Introduction:
2013 Digital Suitcase Project:
Dawes/Homestead Act—Sixth Grade
Overview: This digital suitcase contains information about the Anishinaabe/Ojibwe and Dakota people prior to policies enacted by the federal government, the Homestead Act and the Dawes Act. Students will have a better understanding of these policies and the impacts they had on indigenous people in Minnesota.
Standard: 6.4.4.20.4
Benchmark: Describe MN and federal American Indian policy of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries and its impact on Anishinaabe and Dakota people, especially in the areas of education, land ownership and citizenship.
Focus of Lesson 1: An overview of the culture and history of Anishinaabe and Dakota people in Minnesota.
Focus of Lesson 2: The Homestead Act
Focus of Lesson 3: The Dawes/Nelson Act
Background Knowledge for Teachers:
Review Allotment: An Assault on Dakota and Ojibwe Identity (pages 5-13 in this document)
Relationship between Dakota and Ojibwe
Ojibwe History
Dakota History
Treaty of Traverse des Sioux
Lesson 1
Focus of lesson: An overview of the culture and history of Anishinaabe/Ojibwe and Dakota people in Minnesota
Suggested Time: 45-60 minute class period
Materials Needed: Student Laptops, LCD projector
Overall Essential Question: What is the impact of these policies today?
|Goal | |6.4.4.20.4 Describe MN and federal American Indian policy of |
|Set the learning |Standards applying to that lesson |the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries and its impact on |
|goal/benchmark or objective| |Anishinaabe and Dakota people, especially in the areas of |
| | |education, land ownership and citizenship. |
| | |Who are the Anishinaabe and Dakota people? What was their life |
| |Guiding Question(s) |like in the past? What historical events led to changes? |
| | |Students will: |
| |Measurable Objective |Discuss the language, history and culture of the Indigenous |
| | |people in MN. |
| | | |
| | |Identify the locations of the Anishinaabe and Dakota people. |
| | | |
| | |Analyze primary resource material regarding MN treaties that |
| | |impacted the Indigenous people of MN. |
|Access |Possible Instructional Strategies to | |
|Access students’ prior |Try: | |
|knowledge building |Review of previous lesson |Watch Telling River Stories video. |
|engagement through |Pair and Share | |
|establishing immediate |Brainstorming |Watch the US Dakota War of 1862 video. |
|relevancy; a “hook” that is|Quick Write | |
|a short introduction to the|Verbal check-in of prior knowledge | |
|lesson |Visual to access prior knowledge | |
|New Information |Possible Instructional Strategies to | |
|Acquire new information – |Try: |Identify and map the location of the Anishinaabe and Dakota |
|declarative and/or |Modeling and direct instruction |people in Minnesota. |
|procedural |Student discussions | |
| |Academic feedback to students | |
| |Non-fiction writing, vocabulary and | |
| |reading strategies to develop | |
| |understanding of new information | |
| |Inquiry based questions and activities | |
|Apply |Possible Instructional Strategies to |Discuss with students: What did you learn from these |
|Apply a thinking skill or |Try: |activities? How much did you know about Dakota and Anishinaabe |
|use knowledge in a new |Guided Practice |people in Minnesota before today? What have you learned about |
|situation. Opportunity for|Independent and group work |these tribes in school, or out of school? Why do you think that|
|feedback provided |Student demonstration of learning |is? |
| |objective | |
| |Student-to-student discussions using | |
| |accountable talk | |
| |Ongoing checks for understanding | |
| |Continuous academic feedback to the | |
| |students | |
|Generalize |Possible Means of Assessments to Try: |Exit slip: Write down one piece of new information you learned |
|Generalize what has been |Oral or written summary of lesson |today and one question you have, based on that new information.|
|taught. How will the |Exit slip or quick write | |
|teacher know if students |Pair and share | |
|met the measurable |Peer and individual review of work | |
|objective? |Class discussion of topic | |
| |Cornell notes check | |
Adapted from SPPS alignment of lessons to goal, access, new information, apply and generalize (GANAG). GANAG comes from the book, Improve Student Learning One Principal at a Time by Jane E. Pollock and Sharon M. Ford.
Teacher Resource Page for Lesson 1
Allotment: An Assault on Dakota and Ojibwe Identity
Martin Case and Anton Treuer
A clash of cultures
Dakota and Ojibwe identity emerged from a kinship relationship between people and the natural world. American Indians maintained family ties to the landscape, to animals, minerals and water; these family relationships guided Dakota and Ojibwe people in structuring their societies.
The U.S., on the other hand, is based on a different relationship between people and the natural world: property. In the U.S. system, animals, minerals, water and land (and at times even people) were things to be owned. In fact, 19th Century U.S. politicians saw private property as the basis of civilization; in their view, any society not based on private property was seen as “uncivilized.”
In the U.S.-Indian treaties, these very different views of the world clashed. American Indians were removed from the lands in which their familial, economic, political and spiritual connections to the world originated. And where Dakota, Ojibwe, and other groups were able to keep a (greatly reduced) land base, the U.S. attempted to replace their traditional relationship to the land – kinship – with the U.S. relationship – private ownership. One important step in this process was allotment.
What is allotment?
Allotment is the assignment of property rights to individuals or families. Once land is allotted, it belongs to a specific person. This was unheard of in traditional Dakota and Ojibwe societies, in which resources were shared by everyone. But in treaties, in acts of Congress, and in executive orders of the President, the U.S. tried to make allotment a condition for American Indians to keep any land at all.
Allotment was intended to make traditional American Indian land use impossible, and replace it with European-style farming. In most of the land cession treaties, at least part of the payment that American Indian people received for land was provided in assistance for farming: “breaking the soil” at U.S. expense, seeds and implements, farming consultants.
Allotment was also a way in which American corporations and individuals could get even more resources from American Indians. When reservations were created, the U.S. assigned a certain number of acres to each tribal member. Many acres were left over, and this land – called “surplus” land by the U.S. – often contained valuable timber and minerals. After land was allotted, the U.S. sold or leased “surplus” land to non-Indians. [See Joel Bassett, following]
Allotment as a U.S. Policy
As the U.S. expanded across the continent, allotment became an ever-more-important part of U.S. Indian policy. In 1851 treaties, for instance, Dakota reservations were “to be held by them as Indian lands are held,” recognizing that Dakota people had their own relationship to land. By the 1858 treaties, however, Dakota land was “allotted in severalty to each head of a family.”
Allotment could be a complicated process. How many acres would each individual or family own? Would tribal members be assigned the same acreage as their mixed-race, Indian-European relatives? One complication was created by the U.S. policy of holding reservation land in trust, making it illegal for individual American Indians to sell their land -- though in this system, “mixed blood” owners were allowed to sell their land. Different treaties among the U.S. and different tribes set up different rules for allotment; in some cases, all reservation land was allotted; in others, no land was allotted.
After the treaty-making era ended in the 1870s, the U.S. decided on a new policy: to allot all Indian-held lands to individuals. The Dawes Act of 1887 was the first major step in implementing this policy. The idea of “surplus” land was especially important in this act. Before 1887, American Indians controlled 155,000,000 acres in the U.S. After the Act was implemented, two thirds of this land had been removed from American Indian hands.
The history of U.S.-tribal relationships in Minnesota presented special challenges to the Dawes Act. So additional acts – the Nelson Act, the Burke Act, legislation defining tribal enrollment – came into play as the U.S. pursued its national allotment policy within the borders of Minnesota.
Joel Bassett worked in the lumber manufacturing industry in Maine before moving to Minnesota in 1852. He soon opened a sawmill in Minneapolis, and became a prominent businessman. From 1865-1869 Bassett was an Indian Agent at Crow Wing, MN, and moved to White Earth County when an Ojibwe reservation was created there. With partners, he received a government contract to “collect dead wood,” on the reservation, but illegally harvested 7 million board feet of lumber. Using the wealth he acquired in lumbering, he became a partner in the Minnesota Electric Light and Electric Motive Power Company, the Saint Paul and Falls City Bridge Company, the Mississippi River Improvement and Manufacturing Company and the Mississippi and Rum River Boom Company. In 1882, he started the Columbia Flour Mill, becoming a leader in the Twin Cities’ most prominent industry.
WORD LIST
Kinship: A family relationship.
Traditional Dakota and Ojibwe cultures consider people, animals, minerals, land and water to be relatives of one another.
Property: An item that is owned
In U.S. society, land is property – something to be owned. In traditional Dakota and Ojibwe societies, land is a set of connections among people and the natural world.
Title: written proof of ownership
Allotment: The assignment of specific tracts of land to the ownership of specific individuals or families
Dawes Act of 1887 (also called the General Allotment Act or the Dawes Severalty Act): legislation adopted by Congress in 1887 that authorized the President of the United States to survey Indian tribal land and divide it into allotments for individual Indians
Nelson Act: legislation passed by Congress in 1889 to implement the Dawes Act in Minnesota.
The Nelson Act was an attempt to concentrate all Ojibwe people on a central reservation and sell “surplus” land to non-Indians.
Burke Act: legislation adopted by Congress in 1906 that refined the Dawes Act by changing the rules by which Indians and mixed-race owners of Indian land could sell land, and by which Indians who owned tribal land could become U.S. citizens.
Enrollment: The rules by which membership in an American Indian nation is recognized by the federal government.
Each tribe negotiates its own enrollment rules with the government. Enrollment is different that traditional rules for membership in tribes, which were often based on a person’s place in a family, resulting from birth, marriage or adoption.
Treaty: An agreement among two or more nations.
Treaties can be trade agreements, peace agreements, alliances in times of war, or any other agreements that nations arrive at together. American Indian groups, like nations throughout the world, have entered into such agreements throughout history, according to their own customs. In the U.S.-Indian treaty is considered a “valid” treaty if it has been: a) signed by representatives from participating nations; b) approved by the U.S. Senate; and c) proclaimed by the President.
Act of Congress: part of the process by which laws are made by the U.S. Federal government.
Acts of Congress become law when they are passed by both the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, and signed into law by the President.
Executive Order: an action taken by the President of the U.S. or the “executive” branch of the federal government that does not require an Act of Congress to be considered valid in the U.S.
Tribe: a social / political organization based on the relationships among families and/or clans.
Band: A smaller group within a tribe, often based on a family group or village site/geographic area.
Some bands are long-standing, traditional components of American Indian societies; other bands are the results of U.S.-Indian relations that changed the internal structure of American Indian societies.
Reservation: a geographic area in which an American Indian group “reserves” the sovereignty it enjoyed before entering relations with the U.S.
Reservations are a result of complex histories; in some cases, they are part of larger land bases that remain in American Indian control after the rest of the land base was taken by the U.S. In other cases, the reservation was created by agreements among American Indian groups and the federal government independently of traditional land bases.
Nation: a political entity that determines its own membership, defends its own territory, and sets its own rules without interference from others.
Nation is a European idea that was applied by Europeans to American Indian societies. It recognizes that American Indian groups have sovereignty within the U.S. political system.
Sovereignty: supreme power over a specific place or people.
Trust: a relationship in which one person or group holds property rights on behalf of another person or group.
Reservation lands are held in trust by the U.S. federal government on behalf of American Indian peoples. This situation originated from the U.S. belief that American Indians were not competent to own property responsibly. As part of this trust relationship, the federal government has agreed to provide education, health care and other services to American Indians.
Lesson 2
Focus of lesson: Homestead Act
Suggested Time: 45-60 minute class period
Materials Needed: Student Laptops, LCD projector,
Overall Essential Question: What is the impact of these policies today?
|Goal | |6.4.4.20.4 Describe MN and federal American Indian policy of the late |
|Set the learning |Standards applying to that |nineteenth and twentieth centuries and its impact on Anishinaabe and |
|goal/benchmark or |lesson |Dakota people, especially in the areas of education, land ownership and |
|objective | |citizenship. |
| | |What was the reason(s) these policies were implemented (background |
| |Guiding Question(s) |information)? How did the Homestead Act affect life for the Anishinaabe |
| | |and Dakota people? |
| | |Students will: Understand the reasons behind the government’s |
| |Measurable Objective |implementation of the Homestead Act. |
|Access |Possible Instructional |Lesson Access Activity |
|Access students’ prior |Strategies to Try: |Watch Dakota Sioux History |
|knowledge building |Review of previous lesson | |
|engagement through |Pair and Share | |
|establishing immediate |Brainstorming |Have students: |
|relevancy; a “hook” that |Quick Write |Quick write reasons they heard in video clip as to why white settlers were|
|is a short introduction |Verbal check-in of prior |interested in obtaining land? |
|to the lesson |knowledge |Turn and Talk to a neighbor about what you wrote down |
| |Visual to access prior knowledge| |
| | |Ask: Why was it so important for the Government to obtain land? What do |
| | |you think about the way in which the Government obtained the land? |
|New Information |Possible Instructional |Impact of Homestead Act |
|Acquire new information –|Strategies to Try: | |
|declarative and/or |Modeling and direct instruction |Encourage students to view this video through the lens of Dakota and |
|procedural |Student discussions |Anishinaabe people. For instance, the video asks about the impact of |
| |Academic feedback to students |giving away “….270 million acres of public land to private ownership.” How|
| |Non-fiction writing, vocabulary |did the land become “public” in the first place? Who is “the public” in |
| |and reading strategies to |this case? |
| |develop understanding of new | |
| |information |Have students jot down key points or ideas from video. Use “Bright Idea’s|
| |Inquiry based questions and |and Aha’s” graphic organizer. |
| |activities | |
| | |Ask students “How do you think this Act impacted the Dakota and |
| | |Anishinaabe in Minnesota?” |
| | | |
| | |So, let’s look at what the Homestead Act says: Use any of these links to |
| | |access document. |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | | |
| | |Images of homestead application: |
| | | |
|Apply |Possible Instructional |Independent work: |
|Apply a thinking skill or|Strategies to Try: |Have students select a Native American tribe from one of the reservations |
|use knowledge in a new |Guided Practice |in Minnesota and research/document the way their land was affected by the |
|situation. Opportunity |Independent and group work |Homestead Act (and any other policies enacted at that time – use Timeline |
|for feedback provided |Student demonstration of |that is available in the Teacher Resource Section). |
| |learning objective | |
| |Student-to-student discussions |This could be expanded and turned into an extension project and require |
| |using accountable talk |more extensive research. |
| |Ongoing checks for understanding| |
| |Continuous academic feedback to | |
| |the students |tribes are listed on this website |
| | |Have blank maps of MN (and perhaps the Midwest) for students to use as |
| | |they do this research). |
|Generalize |Possible Means of Assessments to|Exit slip: |
|Generalize what has been |Try: |Student will do a quick write of the definition of the Homestead Act of |
|taught. How will the |Oral or written summary of |1862 (possibly just writing the requirements to apply for homestead) and |
|teacher know if students |lesson |list 2 or 3 impacts that it had on Dakota and Anishinaabe people. |
|met the measurable |Exit slip or quick write | |
|objective? |Pair and share | |
| |Peer and individual review of | |
| |work | |
| |Class discussion of topic | |
| |Cornell notes check | |
Adapted from SPPS alignment of lessons to goal, access, new information, apply and generalize (GANAG). GANAG comes from the book, Improve Student Learning One Principal at a Time by Jane E. Pollock and Sharon M. Ford.
Bright Ideas and Ah-has
Teacher Resources for Lesson 2
ics/homestead-act
(click on the scrolling images on top of the page until you find the Homestead Act).
Extension Activity:
• Objective:
o The student will understand various perspectives on federal Indian policy, westward expansion, and the resulting struggles.
1. Provide each student with a photocopy of each of the featured documents, and make a transparency with the following questions: What types of documents are they? What are the dates of the documents? Who wrote the documents? What is the purpose of the documents? What information in the documents helps you understand why they were written? Ask one student to read the documents aloud as the others read silently. Lead the class in oral responses to the questions.
2. Instruct students to analyze the documents and make a list of the Homestead Act requirements. Ask them to check their answers by referring to the text of the Act, available in Henry Steele Commager's and Milton Cantor, eds., Documents of American History, and in the Westward Expansion: 1842-1912 teaching packet available from the National Archives, as well as some textbooks. Lead a class discussion using some of the following questions: What were settlers' citizenship requirements? What were their age requirements? Why was there a clause pertaining to never having borne arms against the government? How long did a homesteader have to reside on the property? What was a homesteader required to do to improve the land? Whose names appear on the documents? With what office were these documents filed? In order to locate this property on a map, what additional information is necessary? Did Freeman receive a patent for the land? Why are these documents preserved by the federal government?
Lesson 3
Focus of lesson: Dawes Act
Suggested Time: 45-60 minute class period
Materials Needed: Student Laptops, LCD projector
Overall Essential Question: What is the impact of these policies today?
|Goal | |6.4.4.20.4 Describe MN and federal American Indian policy of the late |
|Set the learning |Standards applying to that |nineteenth and twentieth centuries and its impact on Anishinaabe and Dakota|
|goal/benchmark or |lesson |people, especially in the areas of education, land ownership and |
|objective | |citizenship. |
| | |What was the impact of the Dawes Act and Nelson Act on Indigenous People in|
| |Guiding Question(s) |MN? |
| | | |
| | |How did European exploration, competition and trade affect Indigenous |
| | |People in MN? |
| | |Students will watch a video about the Dawes and Nelson Act, and apply |
| |Measurable Objective |historical inquiry to the video. |
| | | |
| | |Students will demonstrate understanding of treaties between U.S. Government|
| | |and the Anishinaabe and Dakota and how they affected the individuals who |
| | |lived in the region. |
|Access |Possible Instructional |Review information from Lesson 1. |
|Access students’ prior |Strategies to Try: | |
|knowledge building |Review of previous lesson |View Video clip: |
|engagement through |Pair and Share | |
|establishing immediate |Brainstorming | |
|relevancy; a “hook” that |Quick Write |Go to site below, read Dawes Act and discuss |
|is a short introduction |Verbal check-in of prior | |
|to the lesson |knowledge | |
| |Visual to access prior | |
| |knowledge | |
|New Information |Possible Instructional | |
|Acquire new information –|Strategies to Try: |Students will work in groups to read Why Treaties Matter: The Nelson Act, |
|declarative and/or |Modeling and direct |1889 (pages 23-35 of this document) |
|procedural |instruction |or |
| |Student discussions |Allotment: An Assault on Dakota and Ojibwe Identity (pages 5-13 in this |
| |Academic feedback to students|document) |
| |Non-fiction writing, | |
| |vocabulary and reading |Encourage the use of Cornell Notes or other comprehension strategies while |
| |strategies to develop |reading these documents. |
| |understanding of new | |
| |information | |
| |Inquiry based questions and | |
| |activities | |
|Apply |Possible Instructional |Students will discuss the following questions after reading information |
|Apply a thinking skill or|Strategies to Try: |about the Nelson Act and Dawes Act. |
|use knowledge in a new |Guided Practice |In what ways does the Act seem to be protecting Indigenous People? |
|situation. Opportunity |Independent and group work |In what way(s) does the Act weaken and dismantle the power of Indigenous |
|for feedback provided |Student demonstration of |nations? |
| |learning objective |What do you predict will be the outcome of the Dawes Act/Nelson on |
| |Student-to-student |Indigenous nations? |
| |discussions using accountable|Utilize confections to illustrate the impact of the Dawes Act on Indigenous|
| |talk |People, Mixed Bloods and Whites. Students will be shown a large amount of |
| |Ongoing checks for |candy, and it will be divided among the classmates depending on their role |
| |understanding |The Dawes Act/Nelson will be explained as the candy is given to certain |
| |Continuous academic feedback |students, while other receive none or asked to share resource. |
| |to the students |Students will then share with the class their experience given the role |
| | |played in the activity above (10 min.) |
|Generalize |Possible Means of Assessments|Discuss how the idea of individual land ownership could lead to a loss of |
|Generalize what has been |to Try: |native land to white people. |
|taught. How will the |Oral or written summary of | |
|teacher know if students |lesson |Exit Activity: 1 minute debate |
|met the measurable |Exit slip or quick write |In partnerships, students choose either a pro or con stance on the fairness|
|objective? |Pair and share |of the way land was divided amongst Indigenous people. Students should use|
| |Peer and individual review of|the new information learned to defend their position. |
| |work | |
| |Class discussion of topic | |
| |Cornell notes check | |
Adapted from SPPS alignment of lessons to goal, access, new information, apply and generalize (GANAG). GANAG comes from the book, Improve Student Learning One Principal at a Time by Jane E. Pollock and Sharon M. Ford.
Resources for Lesson 3
info for teachers about land allotment
glossary for teachers about land allotment
Why Treaties Matter
The Nelson Act, 1889
Anton Treuer
The Nelson Act: Implementing Allotment in Minnesota
An Overview
Red Lake: Land Cession Without a Treaty
The Story of Medwe-ganoonind
Mille Lacs: Relocation Without a Removal Order
The Story of James Clark
White Earth: Land Sale Without a Payment
The Story of Joe Auginaush
The Nelson Act: Implementing Allotment in Minnesota
An Overview
Indians used to own all of the land in North America—every square inch. They lost a lot of it through treaties. But when the U.S. government stopped making treaties with Indians in 1871 that was not the end of Indians losing their land. Sometimes U.S. Presidents simply decided to take land away from Indians by issuing Executive Orders. That happened many times in Minnesota. Sometimes land was taken away from Indians by an Act of Congress.
One of those Acts of Congress was the 1887 Dawes Act, which established a new policy called Allotment. Indians thought of the land differently than people in many other cultures. Individual Indians never used to own the land or have their own private pieces of land. They didn’t have taxes, land titles, or legal descriptions of their land. They just lived there, and they lived there together, owning it together. Even after Indians lost much of their land and moved to reservations, they still owned the land together. It was held in Trust for the benefit of all the people. Allotment changed all of that. It took the land on reservations that was held in Trust for all members of those reservations and chopped it up into chunks. Some chunks went to individual Indians. Others were opened for white settlement. In many places Indians soon owned less land on their own reservations than white people.
In Minnesota, allotment was very complicated. The U.S. government wanted all of the Ojibwe (Chippewa) Indians moved to the reservation at White Earth. White Earth was considered the “removal destination” for the entire tribe. But the government also wanted Red Lake to make a major land cession plus move to White Earth plus have allotments rather than communal land ownership. The U.S. government never made a major land cession treaty with the Red Lake people for the lands around Red Lake—millions of acres. Then they stopped making treaties with Indians in 1871. So they wanted to use an Act of Congress to get the land instead of a treaty. Because of all the special cases in Minnesota Indian history, the U.S. government passed an Act of Congress called the Nelson Act in 1889. It was designed to implement allotment across the state, get a land cession from Red Lake, and encourage Indians to move to White Earth. It impacted different tribes in different ways.
Red Lake: Land Cession Without a Treaty
The Story of Medwe-ganoonind
Medwe-ganoonind was the name of an Ojibwe chief at Red Lake in Northwestern Minnesota (see map). He was a lean man, wiry and strong. His skin was dark brown and weathered from years of hard work in the bright sun. Even though he was chief, he was considered an equal by his people. He had to fish, hunt, and gather food for himself and his family. Chiefs at Red Lake were representatives who served their people rather than kings who presided over them. The people at Red Lake descended from a long line of warriors. They were tough, proud, brave, and cautious. They had been tricked and manipulated by the government before in early treaties. That taught them not to trust the government or any outsiders. They had always taken care of their own needs and they would continue to do so.
Medwe-ganoonind’s name means “He Who is Heard Talking,” and it came from a dream. Ojibwe people did not pick their own names. Their parent’s didn’t pick the names for the children either. The parents picked namesakes—spiritual leaders—who could use dreams or visions obtained when fasting to identify and empower children. Medwe-ganoonind was given his name because it was dreamed that he would have a special power to listen to and peak for his people. He grew into that name and became a great leader.
Medwe-ganoonind became chief during hard times for the people at Red Lake. His people had always been completely independent. They didn’t need anything from anyone outside their communities. But now there were numerous white people who wanted their land and the Red Lake Ojibwe needed that land to get fish and wild rice. How else could they feed their families? What the whites wanted from Red Lake seemed impossible to give. But if they fought to keep Red Lake to themselves, Medwe-ganoonind knew that many of his people would die and they might lose all of the land instead of some of it. The U.S. government and early settlers were not always fair in the way they treated the Indians or their land. Medwe-ganoonind was heartbroken about giving any land to the government or white settlers, but more heartbroken about the thought of his people losing their lives and all their land. He decided not to go to war. But that doesn’t mean he decided not to fight. In 1889, Medwe-ganoonind chose to fight for his people with words and pens instead of a war club.
When the government came to negotiate terms for the Nelson Act, Medwe-ganoonind didn’t get everything he wanted for his people, but he got more than the government thought he could, and more than all the other tribes in Minnesota. It was an impressive victory—even more impressive when you consider that he was fighting the government at its own game, with long, intense legal negotiations translated back and forth from English to Ojibwe.
The Red Lake Ojibwe owned a huge piece of unceded land around Upper and Lower Red Lakes in northwestern Minnesota. The Red Lake people had already sold one piece of land through the Old Crossing Treaty of 1863. But they had never lost their homeland. Now the government wanted their homeland—all of it. They also wanted the Red Lake people to move to White Earth, leaving their homes and the gravesites of their dead relatives behind them. Medwe-ganoonind heard his people say that they did not want to do that. The government also wanted the Red Lake people to change from communal ownership of the land (owning it together) to allotment (with individual land ownership). They didn’t like that either. The government wanted all the timber at Red Lake, all the fish, the lakes, and the land.
Medwe-ganoonind heard what the U.S. government was asking for. But he also knew that the U.S. government didn’t really want to fight another Indian war in Minnesota. The U.S.-Dakota War was horrible for everyone. He used strong words, reason, and wit to make his case. There was even a rumor that he took his war club and smashed the negotiating table when the commissioners said they wanted all the land around Red Lake. In the end, he settled on a compromise. Red Lake would never do allotment. And they would never move to White Earth. They agreed to a land cession, but they would keep their homeland, including all of the land around Upper Red Lake and all of the land around Lower Red Lake—all of their largest villages. They could still fish, hunt, gather wild rice, and live as their ancestors had for generations. The Red Lake people agreed to the terms and granted their permission for the U.S. Congress to pass the Nelson Act. Other tribes in Minnesota never accomplished what Medwe-ganoonind did. They had fewer bargaining chips in 1889 because they had already ceded their lands and were living on reservations. All of the reservations were allotted, except for Red Lake. The surveyors working for the U.S. government intentionally cut a section out of the reservation at Upper Red Lake, and there was a lot of timber fraud as well. But even today, the people of Red Lake own all of the land on the reservation in common. They have never been through allotment. They still have their homeland and their traditional lifeways. And although Medwe-ganoonind was only one man, and not responsible for all that Red Lake has today, his leadership played a big part in making it possible.
Mille Lacs: Relocation Without a Removal Order
The Story of James Clark
James Clark (1918-2008), whose Indian name was Naawi-giizis (Center of the Moon) was born and raised in Central Minnesota, along the banks of the Tamarac River. He lived through allotment in Mille Lacs, and carried with him not just his stories and experiences, but those of his parents and extended family members. Jim, as friends called him later in life, was born in 1918, but as a child he frequently listened to stories of people born in the 1840s and later—those who saw every stage of the treaty and allotment period. Many of his recollections are available in the video Woodlands: Story of the Mille Lacs Ojibway, Anton Treuer’s book, Living Our Language: Ojibwe Tales & Oral Histories, and his own book, Naawigiizis: Memories of Center of the Moon.
When the Nelson Act was passed by the U.S. Congress in 1889, nobody in Jim’s family spoke English. They lived by hunting, fishing, harvesting wild rice, picking berries, and boiling maple sap into sugar. Even today, many members of Jim’s family do those same activities, but their lives today are very different from what life was like in 1889. The changes had everything to do with the land and with allotment.
The Nelson Act was drafted and brought to the Ojibwe people for approval. Originally, it called for all the Ojibwe to move to White Earth. The tribal objection was so strenuous, however, that they had to amend the language to say that they would move to White Earth or stay on their home reservations. The Ojibwe would not sign it if it required them to move. Jim’s family stayed in Central Minnesota.
The Mille Lacs Ojibwe had lost most of their land through treaties. Now white settlers were everywhere. Soon the Mille Lacs Ojibwe became pockets of tribal communities surrounded a by seas of white farmers and resorts. It was harder and harder to hunt and fish because so much of the land in Central Minnesota was no occupied by white settlers. They did not share the Ojibwe view that land could be shared by all. They claimed title, which meant that they and they alone owned the land. Things were changing fast.
Ojibwe leaders insisted that the Ojibwe be allowed to take allotments on White Earth or their home reservations when they signed the Nelson Act. But the U.S. government then did something very tricky. They told the Indians at Mille Lacs that they could take their allotments—their individual pieces of land—only at White Earth. The Nelson Act said they could take these on their home reservations too, but the government refused to make allotments available at Mille Lacs. Anyone from Mille Lacs who wanted a private land allotment had to move to White Earth to get it. Many of Jim’s family members moved to White Earth. They were having a hard time getting enough food to survive in Central Minnesota because every time they went hunting a white farmer was chasing them off his land. They didn’t have private Indian lands around Mille Lacs. White Earth looked like the only place to go for an Indian at Mille Lacs who wanted to hunt, fish, gather wild rice, and survive.
Many of Jim’s relatives moved to White Earth. But many also stayed in Central Minnesota. They loved the land. And they had ceremonies that could only be carried out in certain places there. They had drums too, which were not supposed to be moved west. It was a powerful belief in a community steeped in tradition. They stayed in Central Minnesota. They were the first people of the land, but they were landless in their own land. Life was hard. The people became more poor than every before. But they stayed, and they survived.
The U.S. government was very intent on getting the last Indians out of Central Minnesota. Local white settlers were too. In 1901, the local sheriff burned down most of the Indian houses and wigwams at Mille Lacs. He told the Indians there that they had no homes in Mille Lacs and should move to White Earth. Today, people go to jail for arson if they start fires or burn down other people’s homes. But in 1901, the sheriff was the law. White settlers elected him and supported his actions. More of Jim’s family moved to White Earth to avoid conflict or persecution. But most of those who remained stayed at Mille Lacs. They remained landless in their own land from 1889 to 1926. Eventually, the government relented and allowed the Ojibwe who remained at Mille Lacs to take allotments in their home community. The allotments were not the 160-acre parcels that most Indians got. They received 5-acre homesteads. Without land to hunt and gather and without many jobs, the Ojibwe became very poor. But they were rich in culture and sense of community. Jim was eight years old.
Jim went on to serve in the U.S. Army in World War II and worked many jobs. He struggled financially at times, as did most of the people in Mille Lacs. Even today, the Nelson Act impacts the people. Two-thirds of the population at Mille Lacs moved to White Earth. The descendants of those who stayed still have very little land. But they do have remarkable tenacity. They survived. They kept all of their ceremonial drums. Jim Clark lived to 90 years of age and saw many changes. He even saw Mille Lacs build casinos and use the money to buy back land. The government would never give it back, so they started to buy it back. In spite of all the damage done by the Nelson Act, and the use of allotment to relocate people to White Earth, the story of Jim’s family shows us how even the most unfair policies could not break the connection of the first people to the land.
White Earth: Land Sale Without a Payment
The Story of Joe Auginaush
Joe Auginaush (1922-2000), whose Indian name was Giniwaanakwad (Golden Eagle Cloud), was almost the same age as Jim Clark, but he saw the impacts of the Nelson Act and allotment in an entirely different way. Joe grew up in the Roy Lake area of the White Earth Reservation in Northwestern Minnesota.
There were Ojibwe people living in the White Earth area before it became a reservation in 1867, but many more moved there after the U.S. government designated it as the relocation destination for the Ojibwe in Minnesota. After the Nelson Act was signed into law, many more people were moved to White Earth, most of them from Mille Lacs. Joe’s family was among those families. The transition was hard, but by the time Joe was born in 1922, his family really felt at home in White Earth. They loved the land and found ways to harvest fish, wild game, wild rice, and berries. It was getting crowded at White Earth, and it was a struggle, but they made ends meet. They didn’t eat everything they harvested. They sold some of their rice, and Joe’s dad sometimes bought groceries or even charged them at the grocery store in Roy Lake. Since a lot of the land on the White Earth Reservation was opened for white settlement, white-owned businesses on the reservation like the grocery store at Roy Lake were fairly common.
In 1995, a young Ojibwe man named Anton Treuer visited Joe at his house in the Rice Lake Community north of Roy Lake on the White Earth Reservation. Joe said, “Hey, I want to show you something.” He stood on a chair and pulled an old shoebox of a little shelf in his kitchen. He sat at the table and opened it up, pulling out a yellowed and tattered piece of paper with inked letters scrawled across it, starting to fade from too much exposure to sunlight. He handed the paper to Anton, saying, “Do you know what this is?” “No.” “That’s my family’s allotment. My dad charged groceries at Roy Lake. The grocer went to allotment officer sand told him that my dad owed him money and would never pay, so the allotment officer gave him our family’s entire 160-acre allotment.” Anton opened the paper. The amount written at the bottom was $24.00.
When the Nelson Act went into effect, Indians were only allotted about one third of the land on their reservations. The remaining two-thirds of the reservation land base was opened for white settlement. That brought us the Oklahoma Land Rushes and similar events all over the country. White Earth was full of white settlers, loggers, timber speculators, railroad speculators, and businessmen.
Although Indians in Minnesota lost a lot of land immediately with the Nelson Act and the opening of so-called “surplus” land, that was not the end of the land loss. Most Indians who received allotments lost them very quickly. Timber speculators and private land interests manipulated Indian allottees. Many people lost their family allotments on timber contracts, where they thought they were selling timber, but lost the land itself. Some lost the land on tax forfeitures. Others, like the Auginaush family, lost it on trumped up debts—some real, some fabricated. None had due process of law, proper notification, or court hearings. The protections afforded to individual white landowners in U.S. law were not extended to Indians. Once a family like Joe’s lost their allotment, there was no getting it back. Joe’s family had move around, living in wigwams and then tarpaper shacks. They eventually applied for assistance with housing programs run by the tribal for low-income families. Keeping their allotment would have made a huge difference in their ability to alleviate their poverty themselves, but they found no remedy in the U.S. legal system.
In fact, the U.S. government passed many pieces of legislation designed to make it hard for Indians to keep their allotments. An amendment to the appropriation bill of 1904, usually called the Clapp Rider, after Minnesota Senator Moses Clapp, the Steenerson Act, and other legislation cut the size of Indian allotments in half, enabled the sale of timber on private allotments, and enabled the sale of allotted land itself if there was timber on the land. It was a feeding frenzy.
Indians were supposed to be protected by a 25-year trust period, during which they could not sell or lose their allotments. Nobody paid attention to that part of the legislation anyways, but in 1906, the government passed the Burke Act, which eliminated the trust period for mixed-bloods. The thinking was that mixed-bloods were part white and therefore part competent to handle their own affairs. But the real reason was that is provided a convenient excuse to allow the sale of Indian allotments to whites. Within a few years, Indians at White Earth owned less than 10% of their own reservation. Joe Auginaush was not alone.
One of the painful ironies of the Burke Act of 1906 was that a decade or so later, it became clear that full-blooded Indians were still supposed to have been protected by the 25-year trust period but lost their allotments like everyone else. It was the basis for a land claims lawsuit. Over 5,000 White Earth full-bloods filed for relief under the lawsuit. Now the government had to determine who was 100% Indian (and entitled to compensation) and who was part white (and not entitled to compensation). They brought in Ales Hrdlicka and Albert Jenks, white anthropologists to perform tests on the Indians. It seems crazy, but they measured the height of cheekbones, the circumference of craniums, and recorded the texture of hair. They did a scratch test, where they scratched the Indians and noted any change in color of skin as evidence of being part white. It was truly ridiculous. Of the more than 5,000 people claiming to be full-bloods, only 126 were determined to be actual full-bloods. Ridiculous though it might have been, their lists with noted blood quantums (percentages of Indian blood) are still the basis for tribal enrollment at White Earth today. To be a citizen of White Earth, one must still prove at least 25% Indian blood based on the Jenks-Hrdlicka roll. Some of Joe’s descendants today are not even eligible to be tribal citizens at White Earth. They lost the land, the allotments, and even their status as “real” Indians in the eyes of their own tribal government. The Nelson Act had profound impacts on Indian lives. It still does.
Digital Resource List
Website address:
• This PBS site details the Transcontinental Railroad and its impact on various races and ethnicities, while giving a historical account of their journey.
Website address:
• Indian Boarding school video
Website address:
• Indian Boarding school video
Website address: wnet/frontierhouse
• An interactive site with background information of Indigenous People.
Website address:
• Background information of Indigenous People and how they were affected by policies enacted by the government.
Website address:
• Excellent articles on relationship between tribes of Nebraska and settlers/how American Indians were affected by Government policies.
Website address: ics/homestead-act
• Summary of the site: Background information of Indigenous People and how they were affected by policies enacted by the government.
Website address:
• Lesson on the Dawes Act/Allotment from the MN Humanities Center
Website address:
• Lesson on the Dakota Creation Story from the MN Humanities Center
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This is one of eight Digital Suitcases developed by educators during the summer of 2013 through a partnership with Saint Paul Public Schools’ Multicultural Resource Center and the Minnesota Humanities Center. Each Digital Suitcase includes:
·ð Three lessons aligned with Minnesota social studies standards, benchmarks, and grade levels
·ð A mult• Three lessons aligned with Minnesota social studies standards, benchmarks, and grade levels
• A multiple perspectives/absent narratives focus (see below), strengthened by including input from community members throughout the process
• A list of supplemental resources, both digital and print, many of which will be available at the Saint Paul Public Schools’ Multicultural Resource Center (MRC) (mrc.)
Funding for this project was generously provided by The Saint Paul Foundation, the F.R. Bigelow Foundation,
The Travelers Foundation, the Arts & Cultural Heritage Fund, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
About Absent Narratives
The Absent Narratives approach is about restoring relationships: to ourselves, to each other, to our communities, and to the places we live and work. This approach asks people to speak only for themselves and not represent an entire community. Therefore, differing opinions, ideas, and thoughts show up as uniquely as the individuals who bring them. By embracing and including these untold experiences that make up each of us and our communities, we can close the relationship gap of human understanding and empathy between us.
Absent Narratives is a relationship-based approach to creating equity within systems and communities. This approach helps people understand that all actions, decisions, and beliefs exist in relationship to others and impact how we work with and influence our peers and students. Absent Narratives help improve practices through the application of four related themes:
Build and strengthen the student-teacher and school-community relationships.
Recognize the danger of a single story and the accumulation of absence.
Learn from the multiplicity of voices in the community.
Discover solutions within the community.
For more information about Absent Narratives and professional development opportunities, visit . To access Absent Narratives resources that you can use in your classroom, visit resources. To access the MRC website, visit mrc..
Created and “packed” by Alecia Mobley and Rebecca Wade
Sixth Grade Digital Suitcase: Dawes/Homestead Act
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