380 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1940 



time contained an unfailing supply of food. To the red man 

 centuries ago this region was a hunter's paradise. Besides wild rice 

 and fishes and other water-inhabiting animals, it contained for the 

 aborigines an inexhaustible supply of land animals too, the flesh and 

 hides of wliich provided food and clothing. These natural resources 

 were considered by the Sioux who first possessed them and by the 

 Chippewa who desired them as tribal property of the greatest value, 

 and each fought fiercely to get control of them. To these gifta of 

 Nature should be added the beautiful and useful birch, the bark of 

 which the original inhabitants and their descendants have used to 

 cover their lodges, wigwams, and canoes. The bark of the basswood, 

 too, has contributed much to the wants of these people. 



Without a decisive engagement at any time, the struggle between 

 these tribes for the full possession of this country continued at intervals 

 for several centuries until 1862, when the Government removed the 

 Sioux. 



The Chippewa never had an undisputed control of these lakes, though 

 for several hundred years they ventured upon them to gather wild rice, 

 often at the cost of a heavy loss of life. The Indian who gathers wild 

 rice in the United States today is of this tribe. His appraisal of these 

 lakes and woodlands made centuries ago has not changed with the 

 years. So, on many occasions, when new treaties had to be made to 

 gratify the greed of the white man, the Chippewa Indians have asked 

 our Government to give heed to their needs. 



As late as 1863, Hole-in-the-Day, the leading chief of the Chippewa, 

 addressed a pathetic appeal to the Great Father at Washington, which, 

 in part, is as follows : * 



My people are unhappy and dissatisfied. I want to see them happy and con- 

 tented. It is both to their interest and the interest of the white man that they 

 should be so, and they require but little to make them so . . . 



The present treaty gives us little but swamps or marshes, where locations can 

 be selected that combine all these elements of comfort and content to our people, 

 that is, good land, game, fish, rice and sugar. Here, we have neither to any con- 

 siderable extent. True, we may find a little rice and a few fish, but not sufficient 

 for my people, not enough to save them from starvation. If a treaty were made 

 with the Red Lake Indians, a tract of country of the best character for my people 

 might be secured without any outlay of expense to the government : say that strip 

 of land lying on the Wild Rice River between the 47° and 48° north latitude and 

 east of the Red River. There is every advantage of good soil, game, fish, rice, 

 sugar, cranberries and a healthy climate . . . 



This late treaty never will, never can satisfy our people. A reservation on the 

 Wild Rice would satisfy them all, and they would leave their present homes and 

 go to their new ones happily and with a feeling that a better future was before 

 them . . . 



The sooner this is done the better, as it would have a tendency to quiet the 

 discontent now existing among our people generally, by holding out to them a 



» Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for the year 1863, pp. 328-331. 



