Opinion ID: 1592875
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: History of the Lake Superior Chippewa.

Text: The Chippewa originally lived on the northeast coast of the United States. They were gradually driven westward by the powerful Iroquois and Six Nations tribes of New York and Canada. The tribe settled in the northern part of what is now the state of Wisconsin, on the Apostle Islands. While living on the islands the tribe subsisted by fishing and agriculture. As the Sioux moved further west from Wisconsin in the mid-seventeenth century the Chippewa gradually left the islands, settling around Lake Superior and the Mississippi, and dividing into several bands, of which the Lake Superior Chippewa is but one. The Lake Superior band, also known as the Ke-chegum-me-win-in-e-wug, or Great Lake men, settled in what now is northern Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. They lived primarily on the fish in Lake Superior. The report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in 1850 concludes: The Lake Shore Chippewas have an inexhaustible resource in the fish, which plentifully abounds in the waters of the lake. They are naturally well disposed towards the whites, docile and harmless. [2] By the treaties of St. Peters [3] in 1837, and La Pointe [4] in 1842, the Indians ceded their Wisconsin lands to the United States government. In exchange, Article 5 of the 1837 treaty guaranteed the Chippewa hunting and fishing rights on ceded lands during the pleasure of the President of the United States. The provisions of the 1842 treaty gave the Chippewa their hunting rights on ceded lands until required to remove by the President of the United States. On February 6, 1850, President Zachary Taylor invoked the power granted by the 1842 treaty and by executive order directed all of the Chippewa to remove themselves to unceded lands. Despite this order the Chippewa continued to reside in the northernmost part of the State of Wisconsin and to fish in Lake Superior. Then, on February 27, 1854, in response to the presidential order of 1850, the Wisconsin legislature memorialized Congress as follows: [5] MEMORIAL to the President and Congress of the United States, relative to the Chippewa Indians of Lake Superior. To His Excellency the President of the United States, and to the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress assembled: The Memorial of the Legislature of the State of Wisconsin respectfully represents: That the inhabitants of the counties of La Pointe and Douglass have nearly unanimously signed a petition showing to your memorialists, that the Chippewa Indians in the region of Lake Superior are a peaceable, quiet, and inoffensive people, rapidly improving in the arts and sciences: that they acquire their living by hunting, fishing, manufacturing maple sugar, and agricultural pursuits: that many of them have intermarried with the white inhabitants, and are becoming generally anxious to become educated and adopt the habits of the `white man.' Your memorialists would therefore pray His Excellency, the President of the United States, to rescind the orders heretofore given for the removal of said Indians, and that such orders may be given in the premises, as shall secure the payment to said Indians, of their annuities at La Pointe, in La Pointe county on Lake Superior, that being the most feasible point therefor. And your memorialists also pray that the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress assembled will pass such laws as may be requisite to carry into effect such design and orders; and to encourage the permanent settlement of those Indians as shall adopt the habits of the citizens of the United States. And your memorialists firmly believing that justice and humanity require that such action should be had in the premises, will ever pray, etc. Approved, February 27, 1854. On September 30, 1854, President Franklin Pierce signed the treaty under which appellants presently claim their rights. [6] Article 2 of this treaty established reservations for the La Pointe (Bad River) band and Ontonagon (Red Cliff) band. The 1854 treaty represents a fundamental change in federal policy toward the Chippewa inasmuch as it sanctioned their remaining in Wisconsin instead of removal to the unceded lands.