Why Catholic Sisters Sold Land Back to the Lac du Flambeau

Frederica Freyberg:
In the Northwoods, land owned by the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration was given back to its original landowners. “Here & Now” reporter Erica Ayisi traveled to Arbor Vitae, where the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians reclaimed a part of their indigenous lands from Catholic sisters who operated an Indian boarding school.

Erica Ayisi:
Signed, sealed and delivered.

Man:
All right. That officially concludes the transfer of the property to the Lac du Flambeau tribe.

Erica Ayisi:
The Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration are the first known Catholic orders of sisters to transfer land to its original Native American owners in an act of reparations for colonization during the federal Indian boarding school era.

Sue Ernster:
We – FSPA – have been exploring what it means to unveil our white privilege, including the responsibility that comes with the privilege.

Erica Ayisi:
Sue Ernster, president of the FSPA, says the sisters acknowledge their dark legacy of colonialism through truth, healing and a land transfer of their Marywood Franciscan Spirituality Center to the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians.

Sue Ernster:
We’ve become aware of how we’ve been complicit and have benefited from the systems that have kept others out, such as the Lac du Flambeau.

Erica Ayisi:
Lac du Flambeau children attended the Saint Mary’s Indian Boarding School in Odanah, which the FSPA operated for 86 years, during a period when the U.S. government removed Native American children from their families and forcibly assimilated them into Euro-American Catholic culture.
Does giving land back to Native Americans reconcile the past?

Sue Ernster:
It’s a step. It does not fully reconcile. There’s nothing, I believe, that can fully reconcile for the trauma that has been inflicted over these years.

Erica Ayisi:
Ernster says when the sisters realized that they no longer needed their center, they collaborated with Brittany Kotelis of Land Justice Futures to learn how to incorporate land justice into their reckoning.

Sue Ernster:
We knew that it was the time to reignite the relationship with the Lac du Flambeau and see if they would be interested in purchasing the property. This is not a market rate transaction. It’s a land back. The tribe is paying $30,000 for the property.

Erica Ayisi:
The FSPA purchased the property for $30,000 in 1966. John Johnson, president of the Lac du Flambeau, says his counteroffer was a dollar.

John Johnson:
I had just asked them. I said, “How did you get our land?” And I don’t mean mine, per se, or my tribe, but every Ojibwe person in the state of Wisconsin.

Erica Ayisi:
The Lac du Flambeau ceded or gave up their land to the federal government in the 1854 Treaty of La Pointe. Johnson says the tribe’s business department felt $30,000 was fair considering the property’s current market value.

John Johnson:
When I first heard, you know, it was like $2.6 million, and then I heard it was, you know, they had to offer $3 million. And, you know, the price could have kept going up and up and up.

Erica Ayisi:
Marywood is nearly two acres, including an office, lodge and cabins situated along Trout Lake.

John Johnson:
And as you look out onto these islands out here, those were once inhabited by all of our relatives here. And there are families in Lac du Flambeau that were raised on the islands.

Erica Ayisi:
Giving this land back to its original Native American owners presents challenges. It’s situated just outside the Lac du Flambeau reservation, subjecting it to taxation.

Philomena Kebec:
There’s also processes that tribes can place that land into trust and protect it from taxation.

Erica Ayisi:
Philomena Kebec, tribal attorney and enrolled member of the Bad River tribe, says the process can be complex.

Philomena Kebec:
The fee-to-trust application can be opposed by municipalities.

Larry Turner:
We’re looking at this for midterm potential opportunities for professionals coming to work in the tribe.

Erica Ayisi:
For now, Larry Turner of the Lac du Flambeau Business Development Corporation says they’re not expecting to make a profit from the land transfer and will use the property for professional housing.

Larry Turner:
We have such a huge shortage of professionals in the tribe, including traveling nurses, doctors for the clinic, management for the Business Development Corp, and there’s no rentals up here.

Erica Ayisi:
Johnson says he also wants to use their reclaimed land to sustain their Ojibwe culture to future generations.

John Johnson:
Out on the lake here in the wintertime, we’re going to probably set up a tent or something, you know, and do some spearing here in the winter for muskellunge and stuff like that.

Erica Ayisi:
The FSPAs former Indian boarding school was demolished and is now Saint Mary’s Parish on the Bad River Tribal Reservation. In documents acquired by ICT, the Catholic Church was given at least 10,000 acres of land by the federal government to operate Indian boarding schools across the country, including three schools in Wisconsin. Although the Catholic Diocese of Superior says all of its land is currently in use and unavailable for land transfers to tribes, the FSPA says their land transfer is about reckoning.

Sue Ernster:
What is it we can learn from this so that we can move forward.

Erica Ayisi:
And reclamation for the tribe.

John Johnson:
All this land that you see around here should be rightfully ours anyway.

Erica Ayisi:
In Arbor Vitae, I’m Erica Ayisi for “Here & Now” and ICT.