Tribal Histories

Red Cliff Ojibwe History

– Hey, Jewel. Do you know what happened to me last night?

– What?

– When I came out here last night, I walked behind here, and I listened out in the water, and I heard them frogs talking. Do you know that they were talking?

– No.

– And I heard them frogs, I heard one frog way on the other side of the water over there, and he was saying, “Come on over, come on over.”

– That was probably just a toad.

– It was. It was a great big bullfrog and I went and seen it and it had a great big belly. And he kept saying, “Come on over, come on over, come on over.” And you know who he was talking to?

– No.

– Way over here on the other side I’d seen some really itty-bitty frogs. They’re about this big. And they were sitting on the other side, so I figured that big frog was talking to them little frogs. So that big frog would say, “Come on over, come on over.” And them little frogs, they’d say, “Too deep, too deep, too deep, too deep.” So then that big frog would say, “Come on over, come on over.” Little frogs, “Too deep, too deep, too deep.” So then that big frog, he said, “Go around, go around, go around.” That’s them frogs, they were talking to each other.

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Red Cliff History was funded in part by: Irene Daniell Kress, Francis A. and Georgia F. Ariens Fund of the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region, Evjue Foundation, Ron and Patty Anderson, Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment, Timothy William Trout Education Fund, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.

– [speaking Ojibwe] I have two names. One is Whirlwind, Whirlwind Man, and the other one is Buffalo.

– My name Marvin DeFoe. I’m located here in way northern Wisconsin, but if you go a little further yet, I’m located in a community called Miskwabigaag. That’s what we say in our language: Miskwabigaag. A place that’s red. In English, you’d say Red Cliff.- Some of what I’m gonna talk about is a part of our oral history, not written down in any books. If it is written down, we don’t pay too much attention to it. But our history is a living history because it’s passed from person to person. And it goes back so far that we don’t even know how far back it goes. I only know a tiny bit, like a grain of sand that we see on the beach here. The depth and the scope of our knowledge is great, but each one of us only know a little bit. I made a offering of tobacco before we sat down here today. It’s essential preparation because I asked permission from the Spirits.

We’re going to talk about things that happened a long time ago. Mwizha aazhawa bak. We’re going to talk about people that are passed away. Stuff like that. When we do that, we do that carefully. We do that with respect and also with humility.

– This Earth has changed. What I’d like you to do is have an imagination and go back in time. Right here, where I live right here today, in Red Cliff, go back 10,000 years. Our people, the Red Cliff people, wasn’t even a Red Cliff. There wasn’t even a word red cliff. Way back then, walked upon this land. 10,000 years ago. 12,000 years ago, probably right here in this spot. I don’t think we could sit here because we’d be a half mile of ice on top of us. This land, back then, changed. That ice melted.

There’s a spot right here in Red Cliff, it’s really high. Up on top of that is old time remnants. Thousands and thousands of years old of our people that lived there.

– Our story is kind of like before the beginning. Before anything existed, you know? Great Spirit had a vision and a dream and He saw everything that exists now in that dream. And there was a great vibration, and then that vision of the Creator was manifested into everything that we see. The Creator made the animals and plants and human beings, the physical world, and we were given original instructions on how to live. All people were given those instructions. The native people, what’s unique I think is that we still have that connection to our original teachings. And so, that’s kind of like our purpose is, in a sense, to help teach the rest of humanity about how to live, how to get along, in some respects, for example with the environment and taking care of the water and things of this sort. So.

They say that there was a man amongst the Ojibwes– we lived in the east– and he had a dream about the coming of non-Indian people to Turtle Island. That’s what we call North America. And he foresaw that we were going to have lots of difficulties ahead.

This is before the arrival of Columbus or anybody. We had to go, and the reason they said is we’re going to be able to retain things that’s going to be useful in the future. And so we start moving this way. And it was a long, long journey. Several stops and we ended up coming around Lake Superior on both sides. People were undecided. By Baaweting, I believe, Sault Ste. Marie, they split up, and we met up on this end of the lake. This great water here, Gichigamiin.

We chose, as a homeland, this special place called Mooningwanekaaning. Today they call it Madeline Island. And that became the economic, spiritual, cultural, political center of the Ojibwe Nation, the Anishinaabe people, around the Great Lakes.- Do you know how many Chippewa villages and reservations there are? Red Cliff is one. There’s 153. Generally, you’ll find them 153 all around Lake Superior. Six in Wisconsin, Chippewas in Wisconsin. You go to Minnesota, you’ll have more. You go to Michigan, you’ll have more. You go to Canada, up that way, there’s more, more, more, more, more. You know, we, my people didn’t put those boundaries there. You know, we didn’t put them boundaries, Wisconsin, this, that. That is still our relatives.- When the non-Native people came here, the first ones were the French people. They wanted to trade for beaver skins. But the French, one thing about them is they did not, for the most part, try to change our way of life too much.

I think there was some missionary activity in that respect, but a lot of the French actually intermarried and became more Indian than we became French, so to speak, you know. Then the British were the next ones that came in. They took control from the French. I think back to our ancestors and I wonder what they thought about all these European powers jockeying for position in North America, because they never asked us what we thought. But eventually, with the American Revolution and all that, then we had the Americans.

We never felt that we owned the land. We never had that concept.

About 1825, they asked us to go, all the tribes in this Great Lakes area, were asked to go to Prairie du Chien. And down there, they did some military drills and they brought out cannons and they shot them off to show how powerful their army was. Kind of to intimidate and impress the Native people about what they could do. That was the first time. It was a watershed moment in our history not only of our people but of all the tribes in this region because they asked us to designate on a piece of parchment what land we owned. And for the first time, you know, we’re kind of forced to do that. Because, to us, it’s like saying you owned a cloud in the sky. It just didn’t make any sense to us. It was a very short time before they came back and they separated all the tribes. One by one they were approached to cede their land, to give up their land. The first cession treaty is in 1837.

And when they made that treaty, we thought they were asking for wood, trees, timber to build homes. We could relate to that. They need timber to build homes. So we agreed with that. We came to find out over time that these were real estate transactions and that we gave up these huge tracts of land for a pittance, really. So, in 1850, they made something called a removal order. Because these treaties had said that, you know, we gave up our land, we have nowhere to live.

Right around this time they were paying the annuities from these treaties, this $4 or whatever it was, per person at La Pointe, on Madeline Island.

– And they tried to trick us into going to this spot in Minnesota. So they said, “Instead of getting your payments on Madeline Island, we’ll give you your payments over here.” It was in the fall time, cold. “We’ll have you get your payments by a place called Sandy Lake over there in Minnesota.” So a lot of our people went from here and they got there, no food, cold, nothing. And they said, “Well, we don’t have it yet. You’re going to have to wait a little longer yet.” So here it is, thousands of our people there in the middle of winter, no shelter, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting. Pretty soon they got fed up. Pretty soon a lot of them got sick too, and they started dying. They started coming their way back. And our chiefs sat down and they talked about that. What are we going to do? They want us to go over there. Our chief decided, “No, gaawiin, we’re not going to move. We’re going to stay right here.”- The Ojibwes are very numerous people, but we had never went to war with the United States as a nation. We always tried to get along.

But that was the closest point where people were saying that if we go to Minnesota, we’re going to die over there. So if we’re going to die, we might as well die here. So they kind of took a stand and let it be known that we’re willing to fight to stay here. And so that’s where Bizhiki comes in. He’s known as Chief Buffalo. He’s one of my ancestors and I carry that name too, Bizhiki. Buffalo was both a warrior and a diplomat and he was known throughout Indian country. At this time of pretty advanced age, over 90 years old.- So they started gathering their tools together, and they were going to make a trip and see the president of the United States. And part of their tools was a birchbark canoe. Wiigwaasi-Jiimaaan. That canoe is probably– I heard that it was around 26 feet. 26 feet long. And they prepared and they get all their provisions and make that canoe and they also prepared for the journey. They prepared themselves. They asked the Spirits, the relationships then that we had with the lake, with the water. And they made a tool that they’re going to bring with them to help talk to the President of the United States. And that was a bawaagan, a pipe. That was a pipe that they made just for that trip. Just so they could sit down and talk with the president of the United States. So they went in that birchbark canoe and they traveled.

– It was a special man who could do this at an advanced age, to take this journey by canoe from La Pointe, Madeline Island, and all the way to Sault Ste. Marie. They caught a steamship to Detroit and then from Detroit they caught a train to Buffalo, New York, and then to Albany, New York. And they ran out of money along the way. And they put themselves, basically, on exhibit for 10 cents a head and let people come and gawk at them. And then they collected enough money to get the train fare down to Washington, DC. When they got to Washington, the Indian Agent heard that they were coming because they sent word all along the way, like in Detroit, “Make them guys go home. They’re not authorized to be coming over here.” But Buffalo was a stubborn man, too. There was a congressman from New York that asked him if he could be of assistance, and he arranged for them to have an audience with the President Fillmore.

– They went that evening. They went to see the president. They had that tool, that bawaagan, and they used it.

They used that tool. They used that bawaagan. And the president liked them, liked what happened so much he said, “You come back tomorrow.” Our Chief Buffalo, he went back the next day with his helpers here and sat down and talked with the President of the United States and they made a mutual agreement. The president would rescind that removal order of all Native people moving west of the Mississippi if you remained peaceful on the land. So all that land I have a right, because of my ancestors, the agreement they made with the President of the United States, to hunt, fish, and gather, etc., etc. Also with that, Chief Buffalo, he says, “How about if we have the little spots of land where we could just have it as our home?” Some people call it reservation. I like to call it home where our people can live there. And that is where Red Cliff came from, Bad River, Lac du Flambeau, LCO, in Wisconsin on that agreement with the president of the United States.

– We were really poor up here. My father was born in a logging camp in Sand River. And my mother was raised up by her father, living off the land, picking berries, you know, doing what you had to do to make a living. And she once remarked, she said, “We never knew we were poor until they told us,”

[laughter]

because I guess she was satisfied with how they lived.

– We all have a connection to history, you know why? Because we all have the same relationship in us and that is with the Earth. On the Earth sustaining us, okay? We all relied on that. And today we still rely on the Earth sustaining us. And we rely on the water, the air, the air that we breathe, things that are important, the food and where we’re getting that from. We thought it was very important to work with our kids, with our children, on not just learning in the classroom or looking in a book but to take the children out in the woods and learn from nature, learn from touching the snow or touching the grass or, you know, maybe even just sitting out there, letting the sun hit you. And also we feel it’s important to teach our language, Shinaabemowin. Because if you work with your language, what we found out is you’re going to learn who you are. We also found out you’re going to learn your history. You’re going to learn words, words in it, and it tells about life.- When I was a kid, we used to drink this water right out of the lake. And it was delicious. Cold, clear.

But we found out that the Reserve Mining was dumping asbestos, taconite tailings, directly into the lake. Besides that, we found out the Department of Defense had put toxic waste in barrels and dumped them. I think all of our people are really concerned about that kind of stuff. It’s spiritually significant to us. There’s Spirits that live in this lake. It’s a part of our oral history. It’s part of our spirituality. It’s part of who we are. You know? And so we’re trying to educate the non-Native people to respect the water.- Our ancestors were very wise. Chief Buffalo. They’re very wise. They had to make decisions on the survival up ahead, generations ahead. Now, that was 163 years ago that that meeting took place. Thinking ahead 163 years. We are faced, today, no different for the future ahead. The Earth, there’s something with the Earth that’s changing. I knew that years ago because I was told that it was coming. We’re having those meetings now. What can we do so that our people can survive? So we decided touch the Earth, touch the trees, learn our language, learn how to gather food, learn how to grow food so that we can survive, too, see. So that’s why we’re doing these things with the children because when those Head Start children become Akiwenzii– that’s the elder– they’ll know what to do.

None of us will be here, but we’re planting that seed. We’re helping, we’re nurturing that for what’s up ahead.

That’s the importance. It’s even hard for me to describe it. But I thought that’s the only way I could describe it.

It’s the only way.

Somehow we have to survive.

Together.

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– To learn more about the sovereign Indian Nations in Wisconsin, visit WisconsinAct31.org. To purchase a DVD of this and other Tribal Histories programs, visit WPT.org or call 800-422-9707.

Red Cliff History was funded in part by: Irene Daniell Kress, Francis A. and Georgia F. Ariens Fund of the Community Foundation for the Fox Valley Region, Evjue Foundation, Ron and Patty Anderson, Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment, Timothy William Trout Education Fund, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Friends of Wisconsin Public Television.