Red Lake Nation: The Land That Was Never Ceded

The Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians holds the only tribally owned, unallotted land base in Minnesota. What this means, in practical terms, is that the land was never parceled to individuals under the Dawes Act of eighteen eighty-seven, which broke up most tribal communal landholdings across the country by assigning individual allotments to tribal members and selling the remainder as surplus to white settlers. On most reservations, this process transferred seventy to ninety percent of the original land base out of tribal ownership within a generation. On Red Lake, it did not happen.

The Red Lake Nation operated under a unique treaty structure and maintained a closed reservation for most of the twentieth century, meaning that non-members needed permission to enter. The band's sovereign status has allowed it to maintain direct control over Red Lake itself, one of the largest lakes entirely within a single state's borders. The commercial walleye fishery on Red Lake is tribally managed and has been one of the band's primary economic resources.

The community has also faced severe challenges. Red Lake is remote, the infrastructure is limited, and poverty rates have been among the highest in Minnesota. In March two thousand five, a sixteen-year-old named Jeff Weise killed nine people at Red Lake High School and on the reservation before killing himself. It was, at the time, the deadliest school shooting in the United States since Columbine.

What the Red Lake Band has that most other Minnesota tribal nations lost a century ago is the land itself. The treaty structure that preserved it was not generosity. It was harder to break than the others. The band held on.