What Did the Us Government Hope to Gain From Signing the Treaty of Traverse De Sioux?

U. S.–American Indian Treaties in Minnesota

As the United states of america expanded due west, treaties became the main vehicle for acquiring Indian lands. Betwixt 1837 and 1867, Dakota and Ojibwe bands in Minnesota negotiated approximately 16 treaties specifically ceding vast tribal territories to the Us.  In commutation, the tribes were promised appurtenances, services, cash payments, and reservations. At times, tribes retained admission to resources on lands that were sold.

"I understand what you lot want . . . from the few words I have heard you speak. Y'all want land."

— Flat Mouth, primary of the Pillager Band of Chippewa, during treaty negotiations with U.S. officials, 1855

Francis Davis Millet, The Signing of the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux (item), 1905. | Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society

Who Gave What to Whom?

Many people recall that the United states of america gave state to the Indians, merely the reverse is true. During conferences with U.Due south. treaty officials, Dakota and Ojibwe leaders agreed, often nether pressure level, to give upwardly large portions of their homelands and retain small areas of land, called reservations, for the exclusive use of their people and descendants. In exchange, the United states promised to provide tribal nations with social, economic, and educational services, a responsibility that continues today.

Notes from a meeting between the U.S. Commissioner of Indian Affairs and leaders of the Mississippi, Pillager, and Lake Winnibigoshish bands of Ojibwe. The negotiations resulted in the Treaty of 1855, in which the Ojibwe relinquished vast territories in exchange for reservations and annual payments. | Courtesy University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Centre

Why Did Tribal Leaders Sign Treaties?

Shakopee was a fellow member of a Mdewakanton Dakota delegation that negotiated one of two Dakota treaties in 1858. Signing treaties was sometimes the only way for Native leaders to proceed their people alive. By 1837, the fur merchandise had declined and tribes were struggling to go along their economies afloat. Every bit a terminal resort, tribes sold country through treaties in order to supply their people with coin and food.

Shakopee, 1862 | Photo by Julian Vannerson and Samuel Cohner, James E. McClees Studio, courtesy National Anthropological Athenaeum, Smithsonian Institution

Authorities to Regime

As the leaders of nations, tribal chiefs often travelled to Washington, D.C., to negotiate treaties with U.S. officials. President Andrew Johnson and Native delegates, including Ojibwe Primary Bagone-giizhig, or Hole-in-the-24-hour interval, are pictured outside the White House in 1867.

Indian delegates at U.Southward. Capitol, 1866 | Courtesy National Museum of the American Indian P10142

Treaty Timeline

Treaty Timeline

The Dakota and Ojibwe relinquished millions of acres through treaties with the United States. This map shows the dates of the principal land cession treaties, the extent of the country loss, and the location of present-day Ojibwe and Dakota communities.

Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society

Treaty Timeline

Country Cession Treaties

How Treaties Changed Lands and Lifeways

Tribal territories ceded through treaties were quickly put upwards for auction, fueling a huge influx of non-Natives to Minnesota. Speculators and surveyors measured and redistributed land for sale. Farmers, many of them poor European immigrants, congenital homes and planted crops. Lumbermen clearcut timber, which drove away game and eroded Native supplies of seasonal foods. This lack of reverence for the globe destroyed traditional Dakota and Ojibwe livelihoods and created widespread hardship.

"The greatest object of their lives seems to be to larn possessions—to be rich. They desire to possess the whole world."

— Dakota doctor and writer Ohiyesa (Charles Alexander Eastman), recalling his uncle's clarification of American values in the 1860s

Julius R. Sloan, St. Anthony Falls, 1852. | Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Order

Transition to Reservation Life

Government officials are pictured distributing treaty payments at the Fond du Lac Reservation around 1865. Relegated to reservations through treaties with the Us, Native people faced macerated homelands and nutrient resources, and became increasingly dependent on government payments and provisions.

Reservation life also undermined traditional Indian culture and sovereignty. Accustomed to governing their own people, tribal chiefs were brushed aside by the U.S. government officials, or "Indian agents," who were sent to manage reservations. Abuse ran deep among Indian agents, who ofttimes lined their pockets with treaty payments and provisions.

Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society

A Disharmonism of Cultures

American notions of holding confounded Ojibwe and Dakota peoples. Land was a souvenir from the Creator. How could something sacred—something that was meant to be shared in common—be traded for coin?

"To Promote Their Improvement and Civilisation"

Treaties of the 1850s and '60s sought to eliminate tribal cultures by encouraging Indian men to spurn hunting and adopt farming. Schools were established to instruct Native children in the noesis and values of American order, and Christian missionaries extolled the virtues of conversion. To cultivate individualism, some treaties divided collectively owned tribal lands into parcels for distribution to individuals, foreshadowing U.South. resource allotment policy of the 1880s.

Ojibwe girls in a classroom at the St. Benedict's mission school, White Globe Reservation, ca. 1900. |

Ojibwe Rights Retained

Ojibwe bands keep to hunt, fish, and get together wild rice as they have for centuries. These rights are recognized in the land cession treaties of 1837 and 1854. Past signing these treaties, tribal leaders ensured that future generations would be able to admission natural resource on former tribal lands.

"The privilege of hunting, fishing, and gathering the wild rice, upon the lands, the rivers and the lakes included in the territory ceded, is guarantied [sic] to the Indians, during the pleasure of the President of the Usa. "

— Article 5, Treaty with the Chippewa, 1837

Two men holding rifles near Mille Lacs, 1899. | Photo by David Bushnell, courtesy of the National Anthropological Athenaeum, Smithsonian Institution

Ricing

Known as manoomin in the Ojibwe language, wild rice has been a valuable Native American food source for centuries. From before the treaty-making era to today, Ojibwe families have harvested wild rice each fall on their ancestral lands.

Ojibwe adult female with container of wild rice, 1940. | Photo by Gordon R. Sommers, courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Social club

Sugaring

In the spring, people set out from their villages to collect maple sap, which women boil down into sugar.

Two Ojibwe women cooking maple sap at a sugar campsite, possibly at the Mille Lacs Reservation, 1915. | Photo by Frances Densmore, courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society

Gathering

Treaties guaranteed Ojibwe rights to gather nutrient and medicinal plants on sometime tribal lands. In the summertime, families ready camps to assemble blueberries, which grow in abundance.

Ojibwe woman gathering blueberries near Footling Fork, Minnesota, 1937.| Photo past Russell Lee, courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Hunting

Even after they accustomed reservations, Ojibwe people exercised their correct to hunt game on lands relinquished to the United states.

Anton Treuer of Bemidji State University discusses the Ojibwes' retained right to hunt and fish on ceded lands.

Fishing

As retained by treaties, Ojibwe continue to harvest fish both on and off reservations. More than than 150 fish species are establish in Minnesota's inland lakes and streams as well as in Lake Superior, including bullhead, perch, pickerel, walleye, and whitefish.

Mary Razer (Mille Lacs Ojibwe) draws her gill nets from a lake at the White World Reservation around 1915. | Photograph by Frances Densmore, courtesy of the National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution

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Source: http://treatiesmatter.org/exhibit/welcome/u-s-american-indian-treaties-in-minnesota/

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