Menominee

The Menominee (also spelled Menomini in early scholarly literature; known as Mamaceqtaw, "the people," in their own language, are a nation of Native Americans living in Wisconsin. The Menominee Tribe of Wisconsin is federally recognized and has a 353.894 sq mi (916.581 km²) reservation in the state. Their historic territory originally included 10 million acres in Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of present-day Michigan. The tribe has 8700 members.

The tribe was terminated in the 1950s under federal policy of the time. During that period, they brought what has become a landmark case in Indian law to the United States Supreme Court, in Menominee Tribe v. United States (1968), after the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the United States Court of Claims drew opposing conclusions about the effect of the termination on Menominee hunting and fishing rights on their former reservation land. The Supreme Court determined that the tribe had not lost traditional hunting and fishing rights as a result of termination, as Congress had not clearly ended these in its legislation.

The tribe regained federal recognition in 1973 in an act of Congress, and re-established its reservation in 1975. They operate under a written constitution, and their first government under it took over from the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1979.