Boundaries, Forts & Dakota-Ojibwe Conflicts
This major American military fortification was constructed between 1819 and 1825 at Bdote, the sacred junction of the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers, following an unauthorized 1805 land cession.
What is Fort Snelling (or Pike's Purchase)?
Because it was primarily driven by American demand to clear and harvest millions of acres of lumber, the Treaty of 1837 is commonly referred to by this arboreal nickname.
What is the "White Pine Treaty"?
In an effort to force the removal of Wisconsin and Michigan Ojibwe west of the Mississippi, officials deliberately moved the 1850 annuity distribution from Madeline Island to this remote Minnesota location.
What is Big Sandy Lake (or Sandy Lake)?
This landmark federal statute passed in 1887 authorized the survey and division of communal tribal lands into individual private parcels.
What is the Dawes Act (or the General Allotment Act)?
Red Lake leaders ceded outer peripheral acreage in 1889 but completely refused individual allotment, leaving it today as Minnesota's only reservation with this closed status.
What is a closed, unallotted reservation (all land held in common tribal trust)?
The 1745 battle at this north-central Minnesota lake decisively marked Ojibwe control over the northern pine woods in their prolonged conflict with the Dakota.
What is Mille Lacs Lake?
Standard land cession treaties guaranteed Indigenous nations continued access to hunt, fish, and gather in these traditionally frequented areas across ceded territories.
What are "usual and accustomed places"?
This Territorial Governor of Minnesota conspired with local Indian agents to trap Ojibwe families at Sandy Lake until winter set in, aiming to force permanent relocation and enrich local merchants.
Who was Alexander Ramsey?
Once standard allotments of 160, 80, or 40 acres were distributed to tribal members, unallocated reservation lands were declared with this term and sold off to non-Native settlers.
What is "Surplus land"?
Fought on October 5, 1898, this conflict on the shores of Leech Lake is often recognized as the last armed engagement between the U.S. Army and an Indigenous nation.
What is the Battle of Sugar Point?
Convened in Wisconsin in 1825, this intertribal treaty attempted to establish peace by drawing a formal boundary between Dakota lands in the south and Ojibwe territory in the north.
What is the Treaty of Prairie du Chien?
Negotiated at Madeline Island, the Treaty of 1842 ceded Ojibwe territory across northern Wisconsin and this copper-rich peninsula of Michigan.
What is the Upper Peninsula (U.P.) of Michigan?
The sudden death of this U.S. President in the summer of 1850 stalled Congressional appropriations amid fierce national debates over the expansion of slavery, delaying annuity funding for months.
Who was Zachary Taylor?
Authored by a Minnesota congressman in 1889, this state-specific act sought to allot Minnesota reservations, consolidate all Ojibwe at White Earth, and open northern pine forests to logging.
What is the Nelson Act?
The unrest at Leech Lake was ignited when federal marshals repeatedly arrested this Pillager leader to collect travel fees and compel testimony in illicit bootlegging trials.
Who was Bugonaygeshig (Hole-in-the-Day / Bagone-giizhig)?
Following the American Revolutionary War and the 1783 Treaty of Paris, Indigenous nations in the Northwest Territory continued trade and defensive alliances with this foreign power against westward-moving American settlers.
Who is Great Britain (the British)?
Today, off-reservation hunting, fishing, and gathering treaty rights within the 1854 ceded territory of northeastern Minnesota are administered by this intertribal agency.
What is the 1854 Treaty Authority?
While waiting through the late autumn cold for payments that never materialized, approximately 150 Ojibwe people died at the camp due to exposure and this food-related disaster.
What was spoiled/rotten food rations (disease/dysentery)?
This visual metaphor describes the fragmented jurisdiction that emerged when fee lands, allotments, timber claims, and state parcels became intermingled within reservation boundaries.
What is "Checkerboarding"?
Spurred by public scrutiny of timber fraud exposed after the Battle of Sugar Point, this 1902 congressional act overhauled timber management and formed what is now Chippewa National Forest.
What is the Morris Act of 1902?
Also known as the Battle of Izatys, this 1750 encounter in Mille Lacs County represents one of the most celebrated conflicts in oral tradition between Ojibwe and Dakota forces.
What is the Battle of Kathio?
In contrast to the United States' understanding of permanent land cession in the 1837 treaty, historical and oral records show many Ojibwe leaders believed they were merely doing this with the land's surface resources.
What is leasing the land (or sharing timber/surface use)?
In 1852, this revered Lake Superior Ojibwe leader travelled over 1,000 miles to Washington, D.C., to convince President Millard Fillmore to rescind removal orders and secure permanent homelands.
Who was Chief Buffalo (Kechewaishke / Gichi-weshkiinh)?
Under the Nelson Act, federal commissioners divided ceded reservation lands into "Pine Lands" (auctioned to timber companies) and this second category sold to settlers under the Homestead Act.
What are "Agricultural Lands"?
When the Nelson Act attempted to force all Minnesota Ojibwe to relocate to White Earth, the vast majority of this band refused to leave their homelands—living under settler scrutiny as "squatters" for decades until securing their permanent sovereign reservation status.
Who are the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe (the "Nonremovables")?