Indian Tribe Archives

Indian Tribe

August 2, 2023

Native American tribe takes a stand to protect its natural resources

By Keith Schneider
MAHNOMEN, Minn. – It’s been centuries since the White Earth tribe migrated west across North America, following an ancestral prophecy to go where “food grows on water.” One of seven Ojibwe bands in Minnesota, White Earth found that prophecy fulfilled along the many shallow clear lakes that lie in the state’s northern forests, where luminous green stalks of wild rice grow in abundance.

The lakes and the magnificent bounty of wild rice still form the spiritual foundation of a culture, economy, and way of life for the tribe, which inhabits the White Earth Reservation that was created in 1867 through a treaty the United States signed with the Mississippi Band of Chippewa Indians.

“Everything that revolves around that rice revolves around all of us,” explained Michael Fairbanks, the tribe’s chairman.

That way of life is under threat, however, as industrial-sized dairies, hog facilities, and big crop farms are beginning to surround the tribe’s 829,440-acre reservation near the North Dakota border. The agricultural operations bring ruinous nutrient pollution that has been documented in all of Minnesota’s farming counties, and massive groundwater withdrawals for irrigation and livestock.

“When you look at the magnitude of these factory farms, the level of waste they produce, it’s horrible,” Fairbanks said.

May 23, 2022

A fight for river salmon and the “rights of nature”

A battle for the “rights of nature” is underway in Washington state, as an Indian tribe takes on Seattle over allegations that decades-old hydroelectric dams are contributing to declining salmon populations.

The Sauk-Suiattle Indian Tribe is scheduled to present its case on Tuesday to the Sauk-Suiattle Tribal Court, asking for an affirmation of tribal jurisdiction to hear the litigation. Lawyers representing Seattle are expected to argue that the court lacks jurisdiction beyond the boundaries of the 48-acre Sauk-Suiattle tribal reservation, which lies 80 miles northeast of Seattle.

The dams at issue, the tribe says, are threatening the viability of the salmon species and steelhead trout that spawn in the upper reaches of the Skagit River, a 150-mile waterway draining a watershed in the Cascade Mountains.

The tribe alleges that Seattle violated tribal property rights granted in an 1855 treaty “by unilaterally constructing dams without official notice,” along the waterway.

In its civil complaint, the tribe asks the court to declare that the fish in question possess “inherent rights to exist, flourish, regenerate, and evolve,” including rights to “pure water,” the right to a healthy climate system, and a natural environment free from human-caused global warming impacts. . . .” The salmon have lost spawning and rearing habitat due to the dams, the complaint alleges.