Turning Points
in Wisconsin History
The Commissioner of Indian Affairs visits the Ojibwe in 1826.
Letters from a meeting at Fond du Lac on Lake Superior with the Ojibwe, in 1826.
Thomas McKenney, head of the new U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs in the War Dept., wrote these letters home from Lake Superior in 1826. The Fond du Lac referred to is near modern Duluth-Superior, and not the city of that name on the shores of Lake Winnebago. His romantic notion of the wilderness, his paternalism toward the Indians, and his idealism that white "civilization" could save a "vanishing race" are all quite typical of his era. The treaty whose councils he describes here gave the U.S. the right to mine copper and other metals in any part of the Ojibwe territory, but the Ojibwe retained the rights to occupy, hunt and fish there and ceded no land.
Related Topics: |
Territory to Statehood Treaty Councils, from Prairie du Chien to Madeline Island |
Creator: | McKenney, Thomas Loraine, 1785-1859. |
Pub Data: | In: Sketches of a tour to the lakes: of the character and customs of the Chippeway Indians, and of incidents connected with the Treaty of Fond du Lac ... (Baltimore, F. Lucas, jun'r., 1827) |
Citation: | McKenney, Thomas Loraine. "Letters from a meeting at Fond du Lac on Lake Superior with the Ojibwe, in 1826." Excerpt from: Sketches of a tour to the lakes: of the character and customs of the Chippeway Indians, and of incidents connected with the Treaty of Fond du Lac ... (Baltimore, F. Lucas, jun'r., 1827). Online facsimile at: http://wisconsinhistory.org/turningpoints/search.asp?id=117; Visited on: 3/29/2024 |
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