White Earth Nation

The White Earth Band of Ojibwe, or Gaa-waabaabiganikaag Anishinaabeg, is a Native American tribe located in northwestern Minnesota. The tribe's land-based home is the White Earth Indian Reservation. Historically, the Tribe was formed from the unification of Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) bands displaced from northern part of the state, viz:

• Gull Lake Band of Mississippi Chippewa
• Removable Mille Lacs Indians
• Rabbit Lake Band of Mississippi Chippewa
• Rice Lake Band of Mississippi Chippewa

On March 19, 1867, after a ratified treaty was made between the Mississippi Chippewa and United States, the White Earth Indian Reservation was created for the Mississippi Chippewa Indians. Congress had several session agreements regarding the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. Later on, Congress —after hearing many complaints about the Pillagers—decided to let the western Pillagers onto the White Earth Indian Reservation because they were homeless and had no reservation of their own as they were not included in the 1855 Treaty of Washington (10 Stat. 1165) like the eastern Pillagers about the Mississippi River headwaters. These Native Americans of the Otter Tail Pillager Band of Chippewa Indians and Wild Rice River Pembina Band of Chippewa Indians eventually came to settle alongside the Mississippi Chippewa. Up until the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, the six historical component Anishinaabe Bands acted independent of each other; with the reorganization, the six historical component Bands unified themselves to form the contemporary Tribe. According to the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, which White Earth is one of its six component Bands, White Earth boasted 19,291 tribal members in July, 2007, largest in the State of Minnesota.

Notable White Earth Citizens

• Vernon Bellecourt
• Leo Brisbois — Current president of the Minnesota State Bar Association
• Duane "Dewey" Goodwin — Artist and Leech Lake Tribal College art faculty
• Dr. Clara Sue Kidwell — Director of the American Indian Center at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Winona LaDuke
• Audrey Thayer — American Civil Liberties Union Greater Minnesota Racial Justice Project Coordinator
• Gerald Vizenor — Scholar and writer
• White Cloud
• Everlast (musician)

External links

• Bemaadizing: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Indigenous Life (An online journal)
• Eni–gikendaasoyang "Moving Towards Knowledge Together" Center for Indigenous Knowledge and Language Revitalization
• White Earth Tribal & Community College
• Treuer, Anton. The Assassination of Hole in the Day. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2011.
• Treuer, Anton. Ojibwe in Minnesota. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2010.