Red Lake Indian Reservation - History

History

In the 17th century, Ojibwa soldiers were ordered to invade northern Minnesota to clear the way for Anishinaabe settlers. William W. Warren's 19th century book is somewhat helpful but at times a bit confusing. He told of how the Anishinabe people counted generations. One generation to the Anishinabe people was 40 years. Warren was told by Anishinabe elders that 5 generations before his time (around 1850), the Anishinabe people brought the Mille Lacs region under their control. If he used the Anishinabe concept of one generation, the Anishinabe conquest of the Mille Lacs region occurred around 1650. If he used the white concept of one generation which is 20 years, the event occurred around 1750.

Before invading the Mille Lacs region, Ojibwa soldiers had forced their way into the region just west of what is now Duluth. They established a village known as Wi-yah-kwa-kit-chi-ga-ming, which is also known as Fond du Lac. From there, Anishinabe soldiers invaded the Sandy Lake and Red Lake regions. Their conquest of the Red Lake region may have occurred around 1750 or 1650. It depends on what generation concept (either Anishinabe or white) Warren used. Anishinabe people were already living in the Grand Portage, Rainy Lake, and Pembina region of northern Minnesota, before they invaded the Fond du Lac, Mille Lacs, Red Lake, and Sandy Lake regions.

After subjugating the Dakota who lived in the Red Lake region and forcing many to evacuate the area, the Noka (they be the Military and Police totem of the Anishinabe people) settled in. They eventually allowed other Anishinaabe totems to enter the Red Lake region to live. Most immigrants, however, were from the Noka totem and established many villages in the Red Lake region. Later, they and their Dakota allies invaded the plains of North Dakota, western South Dakota, and Montana. The Dakota who refused to surrender continued to fight the Anishinaabe-Dakota alliance. With each battle and defeat, more Dakota asked for peace from the Anishinaabe. The Dakota who continued the conflict developed a great hatred for those Dakotas who were allies of the Anishinaabe.

In the 1850s two Roman Catholic priests established a mission with the Red Lake band. Later nuns from the Benedictine monastery and convent in St. Joseph founded the St. Mary's Mission at Red Lake. They organized a boarding school for girls at the mission.

Allied with the Pembina Band of Chippewa Indians, in 1863 the Red Lake Band negotiated the Treaty of Old Crossing in Minnesota with the United States. This was to cede their lands in the Red River area, and they made additional agreements in the following decades.

The United States and Canada surveyed the international border between them to correct previous errors. By the corrected boundaries, the Northwest Angle was included within the United States, together with its historic residents, the Lac du Bois Band of Ojibwa. Without independent federal recognition from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Lac du Bois Band was consolidated with the Red Lake Band.

While the tribe ceded large tracts of land, it maintained a central portion. There it resisted US attempts to gain its approval for allotment under the Dawes Act, which divided land on reservations in Minnesota and elsewhere into individual household plots, breaking up the communal holdings. After sales of some properties to whites over the years, other reservations such as White Earth found their territory split up in checkerboard patterns, making management and law enforcement jurisdiction confusing. During this period some of the Pembina Band of Chippewa Indians, refusing relocation to the Turtle Mountain or the White Earth reservations, escaped to the Red Lake Indian Reservation because it was "untouched Indian land;" it had never left tribal control.

On July 8, 1889, the United States broke their treaty promises. They told the Minnesota Chippewa that Red Lake and White Earth reservations would be retained, but the others would be put up for public sale. They also said that Chippewa from the other reservations would be relocated to White Earth Reservation. Rather than dealing with the Chippewa of Minnesota on a nation to nation level, the Unites States told the leaders of the Minnesota Chippewa reservations that the members of each reservation could vote separately on whether to accept allotment, with voting to be by all qualified Chippewa men. The Chippewa leaders were outraged. They knew they could count on the average Anishinabe adult male to obey their orders. However, many Dakotas lived on the White Earth and Mille Lacs reservations, and that led to serious problems, because the Dakotas were far more willing to give away land.

The whites counted the total number of votes and the Chippewa suspected them of altering the numbers. Red Lake leaders warned the United States about reprisals if their Reservation were violated. The members of the White Earth and Mille Lacs reservations both voted overwhelmingly to accept land allotments and have the surplus land sold to the whites. The Leech Lake Reservation citizens were reported to have voted the same - to accept land allotments, but history indicates otherwise. The October 5, 1898 Battle of Sugar Point.

In 1889, the Red Lake Reservation covered 3,260,000 acres or 5,093 sq. mi. The Red Lake Reservation was forced to cede 2,905,000 acres as "surplus" after allotment to households on the Dawes Rolls took place. That left the Reservation with over 300,000 acres of land and most of Lower and Upper Red Lake. However, the United States later set aside large areas of forests for the Red Lake Reservation after they learned of Chippewa unrest because of the vote. In 1904, the US officials returned and forced the Red Lake Chippewa to cede much of the land set aside in 1889. The present Red Lake Reservation dates to the 1904 land act. US officials forbade the allotment of land to individual Chippewa living on the Red Lake Reservation.

Only a small portion of the White Earth Reservation remained. This was the northeast part of the full reservation; it was a fraction of the original territory. All other Minnesota Chippewa reservations were actually eradicated after the 1889 Nelson Act. As a result of the 1898 Rebellion, which occurred on the Leech Lake Reservation, the US changed its policy and returned Minnesota's remaining Chippewa reservations, including White Earth.

The current reservation is entirely owned by the Red Lake Band, making it unique among reservations in Minnesota (some tribes own less than 10% of the land on their reservations). Red Lake is the most isolated reservation in the United States. The tribe asserts a significant level of sovereignty, which can cause tension when outsiders attempt to visit. (For instance, the tribe has barred journalists from entry on several occasions.) In addition, prosecution of crimes is sometimes delayed as jurisdiction has to be clarified.

The tribe and reservation was the first in the United States to issue its own vehicle license plates.