Treaty of Old Crossing - Conclusion

Conclusion

Surely, the Treaties of Old Crossing, in the words of Bishop Whipple, were "a fraud from start to finish"—the product of an incestuous and sustained collaboration of partners in business, politics and intrigue, if not of crime and corruption.

In reality, the Old Crossing Treaties were simply a means of taking land away from the Indians and passing it on to white settlers. They were the culmination of a deliberate and sustained political, economic and military campaign that had no possible outcome other than capitulation by the Ojibwe, even if they had understood the nature of the bargain they had reached. This was a campaign coordinated and carried out by a small group of well-connected collaborators who dominated the trade and business development of Northwestern Minnesota while also controlling the state's political and military apparatus. The treaties imposed a "peace" only in the sense that they removed Indians from the continued contest for control of the country. As with most treaties, they defined a "peace" which was constructed for and defined by the victors while providing not much of anything for the losers.

Within ten years of signing the treaty, most of the ceded territory already had been made available for purchase, and within twenty years, by 1883, virtually all of it had been opened for settlement and homesteaded or sold as railroad land in the last great land boom of northern Minnesota and eastern North Dakota. The Ojibwe bands receded to their reservations, which were themselves whittled away and substantially sold out from under them under the Dawes Act and other forced enactments of the United States Government.