Treaty Stories: Reclaiming the Unbroken History of Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe Sovereignty

Abstract Ojibwe leaders negotiated treaties with the United States amid nineteenth-century encroachments on their territory. These treaties, which were more than tools of dispossession, enfolded and extended aadizookanag (sacred stories) in agreements that embodied Ojibwe relationships with land, la...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ethnohistory
Main Author: Huettl, Margaret
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Duke University Press 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/00141801-8801840
http://read.dukeupress.edu/ethnohistory/article-pdf/68/2/215/896076/215huettl.pdf
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Summary:Abstract Ojibwe leaders negotiated treaties with the United States amid nineteenth-century encroachments on their territory. These treaties, which were more than tools of dispossession, enfolded and extended aadizookanag (sacred stories) in agreements that embodied Ojibwe relationships with land, language, sacred history, ceremony, and kin. Federal and state policy makers, fueled by the desire for Indian land and resources, attempted to unravel these relationships in the decades that followed. By continuing to live out through labor and stories their relationships with the woods, waters, and manoomin (wild rice) beds of Anishinaabewaki, the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibweg kept their treaties and their sovereignty alive.