From the Leelanau Enterprise: “‘The tribe [Grand Traverse Band] has always been a good steward of the land,’ Bunek said, ‘and I’m glad that the 1836 treaty has been clarified so that there are no more rumors out there about what people are and are not allowed to do.'”
No quotes from any tribal members in this article — that’s unfortunate.
Muskegon Chronicle: “It is noteworthy that groups traditionally opposed to the terms of past settlement proposals seem to have resigned themselves to the inevitability of this deal, which gives neither American Indians nor non-tribal sporting interests all they want. Rebecca Humphries, director of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources, in announcing the agreement, said it will ‘provide stability and predictability in an area of former legal uncertainty.'”
From the Escanaba Daily Press: Treaty gets historic clarification
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By George Weeks |
DETROIT — Much was made of last week’s historic deal between General Motors and the United Auto Workers that reflected current economic realities 70 years after a 44-day strike led to the UAW gaining power to bargain exclusively with GM on wages and working conditions.
More historically significant, after about 170 years, was last week’s recognition/regulation agreement that at long last clarifies how five tribes can exercise fishing and hunting rights under the 1836 Treaty of Washington that ceded about 13.9 million acres in the northern Lower Peninsula and the eastern Upper Peninsula.
The treaty, covering about 37 percent of the state’s land and water, was the single largest cession of land to the federal government by the first people of Michigan, and led to statehood in 1837.
As with the GM-UAW deal, the hunting/fishing agreement has some good for both sides and represents a reality check.
The reality is that although U.S. District Judge Noel Fox ruled in 1979 that “Indians have a right to fish today wherever fish are to be found within the area of cession,” there has been what Department of Natural Resources director Becky Humphries calls “legal uncertainty.”
Fox said: “The mere passage of time has not eroded, and cannot erode the rights guaranteed by solemn treaties that both sides pledged on their honor to uphold.”
But there was prolonged controversy because of conflicting court cases and interpretations of a 1985 consent decree setting tribal and non-tribal fishing zones in portions of Lakes Superior, Michigan and Huron.
During the legal battles, especially in the early days, there was animosity and occasional violence between tribal and sports fishers.
While tribes will get longer hunting seasons for some game, and have other benefits over non-tribal hunters, Marquette-based Jim Ekdahl, the Upper Peninsula DNR director and key negotiator on the agreement, said, “Michigan’s natural resources will not be compromised.”
In some tribes, only a small percentage of members hunt or fish — a far cry from earlier times when fish were needed for subsistence. Fishing was part of a way of life and a major factor in the formation, migration, and settlement pattern of Native Americans.
Treaty fishing controversies in no small part led to what is now a major economic factor for the tribes and the state — Indian casinos.
In fact, it was a catalyst for the organization and federal recognition of such tribes as the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians and the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians (GTB).
Former GTB Tribal Chairman Joseph Raphael, now a member of the tribal council, does not believe federal recognition “would have ever happened” had it not been for the fishing issue and the persistence of such GTB members as Arthur Duhamel, a tribal councilor who was arrested seven times in the 1970s for pressing his claim of treaty rights in Lake Michigan.
Raphael said: “After the 1979 (Judge) Fox decision, you needed to be a federally recognized tribe. Quite frankly, that was the instrument here. That was the push.” (The comment was in this scribe’s 1992 book, “Mem-ka-weh: Dawning of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians.”)
Fish and chips. Both part of the web of economic life for our first people.
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EDITOR’S NOTE — George Weeks is retired after being a political columnist for the Detroit News for 22 years. His syndicated column appears weekly in the Daily Press. Weeks is also former chief of staff for Gov. William Milliken and as a journalist covered the White House, State Department, and Pentagon.
From The Mining Journal:
Key dates in the battle over Indian hunting and fishing rights in Michigan:
1836: Treaty of Washington between Ottawa and Chippewa bands and the United States. Tribes cede ownership of about 13.9 million acres in northern Lower Peninsula, eastern Upper Peninsula.
1930: Michigan Supreme Court rules no Indian fishing rights exist under previous treaties.
1971: Court reverses itself, saying Bay Mills Indian Community has treaty fishing rights.
1973: Federal government files suit, seeking state recognition of tribal fishing rights.
1985: Consent decree reached, setting tribal and non-tribal fishing zones in portions of Lakes Michigan, Huron and Superior.
2000: Updated version of consent decree approved.
2003: Michigan asks court to rule that tribal fishing rights on inland waters and 1836 treaty lands have expired.
Sept. 26, 2007: State, tribes announce settlement of inland rights case.
The big news in Michigan Indian Country is the settlement after three years of negotiation of the biggest question left open in the United States v. Michigan litigation — inland hunting and fishing rights.
Links to news reports/press releases are here and here. The Sault Tribe is holding a referendum. One interesting question is whether the other four tribes (Grand Traverse Band, Bay Mills, Little Traverse, and Little River) will be bound by the consent decree if Sault Tribe votes to reject it. Hopefully, that question won’t come up.
Turtle Talk 