The Mille Lacs Treaty Case: Whose Agenda Is It?

by Joe Fellegy

In the early 1990s, with a growing public awareness about the Mille Lacs Band tribal government's 1837 Treaty lawsuit against the citizens of Minnesota, Mille Lacs Band members seemed detached and nonchalant. There had been no movement on their part to sue the state. A typical reaction by band members to the tribal government's lawsuit and to the strong concern in the wider community went something like this: "What's all the fuss? Nobody cares about fishing anyway!"

That stark bit of truth makes one wonder. If few people in the Mille Lacs Band fished or cared about fishing ­ a fact widely attested to inside and outside the Band ­ why was the lawsuit over fishing, hunting, and gathering rights launched in the first place? If fishing ranked low among the needs and priorities of Mille Lacs Band members, then whose agenda and interest gave rise to Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians versus State of Minnesota? If 1837 treaty rights and Minnesota's regulation of fishing, hunting, and gathering in the off-reservation ceded territory have never been issues for over 100 years of Mille Lacs chiefs, post-1934 tribal governments, and generations of Mille Lacs Band members, how and why in the late 1980s and 1990s was the Mille Lacs Band committed to a lawsuit whose predictable costs in dollars and social divisions would be enormous for the Band and for the state of Minnesota?

The Mille Lacs treaty lawsuit challenges Minnesota's regulatory authority over band fishing, hunting, and gathering in 12 counties of east-central Minnesota ­ several million acres ceded to the United States by a number of Ojibwe bands via the Treaty of 1837. The territory includes over a hundred lakes, including Mille Lacs, the state's most popular sport fishing lake, plus hundreds of stream miles.

The lawsuit is based on a shaky premise. Its victims, who are paying a heavy price in millions of dollars and a torn social fabric, are the citizens of Minnesota. These include Mille Lacs Band members who have been duped into funding and supporting the tribal government's legal/political "rights" fight that has no basis in Mille Lacs Band history.

It skirts historical fact to say that the lawsuit grows out of some "historic" and even "sacred" rights cause, rights fight, or rights struggle, on the part of the Mille Lacs Band to fish, hunt, and gather independent of state regulation in the territory ceded to the United States in 1837. The Mille Lacs tribal government's lawsuit, launched in 1990, has questionably represented 1837 Treaty rights as a major priority of the Mille Lacs Band ­ dear to the hearts of Band members, and more important to the Band's interests than anything else, even its lucrative casinos.

In 1993, Minnesota newspaper editors, prominent columnists, and influential politicians including U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone and Minnesota Governor Arne Carlson were quick to support out-of-court settlement proposals which would have paid the Band millions of dollars, thousands of acres of public land, and a race-based "exclusive" fishing zone on Mille Lacs. Support for the settlement came largely without questioning the lawsuit's credibility and without care for long term consequences in the Mille Lacs community.

With editors of the Star Tribune and the Pioneer Press, and with columnists like Doug Grow and Nick Coleman, it seemed as though any tribal government could put forth any "treaty rights" claims and deserve a generous settlement ­ no questions asked! What a strange rubber stamp approach from those who usually thrive on analyzing issues and exhaustively scrutinizing people with significant agendas.

Promoters of the Mille Lacs 1837 Treaty lawsuit have sidestepped history to cloak their rights politics in culture, history, religion, and even dietary needs. Indeed, the Mille Lacs treaty suit has been made such a celebrated cause in some media circles that anyone who questions the agenda is viewed as delegitimized and tainted ­ "anti-Indian rights" and even "anti-Indian." In order to be "for the Indians" one has to support the tribal government's lawsuit against Minnesota. If you question anything, you are "against the Indians."

Nebulous and simplistic reasons for supporting the settlement effort and the tribal government's lawsuit included things like "they deserve it," "we owe them," "a treaty is a treaty," and "they always win in court." The specifics of Mille Lacs history and contemporary Mille Lacs Band realities were almost never considered. The settlement effort narrowly failed, but the same blind dedication to the treaty rights agenda persists today and continues to shape media coverage, and non-coverage, of the treaty lawsuit issues.

Raise solid historical or legal questions, point out the likely negative impacts on people and resources, or otherwise challenge the treaty rights agenda, and you're tainted with the dishonorable "racist" label. Consequently, the usual debate and rational examination of issues in the media and among state politicians has effectively been shut down ­ by the very people whose job it is to cover the facts, to examine the issues, and to expose the truth.

In fact, personalities like Don Wedll, the Band's non-Indian DNR Commissioner and a primary orchestrator of the lawsuit, and tribal government political operative Ron Maddox, the former St. Paul councilman who has hosted meetings galore, walked capitol halls, pumped the telephone, and strong-armed the press on behalf of the fabricated treaty cause, have somehow been exempted from accountability in the media and state political circles.

Would that "hands off" and "kid gloves" approach hold true if any other entity sued Minnesota pursuant to jurisdictional designs on 12 counties of the state?

For over five years, Mille Lacs Band members have been brainwashed about treaty rights and insulated from their own history ­ in an atmosphere where freedoms of the press, speech, and political discussion are discouraged, where the free flow of information is nonexistent. Consequently, some Mille Lacs Ojibwe who previously had no interest in fishing, hunting, and gathering outside of state regulation in the off-reservation ceded territory are now waiting in line to "exercise" rights.

But this politically grounded revival of practicing "culture" (often defined by white liberals) should not hide the fact that there was no grassroots movement by Mille Lacs Band members to sue Minnesota. The passionate embrace of the narrowly defeated out-of-court settlement and of the "treaty rights" agenda by newspaper editors, activists, politicos, and even Diana Murphy's court, has a momentum of its own ­ almost entirely apart from the history and interests of the Mille Lacs Ojibwe people!

Meanwhile, given the costs in dollars, potentials for reduced fish and game limits, and animosities that have visited Wisconsin and other places where treaty rights agendas unfold, Mille Lacs resorters, anglers, landowners, and local governments remain uncertain and uneasy about their futures. Band members and the state's citizenry are at the mercy of an agenda pushed by a tribal government which is apparently accountable to no one, plus the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, the Clinton Administration's Justice Department, highly paid attorneys and expert witnesses, lobbyists, media beholden to the leverage of casino advertising dollars, and "rights" activists who know and care little about Mille Lacs!

A strong appeal of Phase I of the Mille Lacs treaty case would seem to be a moral imperative.