White Pine Treaty
[4] However, in 1983 and 1999 federal courts upheld the Ojibwe people’s usufructuary rights on the ceded land in Wisconsin and Minnesota respectively citing the 1837 treaty’s protections.
Before the colonization of the Americas, Ojibwe communities lived on a vast territory around the Upper Great Lakes and further West onto the plains of both the modern day US and Canada.
[10] When they were approached by the US Government with the possibility to open some of their land up to industry in return for annuity payments, some Ojibwe bands seized the opportunity to support their emerging economies and help pay off debt from the fur trade.
[3] In particular, the land cession was negotiated to guarantee access to the Wisconsin Territory's lumber resources that was needed to help build housing for the growing populations in St. Louis, Missouri and Cleveland, Ohio.
[17]Two men led the treaty delegation for the US: the Governor of the Wisconsin territory, Henry Dodge, and Verplanck Van Antwerp who would later serve as the Secretary to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
[9] These men set the meeting place at what was then called St. Peter’s, at Fort Snelling near the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers.
Some of the American participants in the negotiations doubted the ability of the interpreters to provide accurate translations to the Ojibwe people present, and certainly differences in language challenged mutual understanding between all parties.
After the people who live in that country shall have told you their minds I will speak.”[9]In spite of the diversity among the groups represented, Dodge chose to characterize the Ojibwe in attendance as one political body.
Erasing the diversity of groups present in that legal document led to strained relationships between the various bands for years to come as the implications of that treaty and others were negotiated and contested.
[9] After weeks of negotiation and ceremony, representatives of several Ojibwe bands signed the White Pine Treaty ceding a large swath of land in what is now Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Article V of the treaty reads, “The privilege of hunting, fishing, and gathering the wild rice, upon the lands, the rivers and the lakes included in the territory ceded, is guaranteed to the Indians, during the pleasure of the President of the United States.”[18] The treaty did not include any agreement by the Ojibwe to leave that land or stop hunting, gathering, and harvesting on it.
Charles Royce in his 1899 report and accompanying map to the United States Congress designated the territory as "Land Cession Area No.
[24] In Minnesota v. Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians, the Supreme Court ruled that the Ojibwe were still guaranteed the rights to hunt, fish, and gather that were outlined in the Treaty of St Peters.
[26] Following the Lac Court Oreilles Band of Chippewa Indians v. Lester P. Voigt, et al. ruling in 1987, white recreational fishermen protested Ojibwe fishing practices in what has been called the Wisconsin Walleye War.
[29] During the summer of 2020, Ojibwe bands in Minnesota held virtual events commemorating all the harm the US Government has caused by violating their sovereignty, as well as celebrating uplifting their rights to hunt and fish and practice lifeways that they’ve maintained over the centuries.
However, in Wisconsin with consent of the property-owner and with tribally issued license, all treaty rights of hunting, fishing and gathering may be exercised by the members of the signatory bands.
