Treaty of La Pointe, 1854

The second Treaty of La Pointe (1854) ceded most Ojibwe land on the northern and western shores of Lake Superior to the U.S. government. It also established the Grand Portage and Fond du Lac reservations. In exchange, the Ojibwe received annual payments and a guarantee that they could continue to hunt and fish throughout this territory.

For the U.S., the main aim of the treaty was access to natural resources on Ojibwe land, including copper, minerals, and rich pine forests. With this goal in mind, Bureau of Indian Affairs agents Henry C. Gilbert and David B. Herriman traveled to La Pointe, Wisconsin, to negotiate land cessions.

The Ojibwe were in a position to be receptive. Since the 1830s, changes in demand and an influx of white migrants into former hunting grounds had altered the economics of the fur trade. Many Ojibwe owed money to white or mixed-race traders and could no longer make enough from furs alone to pay off these debts. Signing a new treaty provided one way to secure an additional source of income.

Thousands of Ojibwe attended the negotiations in September of 1854. Several dozen interested traders were present, including Henry M. Rice. The government invited both the Lake Superior and Mississippi River bands (except for the Mille Lacs, Snake River, and St. Croix bands) because they shared a large chunk of the desired land. The Ojibwe negotiators included Bizhiki (Buffalo) and Joseph Osawgee of the Lake Superior bands, and Bagone-giizhig (Hole-in-the-Day the Younger) of the Mississippi bands.

These two groups of Ojibwe had been growing apart for some time. The Treaty of La Pointe created a formal division between the Mississippi Ojibwe and the Lake Superior Ojibwe by specifying which bands would belong to each group for future negotiations with the U.S. government. They agreed to divide their shared land, and to split the benefits and payments from earlier treaties as well. One-third of previous benefits would go to the Mississippi River Ojibwe and two-thirds to the Lake Superior Ojibwe.

The Ojibwe agreed to sell their land only if they could live on reservations near their homes, and to hunt and fish throughout the land they ceded. They had reasons to insist on this point. In 1850 President Zachary Taylor had ordered all Ojibwe still living in Wisconsin and Michigan to be removed from their reservations and sent west. This order was later cancelled. The same year, the government moved the site for treaty payments to Sandy Lake, far away from where many Ojibwe lived. Hundreds died waiting for their payments or traveling home during the harsh winter. The Ojibwe therefore requested that the 1854 Treaty promise they would not later be forced to leave their new reservations, and that treaty benefits would be paid close by.

The U.S. government sought to use treaties like the 1854 Treaty of La Pointe to change the lifestyle and culture of American Indians. It wanted them to learn English, convert to Christianity, and become individual farmers. The treaty therefore stated that the U.S. government would provide a blacksmith, farming equipment, and other supplies for each reservation, along with money to hire teachers.

Finally, the treaty promised to give the Ojibwe twenty years of payments in cash and supplies for their land, as well as an extra $90,000 for the Lake Superior bands to help pay their debts to traders.

The 1854 Treaty of La Pointe was signed by eighty-five Ojibwe leaders on September 30. Congress ratified it on January 10, 1855.

Ojibwe living on the new reservations often struggled in the years after the treaty. Timber companies cut down forests. Mining companies dug up the land, making it even harder to earn a living from hunting and trapping. Many were forced to go into deeper debt and to rely on the small treaty payments to survive.

The hunting and fishing rights guaranteed in the Treaty of La Pointe never expired. A federal court upheld this fact in the Voight Decision in 1983. In 1988 the state of Minnesota signed a new agreement with the Lake Superior bands that provided yearly payments in exchange for placing some limits on their treaty rights. This agreement is still in force in the twenty-first century.