Chief Oshkosh: Leader in Troubled Times

[lively string music] [gentle flute music] – Narrator: See that beautiful, bright green forest?

That’s a nation inside a nation.

The Menominee live here today.

This is the Menominee Nation a long time ago.

Other tribes have come and gone, but the Menominee have always been part of this land.

About the time George Washington was president, a young Menominee named Oshkosh was born of the Bear Clan.

The forest wasn’t just a home to the Menominee, it was part of their family.

It provided everything the tribe needed: wood for their homes and canoes, animals to hunt, rivers full of fish, and plants for life-saving medicine.

The forest and the Menominee people took care of each other and protected each other from harm.

But great challenges were threatening the Menominee nation.

The United States was growing, and wanted land.

Lots of it.

[intense piano music] Settlers wanted to clear it for farms and cut down trees for lumber.

The U.S. government fought the British and Native tribes for control of the land.

[arrows whooshing] [gunshots] They also wrote complicated treaties to get it.

These treaties were made to be hard to understand and many Native people thought they were agreeing to share their land, not sell it.

Tribes in the east who were pushed off their land started moving in on the Menominee nation and competing for resources.

Oshkosh, now a chief, also realized that the Menominee couldn’t win in battle against the U.S., so he tried to negotiate with the U.S. government by sending warriors to assist in conflicts with warring tribes.

But even that didn’t keep the United States satisfied for long.

It kept coming back for more, and more, and more, and more land.

Oshkosh and other leaders kept negotiating to try to keep as much land as they could, but by 1848, they had lost almost everything.

Finally, the U.S. pressured the Menominee to give up all the rest of their territory, promising them a new home in what is now Minnesota, right between two warring tribes.

This new land didn’t even have the plants the Menominee needed for medicine.

Oshkosh realized that the move would mean the death of his people, and he refused.

The U.S. kept trying to move them, but by 1856, Oshkosh convinced the U.S. to sign a treaty preserving 235,000 acres along the Wolf River for the Menominee.

It was clear now that there would be no Trail of Tears for Oshkosh’s people.

Even though they had lost a lot, the Menominee could now begin to rebuild their home and forest.

Oshkosh said to harvest trees from west to east, only cutting down old or sick trees and leaving the young trees to grow for the future.

This forestry system worked so well that well, there it is.

You can see their healthy green forest from space.

Today, the Menominee teach their system of sustainable forestry all over the world.

Thanks to Chief Oshkosh and the Menominee people, the Menominee Nation and their magnificent forest are still around for all of us to appreciate.