Bad River Band of the Lake Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians

The Bad River Band of Chippewa Indians is located on a reservation on the south shore of Lake Superior. The reservation, which has a land area of 497.477 km² (192.077 sq mi), is in northern Wisconsin straddling Ashland and Iron counties. The band has approximately 6,000 members, of whom 1,411 lived on the reservation during the 2000 census. Most people live in one of four towns: Odanah, Old Odanah, Birch, or Frank's Field. Odanah, the administrative and cultural center, is located five miles (8 km) east of the town of Ashland on U.S. Highway 2. Over 90% of the reservation is wilderness.

History

According to Ojibwe prophecy, the Great Spirit Gichi Manidoo told the Anishinaabe to move west from the Atlantic coast until they found the "food that grows on water." After a series of stops and divisions, the branch of Anishinaabe known as the Lake Superior Chippewa found the food that grows on water, wild rice, near Chequamegon Bay on the south shore of Lake Superior at the site of the present day Bad River Reservation, and found their final stopping place at nearby Madeline Island.

After a 17th-century diaspora of Ojibwe throughout northern Wisconsin into lands formerly disputed with the Sioux and Meskwaki, those that remained near the trading post of La Pointe on Madeline Island were known collectively as the La Pointe Band and engaged in the fur trade and other seasonal occupations such as maple sugaring, fishing, ricing, and hunting. After a disastrous attempt at removing the Lake Superior bands resulting in the Sandy Lake Tragedy, the US Government agreed to setting up permanent reservations in Wisconsin. At this point, the La Pointe band split with Roman Catholic members under the leadership of Chief Buffalo taking a reservation at Red Cliff, and those maintaining traditional Midewiwin beliefs settling at Bad River. The two bands, however, maintain close relations to this day.

The reservation land was set aside for the Bad River Band in the Treaty of La Pointe, made with the United States and signed on Madeline Island on 30 September 1854. The treaty land included almost 200 acres (0.8 km²) on Madeline Island, the center of the Ojibwe Nation. The band is one of six in Wisconsin that is federally recognized.

During the late 19th centuries, an order of Franciscan sisters set up St. Mary's School in Odanah, an Indian boarding school to convert and assimilate tribal members. During this period, timber companies on the reservation cheated the tribe out of tens of thousands of dollars. During the Allotment period, the tribe lost almost half its land base.

Revival

As Lake Superior Chippwa, the Bad River Band retains its rights to hunt, fish, and gather wild rice and medicinal plants over the ceded territory of northern Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota. The tribe pressed these claims throughout the 20th century, and after the tribal members from Bad River and the other Lake Superior bands resumed their traditional practice of spear fishing resulting in the Wisconsin Walleye War.

In 1996, a group of Ojibwe activists known as the "Anishinabe Ogitchida" blocked a railroad shipment of sulfuric acid from crossing the reservation. Destined for a mine in Michigan, the protestors complained the acid posed a danger to the reservation and the Lake Superior watershed. The national attention brought by the protests forced the EPA to stop the use of acid in the mine.

Sixteen thousand acres (65 km²) of the reservation are high-quality wetlands due the Kakagon River and Bad River sloughs. The wetlands are ideal for the cultivation of wild rice, the historical occupation of the Chippewa. The sloughs constitute the only remaining extensive coastal wild rice marsh in the Great Lakes region. The headquarters of the Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission is on the Bad River Reservation. The tribe also operates a fish hatchery that stocks local rivers and lakes with 15 million walleye annually.

Due to its landscape and proximity to Madeline Island, Bad River is a major center of the Ojibwe nation. People from all over Ojibwe country come for the annual late-summer pow-wow celebrating the wild rice harvest. Bad River has also taken over from Madeline Island as the spiritual center of the nation.

External links

* [http://www.glitc.org/pages/brblsc.html Great Lakes Intertribal Council description]
* [http://www.badriver.com/about.html A Brief Bad River History/Description]

References

*Loew, Patty. 2001. Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories of Endurance and Renewal." Madison: Wisconsin Historical Society Press.
* [http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/DTTable?_bm=y&-context=dt&-ds_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U&-CHECK_SEARCH_RESULTS=N&-CONTEXT=dt&-mt_name=DEC_2000_SF1_U_P001&-tree_id=4001&-transpose=N&-all_geo_types=N&-redoLog=true&-_caller=geoselect&-geo_id=25000US0140&-search_results=25000US0140&-format=&-fully_or_partially=N&-_lang=en&-show_geoid=Y Bad River Reservation, Wisconsin] United States Census Bureau