James Baden
Editor, the Mille Lacs Messenger
"...If you think the fear, the hatred, and the racial tension is all that defines Mille Lacs Lake, I say, think again."
Audio, Text

Frank Courteau
Mille Lacs area resident
"I thought apartheid with its inherent principles of segregation was something I left behind in Africa. I was shocked to find I was wrong."
Audio, Text

John Poupart
Executive Director, American Indian Research and Policy Institute
"If we do not begin in earnest to teach about American Indians and tribal sovereignty, it is not only Indians who will pay a heavy price, but all of society."
Text

Marge Anderson
Chief Executive, Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Indians

Aanin. My name is Marge Anderson, and I am the Chief Executive of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Indians. On behalf of the Band, I thank you for listening to this program today and learning more about our history.

My People have lived in the region surrounding Lacs Lake since the mid-1700s - ore than 30 years before the United States was a nation, and 100 years before Minnesota was a state. My ancestors supported themselves by hunting, fishing, and gathering in this area.

But it wasn't long before our self-sufficient way of life was affected by a new presence on this land. Europeans started arriving, and as their numbers grew, so did their demands on our land and resources.

Through treaties, my People signed away much of our land in return for protection by the federal government. According to the United States Constitution, treaties are the supreme Law of the land. But over the years, the federal Government failed to fulfill its obligations under these treaties.

By the end of the 19th century, only a few hundred Band members remained on the remnants of our reservation in Mille Lacs. Our religion was banned, the teaching of our language and culture was forbidden and we could no longer make a living by our traditional means. It was very difficult to govern ourselves with such limited resources.

My People struggled for many years just to survive. We remained deprived and abandoned. Yet, we never gave up hope, and one day, our dreams came true. In the early 1990s, we opened Grand Casino Mille Lacs and Grand Casino Hinkley. And since then, casino revenues have allowed us to rebuild our cultural identity, become economically self-sufficient, and increase the prosperity of our entire region.

Today, we are still struggling to protect our rights and resources. We are doing our best to thwart attacks agianst our gaming businesses, and we recently won a court case asserting our right to hunt, fish, and garther in the territories that we ceded in the Treaty of 1837. We're also working hard to protect our tribal sovereignty, and seeking help from our supporters in the community and the state legislature to do so.

Most of all, we are trying to live peacefully with our neighbors and ensure that our children will grow up knowledgeable and proud of their Ojibwe culture, and confident in their abilities to succeed in today's world.

We welcone the opportunity to share our story with others, and greatly appreciate peoples' interest in our history and our contemporary issues. Once again, mii gwetch for listening to this show. And, please, come by and visit our museum and our reservation anytime.

James Baden
Editor, the Mille Lacs Messenger

Tribal harvest. I can see the invasion now.

First the dailies land, armed with their note pads, looking for the lake. Then come the television crews with their helicopters and celebrity anchors primping for a remote in front of the Garrison walleye. And finally, public radio with its microphones and its traditionally more "in depth" coverage. One has to wonder if they'll be room enough for the tribal gillnetters. But don't despair treaty rights enthusiasts, I'm sure there will be enough media around to provide all of you with ample opportunity to get your two cents in.

I suppose it sounds a little like I'm suffering from that dreaded treaty rights burnout, doesn't it? Well so what? Go ahead - take away my press pass, cancel my subscription to the American Journalism Review, run me out of town, but I just can't seem to get all doom and gloomy over Indian treaty rights anymore.

Maybe that's because I've been covering this story for 8 years, now. Eight years - That's longer than World War II for crying out loud - I earned two college degrees is less time than that. Eight years - That's volumes of stories, that's hundreds of interviews and treaty meetings, that's thousands of questions asked and answers published... and still, the only thing my unofficial polls indicate after all that time, is that when it comes to this treaty rights story, I've done a "pretty" job. That is, either a pretty good job or a pretty lousy job depending upon who you talk to.

Given the legal ramifications of a story like this, do you know how many lawyers you can talk to in eight years - if I had a nickel for every time I heard, "Jim we've got a great case," I'd be able to afford a car with paint on it.

Okay, before I'm really run out of town for all this irreverence, let me say that of course I think this tribal harvest is significant. And I will push my way through the metro television crews, the twin cities press corps, and even step on the toes of a few public radio reporters if need be, in order to cover whatever this event amounts to. But is this tribal harvest actually that important? Is it some kind of culmination of eight years of treaty stories? Does it really have to symbolize the end of life as we know it? I don't think so. And I don't think most people around Mille Lacs Lake think that either.

You know, last year around this time, most of us who live in the Mille Lacs Lake area were busy doing what we always do this time of year - gearing up for opening fishing. Teenagers were applying for summer jobs, kids were signing up for little league, the local community theater was putting up posters advertising its annual summer children's play, people were playing quilt bingo at the Catholic church - and in the midst of all those profound activities that lay at the heart of life in the Mille Lacs area, the governor of the state of Minnesota went on the air and asked people not to come up here and blow us up.

This treaty story - In eight years it has taken on almost mythological proportions. It's not a news story anymore, it's an epic. It's not a news story anymore, it's a cause, and all the colorful characters in the drama have turned into advocates, and the issues and the truths have become casualties in what is now a war of various agendas. When all is said and done, there's just too much noise, too much self-righteousness, too much pestering, too much hypocrisy. And fear, anger, and racism define far too many of the issues.

But, if you think the fear, the hatred, and the racial tension is all that defines Mille Lacs Lake, I say, think again. And before anyone writes us off, I offer this humble insight.

Mille Lacs Lake is very beautiful. When the sky is blue, it glitters like a silver jewel as far as the eye can see. In the summer on Mille Lacs Lake, it's always 75 degrees and sunny, and the fish are always biting.

So call me an advocate. So run me out of town.

Frank Courteau
Mille Lacs area resident

In my forties now, it was during my teenage years that I lived in Rhodesia, Africa, where my parents were doing medical missionary work. Apartheid, an Afrikaans word with a common definition translating to "separation based on race", was the legal and social system in place there at that time. I remember feeling elated when the time came for me to return to the United States to pursue my university studies. I did so with a still-held belief that most Americans do not realize how good America really is.

Apartheid is an evil system based on greed and self-interest, a system wherein legal rights mean everything, especially those allowing you to discriminate against your neighbor because of his or her race. It is a system that promotes an enduring hatred, one that transfers from one generation to the next. And it is a system that is doomed to failure simply because, as Lincoln put it, a house divided against itself cannot stand.

I thought apartheid with its inherent principles of segregation was something I left behind in Africa. I was shocked to find I was wrong.

Introduced to the Treaty Rights controversy some six years ago, that introduction has served as a springboard to further education, and the discovery that America itself has harbored and fostered its own system of apartheid... a system that continues to this very day.

Segregating Indian people onto reservations was and is a terrible thing. Allowing the discrimination to continue today is not just a tragedy, it is a travesty as well. Some will say it is by their (the Indian) choice. I really wonder about this, and as I have continued to do so, I have asked many questions. What I have learned makes me both sad and angry.

I have a dear and good friend, a full-blooded Anishinabe. Not long ago he told me that between the racists out there, and the well-intentioned but naive liberals, his people don't have a chance. Indian people are hated by one group, idealized and romanticized by the other, and ignored by the rest. He concluded by saying he was watching his extended family die as a result. I believe he speaks the truth because I know my friend to be a man who speaks from the heart, as well as his mind. Furthermore, anyone with first-hand knowledge of Indian reservations knows the truth of his words. In the vast majority of cases, reservations are truly America's models of destruction... and it is not the fault of the Indian people. I mean, who put the Indian people onto reservations in the first place? And who today is insisting that reservations are good places? And why?

Federal Indian policy has been a diaster from day one. That there even is a "Federal Indian Policy" is wrong. How would white people like it if there was a "Federal White Policy?"

Our government (We THE People) has decided to treat Indian people differently than all others. As a result, Indian people are considered separately from all other citizens. Another word for "separate" is "segregate." Either word aptly describes what has and is being done to the Indian people in our country. Shame on us.

Our government needs to either recognize and treat Indian "Nations" (all 557 of them) as true sovereigns, just like Canada, Mexico, or any other in the United Nations General Assembly, or it must stop playing this cruel hoax upon the Indian people, letting them believe they are "sovereign" when, in reality, they are not. I suggest that the United States Federal Government will never do the former (recognize and, even more importantly, treat tribes like Canada or Mexico). Left with the latter (the cruel hoax) "We The People" must demand that it end. We must finally and unconditionally welcome the American Indian into the fold as full and equal citizens, nothing more and nothing less.

If we do not, we are as guilty as Custer.

John Poupart
Executive Director, American Indian Research and Policy Institute

Greetings to everyone. Thank you for inviting me to contribute a few comments about the issue of tribal sovereignty. This particular issue is before us because of a clear absence of good information about it. Both in the general public and among policy makers. The situation for American Indians would be enhanced if accurate information were provided.

Let me begin. As to the legal basis for sovereignty, American Indian tribal sovereignty is supported by international doctrine as well as domestic law. For example, Fransiscos de Vitoria in the mid-16th century said that mere "discovery" could convey no title to the Europeans, and that "the aborigines in question were the true owners of land in the new world." He further stated that conveying title (from Indians to Europeans) via treaty was the way to land acquisition. This is the basis for the US government entering into 371 treaties with the various Indian tribes. These treaties are evidence that Indian people were neither "conquered," as many people think, nor did they sell or give up all their land.

Indian tribes are nations as stated in a US Supreme Court case, "Montoya v. United States." In this landmark case, it is specified that a nation is a group of people with an organized society in a geographic area bounded by language and custom. Therefore, we have a people who are nations and who possess sovereignty.

Tribal sovereignty then, is based in part, upon the treaties between Indian tribes and the US government. These treaties are referenced in three US Supreme Court decisions, one in 1824 and two in the early 1830s. These cases were: "Johnson v. McIntosh," "Cherokee v. Georgia," and "Worchester v. Georgia." One of these cases held that Indian tribes were "domestic, dependent nations" while another held that the state of Georgia's laws could have no force or effect on Cherokee lands. Still another principle established in these cases is that the US Congress alone has plenary power to regulate Indian affairs. State laws do not apply in Indian Country, except in those states under Public Law 280 where there is limited criminal and civil jurisdiction.

In 1944, Felix Cohen, an authority on Federal Indian Law said, "...the principle that those powers lawfully vested in an Indian tribe are not, in general, delegated powers granted by the express acts of Congress, but rather inherent powers of a limited sovereignty which has never been extinguished. Therefore, sovereignty and its authority is derived from an aboriginal sovereignty, and is not delegated by the federal government."

The single most intensifying issue for American Indians about tribal sovereignty is that policy makers are largely uneducated about it. Tribal sovereignty, when discussed in the public policy arena, seems to be discussed only during times when controversial issues arise, like should Indian casinos be taxed and do Indians have the right to hunt, fish, and gather off reservation? For Indians, this is distressing. Many of the people I talk to think that more and better education about American Indians must be offered.

There is no quick way to learn about what we should have learned in grade school, or at the very latest, in high school, about American Indians and their unique legal and political status. We cannot continue to accept the current situation where, because of the wide-spread ignorance about Indians, anyone's opinion is taken as fact.

To show how ignorant policy makers have been about tribal sovereignty, in 1947 Minnesota Governor Luther Youngdahl made reference to Indian treaties as "legal fiction." Even before then, and continuing today, policy makers continue to marginalize, and even dismiss, the fact that Indian tribes do, indeed, possess sovereignty. This is understandable, since so little is taught about federal Indian law in our educational systems.

Isn't it reasonable to start learning the truth about American Indians? If we do not begin in earnest to teach about American Indians and tribal sovereignty, it is not only Indians who will pay a heavy price, but all of society.

Thank you for allowing me to speak about this issue.