Chippewa Land.

Almost our entire ride today was across the Chippewa Leech Lake reservation. The reservation was established in an 1855 treaty in which the Chippewa lost most of their land in what is now northwest Minnesota.

As Jeanna noted in her entry, this was our first riding day where we didn't see a single corn field. The Leech Lake reservation produces more wild rice than any other reservation, but we wouldn't recognize wild rice even if we were looking right at it.

We saw this corn field 2 days ago. Knee high by the 4th of July makes more sense for Minnesota corn than it did in Missouri.

Chippewa reservations in Minnesota. We rode across the south edge of the Leech Lake reservation today.

You can see from the map that the 1855 treaty left the Chippewa with only a small portion of their former land. Following a familiar pattern, by 1889 white settlers decided the Chippewa held too much land, and they needed more of it. The 1889 Nelson act closed the Leech Lake reservation. All Leech Lake Chippewa were to be forcibly removed to the White Earth reservation.

The Chippewa resisted this relocation. In 1898 100 American soldiers went to Leech Lake to arrest Chief Bugonaygeshig. The attempted arrest lead to the battle of Sugar Point in which 7 white soldiers died. Bugonaygeshig was not arrested and a renegotiation with Washington allowed the Chippewa to remain on Leech Lake.

See Jeanna's Day 45 post for a picture of Sugar Point on Leech Lake.

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Michael SchoenOnce again near my "old stomping grounds". Some years ago I did some fishing on Mille Lacs. Caught small muskie and larger walleye.
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6 years ago