Treaty Rights of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe

Before the arrival of Europeans, the Ojibwe nation occupied much of the Lake Superior region, including what is now Ontario in Canada and Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota in the United States. In 1850, President Zachary Taylor’s administration, in response to demands from European Americans, planned to force the Ojibwe of Wisconsin west of the Mississippi in violation of signed treaties. They planned to bring the Ojibwe to Minnesota from Wisconsin in late fall so that they would have to stay for the winter, wearing down their resistance to relocation. Nearly 3000 Ojibwe men made the long journey to Sandy Lake, Minnesota, where they waited for weeks for a government agent to arrive and even longer for what turned out to be spoiled food and only a small portion of the payment and goods they were due. The conditions were so poor that 150 men died of disease, starvation, or freezing. On the treacherous return journey to Wisconsin another 200 men died. In 1852, Chief Buffalo, the principal chief of the Lake Superior Ojibwe, traveled to Washington, DC, by birchbark canoe with three other men, to press President Millard Fillmore to cancel the removal order. They managed to find an audie…