Book
The White Earth tragedy: ethnicity and dispossession at a Minnesota Anishinaabe Reservation, 1889-1920
University of Nebraska Press • Lincoln • Published In 1994 • Pages:
By: Meyer, Melissa L. (Melissa Lee).
AbstractBrief abstract written by HRAF anthropologists who have done the subject indexing for the document
The White Earth tragedy is the Ojibwa 'Trail of Tears.' It begins with the Ojibwa, or Anishinaabeg, removal to the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota, following the assassination of their leader, Hole in the Day, in 1868. The concentration of Anishinaabeg on the reservation would serve the interests of Métis middlemen and traders, and free up northern Minnesota's natural resources. The 1889 Nelson Act (Minnesota's version of the Dawes Act) privatized reservation land. Well-intentioned assimilationists sought to transform the Anishinaabeg into Yeoman farmers, however, unscrupulous Métis sought to defraud the Anishinaabeg of their land in collusion with state politicians and the lumber industry. Although the property of 'full-blooded' Indians was supposedly protected under a twenty-five-year trust period, that of 'mixed-bloods' was up for grabs. A carefully documented genealogical roll identifying 'full-bloods' was nullified by a 'scientific' study by anthropologists to show mixed phenotypes. Although the Nelson Act conferred property rights to individual Anishinaabeg, most did not receive due process under the law, in a clear case of fraud and racism.
- SubjectsDocument-level OCM identifiers given by the anthropology subject indexers at HRAF
- Real property
- Ethnic stratification
- External relations
- Public welfare
- Political parties
- Property offenses
- cultureCulture name from the Outline of World Cultures (OWC)
- Ojibwa
- HRAF PubDateThe date HRAF published the document
- 2000
- RegionThe area the document pertains to
- North America
- Sub RegionThe more specific area the document pertains to, which is located within the Region
- Arctic and Subarctic
- Document TypeMay include journal articles, essays, collections of essays, monographs, or chapters/parts of monographs
- Book
- Evaluation
- Creator TypeThe type of person writing the document, e.g. Ethnographer, Missionary, Archaeologist, Folklorist, Linguist, Indigenous Person, and so on.
- Historian
- Document Rating A ranking done by HRAF anthropologists based on the strength of the source material on a scale of 1 to 5, as follows: 1 - poor; 2 - fair; 3 - good, useful data, but not uniformly excellent; 4 - excellent secondary data; 5 - excellent primary data.
- 4: Excellent Secondary Data
- 5: Excellent Primary Data
- AnalystThe HRAF anthropologist who subject indexed the document and prepared other materials for the eHRAF culture/tradition collection
- Ian Skoggard ; 1998
- Field DateThe date the researcher conducted the fieldwork or archival research that produced the document
- Not Specified
- Coverage DateThe date or dates that the information in the document pertains to
- 1867-1986
- Coverage PlaceLocation of the research culture or tradition (often a smaller unit such as a band, community, or archaeological site)
- White Earth Reservation, Minnesota, United States
- NotesAdditional notes
- Melissa L. Meyer
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 297-313) and index
- LCCNLibrary of Congress Control Number
- 93023456
- LCSHLibrary of Congress Subject Headings
- Ojibwa Indians