people had less and less ability to repay for goods they had grown fond of possessing and had bought on credit.

It read: From the cession aforesaid the tribes reserve for their own use, to be held in common the following tracts for the term of five years from the date of the ratification of this treaty, and no longer; unless the United States shall grant them permission to remain on said lands for a longer period..." This change in language which brought the idea of removal to the west caused the Cheboigan Lake band of Ottawa to devise a strategy for survival in Michigan.

[14] ARTICLE 5 read: The tribal organization of said Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, except so far as may be necessary for the purpose of carrying into effect the provisions of this agreement, is hereby dissolved; and if at any time hereafter, further negotiations with the United States, in reference to any matters contained herein, should become necessary, no general convention of the Indians shall be called; but such as reside in the vicinity of any usual place of payment,...[13]The Burt Lake Band was so adamant about this wording and the fact that they wanted to be sure their 1836 Treaty granted land and that their 1848-1850 purchased land would be protected that they did not sign the 1855 Treaty until the summer of 1856—one year later.

[14] The wording of Article 5, put there by the federal government treaty negotiators at the request of the Ottawa and Chippewa headmen (chiefs) in July 1855 actually ended up having the exact opposite effect.

In 1855, the precedent (though wrong) from 1836 was kept and the federal Commissioner for Indian Affairs Henry Gilbert used the terms Ottawa and Chippewa Tribe in the treaty document.

To add to the problem, in 1872 the Secretary of the Interior Columbus Delano picked up on the Long misinterpretation and he voiced the opinion that the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan no longer belonged to any political organization—"bands" included.

It was put there to cover the Metis (1/2 white 1/2 Indian) large population of the upper peninsula who had become the major populace of that area due to the fur trade with French Montreal.

[14] From 1860 until October 1900, the residents of Indian Village, living in some twenty cabins in all, farmed, raised livestock, hunted, gathered, fished and had a self-sustained life.

That life also included selling craft ware (baskets, herbs, blankets) to visiting summer tourists who stopped by the village on day cruises along the "Inland Waterway" from Crooked Lake northeast to the city of Cheboygan.

Their land on the peninsula was valuable either for the red oak timber that grew there or the potential shoreline real estate lots that could be sold to the ever-increasing summer tourists.

The 1930 census showed twelves families of Natives centered around the St. Mary's Catholic Church on Indian Road with six heads of household being listed as farmers.

Throughout the 1960s and 1970s Louise Reznick worked on behalf of the Burt Lake Band educating descendants of the original Indian Village residents.

It was declined on the grounds that the Burt Lake Band failed to meet the Bureau of Indian Affairs established criterion for federal recognition.

The criteria which was met included the Indian entity (Burt Lake Band) had been observed by outsiders to exist on a continuous basis since the 1917 lawsuit brought by the Attorney General of the United States.

[16] However, it was the Bureau's belief that the band did not sufficiently show enough evidence to demonstrate a large portion of its membership list existed as a community at present.

However, the work by noted scholar and historian Richard White (now at Stanford University-CA) in 1978 titled, "The Ethnohistory of the Burt Lake Indians" shows clear evidence that Judge Sessions used incorrect data in making his May 1917 ruling.

[3] Michigan Native people had lived in the Great Lakes area since the early 1600s and had always existed as small bands or villages, or both, separated by distance to enhance their ability to hunt, fish and gather.