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TRANSACTIONS
- Of -
the Wisconsin
Academy of
Sciences,
Arts &
Letters
Volume 78
1990
Transactions
Carl N. Haywood, Editor
136 Schofield Hall
University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
Eau Claire, Wisconsin 54701
i K
Production Editor
Patricia Allen Duyfhuizen
Poetry Editor
Bruce Taylor
Assistant Editors/Intems
Victoria Emmerich
Christine Gruenhagen
Lise Hansen
Charles Larson
Lonn Lorenz
Caitlyn Morrell
Jilloyn Rumple
Patti See
Keith Van Pay
Transactions welcomes articles that explore features of the State of Wisconsin and its people. Articles
written by Wisconsin authors on topics other than Wisconsin sciences, arts, and letters are also occa¬
sionally published.
Manuscripts, queries, and other correspondence should be addressed to the editor.
Transactions is a publication of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters, 1922 University
Avenue, Madison, Wisconsin 53705-4099.
LeRoy R. Lee, Executive Director
© 1990
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters
Manufactured in the United States of America
All rights reserved
TRANSACTIONS
of the Wisconsin Academy
of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Volume 78
1990
Contents
A Quantitative Survey of the Submersed Macrophytes in Devil’s
Lake, Sauk County, with a Historical Review of the Invasion of
Eurasian Watermilfoil, Myriophyllum spicatum L.
Richard A. Lillie
Recently the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources conducted a series of
limnological investigations to identify possible reasons for the deteriorating water
quality of Devil’s Lake. Quantitative surveys of the aquatic macrophytes of the
lake were conducted in an effort to assess historical changes in the lake’s macrophyte
community.
Tornadoes of Fire at Williamsonville, Wisconsin
Joseph M. Moran and E. Lee Somerville
On October 8, 1871, fires in the upper Midwest burned thousands of acres and
killed over seventeen hundred people. In southern Door County the fires ended
lumbering and shinglemaking as major industries and opened the area for the
development of agriculture. Moran and Somerville examine the “tornadoes of fire’’
that witnesses testified swept the area the night Williamsonville, Wisconsin, burned,
killing sixty of its seventy-seven residents.
Spectral Confusion by Hummingbirds and the Evolution of Red
Coloration in Their Flowers: A New Hypothesis
Robert Bleiweiss
It has long been thought that red hummingbird-pollinated flowers have evolved
because of an innate preference by hummingbirds for red or because red is incon¬
spicuous to insects. In this article Professor Bleiweiss presents a new theory based
on a previously unconsidered property of color vision: wavelength discrimination.
He suggests a new “confusion hypothesis’’ for the evolution of common red color.
Glaciated Karst Terrain in the Door Peninsula of Wisconsin
Carol J. Rosen and Michael J. Day
Although large areas of carbonate bedrock in the United States experienced the
effects of Pleistocene glaciation, glaciokarst is poorly documented. In this paper
the authors call attention to one major area of glaciated karst terrain developed on
dolomites in northeastern Wisconsin and present some initial results of studies of
the karst landforms.
Photography
Alfred Charles Bonanno
The viewer will quickly recognize that Bonanno has the rare ability to capture
universal moments. His photographs are used by major teaching centers, appear in
national publications, and are held in private and public collections in several
countries.
A New Station in Door County, Wisconsin, for the Rare Iris
lacutris Nutt. (Dwarf Lake Iris)
Charles R. Hart
The Iris lacustris Nutt, is known only from Michigan, Ontario and Wisconsin, and
has recently been designated as a “threatened species” on state and national levels.
Recently an extensive population of this threatened plant was discovered in southern
Door County.
Diel Periodicity of Movement and Feeding of Yellow Perch {Perea
Flavescens) in Lake Mendota, Wisconsin
John P. McCarty
Diel activity cycles have been reported for a variety of freshwater fishes, yet the
degree to which individual behavior affects population phenomena is not clear.
Analysis of the spatial distributions of yellow perch in Lake Mendota, Wisconsin,
indicate that diel movement patterns are more variable than previously reported.
Poetry
Some of Wisconsin’s best-known poets and some of our most promising new poets
are represented in the poetry section.
Voles and Bog Lemmings of Wisconsin
Charles A . Long
This is a report on the taxonomy as well as the geographical and ecological dis¬
tributions of Wisconsin’s voles and bog lemmings. There is also a summary of the
environmental status of the animals.
Interspecific Associations of Some Wisconsin Lake Plants
Stanley A . Nichols
This paper is another in the major studies being conducted into the quality of and
changes in Wisconsin lakes. The primary purpose of these detailed macrophyte
surveys is to design lake management strategies and to collect benchmark limno¬
logical data. The lakes being studied represent a broad range of Wisconsin lake
types with regard to geographic distribution, chemical and physical parameters, and
human impact.
From the Editor
As the editor of Transactions it is my pleasure to introduce our readers to the 1990 volume.
This issue reflects not only a broad range of topics, but readers will be happy to see the return
of the photography section which this year features the work of Alfred Charles Bonanno.
This volume presents subjects as diverse as Wisconsin lakes, hummingbirds, tornadoes of
fire, and the discovery of a new station for a rare plant. Of course the regular poetry section
has been included. Once again I think readers will appreciate the high quality of the work
about Wisconsin and by Wisconsin authors.
It is hoped that future volumes of Transactions or some other component of the Academy
will reflect the work being done by the recipients of the awards given at the annual meeting.
We are currently exploring ways to present work dedicated specifically to poetry and pho¬
tography. The anthology of Wisconsin poets that was announced in the 1989 volume will be
published early in 1991. People who attended the 1990 meeting of the Academy held in
Platteville were introduced to some of the poems at an afternoon reading by our poetry editor,
Bruce Taylor.
For over a hundred years the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters has presented
the vigorous intellectual life of people in our state. We who currently work on Transactions
are dedicated to continuing that tradition, and in that spirit are happy to commend this volume
to our readers.
Comments, suggestions, and submissions should be addressed to the Editor.
Carl N. Haywood
Announcement
Transactions will be featuring in its next issue a section called “Mi¬
nority Voices” and especially encourages submission of five to ten
pages of previously unpublished poetry from Wisconsin poets who
represent as wide and diverse a scope as possible of racial, cultural,
ethnic, and esthetic diversity.
v
A Quantitative Survey of the Submersed
Macrophytes in Devil’s Lake, Sauk County, with
a Historical Review of the Invasion of Eurasian
Watermilfoil, Myriophyllum spicatum L.
Richard A. Lillie
Abstract . Quantitative surveys of the aquatic macrophytes of Devils Lake , Devils Lake State
Park, Sauk County, were conducted July 29-31, 1987, in an effort to assess historical changes
in the lake’s macrophyte community. Above-ground biomass and frequency of occurrence
data were obtained from 28 transects spaced 200 m apart. Biomass samples (0.1 m2 quadrats)
were collected and frequencies of occurrence (0.8 m2 quadrats) were recorded at 5 m intervals
along transects from shore to a water depth of 9 m. Macrophytes occupied 78% of the 0-9 m
littoral zone at an average biomass of 187 g/m2 ( within vegetated areas). Potamogeton robbinsii
Oakes and Elodea canadensis Michx. were dominant , accounting for almost half of the
39,000 kg of total plant biomass. Myriophyllum spicatum L., an introduced species that
accounted for an additional 22% of the total biomass, formed three distinctive surface canopy
beds 25-50 m wide by up to 300 m long in water 1 .5-3.0 m deep. Milfoil distribution
increased dramatically between 1979 and 1987 but showed some indication of declining in
1988 and 1989. Native macrophytes also increased in abundance and distribution. Mecha¬
nisms responsible for the growth dynamics of milfoil in Devil s Lake were not identified, but
climatic fluctuations and insect disturbances may be significant.
Devil’s Lake State Park, Sauk County,
has a rich and diverse flora that has
received attention by botanists since the mid¬
nineteenth century (Lange 1984). However,
most botanical collections were of terrestrial
species, and relatively little is known about
the aquatic flora of Devil’s Lake (exceptions
include Baker 1975; Lillie 1986). Recently,
the Wisconsin Department of Natural Re¬
sources (WDNR) conducted a series of linv
Richard A. Lillie has been a research biologist (Lim-
nologist) with the Wisconsin Department of Natural Re¬
sources, Fitchburg, Wisconsin, for the past sixteen years.
During this time, he has been involved in a wide variety
of lake and stream investigations throughout the state.
Dick has a B.S. in Zoology from UW-Oshkosh and a
MS in Entomology from UW -Madison.
nological investigations to identify possible
causes and mechanisms responsible for de¬
teriorating water quality (Lillie and Mason
1986; Lillie 1986; WDNR 1988). Because
some rooted submersed macrophytes can ef¬
fectively translocate nutrients from sedi¬
ments to the surrounding water column (Barko
and Smart 1980; Nichols and Keeney 1976;
Prentki 1979; Smith and Adams 1986),
changes in the abundance or community
composition of submersed macrophytes may
influence lake water quality (Landers 1982;
Carpenter 1983; Carpenter and Lodge 1986).
Consequently, the WDNR conducted macro¬
phyte surveys in Devil’s Lake in 1984 and
1987. Specific objectives of these surveys
were: (1) to document the composition,
1
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters
standing crop biomass, and distribution of
the submersed macrophytes in Devil’s Lake
and (2) to compare current distributions with
available historical data. These data, com¬
piled and summarized in this paper, represent
a significant contribution to the knowledge
of the flora of Devil’s Lake and should serve
as the basis for monitoring future long-term
changes in the lake’s aquatic plant commu¬
nity. Likewise, the documented history of the
introduction, expansion, and growth dynam¬
ics of Myriophyllum spicatum L. in Devil’s
Lake may provide information useful in the
management of this exotic invasive species.
Methods
Devil’s Lake is a relatively small (151 ha),
moderately soft water (total alkalinity 22 mg/
L), thermally stratified (maximum depth
14m), seepage lake with generally very good
water quality (Lillie and Mason 1986). Sur¬
veys of the submersed macrophytes of Dev¬
il’s Lake were conducted July 30- August 1,
1984 and July 29-31, 1987. Methods em¬
ployed in the 1984 survey were described
earlier (Lillie 1986) and were generally sim¬
ilar to those used in 1987 as described here.
In 1987, macrophyte surveys were conducted
via SCUBA along 28 transects spaced 200 m
apart around the shoreline (Fig. 1). Two dive-
teams, consisting of one diver and two top¬
side assistants each, were required to com¬
plete the field collections. Presence or ab¬
sence of all macrophyte species were re¬
corded from 644 (646 in 1984 survey) circular
quadrats (0.8 m2) spaced at 5 m intervals
(linear distance) along each transect from shore
to a water depth of 9 m. These data were
used to compute frequencies of occurrence
for each macrophyte species. Divers also vis¬
ually classified total macrophyte, above¬
ground, standing crop biomass at each quad¬
rat as either absent, rare, sparse, or dense.
Above-ground biomass samples were col¬
lected for dry weight determinations from a
representative number of each subjective bi¬
omass class (i.e. rare, sparse, or dense) by
harvesting all plant shoots and stems within
0.1 m2 quadrats (three-sided aluminum frame)
at the sediment-plant interface (Table 1). In
some dense stands, sampling intervals were
extended to 10 m (linear distance); standing
crop data were interpolated for intermediate
quadrats. Biomass samples were collected
from every fourth sparse and rare quadrat
beginning with the first encounter of each day
of field collections. All samples were bagged,
labeled, placed in a iced-cooler, and trans¬
ported to the laboratory where they were sorted
by species and dried at 106°C for 48 hours.
A spikerush, Eleocharis acicularis R. & S.,
was harvested with roots intact. Because it
was not possible to distinguish between Po-
tamogeton illinoensis Morong and Potamo-
geton amplifolius Tuckerm. in the field, data
for these two species were combined (P. il¬
linoensis was the more common species based
on laboratory examinations). Likewise, Ni-
tella spp. and filamentous algae {Cladophora
spp.) were often physically intertwined and
impossible to separate; hence data for these
taxa were also combined.
Taxonomy was based on Fassett (1972)
and Voss (1972). Voucher specimens were
prepared and taxonomy verified by T. Coch¬
ran and H. litis of the University of Wisconsin-
Madison Herbarium and, in the case of pond-
weeds, by S. G. Smith of the University of
Wisconsin- Whitewater.
Average dry weight biomass for each plant
taxon was computed for each 1.5-m depth
interval along each transect. Average bio¬
mass was multiplied by the area of each rep¬
resentative cell (inshore and offshore bound¬
aries of cells were defined by water depth
limits; lateral boundaries were defined by
common boundaries half-way between ad¬
jacent transects. (See Fig. 1 to obtain areal-
weighted biomass values.) These values were
summed to derive estimates of total standing
crop of each taxon by transect, region, depth
zone, and entire lake. For purposes of dis¬
cussion, results will be presented in terms of
these four areas, or combinations thereof.
Inasmuch as this method of calculating
standing crop biomass did not permit an un-
2
Quantitative Survey of Submersed Macrophytes in Devils Lake
Fig. 1. Hydrographic map of Devil’s Lake, Sauk County, Wisconsin with accompanying maps
depicting the locations of macrophyte survey transects and boundaries used in estimating
plant biomass (see text for further explanation).
biased computation of variance (values were
interpolated for intermediate quads and un¬
sampled sites; a few cells contained only 1
quadrat), a second estimate of total standing
crop was made using only the data from the
rare, sparse, and dense quads that were ac¬
tually sampled (see Table 1). Average bio¬
mass of each subjective plant-biomass class
3
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Table 1 . Distribution of biomass samples by
visual biomass class. Data represent the
percent of quadrats in each visual biomass
class within which plants were collected for
dry weight measurements.
Visual Biomass Class
1984
1987
“Dense”
79%
84%
“Sparse”
4
24
“Rare”
1
25
“None”*
-
-
All vegetated sites
47
61
All quadrats
56
68
*by definition - No plants; total biomass zero; no
collection necessary.
was multiplied by the area occupied by each
class (based solely on frequency of occur¬
rence) to derive estimates of standing crop
for each region. This latter method of cal¬
culation overestimated standing crop bio¬
mass by about 33% but permitted an esti¬
mation of biomass variance. Coefficients of
variation of total standing crop using this sec¬
ond method of calculation were 6.8% and
6.3% for 1984 and 1987 data, respectively.
These variances may be roughly applied to
the more accurate areal-weighted
biomass data.
Actual dry-weight biomass data were com¬
pared with the subjective plant-biomass classes
as assigned by divers to derive objective plant-
biomass classification (Table 2). Dense stands
of macrophytes were defined as areas with
standing dry-weight crops exceeding 30 g/m2;
sparse biomass ranged from 15 to 29 g/m2,
and quads classed as rare had < 15 g/m2. A
fifth class, very dense, was arbitrarily set at
> 99 g/m2.
Aerial photographs were taken each sum¬
mer from 1984 to 1989 and, in conjunction
with ground-truth measurements, snorkeling
surveys, and the transect data, were used to
map the distribution of macrophytes.
Subtle differences in the placement of tran¬
sects and water level changes occurring be¬
tween the 1984 and 1987 surveys influenced
sample sizes and areas surveyed (see Table 3).
These differences compromised the validity
of detailed statistical analyses of biomass data
between regions and depth-zones between
years but did not seriously affect direct com¬
parisons of summary data for each species.
Changes in frequencies of occurrence of the
major species were evaluated using chi-squared
tests. Plant associations and community
structure of the 1 987 data were explored uti-
Table 2. Plant biomass distribution in Devil’s Lake based on (A) subjective plant classification
assigned by divers (visual estimates) and (B) objective dry weight biomass measurements
(quantitative). Data represent percent of total quadrats in each classification. 1984 N = 646;
1987 N = 644.
Subjective Relative Plant
Biomass Classification
1984
Year
1987
“Dense”
48%
51%
“Sparse”
23%
19%
“Rare”
12%
13%
“Absent”
17%
17%
Objective Plant
Biomass
Year
Biomass Classification
(g/m2)
1984
1987
Very Dense
>99
29%
29%
Dense
30-99
14
19
Sparse
15-29
26
14
Rare
1-15
14
21
Absent
0
17
17
4
Quantitative Survey of Submersed Macrophytes in Devil s Lake
lizing principal component analysis, Pearson
correlation coefficients, and similarity in¬
dices. The degree of association between
species was based on common co-occurrences
(Marvan and Komarek 1978) adjusted for
random chance co-occurrence. The later
analysis was more informative than chi-
squared tests in elucidating plant associations.
Results and Discussion
General distribution in 1987
Macrophytes occupied 78% of the 0-9 m
littoral zone of Devil’s Lake at an average
dry weight biomass of 83 g/m2 (Table 3).
Dense macrophyte stands covered 21 ha (48-
51% by frequency of occurrence; see Table 2)
at an average biomass of 187 g/m2. Another
16 ha of lake bottom was sparsely vegetated
(14-19% frequency of occurrence). Ninety-
eight percent of the total biomass of sub¬
mersed vegetation in Devil’s Lake (39,000 kg
dry wt) was contained in dense beds. Eighty-
five percent of the total plant biomass was
confined to water less than 4.5 m deep; vir¬
tually no plants grew at depths deeper than
9 m. Highest average total biomass (313 g/m2)
within a particular depth-region zone was in
the 1.5-3 m Inlet region. Sixteen species of
plants were recorded (Table 4). Potamoge-
ton robbinsii Oakes and Elodea canadensis
Michx. were dominant in water less than 4.5 m
deep, and a mixture of Nitella spp. and fi¬
lamentous algae (mostly Cladophora spp.)
was dominant in deeper water. Myriophyllum
spicatum L. was less common but still com¬
prised 22% of the lake’s total biomass
(Table 5). Ceratophyllum demersum L., Val-
lisneria americana Michx., Potamogeton
diversifolius Raf., and a mixture of Pota-
Table 3. Regional macrophyte distribution within 0-9 m depth in Devil’s Lake during 1987.
Comparable data for 1984 are given in ()s (recomputed from Lillie 1984e).
Parameter
Inlet
North
Southeast
Total
Bottom area*
in hectares
10.3 (9.4)
22.3(21.1)
14.7(15.0)
47.4 (45.5)
Densely Vegetated area**
in hectares
5.2 (4.3)
10.1 (9.8)
5.7 (7.2)
21.0 (21.4)
Coverage"
% of total area
50 (46)
45 (47)
39 (48)
44 (47)
Standing Crop
in thousands of kg
15.3(10.0)
12.7 (12.3)
11.1 (11.9)
39.2 (34.2)
Average Biomass"
g/m2
148(106)
57 (58)
76 (79)
83 (75)
Average Stand Biomassd
g/m2
289 (257)
132 (140)
188 (177)
187 (174)
* excludes 2.9 ha of unvegetated, steeply-sloped, rocky, bottom area adjacent to the east and west shore¬
lines. Differences between 1984 and 1987 bottom areas arise from slight positional differences in
placement of transects and subsequent definition of cell boundaries.
‘‘frequency of occurrence of quadrats with total biomass > 30 g/m2 within each regional depth zone multi¬
plied by the total area within the zone.
a total densely vegetated area divided by total bottom area within region.
b average total dry wt biomass (g/m2) within each transect-depth zone (cell) multiplied by the area of each
cell; products summed within each region; data represent all vegetation.
c total standing crop dry wt biomass within region divided by total area; data represent all sites, including
unvegetated areas within regions.
d sum of dry wts of all quadrats with biomass > 30 g/m2 within a region divided by number of quadrats.
eData in Lillie 1986 were computed using WDNR’s 1955 hydrographic map; these data were recomputed
and are summarized for this publication using the more detailed hydrographic base map prepared from
depth soundings made in January 1985 (see Lillie and Mason 1986).
5
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Table 4. Macrophyte community composition of Devil’s Lake (1987) listed
in order of relative importance.
Taxa
Freq. of Occurrence
Relative Importance
Rank
Absolute*
Relative
Abundance
Value (IV)**
Order
%
%
(% Biomass)
(as %)
Potamogeton robbinsii Oakes
34.1
18.3
34.5
26.4
1 (1)
Elodea canadensis Michx.
34.6
18.5
15.5
17.0
2 (3)
Myriophyllum spicatum L.
19.0
10.2
21.5
15.8
3 (2)
Nitella & Cladophora (mixed)
32.1
17.2
12.0
14.6
4 (6)
Ceratophyllum demersum L.
18.1
9.7
8.4
9.0
5 (5)
Vallisneria americana Michx.
9.0
4.8
2.6
3.7
6 (8)
Potamogeton diversifolius Raf.
Potamogeton illinoensis
Morong mixed with
8.3
4.4
1.1
2.8
7(10)
Potamogeton amplifolius Tuckerm.
8.2
4.4
0.8
2.6
8 (4)
Others/unidentified**
Eleocharis acicularis
5.7
3.1
0.7
1.9
9(14)
(L.) Rostk. & Schmidt
4.0
2.1
1.5
1.8
10 (7)
Najas flexilis (Willd.) R. & S.
5.5
3.0
0.6
1.8
11 (12)
Isoetes echinospora Durieu
4.0
2.1
0.5
1.3
12 (9)
Chara sp.
2.0
1.1
0.1
0.6
13(13)
Potamogeton crispus L.
2.0
1.1
0.1
0.6
14(11)
Megalodontab beckii (Torr.)
0.1
tr.
tr.
0.1
15 (-)
* Absolute frequency of occurrence based on presence/absence at 601 quadrats within 0-9 m (excludes
rocky, unvegetated, east and west quartzite-talus slopes); Relative Abundance represents % of total dry
wt biomass; IVs computed by averaging Relative Frequency of Occurrence and Relative Abundance.
**Others include Ranunculus spp., Potamogeton pusillus sensu lato, and R gramineus.
a( )s indicate 1984 ranking.
bnow Bidens beckii Torr.
mogeton illinoensis and Potamogeton am-
plifolius (hereafter referred to as P. ill/ amp.)
were also relatively common. Biomass dis¬
tribution of most taxa was depth dependent
(Figs. 2 and 3). Based on depth distribution,
co-occurrences (Fig. 4), and visual obser¬
vations, four relatively distinct communities
were distinguishable. A diverse assemblage
of relatively small, short-stemmed plants
consisting of Najas flexilis (Wild.) R. & S.,
E. acicularis, Potamogeton crispus L., P.
diversifolius, Chara spp., Isoetes echinos-
pora Durieu, and V. americana comprised
the shallow- water community. A mixture of
P. robbinsii and E. canadensis, with lesser
amounts of P. ill/ amp. and V. americana,
formed a distinct community at 2-3 m. My-
riophyllum spicatum, often accompanied by
C. demersum at edges of beds, formed very
dense beds at the outer edge of the littoral
shelf in 2. 5 -3. 5 m (the lake bottom descends
sharply beyond this point). A mixture of Ni-
tella spp. and Cladophora spp. formed the
deep-water community.
Distribution of major taxa in 1987
Potamogeton robbinsii, or Robbin’s pond-
weed, was the dominant macrophyte in Dev¬
il’s Lake, accounting for 34% of the total
standing crop biomass. Dense stands, aver¬
aging 173 g/m2, occupied 7.2 ha (18% of all
quadrats sampled). Potamogeton robbinsii
was distributed in relatively broad, primarily
monotypic, distinct bands at 1.5-4. 5 m ad¬
jacent to the North and Southeast shorelines
(Fig. 2 and Appendix A). However, highest
average stand biomass (280 g/m2) was lo¬
cated in shallow water (1-3 m) adjacent to
the Inlet region. Frequency of occurrence (56-
70%) was similar in all three regions. The
6
Quantitative Survey of Submersed Macrophytes in Devil s Lake
largest areal distribution of P. robbinsii
(2.8 ha) was in scattered beds located off the
North shore. Potamogeton robbinsii was most
commonly associated with E. canadensis
(Fig. 4). At the time of the survey, P. rob¬
binsii appeared to be at the peak of its growth,
with strong, well-rooted plant stems. P. rob¬
binsii harbored many aquatic fauna, partic¬
ularly large numbers of dragonfly and cad-
disfly larvae. Despite its extensive distribution
and dense growths, P. robbinsii was rela¬
tively unnoticed by the average park user due
to the plant’s low growth form (< 1 m height)
and moderately deep-water habitat (the beds
in the Inlet region were an exception). Po¬
tamogeton robbinsii has a much narrower
ecological niche than that of C. demersum
or M. spicatum (Pip 1988), and hence its
dominance in Devil’s Lake reflects the rel¬
atively low concentration of inorganics
present.
E lode a canadensis, or waterweed, was
equally as common but less abundant than
P. robbinsii (16% of total plant standing crop),
ranking second in overall relative impor¬
tance. Where abundant (4.0 ha), Elodea stand
biomass averaged 142 g/m2. Elodea formed
weakly continuous patches (relatively irreg¬
ular clumps less than 10 m across) with av¬
erage biomass up to 152 g/m2 in the North
and Inlet regions. Elodea co-occurred pri¬
marily with P. robbinsii and C. demersum
(Fig. 4). Elodea leaves were very short and
confined to the margins of the stems (<1.5 m
in length), which were weakly rooted. Very
dense stands of Elodea may interfere with
fishing, but generally the plant does not cre¬
ate a problem in Devil’s Lake.
Myriophyllum spicatum, or milfoil, com¬
prised 21 .5% of the total standing crop. While
less extensive in coverage than P. robbinsii
or E. canadensis (only 3.1 ha of dense beds),
average milfoil stand biomass (270 g/m2) was
more than 50% higher than either competitor.
A maximum biomass of 1100 g/m2 was re¬
corded at 1 quadrat. Milfoil distribution was
concentrated in three distinct beds, 50 m wide
by 300 m long, located 50-70 m directly
offshore from high-recreation-use areas
(Fig. 2). Average biomass in the Southeast
and Inlet beds were identical (314 g/m2) and
higher than that of the North bed. Milfoil
beds generally were confined to 1.5-3 m with
deeper extensions to 4.5 m in the Southeast
and Inlet beds (Appendix A). Frequencies of
occurrence were highest in the Inlet region
(60-73%) and lowest in the North bed (15-
21%). Milfoil was commonly associated with
C. demersum (Fig. 4); however, biomass was
not significantly correlated within milfoil beds
Table 5. Regional distribution, average biomass, and total standing crop of the five major plant
taxa in Devil’s Lake. Total biomass (kg dry wt*) estimates include sparsely vegetated sites.
Average densities (g/m2; = sum of dry weights/number of quads) and distributional area are
given for densely vegetated sites only (i.e., those quads with biomass in excess of 30 g/m2).
Taxa
Inlet
North
Southeast
All Regions
Dist
Aver.
Total
Dist.
Aver.
Total
Dist.
Aver.
Total
Dist.
Aver.
Total
#
Area Biomass
Mass
Area
Biomass
Mass
Area
Biomass
Mass
Area
Biomass
Mass
Quads
ha**
g/m2
103k
ha
g/m2
103k
ha
g/m2
103k
ha
g/m2
103k
P. robbinsii
2.0
280
6.5
2.8
127
3.3
2.4
139
3.7
7.2
173
13.5
116
E. canadensis
1.5
146
2.2
2.1
152
3.6
0.5
66
0.2
4.0
142
6.1
62
M. spicatum
1.0
314
3.2
0.7
106
0.7
1.5
314
4.5
3.1
270
8.4
52
Nitella/Cladoph. 1.1
55
0.9
3.0
84
2.6
1.5
49
1.2
5.6
69
4.7
72
C. demersum
0.6
160
1.1
0.7
136
1.0
0.4
232
1.2
1.7
168
3.3
31
* derived by multiplying average biomass (g/m2) within each transect-depth zone cell by the area of each
cell; products summed to derive total biomass within each region.
** sum of totals exceeds that given in Table 3 due to overlap between species.
7
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Mixed species
Myriophyllum spicatum
Potamogeton robbinsii
£| Elodea canadensis
Nitella/Cladophora
SI Other species
Ceratophylum demersum
Fig. 2. Generalized distributional map of submersed macrophytes in Devil’s Lake. The map
denotes areas dominated by particular species; other species may be present as well, but in
lesser amounts.
Quantitative Survey of Submersed Macrophytes in Devil s Lake
z
X
H
CL
LlJ
O
DC
LlJ
§
£
"C3
■C3
.O)
LL
9
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters
V americana
P diversifolius
P ill. /amp.
E. canadensis
P robbinsii
M. spicatum
C. demersum
Ni tella/Cladophora
it - t - t - t - 1
0 +.1 +.2 +.3 +.4
INDEX OF COMMON CO-OCCURRENCE
Fig. 4. Plant associations of the more abundant plant taxa based on common co-occurrence.
(p>.05). Milfoil biomass was inversely re¬
lated to E. canadensis biomass within milfoil
beds (p=.05), but the standing crop of P.
robbinsii (the other species from inhabiting
similar depths) was not significantly affected
(p>.50). Milfoil stems often exceeded 3 m
in length, and dense stands formed nearly
impenetrable masses at the lake’s surface. As
such, the beds created a severe nuisance to
all users and a particularly dangerous threat
to swimmers. Other than small beds of P.
ill! amp and Ranunculus spp., milfoil was the
only submergent plant in Devil’s Lake that
was commonly visible from shore.
Nitella spp., a muskgrass or member of
the Characeae, and Cladophora spp., a fi¬
lamentous green algae, formed the dominant
deep-water community accounting for 12%
of the total standing crop in Devil’s Lake
(82% of the biomass of all plants at 4.5-
9 m). Distribution was continuous to patchy,
with highest biomass (84 g/m2) off the North
shore in 7.5-9 m where frequencies of oc¬
currence were close to 90% (Appendix A).
Few macrophytes were associated with the
Nitella/ Cladophora community. Because these
plants grow in relatively deep water and their
stems are narrow and weak, they do not pres¬
ent a nuisance to people fishing on the lake.
Most filamentous algae problems in Devil’s
Lake are due to other algae that develop on
plants or other substrates in shallower water.
Little is known of the fauna associated with
the deep-water Nitella/ Cladophora commu¬
nity in Devil’s Lake.
Ceratophyllum demersum, or coontail, had
a total standing crop of over 3,000 kg that
was relatively evenly distributed among all
three regions. Average stand biomass was
relatively high (168 g/m2), approaching that
of milfoil in the Southeast bed. The irregular
distribution of coontail in Devil’s Lake (Fig. 3,
Appendix A) may be related to this species’
close association with milfoil (Fig. 4); coon-
10
Quantitative Survey of Submersed Macrophytes in Devils Lake
tail and milfoil were most strongly correlated
at the margins of milfoil beds (p = .008). While
coontail develops rootlets, it does not become
firmly attached to the sediments. Hence,
coontail may drift about until it becomes en¬
tangled within the inner and outer edges of
the milfoil beds.
The distributions of the remaining, less
common species were primarily patchy. V al¬
ii sneri a americana, P. diver sifolius , P. ill!
amp., P. crispus, and I. echinospora were
commonly found at 1.5-4.5 m mixed with
P. robbinsii and E. canadensis. Interspecific
competition between many of these ecolog¬
ically similar species was reduced via spatial
(depth) separation or by virtue of life-form
structure (see Pip 1988). The rosulate quill-
wort, I. echinospora, was almost exclusively
restricted to a very narrow band between 1.5-
2.1 m. Potamogeton ill! amp. occasionally
formed relatively dense beds with plant stems
reaching to the lake surface. Other plants
were of relatively short stature and formed a
varied understory. Najas flexilis, Char a spp. ,
E. acicularis, and Ranunculus spp. formed
the bulk of the shallow-water community that
undoubtedly received a great deal of human
disturbance. Eleocharis acicularis was ex¬
tremely short and often formed contiguous,
grass-like mats in the interstitial spaces on
the lake bottom between the larger macro¬
phytes. Megalodonta beckii (Torr.) (= Bi-
dens beckii Torr.) is a relatively rare plant in
Devil’s Lake (only found in one biomass
quadrat) and could easily be mistaken for
milfoil or coontail. This species was confined
to a few widely scattered patches in 3-4.5 m
off the North shore.
Historical Perspective
Milfoil invasion
The pattern of invasion of Eurasian wa-
termilfoil in other lakes has been character¬
ized as one of introduction, rapid expansion,
subsequent die-off, and resurgence, not nec¬
essarily to previous maxima (Carpenter 1979;
Nichols and Shaw 1986). While the invasion
and subsequent expansion of milfoil in Dev¬
il’s Lake have been fairly well documented
(Lillie 1986), it has not been possible to iden¬
tify the mechanism responsible for the intro¬
duction nor the exact year that the introduc¬
tion occurred. Best estimates place the time
of the infestation around the early 1960s (Lil¬
lie and Mason 1986), although Meier and
Ensign (1967) make no mention of milfoil in
their field notes during two fish survey seine
hauls of the Southeast beach area during 1967.
Baker (1975) described milfoil (possibly mis-
identified as M. verticillatum) in the South¬
east bed area during a 1974 SCUBA survey
as “very scattered, at 1.2 to 4.5 m depth
contributing little to the population of the
total community.’’ The distribution and area
of the three milfoil beds changed dramati¬
cally from 1979 to 1983 based on rake- survey
data (Southeast bed shown in Fig. 5a) col¬
lected by the WDNR (Bale and Molter 1979,
1980, 1981; Schlesser et al. 1982; Molter
and Schlesser 1983). In 1979, the North mil¬
foil bed was quite extensively developed, while
the Southeast bed was just becoming estab¬
lished. The Inlet bed appeared to be slightly
smaller than at present (referring to 1987).
By 1983, the Inlet bed was similar or slightly
larger than at present, and the North-shore
bed extended slightly farther to the west than
its present distribution. The Southeast bed
extended considerably farther to the west along
the south shoreline, but it was much less
abundant along its northern extension than at
present. Despite a significant decrease in fre¬
quency of occurrence of milfoil between 1984
and 1987 (p<0.05), the general configura¬
tion of the three milfoil beds remained rel¬
atively stable. Transect data suggest that the
North-shore milfoil bed decreased in both
size and average biomass; the Inlet bed bi¬
omass increased 140%, primarily due to in¬
creases in both size and stand biomass within
the 1.5-4. 5 m zone; and the Southeast bed
remained stable except for a moderate in¬
crease in biomass.
Aerial photography suggests that the dis¬
tribution of milfoil in the Inlet bed expanded
11
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters
75% from 1984 to 1987, the Southeast bed
expanded very slightly, and the North-shore
bed declined slightly (Table 6, Fig. 5b).
However, during the 1987 survey, tops of
milfoil stems were 0.5 and 1 m below the
lake surface at the Inlet and North beds, re¬
spectively, and at the surface in the Southeast
bed. Because milfoil growth had not reached
the surface at the North and Inlet beds, other
submersed plants may have been mistaken
for milfoil; thus milfoil distribution may have
been overestimated in those two beds. Bio¬
mass estimates presented in Table 5 are be¬
lieved to be the more accurate, suggesting
that milfoil biomass increased by approxi¬
mately 20% between 1984 and 1987.
While the transect data (1984 and 1987)
suggest an overall increase in milfoil biomass
(frequency of occurrence decreased), changes
in biomass within individual beds were asyn¬
chronous; the Inlet bed expanded and the
North-shore bed contracted. It appears that
the North-shore milfoil bed reached a peak
in size in 1983 or 1984 and then experienced
a gradual die-off. The expansion of the Inlet
bed in 1987 may have represented a reestab¬
lishment following a period of decline ex¬
perienced in the early 1980s. The size of the
Southeast bed increased substantially from
1974 to 1984 and then remained relatively
stable through 1987. However, continued
aerial photography and snorkeling surveys
revealed a dramatic die-off of milfoil in the
northern half of the Southeast bed between
1987 and 1988 (Fig. 5b). Part of this bed
recovered in 1989, but the major portion of
the bed remained unvegetated (except for some
very scattered sparse growths of native spe¬
cies). While such asynchronous variations in
milfoil have been observed in other lakes
(Carpenter 1979), the mechanism responsi¬
ble for these fluctuations has not been clearly
identified.
While historical records of milfoil inva¬
sions in some lakes suggest that milfoil out-
competes and displaces native macrophytes
(Nichols and Mori 1971; Adams and Prentki
1982), some data suggest that milfoil invades
disturbed areas or denuded sediments
(Keast 1984). While milfoil now occupies
areas in Devil’s Lake that were formerly oc¬
cupied by E. canadensis and P. robbinsii,
the historical record is inadequate to deter¬
mine whether milfoil aggressively displaced
the native species or whether milfoil simply
filled the void created when the native species
succumbed to some other disturbance
(Lillie 1986). Of particular note in this re¬
spect is the recent report by Devil’s Lake
State Park staff of an unusual amount of na¬
tive macrophytes accumulating along the
park’s beaches during the summer of 1989.
Further investigations by the author revealed
that an enormous number of caddisfly (Tri-
choptera: Leptoceridae) larvae had con¬
structed their cases from Elodea plant frag¬
ments. Whether the large masses of free-
floating Elodea resulted from the mechanical
fragmentation by the caddisfly larvae or from
increased wave-action intensity accompa-
Table 6. Estimated distributional coverage (ha) of Myriophyllum spicatum in Devil’s Lake
1984-1989 based on aerial reconnaissance photography.
Bed Location
1984
1985 (*)
1986
1987
1988
1989
Southeast
1.3
1.4
(1.6)
1.3
1.5
0.5
0.7
North
1.1
0.8
(0.8)
0.9
1.0
0.6
0.4“
Inlet
0.7
1.1
(1-2)
0.9
1.3
0.7
0.9
Totals
3.1
3.4
(3.6)
3.1
3.8
1.8
2.0“
‘based on ground-truth data collected August 1985.
“much of the North shore milfoil bed was hand-harvested on 24 September 1988 by teams of SCUBA-
divers.
12
Quantitative Survey of Submersed Macrophytes in Devils Lake
Fig. 5. (a) Generalized configuration and extent of SE milfoil bed based on summer WDNR
rake surveys 1979-83 (unpublished WDNR studies— -Bale and Molter 1979, 1980, 1981;
Sch lesser et al. 1982; Molter and Sch lesser 1983). Numbers indicate distance (cm) from lake
surface to top of plant beds (d = deep, not measured).
(b) Configuration and extent of SE milfoil bed based on aerial photography taken in mid¬
summer 1981, 1984-1989.
nying a moderately severe drop in lake water
level (0.75 m since 1984) was not deter¬
mined. However, it was clear that large areas
formerly occupied by Elodea were rapidly
becoming denuded. Whether milfoil invades
these areas in the future remains to be seen.
Native plant community
In addition to the recent changes in Elodea
noted above, other changes have occurred in
the native plant community of Devil’s Lake.
Biomass of P. robbinsii and P. ill! amp. de¬
creased and E. canadensis, C. demersum,
and Nitella/Cladophora biomass increased
during the short period from 1984 to 1987.
Excluding the deep-water Nitella/Clado¬
phora community, the combined standing crop
of all native plants increased only 4% from
1984 to 1987. Nitella/Cladophora biomass
doubled and frequency of occurrence in¬
creased significantly during the same time
span. Coverage (area) of dense macrophytes
(all species combined) differed very slightly
from 1984 to 1987 based on visual obser¬
vations by divers and biomass measurements
(Table 2). Total standing crop increased 15-
16% during the same period (including mil¬
foil). With the exception of a possible decline
in Elodea and an increase in coontail, the
distributions and biomass of native species
13
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters
in the Southeast bed during 1984 and 1987
were generally similar to that described by
Baker (1975) in his 1974 survey (Baker’s
1974 survey was restricted to only the South¬
east area; no other quantitative biomass data
exist for other beds or other years). The rake-
surveys conducted by the WDNR during 1979-
1983 documented an increase in the distri¬
bution of E. canadensis from 1979 to 1982
(down slightly in 1983), and a decline in the
distribution of P. robbinsii from 1979 to 1983.
Apparent fluctuations in distribution and rel¬
ative abundance of Nitella and filamentous
algae may have resulted from changes in
sampling methodology.
Prior to the 1974 Baker survey, only a few
scattered records exist. Perhaps most impor¬
tant are comments from WDNR fish man¬
agement surveys: 1967 — “Aquatic vege¬
tation, primarily Anacharis ( = Elodea )
canadensis, was growing profusely in the area
(Southeast) of the lake seined.” Potamogeton
robbinsii was also listed as common (Meier
and Ensign 1967); and 1945 — “There is a
weed bed (North shore) that apparently is a
feeding spot for perch,” and “there is little
vegetation” (Wis. Cons. Dep. 1945). While
it may be safely assumed that the first of these
comments refers to plants hauled up in the
seines, the basis for the latter and other rec¬
ords is less certain. Many comments simply
may reflect casual observations made from
shore or boat, perceptions that may be grossly
inaccurate. However, the consensus of opin¬
ion among people who have trolled the lake
on a regular basis for many years is that sub¬
mersed vegetation has increased greatly dur¬
ing the past 30 years. Other subjective ob¬
servations, such as the milfoil expansion and
the water lily disappearance off the entrance
to the North shore boat landing, have been
substantiated by hard data. This data further
supports the short-term scientific record and
conclusion that submersed vegetation has in¬
creased substantially in Devil’s Lake during
the last 30 years.
Acknowledgments
Data collections and processing of macro¬
phytes were accomplished through the com¬
bined efforts of the following individuals
whose efforts are hereby acknowledged and
thanked: G. Wegner, G. Quinn, P. Garrison,
D. Soltis, D. Marshall, B. Dhuey, S. Claas,
T. Penniston, and I. Marx. Statistical advice
and review were provided by G. Lange and
P. Rasmussen. Editorial reviews of earlier
drafts were provided by J. Mason, D. Knauer,
and K. Lange. The editorial assistance of D.
Mears and drafting by R. Burton are also
appreciated. Special thanks is due J. Madsen
and an anonymous reviewer for several help¬
ful review comments and suggestions. Fund¬
ing for this study was provided by the Bureau
of Water Resources Management and the Bu¬
reau of Research, Wisconsin Department of
Natural Resources.
14
Quantitative Survey of Submersed Macrophytes in Devil s Lake
Appendix A: Part 1
Total plant biomass (kg) distribution of major plant species in Devil’s Lake by year, region and
depth (in meters).
DEPTH ZONES
Species
Region
0-1.5
1.5-3
3-4.5
4.5-6
6-7.5
7.5-9
SUM
ALL PLANTS
1984
Inlet
3,842
5,214
549
114
97
137
9,953
North
684
7,277
2,982
714
272
342
12,270
SE
448
6,818
2,701
884
758
328
11,938
34,161
1987
Inlet
6,482
5,959
1,958
36
70
814
15,319
North
759
5,496
3,187
890
665
1,736
12,733
SE
286
5,895
3,449
429
491
593
11,143
39,195
M. spicatum
1984
Inlet
15
896
421
50
11
0
1,393
North
128
1,756
14
0
0
0
1,898
SE
63
3,231
84
210
0
0
3,588
6,879
1987
Inlet
0
1,815
1,362
0
2
0
3,220
North
10
734
4
0
0
0
748
SE
19
3,131
1,306
10
5
0
4,471
8,439
P. robbinsii
1984
Inlet
2,614
3,220
0
2
7
0
5,843
North
15
4,172
1,495
18
28
0
5,728
SE
76
3,044
2,005
103
1
0
5,229
16,800
1987
Inlet
3,790
2,553
130
16
0
0
6,489
North
24
1,765
1,462
50
0
0
3,301
SE
12
1,828
1,804
82
4
0
3,730
13,520
E. canadensis
1984
Inlet
767
718
5
12
5
0
1,507
North
121
343
852
447
1
0
1,764
SE
97
395
168
47
26
0
733
4,004
1987
Inlet
1,304
872
18
0
0
1
2,195
North
285
1,885
1,425
20
11
0
3,626
SE
76
143
20
1
5
3
248
6,069
C. demersum
1984
Inlet
4
128
63
36
0
1
232
North
1
67
379
155
25
8
635
SE
0
44
360
67
32
31
534
1,401
cont.
15
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Appendix A: Part 1
Species
Region
0-1.5
DEPTH ZONES
1.5-3 3-4.5
4.5-6
6-7.5
7.5-9
SUM
1987
Inlet
8
661
444
19
4
0
1,136
North
21
136
255
566
2
0
980
SE
Nitella-Cladophora community
3
665
298
229
0
0
1,195
3,311
1984
Inlet
0
0
0
0
71
137
208
North
2
0
0
66
217
334
619
SE
0
1
1
459
700
297
1,458
2,285
1987
Inlet
0
0
0
0
64
812
876
North
0
1
12
248
652
1,736
2,649
SE
0
0
0
101
477
591
1,169
4,694
16
Quantitative Survey of Submersed Macrophytes in Devils Lake
Appendix A, Part 2
Frequency of occurrence (% quadrats present*) of major plant species in Devil’s Lake by year,
region, and depth (meters)..
Species
Region
0-1.5
1.5-3
3.4-5
4.5-6
6-7.5
7.5-9
SUM
ALL PLANTS
1984
Inlet
84%
92%
77%
71%
73%
71%
81%
North
69
99
94
95
97
83
91%
SE
45
95
97
83
87
96
85%
1987
Inlet
89
98
82
50
61
96
89%
North
56
95
94
91
92
93
88%
SE
42
97
97
93
95
87
87%
M. spicatum
1984
Inlet
24
49
77
29
14
0
31%
North
50
42
20
0
0
0
30%
SE
21
65
39
8
0
0
32%
1987
Inlet
0
60
73
0
6
0
26%
North
8
21
15
0
0
0
11%
SE
15
41
50
7
9
0
26%
P. robbinsii
1984
Inlet
52
62
0
7
9
0
30%
North
7
68
69
26
12
0
42%
SE
10
60
81
12
4
0
38%
1987
Inlet
67
56
11
25
0
0
34%
North
23
59
58
9
0
0
33%
SE
15
59
70
27
4
0
36%
E, canadensis
1984
Inlet
56
67
15
7
4
0
33%
North
37
56
74
37
3
0
43%
SE
14
25
52
25
17
0
23%
1987
Inlet
56
56
11
0
0
4
31%
North
51
73
79
26
3
0
47%
SE
19
25
30
7
14
7
19%
C. demersum
1984
Inlet
20
20
54
43
0
5
20%
North
2
12
29
63
38
8
18%
SE
0
15
39
42
30
22
21%
1987
Inlet
15
47
27
38
11
0
24%
North
13
12
51
52
3
0
17%
SE
Nitella-Cladophora community
4
13
50
27
0
0
15%
1984
Inlet
0
0
0
0
50
71
19%
North
2
1
3
26
84
83
19%
SE
0
2
3
58
74
96
29%
1987
Inlet
0
0
0
0
56
96
27%
North
0
1
12
87
92
93
35%
SE
0
0
0
53
91
87
29%
*allocation of quadrats by regions and years:
1984 (1=134, N=289, SE=182) total N = 605;
1987 (1=137, N=278, SE=186) total N = 601.
17
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters
Appendix A, Part 3
Mean dry weight biomass (g/m2) distribution of major plant species in Devil’s Lake by year,
region, and depth zones (in meters).
Species
Region
0-1.5
1.5-3
3-4.5
4.5-6
6-7.5
7.5-9
Avg.
TOTAL PLANTS
1984
Inlet
164
281
63
17
7
6
106
North
11
116
174
43
12
11
58
SE
13
157
154
71
48
13
79
1987
Inlet
254
313
210
4
5
33
148
North
12
85
175
50
26
50
57
SE
8
137
213
33
32
23
76
M. spicatum
1984
Inlet
<1
48
48
7
<1
0
15
North
2
28
<1
0
0
0
9
SE
2
74
5
17
0
0
24
1987
Inlet
0
95
146
0
<1
0
31
North
<1
11
<1
0
0
0
3
SE
<1
73
81
<1
<1
0
30
P. robbinsii
1984
Inlet
111
173
0
<1
<1
0
62
North
<1
66
87
1
1
0
27
SE
2
70
115
8
<1
0
35
1987
Inlet
149
134
14
2
0
0
54
North
<1
27
80
3
0
0
15
SE
<1
43
111
6
<1
0
25
E. canadensis
1984
Inlet
33
39
<1
2
<1
0
16
North
2
5
50
27
<1
0
8
SE
3
9
10
4
2
0
5
1987
Inlet
51
46
2
0
0
<1
21
North
5
29
78
1
<1
0
16
SE
2
3
1
<1
<1
<1
2
C. demersum
1984
Inlet
<1
7
7
5
0
<1
2
North
<1
1
22
9
1
<1
3
SE
0
1
21
5
2
1
4
1987
Inlet
<1
35
48
2
<1
0
11
North
<1
2
14
32
<1
0
4
SE
Nitella-Cladophora community
<1
15
18
18
0
0
8
1984
Inlet
0
0
0
0
5
6
2
North
<1
<1
<1
4
9
11
3
SE
0
<1
<1
37
44
12
10
1987
Inlet
0
0
0
0
4
33
8
North
0
<1
<1
14
25
50
12
SE
0
0
0
8
31
23
8
* derived by summing total kg in each cell (transect by depth) and dividing by total area in each region.
18
Quantitative Survey of Submersed Macrophytes in Devil s Lake
Works Cited
Adams, M. S. and R. T. Prentki. 1982. Biology
metabolism and functions of littoral submersed
weed beds of Lake Wingra, Wisconsin. A sum¬
mary and review. Arch. Hydrobiol. (Suppl.)
62:333-409.
Baker, F. C. 1975. The littoral macrophyte veg¬
etation of southeastern Devil’s Lake. Trans.
Wis. Acad. Sci., Arts, and Lett. 63:66-71.
Bale, S. and C. R. Molter. 1979. Macrophyte
survey of Devil’s Lake, 1979. Wis. Dep. Nat.
Resourc., Southern District Rep., Fitchburg,
Wis. 8 pp., mimeo.
_ _ 1980. Macrophyte survey of Devil’s
Lake, 1980. Wis. Dep. Nat. Resourc., South¬
ern District Rep., Fitchburg, Wis. 8 pp., mimeo
_ _ . 1981. Macrophyte survey of Devil’s
Lake, 1981. Wis. Dep. Nat. Resourc., South¬
ern District Rep., Fitchburg, Wis. 13 pp.,
mimeo.
Barko, J. W. and R. M. Smart. 1980. Mobili¬
zation of sediment, phosphorus by submersed
freshwater macrophytes. Freshw. Biol. 10:229-
238.
Carpenter, S. R. 1979. The invasion and decline
of Myriophyllum spicatum in a eutrophic Wis¬
consin lake, pp. 11-31 In J. E. Breck, R. T.
Prentki, and O. L. Loucks [ed.], Aquatic Plants,
Lake Management, and Ecosystem Conse¬
quences of Lake Harvesting. Proceed. Conf.
held at Madison, Wis. Feb. 14-16, 1979. Inst.
Environ. Studies, Univ. Wis. Madison.
Carpenter, S. R. 1983. Submersed macrophyte
community structure and internal loading: re¬
lationship to lake ecosystem productivity and
succession, pp 105-1 1 1 In J. Taggart [ed.], Lake
Restoration, Protection, and Management. Proc.
2nd Annu. Conf. N. Am. Lake Manage. Soc.
Oct. 26-29, 1982, Vancouver, B. C.
U.S.E.P. A. -440/5-83-001 . 327 pp.
Carpenter, S. R. and D. M. Lodge. 1986. Effects
of submersed macrophytes on ecosystem proc¬
esses. Aquat. Bot. 26:341-370.
Fassett, N. C. 1972. A manual of aquatic plants.
Madison: Univ. Wisconsin Press, 405 pp.
Keast, A. 1984. The introduced aquatic macro¬
phyte, Myriophyllum spicatum, as habitat for
fish and their invertebrate prey. Can. J. Zool.
62:1289-1303.
Landers, D. H. 1982. Effects of naturally se-
nescing aquatic macrophytes on nutrient chem¬
istry and chlorophyll a of surrounding waters.
Limnol. Oceanogr. 27(3):428-439.
Lange, K. I. 1984. Botanists and naturalists at
Devil’s Lake State Park, Wisconsin. Trans. Wis.
Acad. Sci., Arts, and Lett. 72:117-129.
Lillie, R. A. 1986. The spread of Eurasian wa-
termilfoil Myriophyllum spicatum in Devil’s
Lake, Sauk County, Wisconsin, pp. 64-68 In
G. Redfield, J. Taggart, and L. M. Moore [eds.],
Lake and Reservoir Management, Volume II.
Proc. 5th Annu. Conf. Int. Symp. N. Am. Lake
Manage. Soc. Nov. 13-16, 1985, Lake Ge¬
neva, Wis. N. Am. Lake Manage. Soc., Wash.
D. C.
Lillie, R. A. and J. W. Mason. 1986. Historical
changes in water quality and biota of Devil’s
Lake, Sauk County, 1866-1985. Trans. Wis.
Acad. Sci., Arts, and Lett. 74:81-104.
Marvan, P. M. and J. Komarek. 1978. Algal pop¬
ulations related to different macrophyte com¬
munities, pp. 65-70 In D. Dykyjova and J.
Kuet [eds.], Pond Littoral Ecosystems: Struc¬
ture and Functioning. Ecological Studies No. 28.
Springer- Verlag, Berlin, Heidelberg, New York.
464 pp.
Meier, H. and A. Ensign. 1967. Lake inventory —
Devil’s Lake, Sauk County. Wis. Dep. Nat.
Resourc. memo.
Molter, C. and R. Schlesser. 1983. Devil’s Lake
macrophyte survey — 1983. Wis. Dep. Nat. Re¬
sourc. Southern District Rep., Fitchburg, Wis.
14 pp.
Nichols, D. S. andD. R. Keeney. 1976. Nitrogen
nutrition of Myriophyllum spicatum: uptake and
translocation of 15N by shoots and roots. Freshw.
Biol. 6:145-154.
Nichols, S. A. andB. H. Shaw. 1986. Ecological
life histories of the three aquatic nuisance plants,
Myriophyllum spicatum, Potamogeton crispus,
and Elodea canadensis. Hydrobiologia 131:3-
21.
Nichols, S. A. and S. Mori. 1971. The littoral
macrophyte vegetation of Lake Wingra: an ex¬
ample of a Myriophyllum spicatum invasion in
a southern Wisconsin lake. Trans. Wis. Acad.
Sci., Arts and Lett. 59:107-1 19.
Pip, E. 1988. Niche congruency of aquatic ma¬
crophytes in central North America with respect
to 5 water chemistry parameters. Hydrobiologia
162:173-182.
Prentki, R. T. 1979. Depletion of phosphorus from
sediment colonized by Myriophyllum spicatum
L., pp. 161-176 In J. E. Breck, R. T. Prentki,
and O. L. Loucks [eds.]. Aquatic Plants, Lake
19
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters
Management, and Ecosystem Consequences of
Lake Harvesting. Proceed. Conf. held at Mad¬
ison, Wis. Feb. 14-16, 1979. Inst. Environ.
Studies, Univ. Wis. Madison.
Schlesser, R., T. Bainbridge, and C. Molter. 1982.
Macrophyte survey Devil’s Lake, 1982. Wis.
Dep. Nat. Resourc. Southern District Rep.,
Fitchburg, Wis. 15 pp. mimeo.
Smith, C. S. and M. S. Adams. 1986. Phospho¬
rus transfer from sediments by Myriophyllum
spicatum. Limnol. Oceanogr. 3 1(6): 13 12-1321.
Voss, E. G. 1972. Michigan flora: Part 1: Gym-
nosperms and monocots. Cranbrook Inst. Sci.
and Univ. Michigan Herbarium. 488 pp.
Wisconsin Conservation Department. 1945. Fish
Manage. Rep. No. 86, Wis. Dep. Nat. Re¬
sourc. Tech. Lib., Fitchburg, Wis. 53711.
Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. 1988.
A two-year study of Devil’s Lake: results and
management implications. Final Rep. for Bu¬
reau of Water Manage, by Bureau of Research.
97 pp.
20
Tornadoes of Fire at Williamsonville,
Wisconsin, October 8, 1871
Joseph M. Moran and E. Lee Somerville
Abstract. A small Door County park northeast of Brussels, Wisconsin, is a memorial to sixty
people who lost their lives when a wildfire destroyed the tiny village of Williamsonville on
the night of October 8, 1871 . The tragedy was compounded by what eyewitnesses described
as “ tornadoes of fire" that accompanied the inferno. Today, we know that large wildfires
often spawn intense vortices that resemble Williamsonville s tornadoes of fire. The William¬
sonville fire was one of several major wildfires on the same day that claimed more than
seventeen hundred lives and destroyed millions of hectares of forest land in the upper Midwest.
A dry summer coupled with a general disregard of fire prevention strategies contributed to
the disaster. In southern Door County, the fires meant the end of lumbering and shinglemaking
as major industries and served as an impetus for development of agriculture .
On the night of October 8, 1871, a wild¬
fire swept through the tiny village of
Williamsonville in Brussels township, south¬
ern Door County, Wisconsin (Fig. 1). All but
seventeen of the settlement’s seventy-seven
inhabitants perished. The Williamsonville
tragedy was one of many that night when
fires swept into lumber and shinglemill towns
located on both sides of the bay of Green
Bay; in all, perhaps thirteen hundred lives
were lost and seventy-five hundred people
were left homeless. Most victims were either
lumberjacks or homesteaders. In addition to
the tragic loss of life and human suffering,
wildfires so devastated the forests — more than
a half million hectares were burned — that the
historical course of the region’s economy
Joseph M. Moran, principal author, is Professor of
Earth Science, College of Environmental Sciences, Uni¬
versity of Wisconsin-Green Bay, Green Bay, Wisconsin
54311-7001 . E. Lee Somerville is a graduate of the
Regional Analysis program at UW-Green Bay.
changed significantly. In southern Door
County, the fire that destroyed Williamson¬
ville and other settlements was a singular
event that marked the end of lumbering and
shinglemaking and spurred the region’s tran¬
sition to agriculture.
Geographic Setting
In 1871, the Door County peninsula was
thickly forested and sparsely populated. The
glacial era had shaped a gently rolling terrain
that was covered by northern mesic forest
species (maple, hemlock, and yellow birch).
Cedar swamps and tamarack and black spruce
bogs occupied moist lowlands. The southern
half of the county (south of Sturgeon Bay)
had been settled in the mid- 1850s primarily
by Belgian immigrants. They were mainly
farmers but the densely forested condition of
their new homeland forced them into logging
as their primary occupation at least for a time
(Friedman 1989).
Settlers built small dwellings in isolated
21
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Fig. 1. Wildfires burned over large areas of northeastern Wisconsin on the night of October 8,
1871. Shading indicates the approximate location of the burned-over region based on maps
by Tilton (1871) and Wells (1968).
22
Tornadoes of Fire
settlements in the woods and survived by
shinglemaking, lumbering, and some farm¬
ing and fishing. At first, poor roads limited
the marketing of logs, and no doubt much
valuable timber was wasted during slash-and-
bum clearing of land for crops. Eventually,
markets opened for wood products including
lumber, railroad ties, and shingles. Shingles
were split from pine and cedar logs, shaved
by hand, and transported via ox carts or sleighs
to Green Bay or to boats on the Bay for
eventual transport to Milwaukee or Chicago.
Later, shinglemills were built.
Williamsonville, site of one of Door coun¬
ty’s largest shinglemills, occupied a clearing
of about 4 hectares. A sketch map of Wil¬
liamsonville (Fig. 2) shows a linear pattern
of settlement along the original stage road
that linked Sturgeon Bay and Green Bay. The
mill and a large storage bam were located
well away from other buildings presumably
as a fire safety measure. Roadside buildings
consisted of a boarding house, store, black¬
smith shop, and eight dwellings (C. I. Martin
1881). The present highway on the map was
built in the late 1920s and is now State
Highway 57.
Today, the former site of Williamsonville
is marked by a small roadside park on land
purchased by the county in 1927 at the sug¬
gestion of the Door County Historical Society
(Holand 1931). Tornado Memorial Park
(Fig. 3) is located 6.6 kilometers northeast
of Brussels, Wisconsin. Bronze tablets com¬
memorate the sixty victims who on the night
of October 8, 1871, burned to death in the
“tornado of fire” that “blotted out” the
village.
Fig. 2. Sketch map of Williamsonville, Wisconsin. On October 8, 1871, this shinglemill village
was destroyed by a wildfire; only seventeen of its seventy-seven inhabitants survived. (From
Holand 1931.)
23
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
TOANAJJO
memorial park.
A aW5UJti3Hijrj m
m
■ Igl| i
I 'WsvaCfoM 1
‘iRiauLAnoit im PovgRTir |||
IM yj.^
TH!4 HONSSItt .Ti'RUOOLiif)
HIM OKliDKBM MIOOT
s\ xMlil '
i ' *•*
m
xJRRg, ’//AS 7U& VILLAGE- '
OF 'i/lLLlAMUOHVHM ,
WITH A POPULA'lj'Oil ;
OF n PAROOifv. Or/ - i
OC'l OBEK.L, I iff],
1 xfi3 ’/(LLAOB V//> 'j fj// /; Tyj)
°fJi ^ A TORtlABO Of fl.vf.',
80 W/JOilT 3OU0IJT FKfiJO&UI
AH OPEN FMJ,0 ■jUPF.OiliiWIO
Tlll’i Wirt d ill) '//ilp.K i
BUmiSV TO 0 ({ffil,
I j:
Fig. 3. Tornado Memorial Park is the former site of Williamsonville, Wisconsin, and commem¬
orates the sixty people who lost their lives to a “tornado of fire” on the night of 8 October 1871.
The park is 6.6 kilometers northeast of Brussels, Wisconsin, on State Highway 57. (Photograph
by J. M. Moran)
The Fire
Although the Williamsonville fire is often
considered part of the same conflagration that
destroyed Peshtigo, Wisconsin, actually sep¬
arate fires engulfed the two settlements. Ac¬
cording to Wells (1968), at least two major
wildfires ravaged the west side of the bay of
Green Bay — one spread from near the Green
Bay city limits to just south of Oconto and
another burned north of Oconto into Peshtigo
and then on to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
(Fig. 1). On the less populated east side of
the Bay, another wildfire spread from south
of New Frankin northeastward to near Stur¬
geon Bay. By far, the greatest loss of life
was in Peshtigo and neighboring settlements.
The Peshtigo and Williamsonville fires oc¬
curred on the same night as the great Chicago
fire, which claimed more than two hundred
lives and destroyed 17,450 buildings. Be¬
tween October 8 and 10, 1871, other major
wildfires burned over perhaps one million
hectares of woodland in lower Michigan and
may have claimed another two hundred lives.
In all, these were the most destructive wild¬
fires in United States history.1
We are fortunate in having a detailed eye¬
witness account of the Williamsonville fire.
Thomas Williamson, one of the owners of
the mill and village, was startled by the rapid
approach of flames. He reported that as he
sat with several relatives on the stairs of his
family home
there came a heavy puff of wind, the trees fell
in all directions, and I saw the reflections of a
big fire south of us. I thought it was a mile and
a half off. In less time than it takes to write
this, there came another heavy gale, and the
flames came rolling through the woods up to
the back of the bam. . . . Then the sparks came
down like a heavy snow-storm. . . .
(Holand 1931)
24
Tornadoes of Fire
Williamson then describes how he and his
family tried to save themselves and their pos¬
sessions, but their efforts were to little avail.
The next day, the bodies of thirty-five victims
were found huddled together in a potato patch
located about one hundred meters from the
charred forest. Two of seven persons who
sought refuge in a well perished. Of the eleven
members of the Williamson family, only
Thomas and his mother survived. William-
sonville was literally erased off the map. On
a Door County map published only seven
years after the fire, Williamsonville was re¬
placed by Tornado, which apparently con¬
sisted of nothing more than a post office and
saloon (Fig. 4).
Why it Happened
Although wildfires are largely random and
unpredictable events, fire specialists cite fuel,
ignition, and weather as key contributing fac¬
tors. No one of these ingredients alone usu-
Fig. 4. On this 1878 map of Door County, “Tornado” marks the former site of Williamsonville,
Wisconsin. Tornado apparently consisted of nothing more than a post office and saloon. (Map
from Historical Atlas of Wisconsin, Milwaukee: Snyder, VanVechten and Co., 1878, p. 101;
courtesy of the American Geographical Society Collection, The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Library.)
25
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters
ally is sufficient to trigger major wildfires.
For example, even if the weather is unusually
dry for a lengthy period, wildfires are un¬
likely unless sufficient fuel (e.g. humus,
woody debris) has accumulated.
In his review of wildland fire behavior,
Albini (1984) notes that wildfires are loosely
classified on the basis of the type of fuel
through which they bum. Ground fires slowly
consume the subsurface organic materials that
compose peat bogs and swamps; surface fires
engulf forest litter, fallen trees, and other
vegetation; and crown fires rapidly bum
through tops of standing (usually coniferous)
trees. Eyewitness accounts (e.g. Tilton 1871)
indicate that the northeastern Wisconsin
wildfires were unusually intense and in¬
volved all three sources of fuel. For example,
Williamsonville survivors described a “sheet
of fire that rolled along over the tree tops,”
probably indicating a crown fire (C. I. Martin
1881). Also, eyewitnesses noted that the fire
was so intense that stumps were burned out
and roots were gone (Holand 1931).
By early October 1871, the fire danger had
become acute over much of the upper Mid¬
west partially because of the wasteful logging
practices of the day. Lumbering, clear-cutting
for farming, and the railroad right-of-way
(then under construction between Green Bay
and Menominee, Michigan) left behind con¬
siderable residue and slash accumulation in
the woods. The debris fueled numerous small
fires that broke out frequently throughout the
summer. In fact, newspapers reported that
smoke blown from the smoldering woods often
obscured the midday sun and sometimes was
so thick over the Bay that it slowed ship
traffic. The week before the wildfires, fog
horns were sounded continuously and navi¬
gation was done by compass (Pemin 1971).
Numerous small fires burning in the woods
of northeastern Wisconsin in the days prior
to the main conflagrations meant many points
of ignition, which is one reason why fire
burned so rapidly over such huge areas (Haines
and Sando 1969). Today, wildfires usually
bum over much smaller areas because mod¬
em fire prevention practices mean that wild¬
fires typically originate from only a few ig¬
nition points. Back then, wildfire was a
tolerated hazard, and as long as winds were
light, workers were able to contain the flames
whenever they drew close to settlements.
Residents of Williamsonville, for example,
vigilantly controlled small fires that flared up
around their clearing in the woods, and, if
winds permitted, they would set protective
backfires confident that fire would not bum
over the same area twice (Holand 1931).
One obstacle in reconstructing the weather
conditions on the day of the wildfires as well
as the months preceding is a lack of reliable
data. Weather-observing practices were not
standardized as they are today, instruments
were less reliable, and weather stations were
few and far between. Nonetheless, available
data indicate that the summer of 1871 was
very dry throughout northeastern Wisconsin
(Haines and Sando 1969; Haines and Kuehn-
ast 1970). Precipitation records at Embarrass
(about 58 kilometers northwest of Green Bay)
and Sturgeon Bay indicate that rainfall was
below average during June, July, August,
and September of 1871.
Although summer dryness likely contrib¬
uted to the wildfires of early October, we
would be remiss in assuming that the area
was in the grip of a drought of unparalleled
severity. Lorimer and Gough (1982) com¬
puted a drought index for northeastern Wis¬
consin for each day, May 1 through October
31 , 1864-1979, and tabulated the number of
days per month of moderate and severe
drought. From May through September of
1871 , moderate drought occurred on 33 days
and severe drought characterized only one
day. In the 116 years of record, 22 years had
a greater frequency of moderate drought and
29 years had a greater frequency of severe
drought. Furthermore, March and April of
1871 were relatively wet at both Embarrass
and Sturgeon Bay (Haines and Sando 1969).
But what may be more important than sum¬
mer drought in contributing to the fire weather
of early October was the very low relative
26
Tornadoes of Fire
Fig. 5. Reconstruction of the major features of the synoptic weather pattern on the evening of
8 October 1871 based on a study by Fiaines and Kuehnast (1970). Low pressure (L) over
southwest Minnesota coupled with a slow-moving high pressure system (FI) over the mid-
Atlantic states meant a south to southwesterly flow over the upper Midwest. Fronts stretch
northeast and southwest of the low center.
humidity that persisted during the week or
so prior to the wildfires (Haines and Kuehnast
1970). Low relative humidity is known to
significantly elevate the fire danger by re¬
ducing the moisture content of dead logs and
branches.
We are indebted to Haines and Kuehnast
(1970) for their reconstruction of the synoptic
weather pattern of the day of the wildfires
(Fig. 5). On the evening of October 8, 1871 ,
a slow-moving high pressure system was
centered over Virginia and the Carolinas, and
a deepening Alberta-type low pressure sys¬
tem was over southwestern Minnesota. A
nearly stationary front stretched northeast¬
ward from the low center across northwestern
Wisconsin to just north of Lake Michigan.
The relatively steep pressure gradient be¬
tween the two weather systems gave rise to
south to southwesterly winds over portions
of Iowa, northern Illinois, and most of Wis¬
consin and Michigan. The strongest winds
were over southeastern Wisconsin and north¬
ern Illinois; at 2 pm winds at Chicago and
Milwaukee were from the south/southwest at
a brisk 37 and 52 kilometers per hour re¬
spectively. Winds were weaker over north¬
eastern Wisconsin with Embarras and Stur¬
geon Bay reporting winds of only 19
kilometers per hour at 9 pm. Nonetheless,
winds were sufficiently strong to fan many
small blazes into larger conflagrations. By
late on the evening of October 8, southwes¬
terly winds were driving major wildfires to-
27
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
ward Peshtigo and Williamsonville. By about
2 am on October 9, the wildfires were over
and the burned-over region lay in smolder¬
ing ruin.
Fire Vortices
Although regional winds were only light
to moderate over northeastern Wisconsin, by
many eyewitness accounts, wildfires were
accompanied by winds strong enough to twist
and uproot large trees and rip the roofs off
bams and other buildings. Also, some sur¬
vivors reported that wind and fire whirled
about like a tornado and produced a roar sim¬
ilar to the sound that often precedes a tor¬
nado. In his fascinating report of the fire,
Tilton (1871), a Green Bay newspaper man,
quotes two residents of Sugar Bush, a small
settlement near Peshtigo, who witnessed
“tornadoes of fire.”
Says Alfred Griffin, of the lower Sugar Bush,
“When I heard the roar of the approaching
tornado I ran out of my house and saw a great
black, balloon-shaped object whirling through
the air over the tops of the distant trees, ap¬
proaching my house. When it reached the house
it seemed to explode, with a loud noise, belch¬
ing out fire on every side, and in an instant my
house was on fire in every part.”
G. H. Brooks makes a similar statement. He
went out of his back door to see the approaching
storm, saw a similar cloud or ball approaching,
and then ran into the house and with difficulty
closed the door, so strong was the wind. The
ball had by this time reached the house and
exploded with a loud noise, filling the air with
great sheets of flame. A stream of fire entered
his house through the crack under the back
door, and swept through the house to the front
door. Of course the house was ablaze in an
instant from foundation to roof, the family barely
escaping with their lives, supremely happy to
do that. We visited the place afterwards. The
house stood at a considerable distance from the
woods — so far, that in any ordinary fire, it would
have been perfectly safe. But here were re¬
maining but the stone walls of the cellar, di¬
lapidated stoves, melted stove-pipe and broken
crockery. . . . (Tilton 1871)
Tornadoes of fire were actually fire vor¬
tices, which are frequently spawned by large
wildfires (Graham 1955; Haines and Updike
1971 ; Albini 1984). Development of fire vor¬
tices was probably the principal reason for
both the rapid pace and destructiveness of
the wildfires. Fire vortices are of two general
types: fire whirlwinds and horizontal roll vor¬
tices. The Wisconsin wildfires likely gener¬
ated both types of vortices.
Fire whirlwinds are the more common vor¬
tices. They are vertically oriented and vary
in diameter (1 to more than 100 meters) and
height (1 to more than 1000 meters) and range
in intensity from weak dust-devil- like whirls
to severe tornado-like disturbances. Whirl¬
winds develop both within and immediately
downwind of a wildfire and are made visible
by swirling smoke and masses of burning
embers.2 Horizontal roll vortices, whirls that
rotate about a horizontal axis, are less com¬
mon and rotate more slowly than fire whirl¬
winds (Haines and Smith 1987). If either type
of fire vortex develops at the downwind lead¬
ing edge of a wildfire, they can hasten the
spread of fire by scattering firebrands (burn¬
ing embers) and igniting spot fires well be¬
yond the perimeter of the main body of fire.
In controlled bums, for example, fire whirl¬
winds are known to ignite spot fires many
kilometers downwind from the main inferno.
This is likely what happened as regional
southwesterly winds steered wildfires toward
Williamsonville and Peshtigo, for it explains
how objects situated some distance down¬
wind of the main body of the wildfire were
quite suddenly consumed by fire.
In some respects, wildfires that scorched
northeastern Wisconsin in October 1871 may
have resembled the huge fire storms that en¬
gulfed hundreds of city blocks during Allied
bombing raids on cities in Germany and Ja¬
pan during World War n. In those fire storms,
violent updrafts formed over the fire center
and strong cyclonic (counterclockwise) winds
developed at the surface. For example, on
July 27-28, 1943, heavy incendiary bomb¬
ing of Hamburg, Germany, set off a fire storm
28
Tornadoes of Fire
that engulfed an area of about 12 square kil¬
ometers. Surface winds likely exceeded hur¬
ricane strength and the fire storm was ac¬
companied by intense local vortices
(Ebert 1963).3
Models and experimental bums provide
some insight on the genesis of fire vortices.
For example, Church et al. (1980) attempted
to model fire whirlwinds during experiments
at the Meteotron facility in southern France
near the central Pyrenees. The Meteotron is
a 140 by 140 meter square array of 105 fuel
oil burners which, when ignited, produces
fires that merge into a highly energetic in¬
ferno. A network of weather instruments and
cameras continually monitors the fire plume,
a hot and buoyant mixture of combustion
gases and entrained air. Church and his col¬
leagues found that vortices of varying inten¬
sity develop within the fire plume, and some
travel downwind and away from the fire pe¬
rimeter. Apparently surface winds interact
with the fire plume in such a way that vor-
ticity (a measure of the rotational tendency
of the fluid) is concentrated in a series of
anticyclonic (clockwise) and cyclonic
(counterclockwise) vortices.
Haines and Updike (1971) point out that,
once formed, a fire whirlwind feeds itself. A
fire whirlwind occupies an air column that is
heated intensely by the underlying burning
ground cover. Intense heating destabilizes the
air, especially close to the ground, and gives
rise to a strong updraft that draws surface
winds radially inward toward the whirlwind.
In this way, horizontal surface winds trans¬
port fuel (burning logs and other debris) into
the whirlwind. Burning fuel further heats the
air enhancing its buoyancy and thereby the
whirlwind circulation strengthens.
Historical Significance
In many of the devastated settlements, in¬
cluding Peshtigo, survivors of the wildfires
stoically tried to put their lives back together.
Some saw and shingle mills destroyed by fire
were rebuilt but not in southern Door County
where the wildfires had permanently altered
the landscape and the local economy. The
thick forests were gone, replaced by burned-
over vegetation and tree stumps; the lum¬
bering era had ended.
Clearing trees and stumps had always been
a slow and arduous task for settlers living
independently on isolated plots of land and
relying on their own muscle power and that
of their sluggish oxen. Ironically, the dev¬
astating wildfires of 1871 helped farmers to
clear the forest and open the land to crops.
Furthermore, when news of the wildfires
reached the rest of the state and nation, an
enormous relief effort began which brought
food, clothing, money, and farm implements
to the area. Xavier Martin, a prominent Green
Bay politican and real estate dealer, observed
that by 1874, only three years after the fire,
the Belgian immigrants of Door County were
in better condition and circumstances than
ever before (X. Martin 1895).
In effect, the fire was a catalyst that ac¬
celerated the transition to agriculture in
southern Door County, a conclusion that is
supported by area census data that bracket
the 1871 fire. Censuses of 1870 and 1880
indicate sharp increases in population, num¬
ber of farmers, and land area in cultivation
in the five southern Door County townships
most severely affected by fire (Tables 1 and 2).
In fact, the rate of development was much
faster than statewide trends during the same
period. While population more than doubled
and cultivated land area almost tripled in the
five southern Door townships, statewide pop¬
ulation increased 25% and farm acerage in¬
creased 31% (Ebling et al. 1948). Census
data also tell us that the number of sawmill
or shinglemill workers in the five townships
declined from thirty-nine in 1870 to none
in 1880.
Farming in Door County in the 1870s was
largely of the mixed or subsistence type with
an emphasis on livestock (Ebling et al. 1948).
That is, farmers produced primarily for their
family’s essential needs (food, fiber, and
shelter). Nonetheless, this stage in the re¬
gion’s agriculture was a key step in the even-
29
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters
Table 1. Percent change in population and farm statistics between 1870 and 1880 for the five
southern Door County townships most severely affected by the 1871 wildfires.
Brussels
Forestville
Gardner
Nasewaupee
Union
Population
+ 146%
+ 197%
+ 50%
+ 120%
+ 108%
Households
+ 141%
+ 181%
+ 53%
+ 87%
+ 87%
Farmers
+ 145%
+ 269%
+ 100%
+ 115%
+ 98%
Farm land*
+ 167%
+ 341%
+ 25%
+ 129%
+ 156%
‘Tilled plus permanent meadow
Source: U.S. Census, 1870 and 1880. Population and Agricultural Schedules, Door County, Wisconsin.
Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin.
Table 2. Change in population and farm sta¬
tistics between 1870 and 1880 for the com¬
bined five southern Door County townships
most severely affected by the 1871 wildfires.
1870
1880
Percent
Change
Population
1800
4016
+ 123%
Households
328
692
+ 111%
Farmers
273
673
+ 147%
Farm land
(acres)*
6614
17755
+ 168%
‘Tilled plus permanent meadow
Source: U.S. Census, 1870 and 1880. Population
and Agricultural Schedules, Door County, Wiscon¬
sin. Wisconsin State Historical Society, Madison,
Wisconsin
tual development (after 1 890) of dairy farm¬
ing, which remains important today. In 1895,
Xavier Martin wrote that “it is a beautiful
sight to see fine crops of wheat, rye, barley,
and oats covering fenceless and stumpless
fields with an even height along the high¬
ways. The wilderness of 40 years ago begins
to look like the fields of Belgium. . . (X.
Martin 1895).
Conclusion
Several factors contributed to the outbreak
of wildfires that destroyed Williamsonville
and other villages in northeastern Wisconsin
on October 8, 1871: wasteful logging prac¬
tices, summer drought, low relative humid¬
ities just prior to the fires, and, on the day
of the fires, a weather pattern that favored
the region with moderate southwesterly winds.
But perhaps the most devastating aspect of
the wildfires was the spawning of intense fire
vortices. Based on vivid eyewitness ac¬
counts, it appears that fire vortices set spot
fires ahead of the main infernos, thereby ac¬
celerating the progress of the wildfires and
producing isolated pockets of destruction.
From an historical perspective, the wild¬
fires altered the economy of the region —
especially in southern Door County where
the fires meant the end of lumbering and
spurred the development of agriculture.
Acknowledgments
This study benefited greatly from discus¬
sions with Dr. William G. Laatsch, Professor
of Regional Analysis, University of Wiscon¬
sin-Green Bay. Also, Jennifer M. Tillis and
Debra Anderson of the UW-Green Bay Li¬
brary and Mary Jane Herber of the Brown
County Library were very helpful in locating
historical documents.
Endnotes
‘During the summer of 1988, in perhaps the
worst wildfires since 1872 (Romme and Despain
1989), more than two million hectares of U.S.
forest land burned including about 290,00 hectares
in Yellowstone National Park. By contrast, in an
average year, 130,000 wildfires bum over about
one million hectares of U.S. land (Albini 1984).
2The North Central Forest Experiment Station
(East Lansing, Michigan), has produced an ex¬
cellent videotape, “Vortices in Wildland Fires,”
which includes dramatic footage of a variety of
vortices spawned by wildfires.
30
Tornadoes of Fire
3An important difference between urban fire
storms and forest fires is the fact that the former
tends to be stationary while the latter are in motion.
Works Cited
Albini, F. A. 1984. Wildland fires. American Sci¬
entist 72:590-597.
Church, C. R., J. T. Snow, and J. Dessens 1980.
Intense atmospheric vortices associated with a
1000 MW fire. Bulletin of the American Me¬
teorological Society. 61:682-694.
Ebert, C. H. V. 1963. The meteorological factor
in the Hamburg fire storm. Weatherwise
16:70-75.
Ebling, W. H., C. D. Caparoon, E. C. Wilcox,
andC. W. Estes. 1948. A century of Wisconsin
agriculture, 1848-1948. Wisconsin Crop and
Livestock Reporting Service Bulletin 290:1-1 19.
Friedman, R. L. 1989. Towards an environmental
history of Door County: some preliminary
thoughts on the relationship between people and
their environment in northeastern Wisconsin.
Wisconsin’s Door Peninsula, A Natural His¬
tory, J. C. Palmquist, ed., Appleton, Wiscon¬
sin: Perin Press, p. 147-157.
Graham, H. E. 1955. Fire whirlwinds. Bulletin
of the American Meteorological Society
36:99-103.
Haines, D. A. and E. L. Kuehnast. 1970. When
the Midwest burned. Weatherwise 23:1 12-1 19.
Haines, D. A. and R. W. Sando. 1969. Climatic
conditions preceding historically great fires in
the north central region. U.S. Department of
Agriculture Forest Service, Research Paper
NC-34.
Haines, D. A. and M. C. Smith. 1987. Three types
of horizontal vortices observed in wildland mass
and crown fires. Journal of Climate and Applied
Meteorology 26:1624-1637.
Haines, D. A. and G. H. Updike. 1971. Fire
whirlwind formation over flat terrain. U.S. De¬
partment of Agriculture Forest Service, Re¬
search Paper NC-7 1 .
Holand, H. R. 1931. The great forest fire of 1 87 1 .
Peninsula Historical Review 5:41-61.
Lorimer, C. G. and W. R. Gough. 1982. Number
of days per month of moderate and extreme
drought in northeastern Wisconsin, 1864-1979.
Forest Research Notes, No. 248, Department
of Forestry, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Martin, C. I. 1881. History of Door County , Wis¬
consin. Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin: Expositor Job
Print.
Martin, X. 1895. The Belgians of Northeastern
Wisconsin. Wisconsin Historical Collections
13:375-396.
Pemin, P. 1971. The great Peshtigo fire: An eye¬
witness account. Wisconsin Magazine of His¬
tory. 54:246-272.
Romme, W. H. and D. G. Despain. 1989. The
Yellowstone fires. Scientific American
261:37-46.
Tilton, F. 1871. The great fires in Wisconsin.
Green Bay, WI: Robinson and Kustermann,
Publishers. Reprinted in the Green Bay His¬
torical Bulletin (1931) 7:1-99.
Wells, R. W. 1968. Fire at Peshtigo. Englewood
Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
31
Spectral confusion by Hummingbirds and the
Evolution of Red Coloration in their Flowers: A
New Hypothesis (Mullerian mimicry /wavelength
discrimination/shade/color name)
Robert Bleiweiss
Abstract. Red is the predominant color among mimetic hummingbird-pollinated flowers in
North America. Recent experimental studies suggest that the ability of hummingbirds to
discriminate among different wavelengths is poorest in the long (red) end of the spectrum. /
propose that red is the best signal for the mimetic flowers precisely because the hummingbirds'
poor discrimination of long wavelengths makes them more likely to mistake flowers of slightly
different shades of red as being subjectively similar; spectral confusion favors both the initial
convergence and subsequent maintenance of mimicry. Since the effectiveness of floral color
in attracting pollinators is a function of both the probability that the flower will be seen
( conspicuousness ) and that it will be recognized as a good food source (mimetic advantage ),
the relative conspicuousness of red against green foliage may complement red's mimetic
advantage. The hypotheses that red hummingbird flowers have evolved because of an innate
preference by hummingbirds for red, or because red is inconspicuous to insects, are not
supported by available evidence. Poor discrimination of long-wavelength signals may also
explain why red predominates among other mimetic prey of birds, such as in mimicry rings
of noxious butterflies.
The convergent flower structure and red
coloration of the North American
hummingbird-pollinated flora presents an ev¬
olutionary puzzle because it provides an ex¬
ception to the general pattern that inter¬
specific competition for the services of
pollinators leads to character divergence and
pollinator specificity among sympatric plant
Dr. Robert Bleiweiss received his Ph.D. in Organismic
and Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University in
1983. He was a Chapman Postdoctoral Fellow at the
American Museum of Natural History from 1983 to 1985.
Dr. Bleiweiss is currently Assistant Scientist in the De¬
partment of Zoology and Adjunct Assistant Curator of
Birds in the Zoological Museum at the University of
Wisconsin, Madison. His research interests include the
evolution of visual signals, speciation, and biochemical
systematics.
species (Brown and Kodric-Brown 1979).
Grant (1966) proposed that North American
hummingbird-pollinated flowers are analo¬
gous to Mullerian mimics and have evolved
convergent structures and red color because
often than to 590 nm (yellow-orange). They
tors, hummingbirds, outweigh the advan¬
tages of pollinator specificity. Humming¬
birds must learn what plants provide a nectar
reward. Grant suggested that the migratory
habits of temperate hummingbirds make flo¬
ral convergence beneficial for both bird and
plant; a common color would increase the
rate at which hummingbirds learn appropriate
food sources in new areas and hence, the
probability that any plant with flowers of the
same color will be visited and pollinated by
a hummingbird (Grant 1966; Grant and Grant
33
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
1968). Brown and Kodric-Brown (1979) have
provided convincing evidence for Grant’s hy¬
pothesis that the similar appearance of the
North American hummingbird-pollinated flora
is due to mimetic convergence.
It is less clear why these plants have evolved
red as their typical color. Hummingbirds have
excellent color vision (Stiles 1976; Gold¬
smith and Goldsmith 1979). All previous ex¬
planations of why red is the predominant flo¬
ral color in North America incorporate in
some way the notion that hummingbirds more
readily discriminate red, but each presents
some difficulties. The hypothesis that hum¬
mingbirds are innately attracted to red be¬
cause of a special property of their neural
apparatus (Faegri and van Der Pijl 1979) has
been disproved by experimental evidence that
hummingbirds learn color preferences through
their experience with the best food sources
(Grant and Grant 1968; Stiles 1976; Bene
1945; Wagner 1946; Lyerly et al. 1950; Col-
lias and Collias 1968; Miller and Miller 1971).
The hypothesis that red is a good attractant
color because hummingbirds perceive it as
conspicuous (i.e. contrasting) against green
foliage (Grant 1966) is based on human per¬
ceptions, which may not apply to humming¬
birds. The currently favored hypothesis that
red color prevents nectar-robbing insects,
(which do not pollinate the flowers), from
finding the plants (Grant 1966; Raven 1972)
is based on the fact that red is inconspicuous
to most insects. However, insects may in fact
frequent red hummingbird-flowers (Lyon and
Chadek 1971; Feinsinger 1977; Carpenter
1978; Snow and Snow 1980; Gill et al. 1982;
Page and Whitham 1985), which often pos¬
sess other structures that appear designed to
limit the foraging efforts of insects (Faegri
and Van Der Pijl 1979; Gill et al. 1982; Bol¬
ton and Feinsinger 1978; Stiles 1981; Fein¬
singer 1983). Such features would be super¬
fluous for red hummingbird flowers if insects
could not find them. Furthermore, at least
some of these visitors, namely butterflies, are
obligate nectar-feeders that can distinguish
long wavelengths as a distinct hue (Swihart
1963, 1965, 1967; Swihart and Gordon 1971).
In this report, I suggest a new “confusion
hypothesis” for the evolution of common red
color based on a previously unconsidered
property of color vision: wavelength discrim¬
ination. I summarize evidence that hum¬
mingbirds actually discriminate poorly among
long (red) wavelengths, and I argue that poor
discrimination of long-wavelength signals fa¬
cilitates the mimetic advantage of the com¬
mon color because hummingbirds are more
likely to mistake red flowers of slightly dif¬
ferent shades as being subjectively similar.
I assume, as have others (possible reasons
given in Brown and Kodric-Brown 1979),
that the relative benefits of mimetic conver¬
gence outweigh any costs associated with lack
of pollinator specificity. My explanation ad¬
dresses the more specific question: given that
the plants are selected to converge, what flo¬
ral color will be favored? Data available from
studies of hummingbird visual physiology
and behavior supports my “confusion
hypothesis.”
Wavelength Discrimination
by Hummingbirds
Color discrimination ability is usually
measured based on some criterion of relia¬
bility of discrimination, which, when applied
for all wavelengths throughout the spectrum,
generates a characteristic function that de¬
scribes how discrimination varies with wave¬
length. Goldsmith et al. (1981) generated a
spectral discrimination function for black-
chinned hummingbirds {Archilochus alex-
andri) by first training them to receive a nec¬
tar reward at feeders illuminated by a mono¬
chromatic light, and then testing their ability
to distinguish this light from another such
light of equal brightness but with a spectral
separation of 10 nm. They tested the response
over the range of the human visual spectrum
(410 nm to 650 nm) to generate a discrimi¬
nation function. Although the function does
not give information about the minimum
wavelength difference that the birds can de-
34
Spectral Confusion by Hummingbirds
WAVELENGTH (nm)
Fig. 1. Goldsmith et a/'s (1981) wavelength-discrimination function for the black-chinned hum¬
mingbird (Archilochus alexandri). Birds were trained to feed at bottles containing 25% sucrose
mounted in front of a glass disc illuminated by the training wavelength (\). Birds were then
presented with two bottles illuminated by the training wavelength, and two bottles illuminated
by the test wavelength (\ ± 10 nm). The function measures the fraction of incorrect choices
for the two stimuli of monochromatic light separated by 10 nm. In the function, the points along
the abscissa are plotted midway between the training and test wavelengths. The training
wavelength lay 5 nm to the shaded side of the data symbol.
tect (the so-called just-noticeable difference),
it does provide a relative measure of wave¬
length discrimination; where the birds make
more errors, their wavelength discrimination
is poorer.
Surprisingly, Goldsmith et al. (1981) found
that the birds’ ability to discriminate two
stimuli was best at shorter wavelengths and
decreased roughly monotonically toward
longer wavelengths (Fig. 1). In particular,
the birds’ ability to discriminate two stimuli
decreased dramatically for wavelengths longer
than 585 nm, the region in which the human
sensation of orange-red begins (Jacobs 1981).
Thus, hummingbirds’ poorest powers of color
discrimination are in the orange to red range
of the spectrum. Data on discrimination also
make it possible to evaluate whether hum¬
mingbirds see as a single hue, i.e. a “color
name,” the range of wavelengths that we call
red. Hues, and the range of wavelengths they
encompass, are perceptual categories rather
than objective physical standards. Thus, the
common color “red” would not be of evo¬
lutionary significance if hummingbirds dis¬
tinguished two or more hues within the re¬
gion of the spectrum we perceive as red
(Table 1). Although by definition color¬
naming functions cannot be described for non¬
human animals, Goldsmith and Goldsmith
(1979) found that, in making spontaneous
choices, the hummingbirds’ experience with
620 nm (red) was generalized to 650 nm more
often than to 590 nm (yellow-orange). They
Table 1. Spectral limits of human hue “color
names”1
Color Name
Wavelengths
(nanometers)
Violet
400-440
Blue
440-500
Green
500-570
Yellow
570-590
Orange
590-610
Red
610-700
’See Begbie, G. H. 1973.
35
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
concluded that 590 nm probably falls close
to a hue border and that hummingbirds de¬
limit hues at long wavelengths in a manner
similar to primates, whose hue border for
orange begins at 590 nm (Table 1).
In summary, it appears that human ‘’red”
corresponds to a sensation that humming¬
birds also perceive as a single hue category,
and that discrimination among “red” wave¬
lengths by hummingbirds is poorer than that
among wavelengths of other hues. These re¬
sults are most likely to apply to all of the
hummingbird genera that regularly breed in
North America {Archilochus, Selasphorus,
Calypte, Stellula ) because all of them are
closely related (Zusi and Bentz 1982).
Consequences for the
Evolution of Mimicry
In Mullerian complexes of distasteful prey,
mimicry is advantageous because the prob¬
ability that any given individual will be sam¬
pled decreases as the number of mimetic spe¬
cies increases. Hummingbird flowers differ
from classical Mullerian mimics, of course,
in that the flowers advertise their palatability
so they can be sampled more often. The se¬
lective basis for mimicry among either nox¬
ious or palatable prey is the same, however.
In both contexts, convergence increases the
rate at which the animal learns to associate
the signal with a stimulus. A hummingbird
that has sampled a nectar-ladened flower of
a particular shade will seek out and pollinate
similar-looking flowers. Thus, mimicry ben¬
efits the plant by increasing their reproductive
success and benefits the bird by reducing their
costs of seeking out and testing potential food
sources.
I propose that poorly discriminated pheno¬
types will be favored to evolve as mimics,
both during the initial phase when mimetic
resemblance is first evolving, and during sub¬
sequent evolution of the complex. In mim¬
icry, the mimics gain some advantage through
their resemblance to another organism, the
model, by exploiting the learning capacities
of some animal, usually termed the ‘‘signal
receiver” (Turner 1977). Fisher (1927, 1958)
pointed out that the mimetic advantage can
depend on the subjective perceptions of the
signal receiver. I argue that discrimination
ability is the key subjective element driving
the evolution of mimetic color among the
hummingbird-pollinated plants.
According to standard models for the ev¬
olution of mimicry (Turner 1977), a mimic
can evolve initially if a mutant phenotype
arises that achieves sufficient resemblance to
the model such that it overcomes any
counterselection for other functions (in the
present case, distinctness of floral display that
might serve to reduce competition with other
plants for the services of pollinators). It is
evident that the mutant does not have to be
an exact physical replica, but only that it must
fall within the range of phenotypes that the
signal receiver considers subjectively simi¬
lar. For hummingbird-pollinated plants, this
stage will be influenced by the visual dis¬
crimination capacities of the hummingbirds.
As phenotypes (wavelengths) are more likely
to be confused at the long (red) end of the
spectrum, the production of a mimetic mutant
is more likely to occur for red models. In
other words, there are more mutant pheno¬
types that would confer a mimetic advantage
in the region of poor discrimination. Con¬
versely, the production of mimetic mutants
of non-red models is less likely.
Alternatively, two plants might by chance
alone already resemble each other suffi¬
ciently well that a major mutation would not
be necessary to confer some mimetic advan¬
tage (Turner 1977). The chance of being con¬
fused will be greater where the range of suit¬
able mimetic phenotypes is greater, namely,
in the region where the signal receiver’s pow¬
ers of discrimination are poorest. Thus, for
hummingbird-pollinated plants, the chance
for this fortuitous resemblance will again be
greater in the long (red) region of the spectrum.
As the Mullerian advantage increases in
direct relation to the abundance of the mimics
(Turner 1977; Fisher 1927, 1958), then the
actual advantage conferred through Muller¬
ian resemblance will be inversely related to
36
Spectral Confusion by Hummingbirds
the discriminatory powers of the signal re¬
ceiver. Poor discrimination leads to the con¬
fusion of more spectral phenotypes, which
therefore make up a greater proportion of the
total population, and hence should gain pro¬
portionately in mimetic advantage at any stage
in the evolution of mimicry. By these ar¬
guments, red facilitates the mimetic function
of the common color and should be favored
when the plants are under selection leading
to a convergent appearance.
Discussion
The “confusion hypothesis” predicts that
hummingbirds will learn food sources asso¬
ciated with slightly different shades (wave¬
lengths) of red faster than with a similar array
of shades centered in a different hue. Gold¬
smith and Goldsmith (1979) observed that
red (620 nm) and green (546 nm) stimuli
were learned with equal rapidity. This finding
does not refute my prediction because con¬
fusion should favor rapid learning only among
slightly different shades; single shades of any
hue should be learned with equal speed. The
hypothesis also predicts that variation in shade
(wavelength) among the mimetic flowers will
not be reduced below what hummingbirds
can discriminate, so red flowers should vary
greatly in their physical wavelengths. I am
unaware of any data in the literature that per¬
tain to these two predictions, which I am
endeavoring to test.
The effectiveness of floral color in attract¬
ing pollinators is no doubt a function of both
the probability that the flower will be seen
(conspicuousness) and the conditional prob¬
ability that the bird will recognize it as a good
food source (mimetic advantage). Since
hummingbirds are able to discriminate green
(560 nm) from orange (590 nm) and red (620
nm) lights almost completely (Goldsmith and
Goldsmith 1979), they no doubt perceive red
as conspicuous against green. Therefore, the
hypothesis that red is favored because it is
easy to discriminate from the background of
middle wavelength (green) foliage, i.e., con¬
spicuousness, may complement the mimetic
advantage.
Evidence that insects visit red flowers does
not by itself refute the hypothesis that red
has evolved to limit nectar-robbing by them,
as the device need not be completely effec¬
tive to be selectively favored. Thus, red may
be a particularly good advertisement for
hummingbird flowers under selection to con¬
verge just because it is conspicuous against
green, inconspicuous to insects, and easily
confused with other shades of red. Given the
suitability of hummingbirds to experimental
manipulations of behavior, it should be pos¬
sible to dissect the relative contributions of
these potential benefits.
Should poor discrimination of long wave¬
lengths prove to be typical for insectivorous
birds, then the “confusion hypothesis” may
also explain the predominance of red among
aposematic avian prey such as butterflies that
are Mullerian mimics (Rettenmeyer 1970).
This would indicate that red’s primary value
is as a mimetic signal.
Acknowledgments
I thank Kurt Fristrup, Dana Geary, Tim
Goldsmith, Jack P. Hailman, John Kirsch,
Francois Vuilleumier, and Dan Wiegmann
for helpful comments on drafts of this paper.
Cheryle Hughes drafted the figure and Don
Chandler photographed it.
Works Cited
Begbie, G. H. 1973. Seeing and the Eye. Garden
City, New Jersey: Anchor Books.
Bene, F. 1945. The role of learning in the feeding
behavior of black-chinned hummingbirds. Con¬
dor 47: 3-22.
Bolton, A. B., and Feinsinger, P. 1978. Why do
hummingbird flowers secrete dilute nectar. Bio-
tropica 10: 307-309.
Brown, J. H. and Kodric-Brown, A. 1979. Con¬
vergence, competition, and mimicry in a tem¬
perate community of hummingbird-pollinated
flowers. Ecology 60: 1022-1035.
Carpenter, F. L. 1978. Competition between
hummingbirds and insects for nectar. Amer. Zool.
19: 1105-1114.
Collias, N. W., and Collias, E. C. 1968. Anna’s
hummingbirds trained to select different colors
in feeding. Condor 70: 273-275.
37
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Faegri, K., and Van Der Pijl, L. 1979. The Prin¬
ciples of Pollination Ecology. New York: Per-
gamon Press.
Feinsinger, P. 1977. Notes on the hummingbirds
of Monte verde. Cordillera de Tilaran, Costa
Rica. Wilson Bull. 89: 159-164.
Feinsinger, P. 1983. Coevolution and pollination.
In Coevolution, Futuyma, D. J., and Slatkin,
M. (eds.), Sunderland, Mass.: Sinauer Assoc.
Press, pp. 282-310.
Fisher, R. A. 1927. On some objections to mim¬
icry theory; statistical and genetic. Trans. Ent.
Soc. London 1927: 269-278.
Fisher, R. A. 1958. The Genetical Theory of Nat¬
ural Selection. New York: Dover.
Gill, F. B., Mack, A. L., and Ray, R. T. 1982.
Competition between hermit hummingbirds
Phaethomithinae and insects for nectar in a Costa
Rican rain forest. Ibis. 124: 44-49.
Goldsmith, T. H., and Goldsmith, K. M. 1979.
Discrimination of colors by the black-chinned
hummingbird, Archilochus colubris. J. Comp.
Physiol. 130: 209-220.
Goldsmith, T. H., Collins, J. S., and Perlman,
D. L. 1981. A wavelength discrimination func¬
tion for the hummingbird Archilochus alexan-
dri. J. Comp. Physiol. 143: 103-110.
Grant, K. A. 1966. A hypothesis concerning the
prevalence of red coloration in California hum¬
mingbird flowers. Amer. Natur. 66: 85-98.
Grant, K. A., and Grant, V. 1968. Hummingbirds
and Their Flowers. New York: Columbia Univ.
Press.
Jacobs, G. H. 1981. Comparative Color Vision.
New York: Academic Press.
Lyerly, S. B., Reiss, B. F., and Ross, S. 1950.
Color preference in the Mexican violet-eared
hummingbird, Colibri t. thalassinus (Swain-
son). Behavior 2: 237-248.
Lyon, D., and Chadek, C. 1971. Exploitation of
nectar resources by hummingbirds, bees {Bom-
bus), and Diglossa baritula and its role in the
evolution of Penstemon kunthii. Condor 73:
246-248.
Miller, R. S., Miller, R. W. 1971. Feeding ac¬
tivity and color preference of ruby-throated
hummingbirds. Condor 73: 309-313.
Paige, K. N., and Whitham, T. G. 1985. Indi¬
vidual and population shifts in flower color by
scarlet gilia: a mechanism for pollinator track¬
ing. Science 227: 315-317.
Raven, P. H. 1972. Why are bird- visited flowers
predominantly red? Evolution 26: 674
Rettenmeyer, C. W. 1970. Insect mimicry. Ann.
Rev. Entomol 15: 43-74.
Snow, D. W., and Snow, B. K. 1980. Relation¬
ships between hummingbirds and flowers in the
Andes of Colombia. Bull. Br. Mus. Nat. Hist.
(Zool) 38:105-139.
Stiles, F. G. 1976. Taste preferences, color pref¬
erences and flower choice in hummingbirds.
Condor 78: 10-26.
Stiles, F. G. 1981. Geographical aspects of bird-
flower coevolution, with particular reference to
Central America. Ann. Missouri Bot. Gard. 68:
323-351.
Swihart, S. L. 1963. The electroretinogram of
Heliconius reato and its possible relation to es¬
tablished behavior patterns. Zoologica 48:
155-165.
Swihart, S. L. 1965. Evoked potentials in the vis¬
ual pathway of Heliconius reato. Zoologica 50:
55-62.
Swihart, S. L. 1967. Neural adaptations in the
visual pathway of certain heliconiine butter¬
flies, and related forms, to variations in wing
coloration. Zoologica, 52: 1-14.
Swihart, S. L. and W. C. Gordon. 1971. Red
photoreceptor in butterflies. Nature 231:
126-127.
Turner, J. R. G. 1977. Butterfly mimicry: the ge¬
netical evolution of an adaptation. In Evolu¬
tionary Biology, Vol 10, M. K. Hecht, W. C.
Steere, and B. Wallace (eds.). New York:
Plenum Press, pp. 163-206.
Wagner, H. O. 1946. Food and feeding habits of
Mexican hummingbirds. Wilson Bull. 58: 69-93.
Zusi, R. L., and Bentz, G. D. 1982. Variation of
a muscle in hummingbirds and swifts and its
systematic implications. Proc. Bio. Soc. Wash.
95: 412-420.
38
Glaciated Karst Terrain in
the Door Peninsula of Wisconsin
Carol J. Rosen and Michael J. Day
Abstract. Glaciated karst terrain , which is poorly documented in the United States, is well
developed in the Door Peninsula of northeastern Wisconsin. The peninsula is a southeastward¬
dipping cuesta developed on the Silurian Niagaran dolomite. Wisconsinan glacial plucking
east of the escarpment produced glaciokarst features including alternating steps and risers
(schichttreppenkarst) and extensive dolomite pavements. Pre- and post-glacial karst landforms
include enlarged crevices (grikes), sinkholes, and caves. Staircases and pavements are pre¬
dominantly south- and east-facing and are particularly well developed on the Brussels Hill
outlier. Their distribution is as predicted by the general model of northwest-southeast ice
movement. Many of the smaller karst landforms are postglacial, although shallow features
may have an important inherited component, and the larger sinkholes and the caves may
antedate Wisconsinan glaciation. Much of the postglacial karst development is in the Burnt
Bluff Formation on the western side of the peninsula where the hydraulic gradient is steepest,
joints are dilated, and the drift is thinnest. Regional joint sets at 25, 70, and 155 degrees
have strongly influenced cave and sinkhole development.
Although large areas of carbonate bed¬
rock in the United States experienced
the effects of Pleistocene glaciation, glacio¬
karst — characteristic terrain developed through
glaciation of karst landscape — is poorly doc¬
umented. In many areas glaciokarst is limited
because the limestones or dolomites are man¬
tled by thick, often carbonate-rich glacial de¬
posits. These mask any preglacial karst, as
well as the effects of glacial erosion, and
hinder postglacial karst development. Never-
Carol Rosen is an Assistant Professor of Geography at
UW -Whitewater. She received her PhD from UW-
Milwaukee in May, 1990. Her MS Thesis at UW-
Milwaukee dealt with the Karst geomorphology of the
Door Peninsula.
Michael Day is an Associate Professor of Geography at
UW -Milwaukee. His research focuses on karst geomor¬
phology. He received the DPhil from Oxford University
in 1978.
theless, glaciokarst is present in some areas,
particularly where drift deposits are thin. In
this paper we call attention to one major area
of glaciated karst terrain developed on do¬
lomites in northeastern Wisconsin and pres¬
ent some initial results of studies of the karst
landforms.
The Regional Setting
The Door Peninsula, which extends some
100 km into Lake Michigan and ranges from
5 to 30 km wide (Fig. 1), is a cuesta devel¬
oped on the Silurian-aged Niagaran dolomite
(Sherrill 1978). The Niagaran Series is ap¬
proximately 107-m thick and consists dom¬
inantly of light gray, medium to coarse¬
grained, thin-bedded, fossiliferous dolom¬
ites. Bioherms are common and are ex¬
pressed topographically in outliers such as
Brussels Hill, the highest point on the pen¬
insula at 260 m (Thwaites and Bertrand 1957).
39
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters
On the western, Green Bay side of the
peninsula the Niagara Escarpment rises up to
79 m above present lake level; the cuesta
backslope, sloping to the southeast at gen¬
erally less than one degree, forms the main
body of the peninsula. Headlands, talus-strewn
bluffs, and island outliers characterize the
west coast; the eastern coast is gently sloping
and has sandy beaches and dunes.
The peninsula is traversed by a series of
five northwest-southeast-trending lowlands,
the most conspicuous being Sturgeon Bay,
the Porte des Morts channel, and the Ahn-
apee River Valley (Fig. 1). These probably
represent preglacial river valleys modified by
glacial and meltwater erosion (Deller and
Stoelting 1986; Johnson 1987).
The Door Peninsula was glaciated exten¬
sively during the Pleistocene, latterly by two
major advances of the Green Bay Lobe dur¬
ing the Wisconsinan Stage: the Port Huron
advance during the Woodfordian Substage
(22-1 3ka) and, following the Twocreekan
Interstade, a subsequent advance during the
40
Glaciated Karst Terrain in the Door Peninsula
COfT
celu
LUO
Fig. 2. Stepped glaciokarst profiles. A in Yorkshire, England, after Sweeting (1972), B on the
east side of Brussels Hill.
Greatlakean Substage (11. 5-1 Oka) (Schnei¬
der 1981, 1986, 1989). Ice movement was
predominantly north-south or northwest-
southeast (Thwaites and Bertrand 1957;
McCartney and Mickelson 1982; Schneider
1981, 1986, 1989; Need 1985). The penin¬
sula is covered by a thin veneer, mostly less
than 1 m thick, of unstratified sandy till, much
of which contains more than 25% calcium
carbonate (Thwaites and Bertrand 1957). The
drift thickens towards the southeast, where
there is a cover of red clayey till and where
there are moraines and some drumlins. Lo¬
cally there are lacustrine and fluvial deposits,
plus some outwash, beach, and dune sands
(Deller and Stoelting 1986).
Mean annual precipitation is 690 mm, and
mean annual daily maximum and minimum
temperatures are respectively 11.6 and 1.3
degrees Celsius (Link et al. 1978). Surface
water infiltrates into the dolomite aquifer very
rapidly, giving rise to serious groundwater
contamination (Sherrill 1975, 1978; Wiersma
et al. 1984; Johnson 1987). Groundwater is
calcium-magnesium-bicarbonate dominated,
with a mean total hardness (as CaC03) of
299mg/l (s = 66. 1 , n = 23) (Sherrill 1978).
The Glaciated Karst Terrain
The Door Peninsula glaciokarst is similar
to that developed on the Niagaran dolomite
in the Bruce Peninsula of Ontario (Cowell
1976; Cowell and Ford, 1980, 1983) and has
many of the characteristics of the “classic”
glaciokarst of western Europe (Williams 1966;
Sweeting 1972). The principal diagnostic
features are the numerous nearly horizontal
ledges and benches alternating with steep steps,
or risers (Fig. 2). The ledges are developed
on bedding planes that have been accentuated
by intense glacial scouring and plucking on
the down-ice side of the cuesta. East of the
escarpment, the main body of the peninsula
41
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters
decreases in elevation via a series of large
benches that attain widths of over 1 km and
cover areas up to 10 km2. The benches are
drift mantled, and bedrock is exposed usually
only where drift has collapsed into widened
joints, locally giving rise to sinkholes. Be¬
tween the benches, the steps, although gen¬
erally obscured by drift, are as much as
10 m high.
Superimposed upon the large benches, and
most evident on steeper east-facing slopes,
are smaller ledges and steps that together make
up distinct staircases — the schichttreppen-
karst of Bogli (1964). These ledges range
typically from 5 to 20 m in width, and steps
range from 0.5 to 10 m high. On ledges where
the drift cover is thin, there are exposed bed¬
rock pavements, some with striations, others
bearing well-defined, dissolutionally-molded
dints and grikes (Rosen 1984; Johnson 1987).
The ledges also carry a variety of karstic
depressions, which have been documented
by Rosen et al. (1987) and by Johnson (1987),
and in overall morphology the staircase as¬
semblages bear a striking resemblance to Eu¬
ropean examples (Fig. 2).
The staircases are predominantly south- and
east-facing and are best developed on the
south- and east-facing sides of hills and val¬
leys. This distribution provides independent
evidence that supports the theory that ice
movement was predominantly from north¬
west to southeast. Particularly well-developed
staircases occur on the eastern flanks of the
Brussels Hill outlier, along the western mar¬
gin of Sturgeon Bay, and on the eastern coast
of the peninsula, for example at Cave Point
(See Fig. 1 for locations). At Brussels Hill
well-defined pavements occupy areas up to
0.75 km2 and achieve widths over 50 m (Ro¬
sen 1984). Risers, in part near- vertical but
mostly veneered by talus, are 5 to 10 m in
height (Fig. 2B). Pavements on the western
side of Sturgeon Bay are up to 20 m wide,
with risers 1 to 5 m high.
Glacier basal bulldozing, plucking, and
abrasion erases shallow karst features
(Ford 1987) and, since the staircases and
pavements themselves are of glacial origin,
the crevices and sinkholes developed on them
are essentially postglacial in age. Most grikes
terminate at the level of the first or second
bedding plane beneath the surface, but per¬
haps 25% are deeper, suggesting that in part
they may have been initiated prior to Wis-
consinan glaciation. A certain proportion of
grikes, at least in the master joint set, may
survive glacial scouring (Ford 1987), and thus
the postglacial pavements may have an im¬
portant inherited component.
Larger karst landforms may also have sur¬
vived glacial action, although the majority
of sinkholes are small enough to have de¬
veloped entirely during the Holocene. Some
larger sinkholes may antedate the last gla¬
ciation, and some may have originated as
glacial scour holes, although there is no firm
evidence of this. Caves too probably antedate
recent glaciations, although it seems unlikely
that they are strictly preglacial, i.e. devel¬
oped prior to all episodes of Quaternary gla¬
ciation. As yet there has not been sufficient
analysis of cave deposits to provide a chron¬
ological framework.
Postglacial karst development on the stepped
surfaces is influenced strongly by three major
regional joint sets oriented at 25, 70, and 155
degrees (Sherrill 1978; Rosen 1984). Con¬
sistent joint sets throughout the Michigan Basin
are attributed by Holst (1982) to Paleozoic
folding and more recent tectonic stresses. The
25-degree joint set is expressed only rarely
on the eastern side of the peninsula. At Brus¬
sels Hill 71% of all sinkholes (n = 61) follow
a joint trace. Fifty-eight percent of sinkholes
occur at three-way joint intersections, 21%
at two-way intercepts, and 21% are on a sin¬
glejoint (Rosen et al. 1987). Caves also show
this structural control, especially by the 70-
and 155-degree joint sets. Paradise Pit Cave,
at 554 m long, and Horseshoe Bay Cave, at
945 m long, are among the longest in Wis¬
consin (Hennings et al. 1972; Barden 1980).
Brussels Hill Pit Cave, the deepest in the state
at — 28 m, is currently yielding a rich suite
of Holocene faunal remains (Kox 1988).
42
Glaciated Karst Terrain in the Door Peninsula
Karst depressions on the stepped surfaces
range from 0.6 to 12.0 m wide and from 0. 15
to 3.0 m deep. At Brussels Hill, mean
depression depth is 0.28 m (s = 0.07, n = 61).
Large scattered depressions are evident in
farm fields, where many have been filled in.
In less-altered woodland areas most depres¬
sions are grouped in high-density lattice net¬
works that reflect the closely spaced joint
sets. At Brussels Hill densities are up to 8.7/
100 m2, and at Ledge Woods, west of Carls-
ville (Fig. 1), depressions occupy 95% of the
surface of a 170 m2 area.
Other karst features developed throughout
the peninsula include swallets, which take
runoff primarily from farm fields, and var¬
ious types of karren (grooves, runnels, and
solutional basins) (Rosen 1984; Johnson 1987).
Enlarged joints, which are common where
surficial deposits are less than 0.6 m thick,
range up to more than 10 m in length and
0.8 m wide. Near Institute (Fig. 1) dissolution-
widened crevices occupy about 0.4 km2. Mean
spacing of joints on the 70-degree azimuth
is 3. 1 m and that on the 155 azimuth is 5. 1 m.
Many of the sinkholes, swallets, caves,
and other karst landforms of the Door Pen¬
insula are developed on the western side of
the peninsula. This distribution reflects sev¬
eral factors (Rosen 1984):
1 . Some karst features are developed pref¬
erentially in the Burnt Bluff Formation (Bar¬
den 1980), which outcrops at an elevation of
about 190 to 215 m.
2. The hydraulic gradient is steepest close
to the escarpment (see Cowell and Ford 1983).
3. Close to the escarpment, joints are di¬
lated as a result of glacial unloading or ice-
wedging (e.g., see Stieglitz et al. 1980).
4. The drift cover is thinnest on the west¬
ern side of the peninsula. 96% of exposed
karst features are in areas with less than 1.2
m- thick drift and 73% are developed where
drift is less than 0.6 m thick (Rosen 1984).
Conclusion
The Door Peninsula is possibly the most
impressive glaciated karst landscape in the
United States. It contains a characteristic suite
of glaciokarst landforms, including staircases
and pavements, together with postglacial
crevices and sinkholes, and probably pre¬
glacial caves. Development of the karst mer¬
its further study particularly because its en¬
vironmental implications are now being fully
realized. Distribution of the glaciokarst agrees
with predictions based upon previous models
of Wisconsinan ice movement. Most of the
surface landforms are postglacial in age, al¬
though some may have characteristics inher¬
ited from karstification antedating the Wis¬
consinan glaciation. Caves and larger karst
landforms may have been initiated prior to
the last glaciation, but like the smaller fea¬
tures they too are oriented preferentially along
the regionally dominant joints.
Acknowledgments
Carol Rosen’s fieldwork and other ex¬
penses were funded in part by a University
of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Graduate School
Fellowship. We are very grateful to Kurt Pie-
penburg for his assistance in the field. Ron
Stieglitz and Scot Johnson kindly made avail¬
able a copy of the latter’s MS Thesis.
Works Cited
Barden, M. 1980. Caves of Door County, Wis¬
consin. In An Introduction to Caves of Min¬
nesota, Iowa and Wisconsin, E. C. Alexander,
ed., National Speleological Society Convention
Guidebook 21, pp 136-141.
Bogli, A. 1964. Le Schichttreppenkarst. Revue
Belgique de Geographie . 88: 63-81.
Cowell, D. W. 1976. Karst geomorphology of the
Bruce Peninsula, Ontario, Canada. MS Thesis,
McMaster University, 214pp.
Cowell, D. W. and Ford, D. C. 1980. Hydro-
chemistry of a dolomite karst: The Bruce Pen¬
insula of Ontario. Canadian Journal of Earth
Science 17(4): 520-526.
Cowell, D. W. and Ford, D. C. 1983. Karst hy¬
drology of the Bruce Peninsula, Ontario. Jour¬
nal of Hydrology 61: 163-168.
Deller, H. and Stoelting, P. 1986. Wisconsin’s
Door Peninsula and its geomorphology. The
Wisconsin Geographer 2: 29-41.
43
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Ford, D. C. 1987. Effects of glaciations and
permafrost upon the development of karst in
Canada. Earth Surface Processes and Land-
forms 12(5): 507-521.
Hennings, F., Soule, G. and Peterson, G. 1972.
Caves of Door County, Wisconsin. The Wis¬
consin Speleologist 1 1(3): 63-129.
Holst, T. B. 1982. Regional jointing in the north¬
ern Michigan Basin. Geology 10: 213-211.
Johnson, S. B. 1987 .The Karst of Northern Door
County, Wisconsin. MS Thesis, University of
Wisconsin-Green Bay, 122p.
Kox, N. H. 1988. Door County’s past locked in
Brussels Hill. The Wisconsin Caver 8(1): 10-
11.
Link, E. G., Elmer, S. L. and Vanderveen, S. A.
1978. Soil Survey of Door County, Wisconsin.
U.S. Department of Agriculture and Soil Con¬
servation Service, 132pp.
McCartney, M. C. and Mickelson, D. M. 1982.
Late Woodfordian and Greatlakean history of
the Green Bay Lobe, Wisconsin. Bulletin of the
Geological Society of America 93: 297-302.
Mickelson, D. M., Clayton, L., Baker, R. W.,
Mode, W. N. and Schneider, A. F. 1984.
Pleistocene stratigraphic units of Wisconsin.
Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Sur¬
vey, Miscellaneous Paper 84-1, 97pp.
Need, E. A. 1985. Pleistocene geology of Brown
County, Wisconsin. Wisconsin Geological and
Natural History Survey Information Circular 48,
19pp.
Rosen, C. J. 1984. Karst geomorphology of the
Door Peninsula, Wisconsin. MS Thesis, Uni¬
versity of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 1 19pp.
Rosen, C. J., Day, M. J. andPiepenburg, K. 1987.
Glaciokarst depressions in the Door Peninsula,
Wisconsin. Physical Geography 8(2): 160-168.
Sherrill, M. G. 1975. Groundwater contamina¬
tion in the Silurian dolomite of Door County,
Wisconsin. Groundwater 13(2): 209-213.
Sherrill, M. G. 1978. Geology and groundwater
in Door County, Wisconsin with emphasis on
contamination potential in the Silurian dolom¬
ite. U.S. Geological Survey Water-Supply Pa¬
per 2047, 38pp.
Schneider, A. F. 1981. Late Wisconsin glaciation
of Door County, Wisconsin. Geological Society
of America Abstracts with Programs 13: 316.
_ 1986. Till stratigraphy of the northern Door
Peninsula, Wisconsin. Geological Society of
America Abstracts with Programs 18: 322-323.
_ 1989. Geomorphology and Quartern ary Ge¬
ology of Wisconsin’s Door Peninsula, In Wis¬
consin’s Door Peninsula: A Natural History, J.
Palmquist ed., pp. 32-48. Madison: Perin Press.
Stieglitz, R. D., Moran, J. M. and Harris, J. D.
1980. A relict geomorphological feature adja¬
cent to the Silurian escarpment in northeastern
Wisconsin. Transactions of the Wisconsin
Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters 68: 202-
207.
Sweeting, M. M. 1972. Karst Landforms. Lon¬
don: Macmillan.
Thwaites, F. T. and Bertrand, K. 1957. Pleisto¬
cene geology of the Door Peninsula, Wiscon¬
sin. Bulletin of the Geological Society of Amer¬
ica 68: 831-880.
Wiersma, J. H., Stieglitz, R. D., Cecil, D. L.
and Metzler, G. M. 1984. Characterization of
the shallow groundwater system in an area of
thin soils and sinkholes (Door County, Wis¬
consin). In Sinkholes: Their Geology, Engi¬
neering and Environmental Impact, B. F. Beck
ed., pp. 305-310. Rotterdam: A. A. Balkema.
44
The Photography of Alfred Charles Bonanno
“A genuine Artist with the compassionate eye” is how Studs Terkel has described A1
Bonanno. The fifteen photographs that follow demonstrate not only that artistry and com¬
passion, but the versatility and range of subject as well. Bonanno has long been known for
his photographs of American Indians, and no collection of his work would be complete without
some of them. Sixty-seven of these photographs have been selected by the International Center
of Photography (New York) for use in its teaching program. Other of his photographs are in
private collections in Japan, France, Kuwait, and the U.S. In addition, viewers can find his
work in virtually every regional publication, many national newspapers, and in such magazines
as Time , Parade , and Sports Medicine.
Bonanno’ s work is an intellectual and emotional tour de force. Irony, beauty, joy, love,
celebration, dignity, loneliness, isolation, contentment, struggle, and rejection are leitmotifs
throughout his photography making it complex and difficult to categorize. The emotional
range of his work is seen when the joy of children playing with a wheelbarrow, or two
brothers, or a grandfather with his granddaughter, is followed by the enormous emotions
swirling around autistic children. And the love of a young girl for a woman in a nursing home
is a stark contrast to the newly admitted resident who has not been able to remove his hat.
When a child with a bouquet stands by the three-hundred-mile fence separating the Hopi and
Navajo reservations, what is captured is more than what many words have conveyed.
Perhaps it is best to allow the viewer to venture into Bonanno’ s world with only this brief
introduction. It is a journey well worth making, and Transactions is happy to make it possible.
45
Photography of Alfred Charles Bonanno
Two Children Playing
47
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Brothers
48
Photography of Alfred Charles Bonanno
Fred and his Granddaughter
49
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Jimmy’s World: Blind, Deaf, Autistic
50
Photography of Alfred Charles Bonanno
Timmy
51
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters
Nursing Home
52
Photography of Alfred Charles Bonanno
53
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
54
The Three-Hundred Mile Fence
Photography of Alfred Charles Bonanno
55
Pipe Mustache
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters
Ruth
56
Photography of Alfred Charles Bonanno
The Bridegroom
57
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
MD
58
Photography of Alfred Charles Bonanno
Cherokee Biker
59
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Ear Ring
60
Photography of Alfred Charles Bonanno
61
Flag with 30,000 Miles on it
A New Station in Door County, Wisconsin, for
the Rare Iris lacustris Nutt. (Dwarf Lake Iris)
Charles R. Hart
Abstract. A new site for Iris lacustris Nutt .
Wisconsin, is described.
Recently, a fairly extensive population of
Iris lacustris Nutt, was discovered in
southern Door County, Wisconsin. Hereto¬
fore, the known range for this species in
northeastern Wisconsin was somewhat dis¬
junct, occurring to the south in Brown County
and then reappearing north of Sturgeon Bay,
Wisconsin, in Door County.
Iris lacustris Nutt., a Great Lakes en¬
demic, is known only from Michigan, On¬
tario, and Wisconsin (Guire and Voss 1963;
Voss 1972, p. 431). In Wisconsin this spe¬
cies is considered to be threatened and was
recently elevated to the same status at the
federal level as well (Harrison 1988). Prior
to the discovery of the new site, the Dwarf
Lake Iris had been found at a total of fifteen
sites in two counties on Wisconsin’s Door
Peninsula (Harrison 1988). The southerly most
site, in Brown County, was reported by Trick
and Fewless (1984). The other extant sites
are scattered to the north of Sturgeon Bay
and were recorded by Makholm in 1986. For
indigenous species as rare and local as this
Charles R. Hart is an Associate Professor of Biological
Sciences at the University of Wisconsin C enter -
Manitowoc County.
the rare Dwarf Lake Iris, in Door County,
one, any and all new stations are of signifi¬
cance in terms of recommending habitat
management or other protection measures.
The newly discovered population is lo¬
cated in secs. 27 and 28 of T28N R25E in
the Township of Nawewaupee. It occurs ap¬
proximately 15 miles southwest of the nearest
reported northerly Door County population
and approximately 17 miles northeast of the
southerly Brown County population. Rep¬
resentative voucher specimens of this pop¬
ulation were taken (15 June 1989, Hart- 13-
89) and are housed in the herbarium/green¬
house at the University of Wisconsin Cen¬
ter — Manitowoc County.
At this locality, the Iris is closely asso¬
ciated with Toxicodendron radicans. The
densest growth occurs in the preferred habitat
for this Iris species, which is sandy or grav¬
elly soil (underlain by Niagara dolomite) and
open, although the plant occurs in partial shade
of coniferous trees (Thuja occidentalis), in
mesic areas at the forest edge and along town¬
ship roads or right-of-ways. The geological
location of this population is in keeping with
the prior documentation of Dwarf Lake Iris
colonies occurring on land previously oc¬
cupied by the postglacial Lake Nipissing
(Makholm 1986).
63
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to acknowledge the as¬
sistance of Mr. and Mrs. Donald Gadzinski
in locating this new population and the sup¬
port for studies of this species by the UWC
Senate Grants Committee and the Wisconsin
Department of Natural Resources — Bureau
of Endangered Resources.
Works Cited
Guire, K. E. and E. G. Voss. 1963. Distribution
of distinctive shoreline plants in the Great Lakes
Region. Michigan Bot. 2:99-114.
Harrison, W. F. 1988. Endangered and Threat¬
ened Wildlife and Plants: Determination of
Threatened Status for Iris lacustris (Dwarf Lake
Iris). Federal Register 53 (188): pp. 37972-
37975.
Makholm, M. 1986. Ecology and Management
of Iris lacustris in Wisconsin, M. S. Thesis,
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison,
Wisconsin.
Trick, J. A. andG. Fewless. 1984. A New Station
for Dwarf Lake Iris (Iris lacustris) in Wiscon¬
sin. Michigan Bot. 23:68.
Voss, E. G. 1972. Michigan Flora Part I. Gym-
nosperms and Monocots. Cranbrook Inst. Sci.
Bull. 55. 488 pp.
64
Diel Periodicity of Movement and Feeding
of Yellow Perch ( Perea flavescens)
in Lake Mendota, Wisconsin
John P. McCarty
Abstract. Analysis of the spatial distributions of yellow perch in Lake Mendota , Wisconsin ,
indicated that diel movement patterns are more variable than previously reported. A series
of gill-net samples from several different stations in the lake showed that a significant movement
onshore at dusk and offshore at dawn occurs. The movement was more directed in the morning,
and closer to the surface. This movement appears to be the result of a dispersal, biased
towards the offshore areas, from nocturnal concentrations of perch in shallow water. Periods
of directed movement are interspersed with feeding bouts and forays deeper into the water
column. In the evening the direction of the movement is reversed and perch tend to concentrate
inshore, where they can rest on the bottom at night. Diet analysis indicated that perch found
offshore fed exclusively on Daphnia and Leptodora, but that perch captured in littoral areas
consumed both planktonic and benthic prey.
Diel activity cycles have been reported
for a variety of freshwater fishes, in¬
cluding such well-studied species as yellow
perch ( Perea flavescens ; Helfman 1981,
Hanson and Leggett 1986), golden shiner
{Notemigonus crysoleucas\ Hall et al. 1979,
Helfman 1981), walleye (Stizostedion vi-
treum; Helfman 1981), and bluegill and
pumpkinseed sunfish ( Lepomis macrochirus
and L. gibbosus\ Keast and Welsh 1968,
Bauman and Kitchell 1974, Werner et al.
1977, Helfman 1981, Hanson and Leggett
John P. McCarty is a native of Rice Lake, Wisconsin.
While a student at the University ofWisconsin-Madison,
he received the Chase-Noland Fellowship in Limnology,
which enabled him to spend a summer at the Center for
Limnology, where the work described in “Diel Peri¬
odicity of Movement and Feeding of Yellow Perch in
Lake Mendota, Wisconsin ” was conducted. At present,
he is working on his doctorate at Cornell University in
Ithaca, New York, where his current research focuses
on the relationship between foraging ecology and com¬
munity ecology, specifically, how the foraging decisions
of tree swallows influence the communities of insects
they feed on.
1986), yet the degree to which individual
behavior affects population phenomena is not
clear. For example, observed diel changes in
the spatial distribution of a fish population
could be due to a small portion of the pop¬
ulation undergoing a highly directed, large
scale movement or to a large portion of the
population moving in a less directed manner.
Diel migrations have been reported for many
populations of yellow perch (Scott 1955,
Emery 1973, Engel and Magnuson 1976) in¬
cluding the population in Lake Mendota, where
fish move inshore at dusk and offshore at
dawn (Hasler and Bardach 1949). Yellow
perch travel in schools during the day. As in
many freshwater fish species, these schools
break up at dusk and reform at dawn the
following day (Hergenrader and Hasler 1968,
Helfman 1981). These patterns are based on
observations made in a variety of ways, in¬
cluding direct observations by divers (Hasler
and Bardach 1949, Helfman 1979), data from
echosounding (Hasler and Villemonte 1953,
Engel and Magnuson 1976), and from spatial
65
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Fig. 1 . A simple model of the daily behavior patterns of yellow perch in Lake Mendota, Wisconsin,
summarized from the work of Hasler and Bardach (1949). This model includes a rapid, pop¬
ulation-wide migration from nocturnal resting areas to day-time feeding areas. Dashed lines
represent water depth contours. See Figure 2 for approximate horizontal scale.
distributions derived from gill-net sets (Has¬
ler and Bardach 1949, Scott 1955, Engel and
Magnuson 1976). In addition to movement
patterns, feeding activity cycles are well known
in yellow perch, with peaks generally re¬
ported before sunset and after sunrise (Keast
and Welsh 1968, Helfman 1981, Hanson and
Leggett 1986).
The general picture of perch behavior that
emerges from this literature is that perch feed
offshore, in schools, on zooplankton during
the day with a feeding peak after dawn and
another feeding peak before dusk. At dusk
these schools move rapidly inshore, where
the schools break up, and the perch settle to
the bottom and remain inactive until dawn.
At dawn the schools reform and move off¬
shore again before the fish resume feeding.
This activity pattern (Fig. 1) is commonly
reported in books and reviews of yellow perch
biology (Maclean and Magnuson 1977, Ney
1978, Brock 1985). There is, however, con¬
siderable variability in activity found both
between and within populations (Helfman
1979, Helfman 1981). In addition to finding
groups of migrating perch, Hasler and Bardach
(1949) and Scott (1955) both found non¬
migrating groups of perch. Tonn and Pas-
kowski (1987) reported non-migrating sub¬
populations and indicated that some perch
were migrating offshore at dusk. In addition,
some groups of yellow perch are consistently
found inshore feeding during the day (Engel
and Magnuson 1976, Sandheinrich and Hu¬
bert 1984).
In this study I examined the daily behavior
cycles of yellow perch in Lake Mendota by
catching perch in gill-nets at several stations
in the lake at different times of the day. Spe¬
cifically, I have addressed three questions:
1) Is there evidence that the perch are
undergoing a daily migration? 2) Is segre¬
gation by sex and age occurring? 3) Are these
movement patterns reflected in the diet? My
results indicate that perch behavior in Lake
Mendota is more complex than is indicated
66
Diel Periodicity of Movement and Feeding of Yellow Perch
by the classic descriptions by Hasler and Bar-
dach (1949) and Hasler and Villemonte (1953).
Methods
The study site for this project was Lake
Mendota, Wisconsin (43° 4'37" N, 89° 24'
28" W), a large (area = 39.4 km2) eutrophic
lake with an average depth of 12.4 m and a
maximum depth of 25.3 m (Brock 1985).
The physical and biological characters of this
lake have been described in detail by Brock
(1985).
Temperature and Oxygen. Vertical tem¬
perature profiles were obtained with a ther¬
mistor at 1-m intervals, and oxygen concen¬
trations were determined using the Winkler
method on water samples collected every 2 m.
Samples were taken at the Deep Hole station
in 23-m of water. Secchi disk depths (a mea¬
sure of water clarity) were also recorded at
these times (Richard Lathrop, Wisconsin
DNR, unoubl. data).
Perch Distribution. Fish samples were taken
from four stations in the lake: in 23 m of
water (Deep Hole), in 13 m of water (inter¬
mediate), in 6 m of water, and in 3 m of
water (inshore) (Fig. 2). Fish were caught
using vertical gill-nets with a variety of mesh
sizes (mesh sizes = 19 mm, 25 mm, 32 mm,
38 mm, 52 mm, 64 mm, 89 mm, 127 mm),
set parallel to shore, during the weeks of 6
July, 30 July, 4 August, and 17 August, 1987.
The two largest mesh sizes were eliminated
from some August samples, because the
maximum size of perch in Lake Mendota
were not vulnerable to these mesh sizes (Re-
gier and Robson 1966, Hamley and Regier
1973). A horizontal net with a similar series
of mesh sizes was also used at the shallow
station for the August sets. Nets were set
between two and four hours before sunset
and emptied between one and two hours after
sunset for the evening samples. The nets were
left set overnight after the evening samples
and were emptied between two and four hours
after sunrise for the morning samples. Nets
were set between 0900h and 1400h CDT for
the day samples.
Fish were removed from the nets and sep¬
Fig. 2. Lake Mendota, Wisconsin, with loca¬
tions of sampling stations used in this study.
A = 3-/7? (inshore) station, B = 6-m station,
C = 73-m (intermediate) station, D = 23-m
(Deep Hole) station.
arated according to which direction they were
traveling when caught and the depth at which
they were caught. Total length was later mea¬
sured to the nearest 1 mm and weighed to
the nearest gram. Stomachs were collected
from between 20 and 40 individuals from
each sample and were preserved in a 10%
formalin solution.
Data from all samples were pooled for diet
and movement analysis. Catches were ex¬
pressed in catch per unit effort (fish-m 2*h *)
where the time was determined for the eve¬
ning sets from the time the nets were set until
they were pulled and for the morning sets
from thirty minutes before sunrise until the
nets were pulled. Area was considered the
area of the gill-net in the water above 13-m
depth. Depths below 13 m at the 23-m site
were not considered since the water below
the thermocline was anoxic and catches be¬
low this level were negligible. For determin¬
ing the direction and magnitude of dispersal
the following vector was calculated:
DISPERSAL VECTOR = 100%
67
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
where # OFF is equal to the number of perch
caught moving towards the offshore areas
and # IN is equal to the number of perch
caught moving towards inshore areas. This
gives a vector where the sign indicates the
direction of movement and the magnitude
gives the strength of that movement, relative
to the total catch.
Perch Diets. Stomach contents were ex¬
amined using a dissecting microscope at 25x.
The contents were identified to genus and
counted. When large numbers of prey or¬
ganisms were present, two or three 4% sub¬
samples were used to estimate total numbers
present.
Zooplankton prey available to perch were
collected from three stations in the lake, at
the 23-m (Deep Hole), 13-m (intermediate),
and 3-m (inshore) stations, using transverse
tows of a Clark-Bumpus metered plankton
sampler affixed with an 80 p,m net. Samples
were preserved in a 10% buffered formalin
solution and later identified to species using
a dissecting microscope at 25x. Samples were
collected on several dates over the period of
gill-netting. Mean abundances of zooplank¬
ton per liter over all sample dates are reported.
Results
Temperature and Oxygen. The thermo-
cline during the period of this study varied
between 7 m on 3 August, 1987, and 12 m
on 18 August 1987. During the early sam¬
pling dates the thermocline was between 9 m
and 10 m. The hypolimnion was anoxic dur¬
ing the entire study (Fig. 3). Secchi disk depth
during the period of this study ranged from
1.7 m to 2.7 m (Richard Lathrop, Wisconsin
DNR, unpubl. data).
Perch Distribution. Catch per unit effort
ranged from 0 for the day samples at the
6- m station to 265 for the morning samples
at the 13-m station (Table 1). At the 13-m
station significantly more fish were moving
offshore in the morning and inshore in the
evening (Table 2, X2 = 6.62, PC0.025). The
magnitude of the dispersal vector is higher
in the morning (15%) than in the evening
(7%, Table 2). When the water column is
divided into shallow (0-5 m) and deep (6-
12 m) portions, directionality is much
higher in the shallow portion than in the deep
portion (Table 3). This difference between
the total catches in the shallow portion is
highly significant (X2 = 7.87, P<0.01),
whereas in the deep portion the Dispersal
Vector did not differ from random expecta¬
tions (X2 = 0.07, P>0.09). This trend was
especially strong in the morning sets where
the Dispersal Vector equalled 22% in the
shallow portion and 0% in the deep portion
of the water column.
Comparisons between depth distributions
of 23-m and 13-m stations indicate that the
horizontal movement between deep and shal¬
low water is accompanied by only minor
change in depth. Perch at the 6-m station
were located below 4 m (Fig. 4). Perch passed
through the 13-m station moving towards the
23-m (Deep Hole) station at an average depth
of 4.9 m (SE = 0.17) in the morning (Fig. 5),
while at the Deep Hole station they were
located at an average depth of 5.5 m
(SE = 0.31) (Fig. 4). When passing through
the 13-m station in the evening towards shal¬
low water, perch moved at an average depth
of 6.1 m (SE = 0.19) (Fig. 5).
The size distribution of perch was similar
Table 1. Number of yellow perch caught at each station and sample time, expressed as catch
per unit effort, with sample dates combined. Catch per unit effort equals fish*h 1 *m 2 1 000. Level
of effort for each station (h«m2) given in parentheses.
Sample Time
23-m
Station
13-m
6-m
3-m
AM
19 (468)
265 (1404)
172 (180)
178 (342)
PM
no sample
138 (1560)
19 (216)
169 (414)
DAY
126 (546)
no sample
0 (288)
172 (198)
TOTAL
77 (1014)
198 (2964)
51 (684)
173 (954)
68
Die l Periodicity of Movement and Feeding of Yellow Perch
TEMPERATURE (°C)
Fig. 3. Sample temperature and oxygen profile for Lake Mendota taken vertically through the
water column at the Deep Hole station on 20 July 1987. Water deeper than approximately
70-/7? depth was anoxic throughout the period of the study.
at all but the 3-m station where a large num¬
ber of young-of-year perch were captured
(Fig. 6). The mean lengths of perch caught
at the 6-, 13- and 23-m stations were 192,
192, and 195 mm respectively. The length
distribution of perch at the 3-m station was
bimodal. The mean length of perch greater
than 150 mm at the 3-m station was similar
to the other sites, but a large number of perch
less than 150 mm was present as well. A
Kolmogorov-Smirnoff test (Sokal and Rohlf
1969) indicated that the length distribution
of perch at the 3-m site was significantly
different from the other sites (D = 0.25,
P<0.01 ; D = 0.25, P<0.01; D = 0.29,
P<0.01; when compared to the 23-, 12- and
6-m stations respectively). The absence of
young-of-year perch at the offshore stations
indicates that these fish do not participate in
the diel offshore migration observed for the
older age classes (Fig. 6).
No differences were found to indicate mi-
69
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Table 2. Number of yellow perch caught at the 13-m (intermediate) station. The dispersal vector
is as defined in the text (1). A positive vector indicates movement directed offshore, and a
negative vector indicates movement directed inshore. X2 = 6.62, P<0.025.
Sample Time
Direction of Movement
Inshore Offshore
Total
Dispersal Vector
AM
159
213
372
+ 15
PM
116
100
216
-7
Total
275
313
588
Table 3. Number of yellow perch caught at the 13-m (intermediate) station, separated by time
of day, depth, and direction of movement when caught. Dispersal vector is defined in the text
(1). X2 = 7.87, P<0.01 for depth = 0-5 m. X2 = 0.07, P>0.09 for depth = 6- 12 m.
Sample Time
Direction of Movement
Inshore Offshore
Total
Dispersal Vector
Depth = 0m-5m
AM
96
150
246
+ 22
PM
60
49
109
-10
Total
156
199
355
Depth = 6m-1 2m
AM
63
63
126
0
PM
56
51
107
-5
Total
119
114
233
gration was selective in regard to sex. Sex
ratios at all stations did not deviate signifi¬
cantly from 1:1. The ratios of males to fe¬
males at the station were: Deep Hole 38 males:
39 females; 13-m (intermediate) 34 males:
41 females; 6-rn 12 males: 22 females; in¬
shore 70 males: 72 females (Table 4).
Perch Diets. Copepods and other small
zooplankton were the most numerous taxa
sampled from the lake at all three stations
(Table 5). Daphnia ranged from 3% at the
3-m station to 13% at the 23-m station. Lep-
todora made up less than 1% of the sample
at the 23-m and 13-m stations and 1% at the
3-m station.
Although there is a trend for the proportion
of Daphnia in the lake to decrease from deep
to shallow water, the proportion increases in
the perch diets (Table 6). Daphnia make up
34% of the contents of stomachs of perch
caught in the Deep Hole, 72% of the diet at
the 13-m station, and 87% of the stomach
contents from fish from the 3-m station. Be¬
cause of high variability between individuals
within the groups, differences in diet be¬
tween sub-groups were not statistically sig¬
nificant (Table 6).
In addition to Daphnia and Leptodora, other
organisms (primarily chironomid fly larvae
and copepods) increased in importance from
0% at the Deep Hole station, to 4% at the
13-m station, and 6% at the 6-m and 3-m
stations (Table 6). The diversity of orga¬
nisms also increased from deep to shallow
water. The stomachs of fish from the Deep
Hole contained primarily Daphnia and Lep¬
todora, with only three chironomids and one
copepod. Stomachs from the 13-m station
held organisms from seven categories, and
stomachs from the 3-m station contained or¬
ganisms from ten categories (Table 7).
The percent of empty stomachs increased
from deep to shallow water. All the stomachs
from the Deep Hole station contained prey,
while 2% were empty at the 13-m station,
12% were empty at the 6-m station, and 33%
were empty at the 3-m station (Table 6).
70
Diel Periodicity of Movement and Feeding of Yellow Perch
Discussion
These results support a more variable view
of perch behavior than is commonly pre¬
sented. While there are many reports of perch
migrations (Hasler and Bardach 1949, Scott
1955, Engel and Magnuson 1976, Helfman
1979), only Scott (1955) gives a comparison
of the numbers of perch moving in each di¬
rection, while the others imply that the mi¬
gration is a population-wide phenomenon,
with schools moving en masse in a certain
direction. My results correspond to those of
Scott, who found a significant directional
movement but also reported that a large pro¬
portion of the individuals were headed in the
“wrong” direction. The difference in results
NUMBER
5 tO 15 20 25 30
Fig. 4. Top panel: Depth distribution of perch
from the 23-m (Deep Hole) station with all
sample dates and times combined. N = 75
fish, D (mean depth) = 5.5 m (SE = 0.31).
Bottom panel: Depth distribution of perch from
the 6-m station with all sample dates and times
combined.
N = 35 fish, D = 4.3 m (SE = 0.08).
found may be due to a difference in the method
used in the studies. This study followed a
method similar to that of Scott (1955), put¬
ting gill-nets across the presumed path of
NUMBER
Fig. 5. Top panel: Depth distribution of perch
from the 13-m (intermediate) station, morning
samples only, with all sample dates com¬
bined. N = 246 fish, D (mean depth) = 5.1
m (SE = 0.13). Cross-hatched areas indicate
perch moving offshore, with N = 145 fish, D
= 4.9 m, and SE = 0.17. Non-crossed-
hatched areas indicate perch moving in¬
shore, with N = 101, D = 5.6 m, and SE =
0.19 .
Bottom panel: Depth distribution of fish from
the 13-m (intermediate) station, evening sam¬
ples only, with all sample dates combined. N
= 1 90 fish, D = 6.2 m, and SE = 0.14. Cross-
hatched areas indicate perch moving in¬
shore, with N = 101, D = 6.1 m, and SE =
0. 19. Non-cross-hatched areas indicate perch
moving offshore, with N = 89, D = 6.3 m,
and SE = 0.20.
71
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Table 4. Sex ratios of yellow perch caught at each station with all sample dates and times
combined.
Station
Number of Males
Number of Females
X2
23-m
36
39
0.12 P>0.50
13-m
34
41
0.66 P>0.10
6-m
12
22
2.94 P>0.05
3-m
70
72
0.01 P>0.90
Table 5. Composition and abundances of zooplankton in Lake Mendota. Samples pooled over
three sampling dates. % = percent of sample by number, x±SE = mean number per liter plus
or minus one standard error.
Daphnia
% (x±SE)
Leptodora
% (x±SE)
other
% (x±SE)
23-m
13% (4.25 ±2.09)
<1% (0.04 ±0.04)
87% (27.96 ±4.28)
13-m
11 (3.44 ±3.69)
<1 (0.03 ±0.03)
89 (26.77 ±5.36)
3-m
3 (0.90 ±0.82)
1 (0.25 ±0.43)
96 (25.05 ±29.4)
Table 6. Diet summary of yellow perch for each sample station and time, with all sample dates
combined. N= total number of stomachs examined for each group and % empty = percent of
stomachs with no prey organisms. Results are expressed as percent by number of Daphnia,
Leptodora and “other”. Prey Items per Stomach = mean number of items found per stomach
(standard error). Taxa present in the “other” category are listed in Table 7.
Station
Time
N
% Empty
% Daphnia
% Leptodora
% Other
Prey Items/Stomach
23-m
Day
11
0
34
66
0
170 (161)
13-m
AM
57
2
73
24
3
263 (287)
13-m
PM
48
2
80
15
5
505 (449)
6-m
AM
23
13
79
8
13
11 (13)
6-m
PM
4
0
42
56
2
61 (73)
3-m
AM
35
43
33
2
65
9(31)
3-m
PM
37
30
54
29
17
64 (127)
3-m
Day
26
23
99
0
1
318 (517)
Table 7. Diversity of organisms found in yellow perch stomachs at each sampling station. %
Occurrence = number of stomachs where taxa was present/total number of non-empty stomachs
in sample. N = total number of non-empty stomachs in sample.
Type of Organism
23-m
N=11
% Occurrence
13-m
N=103
6-m
N-24
3-m
N = 66
Daphnia
100%
96%
83%
74%
Leptodora
100
82
42
27
Chironomidae
27
38
25
21
Copepoda
9
24
25
21
Ceriodaphnia
3
Pontoporeia
13
23
Diaphanosoma
3
Bosmina
1
4
1
Chydorus
2
Nematoda
2
21
Acanthocephala
1
Fish sp.
1
72
Diel Periodicity of Movement and Feeding of Yellow Perch
Fig. 6. Size distribution of fish with all sample
dates and times_ combined, for each station.
N = 77 and TL (mean total length) = 195
mm for the_23~m (Deep Hole) station, N =
583 and TL = 192 mm for the 13-m (inter¬
mediate) station, N = 35, TL = 192_rnm for
the 6-/7? station, and N = 164 and TL = 175
mm for the 3-m (inshore) station.
movement, while the others were based upon
nets set in deep water and in shallow water
and a migration inferred from the differences
in total catches at different times of the day.
The large percentage of fish moving in the
opposite direction in this study, 44% of the
total, indicates that the movement does not
occur as a rapid, population-wide migration,
but is a more gradual dispersal.
The extreme variability of individual diets
made comparisons between the groups in
Table 6 difficult. Variability of this magni¬
tude is found in other populations and is ex¬
plained as being due to either an ontogenetic
change, a learned, individual preference for
certain prey types (Helfman 1979, Mills et
ah 1987), or unknown, complex behavioral
patterns (Chabot and Maly 1986). A com¬
parison of the proportion of different zoo¬
plankton in the lake with the proportion found
in stomachs reveals that the perch are feeding
selectively on certain prey types, primarily
zooplankton. Daphnia made up between 33%
and 99% of the diets of perch but accounted
for only 3% to 13% of the zooplankton in
the lake. Likewise Leptodora accounted for
up to 66% of the diets of the perch but made
up 1% or less of the lake’s zooplankton (Ta¬
ble 5 and 6). At the two inshore stations
(3-m and 6-m) where perch had access to the
sediments, diet consisted of both planktonic
and benthic prey. Feeding habits at the in¬
shore stations are similar to those reported
for perch in lakes with an oxygenated hy-
polimnion (Keast 1977, Hanson and Legget
1986, Mills et al. 1987).
The picture of perch behavior that emerges
from this study indicates more variation among
individuals than previously cited models have
included. It is unlikely that a population- wide
migration occurs but rather that the perch
start to disperse from their inshore areas at
dawn. The dispersal is in the form of short
periods of movement alternating with periods
of feeding, with changes in direction along
the way. This “random walk” has a vector
biased towards the offshore areas. The re¬
vised conceptual model presented (Fig. 7)
accounts for both the offshore movement and
the large number of fish moving in the op¬
posite direction. This model also accounts
for the presence of fish at the intermediate
and 6-m stations during the day. If the choice
of direction vector after a feeding bout has
only a slight bias towards offshore areas, some
73
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters
3m 6m 13m 23m
Fig. 7. Revised model of die! behavioral patterns of yellow perch in Lake Mendota, Wisconsin.
This model includes a random feeding dispersal at dawn from nocturnal concentrations of
perch inshore and movement directed towards the shore at dusk to reach night-time refugia
on the bottom, inshore. Large perch (> 230mm) and young-of-year perch remain inshore during
the day. Movements between inshore and offshore include feeding and may include feeding
forays to deeper water up to approximately the 13-m contour. Dashed lines indicate water
depth contours.
fish will end up in the inshore areas due to
chance alone. This effect would be accen¬
tuated if some individuals are biased to turn
inshore. An inshore bias could occur if the
preferred prey of some individuals was more
abundant or accessible inshore, as is the case
for those individuals feeding on benthic
organisms.
Two groups of perch do not take part in
this diel migration. These are the young-of-
year perch and perch larger than 215 mm.
Yearling perch may be influenced by pre¬
dation pressure to remain close to shore where
cover is available as a predation refuge, and
the largest perch may be influenced by an
ontogenetic shift in diet towards larger benthic
organisms (i.e. amphipods, insect larvae) and
small fish (including young-of-year perch),
both of which are more accessible inshore
(Crowder and Cooper 1982).
Most studies point to the change in light
intensity at dawn and dusk as the proximate
cause of diel changes in yellow perch be¬
havior (Hasler and Bardach 1949, Scott 1955,
Werner et al. 1977). It is likely that perch
use the reduced light level around dusk as a
cue to direct their movements inshore. As
individuals move horizontally they intersect
74
Did Periodicity of Movement and Feeding of Yellow Perch
the bottom at approximately the 6-m contour
line and settle for the night. The process is
reversed with increasing light levels near dawn.
The ultimate causes of these diel migra¬
tions in perch are less certain. The benefits
of dispersing long distances on a daily basis
must be high enough to balance the energy
expenditure of swimming between the littoral
and the pelagic zones. A variety of factors
influencing the change in distribution can be
identified, including variation in local food
availability (Hasler and Bardach 1949),
avoidance of interspecific (Engel and Mag-
nuson 1976, Werner et ah 1977) and intras¬
pecific competition (Mittelbach 1981, Sand-
heinrich and Hubert 1984, Paszkowski 1985),
and avoidance of predation (Maclean and
Magnuson 1977, Werner et al. 1977; 1983,
Tonn and Paszkowski 1987). It is likely that
a combination of these factors are influencing
the perch in Lake Mendota, including in¬
ability to forage efficiently at low light levels,
and predation risk from nocturnal walleye.
Whatever the mechanisms involved in this
change in perch distribution, the movements
between the littoral and pelagic zones will
have profound effects on the ecosystem. In
terms of biomass, perch are the most im¬
portant fish in Lake Mendota (Brock 1985),
and their movements will influence both zoo¬
plankton and piscivore populations through
predation effects and may affect primary pro¬
ducers through both cascading trophic inter¬
actions and the transfer of nutrients between
pelagic and littoral zones of the lake.
Acknowledgments
My thanks to the many people at the Center
for Limnology who contributed to this study.
Thanks to John Magnuson for his advice and
encouragement, to Yvonne Allen and Terry
Schenck for assistance in the field and lab
and Mary Smith for help in the field. I would
especially like to express my thanks to Chris
Luecke for his invaluable advice and assis¬
tance through all stages of this project. This
study was funded by the Chase-Noland
Scholarship in Limnology, with additional
funding and support from the Center for Lim¬
nology, University of Wisconsin.
Works Cited
Bauman, P.C. and J.F. Kitchell. 1974. Diel pat¬
terns of distribution and feeding of bluegill ( Le -
pomis macrochirus ) in Lake Wingra, Wiscon¬
sin. Trans. Amer. Fish. Soc. 103:255-260.
Brock, T.D. 1985. A eutrophic lake: Lake Men¬
dota, Wisconsin. New York: Springer- Verlag.
Chabot, F. and E.J. Maly. 1986. Variation in diet
of yellow perch ( Perea flavescens ) in a Quebec
reservoir. Hydrobiol. 137:117-124.
Crowder, L.B. and W.E. Cooper. 1982. Habitat
structural complexity and the interaction be¬
tween bluegill and their prey. Ecology 63:1802-
1813.
Emery, A.R. 1973. Preliminary comparisons of
day and night habitats of freshwater fish in On¬
tario lakes. J. Fish. Res. Board Can. 30:761-
774.
Engel, S. and J.J. Magnuson. 1976. Vertical and
horizontal distributions of coho salmon ( On -
corhynchus kisutch), yellow perch {Perea fla¬
vescens), and cisco {Coregonus artedii ) in Pal-
lette Lake, Wisconsin. J. Fish. Res. Board Can.
33:2710-2715.
Hall, D.J., E.E. Werner, J.F. Gilliam, G.G. Mit¬
telbach, D. Howard, C.G. Doner, J.A. Dick-
erman, and A.J. Stewart. 1979. Diel foraging
behavior and prey selection in the golden shiner
( Notemigonus crysoleucas ). J. Fish. Res. Board
Can. 36:1029-1039.
Hamley, J.M. and H.A. Regier. 1973. Direct es¬
timates of gillnet selectivity to walleye ( Stizos -
tedion vitreum vitreum). J. Fish. Res. Board
Can. 30:817-830.
Hanson, J.M. and W.C. Leggett. 1986. Effect of
competition between two freshwater fishes on
prey consumption and abundance. Can. J. Fish.
Aquat. Sci. 43:1363-1372.
Hasler, A.D. and J.E. Bardach. 1949. Daily mi¬
grations of perch in Lake Mendota, Wisconsin.
J. Wildl.t Manage. 13:40-51.
Hasler, A.D. and J.R. Villemonte. 1953. Obser¬
vations on the daily movements of fishes. Sci¬
ence 118:321-322.
Helfman, G.S. 1979. Twilight activities of yellow
perch, Perea flavescens. J. Fish. Res. Board
Can. 36:173-179.
75
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Helfman, G.S. 1981 . Twilight activities and tem¬
poral structure in a freshwater fish community.
Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 38:1405-1420.
Hergenrader, G.L. and A.D. Hasler. 1968. Influ¬
ences of changing seasons on schooling behav¬
ior of yellow perch. J. Fish. Res. Board Can.
25:711-716.
Keast, A. 1977. Diet overlaps and feeding rela¬
tionships between the year classes in the yellow
perch C Perea flavescens). Env. Biol. Fish. 2:53-
70.
Keast, A. and L. Welsh. 1968. Daily feeding
periodicities, food uptake rates, and dietary
changes with hour of day in some lake fishes.
J. Fish. Res. Board Can. 25:1133-1144.
MacLean, J. and J.J. Magnuson. 1977. Species
interactions in percid communities. J. Fish. Res.
Board Can. 34:1941-1951.
Mills, E.L., D.V. Widzowski, and S.R. Jones.
1987. Food conditioning and prey selection by
young yellow perch {Perea flavescens). Can J.
Fish. Aquat. Sci. 44:549-555.
Mittelbach, G.G. 1981. Foraging efficiency and
body size: a study of optimal diet and habitat
use by bluegills. Ecology 62:1370-1386.
Ney, J.J. 1978. A synoptic review of yellow perch
and walleye biology. Am. Fish. Soc. Spec. Publ.
11:1-12.
Paszkowski, C.A. 1985. The foraging behavior
of the central mudminnow and yellow perch:
the influence of foraging site, intraspecific and
interspecific competition. Oecologia. 66:271-
279.
Regier, H.A. andD.S. Robson. 1966. Selectivity
of gillnets, especially to lake whitefish. J. Fish.
Res. Board Can. 23:423-454.
Sandheinrich, M.B. and W.A. Hubert. 1984. In¬
traspecific resource partitioning by yellow perch
{Perea flavescens ) in a stratifield lake. Can. J.
Fish. Aquat. Sci. 41:1745-1752.
Scott, D.C. 1955. Activity patterns of perch, Perea
flavescens, in Rondeau Bay of Lake Erie. Ecol¬
ogy 36:320-327.
Sokal, R.R. and F.J. Rohlf. 1969. Biometry. San
Francisco: W.H. Freeman and Co.
Tonn, W.M. and C.A. Paszkowski. 1987. Habitat
use of the central mudminnow {Umbra limi )
and yellow perch {Perea flavescens ) in the Um-
bra-Perca assemblages: the roles of competi¬
tion, predation, and the abiotic environment.
Can. J. Zool. 65:862-870.
Werner, E.E., J.F. Gilliam, D.J. Hall and G.G.
Mittelbach. 1983. An experimental test of the
effects of predation risk on the habitat use in
fish. Ecology 64:1540-1548.
Werner, E.E., D.J. Hall, D.R. Laughlin, D.J.
Wagner, L.A. Wilsmann and F.C. Funk. 1977.
Habitat partitioning in a freshwater fish com¬
munity. J. Fish. Res. Board Can. 34:360-370.
76
About the Poets
Shirley Anders is writer-in-residence at the University ofWisconsin-Fox Valley. Her poetry
has been published in Michigan Quarterly Review, Poet and Critic, Kansas Quarterly, Prairie
Schooner, and Southern Poetry Review, among others. Her chapbook The Bus Home was
published in 1986 ( University of Missouri Press). Anders received a North Carolina Arts
Fellowship in 1985 and a Devins Award from the University of Wisconsin Press in 1986.
Howard Frederick Ibach is currently a writer! producer for a Milwaukee advertising agency.
His poems have appeared in numerous publications.
Presently a law student at the University of Wisconsin law school, Beth Roney Drennan
works as a judicial intern for Sauk County Circuit judges. She is a former magazine editor
(Sailors’ Gazette) and a former actress, starring in numerous national television commercials.
Her previous work also includes working with migrant farmworkers and their children in
Florida and working with the dying and their families through Hospice. Her poetry has been
published by the Wisconsin Fellowship of Poets (1988 and 1990).
Laurel Yourke, a native of New York City, received her PhD from UW -Madison and is
currently working as a research associate through UW -Madison extension and as a teaching
assistant in the Women s Studies program at UW -Madison. She also teaches English at an
alternative high school in Madison. Her poetry has appeared in Cypress Review II, Cypress
Review III, and Day Tonight/Night Today.
Chris Halla has had his work published in Northeast, Poetry Now, Pembroke, Wisconsin
Review, Blue Cloud Quarterly, and Abraxas. His chapbooks include River Bottom, (Broken
Arrow Press), Adventures of a Freelance Farmer (River Bottom Press), and River Boy, River
Town, River (Wolfsong). Previously, Halla was the managing editor of Wisconsin Trails/
Wisconsin Weekend; currently, he is working as a product development manager for J. J.
Keller and Associates and as a freelance writer, editor, and illustrator.
A former editor of the Hayden Ferry Review, John Graves Morris currently teaches English
at Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma. His poetry has appeared in numerous publications.
11
■
.
■
Wisconsin Poetry
Spring Again
Startled by the bird’s sharp call, little
flycatcher whose exultation
caught my ear, I turned in time to see it
fly straight for the window, the pane
smack its sharp smack, bird drop,
jerk in the dirt, be gone,
despite my moving its slack
being from the sunny flag it struck
to rain-fresh earth among white violets
massed at the late-leafing catalpa’s
trunk. In minutes, drawn back to verify
the fledgling’s wing bars, its mandible,
I watched an ant drink from the open eye.
Lawrence, behind the Guest House,
May 1989.
— Shirley Anders
79
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Three Sensations
1 . “It is still beautiful to feel the heart beat.’’
— Tomas Transtromer
You,
grey premonition,
emerged
between two pulsations,
a vibration
wearing the rain
around your neck;
a heaving
under the cloth
so deep
and consuming
you frightened away
the tentacles
of a candle.
2. “To die a tiny noise will do.’’
— Vicente Aleixandre
Yes, it is true
hesitation rises with the dawn
Your name is a throb
throwing itself against a wall
You were absolute morning
caught in my throat
80
Wisconsin Poetry
3. i( Quiet, for we too are of the night.”
- . Yves Bonnefoy
Cat,
how can I name
the sensation
of touching you?
It could be so many things
When I touch you
I hide
in the deepness
of your teeth
I hide
in the clarity
of your extended claw
I wrap myself
in the suddenness
of your white forehead
I hide in you
and we chant together
as your shadow
licks its paw
The evening,
quivering in my hand
would have felt just right
beneath us
if only
I could hold you
the way evening
tilts its head
— Ho ward Frederick Ibach
81
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
The Wasp and the Secretary
Split in the thorax by the fat hand
Of the manila-envelope wielding man,
Master of rote, who loves his mother:
“Did you see that?
Its head flew one way, its body another!”
I hated you, too, I admit to that,
But I gathered your parts on a yellow sheet
And in horror saw you were still moving,
Digging, chewing,
As if your life were a thing worth saving.
One long wing, shiny and crisp.
Remained, a veined, stained-glass wisp,
The color of smoke, resembling
A quartz chip,
Iridescent, transparent, trembling.
Your legs, hollow broomstraws bent,
Were signalling without intent.
On their edges, saw-toothed ridges
Dragged half of you
Toward headless dreams of screens and ledges.
Far away two blister eyes stared,
Lidless, prehistoric, bare
As river-bed stone, bone ovals set
On either side
Of molded shoulders, clay epaulets.
Your pieces lay like a broken bowl,
A brittle little artifact, a ceramic soul,
The color of dry things, of locust, or carob,
Of chalcedony,
Every curve an ivory carving, a scarob.
82
Wisconsin Poetry
A fallen flower crisply pinched.
The overturning of a turtle trenched,
The shell belly, flown apart.
Grasping, drinking,
And nothing but air sucked through the heart.
Your schismed self, your self apart,
Your tigery abdomen, glossy and fat,
Squirmed, a waspish waste, lame
As a worm in rain,
The stinger searing for someone to blame.
— Beth H. Roney Drennan
83
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters
Weeding: Flowers and Friendships
Wild greens love all weathers, lap torrents
that drown more fragile seedlings
stretch boldly toward the hottest sun
plunge deeper through the sparsest soil
erect against the shrillest wind.
They own territories: miniature suns border
trumpeting morning glories
friendly but not encroaching
into wild but neighborly places
each knowing its soil, its home.
But the cultivated, no matter how
loved, fear imaginary enemies
seek constant tending. Heat shrivels
sculptured leaves. Rains rot the roots.
Strangeness settles on the stem, nips
the fruit, steals every empty space till
you no longer know which flowers were your own.
— Laurel Yourke
84
Wisconsin Poetry
Compulsories
A fine, long, looping line
etched, then traced
by a single, sharp, silver
blade slowly slicing the surface
of perfect ice made
more perfect
by the figure
skater.
Her legs are perfect,
in black tights, black
leg warmers.
Her back a study in
perfect posture.
Her whole form perfect
in baggy
black and blue and red and
yellow ski
sweater.
No crowd,
no sound.
Just eyes to the ice
and blessed, perfect
silence.
— Chris Halla
85
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters
Epithalamion
for Betty & Steve: 28 July 1990
On a day like today, the sunlight
High in the maples startles us awake.
Praise is our native tongue, but we say
Little, too numbed by the sales pitch,
The stock quotation, the body count.
Even the poet tells us that dark comes down
On all we do, but the Mockingbirds’ natter
Reminds us that we were made to shine,
To sing. Brightness rifts through pear trees,
& wind redeploys it on many walls,
A movable feast of dappled light.
The world comes clean, & everywhere grackles,
Elms, & Oklahoma give themselves away.
On a day like today, the sky is
A blue so effortless that love
Becomes more than a possibility, blackbirds
Rising in pairs, in waves, undulating
Toward the reeds in Lake Helen to roost.
— John Graves Morris
86
Voles and Bog Lemmings of Wisconsin
Charles A. Long
Voles and bog lemmings of Wisconsin
are field mice belonging to the rodent
subfamily Arvicolinae (formerly Micro-
tinae). Their resemblances to one another
prevent easy identifications and they remain
an enigma in the well-known fauna of Wis¬
consin. They have not been appraised tax-
onomically since Hall and Cockrum’s re¬
gional study (1952) summarized by Jackson
(1961). Approximately 960 new Wisconsin
specimens were studied in this collection
(University of Wisconsin Museum of Natural
History). Forty-eight Arvicolines (or “Mi¬
crotines” according to some workers) were
borrowed from neighboring museums. All
the Wisconsin species (except the muskrat)
are taxonomically revised herein. The char¬
acteristics of each kind are described. Some
natural history information, such as breeding
data, is reported. The chief aims of this paper
are to report information on the taxonomy,
geographical and ecological distributions, and
to summarize in condensed form some in¬
formation on the environmental status of all
the Wisconsin voles and bog lemmings. Where
relevant, findings from specimens in closely
adjacent areas in Illinois, Minnesota, and
Michigan are also included.
Materials and Methods
The kinds of voles and bog lemmings were
identified by their external and dental char-
Charles A. Long is Professor of Biology, UW -Stevens
Point, and is the Curator of the Mammal Collections,
Museum of Natural History.
acters. Specimens were aged by fusion of the
basioccipital-basisphenoid suture and by other
useful evidences of maturity (size, breeding,
angularity of the cranium). Specimens of both
sexes were combined because no significant
differences between them were noted. Spec¬
imens of like age were compared from place
to place to ascertain geographic variation in
size, cranial characters, and color. Localities
were plotted on range maps, and by com¬
parison with Jackson’s (1961) records it was
possible to document some expansion or con¬
traction of geographic ranges. University of
Wisconsin-Stevens Point (UW-SP) speci¬
mens are listed without reference. Specimens
from the following museums were listed with
these abbreviations: United States National
Museum (Nat. Hist.), USNM; Chicago Nat¬
ural History Society Museum (CNHS); Uni¬
versity of Michigan at Ann Arbor (UM); Uni¬
versity Wisconsin-Madison (UWM); and
University of Illinois (UI).
Cranial measurements were obtained by
dial calipers in millimeters. In mice that all
have protruberant upper incisors, the greatest
length of the skull, measured between the
anteriormost extension or projection of the
incisors and the posteriormost extensions of
the exoccipital condyles, is the greatest lon¬
gitudinal dimension. The supraoccipital oc¬
casionally projects slightly posterior to the
condyles, in which case its posteriormost point
is the posterior measure. The condylobasal
length is the comparable distance between
the condyles and the anteriormost extension
or projection of the premaxillary bones (not
87
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
including the incisors). The breadths of the
skull are the zygomatic breadth, being the
greatest distance between the outer borders
of the zygomatic arches (at right angles to
the longitudinal axis of the skull) and the
narrowest constriction, the interorbital breadth
between the orbits. The lambdoid breadth is
the distance across the posterior face of the
skull, including the lambdoid crests border¬
ing the exoccipitals. The length of the nasals
is measured from the anteriormost extension
as the longer distance to either posteriormost
extension. The maxillary tooth-row is the al¬
veolar length of the three cheek teeth mea¬
sured along the maxillary bone. Since there
is no sagittal crest in voles, the cranial depth
measures from the highest point of the cran¬
ium to either the base of the cranium or to a
transverse line tangent to the ventral projec¬
tions of the auditory bullae. When possible,
arithmetic means are accompanied by the ob¬
served range of variation and in bog lem¬
mings by the standard error.
Most cheek teeth are persistent in growth
(rootless) and develop as prisms of dentine
enclosed by angular borders of enamel. The
projecting salients are salient angles, and the
indentations between are termed re-entrant
angles. More circular enclosures are called
loops or islands. The patterns are extremely
useful in identification of Arvicoline mice.
Accounts of Species and Races
Genus Pitymys McMurtrie, 1831
In Pitymys the teeth are primitive, espe¬
cially lower first and upper third molars; the
M/1 has the anterior island slightly con¬
stricted, with only two to three salient angles
between it and the posterior loop; the upper
third molar has only two islands (two closed
salient angles) between the anterior and pos¬
terior loops.
The best treatment I could give the wood¬
land (pine) voles and the prairie voles to em¬
phasize the similarity in dental characters was
to combine them in the genus Pitymys. This
arrangement implies a close evolutionary re¬
lationship not as evident when including these
voles in the genus Microtus, as is often done.
Pitymys pinetorum (LeConte)
1830. Psammomys pinetorum LeConte, in
Ann. Lyc. Nat. Hist., New York, 3:133,
type from Georgia.
1831. Pitymys pinetorum McMurtrie. In
The Animal Kingdom ... by Baron
Cuvier, vol. 1, p. 434, footnote.
1896. Microtus pinetorum, Miller. N.
Amer. Fauna, 12:9.
The scientific binomen Pitymys pinetorum
refers to a mouse taken in pines. It is seldom
taken in pines, and now it is sometimes called
the woodland vole. It is as often referred to
by the name Pitymys as by any common name,
but by some workers referred to as Microtus.
Description: This vole has slightly reddish
or walnut brown fur, hair even, short and
dense as in moles. The venter is grayish over-
lain with ochraceous or buff. The tail is ex¬
ceptionally short. The foreclaws are often
white, exceptionally large (elongated for dig¬
ging) and much longer than the hind claws.
The skull is broad, especially the posterior
extensions of the nasals, the adjacent pre-
maxillaries, and the interorbital region. The
post-rostral part of the skull is rather circular,
the brain case encroaches into the orbits, and
the nasals are short and broad. The upper
third molar consists of an anterior loop, two
enclosed prisms, and a posterior portion with
a salient bulge confluent with a lingual loop.
The lower first molar has nine angles, but
only four closed prisms, with the anterior-
most part constricted, but not pinched to¬
gether. The teeth are similar to those of Pi¬
tymys ochrogaster, except the first inner prism
of the middle upper molar tends to be quad¬
rate and sharply angled.
Comparisons: Whereas the prairie vole has
a high, narrow skull, the woodland or pine
vole has a low broad skull. The woodland
vole has short, dense, fleecy fur of even brown
or reddish brown color, instead of coarse fur
in the prairie vole. The hands are broad, the
foreclaws robust. The very short tail is seen
only in this vole and the more grizzled bog
lemmings. The acromion process of the scap-
88
Voles and Bog Lemmings of Wisconsin
ula flares abruptly, so that it diverges from
the glenoid socket, and bends terminally to¬
ward the head of the humerus. In Microtus
pennsylvanicus and Pitymys (Pedomys) och-
rogaster the acromion is delicate and the fossa
between it and the scapula narrow, with the
opening at less of an angle. The clavicle in
Pitymys pinetorum is more robust.
The tunnels and dirt piles, unlike those of
other mammals, are usually found below the
tough, dense, and deep leaf litter, rather than
standing above.
Measurements: According to Jackson
(1961) P. p. scalopsoides, referred to herein
as kennicotti, had weights ranging up to 36
grams in old adults. External measurements
in mm of six specimens from early day Chi¬
cago (listed under Cook County, Illinois),
four adult specimens from Clark County, three
from Wood County, and one from Klondike
Pond, Sauk County, are given in Table 1 .
The type specimen of P. p. schmidti, not seen
by me, measured 128, 24, 18, which resem¬
bles the specimens seen in Clark County.
The single specimen of P. p. nemoralis
from Lynxville in western Wisconsin was
much larger (133, 22, 19), resembling four
topotypes of nemoralis from Stillwell, Okla¬
homa: 137 (127-144), 24 (20-27), 18.5
(18-19). Skull dimensions of the Lynxville
pregnant female are also larger than Wis¬
consin and Illinois kennicotti , measuring 27.1
in greatest length, 16.0 zygomatic breadth,
and 6.8 maxillary tooth row.
Cranial measurements of a subadult spec¬
imen from Wolf Lake, Cook County, the
type of schmidti from Clark County, three
adults from Wood County, one from Dane
County, and three adults from Canton, Illi¬
nois are given in Table 2.
External Measurements in mm for P.p. scalopsoides (or kennicotti)
Jackson Specimens from these Counties:
(1961)
Cook, III
Clark, Wl
Wood, Wl
Sauk, Wl
Number
6
4
3
1
Length
110-133
110-126
119-127
110-126
109
Tail
18-25
14-23
20-23
14-16
17
Hind
Foot
16.5-18
16-18
16.5-18
16-18
15
Table 1
Cranial Measurements in mm for P.p.
kennicotti
Number
Cook, Wl
1
Specimens from these Counties:
Clark, Wl Wood, Wl Dane, Wl
1 3 1
Canton, III
3
Length
Mean
25.1
25.5
(23.1-26.2)
25.1
25.6
(24.8-25.0)
24.9
Zygomatic
Breadth
Mean
13.9
—
(13.7-16.0)
14.1
15.4
(14.8-15.1)
14.95
Inter-
Orbital
Breadth
Mean
4.05
4.6
(4.5-4.75)
4.6
4.5
(4. 2-4.5)
4.35
Nasals
Mean
7.5
—
(7. 8-8.0)
7.9
7.4
(7. 3-8.0)
7.7
Maxillary
Tooth Row
Mean
5.8
5.9
(5. 6-6. 2)
5.9
—
(5. 9-6.0)
6.0
Table 2
89
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters
Distribution: Southern Wisconsin. See
Figure 1.
Habitats: The pine or woodland vole oc¬
curs in a wide variety of habitats outside Wis¬
consin (Paul 1970). It is most commonly taken
in hardwood (maple, hickory, oak) forests
(Jackson 1961; Schmidt 1931). In southwest
Wisconsin numerous burrows were found on
a dry grassy hillside, and in Clark County,
burrows ran under maple leaf litter, in the
gray sandy-clay loam soils that roofed the
burrows without caving in. Abundant meadow
voles may replace Pitymys in competition (Paul
1970).
Remark: Litter size varies from 1 to 5, and
there are only four teats.
Western Woodland Vole
Pitymys pinetorum nemoralis V. Bailey
A single large female is the only specimen
reported from Wisconsin. Its size, massive
teeth and chestnut-reddish brown color are
the only distinguishing features. The type of
nemoralis is from Stillwell, Adair County,
Oklahoma, where the color is dark rufescent,
and the topotypes are large and wide across
the zygomata. Specimens from Minnesota and
Iowa have been assigned to nemoralis , and
in size and color the Lynxville specimen agrees
with the type and topotypes.
Specimen examined: Lynxville, 1 (USNM).
Kennicott’s Woodland Vole
Pitymys pinetorum kennicotti
Baird, new combination
1858. Arvicola kennicotti Baird. Mam¬
mals of the Pacific R. R. Survey,
p. 547. This available name was applied
to Illinois voles, and they are insepara¬
ble from P. p. schmidti Jackson, but
distinctive from reddish P. scalopsoides
found eastward of Illinois.
1941. Pitymys pinetorum schmidti Jack-
son. Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington,
54:201 , December 8.
1912. Microtus pinetorum scalopsoides
(Audubon and Bachman). In Cory,
Mammals of Illinois and Wisconsin Field
Mus. XI. p. 222, Also, Hall and Cock-
rum, 1952; Jackson 1961, and others.
Description: Dark brownish, almost pur¬
plish brown, slightly ochraceous in unworn
pelage, and decidedly less reddish than either
P. p. nemoralis or P. p. scalopsoides. The
voles are smaller than in nemoralis, but are
rather large from Wood County. The dark
color is constant throughout the vole’s range
in Wisconsin and northern Illinois.
Specimens examined: Wisconsin, 12. Il¬
linois, 20. See Table 3. Jackson (1961) re-
Kennicott's Woodland Vole
Pitymys pinetorum kennicotti
Specimens Examined:
Wisconsin:
Total -12
County:
Number
Clark County:
Worden Twsp.
4 USNM
1 UWM
Dane County:
Town of Vermont
1 UWM
Westport
1 UWM :
Sauk County:
Klondike Pond
2
Wood County:
I Powers Bluff
3
Illinois:
Total - 20
County:
Number
Cook County:
Palas Park
3 CNHS
Elk Grove
1 CNHS
Wolf Lake
2 CNHS
Orlando Park
1 CNHS
No Specific Locality 2 CNHS
Crawford County:
; Flatrock
2 CNHS
DeKalb County:
Somonauk
1 CNHS
DuPage County:
Lemont
1 CNHS
Fulton County:
10 miles N.W.
Canton
4UI
Massoe County:
Metropolis
2 CNHS
Will County:
New Lennox
1 CNHS
Table 3
90
Voles and Bog Lemmings of Wisconsin
Fig. 1. Distribution of Pitymys pinetorum. P. p. nemoralis is known from Crawford County and
west of the Mississippi. The other race is here regarded as P. p. kennicotti and the record
from Brown County needs to be confirmed. Upper and lower molar tooth-rows. Open circles,
Jackson’s (1961) records.
91
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
ported a specimen from Green Bay, Wis¬
consin, in the Neville Public Museum, but it
was destroyed by insects. Unfortunately no
skull seems preserved, and the locality is now
drastically disturbed. The record is question¬
able, but any specimens from northern Wis¬
consin may be assigned on geographic grounds
to kennicotti.
Prairie Voles
Pity my s ochrogaster (Wagner)
1842. Hypudaeus ochrogaster Wagner. In
Schreber, Die Saugethiere . . ., Supple.
3:592, type from America, probably New
Harmony, Indiana (Bole and Moul-
throp, Pubis., Cleveland Mus. Nat. Hist.,
5:157, 1942).
1853. Arvicola austerus Le Conte. Proc.
Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 6:405, type
from Racine, Wisconsin. This name is
a junior synonym.
1898. Microtus (Pedomys) ochrogaster,
J. A. Allen. Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat.
Hist., 10:459, November 10.
1966. Pitymys (Pedomys) ochrogaster, El-
lermann and Morrison-Scott. Checklist
of Palearctic and Indian mammals. Brit¬
ish Mus. Nat. Hist., p. 681.
The scientific binomen of the prairie voles
means literally the mouse has an ochraceous
belly. Some workers refer the species to the
genus Microtus, and often it is assigned to
the subgenus Pedomys.
Description: The prairie vole is brown with
a slight mixture of orange or orchraceous.
On the belly, fur is grayish basally, the tips
are richly ochraceous, except in the very
young. The tail is short in the prairie vole
but not nearly so short as in pine (woodland)
voles or bog lemmings (in which the tail ex¬
tends only about as far as the hind feet). The
skull closely resembles that of Pitymys pi-
netorum. The upper middle molar has four
prisms, lacking any fifth posterior loop, and
the last molar has only four prisms, with
posterior portion short, narrowing, and hardly
invaginated (c-shaped) as seen so clearly in
M. pennsylvanicus .
Comparisons: The prairie vole is a clean,
sociable vole, easier to handle in captivity
than Microtus pennsylvanicus, and not so vi¬
cious with one another. Xeric habits are re¬
flected by less copius urine and drier feces
in cage and trap. The fur has an ochraceous
intermixture, usually not seen in walnut brown,
blackish and reddish tones of M. pennsyl¬
vanicus. Often taken in prairie with penn¬
sylvanicus, the teeth in adults clearly char¬
acterize either species. Young prairie voles
tend to be remarkable ochraceous-gray
whereas young pennsylvanicus (which have
the characteristic dental patterns often un¬
developed) are nearly black, very dark brown,
without ochraceous showing in the fur. The
feet of adult ochrogaster are more reddish
tan, whereas they are brown-gray in
pennsylvanicus .
Measurements: See accounts of subspecies.
Distribution: See Figure 2.
Habitats: Thin, dry, sandy prairies, upland
fields, old fields, and railroad rights-of-way.
Prairie voles occur primarily in grassland in
the south and west, and perhaps in relation
to openings in the Southern Deciduous for¬
ests. They are not seen in the pine barrens
and dunes of northwest Wisconsin, but seem
associated in northward distribution to the
out wash sands of the Wisconsin glaciers.
Perhaps the Northern pine-hardwoods and
wooded hills prevent these voles from ex¬
panding their geographic range northward.
Prairie and pine voles have approximately
similar geographic ranges in Wisconsin, but
occupy different habitats. There are six mam¬
mae and up to seven embryos.
Common Prairie Vole
Pitymys ochrogaster ochrogaster (Wagner)
This vole is large, nearly as large as Mi¬
crotus pennsylvanicus. The skull is larger than
in P. o. minor, exceeding 26 mm in greatest
length in old adults (those with basioccipi-
tal-basisphenoid suture closed). The pelage
is darker and less grayish than western spec¬
imens of minor, but not much darker than in
the Wisconsin minor. The belly is on average
92
Voles and Bog Lemmings of Wisconsin
Fig. 2. Distribution of Pitymys ochrogaster. P. o. minor is known from thin soil glacial sands to
the northwestward. The southern race is P. o. ochrogaster. Upper and lower molar tooth-rows.
Open circles, Jackson’s (1961) records. Racine Co. After Amin.
93
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters
more richly ochraceous. The most constant
difference between the common and minor
prairie voles is size, but the common prairie
vole has longer and broader nasals, and the
auditory bullae tend to be relatively less
inflated.
Measurements: According to Jackson
(1961), the total length varies up to 160 mm,
tail to 40 mm, hind foot to 20 mm, total
weight to 50 g, and total skull length to 28. 1
mm. The three adult males from Lynxville,
in extreme southwestern Wisconsin, are clearly
referable to the larger, nominate race in all
measurements taken (see Table 4). Speci¬
mens from Beaver Dam and Pleasant Valley
Road, in southern Wisconsin, are compara¬
bly large. Even the oldest and largest spec¬
imens from near Stevens Point are smaller
than these specimens.
Specimens examined: Total, 23. See Table
5. Other records are in Jackson (1961). See
also Amin (1974) and Amin and Thompson
(1974).
Minor Prairie Vole
Pity my s ochrogaster minor (Merriam),
1888, new combination.
Arvicola austerus minor Merriam, Amer.
Nat. 22:600; type from Bottineau, North
Dakota.
Common Prairie Vole Pitvmvs ochrogaster
3 Specimens From Lynxville, Wisconsin
External Measurements in mm:
Total Length
153
(152- 155)
Tail Length
39
(38 - 40)
Hind Foot
18.7
(18-19)
Weight in gm
47
(44-50)
Cranial Measurements in mm:
Length of Skull
26.8
(25.8 - 26.9)
Condylobasal
Length
26
(25.3 - 26.5)
Maxillary Tooth Row
6
(5.6 - 6.5)
Zygomatic Breadth
15
(14.9- 15.1)
Cranial Depth
9.63
(9.6 - 9.7)
Interorbital Breadth
4
(3.95-4.1)
Nasal Length
7.55
(7.5 - 7.6)
Table 4
Common Prairie Vole Pitvmvs ochroaaster
Specimens Examined:
Total - 23
County:
Crawford County:
Lynxville
3USNM
Dane County:
Beeny, Sec. 18, T8N, R7E
1 UWM
5 miles N. Cross Plains
1 UWM
Dodge County:
Beaver Dam
1
Rock County:
Milton
5 UWM
Sauk County:
Pleasant Valley Road, near
Sumpter Church
3
1/4 -3/4 mileS., 2 miles W.
Prairie de Sac
2
3 miles W. Prairie de Sac
3 |
4 miles W. Prairie de Sac
4
Table 5
Long (1976) first reported this diminutive
vole in Wisconsin, extending the known range
218 miles eastward, in small local popula¬
tions living on railroad rights-of-way and thin
outwash sands of brushy, grassy fields. Two
taxonomists have suggested that M. o. minor
is a species because of its peculiar and dis¬
tinctive behavior and small size. In Wiscon¬
sin there is no evidence of intergradation of
the two prairie voles, but woodlands separate
them a distance of 50 miles (between Wau¬
shara and Dodge counties) and 40 miles (be¬
tween Juneau and Sauk counties). The minor
vole hardly varies in size from central Wis¬
consin into North Dakota, but Swanson (1945)
reported intergradation with large M. o. och¬
rogaster in Southeast Minnesota. Another
thing to keep in mind is the close similarity
of skulls and dentitions of minor and
ochrogaster.
Measurements: The decidedly small di¬
mensions of the skull are seen in the means
of Old-Adult voles shown in Table 6.
Specimens examined: Total, 29. See
Table 7.
Status: This vole was never common in
Wisconsin, and in Portage County all known
localities of occurrence have been so dras¬
tically disturbed by plowing and urban de-
94
Voles and Bog Lemmings of Wisconsin
Measurements of the Minor Prairie Vole Cranial Measurements in mm
Old-Adult Vole Specimens From:
Goodall, ND
Elk River, MN
Ft. Snelling, Mn
Clark Co., Wl
Stevens Point, Wl
Number
5
3
2
1
6
Greatest
Length
Of Skull
24.07
24.33
23.74
25.93
24.6
(24.1 -25.6)
Zygo-
matic
Breadth
12.35
13.05
12.88
13.4
13.7
(13.5-13.9)
Lamb-
doidal
Breadth
10.39
10.51
10.31
11.4
11.2
(10.8-11.4)
Nasals
6.66
6.73
6.75
7.0
6.59
(6.7 - 7.3)
Inter-
Orbital
Breadth
3.43
3.42
3.7
3.8
3.95
(3.8 - 4.05)
Table 6
velopment that the subspecies may have been
extirpated. No specimens have been obtained
for ten years in spite of intensive efforts to
find them. Efforts should be made to preserve
this species and its habitat, perhaps by intro¬
ductions onto sandy upland prairie preserves.
Genus Microtus Schrank
Teeth elaborate, lower first molar with deep
constrictions forming separate islands or
prisms, five salient angles between anterior
island and posterior loop, upper third molar
elaborate, with three closed prisms (salient
angles) between anterior and posterior loops.
Meadow Vole
Microtus pennsylvanicus pennsylvanicus
(Ord)
1815. Mus pennsylvanica Ord. In Guthrie,
A new geography, 2nd Amer. ed., vol.
2, p. 292.
1895. M [icrotus]. Pennsylvanicus, Rhoads.
Amer. Nat., 29:940.
1841. Arvicola fulva. Audubon and Bach¬
man. Proc. Acad. Nat. Sci. Philadel¬
phia, 1:96. Type from a western state,
probably Illinois.
Minor Prairie Vole
Pitvmvs ochroaaster minor
Specimens Examined
Total - 29
County:
Number
Clark County:
! Brick Creek, near Owen-
| Withee
1
1 Foster Twsp.
2 UWM
No Specific Locality
1
Juneau County:
4 1/2 mile N., 1 mile W.
Necedah
2
Portage County:
Stevens Point
14
Whiting
2
Plover
5
8 miles S. Stevens Point
1
Waushara County:
Saxeville
1 UWM
Table 7
95
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
1858. Arvicola riparia var. longipilis Baird.
Mammals. Reports Expl. Surv. . . .
8(1)1524, type from West Northfield,
Illinois or Racine, Wisconsin.
The scientific name Microtus pennsylvan-
icus means the mouse has small ears and was
found near (“Meadows south of”) Phila¬
delphia. This vole resembles M. agrestus of
Eurasia.
Description: Usually the largest, darkest
vole in Wisconsin, often exceeding 160 mm
total length. Long blackish tail, blackish
gray-brown feet, and belly overcast with
whitish, pale buff (occasionally rust, red, or
cinnamon buff). The skull is long, the ros¬
trum and nasals long and narrow, and the
braincase well extended posterior to the zy¬
gomata. The upper third molar consists of an
anterior loop, three closed prisms, and a dis¬
tinct posterior crescentic loop. In the middle
upper molar an extra small posterior loop is
squeezed in, rarely absent in adults. The lower
first molar is pinched in anteriorly, so that
there are five closed prisms behind the an¬
terior loop. This species is identified with
certainty by the loop of the middle upper
molar, and the identification confirmed by
the extra prisms in upper third and lower first
molars. The skull is long (up to 28.6 mm),
the yellow incisors projecting beyond the na¬
sals. The incisive foramina exceed 5 mm in
length. There is a slight reddish (not ochra-
ceous) cast in the dark walnut brown upper-
parts (especially in late summer and fall),
which are evenly colored and hardly grizzled
at all. The dorsal pelage, long and lax in
winter, is remarkably constant throughout the
state. Little individual variation is shown ex¬
cept in rare albinism in southeastern Wis¬
consin and a gray specimen with hairs whi¬
tish basally from Portage County. The black
eyes seem small, and like the ears are fringed
by coarse guard hairs.
In ventral coloration the range of whitish
to buff to buffy ochraceous varies remarka¬
bly, as can be seen by the following values
based on a scale of pale to dark ochraceous,
one to five. The standards are (1) UW-SP
No. 1610 pure silvery white; (2) buffy white
No. 377, (3) whitish buff No. 1089, (4) buff
No. 947, (5) buffy ochraceous No. 3190 or
2259, all aforementioned specimens from
central Wisconsin, and (5) dark ochraceous
No. 4579 from Waupaca Co., 4851 from
Vernon Co., or 5024 from Clark County.
From Marathon, Wood, and Portage counties
a large sample was analyzed and fell into
these frequencies: pure silvery white 1; buffy
white, 16; whitish buff, 37; buffy ochraceous
46; dark ochraceous, 4. The frequencies were
hardly dissimilar in other parts of Wisconsin.
Of course, all ventral pelages were gray bas¬
ally. From this it follows that Microtus penn-
sylvanicus cannot always be distinguished from
Pitymys ochrogaster by the color of the belly
for the color is often ochraceous. However,
whitish venters are characteristic of
pennsylvanicus .
Jackson (1961:230) described mutants from
Wisconsin: yellow from Alderly, Dodge
County, and two albinos from Madison and
another from Lake Koshkonong. A pink-eyed
albino in the UW-SP collection (No. 1792)
is from Dodge County, and a partial albino
(No. UWSP-6261) is from Horicon Marsh.
This vole was normal above except for a faint
intermixture of white hairs below the ears
and approaching the vibrissae. The left hind
foot was normal, the other three feet white.
The tail was normal. The venter was pure
white without gray at the hair bases.
Measurements : Total length to 188 mm.
(but large meadow voles seldom exceed 165
mm), tail 42 to 56 mm, hind foot 20 to 23
mm, ear 20 to 23 mm. Wts. vary to 56 g.
Greatest length of skull varies to 28.6 mm,
width to 15.8 mm (see Jackson, 1961:231).
Distribution : Statewide, but restricted from
most islands in Lake Michigan and Lake Su¬
perior, dense forests, and dry, sandy prairies.
See Figure 3.
Habitats: Wet, grassy or weedy soils, fields,
wet meadows, marshes, bogs, riparian grassy
shores, and grassy glades in open woodlands.
Occasionally in cultivated fields, often on
lawns and gardens, and rarely in houses.
96
Voles and Bog Lemmings of Wisconsin
Fig. 3. Distribution of Microtus pennsylvanicus pennsylvanicus, which occurs in every county
in the state. Upper molar tooth-row and lower. Open circles, Jackson’s (1961) records.
97
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Jackson rated the meadow vole as the sec¬
ond most abundant mammal in Wisconsin,
exceeded possibly by the short-tailed shrew.
In my field work I find the white-footed mouse
to outnumber them both, except in dense for¬
est, wetlands, and the northern counties.
Probably the meadow vole is most abundant
there. The meadow vole is found in every
county in Wisconsin. Hamerstrom (1986)
discussed the 4-5 year cycle of abundance
and its profound effects on harriers (Circus
cyaneus).
Microtus can breed every month of the
year (Jackson 1961:233) and usually con¬
tinue in central Wisconsin into November, a
full month later than in the Peromyscus. The
litter size varies from two to nine, and is often
seven. In 27 pregnant Wisconsin specimens
observed, the mean was 5.2; modes 4, 6;
observed range was 4-8; the peaks of breed¬
ing were April and July; and females were
found pregnant from March to October (lac-
tating to 14 November).
The meadow vole prefers black soils and
wet environments due to a need for water. It
swims well, even diving, and young have
been seen running over water surfaces. The
nest of grasses and leaves is often on the
ground surface, occasionally in a burrow eight
or nine inches below ground. Foods include
grass, sedges, grains, seeds, and carrion.
Specimens examined: Total, 548. See Ta¬
ble 8. Other records in Jackson 1961: Long
1974. The species is widespread in Upper
Michigan as well (Baker 1983).
Genus Clethrionomys Tilesius, 1850
Teeth small and primitive, occasionally
rooted in adults, salient projections less pointed
(more arcuate) then in Microtus or Pitymys,
upper third molar elaborate, posterior palate
shelf-like.
Red-Backed Voles
Clethrionomys gapperi (Vigors)
Gappers Red-Backed Vole
1830. Arvicola gapperi Vigors. Zool. J.,
5:204. Type from between Toronto and
Lake Simcoe, Ontario.
1928. Clethrionomys gapperi gapperi.
Green. J. Mammal., 9:255, August 9.
The scientific name means a swamp alder
mouse, and Gapper was a man’s name.
Description: This small vole has a weakly
built skull, having delicately and neatly ar¬
ranged folds and prisms in the cheek teeth,
and pale yellow incisors. It is easily recog¬
nized by its russet or chestnut reddish-brown
dorsum, set off by ochraceous (almost yel-
lowish)-grayish-tan sides. The sides are usu¬
ally flecked with dark blackish gray, a false
pattern of guard hairs, but actually the gray
bases of the hairs show through the coarse
pelage. (There are a few brownish guard hairs
in dorsal and lateral pelage evident under the
microscope.) The ventral surface is whitish,
either a pure or grayish white, although from
place to place up to 40 percent may have pale
ochraceous buff or cinnamon buff (e.g.,
UWSP-1497, 6075, and others). The pale
coloration is conspicuous on the throat and
lower cheeks and extends often as a ventral
line to whitish feet and claws. The general
effect is a tri-colored mouse, red-brown,
gray-orange, and whitish. The tail is medium
in length. There are six tubercles on the hind
foot. In juveniles the coloration is not fully
developed, so the dorsum and sides are rich
rusty brown with just a tinge of russet, and
the venter is brownish or gray with just a
tinge of white. However, in young mice even
the smallest seem to have bright adult col¬
oration in winter. (Apparently the hair pro¬
tection develops rapidly, much more so than
in summer.)
The skull is small and rather circular in
profile. No other arvicoline has such a
shelf-like or straight posterior border of the
palate (actually the anterior border of the
pterygoid fossa or posterior nares). The upper
third molar has an anterior loop, three closed
prisms, and a selenodont or crescentic pos¬
terior loop, resembling the pattern in Micro¬
tus. However, the more arcuate angles are
more even in linear arrangement, and more
delicate, the tiny prisms neatly outlined. The
98
Voles and Bog Lemmings of Wisconsin
upper middle molar consists of an anterior
loop and three closed prisms (which is or¬
dinary in arvicolines). The lower first molar
might be said to terminate with two posterior
loops in tandem, only two enclosed areas
intervene between the complex anterior part
and the last loop. The anterior portion is
pinched so that a tiny inner salient angle may
occasionally be closed off as well. The third
lower molar is distinctive in its three similar
and large outer salient angles all in a row,
and three small inner salient angles neatly
arranged opposite. The teeth are narrow and
small.
Colors are highly variable, and large sam¬
ples are essential to compare colors from place
to place. Nevertheless, the range of varia¬
bility is constant geographically. There is only
one geographic race in Wisconsin and Upper
Michigan.
Comparisons: The coloration (reddish dor¬
sum, whitish venter) and dentition clearly
distinguish this species from all other arvi¬
colines in Wisconsin. The longer tail clearly
sets a red-backed vole apart from the
short-tailed (woodland) pine vole and south¬
ern bog lemming.
Measurements (Jackson, 1961:225): Total
length varies to 150 mm, tail only 32-42 in
adults, hind foot 18-20, ear 14 to 16. Weights
vary to 36 grams. Total length of skull varies
only to 24.8 mm, width of cranium 12.0 to
13.6 mm.
Distribution: Northern woodlands and
swampy communities. See Figure 4.
Habitats: The red-backed voles occur in
boreal forests. In Wisconsin they are found
on several islands in Lake Superior and Lake
Michigan, and throughout the North Woods
(the pine-maple, hemlock, and spruce-fir
woodlands), occurring always in the pres¬
ence of at least a few trees. They dwell in
swamps, bogs, and marshes as well as on
forested hills and the slopes of valleys. They
live in complex burrows usually below a stump
or dead-fall tree. On Big Summer Island,
Michigan, which is in Green Bay, red-backed
voles tunneled as might moles, short-tailed
shrews, or Pitymys (Long 1978). These voles
are less specialized for eating grass, and they
feed on nuts, seeds, and small arthropods.
In Wisconsin this forest species does not range
far into the southern deciduous woods or
southern and western prairies. They are
thought to be rather solitary, but Pitts (1983)
caught six adults in the same tunnel beneath
a decayed stump.
Home range is about 1,000 square meters,
habits mostly nocturnal, and the females have
two to four litters per breeding season, of
three to eight young (Jackson 1961). There
are eight mammae. In only seven observed
breeding females some breeding was noted
in winter, pregnant specimens observed from
February to late September (lactation and ju¬
veniles in November). The mean litter size
was 4.75, two modes 3, 6, and the observed
range 3 to 6. A female from Poverty Island,
Michigan, had six embryos in August.
Status: Abundant in suitable habitats,
wide-spread in northern and eastern Wiscon¬
sin, and in no peril. Harmless to man.
Remark: One female specimen (UW-SP
1040) from 15 mi. E. Stevens Point was belted
with pure white mid-dorsally, nearly all
around, the ventral white extending fairly
continuously, forward to each manus.
Specimens examined: Total, 296. See
Table 9.
Other Records: See Map. Also see Jackson
1961; Pitts 1983 (Monroe Co.); Johnson 1978
(Door Co.); Kewaunee Co., personal corr.
Neville Museum; Long 1974. The species is
widespread in Upper Michigan as well (Baker
1983).
Genus Synaptomys Baird, 1858
Teeth specialized, entrant angles deeper on
one side, shallow on the opposite, so that
prisms extend as nearly transverse lophs across
the tooth surface, the salient angles reduced
on outerside of lower molars, inner side of
upper molars, upper incisors slightly grooved
along outer border.
99
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Fig. 4. Distribution of Clethrionomys gapperi gapperi. Restricted from prairies. Upper and lower
molar tooth-rows. Open circles, Jackson 1961; Large triangle, Pitts 1983; small triangle, Johnson
1978. Sguare, personal report Neville Museum.
100
Voles and Bog Lemmings of Wisconsin
101
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
102
Voles and Bog Lemmings of Wisconsin
103
Table 9
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Southern Bog Lemmings
Synaptomys cooperi Baird
Synaptomys cooperi Baird. Mammals. Re¬
port Explor. and Surveys Railroad to
Pacific, Part 1, Mammals, page 558,
1858.
Synaptomys fatuus Bangs. Proc. Biol. Soc.
Washington, 10:47, 1896. Type from
Lake Edward, Quebec.
Synaptomys cooperi fatuus, Cory. The
mammals of Illinois and Wisconsin. Field
Mus. Nat. Hist. Publ., 153:237, 1912.
The name Synaptomys means a mouse link.
It links the voles to the boreal lemmings. The
name cooperi honors William Cooper of New
Jersey who gave Fullerton Baird the type
specimen. The type locality was fixed at
Jackson, New Hampshire.
Description: This chunky mouse has griz¬
zled, coarse pelage (except in winter), an
extremely short tail as in Pitymys pinetorum,
and ears mostly hidden by the fur. The upper
parts are a coarse mixture of gray, pale ochra-
ceous brown and dark brown or black guard
hairs. The venter has a whitish, grayish, buffy,
or tan ochraceous wash over dark plumbeous
gray bases of the hairs. The feet are usually
brownish but sometimes gray. There is usu¬
ally a faint groove on the the anterior face
of each incisor, along the outer edges. The
skull is nearly square (subquadrate) resem¬
bling Arctic lemmings, because the braincase
protrudes into the orbits, encompassed by the
zygomata, and the rostrum is short. The outer
re-entrant angles of the upper molars are
exceptionally deep, whereas the inner angles
shallow, so the upper teeth are zagged, but
not zig-zagged. The lower teeth have the deep
re-entrant angles on the inner side of the
teeth. On the middle lower molar is a small
outer prism (Fig. 5).
Comparisons: The short tail, coarse griz¬
zled fur, grooved incisors, squarish brain-
case, and odd re-entrant angles distinguish
this species. Externally the bog lemming re¬
sembles Pitymys pinetorum, especially in
winter pelage. There is a superficial resem¬
blance (breadth) in their skulls as well. There
104
Voles and Bog Lemmings of Wisconsin
Fig. 5. Distribution of Synaptomys cooperi. On Washington and Rock islands, S. c. jesseni. S.
c. gossii occurs in Crawford County. In Upper Michigan and most northern counties S. c.
cooperi occurs. Upper and lower molar tooth-rows. Open circles, Jackson 1961.
105
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
are three races in Wisconsin, the most dis¬
tinctive of which is the white-footed insular
race jesseni.
Measurements: See accounts of subspecies.
Distribution: See Figure 5.
Habitats: In black soils along streams, in
bogs, wet forests, and in sedge meadows,
red pine plantations, and bouldery ground.
Runways are seldom seen. Feces are bright
pale green. Irruptions sometimes occur, but
are unknown in Wisconsin where this vole
seems uncommon.
Cooper’s Southern Bog Lemming
Synaptomys cooperi cooperi Baird
As defined by Wetzel (1955), the nominate
race for the bog lemming occurs both east
and west of Lake Michigan. It is character¬
ized by a rather narrow, high cranium. All
specimens examined in the University Mu¬
seum collection, except those from Wash¬
ington and Rock Islands, proved referable to
S. c. cooperi, showing little variation in color.
Some specimens had a rich reddish chocolate
color intermixed with ochraceous, gray, and
black. Winter specimens were bleached and
less grizzled. Young specimens were darker
brown. Specimens examined from the Upper
Peninsula of Michigan were likewise refer¬
able to cooperi.
Using a scale from reddish to grayish brown,
the dorsal pelage being lined with dark guard
hairs and darkened from below by the un¬
derlying basal gray, the most reddish spec¬
imen, a rich reddish-chestnut brown was 5742
from Portage County, Wisconsin. A shade
paler is 2197 from Crivitz. Next is 5038 from
Bayfield County, where the light ochraceous
color separates from the dark brown lines of
the guard hairs, and finally the ordinary
coloration — a grayish, ochraceous brown, as
in 5626 from Bayfield County. Scaled from
4 to 1 , all the adult and probably mature bog
lemmings were compared against this stan¬
dard, and the color values recorded.
A specimen from Fish Hawk Lake, Goge¬
bic County, Michigan, was reddish (3). From
Menominee County, Michigan, four speci¬
mens averaged 1 .5 (1-2). A vole from Delta
County was 3.
From Bayfield County, Wisconsin, five
specimens averaged 1.7 (1-2), and another
with worn pelage (in June) was dark grayish,
perhaps juvenile. Langlade County speci¬
mens were 1 and 3, mean 2.0; and an Oconto
County specimen from Suring was 2. Two
specimens from Crivitz were each 2.
A specimen from Marathon County was
1, Portage County 4, and Douglas County 1.
Specimens examined: Michigan, 6 UM.
Wisconsin, 34. See Table 10.
Measurements: External measurements of
four adult males from Drummond and cranial
measurements of four adults from Gogebic
and Taylor counties, Upper Michigan and
Bayfield County (2) are given in Table 11.
White-Footed Southern Bog
Lemming or Jessen’s Bog
Lemming
Synaptomys cooperi jesseni Long, 1986
Synaptomys cooperi jesseni Long, Mam¬
malia, 51:324, 1986. Holotype,
UW-SP6250, skin and skull from Swen¬
son Road, T. Jessen’s Place, Washing¬
ton Island, Wisconsin.
In dorsal and ventral coloration the spec¬
imens from Rock and Washington islands
(Long and Long 1988) resemble S. c. coop¬
eri, but they have conspicuous white feet.
The observed tails and all four feet on the
specimens are grayish or plumbeous gray, as
is common in juveniles elsewhere, but there
is generally pure white distally, of the claws
and toes. The toes and claws occasionally
may be whitish in Synaptomys cooperi coop¬
eri, but they are seldom pure white, the
whiteness not nearly so extensive, not set off
so cleanly by dark pelage of the feet, and not
so constant. White toes are even fairly con¬
stant on the forefeet in the insular specimens.
Even the hind dew toes are white on the
Rock Island specimen. They are white also
on UW-SP 6548-49. All ten toes are pure
white on these specimens. On Washington
106
Voles and Bog Lemmings of Wisconsin
Cooper's Southern Bog Lemming
Svnaptomvs cooperi
Specimens Examined
Upper Michigan - Total
6 UM
UP Counties: Number
Delta County:
2 miles N.W. Fairport
1
Gogebic County:
Fish Hawk Lake
1
Menominee County:
5 miles N. Menominee
10 miles W,
Stephenson
5 miles S.W. Banat
1
1
Meadow
2
Wisconsin - Total
34
Wisconsin Counties: Number
Ashland County:
6 miles S.E. Clam Lake 9
Bayfield County:
Drummond
12
Burnett County:
Crex Meadows
1
Douglas County:
Wascott
2
Langlade County:
Camp Susan
3
Marathon County:
7 1/2 miles N.E. Athens,
on Big Rib River
1
Marinette County:
9 miles N.W. Crivitz,
Cnty. A
3
Oconto County:
1 1 miles N.E. Suring
1
Portage County:
Dewey Marsh
1
Taylor County:
Near Medford
1
Table 10
Island, eight distinctively white hind toes
(excluding dew toes) were seen in eleven
specimens. Seven white toes were seen in
the other two, and even in these there was
at least a trace of white in all eight. In 22
adult and probably adult bog lemmings from
mainland Wisconsin and Upper Michigan,
white toes were seen only in five specimens.
Some specimens from Menominee County,
Michigan, show several white hind toes, as
Cooper's Southern Bog Lemming
Svnaptomvs cooperi
External Measurements in mm
4 Adult Males From Drummond:
Total Length
Tail Length
Hind Foot
Ear from Notch
113 (110- 115)
16 (10-19)
17.6 (17-18)
9 (5-10)
Cranial Measurements in mm
4 Adults from Gogebic and Taylor Counties,
Upper Michigan and 2 from Bayfield County:
Condylobasal Length 25.0+-.23 (24.4 - 25.5)
Nasal Length 7.05+-.05 (7.0 - 7.2)
Zygomatic Breadth 15. 23+-. 33 (14.6 - 15.7)
Lambdoid Breadth 1 2.25+-. 12 (11.9- 12.45)
Cranial Depth
(with Bullae) 8.5+-.13 (8.2 - 8.8)
Table 1 1
does one specimen from Bayfield County,
Wisconsin, but these, the best marked from
the mainland, are less distinctive than the
least whitish specimens on Washington and
Rock Islands.
White toes were seldom observed on any
forefeet of Mainland specimens, but all the
front toes were pure white on the Rock Island
vole, and toes of the front feet were white
on seven from Washington Island. Some toes
of the forefeet were white on the others also,
except two of the eight specimens had only
dark toes on the forefeet.
White toes seem a sporadically appearing
character in bog lemmings, but on Washing¬
ton and nearby Rock Islands it is ordinary
and in fact constitutes a remarkable and con¬
spicuous difference allowing the large ma¬
jority of bog lemmings to be identified on
sight. The geographic isolation of these bog
lemmings from sedge meadows and fields on
Washington and Rock Islands, with average
differences in several cranial dimensions, leads
to their recognition as a distinctive geo¬
graphic race endemic to these isles. Long ago
the Door Peninsula was an archipelago of
seven islands, when lake levels were higher,
enhancing geographic isolation of the bog
lemmings (see Kowalke 1946).
107
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Cuttings of sedge in the mouth of
UWSP-6259 were 3, 4, 5, 5, 6 and 8 mm in
length. Pregnant females were taken in April
(5 embryos) and late September (3 embryos).
Measurements: External measurements of
six adult males and three females from Wash¬
ington Island and cranial measurements of
six adults from Washington and one from
Rock Islands are given in Table 12.
Remark: The race is named in honor of
Tom lessen, supervisor of Rock Island State
Park, an amateur naturalist who obtained the
first specimen and has helped on this and
other natural history studies on the afore¬
mentioned islands.
Specimens examined: Total, 14. Rock Is¬
land Hq., 1; Washington Island, Swenson
Road, Door Co., 6; Airport, on Airport
Road, 7.
Goss9 Southern Bog Lemming
Synaptomys cooperi gossii (Coues), 1877
This vole resembles S. c. cooperi also, but
it is larger and relatively larger in many di¬
mensions, especially the higher crania. The
Wisconsin specimens, referred by Jackson
(1961) to gossii, have wider incisors (1.9
mm) than in cooperi (1.6 mm). Specimens
in southeast Minnesota and northeast Iowa
have been referred to gossii.
This race is known only from Lynxville,
Crawford County, and may occur in other
places on dry hillsides and fields in southern
and southwestern Wisconsin. The habitats
seem to be quite different from those in
northern Wisconsin.
Measurements (Jackson, 1961:224): No.
249, 769 USNM, adult male from Lynxville:
total length 129, tail 22, hindfoot 19, ear
from notch 14 mm, wt. 42 g., cranial length
27.7, width, 17.2, height 10.3 mm.
Remark: This race was named after the
Kansan naturalist B. F. Goss, and the race
occurs southward and westward as far as
Kansas.
Specimen examined: Lynxville, 1 (USNM).
White Footed Southern Bog Lemming
or Jessen's Bog Lemming
Svnaptomvs cooperi jesseni
External Measurements in mm
6 Adult Males, 3 Females from
Washington Island:
Males Females
Total Length 118 123
(112- 122) (119- 126)
Tail Vertebrae 17
18
(15-19)
(16 - 20)
Hind Foot 19.4
19
(18-21)
(17-20)
Ear from Notch 1 1
11.3
(10-12)
(11-12)
Cranial Measurements in mm
6 Adults from Washington Island,
1 from Rock Island:
Condylobasal
Length 24.6S+-.2 (23.8 - 25.2)
Nasal Length 6.87+-. 14 (6.3 - 7.3)
Zygomatic
Breadth 1 5.67+-.03 (1 5.6 - 1 5.8)
Lambdoid
Breadth 12.93+-.13 (12.6 - 13.4)
Cranial Depth
(with Bullae) 8.62+-.1 1 (8.3 - 9)
Table 12
Summary
The numbers of specimens and mapping
of them reveal that of the five species and
nine races of arvicoline mice now recognized
in Wisconsin only Microtus pennsylvanicus
is abundant and widely distributed. It may
be considered a pest. Clethrionomys is next
in abundance, harmless, confined to northern
forests. The other species are uncommon or
rare, with limited and local distributions. In
tolerable numbers they are beneficial and in¬
teresting members of Wisconsin ecosystems.
The pine (woodland) vole is listed by the
Wisconsin Bureau of Endangered Resources
as rare enough for “special concern” (Watch
List). Pitymys ochrogaster minor, P. pine -
torum, Synaptomys cooperi jesseni, and S.
c. gossii seem to be among the rarest of Wis-
108
Voles and Bog Lemmings of Wisconsin
consin animals. In this study the pine vole
and prairie vole were both assigned to the
genus Pitymys. Of the nine recognized races,
three were not known to Jackson (1961). Two
of his Wisconsin names are placed in
synonymy.
Acknowledgment
I thank Dr. Sydney Anderson, American
Museum of Natural History for advice.
Key
Key to Wisconsin Voles and Bog Lem¬
mings (Adults) All teeth are comprised of
loops and prisms.
1 . Upper middle molar with anterior loop, three
closed prisms, and one small posterior loop
or islet; posterior upper molar with anterior
loop, three closed prisms and distinct posterior
crescentic loop; anterior lower molar deeply
constricted with five closed prisms and a pos¬
terior loop . Microtus pennsylvanicus
Meadow Vole
1/ Upper middle molar with anterior loop and
only three prisms; posterior upper molar with
two prisms, posterior loop not crescentic; an¬
terior lower molar with fewer than five closed
prisms between loop .................. 2
2. Molars with deep re-entrant angles on one
side only, opposite side comprised of sin¬
uous arcs; each upper incisor with small
groove near outer edge extending the length
of the tooth . . . Synaptomys 3.
3. Lower molars with shallow, sinuous
re-entrant angles on outer or labial side;
three large and one minute prisms on lower
middle molar . . . Synaptomys cooperi
Southern Bog Lemming
3/ Lower molars with hardly any indentation
(re-entrant angles) on labial side; three large
prisms in lower middle molar. Known in
Wisconsin or Michigan only from fossils
. . S. borealis
2! Teeth with regular re-entrant angles on both
sides; upper incisors lacking grooves .... .4
4. Teeth small, neatly regular indentations,
sometimes more curved than pointed, rel¬
atively thick enamel border; teeth rooted in
adults, posteriormost loop of upper third
molar irregular in shape; lower anterior-
most loop deeply constricted as in M. penn¬
sylvanicus with only three closed prisms
and a posterior loop .
Clethrionomys gapperi Red-backed Vole
4/ Teeth large or medium; posterior prism of
middle upper molar terminating abruptly in a
shoulder or bulge confluent with salient angle,
posteriormost loop of upper third molar often
spear-shaped (subtriangular), lower anterior
molar slightly constricted anteriorly and deeply
constricted posteriorly with three closed prisms
(and a posterior loop) behind this doubly con¬
stricted anterior loop . Pitymys 5.
5. Tail exceptionally short; fur fleecy, walnut
or reddish brown, forefeet with robust claws;
skull broad, interorbital breadth more than
half the distance between the tips of the
nasals to posterior extensions of premax-
illaries .Pitymys pinetorum Pine or Wood¬
land Vole
5.' Tail not exceptionally short; fur coarse, griz¬
zled buff or orange-brown, forefeet normal;
skull narrow, interorbital breadth about half
the length from tips of nasals to posterior ex¬
tensions of premaxillaries behind the nasals
. Pitymys ochrogaster ( = Microtus
ochrogaster) Prairie Vole
Works Cited
Amin. O. M. 1974. Distribution and ecological
observations of wild mammals in southeastern
Wisconsin. Wisconsin Acad. Sci., Arts and
Letters, 42:311-326.
Amin, O. M. and W. H. Thompson. 1974. Ar-
boviral antibody survey of wild mammals in
southeastern Wisconsin. Wisconsin Acad. Sci.,
Arts and Letters, 42:87-94.
Baker, R. H. 1983. Michigan mammals. Michi¬
gan State Press, Wayne State Univ. Press, 642
p. illus.
Hall, E. R. andE. L. Cock rum. 1952. Comments
on the taxonomy and geographic distribution of
North American microtines. Univ. Kansas
Pubis., Mus. Nat. Hist., 5(23):293-312.
Hamerstrom, F. 1986. Harrier, hawk of the
marshes. The hawk that is ruled by a mouse.
Smithsonian Inst. Press, Baltimore, 155 p., illus.
Jackson, H. H. T. 1961. Mammals of Wisconsin.
Univ. Wisconsin Press, Madison, Wisconsin.
504 p.
109
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Johnson, W. J. 1978. Small mammals of the Toft
Point Scientific Area, Door County, Wisconsin.
Trans. Wis. Acad. Sci., Arts and Letters,
66:246-253.
Kowalke, O. L. 1946. Highest abandoned beach
ridges in northern Door County, Wisconsin.
Trans. Wisconsin Acad. Sci., Arts and Letters,
38:293-298.
Long, C. A. 1974. Mammals of the Lake Mich¬
igan Drainage Basin. Argonne Nat. Lab., ES-40,
108 p., illus.
Long, C. A. 1976. Microtus ochrogaster minor
in Wisconsin. Mus. Nat. Hist., Univ. Wis. Re¬
ports Fauna and Flora, No. 1 1 , p. 1 .
Long, C. A. 1978. Mammals of the Islands of
Green Bay, Lake Michigan. Jack-Pine Warbler,
56:59-82.
Long, C. A. 1986. A new subspecies of southern
bog lemming from two Lake Michigan isles
(Mammalia: Rodentia). Mammalia,
51(2):324-326.
Long, C. A. and J. E. Long. 1988. Southern bog
lemming, Synaptomys cooperi, new to islands
in Lake Michigan. Canadian Field Nat.
102:64-65.
Paul, J. R. 1970. Observations on the ecology,
populations and reproductive biology of the pine
vole, Microtus pinetorum, in North Carolina.
Illinois State Mus. Report 20, 28 p.
Pitts, R. M. 1983. Mammals of Fort McCoy,
Monroe Co., Wisconsin. Trans. Wis. Acad.
Sci., Arts and Letters, 71:151-154.
Schmidt, F. J. W. 1931. Mammals of western
Clark County, Wisconsin. J. Mammal,
12:99-117.
Swanson, G., T. Surber, andT. S. Roberts. 1945.
The mammals of Minnesota. Minneapolis Dept.
Conservation. Tech. Bull., Vol. 2, 108 p., illus.
Wetzel, R. M. 1955. Speciation and dispersal of
the southern bog lemming, Synaptomys cooperi
(Baird). J. Mammal., 36:1-20.
Zakrzewski, R. J. 1985. The fossil record. In Bi¬
ology of New World Microtus. Edited by R. H.
Tamarin, Special Publ. No. 8, Amer. Soc.
Mammalogists.
110
Interspecific Associations of
Some Wisconsin Lake Plants
Stanley A. Nichols
Abstract. Interspecific association was used to group 54 aquatic plant taxa found in 68
Wisconsin lakes. Three of the four groups formed could be explained by water chemistry,
substrate preference, and turbidity tolerance. The fourth group appeared to be of intermediate
preference to the other three groups. A number of species did not commonly associate with
other species. They were often found in unique habitats. No significant negative correlation
between species pairs was found. This makes it difficult to speculate about the causes of non¬
association among species.
Interspecific association provides one
method of objectively grouping species.
Positive associations may result from simi¬
larities of adaptation and response to envi¬
ronmental conditions. They may also result
from beneficial interactions such as mutual¬
ism or commensalism, favorable to one or
both species. Negative associations may re¬
sult from species preferring different habitats
or from detrimental interaction such as re¬
source competition or allelopathy.
Studies that relate species groupings to
habitat factors generally fall into two types.
One type relates species groups in a single
lake to within-lake habitat differences (Mirsa
1938; Spence 1967; Carpenter and Titus 1984;
Nichols 1971; Schmid 1965; Sheldon and
Boylen 1977; Wilson 1937 and 1941). These
studies assumed water chemistry is constant,
and inlake variables such as water depth, sub-
Stanley A. Nichols is a Professor of Environmental Sci¬
ences, University of Wisconsin-Extension. He is a bi¬
ologist at the Wisconsin Geological and Natural History
Survey, and he is associated with the Environmental
Resources Center and the Department of Liberal Studies
at UW-Madison. Past articles in Transactions deal with
aquatic plant resources in Wisconsin waters.
strate type, fetch, sediment accumulation, light
penetration, and water turbulence explain plant
distribution. A second type concentrates on
between-lake differences, which generally
mean differences in water chemistry (Seddon
1972; Moyle 1945; Swindale and Curtis 1957;
Pip 1979; Olsen 1950; Kadano 1982; and
Lind 1976). Studies describing resource
competition or allelopathy between aquatic
plants are more limited and the results are
not definitive (Agami and Waisel 1985; En¬
gel and Nichols 1984; Nichols 1984; Seddon
1972; McCreary et al. 1983; Titus and Ste¬
phens 1983).
Interspecific association was used to group
54 aquatic plant species found in 68 Wis¬
consin lakes. This study builds on past stud¬
ies by using both inlake (ie., substate, depth,
and interspecific interaction) and between-
lake (i.e., water chemistry and water clarity)
habitat variation to interpret species groupings.
Methods and Analysis
Between 1975 and 1983 detailed macro¬
phyte surveys were completed for 68 Wis¬
consin lakes (Appendix A). The lakes were
sampled by Wisconsin Department of Nat-
111
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Fig. 1. Location of sampled lakes showing
different lake types
ural Resources (WDNR) field staff or by pri¬
vate consultants for the WDNR Office of In¬
land Lake Renewal. The primary purpose of
the surveys was to design lake-management
strategies or to collect benchmark limno¬
logical data.
The lakes represent a broad range of Wis¬
consin lake types with regard to geographic
distribution (Fig. 1), chemical and physical
parameters, and human impact. Physical and
chemical data were collected during macro¬
phyte sampling or were collected earlier as
part of surface-water resource inventories of
each county (Appendix A).
Field methods
To assure geographic coverage of a lake,
sampling points were selected using a grid
system. Grid size and the number of sam¬
pling points per lake varied with lake size;
i.e., larger lakes contained more sampling
points on a larger grid. All plants within a
2-m diameter circle around the sampling point
were recorded and were assigned a 1-5 den¬
sity rank based on criteria established by les¬
sen and Lound (1962). Species not identified
in the field were collected and sent to the
Wisconsin Geological and Natural History
Survey for identification. Specimens were then
sent to the University of Wisconsin-Madison
herbarium as voucher specimens.
Analysis
Initially all taxa that were not identified to
species except for Char a spp. and Nitella
spp. and all taxa that had less than 15 total
occurrences in the 8419 quadrats sampled
were eliminated from further analysis. For
the remaining species the joint occurrence
in all quadrats for each species pair was
summed, Cole’s index (Cox 1967) of asso¬
ciation was calculated (Appendix B), and chi-
square was used to test the significance of
the association. Bonferroni’s correction
(Snedecor and Cochran 1980) was used to
account for random co-occurrence in the data.
A chi-square value of 20, corresponding
roughly to p = 0.00001, was used to deter¬
mine significance of the association. This en¬
sured an experiment- wise error rate of 0.05.
If a species did not have a significant asso¬
ciation with at least four species and an ab¬
solute sum of Cole’s index values of at least
1.5, it was eliminated from further consid¬
eration. Ward’s minimum variance cluster
analysis (SAS 1985) was used to group the
remaining 54 species. The absolute value of
(Cole’s index- 1) was the distance measure
used for clustering. This facilitated calcula¬
tions by changing all distances to positive
values and by assigning larger numbers to
more dissimilar species. An importance value
for each species in each lake was calculated
by multiplying relative species frequency by
average ranked species density. Theoreti¬
cally, importance values could range from 0
to 500. Only sampling points with vegetation
were used when calculating importance value.
Lakes were also clustered using Ward’s
minimum variance cluster analysis. The pa¬
rameters compared by cluster analysis were
total alkalinity, pH, total phosphorus, spe¬
cific conductance, water color, secchi depth,
chloride, free carbon dioxide, water fluctua¬
tion, and whether the water body was a lake
112
Interspecific Associations of Some Wisconsin Lake Plants
or reservoir. Lake clusters were compared to
species clusters to examine patterns that might
be attributable to habitat.
Correlation of importance values across
lakes for all species pairs with a Cole’s index
greater than ±0.5 was used to determine
whether there might be species interactions
shown by differing species abundances. Both
Cole’s index and correlation analysis test for
association among species. Cole’s index tests
association based only on the presence or
absence of two species in a quadrat; corre¬
lation analysis tests association based on the
abundance of two species in lakes where they
occur together.
Results
Species commonness
Ceratophyllum demersum is by far the most
common species, occurring at nearly twice
as many sampling points as the next most
frequent species (Table 1). Only six other
VdX'd —Chara spp., Elodea canadensis, Na-
jas flexilis, Potamogeton zosteriformis , Val-
lisneria americana and Myriophyllum exal-
bescens — occurred at more than 10% of the
sampling points (Table 1). More than one-
third or 38 or the 111 taxa identified had less
than 15 total occurrences. These species were
eliminated from further consideration be¬
cause their Cole’s index could not be ade¬
quately tested using chi-square.
Coleys Index of Association
Of the remaining 73 species, Cole’s index
showed that 19 species did not commonly
associate with many species or at a very high
level. These species (Table 1) were elimi¬
nated from the cluster analysis because they
did not meet the arbitrary criteria of associ¬
ating with four other species and having an
absolute sum of 1 .5 for Cole’s index values.
However, it may be significant that they do
not associate with other species. Potential
causes for low association are discussed later.
As might be expected from the most com¬
mon species, C. demersum was associated
with the greatest number of species
(Appendix B). It was associated with 38 other
species. Chara spp., Brasenia schreberi, and
Nymphaea odorata were associated with 25
or more species. C. echinatum, Megalodonta
beckii, P. berchtoldii, P. diver sifolius, P.
nodosus, P. oakesianus, P. pusillus, P. stric-
tifolius, P. vaginatus, Ranunculus longiros-
tris, Sagittaria latifolia, S. rigida, Typha la-
tifolia, Utricularia geminiscapa, and U.
intermedia showed only positive association
with other species. Chara spp. was nega¬
tively associated with 20 species and had no
positive associations greater than 0.5.
Species clusters
An analysis of pseudo F/pseudo t2 provides
a guideline for determining optimum cluster
numbers (SAS 1985). This ratio indicates that
45, 32, 1 1 , and 4 clusters might be optimum.
It seems reasonable that there is more infor¬
mation about a cluster if the number of clus¬
ters is small and the species number per clus¬
ter is large. Therefore, for most purposes,
four clusters (Fig. 2) were used to determine
what adaptations, interactions, or habitat
preferences might cause the groups to form.
Each cluster could form for different reasons.
Because of the individualistic nature of spe¬
cies, each cluster is not a unique entity that
requires the rigid faithfulness of each species.
Therefore, the clustering dendogram (Fig. 2)
is included so that species associations can
be examined without the constraint of the
four-cluster classification structure.
Analyzing the cause of species groups
Correlation Analysis. No significant
negative correlations between species pairs
were found. Deciding whether a negative
correlation was caused by competition, al¬
lelopathy, or unique and very different hab¬
itat requirements is, therefore, a moot point.
Because macrophyte community dynamics
that appear to be caused by species compe¬
tition and replacement of Chara spp. and
Najas flexilis have been described (Nichols
1984; and Engel and Nichols 1984), and be-
113
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Table 1 . Species Occurrence
% Quads
% Lakes
Species
Occur
Occur
SPECIES OCCURRING
SPECIES OCCURRING IN >15 QUADS BUT
> 10% OF QUADS
<1% OF QUADS
Ceratophyllum demersum
34.1%
66.2%
Ceratophyllum echinatum
Chara spp.
18.5%
52.9%
Dulichium arundinaceum
Potamogeton zosteriformis
16.8%
60.3%
Eleocharis acicularis
Elodea canadensis
16.4%
67.6% *
Eleocharis palustris
Najas flexilis
14.0%
61.8% *
Eleocharis robbinsii
Vallisneria americana
13.8%
64.7%
Eriocaulon septangulare
Myriophyllum exalbescens
11.9%
41.2% *
Isoetes echinospora
Isoetes macrospora
SPECIES OCCURRING IN
1 %— 1 0% OF QUADS
*
Lobelia dortmanna
Potamogeton richardsonnii
8.9%
45.6% *
Myriophyllum tenellum
Myriophyllum verticillatum
8.8%
17.6% *
Nuphar advena
Potamogeton amplifolius
8.4%
64.7%
Potamogeton diversifolius
Potamogeton robbinsii
8.2%
29.4% *
Potamogeton epihydrus
Potamogeton pectinatus
8.0%
47.1% *
Potamogeton filiformis
Potamogeton praelongus
7.4%
30.9%
Potamogeton nodosus
Nuphar variegatum
7.0%
57.4%
Potamogeton oakesianus
Nymphaea tuberosa
6.5%
38.2% *
Potamogeton obtusifolius
Myriophyllum spicatum
5.8%
13.2%
Potamogeton strictifolius
Heteranthera dubia
5.7%
38.2%
Ranunculus longirostris
Brasenia schreberi
5.1%
23.5% *
Ranunculus reptans
Potamogeton gramineus
4.9%
35.3% *
Ranunculus trichophyllus
Potamogeton crispus
4.7%
26.5% *
Sagittaria graminea
Nymphaea odorata
4.4%
25.0%
Sagittaria latifolia
Scirpus validus
4.2%
38.2%
Sagittaria rigida
Potamogeton natans
4.2%
41.2% *
Scirpus americanus
Lemna minor
4.2%
20.6% *
Sparganium chlorocarpum
Lemna trisulca
3.8%
14.7%
Sparganium eurycarpum
Potamogeton pusillus
3.3%
22.1%
Utricularia intermedia
Potamogeton foliosus
2.9%
13.2% *
Zanichellia palustris
Potamogeton illinoensis
2.4%
22.1%
Megalodanta beckii
2.0%
13.2%
* Pontederia cordata
1 .9%
29.4%
Myriophyllum heterophyllum
1 .7%
2.9%
* Nitella spp.
1 .7%
17.6%
Wolfia Columbiana
1 .6%
4.4%
Typha latifolia
1 .5%
27.9%
Utricularia vulgaris
1 .5%
5.9%
Spirodela polyrhiza
1 .4%
8.8%
Potamogeton berchtoldii
1 .4%
7.4%
Polygonum amphibium
1 .3%
8.8%
* Zizania aquatica
1 .2%
13.2%
Myriophyllum farwellii
1 .2%
1.5%
Utricularia gibba
1.1%
1.5%
* Najas marina
1.1%
4.4%
Utricularia geminiscapa
1 .0%
2.9%
Potamogeton vaginatus
1 .0%
2.9%
TOTAL QUADS
8419
TOTAL 68
* Species deleted from cluster analysis because of low association
114
Interspecific Associations of Some Wisconsin Lake Plants
0.00
Semi-partial R2
0.02 0.04 0.06
0.08
0.10
0.12
Chara spp.
Scirpus validus
Myriophyllum spicatum
Potamogeton pectinatus
Potamogeton gramineus
Najas flexilis
Potamogeton strictifolius
Potamogeton illinoensis
Eleocharis acicularis
Erioeaulon septangulare
Isoetes macrospora
Myriophyllum exalbescens
Potamogeton praelongus
Potamogeton amplifolius
Potamogeton robbinsii
Nuphar variegatum
Nymphaea tuberosa
Polygonum amphibium
Heteranthera dubia
Potamogeton nodosus
Potamogeton berchtoldii
Vallisneria americana
Megalodonta beckii
Potamogeton richardsonii
Myriophyllum verticillatum
Utricularia geminiscapa
Brasenia schreberi
Potamogeton oakesianus
Myriophyllum farwelli
Utricularia gibba
Utricularia intermedia
Ceratophyllum echinatum
Utricularia vulgaris
Nymphaea odorata
Dulichium arundinaceum
Sagittaria rigida
Myriophyllum heterophyllum
Potamogeton natans
Potamogeton pusillus
Sparganium chlorocarpum
Ceratophyllum demersum
Potamogeton vaginatus
Potamogeton foliosus
Potamogeton crispus
Elodea canadensis
Sagittaria latifolia
Typha latifolia
Lemna minor
WolJJia columbiana
Potamogeton diversifolius
Spirodela polyrim
Lemna trisulca
Potamogeton zosteriformes
Ranunculus longirostris
Fig. 2. Dendrogram of Ward’s Cluster Analysis
115
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
cause there are a great number of negative
associations with Chara spp. (Appendix B),
correlation analysis was further used to test
the hypothesis that competition is the result
of the combined importance of other species
with Chara and N. flexilis rather than com¬
petition between individual species. The cor¬
relation between the importance of Chara
spp. and all other species in a lake was sig¬
nificant (p<0.05) but low (r= -0.29, n = 68);
the correlation between the importance of N.
flexilis and all other species was not significant.
Significant positive correlations were found
between 23 species pairs (Fig. 3). The ma¬
jority of the species pairs belong to species
Group III. There are no Group II species
pairs; one Group I species pair and eight
Group IV species pairs showed significant
correlation. Most of the Group IV species
involve small free-floating plants such as
Lemna spp., Spirodela polyrhiza, and Wolf-
fia columbiana. Later discussions will try to
establish whether beneficial interactions or
similarity in adaptations or habitat preference
is the primary cause for positive correlations.
Habitat preference. Median alkalinity,
pH, specific conductance, secchi disk, and
free C02 values were calculated for each spe¬
cies that occurred in five or more lakes. These
values were compared across species groups
(Fig. 4). In addition, species substrate pref¬
erence, turbidity tolerance, and median depth
of growth (Nichols in prep.) were added to
the figure.
Group III species are found in the lowest
alkalinity, pH, and conductivity waters of the
four species groups. They are also found in
the most clear waters. All species except Po-
tamogeton oakesianus prefer soft substrate or
show no substrate preference. All species are
tolerant of turbid water, show no turbidity
preference, or the preference is unknown.
Group II species are found in more alkaline
water with a higher pH and conductivity.
They show little preference pattern for sub¬
strate or turbidity tolerance.
There appears to be little difference in the
chemical regime between Group I and Group
IV species. These groups occupy the most
alkaline and the highest conductivity waters.
Group I species generally prefer hard sub¬
strates and non-turbid water or they show no
preference. They are also found in the highest
pH water. Group IV species prefer soft sub¬
strates, but the turbidity tolerance is mixed.
Group IV is found growing in the most shal¬
low water, but the depth range is broad. The
growth depth of the other three groups is
similar.
Relating species clusters to lake clus¬
ters. Various investigators have correlated
the distribution of aquatic plant species with
single environmental gradients (see intro¬
duction). Community type is more likely af¬
fected by a complex of interacting factors.
However, analyzing and describing a com¬
plex habitat is difficult. To approach the
problem, multivariate (i.e., Ward’s) cluster
analysis was used to define three lake groups
(Groups A, B, and C, Fig. 5). The lake groups
are roughly geographically distributed in the
state (Fig. 1). Total alkalinity and specific
conductance are the two parameters that show
the most unique distribution among the three
groups (Fig. 5).
Group A lakes are located in northeast and
north-central Wisconsin. They are lowest in
total alkalinity and specific conductance.
Group B lakes are more scattered geograph¬
ically, but many are found in northwestern
Wisconsin. They are medium in specific con¬
ductance and alkalinity. Group C lakes occur
most frequently in southeastern Wisconsin.
They have higher total alkalinity and specific
conductance and lower maximum secchi and
free C02 levels than the other two lake groups.
The average importance value per species
was compared for each species group in each
lake group via a t-test (Table 2). Each species
group — except for species Group II in lake
Groups A and B and species Group III in
lake Groups A and C — showed significantly
different average importance in each lake
group (experiment-wise p<0.05; see pre¬
vious reference to Bonferroni’s correction).
The average importance of species in Groups
116
Interspecific Associations of Some Wisconsin Lake Plants
Char a spp .
□ -
Scirpus validus
-□
Utricularia gibba
Potamogeton
oakesianus
$>
Brasenia schreberi
Myriophyllum farwelli
Utricularia intermedia
Ceratophyllum echinatum
Ceratophyllum demersum
_
Lemna trisulca
Lemna minor
Potamogeton vaginatus
^
Spirodela
polyrhiza
Potamogeton diversifolius
Wolfia Columbiana
1 unit
□ Group I species Q Group III species /\ Group IV species
Fig. 3. Species constellations based on positive correlations
117
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters
TOTAL ALKALINITY
GROUP I
GROUP II
GROUP III
GROUP IV
I -
I
I -
(“[ +======)===]
I -
( [====+=========) ] x
(—[+===)===] - 1
- ,__x
- 1
mg/1 CaC03
IIIIIIIIIIIIII
10 50 100 140
PH
GROUP I I - [(====+==]—) - 1
GROUP II I - [==(=====+==]—)— - 1
GROUP III I - [(====+] - )i
GROUP IV I ( - [==+========) =====]-• - 1
UNITS
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
6.8 7.0 7.5 8.0 8.4
SPECIFIC CONDUCTANCE
GROUP I
GROUP II
GROUP III
GROUP IV
I - ( - [ ===+========= )=] - 1
I - - - ([_+—)«] - 1
I“( - [+=======)===] - - - 1
I - (”[+==)===] - -I
umhos/cm
I
20
I I I I I
100
I I I I I
200
I
I
I I
300
SECCHI
GROUP I I - ■-[(=+==)] - 1
GROUP II I - [==( + ) ] - 1
GROUP III I - ( — [=====+====] — )I
GROUP IV I - [ (====+=====) ==] I
m
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
1.2 2.0 3.0
FREE C02
GROUP I
GROUP II
GROUP III
GROUP IV
I - ([ + ) ] - 1
I - [=(==+==) ] - 1
I- ( [=====+=====) ====] — — - -I
I - (-[===+====)=] - 1
mg/1
IIIIIIIIIIII
1.0 5.0 10.0
Fig. 4. Habitat values for species clusters
I and IV increased from lake Groups A to C.
The average importance for species Group III
dropped from Group A to Group B and then
increased slightly in Group C lakes. The av¬
erage importance of Group II species de¬
creased in Group C lakes. Species Group I
and IV never showed significant differences
between each other within the same lake group.
The average importance within Group A lakes
is very similar. Group II and Group III spe¬
cies are significantly different only in Group B
lakes.
This analysis supports results from the pre¬
vious section. Group III species prefer low
alkalinity, low specific conductance habitats.
Group II species prefer medium alkalinity and
specific conductance habitats. The water
chemistry preference between species Group
I and IV are similar. Both prefer the highest
alkalinity and specific conductance habitats.
118
Interspecific Associations of Some Wisconsin Lake Plants
DEPTH OF OCCURRENCE
GROUP I !”■ - - - ( — [==+====)] - 1
GROUP II I” [== (==+==) =====] - -I
GROUP III I - - - [(=+==)==] - - - 1
GROUP IV I — [ (================+================) ] - I
Hi IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
0.2 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0
TURBIDITY
NUMBER OF SPECIES
TOLERANT
NO
PREFERENCE
INTOLERANT
GROUP 10 2
GROUP II 5 4
GROUP III 5 1
GROUP IV 4 2
5
7
0
2
SUBSTRATE PREFERENCE
NUMBER OF SPECIES
HARD
NO
PREFERENCE SOFT
GROUP 14 4
GROUP II 6 4
GROUP III 1 4
GROUP IV 0 3
0
8
9
7
Boxplot definitions follow Reckow and Chapra, 1983
I -Minimum or maximum, [-25% quartile, ] -75% quartile,
() -notch, +-median.
Fig. 4, continued
Extreme caution is necessary when inter¬
preting these data. Char a spp. is so important
in species Group I and C. demersum in spe¬
cies Group IV that the average importance
of the group is largely influenced by these
two species (Table 3). C. demersum is so
pervasive that it is the most important species
in Group A and B lakes even though it does
not reach its maximum importance until lake
Group C. Table 3 also shows how faithful
each species is to the group preference.
Discussion and Interpretation
Non-associating species
Species that meet the criteria for com¬
monness but show low association with other
species tend to grow in monotypes or clumps
in unique habitats that may not be conducive
to more varied plant growth.
Isoetes echinospora, Lobelia dortmanna,
Myriophyllum tenellum, Rannunculus rep-
tans, R. trichophyllus , Potamogeton epihy-
drus, and P. obtusifolius are plants of soft,
sterile water (Moyle 1945; Swindale and Curtis
1957) and hard bottoms (Nichols in prep.).
Because they prefer similar habitats and in
some cases have a similar growth form, it is
surprising they do not associate with each
other. However, it is not unusual for species
of comparable growth form and habitat not
to be found in the same lake (Seddon 1972)
and not to associate with each other when
they are found in the same lake (Carpenter
and Titus 1984). Colonization pattern, co¬
lonial growth, or competition are plausible
explanation for this segregation (Carpenter
and Titus 1984). Seddon (1972) interprets
this group as having a wide habitat tolerance
119
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
TOTAL
ALKALINITY
GROUP A
I-[(+=)]— I
GROUP B
I— [(=+)]— I
GROUP C
I - [ (==+===)=] - - —
— I
mg/1
IIIIIIIIIIIIIII
I I
CaC03
0 100 200 300
pH I
GROUP A
GROUP B
! - ‘c(=!=)3;--" - --1 x
GROUP C
i - [(+=)] - 1
! UNITS
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
6.0 7.0 8.0 9.0 10.
, 0
SPECIFIC CONDUCTANCE
GROUP A
I-[(+)]“I
GROUP B
I-[=(==+=]) - 1
GROUP C
I- ([=+==) ] - - - —
umhos/cm
IIIIIIIIIIIIIII
III
2 5°C
0 200 400 600
800
SECCHI
GROUP A
I “ [====== (=====+=====] ) — — -
GROUP B
I - — —[=(===+===)===] - - -
-I
i GROUP C
I [ (====+=====) ] -I
| m
IIIIIIIIIII
I I
0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0
6.0
FREE CO2
GROUP A
1“ ([=+==)===] - -I
GROUP B
I [=(==+===) ====] - - 1
GROUP C
![( + )] - — T“ I
mg/1
IIIIIIIIIII
0 10 20 30 40 50
Boxplot definitions follow Reckow and Chapra,1983
I-Minimum
or maximum, [-25% quartile, ]-75% quartile,
( ) -notch,
+-median.
Fig. 5. Limnological characteristics of lake groups
but being excluded from more productive sites
by competition rather than physiological lim¬
itation. Correlation analysis done in this study
could not confirm competition, but these plants
are so limited in distribution and have such
a low importance value when they are found
that correlation analysis does not provide an
adequate test of their behavior.
Zizania aquatica, Eleocharis palustris, E.
robbinsii, Pontederia cordata and Scirpus
americanus are emergent species that often
grow in monotypes, in shallow water, and
120
Interspecific Associations of Some Wisconsin Lake Plants
Table 2
Lake Group
Species A
Group
I 1.1
II 1.7
III 1.4
IV 1.5
B
= 3.6
t-2.0 —
p0.2 J
L3.7 —
L— 0.6-
5.1:
Lake Group
Species
Group
A
B
C
1 1 -
1.1
3.6
1
1
7.0
... .1
II
l -
1.7
2.0
1
°;8
III
1 -
1.4
l
0.2
1
0.6
1
IV
1 1 -
1.5
3.7
1
5.1
1 _ - _ 1
[ 1 ' = Experiment-wise t values significant at p<0.05
on beaches. Najas marina was found in three
southeastern Wisconsin lakes with extremely
high alkalinity and conductivity.
It is possible that non-association could
also be an artifact of the sampling procedure.
Association analysis is sensitive to quadrat
size (Grieg-Smith 1964). The sample area
(i.e., a 2-m diameter circle) may not be ap¬
propriate for studying association in mono-
typic or colonial growth patterns.
Species interactions
Despite laboratory studies (Agami and
Waisel 1985) and field observations (Engel
and Nichols 1984; Nichols 1984; Seddon 1972)
that support competition among aquatic spe¬
cies, data from this study support observation
by McCreary et al. (1983) and Titus and Ste¬
phens (1983), who found little competition
among selected aquatic species in transplant
experiments.
The hypothesis that the positive correlation
between species is the result of specific hab¬
itat requirements beneficial to both species is
favored, especially for Group III species.
Growth in soft water, typical of the habitat
where Group III species are found, is de¬
pauperate and localized to areas of more fer¬
tile substrate (Moyle 1945). If all species in
a lake are localized to a few areas of suitable
substrate, their growth will appear corre¬
lated. All but one Group III species prefer
soft sediments.
A stronger case for a passive mutualism
or commensalism could be made for the pos¬
itive correlation between Lemnaceae and other
species. Larger species could provide pro¬
tection from wind, waves, and current for
these small, free-floating plants. However,
they are not correlated with species in other
plant groups that would offer them as much
protection as Group IV species, and they are
correlated with each other. One Lemnaceae
species does not provide much protection to
another species, although they could be dis¬
tributed to the same location by wind or cur¬
rent. Specific habitat requirements, which will
be discussed later, is the preferred explana¬
tion for the correlation among these species.
Species-habitat groups
The species groups formed appear to be
the result of similar habitat preferences.
Group III species were found in the lowest
alkalinity, pH, and conductivity waters. Then-
growth is depauperate and is likely due to
the infertility of the water where they are
commonly found. They generally prefer soft
substrate. Except for Myriophyllum hetero-
phyllum and Potamogeton pusillus, Group ID
species show their best growth in Group A
lakes. The preferred habitat for P. oakesi-
anus, the only Group III species to prefer
hard bottom, is sandy bottom, low alkalinity
ponds (Hellquist 1980). The main difference
between Group III species and the soft-water
species that show no association is the pref¬
erence of Group III species for soft sub¬
strates. Although pH and water-color data are
121
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters
Table 3. Average Importance Value (IV) of Species by Lake Group
Group A
Lakes
Group B
Lakes
Group C
Lakes
Group
Chara spp
1.7
7.8
36.0
1
Scirpus validus
0.5
0.5
3.1
Species
Myriophyllum spicatum
1.9
10.6
6.1
Potamogeton pectinatus
0.0
1.8
4.9
Potamogeton gramineus
1.6
0.8
0.0
Najas flexilis
3.2
6.4
5.5
Potamogeton strictifolius
0.0
0.1
0.0
Potamogeton illinoensis
0.1
0.6
0.1
Group Ave. IV
1.1
3.6
7.0
Group
Eleocharis acicularis
0.3
0.0
0.0
II
Eriocaulon septangulare
0.6
0.0
0.0
Species
Isoetes macrospora
0.5
0.0
0.0
Myriophyllum exalbescens
4.7
7.1
7.8
Potamogeton praelongus
0.9
1.4
4.5
Potamogeton amplifolius
3.4
3.0
0.0
Potamogeton robbinsii
5.3
4.5
0.0
Nuphar variegatum
7.8
1.2
1.0
Nymphaea tuberosa
0.7
1.8
0.6
Polygonum amphibium
0.2
0.4
0.0
Heteranthera dubia
0.1
1.7
1.0
Potamogeton nodosus
0.0
0.0
0.0
Potamogeton berchtoldii
0.1
0.1
0.0
Vallisneria americana
4.5
7.2
0.1
Megalodonta beckii
0.1
0.2
0.0
Potamogeton richardsonii
1.4
3.8
0.0
Myriophyllum verticillatum
0.0
4.0
0.1
Utricularia geminiscapa
0.0
0.0
0.0
Group Ave. IV
1.7
2.0
0.8
Group
Brasenia schreberi
7.7
0.3
0.0
III
Potamogeton oakesianus
0.0
0.0
0.0
Species
Myriophyllum farwelli
1.5
0.0
0.0
Utricularia gibba
1.4
0.0
0.0
Utricularia intermedia
0.8
0.0
0.0
Ceratophyllum echinatum
0.1
0.0
0.0
Utricularia vulgaris
1.7
0.0
0.0
Nymphaea odorata
5.0
0.0
0.1
Dulichium arundinaceum
0.2
0.0
0.0
Sagittaria rigida
0.0
0.0
0.0
Myriophyllum heterophyllum
0.0
1.6
4.7
Potamogeton natans
0.3
0.9
0.8
Potamogeton pusillus
0.3
0.2
3.4
Sparganium chlorocarpum
0.0
0.0
0.0
Group Ave. IV
1.4
0.2
0.7
too scant to confirm it, Group III species ap¬
pear more characteristic of bog or dystrophic
conditions than the non-associated, soft-water
species.
Group I and IV species are found in the
highest pH, alkalinity, and conductivity
waters. Water chemistry preference between
the two groups is similar, but they are the
two most dissimilar groups in regard to spe¬
cies association. Substrate preference and
122
Interspecific Associations of Some Wisconsin Lake Plants
Table 3 (continued). Average Importance Value (IV) of Species by Lake Group
Group A
Lakes
Group B
Lakes
Group C
Lakes
Group
Ceratophyllum demersum
12.0
25.0
31.9
IV
Potamogeton vaginatus
0.0
0.0
0.8
Species
Potamogeton foliosus
0.2
0.0
9.4
Potamogeton crispus
0.0
5.8
9.0
Elodea canadensis
6.2
12.1
2.9
Sagittaria latifolia
0.0
0.0
0.2
Typha latifolia
0.1
0.1
0.4
Lemna minor
0.4
0.4
4.5
Wolffia columbiana
0.2
0.0
2.8
Potamogeton diversifolius
0.0
0.0
0.3
Spirodela polyrhiza
0.2
0.2
0.8
Lemna trisulca
0.0
1.0
0.8
Potamogeton zosteriformis
2.0
7.8
7.7
Ranunculus longirostris
0.0
0.0
0.0
Group Ave. IV
1.5
3.7
5.1
turbidity tolerance are important differences
between the groups.
Lemna minor, L. trisulca, Wolffia Col¬
umbiana, and Spirodela polyrhiza are asso¬
ciated with Group IV species. Their free-
floating habit gives them the ultimate turbid¬
ity tolerance; they are found in quiet water
over fertile bottoms (Moyle 1945).
Marl bottoms frequently have a flora of
Chara spp., Najas flexilis, and Potamogeton
pectinatus (Moyle 1945). These three species
are associated in Group I and may represent
the plant community found in the highest pH,
alkalinity, and conductivity waters in
Wisconsin.
The habitat preference of Group II species
are less well defined. They prefer interme¬
diate water chemistries and have mixed sub¬
strate and turbidity preference. There is no
consistent pattern of habitat or adaptation that
provides a good explanation for this group.
For example, Eleocharis acicularis, Erio-
caulon septangular e , and Isoetes macros -
pora, which grow best in Group A lakes on
hard substrate, and are often grouped with
the unassociated, soft- water species (Moyle
1945; Swindale and Curtis 1957), are closely
linked with Myriophyllum exalbescens and
Potamogeton praelongus, which grow best
in Group C lakes and prefer soft bottom but
are not turbidity tolerant.
Certainly there are growth-forms, adap¬
tations, or habitat preference that could be
used as arguments to subdivide this group.
The Nuphar variegatum, Nymphaea tuber -
osa, and Polygonum amphibium are all float¬
ing leaved species that prefer soft substrate.
Potamogeton nodosus, P. berchtoldii, and
Vallisneria americana prefer hard substrate,
but show mixed turbidity preference. Perhaps
the best explanation is that Group II is an
intermediate group that fits into the contin¬
uum concept of plant community structure
(Curtis 1959) and is found in other studies
of aquatic vegetation (Pip 1979; Moyle 1945).
This study found that only a few taxa were
commonly found in sampled lakes; a large
number were infrequently found. Species
groups can be explained by species adapta¬
tion and habitat preference. Many unasso¬
ciated species are found in low pH, alkalin¬
ity, and conductivity water, and on hard
substrates. One associated group is also found
in low pH, alkalinity, and conductivity water
but is common on soft substrates and is tur¬
bidity tolerant. Two other groups are found
in similar water chemistries. They prefer high
pH, alkalinity, and conductivity waters. They
appear to be separated by substrate prefer¬
ence and turbidity tolerance. A final plant
123
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
group is found in intermediate water chem¬
istries, but further reason for the groups’ ex¬
istence is not clear.
Acknowledgments
Murray Clayton, Peter Crump, and Em¬
manuel Maurice of the University of
Wisconsin-Madison College of Agriculture
and Life Sciences provided statistical and
computing assistance. Sandy Engel and
Richard Lillie of the Wisconsin Department
of Natural Resources critically reviewed the
manuscript. The Wisconsin Department of
Natural Resources provided lake vegetation
and water chemistry data. The Institute for
Environmental Studies, University of
Wisconsin-Madison provided partial funding
for data entry and analysis.
124
Interspecific Associations of Some Wisconsin Lake Plants
Appendix A. Sampled Lakes*
Lake Name
County
Lake Name
County
GROUP A LAKES
GROUP B LAKES (CONT.)
Allequash Lake
Vilas
Little Elkhart Lake
Sheboygan
Amnicon Lake
Douglas
Moon Lake
Marinette
Bear Lake
Oneida
Mount Morris Lake
Waushara
Bear Paw Lake
Oconto
Mud Hen Lake
Burnett
Chain Lake
Chippewa
Okauchee Lake
Waukesha
Clear Lake T39 R7S16
Oneida
Pearl Lake
Waushara
Decorah Lake
Juneau
Pike Lake
Polk
Devils
Sauk
Pine Lake
Waukesha
Dowling Lake
Douglas
Rib Lake
Taylor
Enterprise Lake
Langlade
Rolling Stone Lake
Langlade
Frank Lake
Vilas
Round Lake
Polk
Half Moon Lake T47 R8S17
Bayfield
Twin Lake, North
Polk
Island Lake
Rusk
Twin Lake, South
Polk
Little Arbor Vitae Lake
Vilas
White Ash Lake
Polk
Long Lake T20 R09S17
Waushara
White Ash Lake, North
Polk
Long Lake T32 R8 S8
Chippewa
McCann Lake
Rusk
GROUP C LAKES
Mid Lake
Oneida
Muskellunge Lake
Lincoln
Ashippun Lake
Waukesha
Perch Lake T45 R7 S5
Bayfield
Black Otter Lake
Outagamie
Pine Lake
Forest
Como Lake
Walworth
Pine Lake
Chippewa
Ennis Lake
Marquette
Post Lake, Upper
Langlade
Lazy Lake
Columbia
Prong Lake
Vilas
Leota Lake
Rock
Tahkodah Lake
Bayfield
Oconomowoc Lake, Upper
Waukesha
Town Line Lake
Chippewa
Ottawa Lake
Waukesha
Pigeon Lake
Waupaca
GROUP B LAKES
Pretty Lake
Waukesha
Silver Lake (Anderson) T22
Waupaca
Anodanta Lake
Bayfield
Tichigan Lake
Racine
Apple River Flowage
Polk
Vienna Lake (Honey)
Walworth
Balsam Lake
Polk
Big Butternut Lake
Polk
Big Hills Lake
Waushara
Blake Lake
Polk
Bone Lake
Polk
Cary Pond
Waupaca
Cedar Lake
Polk
Chute Pond
Oconto
Clear Lake
Rusk
George Lake
Kenosha
Half Moon Lake
Polk
Helen Lake
Portage
* PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL PARAMETERS AVAILABLE
FROM WISCONSIN DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESOURCES
SURFACE WATER INVENTORY FILE
125
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Appendix B. Cole’s Index Values*
APPENDIX B. COLE’S INDEX VALUES
Species
no.
Chara spp.
Brasenia schreberi
Ceratophyllum demersum
Ceratophyllum echinatum
Dulichium arundinaceum
Eleocharis acicularis
994 -0.85
1801 -0.64
1804 0
2515 0
2566 0
Elodea canadensis 2623
Eriocaulon septangulare 2800
Heteranthera dubia 3487
Isoetes macrospora 3697
Lemna minor 3937
Lemna trisulca 3943
Megalodonta beckii 4405
Myriophyllum exalbescens 4594
Myriophyllum farwellii 4597
Myriophyllum heterophyllum4600
Myriophyllum spicatum 4603
Myriophyllum verticillatum 4609
Najas flexilis 4618
Nuphar variegatum 4663
Nymphaea tuberosa 4666
Nymphaea odorata 4669
Polygonum amphibium 5263
Potamogeton amplifolius 5383
Potamogeton berchtoldi 5386
Potamogeton crispus 5395
Potamogeton diversifolius 5398
Potamogeton foliosus 5404
Potamogeton gramineus 5410
Potamogeton illinoensis 5413
Potamogeton natans 5416
Potamogeton nodosus 5419
Potamogeton oakesianus 5420
Potamogeton pectinatus 5422
Potamogeton praelongus 5425
Potamogeton pusillus 5431
Potamogeton richardsonii 5434
Potamogeton robbinsii 5437
Potamogeton strictifolius 5440
Potamogeton vaginatus 5443
Potamogeton zosteriformis 5449
Ranunculus longirostris 5710
Sagittaria latifolia 6088
Sagittaria rigida 6091
Scirpus validus 6304
Sparganium chlorocarpum 6664
Spirodela polyrhiza 6730
Typha latifolia 7078
Utricularia geminiscapa 71 1 4
Utricularia gibba 7117
Utricularia intermedia 7120
Utricularia vulgaris 7132
Vallisneria americana 71 77
Wolffia Columbiana 7450
-0.58
0
-0.54
0
-0.97
-0.80
0
0
-1.00
-0.96
0
0
0.09
0
-0.45
-0.88
-0.95
-0.41
0
0
0
-0.66
0
0
0
0.50
0
-1.00
0
0
-1.00
0
0
-1.00
994
-0.57
0.58
0.52
0.15
-0.66
0.46
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.43
0
-0.88
-0.97
-0.61
0.17
0.16
0.34
0.60
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0.06
0
0.83
0
-0.78
0.12
0
0
0
0
-0.69
0
0
0.35
0
0.53
0
0
0
0.66
0.79
0.70
-0.63
0
1801
0
-1.00
-0.90
0.35
-0.95
0.40
-0.95
0.83
0.71
0.28
0.19
-0.64
0.81
0
0.35
-0.52
0
0.16
0
-0.68
0
0.37
0.47
0.75
0.59
-0.41
0
0
0
0.14
0.18
0.25
0.17
0
0
0.98
0.35
0.78
0
0
-0.63
0
0.86
0
0.57
-0.72
0
-0.93
0
0.90
1804
2515
1 2566
0.39 1 2623
0 0.08 1
0 0 0 1
0 0.10 0.08 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0.40
0 0 0 0.17
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 -0.31
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0.96 0.51 0 0
0.27 0.35 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0.22
0 0 0 0.40
0 0 0 0.52
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0.42 0.13 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0.08
0.67 0.21 0 0
0 0 0 0.13
0 0 0 0.12
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0.84
0 0 0 0.14
0 0 0 0
0 0.14 0 0.49
0.20 0.22 0 0
0 0 0 -0.83
0.28 0.26 0 0
0 0 0 0.25
0 0 0 0.31
o o o a
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
1.00 0.43 0 -1.00
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
2800
3487
1 3697
0 1 3937
0.10 0 1
0 0 0 1
0 0.27 0 0.14
0 0.28 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0.27 0 -0.84
0 0.14 0 -0.78
0 0 0 0
0.18 0.15 0 0
0 0 0 0.14
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0.11 0 0
0 0 0 0.27
0 0 0 0.73
0 0 0 0.40
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0.13 0 0
0 0.39 0 0.24
0 0 0 0
0 0.08 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0.10 0 0
0 0 0 -0.91
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0.82
0 0.17 0 0.24
0 0 0 0.30
0 0 0 0.46
0 0 0 0.28
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0.86
0 0 0 0.41
0 0.35 0 0
0.10 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0.09 0 -0.67
0 0 0 0.90
3943
4405
1 4594
0.24 1
0 0 1
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0.31 0.27 -0.74
0 0.17 -0.52
0 0 0
0.24 0.26 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0.19 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0.21 0 0
0 0 0
0 0.13 -0.73
0 0 0
0 0.10 -0.69
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0.10
0.15 0.19 0.12
0.07 0.15 0
0 0.23 0.11
0 0.13 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0.30 0.20 0.13
0.35 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 -0.76
0 0 0
0.22 0 0
0 0 0
0.30 0.30 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0.08
0.27 0 0
4597
1 4603
0 1
0 0 1
0 0 0
0 -1.00 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 -1.00
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0.09
0 0 0.24
0 0.12 0
0 0 0
0.36 0 0
0 0 0.13
0 0 -0.78
0 0.36 0
0 0.17 -0.93
0 0 0
0 0 0.29
0 0 0
0 0.32 -0.66
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0.70 0 0
0.70 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
0 0 0
! 4663
0.13 1 4666
0 0 1
0i8 0 0.19 1
-1 oq-0.75 0 -1.00
' o 0 0.37 0.42
0 0 0 0
017 0.26 0 0
' q-0.68 0 0
0 0 0 0
-1.00 0 0 0
0 0.15 0 0
0 0.27 0 0
0 29 0 0 0.08
' o 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 21 0 0 0.18
0.06 0 0 0
-0.64 0 0.06 0
0 23 0.30 0 0
' 0 0 0 0
0 21 0 0 0.09
' 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0.07 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0.79 0 0 0 64
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0
0 0.15 0 0
0 0 0 0
5263
5383
1
0 1
0 0
0 -0.76
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0.10 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0.18 0
0 0
0 0.17
0.09 0.21
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0.30 0
0 0
0.31 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0 0
0.34 0
0 0.08
0 0
SUM ABS. OF COLE'S INDEX** 17.9 14.7 22.6 4.8 4.3 1.5 7.8 2.4 3.6 1.5 11.6 4.8 4.0 4.4 4.3 3.7 5.0 8.7 7 2
NO. SPECIES ASSOC. WITH** 27 30 38 9 13 6 19 10 16 4 21 17 17 12 8 7 9 19 18
1.8 4.7 13.0 5.2 2.0
8 17 27 14 7
* Experiment wise significance at chi-square p<0.05
** Columns will not add to these totals because of deleted species
126
Interspecific Associations of Some Wisconsin Lake Plants
Appendix B (continued)
5263
5383
5386
5395
5398
5404
5410
5413
5416
5419
5420
5422
5425
5431
5434
5437
5440
5443
5449
5710
6088
6091
6304
6664
6730
7078
7114
7117
7120
7132
7177
7450
0 0.26 0.19
0 0.97 0 0.95
0.35 1
0 0.42
0.45 0
0 0.24 0.60 0.23
0 0.26 0.32
0 0.51 0.14 0.13
0 -0.67 0.33
1.8 7.7 4.4 4.9 2.1
0 0.13 0.08
0 0.29 0.25
4.2 1.5 2.8 3.6 6.0 4.4 5.1 5.2 1.6 6.0 8.5 2.7 3.3 26 6.7 3.7 5.5 3.1
10 15 17 16 13
13 10 13 10
7117
7120
0 7132
0.89 1 7177
0 0 1 7450
0 0 0 1
0 0 0 0 1
5.1 3.1 8.6 5.9 5.6
9 5 13 16 11
127
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
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128
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..
X- i
I'f Chippewa Treaty Rights
Ronald N. Satz
The Reserved Rights of Wisconsin’s
Chippewa Indians in Historical Perspective
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Notice to the Reader
On May 20, 1991, while this study was in the final stages of publi¬
cation, the six Wisconsin Chippewa bands and the state of Wisconsin
agreed to accept Judge Barbara Crabb’s Final Judgment (see Appendix 7)
in the Chippewa treaty rights litigation. Appendix 8 reprints the joint
letter to 4 ‘The People of Wisconsin’ ’ from the six Wisconsin Chippewa
tribal chairs accepting Crabb’s judgment; Appendix 9 contains the
statement issued by Attorney General James E. Doyle, Jr. (Documents
courtesy of Howard Bichler.)
Cover art: Spearing at Torchlight, by Paul Kane. This oil on canvas
painting of Indians fishing on the Fox River illustrates a technique
widely used by Indians in Wisconsin. Courtesy of the Royal Ontario
Museum, Toronto, Canada.
Chippewa Treaty Rights
The Reserved Rights of Wisconsin’s
Chippewa Indians in Historical Perspective
RONALD N. SATZ
with the assistance of Laura Apfelbeck, Jason Tetzloff,
Anthony Gulig, Timothy Spindler, Tracy Hemmy, and Laura Evert
Foreword by Rennard Strickland
Transactions Vol. 79, No. 1
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Transactions is published annually by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts
and Letters and welcomes articles that explore features of the State of Wisconsin
and its people. Manuscripts, queries, and other correspondence should be addressed
to the editor.
Editor
Carl N. Haywood
134 Schofield Hall
University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
Eau Claire, Wisconsin 54701
Managing Editor
Patricia Allen Duyfhuizen
© 1991 The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Manufactured in the United States of America
All Rights Reserved
ISSN 0084-05.05
For my wife,
Christa,
and
our children,
Ani and Jakob
Contents
List of Illustrations and Maps vii
From the Editor ix
Foreword
by Rennard Strickland xi
Preface and Acknowledgments xv
Notes to the Reader on Usage xix
1 Early Chippewa-U. S. Relations 1
2 The 1837 Pine Tree Treaty 13
3 The 1842 Copper Treaty 33
4 The Removal Order and the Wisconsin Death March 51
5 Reservations Replace Removal 61
6 The Curtailment of Treaty Rights 83
7 The Continuing Pursuit of Justice 91
8 The White Backlash and Beyond 101
9 Conclusion: An Agenda for the Future 125
Appendices
Introduction 129
1/Joumal of the 1837 Proceedings 131
2/Treaty of July 29, 1837 155
3 A/Robert Stuart’s Report of October 28, 1842 159
Appendices, continued
3B/Robert Stuart’s Remarks of November 19, 1842 163
3C/Robert Stuart’s 1844 Report on the 1842 Proceedings 165
4/Treaty of October 4, 1842 171
5/Henry C. Gilbert’s Explanation of the 1854 Treaty 177
6/Treaty of September 30, 1854 181
7/Final Judgment of Judge Barbara Crabb,
March 19, 1991 187
8/Chippewa Acceptance of Judge Barbara Crabb’ s Final
Judgment May 20, 1991 193
9/State of Wisconsin’s Acceptance of Judge Barbara
Crabb ’s Final Judgment May 20, 1991 195
End Notes 199
Bibliography and Sources Cited 209
VI
List of Illustrations and Maps
Fig. 1. Indians Spearing Fish in Winter by Seth Eastman
Fig. 2. Gathering Wild Rice by Seth Eastman
Fig. 3. Indian Sugar Camp by Seth Eastman
Fig. 4. View of the Great Treaty Held at Prairie du Chien , Septem¬
ber 1825 by James Otto Lewis
Fig. 5. The Great Seal of the Territory of Wisconsin by William
Wagner
Fig. 6. Henry Dodge , Governor and Superintendent of Indian Af¬
fairs for Wisconsin Territory by James Bowman
Fig. 7. Chippewa Land Cessions 1837-1854 by Sean Hartnett
Fig . 8 . Ojibwa Portaging Around the Falls of St. Anthony by George
Gatlin
Fig. 9. Ojibwa Chief Flat Mouth, 1855
Fig. 10. Treaty of 1837
Fig. 11. Ancient Mining on Lake Superior by J. C. Tidball
Fig. 12. Treaty of 1842
Fig. 13. Robert and Elizabeth Stuart
Fig. 14. Proclamation of 1842 Treaty by President John Tyler
Fig .15. Drunken Frolic Among the Chippewas by Peter Rindisbacher
Fig. 16. Symbolic Petition of Chippewa Chiefs, 1849 by Seth Eastman
Fig. 17. Alexander Ramsey, Governor and Superintendent of Indian
Affairs for Minnesota Territory
Fig. 18. President Zachary Taylor's Executive Order of February 6,
1850
Fig. 19. Portrait of Chief Buffalo
Fig. 20. The City of Superior, 1856 by P. S. Duval and Son
Fig. 21. Chippewa Delegation in Washington, 1852
Fig. 22. Treaty of 1854
Fig. 23. Chippewa Reservations in Wisconsin by Sean Hartnett
Fig. 24. Logging Scene on the Lac Courte Oreille s Reservation,
1909
Fig. 25. An Annuity Payment Scene at La Pointe by Charles A.
Zimmerman
Fig. 26. Indian School in the Vicinity of Hayward, 1880s
Fig. 27. New Testament in Ojibwa Language, 1875
Fig. 28. An Indian Farmer Preparing a Seed Bed, c. 1930
Fig. 29. Chippewa Herbalist and Family in Rice Lake, 1916
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Fig. 30. Chippewa Woman Preparing Splints for Basket-making,
c. 1925
Fig. 31. Hunting in Winter on Snow shoes by Charles A. Zimmerman
Fig. 32. Ojibwa Ceremony at the Wisconsin State Fair, 1906
Fig. 33. Chippewa Soldier from Hayward in World War 1 Uniform
Fig. 34. Treaty Beer by Jason Tetzloff
Fig. 35. Spear This!
Fig. 36. A Cartoonist Talks to an Anti-Treaty Protester by Joe Heller
Fig . 37 . Tribal and Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission
Game Wardens at Work, 1990 by Jason Tetzloff
Fig. 38. Chippewa White-Tailed Deer Harvests, 1983-90
Fig. 39. Chippewa Muskellunge Harvests, 1985-90
Fig. 40. Chippewa Walleye Harvests, 1985-90
Fig. 41. Stop Putting Your Head Under That Poor Man's Club by
Bill Sanders
Fig. 42. Thomas Maulson, Walleye Warrior by Mary Beth Berg
Fig. 43. Centuries-Old Indian Tradition! Centuries-Old White Tra¬
dition by Steve Sack.
viii
From the Editor
“I think I have it figured out. I could write about a ten page introduction and
you could publish the findings . . . Professor Ronald Satz was responding to
my previous encouragement, which admittedly bordered on nagging, for an article
on the Chippewa treaty controversy. When he proceeded to add that he could have
the manuscript completed in two weeks, it appeared that the long sought article
would fit nicely in the 1990 volume of Transactions. One year, two hundred pages,
several maps, and over forty illustrations later, what started as a brief article in¬
troducing several documents pertaining to Chippewa treaties of 1837, 1842, and
1854 has developed into the most comprehensive analysis of the Chippewa treaty
rights in existence. It includes a comprehensive bibliography, original documents
not previously available, new maps, and careful analysis.
Ronald N. Satz is dean of Graduate Studies, director of University Research,
director of the Center of Excellence for Faculty and Undergraduate Student Research
Collaboration, and professor of American Indian History at the University of Wisconsin-
Eau Claire. The author of numerous publications including American Indian Policy
in the Jacksonian Era and Tennessee’ s Indian Peoples, Dr. Satz has served on the
editorial advisory boards of scholarly presses and journals including that of the
American Indian Quarterly. He has taught courses on various aspects of American
Indian history at the University of Maryland, the University of Tennessee at Martin,
and at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. In 1989, he taught a statewide
University of Wisconsin-Extension Educational Teleconference Network Course on
Chippewa Treaty Rights in Historical Perspective. Dr. Satz is among a small number
of non-Indians whose biographical sketches are included in Barry T. Klein’s Ref¬
erence Encyclopedia of the American Indian, 5th ed. (1990).
Laura Apfelbeck served as a graduate editorial assistant to Dean Satz while a
candidate for an M.A. degree in English at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
Jason Tetzloff, Anthony Gulig, and Timothy Spindler worked as graduate research
assistants while candidates for M.A. degrees in history at the University of Wisconsin-
Eau Claire. Tracy Hemmy and Laura Evert worked on this project as undergraduate
research assistants in the Center of Excellence for Faculty and Undergraduate Stu¬
dent Research Collaboration at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
The members of the staff of Transactions and the author and his assistants have
worked hard to produce this book. It still would not have been possible, however,
without the support of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters, and
especially its Executive Director, LeRoy Lee, whose encouragement is appreciated
by all.
We believe that this book should be read by everyone who seeks to understand
the topic. It will shed light on serious issues and do much to abolish ignorance
which, as pointed out by Isidore of Seville, “engenders error and nourishes vice.’’
It is in this spirit that we recommend this book to all readers.
Carl N. Haywood
IX
Foreword
Rennard Strickland
Professor of Law and
Director , American Indian Law and Policy Center
The University of Oklahoma
“One barrier that American Indians have long faced ... is that public
understanding of their core issues comes slowly. Special Indian rights are
complex and history based, emerging from the deep past .... In every
instance, the Indian position is fragile because it finally depends on the
willingness of opinion leaders in the majority society to learn about the
experience of another people .... The historical search I suggest is not
done out of guilt or romance; it is not a sentimental exercise. Rather, an
understanding of a people and their social, legal, and economic experience
ought to be reached because it is the essential basis for judging what wise
policy ought to be and for assessing how the rule of law ought to operate.”
Charles F. Wilkinson
Oliver Rundell Lecturer
The School of Law
University of Wisconsin-Madison
April 19, 1990
Knowing and understanding the rights of American Indians is not an easy task.
These are complex and historically based issues emerging not from the whims of
contemporary politicians but from the historical obligations of the deep past. Learn¬
ing about these rights is an historical search, not a sentimental journey. These are
questions of law not questions of charity.
Indian law and Indian history are opposite sides of the same coin. One cannot
be understood in isolation. Perhaps more than any other field of American jur¬
isprudence, American Indian rights are deeply rooted in ancient ways and his¬
torical bargains. The aboriginal inhabitants of the American continents are the
original sovereigns. As such, they retain rights that long predate the coming of
more recent sovereigns such as our modern national or individual states. The
United States Supreme Court has long held that Indian tribes, as sovereigns,
hold a unique and significant place in American law with historically rooted
rights.
The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters performs an important
service in making available this work, which is the first product of an ongoing
research project on Wisconsin Chippewa treaty rights being conducted by Graduate
School Dean and Professor of American Indian History Ronald N. Satz and a group
of students at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. This is an important study
that shows the significance of historical research in the service of public policy.
xi
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Not only does Chippewa Treaty Rights : The Reserved Rights of Wisconsin’ s Chip¬
pewa Indians in Historical Perspective provide access to important documents
reprinted in the Appendices, but it also helps analyze the historical background of
current Wisconsin treaty rights controversies in terms of these documents. In ad¬
dition, there is a splendid bibliography for those who want to explore the question
in even greater depth.
Publication of Chippewa Treaty Rights addresses the significant challenge
presented by Professor Charles Wilkinson in the Rundell Lectures at the Uni¬
versity of Wisconsin-Madison. It does so by providing, in one convenient vol¬
ume, the materials needed to study and understand the important issue of reserved
Indian treaty rights. There is no longer a serious legal question about these Indian
rights. The legal status of Chippewa reserved rights is clearly established. As
the title of this study suggests, these are rights the tribes continue historically
to possess. As the courts have recognized, the treaties did not create Chippewa
hunting, fishing, and gathering rights. These rights have always belonged to the
Chippewas, who reserved them in their treaties with the United States. Now,
thanks to Dean Satz and his students, these documents are available for all
citizens who take seriously the task of understanding the historical journey of
the people we call the Chippewas.
Every year, for tens of thousands of years, the lakes of northern Wisconsin have
slowly shed their winter covering of ice. As spring drives out the bitter cold, the
walleye and muskellunge that live in those lakes celebrate this thawing by moving
out of the depths and spawning in the clear, gravel-bottomed shallows. For hundreds
of years people in boats, using spears, have taken some of those fish back to their
families — a satisfying confirmation that another winter has passed. For these native
people, the Chippewas, time is cyclical: the seasons pass and return, the fish spawn
and then return. For centuries, the people themselves returned each spring to harvest
fish — the seasons, the fish, and the people bound together in a continuing cycle
dictated by nature.
Illegally prevented by the State of Wisconsin from harvesting their fish for almost
80 years, the cycle has finally returned for the Chippewas; 150-year-old promises
made in exchange for land title are once again being kept. After years of enforced
absence, the Chippewas again gather when the ice breaks to fish from boats with
spears. United States courts have now proclaimed and sustained these ancient rights
reserved by the Chippewas.
But the soft, cyclical, pace of nature has been replaced by another, discordant
way of measuring time. The peaceful harvest of fish by the Chippewas is threatened
by non-Indians who barrage the peaceful fishers with rocks and insults, and who
use large motorboats trailing anchors to capsize the boats of the fishers. Because
of this, the State of Wisconsin has pressured the Chippewas to give up their ancient
rights to fish off their reservations. This pressure has sometimes been applied
indirectly, sometimes directly, but always upon the Chippewas. And all because a
small group, often acting illegally, creates disturbances in opposition to the Chip¬
pewas ’ federally recognized legal rights.
The Chippewas now prepare for another spring. And just as spring rekindles life,
the Chippewas rekindle the hope that their neighbors will come to respect the reality
of their sovereignty, their culture, and their rights. A reading of the historical
xii
Chippewa Treaty Rights
analysis and documents in this book should help all of us understand and appreciate
Wisconsin Indian treaty rights. Understanding does not come easily, but it is es¬
sential to preservation of the rights of all of us — Indian and non-Indian alike.
Preface and Acknowledgements
The purpose of this book is to present an overview of the history of Chippewa-
United States relations leading to the treaties of 1837, 1842, and 1854 and to
examine the consequences of those agreements for Chippewa and for non-Indian
residents of Wisconsin and for the State of Wisconsin. After the State of Wisconsin
denied Chippewas their hunting, fishing, and gathering rights in ceded territory for
most of the twentieth century, the Chippewa Indians have recently won court
decisions recognizing their reserved treaty rights. Many non-Indian Wisconsinites
have been surprised to learn that rights reserved by the Chippewa Indians during
nineteenth century treaty negotiations are still valid today. This study examines the
course of events leading to the recent court decisions and reviews the white backlash
to Chippewa legal victories. Appendices 1 through 6 provide transcriptions of
nineteenth-century documents that have shaped the course of Chippewa- American
relations, and Appendices 7 through 9 reprint documents issued in 1991 that are
shaping the future direction of those relations. It is my hope, as Gary Sandefur of
the University of Wisconsin-Madison Native American Studies Program has as¬
serted, that “if more people in Wisconsin knew the history of Indians in the state,
if more people knew how much Indians were forced to give up, and if more people
knew about the historical symbolic significance of treaty rights, the misunderstand¬
ing over treaty rights and the resentment against Indians would quickly disappear’ ’
(< Capital Times 1989a).
Chippewa Treaty Rights had its beginnings during the summer of 1989 when
Richard Florence and Denise Sweet of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Arts
and Sciences Outreach Office suggested that I develop and teach an evening course
on Chippewa treaty rights. At the time, I had been engaged in research on Chippewa
history for about a year, but it was really a phone call that I received while discussing
treaty rights on an interview and call-in radio program for WOJB FM in Hayward
a few months earlier that prompted me to agree to offer a course.
A caller had asked if the Chippewa treaties actually contained a provision des¬
ignating any group of ten or more Indians leaving a reservation together as a war
party that could be fired upon by whites in self-defense without criminal penalty.
Tensions were running high in northern Wisconsin at the time of the call, and I
had already heard several students in Eau Claire ask the same ludicrous question.
As a result of the obvious need for accurate information about the Chippewa treaties,
I decided to develop a course entitled Chippewa Treaty Rights in Historical Per¬
spective, which I taught during the fall semester over the statewide Educational
Teleconference Network (ETN) in cooperation with the University of Wisconsin-
Extension Office in Madison. The course attracted considerable attention throughout
the state (Milwaukee Journal 1989e; Eau Claire Leader-Telegram 1989). Larry
Peterson, chair of the anti-treaty rights group Protect Americans’ Rights and Re¬
sources (PARR), announced at a press conference in Park Falls in August that he
planned to take the course “to learn” (Park Falls Herald 1989). For the record,
he was not among the students who enrolled.
While the course was in progress, Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and
Letters editor Carl Haywood asked me to write an article on the topic for the 1990
xv
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
edition of Transactions. I agreed to do so, but the article eventually became book-
length as I responded enthusiastically to Haywood’s recommendation that I provide
as much information and documentation as possible. I am very grateful to Haywood
who, together with retired educator Veda Stone and University of Wisconsin-Eau
Claire History Department Chairs Jack Lauber and Thomas Miller, has been a
constant source of encouragement during all stages of the preparation of this study.
Transactions' managing editor, Patricia Allen Duyfhuizen offered many valuable
suggestions in the final preparation of the manuscript; her undergraduate intern,
Lise Hanson, helped in proofreading.
In undertaking this project, I became indebted to many people. I especially want
to acknowledge the contributions of my cheerful, talented, and hardworking student
assistants. English graduate student Laura Apfelbeck, editorial assistant in the School
of Graduate Studies and Office of University Research, was involved in the project
from its inception. She transcribed documents for inclusion in the Appendices,
commented on all drafts of the manuscript, and assisted the Transactions staff in
preparing the final draft for publication. In addition to benefiting from her editorial
expertise and attention to detail, everyone involved in the project appreciated Laura’s
dedication and keen wit. History graduate students Jason Tetzloff, Tony Gulig and
Timothy Spindler served as research assistants and transcribed materials for the
Appendices. I especially enjoyed their company and conversation on the numerous
trips between Eau Claire and the State Historical Society of Wisconsin in Madison.
Jason and Tony also commented on early drafts of the manuscript and continued
to provide assistance even when they were no longer officially working on the
project. Undergraduate assistant Tracy Hemmy transcribed documents for the Ap¬
pendices and provided assistance with wordprocessing. Undergraduate assistant
Laura Evert conducted library research during the final stages of the project and
checked the bibliographical citations for accuracy. The team spirit, enthusiasm, and
dedication exhibited by these students is greatly appreciated. Students in my un¬
dergraduate and graduate Indian history courses at the University of Wisconsin-
Eau Claire also contributed to this study by raising questions that led me to inves¬
tigate various facets of the history of Chippewa reserved treaty rights.
I want to thank University of Oklahoma Law School professor Rennard Strick¬
land, attorney Howard J. Bichler of the Office of Tribal Attorney of the St. Croix
Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin, my University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire colleagues
education professor Richard St. Germaine and history professor James Oberly, and
University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point history professor David Wrone for reading
and commenting on early drafts of this work. Helen Hombeck Tanner, editor of
the Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History, answered queries regarding nineteenth
century Chippewa villages.
Numerous individuals kindly shared resource materials. University of Colorado
ethnic studies professor Vine Deloria, Jr. drew my attention to the 1934 Indian
Congress at Hayward and provided a photocopy of the proceedings and other
relevant information. Biological Services Director Thomas R. Busiahn and Ad¬
ministrative Assistant Leanne Thannum of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife
Commission (GLIFWC) provided data on Chippewa off-reservation hunting and
fishing harvests as did Michael Staggs of the Bureau of Fisheries Management of
the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and Charles Pils of the Bureau of
Wildlife Management of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. Indian
xvi
Chippewa Treaty Rights
educator James La Goo of the Milwaukee Area Technical College provided a
photocopy of his collection of newspaper clippings on treaty rights issues. Eau
Claire Leader-Telegram city editor Doug Mell, News from Indian Country editor
Paul DeMain, and Wisconsin State Journal assistant city editor David Stoeffler in
Madison answered several inquiries relative to media coverage of the treaty rights
issue and helped me to locate pertinent articles, as did circulation manager Eric
Erickson of the Ashland Daily Press and GLIFWC public information officer as¬
sistant Lynn Spreutels. A note of thanks is also offered to the scholars who shared
copies of their unpublished research papers; their papers are listed in the Bibliography.
Andy Kraushaar of the Iconographic Department at the State Historical Society
of Wisconsin provided valuable assistance in locating illustrations and providing
background information. Realty Specialist Carole Kraft of the Bureau of Indian
Affairs, Great Lakes Agency in Ashland, Wisconsin provided information on tribal
and allotted lands prepared under the direction of Agency Superintendent Robert
R. Jaeger. I am indebted to University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire (UWEC) geography
professor Sean Hartnett for producing all the maps for this study. Also at UWEC,
Director Charles Brenner and systems programmer Robin Niemeyer of the Office
of Academic Computing Services, office automation coordinator Paul Eckardt of
the Office of Information Management, and undergraduate business student David
Ingle rendered invaluable technical assistance at critical stages in the preparation
of the final draft.
Robert M. Kvasnicka and Milton Gustafson of the National Archives and Records
Service in Washington, D.C. and Susan Karren of the National Archives — Great
Lakes Region in Chicago greatly facilitated my research as did staff members at
the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa Com¬
munity College, the Law Library and the Continuing Education and Outreach Office
of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Law, the Library of Congress,
the McFarlin Library of the University of Tulsa, the UWEC McIntyre Library, the
UWEC Media Development Center, the Minnesota Historical Society, the Newberry
Library, and the Oklahoma Historical Society. A special note of thanks to UWEC
librarian Kathleen Henning for expediting the process of obtaining materials on
interlibrary loan and for keeping me informed of all works on American Indians,
treaty rights issues, and federal Indian policy that came across her desk.
Funding for the Wisconsin Chippewa Treaty Rights Research Project, which
enabled me to gather information for this publication, was provided by the UWEC
Center of Excellence for Faculty and Undergraduate Student Research Collaboration
and the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Foundation, Inc. The project is still in
progress, and I encourage readers with knowledge of any pertinent manuscripts or
other primary source materials not included in my Bibliography to contact me in
care of the School of Graduate Studies and Office of University Research at UWEC.
Finally, I wish to express my deepest thanks and appreciation to my wife Christa
and to our daughter Ani and son Jakob for their support, encouragement, and
patience. They gently reminded me, as the research for what I said would be a
short article on Chippewa reserved treaty rights became a project that consumed
my evenings, weekends, holidays, and vacations, that they too have certain reserved
rights, which they intend to invoke now that this book is finished!
Ronald N. Satz
Eau Claire, Wisconsin
XVII
Notes to the Reader on Usage
Throughout the text I have used “Indians” rather than “Native Americans” to
designate Chippewa or other American natives because, as historian James Axtell
has observed, the former term is “simpler, sanctioned by tradition, normatively
neutral, and preferred by the vast majority of native peoples themselves, past and
present” (Axtell 1986, xi). I have used “Chippewa” to refer to the people of the
various Ojibwa-speaking bands and have restricted the use of the term Ojibwa to
the language itself except in the captions for illustrations where I have used which¬
ever term appears in the actual title of the work depicted. Following contemporary
usage rather than nineteenth-century convention, I refer to the collective members
of Chippewa bands as “Chippewas” not “Chippewa.”
Since information in parentheses and brackets appears in many of the quotations
from original sources, I have used braces { } throughout the book for any information
I have supplied. Any italics or underlining used in direct quotations are those found
in the original material unless otherwise noted.
Indian names are frequently spelled in a variety of ways in nineteenth century
documents and misspelled names of non-Indians and other words also frequently
occur in these sources. In order to avoid distracting the reader, I have not used
{s/c} or corrected misspelled words if the meaning of the words or the identity of
the individual is obvious from the context. I have used {s/c} only if failure to do
so might lead one to suspect a printing error, such as when a letter is missing. Also
for the sake of the reader, I have sometimes used modem town, river, and state
names, without the awkward prefix “present-day,” to locate historical events.
To assist the reader in locating sources cited in the Bibliography, the author’s
name, the date, and the page numbers of each source appear in parentheses in the
text. Information has been deleted only when the portion omitted appears as part
of the text immediately preceding the citation or when there is no other work by
that author or another author with the same last name listed in the Bibliography.
The only exceptions to the use of this format for citations appear in captions to
some of the figures because permission to reprint illustrations was usually contingent
upon the inclusion of specific information.
Where I refer to a document that can be found in the Appendices, the Appendix
number will appear in italics after the usual parenthetical bibliographic citation.
Frame numbers are provided instead of page numbers for items on microfilm. Any
information I have added to a document in the Appendices is included in braces
{ } to set it off from parenthetical or bracketed comments by the author of the
document.
Finally, I want to emphasize that the use of normatively loaded words such as
“barbarism,” “civilized,” and “savage” that appear in the text should not be
viewed as my characterizations but as those of the United States officials or other
American citizens about whom I am writing.
xix
"
Early Chippewa-
U. S. Relations
1
The Chippewa (also known as the Ojibwa or Anishinabe) Indians of present-
day Wisconsin are the descendants of a northern Algonquian people who lived
in an extensive area, mainly north of Lakes Superior and Huron. These people
began migrating across the Great Lakes region long before Europeans arrived (Rit-
zenthaler 1978, 743). Early settlements at Sault Ste. Marie, L’Abre Croche, Mack¬
inac, L’Anse, Green Bay, and Fond du Lac preceded the establishment of other
villages in what are today the states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota as
European trade penetrated into the Great Lakes region and drew the Indians from
the backwoods and upriver areas to the points of trade (Keller 1978, 2; James 1954,
19; Mason 1988, 94).
By the early decades of the nineteenth century, according to anthropologist Harold
Hickerson, more than three thousand Chippewas occupied seven large autonomous
village centers extending from Red Lake in present-day Minnesota on the northwest
to Lac du Flambeau in Wisconsin on the east. Three of these centers — those at Red
Lake, Leech Lake, and Sandy Lake — were in Minnesota while the Snake River
and Yellow River settlements were on branches of St. Croix River in the Minnesota-
Wisconsin border region. Another two centers were in Wisconsin at Lac Courte
Oreilles and Lac du Flambeau. In addition to the seven village centers, about one
thousand Chippewas lived in numerous smaller villages, each with a population of
only one hundred to one-hundred fifty people, located near one or another of the
larger settlements (Hickerson 1962, 12-13).
Hickerson’ s population estimates may be on the conservative side. Nineteenth-
century Indian agent and pioneer ethnologist Henry Rowe Schoolcraft reported there
were more than seventy-three hundred Chippewas living along the southern shores
of Lake Superior and the sources of the Mississippi River in the mid- 1820s (1828,
98). The dearth of reliable population statistics for Indian communities in early
nineteenth-century America is a perplexing problem, but there appears to be agree¬
ment among scholars that the bulk of the Chippewa population at the time of
European penetration into North America was in Canada and that this population
pattern has continued into the twentieth century. The Chippewa country in the
United States and Canada encompasses an expanse of land from the eastern end of
Lake Ontario westward to the vicinity of Lake Winnepeg in Manitoba and the Turtle
Mountains of North Dakota, a range greater than that of any other Indian people
in North America (Ritzenthaler 1978, 743; Tanner 1976, 1-4).
Like all Indian peoples in North America, the Chippewas lived close to nature.
Their traditional lifestyle involved a seminomadic existence in heavily forested
regions through which the Indians traveled, depending on the season, by canoe on
the numerous lakes and rivers or by toboggans and snowshoes. Primarily hunters
and trappers, this forest people also fished the streams (Fig. 7), gathered wild rice
in the rivers (Fig. 2), and tapped trees to make maple sugar (Fig. 3); their lives
1
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Fig. 1 . Indians Spearing Fish in Winter. A drawing by Seth Eastman, from Francis
S. Drake, ed., The Indian Tribes of the United States , Vol. 1 (1884). Courtesy of the
State Historical Society of Wisconsin. WHi(w6)13551
revolved around these differing subsistence activities according to the changing
seasons. Hunting and fishing were such esteemed occupations that a Chippewa
boy’s first success in each was publicly acknowledged. Chippewa religious beliefs
emphasized the existence of spirits in both animate and inanimate objects and guided
the Indians in their use of resources (McKenney and Hall {1838}, 99; Ritzenthaler
1978, 746-47; Danziger 1979, 9-14; State Historical Museum 1990-91; Johnston
1990, 66; Vecsey 1983, 10-11, 59-63).
As Europeans ventured into the upper Great Lakes region in the seventeenth
century, they introduced such goods as guns, ammunition, metal traps and ket¬
tles, and manufactured blankets — simplifying the lives of the Chippewas but
also making them increasingly dependent on the traders who supplied these
goods. Rapidly, Chippewa culture shifted from the stone-bone- wood-pottery
materials made by Indians to metal replacements made by Europeans. As the
gun replaced the bow, hunting and warfare intensified. Chippewa incursions into
Sioux hunting territories to the West increased.1 By the mid-eighteenth century,
scattered bands of Lake Superior Chippewas controlled the region west of the
Keweenaw Peninsula as far as the upper Mississippi Valley, but they had to
fight to maintain their control. Continual warfare with the Sioux in what are
today Wisconsin and Minnesota preoccupied the Chippewas as the advancing
line of American settlement moved westward following the American Revolution
(James 1954, 23; Danziger 1979, Chs. 3-4; Keller 1978, 2; Ritzenthaler 1978,
743-44).
2
Chippewa Treaty Rights
Fig. 2. Gathering Wild Rice. An engraving after a drawing by Seth Eastman, from
Mary H. Eastman’s American Aboriginal Portfolio (1853). Courtesy of the State His¬
torical Society of Wisconsin. WHi(x3)25013
The Treaty of Paris, which in 1783 ended the American Revolution, partitioned
North America between Great Britain and the United States and its allies. Conse¬
quently, the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River became the northern and western
boundaries of the independent United States. The Great Lakes region, however,
was actually far beyond the area under American control. Chippewas and other
Indians living in the area strongly resented having Great Britain and its former
thirteen colonies carve up their homelands without consulting them (Jones 1982,
139-42).
Following the Treaty of Paris, the United States used high-handed tactics to
secure land cession treaties from Indians in the Great Lakes region. Indian
resentment of American methods of acquiring land, together with American
efforts to maintain peace on the frontier, led government officials to reexamine
their handling of Indian-white relations. Because the United States had failed in
its efforts to treat Indian affairs as a domestic problem, government officials
found it necessary to treat Indian bands and tribes as if they were foreign nations.
As one scholar notes, U. S. officials were “forced to consider relations with
the Indians, rather than a unilateral policy for the Indians” (Jones 1982, 147-48).
On July 13, 1787, American officials adopted a set of principles for dealing
with the Indians north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River, a
region including the lands of Wisconsin’s Chippewa Indians. The Northwest
Ordinance declared:
3
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Fig. 3. Indian Sugar Camp. This Seth Eastman painting depicts members of a Chip¬
pewa village participating in various stages of the process of making maple sugar
and syrup. From Francis S. Drake, ed., Indian Tribes of the United States, Vol. 1
(1884). Courtesy of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. WHi(w6) 13600
The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians, their lands and
property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and in their property, rights
and liberty, they never shall be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars
authorised by Congress; but laws founded in justice and humanity shall from time to time
be made, for preventing wrongs being done to them, and for preserving peace and friend¬
ship with them .... (Continental Congress 1787, 10)
Land acquisition by “consent” implied the negotiation of formal treaties.
The Constitution of the United States, drafted in 1787 and ratified two years
later, recognized treaty making as the basis for conducting the new republic’s
relations with Indian bands and tribes. The United States was a small, isolated,
agrarian nation with military and financial weaknesses, so its founding fathers
placed Indian affairs in the hands of the federal government (Wrone 1986-87,
84-85). John Marshall, one of the nation’s most distinguished Supreme Court
chief justices, summarized the scope of federal authority in Indian affairs in
1832. The Constitution, he said, “confers on congress the powers of war and
peace; of making treaties, and of regulating commerce with foreign nations, and
among the several states, and with the Indian tribes. These powers comprehend
all that is required for the regulation of our intercourse with the Indians” (U.S.
Supreme Court 1832, 559). The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution specifi¬
cally stipulates that treaties with Indian tribes have the same status as those
negotiated with foreign nations:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance
thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United
4
Chippewa Treaty Rights
States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be
bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary
notwithstanding. (Article 6, Clause 2)
As the new American nation inaugurated its first president in 1789, the Northwest
Ordinance and the recently ratified Constitution provided it with a basic framework
for handling Indian- white relations based on the realities it confronted.
Secretary of War Henry Knox briefed President Washington on the realities of
Indian-white relations in the Great Lakes region within a few months of the first
chief executive’s inauguration. Observing that “the Indians are greatly tenacious
of their lands, and generally do not relinquish their right {to them},* excepting on
the principle of a specific consideration, expressly given for the purchase of the
same” (1789a, 8), Knox advised Washington that “the dignity and the interest of
the nation” would best be advanced by recognizing Indian ownership of lands.
Considering the number of warriors in the region, Knox urged Washington to adopt
“a liberal system of justice” toward the Indians.
It is highly probable, that, by a conciliatory system, the expense of managing the said
Indians, and attaching them to the United States for the next ensuing period of fifty years,
may, on an average, cost 15,000 dollars annually.
A system of coercion and oppression, pursued from time to time, for the same period,
as the convenience of the United States might dictate, would probably amount to a much
greater sum of money ... but the blood and injustice which would stain the character
of the nation, would be beyond all pecuniary calculation.
As the settlements of the whites shall approach near to the Indian boundaries established
by treaties, the game will be diminished, and the lands being valuable to the Indians only
as hunting grounds, they will be willing to sell further tracts for small considerations. By
the expiration, therefore, of the above period, it is most probable that the Indians will,
by the invariable operation of the causes which have hitherto existed in their intercourse
with the whites, be reduced to a very small number. (1789b, 13-14)
Knox understood that the United States needed peace on its frontiers so it
could address other issues facing it, and he believed that acquiring Indian lands
by purchase rather than by conquest was in his nation’s best interests (Prucha
1984, 1: 49). The first treaty negotiated by the Washington administration with
Chippewa Indians and other Great Lakes tribes, the Treaty of Greenville of 1795,
specifically declared that in order to promote a “strong and perpetual” peace
between the United States and the Indians of the Great Lakes “the Indian tribes
who have a right to . . . {unceded} lands, are quietly to enjoy them, hunting,
planting, and dwelling thereon so long as they please, without any molestation
from the United States.’ ’ In return for this pledge and for the promise of protection
against all white intruders, the Indians agreed to sell lands only to the United
States (Kappler 2: 41, 42).
Despite the rhetoric of the Northwest Ordinance and of the Washington admin¬
istration, the demands of settlers, speculators, and other whites for Indian lands
and resources during the early years of the republic were often met by violating
the “liberal system of justice” Secretary of War Knox had so enthusiastically
*As mentioned in the “Notes to the Reader on Usage,” I have used braces { } throughout the book for
any information added to a quotation.
5
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
endorsed. Knox greatly underestimated the firm attachment Great Lakes Indians
had to their lands. As the demand for Indian lands grew, American officials in¬
creasingly resorted to bribery, deception, economic coercion, threats, and some¬
times brute force to secure Indian signatures on land cession treaties. The treaty¬
making process served as a convenient means of sanctioning federal land grabs
under the guise of diplomacy (Satz 1975, 1-6; 1987, 35-36).
In the early 1800s, the U. S. War Department opened government trading
houses at Fort Wayne (Indiana, 1802), Detroit (Michigan, 1802), Chicago (Il¬
linois, 1805), Sandusky (Ohio, 1806), Fort Mackinac (Michigan, 1808), Fort
Madison (Iowa, 1808), Green Bay (Wisconsin, 1815) and Prairie du Chien
(Wisconsin, 1815) as part of its effort to exert economic influence over the tribes
on the northwestern frontier (Prucha 1953, ll;Prucha 1984, 1: 124). 2 As Thomas
Jefferson had noted in a private letter in 1803, “we shall push our trading
{hojuses, and be glad to see the good and influential individuals among them
run in{to} debt, because we observe that when these debts get beyond what the
individuals can pay, they become willing to lop them off by a cession of lands.”
By following such a policy,3 Jefferson was confident that “our settlements will
gradually circumscribe and approach the Indians, and they will in time either
incorporate with us as citizens of the United States, or remove beyond the
Mississippi” (Jefferson 1803, 10: 370). Jefferson’s plan conflicted with the
efforts of private traders like John Jacob Astor of the American Fur Company
and his lieutenants Ramsey Crooks and Robert Stuart who lobbied hard, espe¬
cially after the War of 1812, to regain control of the fur trade from the government-
run trading houses. Their efforts contributed to the closing of the Green Bay
trading house in 1821 and the closing of the one at Prairie du Chien the following
year, as the lobbyists succeeded in convincing Congress that the trade should
be turned over to private interests (Prucha 1984, 1: Ch. 4).
Following the closing of the trading house at Green Bay in 1821, federal
officials anxiously sought other ways to extend their authority over the Indian
tribes of the upper Great Lakes region. Yet, the Lake Superior Chippewa con¬
tinued to depend on British traders and to ignore American claims to their
homelands (Keller 1978, 4). As a result, the U. S. War Department established
a military post and an Indian agency at Sault Ste. Marie in 1822 for the purpose
of countering British influence in the region and extending American control
over the Chippewas (Bremer 1987, 53, 56; Hill 1974, 165).
During the mid- 1820s, American officials sought to transfer the allegiance of the
scattered bands of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians from their British “Father” in
Canada to their American “Father” in Washington through a series of treaty ne¬
gotiations.4 The first parley convened on the east bank of the Mississippi River
above the mouth of the Wisconsin River at Prairie du Chien on August 19, 1825
(Fig. 4). In the resulting treaty (Kappler 2: 250-55), American Commissioners
William Clark of the St. Louis Superintendency and Michigan Territorial Governor
Lewis Cass called for “a firm and perpetual peace between the Sioux and Chip¬
pewas”; established “tribal” boundaries for the Chippewa, Sioux, Sac and Fox,
Menominee, Ioway, and Winnebago Indians, as well as for bands living along the
Illinois River; recognized Indian title to the newly demarcated “tribal” territories;
and supposedly placed each of the various Indian peoples under American supervision.
6
Chippewa Treaty Rights
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State Historical Society of Wisconsin. WHi(x3)2812
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Not all Chippewa bands were represented by full deputations at Prairie du Chien
(Neill 1885, 467-70), and Clark and Cass found it necessary to include the following
provision in the treaty under Article 12:
The Chippewa tribe being dispersed over a great extent of country, and the Chiefs of
that tribe having requested, that such portion of them as may be thought proper, by the
Government of the United States, may be assembled in 1826, upon some part of Lake
Superior, that the objects and advantages of this treaty may be fully explained to them,
so that the stipulations may be observed by the warriors. The Commissioners of the United
States assent thereto, and it is therefore agreed that a council shall accordingly be held
for these purposes. (Kappler 2: 253)
Such a council was assembled a year later on the western end of Lake Superior at
Fond du Lac where a treaty concluded by Governor Cass and War Department
official Thomas L. McKenney on August 5, 1826, claimed that “the whole Chip¬
pewa tribe” had assented to the principles and policies laid out at Prairie du Chien
(Kappler 2: 268-73). A year later, at a treaty parley with Chippewa, Menominee,
and Winnebago leaders concluded at Butte des Morts near Green Bay, Commis¬
sioners Cass and McKenney negotiated the southern boundary line of the Chippewa
country (Kappler 2: 281-83). These treaties, as Henry Rowe Schoolcraft of the
Sault Ste. Marie Agency on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan noted, were designed
“to place our Indian relations in this quarter on a permanent basis, and to ensure
the future peace of the frontier” (Schoolcraft 1851, 244-45).
One way in which American treaty commissioners sought to extend American
influence into the Great Lakes region was to convince the Indians of America’s
military strength. To accomplish this goal, soldiers accompanying the commis¬
sioners drilled, paraded, and stood inspection on a regular basis. At Fond du Lac,
Commissioners Lewis Cass and Thomas L. McKenney emphasized the military
strength of the United States by warning the Chippewas, “You have never seen
your great father’s arm. Only a small particle of it — here on your right — {pointing
to the military] — but it is only a bit, and a very little bit, of his little finger.” The
commissioners told the Chippewas to view agent Schoolcraft as the representative
of the president of the United States. “We advise you as friends and brothers, not
to offend your great father. He has sent his agent, [Mr. Schoolcraft] among you.
He speaks your great father’s words, listen to him; then you will be happy — -and
this is what your great father wishes you to be. It is with yourselves to be so, or
not” (Edwards 1826, 475-76).
The American treaty making of the mid- 1820s actually had little immediate
impact on the daily lives of Wisconsin Chippewas for nearly a decade. Americans
generally viewed the Chippewa country in the Lake Superior region as “sterile
and forbidding” (Schoolcraft 1828, 99), and few ventured into the vast region
of approximately twenty-seven million acres including about fifteen million in
Wisconsin, seven million in Minnesota, and five million in the Upper Peninsula
in Michigan (Wilkinson 1990, 9). Located between and thus remote from the
Indian agencies established in 1 8 1 9 at Fort Snelling near present-day Minneapolis
and at Sault Ste. Marie in Michigan Territory in 1822, the Wisconsin Chippewas
did not have an American Indian agent residing within their country until the
stationing of a subagent at La Pointe in 18375 (Hill 1974, 87, 160, 162, 165-66;
Danziger 1979, 77).
8
Chippewa Treaty Rights
Despite the efforts of American treaty commissioners to end intertribal hostilities,
Chippewa and Sioux Indians continued to fight over the game in Wisconsin and
Minnesota largely in response to the prodigious demands of the fur trade system
introduced by whites (Hickerson 1962, 28-29, 94 n. 16; 1973, 30). Indeed, sur¬
veyors did not actually begin work on the boundary line between the Sioux and
the Chippewas called for in the 1825 Treaty of Prairie du Chien until a decade later
(Herring 1835, 66). Even though the treaties of the 1820s had little immediate
impact on the Chippewas, they set the stage for later negotiations that did have far-
reaching effects.
Chippewa leaders had ostensibly recognized American hegemony in the region
at Fond du Lac in 1826 since they agreed to a provision allowing the United States
the right “to search for, and carry away, any metals or minerals from any part of
their country.” Although American Treaty Commissioners Lewis Cass and Thomas
McKenney gave the Indians no reason to believe that this provision would affect
their land title or jurisdiction over the land (Edwards 1826, 458; Kappler 2: 269),
the provision would haunt the Chippewas. “The article . . . was so worded,” a
missionary observed many years later, “that I can conceive the Indians might
understand that they gave permission to take specimens of minerals without in¬
tending to grant liberty to {the} Government} to work the mines, while the
Gov{emment} might understand that they had full liberty to work the mines and
this without any intention to deceive the Indians” (Wheeler 1843).
United States treaty commissioners frequently referred to and dealt with the
Chippewas as if they constituted a single tribe or nation, as when Cass and McKenney
referred to assembling “the Chippewa Tribe of Indians” at the Fond du Lac ne¬
gotiations in 1826 (Kappler 2: 268). The term tribe or nation , however, is not
applicable to these people because the words connote a single political and social
body. In reality, separate Chippewa villages actually carried out ceremonial and
political activities as independent, autonomous units (Hickerson 1988, 77-78). As
Indian agent Schoolcraft observed:
Their government, so far as they exercise any, is placed in the hands of chiefs. They
have village chiefs and war chiefs. The former are hereditary, the latter elective. Neither
are invested with much power in advance. The occasion which calls for action, brings
with it an expression of the general voice. The latter is implicitly obeyed; and it is the
policy of the chiefs to keep a little in the rear of public sentiment. The power of both
orders of chiefs, is only advisory; but that of the war chief predominates during a state
of war. No formality is exercised in taking the sense of the village, or nation, as to public
men or measures. Popular feeling is the supreme law. They exchange opinions casually,
and these are final. Councils generally deliberate upon what has been, beforehand, pretty
well settled. (1828, 100)
Many years before Schoolcraft recorded his observations of Chippewa governmental
structure and before the negotiation of the 1826 treaty mentioned earlier, Cass had
reported to the War Department that the Chippewas were loosely organized into
villages headed by chiefs who had only limited power and that “the Government
of the Indians, if it deserve that name, is a Government of opinion” (Keller 1981 , 2).
Although Chippewa bands shared a common culture and the same Algonquian
language, there was no overall political structure binding them together. Individuals
from contiguous villages maintained communication links, intermarried, and some-
9
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
times participated together in religious ceremonies, peace councils, war parties,
and treaty negotiations; but in general, such activities were dealt with by individual
villages or bands rather than by united Chippewa communities. There were common
law- ways, but these were set and enforced informally through the use of praise and
scorn rather than formally through legal institutions tying the bands together (Hick-
erson 1962, 13; Ritzenthaler 1978, 753; Wilkinson 1990, 7).
By 1830, the Chippewa Indians were deeply in debt to fur traders. Like Thomas
Jefferson before him, President Andrew Jackson was eager to use “national” Indian
debts as a vehicle for securing “tribal” land cessions. Michigan Territorial Governor
Lewis Cass informed the president that the situation among the Indians of the Great
Lakes region was ideal for treaty negotiations. “The goods they received were
dear,” Cass remarked, “and the peltry they furnished was cheap” (1830, 65). This
situation played into the hands of federal treaty negotiators.
Andrew Jackson entered the White House in 1829 committed to the removal of
Indians from states and territories east of the Mississippi River to locations in the
trans-Mississippi West. Years of experience in Indian affairs as an army officer
and territorial governor of Florida had led Jackson to the position that American
national security demanded the removal of Indians outside the nation’s geographical
limits in order to provide “a connexion of our territory by the possession of their
claims.” In 1830, Jackson pushed an Indian Removal Bill through Congress and
lost little time in directing eastern Indians to the trans-Mississippi West (Satz 1975,
Chs. 1, 3-4).
The Removal Act of 1830 called for the voluntary exchange of lands east of the
Mississippi River for lands in an area west of Arkansas and Missouri designated
as Indian Country (U. S. Congress 1830). Treaties negotiated under this legislation
promised Indian emigrants permanent title to their new lands, rations and trans¬
portation to the West, protection en route, medicine and physicians, reimbursement
for abandoned property, and assistance in rebuilding their settlements in the West
(Satz 1975, 31, 107, 296-98).
Although Jackson’s removal policy is associated most frequently with incidents
in southern Indian history such as the Cherokee Trail of Tears and the Seminole
Indian War, the removal policy was applied to Indians in the Great Lakes region
as well6 (Satz, 1975, 112-15; 1976, 71-93). By the mid- 1830s, removal treaties
had opened large portions of southern Wisconsin to white settlement, and American
policymakers cast covetous eyes on Chippewa lands in the northern part of the state
(A. Smith 1973, 131-48).
When President Jackson signed the Removal Bill into law in 1830, Winnebago
Indian villages still bordered Lake Mendota, the site of the present-day state capital
of Madison. During the following decade, southern Wisconsin witnessed an influx
of land speculators and Yankee immigrants who made their way to the western
Great Lakes via the Erie Canal. Far from being viewed by settlers as savages as
were many Southern Indians, Potawatomis were still welcome in the kitchens of
some Milwaukee settlers in 1836 when Wisconsin Territory was organized (Tanner
1987, 146). The territorial seal designed by engraver William Wagner, however,
expressed the pervasive belief of the age and pointed the way toward the future of
Indian-white relations in the territory. It boldly proclaimed, “Civilitas Successit
Barbarum” (civilization succeeds barbarism) and depicted a white settler plowing
a field while an Indian faced his destiny in the West {Fig. 5).
10
Chippewa Treaty Rights
Fig. 5. The Great Seal of the Territory of Wisconsin. William Wagner’s territorial seal
reproduced from Marcius Willson’s American History (1855). Courtesy of the State
Historical Society of Wisconsin. WHi(x3)45609
11
2
The 1837
Pine Tree Treaty
Soon after the organization of the new territory, Governor and ex officio Su¬
perintendent of Indian Affairs Henry Dodge (Fig. 6), played a major role in
securing approximately half of the present state of Wisconsin from the Chippewa,
Sioux, and Winnebago Indians. The land cessions included all of the western area
lying north of the Wisconsin River, except a wide strip bordering Lake Superior
(Kappler 2: 491-93, 493-94, 498-500). Wisconsin territorial delegate George W.
Jones assured his colleagues in Congress before negotiations began that the Chip¬
pewa and Winnebago Indians themselves had asked Governor Dodge to “enable
them to dispose of those lands” (Jones 1836).
Treaty negotiations leading to the Chippewa land cession of 1837 (Fig. 7) opened
at the St. Peters Agency located at the mouth of the Minnesota River on July 20th
and lasted ten days. Dodge later informed Commissioner of Indian Affairs Carey
Allen Harris that he had “deemed it a subject of the first importance, that as many
of the different Bands should be present at the Treaty ground, as could be collected,
for the purpose of fully meeting the views of the Government, as well as to produce
harmony and concert among the Indians themselves” (Fig. 8). Dodge originally
reported to Harris that the one thousand Indian men, women, and children in
attendance “fully represented” all of the Chippewa bands from present-day Min¬
nesota and Wisconsin (Dodge 1837a), but his later correspondence (Dodge 1838a)
and the official proceedings of the treaty7 demonstrate that this was not the case at
the opening of the parley.
Dodge estimated the cession he sought as “containing from nine to ten millions
of acres of land, and abounding in Pine Timber.” In addition, he reported that “a
part of it, is represented, as being well suited to Agricultural purposes; and dis¬
coveries are reported to have been made of copper on the St. Croix, and Rum
Rivers, and near Lake Courteoreille.” The region was “of the first importance to
the people of the States of Illinois, Missouri, and the Territory of Wisconsin for
its Pine Timber” (Dodge 1837a).
Officials in the administration of President Martin Van Buren sought the land
cession not to accommodate white settlers — whites were not demanding Chippewa
lands— -but to enable lumbering on a large scale along eastern tributaries of the
Mississippi River. Demand for cheap pine timber grew rapidly among the new
towns of the Mississippi River Valley as the cost of lumber from western New
York and Pennsylvania reached prohibitive levels. Transporting timber from the
East was both a costly and time-consuming enterprise. When the capitol of Wis¬
consin Territory was built at Belmont in 1836, for example, the lumber needed for
its construction had to be transported from a tributary of the Alleghany River in
Pennsylvania down to the Ohio River and up the Mississippi River to Galena, and
from there carted by an ox team. Entrepreneurs sought to take advantage of the
demand for cheap lumber by exploiting the vast pine forests of northern Wisconsin
13
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Fig. 6. Henry Dodge, Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Wisconsin
Territory. Painting by James Bowman. Courtesy of the State Historical Society of
Wisconsin. WHi(x28)975
(Bailly 1836, 40; Dodge 1838c, 158; Fries 1951, 8-9), but the federal Indian Trade
and Intercourse Acts prohibited Americans from logging on Indian lands without
special permission (Prucha 1962a, 2). A land cession treaty would provide legal
access to these lands.
In addition to the lumbering interests, other groups would benefit from a land
cession treaty. Fur traders had accumulated a large mass of unpaid credits on their
14
Chippewa Treaty Rights
Fig, 7. Chippewa Land Cessions 1837-1854. Map by Sean Hartnett. Land cessions
associated with the treaties of 1837, 1842, 1847, and 1854 are depicted above. Only
the 1837 and 1842 treaties involved cessions in Wisconsin. In 1847, the Wisconsin
bands refused to participate in negotiations for the north shore of Lake Superior
without a treaty-guaranteed right to remain in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin bands suc¬
cessfully blocked the cession of the north shore until their demands for reservations
in Wisconsin were finally met in 1854.
books against the Chippewas, and a land cession would provide an opportunity for
them to recover their funds (Babcock 1924, 372-73). Army sutlers8 at Fort Snelling
also needed the cash that was likely to flow from a land cession. The sutlers found
themselves in a difficult situation when soldiers from the First Infantry left the area
for service in the Seminole Indian War in Florida Territory before paying their
debts9 (Prucha 1966, 29). Beyond economic considerations, fear influenced the
decision-making process. Governor Dodge considered the purchase of the timber
country an absolute necessity to avoid an Indian war. “I was satisfied in my own
mind that if a purchase was not made of this pine region of the country, by the
United States,” Dodge told Commissioner Harris, “there was great danger of our
citizens being brought into a state of Collision with the Chippewa Indians, that
would have resulted in bloodshed, and perhaps war” (Dodge 1837a).
War Department officials in Washington had several other reasons to be pleased
with Dodge’s actions. Traders married to Chippewa women had obtained and
monopolized valuable sawmill sites and lumbering rights. Frontier entrepreneurs
coveted similar opportunities and worked hard to convince the Indians to lease land
for such purposes.10 Some chiefs and headmen, anxious “to procure some of the
necissaries {sic} of life” during poor hunting seasons, were willing to grant leases
to white “friends” (Chippewa Chiefs {1836}, 53). Such arrangements troubled
15
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
16
Fig. 8. Ojibwa Portaging Around the Falls of St. Anthony. Oil on canvas painting, 1835-36, by George Gatlin. Courtesy of the National
Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institute, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr. 1985.66.465
Chippewa Treaty Rights
federal officials who were eager to prevent “a complete monopoly of all the ad¬
vantages of the pine region” (Harris 1836, 1837a; Dodge 1836). Also, since the
United States’ boundary with Canada on Lake Superior was not settled until the
Webster- Ashburton Treaty of 1842, American officials feared British influence in
the region. Indeed, there was a war scare along the northern border from Maine to
Michigan before the end of 1837. At this time, the American army consisted of
only five thousand soldiers stationed at scattered posts, and nearly three-fourths of
them were in Florida fighting the Seminole Indians (Van Buren 1838; Bald 1961,
215-18; Prucha 1969, 311-19, 333). Anglophobia encouraged Washington bureau¬
crats to support actions designed to wean the various Chippewa bands away from
British traders and officials (Harris 1837b, 3-4). With these concerns, fears, and
hopes in the forefront, the War Department had instructed Dodge to treat with the
Chippewas for a land cession (Poinsett 1837).
The official handwritten proceedings of the negotiations recorded in journal for¬
mat by Secretary Verplanck Van Antwerp of Indiana offer a slightly different
interpretation of events than provided by Dodge in his brief letter to Commissioner
Harris. Although Dodge did not mention in it in his letter, the proceedings clearly
indicate the Chippewa bands living in the desired region of Wisconsin arrived late.
Dodge sought in vain to bind the assembled Indians to the cession before the
representatives of these bands arrived. Claiming the land in question was “not
valuable ... for its game, and not suited to the culture of com, and other Agri¬
cultural purposes,” he promised to provide “full value, payable in such manner,
as will be most serviceable to your people.” The assembled Indians were mostly
from Minnesota, and only a small fraction of their land was involved in the proposed
cession; those from the Lake Superior shoreline had no land involved. All refused
to discuss the proposal until the arrival of representatives of the interior Wisconsin
bands whose lands were the focus of the proposed cession. After the Indians delayed
the proceedings for two days, Dodge impatiently requested a reply even though the
interior Wisconsin Indians had not yet arrived11 (Van Antwerp 1837, 0548-550;
App. 1).
Flat Mouth (Aishkebogekhozo), a member of the Pillager band from Leech Lake
reputed “to have more power and control’ ’ than any other Chippewa chief (Vineyard
1838, 962), responded. He reminded Dodge that although he was a chief, there
was no single chief of the entire Chippewa people. To take action before the
representatives of the interior Wisconsin bands arrived, he asserted, “might be
considered an improper interference, and unfair towards them” (Van Antwerp 1837,
0550; App. 1).
Finally, on July 24, the fifth day of the proceedings, news arrived that La Pointe
subagent Daniel P. Bushnell and trader Lyman M. Warren were approaching St.
Peters with a large group of Indians from the interior Wisconsin bands. The Wind
(Naudin), a chief from Snake River, reminded Dodge that the assembled Indians
had to wait until these people arrived, saying: “We are a distracted people, and
have no regular system of acting together. We cast a firm look on the people who
are coming” (Van Antwerp 1837, 0553; App. 1).
Subagent Bushnell and his party arrived on July 25th. Now that the Wisconsin
Indians had joined the parley, Dodge directed that Stephen Bonga and Peter (or
Patrick) Quinn interpret from the English language into Chippewa and that Scott
Campbell and Jean Baptiste DuBay, a Menominee mixed-blood with ties to the
17
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts & Letters
American Fur Company (State Hist. Soc. of Wisconsin 1960, 109), interpret from
the Chippewa into English. Dodge then asked the chiefs and headmen from the
villages on lakes Flambeau and Courte Oreilles and those along the Chippewa, St.
Croix, and Rum rivers to examine a map of the proposed land cession. Chief
Buffalo from La Pointe — acknowledged by Dodge to be “a man of great influence
among his tribe, and very friendly to the whites” (Dodge 1838b) — immediately
protested, “the notice that you have given us is rather too short.” Dodge, eager to
bring the matter to a close, was reported as saying that “the country which he
wished to get from them, was barren of game, and of little value for Agricultural
purposes; but that it abounded in Pine timber.” He stated he was prepared to give
them “a fair price” for the land, and he advised them that in the morning he
expected them to be prepared to “act together, as one people” and to select “not
more than two” chiefs from the various bands to speak in behalf of all. Dodge,
anxious to appease mixed-bloods and traders so they would not oppose the treaty,
concluded his remarks by noting he wanted the Chippewas to remember their mixed-
blood relatives and to do justice to their traders when they decided on how much
and how they were to be paid for the land cession (Van Antwerp 1837, 0556-557;
App. 1).
On July 27th, the elder Hole-in-the-Day (Pagoonakeezhig) from the Upper Mis¬
sissippi River region and La Trappe (Magegawbaw) from Leech Lake responded
to Dodge. Although the chiefs agreed to cede the land requested, they wished to
express their concerns. “We wish to hold on to a tree where we get our living, &
to reserve the streams where we drink the waters that give us life,” La Trappe said.
After the interpreters translated the chief’s words into English, Verplanck Van
Antwerp wrote a footnote (one of only a handful) in his record of the proceedings,
“this of course is nonsense — but is given literally as rendered by the Intrepeters
{sic}, who are unfit to act in that capacity. I presume it to mean that the Indians
wish to reserve the privilege of hunting & fishing on the lands and making sugar
from the Maple.” Meanwhile, to emphasize the kind of tree he meant, La Trappe
walked up to the table on which Dodge had set a map of the proposed cession and
placed an oak sprig on it. “It is a different kind of tree from the one you wish to
get from us,”12 he commented, adding, “every time the leaves fall from it, we will
count it as one winter past.” By this comment, La Trappe declared his willingness
to bargain with Dodge over the pinelands in Wisconsin while reserving from any
land cession the deciduous forests and the waterways of the Pillager country in
Minnesota. Finally, the chief requested that the United States lease the land over
a sixty-year period after which the grandchildren of the Chippewas at the present
parley would speak to the “Great Father” in Washington about future arrangements.
Dodge flatly rejected the offer to lease the lands (Van Antwerp 1837, 0558-559;
App. 7).
At Dodge’s suggestion, the Chippewa chiefs agreed to consult with subagents
Daniel Bushnell and Miles M. Vineyard to determine the value of their lands. This
provided the United States, through its field officials, an excellent opportunity for
helping to determine the value of the land it was attempting to acquire. The chiefs
did, however, raise concerns and seek clarification about several other matters. “If
I have rightly understood you,” La Trappe asserted, “we can remain on the lands
and hunt there.” He further expressed his expectations for the future of Chippewa-
white relations on the ceded lands where nineteen Chippewa villages then existed:
18
Chippewa Treaty Rights
“we hope that your people will not act towards ours, as your forefathers did towards
our own — but that you will always treat us kindly, as you do now.” Finally, the
chief corrected Dodge’s comments about the alleged agricultural worthlessness of
the land being ceded. “We understand you, that you have been told our country
is not good to cultivate. It is false. There is no better soil to cultivate than it, until
you get up, to where the Pine region commences’’ (Van Antwerp 1837, 0559;
App. 1).
Dodge’s response contained a summary of the terms being offered by President
Martin Van Buren. The Indians, he said, would have “free use of the rivers, and
the privilege of hunting upon the lands you are to sell to the United States, during
his pleasure.’’ Dodge then assured the Indians, “your Great Father has sent me to
treat you as his children; to pay you the value of your land; & not to deceive you
in any thing I may do with you, or say to you.’’ The governor concluded by
expressing his hope that the Chippewas would agree to use a portion of any funds
provided as a result of the land cession for teachers to make their children “wise
like those of the white people,” for farmers to teach them agricultural pursuits, and
for various other goods to help uplift them (Van Antwerp 1837, 0560, App. 1).
On Friday, July 28th, Pillager chief Flat Mouth (Fig. 9) opened the proceedings,
making it clear that he was appointed to speak for all of the chiefs:
My Father. Your children are willing to let you have their lands, but they wish to
reserve the privilege of making sugar from the trees, and getting their living from the
Lakes and Rivers, as they have done heretofore, and of remaining in this Country. It is
hard to give up the lands. They will remain, and can not be destroyed — but you may cut
down the Trees, and others will grow up. You know we can not live, deprived of our
Lakes and Rivers; There is some game on the lands yet; & for that reason also, we wish
to remain upon them, to get a living. Sometimes we scrape the Trees and eat of the bark.
The Great Spirit above, made the Earth, and causes it to produce, which enables us to
live. (Van Antwerp 1837, 0560-561, App. 1)
Dodge promised to inform President Van Buren of the Chippewa requests regarding
continued privileges on the ceded lands. He then reemphasized his earlier statement,
“it will probably be many years, before your Great Father will want all these lands
for the use of his white Children.” Then the governor specified the compensation
to be provided for the land cession, including eight hundred thousand dollars dis¬
tributed as follows:
(1) six hundred and thirty thousand dollars in annuities apportioned over twenty years —
specifically earmarked purchases included three thousand dollars a year for blacksmiths
and related items; four thousand dollars for cattle and provisions; two thousand dollars
for mills and millers; one thousand dollars for farmers and agricultural implements; one
thousand dollars for schools; and five hundred dollars for tobacco;
(2) one hundred thousand dollars to the mixed-bloods as “an act of benevolence;’ ’ and
(3) seventy thousand dollars for debts determined to be “justly due” traders and other
creditors. (Van Antwerp 1837, 0561-562; App. 1 )
Flat Mouth protested payment to the traders from funds provided by the land
cession. Instead, he asked that the Great Father pay the debts, noting that many of
the debtors had been killed by the Sioux while on excursions for the traders.
19
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Fig. 9. Ojibwa Chief Flat Mouth, 1855. From Minnesota Historical Society Collections,
Vol. 9 (1904). Courtesy of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. WHi(x3)25050
Furthermore, he said, the traders had no right to speak of debts owed them since
these white men had taken fish from the lakes and wood from the forests without
ever paying the Chippewas. The chief also questioned the fairness of the proposed
twenty-year annuity. “If it was my land you was buying, I would, instead of an
annuity for only 20 years — demand one from you, as long as the ground lasted.
You know that without the lands, and the Rivers & Lakes, we could not live. We
hunt, and make Sugar, & dig roots upon the former, while we fish, and obtain
20
Chippewa Treaty Rights
Rice, and drink from the latter.” Following Flat Mouth’s remarks, Governor Dodge
adjourned the meeting. ‘‘Be fully prepared,” he advised the Indians, ‘‘to finish our
business” in the morning (Van Antwerp 1837, 0562; App. 1).
Governor Dodge assembled the Chippewas on Saturday morning, July 29th,
determined to end the negotiations and to obtain signatures on a land cession treaty.
He told them that subagents Vineyard and Bushnell had agreed to the fairness of
his offer and had approved of the arrangements with only the question of funds for
the mixed-bloods13 yet to be answered. As the chiefs sat down together in council
to discuss this matter, a large contingent of unarmed warriors approached the council
lodge singing and dancing in war costume with their war flag flying. The Little Six
(Shagobai), a chief from Snake River, spoke for the warriors. He informed Dodge,
“the Braves of the different bands have smoked and talked together.” Fearing they
could not survive the winter without aid from the traders, the braves wanted the
traders to be paid, but they did not want “to undo what the Chiefs have done.”
The warriors requested that the United States pay more money for the lands it
wanted to use. Not only should Dodge agree to the sixty-year lease requested by
Pillager chief La Trappe, but the traders should also be paid (Van Antwerp 1837,
0563; App. 7).
Anxious to win the warriors’ support, Dodge agreed to pay an additional seventy
thousand dollars toward the traders’ debts but said that was all he was prepared to
do. He made no mention of extending the annuities from twenty to sixty years. At
this point, the elder Hole in the Day, a war chief from the Upper Mississippi, spoke
with great excitement and bluntly told the warriors to accept the governor’s terms.
“Braves! There are many of you — but none of you have done what I have — nor
are any of you my equals!! — Our Father wishes us to go home in peace.” Pledging
that “death alone shall prevent the fulfilment {s/c} of it on my part,” Hole in the
Day’s words carried the day (Van Antwerp 1837, 0564; App. 7).
Before proceeding with the signing of the treaty, Dodge reminded the chiefs and
warriors that they were “brethren of the same great Nation.” Applause greeted his
comment that “it is the duty of the Braves to be obedient to their Chiefs.” Dodge
concluded his comments by asserting, “both Chiefs & Braves should respect the
Traders and treat them justly and kindly, that harmony and good feeling may exist
among you all; & that you may be serviceable to each other.” The Little Six, the
Snake River chief who had previously spoken for the warriors, reminded Dodge
that some traders had dealt harshly with the Indians. Dodge was apparently unin¬
terested in pursuing that issue for he turned quickly to another subject (Van Antwerp
1837, 0564-565; App. 1)
After Secretary Van Antwerp read the final terms of the treaty, Dodge signed
the document (Fig. 10). As the governor waited for the Indians to sign, there was
silence. There was a great reluctance among the Chippewa chiefs to step forward
and sign or make their marks on the treaty. Finally, Dodge offered to give an
official copy of the treaty “for all your people to look at” to the first chief to step
forward and sign it. Hole in the Day then walked promptly to the treaty table and
“with his characteristic intrepidity, offered his signature” (Van Antwerp 1837,
0568; App . 7). In his annual report after the conclusion of the negotiations at St.
Peters, Dodge predicted the treaty would “attach” the Chippewas to the United
States and, “if the proper steps are taken,” the Indians could be “easily controlled
by their agents” (Dodge 1837b, 538).
21
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National Archives and Records Service.
Chippewa Treaty Rights
Within one month of the signing of the treaty, missionary Reverend William T.
Boutwell, who had witnessed the negotiations, reported to his superior in Boston,
“the Ind{ian}s have no idea of leaving their country while they live — they know
nothing of the duration of a man{’}s pleasure” (Boutwell 1837). This was certainly
true of the leaders of the interior bands from Wisconsin. They had arrived late and
played only a minor role in the proceedings, according to Van Antwerp’s journal.
Yet, the portion of the land cession in Wisconsin included their village sites — the
area extended from the St. Croix River east to the location of what today are the
cities of Crandon, Antigo, and Stevens Point, and from Stevens Point north to
Rhinelander, and from Osceola and Eau Claire north to Lake St. Croix. In addition
to the village of the interior bands, the cession included a great pine forest region
and the headwaters of the Chippewa, Flambeau, Namekagon, Black, and Yellow
rivers (Levi 1956, 55-56). As will be demonstrated shortly, the interior bands
assumed American use of the timber from ceded lands would not result in permanent
white occupation of the region. They steadfastly believed that access to their ceded
lands as well as to resources and wildlife (as agreed to in the treaty) would allow
them to perpetuate their traditional lifestyle.
Indian agent Henry Rowe Schoolcraft at the Mackinac Island-Sault Ste. Marie
Agency in Michigan wondered “why it was that so little had been given for so
large a cession, comprehending the very best lands of the Chippewas in the Mis¬
sissippi Valley.” On October 5, 1838, the agent was visited by Lyman M. Warren
(Schoolcraft 1851, 611), the La Pointe trader who had arrived with the interior
Wisconsin Indians, witnessed the treaty negotiations, and received twenty-five thou¬
sand dollars under the provision for the payment of traders’ claims under Article
4 (Van Antwerp 1837, 0556-567; App. 1 ). Warren’s reflections on the treaty pro¬
ceedings substantiate Van Antwerp’s official version and also offer important in¬
sights as to the motivations of the primary players in the drama.
According to Warren, St. Peter’s agent Lawrence Taliaferro played an important
behind-the-scenes role in the negotiations. Taliaferro, whose primary responsibilities
included the Sioux Indians living in Minnesota, signed the treaty as a witness but
is not mentioned in the official proceedings (Kappler 2: 493; App. 2). Taliaferro
had strongly opposed the transfer of the Chippewa of Minnesota to the Sault Ste.
Marie agency under Schoolcraft in 1827 and was actively involved in the behind-
the-scenes posturing that led to the cession of Sioux claims in Wisconsin shortly
after the Chippewa cession (Babcock 1924, 371-74). Warren said Taliaferro pro¬
moted the interests of the Minnesota Chippewas of the Upper Mississippi and eagerly
sought to thwart those of the interior Wisconsin bands under the jurisdiction of his
rival, agent Schoolcraft. Taliaferro had supposedly “loaded” Hole in the Day and
another unnamed chief with presents before the proceedings began. Warren claimed
(and the proceedings appear to verify) that “the Pillagers, in fact, made the treaty.
The bands of the St. Croix and Chippewa Rivers, who really lived on the land and
owned it, had, in effect, no voice. So {too} with respect to the La Pointe Indians.”
Members of the Lac Courte Oreilles and Lac du Flambeau bands also opposed the
sale (Schoolcraft 1851, 611). Warren’s observations lend a new perspective into
the actions noted in the proceedings.
Warren contended that Dodge “really knew nothing of the fertility and value of
the country purchased, having never set foot on it. Governor Dodge thought the
tract chiefly valuable for its pine, and natural millpower; and there was no one to
23
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
undeceive him.” As a result of Dodge’s persistence and Taliaferro’s bribery, “the
Chippewas managed badly — they knew nothing of thousands, or how the annuity
would divide among so many.” Warren claimed, for example, that the nineteen
thousand dollars provided for goods under Article 2 of the treaty “would not exceed
a breech-cloth and a pair of leggins apiece.” Nevertheless, Warren said, the Indians
“were, in fact, cowed down by the braggadocia of the flattered Pillager war chief,
Hole-in-the-Day,” whom Schoolcraft referred to as “one of the most hardened,
bloody-thirsty wretches” among the Chippewas. For these reasons, according to
Warren, Dodge obtained the area for much less than he was authorized to offer
(Schoolcraft 1851, 611) even though he had promised to pay the Indians the full
value of their lands.
In assessing Warren’s comments, Schoolcraft recorded in his diary: “I have not
the means of testing these facts, but have the highest confidence in the character,
sense of justice, and good natural judgment of Gov. Dodge. He may have been ill
advised of some facts. The Pillagers certainly do not, I think, as a band, own or
occupy a foot of soil east of the Mississippi below Sandy Lake, but their warlike
character has a sensible influence on those tribes, quite down to the St. Croix and
Chippewa rivers. The sources of these rivers are valuable for only their pineries,
and their valleys only become fertile below their falls and principal rapids” (School¬
craft 1851, 611).
While the official U. S. Government version of the treaty proceedings can be
compared with eyewitness accounts like those of Warren and Reverend Boutwell,
it is much more difficult to obtain information about the Chippewa perspective of
the negotiations. The negotiations were particularly complex since the Chippewas
were not organized into any single political entity that could speak with one voice
through a recognized leader — even though Dodge acted as if they were. It is unclear
as to how the decisions regarding who would speak in behalf of the assembled
Chippewas were determined, but the evidence appears to substantiate Warren’s
claim that the interior bands from Wisconsin remained silent during the meetings
with Dodge. Scholars do not know what took place or what was said as the Indians
met by themselves between sessions with Dodge. Even so, scholars do know the
Indians’ silence at the face-to-face meetings with Dodge should not be equated with
agreement.
As anthropologists have noted, many Indians customarily remain silent in am¬
biguous, uncertain, or unpredictable situations. Indian silence, which is often in¬
terpreted by non-Indians as stoicism, is more frequently “based on a caution which
is at once related to fear of and to respect for the uncertain status of the other
party.” This same sense of caution and desire to preserve consensus and avoid
conflict may explain the behavior of Indians who refused to attend treaty councils
as well as that of those who remained silent or withdrew from treaty councils rather
than voicing their opinions (Washburn 1975, 16-17; Wax and Thomas 1961, 306).
Methodist minister Chomingwen Pond, a white woman who has served as a pastor
for churches on the Lac du FLambeau and Bad River reservations in recent years,
has observed that the Chippewas ’s reticence is often wrongly interpreted by whites
as unfriendliness or even a lack of intelligence ( Wisconsin State Journal 1990c, 25).
Also helpful in understanding Chippewa behavior at the 1837 treaty proceedings
is what scholars have referred to as the Indian “ethic of non-interference,” which
most Indians follow unconsciously. As Rosalie H. Wax and Robert K. Thomas
24
Chippewa Treaty Rights
have observed, “the white man has been and is tom between two ideals: on the
one hand, he believes in freedom, in minding his own business, and in the right
of people to make up their own minds for themselves; but, on the other hand, he
believes that he should be his brother’s keeper and not abstain from advice, or even
action” in his brother’s behalf. In contrast, “the Indian society is unequivocal:
interference of any form is forbidden, regardless of the folly, irresponsibility, or
ignorance of your brother” (Wax and Thomas 1961, 308-09).
Flat Mouth’s refusal to begin the treaty negotiations before the arrival of the
interior bands because “to do so . . . might be considered an improper interference,
and unfair towards them” (Van Antwerp 1837, 0549; App. 1) exemplifies the ethic
of non-interference. Similarly, the ethic helps to explain Chippewa expressions of
their fear of Governor Dodge at the negotiations. From earliest childhood, Indians
are trained to “regard absolute non-interference in interpersonal relations as decent
or normal and to react to even the mildest coercion in these areas with bewilderment,
disgust, and fear” (Wax and Thomas 1961, 310). The Wind’s expression of fear
may well have represented such a reaction to Dodge’s coercive efforts. After re¬
peatedly refusing to negotiate with Dodge until the Wisconsin bands arrived, The
Wind told Dodge: “when I look at you it frightens me. I cannot sufficiently estimate
your importance, and it confuses me” (Van Antwerp 1837, 0551; App. 1).
It is also important to remember that the Chippewas, like other non-English-
speaking Indians, often understood words and events in different terms than their
white counterparts. Linguistic research reveals there was no single word in the
nineteenth-century Chippewa language for fishing, so it is very likely that the
convenient catchall Ojibwa word meaning “general foraging” with any kind of a
device for any purpose was used by interpreters to translate the meaning of the
treaty wording, “hunting and fishing” (Lurie 1987, 59-60). Such substitutions could
render an Indian’s understanding very different from a white person’s understanding
of treaty stipulations. And although most whites would see written words as taking
priority over spoken, this is not true in Chippewa culture.
Since oral rather than written communication was the typical mode of Indian
negotiations, the final written document to which Indians affixed an “X” or their
symbols was not as important to them as their understanding of the verbal agreements
made, a direct contradiction to most white people’s assumptions. The following
comment by ethnohistorian Wilcomb E. Washburn aptly describes some of the
difficulties Indians had in dealing with American treaty commissioners:
The white man as officeholder is, in many ways, a more perplexing and perverse figure
to the Indian than the individual conqueror, or fur trapper, or explorer. Under the panoply
of European formality the government representative communicated with Indian leaders,
but too often the form and spirit were not in close juxtaposition. The Indian, valuing the
spirit rather than the recorded form, which in his letterless society was, for the most part,
superfluous, could not cope with the legalisms of the white man. Nor could an alien
government sympathize with, let alone understand, the plight of a race organized into
categories that had no parallels in the white bureaucratic machinery. (Washburn 1964, xiii)
As Washburn indicates, Indians left treaty negotiations with understandings based
on the dialogue that had taken place while whites left with a written document
confirming their intentions and goals if not their actual words as understood by the
Indians. Several years before the parley at St. Peters, French visitor Alexis de
25
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts & Letters
Tocqueville witnessed the U. S. government’s conduct of Indian affairs and ob¬
served the impact of federal policy on the Indians, including the Chippewas in the
Great Lakes region (1831-32, 134-45). Tocqueville maintained that there was a
tremendous gulf between appearances and reality, and he argued that American
Indian policy was skillfully designed to acquire Indian lands “with wonderful ease,
quietly, legally, and philanthropically, without spilling blood and without violating
a single one of the great principles of morality in the eyes of the world.” While
the American public might be fooled, Tocqueville believed “it is impossible to
destroy men with more respect to the laws of humanity” (1848, 324-25, 339). In
1837 at St. Peters, Governor Dodge used the formalities of the treaty-making process
to benefit the national interest, but he did not treat with the Chippewas in the same
manner that an American diplomat would have been obliged to handle negotiations
with a European power.
Interpreters played a key role in treaty negotiations. “The right understanding
and successful issue of every negotiation depend upon their fidelity and ability,”
Indian Commissioner Harris informed Secretary of War Joel R. Poinsett in 1837
(Harris 1837c, 528). Appointed and paid by the Indian Office, interpreters were in
fact representatives of the United States government who, as Commissioner Harris
poignantly observed, helped to shape the outcome of each treaty negotiation (Satz
1975, 196). For that reason, even the interpreters whom modem readers might
assume to have been unbiased were paid to act in the best interests of the U. S.
government, not of the Indians.
Further complicating matters, interpreters sometimes had to use several languages
in their attempts to convey the words of one negotiator to another. During the 1837
Chippewa parley, for example, an eyewitness reported, “it appeared as though
neither the Governor or Indians understood the interpretation properly at the time,
it having to pass from Indian into French and then into English before the Governor
got the meaning & a high wind blowing at the time in an exposed place but after
some time and one or two Repetitions The secretary was directed” what to write
(Baker 1838). According to a missionary eyewitness to the 1837 treaty proceedings,
government interpreter Peter Quinn was “a thick- mouthed, stammering Irishman”
who was unable “to speak intelligibly” in either English or Ojibwa (Brunson
1872-79, 2: 83).
Although the Chippewas did not maintain their own written record of the 1837
proceedings, a number of disgmntled Indian participants sent messages to President
Van Buren through missionary Frederick Ayer. Their complaints included inade¬
quate compensation for ceded lands and the loss of fish, rice, sugar, and timber
taken by a local trader without providing compensation. In one of these messages,
The Wind of the Snake River area charged, as did Lyman Warren in his conversation
with Agent Schoolcraft, that Hole in the Day played a leading role: “There were
many Chiefs who spoke with the Gov. at St. Peters, at the Treaty. But only one
however sold the land (the hole in the day). He does not own the land where I
dwell, he is a mere Child” (The Wind 1837). These words could just as easily
have been spoken by any of the Chippewas from the interior Wisconsin bands whose
lands were ceded at St. Peters. In June of 1839, when Hole in the Day protested
the transfer of annuity payments from St. Peters to La Pointe, he reminded Agent
Taliaferro that he was the chief to whom Governor Dodge had given a copy of the
1837 treaty to hold because he was “the Ch{i}ef of all the Indians that sold their
26
Chippewa Treaty Rights
land” (Hole in the Day 1839). By 1839, as the commissioner appointed to pay
traders’ claims against Chippewa mixed-bloods under Article 3 of the treaty noted,
it was well known that “the ‘Leech Lake’ Indians{,} a very warlike band of the
Chippewas who took an active part in making the Treaty{,} had no interest or right
whatever in the country ceded” (Lyon 1839a).
Twenty-seven years after the signing of the 1837 treaty, a delegation of Chippewa
chiefs, headmen, and warriors — including men from the bands at Lac Courte Or-
eilles, Lac du Flambeau, and La Pointe (Bad River and Red Cliff) in Wisconsin
as well as from Fond du Lac in Minnesota and Ontonagon in the Upper Peninsula
of Michigan — recalled the events of the meeting at St. Peters (Chippewas of Lake
Superior 1864). The occasion was the drafting of a petition they signed and took
to Washington for presentation to Commissioner of Indian Affairs William P. Dole.
The bilingual petition refers to the 1837 treaty proceedings and the U. S. govern¬
ment’s failure to fulfill various stipulations of that agreement. Leaders of the Bad
River Reservation dictated the petition during the winter of 1864, and U. S. In¬
terpreter Joseph Gunroe, a Chippewa mixed-blood from Bayfield, transcribed it
verbatim in a two-column format, one column in Ojibwa and the other in English.
This document contains a brief statement about the 1837 treaty proceedings from
the Chippewa point of view.14
According to the bilingual petition, “Great Father” Martin Van Buren in Wash¬
ington had assembled representatives of the Chippewa bands at St. Peters in July
of 1837 to acquire the pinelands in order to provide timber for his people. The
Indian response to Dodge’s demand for a land cession in 1837 was supposedly as
follows:
So then Father, Our Great Father requests me to sell him my Pine Timber, our Great
Father is mighty, therefore whatever he says would not be in vain, and whatever he
promises to do he will fulfill.
Very well, I will sell him the Pine Timber as he requests me to. From the usual height
of cutting a tree down and upwards to top is what I sell you, I reserve the root of the
tree. Again this I hold in my hand the Maple Timber, also the Oak Timber, also this
Straw which I hold in my hand. Wild Rice is what we call this. These I do not sell.
That you may not destroy the Rice in working the timber. Also the Rapids and Falls
in the Streams I will lend you to saw your timber, also a small tract of land to make a
garden to live on while you are working the timber.
I do not make you a present of this, I merely lend it to you. This is my answer, My
Great Father is great, and out of respect for him I will not refuse him, but as an exchange
of civility I must see and feel the benefits of this loan, and the promises fulfilled.
This was the Indians answer. (Chippewas of Lake Superior 1864)
Members of the 1864 delegation claimed, “we do not get, receive what was prom¬
ised, which was part of the pay for the Timber I sold. For instance the employees,
three years was all they worked, also Beef and Working Cattle were promised us
but we did not see any, we think they were never given to us.” The very reason
for the presence of the delegation in Washington was that, with regard to the Treaty
of 1837 and other agreements with the United States, “certain it is that the Indian
has failed to see the promises made to him fulfilled’ ’ (Chippewas of Lake Superior
1864).
27
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
There are several discrepancies between the Indians’ remembrance of the 1837
proceedings in 1864, the official proceedings of the treaty, and the signed treaty.
For example, the number of years for the annuity was actually twenty not twenty-
five as claimed by the delegates in 1864. Yet the paragraphs quoted above reflect
the substance, albeit not the exact wording, of the comments of the Chippewas
who spoke during the negotiations based on Van Antwerp’s journal and the com¬
ments of trader Lyman Warren. As Warren’s son, interpreter William Warren15
noted some years later, “in order to arrive at the truth of a fact obtained of an
Indian, respecting their past history, a person must go from one old man, to another
of different villages or sections of the tribe, and obtain the version of each; if they
all agree in the main fact, even if they disagree in the details, you can then be
certain that the circumstance has happened, and the tale has a substantial origin”16
(Warren 1851, 47). Chippewa Indians memorized the details of important events
such as treaty negotiations and taught them to their young who in turn passed the
information on to the next generation with remarkable accuracy (Keller 1981, 3).
Anthropologist Mary Druke reminds us that among Indian peoples the spoken
word was weighted more heavily than the written word. While oral traditions of
treaties may not be verbatim accounts of the treaty proceedings, they “convey an
accepted interpretation of relationships based on agreements made in council ne¬
gotiations” (Druke 1985, 90-91). Indian memory, as one scholar has noted, is very
reliable. “For a person who can’t run to a bookshelf or a notebook to look up either
vital or trivial information, reliance on memory becomes very important in everyday
life.” As a result of having to learn “by heart” multitudes of details about rituals,
kinship and other social relationships, and the names and uses of hundreds of plants
and animals, for example, ‘ ‘nonliterate people have more finely developed memories
than do literate people” (Allen 1986, 66).
Oral traditions of treaties were open to criticism by Indian listeners who either
were present at the time of a recounted occurrence or heard other accounts of the
tradition against which to judge the narrative. Although the 1837 Chippewa treaty
did not, for example, specifically mention anything about reserving the right to
make maple sugar, the reference to the maple trees in 1864 by Indians from various
Chippewa bands is understandable given the number of times the Indians mention
making sugar during the proceedings in 1837 and given Dodge’s promise to discuss
the matter with the president. When the Chippewas signed the treaty of 1837, they
fully expected to continue eating traditional foods — including maple sugar. As one
scholar has noted, “maple sugar occupied such a central role in Chippewa culture,
commerce and diet that one can argue from historical and anthropological evidence
that . . . these Indians, regardless of treaty omissions, must have reasonably ex¬
pected their access to maple trees to continue long after they had ceded traditional
lands . This deduction is confirmed by an array of documents and by specific events
during the treaty period” (Keller 1989, 124, 126).
In reviewing the events surrounding the 1837 treaty, it is clear that the Chippewas
attempted to explain the importance of their relationship to the natural resources of
Wisconsin and that they assumed the whites only wanted access to certain resources,
not the land itself (Vennum 1988, 256). Many times during the proceedings the
Indians insisted on reserving usufructuary rights.17 Governor Dodge, anxious to
conclude negotiations and concerned about a possible outbreak of hostilities between
the Chippewa and the Sioux Indians, agreed to recognize usufructuary rights in the
28
Chippewa Treaty Rights
treaty but insisted on adding the phrase “during the pleasure of the President” (Van
Antwerp 1837, 0566; App. 1 ).
About a year and a half after he negotiated the 1837 treaty, Dodge complained
to Indian Commissioner Crawford that the medals and flags he had promised would
be distributed among the Indians had still not been procured by the Indian Office.
“The officers of the Government must comply with all promises they may make
the Indians,” he told Crawford, adding, “if they deceive them once, they never
afterwards have confidence in them” (Dodge 1839, 1187). Dodge was correct. But
it was his promise of continued usufructuary rights rather than of medals and flags
that would ultimately be the basis by which the Chippewas determined their con¬
fidence in officials of the United States government.
Removal of the Chippewa Indians from Wisconsin was not mentioned in the
Treaty of 1837. In fact, as already noted, these Indians were told in Article 5 of
the ratified treaty that they could continue to hunt, fish, and gather upon the lands,
rivers, and lakes in the ceded territory “during the pleasure of the President”
(Kappler 2: 492; App. 2). The interior Wisconsin bands — who as Reverend Bou-
twell observed “know nothing of the duration of a man{’}s pleasure” (Boutwell
1837) — apparently agreed to abide by the treaty only after becoming convinced
that they would receive a portion of the goods and money flowing from the agreement
without having to abandon their villages, the land upon which they hunted and
gathered, or their fishing areas.
The annuities proved to be a mixed blessing to the Chippewas. Governor Dodge
predicted shortly after the Senate ratified the treaty that the annuities would “have
a salutary effect’ ’ in helping to control the Indians since they placed ‘ ‘great reliance’ ’
on the funds (Dodge 1838e, 176). The Chippewas received cash payments and
goods as specified in the treaty. War Department officials made a concerted effort
after 1837 to convince the Indians to accept guns, ammunition, blankets, and other
merchandise as a portion of their annuities in lieu of money so that they would be
less dependent upon the traders who tended to “monopolize” the cash payment.
Viewing federal officials as “intruders” in their business relations with the Indians,
traders belittled the merchandise supplied by the government (Dodge 1838d, 1029;
Dodge 1839, 1186). Sometimes the goods supplied by the government had no value
to the Indians. In 1839, for example, the War Department shipped saddles and
bridles to the Chippewas at La Pointe who had no horses and no need for them
along the forested and roadless south shore of Lake Superior. Despite the subagent’s
protest that the goods were “of no earthly value” to the Indians, another shipment
was sent in 1840 (Bushnell 1840a). Guns sent to La Pointe rarely included am¬
munition, but sometimes this turned out to be a blessing because the weapons were
so poorly constructed that many exploded upon firing, crippling Chippewa hunters.
Other shoddy government goods such as thin blankets and cheap pots also rankled
the Indians and gave weight to the traders’ criticism of government efforts to provide
goods instead of money (Danziger 1979, 81; U. S. Congress 1849, 537).
Federal efforts to convince the Chippewas to accept goods in lieu of cash did
not stop the Indians from buying goods on credit from traders. The purchase of
fishing nets on credit from the American Fur Company continued unabated after
1837 as did the whites’ demand for Lake Superior fish. A federal official observed
in 1839, “the Indians are encouraged to exertion in this branch of business, by the
offer of a fair price for all the fish, they can catch, payable on the delivery of the
29
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
fish at the different Store houses built to receive them” (Jones 1838; Lyon 1839b,
97-98).
A large portion of Chippewa annuities continued to end up in the pockets of
traders after 1837. Indian agents continued to permit the traders to settle their
accounts at the annuity payment grounds. George Copway,18 an acculturated Chip¬
pewa from Canada who witnessed numerous annuity payments in Wisconsin and
elsewhere in the Great Lakes region in the years following the 1837 treaty, claimed
“the dissipation, misery, and ruin” of the Lake Superior Chippewa people was
directly related to annuities provided in treaties. According to Copway, annuity
payments attracted people having “white faces (with black hearts),” unscrupulous
white traders and whiskey peddlers as well as other “unprincipled men and va¬
gabonds” who were “no better than pickpockets” (Copway 1847, 126-28).
Increasingly, the flexible and personalized exchange relationships between the
Chippewa trappers and white traders in Wisconsin were replaced by the poorly
organized annuity system of the federal government.19 The system, characterized
by “tedious journeys” for many to the payment site and long delays once there,
interfered with the traditional late fall rice-gathering and the winter hunting patterns
of the Chippewa people. The insertion of the annuity system into the Chippewa
hunting-fishing-fur trading system not only disrupted traditional economic cycles
but also gave the United States increased leverage in dealing with the Indians as
they became dependent on the annuities. Indian agents took over many of the
functions previously performed by fur traders in Chippewa society (Richmond 1846,
990; Danziger 1979, 79-81; Clifton 1987, 13-14; James 1954, 44).
Another significant impact of the 1837 treaty was the appearance of whites on
the ceded lands.20 American entrepreneurs flooded into the northern Wisconsin pine
lands even before the treaty was ratified by the U. S. Senate on June 15, 1838,
nearly eleven months after its negotiation. Among the well-known traders who
signed the 1837 treaty as witnesses and subsequently exploited the forest wealth
thrown open to Americans by that agreement were Henry Hastings Sibley, Hercules
L. Dousman, and Lyman M. Warren (Fries 1951, 11; Babcock 1924, 374; Bartlett
1921, 37; Citizens of the Pineries {1840}). Ironically, as the cutting of the pine
forests progressed, white-tailed deer flourished and the subsistence value of the
ceded land actually increased to the Chippewas, making the old War Department
strategy of decreasing Indian hunting grounds by land cession treaties in order to
encourage removal ineffective21 (Clifton 1987, 14).
American officials had plenty of information indicating that any effort to remove
the Chippewas from Wisconsin was bound to fail. Six months after the ratification
of the 1837 treaty, La Pointe subagent Daniel P. Bushnell advised Territorial Gov¬
ernor Dodge, “the general policy of our Government in removing the Indians west
of the Mississippi can never be carried into effect in relation to . . . {the interior
bands of Wisconsin} Chippewas.” His reasons were twofold: the Indians would
“have to change their habits entirely,” and they would expose themselves west of
the Mississippi River to the Sioux, “their natural enemies.” As a result of these
circumstances, any effort to remove them would be “highly improper, and inhu¬
mane” (Bushnell 1839a). In 1840, the subagent reported that the interior bands
“subsist at present by hunting, fishing, and on the wild rice found in the lakes and
rivers.” He again stated that any attempt to remove them and deprive them of their
30
Chippewa Treaty Rights
“usufructuary right” under the 1837 treaty would meet strong opposition (Bushnell
{1840b}, 339).
The 1837 treaty also had an important impact on the Chippewas along the southern
shore of Lake Superior. Chief Buffalo of the La Pointe Band, whom Governor
Henry Dodge referred to as “a man of great influence among his tribe, and very
friendly to the whites” (Dodge 1838b), spoke the sentiments of the Indians of the
region in a message directed to Governor Dodge:
... I have nothing to say about the Treaty, good, or bad, because the country was not
mine; but when it comes my turn I shall know how to act. If the Americans want my
land, I shall know what to say. I did not like to stand in the road of the Indians at St.
Peters. I listened to our Great Father’s words, & laid them in my heart. I have not forgotten
them. The Indians acted like children; they tried to cheat each other and got cheated
themselves. When it comes my turn to sell my land, I do not think I shall give it up as
they did.
Father I speak for my people, not for myself. I am an old man. My fire is almost out —
there is but little smoke. When I set in my wigwam & smoke my pipe, I think of what
has past and what is to come, and it makes my heart shake. When business comes before
us we will try and act like Chiefs. If any thing is to be done, it had better be done straight.
(Buffalo 1837)
Five years after Buffalo spoke these words, the elderly chief faced American Treaty
Commissioner Robert Stuart who was determined to acquire all remaining Chippewa
lands in Wisconsin. As Stuart discovered, Buffalo’s “fire” was far from out.
31
3
The 1842
Copper Treaty
As American lumberjacks felled the woodlands of the Chippewa land cession
in the late 1830s and early 1840s, reports of vast copper deposits along the
shores of Lake Superior and the Isle Royale led federal officials to push for new
land cessions from the Chippewa Indians22 (Bushnell 1839b, 489; Sterling 1840;
Jones 1841; Crawford 1842, 379). The reports of rich mineral deposits in the north
were well-founded, for the region contained one of the most extensive deposits of
surface copper anywhere in the world.23 Centuries before the birth of Christ, Indians
had mined deep copper pits along the shore and used copper in making arrowheads,
fishhooks, knives, needles, and bracelets.24 Chippewa mining was so extensive that
scholars claim Indian miners probably worked every modem industrial mining site
dotting the shore of Lake Superior (Fig. 11). In 1837, the Michigan state legislature
appointed geologist Douglas Houghton as director of its newly created Department
of Geology. Houghton’s surveys in the early 1840s triggered American interest in
the entire Lake Superior region (Keller 1978, 16; Nute 1944, 165; Robbins 1960, 141).
Many Americans hoped to profit from the copper deposits. War Department
officials wanted to acquire all Indian title to the Lake Superior shoreline, and those
who hoped to gain patronage positions from the department offered their services
to influence the Indians to remove (Warren 1841). In March of 1841, however,
Gouvemeur Kemble suggested that American interests could be served without
purchasing the ore-bearing lands from the Indians. Kemble, a New York foundry
owner25 and Democratic Congressman, wrote to President Van Buren’s secretary
of war, Joel R. Poinsett, and then to the new Whig administration’s secretary of
war, John Bell, recommending employing Chippewa men instead of whites as mine
workers and paying the Indians a percentage of the money earned from the copper
mining. But Commissioner of Indian Affairs T. Hartley Crawford, who served both
the Van Buren and the Harrison-Tyler administrations (Satz 1979b), flatly rejected
Kemble’s plan of joint Chippewa and American involvement in Lake Superior
mining efforts because it would have perpetuated Chippewa ownership of the re¬
gion’s mineral resources (Keller 1978, 17). Instead, Crawford called for the ac¬
quisition of all Chippewa lands in the region, noting control of the southern shore
of Lake Superior was “very important” to American interests (Crawford 1842, 379).
The Treaty of October 4, 1842 (Fig. 12), with the Mississippi and Lake Superior
Chippewas accomplished Crawford’s purpose by ceding land north of the 1837
cession. Following the cession, copper mining boomed: the region led the world
in copper production by 1890 (Keller 1978, 17).
Acting Superintendent of Indian Affairs Robert Stuart of Michigan (Fig. 13)
negotiated the 1842 treaty at La Pointe. Stuart, a former agent of the American Fur
Company (AFC) who was active in Whig political circles in Michigan (Satz 1975,
162), had indicated a strong interest in economic opportunities in the Lake Superior
region as early as the 1820s (Nute 1926, 485). The Indians who assembled at the
33
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts & Letters
Fig. 11. Ancient Mining on Lake Superior. A drawing by J. C. Tidball, from Henry
Rowe Schoolcraft, Historical and Statistical Information Respecting the History, Con¬
dition and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States, Vol. 5 (1 855). Courtesy
of the Library of Congress. LC-USZ62-2088
treaty grounds agreed to cede the last of the Chippewa lands in northern Wisconsin
(see Fig. 7) only after Stuart made oral explanations about the articles he included
in the final treaty: the provision for continued hunting, fishing, and gathering
privileges in ceded territory; the payments amounting to $75,000 to traders and
$15,000 to mixed-bloods; the $5,000 agriculture fund to be expended under the
direction of the secretary of war; and the twenty-five year annuity schedule with
$31,200 in cash, goods, and services to be “equally divided” between the Mis¬
sissippi and Lake Superior bands (Kappler 2: 542-45; App. 4).
Official documentation for the 1842 treaty is scanty since unlike the 1837 ne¬
gotiations neither Treaty Commissioner Stuart nor Secretary Jonathan Hulbert kept
a journal, or at least neither forwarded one to Commissioner of Indian Affairs
Crawford. But historian Mark Keller errs in stating that “government documents
are silent on the event” (1981, 10). Stuart corresponded with Commissioner Craw-
34
Chippewa Treaty Rights
/ylf'Z Z/sZsti y^Z.^4 Zfjp.esSy. - f ? fSe mere/ f-Z? Zee* ? *sSe ty Zlt,
//Sii, /Sete is *Z eZ/tt/c* s&**sl /Z^y/ssse eiee, y /F/tstek eS& / /ZL.
/£/* SsueC Zei jSls t/ee^eteet , Se sZ,c set ?• e<„ /Z s/ ///. //_ afreet J , // SSserS SSss
~J%.€ ''/Zeises fa/t e/tseSesy /?SS S/u JU/ti >/ eSj //« y&/ef sZf jS^Zhteettf/y, yteets. fZ.tr yert/ajfjc
S*/i sZ& 'Z/*eJ e ee?e Z0 ■tv.'*/ J ZZtre* ee, 6hSef/ £* -s/etseis sZ/y t Si/ks* e /Ze
ZseeeseSety Zen;, /feZetseetc sZ& Sf/tef fares r se? e 'es.Se-e ,
SsLJtSSf'et^ //p'settSjMi 4^>»y y^iSs Z/sZrsS. -Zy /A* "Zeer*. Sy
YYtA SZt/yys *4j>*s* / /Meets ettestee u*y fe*ttS , SlS S/et/Z- te/is
Zs/reZs, ZZfets/ ZZ Z/ZZyy Zmty * zZtxt ZZfsst e*. *..<,* Zjy ZZ 'ret y" *<*
ZZ&y / /Zstt, €&*■ /St- st/Zi-teea, e fS /y "~Z& SAms d&ee. e ss y /Z sestZtfoZ Sts/ r- t, S
ZZshss sZetti-'dt* tSauec S&tet ~Z$ Z/j Setse-t.// */Z’e y4..Stfree,. tyZ Zy*t* m4"*^y
Fig. 12. Treaty of 1842. The first page of the handwritten manuscript. Courtesy of the National
Archives and Records Service.
35
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Fig. 13. Robert and Elizabeth Stuart. Acting Superintendent of the Michigan Super¬
intendency Robert Stuart, who negotiated the 1842 treaty, was described by one
contemporary as “a severe man in all things” (Ghent 1936, 176). Courtesy of the
State Archives of Michigan.
36
Chippewa Treaty Rights
ford in Washington regarding the treaty (Stuart 1842a, b; Apps. 3 A, 3B). He also
responded to a letter from Reverend David Greene of the American Board of
Commissioners for Foreign Missions26 in Boston inquiring “whether the later Treaty
contemplates the expatriation of the Ojibways, to Queen Victoria’s dominions, or
some worse place’’ (Stuart 1842c). In June of 1843, less than three months after
ratification of the treaty, Stuart corresponded with Commissioner Crawford about
the provision for continued usufructuary rights in ceded territory (Stuart 1843b).
Additionally in a letter written two years after the negotiations, Stuart reconstructed
the events of the proceedings for Crawford to settle a dispute arising from the treaty
(Stuart 1844; App. 3C ).
Other American eyewitnesses included missionary Reverend Leonard H. Wheeler
and his interpreter, Henry Blatchford. Interpreter Blatchford prepared a contem¬
poraneous journal of the proceedings that Wheeler forwarded to his missionary
headquarters in May of 1843 (Wheeler 1843). Also present at the parley was La
Pointe Subagent Alfred Brunson. He wrote Wisconsin Territorial Governor James
D. Doty about the proceedings (Brunson 1843b, c) and later reflected on events in
his published reminiscences (Brunson 1872-79, 2: 165, 185-86, 206-07).
The evidence from American eyewitnesses, including that from Stuart, indicates
the commissioner used heavy-handed tactics to secure the treaty. Stuart informed
the Indians assembled at La Pointe, using language very similar to Dodge’s at St.
Peters in 1837, that their Great Father in Washington “knows that you are poor,
that your lands are not good, and that you have very little game left, to feed and
clothe your women & children-— He therefore pities your condition, and has sent
me to see what can be done to benefit you.” Stuart claimed that according to the
Treaty of Fond du Lac of 1826, the minerals found on their lands “no longer”
belonged to the Indians but to the United States. He also reported, “the whites
have been asking your Great Father to give them permission to take away all
{minerals} they can find —-but your Great Father wishes first to make a new treaty,
and to pay you well for these lands and minerals; he knows you are poor and
needy.” Stuart cautioned the Indians against listening to “some fools {who} have
been telling you Squaw stories” that the Great Father was “very anxious to buy
your lands & will give you a great price for them” (Stuart 1844, 0061, 0064;
App. 3C ).
Like Governor Dodge in 1837, Stuart used the popular white concept of majority
rule to permit the assembled representatives of the Minnesota bands and the Chris¬
tianized bands from Michigan to outmaneuver those of the Lake Superior Wisconsin
bands who were not interested in ceding their lands. “Your Great Father will not
treat with you as Bands, but as a Nation,” Stuart commented, adding very shrewdly,
“treaties are often made when whole Bands are absent, which could not be but on
the principle that all your lands are common property, and the majority of the Nation
can sell or not as they please, the absentees being entitled to their share of the
annuities.” Although it was “all right” for the bands to live apart and to choose
their own hunting grounds, Stuart told them their lands were “common property”
and could be ceded by tribal leaders assembled for that purpose just as annuities
“must all be paid at one place” (Stuart 1844, 0067; App. 3C).
Stuart informed the Chippewas that the whites “are numerous as the pigeons in
the Spring” and that other Indian tribes had already “been sent west of the Mis¬
sissippi, to make room for the whites.” He nevertheless assured the Indians it was
37
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
the minerals on their lands, not the lands themselves, that the whites desired at this
time. “But as these lands may at some future day be required,” he stated, “your
great Father does not wish to leave you without a home.” He proposed that when
their ceded lands were required by the president, a “home in common for you all”
would be provided in present-day Minnesota (Stuart 1844, 0062, 0064; App. 3C).
At first, the chiefs of the Wisconsin bands from the Lake Superior region remained
silent. As the Chippewas later recalled the event, “the Chiefs along the Lake Shore
did not say a word, not being willing to sell or make any agreement” (Chippewas
of Lake Superior 1864). Stuart, failing as did Governor Dodge in 1837 to understand
the significance of the silence, attempted to hurry the negotiations to a conclusion.
Chiefs from other regions then spoke. Shingoob of Fond du Lac protested Stuart’s
assertion that the Indians had surrendered all rights to minerals on their lands in
1826. He charged that the Chippewas “had been deceived” by the treaty com¬
missioners at that parley. There were similar complaints about the 1837 treaty at
St. Peters being “a lying, cheating concern.” Chief White Crow from Lac du
Flambeau alluded to prior discrepancies between what the Chippewas understood
treaty provisions to be and what the words of the white negotiators actually told
other whites when he stated, “We want nothing wrong on Paper. You may think
I am troubl{e}some but the way the treaty was made at St. Peters, we think was
wrong, we want nothing of the kind again.” White Crow informed the assembled
Indians he was very reluctant to “touch the pen” to the treaty for fear that “he
should be called upon immidiately {.sic} to remove.” Chief Buffalo of La Pointe
agreed and complained Stuart was not allowing the Indians enough time to deliberate
on the important issues he had presented for their consideration (Wheeler 1843).
La Pointe subagent Alfred Brunson, a Methodist missionary and Wisconsin pioneer,
bluntly stated, “the Indians did not act free & voluntary, but felt themselves pressed
into the measure” by Stuart who according to “several reputable witnesses,” had
told them “it was no difference whether they signed or not” because “the Gov{emmen}t
would take the land” (Brunson 1843c).
Stuart assured the Lake Shore chiefs, as had Dodge in 1837, that they would not
be asked to leave ceded lands for a very long time. When the suspicious chiefs
demanded to know the exact length of time, Stuart responded — depending on the
individual reporting the event — “as long as we behaved well & are peaceable with
our grandfather {in Washington} & his white children” (Martin {1842}), “not
probbably {sic} during . . . {your} lifetime” (Wheeler 1843), “we and our children
after us might be permitted to live on our land fifty years or even a hundred if we
lived on friendly terms with the Whites” (Buffalo et al. 1851), or “that they were
never to be disturbed if they behaved themselves” (Armstrong {1892}, 288). Stuart
himself informed Reverend David Greene of the American Board of Commissioners
for Foreign Missions in Boston shortly after the treaty negotiations, “I have the
pleasure to state, that it is not expected the Indians will have to remove from their
present locations, for many years to come. There are a few on and near the mineral
district, who, in imitation of Abraham and Lot, may have to move to the right, or
left.” Nevertheless, Stuart assured Greene that removal of the Wisconsin Indians
would not occur in the foreseeable future. As a further inducement to obtaining
Greene’s support of the treaty, Stuart told the missionary, “I have consulted with
your people as to the best locations for schools, Missionaries, Gov{emmen}t Officers
&c; to settle at, and hope to be able to do some good in that way, as well as in
38
Chippewa Treaty Rights
nominating good men to the Gov{emmen}t appointments, should the Treaty be
ratified” (Stuart 1842c). Six months after making these statements, and shortly
after the ratification of the treaty, Stuart opposed suggestions that the Indian Office
remove the Lake Superior Chippewas to Minnesota. He advised Indian Commis¬
sioner Crawford:
There are those who think that all these Indians should be at once removed to the unceded
district; but this would not be in conformity with the spirit of the treaty, nor could it be
easily accomplished just now, as they have considerable game, fish, and other inducements
to attach them to their present homes; but so soon as they realize the benefits of schools,
and the other arts of civilization, which I trust we shall be able to cluster around them,
there will be less difficulty in inducing them to renounce their present habits. (Stuart
1843b)
Although Stuart underestimated the Indians’ attachment to their “habits,” his ob¬
servation that removal would not be “in conformity with the spirit of the treaty”
coincided with their understanding of the agreement.
The actual wording of the published treaty provision appears in Article 2:
The Indians stipulate for the right of hunting on the ceded territory, with the other usual
privileges of occupancy, until required to remove by the President of the United States,
and that the laws of the United States shall be continued in force, in respect to their trade
and inter course {sic} with the whites, until otherwise ordered by Congress. (Kappler 2:
542-43; App. 4)
There was great controversy following the treaty’s ratification as to the exact mean¬
ing of this provision and the similar statement in the 1837 treaty (Kappler 2: 492;
App. 2). The interpretation of these treaty provisions continues to be a source of
controversy today.
In 1892, Benjamin G. Armstrong of Ashland, a southerner who moved to Wis¬
consin during the territorial period, claimed in his reminiscences that Treaty Com¬
missioner Stuart had specifically told the Chippewas they “were never to be dis¬
turbed {in their possession of the ceded lands} if they behaved themselves” (Armstrong
{1892}, 288). Armstrong’s reminiscences provide a sympathetic account of the
Wisconsin Chippewas. Married to the niece of Chief Buffalo, who had adopted
him as his son, Armstrong was a “sturdy defender” of the Wisconsin Chippewas
(Armstrong {1892}, 175).
Recently, anthropologist James A. Clifton has challenged Armstrong’s version
of Stuart’s alleged promise. Calling Armstrong “an inconsequential figure,” Clifton
stated unequivocally in an article in the 1987 issue of Transactions , “there is no
independent suggestion of the truth of this assertion {by Armstrong}— that continued
occupancy and use rights were contingent on good behavior as there is little support
for other such claims in Armstrong’s reminiscences” (Clifton 1987, 36 n. 44). In
a 1988 Associated Press news release, Clifton attacked recent court rulings restoring
Chippewa hunting, fishing, and gathering rights in ceded territory, claiming the
rulings relied heavily on Armstrong’s memoirs. The Wisconsin news media paid
considerable attention to Clifton’s assertions because of possible implications on
court decisions relating to rights reserved by the Chippewas {Eau Claire Leader-
Telegram 1988a). Professor Clifton’s contention that Armstrong’s claims about
39
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Chippewa reserved rights cannot be independently corroborated is erroneous and,
as will be noted, is clearly refuted by eyewitnesses to the treaty proceedings.27
The Indian recollection of the treaty proceedings as reported shortly after the
negotiations supports the conclusion that Commissioner Stuart used harsh measures
to secure the agreement. Less than three months after the parley concluded on
August 4, 1842, Chief Buffalo of La Pointe sent a message to subagent Brunson
through interpreter and treaty witness Lyman Warren indicating the La Pointe band’s
displeasure with the treaty.28 Buffalo stated bluntly he was “ashamed” of it, and
he charged that Stuart had refused to listen to any Indians opposing the measure.
Buffalo personally requested Brunson to ask the Great Father in Washington why
he had sought “to oppress his children in this remote country” (Buffalo 1842).
Shortly after Buffalo dictated his words of opposition to the treaty and to Stuart’s
handling of the negotiations, Stuart wrote Commissioner Crawford to assure him
that the Chippewas were “highly delighted with the kind and generous dealing of
the Government toward them” (Stuart 1842b, 0196; App. 3B ), but Subagent Brun¬
son sent the War Department ample evidence to refute Stuart’s claim (Brunson
1843a, b; Buffalo 1842; Martin {1842}; White Crow 1842).
The correspondence Brunson forwarded to Commissioner Crawford demonstrated
that Chief Buffalo was not alone in his criticism of Stuart’s handling of the ne¬
gotiations. Chief White Crow from Lac du Flambeau, for example, also complained
about Stuart’s insistence that it made no difference whether or not a particular chief
signed the treaty since the President would take the land if a majority of chiefs
signed (White Crow 1842). Chief Martin of Lac Courte Oreilles, who claimed he
had “never touched the pen” to sell lands before, also provided a communication
to be shared with Commissioner Crawford. “I & my brother chiefs refused to touch
the pen,” Martin assured Crawford, until Stuart promised that the Wisconsin Chip¬
pewas would be “permitted to live on the land as long as we behaved well & are
peaceable with our grand father {in Washington} & his white children” (Martin
{1842}). The statements of Chiefs Buffalo, White Crow, and Martin were forwarded
to Commissioner of Indian Affairs Crawford on January 8, 1843, a month before
the treaty was ratified by the Senate, and more than two months before it was
proclaimed by President John Tyler (Brunson 1843b).29
Brunson also sent Crawford a report of a council held at La Pointe on January
5, 1843. At the council, Chief Buffalo had refuted Stuart’s contention that the
Chippewas had signed away their rights to northern Wisconsin at Fond du Lac in
1826. The chief informed the assembled representatives of bands from Wisconsin,
Minnesota, and Michigan that the Chippewas had been tricked into ceding land in
1837 at St. Peters “for almost nothing,” and he repeated his charge that Stuart had
refused to let him speak at the recent treaty parley at La Pointe. Some warriors
then stepped forward to speak. Their hearts “pained” by the treaties of 1837 and
1842, they requested a reservation be set aside so their children would have “a
resting place” in Wisconsin. Their words as recorded by the subagent, with his
parenthetical comments, are as follows (Brunson 1843a):
Our grand father bought our lands for the copper it contains. There is a piece of land
where this metal is not found; the trees are not good (pine), & there is nothing there that
the pale faces can make use of. We want our Grand father to reserve us this land, where
40
Chippewa Treaty Rights
we can make our sugar & plant our gardens. (At this they presented us a piece of birch
bark on which was sketched a rough map of Bad River from the falls to the mouth.)
Contrary to Stuart’s contention that the Chippewas were “highly delighted” with
his dealing with them at La Pointe, there was considerable criticism of the com¬
missioner among the Wisconsin Chippewas, who repeatedly told American officials
that their signatures on the treaty were obtained only after assurances that they
would be able to remain in Wisconsin.
Pressure from traders had also undoubtedly contributed to the acceptance of
Stuart’s terms at the 1842 parley. According to the treaty, Stuart was to examine
and then approve or disprove claims against the Indians that were to be paid out
of funds provided by the United States in payment for the land it was acquiring.
The list of approved claimants appended to the treaty by Stuart included his secretary
for the proceedings, a majority of the witnesses to the treaty, and Stuart’s former
employer and close friend John Jacob Astor of the American Fur Company. These
individuals had considerable influence among the Chippewas and received the lion’s
share of the $75,000 set aside for Indian debts (Kappler 2: 544-45; App. 4).
Ratification of the Treaty of October 4, 1842, took more than four months
(Fig. 14). The correspondence of the American Fur Company (AFC) reveals that
the company, whose claims were recognized by former company agent Stuart at
the negotiations, lobbied hard for ratification. As Michigan Senator William Wood-
bridge confided to AFC President Ramsey Crooks, the treaty was “in much danger”
in the Senate. Opponents raised several objections. Some argued the land was not
yet needed. Others believed Commissioner Stuart, who had previously worked for
the company, had treated the company’s claims too favorably. For some senators,
opposition to the treaty was a means of venting their “vindictive hostility” toward
Governor James Doty, a longtime friend of Commissioner Stuart and a strong
supporter of the treaty. Finally, there were objections to the treaty provision con¬
tinuing U. S. laws (prohibiting the introduction of liquor and such) in the ceded
territory as a violation of the principle of state rights. Senator Woodbridge, cau¬
tioning Crooks to bum his letter after reading it, urged the AFC official to redouble
his lobby efforts against the treaty before it assumed “a party character” (Wood-
bridge 1843).
Whatever political machinations secured ratification of the treaty, the Chippewas
had a clear understanding of what they had accepted at La Pointe. Chief Martin’s
contention that the Chippewas had been assured they could remain on their lands
as long as they behaved was repeated to federal officials years later in 1864 by the
Chippewa delegation from Lac Courte Oreilles, Lac du Flambeau, and La Pointe
(Bad River and Red Cliff) visiting Washington that year. Although exact identifi¬
cation of the members of the delegation is difficult to determine because the Chip¬
pewas reuse names in different generations and because names reappear in several
locales, Canadian scholar John D. Nichols has concluded that at least three members
of the delegation may have been signers of the 1842 treaty (Nichols 1988, 3).
According to the statement made by the delegation, the 1842 proceedings ended
as follows:
Then it was that the Chief White Crow spoke, he spoke in regard to every thing, and
all the business being transacted at the time.
41
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
And said to . . . {Stuart}, My Father I understand you to say that you want the Mineral,
well then I will comply with the wish of our Great Father in asking me to sell him the
Mineral which he wants.
I do not give you the land, it is the Mineral only that I sell if there is any to be found
on my land. I do not cede the Land, as he cried with a loud voice turning to his fellow
Indians in which they all responded, with Eh! Eh!
And as my Great Father promises and agrees I accept. I agree with the proposition that
the payment should be for Twenty Five Years, and also that I shall see the end of my
payments here.
Then he was answered back, and told that he any how had the privilege of remaining
on the land for Fifty Years, and even for a Hundred Years, as he owned and had possession
of the land, he has a right to live on it.
But then there may be a time that your Great Father will call you to a Council and ask
you to sell him the land you live on. (Chippewas of Lake Superior 1864)
In 1864, as in 1842, Chippewa leaders from the Lake Superior country were
convinced that they would not be asked to leave their lands as long as they remained
at peace with the Americans.
Several years after the bilingual petition was presented in Washington, La Pointe
Agent John H. Knight forwarded to Indian Commissioner Ely S. Parker a speech
made in 1869 by Chippewa orator Black Bird30 to a council held at Bad River. The
speech (with comments added in brackets by Knight) was sent as a “specimen of
Chippewa oratory furnished for . . . information and entertainment.’’ In his com¬
ments, Black Bird said the Chippewas had been “robbed’’ of their lands by the
treaties of 1837 and 1842.
My name is Black Bird in whose mouth there is no lie. A lie never has had a place in
my mouth since I was bom. What these speakers have said is as true as everybody in
these parts will testify to. The man who acted for us when the first treaty was made was
named Magegawbaw and the man that acted for us when the mineral lands were ceded
was named Obiskawgawgee (the White Crane). [The speaker was here referring to what
previous speakers had stated that only the minerals and timber were ceded at the St. Peters
treaty & treaty of ’37; the lands, birch, oak & maple timber were reserved by them also
the rice fields.] Who was it that put in the treaty a cession of our lands? It must have
been the Commissioner. We utter nothing against our Great Father nor his Agent. But it
is our Great Father’s place to put these things right. His arms are long and strong, he has
much power, he is great.
Black Bird concluded his remarks by noting, “the lands still belong to us. We have
never sold the lands. When our Great Father shall have made these things right
with our people, we will be satisfied, then and not until then’’ (Black Bird 1869).
Thus, as late as 1869, oral tradition about Chippewa reserved rights was consistent
with the views of the band leaders present at the actual negotiations in 1842.
The negotiations of 1842, along with those of 1837, created the basis for a later,
prolonged dispute over the meaning of Chippewa reserved hunting, fishing, and
gathering rights and the meaning of the phrase “during the pleasure of the President
of the United States.’’ More than two months before the ratification of the 1842
treaty in March of 1843, La Pointe Subagent Alfred Brunson raised serious questions
about the agreement (Brunson 1843b).
42
Chippewa Treaty Rights
JOHN TYLER,
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED 8TATE8 OF AMERICA,
TO ALL AND SINGULAR TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, OREET1MO :
Whereas, a Treaty was made and concluded at La Pointe of Lake Su¬
perior, in the Territory of Wisconsin, between Robert Stuart, Commissioner
on the paft of the United States, and the Chippewa Indians of the Missis¬
sippi ami Lake Superior, by their chiefs and headmen, on the fourth, day of
October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and forty-
two, which Treaty is word for word, as follows,- to wit :
Articles of a Treaty made and concluded at La Point e of Lake Superior, in
the Territory of fVisconsin, between Robert Stuart Commissioner on the
part of the United States , and the Chippewa Indians of the Mississippi ,
and Lake Superior , by their chiefs and headmen ;
Article i. Tha'Ctnppewa Indians of the Mississippi and Lake Superior, cede 10 the
United States all the country within the following boundaries ; viz : beginning at the mouth
of Chocolate River of Lake Superior ; thence northwardly across said lake to intersect
the boundary line between the United States and the Province of Canada ; thence op said
Lake Superior, to the mouth of the St. Louis, or Fond du I^ac River (including all the
islands in said lake) ; theooe up said river to the American Fur Company’s trading post, at
the southwardly bend thereof, about twenty-two miles from its mouth ; thence south to in¬
tersect the line of the treaty of 29th July, 1837, with the Chippewas of the Mississippi ;
thence along said line fo its southeastwardly extremity, near the Plover portage on the Wis¬
consin River ; thence northeastwardly, along the boundary line, between the Chippewas
and Menomonees, to its eastern termination, (established by the treaty held with tho Chip-
gewas, Menomonees, and Winebagoes, at Butte des Morts, August . 1 ltd,' 1827) on tlje
konawby River of Green Bay ; thence northwardly, to the source of Chocolate River ;
thence down said river to itsrtiouth, tho place of beginning ; it being.-tbe intention ortho
parties to this treaty, to include in this cession, all the Chippewa lands eastwacdly oLthc
aforesaid line running from the American Fur Compands trading post On the Fond du Lac
River to the intersection of the line of the treaty made with the Chippewas of the Missis¬
sippi July 29th 1837.
Article il The Indians stipulate for the right o fainting on the ceded Ifcrritory, with
the other usual privilegeajof-eeeepaircy; until required to removo by the President of the
United States, and that the laws of the United States shall be continued in force, in respect
to their trade and intercourse with tho whites, until otherwise ordered by Congress.
Article iii. It is agreed by the parties to this Treaty, that whenever the Indians shall
be required to remove from the ceded district, all tho uocetled- lands belonging to the In¬
dians of Food du l>ac, Sandy Lake, and Mississippi Bands, shall be tho common property
and liocne of all the Indians, party to this Treaty.
Article tv. In consideration of tho foregoing cession, the United States, engage to pay
to the Chippewa Indians of the Mississippi, and l^ake SujK-rior, annually, for twenty-five
years, twelve thousand five hundred (12,500) dollars, in specie, ten thousand five hundred
(10,500) dollars in goods, two thousand (2,000) dollars in provisions and tdwcco, two
Fig. 14. Proclamation of 1842 Treaty by President John Tyler. From Documents
Relating to the Negotiation of Ratified and Unratified Treaties with Various Indian
Tribes, 1801 -1 869, Microcopy T494, Roll 9, Record Group 75, the National Archives
and Records Service. Courtesy of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Media
Development Center.
43
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Shortly after Stuart negotiated the treaty, Brunson — arguing that “economy should
never impair justice” — informed Wisconsin Territorial Governor and Superinten¬
dent of Indian Affairs John Doty and Secretary of War John C. Spencer that the
Chippewas had been shortchanged by their treaties with the United States. The
Indians, he claimed, received less than eight cents an acre for eleven million acres
in 1837 and only seven cents per acre for twelve million acres in 1842 — a trifle for
excellent port sites and land rich in copper, fish, and timber (Brunson 1843b; Smith
1954, 285; Keller 1978, 5-6).
Superintendent Stuart assured Indian Commissioner Crawford that Brunson’s
“crude and visionary” perception of “alleged” injustices against the Chippewas
were an “absurdity.” He advised Crawford that the subagent should be “strictly
admonished” and made to acknowledge the “wise and humane policy” of the
federal government that Stuart had carried out at La Pointe in 1842 (Stuart 1843a).
“It is the duty of every public officer to sustain with his best exertions the views
and policy of the Government,” the commissioner informed Brunson (Crawford
1843). Then, upon Crawford’s recommendation, Secretary of War James M. Porter
dismissed the subagent (Porter 1843; Smith 1954, 285; Keller 1978, 5-6). 31 “The
{War} Department did not remove Mr. Brunson any too soon,” Stuart assured
Crawford several months later. According to Stuart, Brunson was “not only deficient
in head, but depraved in heart” for making “false and absurd accusations” with
regard to Stuart’s conduct at the 1842 negotiations (Stuart 1844).
Not until two years after the ratification of the 1842 treaty in early 1843 did the
federal government issue mining permits for the ceded territory in an organized
fashion. Indeed, the special agent sent by the War Department to reconnoiter the
area was overwhelmed by the “unexpected magnitude of the Cession” (Cunningham
1844, 677). Enterprising miners had entered the region, however, even before
President Tyler signed the treaty and there was considerable pressure on the War
Department to grant permits (Robbins 1960, 141; Doty 1843; Talcott 1845).
During the copper boom of the 1840s, the Lake Superior Chippewa remained
on their ceded lands enjoying, to quote Article 2 of the Treaty of 1842, their reserved
“right of hunting on the ceded territory, with the other usual privileges of occu¬
pancy.” Few white settlers had any interest in the pinelands of northern Wisconsin
with their harsh winters and short growing seasons, so the Indians continued to
follow age-old patterns of hunting, fishing, and gathering without interference by
whites (Danziger 1979, 88). The Indians assumed that under the 1842 treaty they
had only granted whites the use of their lands (Vennum 1988, 257). In reviewing
the circumstances surrounding the Chippewa treaties of 1837 and 1842, economists
Daniel W. Bromley and Basil M. H. Sharp assert that “the Indian conception of
property would easily have allowed them to believe the land in question could be
shared, but that the land could not be alienated.” The Chippewas believed that as
long as they behaved themselves and were orderly, they could continue to hunt,
fish, and gather while whites cut pine trees and searched for minerals on the same
lands (1990, 14-15). As Chief Martin commented shortly after signing the agree¬
ment, “we have no objection to the white mans {s/c} working the mines, & the
timber & making farms. But we reserve the Birch bark & Ceder {s/c}, for canoes,
the Rice & the Sugar tree and the priviledge of hunting without being disturbed by
the whites” (Martin {1842}).
44
Chippewa Treaty Rights
Many Chippewa Indians and whites in Wisconsin enjoyed a good relationship
during the years immediately following the 1842 treaty according to anthropologists
Charles Cleland and James Clifton. Lake Superior Chippewa men increasingly
engaged in commercial fishing, either with their own equipment or as seasonal
laborers for white Americans, and Chippewa women cleaned the fish before packing
it in salt as American entrepreneurs sought to create a national market for this
product from the Lake Superior country. As mining developed, numerous Chippewa
men transported supplies, acted as guides, cut and supplied mine timber, or delivered
fish, venison, furs, hides, rice, and maple sugar (the major sweetener used in the
United States before 1860). Chippewa women traded surplus fruits and vegetables
to miners. In the interior, some Chippewa men and women became attuned to the
labor and material requirements of the lumber industry. Both along the southern
shore of Lake Superior and in the interior of Wisconsin, the Chippewas delivered
services and goods that created economic and social bonds, which in turn created
potential allies. In addition, removal of the Chippewas from Wisconsin would have
deprived many loggers and miners of female companions (Cleland 1985, 14-17;
Clifton 1987, 18-19).
While contemporary evidence suggests that Wisconsin Chippewas participated
in the kinds of activities described by Cleland and Clifton (Ramsey 1850, 53-54),
some may have tried to avoid contact with whites whenever possible. In September
of 1843, for example, White Crow from Lac du Flambeau and chiefs from several
other interior bands requested their annuity payments be made at the falls of the
Chippewa River rather than at Bad River to the north. “If we go to Bad river {s/c},”
they protested, “we are near to the white men, who work the copper mines — we
sold twelve moons ago. We do not wish to be near them. Whenever we are near
white men we are sure to have trouble. ’ ’ Yet the chiefs understood that total isolation
from whites was not the answer. Although they asserted that “the great Spirit never
made the Red men and white men to live together,” the chiefs nevertheless ac¬
knowledged their dependence on whites for some things by pleading for the res¬
toration of the blacksmith shop and the model farm that had been moved from
Chippewa Falls to distant northern locations (Chippewa Chiefs 1843). Whether they
sought to avoid contact with whites or whether they enjoyed a good working
relationship with them, the Chippewas had no intention of leaving Wisconsin. Events
of the mid- and late- 1840s, however, brought considerable pressure for removal
reminiscent of Andrew Jackson’s handling of the Southern tribes in the 1830s.
The return of the Democrats to the White House in 1845 elevated avowed ex¬
pansionist William Medill to the position of commissioner of Indian affairs. Medill
soon began planning for the establishment of a northern “Indian colony” on the
headwaters of the Mississippi River. He argued that the creation of such a colony,
together with the concentration of Indians on the desirable lands north of the Kansas
River to the area west of Missouri and Kansas, would permit a safe corridor for
emigrants to the west coast (Satz 1988; Medill 1846a, 1848, 388-90).
Territorial acquisitions in the Far West after the Mexican War had led many
American officials including Medill to realize the Indian removal policy so vig¬
orously pursued by Andrew Jackson and his successors had ironically established
by the mid- 1840s what Napoleon in the 1790s and the British at the Treaty of Ghent
in 1814 had failed to achieve — namely, the construction of an Indian barrier to
American continental expansion. This barrier stretched from Canada in the North
45
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
to Texas in the South and from the Rocky Mountains in the West to the Arkansas-
Missouri-Iowa- Wisconsin line. Medill hoped to break open this barrier, and his
strategy hinged on the relocation of northern Indians. Wisconsin statehood (1848)
and the territorial organization of Minnesota (1849) were both still a few years in
the future as Medill sought to remove Indians still in Wisconsin to northern Min¬
nesota and particularly to remove the Chippewas from the mineral-rich south shores
of Lake Superior that were “exciting much interest” among American entrepreneurs
(Medill 1846b, 219-20; Dodge 1847a, 1056; Satz 1975, 231-36; 1988; Trennert
1979c, 33-34).
Although the Chippewa bands in Wisconsin viewed any effort to relocate them
near “the wandering and vicious tribes which infest the plains and the mountains
stretching from the Mississippi to the Pacific” as synonymous with a death sentence32
(Head Chiefs 1849, 2), Medill sent Isaac A. Verplanck of Bativia, New York and
Charles E. Mix of the Indian Office staff in Washington to the south shore of Lake
Superior in the summer of 1847 to arrange for the resettlement of the Chippewas
across the Mississippi River. Medill told the commissioners that the Chippewa
bands in Wisconsin are “widely scattered and lead a roving & unsettled life, &
obtain subsistence principally by fishing & hunting.” As a result, “their concen¬
tration in a section of country as far as possible beyond the reach of a white frontier
population, is requisite to enable the Government to give them the benefit of the
benevolent course of policy it is now pursuing for the civilization & moral im¬
provement of the red race.” Medill reasoned it would be less expensive in the long
run if the federal government moved the Chippewas across the Mississippi at one
time rather than if the government acquired a land cession in Wisconsin and allowed
the Indians to congregate on their remaining lands only to be moved again later.
He told the treaty commissioners, “considering the expenses to which the govern¬
ment is subjected in surveying and disposing of lands purchased of Indians, ten
cents per acre has been found to be a full price for those occupied & valuable to
Indians, & which are important for settlement & cultivation by a white population”
while “unoccupied & unused” lands should cost no more than five cents per acre.
Medill stressed that “it is a leading object with the Department to consider the
Chippewas, and to have them think themselves one United people with possessions
and interests in common” rather than the separate bands claiming “exclusive in¬
terest” in different portions of their lands. “Should you succeed in effecting a
treaty with them,” the commissioner cautioned Verplanck and Mix, “it should as
far as possible be made clearly & unequivocally to express the meaning & intention”
of the War Department (Medill 1847).
The treaty commissioners obtained land cessions in present-day Minnesota (see
Fig. 7), but the Wisconsin bands on the south shore of Lake Superior resisted their
efforts. The Wisconsin Chippewas had no intention of relocating as part of Indian
Commissioner Medill’ s grand design to rid Wisconsin, Iowa, and southern Min¬
nesota of Indians so as to provide a safe corridor for westward-bound American
travelers between the Indian country southwest of the Missouri River and a new
northern counterpart to be established in north central Minnesota. Treaty Commis¬
sioner Verplanck informed Indian Commissioner Medill that the Indian Office was
“mistaken” if it thought that the Lake Superior Chippewas were willing to relocate.
“When I said in council that I would talk no more about their lands,” Verplanck
reported, “they at first understood me to say that they would never again be asked
46
Chippewa Treaty Rights
to sell their lands and they expressed themselves much pleased that they were to
be left alone” (Verplanck 1847).
Medill, using arguments similar to those of President Jackson in his efforts years
earlier to promote Indian removal to the West,33 suggested evicting the Chippewas
from northern Wisconsin as a means of promoting their “civilization.” In 1846,
for example, he had reported that “the principle means of subsistence of these
Indians is the chase: they are widely dispersed, so that but little supervision can be
exercised over them, and hence ardent spirits can be introduced among them with
facility and little risk of detection. While they remain in their present situation, but
little if anything can be done to give them the benefit of the benevolent policy of
the government for the improvement of the Indian race.” Removal across the
Mississippi River and concentration on a reduced land base would supposedly force
the Chippewas “to resort to agriculture and other pursuits of civilized life” while
permitting the federal government to provide better enforcement of its laws against
the importation of liquor into Indian country (Medill 1846b, 219-20).
Although Commissioner Medill used the control of liquor in Indian country as
a reason for promoting the removal of the Wisconsin bands, the Indians’ conduct
does not seem to have warranted removal. A group of forty-four whites from Eagle
River complained in February of 1 847 that traffic in ‘ ‘Ardent Spirits” on the southern
shore of Lake Superior “materially impeded” mining operations, “effecting also
the Society, and interest of all concerned,” but they blamed the federal government
for failing to “enforce the law” against the sale of liquor to Indians (Residents
Near Lake Superior 1847). An altercation in September of 1847 between Chippewa
Indians — from the Wisconsin River and Pelican Lake bands returning home from
an annuity payment at Bad River — and whites who had sold them whiskey elicited
a very revealing commentary from La Pointe subagent James P. Hays. When the
whites refused to provide the intoxicated Indians with more liquor, the Indians
shoved the whites off their boats and fired upon them. Subagent Hays reported the
incident to Governor Henry Dodge:
This is the first instance of an Indian raising his hand against a white man on Lake
Superior, which has ever come within my knowledge; but it is no more than I would
expect under the circumstances. If {white} men will pursue this {whiskey} traffic, they
must look for such results, and have no right to complain or receive sympathy. The
Chippewas as individuals, and as a nation, are well disposed, and will continue to be so
as long as the cupidity and heartlessness of the whiskey dealer will permit. I fear that in
our accounts of outrages and crime, we have done the Chippewas, if no other tribe,
injustice in many cases; for I find on comparing them with almost any civilized community
of the same size, for four years, there will be found the smaller aggregate of crime on
the part of the savage; and every crime of any magnitude which has been committed may
be traced to the influence of the white man. (Hays 1847, 825)
According to Hays, there was much more need to control the activities of greedy
whites like the whiskey traffickers than there was to decry Chippewa behavior
(Fig. 15). The attempted rape of a Chippewa woman by a lumberjack near Chippewa
Falls on July 4, 1849, is an example of violence inspired by drunken whites. The
incident resulted in the lynching of the woman’s husband by a white mob when he
tried to rescue her. Three lumberjacks were arrested, but they escaped on their way
to stand trial at Prairie du Chien (Current 1976, 154). Six years before this incident
47
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
48
Fig. 15. Drunken Frolic Among the Chippewas. This painting by Swiss immigrant-artist Peter Rindisbacher depicts the dire effects of liquor on a
Chippewa community along the Canadian-American border. Because alcohol was storable, immediately consumable, and addictive, white
traders found it to be a particularly effective inducement in encouraging Indians to hunt more intensively for them. Courtesy of the West Point
Museum Collections, United States Military Academy, West Point, New York.
Chippewa Treaty Rights
and just months after the ratification of the 1842 treaty, one of the nation’s highest
ranking Army officers warned that the real culprits responsible for inciting tension
and disputes between Indians and whites in northern Wisconsin were the “worse
than savage white men” who sold liquor to the Indians (Gaines 1843).
During the late 1840s, Wisconsin Chippewas had done nothing to trigger removal
under the treaties of 1837 and 1842. Nevertheless, persistent rumors of their im¬
pending eviction troubled them and led them to take direct action to prevent such
a disaster (. Detroit Daily Free Press 1848).
49
4
The Removal Order and
the Wisconsin Death March
In late fall of 1848, a contingent of Chippewa Indians including chiefs representing
sixteen Lake Superior bands traveled to Washington to try to end any additional
talk about their removal to the West ( Detroit Daily Free Press 1848). Early in
1849, they presented a petition to the members of Congress (Fig. 16). “Our people,”
they said, “desire a donation of twenty-four sections of land, covering the graves
of our fathers, our sugar orchards, and our rice lakes and rivers, at seven different
places now occupied by us as villages.” The chiefs requested the establishment of
a “permanent home” for their people at Vieux Desert or Old Garden (three sections) ,
at Trout Lake (four sections), at Lac Courte Oreilles (four sections), at La Pointe
(four sections), at Ontonagon (three sections), at L’Anse (three sections), and at
Pequaming34 (three sections). “We do not wish,” they declared, “to be driven
north of the British line, nor West among the wandering and vicious tribes which
infest the plains and the mountains stretching from the Mississippi to the Pacific”
(Head Chiefs 1849, 1-2).
The press in the Great Lakes region kept residents informed of the activities of
the Chippewa delegation in Washington (Detroit Daily Free Press 1848, 1849;
Green Bay Advocate 1849a, b). Iowa Senator Augustus Dodge, who heard the
Indians address Congress, summarized their presentation as follows:
They come here ... to ask of this and the other branch of Congress that the resting-
places where the bones of their ancestors repose may be continued to them; that the
Government of the United States would grant them a small portion of its vast domain
among the fastnesses and marshes of Lake Superior, where their villages are situated,
and where they have been enabled to obtain a precarious subsistence by gathering wild
rice, cranberries, and other productions of that distant country.
In addition to speaking before Congress, the delegation visited President James K.
Polk, Secretary of War William L. Marcy, and Commissioner of Indian Affairs
William Medill. According to Senator Dodge, “everywhere their mission was
approved by all who became acquainted with them, and everywhere they excited
the best sympathies of the human heart” (U. S. Congress 1849, 536). President
Polk assured the Indians of “kindly feelings” on the part of the United States
government. He promised to read the petition and other documents they presented
him and stated, according to one newspaper editor, that “if they behaved themselves
they might expect good treatment in {the} future” (Detroit Daily Free Press 1849).
When the Chippewas began preparations to return to Wisconsin, they found it
necessary to appeal to Congress for financial assistance. Their trip to Washington
had not been approved in advance by Commissioner Medill, so no funds were on
hand in the Indian Office to cover their expenses. Senator Dodge of Iowa spoke in
favor of a joint resolution in their behalf. Claiming that when the Chippewas reached
Green Bay on their long journey home it would still take many of them a month
51
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Fig. 16. Symbolic Petition of Chippewa Chiefs, 1849. Drawing by Seth Eastman from
Schoolcraft, The Indian Tribes of the United States, Vol. 1 (1851). The chiefs who
went to Washington in 1 849 requested a “permanent home” in Wisconsin; they carried
this pictograph with them. Animals representing various clans travel eastward along
Lake Superior (the dark line across the pictograph). Their unity of purpose is depicted
by the lines linking together their hearts and eyes to a chain of wild rice lakes in
ceded territory south of Lake Superior. Courtesy of the State Historical Society of
Wisconsin. WHi(x3)341 27
to snowshoe to their villages, Dodge helped to persuade his colleagues to provide
the necessary funds. In doing so, he shared some information:
... If you were to go into a calculation as to the millions of acres of land, the valuable
lead and copper mines that you have acquired from these very tribes, specimens of which
are to be seen at the War Department, and calculate the cost of these, as compared with
their value, there would be a fearful balance against us. These Indians are now many
thousand miles from home. Philanthropic gentlemen in Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and
elsewhere, have loaned them sums of money to enable them to reach here. These debts
they wish to pay, and to have money enough to pay their way home. (U. S. Congress
1849, 536)
Dodge’s efforts assisted the Indians in securing funds for their return trip. As the
delegation left Washington, the fate of the Wisconsin Chippewas became entangled
with national and state politics.
Chippewa bands in Wisconsin represented a political opportunity to Whig pol¬
iticians in newly created Minnesota Territory (March 3, 1849). The Minnesota
Whigs had helped capture the White House for their party in the presidential election
of 1848, and they eagerly awaited the transition to the new administration, which
occurred just weeks after the Chippewa delegation met with President Polk.
The idea of removing the Chippewas from Wisconsin to Minnesota Territory had
special appeal for some Minnesotans. Removal would mean transferring annuity
52
Chippewa Treaty Rights
payments to the new territory where Alexander Ramsey {Fig. IT), recently ap¬
pointed governor and the titular head of the Whig party, would gamer a considerable
number of patronage jobs from Democratic Wisconsin. After gaining statehood in
May of 1848, Wisconsin had cast nearly twice as many ballots for Whig opponents
in the presidential election that year than for Whig candidates. President Zachary
Taylor was under considerable pressure to open opportunities for loyal, patronage-
hungry Whigs. The transfer of the Bureau of Indian Affairs from the War Depart¬
ment to the newly established Interior Department under the direction of Ohioan
Thomas Ewing and the selection of Kentuckian Orlando Brown as commissioner
of Indian affairs indicated the extent of the politicization of Indian affairs. Ewing
had opposed rotation in office while the Democrats were in power and was now
thirsting for the opportunity to use his patronage powers to clean house; Brown,
with no knowledge of Indian affairs, was little more than a liaison between Kentucky
“kingmaker” John J. Crittenden and President Taylor (Hamilton 1951, 113, 132,
151, 173; Satz 1975, 164; Trennert 1979a, 42-46; White 1954, 310).
The 1848 annuity payment at La Pointe may have actually helped to trigger a
series of events that played into the hands of Minnesota politicians and traders. A
reporter for the Cleveland Herald who visited La Pointe in 1 848 later charged that
there was a direct connection between “the swindle” he witnessed there and the
subsequent effort to evict the Chippewas from Wisconsin. The 1848 payment, like
many others, began much later than the announced time. As a result, “thousands
of Indians traversed many miles of forest, wasted six weeks’ time, and lost the
crop of wild rice upon which they depended for their winter’s subsistence.” Traders,
who charged what the Ohio reporter called “exorbitant rates” for “the necessaries
of life,” claimed their profits were “moderate.” Yet, for every pound of pork or
flour Indians purchased on credit to feed their families, the traders required them
to spend an equivalent amount on “dry goods and gewgaws” as well as other
“trash” that “had no value for them.” By the time the annuity funds arrived,
traders “raked” more than eighty-five percent from the payment table; only a few
thousand dollars remained to be divided equally among the Indians, who received
about one dollar each. According to the reporter, “it was whispered that . . . {the
traders} were using all their influence to have the future payments made at some
point so far West that competition would not force them to be content with moderate
profits.” These were the reasons, the reporter observed, “it was necessary to remove
the Chippewas further West” {New York Times 1851b).
Before the end of 1849, Interior Department officials learned that the newly
formed legislative assembly in Minnesota Territory had passed resolutions in favor
of revoking the usufructuary rights of the Chippewa Indians on lands ceded in 1837
and 1842. Upon the recommendation of Indian Commissioner Orlando Brown,
President Taylor — who had once served as commandant of forts in Wisconsin and
Minnesota — issued an executive order on February 6, 185035 that revoked the
usufructuary rights of Chippewa Indians not only in Minnesota but also in Wisconsin
and in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and ordered the removal of all of the
Chippewa Indians in these areas to unceded lands in Minnesota {Fig. 18). Indian
Office personnel in Washington and in Minnesota Territory offered four reasons
for the presidential Removal Order and their emphasis on “prompt action” in
carrying it out: (1) the Chippewas had to be removed in order to prevent “injurious
contact” with the advancing white population; (2) the Indians had to be removed
53
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Fig. 1 7. Alexander Ramsey, Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs for Min¬
nesota Territory. Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical Society.
from areas where there were “ample facilities for procuring ardent spirits;” (3) whites
needed to be relieved of the “annoyance” and “evils” of having Indians as neigh¬
bors; and (4) removal to the West would provide opportunities for congregating the
Chippewas together for purposes of promoting their “civilization and prosperity”
(Kappler 5: 663; Lea 1850, 4-6; 1851a; Ramsey 1850, 54-55).
54
Chippewa Treaty Rights
MINNESOTA
The privileges granted temporarily to the Chippewa Indians of the Mississippi,
by the Fifth Article of the Treaty made with them on the 29th of July 1837, “of
hunting, fishing and gathering the wild rice, upon the lands, the rivers and the lakes
included in the territory ceded” by that treaty to the United States; and the right
granted to the Chippewa Indians of the Mississippi and Lake Superior, by the Second
Article of the treaty with them of October 4th 1842, of hunting on the territory which
they ceded by that treaty, “with the other usual privileges of occupancy until required
to remove by the President of the United States,” are hereby revoked; and all of the
said Indians remaining on the lands ceded as aforesaid, are required to remove to their
unceded lands.
Z. Taylor.
Executive Office
Washington City, February 6th, 1860.
By the President
I. Ewing,
Secretary of the Interior.
Fig. 18. President Zachary Taylor’s Executive Order of February 6, 1850. This type¬
script copy of President Taylor’s Removal Order is reproduced from attorney Charles
J. Kappler’s compendium of Indian laws and treaties (5: 663), where it appears under
the heading “Minnesota” because the order was issued in response to officials from
that territory. Courtesy of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Media Development
Center.
News of the Removal Order shocked the Lake Superior Chippewa people. Ac¬
cording to Subagent Watrous, it “created much excitement and disatisfaction”
because the Indians believed “they would not be required to remove until the
present generation should pass away” (Watrous 1850, 89). As noted earlier, the
Wisconsin Indians understood they had ceded only copper rights — not land rights —
in 1842 and that under the 1837 and 1842 treaties they would never be forced to
leave Wisconsin unless they acted improperly— i.e. , made war or otherwise acted
violently against whites. And there were no white demands for Chippewa lands for
settlement. In fact, when Daniel H. Johnson of Prairie du Chien attempted to obtain
information for the 1850 Census in La Pointe County (later La Pointe and Douglas
counties), he found the region “remote and difficult to communciate with” and
inhabited primarily by individuals who spoke either French or Ojibwa. The Lake
Superior country was, he reported in a certified affidavit, a “thinly settled and half
civilized region.” Only about five hundred whites had settled in that area (Johnson
1858, 2).
Chief Buffalo of La Pointe and other chiefs who “obstinately” opposed removal
responded to the news by sending messengers to every Chippewa village to ascertain
if any depredations had been committed against whites. Failing to uncover any
incident that might have sparked the president’s action, they convened councils
throughout the ceded territory to discuss the situation and plan their strategy for
opposing “the sudden order” of the U. S. government (Watrous 1850, 89; Lake
Superior News 1850a, b; Buffalo et al. 1852; Armstrong {1892}, 287-88).
55
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
A vigorous lobbying campaign of the Wisconsin legislature, various missionary
groups, regional newspapers, and many local whites aided the Wisconsin Chippewas
in their resistance to the Removal Order (Vennum 1988, 259). The Sault St. Marie
Lake Superior News and Mining Journal, for example, responded on May 22, 1850,
to reports that agent Watrous had told the Indians they would lose their annuities
if they remained in Wisconsin and Michigan by observing, “this is a new and
ingeniously contrived way of effecting the removal of the natives.” As far away
from the La Pointe Agency in the Great Lakes region as Detroit, this editorial
comment received support from regional editors ( Detroit Daily Free Press 1850).
A follow-up article in the Sault Ste. Marie newspaper on June 12, 1850, referred
to the Removal Order as “uncalled for by any interest of the government — uncalled
for by any interest of the Indians.” The editor of the paper concluded that “this
unlooked for order has brought disappointment and consternation to the Indians
throughout the Lake Superior Country, and will bring upon them the most disastrous
consequences.” The paper issued reports highly favoring the continued residence
of the Chippewa Indians in the Lake Superior region (Lake Superior News and
Mining Journal 1850b). Cyrus Mendenhall, an eyewitness to the 1842 treaty parley
and mining entrepreneur associated with the Methodist Episcopal Mission Society
(Kappler 2: 544; Clifton 1987, 21), rallied ministers, physicians, local officials,
merchants, mine foremen, lumbermen, and other influential citizens between Sault
Ste. Marie and La Pointe for support of the Chippewas. Ohio Whig Congressman
Joshua R. Giddings forwarded to President Zachary Taylor a petition circulated by
Mendenhall and signed by him and many other men “of high moral Character and
respectability.” Declaring any removal of the Chippewas from the lands ceded in
1842 “uncalled for by any interest of the Government or people of the United
States, and ... in a high degree prejudicial to the welfare of the Indians,” the
petitioners urged the president to rescind his order (Giddings 1850).
Mendenhall’s petition arrived at the White House after President Taylor’s un¬
expected death on July 9, 1850. Millard Fillmore, who had served as president for
only a few weeks, replaced the entire cabinet (Hamilton 1951, 401-02) and then
referred the petition to the Interior Department. On August 3, 1850, the Secretary
of the Interior Ad Interim asked Commissioner of Indian Affairs Luke Lea,36 who
was just finishing his first month in office, to prepare a report on the issue (Giddings
1850). In the meantime, regional newspapers reported that “arrangements to remove
the Chippewa Indians from Lake Superior are producing much dissatisfaction among
the Indians and the Whites. The Indians are loth to remove, and the Whites to let
them go” (Detroit Daily Free Press 1851). Sympathetic eastern newspapers re¬
printed articles from Great Lakes newspapers accusing Agent Watrous of perpe¬
trating an “iniquitous scheme” to remove the Indians against the wishes of “the
entire population of the Lake Superior country” (New York Times 1851a, b).
Northern Wisconsin mine owners and whites who employed the Chippewas as
fishers, sailors, guides, and hunters raised what Minnesota Governor Ramsey called
“almost insuperable” obstacles to their removal (Ramsey 1851, 162).
Not all non-Indian residents of the Lake Superior country openly opposed the
government’s efforts to remove the Chippewas to Minnesota Territory. Missionaries
residing among the Indians found themselves in a vulnerable position. As happened
in the Indian removal crisis in the South during the Jacksonian era, they were tom
between their interpretation of their duty to their Indian charges and their obligation
56
Chippewa Treaty Rights
to civil authorities. In the early 1850s, as in the 1830s, federal officials used the
fierce competition for government subsidies for Indian mission schools to their
advantage (Satz 1985, 395-401; 1975, 55). The withdrawal of federal funds for the
support of Indian mission schools in Wisconsin and the prospect of the restoration
of those funds in Minnesota led some missionaries to resign themselves to accepting
the inevitability of the removal of the Chippewas (Watrous 1852b, 48; Armstrong
{1892}, 291 n. 6).
During the summer of 185 1 , Copway’ s American Indian, a new weekly newspaper
published in New York by Canadian-born Chippewa George Cop way 37 — one of the
best-known Indians in the eastern United States — carried a report from the American
Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) about the operations of
missionaries Leonard Wheeler at La Pointe and Sherman Hall at Bad River in
Wisconsin. While hoping that “no compulsory means” would be used to evict the
Indians from the state, the ABCFM governing board in Boston envisioned some
benefits that relocation might bring the Wisconsin Chippewas. The board had learned
valuable lessons during the removal crisis of the 1830s in the South and predicted
the removal of the Chippewas “will cause considerable excitement among them,”
but “their removal will concentrate them more, and render them more accessible
to the means of instruction and improvement” (Copway’ s American Indian 1851,
1; Berkhoffer 1965, 104-05). Missionary Hall had already advised ABCFM officials
to make the best of the situation and to seek federal funds for a mission boarding
school in Minnesota Territory before other Protestant or Catholic missionary so¬
cieties secured them. “Whatever we may think of this policy,” Hall wrote in 1850
shortly after President Taylor had issued his Removal Order, “if we wish to continue
our missionary efforts for the Oiibwas, we had better conform to it” (Hall 1850a,
b; 1852).
Hall’s conversion to “conformity” with the presidential order was the result of
the efforts of officials in the Interior Department in Washington: Minnesota Ter¬
ritorial Governor Ramsey who openly argued that in dealing with Indians “it would
be indisputably the duty of government to impose such terms as should seem proper,
and by duress or otherwise compel their observance” (Ramsey 1850, 49); and La
Pointe subagent John Watrous. These men actively conspired to lure the Chippewas
to Minnesota from northern Wisconsin and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. To ac¬
complish their goal, they had moved the payment site for the 1850 annuity from
La Pointe to Sandy Lake on the east bank of the Upper Mississippi River, a location
that was some three to five hundred difficult canoe and portage miles from the
various Chippewa villages in Wisconsin. They had also refused to provide services
required under the 1837 and 1842 treaties at any location other than at Sandy Lake.
In the fall of 1850, Watrous urged the Chippewas to bring their families to Sandy
Lake for the payment, but neither he nor other federal officials made adequate
arrangements to feed, shelter, or otherwise provide for the Indians there. Indeed,
deliveries of annuity goods and rations were delayed until the “pelting rain and
snows of autumn” nearly trapped the several thousand Chippewas who had traveled
to that remote location (Watrous 1850, 89; Armstrong {1892}, 288; Buffalo et al.
1851; Buffalo et al. 1852; Watrous 1852b, 48; Pitezel 1859, 298-300; Clifton 1987,
1, 19-25).
In his annual report of November 27, 1850, Indian Commissioner Lea claimed
he sought the removal of the Chippewas from Wisconsin in order to isolate them
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
in the West from “injurious contact” with whiskey peddlers and the like and to
prevent them from suffering “destitution and want” in Wisconsin as the game on
which they depended became exhausted (Lea 1850, 4-5). But many Wisconsin
Chippewas were destitute and in want by the end of 1850 precisely because Lea
lured them to Sandy Lake in Minnesota by transferring the payment of their annuities
to that location.
Governor Ramsey, who boasted that a removal plan had been “fully matured”
in his office, acknowledged that any such efforts undertaken after the first of
November would lead to “much hardship” for emigrants (Ramsey 1850, 60-61).
By forcing the Chippewas to reach Sandy Lake in October in order to collect their
annuities, Ramsey set into motion a series of events culminating in what anthro¬
pologist James Clifton has recently called “The Wisconsin Death March” of
1850-1851. The Indians waited six weeks at Sandy Lake for the arrival of their
subagent only to discover that he had come empty-handed because Congress failed
to appropriate funds in a timely manner (Clifton 1987, 24-25). Seemingly trapped
in Minnesota as the winter weather made travel back to Wisconsin extremely
difficult, the Wisconsin Chippewas suffered what Governor Ramsey conceded was
“a distressing mortality” (Ramsey 1851, 161).
According to missionary eyewitnesses, the federal government’s “unwise course”
of action in handling the annuity payment at Sandy Lake, especially its failure to
provide adequate provisions for the Chippewas who traveled there, had serious
consequences. Infectious diseases appeared in the makeshift Chippewa camps and
spread rapidly when food supplies ran out shortly after the arrival of the first
contingent from Wisconsin. The Indians traded their annuity claims for spoiled
food and other shoddy provisions merchants sold at highly inflated prices. As winter
set in, many Indians burned their canoes for firewood and returned to Wisconsin
carrying their belongings on their backs (Hall 1850b; Pitezel 1859, 299-301).
Although the mortality figures cannot be determined precisely, Chippewa eye¬
witnesses from La Pointe and from the interior bands reported that some four hundred
Indians, mostly able-bodied men, died from illness, hunger, and exposure — 170 at
Sandy Lake38 and another 230 on the return trip (Buffalo et al. 1851; Buffalo et al.
1852; Clifton 1987, 1, 25). Methodist Episcopal missionary John Pitezel, who
traveled to Sandy Lake from Michigan and recorded his observations some months
later, saw “evidences of a terrible calamity every-where” as he approached the
annuity payment site. “All over the cleared land graves were to be seen in every
direction, for miles distant, from Sandy Lake; they were to be found in the woods
{too}. Some, it is not known how many, were interred by their friends on the way
home.” Sickness and death were everywhere. “So alarming was the mortality,”
Pitezel commented “that the Indians complained that they could not bury their
dead” (Pitezel 1859, 300-01).
Anxious to deflect any criticism of his handling of the annuity payment at Sandy
Lake, Governor Ramsey wrote a long defense of his actions to Indian Commissioner
Lea. “Far from famine or starvation ensuing from any negligence on the part of
Government officers,” he claimed, “the Chippewas received all that Government
was under treaty obligations to furnish to them, except their money; and this, as
every one is aware, who is at all familiar with the thriftless habits of the Indians,
and the fatal facility with which they incur debts whenever opportunity presents,
is usually all of it due to their traders.” Ramsey, who had directed the Indians to
58
Chippewa Treaty Rights
travel to Sandy Lake for their annuity money in the first place, told Lea that he
had found it necessary to spend half of the funds on provisions for the Indians.
“Had the residue been so invested, which the scarcity of supplies rendered im¬
possible,” he asserted, “it would not have subsisted the large number congregated
at the payment an additional fortnight” (Ramsey 1851, 162).
Subagent Watrous admitted a “great mortality” had occured as a result of the
circumstances surrounding the annuity payment and reported that the Chippewas
referred to Sandy Lake as a “grave yard” and that they had “a particular dread
and horror for the place” (Watrous 1852a). According to a recent study of the
incident, “the Ewing-Brown-Ramsey-Watrous plan to lure the Lake Superior Chip¬
pewa west and trap them there successfully removed some twelve percent, by killing
them.” The tragic loss of such a large number of people weakened the Wisconsin
bands. Many of their able-bodied men had died. They had also lost capital equip¬
ment — their canoes, as well as valuable time that could have been devoted to
subsistence work and other productive economic activities. Dependent upon traders
for food, the Chippewas who returned to Wisconsin found it necessary to encumber
their unpaid and future annuity funds in order to survive the winter of 1 85 1 (Clifton
1987, 25). The tragic events associated with the annuity payment at Sandy Lake
strengthened the resolve of the leaders of the Wisconsin bands to resist all efforts
to remove them to Minnesota.
59
5
Reservations
Replace Removal
News of trauma inflicted upon the Wisconsin Chippewas as a result of the
scheme to lure them to Sandy Lake aided the Indians in their opposition to
removal. The intense lobbying effort on behalf of the Lake Superior Chippewas
described earlier eventually proved successful. Early in June of 1851, Indian Com¬
missioner Lea informed Interior Secretary Alexander H. H. Stuart that citizens in
Wisconsin and in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan strongly opposed the removal
of the Chippewas. According to Lea:
When the extent of this order became known, communications from sources of the
highest consideration — embracing petitions from the Legislature of Wisconsin and the
citizens resident in the ceded country; letters from the Authorities of Missionary estab¬
lishments, among the Chippewas of Lake Superior and other highly respectable individuals
were received at this office — remonstrating in strong terms against the application of the
order to these Indians.
In view of “the Weighty reasons” provided in the communications from prominent
citizens received in the Indian Office — that the removal of the Lake Superior Chip¬
pewas was “not required by the interests of the citizens or Government of the
United States, and would in its consequences in all probability be disastrous to the
Indians”— -Lea recommended in early June that the presidential order “be so mod¬
ified as to permit such portions of those bands as may desire it to remain for the
present in the country they now occupy” (Lea 1851a). Then, in late August of
1851, he announced the suspension of the order “until the final determination of
the President, as to whether they (the Ojibwas) should be permitted to remain, or
their removal resumed” (Treat 1851).
News of the suspension of the Removal Order encouraged newspaper editors
from the Great Lakes region. An editorial from the Cleveland Herald reprinted in
the East, for example, said the order was “uncalled for, useless, and abominable;
and we are glad, for the sake of humanity and justice, that the Administration have
resolved that for the present the edict shall not be enforced. We trust it may never
be” (New York Times 1851b). Another widely circulated editorial from the Sault
Ste. Marie Lake Superior News and Mining Journal claimed efforts to remove the
Chippewas were unlike any other attempt to relocate an Indian people ever under¬
taken by the U. S. government.
We believe we express the conviction of the entire population of the Lake Superior
country in regarding this removal as uncalled for by the best interests of the Government,
the whites, or the Indians. This is not a case of removal like any other that has taken
place in this country. Generally, there has been some show of reason for this painful
resort .... But it is far different in the case of the Chippewas. They occupy a remote
portion of the country . . . that would not, in all probability, have been settled for a
61
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
hundred years to come, had it not been for the rich deposits of minerals lately discovered
in its rocky hills.
From time immemorial this people have occupied the northern region, and have become
acclimated to its cold and rigorous climate; and by hunting and fishing, and the cultivation
of their small patches of soil, they have lived comfortably and contentedly, causing little
or no trouble to the United States and their neighbors. Until their little fields are needed
for the accommodation of their white brethren, why should they be driven to strange
places, a prey to the designs of their worst enemies {the Sioux}? They can live comfortably
where they now are, but they will starve to death, as hundreds did last winter, in the
miserable region {in Minnesota} to which the Government would remove them.
Unlike Indians affected by other instances of government-sponsored Indian removal
efforts, asserted the Sault Ste. Marie editor, the Chippewas were not an impediment
to “the tide of civilization constantly sweeping in from the East.” In the East, the
editor of the New York Times agreed with and reprinted this assessment ( New York
Times 1851b).
Despite the positive public reaction to Commissioner Lea’s temporary suspension
of the Removal Order, Governor Ramsey and newly promoted Agent Watrous39
continued their efforts to entice the Indians to emigrate from Wisconsin. They insisted
that annuity payments and educational funds be paid only in Minnesota. In addition,
Watrous recommended that a company of infantry be dispatched to La Pointe to assist
in promoting “a general removal” (Watrous 1851, 1852a, b, 48; Hall 1852a; Clifton
1987, 26-27). Ramsey informed Washington officials that the best way to handle
Chippewa “stragglers” in Wisconsin was to follow “a rigid adherence ... to the rule
of paying annuities to those only who remove to, and remain in, their proper country”
(Ramsey 1851, 163; 1852, 44).
In late November of 1851 after issuing his temporary suspension of the Removal
Order, Indian Commissioner Lea came to the support of Ramsey and Watrous.
After reading their reports in preparation for his own annual report, Lea urged
administration officials to proceed with efforts to “concentrate” the Chippewas
west of the Mississippi River. Lea claimed he proposed the measure for humanitarian
reasons. It was ‘ ‘calculated to promote the future welfare of this large and interesting
tribe” and “to save them from actual starvation; as the game on which they mainly
depend for the means of living is fast disappearing, and cannot much longer afford
them a support” (Lea 1851b, 4).
Meanwhile, continued pressure for their removal led Chief Buffalo of La Pointe
(Fig. 19) and twenty-eight other Chippewa chiefs and headmen to dictate a petition
to Lea. Charging that Watrous had “aggrieved and wronged” them, the Chippewa
leaders complained about the “great deception” that had been used to promote
their removal to Sandy Lake. Reciting Commissioner Stuart’s 1842 promise that
they could remain on their land as long as they “lived on friendly terms with the
Whites,” the chiefs and headmen charged Watrous with misconduct.
We are not satisfied that it is the President that requires us to remove. We have asked to
see the order, and the name of the President affixed to it, but it has not been shewn us.
We think the order came only from the Agent and those who advise with him, and are
interested in having us remove.
Since the Chippewas of Lake Superior had “never shed the blood of the Whites;
nor killed their cattle; nor done them any injury; and ... are not in their way,”
62
Chippewa Treaty Rights
Fig. 1 9. Portrait of Chief Buffalo. The head chief of the La Pointe band is depicted
dressed in a military uniform and wearing a peace medal. From the Madeline Island
Historical Museum Collection. Courtesy of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.
WHi(x3)41266
the Indians asked, “why is {it} that we now hear this order to remove?’’ Claiming
to be totally “in the dark’’ about the reasons for the order, Buffalo and the other
leaders of the Lake Superior Chippewas called for an end to all efforts to remove
their people and for the resumption of the payment of annuities at La Pointe as
promised in the 1842 treaty. The Indians ended their petition with a request that
they be allowed to send a delegation to Washington in order to review their griev¬
ances with American officials there (Buffalo et al. 1851).
63
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
The Chippewas waited for a response to their petition, but their patience wore
thin by the spring of 1852. Chief Buffalo, who was then in his early nineties,
decided to travel to Washington without prior approval. In early April, Buffalo
together with Oshoga, a young chief of “rare promise and merit” (Morse 1857,
348), several other chiefs, and interpreter Benjamin Armstrong left La Pointe en
route to Washington. “To return {from Washington} without anything accom¬
plished,” commented Armstrong as the delegation traveled eastward, “would be
to rekindle the fire that was smouldering into an open revolt for revenge’ ’ (Armstrong
{1892}, 294).
Chief Buffalo led the delegation to Washington armed with a petition supporting
the Chippewa cause. As they passed through white communities, Armstrong cir¬
culated the document among the residents and asked them to sign it (Armstrong
{1892}, 293). “We are satisfied,” the petition said of the Indians, “that they have
been hardly and injuriously used by the Agents appointed to make them their
payments during the past Two seasons, & by the removal of their usual place of
payment Conceeded {s/c} to them in their treaty to a place farther west where they
are exposed to the cold & starvation.” The petition referred to the Chippewas as
“a peaceable and inoffensive race living chiefly by hunting & fishing” (Fig. 20).
Included among the residents of Lake Superior communities signing the petition
were bankers, merchants, and traders. Eager to keep the Chippewas and their
annuities nearby, these men had little difficulty in signing the document, which
concluded that “while their removal West would in Our Opinion be a great damage
to them it would in no manner benefit the white population of the Country” (Citizens
of Lake Superior 1852).
When the Chippewa delegation finally reached Washington during the latter part
of June (Fig. 21), both Indian Commissioner Lea and Interior Secretary Stuart
ordered the Indians to return home immediately since they had not received per¬
mission to make the trip. Only the intervention of Whig Senator George Briggs of
New York, who encountered the delegation by accident while dining, led to a
meeting with Briggs’s fellow New York Whig, President Fillmore (Armstrong
{1892}, 296-97).
In preparation for the meeting with “Great Grand Father’ ’ Fillmore, Buffalo had
dictated a document that reviewed all of the outstanding grievances against the
United States. The chief began by informing the president that Chippewa men,
women, and children of northern Wisconsin were “deeply grieved” by the way in
which they had been treated since 1850. Buffalo protested the violation of Chippewa
reserved rights and urged Fillmore to remember the promises made at the 1842
treaty parley. “All who were present at that treaty listened to your words, which you
sent to us,” the memorial stated, adding that “Commissioner {Stuart} promised . . .
that if we were good men, that we should not only be permitted to remain on our
lands for fifty, but one hundred years to come.” Explaining that his band had “at all
times acted in obedience” to American laws and had advised other Indians to “lead
a quiet and peaceable life,” Buffalo requested an explanation for the Removal Order
and for the subsequent efforts to evict his people from Wisconsin (Buffalo et al. 1852).
Buffalo especially complained about the indignities the Chippewas had suffered as
a result of having to go to Sandy Lake to receive their annuities in 1850. He spoke
of the “very bad flour,” which “resembled green clay,” and the other “rotten pro¬
visions” American officials had issued, and the loss of “so many” young people due
64
Chippewa Treaty Rights
65
Fig. 20. The City of Superior , 1856. This lithograph by P. S. Duval and Son shows Chippewas and whites fishing and
sharing the shoreline of Lake Superior. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. LC-USZ62-50524
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Fig. 21. Chippewa Delegation in Washington, 1852. From Bartlett (1929, 69). Ben¬
jamin Armstrong and four unidentified chiefs are depicted here. Courtesy of the
University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Media Development Center.
to the remote location and lateness of the annuity payment, which left the Indians at
the mercy of the “incliment” weather. Buffalo also charged that recent annuity
payments were inadequate. “I obtained part of my annuity which was paid to me
by My Agent, with one arm he paid me that, which I ought to have had in full
with both arms.” Buffalo requested redress for all of these grievances. “Is it not
the obligation of white men to fulfill their contracts,” he asked. “And should they
not fulfill them, their contracts become null & void{,} consequently a misunder¬
standing exists, which can and ought to be adjusted to the mutual satisfaction of
the parties concerned.” Buffalo concluded his remarks with a plea for “justice”:
It is generally the case with the white men, when they have selected a spot to dwell at,
that they begin to consider and look around them, to see what obstacles are in their way.
They begin to cut away the underbrush and bad trees, in order to make the land level and
smoothe so that nothing will come in contact to hurt their feet, they see good trees and
they are allowed to stand & live, & they are not cut down. We beseech you to do towards
us as you do, allowing the good trees { — the Wisconsin Chippewas — } to stand and live
in your domain. And furthermore we pray, that in accordance to that, we so fully under-
66
Chippewa Treaty Rights
stood that our annuities should be paid to us at La Pointe & that they may be continued
there. (Buffalo et al. 1852)
Thanks to the efforts of Senator Briggs, Buffalo soon received an opportunity to
meet President Fillmore and to present the grievances of his people in person.
The Chippewa delegation presented Buffalo’s petition to President Fillmore in
the White House after everyone present at the meeting, including Senator Briggs,
Commissioner Lea, and Secretary Stuart, had smoked the peace pipe passed to
them by Buffalo. In reading the petition, the president acknowledged that he rec¬
ognized some of the signatures of leading citizens of the Great Lakes region. After
deliberating a day, Fillmore agreed to rescind the Removal Order, to cease all
efforts to remove the Chippewas from Wisconsin, and to pay back, current, and
future annuities at La Pointe. As news of the delegation’s success reached Wis¬
consin, the Chippewas celebrated their great victory. Upon his return, Chief Buffalo
convened a “grand council’’ of Chippewa bands at La Pointe where an interpreter
translated the message President Fillmore had given him (Armstrong {1892}, 297-98;
Buffalo et al 1852; Levi 1956, 60-61; Clifton 1987, 27).
President Fillmore’s decision to allow the Chippewas to remain in Wisconsin
has been the subject of recent controversy between supporters and critics of con¬
tinued Indian usufructuary rights. Scholars have not located a decree by Fillmore
specifically rescinding President Taylor’s Removal Order. As noted earlier, the
Interior Department ordered a temporary suspension of the order while Fillmore
reviewed the status of the Chippewas (U. S. District Court 1978, 1328-330, 1350
n. 17; U. S. Court of Appeals 1983, 348; Lea 1851a; Treat 1851). Several con¬
temporaneous events shed light on the president’s motivation for undertaking such
a review, reinforce Armstrong’s contention that Fillmore revoked Taylor’s order,
and demonstrate that such a suspension by Fillmore is consistent with his handling
of Indian affairs.
Chief Buffalo and white missionaries residing among the Chippewas had pre¬
sented the Fillmore administration with strong accusations about the conduct of
Agent Watrous (Fillmore 1852a; Buffalo et al. 1852; Treat 1852). At the same
time, opposition to the Removal Order by distinguished white citizens of the Great
Lakes region may have influenced the president (Citizens of Lake Superior 1852).
By the end of 1852, Fillmore had definitely shown more interest in the well-being
of Indians than had his immediate predecessors. For example, he had granted the
Menominees an extension of the date of their removal from Wisconsin and had
ordered the Indian Office to search for a suitable home for the tribe in Wisconsin
(Ourada 1979, 118-19). He also expressed concern that “justice” to the Indians
in the states of Texas and California as well as those in the Territory of Oregon
required the establishment of “particular districts” or reservations so that they
would not be “tenants at sufferance, and liable to be driven from place to place at
the pleasure of the whites” (Fillmore 1852b, 171; Knobel 1984, 188-89; Trennert
1975, 86). There is some basis, therefore, for Chippewa editor George Copway’s
recollection several years after Fillmore left office that the New Yorker’s admin¬
istration was “kind to the Indians” (Copway 1856). Whatever Fillmore’s moti¬
vation, the Chippewas were elated by his decision to allow them to remain in
Wisconsin.
67
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Two years after Chief Buffalo’s meeting with President Fillmore, the Wisconsin
legislature informed federal officials that “the Chippewa Indians in the region of
Lake Superior are a peaceable, quiet, and inoffensive people, rapidly improving in
the arts and sciences: that they acquire their living by hunting, fishing, manufacturing
maple sugar, and agricultural pursuits: that many of them have intermarried with
the white inhabitants, and are becoming generally anxious to become educated and
adopt the habits of the ‘white man.’ ’’ Wisconsin legislators urged the Indian Office
not to impose removal upon the Chippewas and recommended that laws be adopted
to “encourage the permanent settlement of those Indians as shall adopt the habits
of the citizens of the United States.’’ Finally, and probably an important consid¬
eration for some of the legislators with ties to the traders in northern Wisconsin,
they requested that all future annuity payments be made at La Pointe (Wisconsin
Legislature 1854, 397).
In negotiations at La Pointe in September of 1854, United States treaty com¬
missioners found it necessary to assent to the insistent demands of the Lake Superior
Chippewa for the demarcation of permanent reservations in Wisconsin. George
Manypenny, who had replaced Luke Lea as commissioner of Indian affairs following
the inauguration of Democrat Franklin Pierce as president in March of 1853, had
hoped to secure the mineral wealth of unceded areas in the Lake Superior region
by concentrating all Chippewa Indians west of the Mississippi River (Manypenny
1853, 245). A year later, however, Manypenny conceded:
There are . . . within the limits of Wisconsin, and also within the northern peninsula of
Michigan, a few small bands of the Chippewas of Lake Superior, who still occupy their
former locations on lands ceded by the treaties of 1837 and 1842. It has not, thus far,
been found necessary or practicable to remove them. They are very unwilling to relinquish
their present residences, as are all the other bands of the same Indians; and it may be
necessary to permit them all to remain, in order to acquire a cession of the large tract of
country they still own east of the Mississippi, which, on account of its great mineral
resources, it is an object of material importance to obtain. They would require but small
reservations; and thus permanently settled, the efforts made for their improvements will
be rendered more effectual. (Manypenny 1854, 212-13)
The Wisconsin Chippewas acceded to American acquisition of the rich mineral
lands along the north shore of Lake Superior only after American officials promised
to establish permanent reservations. Treaty Commissioner Henry C. Gilbert in¬
formed Commissioner Manypenny that “the points most strenuously insisted upon’’
by the Wisconsin Chippewas were “first the privilege of remaining in the country
where they reside and next the appropriation of land for their future homes. Without
yielding these points, it was idle for us to talk about a treaty. We therefore agreed
to the selection of lands for them in territory heretofore ceded” (Gilbert 1854,
0137; App. 5).
Wisconsin’s Chippewa Indians had learned several valuable lessons from the
1837 and 1842 treaty parleys. They absolutely refused to agree to the land cession
sought by the Americans in 1854, as they had done in 1847, until permanent
reservations were provided in the state. Furthermore, according to Benjamin Arm¬
strong, when the U. S. interpreter began to translate the remarks of the American
negotiators, Chief Buffalo interrupted him and insisted that the Indians appoint their
68
Chippewa Treaty Rights
own interpreter. “We do not want to be deceived any more as we have in the past,”
asserted the chief (Armstrong {1892}, 301).
The 1854 treaty (Fig. 22) provided for American acquisition of the north shore
(see Fig. 7) and the establishment of four Chippewa reservations in Wisconsin
(Fig. 23): Bad River located directly east of Ashland on the shore of Lake Superior
with two hundred acres on Madeline Island for a fishing ground; Red Cliff situated
at the northern tip of Bayfield County, which was established as a result of the
1854 treaty and an 1856 executive order by President Franklin Pierce;40 Lac Courte
Oreilles in Sawyer County southwest of Ashland; and Lac du Flambeau to the east
in Vilas County along the Flambeau Lake, known to the Indians as “Lake of the
Torches,” because of the traditional practice of spearing fish by torchlight (Kappler
1: 933-34, 2: 648-52, App. 6; Danziger 1973, 178-79; Royce 1899, 796-97).
Approximately one year after the negotiations at La Pointe, Commissioner
Manypenny41 commended the people of Wisconsin for supporting the establishment
of reservations in their state for the Chippewas. “They have not interposed any
objection, but, on the contrary, have seemed willing that the Indians might be
permitted to remain,” Manypenny said of Wisconsinites in 1855. The commissioner
reported that he was undertaking “the necessary steps” to survey the boundaries
of the reservations and to provide the Chippewa bands with “the means of education,
and in all other respects to fulfill the beneficial stipulations of their treaty” (Many¬
penny 1855, 322-23). The following year, Manypenny issued a glowing report
about the condition of the Chippewas in northern Wisconsin. He informed Secretary
of the Interior Robert McClelland in 1856 that the reservation Indians of the mis¬
sionary settlement at Bad River had received “a liberal supply of farming imple¬
ments, carpenters’ tools, household furniture and cooking utensils; and every Indian
having a house and residing in it, has been supplied with a good cooking stove and
the usual cooking utensils, a table, bureau, chairs, bedstead, looking-glass, and
many other articles for household use. The effect of this policy is quite perceptible
and salutary, and has stimulated many to erect and provide for erecting new houses
at Bad river {s/c} and several other places” (Manypenny 1856, 554-55).
Manypenny ’s glowing report did not reflect reality for many of the Chippewa
people of Wisconsin. Bad River had better soil conditions than the other areas
designated for reservations, and it took some twenty years before all of the reser¬
vations granted in the 1854 treaty were selected and surveyed (Kappler 1: 928-36;
Madison Weekly Democrat 1878a). Many Indians continued to roam throughout
the ceded area engaging in their traditional pursuits. Without clearly marked bound¬
aries for their reservations, the Lac du Flambeau and Lac Courte Oreilles Indians
found it especially difficult to protect many of their resources (Vennum 1988, 260).
The St. Croix Chippewas, who were left out of the 1854 negotiations, remained
landless for eighty years. They lived as squatters on cutover lands or on tax-
delinquent lands belonging to various counties, eking out a living as best they could
deep in the forests just west of Lac Courte Oreilles. The Sakaogan Chippewas,
who were also left out of the 1854 negotiations, signed a treaty with American
officials in 1855, which promised them a reservation of twelve square miles of
land. Left landless since the U. S. Senate refused to ratify the treaty, they lived as
squatters near Crandon. Not until after the enactment of the Indian Reorganization
Act in 1934 did the St. Croix and Sakaogan bands, the so-called Lost Bands, obtain
legal title to the lands they had occupied for centuries — the Sakaogan Chippewas
69
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
of & trtaJty tnjeJjb Audi Cmdu.AU aJt-ffiuthtJd)
iw tfcb Jhtb of Wisconsin/ tet&tuo %Jkn*y
C SiXJbvd* amA» 'jfourtdb 4$ OttrrunaK Crmmr
iMiawn twtkv {fAffc of th& ttmJtuL \fbUu
oauL die OlifspeurtL dndttmj ef fcJtLoSup-
CttOt* OtodL tiuu *kAM4A4-L^X tty Muir Qutft
a tuAo cdtadmjut^'.
drilclt /. Quftfiiunu f faJu,ofttj>ertor=
hurdnj Ctdz. to ttuu luuiD StoJbu . ail ttx CaauU Lurt-
tofonj tumid? try Its/m. iu> Cotumov (UrtHv ITul CkifLpunU
ef (M&, ojtiMUUfai £cuAr of Ufa fottsurug 4oun~
clo/ty tint), oJoilfbfc, 'tdigiltoung di ti/jbnnlr, QrfitM* Htv
put tmncL off ofrutke/ /river Cmoeo fta. idtUhtyn,
fmiutcL’Uj CCiw of tfcv Ou/Lflunv County , TUnninj
ttfciuc*> kf. Itlu Jail (hmMcb th ik Ooturcb , hwnt> tu**ty
•Aertfl th. (L dtrcuokt ICtud ti 1fa> Qtuuttu of Stub \fdo-
GAvubh (Hitttr, rnvnau kfu ttu. Tl'4/uu /rioef th ttuo
Quentfc if £ ti fob
Qlwf- {>e4\Jc tf 'Vll/iniMjKi /TOM' tot) Hunt* den.
ttie. TZbnuid/h/ /Twer hr Lti eitoutt^ «
cJJtei Chi{)f>ti*reU of ttw ot-tUMMcfiju /lerdy asteU
dud. tL^rci) to fob ftmgmxg (bi^ton, and Cotuttb Mub
ttuo h~hdU OLineittiuh of tki GoiMJU^-eUlSi monoy /for fob
CcUiUry CatuL cdrevdj sktib to fob uufifiemJ
of ^aJco efufmter, auJbMy GaukdUrdtwo tfamf ttu-CLj
jlUltfU 0^ dfcdtt ofufvrurp fijmtry /pctblffuioL fjp tk*>
Oufjumu of dob edtu4'UU]ipv aiJt U\*mt ^itomi /ins
duX clcunvfti (fob /fjfreiofot/ oumtl try ttuytiv Mv Con
01 unu (ijZiuj heM of ttuu aJtvi jfrundtuiy ii/he) %
70
Fig. 22. Treaty of 1854. The first page of the handwritten treaty manuscript is reproduced above. Courtesy of the National Archives and Records
Service.
Chippewa Treaty Rights
(1987, 10) and the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Great Lakes Agency in Ashland, Wis¬
consin. Compare tribally held acres in 1989 to the acreage originally provided and
the number of acres alloted after the establishment of each reservation. Although
federal officials promised in 1855 to establish a twelve-square-mile reservation at
Mole Lake, the 1,700 acre reservation was not provided until the Indian New Deal of
John Collier. The St. Croix Chippewa, who were also landless until they received
1,715 acres under Collier, are scattered in five small parcels of land across three
counties. Today each reservation is a checkerboard of white-owned property equal
to or exceeding the amount of Indian land held in trust under federal jurisdiction. Also,
some Indian land is held by individual Indians rather than by the bands.
71
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
took possession of a small reservation barely comprising 1,700 acres known as
Mole Lake in southwestern Forest County near Crandon, and the St. Croix Chip-
pewas received a slightly larger reservation for their five scattered communities at
Danbury, Webster, and Hertel in Burnett County and at Luck and Balsam Lake in
Polk County (see Fig. 23). Nevertheless, the Wisconsin Chippewas had at least
retained a portion of their homeland at Bad River, Red Cliff, Lac du Flambeau,
and Lac Courte Oreilles as a result of the 1854 agreement (Lurie 1987, 21; Levi
1956, 95-101; Erdman 1966, 24, 27; Danziger 1979, 153-55; Masinaigan 1985;
Wisconsin State Journal 1990c, 10).
The reservations proved to be small in terms of the traditional Chippewa hunting-
fishing-gathering practices. Efforts to concentrate the Lac Courte Oreilles and Lac
du Flambeau bands at the Bad River Reservation in the early 1870s failed. Although
their lands were unsuitable for agriculture and they were plagued by trespassing
lumbermen, settlers, railroaders, and white “sharpers” who defrauded them, the
members of these bands refused to abandon their reservations (New York Times
1871; Campbell 1898, 317; Royce 1899, 857; Danziger 1973, 182-83).
Reports from the Indian agent at Red Cliff in 1861 and those of the agent stationed
there in 1891 indicate that the Indians near Lake Superior were experienced sailors
and active fishers who sold their surplus to white communities (Webb 1861, 74;
Leahy 1891 , 468). A Bureau of Indian Affairs official who traveled through northern
Wisconsin in the early 1870s noted that Chippewa men opposed the federal gov¬
ernment’s efforts to train them as “agriculturalists.” He reported that, although the
men considered farming to be “squaws work,” they were eager to undertake
“mans” work. “All the Lake Superior Indians will work if only somebody will
find something for them to do,” the official assured Indian Commissioner Edward
P. Smith (Day 1873).
During the second half of the nineteenth century, Chippewa men found temporary
employment as sawyers, log drivers, graders for railroads, and packers of survey
equipment. But, such wage labor positions were unstable and unpredictable. The
Chippewas found it necessary to live by a mixture of traditional pursuits such as
hunting, and fishing, and gathering, as well as wage labor, the sale of wood and
other products, and annuity payments until they expired in the mid 1870s (Day
1873; Shifferd 1976, 19; Danziger 1979, 96). For many years after the establishment
of the reservations, so many Chippewa men found it necessary to fish, hunt, and
look for employment away from the areas reserved for them that not until 1892
could Indian Bureau officials state assuredly that a majority of the Wisconsin
Chippewas were permanent reservation residents (Danziger 1973, 182).
The presence of Chippewa Indians near white communities sometimes alarmed
the residents. During the summer of 1878, for example, Norwegian and Swedish
immigrant settlers in Burnett County in northwestern Wisconsin misinterpreted the
intentions of Chippewa Indians at a nearby encampment and triggered an “Indian
panic.” Wild rumors of Chippewa warriors from Wisconsin and Minnesota joining
Sioux braves on the warpath caused what one observer referred to as the “timid
Swedes’ ’ of Burnett County to abandon their farms and flee for their lives. Telegraph
messages reporting that local officials had joined the exodus crossing over to Min¬
nesota led Governor William E. Smith to seek assistance from the U. S. War
Department (Forsyth 1878; Bryant 1878; Madison Weekly Democrat 1878b; Barron
County Chronotype 1878; Sf. Paul Pioneer Press 1878).
72
Chippewa Treaty Rights
Wisconsin Adjutant-General Edward E. Bryant and Lieutenant Colonel James
W. Forsyth, aide-de-camp to U. S. Army General Philip Sheridan, investigated the
situation and found no cause for alarm. As a Minnesota editor reported, rumors of
an impending attack were “absurd.” Noting that the Chippewas in both states were
at peace and that the Indians in Burnett County had not taken anything from the
abandoned farms, the editor commented:
The Chippewas of Wisconsin ... are not only utterly dependent upon the whites, but
they are surrounded upon all sides by a wide cordon of white settlements. War would
simply drive them from their ancient retreats in the pine woods and rice lakes out of the
two States, into the arms of their old and merciless enemies, the Sioux, across the Missouri.
But not only the physical conditions render a Chippewa war on the whites impractable,
but the moral conditions render it absurd. Such a panic as that in Burnett county, Wisconsin,
could only arise from a profound misconception of the habits and character of the Chippewa
Indians of that section. All their traditions bind them to peace with the whites. Their utter
dependence on the whites guarantees it. (St. Paul Pioneer Press 1878)
A newspaper editor in Rice Lake, Wisconsin, agreed with his Minnesota colleague
but expressed the hope that the incident in neighboring Burnett County would ‘ ‘result
in obliging the Indians to keep on their reservations” (Barron County Chronotype
1878). General Bryant and Colonel Forsyth supported this position.
General Bryant lost little time in assuring Governor Smith that the situation was
under control. Seemingly oblivious of the Chippewa usufructuary rights in ceded
territory including Burnett County, Bryant recommended that the innocent Chip¬
pewas make way for the needs of the white settlers:
While the Indians undoubtedly meditate no mischief, certainly no hostility to the whites,
they are a nuisance to the settlers; they stroll about, beg, pester timid women, pick
cranberries before ripe, shoot off the deer, and by their presence retard the growth of
those portions of the State which they frequent. They ought to be kept on their reservations.
As long as they are allowed to roam about in bands, so long will they cling to the lazy
habits of Indian life. Penned up on their reservations, they would be compelled to resort
more to agriculture, and it certainly would be a relief to the settlers in our northern woods,
if these disagreeable bands were kept out of their neighborhoods.
Colonel Forsyth agreed and informed General Bryant that he intended to recommend
that the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) adopt stricter regulations for the Chippewa
bands in order “to keep them on their reservations, and to drive them by all politic
measures into industrial pursuits” (Bryant 1878). Also ignoring Chippewa off-
reservation usufructuary rights, BIA officials responded by encouraging the Indians
to earn their living within their reservations under federal guidance (Danziger 1979, 96).
In the 1870s, federal officials not only actively sought to prevent the Chippewas
from “clinging” to such “lazy habits of Indian life” as hunting, fishing, and
gathering off-reservation on ceded lands, they also reexamined the policy of ne¬
gotiating treaties with the Indian tribes. In ending treaty making for domestic
political reasons in March of 1871, however, congressmen specifically recognized
the validity of existing treaty obligations42 (Kappler 1: 8; Priest 1942, 96-102, 244;
Cohen 1982, 128). Chippewa usufructuary rights in ceded territory as reserved in
the treaties of 1837 and 1842 remained in effect. There was little legal impact on
the continuing relationship between the United States and the Chippewas as a result
73
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences » Arts & Letters
of the 1871 enactment, but the BIA and residents of Wisconsin increasingly un¬
dermined Chippewa usufructuary rights during the ensuing decades.
Among those questioning the soundness of treaty making with Indians were some
prominent residents of Wisconsin. In 1870, a committee of the Old Settler’s Club
of Milwaukee County, composed of Increase A. Lapham — a charter member of the
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters and of the American Ethnological
Society whose numerous achievements earned him the titles of “the first Wisconsin
scientist” and “the first scholar of Wisconsin” (Kellogg 1933; Sherman 1876,
60-61; Quaife 1917) — and colleagues Levi Blossom and George G. Dousman,
praised the federal government’s earlier decision to establish reservations in Wis¬
consin for the Chippewas rather than to remove them from the state. They quoted
approvingly from Commissioner Manypenny’s 1856 report (cited earlier) and re¬
ferred to the government’s reservation policy for the Chippewas as “a move in the
right direction, and one that might have been adopted with advantage at an earlier
date.” While the members of the Old Settler’s Club viewed the removal policy as
“at best a temporary, a short-sighted policy,” they had even harsher words for the
government’s policy of “regarding a mere handful of poor, miserable Indians as a
distinct nation .” Calling the idea of dealing with Indians in Wisconsin as sovereign
states an “absurdity,” they commented, “why the Indians, any more than the
Chinese, the Mormons, or any other people should be allowed to maintain a distinct
government within our own, it is difficult to understand.” The solution was clear
to them. “Let us at once cease this absurd and ridiculous policy, and treat every
Indian, as we do all others, according to his individual rights; allow him the same
privileges, and require of him personally, and individually, the same duties; and
subject him to the same laws, as other citizens and residents within our borders,
and very much of our Indian trouble will be avoided” (Lapham et al. 1870, 10,
13-14). Lapham, Blossom, and Dousman, like other Americans of their generation,
had come to view Indian treaties as an obstacle to an effective Indian policy. Indeed
in 1871, when Congress prohibited further treaty making with Indian tribes, the
three Wisconsinites — like others who advocated making the Indians citizens — un¬
doubtedly viewed the change as only the first step toward eventual citizenship
(Mardock 1971, 105).
The precarious economic position of the reservation Indians made them vulnerable
to the Bureau of Indian Affair’s educational and assistance programs, which were
designed to promote acculturation. No longer in a position to choose from white
culture those features that appealed to them, the Wisconsin bands found themselves
increasingly dependent on the white man’s largesse. Chippewa agriculture, follow¬
ing white practices, was still in its early stages by 1900 and provided only a minor
source of food and income. The Indians were also exploited by unscrupulous logging
companies who cheated them while transforming their forests into cutover lands
and by white trespassers who stripped timber from their reservations without much
fear of capture and prosecution since they were often aided by conniving Indian
agents {New York Times 1888b, c; Danziger 1979, 89-91, 94, 100, 103; Fries 1951,
202; Levi 1956, 242). In 1872, for example, La Pointe Agent Selden N. Clark
negotiated a “give-away” contract for timber from Lac Courte Oreilles with an
Eau Claire entrepreneur43 (Shifferd 1976, 22). Not until 1888 did Congress extend
anti-trespass legislation to Indian reservations and the Senate launch an investigation
into the logging practices on Chippewa lands {Fig. 24) that exposed numerous
74
Chippewa Treaty Rights
Fig. 24, Logging Scene on Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation, 1909. Courtesy of the
State Historical Society of Wisconsin. WHi(x3)37336
frauds committed against the Indians (New York Times 1888b, c; 1889; Fries 1951,
202; U. S. Secretary of the Interior 1889).
From the ratification of the 1854 treaty until the turn of the century, the Lake
Superior Chippewas tried repeatedly to convince American officials to faithfully
execute the financial provisions of their treaties (Shifferd 1976, 21). They especially
complained about overdue annuity payments (Fig. 25) and funds owed them as a
result of the federal government’s use during the Civil War of inflated paper currency
instead of the hard coin required by the treaties. During a visit to Washington in
1864, the members of a delegation from Wisconsin recounted their recollection of
the manner in which Chippewa reserved rights had been incorporated into the treaties
of 1837 and 1842. The bilingual petition of 1864 cited earlier in this study was
preceded by a memorial stating, “we have always kept our promises made to our
Great Father, and we have the right to expect him to keep his promises made to
us.”44 The petition may have contributed to the Bureau of Indian Affair’s decision
in 1865 to pay the annuities at Red Cliff and Bad River in coin, but the arrearages
went unpaid in spite of the contributions of Chippewa warriors to the Union cause
during the Civil War (Nichols 1988, 3-5; Current 1976, 366).
One administration after another found excuses for denying the Indians an au¬
dience to discuss the overdue payments (Danziger 1979, 230 n. 19). In 1867, for
example, Acting Commissioner of Indian Affairs Charles E. Mix rejected a Chip¬
pewa request for a conference in Washington on the basis that travel through
American cities would have a bad moral influence on the Indians. Yet, Mix did
not meet them in Wisconsin either (Mix 1867). For the next twenty-five years, the
Chippewas persisted in their efforts to secure their overdue funds; but, as an eastern
newspaper editor observed in 1888, “no one {was} willing to listen” (New York
Times 1888a). In 1878, after reporting that rumors of Chippewa hostilities in Wis-
75
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
76
Fig. 25. Annuity Payment Scene at La Pointe. Photograph by Charles A. Zimmerman. Courtesy of the Minnesota Historical
Society.
Chippewa Treaty Rights
Fig. 26. Indian School in the Vicinity of Hayward, 1880s. Courtesy of the State His¬
torical Society of Wisconsin. WHi(x3)23295
consin were groundless, La Pointe Indian agent Isaac L. Mahan informed Indian
Commissioner Ezra A. Hayt that “the Chippewas have grievances that would make
white men tear their hair and howl from one end of the country to the other, but
they prefer to submit quietly and peaceably to the powers that be, praying without
ceasing, hoping continually that the good men of the Great Father’s household will
yet hear and answer their petitions by the necessary legislation.” In particular,
Mahan urged Hayt to convince Congress to pay the funds the United States owed
the Chippewas. “If the government would pay these poor people half what is justly
their due under former treaties,” the agent asserted, “they could and would live
comfortably for many seasons to come.” In the meantime, Mahan stressed the
necessity of securing “large appropriations for net- twine and hooks” so Chippewa
fishers could provide adequate subsistence for their families (Mahan 1878, 147-48).
Despite such pleas, when the members of the U. S. Senate Committee on Indian
Affairs examined the records of the U. S. Treasury Department in 1892 they dis¬
covered that the federal government still owed the Chippewas more than ninety-
two thousand dollars. “The breach of faith to these unfortunate people,” the Sen¬
ators asserted, “is a greater reproach to the Government by reason of the fact that,
while so many tribes and bands of western Indians have resorted to war in their
exasperation, the Chippewas have been uniformly faithful and friendly” (U. S.
Senate Committee on Indian Affairs 1892, 2-4). Nevertheless, a thorough exami¬
nation of the federal statute books for the 1890s led historian Edmund Danziger,
Jr. to conclude that Congress never appropriated funds to pay the Chippewas (Dan¬
ziger 1979, 230 n. 19-231, n. 19).
Throughout the late nineteenth century, but especially after passage of the Dawes
Severalty Act in 1887, and continuing during the early 1900s, Bureau of Indian
Affairs officials sought to transform the communal Chippewa people into “civi¬
lized,” capitalistic farmers through programs of coercive education and social
77
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
IU
OTOSHKI-KIKINDIUIN
AD
TEBENIMINUNG GAIE BEMAJIINVNG
JESUS CHRIST:
IMA
OJIBUE INUEUINING GIIZHITONG.
THE
NEW TESTAMENT
OF
OUR LORD AND SAYIOUR JESUS CHRIST:
TRANSLATED INTO THE LANGUAGE
OF THE
0 JIB WA INDIANS.
NEW YORK:
AaMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY,
INSTITUTED IN THE YK*B MDCCCXTt.
1876.
Fig. 27. New Testament in Ojibwa Language, 1875. The conversion of Chippewas to
Christianity was one of the ways non-Indians measured Indian “progress” in becoming
“civilized.” Courtesy of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. WHi(x3)24983
control (Figs. 26-28). Designed to convert communal tribal property into individ¬
ually owned lands, the Dawes Act was also intended to isolate individuals from
the tribal community so that they could eventually be absorbed into the larger white
society (Otis 1973). Whatever the goals of the severalty legislation, lands allotted
78
Chippewa Treaty Rights
Fig. 28. An Indian Farmer Preparing a Seed Bed, c. 1930. Federal officials encour¬
aged the Chippewas to farm, but small family farms on the cutover lands available
to the Indians proved inadequate for making a living. Courtesy of the State Historical
Society of Wisconsin. WHi(w6)6290
to Indians became easy targets of lumber companies or were lost through forfeiture
when taxes could not be paid (Danziger 1979, 97-109; Glad 1990, 486). As one
scholar has commented, “a Wisconsin county tax sale notice can be mightily
confusing when you do not understand ownership to begin with, when you have
never heard of taxes, and when you speak only Chippewa” (Wilkinson 1990,
17-18). Although they congregated together on an increasingly diminished land
base and were under tremendous pressure to abandon tribal affiliations and identity
as well as traditional communal ways, the Chippewas tried to follow their traditions
as best they could (Figs. 29-30). They developed cooperative strategies for hunting,
fishing, and gathering under existing conditions (Haskins 1909; Shifferd 1976, 18,
26-38; Vennum 1988, 264; Glad 1990, 486-87).
Beginning during the latter part of the nineteenth century, Chippewa fishers and
hunters (Fig. 31) faced increasing competition for fish and game from commercial
fishers, market hunters, and white sportfishers and hunters. Northern towns like
Bayfield, a stop on steamer lines, had attracted tourists since the 1860s. As early
as 1870, a Bayfield hotel reported that the majority of its registrants during the
previous year had been “pleasure seekers” from “down below.” All Wisconsin
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Fig. 29. Chippewa Herbalist and Family in Rice Lake, 1916. The Chippewa woman
depicted here had a wide knowledge of herb and bark medicines. Courtesy of the
State Historical Society of Wisconsin. WHi(x3)36518
railroads terminated in Chicago, and the flow of tourists from that city to Wisconsin
was substantial. During the century following 1860, tourism and recreation became
the largest combined source of employment and income in many northern counties
as more and more city dwellers who enjoyed bird- watching, camping, boating,
fishing, hiking, hunting, sight-seeing, and swimming were attracted by the state’s
more than eight hundred miles of Great Lakes coastline, nearly fifteen thousand
lakes, and more than nine thousand miles of trout streams. The promotional efforts
of the Wisconsin Central Railroad, which built the rambling Chequamegon Hotel
in Ashland that took several trainloads of vacationers as well as sportfishers and
hunters to fill, especially contributed to the growing interest in northern Wisconsin
as a vacation spot. Meanwhile, the presence of increasingly large numbers of
sportfishers and hunters, together with competition for game from commercial
sources, made fishing and hunting less dependable sources of food for the Indians
by the early twentieth century. The Chippewas also had to contend with the power
of the State of Wisconsin as they sought to eke out an existence on and off their
reservations (Wisconsin State Journal 1990c, 13; Shifferd 1976, 30-31; Nesbit 1985,
194, 529; Thompson 1988, 288).
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Chippewa Treaty Rights
Fig. 30. Chippewa Woman Preparing Splints for Basket-making, c. 1925. Courtesy
of the Wisconsin State Historical Society. WHi(x3) 18837
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Fig. 31 . Hunting in Winter on Snowshoes. From a stereograph by Charles A. Zim¬
merman. Courtesy of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin. WHi(x3) 15462
82
6
The Curtailment
of Treaty Rights
Between the establishment of their reservations in 1854 and the end of the
century, the Chippewas continued to hunt, fish, and gather both on their
reservations and off, and the Indians and whites in the region coexisted (Fig. 32)
peacefully despite occasional misunderstandings as occurred in Burnett County in
1878 (Hanaway 1989, 3-4). The general trend in the Wisconsin legislature as well
as in the state court system during this period, however, favored the extension of
state jurisdiction over tribal Indians unless federal law specifically prohibited it.
For example, an 1849 statute prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquor to Indians
was reenacted in 1858 and again in 1878 (Wisconsin Supreme Court 1916, 354-55).
In 1879, the judges of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, arguing that “Indians are
included within the laws when not excepted from their provisions,” ruled the state’s
criminal laws applied to the Indians on their reservations. This was an ominous
portent of things to come for the Chippewas (Wisconsin Supreme Court 1879a,
296-97).
At the end of the nineteenth century and increasingly during the early years of
the twentieth century, officials of the State of Wisconsin harassed Lake Superior
Chippewa Indians who attempted to exercise their off-reservation rights to hunt,
fish, and gather in ceded territory (Wilkinson 1990, 19-20; Strickland et al. 1990,
4-5). State efforts to enforce game and fish laws on reservations led to the arrest
on April 23, 1901, of John Blackbird, a full blood Chippewa, on the Bad River
reservation. The arresting game warden confiscated Blackbird’s net and took him
to Ashland to stand trial. A municipal court judge found Blackbird guilty of violating
state laws and fined him twenty-five dollars plus court costs. In default of payment,
Blackbird received a sentence of thirty days imprisonment at hard labor in the
county jail at Ashland. U. S. attorneys William G. Wheeler and Henry T. Sheldon
arranged a test case challenging the state’s authority to convict and imprison Black¬
bird (U. S. District Court 1901, 140).
In June of 1901 , attorneys Wheeler and Sheldon argued before the Federal District
Court for the Western District of Wisconsin that state authorities had no jurisdiction
to enforce their game and fish laws on Indian reservations. The attorneys argued
that Congress, in adopting the Major Crimes Act on March 3, 1885 (U. S. Congress
1885), had prescribed which acts constituted crimes when committed by “tribal
Indians” on reservations and which courts had jurisdiction in cases involving those
crimes. States, they contended, neither had authority to add crimes to the list
enumerated by Congress nor to prosecute Indians in state courts for crimes com¬
mitted on reservations. Wisconsin Attorney General E. R. Hicks’s attempt to uphold
the state’s jurisdiction was soundly rebuffed by Judge Romanzo Bunn (U. S. District
Court 1901).
Judge Bunn ruled that the Major Crimes Act had extended exclusive Congressional
jurisdiction over Indian reservations for specific criminal offenses. “No doubt, if
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Fig. 32. Ojibwa Ceremony at the Wisconsin State Fair, 1906. Non-Indians watch
Chippewas perform a ceremony. WHi(x3)45972
necessary,” he stated, “congress would provide for the punishment of lesser crimes
committed by the Indians. But so far . . . it has not been found necessary.” The
reason lesser crimes had not been enumerated, at least in the case of the Chippewas,
was clear to Bunn:
These Indians are a quiet, peaceable people, and all the trouble and infractions of the
peace that have come among them have arisen from the mercenary acts of white men in
selling them intoxicating drink in violation of law. Congress might even provide fish and
game laws to restrict the Indians in their natural and immemorial rights of fishing and
hunting. But it has not seen fit to do so. It would be intolerable if the state, under these
circumstances, should have the power to step in, and extend its civil and criminal codes
and police power over these people. It would be an invitation to an early conflict of
jurisdiction.
Bunn concluded his strong rebuke of state efforts to enforce fish and game laws
on the Chippewa reservations with a reference to the usufructuary rights reserved
by the Indians in their treaties with the United States. “After taking from them the
great body of their lands in . . . Wisconsin, allowing them to reserve certain portions
for reservations, and stipulating they should always have the right to fish and hunt
upon all lands so ceded,” Bunn stated, “it would be adding insult as well as injustice
now to deprive them of the poor privilege of fishing with a seine . . . upon their
own reservation.” The judge, warning state fish and game wardens that their over¬
zealousness in arresting Indian fishers for using nets in streams on their reservations
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Chippewa Treaty Rights
was “not justifiable in law,” ordered the release of Blackbird (U. S. District Court
1901, 145).
Judge Bunn’s ruling in 1901 did not prevent Wisconsin officials from continuing
their efforts to extend state authority over the Chippewas. Six years later, an Indian
named Morrin, who had become a U. S. citizen under the Dawes Act and had lived
in Bayfield for more than five years, was arrested under a 1905 statute for fishing
with a gill net in Lake Superior in violation of state fishing regulations. Morrin
appealed his conviction on the basis of his alleged reserved usufructuary treaty right
to fish in ceded territory. Although Morrin ’s status as a U. S. citizen added a special
nuance to his claim of usufructuary rights in ceded territory, the justices of the
Wisconsin Supreme Court used his appeal as an opportunity to reassert state legal
authority over tribal Indians on the Chippewa reservations.
... To exempt . . . Indians from state laws regulating hunting and fishing within the
borders of a state after its admission to the Union would deprive the state of its sovereign
power to regulate the rights of hunting and fishing, and would deny to such state admission
into the Union on an equal footing with the original states, upon the ground that a treaty
with the national government giving the right to hunt and fish within territory which
subsequently is embraced within the limits of a state is a privilege in conflict with the act
of admitting the state into the Union on an equality with the other states and is repealed
thereby.
According to the justices, the act of Congress admitting Wisconsin into the Union
as a state abrogated Chippewa treaty rights pertaining to hunting and fishing within
the borders of the state (Wisconsin Supreme Court 1908). Their decision, which
ignored Federal Judge Bunn’s 1901 ruling, found Morrin guilty and deprived the
Chippewa Indians of a major source of food and income for the next seventy-five
years until it was reversed by federal appeals court judges in 1983.
In addition to the State v. Morrin ruling, other dark legal clouds hung over the
heads of the Wisconsin Chippewas before 1983. During World War I, while Chip¬
pewas were serving overseas in the U. S. army (Fig. 33), the Wisconsin Supreme
Court continued to encroach upon tribal sovereignty and reserved treaty rights. In
1916, the court cited 1849, 1858, and 1878 statutes to uphold the prohibition of
the sale of intoxicating liquor to “all full-blood Indians” whether or not they
belonged to a tribe (Wisconsin Supreme Court 1916). In 1927, the court ruled that
President Zachary Taylor’s Removal Order of 1850 effectively terminated the Chip¬
pewa “right of occupancy” in Wisconsin “so far as it would interfere with the
lawful occupancy of those claiming patent {land title} from the United States is
concerned” (Wisconsin Supreme Court 1927, 473-74) despite earlier U. S. Supreme
Court rulings in 1894 and 1918 that no executive order45 had actually terminated
the Chippewa right of occupancy (U. S. Supreme Court 1894, 584; 1918, 137).
According to tribal elder James Pipe Mustache of the Lac Courte Oreilles (LCO)
Band, state officials began taking a tougher stand toward off-reservation hunting
and wild rice gathering by LCO members near Hayward in 1927. Fines, jail terms,
car impoundments, and rifle confiscations became common (Isthmus 1990, 1). The
rise of such incidents during the Great Depression in the 1930s coincided with the
state’s first appropriation to advertise the resorts and vacation spots of northern
Wisconsin and the rise of automobile traffic to that region on the state’s increasing
number of gravelled and concrete roads (Wisconsin State Journal 1990c, 13; Nesbit
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Fig. 33. Chippewa Soldier from Hayward in World War I Uniform. Courtesy of the
State Historical Society of Wisconsin. WHi(x3)37329
86
Chippewa Treaty Rights
and Thompson 1989, 480). As Wisconsin officials courted tourists and harassed
Indian hunters, fishers, and gatherers, the Chippewas of northern Wisconsin con¬
fronted deteriorating living conditions and suffered from inadequate diet and health
care (Danziger 1979, 119-26; Glad 1990, 487).
Not all rulings of the Wisconsin Supreme Court supported efforts to regulate
aspects of tribal life and to curtail usufructuary rights. In 1931, for example, in
State v. Rufus the justices of the Court recognized that state courts did not have
jurisdiction over criminal actions by an Indian within reservation limits, thereby
overturning the Court’s 1879 decision in State v. Doxtater. The justices also con¬
ceded that Wisconsin had been out of step with federal court rulings regarding the
handling of Indian hunting and fishing rights. Wisconsin had not been upholding
an 1886 Supreme Court ruling, U. S. v. Kagama, that said federal jurisdiction over
the tribes rested not upon ownership of and sovereignty over the country or reser¬
vation in which they reside but upon the fact that the tribes are wards of the federal
government. The justices concluded that efforts of state courts to prosecute Indians
for violating state hunting and fishing regulations within the confines of their re¬
servations should have ended with the decision in U. S.v. Kagama. Relying heavily
on an article in the Yale Law Journal by a University of Wisconsin Law School
professor (Brown 1930), the Wisconsin Supreme Court justices ruled that “while
prosecutions brought in the state courts against Indians might have beneficial results,
such is not sufficient to confer jurisdiction upon state courts in the absence of
legislation by Congress authorizing such jurisdiction” (Wisconsin Supreme Court
1931, 335, 339).
In 1933 and again in 1940, attorney Thomas L. St. Germaine of the Lac du
Flambeau Band argued before the Wisconsin Supreme Court that Chippewa Indians
could not be prosecuted for violating state fish and game laws off their reservations
either because of the provisions of the treaties of 1837, 1842, and 1854. In both
cases, the court conceded the Indians had the right to hunt and fish on their own
lands without regard to state regulations but denied them that right on lands that
had come under state jurisdiction through sales by Indians to non-Indians (Wisconsin
Supreme Court 1933; 1940).
On April 23, 1934, at Hayward near the Lac Courte Oreilles reservation, attorney
St. Germaine voiced his concern over the erosion of Chippewa hunting and fishing
rights. The occasion was the last of a series of so-called regional Indian congresses
called by Commissioner of Indian Affairs John Collier for the purpose of explaining
pending legislation (the Wheeler-Howard Bill) to tribal representatives.46 The Hay¬
ward Congress brought together Indians from Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan.
St. Germaine was among the delegates from the Chippewa reservations in Wisconsin
who raised concerns about the proposed legislation, fearing it might strip Indians
of their hunting and fishing rights (U. S. Bureau of Indian Affairs 1934, 28-30;
Deloria and Lytle 1984, 119).
Attorney St. Germaine’s efforts to preserve the usufructuary rights of the Chip¬
pewas are documented in the court cases and in the proceedings of the Hayward
Indian Congress mentioned above. The actual day-to-day meaning of state infringe¬
ments on hunting, fishing, and gathering rights for Indian families may be gleaned
from oral histories. Reporter Ron Seely of the Wisconsin State Journal recently
retold the following remembrance of a member of the Nakomis (“Grandmother”)
Club on the Lac du Flambeau Reservation:
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts & Letters
One winter morning . . . when she was a girl about 12, her father . . . and two friends
left early to go deer hunting. The hunting trip was important because the winter had been
harsh and the food was low.
After several hours the men spotted a deer. The only problem was that it was off the
reservation, just across the creek that forms the eastern boundary. Her father, knowing
the family needed food, shot the deer anyway. The men gutted it and took it home.
Later in the day . . . wardens came and arrested her father for violating state game
laws by hunting deer off the reservation without a license. He spent six months in jail in
Wausau.
The woman remembers she was so mad that she wrote the judge a letter. “Don’t
you know,” she asked, “that deer meant we would have enough food or not?”
Her family survived the winter without her father thanks to the generosity of relatives
and friends. The woman remains bitter today for what the state did to her family
in violation of their reserved treaty right to hunt off the reservation ( Wisconsin State
Journal 1990c, 27-28). Such stories would undoubtedly be repeated many times
over if the remembrances of all Chippewa grandmothers were collected. The state’s
violation of Chippewa usufructuary rights in ceded territory exacted a heavy toll
on the lives of Indian families — a cost that cannot be measured solely in terms of
fish and game as the above example illustrates.
The years between attorney St. Germaine’s efforts in 1933 and 1940 to secure
recognition of Chippewa off-reservation usufructuary rights coincided with the
“Indian New Deal” under the leadership of Indian Commissioner Collier. A pro¬
ponent of repealing the Dawes Act and returning lands to the Indians, Collier
believed that the communal way of reservation life offered an alternate lifestyle for
individualistic white Americans (Philp 1977). His hopes for the future centered
around the Wheeler-Howard bill that was designed
to conserve and develop Indian lands and resources; to extend to Indians the right to
form business and other organizations; to establish a credit system for Indians; to grant
certain rights of home rule to Indians; to provide for vocational education for Indians;
and for other purposes. (U. S. Congress 1934)
Collier convened a series of Indian congresses, including the one at Hayward
mentioned earlier, to answer questions about the proposed legislation and to win
support for it. He responded to criticisms and suggestions by offering amendments
to the bill. The U. S. Congress enacted the measure, known as the Indian Reor¬
ganization Act (IRA) on June 18, 1934 (Philp 1977, 145-60). Between November
17 and June 15, 1934, voters at each of the Chippewa reservations in Wisconsin
overwhelmingly agreed to accept the IRA. Under the act, Collier worked to provide
the St. Croix and Sakaogan Chippewas — the so-called Lost Bands — with small
reservations (see Fig. 23)\ and he encouraged the Chippewa bands to adopt con¬
stitutions and bylaws. Meanwhile, the BIA attempted to provide the tribes with
jobs, relief, loans, and educational programs (Danziger 1979, 133-34, 137, 153-54).
The IRA inspired optimism among some Indians. In addition to the cultural and
political regeneration it heralded, programs such as the Indian Division of the
Civilian Conservation Corps, the Works Progress Administration, and the Civil
Works administration brought much-needed job training, jobs, and hard cash to the
Chippewa reservations. But Collier’s Indian New Deal proved inadequate in meeting
88
Chippewa Treaty Rights
the needs of the Chippewas of Wisconsin. The Chippewas survived the Depression
and took some steps toward self-determination, but they did not become prosperous
or independent. Encouraged by the state’s promotion of tourism, whites had already
gained title to reservation lands and surrounded the most desirable lakes with
cottages and resorts. The Chippewas, who were left with swampy, cutover lands
unsuitable for either farming or recreation, faced great difficulties in maintaining
tribal cohesion and in providing a sound economic base for their bands during the
Depression years. During the 1940s, Congress turned an increasingly deaf ear to
Collier’s programs for tribal advancement as the war effort drained human and
monetary resources. Termination of the New Deal programs mentioned above dealt
the Chippewa bands a severe economic blow (Danziger 1979, 168-69; Glad 1990,
489; Lurie 1987, 44).
Following World War II, tourism and recreation became major components of
the Wisconsin economy. Increasingly larger numbers of tourists annually spent
money in northern Wisconsin on food, lodging, and alcohol. In many counties in
the north, they constituted the largest combined source of employment and income.
During the 1950s, nearly four million out-of-state people a year vacationed and
enjoyed outdoor recreation in Wisconsin as did more than two million state residents
annually by the end of the decade. Together, the out-of-state and in-state figures
comprised a number half again as large as Wisconsin’s total population. Next to
sight-seeing, fishing was the most popular attraction. In 1960, the state issued more
than 925,000 fishing licenses, two-and-a-half times as many as were issued twenty
years earlier. Between 1940 and 1960, the number of hunting licenses issued also
grew significantly, from 400,000 to 622,000 (Thompson 1988, 288-89). As the
total number of fishers and hunters rose annually in the 1950s, state game wardens
increasingly collided with Chippewa fishers and hunters (Wilkinson 1990, 22).
In 1953, the Republican-dominated Congress passed legislation designed to make
law enforcement on reservations in Wisconsin a state rather than a federal respon¬
sibility. Public Law 280 subjected the Chippewas to state jurisdiction over matters
that did not affect treaty rights (U. S. Congress 1953; Brophy and Aberle 1966,
184-85). Enacted at a time when terminating the unique federal relationship with
the tribes was national policy, PL 280 was an invitation to Wisconsin to enforce
the full gamut of its criminal laws on the reservations. Simultaneously, the state
accelerated its crackdown on Indian hunting and fishing (Monette 1990, 276; Wilk¬
inson 1990, 22).
Wisconsin game wardens vigorously applied state conservation laws to Indians
on the Chippewa reservations during the 1950s. A series of “unjust arrests’’ of
Chippewa fishers and hunters by state conservation officials led the Bad River Band
Tribal Council to issue the following ‘ ‘Declaration of War’ ’ on November 10, 1959:
When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to protect the rights and
liberties of certain peoples of this great nation from encroachment by other peoples, it is
the duty of the Tribal Council, the governing body of the Bad River Band of the Lake
Superior Tribe of Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin, to take measures that will protect the
members of said Band from unjust arrests by State Conservation officials.
IT IS HEREBY DECLARED, that a state of cold war exists between the Bad River
Band of Chippewa Indians and the officials of the Wisconsin Department of Conservation,
and that such state shall exist until such time as the State of Wisconsin shall recognize
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Federal treaties and statutes affording immunity to the members of this Band from State
control over hunting and fishing within the boundaries of this reservation.
During this period, State conservation officials shall be denied access to all tribal and
restricted lands within the boundaries of this reservation.
Nothing in this declaration shall be construed to mean that the Tribal Council condones
any un-Christian act, or any act of violence upon any person, or to be taken to sanction
any riot, or in any manner disturbing the peace. It is known that any such acts are punishable
under State Law, such jurisdiction having been given by this Band under {Public Law
280,} the Act of August 15, 1953. (Bad River Tribal Council 1959)
The “cold war” over the enforcement of state regulations on Chippewa reservations
appeared to have come to an end in 1966 when Attorney General Bronson C. La
Follette declared treaty rights were still in force on reservations and that the state’s
conservation laws only applied to the Chippewas when they were outside the bound¬
aries of their reservations (Erdman 1966, 62-63). The controversy over state reg¬
ulation of usufructuary rights on reservations in the 1950s, however, was but a
precursor of other problems for the Indians.
90
7
The Continuing
Pursuit of Justice
During the 1950s and 1960s, the Chippewas and other reservation Indians across
the United States confronted numerous efforts to abrogate their treaties and
to seize tribal lands for dams and other purposes. Indians responded by turning to
the federal courts for protection of rights reserved under treaties. The State of
Wisconsin provided an early example of this trend. In 1962, the Menominee Indians
contested the arrest of a tribal member by state wildlife authorities for hunting out
of season (Lurie 1987, 59; U. S. Court of Claims 1967, 998-1010). When the case
finally reached the Supreme Court several years later, the justices ruled that nineteenth-
century Menominee treaty rights relating to hunting were still valid since they had
never been explicitly extinguished by the United States government (U. S. Supreme
Court 1968, 404-12).
The Court’s contention that treaty rights must be explicitly extinguished by the
federal government and just compensation provided in order for the United States
to abrogate them is one of a series of legal precedents referred to by scholars of
Indian law as “canons of construction.’’ Four such canons have emerged since the
nineteenth century (Cohen 1982, 221-25). A brief review of them is essential to
our understanding of the legal context and the results of recent Chippewa efforts
to protect their treaty rights.
Judicial canons or standards of interpreting Indian treaties evolved during and
after the treaty-making era of American history. This period lasted from the 1778
treaty with the Delaware Indians until Congress ended treaty making in 1871. The
following four canons or principles have emerged from a number of Supreme Court
decisions:
1) treaties must be liberally construed to favor Indians;
2) ambiguous expressions in treaties must be resolved in favor of the Indians;
3) treaties must be construed as the Indians would have understood them at the
time they were negotiated; and
4) treaty rights legally enforceable against the United States should not be ex¬
tinguished by mere implication, but rather explicit action must be taken and ‘clear
and plain’ language used to abrogate them.
These standards of dealing with cases involving Indians represent an acknowl¬
edgement by the federal judiciary of the unequal bargaining position of the Indians
at the time of treaty negotiations. This acknowledgement is based, among other
things, on the federal government’s employment of interpreters and its superior
knowledge of the language in which the negotiations were conducted. Fundamen¬
tally, the canons reflect the fact that justices of the U. S. Supreme Court have
acknowledged Indians did not bargain with the federal government from a position
of equal strength (Cohen 1982, 221-25).
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
The reason for the emergence of the canons is rooted in the special trust rela¬
tionship between the Indian people and the United States (Cohen 1982, 220-22).
This relationship was outlined in an 1831 U. S. Supreme Court case involving a
dispute between the Cherokee Nation and the State of Georgia. Chief Justice John
Marshall declared Indian tribes to be “domestic dependent nations’’ whose rela¬
tionship to the United States resembled that of “a ward to his guardian.’’ Marshall
viewed Indian tribes as self-governing entities, but he recognized that their location
within states of the Union established a “peculiar’’ relationship with the federal
government (U. S. Supreme Court 1831). The concept of the federal trust respon¬
sibility to Indians evolved judicially from Marshall’s rulings (Satz 1987, 34-49;
Cohen 1982, 220-21) and has played an important role in the efforts of Wisconsin’s
Chippewa Indians to protect their hunting, fishing, and gathering rights.
The primary question of concern to federal judges and legal experts in reviewing
treaty rights controversies is this: what reasonable expectations did the Indians have
as a result of treaty negotiations? Although federal judges have recognized the duty
of the United States to carry out the terms of treaties as they were understood by
Indians, it is not an easy task to determine today what the understanding of an
Indian tribe or band was more than a hundred years ago. Among the most important
documents used for this purpose are the proceedings that were usually recorded
during the treaty councils. Copies of those documents that have been preserved in
the National Archives and Records Service in Washington, D.C., are available on
microfilm (Hill 1981, 44-45). The proceedings contain the official minutes of the
treaty negotiations as recorded by representatives of the U. S. government. Together
with related correspondence to the commissioner of Indian affairs and other gov¬
ernment officials, the proceedings often help to clarify the motives, concerns, and
perceptions of U. S. treaty commissioners and Indians. Since the proceedings were
written by government employees and thus undoubtedly are biased in favor of the
United States government, federal judges have carefully noted those instances in
which these documents support the Indians’ recollection of events and treaty pro¬
visions as opposed to the government’s written version of the treaty. In instances
where the proceedings reinforce the Indians’ version (see, for example, those noted
in Chapters 2-4 of this study), the courts have ruled in favor of the Indians in
interpreting the provisions of the treaties (Kickingbird et al. 1980, 34).
During the last two decades, the descendants of all of the Lake Superior Chippewa
bands have increasingly turned to the federal courts for assistance as some white
Americans have challenged their efforts to continue to enjoy the rights their ancestors
reserved in the treaties they signed with the federal government. Events of the mid-
and late 1960s set the stage for the legal actions of later decades. The Great Society
programs of the Lyndon B. Johnson administration opened up new links between
Indian leaders and the federal government (Prucha 1984, 2: 1092-095). Office of
Economic Opportunity (OEO) funds were used, among other things, to establish
legal services programs. Wisconsin Judicare, for example, was established to assist
low-income people in the state’s northern counties, which also happen to contain
all of Wisconsin’s Chippewa reservations (Lurie 1987, 51, 54; Wilkinson 1990,
23). Although the programs of the Johnson administration had an important impact
on the lives of many American Indians, the following events related to the rising
Indian militancy47 of the late 1960s and early 1970s captured the attention of the
news media48 and spotlighted Indian grievances: the organization of the American
92
Chippewa Treaty Rights
Indian Movement (AIM) in Minneapolis in 1968, the seizure and occupation of
Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay in 1969, the Trail of Broken Treaties that
resulted in the occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs building in Washington,
D. C., in 1972, and the seizure of the hamlet of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge
Reservation in South Dakota in 1973 (Prucha 1984, 2: 1116-120).
Such militancy had its counterpart in Wisconsin as well. In addition to the Indian
students who badgered university administrators for Indian counselors and programs
in Indian studies and languages, there were such events as the three-day occupation
of the Northern States Power Company dam site near the town of Winter in Sawyer
County in late July and early August of 1971 by a group of about a hundred Lac
Courte Oreilles Chippewas and some twenty-five AIM supporters49 and the occu¬
pation on New Year’s Eve 1974 of a vacant Catholic novitiate near the reservation
town of Gresham in Shawno County by the Menominee Warrior Society.50 By the
mid-1970s, however, most Indian activists in Wisconsin — like their counterparts
across the United States — had turned to the legal system for assistance in redressing
their grievances (Lurie 1987, 54-56, 58).
Wisconsin Indians looked to the federal courts and organizations such as the
Native American Rights Fund and Wisconsin Judicare to seek the benefits of the
federal government’s trustee relationship to the tribes without the burden of federal
domination (Lurie 1987, 54). As Indian activists Russel Lawrence Barsh and James
Youngblood Henderson have noted, in the American constitutional system of checks
and balances “the ultimate security of a minority excluded from or too few to take
advantage of majoritarian political processes lies in the Constitution and constitu¬
tional courts” (Barsh and Henderson 1980, 138).
The rising militancy of the 1960s and 1970s gave many Indians a new sense of
pride in being Indian, and a new generation of leaders sought legal redress for their
grievances. “The legal weapon is especially potent in the Indian situation,” a student
of the new Indian politics reminds us, “because the relationship of Native Americans
to the United States, unlike that of any other group in American life, is spelled out
in a vast body of treaties, court actions, and legislation” (Cornell 1986, 128).
As early as 1971, Wisconsin Judicare had undertaken a test case involving
Chippewa fishing rights in Lake Superior under nineteenth century treaties ( Capital
Times 1972). In two cases reviewed together, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled
on January 6, 1972, that the Red Cliff and Bad River Chippewa Indians had fishing
rights in Lake Superior by virtue of the establishment of their reservations on the
lake’s shores in the 1854 treaty, but the majority decision recognized the state’s
right to “reasonable and necessary” regulations to prevent a substantial depletion
of the fish supply and declared that Indian methods of gathering fish had to “rea¬
sonably conform to the aboriginal methods.” In a concurring opinion, Chief Justice
E. Harold Hallows upheld the right of the Chippewas to fish in Lake Superior but
disagreed with his colleagues on state regulation of Indian fishing. Hallows argued
that the needs of whites should not determine the extent of Chippewa fishing rights
nor should the Indians be limited to using aboriginal methods. As Hallows commented:
The majority opinion states to the Indians you have your historic and traditional fishing
rights, but the state of Wisconsin ‘who did not grant you those rights in the first place’
is going to regulate them. The regulation of the Indians’ right to fish could reduce them
to the status of privileges of the white inhabitants of Wisconsin. I cannot agree that the
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts & Letters
needs of the white inhabitants of Wisconsin must determine the extent of the Indians’
fishing rights. Nor can I agree that the methods of fishing by the Indians must be by
aboriginal methods.
Hallows concluded his remarks by stating, “the Indians should be allowed a spinning
rod as well as a bone hook or spear” (Wisconsin Supreme Court 1971, 410-12).
The most famous court case involving Chippewa hunting, fishing, and gathering
rights in Wisconsin is Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Chippewa Indians v. Voigt. In
early March of 1974, Wardens of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources
(DNR) arrested Frederick and Michael Tribble, members of the Lac Courte Oreilles
(LCO) Band, for spearfishing on Chief Lake, located south of Hayward in ceded
territory in Sawyer County. Charged and found guilty of possessing a spear for
taking fish on inland off-reservation waters and for occupying a fish shanty without
a proper tag, the brothers were defended by the LCO Band, which filed suit in
1974 against DNR Secretary Lester P. Voigt, DNR Conservation Wardens Larry
Miller and Milton Dieckman, Sawyer County District Attorney Norman L. Yackel,
and Sawyer County Sheriff Donald Primley for interfering with Chippewa off-
reservation hunting and fishing rights ( Capital Times 1974; U. S. District Court
1978).
In 1978, Federal District Court Judge James Doyle ruled against the Chippewas.
Doyle concluded that “when the boundaries of the Lac Courte Oreilles reservation
were finally determined pursuant to the 1854 treaty, the general right of the Lac
Courte Oreilles Band and its individual members to hunt, fish and gather wild rice
and maple sap in the area ceded by the treaties of 1837 and 1842, free of regulation
by state government, was extinguished, except as to reservation lands, and except
as to special hunting and fishing rights on limited parts of the ceded territory adjacent
to the treaty reservations which might properly be inferred from the language of
the 1854 treaty setting apart the reservations ‘for the use of’ the Chippewa” (U. S.
District Court 1978, 1361).
After initial rejection of their arguments by Judge Doyle, the Chippewas turned
to the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which in 1983 reversed
Judge Doyle’s decision and reaffirmed the sanctity of the treaties and the right of
the Indians to hunt, fish, and gather on and off their reservations on public lands51
in ceded territory in the so-called Voigt Decision or what has come to be known
as LCO I.52 In deciding in favor of the Indians, a three-judge panel reviewed
historical and ethnographical evidence and concluded the Indians had been led to
believe they could continue to hunt, fish, trap, and gather on ceded lands as long
as they refrained from molesting white settlers. Further, the judges ruled that the
usufructuary rights were not withdrawn by the 1850 Removal Order because the
order was invalid; they concluded the 1854 treaty did not specifically revoke those
rights either (U. S. Court of Appeals 1983).
In reversing Judge Doyle’s 1979 decision, the U. S. Court of Appeals was upheld
by the U. S. Supreme Court, which refused to review the case (U. S. Supreme
Court 1983; Milwaukee Sentinel 1983). The Court of Appeals remanded the case
to Judge Doyle with instructions to “enter judgment for the LCO band . . . and
for further consideration as to the permissible scope of State regulation over the
LCO’s exercise of their usufructuary rights” (U. S. Court of Appeals 1983, 365).
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Chippewa Treaty Rights
Soon after the Supreme Court refused to review LCO I, the other five Chippewa
bands recognized as successors to the Chippewa Indians who signed the 1837 and
1842 treaties— the Red Cliff Band, the Sokaogon Chippewa Indian Community/
Mole Lake Band, the St. Croix Chippewa Indians, and the Lac du Flambeau Band
joined the Lac Courte Oreilles Band in the lawsuits that followed (Bichler 1990b, 2).
Meanwhile, Governor Anthony S. Earl, a Wausau attorney who had served as
secretary of the Department of Natural Resources from 1975 to 1980, was anxious
to promote harmony in the northern part of the state where the Voigt Decision had
stunned many non-Indians. On October 13, 1983, just ten days after the U. S.
Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal of the Voigt Decision by the State of
Wisconsin, Earl issued Executive Order 31 which stated:
WHEREAS, there are eleven federally recognized Tribal governments located within
the State of Wisconsin, each retaining attributes of sovereignty, authority for self-government
within their territories and over their citizens; and
WHEREAS, our Nation, over the course of two centuries has dealt with American
Indian tribes through the application of international common law, negotiation of treaties,
and constitutional interpretation of law, each recognizing the special govemment-to-
govemment relationship as the basis for existance {sic}; and
WHEREAS, the Supreme Court has consistently upheld this unique political relationship
developed between Indian tribes and the United States government; and
WHEREAS, the State of Wisconsin was established in 1848 with a continuous vested
interest in service to all of its citizens regardless of specific jurisdiction, ethnic or cultural
background, religious affiliation or sex; and
WHEREAS, it is in the best interest of all units of government, federal, tribal, state
and local to recognize the pluralistic diversity of our government and society;
NOW, THEREFORE, I, ANTHONY S. EARL, Governor of the State of Wisconsin,
order my administration, state agencies and secretaries to work in a spirit of cooperation
with the goals and aspirations of American Indian Tribal Governments, to seek out a
mutual atmosphere of education, understanding and trust with the highest level of tribal
government leaders.
AND, FURTHERMORE , all state agencies shall recognize this unique relationship
based on treaties and law and shall recognize the tribal judicial systems and their decisions
and all those endeavors designed to elevate the social and political living conditions of
their citizens to the benefit of all. (State of Wisconsin Executive Department 1983)
Earl called for cooperation between state agencies and tribal governments, but the
state and the Chippewa bands continued to confront each other in federal court.
When Judge Doyle entered a partial judgment in favor of the Chippewas as
specified by the Seventh Circuit of the U. S. Court of Appeals, the Wisconsin
Department of Justice appealed that ruling. State officials claimed usufructuary
rights could not be exercised on any land that had at any time been privately owned.
A three-judge panel of the Seventh Circuit ruled in 1985 (LCO II) on the availability
of private and public lands subject to the exercise of treaty rights. “It is appropriate
once again to say,” the judges stated, “that the whole thrust of LCO I was that
the usufructuary rights survived after the treaty of 1854 and that those rights must
be interpreted as the Indians understood them in 1837 and 1842.” The judges also
ruled that “Wisconsin’s obligation to honor the usufructuary rights of the Indians
is no more or less than was the federal government’s obligation prior to Wisconsin’s
statehood’ ’ (U. S. Court of Appeals 1985, 182-83).
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
During the 1986 gubernatorial campaign, Republican Tommy G. Thompson, the
Assembly minority leader from Elroy, attempted to woo voters away from Dem¬
ocratic incumbent Governor Earl in northern Wisconsin by openly speaking against
Chippewa reserved treaty rights during campaign swings in the region. At a Protect
Americans’ Rights and Resources (PARR) banquet in Minocqua near the Lac du
Flambeau reservation where the most active spearfishers reside, for example, Thompson
spoke to about two hundred and thirty anti-treaty activists:
A very major difference between Tony Earl and me is that I believe in treating all people
equally. I believe spearing is wrong regardless of what treaties, negotiations or federal
courts may say. The exercise of these special privileges has hurt our tourism industry,
created an image problem and has hurt real estate and land values . . . . If I am governor,
the state of Wisconsin will defend your right and your title to your lands. (Milwaukee
Journal 1986a; Wisconsin State Journal 1989a)
Thompson told a meeting of the North woods Realtors in Rhinelander that “spearing
is wrong, period” and that “we cannot stand by and let our fishing areas, hunting
grounds and tourism industry be threatened” (Ashland Daily Press, 1986).
Governor Earl took a different approach to the treaty rights issue. In June, he
appointed a sixteen-member commission to “review alternatives for resolving con¬
cerns about the exercise of treaty rights, improving understanding between Indians
and non-Indians and addressing the social needs of the region.” Commission mem¬
bers included the tribal chairs of the Chippewa bands and non-Indians. Among the
latter were local government officials, representatives of the tourism industry, con¬
servationists, a minister, and a college instructor. Earl named Jeff Long, chair of
the town of Boulder Junction in Vilas County, and Stockbridge-Munsee tribal chair
Leonard Miller, president of the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council, as co-chairs.
The governor urged the commissioners “to explore ways to resolve disputes stem¬
ming from the Indian treaties, to encourage better race relations and to promote
tourism and economic development.” Earl urged the commission to engage in
“positive thinking about Wisconsin’s Northland and its resources.” In response to
reporters’ questions about proposals to abrogate treaties, Earl replied, “I’m not
going to join the chorus of abrogating the treaties. Politically, it’s the easy way,
but hell, I know that’s kidding the people” (Milwaukee Journal 1986b; Message
Carrier 1986).
Candidate Thompson criticized the governor for failing to appoint critics of off-
reservation hunting and fishing rights to the tribal-community relations commission
(Milwaukee Journal 1986c). Following his victory at the polls in November, Thomp¬
son was confronted with growing opposition to Chippewa treaty rights — a problem
political opponents claimed his own campaign had helped to inflame. Paul DeMain,
editor of News from Indian Country (Hayward, Wis.) and a former aide to Governor
Earl, claims that Thompson’s courting of PARR and Stop Treaty Abuse (STA)
since 1986 gave those groups a legitimacy they did not deserve and emboldened
them to mount large boat-landing protests against spearfishers. “Tommy Thompson
pumped those people up,” DeMain argues (Wisconsin State Journal 1989a, e;
Milwaukee Journal 1989f). Evidence to support DeMain’ s contention that Thomp¬
son played into the hands of PARR and STA may be gleaned from the promotional
literature of these organizations. PARR Issue, for example, regularly informs dues-
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Chippewa Treaty Rights
paying and potential members in words and in photographs of the frequent meetings
between PARR officers and the governor and his aides ( PARR Issue 1991q, v).
Such tactics undoubtedly assisted the development of anti-treaty sentiment as Judge
Doyle addressed the various issues emerging from the Voigt Decision.
After LCO II, Doyle divided the court proceedings on Chippewa treaty rights in
Wisconsin into three phases:
Phase I: The Declaratory Phase was to result in the determination of the nature
and scope of Chippewa treaty rights.
Phase II: The Regulatory Phase was to lead to a determination of the permissible
scope of regulation by the state of Wisconsin.
Phase ID: The Damages Phase was to lead to the determination of the amount
of damages, if any, to which the Chippewas are entitled for interference by state
officials with the exercise of their off-reservation treaty rights. (Bichler 1990a,
254; Masinaigan 1990a)
After dividing the proceedings into these phases, Doyle began to address the various
issues.
On February 18, 1987, on what treaty rights opponents referred to as “Doomsday
for Wisconsin” (Milwaukee Journal 1987a, 22A), Doyle ended Phase I of the court
proceedings by affirming in LCO III the right of the Chippewa bands to exercise
their usufructuary treaty rights to harvest nearly all varieties of fish, animal, and
plant life available in ceded territory necessary to maintain a “modest living” free
from state interference. The state may, however, impose restrictions upon the
Chippewas provided restrictions are “reasonable and necessary to conserve a par¬
ticular resource.” Doyle ruled that the Chippewas could employ any means of
harvesting resources used at the time of the negotiation of the treaties or any
developed since then, the Chippewas could trade and sell harvested goods to non-
Indians using modem methods of distribution and sale,53 and that “appropriate
arrangements” must be made to allow the Chippewas to exercise their usufructuary
rights on private lands if public lands were insufficient to support a modest living.
The judge further explained his reasoning:
I have found, and now repeat, that the Chippewa understanding in 1837 and 1842 was
that in the absence of a lawful removal order or in the absence of fresh agreement on
their part, settlement and private ownership of parcels by non-Indians would not require
the Chippewa to forgo anywhere or in any degree exercise of their reserved usufructuary
rights necessary to assure that, when the exercise of those rights was combined with
trading with non-Indians, the Chippewa would enjoy a moderate living within the entire
ceded territory. (U. S. District Court 1987a, 1432, 1435)
Republican Governor Tommy Thompson responded to Doyle’s rulings by announc¬
ing that the state would appeal (Milwaukee Journal 1987a, 1A).
Following Doyle’s death in June of 1987, Judge Barbara Crabb took over the
case and began Phase II of the court proceedings. Judge Crabb ruled in August of
1987 (LCO IV) that the modest living standard did not restrict the Chippewas to
an upper limit during their harvesting of resources. She also established the legal
standards for permissible bounds of state regulation, maintaining that the State of
Wisconsin could regulate Chippewa off-reservation usufructuary rights in the in-
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
terests of conservation, public health, and safety, provided the regulations were
reasonable and necessary to conserve a particular species, did not discriminate
against the Chippewas, and were the least restrictive alternative available. Effective
tribal self-regulation, however, would preclude state regulation (U. S. District Court
1987b).
Less than two weeks after Judge Crabb announced her ruling in LCO IV, the
U. S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit criticized the legal team the Thomp¬
son administration had assembled to challenge the Voigt Decision and to protest
the awarding of interim attorney’s fees to the Chippewas. Not only did the judges
dismiss the state’s appeal on August 31, 1987, but they also imposed sanctions for
“inexcusable” errors in filing the appeal. Pointing out that this was Wisconsin’s
third error concerning appellate jurisdiction in the litigation resulting from the 1983
case, the judges expressed concern about the state’s “serious lack of understanding
of the basic principles of federal appellate review.” In assessing sanctions for the
“frivolous appeal” the judges stated, “we are entitled to expect better from the
State of Wisconsin” (U. S. Court of Appeals 1987).
Following the rulings in LCO IV and in the appeal case, state and tribal officials
sought a delineation of the Chippewas’ harvesting rights. In 1988 (LCO V), Judge
Crabb determined the Chippewas could not maintain “a modest living” of slightly
more than $20,000 per family from the available harvest within ceded territory
(U. S. District Court 1988). Crabb in 1989 (LCO VI) established Chippewa walleye
and muskellunge rights using a plan proposed by Chippewa tribal conservation
officials in the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission modified by a
“safe harvest” calculation methodology supplied by the state. The judge prohibited
state officials from interfering in the regulation of treaty rights with regard to the
harvesting of walleye and muskellunge except insofar as the Indians had otherwise
agreed by stipulation (U. S. District Court 1989).
On May 9, 1990 (LCO VII), Judge Crabb ruled on Chippewa off-reservation
deer harvest rights within the ceded territory. She recognized the state’s right to
prohibit deer hunting by Indians in the summer and during evenings based on safety
concerns and decided that Indians and non-Indians were each entitled to one half
of the game harvest54 (U. S. District Court 1990a, 1401-02, 1413-27). Attorney
General Hanaway reacted positively, noting that the decision put the Chippewas
and non-Indians on an equal footing. “The decision is in a sense equal rights for
everyone,” he said. Stop Treaty Abuse leader Dean Crist, however, summed up
the anti-treaty rights position by observing, “the bad thing is you still have less
than 1 percent of the population with 50 percent of the resource.” Crist accused
Crabb of “trying to court-appoint co-management” {News from Indian Country
1990c, d)
Judge Crabb ruled on October 11, 1990 (LCO VIII), that the Chippewa Indians
could not sue the State of Wisconsin for an estimated $300 million in damages for
denial of treaty rights over the years. In an opinion that shocked treaty rights
advocates and brought loud cheers from the Thompson administration and anti¬
treaty spokespersons, Crabb argued that recent U. S. Supreme Court interpretations
of the Eleventh Amendment55 indicate that states have “sovereign immunity” from
lawsuits by Indian tribes. As a result, the Chippewa bands must persuade the federal
government to sue the State of Wisconsin on the bands’ behalf if the Indians are
to have any hope of collecting damages for the state’s past denial of their treaty
98
Chippewa Treaty Rights
rights. Meanwhile, as attorneys for the various bands contemplated appealing Crabb’s
ruling in Phase III of the proceedings, the judge reviewed the state’s power to
regulate Chippewa harvesting and selling of timber in ceded territory (Eau Claire
Leader-Telegram 1990i, j).
Crabb, who had earlier barred the state and its counties from challenging the
Chippewas’ treaty right to harvest and sell timber, reviewed these rights in a four-
week trial held in early 1991 . About 1.8 million acres of county forests lie on ceded
lands, and the Wisconsin Counties Association and the Wisconsin County Forests
Association have vigorously argued for many years that timber rights on county
forest lands are not covered by the Chippewa treaties. In the mid-1980s Wisconsin
counties earned in excess of 3 million dollars annually from timber sales. In addition
to the counties, the state, which was represented in the trial independently, has
about 370,000 acres of land, generating approximately $800,000 annually, involved
in the timber rights dispute. Many Chippewa leaders, facing unemployment rates
exceeding fifty percent on their reservations, view logging as a way to boost their
economies (Wisconsin County Forests Association et al. 1990, 1, 6; State of Wis¬
consin et al. 1990, 2-3; Milwaukee Journal 1984b, 1989d; Green Bay Press Gazette
1990; Milwaukee Sentinel 1990f; Hazelbaker 1984, 6; Mulcahy and Selby 1989,
24; Eau Claire Leader-Tele gram 1990h, i, 2a, 1991). Federal Indian policy scholar
Robert H. Keller recently suggested that the Chippewas “could be granted special
if not exclusive access for sugaring,” or they “could be paid royalties on all
commercial sugar collected from their traditional lands.” Since Chief Flat Mouth
had specifically told Governor Henry Dodge at the treaty negotiations in 1837 that
the Indians wanted to “reserve the privilege of making sugar from the trees,” Keller
argued the Chippewas reserved the right to take maple syrup from ceded territory
just as they reserved the right to harvest fish, game, and wild rice (Keller 1989,
118, 124, 128).
On February 21, 1991, Judge Crabb simultaneously issued opinions and orders
relating to the Chippewas’ timber harvesting claims and to the state’s right to enforce
its civil boating regulations against tribal members engaged in the exercise of their
usufructuary rights. Observing that neither Judge Doyle nor she had previously
addressed explicitly the Indians’ usage of tree resources at the time of the nineteenth-
century treaties, Crabb concluded that the harvesting and selling of timber were
not among the Chippewas’ “usual and customary activities.” Crabb also argued
that “logging cannot be characterized as simply a modem adaptation of a traditional
harvesting activity engaged in by the Chippewa.” Conceding that the Chippewas
have “a somewhat stronger argument to the effect that . . . [they] never understood
they were selling timber resources other than pine,” Crabb nevertheless mled that
the state and county governments could impose “reasonable and necessary” reg¬
ulations for conservation of forest products so long as they do not discriminate
against Indians (U. S. District Court 1991a). Crabb also mled that the State of
Wisconsin could enforce and prosecute violations of safe boating laws committed
by tribal members engaged in treaty activities provided that the regulations did not
“infringe, restrict, hinder, impede or prohibit the time, place or manner of treaty
fishing rights (or limit the quantity or types of fish or other resources harvested)
and are reasonable and necessary for purposes of public safety and conservation”
(U. S. District Court 1991b). Barring appeals or the raising of other issues by the
tribes or the state, Crabb concluded that all of the issues in the seventeen-year-old
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
litigation had now been adjudicated (U. S. District Court 1991c). In mid-March,
Crabb responded to efforts by the Lac du Flambeau spearfishers to stop what they
allege to be “a racially-motivated campaign of violence and intimidation ... to
make it difficult or impossible for them to spear fish’ ’ by prohibiting treaty protesters
from interfering with the exercise of spearing rights (U. S. District Court 199 Id).
Several days later, on March 19, 1991, Crabb issued her “Final Judgment,” sum¬
marizing and clarifying the court’s decisions, which evolved from the lengthy
litigation. Crabb advised all parties involved that they had two months to review
the document and to determine whether or not they wished to file appeals (U. S.
District Court 1991e; see App. 7). Two months later, on May 20, the six Chippewa
bands and Attorney General James E. Doyle, Jr. announced in separate statements
that they would not appeal the rulings. The litigation resulting from the state’s
interference with the reserved treaty rights of the Chippewas, which had come to
a head with the arrest of the Tribble brothers in 1974, had finally been resolved.
In announcing their decisions not to appeal, the Chippewa leaders and Attorney
General Doyle alluded to their hopes for a new era of cooperation and improved
tribal-state relations (See Apps. 8-9).
During the years between LCO I in 1983 and Judge Crabb ’s Final Judgment in
1991, while the Chippewa bands and the State of Wisconsin litigated the extent of
Chippewa treaty rights, the two sides worked out a series of interim agreements.56
The agreements dealt with such issues as the exercise of treaty rights off the
reservations, the measures necessary to protect natural resources, and the role of
tribal and state game wardens. The Chippewas agreed to temporarily limit the
exercise of their rights, and Wisconsin officials agreed not to arrest Indians har¬
vesting natural resources within the agreed-upon guidelines. The Indians and the
state reached the first such agreement on the issue of harvesting white-tailed deer
in November of 1983 shortly after Governor Earl issued Executive Order No. 31
calling for state-tribal cooperation. While working with leaders of the Earl admin¬
istration to establish interim agreements, the six Wisconsin Chippewa bands joined
with other tribes in Minnesota and Michigan to form the Great Lakes Indian Fish
and Wildlife Commission and set about adopting a conservation code, hiring tribal
fish and game wardens to regulate Indian fishers and hunters, assessing and man¬
aging natural resources, and publishing data to counteract propaganda from white
backlash groups {Milwaukee Journal 1984a; Strickland et al. 1990, 7-8; Great Lakes
Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission {c.1988}, {c. 1989}; Busiahn 1989a; Busiahn
et al. 1989; Masinaigan 1990b; Bichler 1990b).
100
8
The White Backlash
and Beyond
The 1983 Voigt Decision evoked bitter denunciations from white hunting and
fishing groups. Supported by generally anti-Indian whites, these groups claimed
the Indians would wantonly wipe out all fish and game. Especially objectionable
to sportfishers and hunters are the traditional practices of spearing, gill-netting, and
“shining” (night hunting) employed by the Chippewas who are more concerned
with following their traditions and with efficient harvests than with sport. Opponents
of the Voigt Decision consider it “unjust” for the Chippewas to have “special
privileges” denied other Wisconsin residents — like longer hunting seasons and the
right to shoot deer from vehicles — just because of some “old treaties.” Charging
that Indians have “more rights” today than white citizens, irate critics of treaty
rights argue Indians and whites should enjoy “equal” rights, that treaty rights must
be abolished. As far away from the reservations as Milwaukee, one hears stories
about drunken Indians peddling deer from their pickup trucks at taverns “up north.”
Anti-Indian sentiment oozed from bumper stickers proclaiming “Save a Deer, Shoot
an Indian” and “Spear an Indian, Save a Muskie.” An unofficial notice circulated
in the Ashland County Courthouse declared “open season on Indians” with “a
bag limit of 10 per day.” A 1984 newspaper headline summed up the situation this
way, “North Woods Steaming with Racial Hostility” ( Milwaukee Journal 1984c;
O’Conner and Doherty 1985).
Strong opposition to federal court pronouncements on Chippewa hunting and
fishing rights spurred protest and violence at boat landings throughout northern
Wisconsin during every fishing season since 1983. Some whites, fearing Indians
would destroy all fish and ruin tourism, have argued that Indian treaties and reser¬
vations are relics of the past. Such fears have been exacerbated by the fact that per
capita income in the region has lagged behind the rest of the state by as much as
twenty percent, and northern Wisconsin’s unemployment rate has nearly doubled
the statewide average during some months. In addition, the efficient Chippewa
methods of harvesting fish for subsistence — using gill nets and spears — upset many
non-Indian sportfishers who find themselves limited by very strict state regulations.
Bait shops in northern towns have sold “Treaty Beer” with labels protesting Indian
spearfishing and claiming to be the “True Brew of The Working Man” {Fig. 34),
and many restaurants and taverns display and dispense literature attacking spear¬
fishing and calling for the abrogation of Chippewa treaties {Fig. 35). The peaceful
harvesting of fish by Chippewa spearfishers has been disrupted by non-Indians
hurling rocks, insults, and racial epithets like “timber niggers,” waving effigies of
speared Indian heads and signs with slogans like “Save Two Walleye, Kill a
Pregnant Squaw,” and using large motorboats trailing anchors to capsize Indian
boats. Treaty protesters have also placed concrete fish decoys in lakes to break the
spears of Chippewa fishers. Chippewa women singing religious songs in support
of the spearers have faced what one reporter has aptly called “a gauntlet of hate”
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Fig. 34. Treaty Beer. Distributed for the Stop Treaty Abuse (STA) organization in
Minocqua, this beer has been sold in northern Wisconsin taverns as the “True Brew
of the Working Man.” Called racism in a can by treaty supporters, the product label
protests Indian spearfishing. Photograph by Jason Tetzloff. Reprinted with permission.
as some demonstrators jeer and shout vicious taunts, racial slurs, and threats while
others blow whistles in continuous shrill blasts in their ears. Even Indian school-
children have been harassed. One school with a large Indian enrollment has received
bomb threats (Fixico 1987, 498-507; Vennum 1988, 276-77; O’Conner and Doherty,
1985; Wilkinson 1987, 72; Strickland et al. 1990, 1; Milwaukee Journal 1989a,
b; Milwaukee Sentinel 1990d; Masinaigan 1991c, 8; Wisconsin State Journal 1990c,
11; Eau Claire Leader-Telegram 1990g).
Non-Indian eyewitnesses including members of the U. S. Civil Rights Commis¬
sion, the state’s Equal Rights Council, and state legislators have compared the acts
of violence against spearfishers at boat landings in northern Wisconsin in recent
years to the racial violence against blacks that rocked Milwaukee in the 1960s
{Capital Times 1986; Milwaukee Sentinel 1989b; Masinaigan 1990d). Protesters in
102
Chippewa Treaty Rights
SPEAR
...THIS!!!
Fig. 35. Spear This! A poster found in a tavern in the Eagle River, Wisconsin, area
before the 1987 Chippewa spearfishing season. From Great Lakes Indian Fish and
Wildlife Commission ({c.1989}, 15). Reprinted with permission.
Vilas County near the Lac du Flambeau Reservation have been so unruly that some
Indians refer to it as “Violence County’’ ( Wisconsin State Journal 1990a). U. S.
Interior Department official Patrick Ragsdale said he was “appalled’’ and “dis¬
gusted” by the language protesters used at the boat landings (. Milwaukee Sentinel
1989a). Archbishop William Wantland of the Episcopalean Diocese of Eau Claire
observed, “of all the states I’ve lived in in this Union, Wisconsin is the most racist.
I grew up in the South. And I said that before the Voigt Decision was handed down.
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts & Letters
It’s obvious — the racism, the hatred, the bitterness, the prejudice.” Recently, Want-
land reflected on the increasing hostility toward Indians since 1983: “I felt I was
caught in a time warp this spring in Wisconsin. I thought I saw the 50s and 60s.
I thought I saw Selma and Little Rock and Montgomery” ( Masinaigan 1990f, 7-8).
In June of 1989, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire History Professor James Oberly
raised this question for the nation to ponder, “How could a northern state with a
progressive tradition {like Wisconsin} become such hospitable ground for flagrant
racism?” (Oberly 1989b, 844).
The white backlash of the 1980s in Wisconsin actually had its roots in the 1970s.
Concern over the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s 1972 ruling in State v. Gurnoe (see
Chapter 7) led some six hundred sportfishers to form an organization known as
Concerned Sportsmen for Lake Superior. Fearing the Bad River and Red Cliff
Bands would use the Court’s recognition of their fishing rights in Lake Superior to
deplete the lake’s supply of trout, walleye, and whitefish, the members of Concerned
Sportsmen argued that Indians had to “be subject to the same tough commercial
fishing regulations as white men” {Milwaukee Journal 1972a, b). In 1973, Re¬
publican Reuben La Fave of Oconto, claiming he was only interested in the “wel¬
fare” of the Indians, introduced a resolution in the state senate calling for the
Department of Natural Resources to “purchase” the fishing rights of the Chippewas.
In response to the resolution, the Capital Times of Madison editorialized, “anytime
the whites profess interest in the Indians it is time for these native Americans to
keep their backs against the white pine and their peace pipes hidden” (1973).
While Indian commercial fishing in Lake Superior was of growing concern to
some groups in Wisconsin in the early 1970s, the conflict between state wildlife
regulations and treaty-protected hunting and fishing rights of Indian tribes came to
a head in the State of Washington. A brief review of what has been referred to as
“the opening salvo in this century’s ‘treaty wars’” {Christian Science Monitor
1987), and the public reaction to it will help place the situation in Wisconsin from
1974 to the present in its larger context.57
In 1974, Judge George Boldt of the U. S. District Court for the Western District
in Washington ruled in United States v. State of Washington that Indian tribes had
the treaty right to up to one-half of the salmon and steelhead trout harvest, both
the right to catch the fish and the right as governments to be involved in the actual
regulation of the resource. Popularly known as the Boldt Decision, the case had
taken three and a half years of litigation involving testimony from fourteen Indian
tribes, the State of Washington Departments of Fisheries and Game, and various
commercial and sportfishing organizations. Judge Boldt based his decision not only
on the “facts” existing at the time of the litigation but also on an exhaustive
historical examination of events and information going back to the actual treaty
negotiations (U. S. District Court 1974). Public reaction to the ruling included the
appearance of bumper stickers, buttons, and T-shirts with anti-Boldt slogans and
open defiance of the ruling by non-Indian fishers (U. S. Commission on Civil Rights
1981, 71). The State of Washington promptly appealed the decision, but the U. S.
Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld Boldt (1975) and the U. S. Supreme
Court declined to review the case (1976). After spending nearly a decade on costly
appeals and countersuits, state officials finally embarked on the path of co-management
by which the federally recognized Indian tribes and the state are partners in the
104
Chippewa Treaty Rights
management of timber, wildlife, and fish (U. S. Commission on Civil Rights 1981,
70-100; Olson 1984; Wisconsin State Journal 1990c, 47; Cooper and Stange 1990, 52).
The Boldt Decision, together with a shift in federal Indian policy toward greater
self-determination for Indian tribes and the growing Indian militancy of the early
1970s described earlier, alarmed some segments of American society (Olson 1984,
511). Indeed, one account of the treaty rights controversy written in the mid-1970s
referred to Indian treaties as an “American nightmare” (Williams and Neubrech
1976). Anti-Indian editorials and articles claiming that federal officials were “ob¬
sessed” with providing “goodies” to Indians and other minorities appeared in both
the local and national media. “We have found a very significant backlash that by
any other name comes out as racism in all its ugly manifestations,” Republican
Senator Mark Hatfield of Oregon advised his colleagues on the U. S. Senate Select
Committee on Indian Affairs in 1977 (U. S. Commission on Civil Rights 1981,
1). In 1978, an article in Newsweek magazine spoke of a “Paleface Uprising”
spreading from Maine to Washington state as Indians “earned that ultimate badge
of minority success — a genuine and threatening white backlash” (Boeth et al.
1978, 39).
The leading anti-Indian lobbyist group was the Interstate Congress for Equal
Rights and Responsibilities (ICERR). This organization sprang into existence in
1976 arguing that Indian political power and treaty rights were antithetical to the
American system of equality. The outgrowth of a meeting in Salt Lake City, Utah,
of anti-treaty rights representatives from ten western states, the ICERR attracted
considerable attention in other regions as well. Indian interests, ICERR spokes¬
persons argued, must give way to those of the larger society. “We seek just one
thing,” commented founder Howard Grey, “that is equal rights for all people living
under the Constitution of the United States and the 14th amendment ... the 14th
amendment gives equal rights for all people; that’s all we’re requesting.” ICERR
lobbyists worked hard to persuade local and national legislators to introduce bills
calling for the abrogation of Indian treaties, the removal of tribal jurisdictional
powers, the reversal of favorable judicial rulings on Indian treaty rights, the re¬
striction of Indian access to natural resources, and the elimination of eastern Indian
land claims (U. S. Commission on Civil Rights 1981, 1, 9-10).
The “equal rights” rhetoric of ICERR and other anti-treaty groups since the
1970s distorts a very important fact. Contrary to the arguments of such organiza¬
tions, there is no conflict between Indian treaty rights and the guarantee of “equal
protection of the laws” under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U. S. Constitution.
Congress unilaterally declared all native-born American Indians citizens of the
United States in 1924. This was done as further recognition of the voluntary con¬
tributions of Indian veterans of World War I who had received citizenship in 1919.
Indian treaty rights and property rights remained unaffected (U. S. Congress 1919,
1924; Cohen 1982, 639-40, 644-46). “It is no more a denial of my 14th amendment
rights that Indians continue to receive the benefits of the agreement they made {in
a treaty},” Seattle attorney and Indian law specialist Alvin Ziontz told the U. S.
Commission on Civil Rights in 1977, “than it is a denial of my rights that any
groups that sold land to the United States Government get paid for their land.” The
federal courts and the Civil Rights Commission have reached the same conclusion,
but anti-treaty rights groups continue to stress the need for “equal rights” for non-
Indians and Indians. ICERR members ignore the status of Indians as members of
105
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
tribes with which the United States has had a long history of govemment-to-
govemment relationships. Instead, the ICERR and similar groups portray Indians
as members of a racial minority receiving “special” privileges at the expense of
non-minority citizens because of century-old documents that are supposedly no
longer relevant (U. S. Commission on Civil Rights 1981, 9-12).
The ICERR and similar organizations of the 1970s were the forerunners of such
Wisconsin anti-treaty groups in the 1980s as Equal Rights for Everyone (ERFE,
Hayward), Wisconsin Alliance for Rights and Resources (WARR, Superior), But¬
ternut Lake Concerned Citizens (Butternut), Protect Americans’ Rights and Re¬
sources (PARR, Minocqua-Park Falls), and Stop Treaty Abuse (STA, Minocqua).58
The primary goals of these organizations are the abrogation of Chippewa treaty
rights and the dissolution of reservations. ERFE, led by Paul A. Mullaly of Hayward,
appeared shortly after the Voigt Decision. Decrying the Chippewa off-reservation
deer season as “a rape,” Mullaly openly threatened Indian hunters. ERFE was the
forerunner of other organizations, including PARR, whose leaders responded to the
resumption of Chippewa spring spearfishing in 1985 by protesting the alleged
“rape” of the fish population in northern Wisconsin by the Chippewas (U. S.
Commission on Civil Rights 1981, 180; PARR Issue 1987, 1991v; Wisconsin Ad¬
visory Committee 1989, 24; Masinaigan 1991c, 8).
PARR, which has attempted to become an umbrella organization for many other
anti-treaty rights groups, has very actively lobbied state and federal officials for
the abrogation of Indian treaties. At PARR’s first National Convention in Wausau
on March 28th to 29th in 1987, some five hundred people from as many as thirteen
states and two Canadian provinces met to call for the abrogation of Indian treaties,
the dissolution of Indian reservations, and an end to “special privileges” for Indians
{Eau Claire Leader-Telegram 1987a, b; Christian Science Monitor 1987, 6). Former
newspaper editor and newly selected executive director Larry Greschner of Wood¬
ruff referred to treaty rights as “a sacred cow” and warned:
There isn’t enough milk in that sacred cow to go around if it’s not handled very carefully.
Because the natural wonder of our land and a billion dollar sports-tourism industry can
easily be transformed into a tiny fraction of that value once those resources have been
killed, cut, wrapped, frozen and processed. And we will have traded our children’s birth
right for a futile gesture of remorse. (Greschner 1987)
PARR National Executive Director at Large Wayne Powers of Bloomer warns that
Wisconsin will become “the home of the dead seas” if Indian treaty rights are not
curtailed ( PARR Issue 1991m). When presented with data indicating that, contrary
to PARR news releases, Indian spearfishing and hunting is not endangering the
state’s resources or tourism industry, the organization’s leaders usually return to
the equal rights theme that has been the rallying cry of anti-treaty rights groups
since the Boldt Decision (Fig. 36). “When you have separate rules for different
colors living side by side, you’re bound to have conflicts,” Greschner stated in
1988 ( Racine Journal Times 1988). “Our position,” PARR cofounder Wayne Pow¬
ers stated in 1990, “is not a few fish and a few deer — it’s equal rights” (Eau Claire
Leader-Telegram 1990f, 2A).
The same arguments have been made by other anti-treaty groups. Equal Rights
for Everyone President Mullaly claims that the treaty rights issue in Wisconsin “is
106
Chippewa Treaty Rights
107
Reprinted with permission.
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts & Letters
not a natural-resources issue, it is a rights issue.” He says “there can be no special
treatment of a race in a democratic society.” In reference to the entire treaty rights
issue, Mullaly claims, “Like cancer this situation would have been much easier to
cure if action had been taken in the earlier stages .... I am sorry that our elected
officials have let this cancer spread to the point that it is almost uncurable {sic} and
unbearable to those close to the infected area” (. Eau Claire Leader-Telegram 1984a;
Wisconsin Counties 1985). Stop Treaty Abuse (STA) leader Dean Crist, a former
Chicagoan who now resides in Minocqua, also argues that the “real” issue is
“equality.” Described by his own attorney as a “lightening rod” on northern
Wisconsin boat landings, Crist has marketed Treaty Beer (called ‘ ‘hate and prejudice
in a can” by detractors) and undertaken other efforts to draw people to the boat
landings to protest Indian spearfishing and treaty rights. “Whether you’re a Chip¬
pewa or a Chinaman,” he asserts, “when you’re on the water Wisconsin conser¬
vation laws pertain and you have to fish by those rules” {La Crosse Tribune 1990).
Crist and his organization portray the Chippewas as freeloaders who are benefitting
from government largesse while the “true” working men — to whom STA’s treaty
beer is supposedly marketed (see Fig. 34) — are denied equal rights {Wisconsin State
Journal 1990c, 21).
Supporters of treaty rights disagree with members of PARR, STA, and other
opponents who claim that “the basic point is not fish — it’s equal rights.” As one
supporter puts it, “But, of course, the issue is fish and other treaty-protected Indian
resources” (Cornell 1986, 124). A number of prominent non-Indian civic leaders
responded to the growing opposition to Chippewa reserved rights in northern Wis¬
consin after the Voigt Decision in 1983 by openly defending those rights. Mean¬
while, concerned by the increasing appearance of posters urging people to “Spear
an Indian, Save a Walleye” and reports of threatened violence and actual acts of
violence against Indians, an Ad Hoc Commission on Racism was convened by the
Lac Courte Oreilles (LCO) Band in the fall of 1984. The commission held public
hearings in the town of Cable near the LCO Reservation to examine evidence and
issue findings about alleged acts of discrimination and violence. Chaired by educator
Veda Stone from Eau Claire, the commission included the Governor’s advisor on
Indian affairs, a member of the Governor’s Committee on Equal Rights, members
of the Catholic and Protestant clergy, a member of the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation
League, an attorney and Board member of the Wisconsin Civil Liberties Union,
and representatives from higher education. The Final Report of the commission,
issued in November of 1984, cited numerous examples of growing racism; stressed
the roles of churches, schools at all levels, and parents in combating the growth of
racism; called for state economic development efforts in the north; urged the creation
of state, county, and local forums for Indians and whites to discuss issues of mutual
concern; and urged the mass media to play a more responsible role {Eau Claire
Leader-Telegram 1984b; Ad Hoc Commission on Racism in Wisconsin 1984, 5-30).
As demonstrated by the role of the LCO Band in the creation of the Ad Hoc
Commission, the Chippewas have been deeply concerned about the mounting white
hostility and have sought to lessen tensions in a variety of ways. Anthropologist
Nancy O. Lurie, an authority on Wisconsin Indians, noted in the mid-1980s that
most Chippewas living on the six reservations in the state are determined not to
abuse their treaty rights and are as devoted as white residents, if not more so, to
protecting the resources in the northern third of Wisconsin. The harvest of fish by
108
Chippewa Treaty Rights
non-Indians since the Voigt Decision has consistently been several times that of
Indians. In those lakes where fish production is down, moreover, the culprit has
been pollution and habitat degradation by whites, not excessive harvesting by
Indians, or for that matter, non-Indians. Since 1984, Chippewa leaders have worked
through the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC) head¬
quartered at Odanah to gather natural resources data, to develop legal codes for
protecting fish and wildlife, and to implement a system for dealing with those
Indians who fail to comply (Fig. 37). GLIFWC spokesperson Walter Bresette op¬
timistically commented in 1984 that “following the {Voigt} decision, what the tribes
are responsible for is basically the management of those resources in the region.”
While there are some non-Indians who believe that Indian participation in the
management of the region’s natural resources would benefit all Wisconsinites, anti¬
treaty groups and State officials have resisted such efforts (Lurie 1985, 379; Wis¬
consin Sportsman 1985, 42; Wilkinson 1990, 4; Milwaukee Journal 1984a; Wis¬
consin State Journal 1990c, 55; Michetti 1991).
Under LCO VI, the Chippewas were to be free from state regulation of off-
reservation harvesting of walleye and muskellunge so long as they enacted “a
management plan that provides for the regulation of their members in accordance
with biologically sound principles necessary for the conservation of the species
being harvested” (U. S. District Court 1989, 1060). There have been charges that
the state has attempted to indirectly regulate the Chippewas by restricting bag limits
of non-Indian fishers, which in turn has led to an escalation in the hostility of
protesters at the boat landings. After Crabb’s ruling in LCO VI, DNR officials cut
creel limits for non-Indian anglers. The public perception, which critics charge
DNR did little to correct, was that Indian spearing depleted the fish and caused the
lower limits for anglers (Wisconsin State Journal 1990c, 7, 16).
Legal scholars Rennard Strickland of the University of Oklahoma and Stephen
J. Herzberg of the University of Wisconsin-Madison are among those who believe
that the DNR has attempted to circumvent the court’s ruling in LCO VI. In a report
prepared at the request of members of the U. S. Senate Select Committee on Indian
Affairs in 1990, Strickland, Herzberg, and University of Wisconsin-Madison Juris
Doctor candidate Steven Owens concluded that
. . . Denied the right to directly regulate the Chippewa by the courts, {Wisconsin DNR
officials} have attempted to indirectly regulate the Chippewa by restricting the bag limits
placed on non-Indian fishers, which they have done by manipulating fish population
estimates (termed “voodoo biology” by several observers). Since the Chippewa have
historically been sensitive to the needs of non-Indians, the state uses bag limits to place
pressure on the Chippewa to “voluntarily” restrict their treaty rights. Under this approach
the state can contend, “But we are not regulating the Chippewa, we’re regulating the
non-Indians.” (Strickland et al. 1990, 9 n. 19)
Judge Crabb’s findings in LCO VI support these conclusions. Acknowledging that
the DNR will impose additional restrictions on fishing in the next few years,
following a comprehensive long-term fisheries plan it developed in the late 1970s,
Crabb commented:
These restrictions would have been imposed even if the tribes’ treaty rights had not been
judicially recognized. It is purely fortuitous that the time of their implementation came
shortly after the start up of Indian spring spearing. (U. S. District Court 1989, 1047)
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
110
Fig. 37. Tribal and Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission Game Wardens at Work, 1990. The wardens are
checking the size and sex of fish taken by spearfishers. After state officials prohibited Indians from exercising their
usufructuary rights off reservation for most of the twentieth century, the Chippewas resumed harvesting fish on lakes and
rivers in ceded territory in northern Wisconsin in 1985 under an interim agreement with state officials pending further
resolution of treaty rights in court proceedings. Photograph by Jason Tetzloff. Reprinted with permission.
Chippewa Treaty Rights
Citing Crabb’s remarks as evidence, LCO Tribal Chair Gaiashkibos charges the
DNR with duplicity. “Exercising our rights off-reservation gives the DNR their
out. They lower the bag limit for non-Indian people and put the blame on the
Chippewa” (Michetti 1991, 7).
Chippewa spearfishers have actually voluntarily limited their harvest every season
since the Voigt Decision so non-Indians could fish the lakes of northern Wisconsin.
The Chippewas have also taken an active role in fish rearing and stocking programs.
In fact, the lakes on the Lac du Flambeau reservation are heavily stocked by the
Indians, who permit non-Indians to take 90% or more of the on-reservation walleye
catch. Other Chippewa bands also maintain hatcheries and stock off-reservation
lakes with fish, many of which are caught by non-Indians (Strickland et al. 1990,
10, 10 n. 21; Masinaigan 1990g).
The opposition of some non-Indians today to the exercise of Indian hunting and
fishing rights in northern Wisconsin must be viewed in the context of the legal and
moral obligations of American citizens to uphold Indian treaty rights as the “su¬
preme Law of the Land” as stipulated in Article 6, Clause 2 of the American
Constitution:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance
thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United
States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land ; and the Judges in every State shall be
bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary
notwithstanding, {emphasis added}
Anti-treaty rights groups in Wisconsin, especially PARR, erroneously claim there
is no constitutional basis for treaty making with Indian tribes and that existing Indian
treaties are no longer valid. Three historical events are often cited as evidence that
tribal sovereignty is a fiction: Chief Justice John Marshall’s reference to Indian
tribes as “domestic dependent nations” in the early 1830s, the ending of treaty
making under the 1871 Indian Appropriations Act, and the granting of U. S. cit¬
izenship in 1924. PARR Chair Larry Peterson claims that Indian sovereignty is a
“fabricated” concept and that Indian treaty rights are merely “court-granted”
privileges resulting from “ludicrous court decisions” that cater to Indian “greed.”
PARR’s newspaper editor Jerry Schumacher argues that the courts have erred in
basing their decisions on Indians’ “oral understanding of treaties” since “the
Indians understood them as written.” In a manner reminiscent of the Communist¬
baiting tactics of U. S. Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, PARR’s newsletter
prominently displays a list of “Traitors to the Constitution,” claiming that U. S.
and state legislators, teachers, church leaders, and others who recognize tribal
sovereignty deserve the label “traitor” ( PARR Issue 1991c, d, e, f, g, j, k, 1, n,
o, p, r, s, t).
In presenting their case against tribal sovereignty, PARR’s spokespersons seri¬
ously distort the historical record. While Chief Justice Marshal did refer to the
Cherokee Nation as a “domestic dependent nation” in 1831, he did not deny the
existence of a govemment-to-govemment relationship between the Cherokee Nation
and the United States. Marshall’s characterization of Indian tribes recognized their
“peculiar” relationship with the United States — i.e., that of nations existing within
the borders of states of the Union. Marshall acknowledged that the Cherokee Nation
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
constituted “a distinct political society” that was “capable of managing its own
affairs” with “unquestionable” right to its lands (U. S. Supreme Court 1831). The
following year, Marshall ruled that Georgia could not intervene in the Cherokee
country within its borders because federal — not state — jurisdiction extended over
Indian country. According to Marshall, status as a domestic dependent nation did
not preclude treaty making by the Indians with the United States nor lessen American
obligations to uphold treaty commitments:
The constitution, by declaring treaties already made, as well as those to be made, to be
the supreme law of the land, has adopted and sanctioned the previous treaties with the
Indian nations, and consequently admits their rank among those powers who are capable
of making treaties. The words “treaty” and “nation” are words of our own language,
selected in our diplomatic and legislative proceedings, by ourselves, having each a definite
and well understood meaning. We have applied them to Indians, as we have applied them
to other nations of the earth. They are applied to all in the same sense. (U. S. Supreme
Court 1832, 559-60)
PARR leaders also distort the intent of the Indian Appropriations Act of 1871.
The legislation, which abolished future treaty making for domestic political reasons
as noted in Chapter 5, unequivocally stated that “nothing herein contained shall
be construed to invalidate or impair the obligation of any treaty heretofore lawfully
made and ratified with any such Indian nation or tribe” (U. S. Congress 1871).
Similarly, while Congress made all Indians U. S. citizens for reasons outlined earlier
in this chapter, it specifically stipulated that “the granting of such citizenship shall
not in any manner impair or otherwise affect the right of any Indian to tribal or
other property” (U. S. Congress 1924).
As demonstrated in Chapters 2-5, there is overwhelming evidence that oral ex¬
planations of treaty provisions by U. S. treaty commissioners and interpreters did
not always match the written provisions. Chief Justice Marshall’s colleague, As¬
sociate Justice John McLean, remarked in the 1832 case mentioned above: “how
the words of the treaty were understood by this unlettered people, rather than their
critical meaning, should form the rule of construction.” Believing that treaties with
Indian tribes represented “more than an idle pageantry,” Justice McLean reminded
American citizens of his day of the “binding force” of the agreements and of the
‘ ‘principles of justice,’ ’ which dictated that the United States uphold its commitments
(U. S. Supreme Court 1832, 582-83).
While some Wisconsinites have joined or supported the various backlash groups
like PARR and STA mentioned earlier, voices of moderation have appeared. Some
non-Indians have attempted to set the record straight on the actual amount of tribal
harvesting of fish and game and the impact on tourism. A Minocqua motel owner,
for example, urged Wisconsinites to separate fact from fiction: “my biggest concern
is that people think the Indians are shooting all the deer .... It hasn’t happened.
The Indians aren’t catching and spearing all the fish that swim . . . and they aren’t
shooting that many deer” (Milwaukee Journal 1984c). He was correct on both
counts. The Chippewa deer harvest (Fig. 38) is minimal compared either to the
entire deer population or to the harvest by state-licensed hunters; it is smaller even
than the annual road kill in the ceded territories (Busiahn 1989a). Similarly, Chip¬
pewa spring spearfishing, which resumed in 1985 under intensely monitored con¬
ditions, has never come close to approaching the impact that sportfishing has on
112
Chippewa Treaty Rights
Total Tribal
Harvest
I Total Sport
Harvest
Sport and Tribal Whitetail Harvest 1983-90
1983
Fig. 38. Chippewa White-Tailed Deer Harvest, 1983-90. Data courtesy of the Great
Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC) and of the Bureau of Wildlife
Management of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR). The graph
compares the DNR’s record of the registered sport whitetail harvest and GLIFWC’s
record of the tribal whitetail harvest. Because the difference between sport and tribal
harvests is so great, the tribal harvest barely registers on the graph. Graph courtesy
of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Media Development Center.
the fish population in northern Wisconsin (Figs. 39-40). Contrary to the information
released by anti-treaty rights groups, eighty percent of the fish speared during the
1990 spearfishing season were males (Masinaigan 1990h, 11). Considering the
small number of fish actually taken annually by tribal spearfishers in comparison
to that taken by anglers, former head of the DNR District Office in Spooner Dave
Jacobson has observed that “there is virtually no possibility that tribes can destroy
the resource” (Isthmus 1990, 9).
Attempts have also been made to set the record straight as to the impact of
Chippewa off-reservation fish and game harvests on tourism. Director of the Wis¬
consin Division of Tourism Dick Matty has recently stated that, contrary to the
reports issued by anti-treaty groups, there has been “ no real negative impact ” on
tourism as a result of Indian spearfishing. Chamber of Commerce officials in north¬
ern communities like Minocqua and Boulder Junction report that tourism is thriving.
What is having a greater impact on tourism in the north than Indian spearfishing
or deer hunting harvests according to tourism experts such as Rollie Cooper of the
University of Wisconsin-Extension Recreation Resource Center are (1) the failure
of resort owners to market their facilities in response to demographic trends such
as the growth of two-income households, an aging population, and an increased
113
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Comparison of Sport and Tribal Musky Harvest in Wisconsin's Ceded Territory
Sport (estimated yearly average) 9,454
Tribal [yearly average) 1153
*Spearfishing did not resume until 1985
Fig. 39. Chippewa Muskellunge Harvest, 1985-90. Data courtesy of the Great Lakes
Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC) and of the Bureau of Fisheries Man¬
agement of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Graph courtesy
of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Media Development Center.
number of single-parents families, (2) the declining quality of resorts due to their
age or the failure of owners to make improvements, and (3) the poor public image
given to Wisconsin by the actions and words of anti-treaty rights demonstrators at
the boat landings (Thannum {1990}, 15-17; Masinaigan 1990c, and 1990h, 7).
Despite the efforts mentioned above, there is still a great deal of misinformation
and many misunderstandings about Chippewa treaty rights issues across Wisconsin.
A recent survey conducted by the St. Norbert College Survey Center and Wisconsin
Public Radio concluded, for example, that only 30% of the respondents knew that
the Chippewa Indians are limited in the number of fish and game they can harvest.
The public’s lack of accurate information has made it easier for anti-treaty rights
leaders to exploit the fears and frustrations of their neighbors, especially during the
hard economic times in the north since the Voigt Decision. During this period, the
adjusted gross income in many northern Wisconsin counties failed to reach the
State’s 1983 average. In addition to its lower income level, the north suffers from
high seasonal unemployment rates. Such conditions create an excellent breeding
ground for anti-Indian propaganda. As resource development specialist Jim Than¬
num has observed, “ignorance, poor economic conditions, and fear of the un¬
known’’ in the north have helped to create a hostile environment for Indian treaty
rights in recent years (Thannum {1990}, 10-13).
In addition to attempting to correct misinformation about Indian fishing and
hunting harvests, some residents of the state including the leaders of numerous
114
Chippewa Treaty Rights
Fig. 40. Chippewa Walleye Harvest, 1985-90. Data courtesy of the Great Lakes
Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC) and of the Bureau of Fisheries Man¬
agement of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Graph courtesy
of the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Media Development Center.
religious organizations have reacted to the violence at boat landings, the marketing
of Treaty Beer, and other signs of growing racism by peaceful, non-confrontational
observation at the boat landings and by speaking out in support of Indian treaty
rights and tribal sovereignty. The purpose of such “witnessing” is to convey calm
in the midst of tension and to demonstrate non-Indian support for treaty rights
(Midwest Treaty Network {1990}; USA Today 1990, 2A; Wisconsin State Journal
1990a; News from Indian Country 1990g).
Perhaps the most prominent of the treaty support organizations is Honor Our
Neighbors’ Origins and Rights (HONOR), a coalition of individuals, human rights
groups, church organizations, and other groups. The organization began in Wausau,
where in February of 1988 a group of Indians and non-Indians responded to the
increasing intensity of anti-Indian rhetoric and activity by meeting to affirm the
constitutionally recognized govemment-to-govemment relationship that has been
the cornerstone of American federal Indian policy. Under the coordination of Sharon
Metz of the Milwaukee-based Lutheran Human Relations Association of America,
HONOR organized itself as a coalition of individuals and groups dedicated to
positive actions promoting peace, harmony, and intercultural understanding. Mem¬
bers speak of the Chippewa treaties as a matter of national honor, hence the name
of the organization. HONOR’S promotional literature quotes the following statement
by eighteenth-century English statesman Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary
115
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
for evil to prevail, is that good people do nothing” ( Vanguard 1988; News from
Indian Country 1988, 1989b; HONOR {1989}).
Although the exact definition of the extent of treaty rights is open to interpretation
by the federal courts, efforts to abrogate Indian treaties and thereby redefine the
status of Indian people within American society are efforts to undermine the rule
of law and to ignore our contractual and moral obligations to the Indian people.
As one Lac du Flambeau Band member commented, “if people want to abrogate
the treaty, then abrogate it all. Give us back the top third of the state” ( Chicago
Tribune 1987). Legal scholar Charles F. Wilkinson reminds us that “for American
Indians, their survival as a people — mark down those words, survival as a people —
ultimately depends on 19th-century treaties recognizing a range of special prerog¬
atives, including hunting, fishing, and water rights; a special trust relationship with
the United States; and, ultimately, the principal of tribal sovereignty, the right of
tribal members to be governed on many key issues by their own tribal governments,
not by the states” (1990, 4-5).
The Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin have emerged from the treaty rights con¬
troversy of the last two decades “increasingly conscious of the importance of
maintaining an identity in the modem world that is not based merely on the white
man’s categorizations of them ... but rather emphasizes the continuity of the
modem Indian people with a historical tradition that precedes and is independent
of whites in America.” The Chippewas find this continuity in hunting, fishing,
ricing, powwows, and numerous other elements of their traditional culture that
“serve not only as structural and cultural supports of the Chippewa entity but also
become transformed into symbolic devices for explicit furthering of ethnic distinc¬
tiveness” (Paredes 1980, 406-07, 410). As a Lac du Flambeau Chippewa Indian
commented in the summer of 1989, “spearing fish in the spring is what got me in
touch with my heritage. Part of it meant food. Getting food on the table to eat, to
live. But part of it, connected to eating and living, is being Chippewa.” Indeed,
Chippewas argue that they are “the endangered species” in northern Wisconsin.
“If we give up our ways,” they contend, “we die” (Kenyon 1989, 18, 22, 30).
Despite the important relationship between reserved treaty rights and the ethnic
consciousness of the Chippewa people, some influential Wisconsinites including
Attorney General Donald J. Hanaway began pursuing efforts in April of 1987 to
seek a negotiated out-of-court, long-term settlement between the state and the
Chippewa bands. Although some media spokespersons have loosely referred to the
Thompson administration’s efforts as aimed at securing an outright cash “buy-out”
of Chippewa hunting, fishing, and gathering rights, Hanaway sought an agreement
by which the Chippewas would curtail or lease their harvesting rights in exchange
for economic and other forms of assistance from the state (. Milwaukee Journal
1987b; Hanaway 1989, 8-10; Wisconsin State Journal 1990c, 5).
In order to help Hanaway in bringing the Chippewas to the negotiating table,
Republican Congressman Frank James Sensenbrenner, Jr. of Menomonee Falls
introduced legislation in the U. S. House of Representatives during July 1987 calling
for the abrogation of off-reservation usufructuary rights in Wisconsin (U. S. Con¬
gress 1987a, b). Sensenbrenner may have been inspired in part by a comment made
by Judge Doyle during the LCO III trial. Doyle, who clearly recognized the “prac¬
tical dilemma present in the ceded lands” and the emotional dimensions of the
treaty-rights issue, stated on February 18, 1987, that a “practical” solution would
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Chippewa Treaty Rights
come not through court action but through negotiations leading to a new treaty or
through unilateral congressional action (U. S. District Court 1987a, 1433). Sen-
senbrenner defended his bill by remarking, “the treaties don’t recognize twentieth
century life in America.’’ The congressman’s timing assisted Hanaway. Armed with
a “carrot’’ from the governor — his willingness to negotiate a multi-million dollar
lease of treaty rights — and a “stick” from Representative Sensenbrenner — the threat
of “serious efforts” to secure enactment of the Abrogation Bill should negotiations
stall in Wisconsin, Hanaway worked hard to secure a settlement ( Milwaukee Sentinel
1987).
Governor Thompson publicly called Sensenbrenner’ s bill “counterproductive
when negotiations are going on,” but Republican Senator Robert Kasten soon
provided the state’s negotiating team with yet another “stick.” Kasten threatened
to withhold federal aid if the Chippewas did not negotiate a settlement. Moreover,
Democrat State Representative Mark D. Lewis of Eau Claire accused the governor
himself of heavy-handedness in the negotiations with the tribes. Lewis, chair of
the Trade, Industry, and Small Business Committee of the State Assembly, claimed
that the governor was holding legislation creating jobs on Indian reservations hostage
until the Chippewas agreed to a negotiated settlement ( Wisconsin State Journal
1987; Green Bay Press Gazette 1987a, b; Lewis 1987).
Negotiations between state officials and the leaders of the Mole Lake reservation,
the poorest of the six Chippewa reservations in Wisconsin ( Wisconsin State Journal
1990c, 10), led to a tentative agreement offering ten million dollars to lease their
usufructuary rights over a ten-year period. On January 14, 1989, the Mole Lake
Indians overwhelmingly rejected the offer. Frustrated by this turn of events, At¬
torney General Hanaway acknowledged that the prospect of achieving such a set¬
tlement with other bands in the near future was equally gloomy (Hanaway 1989,
8-10).
Several months after the Chippewas of the Mole Lake reservation rejected the
state’s offer, Representative Sensenbrenner again introduced legislation in the House
calling for the abrogation of Chippewa usufructuary rights in Wisconsin. Never¬
theless, there were “clear messages” that neither Congress nor the President would
abrogate treaties. As a result, the Thompson administration continued to work
toward leasing Chippewa usufructuary rights (U. S. Congress 1989a, b; Hanaway
1990, 12).
In 1989 A! Gedicks of La Crosse, Executive Secretary of the Wisconsin Resources
Protection Council, charged that Governor Thompson had “a hidden agenda” for
continuing to push a “buy-out” arrangement. According to Gedicks, Secretary of
Administration James R. Klauser, the governor’s top aide and point man on treaty
issues, was eager to have the Chippewas lose their legal standing to intervene in
any court challenges to proposed mining operations in ceded territory. Claiming
that Klauser formerly lobbied for Exxon, which in the early 1980s had proposed a
zinc and copper mine near Crandon, Gedicks questioned the governor’s motivation
and urged the Chippewas not to give up any rights that would weaken their legal
clout against environmental threats from mining interests. Gedicks ’s remarks un¬
doubtedly found a sympathetic audience among Chippewa leaders who have long
suspected that anti-treaty rights organizations have “an agenda far broader than just
spearfishing.” In particular, some Indian leaders have openly asserted that these
groups may be associated with or bankrolled by big companies interested in mineral
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
rights in the state. Whatever the validity of such fears, suspicions, and accusations,
Governor Thompson continued to seek a negotiated settlement ( Milwaukee Journal
1989c; Gedicks 1985, 180-89, 1989, 8; Wisconsin State Journal 1990c, 9, 17, 37).
When anti-treaty rights protesters broke through police lines during the 1989
spearfishing season, the Milwaukee Journal urged Governor Thompson to call in
the National Guard (1989a). The rowdy crowds at the landings exceeded that of
the previous year by ten times, and State Republican Party Chair Donald K. Stitt
of Port Washington urged the Republican governor to “strongly consider’ ’ declaring
a state of emergency and closing off northern lakes to spearfishers and anglers
( Capital Times 1989c). Thompson took a different approach. He made an unprec¬
edented appearance in Judge Crabb’s courtroom to personally request the issuance
of an injunction to halt Indian spearfishers ( Capital Times 1989b).
Crabb refused to grant the Governor’s request. Commenting that it was her
obligation “to enforce the law and the rights of all people under the law,’’ Crabb
addressed the charge made by anti-treaty protesters that the Chippewas had more
rights than non-Indians:
Many people in the northern part of the state complain that the tribes are accorded
unequal rights because they are permitted to hunt, fish, and gather in ways denied to the
non-Indian population. The fact is, however, that the tribes do not have unequal rights.
They have the same rights as any other resident of the United States to enter into contractual
agreements and to go to court to enforce their rights under those contracts. In previous
phases of this litigation, it has been found that the Chippewas gave up the ceded territory
but retained rights to hunt, fish, and gather. Those rights are not in question now. As
those rights relate to the spearing of walleye, they are circumscribed by the Department
of Natural Resources’ determination of a biologically safe catch. In addition, and I em¬
phasize this, they have the same rights as any other resident of this state to seek the state’s
protection in exercising their lawful rights.
The judge argued that “the fact that some {non-Indians} are acting illegally and
creating unjustified fears of violence does not justify abridging the rights of those
{Indians} who have done nothing illegal or improper.” Referring to the “consti¬
tutional underpinnings” of American society, Crabb refused to permit “violent and
lawless protests” to determine the rights of Indians in Wisconsin. “What kind of
country would we have if brave people had not faced down the prejudiced, the
violent, and the lawless in the 1960s? What kind will we become if we do not do
the same today,” she asked in rebuffing the Governor ( Wisconsin State Journal
1989b).
Judge Crabb’s popularity among protesters at the boat landings can be surmised
from a slogan on one of their signs — “Save a Walleye, Spear A Crabb” ( Wisconsin
State Journal 1990c, 35). Although Governor Thompson failed in his efforts to
obtain a court order ending the spearfishing season, his worst fears went unrealized.
Cold weather helped reduce crowds and cool tempers at the boat landings. Thompson
aide Klauser remarked, “fortunately, Mother Nature cooperated better than Mother
Crabb” ( Capital Times 1989d).
Meanwhile, Governor Thompson’s assertion to Judge Crabb that state law en¬
forcement officers were “unable and in some cases, unwilling, to guarantee the
protection of the tribes in the exercise of their lawful rights” especially angered
treaty supporters. Some commentators suggested that instead of proposing to spend
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Chippewa Treaty Rights
Fig. 41 . Stop Putting Your Head Under That Poor Man’s Club! Cartoon by Bill Sand¬
ers, The Milwaukee Journal. Reprinted with permission.
a million dollars for promoting tourism in the north the Governor should earmark
funds for law enforcement to protect Chippewa spearfishers and to arrest, prosecute,
and incarcerate those who would deny them their rights ( Wisconsin State Journal
1989b, c). The administration apparently had other ideas about the best way to
handle the Chippewa treaty rights controversy.
In October of 1989, after months of intense bargaining, Wisconsin Attorney
General Hanaway and a team of negotiators reached a tentative settlement with the
Lac du Flambeau Chippewa Band, the heaviest spearers in northern Wisconsin
(Fig. 41). If the Indians agreed to give up gill netting, as well as most of their
spearfishing rights and reached an agreement with the state on outstanding issues
pertaining to hunting, trapping, and gathering, Hanaway offered them annual pay¬
ments of about 3.5 million dollars and other economic incentives for a ten-year
period with a renewal option for five-year periods by mutual agreement. Estimates
of the total cost ranged from 42 to 50 million dollars. According to top Thompson
aide James Klauser, “the cost would be paid out of surplus revenue and would
require no tax increase” ( Green Bay Press Gazette 1989; Milwaukee Sentinel 1989c;
Lac du Flambeau Band and State of Wisconsin 1989).
Before the Lac du Flambeau pact with the state came up for a vote on the
reservation, Lac Courte Oreilles Tribal Chair Gaiashkibos and Bad River Tribal
Chair Donald Moore went on record against the arrangement (Milwaukee Sentinel
1989d). “Our rights are not for sale and they’re not for lease. What other tribes
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Fig. 42. Thomas Maulson, Walleye Warrior. Maulson, an active
spearer, says of PARR and similar anti-treaty groups, “All these
guys are lacking are the white sheets” (Capital Times 1986b,
25). Photograph by Mary Beth Berg. Reprinted with permission.
do is their business,” Gaiashkibos said ( Capital Times 1989e). Opposition to the
proposed settlement led officials of the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Com¬
mission (GLIFWC) to replace Lac du Flambeau Tribal Chair Michael W. Allen
with Bad River Tribal Chair and “buy out” critic Donald Moore as the GLIFWC
chair. At the same time, Lac du Flambeau Tribal Attorney Kathryn Tierney resigned
under pressure from the other Chippewa bands as lead counsel for the Chippewa
treaty rights trial pending in federal court (. Milwaukee Sentinel 1989e).
On October 25, 1989, members of the band stunned state officials by rejecting
the multimillion-dollar pact by a vote of 439 to 366. Thomas Maulson (Fig. 42),
a leader of the off-reservation spearfishing group Wa-Swa-Gon, told a jubilant
crowd outside the tribal hall after the votes had been counted that “the ‘Walleye
Warriors’ will be back” (Hanaway 1990, 11; Wisconsin State Journal 1989d, f).
Governor Thompson, Attorney General Hanaway, Administration Secretary Klauser,
and DNR Secretary C. D. “Buzz” Besadny were caught off guard by the news.
The vote was obviously a major setback to proponents of a negotiated settlement.
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Chippewa Treaty Rights
But efforts to secure such an arrangement would continue. Thompson and his aides
told a group of editors and publishers two days after the balloting at Lac du Flambeau
that Indian treaty rights remain the biggest problem facing the State of Wisconsin
{Wisconsin State Journal 1989f, 1990c, 2). DNR Secretary Besadny had publicly
stated weeks earlier that “we can — and we must — support a negotiated settlement.
The treaties will not be abrogated and the Chippewa will never agree to a buyout.
There can only be a lease arrangement’’ (Besadny 1989, 7). Former Dane County
District Attorney James E. Doyle, Jr., the son of the late U. S. District Court judge
who ruled against the Chippewas in 1978, called for a reopening of efforts to reach
a negotiated settlement as he challenged Attorney General Hanaway in the 1990
election {News from Indian Country 1990f).
While many politicians support a negotiated settlement of Chippewa reserved
rights as a means of ending the annual treaty rights controversy centered around
the Indian spearfishing season in northern Wisconsin, there has also been talk about
cooperative efforts between state conservation officials and the Chippewa bands in
managing natural resources. In particular, attention has focused on the so-called
“Washington model.’’ As noted earlier, Washington State was embroiled in its own
treaty rights controversy following the Boldt Decision in 1974. But while the treaty
rights issue has been raging in Wisconsin since 1983, Indian tribes in Washington
have worked with state and federal government officials as well as with private
recreational and commercial fishing interests to manage fish populations with ex¬
cellent results. Between 1974 and 1987, for example, salmon harvests increased
by nearly thirty percent and steelhead harvests increased by almost seventy percent.
Bruce Stewart, a fish pathologist who left Wisconsin’s DNR to work in Washington
State, claims that “Washington is 10 years ahead of Wisconsin’’ in terms of
cooperation between Indians and state government in managing various resources
{Appleton Post-Crescent 1989; News from Indian Country 1989a, 1990a; Thannum
{1990}, 20; Wisconsin State Journal 1990c, 54, 56).
Traditional Chippewa culture reinforces cooperation rather than competition in
hunting, fishing, and gathering, and the Indians have a long history of sharing
resources with non-Indians (Strickland et al. 1990, 27). Lac du Flambeau spear¬
fishing organizer Thomas Maulson, an avid opponent of the Thompson adminis¬
tration’s abortive negotiated settlement, reminded an Eau Claire audience in 1990
that Indians have willingly shared the natural resources of North America “from
the first day white people stepped foot on this continent.” Non-Indians, he argued,
need to understand the “cultural aspect,” the fact that spearfishing is “important
to American Indian heritage” {Eau Claire Leader-Tele gram 1990d, 1A). Recently
the national president of Trout Unlimited, Inc. , Robert Herbst, a veteran of conflicts
involving Indian treaty rights in the states of Washington, Minnesota, and Alaska,
observed “there are now global environmental concerns, which demand our united
attention. The magnitude of problems we jointly face make it imperative that we
act as partners for the good of the resource itself, and not for the selfishness in
each of us.” For these reasons, Herbst’s organization has moved from a position
of opposing Indian treaty rights to one of stressing the cooperative management of
resources (Kerr 1990a, 14).
Some supporters of cooperative management reacted very positively to the interest
shown in 1990 by U. S. Senate Select Committee on Indian Affairs Chair Daniel
K. Inouye in helping to resolve the treaty dispute in Wisconsin. Inouye, who had
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts & Letters
mediated the dispute in Washington State years earlier, indicated that his goal in
the Wisconsin controversy was to “resolve this matter, not only amicably and
fairly, but with justice to the Native Americans” {News from Indian Country 1990b,
13). In an editorial entitled “Inouye Riding to Rescue State from its Rednecks,”
Capital Times associate editor John Patrick Hunter deftly summed up the thinking
of many advocates of cooperative management: “if the white establishment, here
and in Washington, accepts the Indian nations as equal partners, then perhaps an
agreement can be reached on fishing and timber cutting, without the explosive
confrontations that have disgraced Wisconsin in recent years” (1990b).
Suggestions that the Chippewa Indians co-manage natural resources with State
officials infuriate anti-treaty rights groups {PARR Issue 1991u, v). In 1990 when
State Assembly Speaker Democrat Thomas Loftus of Sun Prairie, who opposes
spearing of spawning fish, endorsed co-management as an answer to the strife over
Chippewa treaty rights, Governor Thompson’s aide James Klauser and DNR Sec¬
retary “Buzz” Besadny ruled out the approach as practiced in the state of Wash¬
ington. Declaring co-management to be “probably illegal” under the state consti¬
tution, Klauser claimed it would take legislative action or a referendum changing
the constitution to make the approach legal {Wisconsin State Journal 1990b, c,
p. 55; Milwaukee Sentinel 1990f). “It will be a cold day in hell,” Attorney General
Hanaway told a legislative committee, before voters would agree to share authority
for natural resources management with the Chippewas. In responding to Hanaway ’s
comment. Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission executive director Jim
Schlender poignantly observed, “the affect of all the attention on the term co¬
management has been to divert attention from the need to develop consensus and
meaningful cooperation in managing the resources” {News from Indian Country
1990e).
Many Wisconsinites remain suspicious of what some continue to call the “special
rights” of the Chippewas, and some state and county officials continue to search
for ways to “modernize” Indian treaties and to curtail those rights. Between January
18th and 20th of 1990, for example, representatives of the Wisconsin Counties
Association (WCA) and Wisconsin Administration Secretary James Klauser met in
Salt Lake City, Utah, in closed session with county officials from a dozen states
to discuss strategies for dealing with treaty rights issues. WCA Executive Director
Mark Rogacki told reporters he was hopeful the meeting would lead to a coalition
that would pressure Congress to rewrite nineteenth-century treaties. The organizers
of the meeting were widely criticized in the press for refusing entry to several
Wisconsin Indian county officials.59 Indians picketed the meeting, calling the con¬
ferees ‘ ‘cockroaches hiding from the sun’ ’ {Capital Times 1990a; Eau Claire Leader-
Telegram 1990a; Milwaukee Sentinel 1990a; Wisconsin State Journal 1990a; Chris¬
tian Science Monitor 1990).
The Salt Lake City meeting took place as Indian law specialist Douglas Endreson
of San Francisco addressed the members of the State Bar of Wisconsin at their mid¬
winter convention in Milwaukee. While Secretary Klauser and Wisconsin county
officials discussed ways to circumvent the treaty rights of Indians, Endreson advised
Wisconsin attorneys that solutions to treaty rights conflicts would not come about
until states officially recognized treaties as “existing, viable, live documents, with
live people on both sides” {Milwaukee Sentinel 1990b). Endreson’ s comments
received reinforcement a few days later from the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights.
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Chippewa Treaty Rights
The Commission issued a formal report condemning documented cases of discrim¬
ination against Chippewa Indians in northern Wisconsin and reminding Wiscon¬
sinites that Indian treaty rights are protected by the U. S. Constitution as part of
the “supreme Law of the Land” (Eau Claire Leader-Telegram 1990b).
The actions of the Wisconsin Counties Association described above are of par¬
ticular concern since justice for the Indians depends largely on the willingness of
opinion leaders in the majority society to learn about the evolution of treaty rights
and to respect the continuation of those rights. Unlike non-Indian Americans, the
most cherished civil rights of Indian people are not based on equality of treatment
under the Constitution and modem civil rights laws. Rather, treaty rights and tribal
sovereignty are of the utmost concern (Wilkinson 1990, 4-6).
Non-Indians in Wisconsin must come to understand that legal and moral con¬
siderations recognized by early American leaders are as pertinent today as when
the Chippewa treaties were originally negotiated. Upon returning from the ill-
received conference in Salt Lake City, Secretary of Administration Klauser claimed
that he had gained a stronger appreciation for the Indian position. “I came back
and ordered textbooks and started reading them,” he said. Klauser’ s reexamination
of the issues led him to remark, “the significance of the treaties is much greater
than I understood months ago. I don’t see the treaties as being the problem”
(Wisconsin State Journal 1990c, 4). As the Equal Rights Commission of the Gov¬
ernor of the State of Wisconsin editorialized in the first issue of its newsletter in
1988, “the state, both as a people who live within its border and as a government,
must have a conscience” with respect to the reserved rights of the Indians (ERC
Conscience 1988, 2).
Recent events make it clear that the federal government must also have a con¬
science if the Wisconsin Chippewa Indians are to receive redress for more than a
century of injustices. In her October 11, 1990, ruling denying the Chippewas
damages against the State of Wisconsin, Judge Crabb acknowledged, “after more
than sixteen years of litigation during which this court and the Court of Appeals
for the Seventh Circuit have determined that the State of Wisconsin has violated
plaintiffs’ treaty rights for over 130 years, plaintiffs are left with no means of
recovering monetary damages from the state except in the unlikely event that the
United States joins this suit on their behalf.” Crabb’s ruling, as she herself rec¬
ognized, “leaves the plaintiff tribes without an adequate remedy for the wrongs
they have suffered” (U. S. District Court 1990b, 922-23).
Today, to quote Judge Crabb, the prospect of a federal resolution of the Chip¬
pewas’ claim against the State of Wisconsin for redress of their grievances remains
“as elusive as most of the promises made to them over the years” (Eau Claire
Leader-Telegram 1990i, 2A). Although spoken by a member of a Southern Indian
tribe, the following words of Cherokee Chief John Ross during the removal crisis
in Georgia in 1831 seem appropriate for the present controversy over Chippewa
hunting and fishing rights and claims against the State of Wisconsin for violating
those rights:
. . . President {George} Washington and his successors well understood the constitutional
powers of the General Government, and the rights of the individual states, as well as
those belonging to the Indian Nations, and that the treaties made under their respective
administrations with the . . . {Indians} were intended to be faithfully & honestly regarded
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
on the part of the United States; and that the judicial power would extend to all cases of
litigation that might arise under those treaties. (Ross 1831, 227)
Chippewa hunting and fishing rights are part of “the supreme Law of the Land.”
Applying the words of Chief Justice John Marshall in the 1832 Supreme Court case
of Worcester v. The State of Georgia to Chippewa treaty rights in Wisconsin, we
must remember that the Lake Superior Chippewa people constitute distinct com¬
munities, occupying their own territories, with boundaries accurately described, in
which the laws of Wisconsin have no right to enter, but with the assent of the
Chippewa people themselves, or in conformity with treaties, and with the acts of
Congress.
The Chippewa bands, like the Cherokee people Marshall was speaking about in
1832, constitute distinct political communities having the right to make their own
laws and be governed by themselves without the interference of state government
except in those areas specifically provided by federal laws or federal court decisions.
As “domestic dependent nations,” using Marshall’s words, the Chippewa bands
have lost the sovereign power to treat with nations other than the United States,
but they retain the right to have the meaning of treaty clauses resolved in their favor
whenever the meaning is in doubt (Cohen 1982 222, 241-42). They also have the
right, as Lac Courte Oreilles Tribal Chair Gaiashkibos recently commented, to
decide that their reserved rights “are not for sale, not for lease” ( Masinaigan
1990e).
124
9
Conclusion:
An Agenda for the Future
Since the arrival of whites in Wisconsin, as scholar Gerald Vizenor has poignantly
observed, the Chippewa people have been “divided by colonial, national,
territorial, and state claims” (1984, 32). Wisconsin Chippewa communities survived
several periods of economic exploitation — the fur-trapping period, the timber-cutting
period, the copper-mining era, and the resort industry period. The entrepreneurs of
each of these periods, with only rare exceptions, were whites (James 1954, 33;
Nesbit and Thompson 1989, 516-17).
Through its treaties with the Chippewas, the United States obtained vast resources.
According to historian David R. Wrone, these include 19 million acres of land,
100 billion board-feet of timber, and 13.5 billion pounds of copper, in addition to
water, ports, power sites, quarries, and a “comucopic treasure” of fish, fowl, and
game. In return, the Chippewas received “only a few thousand dollars, some odds
and ends of equipment, and a few thousand acres of reservation lands” (1989, 5).
They did, however, reserve their rights of hunting, fishing, and gathering as well
as the “other usual privileges of occupancy” on ceded territory (Kappler 2: 492
App. 1, and 542 App. 4). But, state officials prevented the Chippewas from ex¬
ercising those rights for most of this century. In doing so, the state promoted a
pattern of natural resource use that benefitted non-Indians at the expense of the
Chippewas. Whites have garnered what several astute economists call an “exploi¬
tation premium” from the as yet uncompensated taking of Chippewa usufructuary
rights. While supporters of PARR, STA, and other groups adamantly oppose a
negotiated lease arrangement with the Chippewas on the basis that it would be too
costly to non-Indian taxpayers, these same individuals ignore the fact that the
Chippewas have suffered great monetary losses — among other things — in being
denied their usufructuary rights through whites’ misallocation of resources, which
benefitted non-Indians at the expense of Indians (Bromley and Sharpe 1990, 15-16;
Evers and Bromley 1989, 30-34).
As we move toward the twenty-first century, officials of the State of Wisconsin
must seize every opportunity to redress the wrongs of the past and to work coop¬
eratively with the Chippewa bands for the benefit of all Wisconsin residents. The
governor and his administration can play a positive role in facilitating cooperation
between the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission and the State De¬
partment of Natural Resources, between tribal governments and state/county/local
governments, between Indian parents and the public schools, and between aspiring
tribal entrepreneurs and private business interests in order to foster economic de¬
velopment and to promote the general welfare of all of the people in the north
country.
Several examples of such cooperation point the way. The efforts of the Lac
Courte Oreilles Band (LCO) and the Hayward Lakes Association (HLA), an influ¬
ential group of resort owners, to build a foundation for cooperation over many years
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
have paid dividends. Not only have the LCO Indians spearfished without the rock
throwing, vulgar threats, and racial slurs prevalent elsewhere in the north, but these
Indians have also received support from the HLA for the construction and operation
of a new fish hatchery. Non-Indians have joined the LCO in a variety of activities
aimed at promoting better understanding and mutual respect. I have personally
participated in workshops at which Indian and non-Indian teachers from the Hayward
area have come together to study Indian treaty rights and various aspects of Indian
culture. In the Cable area, local sportfishers have cooperated with the tribal fisheries
of the Bad River and Red Cliff Bands to collect eggs from speared fish, to incubate
the eggs at tribal hatcheries, and, finally, to stock rearing ponds or to restock the
lakes. At Long Lake, Chamber of Commerce members not only asked area residents
to honor the spearing rights of St. Croix tribal members, but they also manned two
boats and accompanied the spearfishers to help promote calm. At least twelve
Chambers of Commerce in the north have issued a joint statement recognizing
Indian treaty rights. The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) announced on
November 12, 1990, that ten wardens from the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife
Commission will receive special credentials to enforce state laws alongside DNR
wardens for the remainder of the year and that the DNR expects to authorize some
tribal wardens to enforce state law independently of DNR wardens in 1991. The
Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction and the governor’s American Indian
Language and Culture Education Board have taken steps to help today’s children
understand Indian cultures and appreciate Indian treaties and tribal sovereignty as
something more than historical artifacts. These examples of cooperation deserve
emulation (Kerr 1990b; Eau Claire Leader-Telegram 1990c, e; Thannum {1990},
18-19; News from Indian Country 1990h; Wisconsin Education Association Council
1989, 1-2; Wisconsin State Journal 1990c, 20; Solterman 1991).
National economic and demographic trends suggest that success in meeting the
challenges of the twenty-first century will require American leaders to understand,
appreciate, and accommodate the needs of minority groups in society (Thomas
1990). This includes the needs of the members of the Chippewa bands, who have
a unique relationship with state and local governments as a result of treaties made
at great sacrifice to the Indians under pressure from the federal government. Wis¬
consinites — Indian and non-Indian alike — have more to gain by adhering to the
constitutional principles upon which this nation was founded, including the rec¬
ognition of and respect for treaty rights, than by disrespecting the law and disre¬
garding human rights.
Wisconsin has deep progressive roots. There is an underlying reservoir of good
will toward cultural, ethnic, religious, and political diversity in the state. Yet, one
must not forget: the state that produced Senator Robert M. La Toilette also produced
Senator Joseph McCarthy, the state that enacted laws to prevent southern slave¬
owners from retrieving fugitive slaves and from molesting free blacks in the 1850s
was the scene of violent race riots against blacks a hundred years later, and the
state that poignantly argued against the removal of the Chippewas in the 1850s
flagrantly violated the treaty rights of those Indians during most of this century.60
Much of our state’s past treatment of the Chippewas is shameful (Fig. 43). The
future, however, presents Wisconsinites an opportunity to redress the wrongs of
the past and the present. As we approach the next Chippewa spearfishing season,
let us uphold the constitutional principles that have governed this nation for more
126
Chippewa Treaty Rights
CENTURIES-OLD
WHITE-MAN
TRADITION*-
Fig. 43. Centuries-Old Indian Tradition I Centuries-Old White Tradition. Cartoon by
Steve Sack, Star Tribune, Minneapolis, MN. Reprinted with permission.
than two hundred years and honor the treaty rights of the Indians. Let us encourage
our political and community leaders to build strong, positive relationships with
tribal communities. Efforts to establish “committees of understanding” to improve
cooperation at the local level between the Chippewa bands and neighboring com¬
munities are a step in the right direction. {Wisconsin State Journal 1990c, 4).
Northern Wisconsin must be transformed from a battle zone over treaty rights
issues each spring and summer to a sanctuary of peace and beauty for Indians and
non-Indians. False data and malicious rumors about Indian utilization of natural
resources must be replaced with accurate information. On April 3, 1991, Senator
Daniel Inouye came to Wisconsin to receive the results of a year-long study on the
impact of spearfishing. Inouye, chair of the Senate Select Committee on Indian
Affairs, had secured congressional appropriation enabling representatives of the six
Wisconsin Chippewa bands, the U. S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, the U. S. Fish
and Wildlife Service, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and the
Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission to conduct the fishery assessment.
The committee’s final report, Casting Light Upon the Waters, concludes that “fear
and uncertainty generated by biased perceptions” have fueled the controversy over
Indian fishing rights and have obscured the fact that “Chippewa spearing has not
harmed the resource” (U. S. Department of the Interior 1991, 13).
The time and energy expended by those protesting the treaty rights of Indians
(to say nothing of the taxpayers’ funds spent in providing emergency police services
at the boat landings to protect Indians from physical abuse as they engage in legal
pursuits) need to be redirected toward resolving the serious environmental and
societal issues facing our communities. If Indians and non-Indians cooperatively
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
manage the resources of northern Wisconsin, perhaps we will be able to create
what Red Cliff Band member Walter Bresette has called “a unique environmental
zone” that will be recognized throughout the world as “the jewel of the planet”
( Isthmus 1990, 9). Lac Courte Oreilles Tribal Chair Gaiashkibos refers to the
Chippewas as “keepers” of the Earth placed here to preserve, not to destroy and
abuse the resources. He tells the following traditional story:
Each day the creator sends an eagle out, and he looks down and sees if the Indian people
are still practicing the teachings. One day, when he doesn’t see the smoke from the Indian
people, then he will destroy the Earth. (Wisconsin State Journal 1990c, 52)
“Successful co-management,” Biological Services Director Thomas R. Busiahn of
the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission asserts, “requires building
bridges between cultures and world views, and recognizing the worth in each of
them” (1989b, 5).
All Wisconsin residents have something to gain by the preservation of the world
view that led nineteenth-century Chippewa leaders to stubbornly resist efforts to
evict them from this state and its resources. Efforts to nourish that world view
continue to lead the Chippewas to resist all attempts to curtail their treaty rights.
Our treatment of the Chippewas today, like our treatment of them during the
dark days of the Wisconsin Death March in the mid-nineteenth century, serves as
an index to our commitment to the rule of law and our democratic faith. Legal
scholar Felix Cohen asserted nearly forty years ago that “like the miner’s canary,
the Indian marks the shift from fresh air to poison air in our political atmosphere;
and our treatment of Indians, even more than our treatment of other minorities,
reflects the rise and fall of our democratic faith” (1953, 390). For, as President
George Bush noted in his 1989 inaugural address, “Great nations like great men
must keep their word.” As the last decade of the twentieth century unfolds before
their eyes, Wisconsin’s Chippewa Indians have new reasons to be hopeful that —
as President Bush asserted in his inaugural address — “when America says some¬
thing, America means it, whether a treaty or an agreement or a vow made on marble
steps” (Bush 1989, 349).
128
Appendices
Introduction
Appendices 1, 3, and 5 describe the proceedings of the 1837, 1842, and 1854
Chippewa treaties from the perspective of federal treaty negotiators. Appendices
2, 4, and 6 reproduce the treaties as ratified by the U. S. Senate and proclaimed
by the President. For photographs of the first pages of the original handwritten
treaties, see Figures 10, 12, and 22. Figure 14 reproduces the first page of President
John Tyler’s proclamation of the 1842 treaty.
Accuracy has been stressed in the reproduction of the documents, which have
been transcribed in the Appendices without changes in capitalization, grammar,
punctuation, or spelling. The authors’ inconsistancies and errors are also retained.
Quotation marks that originally appeared at the beginning on each line of a direct
quotation have been deleted, leaving quotation marks only at beginnings and endings
of paragraph quotations — if the marks were used. These writers also repeated the
last word of a page at the beginning of the following page; we did not repeat these
words. Notes written in the margins of the documents are included here as footnotes.
Asterisks * were used by the authors to indicate placement of marginal notes;
numbers in braces { } were added to show sequence. Frame numbers are provided
in braces for Appendices 1,3, and 5 so that readers may easily locate pertinent
pages in the microfilm edition available from the National Archives and Records
Service. Page numbers from volume 2 of Kappler’s Indian Affairs are provided in
braces for Appendices 2, 4, and 6. Editorial additions and clarifications, which
have been kept to a minimum, are also in braces. Corrections have not been added
in braces where the meaning of a misspelled word is obvious.
Appendix 1
Secretary Verplanck Van Antwerp’s Journal of the Proceedings of the Council held
by Governor Henry Dodge in 1837.
Appendix 2
Treaty of July 29, 1837
Appendix 3A
Extract of Annual Report of October 28, 1842, of Acting Michigan Superintendent
Robert Stuart in Relation to the Treaty of 1842.
Appendix 3B
Treaty Commissioner Robert Stuart’s Remarks of November 19, 1842, in Relation
to the Treaty of 1842.
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Appendix 3C
Treaty Commissioner Robert Stuart’s Speeches During the 1842 Treaty Proceedings
as Reported in 1844.
Treaty of October 4, 1842
Appendix 4
Appendix 5
Treaty Commissioner Henry C. Gilbert’s Explanation of the Treaty Concluded in
1854 with the Assistance of David B. Herriman.
Appendix 6
Treaty of September 30, 1854
Appendix 7
Final Judgment of Judge Barbara Crabb in Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake
Superior Indians et al. vs. State of Wisconsin et al., March 19, 1991.
Appendix 8
Chippewa Acceptance of Judge Barbara Crabb’s Final Judgment, May 20, 1991.
Appendix 9
State of Wisconsin’s Acceptance of Judge Barbara Crabb’s Final Judgment, May
20, 1991.
130
Appendix 1
Negotiations for the “Chippewa Treaty of July 29, 1837”
Proceedings of a Council held by Governor Henry Dodge, with the Chiefs and
principal men, of the Chippewa Nation of Indians near Fort Snelling, at the con¬
fluence of the SL Peters and Missisippi Rivers, commencing on the 20^ day of
July 1837.
The Head Men of the nation, having by direction of Governor Dodge, been
advised of his desire to meet them in council, their different bands assembled
together near Fort Snelling between the first and 20^ of July, to the number of
upwards of a thousand individuals, men, women, & children, and on the last
mentioned day, met the Governor at the Council House.
Gen1. William R. Smith of Pennsylvania, appointed by the President of the United
States, the colleague of Governor Dodge in the commission, did not arrive to be
present at the council.
The following named Chiefs were present, and recognized as such, by the Governor.
Bands
Chiefs
From Leech Lake,
” Gull Lake & Swan River,
” Mille Lac,
” Sandy Lake
” Snake River,
” Fond-du-Lac,
” Si. Croix River,
Aish-ke-boge-kozho, or Flat Mouth and The
Elder Brother
Pa-goona-kee-zhig, or The Hole in the day,
and Songa-Komig or, The Strong Ground
W a-shask-ko-koue , or Rats Liver
Ka-nam-dawa-winro, or Le Brocheux
Naudin, or The Wind, Sha-go-bai, or The
Little Six, Pay-a-jik, & Na-qua-na-bie, or The
Feather.
Mang-go-sit, or Loons Foot, and Shing-gobe,
or The Spruce
Pe-zhe-ke, or The Buffalo
Ver Planck Van Antwerp of Indiana, appointed by the President, Secretary to the
Commission, was also present at the meeting of the Council.
The usual ceremonies for opening a council with the Indians, having been first
duly observed, Governor Dodge addressed them as follows :{0548} “Chiefs, Head
Men, and Wariors of the Chippewa Nation of Indians.’’
“Your Great Father The President of the United States, has sent me to see you
in Council, to propose to you the purchase of a small part of your country East of
the Missisippi River.
“This country, as I am informed, is not valuable to you for its game, and not
suited to the culture of com, and other Agricultural purposes.
“Your Great Father wishes to purchase your country on the Chippewa and SL
Croix Rivers, for the advantage of its Pine Timber, with which it is said to abound.
“A Map of the Country which your Great Father wishes to buy from you, will
be shewn you, where on which the Rivers and Water courses are laid down; and
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such explanations given through your Interpreter, as will fully explain to you, the
particular part of your country East of the Missisippi River, which Your Great
Father proposes to purchase, for the use of his White Children.
Your Great Father knows you are poor; and this Pine region of Country, is not
valuable to you for hunting purposes. His wish is, to make you a full compensation
for it, the country, by giving you its full value, payable in such manner, as will
be most serviceable to your people.
“An estimate will be made of the probable value of your country which it is
proposed to purchase, of which you will be informed. I will request you, after fully
deliberating upon the subject, to tell me your price for the country, with as little
delay as possible.
“Your Great Father The President was desirous that the Chippewas should be
fully represented in this council, that all might know what had been done; and that
equal justice should be done to all. I wish you to be prepared with your answer to
the proposition made you, at our meeting in Council tomorrow.”
Governor Dodge having confided his remarks and intimated his readiness to hear
any thing which the Chiefs or principle men might have to say to him, Aish-ke-
boge-kozhe, (Flat Mouth, or La Guelle Plat) advanced and spoke as follows: “My
Father, I have but little to say to you now. Living in a different part of the country
from that which you propose to buy from us, I will be among the last of those who
will speak to you upon that subject.
“After those shall have spoken who live in and nearer to that country, I will talk
more to you.
“My Father, My people have all the same opinion with me, and will abide by
what I say to you. I have come to listen first, to all you have to say to us, and will
afterwards speak to you. My heart is with you. I have nothing more to say now.
Naudin (The Wind) then came forward and said “My Father, I once shook hands
with our Great Father The President of the United States, as I do with you now. I
have not much to say at present; and my brother-in-law who stands near me wishes
to speak to you. On tomorrow I expect that some more people will be here from
the country that you wish to buy from us. I was present when they began to run
the boundary line between our country and that of the Sioux at the “Red Devils
Riverss {See Note A}.” When you are ready to examine that line I will say more
to you.”
Pe-zhe-ke (The Buffalo) “My Father. I am taken by surprise by what you have
said to us, and will speak but few words to you now. We are waiting for more of
our people who are coming from the country which you wish to buy from us.
“We will think of what you have said to us, and when they {0549} come, will
tell you our minds about it. Men will then be chosen by us, to speak to you. I have
nothing more to say now.”
{Note A: Red Devils Riverss is the interpretation decided upon after much analysis of the penmanship,
context, and historical possibilities in consultation with Richard St. Germaine. It fits the context because
an Indian named Red Devil did sign the 1825 treaty to which the speaker here refers. In an earlier
transcript of this document (Iowa News 1837, 410-11), this phrase was transcribed as Red Deer’s Rump,
but this has no historical meaning with which I am familiar.}
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Chippewa Treaty Rights
Pa-goona-kee-zhig (The Hole in the Day) “My Father, what Aish-ke-boge-ko-
zhe (Flat Mouth) & the others who have spoken have told you, is the opinion of
us all.”
Na-ca-ne-ga-be (The Man that Stands Foremost) “My Father. The people will
come from the country where my fathers have lived before me. When they arrive
here, they will speak to you. Until then I have nothing more to say.”
Governor Dodge, then, after urgently impressing upon the Indians, the great
importance and necessity of their remaining quiet among each other and at peace
with the Sioux, during the time that they were at S±. Peter’s attending the Council,
adjourned it to meet again at 10 O’clock Tomorrow Morning.
Friday July 21- 1837
The Governor was advised this morning by Mr. {M.M.} Vineyard their Agent,
that the Indians did not wish to meet in council to day, as the people whom they
expected, had not yet arrived, and they wanted more time to council among themselves.
Saturday July 22^
The Morning being cloudy with a threatening appearance of rain, the Council
did not meet until 3 O’Clock P.M. when Governor Dodge directed the Interpreter
to say to the Indians, that when he had parted with them two days ago, they had
told him that they expected to meet more of their friends here, and were desirous
before taking any further steps about what he had spoken to them, of councilling
among each other — that he had now met them to hear what they might have to say
about their absent friends, and to listen to any communications which they might
wish to make to him, in regard to the councils which they had held, or the conclusions
resulting from them, at which they had arrived.
After an interval of some 15 or 20 minutes, during which time the Intrepreter
by direction of The Governor, repeated the expressions of his readiness to hear any
remarks, which the Indians might wish to make to him. Flat Mouth advanced
and said
“My Father. I shall say but little to you at this time. I am called a Chief. I am
not the Chief of the whole nation, but only of my people or tribe. I speak to you
now only because I see nobody else ready to do so. I do not wish to take any
further steps about what you have proposed to us, until the other people arrive,
who have been expected here. They have not yet come; and to do so before their
arrival, might be considered an improper interference, and unfair towards them.
“The residence of my band is outside of the country which you wish to buy
from us. After the people who live in that country shall have told you their minds,
I will speak.
“If the lands which you wish to buy, were occupied by my band, I would
immediately have given you my opinion. After listening to the people who we are
expecting, and who will speak to you, I will abide by what they say, and say more
to you myself.
“My Father, on getting up to speak to you, I hardly knew what to say. If I say
no more, it is not because I am afraid or ashamed to speak my mind before my
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people, & those of the whole nation, and all others present, but because I have
nothing more to say.”
The Buffalo remarked, that he was quite deaf, and could not hear distinctly what
was said; that he had seen the Governors lips move, and turned each ear to him to
listen, but could not hear well, his words; that there was another {0550} man here,
who with himself had the confidence of their people, but that they did not wish to
say more until the rest of them who they were expecting, should arrive.
Pay-a-jik “My Father. Your children are not displeased with what you have said
to them — but they wish you to give them four times more tobacco than you have
yet given them. My Father, what has happened to you? Have you cut off your
breasts that you can not suckle your children? If you did so *{1}, it would render
them more pliant and ready to yield to your wishes. This was the case at the the
Treaty of Prairie du Chien in 1825. I was there, and know what was done. The
boundary line between our country and that of the Sioux, was then established; &
my people wish now to have it explained to them. I have been told by the other
Chiefs and Wariors to say what I have said to you. I do not say it of my own
accord. My people have chosen me and another, to talk with you about the prop¬
osition that you have made to them, to buy a part of our country.
“lam ready to proceed whenever the others are ready. Other men of power and
authority are behind, and are expected here. They will soon come, when we will
give you our answer.”
The Wind “My Father” — turning round to the Indians — “I shake by the hand
all the people of the different tribes of my nation who are around you,”— -and then
turning to Governor Dodge — “My Father, What I said to you two days ago, I
would say to the President of The United States if I saw him. My forefathers were
a great and powerful people, which gives me confidence to speak. All your Children
here heard what you said when you spoke to them about the lands which you wish
to buy from us. I understood that it was the country upon the Si. Croix and Chippewa
Rivers, and towards the East; and when I slept, I had a dream, and a little bird
passed by and told me what was meant.
I will listen to what others have to say, and will then speak my mind to you
plainly and fully. My Father I attended a council at Prairie-du-Chien which lasted
ten days. Some of those now here, were then present. This will last longer; as it
is one of greater importance. It is now late in the day. When the Council meets
again we will begin earlier in the morning, that we may have more time to speak.”
Rats Liver (Wa-shask-ko-koue) “My Father I have nothing to say to you different
from what has been said by those who have already spoken. We are all of the same
mind.”
Governor Dodge then directed the Intrepeter to ask the Chiefs, whether their
people who were here, were troubled by the Sioux; that he had seen the Sioux
dancing in their Encampment yesterday, and was glad to witness the friendly feeling,
which seemed to exist among them; that he had been informed by the Agent for
the Sioux, Major Taliaferro, that he had told them, they must not visit the Chippewa
encampment during their stay here, but upon the most friendly terms; & that if the
Sioux had given them any trouble he wanted to know it, and wished some one of
the Chiefs would now mention it to him.
*<1} meaning, that if he would give them whiskey
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Chippewa Treaty Rights
The Wind replied to the Governor that there was no trouble; that they were all
satisfied; that all his children around him both Chippewa and Sioux wished to be
friendly together, and wanted to carry on a little trade and bartering among them¬
selves; but that he was directed by his people to tell the Governor that the Soldiers
and White people troubled them in their Encampment.
Governor Dodge “I am glad to hear that you are on friendly terms with the
Sioux, & hope you will continue to be. I wish you to take each other strong by
the hand; and you must conduct yourselves well while you remain here
“I will speak to the officer commanding the Garrison & request him to forbid
his soldiers disturbing you for the future. {0551} He will prevent it”.
The Wind. “My Father, I wish you would give the same advice to the Sioux
that you have given us; but do not wish thereby, to prevent them from coming in
a friendly way to visit us”. And then the Gov. adjourned the Council.
Monday July 24* 1837.
The Council met at 11. O’Clock A.M.
Governor Dodge directed the Interpreter to inform the Indians, that he had just
been advised, that four of their friends (Indians) who they had been expecting, had
arrived at their encampment; and that fifty others, were said to be near here, who
had come from La Pointe with Messrs. {Lyman M.} Warren and {Daniel P.} Bush-
nell, & who it was believed would arrive here this evening; that as they were all
of the same nation, & brethren of each other, he wished those present to consult
with them; that he did not wish to hurry their deliberations among themselves, but
to give them full time to consult their friends who had arrived, and those who were
coming in; & that he would now hear any thing that they might have to say to him
upon the subject.
The Wind “My Father. I am very sorry to keep you so long, in a painful state
of suspense upon the matter which you have proposed to us. My people are glad
to see you, and they are gratified at the proposition which you have made to them.
My Father, I speak to you now through the lips of “The Buffalo.” (the latter had
advanced to the Governors table with “The Wind”, shaking him by the hand, &
remarking that he would do the same with all those present, but his arm was too
short-- & then stepping back, to allow the latter to speak for him). He has been
to see our Great Father the President of the United States, and came back safe.
When I look at you it frightens me. I cannot sufficiently estimate your importance,
and it confuses me. I have seen a great many Americans, but never one whose
appearance struck me as yours does. You have heard of the coming of those, whose
absence has prevented our proceeding, in what you have proposed to us. This is
the case with all our people here. My Father. Listen to what I am going to say to
you. I listened to our Great Father the President of the {0552} United States, &
have never forgotten what he said to me. Others will speak after me, whose language
will please you, and set all things right
“My Father. We are a distracted people, and have no regular system of acting
together. We cast a firm look on the people who are coming; and all think alike,
about this matter. What we are going to say to you, will not dissatisfy — but please you’ ’ .
Pay-a-jik, “My Father. What I am going to say to you is not my own language,
but the words of Chiefs and others around you. They all look at you, who are so
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different from them You are all white, while they are half red * *{2}. How can we
possibly forget the traders in this matter? You have come to dispense charity to us,
and we must think of the traders. I think well of them. They have used me well,
and supported me, and I wish to do them justice. We should certainly all be benighted
if they did not do for us, what they have done heretofore; & if we do wrong to
them, how can we expect it.
“My Father. Look around on all your red children here. The trader has raised
them; and it is through his means that they are, as they are; We wish you to do
him justice. They will, by this means go on and support us as heretofore. I refered,
in commencing to speak, to the half breeds. Many of them have been brought up
among us, and we wish to provide for them. We want justice done to them”.
Ma-je’-ga-bo. “My Father. I shall not say much to you. You are not a man to
be spoken to in a light manner. I am not a Pillager*{3}, but went among them when
small, which gives me the right to speak as one of them. My brother (The Wind)
stands beside me, and we are descended from those, who in former days, were the
greatest orators of our nation”.
“My Father. I am not backward in saying what I wish to. I am not going to do
any thing, to make your heart lean; am not going to tell you what will be said by
the Chiefs. I will answer you, when you make us an offer for our lands. As soon
as our friends arrive, & I hear their decision, I will say all that I have to say. I
conclude upon that subject for the present, and will speak upon another.
“My Father. Listen closely to me. I will hide nothing from you that has passed.
But for the Traders, you would not {illegible} see all your children sitting around
you, as they do, to day. It is not the Chiefs, but the traders who have supported
them to the present time. Our Great Father has told us that An Agent would be
sent to us — but he has not yet been among us. The Traders are in our country, to
trade for the skins of animals, which we take to them. Half of what they bring into
the country and sell to your children is lost to them. I am glad to see the Agent
here, who is to go into our country, & support our young men, women, & children.
“We wish to do justice to the half breeds, who have been brought up among
us, by having them provided for.
Sha-go-bai (The Little Six). “My Father, I heard of you, when I was yet a young
man, a long time ago; & now I see you. I am frightened when you look at me. I
am startled when the wind comes rustling by; and the thunder cloud, tho’ I know
it will pass along without harming, alarms me.
“So it is, my father, when you talk to your children around you, of their lands;
which you wish to buy from them.
But I have great confidence in the Chiefs who are here, and others who are
coming. When they come to treat fully with you, we (pointing to the two men
standing beside him, & himself) will sit far off and listen. I spring from the same
stock with the people who stand behind you (white men — Sha-go-bai is a half breed)
and am related to all the half breeds in the country where I live.
“My Father. Look at the man who is standing near me. His, {0553} and my
ancestors, were the Chief Men of the Country, that you want to buy from us. The
Traders have raised our children, and we like them. I owe my life to the Traders,
*{2} alluding to the half-breeds
*{3}The common name of the Leech Lake Band
136
Chippewa Treaty Rights
who have supported us. Iam glad to see the Agent here who will live among us,
& give us tobacco when we want it”.
The Little Buffalo “My Father. Listen to what I am going to say to you. Let it
enter deeply into your ear, & upon your heart. Tho’ I may appear contemptible in
your sight; when I address the wariors of my tribe, they listen to me.
Nobody — no trader — has instructed me what to say to you. Those who have
spoken before me, have told you the truth; & I shall speak on the same subject. I
have been supported by the Trader; & without his aid, could not get through the
winter, with my naked skin. The grounds where your children have to hunt, are as
bare as that on which I now stand, & have no game upon them.
“My Father, I am glad to see you here, to embrace the Earth We are at a loss
to give anything to the Traders, as our lands and hunting grounds are so destitute —
do us a kindness, by paying our old debts. I have nothing more to say. You are
our Father, and we look up to, and respect you. I have come here and seen you,
and my heart is at peace. I have talked with my wariors & heard their words, &
my mind is tranquil”.
Flat Mouth, “My Father. Your eyes are upon me, & mine upon you. Wherever
I have been, the prints of the white mans hand’s have been left upon my own.
Yours are not the first that I have shaken. It is I and those men (pointing to The
Elder Brother, The Strong Ground and The Hole in the Day) that have brought
many of your children here. Their opinions are mine.
“My Ancestors were chiefs of their tribes and villages while they lived: I do not
however hold my title from them, but have derived it from my own acts and merits
“My Father. When I came here this morning, I supposed you wanted to talk to
us about the lands, you wish to get from us, and not about the Traders.
‘ ‘After the question about selling the land shall be settled — it will then be time
enough to talk about these Traders”.
“My Father. I shall not be backward in speaking of what you propose to us at
the proper time. Many of my people have told me to say so. But we can do nothing
until the other people arrive. We must listen to them. As I have told you before
after they shall speak I will say more.
The Hole in the day “My Father. He who is the Master of all hears me speak.
I know the Traders, & what has been their conduct. I know which of them are
good men, and those who are bad, and act like drunken men. When the other
people come I will speak again.
Rats Liver. ‘ ‘My Father I am but little accustomed to speaking, and am generally,
one of those who listen. Our Father here (the Agent) knows me, and is acquainted
with my character. If I wished to speak much, I should feel no shame for my
personal appearance — but this you may not wish to hear.
“We are talking about the land which you have come for — I have tread all over
it, with my war club in my hand. My ancestors and those of Pa-goona-kee-zhig
(The Hole in the Day) were the Chiefs and protectors of that country, and drove
the bad Indians (The Sioux) away from it.
“My Father It is only to you that I look and listen, & not to the bad birds that
are flying through the air. My own merit has brought me to the place which I
occupy to day; and I do not wish any body to push me forward as a speaker
“I have nothing to add now, but will say more when the business about the land
has been settled.”
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Que-me-shan-shee or Big Mouth, “My Father, What I am going to say to you;
is of not much consequence. I have smoked with some of my friends & have come
to tell you the result. After reflecting upon the subject we came to no definite
conclusion — but wish to do like those who have already spoken. We do not wish
to do any thing to injure the white people. My Father, all that has prevented us
from doing {0554} what you came here to have us do, is, that we have been waiting
for others of our people who we have expected here, and who we are afraid to
dissatisfy. I never before have spoken to Americans at any length; and fear My
Father, that you will think that I am drunk — but I have here (putting his hand to
his breast) a great deal of sense (intelligence) which I have obtained from the white
people. As soon the other people come, we will unfold our minds to you.
Sha-we-niq-wa-nabe. “My Father, What I have to say to you,
place it strongly to your heart. The Master of life, and The Spirit of the Earth listen
to us. The Master of life made the Earth, the grass and the trees that grow upon
it, and the animals that roam over it. When the Great spirit made the Earth, he
placed the Red Men upon it; & when the Chiefs were put upon it, it became very
strong. Some of these chiefs are now here, and others are coming. They do not
wish to act precipitately”.
Shing-go-be (The Spruce) “My Father, I shall speak but few words to you. It
is only I who can tell you the truth about the lands where I live. If you speak of
the lands yonder (pointing towards the country proposed to be purchased) I will
not talk foolishly about them here, in the midst of so many Indians. Altho’ only a
child, I speak at once into the middle of a subject, and you shall hear straight about
my lands, because I am the Master of them. After you shall have spoken to me
further about them, the Master of life will hear me answer you.
“My Father I could speak all day long in a loud tone of voice — but have nothing
further to say to you now
Mang-go-sit, (The Loons Foot) “My Father, I do not wish to say much to you.
You do not know who I am, & from whence I have sprung. I never speak at any
length; but it is not because I can not speak strong. I only wish to tell you now
who my Ancestors were. I am the son of Le Brocheux — one of the greatest chiefs
of our nation. I have given my thoughts before to your children who have spoken
to you — and I think before I speak.
“My Father, I will speak to you more when you know who I am. When I speak
to the Chiefs, I do not speak long, but to the point.
Ma-ge-go-be — after a long speech to the Indians & urging upon them to sell the
land; but before doing so, to press upon the Governor to give them presents, and
furnish them with more provisions — said
“My Father This is all your children have to say to you now, about the lands.
They are going to take a rest, and will then say more to you about them. Listen
My Father, to what I have said to your children & what they have answered. What
I am going to say to you now is to the purpose. The provisions that you have given
us, are not enough for us. We want those of another kind — some of the cattle on
the prairie. Our people do not cook properly what you have given them to eat. It
has made them sick, and they want you to give them something else that will cure
them.
The Wind, “My Father When I saw our Great Father, the President of the United
States he gave me sense. Listen to me, & let me tell you the truth. I listen to you,
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and accede to your purposes. You must not suppose that things will not be as you
wish. We are now arrangeing them to your liking. The Station of Chief is a very
difficult one to hold, but when I was made one by the President I thought I never
should be refused anything that I asked for. It is hard to hear our children crying
here for something to eat. When I have heard their cries in the dead of winter, I
have put on my belt and started off to look for it. Your look is so firm that I think
it would not be possible for you not to do what you wished to. You and I both
speak from what the President of the United States has told us. You have plenty
of every thing to eat around you, & can give us some of the cattle that are {0555}
upon the Prairie. At the treaty at Prairie du Chien, the case was as difficult as this.
The Great Chief then fed us well and gave us ninety head of cattle.
The Spruce. “My Father, I am not one who has asked for cattle to eat. You
have come too far to bring them with you. If you wish to give meat; give it to
those who want it-— I do not. Continue to give me what you have furnished to us
before”.
Governor Dodge, then directed the Interpreter to say to them that their father
(the Agent) would tell them whether he could get any cattle for them; that he wished
to see them again in council early tomorrow morning; that he was glad to hear their
friends would be here this evening; that the weather was now good, & they must
make up their minds as soon as they could; that he hoped the Chiefs & principal
men would see that their people kept on friendly terms, with the Sioux, & if any
difficulty occurred inform their Agent; that the Sioux & themselves had met here
as friends, & he wanted them to part so — And then Adjd. the Council until tomorrow.
Tuesday, July 25-
Govemor Dodge was advised at 10 O’ Clock this morning, that seventy Five or
Eighty Indians belonging to four or five different Bands, from Lakes, De Flambeau
and De Courtereille, and La Pointe &, accompanied by Mr. Bushnell the Sub-Agent
and a Mr. Warren a trader from La Pointe, had just arrived. These Gentlemen waited
upon Governor Dodge, immediately on their arrival & informed him, that the Indians
who had come with them would not be ready or willing to go into council with
him to day. At their suggestion therefore, and the solicitation of Mr. Warren, The
Governor postponed the meeting of the Council until 9 O’ Clock tomorrow morning.
Wednesday July 26*
On meeting in Council this morning, in addition to the Indians who have been
present heretofore, a large number of others appeared. The following are the bands,
to which they principally belong; and the names of their Chiefs.
Bands
From Lake De Flambeau.
Na-wa-ghe-wa, or “The Knee”.
O-ge-ma-ga, or “The Dandy”
Pa-se-quam-jis, or “The
Commissioner”, and Wa-be-ne-me-ke,
or “The White Thunder”
We-non-ga-be or “The Wounded
Man”, and Ke-wat-se, or The Old
Man
Chiefs
” Lake Coutereille,
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” La Pointe (on Lake Superior). Ghe-bish-ghe-e-kow, or “The
Buffalo and Ta-qua-ga-na or
“Joining Lodges”.
Governor Dodge directed that in the future proceedings in the Treaty, Stephen
Bouga, and Patrick Quin, should intrepret from the English language into Chippewa,
and Scott Campbell and Jean Batiste Dube, from Chippewa into English.
He then addressed the Indians thus:
“My Children of the Chippewa Nation assembled here.
“I have been informed, that since I last met you, your people, whose absence
had prevented the proceeding with our Councils, have arrived here.
“I wish now to learn from you, if this is the case, & whether you are ready to
proceed. I have before made a proposition to you — which those then present, have,
I presume, communicated to the others who have recently arrived, for the purchase
of a portion of your territory. You have defered giving me an answer until your
friends should arrive, and as I believe they are now all here, I will renew my
proposition to you; and will show you a map, explaining which part of your country
it is, that I wish to buy.
“I will now place the map before me, and wish the Chiefs and {0556} Principal
Men, and particularly those from that part of the country which I wish to purchase,
towit: Lakes De Flambeau, and Coutereille, and the Chippewa, S-. Croix, & Rum
Rivers &£, to come forward and examine it with me, as I direct it to be explained
to them. And after this examination, I wish you to inform me whether or not you
will sell the country to me.
Ghe-bish-ghe-e-kow, or “The Buffalo”, (from La Pointe), replied, “My Father.
We have come from a distance, and but lately arrived here, and what you have
proposed to us, we want more time to think about. The notice that you have given
us is rather too short. Let us wait another day, and tomorrow we will be able to
give you our answer’ ’ .
The Governor, directed it to be said to them, that they could examine the map
now & have it explained to them — consult among each other between this &
tomorrow morning, & be prepared then, to give him an answer; that he did not
wish to hurry them, but that he had already waited patiently for them during several
days, and was anxious to bring the business to a close as soon as possible; that he
would now be glad to hear any thing from any of the other Chiefs who might wish
to speak to him; & that if they desired it, he would remain there until sundown for
that purpose.
He then explained the map fully, to the Chiefs and principal men, and repeated
to them, that he had been informed, that the country which he wished to get from
them, was barren of game, and of little value for Agricultural purposes; but that it
abounded in Pine timber, for which, their Great Father the President of the United
States wished to buy it from them, for the use of his white children, & that he
would give them a fair price for it; that he wished them to understand the Map, &
to enable them to do so, had mentioned & pointed out to them natural boundaries
comencing at the mouth of Crow Wing River; thence to Lake SL Croix, thence to
the head waters of the Ouisconsin River, & down said river to the Plover portage
where the line dividing their Territory from the other Indians comenced; while on
the west the tract would be bounded by the Missisippi River; that he wished them
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Chippewa Treaty Rights
to be prepared to morrow morning, to tell him not only, whether or not they would
sell him the land, but their price for it; that he wished them all — but more particularly
those from that part of the country which he wished to buy, to go home satisfied;
so that when they met their people there, they might not be ashamed to tell them
what they had done; that so many bands of their nation, & from such remote parts
of it, had never before, he believed, met together, & that he wished them now to
advise with each other, and unite and act together, as one people; that he wished
the Chiefs and Wariors to consult together this evening, and select, out of their
number two Chiefs in whom they had confidence to speak for them; that he wished
to meet them all in council, but that not more than two of them should speak; that
this was done merely to save time, & that they could all consult together, and tell
the two speakers what to say to him; that altho’ they were of different bands, they
belonged to the same great nation, and their interests were in common; that he
wished them all to be satisfied with what should be done; that their Great Father
The President of the United States would be just towards them, & that they must
be just towards each other; that in their consultations he did not wish them to forget
their Half breed relatives and their traders, but to do them justice, also; and that
he would be glad now to hear whatever any of the Chiefs might have to say to him’ ’ .
Pay-a-jik, replied that those of the S^. Croix River band who had come in
yesterday had chosen him to speak for them, tho’ it had always been his custom
to sit quiet, and say but little; that he and his friends had talked together, and agreed
what to do.
After waiting half an hour or more & none of the other Chiefs or Wariors rising
to speak, The Governor again took occasion to urge upon the Indians how important
{0557} it was that during their stay here, they should keep quiet among each other,
and at perfect peace with the Sioux; that for one of them to strike a Sioux, or a
Sioux to strike one of them, might be productive of the greatest harm; that he
wished to impress this upon those who had lately arrived, as well as the others;
and that he hoped his views and wishes were now fully understood by them; that
if they were not, as they were now about to part until tomorrow morning, if they
would ask him any questions, he would give such further explanations, as might
be necessary.
Several of the chiefs came forward to ask some questions in regard to the map,
after which seeming to understand, & to be satisfied with it, and having nothing
further to say, The Governor adjd. the Council until Tomorrow Morning
Thursday Morning July 27. th
The Council met at 11. O’Clock A.M. and the map with the boundaries of the
country proposed to be purchased, was again fully explained to the Indians; when
Govr. Dodge inquired of them, through the Intrepeter, whether they were all satisfied
upon that point; whether the bands assembled here, were now, all represented in
council, by their Chiefs; whether they had selected speakers to speak for them, as
had been suggested to them yesterday — and if so, that they would designate them;
& that these speakers would now communicate their sentiments to him.
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They answered each of these questions, in the affirmative, & replied that they
had chosen Ma-ghe-ga-bo * *{4} or Latrappe, and Pa-goo-na-kee-zhig (The Hole-in-
The Day) to speak for them on this occasion.
Ma-ghe-ga-bo then came forward in true Indian costume towit; naked, except as
to his leggings, breech cloth and flap; his full head of hair hanging loosely upon
his shoulders; a sort of crown upon his head, made for the occasion, & filled with
feathers of the Bald Eagle, placed there by the chiefs; and the medals of several
of the Chiefs hung round his neck. He advanced to the Governors table with his
War Flag, and planted it there, & then turned round and addressed the Indians at
considerable length. Pa-goo-na-kee-zhig followed him in an address to the Indians.
Ma-ghe-ga-bo, then, with the map before him and his finger pointing to it, said
to the Governor
“My Father. This is the country which is the home of many of your children. I
have covered it with a paper (he had done so) and so soon as I remove that paper,
the land shall be yours. But should the Wind blow it off, that shall not make it so.
I have listened closely to the words that the Chiefs have told me to say to you.
“My Father, when we first met here, we smoked and shook hands and talked
together. Four times we have gone through the same ceremony, and now on the
fifth, we have come to give you our answer. I stand here to represent the Chiefs
of the different bands of my nation assembled here, & to tell you of their detir-
mination, to sell to you the lands that you want of them.
“My Father, Listen to me. Of all the country that we grant you we wish to hold
on to a tree where we get our living, & to reserve the streams where we drink the
waters that give us life *{5}. I have but few words to say, but they are those of the
Chiefs, and very important. What I am now going to say to you, is a kind of history
of our Chiefs. The Being that created us, made us naked, He created you and your
people with knowledge and power to get a living. Not so with us; we had to cover
ourselves with moss and rotten wood; & you must be merciful to us. The Chiefs
will now show you the tree we want to reserve. This is it (placing an oak sprig
upon the Table near the map). It is a different kind of tree from the one you wish
to get from us. Every time the leaves fall from it, we will count it as one winter
past.’’ {0558}
“My Father, In regard to the lands that you have spoken to us about, you have
told us what you want, & I answer you in the name of the Chiefs. I am no Chief,
but a Warior; & the badge that I wear, is not a mark of my bad conduct, but to
make myself respected by my people.
“We have understood you will pay us in goods and money for our lands, and
we want to know now, what amount, you will give us for them’’.
GovL Dodge — through the Intrepeter — “As the land belongs to them, I want
them to say, what they wish me to pay them, for it. If they can not come to a
conclusion upon this point among themselves, I would recommend to them, to ask
the aid of Their Father’s (the Sub Agents, Messrs. Vineyard and Bushnell) to assist
them. But if they can determine among themselves, let them do so.
*{4} A War Chief the same who killed Govr. {Robert} Semple
*{5} This of course is nonsense — but is given literally as rendered by the Intrepeters, who are unfit to act
in that capacity. I presume it to mean that the Indians wish to reserve the privilege of hunting & fishing
on the lands and making sugar from the Maple
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Chippewa Treaty Rights
Ma-ghe-ga-bo “My Father. If you offer us money and goods we will take both.
You see me count upon my fingers (counting six) Every finger counts ten. For so
many years we wish you to secure to us the payment of an anuity. At the end of
that time our grand children who will have grown up, can speak to you for themselves.
“We will consult with our Fathers (The Sub-Agents) and ask them what will be
the value of the land, and what we ought to ask for it, for sixty years* *{6}. My Father,
Take the lands that you want from us. Our Chiefs have good hearts. Our women
have brought the half breeds among us. They are poor, and we wish them to be
provided for {illegible}. Some of them are here, and they have left many of their
children behind them. We wish to divide with them all. This is the decision of the
Chiefs.
“Since we have met here this morning we have fully made up our minds. We
have talked it over and over again among ourselves — and we accept your proposition.
“My Father, we will not look back at what has transpired heretofore, but will
commence our business anew with you, from this day*{7}. What you propose to give
us, we wish to share only with the half breeds, that our people may enjoy the benefit
of it. We will hold firmly in our Arms what you give us, that no body may get it
from us”.
“My Father. We once more recomend our half breeds to your kindness. They
are very numerous. We wish you to select a place for them on this River, where
they may live and raise their children, and have their joys of life. If I have rightly
understood you, we can remain on the lands and hunt there. We have heretofore
got our living on them. We hope that your people will not act towards ours, as
your forefathers did towards our own — but that you will always treat us kindly, as
you do now.
“My Father. We understand you, that you have been told our country is not
good to cultivate. It is false. There is no better soil to cultivate than it, until you
get up, to where the Pine region commences.
“My Father. You will now see All your Children in whose behalf I speak. All
the Chiefs who agree to selling you the land will now rise” [They did so to the
number of Thirty, and upwards]
Ma-ghe-ga-bo then raised the paper that he had placed over the Map, took
Governor Dodge by the hand and continued
“My Father, I will not let go your hand ’till I count the number of our villages.
The Great Spirit first made the Earth thin, but now it is much heavier*{8}. We do
not wish to disappoint you and our Great Father (The President of The United
States) in the object you had in coming here. We therefore grant you the country,
which you want from us; and your Children, the Chiefs that represent all the villages
within its limits, are now present. The number of villages (Nineteen) is marked on
this paper, and I present it to you in acknowledgement that we grant you the land.
This piece (retaining in his hand another piece of paper,) we will keep, because
we wish to say something more, on it. At the Conclusion of this Treaty you will
ask us to touch the quill*{9}; but no doubt you will grant what we ask, before we
*{6} What anuity
*{7} forgetting what has been said before, and alluding to the Traders
*{8> meaning, it was of little value, — but has now become much more so.
*<9} sign the Treaty
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do so. At the End of the Treaty, I will respect what the Chiefs have to say to you,
& keep this paper for that purpose. {0559} My Father The Great Spirit has given
us a clear sky to talk together today. We must now rest awhile, and when we meet
again, we will speak further”.
Governor Dodge. “Do you wish to give me your answer this evening, or to wait
until tomorrow morning”.
Answer. “Tomorrow morning, and we will consult this evening with our two
Fathers (Messrs Vineyard & Bushnell)
Governor Dodge. “It is proper for me to explain to you that your Great Father,
never buys land for a term of years. I will agree on the part of the President, that
you shall have the free use of the rivers, and the privilege of hunting upon the
lands you are to sell to the United States, during his pleasure. If you sell these
lands, you must sell them as all the other nations of Indians have done; & I tell
you this now, that you may not, hereafter, say I have deceived you. Your Great
Father has sent me to treat you as his children; to pay you the value of your land;
& not to deceive you in any thing I may do with you, or say to you. If you had
determined upon asking the assistance of your two Fathers (The Sub-Agents) of
arriving at a conclusion in regard to the value of your lands, it is my wish, as well
as that of your Great Father at Washington, that they shall do you justice. You
have spoken frequently of your half breed relations. It is a good principle in you,
to wish to provide for them. But you must do so in money, and can not give them
land. You have mentioned your wishes to receive one half of the consideration that
I may agree to give you for your lands, in goods, & the other half in money.
I do not object to this, but have a proposition to make to you now, which I wish
you to consider. Your Great Father recomends to you, that you take from year to
year the following items in part payment for your lands, towit: certain sums of
money, to provide for Teachers to educate your children, & make them wise like
those of the white people; for Farmers, and Instructors in Agricultural pursuits; for
Agricultural implements, and seeds to plant in the Earth; for Provisions, and salt;
for tobacco; for Blacksmiths, Iron and Steele &c; and for Mills and Millers to grind
your com, and other grain that you may raise. You will determine, whether you
will accede to this proposition, and after consulting with your Fathers (The Sub-
Agents) let me know what amount you wish me to pay you, for your lands; and I
will be glad to meet you in council at an early hour tomorrow Morning”.
The Governor then Adjl the Council.
Friday Morning July 28*
The Council met at 12 O’Clock N.
Governor Dodge said to the Indians “My Friends, I have met you in council this
morning to hear your answer to the proposition I made to you yesterday. I now
wish to know if you have made up your minds; and who will speak for you to day.
I am ready to hear you”
Aish-ke-bo-gi-ko-zhe (Flat Mouth) with many of the Chiefs came forward, and
all shook hands with the Governor, the Secretary, & the Agents; after which Flat
Mouth spoke thus —
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Chippewa Treaty Rights
“My Father. What I am going to say, is not the expression of my own will, but
that of the Chiefs present. I did not know when I started to come here this morning,
that they wished me to speak for them; but I have learned their wishes, since I
came here. It is hard for me to say — but it is the wish of the Chiefs, that I should
speak to you; & they have appointed me to do so.”
“My Father. Your children are willing to let you have their lands, but they wish
to reserve the privilege of making sugar from the trees, and getting their living
from the Lakes and Rivers, {0560} as they have done heretofore, and of remaining
in this Country. It is hard to give up the lands. They will remain, and can not be
destroyed — but you may cut down the Trees, and others will grow up. You know
we can not live, deprived of our Lakes and Rivers; There is some game on the
lands yet; & for that reason also, we wish to remain upon them, to get a living.
Sometimes we scrape the Trees and eat of the bark. The Great Spirit above, made
the Earth, and causes it to produce, which enables us to live.
“My Father. We would have detirmined long ago to let you have these lands;
but when we have agreed upon any point, there have been people to whisper in
our ears, and trouble and distract us. What the Chiefs said yesterday they abide
by. They can not look back and change.
“My Father. The Great Spirit above, placed us on this land; and we want some
benefit from the sale of it. If we could derive none, we would not sell it; and we
want that benefit ourselves. I did not intend to speak. What I say is the language
of the Chiefs. They came to me, and asked me to speak for them. I will soon be
through. I was not in council yesterday because I was not well. I have heard many
things said — That we were going to put out the fires of the white people in our
country, that we were going to send the Traders out of it, & so forth. But I know
nothing of it; and when I speak it is not with sugar in my mouth.
“My Father. Your Children are rejoiced to day to see the Agents here, one of
whom is to live on Lake Superior, and the other on the Missisippi, to keep peace
in the country. We are pleased too that our Agents are here, that they may estimate
the value of our lands, that our Young men, women, & children, may go home,
with their hearts at ease. We will wait to hear what you offer to give us for the
lands, & will then make you our answer.
We will depend upon our two Fathers (Agents) to interest themselves for us; and
will submit it to them, whether, what you offer us is enough. Yesterday when I
came down after the Council, to see you, & told you I was going home, you asked
me to wait; but I did not then know that I should be asked to speak to day — and
I never wish to hide any thing, when I do so”.
“This is all I have to say now; but I may have omitted something — and some one
else may wish to speak to you. Wait a few moments, to afford them an opportunity
to do this; & then we will wait for your offer. I have spoken my sentiments openly
to the Americans now here, as I would do to all of them, and to the English, the
French, and the people of all other nations.
“My Father. The reason of my telling you yesterday that I was going home,
arose from the many reports going back & forth, which I was tired of hearing —
and not from any desire to mortify your feelings, or out of disrespect to you. I now
give way, as some of your other Children may wish to speak to you”.
After an interval of a few minutes Flat Mouth again advanced, and said
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“My Father. I came forward again to speak to you. There are many of your
children here from a distance, and among them, one of my relations, who I have
just seen. They wish me to speak to you, for them. Three of them, are Chiefs from
the Chippewa River; & what they say, is the opinion & wish of the people living
there. So, they tell me, to say to you. They have granted a privilege to some men,
of cutting timber on some of their lands; for which they are paid in Tobacco, &
ammunition, for hunting. They wish you not to break their word with these people —
but to allow them to continue to cut Timber. They have granted you all you asked
of them — & they wish you now to grant their request”.
Governor Dodge “My Friends. I have listened with great attention, to your Chief,
from Leech Lake. I will make known to your Great Father, your request to be
permitted to make sugar, on the lands; and you will be allowed, during his pleasure,
to hunt and fish on them. It will probably be many years, before your Great Father
will want all these lands for the use of his white Children. As you have asked me
what I will give you for the country, I will now tell you; & will recommend to
you, the manner in which I think it ought to be paid to you. {0561} In full consid¬
eration for that part of your country which I wish to buy from you, I offer you the
sum of Eight hundred Thousand Dollars ($800,000). I propose to give you an
annuity for Twenty years, of $20,000 (Twenty thousand dollars) a year, in goods
and money, one half in each — or all in goods, if you choose; To apply $3000
dollars a year for the same length of time, for providing you with Three Blacksmiths
with their shops & implements, of labor, to be placed at different points in your
country — -for Provisions and Cattle $4000 dolls a year — for building Mills, and
paying Millers to attend them 2000 dollars a year — For Agricultural Implements — -
hoes, ploughs &£ & Farmers to teach you how to cultivate your lands 1000 dolls
a year — for schools, in which your Children may be taught to read and write like
the whites, 1000 a year — & for Tobacco 500 dolls a year for 20 years.
‘ ‘These are the provisions I propose to make for you. The matter will be submitted
to your Fathers (The Sub-Agents) who you have chosen, to consult with, in regard
to it. As you have spoken of your half breed relatives, I wish each band of your
nation assembled here, to name to me, all the half breeds connected with it; and I
will recommend to you, as an act of benevolence, to donate to them, the sum of
$100,000. 1 will also recomend that you pay your creditors, such amounts, as, upon
examination, may be found justly due to them — & that the sum of $70,000 be
applied to that purpose. These different sums will make up the amount of 800,000
dolls. This paper will now be submitted to your Agents for their consideration, &
if you detirmine that your Creditors shall be paid, you had better let them take then-
accounts also, and let them be settled up to this date.
Aish-ke-bo-ge-ko-zhe (Flat Mouth) “My Father. I rise once more to speak to
you. We have listened to what you have said to us, & I am requested by the Chiefs
to reply. You have mentioned the different sums you will pay us, and have spoken
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Chippewa Treaty Rights
of our creditors. My Father. I wish the lands we are selling to day were mine! If
the accounts of the Traders ought to be paid, why will not our Great Father help
us to do it? Many of those of our people who owed them, are perhaps long since
dead. Your children are rejoiced at the amounts which you have mentioned you
would pay them; But wish you to appropriate the sums, that you have proposed to
apply for them in Cattle and schools, to the purchase of goods also.
“My Father. Your Children wish that all the different sums be paid to themselves,
and they will hold closely onto them. As to the payments to the Traders, we will
look to our Great Father for his assistance. My Father. If it was my land you was
buying, I would, instead of an annuity for only 20 years — demand one from you,
as long as the ground lasted. You know that without the lands, and the Rivers &
Lakes, we could not live. We hunt, and make Sugar, & dig roots upon the former,
while we fish, and obtain Rice, and drink from the latter
“My Father. Those in whose behalf I speak, wish you to supply them with goods
also, instead of the Mills, that you have proposed to provide for them. They now
understand the different sums as you have set them apart’ ’ .
Governor Dodge. “I only make the recomendation to you, in regards to your
half breed relatives, and The Traders, as an act of kindness to the former, and of
justice to the latter. But it is for you to say how it shall be. The whole amount,
including the 100,000 dollars proposed to be given to the half breeds, & the 70,000
to be paid to the Traders, will be yours, to dispose of, as you shall direct, on
consulting among each other — & with your Agents.
Flat Mouth. “My Father. Had I known that such matters would occur as have
take place here, I should never have come. If I had thought that these old accounts
were to be brought up against us, I would have stayed away.
“My Father. Where are our young men, that have hunted {0562} for these
Traders — and supplied them with their Furs? They have, when upon their hunting
excursions for them, been killed off by the Sioux — and swept away. Where have
they got the Fish that they have eaten, and the wood that they have burned? They
were caught from our Lakes, & Rivers, and taken from our Land — And they talk
to us about paying them our debts!
“My Father. If I were to repeat all that has occurred for many years back, since
the Traders have been among us, I should have a long story to tell. What I now
say to you, expresses the wishes and sentiments of my friends and relations, who
are here. The lands to be sold are not mine. I have no claim to them. I live here
like a beggar on charity. They divide with me, what they have to eat.
“My Father. I never look back, and will hold to what I have said to you.
Govi. Dodge. “My Friends If you have nothing further to say now, we will
adjourn to meet again early tomorrow, when I shall be fully prepared, & I wish
you to be so, to finish our business — And then the Govr. Adjl the Council.
Saturday Morning July 29*
The Council met at 12 O’Clock N.
Govr. Dodge said to the Indians
“My Friends. When the council adjourned yesterday you had selected your two
Fathers (The Sub-Agents) to examine for you into the amount, which I have offered
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to give you for your country, and the manner of its payment. I have confered with
these two gentlemen, and they agree that the amount offered is a fair price for the
lands, and approve of the arrangement which I propose in relation to the payments.
“There is one subject which it is necessary for you now to detirmine upon. It
is, whether you will make any donation to your half breed relatives; & if so, how
it shall be paid to them.
“I submit that matter to you for your consideration, and will wait until you
decide upon it”.
The Chiefs sat down to council together, and a few minutes there-after, a large
number of Braves, or Wariors, approached the council Lodge, singing and dancing,
with their war flag flying, & in their war costume — but without arms. They were
accompanied by two or three chiefs, and on entering the CounciT{10}, Sha-go-bai
(The Little Six) advanced to Governor Dodge and spoke thus.
“My Father. I address myself to you, and wish you to repeat my words to our
Great Father at Washington.
“We are the Braves of our different bands assembled here, and we wish to say
something to you. It is your desire, as we have understood you, and from our
fathers here (the Sub-Agents) that the people here should all go home satisfied. The
Braves of the different bfonds have smoked and talked together. You now see them
all before you. They have not come here to undo what our Chiefs have done — but
to ask a favor of you. They take you by the hand, and would like to see your wish
accomplished, that all should return home in peace. But they are afraid to return
home, if their traders are not paid. They fear they should not survive during the
winter without their aid. It is the wish of the Braves that you should pay the Traders;
but they do not want to undo what the Chiefs have done.
“My Father. You see your children that are here. They are many. But they are
only a small portion of their whole nation.
“They wish you to give them something more, than you have offered them for
their lands. They think it is not quite enough. You have established two agencies,
one here, and the other at the Sault de SL Mary. It is now more than Twenty years
since you have assisted your children at these places. But those {0563} now before
you, have never gone to either of them to beg. My Father. You come now to buy
our lands from us; & why do you offer us so little for them. The speaker who told
you that we ought ought to be paid for them for sixty years, expressed our opinions.
This is the wish of all the Braves here. If you will accede to what has been mentioned
in regard to the Traders, they will come forward and “touch the pen” (sign the
Treaty). We have told you what we want, and after hearing what is to be granted
to us, we will go, & prepare to return home.
“My Father. What I have spoken to you, is the wish of the Braves before you.
If you agree to what they propose they will be ready to take you by the hand and
close the bargain. If not, they will retire and go home peaceably. They will now
wait your answer”.
Governor Dodge, to Shag-o-bai. “Would the sum of Seventy Thousand Dollars,
applied to paying all the demands of the Traders against you, satisfy you all”?
*{10> Sha-go-bai is a petty chief, and placed himself at the head of the Braves as a peace maker; to
conciliate both them and the Chiefs
148
Chippewa Treaty Rights
Shag-o-ba, after consulting with the Braves, and several of the Chiefs, answered
that it would satisfy them.
Governor Dodge to the Intrepeter “Say to the Chiefs that I have listened to the
words of the Braves, and it is to them (the Chiefs) that I now speak. It is the wish
of the Braves it appears, that their Traders should be paid. The sum of 70.000
dollars, it is believed will cover all their just demands; & they ask that that amount
shall be paid to them. I want them to be satisfied. I wish all to be satisfied, that
they may take each other strongly by the hand. To reconcile all, I will agree to
pay the seventy Thousand Dollars, in addition to what I have already offered them
for their lands — and that is all I will give them. I want now to hear what they have
to say upon that subject”.
The Hole-in-The Day — evidently under high excitement first addressing himself
to the Chiefs said! “Chiefs what we agreed and determined upon yesterday; shall
consent to undo, when my head is severed from my body and my life no more —
We must abide by it, firmly”.
“Braves! There are many of you — but none of you have done what I have —
nor are any of you my equals!! — Our Father wishes us to go home in peace.” Then
turning ’round and addressing the Governor, he proceeded,
“My Father, Listen to me — my words shall be few. What the braves have come
and told you must be true, & should be listened to. The Great Spirit who placed
us on this Earth hears both you and me. He put us upon it to live. Yesterday in
council The Chiefs told you what they would do. They are perfectly content with
that arrangement, & they abide by it to day.
“Death alone shall prevent the fulfilment of it on my part; And I call the Great
Being to witness what I say. We agree to what has just been done, & are satisfied
with it”
“My Father. The country that we are selling to you is not land that we have
borrowed, but that has descended to us from our forefather. The Chiefs now before
you are the descendants of those who occupied it many years ago; and some of
them live upon the lands we are selling you. They are now all satisfied with what
you proposed to them, to day as well yesterday — and the Great Spirit hears it”.
Governor Dodge “Chiefs and Braves, I am much pleased to hear that you are
all satisfied. You are brethren of the same great Nation. I met you at peace, and
want you to be so, when I part from you. I hope the most friendly understanding
will continue to exist between the Chiefs and Braves, as well as between them both
and their Traders.
“It is the duty of the Braves to be obedient to their Chiefs (applause from the
Indians). They should listen to them in peace, and obey them in War. Both Chiefs
& Braves should respect the Traders and treat them justly and kindly, that harmony
and good feeling {0564} may exist among you all; & that you may be serviceable
to each other.”
Sha-go-ba (The Little Six) “My Father. Your children have listened to you. You
have done what is good for us. We know you came here to do what was right, and
to keep peace. It is our duty to encourage others to be upright and act justly. I
speak to you the sentiments of both the chiefs and the Braves.
“My Father Listen now to what they have told me to say to you. It has reference
to one of our traders. You came here to do good, and allay bad feelings. I came
here this morning with my Braves, and asked a favor for the Traders, which has
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts & Letters
been granted. Let them now give us, our friend who they have in Jail*{11}. (a loud
response of assent from the Indians)
Governor Dodge, to the Intrepeter, “Say to them that their friend is in the hands
of our Laws, and of their Great Father The President of the United States — That
neither I or the Traders have any power over him — That he will be judged by the
Laws, & his case then submitted to the President, who will do him justice.
Shag-o-bai. “My Father. I speak to you again at the request of the Chiefs and
Braves. We do not know whether you have a control over all the Traders; but we
wish you to aid us, by speaking to them in our favor, as you have done to us, in
theirs. There are some of them who have dealt severely with us”.
Governor Dodge. “It is my duty in the relation in which I stand to you, to see
justice done to you, and so far as it is in my power, I will do it in all things.
I hope the Traders will have a proper respect for your rights & that you will
respect those of the Traders. We are now done with that subject, & I wish to know
your decision with regard to the half breeds.
Son-ga-ko-mik (The Strong Ground. “My Father. We are now bringing to a
close what we have been so long talking about. In regard to the Half Breeds you
will be answered by some other Chief. I speak upon another subject. Look at your
Children My Father, & notice their clothing. At the end of the year we wish you
to bring such articles for us. We do not know the value or use of money, & don’t
want it. See our women too, & the Articles they wear, & bring such for them.
Kettles are very useful to our people and you must not forget them. With guns we
get our living, & them you must remember’’.
It was intimated by some of the other Chiefs that they would prefer to receive,
a part of their annuity in money.
Pe-The-ke (The Buffalo from La Pointe) “My Father, you have come here and got
all your children together as if you wished to embrace and treat them kindly. We
approve of what was said and done yesterday, in regard to the half breeds. I am
an Indian and do not know the value of money, but the half breeds do, for which
reason we wish you to pay them their share in money. You have good judgment
in whatever you do, and if you do not act yourself, you will appoint some one else
to didide it between the half breeds.
“We wish you to do this; for if they. were to divide it themselves they might
cheat each other. But if you appoint some one to do it, it will be fairly done. It
will be as you please. You will either direct it to be done by our two fathers (the
sub-agents) or whoever else you may choose. I have good reasons for saying to
you, what I have just said; for at a certain Treaty held heretofore, there were some
got rich, while others received nothing’’.
Governor Dodge. “My Friends What you have said shall be considered; and
your wishes attended to. It will now take some two or three hours to prepare the
Treaty & have copies made of it, when I wish you to meet me here again, {0565}
will read it by articles, so that every word may be clearly conveyed and understood
by you. Three copies of the Treaty are prepared, of which one will be sent to your
Great Father The President of the United States, for him to keep, one delivered to
yourselves, and the other kept by me’’.
*{,1} A son of one of the Traders was killed a short time since by an Indian, who is now in confinement
at Prarie-du-Chien awaiting his trial
150
Chippewa Treaty Rights
The Secretary then read The Treaty in the following words:
“Articles of a Treaty made and concluded at Si. Peters (the confluence of the
Si. Peters and Missisippi Rivers) in the Territory of Wisconsin, between the United
States of America, by their Comissionor Henry Dodge, Governor of said Territory,
and The Chippewa Nation of Indians, by their Chiefs and Head Men.”
“Article 1. The Chippewa Nation cede to the United States all that Tract of
country included within the following boundaries: Beginning at the junction of the
Crow Wing and Missisippi Rivers betwenty and Thirty miles above where the
Missisippi is crossed by the Forty Sixth parallel of North Latitude, and running
thence to the North point of Lake SL Croix one of the sources of the SL Croix
River; thence to and along the dividing Ridge between the Waters of Lake Superior
& those of the Missisippi to the sourcess of the Ocha, Sua Sepe, a tributary of the
Chippewa River; thence to a point on the Chippewa River Twenty miles below the
out-let of Lake De Flambeau; thence to the junction of the Wisconsin and the
Pelican Rivers; thence on an East course Twenty Five Miles; thence Southerly, on
a course parallel with that of the Wisconsin River, to the line dividing the Territories
of the Chippewas and Menomines; thence to the Plover Portage; thence along the
southern boundary of the Chippewa Country, to the comencement of the boundary
line dividing it from that of the Sioux half a days march below the Falls on the
Chippewa River; thence with said boundary line to the mouth of Wah-tap River at
its junction with the Missisippi; & thence up the Missisippi to the place of beginning.”
“Article 2. In consideration of the cession aforesaid the United States agree to
make to the Chippewa Nation annually for the term of Twenty years, from the date
of the ratification of this Treaty, the following payments. 1. Nine Thousand Five
Hundred Dollars to be paid in Money.
2. Nineteen thousand dollars, to be delivered in goods.
3. Three Thousand dollars for establishing three Black Smiths shops, supporting
the Black Smiths, & furnishing them with Iron and Steel. 4. One Thousand Dollars
for Farmers, and for supplying them and the Indians, with Implements of labor,
with grain or seed; & whatever else may be necessary to enable them to carry on
their Agricultural pursuits.”
5. “Two Thousand Dollars in Provisions.”
6. “Five Hundred Dollars in Tobacco.”
“The Provisions and Tobacco to be delivered at the same time with the goods and
money to be paid, which time or times, as well as the place or places where they
are to be delivered, shall l?e fixed upon under the direction of the President of the
United States.”
“The Black Smiths Shops to be placed at such points in the Chippewa Country
as shall be designated by the Superintendant of Indian Affairs, or under his direction.
“If at the expiration of one or more years, the Indians should prefer to receive
goods, instead of the Nine Thousand Dollars, agreed to paid to them in money,
they shall be at liberty to do so. Or, should they conclude to appropriate a portion
of that Annuity to the establishment of a school, or schools among them, this shall
be granted them”.
Article 3. The Sum of One hundred thousand dollars shall be paid by the United
States to the Half Breeds of the Chippewa Nation under the direction of the President.
It is the wish of the Indians that their two Sub-Agents Daniel P. Bushnell and Miles
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
M. Vineyard super- {0567}intend the distribution of this money among their half
breed relations”:
Article 4. The sum of Seventy Thousand Dollars shall be applied to the payment,
by the United States of certain claims against the Indians; of which amount Twenty
Eight Thousand Dollars shall at their request be paid to William A. Ailkin; Twenty
Five Thousand to Lyman M. Warren, & the ballance applied to the liquidation of
other just demands against them — which they acknowledge to be the case with
regard to that presented by Hercules L. Dousman, & they request that it be paid”
Article 5. The privilege of hunting, fishing, & gathering the wild rice, upon the
Lands, The Rivers and The Lakes included in the territory ceded, is guarantied to
the Indians, during the pleasure of the President of the United States.
Article 6. This Treaty shall be obligatory from and after its ratification by the
President and Senate of the United States”
“Done at Si. Peters in the Territory of Wisconsin the Twenty Ninth day of July,
Eighteen hundred and Thirty seven. ”{0566 — Note: frames 0566 and 0567 are trans¬
posed on the microfilm.}
The Treaty was then signed by Governor Dodge (and great eagerness was evinced
by the Indians to see him do so — some of them declining to sign it, until he had,
to satisfy them, run the pen a second time over his name) when it received the
signatures of between Forty and Fifty of The Chiefs, Head Men, & Wariors present,
with the names of some Twenty witnesses appended, and was concluded.
The Indians having declined to name a Chief to whom their copy of the Treaty
should be delivered for safe keeping, Governor Dodge addressed them as follows:
“Chiefs and Wariors: I have asked you to name one of the number of your
Chiefs, who should take your copy of the Treaty which we have just signed, &
keep it safely as a sacred instrument. You decline to do so, & it becomes necessary
and proper, for me to name one. I will hand it to the man who was the first among
you to give it his signature*. Note [*Many of the other and older Chiefs, evincing a
reluctance, & hesitating to step forward, Pa-goona-kee-zhig, or The Hole in The
Day, did so promptly, with his characteristic intrepidity, offered his signature to
the Treaty.] He is to keep it for all your people to look at, and know what it is;
and each of your Agents will be supplied also with copies.
“My Friends I regret that on parting with you after our long conference, I have
not Medals to give to all of your Chiefs, and Flags to all of your Bands. Your
conduct on this occasion, marked throughout by the utmost decorum propiety, and
good sense, well merits something of the kind. But you shall have them when your
first annuity is paid to you. These Medals & Flags have to come from your Great
Father at Washington.
“I will see him soon, and he will furnish me with them for you. I am very sorry
too, that I have not more presents to make you. All the ammunition that I have is
10 Kegs of Powder; and 900 lbs. of Lead to be given to the Chiefs, to distribute
among the Braves & Wariors of the different Bands. The small amount of goods,
which I have, will be fairly distributed through the different Bands. & I wish there
were many more of them. Supplies of provisions to take you home, will be im¬
mediately procured, and apportioned equitably among you by your Agents. I will
remain here a day or two longer, to see that all that can be done for you now, is
properly arranged.
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Chippewa Treaty Rights
“We are now about to part my friends, and it may be some time before we meet
again. I expect however to make an excursion through your country next summer
when I hope I shall meet many of you. I will recomend you to your Great Father
the President, as a good people, who deserve the confidence and friendship of Our
Government. And although you are far away from him, and scattered over a great
extent of country, he will often think of you, and never forget you. I trust you will
now return peaceably to your homes, and not shed the blood of any man. I hope
to hear that you have made no attack upon others, unless first attacked yourselves,
& in self defence. I repeat to you, that if any of the Sioux strike you, or you them,
the blow will fall upon me and your Great Father the President, at the same time.
They have been told not to molest you, and you have shaken hands with them in
friendship.
“I trust that on parting from each other, you will strengthen the grasp, and let
it be a pledge of perpetual peace among you.
“Your Great Father will see the Sioux, in a short time, at Washington, & will
tell them, from his own mouth, that they must live in peace. He is determined that
the hands of his Red Children shall no longer be stained with the blood of each
other.
“I recommend to you, to listen closely to the words, and to be governed in your
conduct by the advice, of your two Fathers (The (Sub Agents). They have been
selected by your Great Father to be your friends, & I know they will tell you the
truth, & advise you for your own good.
“The Treaty which we have now made will bring us oftener together hereafter,
and I hope always, as friends” — And then the Governor adjd. the Council Sine
Die. {0568}
153
Appendix 2
Treaty With the Chippewa, 1837
Articles of a treaty made and concluded at St. Peters ( the confluence of the St.
Peters and Mississippi rivers) in the Territory of Wisconsin, between the United
States of America, by their commissioner, Henry Dodge, Governor of said Ter¬
ritory, and the Chippewa nation of Indians, by their chiefs and headmen.
Article 1 . The said Chippewa nation cede to the United States all that tract of
country included within the following boundaries:
Beginning at the junction of the Crow Wing and Mississippi rivers, between
twenty and thirty miles above where the Mississippi is crossed by the forty-sixth
parallel of north latitude, and running thence to the north point of Lake St. Croix,
one of the sources of the St. Croix river; thence to and along the dividing ridge
between the waters of Lake Superior and those of the Mississippi, to the sources
of the Ocha-sua-sepe a tributary of the Chippewa river; thence to a point on the
Chippewa river, twenty miles below the outlet of Lake De Flambeau; thence to the
junction of the Wisconsin and Pelican rivers; thence on an east course twenty-five
miles; thence southerly, on a course parallel with that of the Wisconsin river, to
the line dividing the territories of the Chippewas and Menomonies; thence to the
Plover Portage; thence along the southern boundary of the Chippewa country, to
the commencement of the boundary line dividing it from that of the Sioux, half a
days march below the falls on the Chippewa river; thence with said boundary line
to the mouth of Wah-tap river, at its junction with the Mississippi; and thence up
the Mississippi to the place of beginning. {491}
Article 2. In consideration of the cession aforesaid, the United States agree to
make to the Chippewa nation, annually, for the term of twenty years, from the date
of the ratification of this treaty, the following payments.
1. Nine thousand five hundred dollars, to be paid in money.
2. Nineteen thousand dollars, to be delivered in goods.
3. Three thousand dollars for establishing three blacksmiths shops, supporting
the blacksmiths, and furnishing them with iron and steel.
4. One thousand dollars for farmers, and for supplying them and the Indians,
with implements of labor, with grain or seed; and whatever else may be necessary
to enable them to carry on their agricultural pursuits.
5. Two thousand dollars in provisions.
6. Five hundred dollars in tobacco.
The provisions and tobacco to be delivered at the same time with the goods, and
the money to be paid; which time or times, as well as the place or places where
they are to be delivered, shall be fixed upon under the direction of the President
of the United States.
The blacksmiths shops to be placed at such points in the Chippewa country as
shall be designated by the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, or under his direction.
If at the expiration of one or more years the Indians should prefer to receive
goods, instead of the nine thousand dollars agreed to be paid to them in money,
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
they shall be at liberty to do so. Or, should they conclude to appropriate a portion
of that annuity to the establishment and support of a school or schools among them,
this shall be granted them.
Article 3. The sum of one hundred thousand dollars shall be paid by the United
States, to the half-breeds of the Chippewa nation, under the direction of the Pres¬
ident. It is the wish of the Indians that their two sub-agents Daniel P. Bushnell,
and Miles M. Vineyard, superintend the distribution of this money among their
half-breed relations.
Article 4. The sum of seventy thousand dollars shall be applied to the payment,
by the United States, of certain claims against the Indians; of which amount twenty-
eight thousand dollars shall, at their request, be paid to William A. Aitkin, twenty-
five thousand to Lyman M. Warren, and the balance applied to the liquidation of
other just demands against them- which they acknowledge to be the case with regard
to that presented by Hercules L. Dousman, for the sum of five thousand dollars;
and they request that it be paid.
Article 5. The privilege of hunting, fishing, and gathering the wild rice, upon
the lands, the rivers and the lakes included in the territory ceded, is guarantied to
the Indians, during the pleasure of the President of the United States.
Article 6. This treaty shall be obligatory from and after its ratification by the
President and Senate of the United States.
Done at St. Peters in the Territory of Wisconsin the twenty-ninth day of July
eighteen hundred and thirty- seven.
Henry Dodge, Commissioner.
From Leech lake:
Aish-ke-bo-ge-koshe, or Fiat Mouth,
R-che-o-sau-ya, or the Elder Brother.
Chiefs.
Pe-zhe-kins, the Young Buffalo,
Ma-ghe-ga-bo, or La Trappe,
O-be-gwa-dans, the Chief of the Earth,
Wa-bose, or the Rabbit,
Che-a-na-quod, or the Big Cloud.
Warriors.
From Gull lake and Swan river:
Pa-goo-na-kee-zhig, or the Hole in the
Day,
Songa-ko-mig, or the Strong Ground.
Chiefs.
Wa-boo-jig, or the White Fisher,
Ma-cou-da, or the Bear’s Heart.
Warriors.
From St. Croix river:
Pe-zhe-ke, or the Buffalo,
Ka-be-ma-be, or the Wet Month.
Chiefs.
Pa-ga-we-we-wetung, Coming Home
Hollowing,
Ya-banse, or the Young Buck,
Kis-ke-ta-wak, or the Cut Ear.
Warriors. {492}
From Lake Courteoville:
Pa-qua-a-mo, or the Wood Pecker.
Chief.
From Lac De Flambeau:
Pish-ka-ga-ghe, or the White Crow,
Na-wa-ge-wa, or the Knee,
O-ge-ma-ga, or the Dandy,
Pa-se-quam-jis, or the Commissioner,
Wa-be-ne-me, or the White Thunder.
Chiefs.
From La Pointe, (on Lake Superior):
Pe-zhe-ke, or the Buffalo,
Ta-qua-ga-na, or Two Lodges Meeting,
Cha-che-que-o.
Chiefs.
156
Chippewa Treaty Rights
From Mille Lac:
Wa-shask-ko-kone, or Rats Liver,
Wen-ghe-ge-she-guk, or the First Day.
Chiefs.
Ada-we-ge-shik, or Both Ends of the
Sky,
Ka-ka-quap, or the Sparrow.
Warriors.
From Sandy Lake:
Ka-rian-da-wa-win-zo, or Le
Brocheux,
We-we-shan-shis, the Bad Boy, or Big
Mouth,
Ke-che-wa-me-te-go, or the Big
Frenchman.
Chiefs.
Na-ta-me-ga-bo, the Man that stands
First,
Sa-ga-ta-gun, or Spunk.
Warriors.
From Snake river:
Naudin, or the Wind,
Sha-go-bai, or the Little Six,
Signed in presence of —
Verplanck Van Antwerp, Secretary to the
Commissioner.
M. M. Vineyard, U. S. Sub-Indian Agent.
Daniel P. Bushnell.
Law. Taliaferro, Indian Agent at St.
Peters.
Martin Scott, Captain, Fifth Regiment
Infantry.
J. Emerson, Assistant Surgeon, U. S.
Army
H. H. Sibley.
Pay-ajik, or the Lone Man,
Na-qua-na-bie, or the Feather.
Chiefs.
Ha-tau-wa,
Wa-me-te-go-zhins, the Little
Frenchman,
Sho-ne-a, or Silver.
Warriors.
From Fond du Lac, (on Lake
Superior):
Mang-go-sit, or the Loons Foot,
Shing-go-be, or the Spruce.
Chiefs.
From Red Cedar lake:
Mont-so-mo, or the Murdering Yell.
From Red lake:
Francois Goumean (a half breed).
From Leech lake:
Sha-wa-ghe-zhig, or the Sounding Sky,
Wa-zau-ko-ni-a, or Yellow Robe.
Warriors.
H. L. Dousman.
S. C. Stambaugh.
E. Lockwood.
Lyman M. Warren.
J. N. Nicollet.
Harmen Van Antwerp.
Wm. H. Forbes.
Jean Baptiste Dubay, Interpreter.
Peter Quinn, Interpreter.
S. Campbell, U. S. Interpreter.
Stephen Bonga, Interpreter.
Wm. W Coriell.
{493}
(To the Indian names are subjoined a mark and seal.)
157
Appendix 3 A
Michigan Superintendency
Detroit October 28th 1 842 —
Hon: T. Hartley Crawford
Com: Ind: Affairs
Sir:
In compliance with your instructions, and the regulations of
the Department, I have the honor to submit the following statement, embracing the
general matters relating to this Superintendency, as also to a portion of Wiskonsin
Territory — My unavoidable detention in the Lake Superior country, has alone
caused so long delay in the performance of this duty — {146}
In pursuance of my appointment as Comr. to treat with the Chippewas, at La Pointe,
on Lake Superior, I proceeded thither, after a few days delay at this place, on my
return from Washington in August last: but owing to the difficulties of notifying
the distant and scattered bands, we had arrived some time before they could be all
assembled; the interim however was well employed in dividing the goods for their
annuity payments, and enlighting the minds of such as had arrived, in relation to
the objects of our mission — After the views {147} and intentions of the Govt, had
been explained to them in general council, they agreed to sell all their lands between
Lake Superior, and the Mississippi, including the islands belonging to them in said
Lake, amounting in the aggregate to about 15.000.000 of acres — from the best
information we have been able to obtain, the mineral district is extensive and
valuable; the copper ore is said to be of the purest quality — Silver ore has been
found between Lake Vieux deserts, and Trout Lake, but as no scientific person has
examined it, both its quality and extent must for the present remain uncertain. The
fisheries for trout, whitefish & sisquet {siscowets} along the shore and Islands of
Lake Superior, may be carried on to almost any extent, and must at no distant
period, become a considerable source of revenue to our citizens — much of the
soil now purchased, is reported both by the geologists and surveyors, to be of
excellent quality: but the mineral region bordering on Lake Superior, is rather barren
and rugged —
Serious feuds and difficulties have for some years past, existed between the
Bands on Lake Superior, and those on the Mississippi; these troubles principally
arose in consequence of the annuity payments, under the Treaty of 1837; but every
irritating cause has happily been done away by the provisions of the Treaty now
made; which provides that all shall share equally in the annuities of both Treaties
— thus their jealousies and hostile feelings both among themselves, and toward
the U. S., have been entirely allayed, which, (had they been neglected,) were likely
to break into open hostility, and call for the interposition of the Govt: at great
expense and hazard of our present amicable relations. — The Chiefs and head men
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
consulted much with me, relative to their long and cruel wars with the Sioux, and
before we parted, they unanimously expressed their earnest desire, that the Gov¬
ernment would interfere and effect a reconciliation between them; they pledge
themselves to abide strictly by any terms which the President may in his wisdom
prescribe. Even the Flat Mouth, Chief of the Pillagers, of Leech Lake, visited La
Pointe, to aid in these deliberations, they have of late suffered so severely in these
barbarous hostilities, that they seem appalled — they are also kept in perpetual
agitation and alarm, which hinders them from pursuing their usual avocations; even
the Missionaries and Schools, as well as our own Mechanics and Farmers who are
among them, are kept in constant uneasiness — I promised to represent their
condition and wishes to the Department, and gave it as my opinion, that their appeal
would not be disregarded, as I thought you could rely upon their sincerity — I
wrote to Mr. Bruce, the Agent at S*. Peters, on the subject, and requested him to
use his influence with the Sioux, to suspend hostilities for the winter, and urge
upon them their obligations to agree to a general peace — I trust Sir, that you will
not only approve of the project, but use your influence to bring about so desirable
an end — there is no doubt in my mind of its feasibility, provided the proper men
be appointed on the Commission; and to ensure the durability of peace, it is only
necessary, to make one or two examples, should any aggression occur — Both the
dignity and honor of our country are involved in this matter; and every dictate of
humanity calls for speedy and decided action. Most of these Bands express great
desire for Missionaries, and especially for schools, also Blacksmiths, Carpenters,
and Farmers, to teach and aid them in the arts of civilized life — After much
consultation with the Chiefs, Missionaries and Traders; I venture to recommend
the following, as the most favorable stations, viz: L’Ance {L’Anse} on {148} Qui-
winon {Keweenaw} Bay, for a Blacksmith’s shop, Farmer and Carpenter, part of
the time, (for they should itinerate) — La Pointe for a Blacksmith’s shop, and
Carpenter, part of the time — Fond du Lac, for a Blacksmiths shop, Farmer, and
Carpenter part of the time — the Sandy Lake region, probably near Crow wing
River, for a Blacksmiths shop, Farmer, and Carpenter part of the time — Pokegamo,
or Snake River, where the Blacksmiths shop and Farmer now are, is a good station,
provided peace be established with the Sioux, but if not, the station should be
removed to some place near LaPointe — The station now on Chippewa River,
should be abandoned in any event; the Indians are led by it into too close contact
with the whites; the facility of getting whiskey there is runious, and they are often
accused of committing depredations on the settlers — I would suggest whether it
would not be well to have the places named for stations, visited by some judicious
person, before they are determined upon; if you think so, permit me to recommend
for that duty, Jeremiah Russell, the present Farmer, at Pokegamo, he is a very
intelligent and judicious man; the expense of his tour would be trifling, for he
would only require an Indian or half breed, acquainted with the country, to accom¬
pany him, and it is of much importance that such points be selected as will enable
the Missionaries and Schools, as well as the Government Farmers, & Blacksmiths
to settle together.
The Indians complain much that their wishes have not been attended to in regard
to the assortment of their goods, they annually receive a number of articles which
are of little use to them — They earnestly beg that in the future, the following
articles only, shall be sent, viz: — 3.2 1/2.2 & 1 1/2 point white Mackinac Blankets
160
Chippewa Treaty Rights
— Blue strouds — grey List blue cloth — Fine blue cloth (fancy list) to cost $2.50
@ $3. — common sattinette — domestic plaids — Linsey — Red Flannel — Red
Flannel and Callico shirts — 400 N.W. Guns — $2000 worth ammunition i.e. 1
1/2 lbs: of Balls & 1 1/2 lbs: Duck shot, to our lb: of Powder — the Powder to
be put up in water tight casks, of 25 lbs: each — 10.000 Indian gun flints — 100
Brass Kettles, none very large — 100 Nests Tin Kettles, of 8 each, none very
small; such quality and kind as the Am: Fur C°. procure — 50 yds: of Callico,
(high colors) not to cost over 12 l/2cts. per yard — Their own Blacksmiths will
hereafter make their axes, besides those sent heretofore were not suitable — the
small and fancy articles they prefer purchasing from the Traders, with their money. —
I am respectfully Sir,
Your obt: Servant
Robert Stuart
Actg: Sup: Ind. Affairs {149}
161
Appendix 3B
Treaty Commissioner Robert Stuart’s Remarks
of November 19, 1842
Detroit November 19th 1842
Hon: T. Hartley Crawford
Com: Indian Affairs
Sir:
My anxiety to transmit to you the Supt.cy a/c.s and annual
report in due season, must plead my apology for the delay in forwarding the Treaty
concluded with the Chippewa Indians of the Mississippi and Lake Superior at La
Pointe, on 4th October last; the claims are now adjusted and I have the honor to
enclose herewith the Treaty complete; which I trust will be satisfactory to the
Department. The whole amt. of claims laid in, amounted to $244,331 21/100 —
and for a time, it was doubtful whether at least $100,000 for debts, and $50,000
for half breeds, would not be insisted upon; but ultimately $75,000 for debts only,
was agreed to, and the Indian annuities were somewhat increased, so as to enable
them annually, to aid their poor half breed relatives. It is unnecessary to trouble
you with further details, as you understand the advantages of the Treaty as regards
both our country and the Indians; besides, the whole subject was discussed pretty
fully in my late Report. —
These Indians are through our late efforts, entirely reconciled among themselves,
and highly delighted with the kind and generous dealing of the Government toward
them; and if the impression made this summer, should be followed up next season,
by the benevolent effort on the part of the Government, to mediate a Treaty of
peace between the Chippewas {0196} and Sioux, it would promote the cause of
humanity, and greatly advance the civilization and happiness of these hapless beings.
There will not in my opinion, be much difficulty in accomplishing this object, if
you appoint men who have influence with the Indians. Both Tribes should be made
fully to understand, that the very first aggressor shall be severely punished; and
full faith should be kept in this as well as in every other respect; for at present,
both the threats and promises of the Government, are treated with incredulity, at
least - If the Government, (as many think,) is in honor and duty bound to use its
best endeavors, to put a stop to the horrible carnage which these Tribes are con¬
tinually committing upon each other; permit me to suggest, that it might be well,
soon to issue orders to the Agent of St. Peters, to notify all his bands of Sioux, to
assemble there, about the 1st of July next. — And the Sub Agent at La Pointe,
should have similar instructions, as relates to all his Chippewas; so that they also
may be at Fort Snelling on 1st July. The Chiefs, Head Men and Braves only, need
be called, and $6000 might defray the whole expenses. —
The Flat Mouth, Chief of the Chippewas of the Leech Lake Country, with about
60 of his Warriors, came to visit me at La Pointe — his main object was to complain,
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
that his people are not protected from the incursions of the British Half breeds, of
Red River, who every summer hunt and drive the Buffalo away from his lands —
I promised to represent the case to you, but need not enlarge, as the subject was
fully brought before the Secty. of War in my communications last winter, at Wash¬
ington — I was then sorry that Mr. Nicollets views seemed to prevail, for I know
that a serious injury is thereby inflicted on our frontier Indians, and our influence
over them in consequence, greatly diminished — if you deem it advisable, please
to urge the subject once more on the notice of the Secty. of War. —
I have not yet received the funds for the 3rd and 4th qrs. of this year; if not sent
before this reaches you, please to procure these in N. York, if practicable, for our
navigation of the Upper Lakes is now nearly closed, and it would cost too much
to send by land, either to Chicago, or Milwaukie. —
Have the goodness also to remit me $1500, contingent fund, as we are consid¬
erably in arrears under this head.
Enclosed herewith, are two diagrams of the country treated for &c: — that on
wrapping paper, was made by a Half Breed at La Pointe, and is the more accurate
of the two — with the boundary of the Treaty, is also traced on it, the boundary
of the country reserved as the common property and home of the Indians party to
the treaty, whenever they may be required to remove from their present
residence. -
I am respectfully Sir
Your Obt: servant
Robert Stuart {0197}
164
Appendix 3C
Sketch of Speech to the Indians at La Pointe by Robert Stuart,
Comr. September 29.1842 —
I am happy to shake hands with so many of my old friends, and very glad to find
them all well — Last winter I visited your Great Father at Washington, and talked
with him about your circumstances — he knows that you are poor, that your lands
are not good, and that you have very little game left, to feed and clothe your women
& children — He therefore pities your condition, and has sent me here to see what
can be done to benefit you — some of you now get a little money, goods &
provisions — others get none at all, because the Govt: did not think your lands
worth buying, at former Treaties — By the treaty you made with Gov: Cass at Fond
du Lac in 1826, you granted the right to carry away any minerals which might be
found on your lands, so that they are now no longer yours: and the whites have
been asking your Great Father to give them permission to take away all they can
find — but your Great Father wishes first to make a new treaty, and pay you well
for these lands and minerals; he knows you are poor and needy, and that you could
be made comfortable by getting a little money, Goods, provisions, & tobacco —
also farmers to shew you how to cultivate the earth — carpenters to aid you to
build your houses; and some more blacksmiths, to mend your Guns, Traps, Axes,
& other things you need — and something for schools, that your {0061} children
may be taught to read and write, like the whites — I understand that you have
been displeased about your present Blacksmiths and farmers, but if any thing has
been wrong, and that you will let me know it, I will write to your Great Father,
and he will be glad to try and put all right, so that hereafter they may be valuable
to you. From what I learn, I fear that you do not esteem your teachers & schools
as you should — some of you seem to think that you may always live as you have
done heretofore; but do you not see that the Great Spirit is changing things all
around you — Formerly all the country down to Washington, and the Great Salt
Lake, was owned and inhabited by the Red men — But now the whites fill that
whole country, they are numerous as the pigeons in the Spring, this all of you who
have been at Washington know: whereas many of the poor Indians have died of
poverty and drinking whiskey, and others have been sent west of the Mississippi,
to make room for the whites — The reason of this is not that the Great Spirit loves
the whites more the he does the Indians: but that the whites have listened to their
religious teachers & sent their children to school, so that they learned a great deal
more than the Indians, and have become wise and rich, while the Indians remain
ignorant and poor. If you will give education to your children they will by & by
become wise, rich & comfortable as the whites — I hope you will open your ears
and hearts to receive this advice, and that you may soon receive great light — But
I am afraid for you; I see very few go to hear religious {0062} instruction from the
Missionaries, altho’ they are preaching every evening in the church, and very
anxious that you should learn to become wise, from the good Book of the Great
Spirit — If you do this, you shall live happy and have no quarrels among yourselves,
as at present, nor with the whites — you would commit no depredations, nor have
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts & Letters
persons coming to me, or writing to your Great Father, that you kill their cattle,
and take from them things which are not yours; and asking us to pay them out of
your annuites. These things are very displeasing to your Great Father, and when
he writes me about them, I always feel very much ashamed of my Red children- —
These bad and wicked things, your Great Father is determined to have a stop put
to; and he looks to your Chiefs and Braves, to set others a good example, and also
to aid him, and the Govt: officers, in bringing to justice every wicked person among
you-— Then you & I can hold up our heads, and look our Great Father in the face,
and he will be able to feel proud of you, and tell other Indians to take an example
from his Chippewa Children — - Can I tell him on my return, that you will do all
this? Before we part, we must have all your jealousies and quarrels about the Treaty
of Sl. Peters, made up — a stop must be put to your decoying persons from each
others bands, you should and must live all united, as brethren. The greatest evil
among you, and that which makes you most miserable, is drinking whiskey, this
you must give up, or become poor and miserable; but I will speak more to you on
this subject hereafter. When in N.Y. about 3 months since, I found about 800 of
your Blankets, which were left there last year, your great Father was very angry
about it, and asked me to send them up with your goods of this year - — they are
now here & shall be delivered to you with the other goods, all together— This
shows that your Great Father wishes every Agent to so you justice, and whenever
he finds out one who does not, he will dismiss him and send you another — does
not this show you the Govt: is not to blame when wrong is done to you?— The
President would despise to do any wrong to his Red Children, and is determined
to punish every one who will.— You find that I came here to talk to you about
more things than the purchase of your lands; and whither you sell them or not, I
hope we shall take much pleasant counsel together, which may be the means of
improving your condition and rendering you comfortable and happy — But in order
not to be too tedious in this first talk — I now propose to buy all the lands within
the following boundaries— Beginning at the mouth of Chocolate River, running
across the Lake to the British line, and up that line to the Grand Portage, or Pigeon
River, thence along the Lake Shore, to the mouth of the Fond du Lac, or S*. Louis
River, thence up said River about 22 miles to the Am: Fur C°. trading post, near
the most southerly bend of said river — thence south to the line of the treaty you
made with Gov: Dodge at Sl. Peters — thence along said line to its southeastwardly
boundary— thence northeastwardly along the boundary line between the Chippewas
and the Menomonees, to its eastern termination — thence {0063} northwardly,
along the eastern fork of the Skonaby River, to the mouth of Chocolate River, or
the place of beginning — I mean all the lands south and east of Lake Superior,
with all the Islands in said Lake — These boundaries you see traced on this map,
which I have had made, to help us to have a clear understanding — you must not
expect that your great Father is very anxious to buy your lands & will give you a
great price for them — I understand that some fools have been telling you Squaw
stories about this; but you are not childish enough to believe them — - The principal
benefit your great Father expects from you lands at present is, the removal of the
minerals which are said to be on them; and not that the whites intend to settle on
them at present; but as these lands may at some future day be required, your great
Father does not wish to leave you without a home, & I therefore propose, that all
the Lands, north & west of the Am: Fur Cos. trading post on the Fond du Lac River,
166
Chippewa Treaty Rights
and from the Shore of the Lake to the British Line, including all the unceded lands
yet belonging to the Sandy Lake Bands, shall be reserved as a home in common
for you all, unless your great father and yourselves shall hereafter agree upon some
other place for you to go to-— Go now my friends and consult among yourselves
— - think well of this important subject, take advice from your wise and good freinds,
but be careful not to allow bad Birds to trouble you— Your great Father now offers
to do you good, be therefore wise and improve the opportunity — if not you must
expect to suffer the consequences— Remember that you have already given {0064}
permission by the Treaty of Fond du Lac, to have the minerals taken from your
lands, which shall be done, whether you sell your lands or not; and this is all the
whites now want of your lands; still, you must be ready to leave them whenever
the President shall require you to do so. Tomorrow morning when the gun fires, I
wish you to come again into Council, and state whether the proposal now made
you in behalf of your great Father, is agreeable to you, if so, I will do all for you
that I can with propriety — you know that we have been friends for many years,
and I tell you all, before the great Spirit, that I would be very sorry to wrong you
even if I could — - my earnest desire is to befriend you, if you will allow me to be
so; but if you refuse, it may be a long time before your great father will again make
you any offer whatever — meet me again tomorrow after the firing of the Gun.—
Copy
Opening Speech at Council October 2nd. 1842.
My friends we have met once more in council before the Great Spirit, and let
us remember that he witnesses whatever we do or say — It gave me pleasure to
leant from a delegation of your Chiefs, that you are now disposed to sell all your
lands within the limits pointed out to you in our former Council, and which you
now see bounded by a yellow line on this map — it is all your lands between the
Mississippi & Lake Superior, south & east of the Am: Fur Cos. trading post, on
the Fond du Lac River, and all the Islands in the Lake, to the British line — I am
thus particular with you, as Indians sometimes say, that the Commissioners often
cheat them, just as you thought about Gov: Cass, who made the treaty of Fond du
Lac with you in 1826, until I read your names in the Book, then you were satisfied
you had signed it —
Most of you know me to be your friend, and a man of truth — the offer now
to be made for your lands will I trust be pleasing to you all— I have not come
here to make a hard bargain, but to tell you at once all I shall give: this may save
us much talk, for if you will not accept my proposals, there can be no treaty — I
offer you more now than I intended to give before we opened these councils; partly
because I find you are very poor, and the President wishes to make you happy &
comfortable, and partly because you are so friendly to the whites, and will always
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
no doubt be ready to comply with the wishes of your Great Father — Now listen
to my proposals — you shall be paid annually for 25 years $12,500 in specie —
$10,500 worth of Goods, & $2000 worth of Provisions & Tobacco; to be paid so
that the money, Goods, Provisions & Tobacco, both of this treaty and the Treaty
you made with Gov: Dodge at S\ Peters in 1837, shall be equally distributed to
every person, whether of the Mississippi, or Lake Superior Chippewas, as far up
as the Sandy Lake Band, which is included — this will prevent future jealousies
and allay the bad feelings which now exist among you, and make you like a band
of Brothers; besides, it is just and honorable, and no good man will object to what
is right — you see the trouble we are willing to take to make you all happy and
bring you once {0065} more under a clear sky, and hope none of you has such a
bad heart as to oppose these efforts — The President, with the Great Council at
Washington, and all the good people among the whites, are very anxious for you
to improve your condition, and become more like the whites, that you may be
prosperous and happy — you shall therefore be allowed, besides what I have already
stated, (for the 25 years,) 2 Blacksmiths’ shops, the cost of annual support, including
striker, Iron, steel &c: to be $1000 each — 2 farmers $500 each — 2 Carpenters
$600 each — $2000 for the support of schools among you; and a fund of $5000
to be set apart for agricultural and other such purposes, and be expended as your
Great Father and Agent will direct, from time to time — To pay your Traders debts,
so that you shall owe them nothing, $75,000 will be set apart, for your traders
claims, to be apportioned by me, as I shall find their claims just; the money to be
paid within three years — but no debt contracted before 1822, (when the British
traders were excluded,) can be allowed — I hope as you will now have a great deal
of both money and goods every year, that you will get no more in debt to the
Traders, and never kill or take any thing belonging to the whites, so that your
annuities may always be your own entirely — I am glad that you feel so much
friendship for your half breeds, and that you wish to make some provision for them;
but your Great Father knows and is angry at the way they have always heretofore
foolishly spent their money and allowed themselves to be cheated, and forbids
money hereafther to be squandered on them: still, as {0066} I wish to do yourselves
and half breeds all the good I can, $15,000 besides all that has already been named,
shall be paid to you next year, as a present, which you may give if you please, to
your half breeds, and as your annuities will be very large every year, you can make
them a present from time to time, so as to make them comfortable, and I hope you
will always do so, when they merit it —
I have now make you an offer which will be very beneficial to you if you accept
it — do not for a moment entertain the idea that I will increase a single item of
the above, nor give any thing more — you have said that other Commissioners
offer first, less than they expect to give, so as to buy the land as cheap as they
can, but that is not my way at all — I offer you at once all I intend to give, and
hope you are satisfied — Some of you have expressed a wish to treat by bands, &
others to keep reservations, but I cannot sanction either — your Great Father will
not treat with you as Bands, but as a Nation — you, who know any thing of your
own history, are aware that when your fathers first came from the east, they drove
their enemies before them and took possession of the whole country; afterwards
they separated into Bands, & for convenience took up such hunting grounds as
suited them; but this gave the separate Bands no other right to the lands than merely
168
Chippewa Treaty Rights
to occupy them for the time being — the whole country is your common property
— you may easily see how unjust it would be to recognize the right of property
by Bands, for several of your small Bands are scattered over a much larger and
better country, than some of your large Bands, and why should this secure them
the sole ownership, for are you not at all children of the same great Nation? you
are; and it pleased me much to hear from most of your Chiefs, that this is your
own general view of the subject: altho’ a few of those who thought they would
gain by it, wished to have it otherwise; — you know that treaties are often made
when whole Bands are absent, which could not be but on the principle that all your
lands are common property, and the majority of the Nation can sell or not as they
please, the absentees being entitled to their share of the annuities &c: — It is all
right for you however to live apart as you do, in Bands, each choosing their own
hunting grounds, this will prevent many disagreements, and make it easier for you
to find game and food in small bands, than if you were all to live together — The
payments cannot, as some of you wish, be made at different points, you must all
be paid at one place, and this is well, for your Agent and the Missionaries will
then see you all together once a year, to give you good advice, and you will thus
also keep acquainted with each other — . On monday I will expect your final answer;
it is now getting late in the season, and I feel anxious that you get home in good
time to your hunts — {0067}
169
Appendix 4
Treaty With the Chippewa, 1842.
Articles of a treaty made and concluded at La Pointe of Lake Superior, in the
Territory of Wisconsin , between Robert Stuart commissioner on the part of the
United States » and the Chippewa Indians of the Mississippi, and Lake Superior,
by their chiefs and headmen.
Article I.
The Chippewa Indians of the Mississippi and Lake Superior, cede to the United
States all the country within the following bounderies; viz: beginning at the mouth
of Chocolate river of Lake Superior; thence northwardly across said lake to intersect
the boundery line between the United States and the Province of Canada; thence
up said Lake Superior, to the mouth of the St. Louis, or Fond du Lac river (including
all the islands in said lake); thence up said river to the American Fur Company’s
trading post, at the southwardly bend thereof, about 22 miles from its mouth; thence
south to intersect the line of the treaty of 29th July 1837, with the Chippewas of
the Mississippi; thence along said line to its southeastwardly extremity, near the
Plover portage on the Wisconsin river; thence northeastwardly, along the boundery
line, between the Chippewas and Menomonees, to its eastern termination, (estab-
lished by the treaty held with the Chippewas, Menomonees, and Winnebagoes, at
Butte des Morts, August 11th 1827) on the Skonawby River of Green Bay; thence
northwardly to the source of Chocolate river; thence down said river to its mouth,
the place of beginning; it being the intention of the parties to this treaty, to include
in this cession, all the Chippewa lands eastwardly of the aforesaid line running
from the American Fur Company’s trading post on the Fond du Lac river to the
intersection of the line of the treaty made with the Chippewas of the Mississippi
July 29th 1837.
Article II.
The Indians stipulate for the right of hunting on the ceded territory, with the
other usual privileges of occupancy, until required to remove by the President of
the United {542} States, and that the laws of the United States shall be continued
in force, in respect to their trade and inter course with the whites, until otherwise
ordered by Congress.
Article III.
It is agreed by the parties to this treaty, that whenever the Indians shall be required
to remove from the ceded district, all the unceded lands belonging to the Indians
of Fond du Lac, Sandy Lake, and Mississippi bands, shall be the common property
and home of all the Indians, party to this treaty.
Article IV.
In consideration of the foregoing cession, the United States, engage to pay to
the Chippewa Indians of the Mississippi, and Lake Superior, annually, for twenty-
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
five years, twelve thousand five hundred (12,500) dollars, in specie, ten thousand
five hundred (10,500) dollars in goods, two thousand (2,000) dollars in provisions
and tobacco, two thousand (2,000) dollars for the support of two blacksmiths shops,
(including pay of smiths and assistants, and iron steel &c.) one thousand (1,000)
dollars for pay of two farmers, twelve hundred (1,200) for pay of two carpenters,
and two thousand (2,000) dollars for the support of schools for the Indians party
to this treaty; and further the United States engage to pay the sum of five thousand
(5,000) dollars as an agricultural fund, to be expended under the direction of the
Secretary of War. And also the sum of seventy-five thousand (75,000) dollars, shall
be allowed for the full satisfaction of their debts within the ceded district, which
shall be examined by the commissioner to this treaty, and the amount to be allowed
decided upon by him, which shall appear in a schedule hereunto annexed. The
United States shall pay the amount so allowed within three years.
Whereas the Indians have expressed a strong desire to have some provision made
for their half breed relatives, therefore it is agreed, that fifteen thousand (15,000)
dollars shall be paid to said Indians, next year, as a present, to be disposed of, as
they, together with their agent, shall determine in council.
Article V.
Whereas the whole country between Lake Superior and the Mississippi, has
always been understood as belonging in common to the Chippewas, party to this
treaty; and whereas the bands bordering on Lake Superior, have not been allowed
to participate in the annuity payments of the treaty made with the Chippewas of
the Mississippi, at St. Peters July 29th 1837, and whereas all the unceded lands
belonging to the aforesaid Indians, are hereafter to be held in common, therefore,
to remove all occasion for jealousy and discontent, it is agreed that all the annuity
due by the said treaty, as also the annuity due by the present treaty, shall henceforth
be equally divided among the Chippewas of the Mississippi and Lake Superior,
party to this treaty, so that every person shall receive an equal share.
Article VI.
The Indians residing on the Mineral district, shall be subject to removal therefrom
at the pleasure of the President of the United States.
Article VII.
This treaty shall be obligatory upon the contracting parties when ratified by the
President and Senate of the United States. {543}
In testimony whereof the said Robert Stuart commissioner, on the part of the
United States, and the chiefs and headmen of the Chippewa Indians of the Missis¬
sippi and Lake Superior, have hereunto set their hands, at La Pointe of Lake
Superior, Wisconsin Territory this fourth day of October in the year of our Lord
one thousand eight hundred and forty-two.
Robert Stuart, Commissioner.
Jno. Hulbert, Secretary.
172
Chippewa Treaty Rights
Crow wing River,
Po go ne gi shik,
1st chief.
Do.
Son go com ick,
2d do.
Sandy Lake,
Ka non do ur uin zo,
1st do.
Do.
Na turn e gaw bon.
2d do.
Gull Lake,
Ua bo jig,
1st do.
Do.
Pay pe si gon de bay.
2d do.
Red Ceder Lake,
Kui ui sen shis,
1st do.
Do.
Ott taw wance,
2d do.
Po ke gom maw.
Bai ie jig,
1st do.
Do.
Show ne aw.
2d do.
Wisconsin River,
Ki uen zi.
1st do.
Do.
Wi aw bis ke kut te way.
2d do.
Lac de Flambeau,
A pish ka go gi,
1st do.
Do.
May tock cus e quay,
2d do.
Do.
She maw gon e,
2d do.
Lake Bands,
Ki ji ua be she shi,
1st do.
Do.
Ke kon o turn,
2d do.
Fon du Lac,
Shin goob,
1st do.
Do.
Na gan nab.
2d do.
Do.
Mong o zet,
2d do.
La Pointe,
Gitchi waisky,
1st do.
Do.
Mi zi,
2d do.
Do.
Ta qua gone e,
2d do.
Onlonagan,
0 kon di kan,
1st do.
Do.
Kis ke taw wac,
2d do.
Ance,
Pe na shi,
1st do.
Do.
Guck we san sish,
2d do.
Vieux Desert,
Ka she osh e,
1st do.
Do.
Medge waw gwaw wot.
2d do.
Mille Lac,
Ne qua ne be.
1st do.
Do.
Ua shash ko kum,
2d do.
Do.
No din,
2d do.
St. Croix,
Be zhi ki,
1st do.
Do.
Ka bi na be.
2d do.
Do.
Ai aw bens,
2d do.
Snake River,
Sha go bi,
1st do.
Chippewa River,
Ua be she shi,
1st do.
Que way zhan sis,
2d do.
Lac Courtulle,
Ne na nang eb.
1st do.
Do.
Be bo kon uen,
2d do.
Do.
Ki uen zi,
2d do.
In presence of —
Henry Blanchford, interpreter.
Samuel Ashmun, interpreter.
Justin Rice.
Charles H. Oakes.
William A. Aitkin.
William Brewster.
Charles M. Borup.
(To the Indian
Z. Platt.
C. H. Beaulieau.
L. T. Jamison.
James P. Scott.
Cyrus Mendenhall
L. M. Warren.
are subjoined marks.)
{544}
173
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Schedule of claims examined and allowed by Robert Stuart, commissioner, under
the treaty with the Chippewa Indians of the Mississippi and Lake Superior,
concluded at La Pointe, October 4th 1842, setting forth the names of claimants,
and their proportion of allowance of the seventy-five thousand dollars provided
in the fourth article of the aforesaid treaty, for the full satisfaction of their debts,
as follows:
No. of j
claim. |
I
1 I
2 I
3 I
4 I
5 I
I
I
I
I
6 I
7 I
8 I
9 I
10 I
11 I
12 I
13 I
14 I
15 I
16 I
17 I
I
18 I
19 I
20 I
21 I
22 I
23 I
Name of claimant.
Edward F. Ely .
Z. Platt, esq., attorney for George Berkett
Cleveland North Lake Co .
Abraham W. Williams .
William Brewster .
This claim to be paid as follows, viz:
William Brewster, or order .
Charles W. Borup, or order .
George Copway .
John Kahbege .
Alixes Carpantier .
John W. Bell .
Antoine Picard . . .
Michael Brisette .
Francois Dej addon .
Pierre C. Duvemay . . .
Jean Bts. Bazinet . .
John Hotley .
Francois Charette .
Clement H. Beaulieu, agent for the estate
of Bazil Beaulieu, dec’d .
Francois St. Jean and George Bonga . . .
Louis Ladebauche .
Peter Crebassa .
B.T. Kavanaugh . .
Augustin Goslin . . .
American Fur Company .
This claim to be paid as follows, viz:
American Fur Company .
Proportion
of $75,000, set
apart in
4th article of
treaty.
. I $50 80
. I 484 67
. I 1,485 67
. I 75 03
. I 2,052 67
I
$1,929 77 I
122 90 I
$2,052 67
61 67
57 55
28 58
186 16
6 46
182 42
301 48
1,101 00
325 46
69 00
234 92
596 84
366 84
322 52
499 27
516 82
169 05
13,365 30
12,565 10
174
Chippewa Treaty Rights
1
N1°; 1 Name of claimant,
claim. |
1
1
1 Proportion
1 of $75,000, set
1 apart in
1 4th article of
1 treaty.
1
1 Charles W. Borup . . .
1
800 20 1
1
!
1
1
1
$13,365 30 1
1
1
24 1 William A. Aitken . . . .
i
. i
935 67
25 1 James P. Scott . . .
. i
73 41
26 1 Augustin Bellanger . . .
. i
192 35
27 1 Louis Corbin .
. 1
12 57
28 1 Alexes Corbin . .
. i
596 03
29 I George Johnston . . . .
. 1
35 24
30 1 Z. Platt, esq., attorney for Sam’l Ashman .
. 1
1,771 63
31 1 Z. Platt, esq., attorney for Wm. Johnson .
. 1
390 27
32 1 Z. Platt, esq., attorney for estate of
1
1 Dan’l Dingley . .
. . 1
1,991 62
33 1 Lyman M. Warren .
. 1
1,566 65
34 1 Estate of Michael Cadotte, disallowed.
1
35 1 Z. Platt, esq., attorney for estate of
1
1 E. Roussain . .
. . 1
959 13
36 1 Joseph Dufault . .
. 1
144 32
37 1 Z. Platt, esq., attorney for Antoine Mace .
. 1
170 35
38 1 Michael Cadotte . . .
. i
205 60
39 1 Z. Platt, esq., att’y for Francois Gauthier .
. i
167 05
40 1 Z. Platt, esq., att’y for Joseph Gauthier .
. i
614 30
41 1 Z. Platt, esq., attorney for J.B. Uoulle .
. 1
64 78
42 1 Jean Bts. Corbin . . .
. 1
531 50
43 1 John Hulbert . . .
. i
209 18
44 1 Jean Bts. Couvellion . . .
. i
18 80
45 1 Nicholas Da Couteau, withdrawn.
1
46 1 Pierre Cotte .
. 1
732 50
47 1 W. H. Brockway and Henry Holt, executors to
1
1 the estate of John Holliday, dec’d .
. 1
3,157 10
48 1 John Jacob Astor . .
. i
37,994 98
! This claim to be paid as follows, viz:
i
1 Charles W. Borup .
. .. 1,676 90 1
1 Z. Platt, esq . . .
. . . 2,621 80 1
1 John Jacob Astor .
1
. . . 23,696 28 1
1
1
1
1
1
$27,994 98 1
1
1
49 1 Z. Platt, esq., attorney for Thos. Connor .
1
. 1
1,118 60
50 1 Charles H. Oakes . . .
. 1
4,309 21
51 1 Z. Platt, esq., attorney for Wm. Morrison .
. 1
1,074 70
175
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
No. of
claim.
Proportion
1 of $75,000, set
Name of claimant.
1 apart in
1 4th article of
treaty.
1
52
1 Z. Platt, esq., att’y for Isaac Butterfield .
. 1 1,275 56
53
1 J. B. Van Rensselaer .
. 1 62 00
54
1 William Brewster and James W. Abbot .
. 1 2,067 10
The parties to this claim request no
i
1 payment be made to either without their
1 joint consent, or until a decision of
1 the case be had, in a court of justice.
i
i
i
55
1 William Bell . . .
. 1 17 62
1
1 $75,000 00
1
1
Robert Stuart, Commissioner.
Jno. Hulbert, Secretary. {545}
176
Appendix 5
Treaty Commissioner Henry C. Gilbert’s Explanation of the Treaty
Concluded in 1854 with the Assistance of David B. Herriman
Office Michigan Indian Agency
Detroit October 17th. 1854
Sir
I transmit herewith a treaty concluded at LaPointe on the 30th Ultimo between
Mr. Herriman and myself as Commissioners on the part of the United States and
the Chippewas of Lake Superior and the Mississippi.
On receiving your letters of August 10th, 12th, and 14th, relative to this treaty, I
immediately dispatched a special messenger from this place by way of Chicago,
Galena and St. Paul to Mr. Herriman at the Crow wing Chippewa Agency trans¬
mitting to him your letter requesting him to meet me at LaPointe with the Chiefs
and Headmen of his Agency at as early a day as possible. I adopted this course in
preference to sending a messenger from La Pointe on my arrival there for the
purpose of saving time and I was thus enabled to secure the attendance of Mr
Herriman and the Mississippi Chiefs some 10 or 12 days earlier than I could
otherwise have done.
I left for LaPointe on the 26th. of August last and arrived there the 1st. day of
September — - Mr Herriman meeting me there the 14th. of the same Month.
By this time a large number of Indians had assembled — including not only
those entitled to payment but all those from the Interior who live about Lakes de
Flambeau and Lake Courteilles. The Chiefs who were notified to attend brought
with them in every instance their entire bands. We made a careful estimate of the
number present {0135} and found that there were about 4.000. They all had to be
fed and taken care of, thus adding greatly to the expenses attending the negotiations.
A great number of traders and claim agents were also present as well as some
persons from St. Paul’s who I had reason to believe attended for the purpose of
preventing if possible the consummation of the treaty. The utmost precautions were
taken by me to prevent a knowledge of the fact that negotiations were to take place
from becoming public. The Messenger sent by me to Mr Herriman was not only
trust worthy but was himself totally ignorant of the purport of the dispatches to
Major Herriman. Information however of the fact was communicated from some
source and the persons present in consequence greatly embarrassed our proceedings.
After Major Herriman ’s arrival we soon found that the Mississippi Indians could
not be induced to sell their land on any terms. Much jealousy and ill feeling existed
between them and the Lake Superior Indians and they could not even be prevailed
upon to meet each other in council. They were all however anxious that a division
should be made of the payments to become due under former existing treaties and
a specific apportionment made betweeen the Mississippi and the Lake Superior
Indians and places of payment designated.
177
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Taking advantage of this feeling we proposed to them a division of the country
between them and the establishment of a boundary line, on one side of {0136}
which the country should belong exclusively to the Lake Superior and on the other
side to the Mississippi Indians. We had but little difficulty in inducing them to
agree to this proposition and after much negotiation the line designated in the treaty
was agreed upon.
We then obtained from the Lake Indians a cession of their portion of the Country
on the terms stated in the treaty. The district ceded embraces all the mineral region
bordering on Lake Superior and Pigeon river & is supposed to be by far the most
valuable portion of their country. But a small portion of the amount agreed to be
paid in annuities is payable in coin. The manner of payment is such as in our
judgment would most tend to promote the permanent welfare and hasten the civi¬
lization of the Indians.
We found that the points most strenuously insisted upon by them were first the
privilege of remaining in the country where they reside and next the appropriation
of land for their future homes. Without yielding these points, it was idle for us to
talk about a treaty. We therefore agreed to the selection of lands for them in territory
heretofore ceded.
The tract for the Ance {L’Ance} and Vieux Desert bands is at the head of Ke,
wa, we naw {Keweenaw} Bay Michigan and is at present occupied by them. I
estimate the quantity at about 60.000 acres.
These reservations are located in Wisconsin, the principal of which is for the
LaPointe Band on Bad river — A large number of Indians now reside there and I
presume it will ultimately become the home {0137} of most of the Chippewas
residing in that state. It is a tract of land well adapted for Agricultural purposes
and includes the present Missionary Station under the care of the American Board
of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. About one third of the land however lying
on the Lake Shore is swamp & valueless, except as it gives them access to the
Lake for fishing purposes.
The other Wisconsin reservations lie on Lac de Flambeau and Lac Courteirelle
in the Interior and the whole amount of land reserved in that state I estimate at
about 200.000 acres exclusive of the Swamp land included in the LaPointe reser¬
vation. In the ceded Country there are two tracts set apart for the Indians — one
on St Louis river of 100.000 acres for the Fond DuLac bands and one embracing
the point bounded by the Lake and Pigeon river and containing about 120.000
acres.
There are two or three other small reservations to be hereafter selected under the
direction of the President. The whole quantity of land embraced within all the tracts
set apart we estimate at about 486.000 acres — No portion of the reserved lands
are occupied by whites except the Missionary establishment on Bad river.
The provision going to each Half Breed family 80 acres of land was most
strenuously insisted upon by the Indians. There are about 200 such families on my
pay roll and allowing as many more to the Interior Indians which is a very liberal
estimate,{0138} the amount of land required will be about 32.000. acres.
A principal source of embarrassment was the provision setting aside a portion
of the consideration to be paid as the Chiefs might direct &c. In other words to
pay their debts with. We had much difficulty in reducing the amount insisted upon
to the sum stated in the treaty. I have no doubt that there are many just claims
178
Chippewa Treaty Rights
upon these Indians. The regular payment of their annuities was so long withheld
that they were forced to depend to a great extent upon their traders. There claims
they were all disposed to acknowledge and insisted upon providing for their payment
and without the insertion of the provision referred to, we could not have concluded
the treaty.
I regret very much that we could not have purchased the whole country and made
the treaty in every particular within the limit of your instructions. But this was
absolutely impossible and we were forced to the alternative of abandoning the
attempt to treat or of making the concessions detailed in the treaty.
There are many points respecting which I should like much to make explanations,
and for that purpose and in order to make a satisfactory settlement of the accounts
for treaty expenses I respectfully request the privilege of attending at Washington
at such time after making my other annuity payments as you may think proper.
Hon. Geo. W. Manypenny
Com. Ind. Affs.
Washington D.C.
I Very Respectfully
I Your Obt. Servt.
I Henry C. Gilbert
I Commissioner
{0139}
179
Appendix 6
Treaty With the Chippewa, 1854.
Articles of a treaty made and concluded at La Pointe, in the State of Wisconsin,
between Henry C. Gilbert and David B. Herriman, commissioners on the part
of the United States, and the Chippewa Indians of Lake Superior and the Mis¬
sissippi, by their chiefs and head-men.
Article 1 . The Chippewas of Lake Superior hereby cede to the United States
all the lands heretofore owned by them in common with the Chippewas of the
Mississippi, lying east of the following boundary-line, to wit: Beginning at a point,
where the east branch of Snake River crosses the southern boundary-line of the
Chippewa country, running thence up the said branch to its source, thence nearly
north, in a straight line, to the mouth of East Savannah River, thence up the St.
Louis River to the mouth of East Swan River, thence up the East Swan River to
its source, thence in a straight line to the most westerly bend of Vermillion River,
and thence down the Vermillion River to its mouth.
The Chippewas of the Mississippi hereby assent and agree to the foregoing
cession, and consent that the whole amount of the consideration money for the
country ceded above, shall be paid to the Chippewas of Lake Superior, and in
consideration thereof the Chippewas of Lake Superior hereby relinquish to the
Chippewas of the Mississippi, all their interest in and claim to the lands heretofore
owned by them in common, lying west of the above boundary-line.
Article 2. The United States agree to set apart and withhold from sale, for the
use of the Chippewas of Lake Superior, the following described tracts of land, viz:
1st. For the L’Anse and Vieux De Sert bands, all the unsold lands in the following
townships in the State of Michigan: Township fifty-one north range thirty-three
west; township fifty-one north range thirty-two west; the east half of township fifty
north range thirty-three west; the west half of township fifty north range thirty-two
west, and all of township fifty-one north range thirty-one west, lying west of Huron
Bay.
2d. For the La Pointe band, and such other Indians as may see fit to settle with
them, a tract of land bounded as follows: Beginning on the south shore of Lake
Superior, a few miles west of Montreal River, at the mouth of a creek called by
the Indians Ke-che-se-be-we-she, running thence south to a line drawn east and
west through the centre of township forty-seven north, thence west to the west line
of said township, thence south to the southeast comer of township forty-six north,
range thirty-two west, thence west the width of two townships, thence north the
width of two townships, thence west one mile, thence north to the lake shore, and
thence along the lake shore, crossing Shag-waw-me-quon Point, to the place of
beginning. Also two hundred acres on the northern extremity of Madeline Island,
for a fishing ground.
3d. For the other Wisconsin bands, a tract of land lying about Lac De Flambeau,
and another tract on Lac Court Orielles, each equal in extent to three townships,
181
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts & Letters
the boundaries of which shall be hereafter agreed upon or fixed under the direction
of the President.
4th. For the Fond Du Lac bands, a tract of land bounded as follows: Beginning
at an island in the St. Louis River, above Knife Portage, called by the Indians Paw-
paw-sco-me-me-tig, running thence west to the boundary-line heretofore described,
thence north along said boundary-line to the mouth of Savannah River, thence down
the St. Louis River to the place of beginning. And if said tract shall contain {648}
less than one hundred thousand acres, a strip of land shall be added on the south
side thereof, large enough to equal such deficiency.
5th. For the Grand Portage band, a tract of land bounded as follows: Beginning
at a rock a little east of the eastern extremity of Grand Portage Bay, running thence
along the lake shore to the mouth of a small stream called by the Indians Maw-
ske-gwaw-caw-maw-se-be, or Cranberry Marsh River, thence up said stream, across
the point to Pigeon River, thence down Pigeon River to a point opposite the starting-
point, and thence across to the place of beginning.
6th. The Ontonagon band and that subdivision of the La Pointe band of which
Buffalo is chief, may each select, on or near the lake shore, four sections of land,
under the direction of the President, the boundaries of which shall be defined
hereafter. And being desirous to provide for some of his connections who have
rendered his people important services, it is agreed that the chief Buffalo may select
one section of land, at such place in the ceded territory as he may see fit, which
shall be reserved for that purpose, and conveyed by the United States to such person
or persons as he may direct.
7th. Each head of a family, or single person over twenty-one years of age at the
present time of the mixed bloods, belonging to the Chippewas of Lake Superior,
shall be entitled to eighty acres of land, to be selected by them under the direction
of the President, and which shall be secured to them by patent in the usual form.
Article 3. The United States will define the boundaries of the reserved tracts,
whenever it may be necessary, by actual survey, and the President may, from time
to time, at his discretion, cause the whole to be surveyed, and may assign to each
head of a family or single person over twenty-one years of age, eighty acres of
land for his or their separate use; and he may, at his discretion, as fast as the
occupants become capable of transacting their own affairs, issue patents therefor
to such occupants, with such restrictions of the power of alienation as he may see
fit to impose. And he may also, at his discretion, make rules and regulations,
respecting the disposition of the lands in case of the death of the head of a family,
or single person occupying the same, or in case of its abandonment by them. And
he may also assign other lands in exchange for mineral lands, if any such are found
in the tracts herein set apart. And he may also make such changes in the boundaries
of such reserved tracts or otherwise, as shall be necessary to prevent interference
with any vested rights. All necessary roads, highways, and railroads, the lines of
which may run through any of the reserved tracts, shall have the right of way
through the same, compensation being made therefor as in other cases.
Article 4. In consideration of and payment for the country hereby ceded, the
United States agree to pay to the Chippewas of Lake Superior, annually, for the
term of twenty years, the following sums, to wit: five thousand dollars in coin;
eight thousand dollars in goods, household furniture and cooking utensils; three
thousand dollars in agricultural implements and cattle, carpenter’s and other tools
182
Chippewa Treaty Rights
and building materials, and three thousand dollars for moral and educational pur¬
poses, of which last sum, three hundred dollars per annum shall be paid to the
Grand Portage band, to enable them to maintain a school at their village. The United
States will also pay the further sum of ninety thousand dollars, as the chiefs in
open council may direct, to enable them to meet their present just engagements.
Also the further sum of six thousand dollars, in agricultural implements, household
furniture, and cooking utensils, to be distributed at the next annuity payment, among
the mixed bloods of said nation. The United States will also furnish two hundred
guns, one hundred rifles, five hundred beaver-traps, three hundred dollars’ worth
of ammuni {649} tion, and one thousand dollars’ worth of ready-made clothing, to
be distributed among the young men of the nation, at the next annuity payment.
Article 5. The United States will also furnish a blacksmith and assistant, with
the usual amount of stock, during the continuance of the annuity payments, and as
much longer as the President may think proper, at each of the points herein set
apart for the residence of the Indians, the same to be in lieu of all the employees
to which the Chippewas of Lake Superior may be entitled under previous existing
treaties.
Article 6. The annuities of the Indians shall not be taken to pay the debts of
individuals, but satisfaction for depredations committed by them shall be made by
them in such manner as the President may direct.
Article 7. No spirituous liquors shall be made, sold, or used on any of the
lands herein set apart for the residence of the Indians, and the sale of the same
shall be prohibited in the Territory hereby ceded, until otherwise ordered by the
President.
Article 8. It is agreed, between the Chippewas of Lake Superior and the Chip¬
pewas of the Mississippi, that the former shall be entitled of two-thirds, and the
latter to one-third, of all benefits to be derived from former treaties existing prior
to the year 1847.
Article 9. The United States agree that an examination shall be made, and all
sums that may be found equitably due to the Indians, for arrearages of annuity or
other thing, under the provisions of former treaties, shall be paid as the chiefs may
direct.
Article 10. All missionaries, and teachers, and other persons of full age, residing
in the territory hereby ceded, or upon any of the reservations hereby made by
authority of law, shall be allowed to enter the land occupied by them at the minimum
price whenever the surveys shall be completed to the amount of one quarter-section
each.
Article 11. All annuity payments to the Chippewas of Lake Superior, shall
hereafter be make at L’Anse, La Pointe, Grand Portage, and on the St. Louis River;
and the Indians shall not be required to remove from the homes hereby set apart
for them. And such of them as reside in the territory hereby ceded, shall have the
right to hunt and fish therein, until otherwise ordered by the President.
Article 12. In consideration of the poverty of the Bois Forte Indians who are
parties to this treaty, they having never received any annuity payments, and of the
great extent of that part of the ceded country owned exclusively by them, the
following additional stipulations are made for their benefit. The United States will
pay the sum of ten thousand dollars, as their chiefs in open council may direct, to
enable them to meet their present just engagements. Also the further sum of ten
183
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts & Letters
thousand dollars, in five equal annual payments, in blankets, cloth, nets, guns,
ammunition, and such other articles of necessity as they may require.
They shall have the right to select their reservation at any time hereafter, under
the direction of the President; and the same may be equal in extent, in proportion
to their numbers, to those allowed the other bands, and be subject to the same
provisions.
They shall be allowed a blacksmith, and the usual smithshop supplies, and also
two persons to instruct them in farming, whenever in the opinion of the President
it shall be proper, and for such length of time as he shall direct.
It is understood that all Indians who are parties to this treaty, except the Chippewas
of the Mississippi, shall hereafter be known as the Chippewas of Lake Superior.
Provided, That the stipulation by which the Chippewas of Lake Superior relin¬
quishing their right to land west {650} of the boundary-line shall not apply to the
Bois Forte band who are parties to this treaty.
Article 13. This treaty shall be obligatory on the contracting parties, as soon
as the same shall be ratified by the President and Senate of the United States.
In testimony whereof, the said Henry C. Gilbert, and the said David B. Herriman,
commissioners as aforesaid, and the undersigned chiefs and headmen of the Chip¬
pewas of Lake Superior and the Mississippi, have hereunto set their hands and
seals, at the place aforesaid, this thirtieth day of September, one thousand eight
hundred and fifty-four.
Henry C. Gilbert,
David B. Herriman,
Commissioners.
Richard M. Smith, Secretary.
La Pointe Band:
Ke-che-waish-ke, or the Buffalo, 1st
chief, his X mark.
Chay-che-que-oh, 2d chief, his X
mark.
A-daw-we-ge-zhick, or Each Side of
the sky, 2d chief, his X mark.
O-ske-naw-way, or the Youth, 2d
chief, his X mark.
Maw-caw-day-pe-nay-se, or the Black
Bird, 2d chief, his X mark.
Naw-waw-naw-quot, headman, his X
mark.
Ke-wain-zeence, headman, his X
mark.
Waw-baw-ne-me-ke, or the White
Thunder, 2d chief, his X mark.
Pay-baw-me-say, or the Soarer, 2d
chief, his X mark.
Naw-waw-ge-waw-nose, or the Little
Current, 2d chief, his X mark.
Maw-caw-day- waw-quot, or the Black
Cloud, 2d chief, his X mark.
Me-she-naw-way, or the Disciple, 2d
chief, his X mark.
Key-me-waw-naw-um, headman, his
X mark.
She-gog headman, his X mark.
Ontonagon Band:
O-cun-de-cun, or the Buoy 1st chief,
his X mark.
Waw-say-ge-zhick, or the Clear Sky,
2d chief, his X mark.
Keesh-ke-taw-wug, headman, his X
mark.
L’Anse Band:
David King, 1st chief, his X mark.
John Southwind, headman, his X
mark.
Peter Marksman, headman, his X
mark.
184
Chippewa Treaty Rights
Naw-taw-me-ge-zhick, or the First
Sky, 2d chief, his X mark.
Aw-se-neece, headman, his X mark.
Vieux De Sert Band:
May-dway-aw-she , 1st chief, his X
mark.
Posh-quay-gin, or the Leather, 2d
chief, his X mark.
Grand Portage Band:
Shaw-gaw-naw-sheence, or the Little
Englishman, 1st chief, his X
mark.
May-mosh-caw- wosh , headman, his X
mark.
Aw-de-konse, or the Little Reindeer,
2d chief, his X mark.
Way-we-ge-wam, headman, his X
mark.
Fond Du Lac Band:
Shing-goope, or the Balsom, 1st chief,
his X mark.
Mawn-go-sit, or the Loon’s Foot, 2d
chief, his X mark.
May-quaw-me-we-ge-zhick, headman,
his X mark.
Keesh-kawk, headman, his X mark.
Caw-taw- waw-be-day, headman, his X
mark.
O-saw-gee, headman, his X mark.
Ke-che-aw-ke- wain-ze , headman, his
X mark.
Naw-gaw-nub, or the Foremost Sitter,
2d chief, his X mark.
Ain-ne-maw-sung , 2d chief, his X
mark.
Naw-aw-bun-way, headman, his X
mark.
Wain-ge-maw-tub , headman, his X
mark.
A w-ke- wain-zeence , headman, his X
mark.
Shay- way-be-nay-se , headman, his X
mark.
Paw-pe-oh, headman, his X mark.
Lac Court Oreille Band:
Aw-ke- wain-ze, or the Old Man, 1st
chief, his X mark.
Key-no-zhance, or the Little Jack Fish,
1st chief, his X mark.
Key-che-pe-nay-se , or the Big Bird,
2d chief, his X mark.
Ke-che- waw-be-shay-she , or the Big
Martin, 2d chief, his X mark.
Waw-be-shay-sheence , headman, his
X mark.
Quay-quay-cub, headman, his X mark.
Shaw-waw-no-me-tay , headman, his X
mark.
Nay-naw-ong-gay-be , or the Dressing
Bird, 1st chief, his X mark.
O-zhaw-waw-sco-ge-zhick, or the Blue
Sky, 2d chief, his X mark.
I-yaw-banse, or the Little Buck, 2d
chief, his X mark. {651}
Ke-che-e-nin-ne, headman, his X
mark.
Haw-daw-gaw-me, headman, his X
mark.
Way-me-te-go-she, headman, his X
mark.
Pay-me-ge-wung, headman, his X
mark.
Lac Du Flambeau Band:
Aw-mo-se or the Wasp, 1st chief, his
X mark.
Ke-nish-te-no, 2d chief, his X mark.
Me-gee-see, or the Eagle, 2d chief, his
X mark.
Kay-kay-co-gwaw-nay-aw-she,
headman, his X mark.
O-che-chog, headman, his X mark.
Nay-she-kay-gwaw-nay-be , headman ,
his X mark.
O-scaw-bay-wis, or the Waiter, 1st
chief, his X mark.
Que-we-zance, or the White Fish, 2d
chief, his X mark.
Ne-gig, or the Otter, 2d chief, his X
mark.
Nay-waw-che-ge-ghick-may-be,
headman, his X mark.
Quay-quay-ke-cah , headman, his X
mark.
185
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Bois Forte Band:
Kay-baish-caw-daw-way, or Clear
Round the Prairie, 1st chief, his
X mark.
Way-zaw-we-ge-zhick-way-sking,
headman, his X mark.
O-saw- we-pe-nay-she, headman, his X
mark.
The Mississippi Bands:
Que-we-san-se, or Hole in the Day,
head chief, his X mark.
Caw-nawn-daw-waw-win-zo, or the
Berry Hunter, 1st chief, his X
mark.
Waw-bow-jieg, or the White Fisher,
2d chief, his X mark.
Ot-taw-waw, 2d chief, his X mark.
Que-we-zhan-cis, or the Bad Boy, 2d
chief, his X mark.
Bye-a-jick, or the Lone Man, 2d chief,
his X mark.
I-yaw-shaw-way-ge-zhick, or the
Crossing Sky, 2d chief, his X
mark.
May-caw-day, or the Bear’s Heart, 2d
chief, his X mark.
Executed in the presence of —
Henry M. Rice,
J.W. Lynde,
G.D. Williams,
B.H. Connor,
E.W. Muldough,
Richard Godfroy,
Ke-way-de-no-go-nay-be, or the
Northern Feather, 2d chief, his X
mark.
Me-squaw-dace, headman, his X
mark.
Naw-gaw-ne-gaw-bo, headman, his X
mark.
Wawm-be-de-yea, headman, his X
mark.
Waish-key, headman, his X mark.
Caw-way-caw-me-ge-skung, headman,
his X mark.
My-yaw-ge -way-we-dunk, or the One
who carries the Voice, 2d chief,
his X mark.
John F. Godfroy,
Geo. Johnston,
S.A. Marvin,
Louis Codot,
Paul H. Beaulieu,
Henry Blatchford,
Peter Floy,
D. S. Cash,
H.H. McCullough,
E. Smith Lee,
Wm. E. Vantassel,
L.H. Wheeler.
{652}
Interpreters.
186
Appendix 7
Final Judgment of Judge Barbara Crabb in Lac Courte Oreilles
Band of Lake Superior Indians et al . v. State of Wisconsin et al.,
March 19, 1991*
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN
LAC COURTE OREILLES BAND OF
LAKE SUPERIOR CHIPPEWA INDIANS;
RED CLIFF BAND OF LAKE SUPERIOR
CHIPPEWA INDIANS; SOKAOGON
CHIPPEWA INDIAN COMMUNITY;
MOLE LAKE BAND OF WISCONSIN;
ST. CROIX CHIPPEWA INDIANS OF
WISCONSIN; BAD RIVER BAND OF
THE LAKE SUPERIOR CHIPPEWA INDIANS;
LAC DU FLAMBEAU BAND OF LAKE
SUPERIOR CHIPPEWA INDIANS,
Plaintiffs, FINAL JUDGMENT
v. 74-C-313-C
STATE OF WISCONSIN, WISCONSIN NATURAL
RESOURCES BOARD, CARROLL D. BESADNY,
JAMES HUNTOON, and GEORGE MEYER
Defendants,
and
ASHLAND COUNTY, BURNETT COUNTY,
FLORENCE COUNTY, LANGLADE COUNTY,
LINCOLN COUNTY, MARINETTE COUNTY,
WASHBURN COUNTY, and THE WISCONSIN
COUNTY FORESTS ASSOCIATION, INC.,
Intervening Defendants.
*As amended on March 22, 1991, to correct a spelling error.
187
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Judgment is entered as follows:
The usufructuary rights retained by plaintiffs as a consequence of the treaties
they entered into with the United States of America in 1837 and 1842 include rights
to those forms of animal life, fish, vegetation and so on that they utilized at treaty
time, set forth in the facts sections of the opinions entered herein on February 18,
1987 and February 21 , 1991 . Also, plaintiffs have the right to use all of the methods
of harvesting employed in treaty times and those developed since. Plaintiffs’ retained
usufructuary rights do not include the right to harvest commercial timber. They do
include the right to gather miscellaneous forest products, namely, such items as
firewood, tree bark, maple sap, lodge poles, boughs and marsh hay.
The fruits of the plaintiffs’ exercise of their usufructuary rights may be traded
and sold to non-Indians, employing modem methods of distribution and sale, as
set forth in the opinion entered on February 18, 1987.
The usufructuary rights reserved by the plaintiffs in 1837 and 1842 have been
terminated as to all portions of the ceded territory that are privately owned as of
the times of the contemplated or actual attempted exercise of those rights.
Plaintiffs’ modest living needs cannot be met from the present available harvest
even if plaintiffs were physically capable of harvesting, gathering and processing
it. The standard of a modest living does not provide a practical way to determine
the plaintiffs’ share of the harvest potential of the ceded territory.
The state defendants will continue to bear the responsibility and authority for the
management of all of the natural resources of the state except as provided herein.
Defendants are enjoined from interfering in the regulation of plaintiffs’ off-
reservation usufructuary rights to harvest walleye and muskellunge within the ceded
territory in Wisconsin, except insofar as plaintiffs have agreed to such regulation
by stipulation. Regulation of plaintiffs’ off-reservation usufructuary rights to harvest
walleye and muskellunge within the ceded territory is reserved to plaintiffs on the
condition that they enact and keep in force a management plan that provides for
the regulation of their members in accordance with biologically sound principles
necessary for the conservation of the species being harvested, as set out in the
opinion entered herein on March 3, 1989, as amended on April 28, 1989. The
efficient gear safe harvest level shall be determined by the methods described in
the opinion and order of this court of March 3, 1989, as supplemented and amended
by proceedings in court on March 28, 1989, the court’s order of March 30, 1989
(R. 996) and the court’s order of April 28, 1989. In the event of a dispute in
determining the safe harvest level for any lake that cannot be resolved by the parties,
the determination shall be made by the Department of Natural Resources.
Defendants are enjoined from interfering in the regulation of plaintiffs’ hunting
and trapping on public lands within the ceded territory in Wisconsin, except insofar
as plaintiffs have agreed to such regulation by stipulation, on the condition that
plaintiffs enact and keep in force an effective plan of self-regulation that conforms
to the orders of the court.
All of the harvestable natural resources to which plaintiffs retain a usufructuary
right are declared to be apportioned equally between the plaintiffs and all other
persons, with such apportionment applying to each species and to each harvesting
unit with limited exceptions as set forth in the order entered herein on May 9, 1990;
and upon the condition that no portion of the harvestable resources may be exempted
from the apportionable harvest. With respect to miscellaneous forest products, the
188
Chippewa Treaty Rights
total estimated harvest is to be apportioned equally between the plaintiffs and all
other persons, with such apportionment applying to each type of miscellaneous
forest product and to each state or county forest unit or state property on which the
gathering of miscellaneous forest products is permitted.
The defendants and intervening defendants may regulate the plaintiffs’ gathering
of miscellaneous forest products through the application of Wis. Admin. Code
Section NR 13.54 and Proposed County Regulation Section 5.
Defendants are enjoined from enforcing those portions of Section NR 13.32(2)(f)
and Section NR 13.32(r)(2)(b) that include a percentage of “public land” as an
element of the formulas for determining the maximum tribal antlerless deer quota
(in Section NR 13.32(2)(f)) or the maximum tribal fisher quota (in Section NR
13.32(r)(2)(b)).
Plaintiffs may not exercise their usufructuary rights of hunting and fishing on
private lands, that is, those lands that are held privately and are not enrolled in the
forest cropland or open managed forest lands program under Wis. Stat. ch. 77 at
the time of the contemplated or actual attempted exercise of such rights. Plaintiffs
may not exercise their usufructuary rights of trapping on private lands or those
lands that are enrolled in the forest cropland or open managed forest lands program
under Wis. Stat. ch. 77. Plaintiffs are subject to state hunting and trapping regu¬
lations when hunting or trapping on private lands. For purposes of plaintiffs’ trapping
activities, privately owned stream beds, river bottoms and overflowed lands are
private lands unless and until state law having state-wide effect is changed to allow
such activities.
Defendants may enforce the prohibition on summer deer hunting contained in
Section NR 13.32(2)(e) until such time as plaintiffs adopt a regulation prohibiting
all deer hunting before Labor Day.
Defendants are prohibited from enforcing that portion of Section NR 13.32(2)(e)
that bars tribal deer hunting during the twenty-four hour period immediately pre¬
ceding the opening of the state deer gun period established in Section NR 10.01(3)(e).
Defendants may enforce the prohibition on shining of deer contained in Section
NR 13.30(l)(q) until such time as plaintiffs adopt regulations identical in scope
and content to Section NR 13.30(l)(q).
With respect to the exercise of any of plaintiffs’ off-reservation usufructuary
rights not expressly referred to in this judgment, the state may regulate only in the
interest of conservation and in the interest of public health and safety, in accordance
with the applicable standards set forth in the opinion entered herein on August 21,
1987.
The following stipulations by the plaintiffs and defendants and consent decrees
are incorporated into this judgment as though fully set forth herein:
Docket Number Subject
Joint Exhibit
p-54 from
12/85 Trial
Stipulation as to the Boundaries of the Territory Ceded by the
Treaties of 1837 and 1842 (Incorporated into Order of Feb. 23,
1987, R. 452)
R. 330 Stipulation that the issue of the use of Lake Superior under the
Treaty of 1842 shall not be adjudicated in this case, but is re¬
served for litigation at later time
189
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences » Arts & Letters
Docket Number
R. 911
Subject
Stipulation on Biological and Certain Remaining Issues in Re¬
gard to the Tribal Harvest of Walleye and Muskellunge (Incor¬
porated into Order of March 3, 1989, R. 991)
R. 912
Stipulation on Fish Processing in Regard to the Tribal Harvest
of Walleye and Muskellunge (Incorporated into Order of March
3, 1989, R. 991)
R. 913
Stipulation on Gear Identification and Safety Marking in regard
to the Tribal Harvest of Walleye and Muskellunge (Incorporated
into Order of March 3, 1989, R. 991)
R. 914
Stipulation on Enforcement and Tribal Court Issues in regard to
the Tribal Harvest of Walleye and Muskellunge (Incorporated
into Order of March 3, 1989, R. 991)
R. 1167
Stipulation in regard to the Tribal Harvest of the White-tailed
Deer on issues related to the (1) Biology of Deer Management,
(2) Tribal Enforcement and Preemption of State Law, (3) Sale
of Deer, (4) Wild Game Processing, (5) Management Authority
and (6) Ceremonial Use (Incorporated into Order of May 9, 1990,
R. 1558)
R. 1222
Stipulation and Consent Decree in regard to the Tribal Harvest
of Wild Rice on issues related to the (1) Biology of Wild Rice,
(2) Tribal Enforcement and Preemption of State Law, and (3)
Management of Wild Rice
R. 1271
Stipulation of Uncontested Facts relevant to Contested Issues of
Law in regard to the Tribal Harvest of Furbearers and Small
Game (Incorporated into Order of May 9, 1990, R. 1558)
R. 1289
Stipulation and Consent Decree (R. 1296) in regard to the Tribal
Harvest of Fisher, Furbearers and Small Game (Incorporated
into Order of May 9, 1990, R. 1558)
R. 1568
Stipulation and Consent Decree (R. 1570) in regard to the Tribal
Harvest of Fish Species Other than Walleye and Muskellunge
R. 1607
Stipulation and Consent Decree in regard to the Tribal Harvest
of (1) Black Bear, Migratory Birds, Wild Plants, and (2) Mis¬
cellaneous Species and Other Regulatory Matters
Except as otherwise specifically provided by the parties’ stipulation (R. 1607),
defendants may enforce and prosecute in state courts violations of the state boating
laws in Wis. Stat. Ch. 30 and Wis. Admin. Code Ch. 5 committed by members
of the plaintiff tribes engaged in treaty activities even if the plaintiff tribes have
190
Chippewa Treaty Rights
adopted identical boating regulations for the off-reservation treaty activities of their
members.
Plaintiffs’ failure to enact an effective plan of self-regulation that conforms with
the orders of the court, or their withdrawal from such a plan after enactment, or
their failure to comply with the provisions of the plan, if established in this court,
will subject them or any one of them to regulation by defendants.
This judgment is binding on the members of the plaintiff tribes as well as on the
plaintiff tribes.
Defendants are immune from liability for money damages for their violations of
plaintiffs’ treaty rights.
Plaintiff Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians is entitled
to actual attorneys’ fees and costs for work performed in phase one of this litigation
in the amount of $166,722.24, which amount has been paid.
Costs are awarded to plaintiffs and to the defendants and intervening defendants
to the extent they are prevailing parties within the meaning of Fed. R. Civ. P.
54(d).
This judgment is without prejudice to applications for additional attorneys’ fees
for work performed in phase two of the litigation.
The third-party complaint against the third-party defendants United States of
America, William Clark, Secretary of the United States Department of the Interior
and John Fritz, deputy assistant secretary of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Indian Affairs,
is dismissed.
The motion of plaintiff Lac Courte Oreille{s} Band of Lake Superior Chippewa
Indians to join the United States of America as an involuntary party plaintiff is
denied as untimely.
Approved as to form this 19th day of March, 1991,
Barbara B. Crabb
District Judge
Entered this 19th day of March, 1991,
Joseph W. Skupniewitz, Clerk of Court
191
Appendix 8
Chippewa Acceptance of Judge Barbara Crabb’s Final Judgment
May 20, 1991
TO THE PEOPLE OF WISCONSIN:
The six bands of Lake Superior Chippewa, allied for many years in litigation
against the State of Wisconsin in order to confirm and uphold their treaty right to
hunt, fish and gather, and now secure in the conviction that they have preserved
these rights for the generations to come, have this day foregone their right to further
appeal and dispute adverse rulings in this case, including a district court ruling
barring them from damages. They do this, knowing that the subject of the latter
ruling is currently before the United States Supreme Court, and has been decided
in favor of Indian tribes in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and other federal
courts. They do this as a gesture of peace and friendship towards the people of
Wisconsin, in a spirit they hope may someday be reciprocated on the part of the
general citizenry and officials of this state.
GAIASHKIBOS, CHAIRMAN
LAC COURTE OREILLES BAND
OF LAKE SUPERIOR CHIPPEWAS
PATRICIA R. DePERRY,
CHAIRMAN
RED CLIFF BAND OF LAKE
SUPERIOR CHIPPEWAS
RAYMOND McGESHICK,
CHAIRMAN
SOKAOGON CHIPPEWA INDIAN
COMMUNITY; MOLE LAKE BAND
OF WISCONSIN
EUGENE TAYLOR, CHAIRMAN
ST. CROIX CHIPPEWA INDIANS
OF WISCONSIN
DONALD MOORE, CHAIRMAN
BAD RIVER BAND OF THE LAKE
SUPERIOR TRIBE OF CHIPPEWA
INDIANS
MICHAEL W. ALLEN, CHAIRMAN
LAC DU FLAMBEAU BAND OF
LAKE SUPERIOR CHIPPEWA
INDIANS
193
Appendix 9
State of Wisconsin’s Acceptance
of Judge Barbara Crabb’s Final Judgment
Statement by Attorney General James E. Doyle, Jr.
Madison, Wisconsin
May 20, 1991, 9:30 A.M.
Sixty days ago, Judge Crabb entered a final order in the treaty rights litigation.
The Federal District Court has issued a set of decisions on a variety of issues
involving the treaty. Last week, lawyers for the various bands of the Chippewa
tribe involved in the litigation informed us that they would not appeal any of the
issues, if the State also did not appeal.
After extensive consideration and consultation, Secretary Besadny and I are
announcing today that the State will not appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for
the Seventh Circuit. This means that a long and costly legal battle has been put to
rest. It allows us to open a new chapter in state, community and tribal relations.
This case has been fully litigated. Wisconsin and the tribe have been in court
for nearly 17 years. Judge Crabb has heard a great deal of testimony and she has
issued well-reasoned, comprehensive decisions. The matter has already been to the
Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals twice.
This decision has required an extensive legal review of what the state could win
or lose through a possible appeal. The D-N-R, as the client agency, in consultation
with the lawyers in this office, has concluded that a further appeal of this case
would serve no useful purpose, and might jeopardize the gains we have made. And,
I concur.
The fundamental question of off-reservation treaty rights has already been decided
by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in this litigation. In 1978, my father ruled
that the Chippewas’ off-reservation rights set out in the treaties of 1837 and 1842
had been extinguished. On appeal, in 1983 the Seventh Circuit said my father’s
ruling was incorrect and declared that the off-reservation rights were valid. The
State asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review that decision and the Supreme Court
declined.
I know that many people in Wisconsin hold out hopes that another appeal would
produce a different outcome. The general rule of law is that an issue once decided
cannot be litigated again. There is no reasonable basis for a belief that the Seventh
Circuit, or the Supreme Court, would deviate from this general rule and that the
outcome on this basic issue would be any different today.
Our decision was reached after an exceptionally thorough legal review by many
lawyers in this department over the last sixty days and extensive consultation with
the D-N-R, the Department of Administration and the Governor’s Office.
Wisconsin has won many significant victories in this case, all of which would
be jeopardized in any appeal. These victories include:
195
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts & Letters
1. The tribe cannot sue the state for past monetary damages ... A claim the
tribe has said is worth over $300 million.
2. The treaties do not extend to the commercial harvest of timber. A contrary
ruling would cost the counties of this state millions of dollars annually.
3. The state has the ultimate authority to protect and manage the resources in
the ceded territory.
4. Tribal members cannot enter onto privately-owned lands to exercise their
rights.
5. Treaty rights do not extend to privately-owned stream beds, river bottoms
and overflowed lands.
6. The tribe is not entitled to all the available resources necessary to sustain a
modest standard of living. Rather, the resources must be shared on a 50-50
basis.
7. The State can impose on tribal members its boating and safety regulations,
even when the Chippewa are engaging in treaty protected activity. Thus, the
tribe cannot shine deer or engage in summer deer hunting.
An appeal would put all of these significant victories at risk. And, for those who
doubt that, let’s remember that the fundamental off-reservation rights were granted
on an appeal.
This is an appropriate time to put this case to rest. The people of northern
Wisconsin are tired of fighting with each other. They know that we have far more
important issues facing us.
Because of outstanding community and tribal cooperation and an excellent job
by law enforcement, the 1991 spearfishing season was remarkably quiet. We have
had two consecutive years now of improved relations and a real understanding that
both sides need to get on with their lives. Rather than spending millions of dollars
on law enforcement and attorneys’ fees, I think everyone in northern Wisconsin
would prefer to support economic development, tourism and education.
I have been impressed with the many ways in which the citizens of northern
Wisconsin . . . tribal and non-tribal . . . have been working together to bring about
economic development and cultural understanding. The state has a responsibility
to support those efforts through words and action.
In my short time as Attorney General, I’ve made seven trips to northern Wisconsin
on this issue. I’ve seen firsthand community leaders and tribal leaders sitting down
together at the same table to talk about how to improve tourism and the economy.
I’ve seen tribal fish hatcheries that are stocking fish in off-reservation lakes for all
of us to enjoy. And, I’ve heard the good people of northern Wisconsin talk frankly
about the ugly image that some in the nation have had of our state.
I’m proud of what I’ve seen and the cooperation in the north convinces me even
more that it is time to move on.
The long legal struggle is now over. It is time to recognize, as the Court has,
that both sides have rights. The work of the Court is finished. It is now up to the
State and all the people of Wisconsin to build on the relationship that we have
begun.
196
Chippewa Treaty Rights
Those of us who call Wisconsin home do so because we love the quality of life
here. Our natural resources make this state special and the people here are second
to none. I know that we still have a lot of work ahead of us. But, I am confident
that our children will be much better off for the struggle.
197
End Notes
1. Chippewa mixed-blood writer William Warren refers to Chippewa lands in
Wisconsin and Minnesota as “blood earned country” (1849, 20) due to their
“ancient bloody feud” (1850, 95) with the Sioux. For source material on Chippewa-
Sioux relations collected by an amateur historian from the Chippewa Valley, see
Bartlett (1929, 1-66).
2. For information on the government trading houses, see Peake (1954); Plais-
ance (1954); Prucha (1984, 1: 115-34); and Viola (1974, 6-70).
3. Jefferson followed a similar approach in the South; see Satz (1981, 9-10).
4. At the Fond du Lac negotiations in 1827, for example, the treaty commis¬
sioners collected British medals and flags and gave Indian leaders and others they
chose to recognize American flags and medals (Edwards 1826, 460-61, 473-74;
Schoolcraft 1851, 245; Viola 1974, 145; Warren 1885, 393). Interpreter William
Warren reflected on the incident years later as follows:
At the treaty of Fond du Lac, the United States commissioners recognized the chiefs
of the Ojibways, by distributing medals amongst them, the size of which were in accor¬
dance with their degree of rank. Sufficient care was not taken in this rather delicate
operation, to carry out the pure civil polity of the tribe. Too much attention was paid to
the recommendation of interested traders who wished their best hunters to be rewarded
by being made chiefs. One young man named White Fisher, was endowed with a medal,
solely for the strikingly mild and pleasant expression of his face. He is now a petty sub¬
chief on the Upper Mississippi.
From this time may be dated the commencement of innovations which have entirely
broken up the civil polity of the Ojibways. (Warren 1885, 393-94)
For a history of the use of peace medals in American Indian diplomacy, see Prucha
(1962a; and 1971).
5. Lawrence Taliaferro was appointed at Fort Snelling in 1819, and Henry
Rowe Schoolcraft was appointed at Sault Ste. Marie in 1822 (Hill 1974, 162, 166).
As late as 1837 Governor Dodge referred to the Wisconsin Chippewas as follows:
“They live remote from our military posts, and have but little intercourse with our
citizens, and have had no established agent of the Government to reside with them
any length of time” (Dodge 1837b, 538).
6. Grant Foreman (1946) has studied the removal of Indians from Ohio,
Indiana, and Illinois. I have briefly examined the removal of Indians from the Old
Northwest as part of a larger study of Jacksonian Indian policy (1975) and have
reviewed the situation in the Old Northwest in more detail as a test case of Jacksonian
policy (1976). Useful articles on individual Indian tribes and bands from the Saint
Lawrence lowlands and the Great Lakes riverine regions appear in Trigger (1978).
199
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Francis Paul Prucha’s account of the removal of the northern Indians during the
Jacksonian era unconvincingly argues that the emigration of these tribes was merely
a “part of their migration history” and stresses federal paternalism in Indian affairs
(Prucha 1984, 1: 243-69). Excellent maps and accompanying text dealing with the
removal of the Indians from the Great Lakes region appear in Tanner (1987). For
a recent analysis of the contrast between the rhetoric and reality of Jacksonian Indian
policy that includes references to Wisconsin, see Satz (1991).
7. In 1911, the Iowa Journal of History and Politics reprinted a version of
the treaty proceedings that originally appeared in volume 1, numbers 11 and 14 of
the Dubuque Iowa News (1837, 408-28). The 1911 publication, however, is not a
verbatim reproduction of the original handwritten copy (Van Antwerp 1837) on file
in the National Archives and Records Service, which was utilized in this study (see
Appendix 1).
8. The sutlers were civilian businessmen appointed by the War Department to
sell items not furnished soldiers by the subsistence or quartermaster departments.
9. The First Infantry arrived in Florida in November of 1837 and departed on
August 4, 1841. For information on the Seminole Indian War and the role of the
First Infantry, see Mahon (1985).
10. For an example of one effort to open a mill along the Chippewa River in
1836, see Dousman (1836); Stambaugh (1836); Chippewa Chiefs ({1836}); Harris
(1836); and Young and Robinson (1838).
11. References to documents included in the Appendices are highlighted in
italics immediately after the related text. Frame numbers are provided instead of
page numbers for items on microfilm.
12. Anthropologist James A. Clifton contends La Trappe’s comments indicate
the willingness of the Pillager and other Minnesota bands to sell the pinelands in
Wisconsin, which were useless to them, while reserving from sale the deciduous
forests. In addition, Clifton views later efforts of the Chippewas to clarify the
meaning of La Trappe’s words as evidence the Pillagers had inserted the qualification
into the official record in order to be able to later “dodge undesirable ramifications
of the agreement or to reopen negotiations” (Clifton 1987, 12).
13. The mixed-blood population among the Chippewas and other Wisconsin
Indians never emerged as so socially cohesive a group as the Metis of central
Canada. White traders not only seemed to prefer mixed-blood wives but they also
took steps to educate and employ their children (Kay 1977, 329). On the significance
of the mixed-bloods among the Chippewas, also see Brunson (1843a).
14. The document has recently been published with editorial notes and an
historical introduction by a Canadian linguist; see Nichols (1988).
15. Governor Henry Dodge referred to William Warren as a man with “much
influence” over the Chippewas who was “well qualified” to serve as an interpreter
200
Chippewa Treaty Rights
(Dodge 1847b, 1086). A knowledgeable St. Paul trader referred to Warren as “the
only correct interpreter in the Chippewa nation” (Rice 1847). For additional in¬
formation on Warren, see Babcock (1946).
16. On the value of oral traditions in understanding the past, see Buffalohead
(1984, xiv).
17. Strickland, Herzberg, and Owens (1990, 7 n. 13) define this term as
follows: “A usufructuary right is the right of a person (or group) to enjoy, use, or
harvest something to which that person does not have actual title. This principle is
an established part of anglo- American law and is not limited to the treaty-rights
sphere. Any person (or group) may reserve a usufructuary right in property they
sell or give to another. This usufructuary right is then protected under property and
contract law principles. For example, any landowner is able to convey a piece of
land and lake to another, but provide in the sales contract that the seller and his
heirs will be able to fish in the lake forever. If this is done, under contract and
property law principles the seller may use the courts to enforce the promise made
between the parties at the time of sale.”
18. For information on Copway, see Smith (1988).
19. For information on the origins and use of the annuity system by federal
officials as a means of social control, see Satz (1975, 104-05, 134, 143, 145, 222,
230, 246-48, 276-77, 279 n. 3, 293).
20. Historian Paul W. Gates claims that prior to the 1837 Chippewa Treaty,
“the government was well ahead of the land buyers in the negotiations for Indian
cessions, the surveying of the ceded lands, and the public offering of the lands”
in Wisconsin. By September 30, 1836, Indian title had been surrendered to 18,512,437
acres, surveys completed on 8,679,605 acres; some 4,807,307 acres had been
offered for public sale, and the government had sold 1,5051,921 acres (1969, 306
n. 1).
21. There are conflicting opinions on the extent of forest cover and deer
population densities in early northern Wisconsin; compare Habeck and Curtis (1959),
with Schorger (1953).
22. In 1840 Wisconsin territorial delegate John Doty informed Congress: “The
Territory of Wiskonsan has as many lakes within her borders as the Empire State,
and bids fair, from her fine forests, her copper, her lead, her iron, her zinc, her
incomparable fish, her fertile soil, and, above all, her proverbially salubrious cli¬
mate, to at least equal any other portion of the republic” (Doty 1840, 5).
23. In 1862, a committee of the U. S. Senate reported that the copper region
acquired in 1842 contained “the richest and most extensive deposits of that metal
yet discovered in the world.” See U. S. Senate Committee on Military Affairs and
the Militia (1862, 3). For an interesting account of excavations of early sites and
illustrations of artifacts found, see Griffin (1961).
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
24. The worship of copper by the Lake Superior Chippewas attracted the notice
of many white visitors from the 1600s to the 1800s. For an interesting account of
religious ideas about copper held by the Chippewas and the impact of those ideas
on the life of a member of the Ontonagon Band, see Peters (1989).
25. Kemble’s factory, the West Point Foundry Association chartered in 1818
opposite West Point on the Hudson River, became so successful in the manufacture
of military weapons that it received the special patronage of the federal government
(Schulze 1933, 317).
26. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions was a Boston-
centered missionary society comprised largely of Congregationalists and Presby¬
terians. The Board supported more Indian missionaries in the period between the
War of 1812 and the Civil War than any other Protestant missionary society. For
additional information, see Phillips (1954); and Berkhoffer (1965).
27. Although Armstrong’s reminiscences contain some factual errors, his com¬
ments about the 1842 promise of continued usufructuary rights based on good
behavior is supported by statements from contemporaries, as noted above. Also see
U. S. District Court (1978, 1323 n. 1, 1327). For rebuttals of Clifton’s arguments
by Wisconsin Attorney General Don Hanaway and by University of Wisconsin-
Stevens Point history professor David Wrone, see respectively Eau Claire Leader-
Telegram (1988b, c).
28. In writing about what the Chippewas thought of the Treaty of 1842,
historian Mark Keller erroneously claims that “there is no mention of dissatisfaction
with the terms of the eventual pact in government records. This is not unusual, for
what few government records exist were made by government employees, and none
mention the negotiations’’ (Keller 1981, 10).
29. Anthropologist James Clifton cites Martin’s letter to support a statement
in his text concerning Stuart’s promise that the Chippewas would not have to leave
for a very long time (Clifton 1987, 36 n. 43), but he then ignores the letter when
he attacks Armstrong’s credibility (Clifton 1987, 36 n. 44). Armstrong’s point is
precisely that made by Martin in 1842, so there is indeed “independent’’ contem¬
poraneous evidence to support Armstrong’s claim. Other examples are cited in the
text.
30. For information on Black Bird, see Morse (1857, 344-49).
31. In his memoirs, Brunson speaks of his “resigning’’ from office due to
“intimations’’ that he refused to be a party to a “palpable fraud’’ Stuart committed
by claiming Indians not party to the treaty had agreed to its terms (Brunson 1872-79,
2: 206-07).
32. In 1849, Commissioner of Indian Affairs Orlando Brown referred to the
Sioux in Minnesota as “a wild and untamable people’’ who were “the most restless,
reckless, and mischievous Indians of the Northwest; their passion for war and the
202
Chippewa Treaty Rights
chase seems unlimited and unassuageable; and so long as they remain where they
are, they must be a source of constant annoyance and danger to our citizens, as
well as to the Indians of our northern colony, between some of whom (the Chip-
pewas) and themselves there exists a hereditary feud, frequently leading to collisions
and bloodshed, which disturbs the peace and tranquility of the frontier, and must
greatly interfere with the welfare of the Indians of that colony, and with the efforts
of the government to effect their civilization” (1849, 944).
33. See Satz (1975; 1976; 1979a; 1987; and 1989).
34. The congressional report of the Chippewa agent refers to Pahpogohmony
as the seventh location. As a result of conversations with Helen Hombeck Tanner,
editor of the Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History (1987) and Chippewa scholar
Richard St. Germaine, I have determined that Pahpogohmony is most likely a
mistranslation of Pequaming.
35. There has been some confusion concerning the publication of this order.
Legal scholars Rennard Strickland and Stephen J. Herzberg and law student Steven
R. Owens, who mistakenly attribute the order to President Millard Fillmore, claim
it was never published and that it is only available through the National Archives
and Records Service in Washington (Strickland 1990, 4 n. 5). The document is
available in published form (see Fig. 18). In 1941, attorney Charles J. Kappler
included the order in his published compendium of Indian laws under a section
entitled ‘‘Executive Orders Relating to Indian Reservations,” where it appears under
the heading ‘‘Minnesota” (5: 663) apparently because the order was issued in
response to a request from Minnesota Territorial officials as noted in Chapter 4.
36. Luke Lea (1810-1898) had no prior experience in Indian affairs. He should
not be confused with his uncle, the elder Luke Lea (1783-1851), who was an Indian
agent at Fort Leavenworth from August 1849 until June 1851 (Trennert 1979; Hill
1974, 67).
37. For information on Copway, see Smith (1988).
38. Reports on the mortality at Sandy Lake vary from seventy to nearly two
hundred (Hall 1850b; Clifton 1987, 25). A report from the Lake Superior News
and Mining Journal reprinted in the East asserted that ‘‘hundreds” died during the
winter of 1850-1851 “in the miserable region to which the Government would
remove them” (New York Times 1851a).
39. Watrous was eventually removed from public office for political reasons
rather than for his conduct as Indian agent (Hall 1853; Clifton 1987, 38 n. 76).
40. The St. Croix and Mole Lake Bands were not provided reservations in the
1854 treaty. Not until the mid- 1930s did the federal government recognize these
bands and set aside land for them in northern Wisconsin (Lurie 1987, 21; Danziger
1979, 153-55).
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
41 . Manypenny, who served as Commissioner of Indian Affairs when the 1854
treaty was negotiated, later rebuked federal removal efforts. His words, while
general in nature, seem relevant to the abortive efforts to remove the Chippewa
that preceded the establishment of the Chippewa reservations: “In numberless
instances removals have been brought about, not because there was a necessity for
them, but with a view to the plunder and profit that was expected to result from
the operation” (Manypenny 1880, 134).
42. In passing the Indian Appropriations Bill for 1871-72 in March of 1871,
members of the U. S. House of Representatives demonstrated their general disil¬
lusionment with the administration of Indian affairs and their jealousy of the Senate’s
role in ratifying treaties by attaching the following rider to a sentence providing
funds for the Yankton Tribe of Sioux Indians, “ Provided , That hereafter no Indian
nation or tribe within the territory of the United States shall be acknowledged or
recognized as an independent nation, tribe, or power with whom the United States
may contract by treaty: Provided, further, That nothing herein contained shall be
construed to invalidate or impair the obligation of any treaty heretofore lawfully
made and ratified with any such Indian nation or tribe” (U. S. Congress 1871 , 566;
Priest 1942, 96-102, 244; Prucha 1984, 1: 531-33). The United States continued
to deal with Indian governments through agreements (requiring House and Senate
approval), statutes, and executive orders, which recognized rights and liabilities
virtually identical to those established by treaties before 1871 (Cohen 1982, 107,
127-28). In 1924, when Congress made all Indians citizens of the United States,
it again preserved their rights as tribal citizens (U. S. Congress 1924, 253).
43. The contract with William Rust of Eau Claire was renegotiated in 1873
because a counter offer had raised public questions about the terms (Kinney 1937,
255; Shifferd 1976, 22).
44. The petition was presented to Indian Commissioner William P. Dole who
logged it with the notation “the same old chronic complaint” and then returned
the document to the delegation (Draper {1882}). A subsequent visit by the delegation
to U. S. Senator James R. Doolittle of Wisconsin also failed to bring results (Warren
1882).
45. The Wisconsin Supreme Court based its decision on evidence that President
Taylor had issued a Removal Order in 1850. According to the Court:
. . . There was offered and received in evidence that which was certified to be a copy
of an executive order of removal purporting to be signed by President Taylor February
6, 1850.
We find no grounds upon which the validity of such a document or its competency as
evidence can properly be questioned. That it evidently was not presented and offered in
evidence in the two {U. S. Supreme Court} cases just above quoted cannot detract from
its validity now when offered and properly received. What was said by way of recital in
those two cases . . . must of course extend no further than the facts presented in each.
We must therefore hold that any form of title to this land then possessed by them . . .
was ceded by the Indians under the treaty of 1842-43, and their right of occupancy, so
far as it would interfere with the lawful occupancy of those claiming by patent from the
204
Chippewa Treaty Rights
United States is concerned, was terminated upon said executive order of 1850. (Wisconsin
Supreme Court 1927, 474)
For the details of this case involving the effort of two children and a grandson of
a member of the Fond du Lac Band to recover possession of Wisconsin Point — a
narrow, sandy peninsula extending northeasterly from the City of Superior in Doug¬
las County into Lake Superior long occupied by members of the band and visited
during the summer months by white campers — see Wisconsin Supreme Court (1927).
46. The actual title of the forty-eight-page Wheeler-Howard Bill was “A bill
to grant to Indians living under Federal tutelage the freedom to organize for the
purposes of local self-government and economic enterprise; to provide for the
necessary training of Indians in administrative and economic affairs; to conserve
and develop Indian lands; and to promote the more effective administration of
justice in matters affecting Indian tribes and communities by establishing a federal
Court of Indian Affairs” (Prucha 1984, 2: 957). Congress approved a weakened
version known as the Indian Reorganization Act in 1934. Hailed by its supporters
as the Indian Magna Charta, its adoption marked the climax of a bitter contest
waged throughout the 1920s between what one scholar calls “Indian protectors and
reformers” led by John Collier and Gertrude Bonnin and “obscurantists and ex¬
ploiters” led by Albert B. Fall and Charles H. Burke (Gibson 1980, 529). For
additional information, see Hertzberg (1971, 179-209); Philp (1977, 1-160); Prucha
(1984, 2: 940-68). On the Indian congresses convened by Commissioner of Indian
Affairs Collier and Indian opinion on the Wheeler-Howard Bill, see Philp (1977,
145-56); Prucha (1984, 2: 955-61); Deloria and Lytle (1984, 101-21).
47. On the rise of Indian activism as a social movement, see Day (1972).
48. The importance of the media during the events at Wounded Knee in 1973
was noted and criticized in Time (1973); D. Smith (1973); and in Schultz (1973).
For an example of how the media’s frame of reference sometimes impedes the
recording of reality and actually helps to create events, see Landsman (1988).
49. Northern States Power (NSP) had not fulfilled the original terms of its
fifty-year lease, which required the removal of Indian graves and homes when the
dam was built in 1921. By 1924, NSP had flooded nearly fifteen thousand acres
of federal land comprising the Chippewa Flowage, including sixteen thousand acres
of Chippewa land on the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation. Under NSP’s control,
the fluctuating water level of the flowage destroyed three Indian wild rice beds that
had previously supplied food and significant amounts of income, and threatened
the Chippewa communal economy of hunting, fishing, and wild rice gathering in
other ways as well (Lurie 1987, 55-56). At the 1989 annual meeting of the Economic
and Business History Society, historian James Oberly argued, “nearly seven decades
. . . {after NSP received the original lease}, there is strong feeling among the LCO
Chippewa that what took place in 1921 and after was truly the crime of the century”
(1989a, 13).
50. The Warriors had claimed the vacant property for the Menominee tribe to
use as a hospital. They apparently drew their inspiration from the take-over of the
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington and the Wounded Knee confrontation in
South Dakota. The incident ended only after Governor Patrick J. Lucey deployed
the Wisconsin National Guard (Lurie 1987, 54-55).
5 1 . The Chippewas did not seek the broader right of engaging in usufructuary
activities on privately owned land (U. S Court of Appeals 1983, 365 n. 14).
52. In numbering the Chippewa court cases, I am following Bichler (1990a).
53. At the time of the nineteenth century treaties, the Chippewas had long
engaged in commercial activities and had long served, to use Judge Doyle’s words,
as “participants in an international market economy.” As Doyle observed, “com¬
mercial activity was a major factor in Chippewa subsistence.” Indeed, “the Chip¬
pewa were aware of the principles of the Euro- American market economy. They
understood competition and the ramifications of the fluctuations of supply and
demand, as well as the value of tangible goods and services.” Although the Chip¬
pewas were “clearly engaged in commerce throughout the treaty era,” they “de¬
veloped an economic strategy that incorporated both their traditional economy and
the market economy in such a way that they were able, on the one hand, to transact
business with non-Indians who were participating in the Euro-American market
economy and, on the other, to transact social and political relations with one another
in the traditional manner” (U. S. District Court 1987, 1428-30).
54. After Judge Crabb’s white-tailed deer ruling of May 9, 1990, there was
uncertainty as to whether the Chippewas were still entitled to the entire safe harvest
or whether the fifty-fifty split for deer also referred to other resources such as fish
(Bichler 1990b). For Crabb’s Final Judgment, see Appendix 7.
55. The Eleventh Amendment, ratified in 1798, provides that “the judicial
power of the United States shall not be construed to extend to any suit in law or
equity, commenced or prosecuted against one of the United States by Citizens of
another State, or by Citizens or Subjects of any Foreign State.”
56. The agreements have been made on the basis of biological assessments
obtained from both the state and tribal biologists (Great Lakes Indian Fish and
Wildlife Commission {c. 1988}, 2). Judge Barbara Crabb observed in 1989:
The department {Department of Natural Resources} has negotiated a number of interim
agreements with the tribes covering the harvesting not only of walleye and muskellunge,
but other species of fish, deer, small game, migratory birds, bear, and wild rice. Its
wardens, along with other state and local law enforcement officers, and GLIFWC {Great
Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission} personnel, have monitored the agreements
to ensure that Indian hunters and fishers have been able to implement their treaty rights.
The department has done this in the face of intense opposition from individuals and groups
opposed to the recognition and implementation of Indian treaty rights, with only the most
modest amount of federal assistance in the form of funding for some assessment projects.
It is to the tribes’ credit that they have adopted an equally cooperative attitude toward
the implementation of their rights. It has not been an easy time for them, either. The
tribes and their members have been subjected to physical and verbal abuse over the
206
Chippewa Treaty Rights
recognition of their treaty rights, most publicly when they have attempted to exercise their
treaty rights to spearfish, but not only then. Harassment has become a way of life for
them.
Tribal members have negotiated and entered into a series of interim agreements with
the state that have circumscribed their rights to accommodate state concerns, despite their
understandable impatience to reap the benefits of treaty rights that they have been forced
to forgo for so many years.
Each tribe has joined the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission; each
plaintiff tribe is also a member of the Voigt Inter-Tribal Task Force. GLIFWC has hired
trained fisheries biologists who participate in the State-Tribal Technical Working and
Biological Issues Groups that have produced the working papers and biological issues
stipulations so helpful to the court, to treaty rights negotiators, and to fisheries managers.
GLIFWC wardens have participated with DNR wardens and other state and local law
enforcement officers in the monitoring and enforcement of the tribal fishing efforts under
the interim agreements.
Both the tribes and the officials of the State of Wisconsin responsible for implementing
the tribes’ treaty rights can take pride in their accomplishments over the last six years.
They deserve widespread recognition and appreciation for their efforts. (U. S. District
Court 1989, 1053-054)
57. For additional information, see “Fishing in Western Washington — A Treaty
Right, A Clash of Cultures” in U. S. Commission on Civil Rights (1981, 61-100).
58. For evidence of the ideological connection between these organizations,
see Equal Rights for Everyone (1984). In early 1991, STA attorney Fred Hatch of
Sayner was retained as legal counsel by PARR as that organization began advance
preparations for night protest rallies at boat landings in the spring. The official
PARR newspaper recently stated, “although PARR and STA may march to a
different drummer, they are still marching down the same road, at the end of which,
we all hope, is equality for everyone” ( PARR Issue 1991a, b, i).
59. Both Dane County Board Chairman Richard Wagner and Dane County
Executive Richard Phelps announced they favored ending their county’s membership
in the Wisconsin Counties Association as a result of its handling of the Salt Lake
City conference. Wagner protested, “it’s inappropriate for any action to be taken
to exclude Wisconsin officials whether they are Indians or not.” See Milwaukee
Sentinel (1990c).
60. For a comparison of La Follette and McCarthy, see Thompson (1988,
601). On Wisconsin’s handling of the fugitive slave law issue, see Clark (1955),
Campbell (1972, 53-54, 157-61, 176-77), and Current (1976, 147-48, 208-09,
219-21). Race relations in Wisconsin between 1940 and 1965 is treated in Thompson
(1988, 305-400).
207
■Wr-
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Chippewa Treaty Rights
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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
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1933 State v. Johnson 212 Wisconsin Reports 301-13.
1940 State v. La Barge 234 Wisconsin Reports 449-51.
1971 State v. Gurnoe et al. and State v. Connors et al. 53 Wisconsin Reports 2d
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Chippewa Treaty Rights
1989 ‘ ‘Economic Impact of the 1837 and 1842 Chippewa Treaties.’ ’ Unpublished paper,
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Papers, Vol. 27, pp. 1109-111.
251
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters was chartered by the State Legislature on March
16, 1870, as an incorporated society serving the people of Wisconsin by encouraging investigation and
dissemination of knowledge of the sciences, arts, and letters.
1991 WISCONSIN ACADEMY COUNCIL
Officers
Councilors
Robert Swanson, President
Julie Stafford, President-Elect, Chippewa Falls
Katharine Lyall, Past-President
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Brad Faughn, Vice President-Arts
William Urbrock, Vice President-Letters
Pat Blankenburg, Secretary /Treasurer
Mildred Larson, Eau Claire
Terrance MacTaggart, Superior
John Barlow, Appleton
William Blockstein, Madison
Gary Rohde, River Falls
Dan Neviaser, Madison
Terry Haller, Madison
William Stott, Jr., Ripon
Susan Dragisic, Milwaukee
Harry Fry, Kenosha
Executive Director
Councilor Emeritus
LeRoy R. Lee
John Thomson, Mount Horeb
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Chippewa Treaty Rights
“The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters performs an im¬
portant service in making available this work, which is the first product
of an ongoing research project on Wisconsin Chippewa treaty rights being
conducted by Graduate School Dean and Professor of American Indian
History Ronald N. Satz and a group of students at the University of
Wisconsin-Eau Claire. This is an important study that shows the signifi¬
cance of historical research in the service of public policy. ... A reading
of the historical analysis and documents in this book should help all of us
understand and appreciate Wisconsin Indian treaty rights. Understanding
does not come easily, but it is essential to preservation of the rights of all
of us — Indian and non-Indian alike.”
— Rennard Strickland , professor of law and director of the American Indian
Law and Policy Center at the University of Oklahoma, and editor-in-chief
of the highly acclaimed 1982 revision of The Handbook of Federal Indian
Law.
This study is “a remarkable piece of work. A major contribution!”
— Richard St. Germaine, professor of education and Chippewa history at
the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and former Lac Courte Oreille s
Tribal Chair.
“This is a Cracker- Jacks, a first class contribution to the subject [of Chip¬
pewa treaty rights] which will knock the pins from beneath the opponents’
arguments as well as provide the public understanding of the treaty question.”
—David R. Wrone, professor of history at the University of Wiscons in-
Stevens Point and co-editor of Who’s the Savage?
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
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u#*' TAT* •
H Wisconsin
Poetry
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts and Letters
Wisconsin
Poetry
’^VTHSO! YfaV
JUL 2 6 1991
LIBRARY
Transactions Vol. 79, No. 2 — Special Issue
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Transactions
Transactions is published annually by the Wisconsin Academy of
Sciences, Arts and Letters and welcomes articles that explore features
of the State of Wisconsin and its people. Manuscripts, queries, and
other correspondence should be addressed to the editor.
Editor
Carl N. Haywood
134 Schofield Hall
University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
Eau Claire, Wisconsin 54701
Managing Editor
Patricia Allen Duyfhuizen
Poetry Editor
Bruce Taylor
Student Interns
Teri Piper Jilloyn Rumple
Caitlyn Morrell Polly Emerich
Tracy O'Donnell Chris Gruenhagen
Lonn Lorenz
© 1991 The Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts & Letters
Manufactured in the United States of America
All Rights Reserved
From the Editor
It seemed to be a relatively innocent bit of dreaming when our
poetry editor, Bruce Taylor, suggested that the Wisconsin Academy
and Transactions publish an anthology of Wisconsin poets. And when
Patricia Duyfhuizen, our production editor, indicated that she would
be willing to design and produce the volume, there still seemed little
more to the discussion than an idea. The past two years have proven
again that ideas and hard work can make good things happen. As
editor of Transactions I am pleased to be associated with this anthology
and to commend it to members of the Wisconsin Academy and to all
people interested in poetry.
Those who made this book out of the thousands of poems submitted
by hundreds of poets deserve the special thanks of those who love
poetry. The work of Bruce Taylor, who selected the poems and wrote
the introduction, is obvious. Patricia Duyfhuizen accepted the role of
Managing Editor for this special edition and, in addition to designing
the anthology, has brought order to the hundreds of activities relating
to typesetting, proofreading, layout, printing, etc. The student in¬
terns, whose names appear on the copyright page, contributed much
to these areas under her guidance.
Jan Kroll, who is a member of the Arts and Sciences staff at UWEC,
has managed every piece of paper associated with the manuscript.
Only those involved in publishing can understand what this has meant
to the project. Finally, the publication would not have been possible
without the financial support of the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences,
Arts, and Letters, the Kohler Foundation, Inc., Evjue Foundation,
Inc., and the Wisconsin Arts Board.
I hope that each reader will see in this volume the joy that has gone
into its making.
Carl N. Haywood
iii
Contents
Introduction xv
Antler
Bubble-Boggled 1
Oh-Oh 4
Can Vignettes 6
On Learning on the Clearest Night Only 6000 Stars are Visible
to the Naked Eye 8
Margaret Benbow
Priests 9
Crazy arms: Earlene Remembers 10
Racine 1950 11
Sally Benforado
Watch Out 12
Norbert Blei
Red Fingernails 13
In Snow 13
Blue Roof 14
Robert Brown
The Geometry of Justice 15
Chaos 16
Notes on Walking Man 1 18
Charles Cantrell
Kafka's Janitor 20
An Unprayed-for Song 21
Susan Faust Casper
A Fairy Tale 24
Passage 25
Robin S. Chapman
Catching Rabbits 26
What Went Wrong 27
High School 28
Going With 29
v
Kelly Cherry
My Calendar 30
Natural Theology 31
My Marriage 32
The Rose 34
The Doorway to Doom for Objects 35
Transformations 36
At Night Your Mouth 38
Prayer for a Future Beyond Ideology and War
Dewitt Clinton
Hating November 40
Man Falls with Unfinished Story 41
Elizabeth Davey
Twentieth Anniversary Poem 44
Imagine This 45
Scarp 46
Travis Du Priest
The Music of the Spheres 47
Lenten Walk 48
Roger Dutcher
The Plains 49
Morning 49
Larry Edgerton
Aaron's Ear 50
Karl Elder
The Rock 51
Fast Approaching Forty 52
A Life 53
Ron Ellis
Canto 55 54
Canto 65 56
Jean Feraca
Botanical Gardens 58
Of Bread 59
vi
Susan Firer
It Was the Summer 12 Year Old Dark Haired Alyssa Danced in the
Rain in a Blue Net Formal 60
Estabrook Park , 1986 62
Doug Flaherty
Raspberries 64
For Ireland at the Resurrection 65
Home Before Dark 66
Night Is an Old Lady 67
Snow 68
Jesse Glass
The Deep Witness 69
Gnosis M 70
John Graber
1700 Miles to Elise 74
Like Land Used Up 75
David Graham
Self-Portrait as Lucky Man 76
Dusk 77
A Sense of Scale 78
The Library of Home 80
Mother Pills 82
Aedan Alexander Hanley
Ghetto Spring 83
Louanne and the Pack of Kents 84
A Woman by the Mississippi 86
William Harr old
Trails 87
In a Photograph by Froissart , 1856 88
Judith Harway
Fossils and Relics 90
Opening the Nest 92
vii
John Judson
Esplanade 95
Eve White and Her Third Husband 96
Morning Song 96
Dawn at Drury Pond 97
Autumn Song 98
After Dusk , Walking Toward Drury Pond 99
Story 100
Richard Kirkwood
The Farm 102
Dying Like Keats 104
David Kubach
Rocky Island 105
Fellow Travelers 106
As Above , So Below 108
Peg Carlson Lauber
Notes From the Search 110
Voices 115
Carl Lindner
Hang-Gliding 116
Night Fishing 117
Art Lyons
To Mrs. Lapitz , St. fames Catholic Grade School
Five Moments to Have Again 119
Thinking of You at the Dentist 120
Lessons 120
Closing Time 121
Peter Martin
Shadowboxing 122
In High School I Majored in Shop 123
Jeri McCormick
Miss Rinehart's Paddle 124
viii
118
Lee Merrill
Without You This Afternoon 125
For David Kubach 126
I Sit With You 127
Third Self 128
Marc Mickelson
East Meets West 129
Martha Mihalyi
Leaving Budapest 131
A Woman in the Glass House Speaks 132
Manual for the Deaf 133
Stephen M. Miller
Duck Hunting 134
Flooded Timber 134
The Last Camp in America 135
Year 135
Kyoko Mori
Every Woman 136
Sandra Nelson
Lagoon 139
fane Among the Ducks 140
Hillside Fish Market 142
Gianfranco Pagnucci
La Mer, La Mer 143
A Red Fox Again 144
At Dusk the Picket-Over Garden Goes Bright with Flowers
Leland Stoney 146
Angela Peckenpaugh
The Purple Lighter 147
From Photo of Coursing Water
Silver 149
148
Felix Poliak
Tunnel Visions 150
All Things are Candles 151
Discussing Poetry 151
Astigmatism 152
Eating Nuts on a Snowy Evening 152
Explaining Blindness to a Child 153
Jeff Poniewaz
The Tomb of the Unknown Poet 154
Kinnickinnic River Elegy 155
Sara Lindsay Rath
Souvenirs 156
Flag Day 158
Killing Frost 160
Bruce Renner
Finding an Abandoned Farm 161
The Eanguage of Light Ambits 162
Melanie Richards
Prairie Fire 164
Where the Sea Surrenders 165
Private Song 166
Dale Ritterbusch
Dragon Poem 167
44 168
Suzanne Ryan
Wild and Edible Plant Trilogy 170
Robert Schuler
"Verde Que Te Quiero Verde" 173
Fantasia for Rain and Guitar 174
Winter Blues #33 175
Easter Sunday 175
Janet Shaw
The Handless Maiden 176
Jacob Wrestles with the Angel: an Update
The Wolf in My Mother 179
178
x
Mary Shumway
The Legends
Convocation
180
181
Thomas R. Smith
Thistledown 182
Ode to Wooden Steps 183
Olivet 186
Snow Flying 187
Keeping the Star 188
Robert Spiess
The Whistling Swans Recede ... 189
Snowing ... 189
Becoming Dusk ... 190
It Showered ... 190
Peter Stambler
Petrified Blackberries 191
From Olaf, to Henrik in Rome 194
David Steingass
Pioneer 197
Life Close to the Bone 198
Bride of the Prairie 199
Slicing the Dust Both Ways 200
Touching the Inland Shore 202
Denise Sweet
Trickster 203
Mission at White Earth 204
In September: Ode to Tomatoes 206
My Mother and I Had a Discussion One Day
Fever Dreams 210
Here in America 212
Bruce Taylor
Father Lewis 214
Middle-Aged Man , Sitting 215
"The Love a Stranger Might Construe" 216
Notes from the Notebooks in Cabin #3 218
208
xi
Marilyn Taylor
The Tenth Avenue Care Home 222
The Boy on the Plane 223
Richard Terrill
"The Azaleas" or "Azaleas" 224
Two Calendars 225
Seasonal Greeting 226
Once I Met B.B. King 227
At the Lake: to a Brother Before Marriage 228
Casals 230
Jean Tobin
Professor Rosenthal in the Park , 1983 231
Onions 232
Villanelle in the Sixth Year of Cross-Country Commuting
Margaret 234
Dennis Trudell
The Guest 236
Green Tomatoes 238
The Art of Poetry 239
Isthmus 240
Ron Wallace
The Makings of Happiness 242
The Fat of the Land 243
The Art of Love 244
Grandmother Grace 246
Worried 248
Sestina for the House 250
Sinbad the Sailor 252
Ground Zero 254
In a Pig's Eye 256
Doyle Wesley Walls
X 257
Clippings from New Yorker Ads: December 2nd & 16th , 1985
xii
233
259
Roberta Hill Whitman
This Gift 261
Continuance 262
Beginning the Year at Rosebud , S.D.
Midwinter Stars 264
Lynn Point Trail 266
In t/ze Longhouse, Oneida Museum
A Nation Wrapped in Stone 269
J. D. Whitney
Here 270
New 271
Yr My In- 272
Yon Know 273
Ecstasy 274
God 275
/ Cnn'f 276
Oh Yr 277
Notes on Contributors 279
Acknowledgments
297
Introduction
The fun is over. As poetry editor of this collection, I find myself
now burdened with the traditional obligations and prerogatives to
make whatever conclusions I can about this collection as a whole.
My first conclusion is an obvious if not obligatory one: the poetry
of Wisconsin is as diverse as the people and the landscapes of the
state itself. Wisconsin poetry today does not lend itself to easy gen¬
eralization, nor to the comfortable divisions of category. It is more
than the alphabet that separates the largess of the poetry of Antler
with which this book begins from the precision of J. D. Whitney
whose poems conclude the collection. Few, except the most mean¬
ingless, generalizations could be drawn to reconcile the traditional
lyricism one may encounter on any given page of this anthology from
the prosey conversationalism or the wild language fugues one might
find on any other.
Anthology, after all, from the Greek (anthos, flower 4- legein, to
gather) means a gathering of flowers. The analogy is apt for any
anthology, though particularly for this one, if we keep in mind that
the gathering was done in meadow and field as much as in any
carefully tended garden, as much along the medians, of busy city
streets and in the window-boxes and on window-sills high above
reaching for the sun, as along the shady paths that circle a quiet
country pond. Just as it is shortsighted and wrong to consider the
garden as only its flowers, it is, as in any such collecting, such a
gathering, not any individual flower that matters as much, if you will,
as the seasons and soils of the bouquet itself.
Neither will the processes of classification and division provide
much more than the most temporary of entrances into what is Wis¬
consin poetry today. Like any living art it shrugs off easily whatever
labels we try to attach to it. It is a vibrant and varied body of literature.
It represents not only the professor in Madison or Eau Claire, or the
street entertainer in Milwaukee. It includes also the many fine poets
writing in very individual styles and often in isolation in many smaller
communities throughout the state.
Among Wisconsin poets are those of all ages, both sexes, and many
different races. They write in all styles about a wide variety of subject
matter from many different perspectives. Included among Wisconsin
poets are winners of awards as prestigious as the Walt Whitman
Award for Poetry, the Wallace Stegner Fellowship in Poetry from
Stanford University, and the Hopwood Award from the University
of Michigan as well as awards from the Associated Writing Programs,
the National Endowment for the Arts, the Academy of American
Poets, the Devine Fellowship Awards in Poetry, and others. Poems
by Wisconsin poets appear in magazines, reviews, and anthologies
of such national distribution and recognitions as The Atlantic , The New
Yorker , Poetry , The Yale Review , The Paris Review , The Norton Anthology
of Modern Poetry , and others. Individual volumes by Wisconsin poets
xv
are published by presses as established as Wesleyan University Press,
City Lights Press of San Francisco, Viking-Penguin of New York,
Harcourt Brace, and others.
My second conclusion is no more startling than the first. Though
Wisconsin poetry is much like the poetry of many similar states,
particularly those of the upper mid-west, it is in some ways as dif¬
ferent from many others, particularly the coastal and more urban, as
one might initially expect. As many critics have pointed out, much
of the poetry here in the upper mid-west is rooted in the land and
buffeted by many weathers. Perhaps it is because even within our
largest outposts we are never very far removed from open land or
the point and counter-point of four distinct seasons. Spring, for ex¬
ample, traditionally heralded as thanksgiving for survival and a be¬
ginning of the new, seems even more so here to bear its burdens of
the conditional joys. And the winters, long and brooding, seem al¬
ways throughout this poetry to have just barely ended or just about
to begin. There is more hunting and fishing, more planting and tend¬
ing, or at least more poetry made of it all than one might find in other
collections from other places. There is more sausage and beer than
sushi and white wine.
Yet Wisconsin poetry today also shares much with all the other
poetry that is being written at this time and place in our contemporary
America. Here in the deep middle of this country we may often be
insulated but are not immune from the incursions from the coasts of
those same cultural and aesthetic forces that shape much of American
poetry.
During the sixties and seventies there was nationally as well as in
Wisconsin a renaissance in the writing and publication of poetry.
Encouraged at first by such popularist literary movements as the
Beats, and later spurred on by the energies associated with the Civil
Rights and Women's movements, and finally, assisted by significant
contributions by the National Endowment for the Arts, poets began
to find and create outlets for their work which in turn encouraged
more people to read poetry and more poetry to be written. As a result,
however, most of the poetry during that period and since has been
relegated to appearing in small University and independent publi¬
cations, often of limited circulation and distribution. Although there
have been a few anthologies published in this period that have at¬
tempted to collect and preserve some of this work, none, including
this one, can completely capture either the scope or the energy of
Wisconsin poetry today. Yet without such collections it is impossible
for the less than fanatical reader to gain any significant access to
Wisconsin poetry as a body of Literature.
Any anthology is only a list, one person's gathering, and as such
contains within it another list, the poets and poems not chosen to be
included, and the nearly endless possibilities of other bouquets and
xvi
arrangements. There are approximately 250 poems in this anthology
which were selected from over 3000 submissions. Sixty-five poets are
represented here from the more than 400 who responded to our re¬
quest to submit. It is, perhaps, within this group that the evidence
of the scope and energy I am speaking of truly lies.
I think of the youngest contributor, a six-year-old from Appleton,
who seemed as proud of the fact that her poem was the first one she
got to type and print on her mother's Macintosh as she was of the
poem itself. I think also of the oldest contributor who at 89 had taken
up poetry for "company" some five years previous when her husband
died. I think particularly of the group of poems submitted in braille,
one of which I have taped above the light switch on the wall of my
study.
And yet a selection had to be made and this is it. I hope it is one
that does some small justice to the vitality and variety of Wisconsin
poetry today. I hope also that it is a beginning and not an end for
the many readers to whom the pleasures of the art as it is practiced
throughout the state await.
Bruce Taylor
Eau Claire , Wisconsin
Spring , 1990
Antler
Bubble-Boggled
Under the Locust Street Bridge at midnight
in the middle of the frozen Milwaukee River
alone with a bottle of wine,
the starry nightsky twinkling on either side.
Getting on my knees, kneeling on the snow,
looking where the wind blew the snow away
exposing the ice like a window,
a window I can see through,
A black window I can look through
putting my face to its surface
to ogle and be boggled
by bubbles frozen
at different levels
in different shapes and sizes,
white in color,
suspended, motionless.
And thinking the moment these bubbles froze
wondering if anyone ever saw
the moment a bubble froze,
the moment an air globule
gurgling and burbling
on its upward rush
caught solid in icy hold.
What goes on in a frozen bubble?
Does a frozen bubble believe
it will still be a frozen bubble
after it melts?
Thought of when they melt,
rising at last, freed. . . .
Thought of people who drowned
whose last bubble breaths
froze midway,
frozen last words waiting for spring
and those who listen for them. . . .
Thought of bubbles lasting millions of years
in icecaps. . . .
Thought of bubbles trapped in lava,
dark airpockets in rock aeons. . . .
l
Antler
Thought of bubbles rising from canoe paddles
unstuck from swamp muck. . . .
Bubbles in puddles created and destroyed
by falling rain. . . .
Bubbles with rainbows quivering
at the base of waterfalls. . . .
Hippopotamus fartbubbles big as hulahoops,
frogfartbubbles small as a needle's eye. . . .
Thought of underwater spiders who struggle bubbles of air
to their underwater webs to breathe from. . . .
Thought of bubbles of thought in cartoons. . . .
Thought of bubbles sparkling up bottles
stared at by drunks for centuries. . . .
Thought of carpenter observing bubble in his level
as he adjusts the angle of a beam. . . .
Thought of whales in love caressing each other
with bubbles. . . .
Thought of girls hobbling their baubles
goggled by bubble-blowing boys. . . .
Thought of babyblubbering hushed by motherbreast,
bubble of milk on sleeping lips. . . .
Thought of Imagination Bubble-wand dipped in solution
strewing bubble flotillas on the breeze,
different sizes and shapes of poems
at different levels
rising and frozen as they rise,
mind-bubbles caught for a moment
observed suspended in time
floating, reflecting. . . .
Thought how I'm only a bubble
rising from birth to death
changing my shape
from child to man as I rise. . . .
2
Thought of the Earth as a bubble,
the Sun as a bubble,
the Galaxies bubbles
sparkling, flowing, bursting
on the black river of space,
on the black river of time. . . .
Thought of the sound of a bubble's pop. . . .
Thought how many bubbles there have been. .
Everpresent evanescent effervescence.
Mind-boggled by bubbles
I gaze with awe
through black window ice
Realizing bubbles frozen in ice
as if I never saw them before,
as if I never knew
they existed.
Bubbles frozen in ice.
How I bent to look at them.
How I crouched on my hands and knees
on the snow
And put my face to the ice
and peered down at them
motionless, suspended,
a long time
Milwaukee River New Year's Eve 1984.
Antler
Oh-Oh
Birds decide to give up their wings
because flying indulges in an ego trip.
Hermit crabs decide they have to pay rent
on their shells.
Snakes invent banks where they can invest
their sloughed-off skins.
Beavers vote to build highrise lodges
above their ponds.
Squirrels expect a minimum wage
for storing nuts in secret.
Earthworm expressways install periodic tollbooths
to help defray construction costs.
Lions build cages, lock themselves in
and charge admission to see them.
Butterflies get rich from fee to see
emergence from chrysalis.
Termite Thoreau goes to live by a dewdrop for awhile
before returning to the termite mound.
The turnip and parsnip form a partnership.
Celery wants a salary.
Cows demand humans make their own milk
from their own tits
and eat their own sawn muscles.
Trees agree to sprout money instead of leaves
as long as they can make newspapers out of human corpses
to print tree-news.
Dust motes go on strike
for safer floating conditions.
One raindrop says to another raindrop —
"I don't believe in clouds
or that we're falling."
Plankton plot how to conquer the Ocean.
Seahorses form cavalries and charge
to periwinkle bugle-calls.
Mayflies scheme to be more famous as poets
than other mayflies.
Mountains want to get away from it all too,
tired of carrying the world on their shoulders.
4
Antler
Roses make x-rated videos of rosebuds opening.
Sloths realize they better change their lazy ways
or else.
Spiders decide not to spin webs
unless they're displayed in art museums.
Crickets refuse to cricket
unless haikus take notice.
Whales grow back their arms and legs
so they can return to land and work
in our factories.
Flowers want to work in factories too.
They feel funny just sitting around
doing nothing but being beautiful
and smelling good.
Penguins decide to take off their tuxedos
and wear their bum-clothes for a change.
5
Antler
Can Vignettes
Blindman holding out empty can
hoping for sympathy hand-out.
Old bum aluminum can scavenger
ferreting can out of trashbin.
Predacious diving beetle clutching bubble of air
swimming to its home in the old can
at the bottom of the lake.
My mother with tinsnips cutting and curling
can lids into butterfly and flower shapes
painted with glue and sprinkled
with different color glitter or sequins
hung from Christmas tree as ornaments.
Survivors of planecrash in Andes
living for weeks off dead bodies,
waiting, hoping to be rescued,
finally the two strongest men
cross over mountainrange
and descending rejoice to discover a can,
a sign people must be near,
and soon they reach people and are saved
and the rest are saved.
Workers with the can industry 20 years
get a silver pin of a tin can,
30 years a gold pin of a tin can,
40 years a ruby-studded gold pin of a tin can,
50 years a diamond-studded gold pin of a tin can.
Can of worms in fisherman's boat.
Can of beans 'round hobo campfire.
Can of sardines in grizzly belly.
Cans of "Pure Holy Land Air" selling for 50tf
in downtown Jerusalem.
Cans of tear gas. Cans of nuclear waste.
Cans used for target practice
full of bulle tholes.
Andy Warhol soupcan painting in Art Museum
worth more than all the poets in America
made on their poems put together.
6
Antler
Fifty-foot high Campbell soupcan
on tower on roof of Campbell Soup Factory
visible from Walt Whitman's bedroom window.
Thoreau wrote: "Explore your own higher latitudes
with shiploads of preserved meats to support you
if they be necessary
and pile the empty cans sky-high
for a sign. . . ."
7
On Learning on the Clearest Night
Only 6000 Stars Are Visible to
the Naked Eye
If seeing only 6000 stars with naked eye
awestrucks us to topple
in drunken ecstasy
Or piss looking up in devout praise of being.
What would happen if we could truly perceive,
comprehend and experience
the zillions
of stars galaxies universes
pastpresentfuture?
And if, as scientists agree, we only use
10% of our brain's potential.
Then the astonishment we sense
is only 10% of the astonishment
we could sense.
And so it would seem that what seems
like dots of light twinkling
in pretty patterns
moving across the black
is really enough to shatter us
like goblets when the soprano
hits the highest note.
And if the 10% of the brainpower we do use
is ignorant of 99.9% of the totality
of the Universe,
perhaps a li'l vino in our goblet
aint a bad idea —
Perhaps a flask of wine
in deep wilderness night
is more powerful
than the largest telescope.
Margaret Benbow
Priests
Mother ran maiden training films before my swimmy
unborn gaze, "A dark hairy man comes up to you at a party
and offers you pizza and gin at his place,
what do you do, my little star?" Baby sister's
addled azure eye wanders, she loves pizza. Mother jumps in
"JESUS CHRIST of course you say no, NO NO NO,"
(never mind Molly Monkey and her yes yes yes,
better to die bloomless then unbloomered).
Still, by nineteen I'd seen Manon
and hoped to seduce priests.
I would murmur to them insinuatingly, and fling back
the black eclipse of a cloak to reveal
dazzling new planets, in a red satin gown.
My priest would rave his decades without avail,
black-eyed looks rough as dogs
would follow my high step into a coach.
(What would become of me? Would I end
old, ugly, bad and lost,
with Emmett Kelly whiteface and shitty spitcurls? No;
sopranos die young, and die big,
of coloratura lung.)
Last night years later; lotus-colored smoke
wound up to party lights, and at midnight
a dark hairy man clapped a kiss on me.
He put his back into it, as though sinking postholes,
but I turned away with blue nun lips
when out of the tail of my eye
I saw a young priest standing in, no, by the fire
with the sexy corona of his hair
outlined in brands. I thought
oh man, oh man alive,
Eve reared rampant from her coma
and stumbling toward fire I was
as Jerry Lee Lewis says in the song
Breath-less-ahhh.
9
Margaret Benbow
Crazy Arms: Earlene Remembers
Though I grew up to marry a snowman,
though I look like a glass of milk,
once I was the queen of consuming passions:
and in my mind distant hotbeds
buck and bloom with brown-bear hugs, pink
tulip skin, and the edible wild plants
of lips and ears. Oh, Dave may have been
just a big Vice Lord on the streets,
but he was Baby Child to me.
He would rub his harsh curls
against my neck, and tug with excellent teeth
at the peach chemise made for big tomatoes.
I breathed beastly suggestions
in his marvelously ready ear . . .
How happy I was, in his clutches!
Words failed us, we fell into broken English
and then to the searing nubs of vowels,
Ahh, ee, 7, ohh, you.
A night lush with stars.
"Look at me, baby."
I kissed him so hard my nose bled,
and he said: "Welcome to rock and roll."
10
Margaret Benbow
Racine 1950
Days we walked to Oscar's store. It was dark,
and crammed with food whose smells and names
my grandfather liked: blutwurst, clabber.
There were black boulders of loaves, and violet
twigs of deep sea fishes dried to lace.
Oscar gave me candy, or blackjack gum. We talked.
Across the street, "old fool Sorris's" bold young bride,
stripped to the sweetbreads, lay athwart a hammock
in her Sheena jungle clout and read comics, lips moving,
or stretched out her long legs water-colored and pink
and absently prodded the belly and saffron heart
of Riki, her yappy Peke.
Sorris would poke his angry spud of a face
around the screen door: just checking.
He and my grandfather, enemies from boyhood, hissed insults
and sneered behind smelly stogies: "Soreass!" jeered Grandpa,
and of the luxury dog Rikitiki, "Ratbait!"
Then we walked slowly home
and he told my mother I'd been good.
She hugged me, and I got to wear
her rose quartz star in my hair.
Spring days were plumed with pink lilac, but one midnight
black as hell I woke bolt upright and knew
I'd heard them: the robbers, who would
get me first. Hot tears, cold sweat.
Oh, I wept and prayed to Jesus and God
and to "GRANDMA! GRANDMA!", that blue-eyed
English angel. Grandpa heard me,
stumped up grumping: he'd like to see the bastards try it.
He showed me the shotgun, bayonet fixed,
the old Boche rifle with its single wolvish fang.
I sobbed with relief, then smiled,
then slept. Beneath lilac
robbers croaked, yards deep.
11
Sally Benforado
Watch Out
for that older
woman who once
rocked a cradle
with slippered foot
while humming a simple tune.
She's paid her dues
served her time
now she's ready to move.
An empty vessel waits
on shady shores.
In leaps our woman
with roar and shout.
The broom she holds
becomes an oar
for arms grown strong
from bearing heavy loads.
The water foams,
the water churns,
as she paddles her craft
upstream, forcing
water to give way.
She sings for joy,
rocking that boat.
12
Norbert Blei
Red Fingernails
You never said
that the lady who
puts words
into the mouth
has long red
fingernails
that reach down
to the heart,
works a silver needle
and long black thread,
mending torn
letters
that sometime say
love.
In Snow
You stand there in snow
the birds of summer
lost in your hair,
while the barbed wire
fence rusts in my hand
and the ditches turn ice.
13
Norbert Blei
Blue Roof
Dogs hang in trees
tonight,
cats spark from
chimneys,
cows float upon
the creamy waters
of last summer's creek,
red roosters rise
from the snowy fields . . .
I sit naked with you
on my blue roof,
gathering soft
black birds
between your legs,
licking the moon
out of your eyes.
14
Robert Brown
The Geometry of Justice
Upon inspection, any geometric progression
seems simple enough: the rough nature
of concrete, of sidewalks, the function of curbs
and right angles, the meaning of bisections,
of intersections, of red brick, white
stucco, marble columns and gentle curves
of Romanesque arches, the walled river's
slow green flow, the flat gravestones
of the poor, slammed doors and sonic booms,
howling sirens and more sirens, the nightly news,
the father who butchers his only son, the pack
of children that torture an old woman's
black poodle. Pythagoras, Euclid, Descartes
were no fools: they've led us by the brute strength
of their brilliance to construct ourselves
in their honor. Geometry, like suffering,
is precise, discrete. Pythagoras
believed "All things are numbers." How well
we've followed him: a year or two for rape, five
to life for murder, nothing for the torture
of a dog. Justice, or just old-fashioned
revenge, must follow strict axioms, not dare
to vary from the architect's template: the man
strapped to the electric chair's rigid contour
jerks as the executioner delivers his jolt:
the body's resistance is in direct proportion
to the voltage applied — if not enough is used,
more juice must be added before trying again.
15
Robert Brown
Chaos
This is the New Science
a Post-Modern Science
an Anti-Science
against Newton against Method
against the flawed Ideal
This is a science Heisenberg
(if he were here)
would love
a science of wayward atoms
unscheduled hurricanes
of volcanic eruptions
earthquakes
that never take place
when expected
This is a Quiet Science
ruled by the unseen
and unmeasurable
blessed by subversions
terrorists of order
infinite anti-patterns
the curl of
smoke
the unpredictable tangles
of capillaries and roots
and branches
of snowflakes
This is an Epileptic Science
a Spasmodic Science
easily bored
by continuity
and predictions
regular heartbeats
of ir
16
Robert Brown
and unrecurrent
brainwaves
phenomena without repetition
absolute amnesia
This is Our New Science
Our Chaos
riddled by the irrational
but propelled forever
by the same human questions:
like the meaning of death
like the nature of sexual attraction
forward
17
Robert Brown
Notes on Walking Man I
I begin , but don't know
what the end will be.
—Giacometti
Bent
backed
Giaco¬
metti walked
with a
limp
complexion
the color
of dust
0
his
elon¬
gated
bronzes
stretched
by pain
to
absurdity
Children
laugh
when they
pass
his
skeletal
remains
hu¬
man
residue
wind-filed
cased
in lava
18
Robert Brown
He
carved
es¬
sence
craved
to reduce
sculpture
almost
to dust
pared
us
down
to our
bit¬
ter
core
19
Charles Cantrell
Kafka's Janitor
Did Kafka ever drop the draft
of a story into the trash at work?
Say he knew the janitor might see it —
a story about a janitor who sees the woman
who leaves the odor of lemons
in her office, and won't say she loves him
when he stands beside her desk
and tries to hand her roses.
One day he walks to her office
to spy on her. She is chewing out someone
on the phone. A vase of violets
sits to her right. She hangs up
as he pretends to read by the coat rack.
He imagined her blond, but her hair
is as black as a phone.
He turns and leaves. That night
he touches her chair, wipes lipstick
from the phone with his shirttail
and tucks it deep in his pants.
What can he do but inhale, close his eyes,
see her but never know her, never know
her body, just know
the lemony veil that haunts the room.
20
Charles Cantrell
An Unprayed-for Song
What was the greenhouse? It was a jungle ,
and it was a paradise , it was order and
disorder: Was it an escape? No , for it
was a reality harsher than reality.
— Theodore Roethke
Whipped for daydreaming he retreated
to his closet and became wedded
to the magnet of darkness, but always fought the pull
clear to his bones; always looked for a hair of light
in anything, especially behind the hot glass
where he watered flowers, and eyed steam gauges
with such intensity in winter,
he forgot his bruised buttocks.
Those fragile stems that bleed at a touch,
petals that wilt from a cough, listened to his rage,
didn't talk back, didn't tell dirty jokes
or doubt his stories from sleep about a child
who rode a swan toward a sundrenched horizon
and beyond to the stars.
He raked spilled manure and dead seeds for sparrows,
blackbirds, scarlet tanagers, blue jays.
From examining the wreckage of a blackbird his father shot,
he knew that deep in the craw is a bone the precise length
and sharpness of a needle, and the transparent skull
must vibrate to each song
like the skin of the thinnest drum.
His songs behind the double-glass of bone meal,
mist and prize roses weren't Dorsey, but for what blossoms
in the flesh, how to comprehend the fire
consuming his father's face in his sleep,
and why a milky ghost would curse,
wobbling at the top of a walnut tree.
21
Charles Cantrell
After each whipping the scum and lime
of his childhood thickened for the unborn songs
that grew, nourished like those accusing
chrysanthemums. Within the loam and seed
of each song was the question of forgiveness.
If his words kissed the mouth of a bat,
it was his mother. If the ghost bluegill
floundered in the slaggy water, it was his father.
But the forgiveness always swam in the dark bones
beneath his songs of the flesh.
He painted his words on the glass helmet
of his soul. Drunk and enraged, he chided
the genius literati, broke an ottoman
across a table and pounded windows out with his fists.
He winked at virgins and virgin words.
Stretched under a pool table or rolling
in a meadow of violets, he was always trying
to measure the rhythms of the greenhouse,
but with so much darkness around he hid it in suitcases
or closets, the same way he packed it like dirt
in flower boxes. Crying in the closet,
he didn't know it might be
the poet's business to remember, God's to forgive.
When he left the shrinks a flower surfaced,
pressed like the star of a sand dollar
on the temporal bone, just under and behind the brain.
How little time he had to forgive himself
when those old faces were crying in his sleep.
22
Charles Cantrell
crying for forgiveness. And a few were singing
from earthy closets, new songs he had prepared
in half-darkness. Perhaps one rose,
half finished in a dream, a sick old man
who like a child needs stories or songs,
and is already surrounded by funereal perfume.
Perhaps he was teasing words while he stroked
in a pool with a mouthful of vowels, then breaking them
toward order the way he broke girls or a class,
moving around them like a lawnmower sparking stones,
pointing out their ignorance, then asking their
forgiveness. He reached, but swallowed them all: the fish,
the unforgiving sun and all chances of songs
for anguish or joy in the chlorine coffin.
23
Susan Faust Casper
A Fairy Tale
Hyde Park
I never asked a glass,
who is the fairest, or sulked
over your skin, soft
as the inside of a lamb's ear,
hair the color of twilight.
Or cared when whistles
were for your legs
not mine.
Nor did I send you
into the forest with only
a slice of stale white bread
when your lashes grew thick,
cheekbones emerged,
and firm, high breasts.
But when the bobbies thought us
coeds, and picked us nosegays,
you scattered your blossoms
from Speakers Corner to Kensington
and teased, "Isn't it funny,
how you're losing your looks,
just when I'm coming into mine."
So I turn toward the Thames,
and let my flowers soak
full of ancient spells.
Tonight while you sleep,
I will steep a potion of petals,
and in it soak an apple red
as your cheek's blush.
24
Susan Faust Casper
Passage
In that noisy silence, we were
quiet, blue, mother and daughter
worn from birthing gone too long.
The world tilted
as we stepped out on the wire,
began to inch by inch ourselves
back to one another.
I leaned left as you swayed right.
The wire undulated
toward you.
You mimicked my dance
and balancing your weight with mine,
we took another step
forward for twelve years
until now we meet,
the trickiest part of all.
25
Robin S. Chapman
Catching Rabbits
Child in the southern summer
Stalking prey, I propped up the flap
Of the army knapsack with a crooked stick.
Tucked inside the carrot that Bugs Bunny waved
Under Doc's nose every Saturday, hid
Myself in the briarpatch brush, ready to jerk
The string that would topple the trap shut;
Waited all that day, and the next.
For cartoon rabbits to come to the bait.
While, under the porch, the cat stashed
His halfeaten carcasses and, each night.
Rabbits cropped the blackberry shoots; why
Is this still important, that vision
Of the soft creature I would catch, befriend.
Stroking away the fright? And the damp heat.
The loud scold of the mockingbird.
The scratching thorns? I wanted
The knowledge I don't have yet.
Of how our two real lives might intersect
As the long week, later, I tried to care
For the fierce marsh bird, wings full of lead.
That I found in the storm sewer and brought home
To the tub, feeding him the only food
I could imagine, night crawlers wriggling
Through my fingers and down his craw. He lay
In my arms, twisting his head, the day he was
Dying, and I walked him out to see the trees
And the sky. I don't know yet what marsh birds
Eat, or how to repair their thin-boned wings.
Or if I could have saved him with such tutelage;
Now it's the child who teaches me.
26
Robin S. Chapman
What Went Wrong
Was my grandfather drinking
And my grandmother nagging him
And letting her kids know
She'd leave him if she could
And my other grandma
Weeping that no one would help her
And my other grandpa
Traveling as much as he could
And your granddad dying
In the flu epidemic
Leaving your mom
Half-orphaned at twelve
And your other grandparents
Like my first, your dad
Raised to be good and sober
Who never spoke; my dad
Who walked out one day
On all of us, my mom
Who never said a word about it
Your mom, who never shut up
How you learned not to listen
How I learned not to talk
27
Robin S. Chapman
High School
What sticks in the mind
is the black slinky in physics
the twang of its wave
traveling the hall— still,
who could believe
water didn't travel,
watching the waves reach shore?
Or the formula for angular momentum,
forgotten, like the words
to the 45s we collected,
but its sense connected;
Or Mrs. McGhee in American history,
sitting on the table
chronicling the Civil War,
swinging her divorced legs
and letting us in on history's secret —
It's all in the pocketbook —
and now we believe her.
Though back then, spinning
slower and slower
to "Stardust Melody,"
feeling the wave's motion
traveling the body's wires,
we might have given her
an argument.
28
Robin S. Chapman
Going With
At ten, his hair slicked back
With styling mousse. Josh
Lets me know he thinks he's going
With a girl in his class, who called
A friend, who called to ask.
In front of the mirror the rest
Of the evening he tries on ties —
Fat ones, thin ones — his face
Alight, practicing for the first time
The complicated, conventional knot.
29
Kelly Cherry
My Calendar
The day of longing, when light
loses itself among the serpentine vines and brambles,
reflecting
The day of the string quartet:
that music's with me yet,
pure as spring water;
I fish in it with my net of words
The day I lay in someone's arms,
listening to the clock tick —
outside, it was dusk;
down the hall, someone was cooking cabbage for supper
The day of death,
its breath soft as chinchilla against your skin
Always, I celebrate the day
of newness, clover and lilies,
when air smells sweet as talc,
the grass glows,
and shadow is rolled away like a stone from the door of a sepulcher
30
Kelly Cherry
Natural Theology
You read it in the blue wind,
the blue water, the rock spill,
the blue hill
rising like a phoenix from ash. Some mind
makes itself known through the markings of light
on air; where earth rolls, right
comes after, our planet's bright spoor. ... If you look, you'll find
truth etched on the tree trunk,
the shark's tooth, a shell, a hunk
of root and soil. Study from beginning to end.
Alpha and omega — these are the cirrus alphabet,
the Gnostics' cloudy "so — and yet."
If a tree falls in a forest, a scared hind
leaps, hearing branches break;
you crawl under the log and shake
honey out of a hollow, eggs from a nest, ants from the end
of a stick; resting, you read God's name on the back of a bass
in a blue pool; God grows everywhere, like grass.
31
My Marriage
(Genus: Lepidodendron)
It goes under like a spongy log,
soaking up silica.
I love these stony roots
planted in time, these stigmaria,
this scaly graduate
of the school of hard knocks,
these leaf-scarred rocks
like little diamonds.
And the rings! . . . the rings
and cells that show forth
clearly, fixed and candid
as the star in the north.
Giant dragonflies, corals,
the tiny bug-eyed trilobite
grace this paleosite
with shell and wing, cool,
amberstruck exoskeleton,
nice flash of improbability
felled and stuck, past
petrified in present, free
from possibility's hard and arbitrary
demands. Once, seed ferns swooned.
Kelly Cherry
languid as the currents in a lost lagoon,
while warm winds swarmed over the damp earth
like locusts, and rain was manna.
I hold that time still.
Divorce keeps it real and intact,
like a fossil.
33
Kelly Cherry
The Rose
A botanical lecture
It's the cup of blood,
the dark drink lovers sip,
the secret food
It's the pulse and elation
of girls on their birthdays,
it's good-byes at the railroad station
It's the murmur of rain,
the blink of daylight
in a still garden, the clink
of crystal; later, the train
pulling out, the white cloth,
apples, pears, and champagne —
good-bye! good-bye!
We'll weep petals, and dry
our tears with thorns
A steep country springs up beyond
the window, with a sky like a pond,
a flood. It's a rush
of bright horror, a burning bush,
night's heart,
the living side of the holy rood
It's the whisper of grace in the martyrs' wood
34
Kelly Cherry
The Doorway to Doom for Objects
" For in whatever part you say the atoms
First begin to fail , this part will be
The doorway to Doom for objects . . ."
—Lucretius, De Rerum Natura
It opens in the heart.
Today and tomorrow.
First love must depart.
Then sorrow.
And then the rest of the world
Says thank you and good-bye.
Crossing the threshold
To die.
A whirlwind sucks all things
Like liquid through a straw.
The great door swings
Wide, the great maw
Swallows all energy
And soon nothing will stay.
Moral entropy
Cuts short the play
And ends the party too.
We go out to go in.
We go into
Nothing, or Sin.
35
Kelly Cherry
Transformations
I
You cast me out
and up: I spin and drift,
slow as Argo in the southern skies.
Old-power, sweet-dream, only-one,
I remember your world —
Green and blue, continents
the color of shale, whole
seas gritty with salt, air
transparent as quartz!
I remember your hand on my back
like the shell on a snail,
and ground-shadows blown by a cloud-rack.
II
Look at this: The celestial equator
emits tropical light waves.
I burn and blink.
I compass your planet
like the sun in Ptolemy's time,
burning, blinking.
III
Heat is energy in transit
but it's a one-way street,
hot to cold, and I'll never get to meet
you coming. This, though I can say hello in Greek and Sanskrit!
You pass me by.
I'm as insignificant to you as the sky.
Be warned: An ice age is dawning.
Scintillating ice crystals are forming
secretly at the edges of things — of Vermont, Maine,
the Antarctic Ocean.
Heat is in motion.
I am becoming rain.
36
Kelly Cherry
IV
Old ever-real, nothing's
true: Space flirts with time
and time cheats on you.
She says she's going shopping —
in that negligee? She leaves you in the lurch.
Only I remain, devious
as Democritus, assuming
atomic weight, spending
passion in the process.
I feel my way slowly, in the dark, underground,
and surface at your grave
like an artesian spring, and all the past is drowned.
37
Kelly Cherry
At Night Your Mouth
At night your mouth moved over me
Like a fox over the earth, skimming
Light and low over the rising surfaces of my body.
Hugging the horizon against hunters;
Or like the other hunted, the one who runs
Back exposed like a billboard to the barbed wire and starved dogs.
The men in guard towers, danger sweeping the snow-patched yard
Every thirty seconds, the shirt you tore.
To make a tourniquet for your leg, fluttering like a signpost
Against the branch of a birch tree, saying THIS WAY:
You were looking for someplace to hide, to crawl into,
A place to lie down in and breathe
Or not-breathe until the dogs pulled the hunters past.
Fooled by water, wind, snow, or sheer luck.
And I folded myself around you like a hill and a valley.
And the stars in my hair shone only for you.
Combed into cold blue and deep red lights.
And the river ran warm as blood under its lid of ice.
And my throat was like an eel pulsing between your palms.
And the air in my blood was tropical, I caught my breath
And held it between my teeth for you
To eat like a root.
There were black grouse in the forest
And the moon on the snow was as gold as your skin
As I remember it shining on Nightingale Lane,
But the dogs' barking in the distance carried too clearly,
A man snapped, STAT!
And you trembled, troubled and impassioned.
You covered your eyes with your hand.
And I felt the shudder slam like the sea
Pummeled by God's fist.
Wind-bit waves sizzling against the fiery cliffs of Liepaja —
And you were the ship
The harbor dreams of, the brave husband
38
Kelly Cherry
The bride awaits, the seed
For which the earth has prepared itself with minerals and salts.
And I folded myself around you like a windrow and a furrow.
And whispered, so no one, not dog or man or man-dog, would
overhear: Now
Now now now
Escape into me.
Prayer for a Future Beyond Ideology and War
When the world dissolves in its own chemicals
And the people's bodies are as ghostly as the particles discovered by
Josephson in 1962, which pass through walls like light through air.
And the people's buildings are born again as blueprints, and the print
is invisible and the blue is the blue of the innocent, amnesiac sea.
And the hardwood trees, falling in forests everywhere, their fractured
branches tangled like a woman's hair after love, make no sound not
because they are not heard but because there is no longer anything
for them to land on and thud against
(The pine trees like unplayed whole notes trapped in a barbed-wire
stave)—
And even the stones have become as insubstantial as thought —
May there be new cities in the tolerant sky.
Held in place by their own gravity
(Or lack of it), places of peace where a man and a woman
Holding each other in the familiar bed of their long night
May see, through the window, as clear as light
The stubbornly loving shadow of a star that was once our sun.
39
Dewitt Clinton
Hating November
In the cold dark
I wait for a trace of light.
It's been like this for a month.
If I get up
I'll never find sleep
And what is more lovely
Than safe, half lit dreams?
It's too early to run.
The floor is cold.
Night lingers too long in the house.
I hate November, the way light
Takes so goddamn long.
I've eaten all the crisp apples I can stand.
It won't snow for another two weeks.
Outside, running by the river,
I frighten a grazing doe.
She leaps ahead of me.
I sprint.
This is all I want.
The first minutes of light.
Graceful flight.
The good beating of our hearts.
She turns into the brush.
I keep running.
40
Dewitt Clinton
Man Falls with Unfinished Story
This is the story of a man whose
wife may die before he can finish
his story. Long, long ago a man
and a very nice woman decided to
sun themselves on a perfect white
sand beach. As far as happiness
goes, they were the perfect mates.
She was a bit obese, he was very
chubby. One sunny day, the two
thought it might be nice to go up
the Blue Mountains, on a train,
to see the rum distillery, way up
on the very top, box lunch and all.
The train stopped half way, so every¬
one could walk down to the jungle
buried caves. He has a flash poor
picture, in case you'd like to look.
The train departed after an hour's
wait. During that wait, the wife
began to die, right there, half
way up the Blue Mountains of Jamaica.
She hugged herself all day, so she
didn't see what all the tourists
came to see. She spent all her
time bent over. Inside her pain,
she thought she better change
the way she ate as she was very
pudgy. At the hotel beach party,
on their last night, with lots
and lots of lobster, they did not
have a very good time. She did not
even dance. You can see this in
the pictures. She looks puffy
gray, he barely fits his forty-twos.
They came home and very quickly
she started on a weight loss diet.
41
Dewitt Clinton
He thought he'd feel better on a
diet, too. She lost pounds and pounds.
They both lost weight together.
They were the perfect love mates.
Well, she got nice and spooky.
Food was not the trouble, but her
Uncle's busy hands and somehow
lots and lots of sweets made life
all so much the better, when she
was only six. Now the cupboards
are quite empty. She looked wild
and starved. He's right out of Dachau.
She checked in and stayed awhile.
She took anti-this and anti-that.
Six months later, still very thin,
she took all her pretty babies but
they only made her light and airy.
Now she knows which ones will be
her masters. Things get worse
and worse. She gained it all right
back. Clothes don't fit her now.
That made her wild and fussy.
She liked the taste of yogurt,
ate carrot sticks for lunch.
He ate, but nothing ever happened.
That bothered her a lot, her weight.
Stay with me, dear, we're almost
to the end. He went away to write
a story about a wife who touched
his heart, quite deeply, who got
so scared, he thought, while he
was away, she might fly away, for good.
42
Dewitt Clinton
He never finished his loved one's
story. In his story, the man who
loves his wife so dearly slips
and falls and as he falls he wonders
why those damp, green caves make
him cry so much, and why he wishes
if only he could wish, he could go
back, stay inside those tourist
caves, happy he was, he thought,
on holiday, with his wife, waving,
from inside the train, waving words
I love you go have a good time.
He misses her so much, right now,
the man, that is, who falls, who
holds this flash poor picture.
Please look it over in your leisure.
43
Elizabeth Davey
Twentieth Anniversary Poem
My mother sprouts a single black hair
from her chin and the thought
of an old-woman beard sends her rummaging
through vanity drawers — tangles of
dental floss and hoarded bars
of hotel soap, clogged mascara and eyeshadow
raked by three successive daughters.
Residue of simple beauty in her hands,
but no tweezers. She gives up her search
and brings this wound, coarse and dark,
this imperfection she cannot conceal,
into the kitchen. My father
sets his brandy down, adjusts his slipped glasses
and tilts her face into the stove- top light.
He leans over her, examining
as he has probed an infinity of slivers;
needled and pushed wood out of fingertip skin.
And then he kisses her chin,
kisses with lips that have sucked
bee-stung arms and barefoot arches and spat
the poison away, lips which gnaw
meat from bare chicken bones passed
to his plate, lips that heal
with a breath of brandied balm.
When he finishes he smiles
and pulls the hair from his teeth.
44
Elizabeth Davey
Imagine This
My best friend swims deep and I stand
at the end of a pier; my hands
resting on my hip bones, I stare down
into the water. The white flash
of his body passes — or just a cloud
reflected in the murky green? The wind
blows off the lake, the waves wear
against the wooden legs, the ladder;
I cross my arms, tired of waiting, and
wonder how long he can hold his breath.
So I call, but the water eats my voice
and spits back foam; I begin again
and tell him all I'll do without him.
Strawberries will ripen soon and I'll wake
early and fill baskets at the pick-your-own-farm,
eating as I crawl through the rows,
the fattest berry held up for admiration
before I bite it clean from the stem.
Then I'll spend the day sweating
juice in the kitchen, three cups sugar
for every cup of berries hulled and sliced
to show the pale hollows. The jam jars
will rattle in boiling water to the hum
of a fan that can't give enough air.
Your skin is going to wrinkle down there
I tell him, but he will not break
the surface; I turn and walk to shore.
Listening for a splash and breath
I almost walk away. But I go back
to tell him the storm windows are down,
through screens the neighborhood listens
to its life: the rinse of dinner dishes
and the quiet of a crying child. I remember
love and sit down on the beaten boards,
dribble my toes in the water as I wait.
45
Elizabeth Davey
Scarp
She teaches geology; we visit a landslide
in her backyard. It's just a grassy slope
that falls away from her house, too steep
to be mowed. This is creep,
she explains, material moving
without a discrete failure surface.
She climbs down in skirt and glasses,
kicks at the earth-cracks under grass.
I'm still thinking failure —
slip-surface, surface of rupture,
there are many names for the plane
along which everything gives. Think of
a tablecloth pulled slowly across
polished wood, nothing to hold it down.
The salt and pepper shakers, candlesticks,
are caught in the flow; the movement tips them over.
This is just a little landslide,
no rock or rubble, only noticed by a woman
whose kitchen cabinets pull away from the wall.
She has watched cracks widen in her driveway,
now tells how soil-water freezes, expands,
lifts the dirt a little,
then drops it downhill in thaw.
Someone gave anatomy to landslides: head,
the part that everything falls from;
body, all the displaced rock and soil;
the toe reaches forward, spills on new ground.
I am not the first to turn this language
back on myself. My teacher struggles to climb up;
I almost reach for her hand. Then I think
she can do it for herself, this land is only slowly
slumping. Here is what causes the big ones:
liquefaction, when you are shaken so hard
the clay that holds you together
loses all strength, just dissolves.
46
Travis Du Priest
The Music of the Spheres
The first thing I do when I wake up
is to fill the house with music
so empty, so silent it became over¬
night, the dark peace, the sun's
rising, Mozart all one,
as in Dante's circle of luminaries,
loving and learning. Slowly
strings and keyboards drift down
the stairs into hallways and kitchen,
room by room, finally reaching
the basement where most silent
of all sit washer and dryer,
cans of paint staring at different
seasons of the year: Christmas,
Easter, Advent again, underneath,
and waiting for the music of time.
Even when I go out, I leave the radio
on, imagining my dog likes Beethoven,
that the Chinese porcelain figures
find composers who make them laugh,
that the books listen to Studs
Terkel. That the house is safer,
warmer, more like a home, when
filled with music. That maybe once
in awhile a melody floats up
the chimney and out into the air
where it becomes the sky and my
house and I, for a moment,
join our chorus to the spheres
that hold the universe together.
47
Travis Du Priest
Lenten Walk
The brown oak leaves still on the trees
and the long prairie grass, like the combed hair
of a sleeping princess, wait between us and summer.
The air comes fanned over mounds of snow,
gusts of chill that greet the first
to open an ice house on an August day.
Not knowing what to expect, we dress for winter
hoping for spring: the sun is warm and we open
our coats. The baby son of last year (for whom I waited
every two steps) now circles me time and time,
grouting every single patch of leaves on the ground.
By the lake — Big Water, he shouts —
naming the place as ours. On the ordo, this day
Belongs to Herbert. Otherwise, the silent slipping
of February into March. And as we walk this late
February morning on the soft fields, nature herself
takes a risk, bringing June early.
And I think on young George Herbert, lying all night
on that cold floor in Bemerton, frightened
to death of the vows he would take on the morrow,
planting himself in silence, trusting to take hold.
And on the homecoming I think of the way any life
takes hold, the ways our lives have taken hold,
and on the way this little child of mine
can still ask to be carried, can still let me kiss him
and not wipe the kiss off his cheek.
48
Roger Dutcher
The Plains
Solitude
Measured
By the sky.
Morning
The birds know
What it means
To live forever
49
Larry Edgerton
Aaron's Ear
He wakes up near midnight, suddenly deaf he thinks.
Blood trickling into the marble cup of his outside ear.
And yelps so loud we wake up. 'Tm bleeding ," he cries,
A nine year old with finicky ears, eyes, and lungs,
Maddingly hospitable to asthma and pernicious viruses.
The emergency room says it's a punctured eardrum.
It'll heal with Amoxicillin. Still, we worry. No yelling.
We tell him. No loud tv, no headset earphones.
The next day I tutor a numb, nervous boy who's deaf.
Who watches my lips and lives at a remove.
A fever once gripped my ears, and now I hear underwater —
Sinking farther each year from the surface, sounds muffled down.
Speech and bird song and car horns slowly swimming silent.
I look stupidly at a clerk. "Sorry," I say.
Impatiently, she repeats herself. What she says doesn't matter.
What does? Surely not what Aaron doesn't hear.
Not the anger my student has never heard.
Not the fine articulations I miss in a room of gossips
Or from a bank clerk behind her cage: white noise
That drowns out a pure line of thought.
Yet you have to hear to know what not to hear.
Or you're always catching up, like a dubbed movie
When they say "I love you, I love you" but their mouths
Are chewing pasta. You're never at the moment but somewhere
In the narrow territory between deaf and dead:
A man dreaming that he wakes up in his own coffin, and then does.
50
Karl Elder
The Rock
This is the story of a man striking an unexpected rock
in a garden he has worked for years, whether the garden is
real or not.
For a second he wants to look up to see his house is
there, that he hasn't been plowing the neighbor's plot by
mistake, but, certain this is no dream, he squats to extract
the rock.
It won't budge. He shoves at it with his boot, but it
won't be moved. He selects a lever and a concrete block from
the shed. No matter how deep he probes there is more of the
boulder.
Much later from a distance the gardener is seen with
another man. They talk and gesture toward the ground. Each
wears a straw hat. Both are leaning on shovels. Small
mounds of clay contrast with the expanse of rich soil at
their feet.
The next day the scene is so far away that the exhaust
fumes from the backhoe are barely visible. There are more
men now, standing in a great circle, staring down from the
edge of the hole.
Nightfall. Everything is quiet. The yellow light from
an aluminum awning upstairs cast on the green lawn like a
single buttress remains on for an inordinately long time. At
dawn a bulldozer arrives, fills the hole.
Again the scene is a close-up, the man is plowing around
the rock that is the tip of an iceberg, the peak of an
underground mountain, or the earth itself — whatever. Only
one thing is certain to the man: The rock is not of this
world.
51
Karl Elder
Fast Approaching Forty
Even in perceptibly evaporating light, even as he beats
these weeds for a baseball while friends wait for him to show
with the poker chips, he is actually happy. How exact the
thing is lost till the instant it's found, he remembers,
still searching. Parting a giant thistle with his brand new
glove, the only he's owned since Lord knows where he lost or
who lifted the first, twenty-five years ago, despite his name
burned on back with a magnifying glass — the pristine patience
it took of a June morning, like one long summer as sweet as
the clover blossom he'd pluck from behind the backstop to
suck in the outfield — he knows without thought the distance
between him and his death is infinitely divisible, having
put it all behind him, his very birth someone else's version
of yet another's suffering.
Yet time will not be the talk at the poker table. He
will speak of box scores and things, that in a game called
pass the shit, you never refuse an ace. He will not talk
about the lost ball either, assuming even, fast approaching
forty, he finds it. And certainly he will not talk about a
receipt for the ball and gloves, how as it slipped from his
fingers when he got out of the car and as it zig-zagged
leaf-like to the concrete, he stopped to watch, yet did not
stoop to where it lay, and still lies, but stood to marvel
how, even while playing father to his sons, detachment to
moments of his own making remains so massive, so finally
incomplete.
52
Karl Elder
A Life
With both hands a small boy holds a ball of string so
big it doesn't occur to him there are two ends, so far from
him is the center. It is only after the string is tied to
the kite, the ball growing smaller — yet, with each glance,
more vivid— that he can predict a beginning, the nothing the
sphere is wound around.
So it is that somewhere between boy and man he is made
to understand that the atom, too, is hollow, and therefore
the universe. He comes to see that this is how his life will
go, that the string unwinding so fast, which at the very last
he was unable to hold, had nothing to do with a beginning or
an end, but — like the making of the sphere— everything to do
with both.
53
Ron Ellis
Canto 55
One of
the A source
said difficulties
with the steel casing
He takes pride were bolted
Susan Lucci found Curtis of
varying degrees "delicious" to
work with together, opposition of
fiction and reality is that it severely
and unnecessarily narrows artistic options
by enforcing the script, an all-too-predictable
dialectic. Reality is the existence horrible; it
drives us into satisfying in which he as
insisted of his Whoever ignores style. But there
are many others who feel differently, changing
worlds of our own making. But the at a the
first scene defective joint where two sections of
poet, with his the precision department,
it is our job to differentiate, prized the set is
and in part faculty of
self-consciousness, knows the external fuel tank
nearby, his the subtleties department the
thin wall of fictions that could quickly have
burned and improvising on through not to be
"true"; however unsatisfactory reality may be, as
at 5,800 degrees Fahrenheit; a Nor is at
least they ought to be, in it leak would have
become a that Tony Curtis And since writers
are, or has been late for. blow-torch a the first
scene on that reason. "Mafia Princess"
sane and mature individual of evil, (who will not
54
Ron Ellis
dwell in fantasy) the the right-hand SRB might
have burned the movie is Some are almost
fair, some are bad, some are lethal, based)
through its The solid
fuel burns casing, perhaps poet is Moreover,
there are differences among states, and
fourth sections, forced the best seller on for
just which to "open
up" his of being very evil, the booster's third
fictions at a This The state is a
necessary evil simply because many individuals
are themselves very capable is
I beg to differ, not seal of evil is bound to
become a servant point between to reality
and to face the Investigators the burn-through
probably occurred
believed in being an instinctive actor (he hasn't
bothered to read that hard truth.
55
Canto 65
She sat in the sunlight
with eyes closed, where shadows
of cedars moved with the wind.
She saw radiant gold and sheets of red,
blood moving across the lids.
She saw darker shades
that were the sign of the wind.
She watched and knew the names
of the shades and their waving,
knew the names of many not sitting.
She asked that they might sit.
Thinking of them she let the names go.
Then she saw in all the brightness
still other light gather,
light forming a globe
that was yet sun, cedar, wind.
She knew it was light named by few.
Thinking of such names she let the globe
She saw radiant gold and sheets of red,
blood moving across the lids.
She saw darker shades, the cedars
moving in front of the sun.
Ron Ellis
that were the sign of the wind.
She thought of the few, and the many,
and was afraid
until she let names go and saw
in all the brightness light forming a globe
she did not name.
She held the globe without a name
and knew it held
breath, body, sun, cedar, wind,
the many and the few.
She let the globe go
thinking of what she knew.
57
Jean Feraca
Botanical Gardens
Beyond the steaming glass and massed
leaves, alone
in the sunken room, I am serene.
Orchids sway toward me out of Chinese vases
and here above the blue
seas of the carpet, I still sail
in your wake; I close my eyes and find
the whole garden floating up, an island
rising inside me.
Each time I find you, all the sorrows
rush out of me like rain
from wet pine. I feel huge
and light, like the elm balancing
on one leg, dancing
like Shiva —
all her great ecstatic arms wheeling and furling
in the air, obedient to each impulse,
at home with desire.
58
Jean Feraca
Of Bread
It doesn't matter that the house isn't locked.
Without you, it's empty as an oven
of its loaves
I want neither your ham nor your cheese
nor your oysters and white
wine
I want the yeast of you, making me rise
til I split, two halves
in your teeth
and the butter melting, the hot bran
your yam-yellow light spilling
your honey seeping all through the comb
Not this house with its darkening oak.
Not that table laid with its cold
plates.
59
Susan Firer
It Was the Summer 12 Year Old Dark Haired Alyssa
Danced in the Rain in a Blue Net Formal
It was the summer Little Russel picked up all those dirty words,
and no one could stop his 7 year old bad mouth
no matter what they did. A face like an angel,
then he'd open his mouth, "Hi, Mrs. Dickshiner,"
he'd say to me, just like that, over the fence
between our yards. The next summer I planted hollyhocks.
Let the bees inhibit him, I thought. But
that first summer, I was stopped short, un-pre-pared.
I know I heard a gun go off one night that summer,
and Barbara, Russel's mother, changed her hair
from banana popsicle yellow to black — in one afternoon.
It was not an event you could let go by without comment.
There were two robberies on our block that summer
and one divorce. The Robertsons bought a new blue Nova
and started parking it on their front lawn
like some oversized yard decoration.
The highlights at our State Fair that year were
a 1,150 lb. pig named Balls and
a 40,060 lb. touring cheddar cheese named The Belle
(20 feet long, 6 feet high and 6 feet wide.)
My daughter & Little Russel talked shy Sarah up the chestnut
tree, and she fell, wrists first. Both broke.
Someone (no one remembers who) rolled her
over. She lay there with her arms up, wrists broken
like one of those goats that faints when frightened
'til Jim found his car keys and rushed her
up the block to the hospital.
60
Susan Firer
How all of us cascade young into nights
full of summer and music, children and gin.
Our yards growing us. Around us com, beans
and apples, and all our coming deaths inside
and around us. And us running on adrenalin,
burglars of ourselves.
Death has this corduroy feel to it like autumn
like loans. My father died
that very brilliant October
that followed Dickshiner summer.
And my mother followed him. I became
the most agile of beings, double jointed
of home and heart. There are photos
where I grin out from a circus colored mouth
one child on my lap, one next to me.
The children are wearing sleeveless summer
dresses. I'm dressed like a homeless person,
a junkie, someone who wears it all at once.
61
Susan Firer
Estabrook Park, 1986
A ceiling of dragonflies we stood under outlined
by glistening newly hatched mosquitoes.
Estabrook Pond to the left, four deer
in front of us. I was huge: nine
months pregnant covered in white Indian
cotton, holding the small hand of my
flowered eight year old daughter.
For twenty minutes, everytime I nodded the deer
with the rack would nod and allow me and my
daughter one step closer. It was a long game
of "Captain, May I?" with deer.
In the humming twilight the dragonflies
dived at the mosquitoes, the mosquitoes
thick in front of us, on and around us
looking like screens on the coming night.
I squeezed my daughter's hand for silence, awe
and control; we were swelling with bites: blood
spots on her cheeks, my ankles, our arms. Still
everytime I nodded, the deer nodded and we moved
a step closer. Four feet away from the deer,
and from the road yells "Jesus, look at that,"
"Come on." And two boys on silver
bicycles came bumping over the curb, up the grass
and towards us. In seconds, they covered the same
field it had taken us twenty minutes to cross.
62
Susan Firer
Like a blanket folded back, the deer together
turned and disappeared into the thick July green.
Don't ever let anyone tell you
close doesn't count.
We might not always get what we want —
or, how we want, but
smelling, hearing the wild breath of it all
holding someone's hand, life knocking within
looking deep at twilight into the wild eyes of it all
and getting permission to approach
should keep us for a long time
out searching and remembering
as much of it as we're able to
like the rustling sound of deer
running away through thick July green.
63
Doug Flaherty
Raspberries
The fathers told us
how sparrows
ate a fill of berries
beat wings dropped
seeds across river
and years of growing
parted by waters
grew into flaming briar
If we believe
what the fathers say
about seeds cleansed
in dark stomachs
and if we start out
heading due north
knifing our bodies
against the current
we will fill a bucket
by last light of today
if we believe
in the guts of words
roots contained in seed
then we will know
that the sparrow
is a bullet
in the heart
of the living dead
64
Doug Flaherty
For Ireland at the Resurrection
In the pulpit of the field
the horses sleep on all fours.
The grass kisses its roots,
hurrying the arrival of miracles.
I am a druid who knows mad gods
meet gods and jostle in the dark.
I spread events related to stars
before our thankful bodies took us here.
Dream, or shadow, perhaps a film of air
coated the wombs of women, waiting,
hesitant, darning flesh, waiting
for love to irrigate the dark
furrows of their fields.
We yearn like young girls
to be taken off by strangers
who practice potions, spells,
and herbs, no less than eucharist.
I sleep in the belly of stone,
dance in light of your song.
Dance with your shadow, soon
your shadow dances with you —
water lapping a song
on the lips of the moon.
Come, make a wish.
Now blow out the stars.
65
Doug Flaherty
Home Before Dark
You dropped in out of April rain
and when I asked you for touch
you said the white farmhouses
in Connecticut all have duckponds
You laughed until my mouth
sheltered yours against shadows
In the deep woods of my fear
a black door stands against a tree
and the door neither opens
nor ever closes on love
And then I felt your tongue
a bullet in the wound of words
Then I felt them slither again
knowing they swim down deep
the small fish not yet legal
in the pool of my stomach
nibbling the flesh-bitten walls
until all the bait vanished
I was waiting for them to break
into light and stroke me once
more upstream to be reborn
But your eyes reminded me
we are neighbors lamb and bull
Our houses will never sleep again
Then you winked and said again
the white farmhouses
in Connecticut all have duckponds
Those creatures are too white to fly
their souls too content to soar
their stomachs heavy with love-grain
I tell you need keeps me grounded
and I turn to stroke your whiteness
Promise to have you home before dark
66
Doug Flaherty
Night Is an Old Lady
unlacing her corset, cropping
darkness from her thighs,
thick with deceit like blinders.
Behind the slaughter house for lambs,
beauty dressed-out in death's clothing.
All the rifles wear silencers
so death cannot be heard.
Suffering stalks
lithely as a greyhound.
The spiders are loose again,
tangle and sting.
Stomachs swell with prey.
Even the owls moan only one syllable —
nature's broken record in a wooden cage.
At daybreak. Night slowly
sucks darkness round her innards.
From out the birth-stench of animal,
a hundred white butterflies
float out the rent eye-sockets
of a gutted spring lamb.
They fan into daydreams — prayer
for mute creations of the womb,
before sky lowers on their thighs
to eat the flesh promise made.
Before fingers of darkness
stir us in a circle of lies.
67
Snow
The fields assume it is cotton
come to hush town gossip
The people are asleep who
talk all day of their stature
At night the deep snow listens
to its own slow tightening
A red pig burrows for cabbage
while a flaming black cat
leaves its sizzled imprint
like fossil trails in stone
All winter the ground groans
and turns on bald haunches
Far from here ancient birds
walk ocean bottoms roped
apart like mountain climbers
Some of these visions are private
and appear suddenly before us
stark as a public viewing
Pins on the clothes line
are the bleached bones of
winter wrens who refuse to fall
Jesse Glass
The Deep Witness
A man beats a woman because he sees her
Turn inward when he touches her.
He knows she is running across a black field
Toward a house he can never enter.
The front door is copper-cornered and moves
On hinges that creak like his mother's voice
Calling his shame down a well. At every
Window he sees his father's face, broad
As a pig's head, smiling and broad. And
Through the walls he hears bed springs jangle
And another man's name repeated
Until he is compelled to drag her into light
And weave a promise under her nose
With his fists, and pull her before the deep
Witness of the mirror to trace the marks
Of his fear and passion, confessing like Thomas
To Christ what he can't believe, even when
He probes the baffling wound.
69
Jesse Glass
Gnosis M
1.
The female won't nurse those that can't pass
her postpartum nuzzle. She counts nascent
eyes, legs,
& will not pop the birth bags of the odd ones
with her teeth.
Though for days the failures suck no milk — they're hardy:
the mother leaves them under a bush
but, screaming, with a voice half-human
they drag themselves along.
Follow blood scent to her hiding places
parading in their flesh her violated image.
2.
The dog with two bodies and one head, the
bull endowed with four thousand eyes and ears,
the poisonous gosling, the moon-calf, the Lamia,
rattle their night cries in the bushes at young women
sneaking to their lovers.
Whisper:
We are the dark ones waiting inside you
for the midnight probings of a man's wrong move
to unlock us. Our troops train in Limbo;
our mongoloid thinkers recall the glories
of Hyperboria, Atlantis, Lemuria, where we raised
back steles to the flippered goat who taught us
numbers and alphabets.
The Nazis knew us, the flayed Albigensians, the impaled
Bogomils, deciphered the code you women scream
as you push us into a midwife's pail.
We are syphilitic sons chained in cellar rooms,
the idiot kept caged for thirty years.
With cleft palates and scaley fists
we demand our birthrights:
the destruction of mirrors, the bed
you grope in, your name, your meat.
70
Jesse Glass
a kitten with six legs turned backwards
crawled up our steps, starving, screaming.
Mother drowned it
in a scrub bucket.
Twisting on the bottom underneath her broom
it roared for life. '"Monster" she called it
from the other room
wrapped it in newspaper, and handed it to me.
"Don't open this up, son, give it to the hounds!"
I ran through the weeds with the small death
in my hand, knowing that something
loped behind me down that path, fanning
the hair on my neck with fetid breath.
I couldn't let it catch me or I'd grow sullen
and carry sweat-stained newspapers under my arm
forever
like the shell-shocked man in town.
Hounds stood upright at the ends
of their chains and howled at my pale
skin. I threw it in their jaws; the moon
rose at my right hand. I heard the dogs
gnash the death apart.
4.
We found a book hidden deep
under bras and panties,
the pictures of the fiippered babies
and the hard words to sound out
made us watch mother as she fixed our meals:
her sad heavy face, her fat legs
dragging her bulk from sink to skillet.
What names did she keep from us, biting her lip,
and how many times had she creased those pages back
over her belly, and listened to us play?
71
Jesse Glass
5.
There, staring down from every wall
is their portrait, in our pulse
lies their potential. We lean against the
pillars of the summer house and hear their
roar in the forest, yet they come no farther
than the light's wan crescent, waiting for our invitation
to ring out from megaphones to millions of believers,
for frenetic mobs to goose step to the ululation
of our weird swearing of fealties.
Or in the silence of the bedroom
where brother and sister toil on against
the blood taint, they whisper of the old days
when the motile worm on father's thigh
peopled a fallen world, in God's despite.
Do not believe them!
shouts Mother. Stand vigilant
at the gates of birth
and remember:
6.
If it has too many or not enough
it is a monster and it must be killed.
Count the fingers and toes.
Count the eyes.
Number means much —
number the eyes.
72
Jesse Glass
If it walks funny;
If it writhes snake-like, roaring;
If it gives no reflection;
If its hunger is endless;
If it won't stop sucking and lie
Meekly down in straw or swaddling clothes;
If the mother rolls her eyes and whinnies in fear;
If it smells of death, or still wears
a rotting caul;
It will crowd us out.
It will follow us in dark places.
Kill it. Kill it.
73
John Graber
1700 Miles to Elise
I did not always lean so forward to the page
to speak a word so far to find you
past my crowded eyes now emptied of your face
caught double in the iris and my heart.
I did not always have to find a key
unlocking my house door with you not there
to welcome in with at least a touch
of image in my eye more live than walls.
I did not always have to bear such silence
since before we met and merged and married
to unfold four more voices to embrace
within the ears' deaf-mute empty rooms.
I did not always only feel the head's weight
bearing down and table wood beneath my arms
and only non-commital clothes against my skin
and never anything but air against my face.
I did not always miss the climbing up
of children on my life with you alone,
yet now all hands would find a greeting there
for grip upon my hair, my hands, my heart.
I did not always have to arm myself
against a dearness that now threatens to dissolve
my form and words, so far away from being flesh.
I did not always hang or live on every word.
74
John Graber
Like Land Used Up
Like a plain still holding meadow curves but brown
and seen from one personal place in the broad palm of it,
I am, with all blades stooped in a uniform lean,
like stalks crushed or blight bent wheat.
The heart went out of it, all at once, all over.
And, still, the still picture of it is waiting.
Waiting like a long dead tree still waits,
sign to a whole life spent learning to stand
in one place so deep it is hard to forget.
Once an apple orchard died without a sign
in middle season, two years and two bounty harvests
after one sharp freeze froze earth past the deepest roots,
killing all from the bottom up, but not before
two years' grace wore threat out in doubled seed
in earth that was always ready to wed.
No, not like land used up is my present plain.
It's more like dues for shallow root putting
in a too irrigated easy life — and as I say it, yes,
I am not in one place, yes, out there past target zero
there is a green that is mine, I can tell,
like newborn fingers starting to move before the eyes —
such, such a blue child I must have seemed,
but watched, watched, the fingers begin to move
all over, beyond the palms, like secrets beginning to tell.
75
David Graham
Self-Portrait as Lucky Man
Because I pay my bills on time
and often smile when signing checks
my credit limit's been raised again.
I'm looking better and better
these days in the bathroom mirrors
of interstate highway rest stops —
my pallor and road-dazzled eyes
lend me the cool intelligence
of actors in foreign movies
where no one completes a sentence.
And though I cannot find a job
I'm the kind of man you would think
should have no trouble. Yesterday
my car stalled at a traffic light
in time to avoid being hit
by an escaping felon's truck.
Even when I lower my eyes
in pain or shyness I'm sure to glimpse
five-dollar bills in the gutter.
My wife is so kind I do not
deserve her, though she swears I do.
76
David Graham
Dusk
It is the hour between dog and wolf
and the hour of liver spots enlarging
on the soft forearms of my grandmother.
At such times the cinderblocks shrink
into the vacant lot rubble.
It is the hour when the retired
consider part-time jobs.
At meals everywhere conversation lags,
the hour between mortar and brick,
between ice cube and tumbler.
In the backyards ropes hang still
from the stripped crotches of trees.
A bad time to encounter mirrors
or ease down into a scalding tub.
When my past comes to inhabit me
it is now the hour of sand,
climbing the stairs step by step
even as I sleep.
Hour of severed phones ringing
and my father who calls me
before him in his night chair.
77
David Graham
A Sense of Scale
We played pig-face, my brother and I,
for soldiers on convoy down the Thruway,
whole truckfuls of baggy green men
fresh from high school, boots black as showroom tires.
Dad found it easy to pass a Jeep
in no hurry, so we mugged ''Anchors Aweigh"
to see if those Army men would notice.
"Pipe down," called Dad, but then
Mom whistled "Bridge On The River Kwai,"
calling it by some other name,
and sang all the verses in a brassy voice
we'd never heard before. She was a sergeant
in the War, we told all our friends,
and Dad just a corporal — though he got
to fly to the Philippines while she typed memos
in Enid, Oklahoma. In browning snapshots
they ambled hand in hand on pass or furlough
until their olive drab marriage spliced
with someone's reconnaissance shots and tourist views:
calendar vista of Mt. Fuji through the trees;
a whorehouse in Manila maybe,
where dark skinned women without shirts
lounged among Dadless soldiers in smoky rooms;
one withered Filipino peasant with breasts sagging
to her waist — captioned "Old Saddlebags"
in a hand not my father's;
78
David Graham
what we called "a jap" incinerated grinning
halfway out of a tank turret; another,
driftwood bones and scraps of flesh
sunk into sand on an unlabelled beach.
Stranger still. Dad himself, in a jungle
with a dozen buddies, stripped down
for volleyball or swimming, smiling at the future.
"It wasn't bad for us," he would say,
"we needed lights and running water
for the darkroom. We could cool down."
Still, he was so skinny and frail
we hooted all the louder at this Thruway' s
crop of aimless privates, with their plugs and gum,
their sunday-driving nonchalance.
At the rest area. Dad and Mom got carried away
saluting each empty Jeep in the parking lot.
I did not think then of the final shots
in that album they never mentioned
but allowed us to find in our nosings — -
aerial views, but low, of Hiroshima
not long after the blast. Acres of rubble,
just like our town dump, but with here and there
a chimney, phone pole, or charred tree trunk
to give us a sense of scale.
79
David Graham
The Library of Home
Refreshing to hear a familiar name
has gone under in the old home town,
or perhaps a bar where I once drank beer
and argued a position I hated.
My savings bank gives me the time of day.
Too Late, and the temperature. Very Low.
I remember what I love and no more:
I love a small town just after midnight,
when all the stoplights begin blinking "go,"
and the lit and empty telephone booths
begin their secret ringing in the fog.
A man wants his boyhood to be simpler:
even the headline's lie of omission
should comfort: honor roll, marriage, and death.
A never finished highway occupies
dotted lines on the map, like the unlived life
of the prodigal son, who would not fulfill
the provincial brag. The evening paper
headlines instead, "Man Gets What He Deserves,"
topic of every graduation speech.
A house I once lived in, altered and wrong,
succumbs to this bodiless longing, these
swirls of an unrecorded fingerprint.
Any snapshots curl their wings like dead moths
and turn slowly to dust in these attics,
a strangely ominous fidelity.
Any brain is folded upon itself
many times, like the chalkiest roadmap
still refusing to go the wrong way.
For here is a town whose mayor is part-time,
whose children orbit with glad gravity,
whose downtown will never move to the malls.
80
David Graham
And at the library it is business
as usual, Andrew Carnegie's strange gift
to the heartland. Though on the street out front
the rubber skid-patches are permanent,
as is the dusting of shattered bottles
over the sidewalk, and though the aisles
are crowded with cookbooks and mysteries,
everyone knows there is a private shelf
in the librarian's office. And there
are the books of which I have always heard,
books of travel, lust, and complication.
81
David Graham
Mother Pills
Who couldn't sleep? A boy with diseases
lifted from Reader's Digest , a new one
each month: tuberculosis, leukemia,
fear of open places, dread of the new.
I pestered my mother who brought me pills
in the night, aspirin she called magic,
the very narcotic I pleaded for.
Some nights they were, and I drifted away.
Who cannot sleep? A man married to fear,
mothered now by long distance, each new list
of her ailments I tend and count like sheep.
Her comforting voice still rains on my roof.
Surely she cannot forget being kicked
from within, my pink-footed scrabbling
for release. That's why she takes each misstep
as aimed at her. That's why she swallows pills
to heal me of her memory. That's why
my fitful rolling in bed can wake her.
Yet regardless of my insomnia
her crippled hip will act up tonight.
In the years since I called her in the dark,
habits die hard. Visiting her these days,
I hear the all-hours radio complaining,
her murmurs to my father in a new voice.
I think of my gradeschool essay on her:
how much she loved horses, how she was tall,
how every night as she stood at the stove
she retold us what a bad cook she was.
I may also have drawn her long hair, eyes split
behind bifocal lenses, but what remains
is that sliver of light under my bedroom door,
the voice my voice could waken, sure as rain.
82
Aedan Alexander Hanley
Ghetto Spring
An amoeba
of mosquitos cutting
across, or shooting
through a square
wire fence-hole, cats
like hungry babies
crying in the gangway, and wasps
landing to catch
their breath, their survival
guided by the sun, and
big, black ants peeling,
skinning the faces
of peonies or birds
fighting in the dirt
tracks carved by ice
from the past winter's slow, glacial
scrape across the alley,
and the cops asking if old
Mrs. Wilson made it
this winter; and bugs, asparagus
beetles, like german flags,
march over the graves
of perennial four o'clocks,
and dog feces scatter the land
like Monet's haystacks
after the leaving
of the long, winter snow.
83
Aedan Alexander Hanley
Louanne and the Pack of Kents
I was thirteen when I had my first
butt. Robin, this milker, turned me on
to Kents. I'd lime her
barn for money and cigarettes,
then walk five miles
for a pack. Barefoot down
the cracked-up road, pressing tar
bubbles with my heels.
I'd pass this old Coldspot
freezer smoking fish out its sides,
and this horse. Patches, who hung
with the cows because he thought
he was a cow. Taking the bend
on HWY. J, then five steps up
to Braumshreiber's general store,
with its wooden floor and fake front
like a Hollywood movie,
I stood in the doorway, looking down.
The long aisle, to its meringue
ceiling and lobby lights, lit
a butcher's face, his waxy mustache
dulled by yellow haze, and white
apron bloody with guts
from Patsie Shef fen's old bull.
My front tooth missing, shorts
to my knees, and hair combed
flat against my face. I'd ask
for a pack of Kents. Louanne ran
the register. "Are you old enough?"
she'd say. Louanne was big. Breasts
to her waist, blonde hair
shorter than a fly's, and a sunburn
around her raveled elastic swimsuit.
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Aedan Alexander Hanley
She'd throw me a pack
and buy me a cone just so
it would look good. I'd sit where
the old-timers in clean
pressed bibs watched trains, eat
my cone, smoke a butt, and listen
for the old Chessie
to squeal through town, drowning out
the smell of cows.
85
Aedan Alexander Hanley
A Woman by the Mississippi
Her expression is nothing
to look at. You would think
her occasional pats of the water,
the rippled buildings
reflecting, boats and people
thinning out with each wave
was a romantic thing,
but it isn't.
The Mississippi is like a fat slug.
Its surface images of thin,
rheumatic couples holding hands
edge the river, and break
the sand — slurry crabs hide
their faces, distorted,
tinged in the dirty light.
The river isn't beautiful today.
Its brown mouth spits-up
stones along the shore, the pitted ones
layered on layers
of smooth snail and crab shells.
And only the weepy tree at the river's back
waves over the water soft and green.
86
William Harrold
Trails
Early autumn. First frost.
A round moon leading on . . .
the deer leaps high as fir-limbs
propelled over wooden railings.
She bounds through dry corn-stalks
and leaves a strange excited trail,
where the shivering shapes of rabbits twitch
at a passing shadow.
Then seeing what nothing else must have noticed,
she streaks downhill toward the village
and plunges through a field of clear glass stars,
her nose bleeding for hours among the diamonds
and rubies.
Dawn comes. And the moon goes after
other darkness. Nothing is seen
except a scarecrow arriving in coat
and tie to open his jewelry store.
There are only nights, . . . and trails
filled with lighted notions.
87
William Harrold
In a Photograph by Froissart, 1856
First one drop against the cathedral spire,
then a slow stream down stained glass.
The Rhone and the Saone have been swelling for days.
And now the flood at Lyon.
Rows of tall trees wade like herons
in a vast canal.
The sun keeps its distance.
Nothing can promise the return of grass
and flowers.
From their high windows two faces gaze
at each other through opera-glasses,
as if at the beginning of a strange
new love affair.
It is obvious the water is still rising.
The gas lamps will not be on parade tonight.
Monsieur and Madame Bouvier,
deprived of their early morning walk,
comfort their whimpering poodle.
Monsieur stares at La Bourse de Lyon,
then at the main thoroughfare that once led
from Paris to Rome.
Money floats on the water, dragging
its dead gold feet.
By evening their minds have risen to fever crest.
Madame moves through the room with her slim taper
searching for a memory strong enough to buoy three
lives through the night.
88
William Harrold
As she lifts the lid from the teapot
tears slide down her silk handkerchief,
and her sobs suddenly snuff the nervous flicker,
the room in full darkness flooding
with the ghosts of roses that once flamed
the endless gardens along the Rue Bonaparte.
89
Judith Harway
Fossils and Relics
My father keeps the interlocking histories
of rock and bone boxed up.
The labored cursive of the labels
is my own, as though I shared his need
for names more certain than embodiment.
Some things I learned:
400 million years ago
this crinoid stem was anchored
to the ocean floor. Water filled
and emptied it. Water was everything
until there was no water, and its keel
bears scars from breaking with its roots.
When I reach for it. I'm reaching
for the sense I lack, of passing
through one tart, deciduous world
into another.
Every spring we made our pilgrimage
on knee and knuckle
through inverted time: his term
for tailing heaps at Retsof Salt Mine.
What was deepest in the earth
came out on top. Where we pored
over stone. Where the tincture of his sweat
belied the lime's drab grey.
Where I squatted, aping gravity
and interest as he prized
a paradoxides from sleep,
its thorax tapering, its crescent eyes
almost reflecting sun. That's when
the coarse rock fled my feet
and I fell, hands plunged in the slope
like sea-anchors, away from him.
90
Judith Harway
And after, he knelt with me
in the sharp-edged past,
his bloody handkerchief pressed
to my palms. The blind sun hovered
over his left shoulder. I still hear
his liquid voice invoking
sediments that love each tiny life
enough to risk protecting it,
to harden and endure millenia
of uplift and erosion.
I listened past him,
past my faulty hold on earth,
my messy blood.
Father, it's been years.
Your bones betray you
and you fall among the motley talus
of our dreams and dreads.
And I keep opening this box
of recalcitrant displacements,
deep embedded patterns bared
and catalogued, to touch
the wild unlikelihood
that any life be saved.
91
Judith Harway
Opening the Nest
In his hands the crowbar bullies
slat from joist; he weighs against
the old dock's split and splinter,
dragging out the rows of nails
that fall to rust. When, years ago,
my father struck those nails, his hands
decided on the careful spaces,
measured air and wood. I stood
too close and caught the hammer's backswing
on my leg. I fled indoors,
afraid of my own blood. Perhaps
I shouldn't stand so close today
to glimpse the underside, or watch
a young man straining, steel on wood,
to pry the boards apart.
* * *
Inside, a world of veiny rot and pockets
pinched by mandibles; a world we never saw.
I think back to the silver maple tree:
a carpenter ants' nest hollowed it out
when I was small. I heard the wind flute in
through cracks and knots, the music of no past
came twisting in my window, summer nights.
I rose, I listened, but I never looked
into that trunk to see what I see now:
a darker place, a bed of mold and eggs
as white as cuticles; the buried system
of the wood, the shells uncountable,
the one dense nerve composed of everything.
* * st-
Deep in the borrowed board he spots her:
Queen, a knuckle long, a ventricle
for slave and lover. Kneeling down,
he lifts her with a stick. My voice
will make no difference, but I shout
until he flings her in the lake. There is no splash.
I take his hand and we stand, staring down
into a nausea of limbs and eggs.
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Judith Harway
'They find another Queen or die," he says.
Something is very wrong: I see the stick
float in, her bright black carapace,
a squirm and ripple. As he smiles, I know
his argument: that when a thing survives
it's meant to. But his crowbar fits my hands,
I bend and lift that stick onto the dock
and bring the metal down.
* * *
What is your body?
Trunk and limbs.
Why do you lie there?
It's neither lake nor land.
What holds the dock up?
Stakes and rusty nails.
Where do the ants live?
In the pores of wood.
What can you see in light?
The lenses of another's eyes.
What else can you see?
The inches underfoot.
Why did you shout?
The wood was damp and crowded.
Why did you strike her?
To see what was inside.
Did she fight?
Yes. She almost made it.
What are you then?
Human, pure.
Where will the ants go?
Somewhere else, another Queen.
Where will she come from?
Somewhere else, a different plank.
93
Judith Harway
What happened in the silver maple?
Ants ate all the age rings,
left it hollow and the wind sang in
to fill the trunk with sound.
How did it sound?
Like music, lovely.
How did you feel?
Hollow. Full.
94
John Judson
Esplanade
The avenue bordered green too long for him.
So once, when he was alone, climbing a willow
that hung somewhere in the curve of his mind,
where nothing yelled, and a river wound
around the land and itself,
leaving, unlike a snake,
live sloughs for all this thirsty world,
he paused. In his head, a fond but mute
applause for what struck there: one
sheet of blue that stitched his eye
to the furthest sigh his grandfather ever breathed;
one caterpillar, who in all its lumped fur
followed its own singleness beyond
what any mind could personify of
cramped and lumpish creeping;
his tongue rung by the trill of one bird
whose pleasure even fulfilled the sun.
And this, he never told or turned to words,
just let drift beyond the blocked concrete he walked,
which realtors, in turn, had sold and sold and sold.
95
John Judson
Eve White and Her Third Husband
If breast-size were the measure of a woman
or church attendance, then the Good Lord would
have put a cow in Eden or a nun,
but when He thought it over as He did.
He knew that Adam was a lonesome man
and the new garden quite a place: thick woods
around and ferns and talking snakes; that nude
male needed something wild, but warm.
So he created Eve from a floating rib,
and here we are, always prone to tides
or moons or storms. Our hidden cargo rides
at rest only when it's moored to rock.
I've found that twice. Now, I hear the tick
of the clock in the hall at night, and on the roof
the weathervane squeaks and turns like a rusted jib.
Morning Song
I dip my coffee water now from the spring.
An earthworm crawls across its floor,
and I have two thick hinges made of brass
fastened above it to the weathered hardwood door.
The water seeps up through black leaves,
in a hole I helped time hack from the earth,
beneath a boulder dropped by the glacier's melt.
It is older than any ideograph of man
or the walking Chinese eye of their verb to be.
Who would believe me if I said
I have never been more happy with life?
96
John Judson
Dawn at Drury Pond
A night of invading woods' ants,
and the deer mouse threshing in the trap,
until, white fur exposed, she twisted to her back,
caught in a forage for new food.
All early morning, rain filled the pines,
and now, in the first crack of light,
the mist scarfed among their greens bums off,
two loons rise from rush across the bay.
And day has come again out of the Grand Banks,
hauling its long furrow through the sky in a wake
that spreads out against balsam, fir, and mountain pine,
filling their darkness with sound
and a scintillence: each point kindled
by seafire in wave troughs,
then flung westward to the sand,
where every grain opened its eye and burned.
97
John Judson
Autumn Song
Maybe the day is cold,
the light slant over the rill,
steep where the alder and the black willow wait
rooted in frost,
their leaves hanging like
the patterned sleeves of a gown
my grandmother wore at an end of the season ball:
splendid color,
spangles on the walls.
Turtles and frogs are going deeper;
my mind the same,
caught in this open wander,
tracking light,
its low angle,
the heart ripened like tart fruit
that fills to fall.
98
John Judson
After Dusk,
Walking Toward Drury Pond
Moon, the clover lover, intercedes,
and ahead, a slant field shakes its pine,
salmon-shuddered, brook-climbed.
Wind finds a way through the timothy
where we climb through June toward home,
where high ridge turns to plunge,
and ends in pond,
where the last loon calls his passing
under the gray birch,
which, mirrored,
pulses there
like a silver vein of water.
99
John Judson
Story
It was Tuesday, I think, about 8:30,
and she was about to make her way to the cellar,
through the piles of clothes to be washed on the stairs.
"Dirty clothes have no need to be hid,"
she always said, so hers were always there
for anyone to see. She had just come in
from the garden, where she went first each day
after breakfast chores were done, and just
as the sun was climbing above the ridge to the east
so it caught the dewy points and made them sparkle.
She had seen, that morning, a turnip or carrot, I think.
I can't tell you what, for that would be
too much for what outsiders are privileged for.
I'm not complaining about that you understand,
for it might be more than I could take, knowing
which turnip held the dew in just
what way to change the day so and light her.
Well, there she was, up on a Tuesday morning,
her feet tracking the garden mud downstairs
past the week's wash piled so anyone knew
what food the family ate and where they worked
or played; and there, right at the corner of the stairs,
where the window looked back like a photo that framed
what she'd seen,
she stood and screamed. Woke the whole
house up to whatever it was was lost
or hurt her most when she looked back for it.
I'll say, the family got up fast that morning.
And when Herman came to her on her knees in a pile
of dirty clothes, he caught her to him tight
and rocked her head to his chest like she was a child
and he some older man who had caught a look
right into her head and had to stop there and hold her,
rocking, not so much for the child's sake,
but for what he'd suddenly known of his own,
being human, and so, responsible.
100
John Judson
Anyway, that's the story of how the Mitchells
used to live here once, and why Herman
quit his job at the mill and took their kids
from school, and how they sold the place and color
TV to us. I don't know where they are now.
Down south of here or west. No one knows
a thing for sure except those two,
or maybe me and you, or some
turnip or carrot- top covered with dew.
101
Richard Kirkwood
The Farm
Together they live,
on a strange farm,
more important (it's said)
than the six pigs,
the two cows,
or chickens
chickens
everywhere
like a multitude
of angel wings
like many
fast clouds
He tills the soil
with a plow
as rusty
as dried blood.
Drinks water
right there in the field
from an earthen jug
covered with
wet burlap.
At night
reads a Bible
of well worn cow hide
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Richard Kirkwood
She cooks the beans
mixing them
with dreariness
of flat flat land
and a man
who loves only work
and God.
She feeds
the angel wings
she sees her husband
bloody
for meat
like an awful sunset
touching
the white white clouds
Maybe they are happy
maybe they live:
the people,
the dirty pigs,
the gregarious cows,
the multitude of wings.
103
Richard Kirkwood
Dying Like Keats
Like Keats, I am dying.
I am seeking the real
taste of the dark fall
melon before it closes —
squeezing me
with its musk life
to something
smaller
and blinder
than its own seed.
I am dying.
Like Keats,
each dark day
I seek bright night
when the strange bird
sings
who seems to live
forever.
Its song bleeds
gaudy, lovely scents
among dream flowers.
Each day
as you
walk,
shadowed from the shadows,
songless
as a broken melon,
darker than a hidden song,
do you
know you —
like Keats —
are dying too?
104
David Kubach
Rocky Island
Aurora, my daughter, a morning girl,
has chirped off early to our tent.
I sit on this bleached log,
a stony Lake Superior beach,
eyes following the channel north
between Rocky Island and South Twin,
north and north some more.
At some vague edge the sky and lake
should separate; tonight they don't.
Tonight they blend
into one horizonless blue-silver shaft
rising from beneath my knees,
as if I sat at the secret
infinitely penetrable heart of things.
Like slender wings, or the tree-lined lane
lost at its crossing of the greater road,
the dark tips of the two islands
seem barely there
to represent the granite shields,
the thrust and buck, of continents.
Then a meteor, the closest one has come to me,
intersects this climbing corridor
of dimming light, flares up
and is contained. Face burning
in the growing chill, I grin,
contained myself, another gap-toothed
seeing-is believing child.
105
Fellow Travelers
Out of low popple woods
a little fellow came,
August-ridden,
to lay his head
against our garbage can
and fall asleep;
he didn't even eat.
My mother, seeing him,
went bravely forth,
armed only with the pot
she beat, woke
the little fellow up
and moved him smartly out;
sometimes I think of this
when I can't sleep.
And later,
on a rising trail
through sterner country
where the real ones ruled,
we laughed, we swore,
and sang and yelled,
we moved them smartly out,
one summer's trail crew
coming through . . .
But we'd be quiet, as,
at a low spot in the trail,
we watched the water gather
in a track; the claws
at least
would not retract.
David Kubach
Yet there was another trail
that didn't climb or cross
—through open lodgepole,
a sunlit, easy walk.
And once, all by myself,
someone fell in behind me,
about my size but wider.
We were that way awhile,
easy going, going easy,
as if he were just out walking
his own pale ghost
on a long ghost leash.
Until, at some right point,
he veered to amble cross-country,
on the track of his nose
to where — I'm sure —
the keenest of the sweets
were hid.
107
David Kubach
As Above, So Below
Summer, this year, slow in coming,
didn't so much progress
as hold a convention in July.
July was it— summer's womb and grave
and meal and mouth, a tongue of sun
stuck halfway to September,
summer feeding on its future,
licking ripe the blackberries
above a berry backlog.
From the early, chilly side,
the great yellow mayfly hatches
we take for granted
last week of June
went off with the Fourth,
when the brown trout, those elegant assassins,
lost their European restraint,
swallowed, with those mayflies of an evening,
ten thousand years of discipline
in the arts of ambush and escape.
While I, wader-cased,
patience strained by a month's poor fishing,
to say nothing of a whole life hung
like a crumb on the lip
of a vast anticipation,
knelt in the pregnant dark,
casting a fly the size of a small bird,
and from behind one fallen elm,
killed eight in maybe forty minutes,
the river bank a factory floor
of mud-slip slither, thwack, and spasm.
108
David Kubach
So much for dry-fly decorum,
gone downstream, in suspension,
with the compost
of half a life's regrets.
Heavy soils, they used to hold
the tree of heaven up, until it fell,
became a bone, a bridge,
a roof of sorts across a mouth of water —
one fallen elm above the slurping trout,
white, wafer rings dissolving
on the thick, black tongue of river
that gorged my appetite.
109
Peg Carlson Lauber
Notes from the Search
I. Every Mother's Daughter
I am hunting for my mother.
The arrow is knocked,
the bowstring taut
by my ear, singing
a lullaby I never heard.
At Mercy Hospital
on Halloween
Houdini did not appear
again; the faithful
have gone to that room
for fifty years.
At Mercy Hospital
there is a room
where my mother lay
ten years after Houdini
died there. Perhaps
she cried. Perhaps she
was just glad it was over.
At Mercy Hospital
the records are sealed;
at the Wayne County Courthouse
the records are sealed;
in Lansing at the Capitol
the records are sealed
just as surely
as my mother will be
closed in her coffin
before I find her,
sealed and hidden
where I cannot
hunt her anymore.
no
Peg Carlson Umber
II. What I Really Am
I am not really this tall.
I'm about two inches high right now.
From day to day it varies
depending on how I feel.
Sometimes I reach four or five feet.
My hair which sometimes feels
brown, sometimes red, occasionally
blond (when I'm feeling sexy)
comes from a close or distant
relative, depending on whether it is
Monday, Thursday, or Saturday.
My voice is the echo of evangelists,
hymnodists churning out saving grace
or comes from some strident aunt
or cousin, a termagant or hog
caller, a master sergeant at Farris Island.
My father, I think, was full of medals
which I'd have saved if I'd had them.
And I'd have saved the Nazi helmet he
might have brought back, or the Jap sword.
He'd probably never have taken a bribe
but was just not used to children.
Pictures hang on the bushes
along this path I walk,
pictures of my family.
Some have my eyes, another my mouth,
this one my daughter's dimple —
111
Peg Carlson Lauber
these strangers — I take them down,
books from infinite bookshelves.
My children and I read them
late into the season
as they fade steadily
from the unseasonable sun.
III. 8:40
After I've finished my tea
I eat silence surrounded by the smell
of bacon and suddenly I'm being born
beyond the window
from fallen crabapple blossoms.
I wake walking the edge
of a gorge filled
with orange and purple shadows
and the sound of slow water.
I am standing in May
washed by the rain.
But after I've finished my egg
I hear snow hit
the tin roof of the porch,
smell the snow filtering around
the door as I lie down
and make an angel in what has crept
onto the kitchen floor
under the laughter of my children
and the voice of my mother
who is calling me
home to bed.
112
Peg Carlson Lauber
IV. My Birthday
On this special occasion
my mother would have said,
"Slaughter the guinea pigs and rabbits."
My mother would be fierce,
not put off by slime,
blood, a few guts.
She would take the knife
and rip them down
from throat to tail,
peel the fur coat off and toss it
casually over her shoulder.
She would say
that her grandchildren
should go out and get a job,
pound the pavement;
she would say,
"Don't coddle them!"
and send them out
at twenty below
to sell the fur off their backs.
"See," she would say,
"it toughens them."
My mother would not give an inch
and they'd return home
singing — a birthday song
which she'd direct
by beating her baton
on their bare, cold backs.
113
Peg Carlson Lauber
On this special occasion
she'd cook the dinner
taking the birds from the cage,
the dog off the lawn,
tenderizing the meat overnight,
marinating it in hot blood,
chopping my iris for the salad
and garnishing it with
our leftover nailclippings
which we'd have saved for months.
I have started the fire.
My daughter, my son, and I
huddle around it until
my mother, their grandmother,
comes flinging the door open,
warming her hands,
and beginning to love us
one at a time.
114
Peg Carlson Lauber
Voices
At the edge of the swamp
she had neither house nor mother.
She kept her music in blue suitcases
and was always ready to go
but never played a note.
Her cello lacked an E string.
She sang frequently
on the dock that stretched
endlessly into the swamp,
heard two voices answer
her song with their song.
She was thirty
when she gave up winter and fall
and composed an oratorio
for A string and alto.
It was a celebration
but it escaped her.
She stepped into the muddy water
hoping to find
a road to the other side
where the voices had said
she belonged.
115
Carl Lindner
Hang-Gliding
The wing
of nylon, red,
is something
to try on.
Your heart flutters
as you dream.
More than the flag
of desire, more
than rippling in the wind,
you will fly
yourself, a kite
rising on the thinnest
cord. Always there
has been this itch
between the shoulder blades.
Feather by feather,
hunger grows.
In the singing
light, you
breathe and ride
the belly
pressing up
against you, only you
and that woman's voice,
the wind, whis¬
pering "Higher,
go higher."
116
Carl Lindner
Night Fishing
This is your secret
place. Into water
going black
as an iris, you
spin a fine line.
It is weighted
with sinkers of lead.
It is baited
with your heart.
Where it kisses water,
dropping down
into deeper dark,
a ring of silver
opens like an eye.
The moon, that bobber,
rides the ripple,
settles down again.
Again the wet
black gives back
the stars. Diamonds
in a net. You are
fishing the sky.
One star cracks,
splinters
into chunks of fire
falling down the night.
Before the tug,
before the bubble moon
breaks into its dance,
you know what you have caught.
117
Art Lyons
To Mrs. Lapitz, St. James Catholic Grade School
Since grade two you've stayed
with me like chalk dust,
like milk money left unpaid.
I scrubbed two sidewalk squares
with paper towels for you
and half the school's main stairs
because I spit. At recess you hid
behind the school and asked
the Sisters what my father did.
You made me cut and wear a tagboard
baby bib and set me in the hall
each day by the playground door
so every kid who'd come or go
to play could laugh at me.
And now I think I know
why you didn't spank that kid
who I said stole the extra milk,
why instead you made me sit
in the hall for one more day —
so I would learn not to snitch
but to pray.
118
Art Lyons
Five Moments to Have Again
1.
He painted the whole garage: the support posts
window trim, the eaves, everything — almost.
He found a hornets' nest in a corner and,
trying to paint around it, he got too close.
2.
This girl at a party smiled and whispered, "Let's go."
Eyes closed, he watched her long red hair flow
to the floor, her soft neck open up to him.
He claimed he had an early test and had to go.
3.
In that high school prom picture, his wife stands
with her date. On her dress two green ferns fan
out to cup an almost open, single rose.
He never sees the petals through the boy's hands.
4.
As his mother died, he told her she wouldn't.
He spoke only of those errands she shouldn't
bother running, housework she need not do.
He almost told her other things, but couldn't.
5.
His son's football thumped on the roof as he wrote.
He almost put his pencil down, grabbed his coat
and went to roll in the leaves, but he sat all day
writing, connecting quote to stifling quote.
119
Thinking of You at the Dentist
(for A. L.)
When some crying kid kicks
on the waiting room rug
and rips up all the picture books
When the dentist pats me
like a long-time pal
and calls me by a different name
When he lifts his mask up
sticks his latex hands
in my mouth till I feel sick
When he scrapes my teeth clean
with his metal pick
and cuts my gum or hooks my lip
When his drill bit screeches
grinding at my teeth
and grabs and kicks at tiny nerves
When my cavity's chiseled
to sandy bits of grit
When I finally rinse and spit
I think of you
Lessons
(for Michelle and Adam)
You practiced once your strokes and dives,
my swimmers at the shallow end,
pushed out with schools of friends,
kicked and splashed back till you arrived.
Today you splashed less, swam more,
cut the water, kicked to ascend,
to breathe, crawl out and walk, and then
your bodies rippled off the board.
Closing Time
(after the Country Music Awards)
Art Lyons
From my stool I saw all your friends leaving. Tough luck.
Since your pitcher's still full and the night's not young,
put a head on my beer. Babe. Put your tail in my truck.
I'm empty as a keg at sunrise since you snuck
off with Gus. But Gus, he just left. That song's been sung.
From my stool I saw all your friends leaving. Tough luck
him leaving you here like the foam in a glass, stuck
like a pretty young doe that's been gutted and hung.
Put a head on my beer. Babe. Put your tail in my truck.
If you'll be my sweet doe. Babe, I'll be your big buck.
I need you tonight like a salt lick needs a tongue.
From my stool I saw all your friends leaving. Tough luck
they don't want you tonight. But I do. I could pluck
music from you like a guitar that's just been strung.
Put a head on my beer. Babe. Put your tail in my truck.
You're stacked like fresh hay. You're the honey bee that sucks
crabapple trees in late May, and I've just been stung.
From my stool I saw all your friends leaving. What luck.
Put a head on my beer. Babe. Put your tail in my truck.
121
Peter Martin
Shadowboxing
I shadowbox
in my kitchen
late at night.
I am a relentless
opponent. I throw
hard shots.
I drop men
with a single punch.
My nose was broken
twice
in Golden Gloves
boxing.
I am entitled
to these
thoughts.
122
Peter Martin
In High School I Majored in Shop
They told us
assembly lines were
forever. That
assembly lines
never stopped.
They showed us
filmstrips about
happy couples
with children
and Dad coming home
with his lunch bucket
happy, greeting
his children on
bended knee,
setting his
lunch bucket
on the driveway pavement
of his new
ranch-style
home. This
was living,
they said.
And we
believed them.
123
Jeri McCormick
Miss Rinehart's Paddle
The long hard rumor
had hit us years before
but there was nothing we could do
to fend sixth grade off.
One September morning
we filed into Miss Rinehart's room
to face the thick glasses,
heavy oxfords, spit curls.
The weapon occupied
her middle drawer
and was rarely used on girls,
though Betty Jo got five whacks
for her haphazard map of Brazil —
the Amazon all smeared and off-course,
Rio de Janeiro inland by inches.
I sat through six months
of imagined failures,
ended up a jittery stooge
with all "A"s, the best parts in plays
and only now wonder
about the other side of power.
124
Lee Merrill
Without You This Afternoon
Without you this afternoon, the thin drapes sweep
through the south window.
Then laughing flee north again on their long tether.
I too step through the house happily back and forth
As though I might live here without you always.
Which I might not— my love, my purser.
But though it is true that when you are late returning.
When you have stalled in traffic and stayed away too
long.
All wind will die here and all will droop.
And the creek stones so full of honey and promise at
noon
Will blacken and cast long shadows to the shadowy bank.
Grieving us for this delicious afternoon . . .
Though it is true, I ask your forgiveness.
I ask with one magnanimous stroke of your lovely hand
that you cancel this debt.
That you cancel and enter on behalf of this solitary
afternoon
The balance so full for us all of wind and sun and
creek rocks —
The balance so fantastic and free without you.
125
Lee Merrill
For David Kubach
I share with the citizens of this town
The same stale air.
Taking theirs conditioned,
I take mine straight.
There is not a soul in this arid place.
Not a single rise on the surface
Of this unbearable, fishless moon.
Somewhere there must be good country—
Somewhere some place to drink
And watch men dance.
There is a fantastic blonde at the next table
Dressed to the teeth.
Would eat me raw
If I would only smile.
126
Lee Merrill
I Sit With You
No wind over the eighty-eight acre face
Of Lake Nothing.
No moon in the leaf-stained water.
The pike who has hunted the ducklings
All summer in the shallows
Is hunted himself now
By the pressures of the winter thermocline.
The otters in their den.
The city people in their city.
The loons flown south,
I sit with you, my silent wife.
Until the wind stirs
And the ice forms
Between us and the lake.
127
Lee Merrill
Third Self
Fog settles on the night
Like sleep on a brilliant child.
Louise is warm at last.
Palmetto forgotten.
She sleeps in a field of red mallards
Springing always outward
Through lilypads, cattails.
Green poplin sky.
Melinda is praying, kneeling sideways.
Whispering into the maple sheets.
New child now.
The ghost of the Florida wife gone,
I lumber certainly to the dock
Past the second wife, the first child.
The latest dog
Out into the rain, the cold lake.
My third self.
128
Marc Mickelson
East Meets West
If the damn rabbit
that's poking through
your gardens breaking
tomato plants and
chewing the leaves off
radishes at night is
faster than you, will
you ever catch him?
And if it's supposed to be
partly sunny and somewhere
in the 90's, should you
tell the kids to put the sprinkler on
the asparagus this afternoon?
The old man who lives
across the street, the one who
spends all day in his garden,
knows exactly when to water
and even when to put on fertilizer
just by looking at the
scribbles on his calendar.
He's up every day at dawn
checking the sky and
feeling the grass
for signs of life.
Last fall when you were
watching football he
129
Marc Mickelson
was reading the almanac
and counting the ember days.
And in spring while you
were doing your best to
understand an article on crop placement
in Urban Farming he was planting with the
help of the moon.
And this morning
he cans pickles and you bite
into an English muffin
and wonder what he knows.
Yell over and ask him what
it all means and he'll
say something like knowledge is
only part of knowing and
send you over a jar of
his best dills.
The old fart. He knows
the enemy lives
in your hedge.
He knows, but doesn't
need a BB gun or
have to think what
gasoline could do
because he has the earth
on his side and a wooden
130
fence around his yard.
Martha Mihalyi
Leaving Budapest
This bottle, its blue glass
is a blue note sounded against
the window, and outside, snow
falls, great feathers. Were
my love here, walking below,
his shoulders would catch wings
of snow, and the sound of blue
would reach him, filling his steps
with shadow. Oh, Sorrow, who asked you
to live within these paper walls,
to make me imagine this bottle the shape
of want, blue of desire, thin song
of absence? Broken-winged bird,
who asked you to fall against my window
as if there were something more you
needed? And who, who has taught me
always to hear you?
131
Martha Mihalyi
The Woman in the Glass House Speaks
I know everything around me
can shatter in a high wind,
at the kiss of stone or
the highest note. What is
important here is to walk
gracefully, the imagined book
balanced on the head and
no hand, no heart, no thought
to swerve for. What is important
is to see through each wall
another wall after and then another
until I am outside myself like a bird
resting on a high glass sill —
who must know it is only air beneath:
the blur of blue and green
to fly or fall through,
weightless and singing.
132
Martha Mihalyi
Manual for the Deaf
In lesson 33 we learn
the world , which is a circle
made of both hands, and
we learn direction, north ,
one hand rising straight
toward heaven. There is
debt here, too, but only
as much as one palm, open,
can hold.
Praise is here and promise ,
that finger to the mouth
as if to tell a child
his sister sleeps
beyond an open door.
But the word that leaves us breathless
is faith: faith,
the palm that lies up, floating,
the palm that waits for the other
to fall to it and tighten as if
to press and save a wet leaf, mothwing,
heart made of paper.
133
Stephen M. Miller
Duck Hunting
The sky raises its black lid,
a wedge of thirty mallards
floats above cornstalks.
From my gun muzzle, color of rose.
Wings drumming the earth.
Flooded Timber
There's nothing but white of snow, ice,
then the black of water and bare trees.
The boom of Jack's gun echoes on the flats
and a mallard crashes through oak branches,
feathers shining like spilled jewels.
134
Stephen M. Miller
The Last Camp in America
The women sit about the fire.
One by one, men leave the light.
A man fades into the bog, leaving
a thin sound of birch leaves rattling.
Another turns himself into a silver hook
and sinks gleaming through a cedar lake.
Around the fire, the women speak
and tap spaces that once held children.
In the forest, a branch cracks,
a shape hurdles after something white.
These men have entered the shadows,
these men have returned to the darkness.
Year
It ends like it began,
rain over dry marsh
flight of birds.
135
Kyoko Mori
Every Woman
Her house is green. In the yard, a wishing
well slapped on top of cropped grass pumps nothing
but air. The Amway Lady opens the mint
green door. Smiling, she leads me inside for
skin consultation, color analysis.
Three wooden butterflies perch on the wall.
On the counter, the GUIDEPOST magazine
shows a woman in a blue leotard
posed atop her exercycle for this
month's cover. She prays and pedals, cleans and
cooks, sings in the choir; the Lord has blessed her
with a husband and three sons, each with his own
ten-speed. Nobody gets fat. The Amway
Lady, all day in her kitchen demon¬
strating cosmetics in her huge pink blouse,
needs this inspiration. She seats me at
her table, a paper plate in front of me
dotted with facial cream, a plastic bag
taped at my side for the cottonballs I
discard. She talks about Every Woman.
Every Woman keeps a drawer full of
cosmetics she no longer uses — lip¬
stick too orange, rouge too dark, eyeshadow
that smears, the fantastic bargain under
the fluorescent light of Osco turned
into trash in the morning light. Once a
year, when her husband kills deer in the north
woods, she cleans out her drawer. Only once
a week, she pampers herself with a cleansing
mask on Saturdays while Connie Francis
136
Kyoko Mori
sings love. The Am way Lady is Every
Woman. She protects her family from
germs in tap water and six-year-old eggs
that had been stored in special warehouses
before appearing in the dairy boxes of
our supermarkets. Her boys play football
and clarinet, cure their acne with Amway
products. Every Woman, I want to say, but
I'm not like that. What can I say? I'm just
a kid turned a woman? I came only
because it was free?
It.
My dresser top holds two sets of eyeshadow,
one mascara, one box of rouge, no lip¬
stick. All the cosmetics I own, they were
purchased eight years ago from the girl who
sold Avon on our campus. A huge girl,
she wore a black leotard all day after
her morning exercise class. At lunch, at
supper, in the cafeteria, boys
going up for second helpings glanced side¬
ways at her, much the same way in third grade
other boys poked elbows and snickered at
one fat girl with breasts who huffed around the
track in gym class. The Avon girl's room made
me sneeze with scented candles, dusty potpourri.
At night, her leotard was draped over a
chair like a punctured balloon. She served me
strawberry tea and sold me cosmetics with
names like soft velvet and dusky moonlight.
137
Kyoko Mori
Hi.
The eyeshadow I bought then, the Amway Lady
says, is no good. Eye make-up not used in
four months should be discarded. So many
germs in our eyes, we can even infect
ourselves. At her death my mother left her
vanity drawer full of cosmetics
that would not keep till I was a woman.
We threw them out, my aunt and I. Dusty
face powder my mother had spilled rose from
the upturned drawer and stung our eyes with
her scent. Now the Amway Lady seats me
before a larger mirror for color-
analysis. She bends over me, drapes
a gold cloth and a silver cloth from my
shoulders. Her face close to mine, she looks
into the mirror where our eyes meet. Her
hair touches mine. I see her transformed, I
forgive her her boys and wishing well and
wooden butterflies. She is my wise old god¬
mother wishing me beautiful, her face
bending over mine in thoughtfulness, her
hand on my shoulder steady with hope. In
my mother's hinged three-way mirror, I could
see myself multiplied countless, the world
of infinity held within the small
silver angle. Mornings, my mother sat in
the center, lipstick between her fingers
like a lit candle. Some nights she put on a
pink cleansing mask and peeled it off in one
piece while I made faces into the mirrors
to make her laugh. I see her now peeling
off a thin pink mask, her face beneath it
glowing, made of light, laughing like light.
138
Sandra Nelson
Lagoon
I shift to the right, the left, tip like an inflated knock out dummy. With
my Frankenstein feet I place blade before blade and ride the silver train,
my coat pocketing the wind. I skate past the dark ice which is supposed
to mean something. I skate near a red mitten with nickels burned an
inch into the ice. The weeping willows tap their feelers on the ice. Think
of the fish tipping the discs of their eyes at the rumble of skaters. In
October the water is a yellow plastic pool when the willows drop all
their leaves. We pull crawfish from the slurry with broken chicken backs
tied to kite string. The mystery holes claimed to contain deadly water
snakes or aquatic rats are just dumb crab houses. The bluegills are so
hungry they snap up when you gob on the water. Even now the water
is alive while I stand in the middle of the pond. Pearls of fish and crab
breaths dot the ice. Stay away from the orange flags where someone's
dog fell in.
139
Sandra Nelson
Jane Among the Ducks
At school I was a fool. Always in a comer
reading the wall's pimples like cool braille.
Always sitting under Miss Ehlert's desk
between her huge, swollen legs and strappy
shoes. I was stupid. When it came
time to read, everyone took turns.
Beautiful, smooth, the little story glittered
like a Christmas card — all perfect. Then
Sandy read. Everyone shifted in
their chairs, coughed, settled in for a rough
ride. The words twisted out. "The duck
sss. The ducks feel thers feel
in the way tour — waiter. Jane
swas it ant cricked, 'Oh,
No!' " Susan, with the perfect yellow hair
and beautiful, slanted, Siamese eyes glared
at me. Miss Ehlert said, "That will do!
Will Miss Susan Weedamont please read it?"
"The duck's feathers fell in the water.
Jane saw it and cried, 'Oh No!' "
"Thank you Susan. Now David." While
David, the boy who read like me, stumbled
through the ducks, I worked a finger up
my nose. Digging, all of a sudden wet —
blood ran into my sleeve. Red pancakes
dropped on "duck" and "No!" and "Jane" and "Oh."
"My God, you ruined a new book!"
My head was pushed back and paper towels
covered my face. "Oh yuck," said Susan.
140
Sandra Nelson
From under the paper I saw her velvet skirt,
patent leather shoes and white lace anklets.
Her ankles came together and touched like Dorothy's
in the Wizard of Oz. My gray socks hung
over the backs of my unlaced shoes. I had
ratty witch-feet. "Time for music." I sing,
"I'm a lizard teapot
num num kraut.
Here is my num-dule,
here is a mouse.
When I get all starred up
hear me shout.
Tip me clover and flour I shout."
I had a beautiful voice. Mrs. Colin
said, "Your voice is like birds flying south."
141
Sandra Nelson
Hillside Fish Market
Last night the market burned. The windows black
and ugly hold no magic fish. I'd seen
a buffalo nudge the glass and turn her back
to me. Brown scales as big as quarters gleam
through water gold as pee. I watch him crack
the spines of fish. Like polished shoes the sheen
of heads surrounds the butcher's feet. She rolls
and air-pearls leave the tank like silver souls.
In August ponds are smooth as oil. A frog
is polished, emerald jade. Old mountains steam
in clouds. Still waters mirror heaven's fog
between the lily pads. A China dream
is cracked as backs of fish move quick and jog
through rubbery stems. The lilies tip their cream
and yellow flowers. Kim Lee's line goes tight
and slits the leaves; a nose is dragged to light.
The night the Hillside Market burned, I slept
and dreamed of fish. I watched them weave between
my frisky legs and nibble bubbles kept
in hairs. A tender fleshy mouth, a clean
and gentle "O" withdrew my pearls. I slept
while buildings burned. A blackened cough, a mean
and ugly vomit licked the fish. They died
in splintered glass with chair legs black and dried.
142
Gianfranco Pagnucci
La Mer, La Mer
Two porpoises along a sea coast would laugh
at you, white Aphrodite up from pastures of holsteins
and me Neptune of prairie corn, blackbirds in my hair,
laugh at how each summer we meet in the bed of the lake,
our feet planted in sand
and embrace seas of earthy emotions we hardly understand.
Sometimes we gulp water, and a land breeze laughs through the trees.
When a herring gull drops out of the air,
surveys the lake close up, east then west,
and goes off after the taste of salt in his nostrils,
we look up, remember a small hill of sand
and climb down toward our pond, laughing to ourselves.
Soon we shiver away from each other;
the gull's raucous cries come back from nowhere.
This far inland it's hard to imagine the sea.
143
Gianfranco Pagnucci
A Red Fox Again
Driving back after 10, we see a red fox
cross where County A curves and begins its climb.
Sitting next to me you suddenly enter the poem
as if you'd said I'm leaving you.
Smaller, less pure red than I remember
a fox, this one in the headlights has buff
on the back and tail; but the tail is huge,
bigger than the animal and, as they say, floating.
The other, seven years before, crossing on the curve
looked back at me over a shoulder like the friend whose funeral we missed.
I see all our lives together
strung in small beads of bright light. All these years
nothing else about the dull day but that fox coming across
looking at me like the sunset on the flagship going over the horizon.
Pinpoints of light splayed against our lives.
Harold shoots himself at seventy-six for guilt we never knew;
light plays the world for us like that,
holds up a square where the entering bullet burns and lets go.
The light burning and letting go,
our lives on the curve where the red fox
climbs or falls toward the dark valley of the Little Platte.
144
Gianfranco Pagnucci
At Dusk the Picked-Over Garden Goes
Bright with Flowers
Everywhere I turn
marigolds leap in my hand,
my bunch by now so large
I can't hold it.
Falling flowers
trail me to the house;
and the breath of marigolds;
the salad hounded by odor of marigolds;
in the dying day,
the scent of marigolds in your hair.
145
Gianfranco Pagnucci
Leland Stoney
That year we still bought
eggs from Leland Stoney,
the bachelor on Ridge
Road, who had stayed home
after the War,
for his mother's sake,
and got the Stoney Farm.
When he came with eggs,
we served his favorite
homemade cake,
chocolate fudge on white
china and coffee
black and boiling hot.
As he drank, he blew
close into his cup
the way Grandfather
did and a girl will
remember — simple
habits lifted to
ancient gestures by
thin, white china.
146
Angela Peckenpaugh
The Purple Lighter
Like a piece of candy
you might use to quiet a baby,
the violet lighter lies handy.
Flick it on, warm your hands,
think of times flames pleased:
gathering driftwood, beached,
bleached, brittle and light.
Stalks of reeds used to seed
the flames. Late night stories
staring at logs, throwing on
paper trash for a thrill.
The blue from milk cartons
like gas heater jets,
pretending their demise
was hotels crumbling
stilly in a news reel.
Halloween bonfires, the neighborhood
circling, baking potatoes on sticks
in the embers, eating them so hot
they stung. The candles in
restaurants flushing cheeks
as eyes met mine, even Xmas altars,
the arc of lights above
red and green, transcendant,
as the whole congregation
rose to sing.
147
Angela Peckenpaugh
From Photo of Coursing Water
Shine slides through moist fronds
revealing mud bottom.
The bank diagonals
into the rush
while further on, surface
glints like rhinestones,
hurrying as though they'd turn
to smoke.
I remember leaning over,
walking the flats,
peering down to see
were clam necks stretched,
would I get cut on a shell edge?
Soon sun that beat
on my back became
part of the dismissed landscape.
I lived with the minnows
in their darting medium,
their cool gills brushing mine.
148
Angela Peckenpaugh
Silver
What would we do
if you were dull.
What would I say
if you were empty?
Like ripples
on the lake,
the chandelier's light,
you are rich.
And this is only
one gleam in your eye.
149
Felix Poliak
Tunnel Vision
I.
First the light cracked
and black hairlines appeared.
Then tiny pores opened like peepholes,
for the night to peer in,
the winds of the void to blow through.
Crumbs of grey started to drown,
floating downward, out of sight,
islands sinking in a tide.
Colors slid into shafts of blindspots,
the memories of shapes sailed the seven
black seas.
II.
Her voice enters the room,
followed by her form and only last
her face, a flower, a small cloud
of smoke. I knew this face when it was
white, distinct, bordered by black hair.
Now the hair, too, has wilted,
turned grey.
III.
I wake to the sound of rain.
Scent of wet grass. It is
still night. The world is all right
at this hour. There is nothing
to look at. A bird begins to proclaim
his ownership of our tree. Over and
over. No dispute.
Soon dawn will invade my window,
crawl up to my door. Peace is
running out. Not peace: armistice.
I close my eyes, sink back into
my dream. My eyes are opened,
become as clear and sharp
as a bird's.
150
Felix Poliak
All Things Are Candles
The candle's dying makes the candle live,
as nothing is that is not by its ceasing
—-not time, nor light, nor love.
All things are flames: some fiercely blazing
ecstatic stakes that are at once consumed,
some slower paraphrasings
of the same theme; but all alive, entombed
within their dying to their dying day
that started in a womb.
All things are candles, even stones — although
we burn too hot to fathom their cool rays.
Discussing Poetry
A poem is a dream seen in a mirror,
a lie so precisely distorted by error
that it reveals a truth. There is nothing obscurer
than "objective reality," nothing barer
of truth than "bare truth": only a conjurer's
touch can bring the mirage of the world nearer
to our minds' eyes, only dreams make us surer
of time's unsolved riddle behind the clock's clear hour.
151
Felix Poliak
Astigmatism
As far as
I can see
the white
blossoms
in the white
vase
bloom on no stems
suspended in
midair
like delicate white
insects
above a white
flower
Eating Nuts on a Snowy Evening
For me, eating nuts
is a small pleasure.
For the squirrels, it is
a matter of survival.
I know this. And yet
I keep eating nuts
watching the snow
through my window . . .
152
Felix Poliak
Explaining Blindness to a Child
— - For Hans Magnus Enzensberger
It is like many nights
growing seamlessly into one,
it is like many flames
sliding into each other until
they're one big fire,
it is like colored wallpaper
being slowly covered by India ink,
it is like greasy soot blotting out
the sparkling new snow,
it is like a hundred black flies
devouring a white piece of cheese,
it is like a gleaming aluminum train
being swallowed by a hungry tunnel,
it is like bright birds in the zoo,
buntings, canaries, parrots
and snowy owls suddenly sprouting
black feathers and becoming ravens,
it is like the only TV in the world
losing its screen,
it is like the sun and the moon
and all the stars collapsing into
black holes in the sky . . .
153
Jeff Poniewaz
The Tomb of the Unknown Poet
Why no Tomb of the Unknown Poet?
Wasn't he killed as sure as the Unknown
Soldier?
Didn't he die running wild after
the wildest beauty the same
as Wilfred Owen?
Didn't he step on the toes of landmine
minds?
Wasn't he mowed down by machine-guns
of mechanization?
Didn't he throw himself on the grenade
of scorn lobbed at Poetry?
Drape a green flag of living grass
over his casket.
Blow his taps on panpipes:
phoenix syrinx!
Unknown Poet launched into the Unknown
like a poem in a manila envelope
addressed to Immortality
Care of the worms who edit scrupulously
but send no rejection slips.
154
Jeff Poniewaz
Kinnickinnic River Elegy
Behold the Kinnickinnic River K-Mart
sprung up along the Kinnickinnic River
I sprung up along in the post-war '40s.
Behold the Kinnickinnic River K-Mart
that killed the Kinnickinnic Riverbank wilderness
vestige I played in as a child and boy,
the field with creek cutting through it
across Chase Avenue from the field where
the carnival sprang up for a week each Spring.
Behold the Kinnickinnic River K-Mart
that along with the Freeway and Freeway Industrial Park
hogtied and crucified the little that was left of
the wilderness that was this place, the K-Mart
that paved the banks of the Kinnickinnic River
so it wouldn't flood the rec rooms of
the workingclass South Side and would more truly
resemble the open sewer it had become.
Behold the Kinnickinnic River K-Mart
I unthinkingly walked into this afternoon
(while my father waited for me in his car)
to buy myself blue flannel pajamas from China,
100% cotton for $10.95, while mothers & fathers
half my age walk the aisles of merchandise
with little offshoots of themselves in tow,
loading them aboard the little endangered species
merry-go-round outside the K-Mart entrance.
Every item of merchandise inside that K-Mart,
including my pajamas from China, killed
the Kinnickinnic Riverbank ecosystem.
The whole planet fast turning into one vast K-Mart.
155
Sara Lindsay Rath
Souvenirs
This morning I found a white undershirt
that belonged to an old lover.
It is soft and worn thin with a slight
grease stain still on the left side
from the day he had to fix his bike,
the day he pulled the shirt over his head
and tossed it to me. It smelled
of his sweat and cologne and I slept in it
for weeks before it was thrown in the wash.
Now it clings to my breasts like old silk,
like the palms of my lover's hands when
they caressed me years ago. Once in awhile
I'll look down and everything I'm wearing
has belonged to someone else:
another husband's khaki shorts,
my mother's nightgown, my son's faded jeans;
it's almost as close as you can get,
like being inside their skin.
Every few years on the anniversary
of his arrest, the press reviews
a local graverobber's sordid tale;
how he'd unearth warm corpses
and take them home where he'd stitch
shirts and leggings, recycled
items of clothing from human skin.
I'd imagine him squeezing into women's bodies
and shuffling around his dim house
after dark, speaking in falsetto,
smiling as he sipped a cup of milky tea.
I saved all the newspaper clippings.
156
Sara Lindsay Rath
fascinated with the ghoulish details
just as I was intrigued with my baby teeth
I'd saved in a silver jewelry box:
nestled in the warm curl of my palm
they'd click together like ragged pearls
and I'd recall the trauma of pulling them;
each had its own tale, its own tenuous thread.
Mother threw the teeth out one day,
the clippings too, as though she could snug
the little teeth back in their bloody sockets,
pretend my smile was the same;
that nothing had changed.
157
Sara Lindsay Rath
Flag Day
I had the feeling I was in one of those
endless on-the-road films, heat like a furnace
on the Illinois prairie and our little red
car with no air conditioning, one-hundred-seven
degrees that day. Most of the way
too hot to talk and you had the runs
at Lincoln's tomb where we posed for dumb
tourist snapshots, stood as far away
as we could to make each other tiny,
got ice cream and milkshakes in one little town
and a beer at a dark and crummy fisherman's bar
in New Boston along the shore
of the Mississippi where I had to pee but
didn't know for sure which door, "Inboards"
or "Outboards," and pushed the wrong one
then blushed in the mirror after I got inside.
Coming into Oquawka we saw the sign:
Visit the Grave of Norma Jean (Elephant).
And on the granite monument by the watertower
we read about gaunt Possom Red Evans
and the circus' only elephant struck
by lightning there where she was buried.
Possum's pliers and the tent Norma'd raised
still undisturbed in the yellowed clipping
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Sara Lindsay Rath
set in a frame with some old dried flowers.
Late afternoon we followed a truckload
of Iowa pigs so many miles that when
we pulled into Keokuk the ventilating
system of our Chevrolet was stinking, sour
with pig piss but the motel had a pool
and after the TV weatherchannel assured us
the windchill was only one-hundred-and-two
we floated there lukewarm and weary. I saw a man
watching me from the window frame of
in an old brick building across the street
four floors up, sleeveless undershirt
tattoo on his bicep. My God it was hot.
I set my Seven-up on the side of the pool
and swam around on my back a little while
longer just to give him something to look at.
159
Sara Lindsay Rath
Killing Frost
I awaken to gunshots in bleached dawn,
begin each new day on a note of death.
Duck season. Hunters hide in the marsh.
Saturday we canoed the Yahara, slipping between
painted decoys that bobbed on our ripples
and in the reeds men in camouflage cradled
guns and watched. I have felt these birds fly
across the ceiling of my study and when I look up
they have vanished. I can only see their shadows.
Tonight we shrugged further into our jackets
and went into the stillness to cover the tomatoes,
peppers, carry pots of geraniums inside.
The sky was deep and crystalline — no wind,
sharp stars. Red Mars stared out of the east
with its bold eye. We'll salvage what we can
from the threats we watch and wait for, things
lurking on the edges of my peripheral vision,
this feeling of unyielding change.
Tomorrow every blade of grass and fallen leaf
will be muted by a soft veil of icy white
gentling the damaged landscape. Even the raccoon
lying dead along the road will be frosted,
luminous. The cat stretches,
sighs, curls closer to my thigh. In this dark night
winter moves stealthily over the countryside,
a V of geese on its leading edge, pulling it
closer, over the Canadian border.
160
Bruce Renner
Finding an Abandoned Farm
I wish I could remember more of it
but when the first clouds approach on a clear sky
I think of stones
some place where I can say anything
without the redoubtable apparatus of sky
or the harsh treatment of the trees
reminding me in my own voice that I am small
and of little regard
I believe that light is like this too
yet desire ages differently
I am picking my way among a few nameless implements
on an abandoned farm
layer upon layer of frost and metal dust and hay
filtered in sunlight
and a few feathers
none of the elements is whole
but when I look up the beams are laid out evenly
and the universe is still swinging from the rafters
of a hung barn
in the middle of daylight
I want to touch what I cannot see
161
Bruce Renner
The Language of Light Ambits
l
I go about it this way
I place both hands above the table and descend
awaiting only the crush of snow
I know will follow
fingers splayed like maps
my heart beating like a cup in the middle of my chest
I lower myself down onto the blank surface
like a new planet
I have been waiting for what seems like days
I look no worse for wear
in fact now the first streamers
are beginning to wave above me like banners
I thought I wanted to be whole
for a time I allowed my days
to become duplicates of my nights
but each moved through me like a separate thought
each made a particular sound
I thought I could hear
the horizon was already a mere pinpoint
I put out each star separately
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Bruce Renner
2
I felt at once so quiet and replete
I could hear myself drop
the soft moon climbed into the sky
either waking or falling asleep
but it was only a liquid disc
floating off effortlessly
the grouse mice and deer slip quietly
into the new emptiness
what we come to inhabit
changes who we are
the first light fades into daylight
with almost no sound at all
3
as if each life was just such a series
a mellifluous bubble or arc
some new path upon which light appears
to travel and to know its way
yet tomorrow I will remember
all of this differently
clouds part and the light bends easily
sometimes poetry is the only solution
The world keeps coming apart
it's as natural and inevitable as dying
but by dying we often mean a new
beginning or belief
163
Melanie Richards
Prairie Fire
Kansas is so flat
she built a path
to climb, she waited
and she fell; but the fire
of her imagination
flickers in the attic,
leaves its singe
on the pasture grass,
drifts through the rafters.
It is the heart gone mad:
it has built a fortress
out of caring, stone
by stone. A woman lives
behind this door: her hair
holds you in each snarl,
she's knotted hope
into this shawl
that cannot warm her.
You will live in cities
with women who forget you.
With your name, she burns
the barn, straw by straw,
and counts the days you loved her.
She knows this fire will end.
She waits in the creek
with the stolen horses,
safe and blind.
164
Melanie Richards
Where the Sea Surrenders
The field wears the gold of autumn
as he offers her his hand. She is new
to love and hesitates, but the rush
in her veins signals that blue
internal landscape, a coastline
where the sea surrenders, night
after night, waves suspended
under a spell of moon. A woman now,
she will return the gold she hoarded
through those winter nights, ready
to touch him now, to accept the flush
of that red flower in his extended
hand, the heart dissolving finally,
that hour when the sea forgets itself,
and runs to tide, and turns to moan,
and spills its urgent message on the sand.
165
Melanie Richards
Private Song
The light issues
an invitation
and the moth
dissolves in fire;
the sea dreams
in her blue berth,
wave upon wave
of recollection;
and in the spring we forget
there is more than one way
to enter the kingdom,
more than one song,
and so a woman alone
takes to her bed
for consolation, and her hands
are her undoing,
until her window darkens
and that private song
begins: she calls
the stars to witness
and trips the switch
that lets her body fly,
wingless, into another
lonely night.
166
Dale Ritterbusch
Dragon Poem
My daughter says, "Stop it Dragon"
as the creature breathes smoke,
hisses and growls, menacing
a frightened young girl on T.V.
I turn the channel — there was no dragon
in this children's tale when I read it —
As if there weren't enough things to be afraid of
I'm still afraid.
I can feel the change, the loss
of direction and control —
She wakes in the night, says, "Stop it!"
I can't stop it: overhead the dragon,
the child protector, carved
from teak, painted red and gold, its
wings tipped with flat-black green
moves imperceptively above her bed.
I say there are good dragons and
bad dragons — most of them are good,
A Zoroastrian or Manichaean division
that convinces me only of the neat
divisions we make of everything —
One of many lies I tell daily to get by.
The daily lie — what falsehood, what
idiot half-truth will I tell next
as I explain the world?
How can I say, "Stop it!" to the next lie
burning inside, breathing fire and smoke
searing all the years of this flesh?
Even in the year of the monkey,
it is the year
of the dragon.
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Dale Ritterbusch
44
The first time I saw Henry Aaron bat
He hit an easy pop up
And I sat back, dejected, impatient
Waiting for his next at bat.
It seemed forever — I was only eight.
Had time only for winning.
The grand moment, heroic gesture —
It was always the last of the ninth
2 out, behind by 3, the bases loaded
3 and 2 the count — seventh game of the World Series
And I had Henry Aaron's power;
I would foul off the next, a curve low and outside
Just nicking the corner, staying alive
As the world waited, balanced on the outcome
Of the next pitch.
Always it hung across the plate.
Belt high, as my wrists broke
And the hard crack of the ball
Resounding off that bat rose above the world
Beyond the deep left center of everything.
A thousand times, hit always to the same place
Deep in the stands, the place I watched
Waiting for Aaron's next turn at the plate.
And again he was out and again —
I could not understand
How anyone that good could fail;
I could not know the best fail most the time.
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Dale Ritterbusch
The next game went the same
Until the eighth and Aaron
Took a strike— a ball —
Then swung and missed — the next
Was low — count even.
The sign shook off and
Aaron guessed it right.
Picked up the rotation of the seams.
Knew it as his body sprung, forearms extended.
Wrists breaking unleashing the coiled
Power in his bat.
Cleats twisting into the dirt.
Trajectory of a bullet, sharp rise
Above the plane, the fall —
He noted where it hit
And rounded first, head down.
The noise we made like the voice of God
Thundering in the great man's ears.
I didn't want the cheers to stop.
The next batter to come up to the plate
Congratulating Henry with a slap
On his outstretched hand.
I wanted him to run the bases endlessly
Never reaching home
As I struck out, as I popped up
Going from game to game
Playing far into the night.
Far into the years.
169
Suzanne Ryan
Wild and Edible Plant Trilogy
1. Syrup Making Time
The Tree With Double-Winged Fruit
wakens
at the end of winter
and reaches out
with glossy, red brown fingers
that end
in slender buds.
It has a face
that is brown
and furrowed
so tapping the tree should be done
with tender respect.
Elderberry branches with punched out pith
make good spigots
and on a sunny day
after a cold night
sap runs
pure enough to drink
but best
for boiling into syrup.
40 gallons of sap
makes one gallon of syrup
worth the
wait
and work
of changing and lugging buckets
hours of sweating over boiling pans
and filtering out the bark and bugs.
Sweet Birch With Double-Toothed Leaves,
Walnut,
and sassy Hickories called
Shagbark,
Mokernut,
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Suzanne Ryan
and Pecan
also run for syrup.
And each morning
the smell
of spicy Black Walnut leaves
with
the wintergreen taste
of chewed birch twigs
starts
a Bayou breakfast
during
syrup making time.
2. Berry Picking Time
Sweaty hands
pincer grasp
through green red stems and white flowers.
Bloodied by thorns
or swollen
with bites from deerflies and sucking mosquitos
the fingers
gently
lovingly
dislodge each blackberry
for route to the bucket.
A quick lick
of purple juiced fingers
and the hands return to picking.
The Common Blackberry bramble
stands
in the sunny summer old fields
somewhere between an open field
and a thicket
surrounded by Black Locust flower clusters
and Common Barberries
with their red tart berries just right for wild jelly.
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Suzanne Ryan
Among them
are Smooth Sumac berries
covered with acid-filled hairs
which soak
to make a pink lemonadish drink
and wild strawberries
small, tight, seedy balls found in open fields
among the bull thistles and milkweed.
The hardest picking
is in the Bayou swamp
where you can find
Wild Raisin
with seed pulp like dates
and Red Chokeberries
that are chewy like apples and best in pies.
There, too
are the Common Spicebush berries
which make a good allspice substitute
and Pickerelweed's green berries
that are so tasty in cereal
or made into flour.
172
Robert Schuler
"Verde Que Te Quiero Verde"
after Lorca
green how much I want you green
green wind green branches
green rain sings in the leaves
out of green shadows trillium sails
the last bright flags of snow
willows bend bronze over hills humped fresh west of town
where fishermen lie on their bellies near springs
waiting for the rising gold-
green dawns of trout
under the moon a balloon of ice
in the black bed
twisting green mysteries of seeds
173
Robert Schuler
Fantasia for Rain and Guitar
there is not enough
time
the reasons for flamenco
someone's drums in your blood
her heels pound halls down your bones
she hauls the sinew of your spine
tighter into the darkness of her breasts
winds your hair vines round her wrist
she wants you to run with her
through the wet
night of leaves
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Robert Schuler
Winter Blues #33
winds roar whirl-rattle
ice against glass and walls
smoke drowned
space
Chopin's
ringing
mad bells of the ballades
Easter Sunday
nothing
no thing could be brighter
than this April's
daffodils all of the sun's
trumpets ringing loud round the woods
175
Janet Shaw
The Handless Maiden
Once there was a miller who wished
to marry his daughter to the Devil
in exchange for gold. When she
refused , her father cut off her
hands. . . .
Suddenly the house had no doors.
I cried Daddy! Daddy! to stop him
but the pain came down
and my hands fell onto the floor
in front of me like kittens,
fingers curled around my thumbs,
hiding my thumbs.
I wanted to pick up my hands
in my teeth and carry them away
to a nest, but there wasn't time.
I ran and then I crawled,
turning back to lick up the blood trace
so he couldn't find my trail.
The forest closed behind me,
branches locked like arms guarding,
an insignia of sun on the pines.
That night I lay next to a fallen log
as though it were my mother.
My dream tasted of metal.
When I woke in the wet leaves
I knew it was not a dream.
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Janet Shaw
All winter I listened to the snow
whisper of what must not be given away.
No! grew as round in my mouth as an apple.
My teeth broke the green skin
and I tasted the tart lesson:
I had held out my hands
when my father commanded me
although I saw his knife.
When the white trees blossomed like milk,
I felt the itch of new fingers
unfurling, crisp as crocuses,
from the buds of my wounds.
177
Janet Shaw
Jacob Wrestles with the Angel: an Update
He was sleeping in the desert
when the naked angel swooped into his dream
like an aerialist releasing her trapeze.
They knelt, shadow by shadow, on the sand.
His arm over her slim back,
he cried, "Begin!" because she seemed a kid,
and he tasted a quick take-down.
But she hurled him over her shoulder,
spread him out like a wolf pelt,
rose above him, a falcon
with her talons in his wrists.
Then she unfurled herself, as sweet and green
as the riverbed in his groin.
Seeking the beginning,
he battered into her
until he burst through angel into sky.
Without wind, without sound,
"as a cloud races through sapphire air,"
he raced toward the light.
All night he gazed into the sun.
At dawn the angel lolled on her back
while he bobbed overhead like a box kite,
a helium balloon,
a new flag dancing, clean as a flame.
She hauled him down like a jib.
"But who won?" he begged, as he cut
his bread for her and poured the goat milk.
She smiled, and suddenly
he woke alone in the desert of his bed.
178
Janet Shaw
The Wolf In My Mother
("East German mother says goodbye to her daughter through
the embassy fence." AP photo , September , 1989)
When I understood that I must leave my home
I called to the wolf in my mother
to guide me to the gate.
And her wolf trotted to me on long legs,
her eyes yellow, her guard hairs gray
on her golden underfur. She sniffed me head and tail,
then lifted her muzzle
and rubbed it along my cheek, across my mouth.
I tasted blood
and dark water of the den she'd come from.
Beneath some birches she trampled down the grass,
flattened a green we curled into, her beside me,
her head on my shoulder, her paw at my breast.
All night I heard the rhythm of dreams leaping
through her heart, felt her tremble
as her heart gave chase.
At first light I followed her again.
How thin her flanks were, how she limped
from old wounds, but still she loped ahead.
Often she gazed back, drawing me on,
showing me how I must chase without swerving.
The fence. The gate. Through the iron
we touched a last time, breath to breath.
Run! she told me.
Remember, your own wolf runs with you now!
So somehow I ran, hearing just behind me,
as I do tonight,
the whisper of her longer stride,
knowing her shadow trails mine.
179
Mary Shumway
The Legends
Old as the bark-bitten pattern
of stars and sun, they come after
the cricket moon when fires
gather in the longhouse trees
and skies darken with the thunder
of waterbirds. The old ones sit wrapped
in their skins of sun; the young
grow restless as chickarees, eyes
bright as spring foxes, waiting
for cold moons to flock where rivers
start when tales begin, told
long and over to the popping trees
and shedding moons. It was always so.
It will be so until our hands
no longer greet the day, until
fingers of light no longer weave in earth
her seasons.
180
Mary Shumway
Convocation
When rainlight puddled in the gullies,
we sloshed home Indian file from school
in raingear, grins, and milkhouse boots
for sneakers, sweatshirts, and a football,
then crossed the slough. Down by Manny Wanders'
place where drydocked launches lined
the shore, where wind and ponies tamed
the dunes, we played among the pines and sapling
ribs of wigwams until each pass
spiraled into shadow near the river.
While swift current scattered daylight's embers,
we limped home, dumping lumps
of wet sand from our shoes along
a road chilled by blackbird leaves whiffling
on the limbs of spectral trees.
In those Novembers traffic tuned
to a one-string guitar; the town was lit
by taverns and a phone booth, comer
lamps that pitched in the slightest wind,
and now and then by Northerns riffling down
the sky. Although we grew to other
towns and lights that crowded out
the stars, these dunes still hold our shadows
and the river brings us home.
181
Thomas R. Smith
Thistledown
For the first time after long heat,
the sun floats pale above the oak savanna,
its edges drawn. Now begins the movement
inward, withdrawing its flame from the high places
of summer and striving, to fully inhabit
its depths, its ring of steady warmth.
For it is the warmth, not the fire,
of long-lasting love which endures the burning-
off of years and bodies, stirred in us
now by that autumnal heartbeat. Two crows
fly together, their cries going out before them
to meet the darkening burr oaks on the hill.
Thistledown falls as if from open drawers, fold
upon fold of linens tumbled before the goldenrod.
On its own journey, the sower of thistles
travels with us, a homespun beauty finely feathered.
I lift one to the wind, coppery wings carry it
over fields toward the inward-circling sun.
182
Thomas R, Smith
Ode to Wooden Steps
For Pablo Neruda
We live
surrounded
by the benevolence
of wood.
How clearly
I see it
in the soaked grain
of these porch steps,
the black whorls
welcoming rain.
The ends
of the boards
are soft,
divided
where water
and age
knock.
It takes
a long time
to let them in,
it happens only
at wood's
pace.
The nature
of wood is
vertical,
which is why
we dance well
on a wooden
floor, from
its sheer
upright energy.
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Thomas R. Smith
Wood splits
and bends,
slumps
as it chooses,
twists,
shrugs,
and develops
a deep
slouch,
in suffering
remains true.
In the tree
struck by lightning,
in the blue stump
glowing in a
swamp,
in the thin
cracks on the
200-year-old
fiddle,
the honesty of
wood is
visible,
written
in the swerve
of its grain.
The wind pushes
lightly.
A maple seed
whirls to rest
on the top
step,
its small
yellow brain
split open.
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Thomas R. Smith
The black
wood waits for
the driving
of the wedge,
for the
raindrop that
dissolves
its heart.
185
Thomas R. Smith
Olivet
In fields given over to the gold of harvest,
how much returns to fill the empty places.
The barndoors of western Wisconsin
give glimpses of the saved souls of wheat.
Saying yes to you in my heart, I took
the long way home at sunset,
pulled off the road at a junction called Olivet.
On clotheslines I saw the sad sheets
of the married, of the desire
not to travel on alone.
A house of dust, its beams on fire,
gathered itself around me.
A one-room schoolhouse overgrown with burdock
stood apart from the white houses.
Some abandonment in childhood must have
caused me to stand alone.
The dirt road loves the fields as they are.
That was the kind of love you gave me.
There are places I have driven by only once
and lived in the rest of my life.
186
Thomas R. Smith
Snow Flying
"Family is fate." — Michael Meade
1.
In moving air, the fates of snow
weave a vagueness over hills.
There is a snow that flies rather than falls,
as if the same few flurry endlessly
without touching ground. And if today
there is no new snow, then there's no stopping,
no getting rid of the snow that is here,
someone forgotten whose face we see clearly
at four o'clock in the morning.
2.
How low the sun through curtains
in January! I was born in this light
showing under the doorway of the year.
There is dark heat inside a family,
each household wrapped around its fire,
poorly vented, wasteful, throwing smoke
which blinds and chokes us as it warms us.
At dusk I find a pine cone and think
of my mother and father growing old.
3.
Night is coming. There is no alternative
in winter to the threadbare furs we spread
with others in the cave of the heart.
No alternative to placing the long-delayed call,
agreeing to accept the heat without light
of the father so difficult to uproot, who stands in
whatever light is left, as proud as a stump.
No choice but to let snow follow its necessity
over the earth, flying or falling.
187
Thomas R. Smith
Keeping the Star
Keep this star for when you lose the world,
when grief and desire become a blurred door
that floats away across a plain room
without books or kisses.
Look to what grows dark beyond the walls,
that in night which holds the blue sky
singing in its black embrace.
It's all spun around a necessary star,
star of prisons. Keep it:
It has the power to burst from dull thoughts,
breathe in airless colors,
and roll back the filth of your neglect.
Let it pour through the chimney hole
patched with tin! Unloved objects —
empty jars, faces in clippings,
balls of hair spurned by the brush —
all the children of failure
will step forward in its blinding wind,
sons and daughters of that before which
there is no trivial being.
188
Robert Spiess
The whistling swans recede —
their sheer whiteness gleaming
far down the spring sky
Snowing . . .
the dentist
polishes my teeth
189
Robert Spiess
Becoming dusk, —
the catfish on the stringer
swims up and down
It showered —
the desert toads are singing
for a single night
190
Peter Stambler
Petrified Blackberries
Along the margin of a sandy pond
parades a gray lizard, its tongue
exploring the deft breeze; its eyes,
sharp as arrows, penetrate the air.
The marsh grass catches on dry scales, and breaks.
No other sound except the splash of pond water,
the easing back from shore which leaves
salt crystals on the blackberry, brilliant
on the dark stalk, arresting a lizard's eye,
beckoning no one.
Curved, sprung, bowed
by the weight of birds, the stem snaps
and drops its fruit into the sediment.
Night after long night, a thousand unremarkable
nights, leading to a million nights
which cool a million hot days and send the wind
above the pond's face like a blessing,
the water pulses, drives silt and leaves,
the white bones of lizards
across the sand, beneath the waves, urgent
only in their number
Blackberries thicken
into a grove; birds, now hollow boned, gather,
drop seeds in the diminishing pond
until a first cold, perplexing and unknown,
drives them deep into the continent.
They learn the stars and fly.
A mining insect drowns in a tree vein,
becomes a talisman in amber.
Juice
of the blackberry bursts the tiny globes
of fruit; the sea wash of silica,
tinted purple, settles in the cells,
swells out the broken stem
and fixes in the delta sands.
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Peter Stambler
On a stone wall lit by the accident
of fire, the hunter comprehends the antelope
rejoicing in its flight, in its dash
among the mountain's rock and trees.
In the seabed of the flat earth,
the epicontinental shelf rises, scatters
shells, broken, uninhabited along the shore;
storms, too, rise, ferreted for meaning
from ship decks and the gardens at court
where the orange trees are buffeted and overturned.
By the chance of stone, the ancient clusters,
the globes fastened to a petrified stem,
surface or submerge.
Or:
Place fresh blackberries in a jar,
cover with water, a tablespoon of brown sugar,
a squeezing of lime juice. Pour
paraffin until it oozes to the rim,
cover, set on a cool earthen floor.
Through the long drought, wait for winter
and the pleasure of blackberries in January.
Observe the red glow gathering in the south,
sweep the falling ash from the porch,
station your oldest child on the roof
like the watchman in Aeschylus
searching for Agamemnon's signal fire.
Listen to the distant crackling in the pine wood,
the directionless thunder announcing no rain,
the booming of thick wind, the silence of animals,
the rumors rising from the sere fields
where your brothers stagger through the dead corn.
When the flames appear at the pine tops,
rolling from one to another, seeming not to burn
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Peter Stambler
but to dance in the singing trees,
take your children to the river, disbelieve
reports that flames have leapt the bay,
leapt twenty miles over water, engulfing
steamships, boiling the shallows, roaring
like Christ's sword. Cool your rosary
under water, your fingers under water,
your eyes, your burned forehead.
In the surprising cold of morning,
when the thunder subsides into the hissing
of embers, of horses' flesh, return.
Where the shed exploded and all the glass jars,
of an instant, vaporized like so much dust,
an ancient cluster, molten, inedible,
fastened to a rock stem, remains.
193
Peter Stambler
From Olaf, to Henrik in Rome
Henrik, September, 1871
If you remember Olaf Pederson, one of us does.
If you trace these characters with your pen
And say, "This is Olaf's hand," you'll lie.
Dreaming in your sun-burnt Rome of days
We wrote together and later sold our works.
Page by page, to merchants for wrapping fish.
Olaf Pederson is a cooper, far north
In the wilderness where wolves surprise themselves
Coming, at the forest springs, upon a man;
Where cedar stand so thick
No underbrush obstructs the woodsman;
Where cities, grace, men of learning
Are a dim prospect in a darker mind.
Olaf Pederson, a cooper, sits before his fire
Forming iron hoops, perfect circles
Measured by a hand that moves in perfect circles.
Staves whine from a Belgian's lathe;
A Russian notches, planes and bends the wood.
In his dark recess, Olaf Pederson hammers
Circles, fits the wood, and clamps it tight.
Seven years he has sat before the fire, the gloom
Of the factory broken by the well of flames
Glinting off the anvil, dashing into the dark.
Hot enough for working steel into circles.
Bright enough, in that black hutch.
To make a twelve hour noon, the fire burns
Away the sun, is constant in my mind.
In the red glow that after seven years
Is all I see. Olaf Pederson, the blind cooper.
Once a worker of words.
194
Peter Stambler
Once an intimate with Oslo, Paris, London, Rome,
Now sits on a barrelhead, dictating
From the general store. It is Sunday
And, I understand from the proprietor's daughter.
The red is general in our sky, has sat
And lowered over us all this week and more.
In the evenings, when yet again the silent telegraph
Brings no word, I listen to the birds rise up
From the trees, crying in ever wider circles.
Climbing above those brittle pines
Which are the first to burn. Only those
Who lose their nests fail to return.
I listen, and I resolve to write to you.
Here, then, is a labor. I spell each Norwegian word;
My amanuensis, thirteen, puzzled by my eyes.
Distracted from my work by customers
In her father's shop, questions what I write.
Wishes to know, contents herself with my answers.
Like her, you will not comprehend America,
So I must tell you how we save ourselves.
The good women of our town, to soften their hard men
And turn their trolls from constant usefulness.
Establish, where they will, a wisp of culture.
The Drunkard's Fate played two nights
In Peshtigo. In disbelief, I went a second time
And heard a wife reclaim her husband's fortune
And his soul. It took but two dull Acts.
Last night I was prevailed upon, dressed out
In a cravat, and taken to the village church
Turned concert hall. There the Mozart Band, newly formed.
Brazened out the Water Music, a flood
Of babel which must have shocked our wolves.
195
Peter Stambler
But more! The trolls are sent to school
Like burghers' sons. An itinerant marm
Tutors them in "that science desirable
As a matter of Utility and Ornament." Penmanship!
She calls it, and the trolls line up, clutching
Charcoal, to learn this calligraphy of the wilderness.
This multiplier of the American word!
"I did no wrong," they learn to spell.
And carve this truth on every industry.
"I see no wrong," they say and write it out
Boldly in my hutch, in the smoldering forest.
In the steamship's wake, at Antietam.
Life in America pleads innocent. The woods
Plead innocent. The wall of flames surrounds us.
The old world blackens, the new burns clean.
I have no sight past Peshtigo. Send news! Send news.
David Steingass
Pioneer
Say when schooners left St. Louis
they flew names like "Spirit's End"
and "Omega," promising towns the Good Book
would point. But say you walk months.
The oxen pull slow as their eyes, so slow you lose
aim of your life. Names gather in your lips
as questions. In photos you sprawl
part dust, part fear your eyes show
squinting where prairie grass swells,
and its pagan hymn might drag down
any child of Europe in the space
you blink. A wild itch
burns your blood. Butchery makes you moan
and touch the Bible in your coat, a growth
numb as whatever lump of foreign tongue
you forget. The Book catches flint or fang
someplace you don't expect, a spot so bleak
your fear leaves. Some littlist end of nowhere
you grow old watching. Pigs fill the streets.
Each day you pull on boots, you stamp life
further into dust.
197
David Steingass
Life Close to the Bone
Let me tell you we could like it here.
Throw the J.T.S. Brown in a glass,
watch the river slide forever, the amber river
home. I'll lighten this life of split pins,
leave it to me. As a window shade
I hang my shirt to name the sky "Team
muddy river of endless regret."
Watch the bricks collect a blood color
you can taste. Hear the river groan like a dog
curled into East Dubuque dust. Once the sun
drops its heavy afternoon hand
a boy looks his dad eye to eye. His muscle,
full of summer twitch, dances him
away. "You're never alone," bricks across town
chime in. They say "Brains
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