Treaties, Indigenous Land and Resource Rights in the Great Lakes and Enbridge’s Line 5 Pipeline: Interview with Aurora Conley
By: Christen Corcoran
This summer, Global Land Alliance (GLA[1]) spoke with Whitney Gravelle, president of the Bay Mills Indian Community in Michigan and Aurora Conley, Vice Chair of the Anishinaabe Environmental Protection Alliance and of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. We discussed with community leaders to better understand their voices, actions and leadership in the struggle against encroachment from Enbridge Energy Corporation. We also explored, how different levels of the US government handled treaty rights in their ceded and unceded territories, consulted or sought Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) processes, and how they see the Line 5 pipeline interacting with sovereignty over the land and waters their communities have long stewarded.
Land and Treaty Rights
The entire United States of America is built on land that was once, or continues to be, sovereign Native land. Land rights, natural resource rights and borders have been historically negotiated with Native nations through treaty negotiations or theft.
Treaties are nation-to-nation agreements among sovereign entities: political groups with the ability to set rules for their own communities, determine their own membership, care for their own territory, and enter agreements with other sovereign entities[2]. The inherent and sovereign rights and obligations of entities who are party to treaties are retained unless they have been explicitly relinquished via treaty. In the earliest encounters, formal dealings between the United States government and tribal nations were conducted almost exclusively by treaty making. Between 1778 and 1868, approximately 370 treaties were ratified between the United States and tribal nations.[3]
Early on, treaties were designed to develop political alliances. From 1774 until about 1832, treaties between individual, sovereign native Nations and the United States governments were negotiated to establish borders with one another, and agree on conditions of behavior between the parties. As sovereign entities, native groups and communities conducted international diplomacy with other native groups, before and during the treaty-signing era with the US. Non-tribal citizens were required to have a passport to cross these sovereign lands.
Treaty negotiations with the U.S. ended in a mutually signed pact which had to be approved by the U.S. Congress. These treaties, so important, are codified into the constitution of the United States:
Article VI of the US constitution states “This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
As the United States expanded its military strength, it used the treaty-making process to remove native communities from their homelands and to create reservations in an effort to make room for the growing population of settlers. From 1832 until 1871, native nations were considered to be domestic, dependent tribes. Negotiated treaties between tribes and the U.S. had to be approved by the U.S. Congress. In 1871, the House of Representatives ceased recognition of individual tribes within the U.S. as independent nations with whom the United States could contract by treaty, ending the nearly 100 year old practice of treaty-making between the U.S. and tribal nations.[4] The sovereignty of native nations existed before the US existed, it was retained in part through treaties, it exists today.
The Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, for example, signed treaties with the United States in 1837 and in 1842 which ceded territory in Wisconsin and parts of Michigan and Minnesota. In northern Wisconsin 22,400 square miles were ceded to the United States by the Lake Superior Chippewa Tribes. The tribes party to the 1837 and 1842 Treaties, including the Bad River Band of Ojibwe, explicitly retained rights to hunt, fish, and gather on ceded territory, along with other usual and customary practices[5]. The District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin summarized reserved rights in interpreting the 1837 and 1842 Treaties this way: “[The 1837 and 1842 treaties] grant the [Ojibwe] the right to live on the ceded lands as they had lived before the treaties were signed. That way of life included hunting, fishing, trapping, and gathering wild rice and maple sap as a means of providing food for themselves . . . in addition to having a place of residence.” (United States v. Bouchard ,W.D. Wis. 1978).
The usufructuary rights retained by the Ojibwe Tribes in these treaties are known as “reserved rights” because, under the established reserved-rights doctrine of federal Indian law, Indian treaties grant rights not to tribes, but rather to the United States. The Treaty of 1854 finalized the ceding of the land south of Lake Superior. The treaty also established reservations for various bands, including Bad River, located on the south shore of Lake Superior and Madeline Island. The Bad River Band and its members, as well as members of other tribes that were signatories to the 1842 Treaty, continue to exercise their treaty rights to hunt, fish and gather the same resources throughout the ceded territory their ancestors did.
“I understand what you want... from the few words I have heard you speak. You want land.”
There is a growing recognition of treaty responsibilities to the Native People of this land. Generations of non-Native People have gained wealth through resource extraction and land ownership. Colonization continues to this day with further taking of Native land and ongoing cultural genocide, along with exploitation of natural resources such as mining, destruction of forests for timber, pollution of water, destruction of wetlands, endangerment of wild rice beds and fisheries, and placement of hazardous infrastructure like mines and pipelines. Consequences of this ongoing exploitation have caused loss of biodiversity and environmental and racial injustice, endangering our planet.
Map by Carl Sack
From Minnesota to Wisconsin to Michigan, Indigenous communities have been raising concerns for years about the encroachment of their treaty rights around the Line 5 pipeline. Built in 1953 and designed to last 50 years, the Line 5 pipeline runs from Superior, Wisconsin, across the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, through the open waters of Straits of Mackinac, and across the Lower Peninsula, before crossing under the St. Clair River to refineries in Sarnia, Ontario. The pipeline is managed by Enbridge, an $85.64 billion Canadian-based energy company which maintains a network of pipelines and infrastructure projects throughout North America. The 30-inch-diameter steel pipeline splits into two 20-inch-diameter pipes when crossing the Straits, carrying nearly 23 million gallons of oil and natural gas liquids daily through fragile ecosystems. Line 5 has ruptured at least 33 times since 1968, spilling at least 1.13 million gallons of oil on land and in wetlands. Now, Enbridge seeks to undertake multiple projects along the pipeline; including a reroute of the pipeline in Wisconsin and a tunnel project or dual pipeline project in Michigan. The Line 5 Pipeline and its proposed construction threatens Tribal land, Treaty Rights in the ceded territory, the Great Lakes, and the climate.
To get a deeper understanding about the status of the Line 5 treaty-rights issues in Wisconsin, Global Land Alliance spoke with Aurora Conley, Vice Chair of the Anishinaabe Environmental Protection Alliance and of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, understand how they view land, natural and cultural resources and treaty rights and if they are or are not being upheld.
Interview with Aurora Conley
Could you tell me, in your own words, a bit about yourself: who you are and what community or organization you represent.
I live here in Bad River. I work for the tribe’s land office in their natural resources department. I've only been in this position for the last year, but I've lived here my entire life, except for small periods of leave for education and mentoring. I am the vice chair for an organization that the tribe partially oversees, Anishinaabe Environmental Protection Alliance. It used to be the mining committee for the tribe when we were going through some things with Gogebic, the mining company that wanted to come in here. We succeeded in that fight. During that time we were just a mining committee and one of our advisors said, Bad River has a long standing history of defending our land, and our water, and pretty much our lives, everything since we've been placed here 1854, we had to fight for that land, for this reservation.
There's a whole story about [the 1854 treaty negotiations] too. The band sent a delegation to DC our chiefs went there to advocate for us to get this land. So when we're going through the mining stuff, we're thinking about all the fights that we've had to do. Back to the 1990s with the acid trains trying to come through the community and what some of our warriors (we like to call them) did. Then we decided to move from the mining committee to be an environmental protection alliance. We realize we have rich resources here in this community. Or in this case, in the last 50 years there's been a pipeline in this community that we're not sure how it's benefited us[6]... We'll put it that way.
I think about the dollar amounts that [the pipeline company] gave to us 50 years ago [for rights to an easement]. And they're trying to do the same now. When they first came and tried to offer us a little bit of money, it was downright disrespectful. A bunch of us had organized back in the mining days. We stuck together. We formed our little alliance here in the community. We did a lot of education, outreach, and networking. We continue to do that. So when different issues arise, we stand up for Bad River and make sure our stories are heard.
Some folks say it's easier to preach to the choir, and it can be. But there’s a division in the community. My cousin worked for the pipeline a few years back, and it was really disappointing but I also understood. He's like, ‘there's no work here’. He's got to feed five kids. I get it. I completely get it. But to feel as though you have to defy your own values, feed your kids, it's a pretty shitty situation to put us in.
Through that realization some years back, we've really tried to revitalize our communities for sovereignty. And that goes as far as land sovereignty, the ability to say: no, we do not want your pipeline here, food sovereignty to be able to be sure that we don't have to rely on companies for their greenbacks and food 30 miles away. We have an amazing food sovereignty program here that's just flourished within the last decade and just the amazing things we're doing. I was just there yesterday with a bunch of the youth, and we were weeding. I tried my first stevia. Me and all the kids were passing it around. I'm like, ‘oh, you guys gotta try this’. I ate my first dandelion. Amazing, really great things that we're doing here. So we're really trying to revitalize some of our historical concepts from just so many different things. Language, food, just many things.
How would you say these industries you described fit into a historical context, in your opinion?
It was definitely a status quo that the government has held since they landed on the East Coast and inspired themselves. It's tough, the divisions that have been created. We are in this community where there's no more than 2000 people, which includes all elders to the children, our population. No more than 2000 lives here on the reservation. We have an 8000 membership across the U.S. and Canada, we’ve got folks that live in New Zealand and Australia as members. But the membership here only has so much capacity to deal with some things that are happening here. For some, if not a majority, the pipeline is just not a priority.
We're losing young people here to this opioid epidemic. We just buried my cousin a few weeks ago over the holiday in July, you know, who's 40 years old. We have big, big issues here in our community, and it's really hard to try to approach that as a community, make sure that we're safe and well taken care of and then turn around and have this fire breathing dragon or this big black snake in your backyard. A lot of people say ‘oh, Enbridge does this, and they do that, and all their great work and all the money and opportunities they provide’, Well, I haven't seen that first hand. I still don't see where in the last 50 years Enbridge helped us come up somehow, or helped us as a community blossom and flourish and thrive. No, we've had to do that ourselves, and that's fine because we're doing it. But we also don't need them attacking our people, trying to divide our community with what they know is an at-risk pipeline.
It's 50 years old. It's outdated. There's just been a lot of non compliance. You just can't trust someone who has that kind of track record[7]. It feels like an abusive relationship happening. Or looking at it in some sort of humane kind of way, I feel like we're being held hostage.
What sort of things are you worried might happen in your community as a result of Line 5?
Let's look at the public record of Enbridge. That should speak to some of the things, like our brother and sisters over by the Mackinac[8]. We have our brothers and sisters at Line 3 that are actively demonstrating the destruction potential. They've lost all their wild rice. They're in Minnesota on the St. Louis river. That is scary.
Prior to the 50 year pipeline, prior to the treaty of 1854, long thousands of years ago, prior to the landing in 1492: the Ojibwe people lived on the East Coast. We have a migration story that told us that we had to move. This is thousands of years ago. We followed these visions and it told us to keep going as a prophecy until we reach the food that grows on water. This ended up being the Mackinac Island area, this area in Wisconsin, and Minnesota. That's where we came and that's where we lived. We were told as long as we took care of the rice that we would be taken care of.
Now, as I've progressed from a young Indian woman who didn't have much education in terms of what even was happening to us: prior to understanding historical trauma, or understanding adversarial childhood effects, you know a lot of things that have come out in the last years… I had a theory that they tried to kill us as a brown race, as a people, and obviously, we survived. Then they tried to kill us as a culture. They put us into boarding schools, they stole our babies. It was wicked and brutal and we're still feeling the effects of that. They were open till the 1950s and 60s. They're still trying to kill us, just in different ways. That's where I feel, if you kill the rice you kill the Anishinaabe part of us. That's what helps make the relationship with the land that deep history, all that love that is given and received from the land in terms of what we harvest, what we're able to hunt, what we're able to gather. Those are gifts. Real, living, tangible, beautiful gifts from the Creator. And when you put that at risk or you're jeopardizing its potential to give love back to us, it starts to become scary.
Could we survive? Probably yes, because we've survived everything in the last 250 years with the U.S. Government and we've survived many things prior to that.
“If you kill the rice, you kill the Anishinaabe part of us. That’s what helps make the relationship with the land that deep history, all that love that is given and received from the land in terms of what we harvest, what we’re able to hunt, what we’re able to gather. Those are gifts. Real, living, tangible, beautiful gifts from the Creator. ”
Here on the Rez[9] there was a historical marker. It had been there for a long time (it's not there anymore, they took it out like ten years ago or so). The historical marker was built using some of our ancestors' graves. They build a road over our grave sites and then put a historical marker up there. Beyond that, the historical marker quotes one of the Priests that worked here at the church. He described that ‘they had all survived the winter. Even when we deprived them of food, shelter, and warmth, they somehow managed to survive the entire winter… not many of them died’. Wow. That's what was on the historical marker. Me and my sister stopped there and read it one time, and I just was like, wow, it just really sat with me. They really did try to kill us. Oh my God. It just sticks with me because I'm like, yes you did. You did.
I think our Tribal Historic Preservation Officer worked really hard with the Department of Transportation to get that taken care of. We're beyond all that. It's a new day, it's a new age. We can figure out better things. But I just think about the different ways they're trying to extinguish what makes us.
You cited the destruction potential that we have seen from Line 3: I was watching Winona LaDuke give testimony at one of the [Line 3] hearings. She very explicitly said to the court, ‘this is cultural genocide’. Invoking her designated role by the 1855 Treaty Authority as the guardian of Shell River. How does that impact you seeing what has gone on there?
I've always just been connected to the land. My dad always ingrained it into our minds. I didn't really have a good understanding as a young child, but as I got into college and started to grow and see the world a little bit, I started to learn things. I eventually ended up in White Earth. I was Winona’s Executive Assistant for about two years (I was just over there. I'm still friends with her and her family). I was able to learn a lot. I mean, more obviously than I could even contain. It was really eye opening. It was just really a magical experience. It was gruesome, hard work. A lot of this stuff takes a lot of sacrifice and hard work, and I've got to see that firsthand and continue to watch Winona LaDuke do just amazing shit. That's where I really learned a lot.
Then I was just out in the world doing my own thing when I got pregnant with my son. I came back to Bad River in 2012, I was a single mom just reassessing life. I had my first son when I was 28, so I had a really wonderful decade of ‘me’ time and exploration in the world. I was very fortunate to be able to come back home and just be welcome with open arms. It was really a struggle that year. I was a young mom looking for work. It was tough.
Then this whole mining issue was coming up here in Bad River. I am, I think, just a natural organizer. I like talking to people. I like getting them involved and engaged. That's when I started, folks were asking like, ‘hey, would you mind doing this’? I just jumped in at the time. I really start going hardcore. Then I realized, this is what everyone [at White Earth] was talking about! So I'm like, oh my God. I just felt like everything I had found and learned up until that point, and then having to come home, was my personal journey and I really went hard at it. We were successful in that fight.
We do know that this time, it is a bigger, badder beast. Its hard, sometimes you do lose focus on what it is that you're fighting. Does everyone have the capacity to care about this fight? Yes, if it was the only thing. Here in Bad River, if we were all good; with good housing, good water, if we weren't affected by the drug epidemic, abuse, and all these other traumas that were inflicted upon us, I'm sure we would have the capacity to say ‘No, we're good on the pipeline’. Some folks in the community, they just want us to take the pipeline, take the money. I understand that. It is a really hard place to live. Would I like a nicer house to live in? Yeah, I would love it. I would love so many different things. But I'm just not willing to sacrifice it for some dollars that my great grandchildren will probably not benefit from. Because I'm wondering if the folks that allowed the pipeline 50 years ago to be put in, what their thoughts would be now? Because it's 50 years later, and we're asking what exactly was it that we got out of this?
To that point, are you aware of how Bad River was originally consulted for the Line 5 pipeline 50 years ago? And how were you consulted this time after the lease on the easement expired? How did that unravel?
Yeah, those are good questions. I do ask. I wanted to look at it and ask who signed it. It's sad because we are losing so many of our elders right now. I don't know if you know who Joe Rose Senior is– he was one of our elders. When we had formed the mining committee back in the day, Joe Rose was our chairman for that committee. Its really, really tough, personally, to feel like, how do I pick up a 90 year old elders lifetime of work. It's hard. The knowledge that he carried and the stories and love for the land. What are we going to do? Fight harder. Do it for Joe, do it for our kids. Its scary.
People talk about the impact [of the pipeline] or its potential risks being low. Thats just so unknown. I don't trust these people.
I'm really sorry, you have have been fighting for a really long time
Yeah, like I said, for some folks it's easy to put it at the back of your mind considering the things that we face daily. For me anyway, I just can’t not do some thing. Especially when I come from a background of working with LaDuke and those great organizations, Indigenous Environmental Network and all this badass work I've been able to do around the country and the world. I've traveled extensively: El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico. I've been to a lot of places, making big connections with other people in the world, just seeing some of the terribleness that goes on.
Here during the mining phase, they had militant officers in the woods trying to protect that area. It was just bizarre craziness. Very scary. We just don't want that relationship. It's just over, you know? It's over. We don't want you. Please. We don't want your money.
Its difficult when you have knowledge and when you know better now what's going on. A lot of our members have the capacity. They give us their support in many different ways. I always like to say it's really tough for our membership to be able to find time for this and to give dedication and time. And it's not that they don't care. It's because our capacity is so limited. We only have a certain amount of members and we're all dealing with a bunch of shit. We're impoverished and we're geographically deserted. We have to travel 35 miles to a Walmart, another corporation. So it's tough.
I always say, ‘Everybody takes a piece of it’. When I was doing a lot of the education and public speaking for our lands and what-not, my children had to sacrifice. They didn't get to see their mom for two or three days and we had to cut family trips. My kids have sacrificed a lot for me to be able to do this and so has my family because when I go, they have to pick up my flag. We all have a part in this, just like every one of us has a purpose. Just as Creator has sent us here. We all have purpose, we all have skills, we all have potential and talent to share, even if that means sharing it with yourself to survive and thrive in this world. I like knowing that I'm very supported within my family. They might not know details as much as I do, they might not be able to go speak and give interviews. But my oldest sister makes sure that my kids are well fed at night so I can do these things. She can make a pretty badass spaghetti. That's her contribution to the fight. My youngest sister is an amazing artworker. She helps and does art and displaying and awareness outreach. My sister could never get up and speak in front of an audience. She can barely even speak for herself, but I could do it. My sister makes amazing things, like she beaded us beautiful water droplets pins that folks wear. Everybody has their purpose and their skill and their place and we all just have to come together, work together. But it is going to be difficult and it's not going to be a little bitty fight.
I'm curious, there are legal obligations that the government has to communities like Bad River, including Free Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC), especially when it affects your treaty rights and obligations of the US Government in honoring those treaties. The way you're seeing it, was there any attempt by the state of Wisconsin to undergo FPIC or consultation?
I think that's what a majority of us grapple with, because it can be– how do you call it? What do you call it when a word can mean more than one thing? Misconstrued maybe, you know what I mean? You have to be careful.
We've seen this before in different circumstances, different communities where they claim that consent was made, or that a consultation had been done. Then you find out they just spoke to one person who worked in the land office, That's not a tribal consultation. And even if you were to speak to the tribe, that's not even a consultation either. It has to be conducted as such. Not, doing whatever you want and then after the fact considering it this or that. So being mindful of what that might mean in terms of ‘engagement’.
And do you think that the state of Wisconsin is upholding legal, cultural, and environmental obligations, personally speaking?
No. That's why we're asking the Army Corps of Engineers. That's why we're going this route. It's better to cover all your bases than to try to shoot for one and miss. I think we learned a lot from previous environmental issues here in Bad River, and then also watching our brothers and sisters across the country battle these fights, too. What worked? What didn't? What happened? How did it go? Good, bad, ugly. I think that's why the Indigenous Women's Collective is putting more pressure on the Army Corps to in-turn put pressure on the states to say they need to be paying attention to what is going on and what that means for your state, your community. It's tough to get politicians talking about this issue in the state of Wisconsin. And I can't say that that's on them either, because I'm sure at a state level, you got a lot of things going on, too, in terms of capacity.
Do you think that Enbridge has created a narrative with Wisconsinites that this is a good thing?
I see how they tried to pitch it as a benefit for Wisconsin: that this is bringing jobs, and they're being so environmentally sound and correct. I'm not a pipeline specialist, so to speak, but I know what I see and I know what I read. I'm just not willing to risk what makes us, us. Because once we stop ricing and the rice dies, who are we as Anishinabe then? That'll be a whole new definition and revitalization than we've ever seen. And we've lost so much already, you know? We've already lost so much. We have 200,000 acres of what was left out of the ceded territories, which includes the majority of Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin. You didn't get enough? Why? It feels like we're just being bullied. Why can't you just leave us alone to try and live?
It just feels like that's all we have left. We just want to salvage and protect what we have left. It's not a lot.
That's what we were asked to do by the Great Spirit, and that's what we'll continue to do.
Image Credit: Jim Meeker/Ted Cline | The Kakagon-Bad River Slough Complex
What does organizing and standing up for your treaty rights look like for you and your community? And, like, what's next? What are you putting your energy towards right now?
Getting more folks to sign up for our committee, whether that's holding an actual meeting to get people informed. We get updates from the Natural Resources department. We just try to get people engaged and be involved. I don't know how long it's going to take. I don't know what the outcome will be in terms of winning or losing. I'm just starting to gear up and prepare for that. What does the win look like? What does the loss look like? What's it going to look like? Even if they are evicted, what's that going to look like? What is the community's emotions going to look like?
Remember I talked about the delegation that went to DC back in the mid 1800s? I think about that in terms of how scary and sad or terrifying that must have been for the community and the tribes as a whole. Like, you're about to lose. I feel scared having the rice at risk. Imagine being terrified about not being able to gather, fish or other rights in any of these areas. Like I'm like, oh my God.
Imagine the leadership then and what they had to have gone through trying to organize the community and trying to talk to them and trying to make a decision about what's going to happen, what's that going to look like, what are we going to do. Are we going to feed ourselves? Where are we going to live? Oh, my God. I had to think about it because I wondered about what side I would jump on. I think about those great leaders that had to make those big decisions for their people and how heavy that had to have been and then to carry that and to go to DC and take that decision. And then what did that look like? Was it a win or a loss?
Did you win because you got the reservation and your people some land, or did you lose because you got your people a reservation and it is a little bitty piece of land? Tough call, right?
Those are things I try to think about and pay homage to our ancestors that I will carry on with big decisions and big fights for our people. This isn't for me. This is to make sure that in another 50 years when my grandchildren are babies and young that I can still say, yes, we can go into the sloughs and get the rice. I will teach you. I will show you. I will make your sticks. I will parch your rice. Those things are the things that I'm afraid of, not being able to share that and it's beauty.
How can people support you?
Stay woke. Stay woke, stay educated, ask questions. Feel free to reach out. Feel free to take a stance. Feel free to have a little humanly compassion for us, what that might mean. Take stock in where we are at as a nation, as a world and where we're going in terms of global warming. It's tough because folks like you and I, we preach to the choir and it's all good and we have a good understanding, but learn, hear stories, talk to folks I don't really know. Folks like to send us a little bit of money to try to help, it does cost money to litigate and travel and do some of these things. But just know that we work really hard and sometimes. Even a simple note or an email, reach out, make connections, connect with the people, because that's what this is really about for us, is making that connection to each other and to the land.
Make connections to yourself and to your family and old traditions for you. You have a history, a lineal descent history. I love when people want to get connected to themselves more so in their own cultures and whatnot. I love learning about other people. You can be engaged and get connected, learn about your own position and who you are, where you come from, and what it is that you're trying to contribute to this life.
Come up to Bad River. Visit us if you're ever in the Midwest or in this state. We live on Lake Superior. We're one of the very few tribes that have lake shore and access, and we're really proud of that. We love this lake.
Folks need to understand that we're not just doing this for us in our capacity. That is a huge ass lake. It's the biggest one in the world. Does anybody comprehend this? Largest freshwater way in the world that holds 20% of the world's fresh water. There's this ginormous pipeline that's only 5 to10 miles from Lake Superior. You might want to consider that.
If anything, just put some tobacco on there in prayer. Small things, big things. Find your purpose and what talent or skill that you might have and how you'd like to contribute. Some folks can't send money, but if you can draw and it's in your heart to draw something, send it on over. You never know. So many different things. Let's not stay in the box for so many people that have skill and talent and a lot of beauty and potential inside of them.
[1] Although GLA has worked up until now with communities primarily outside of our home in North America - we understand that Indigenous rights to land and natural resources are fundamental, unresolved issues for social and environmental justice in the US and Canada. We are joining discussions around the growing recognition of treaty responsibilities to Native people among climate and racial justice advocates as the fossil fuel industry encroaches communities to insert pipeline projects for oil and gas which threatens water, land and cultural resources and perpetuate reliance on greenhouse-gas emitting fossil fuels.
[2] Minnesota Indian Affairs Council https://treatiesmatter.org/treaties
[3] Thompson, Douglas (2020) “The Right to Hunt and Fish” https://www.1854treatyauthority.org/images/ToHuntandFish.updated2020.pdf
[4] Source: National Archives- American Indian Treaties via Cedarville Band of Piscataway
[5] Source: Bad River Band’s Letter to the US Army Corps of Engineers, March 2022 https://earthjustice.org/sites/default/files/files/bad_river_band_comment_letter_to_usace_03.22.2022_2.pdf
[6] In northern Wisconsin, the Line 5 pipeline traverses through 12 miles of the Bad River Reservation, which was established by the Treaty with the Chippewa Tribe in 1854. The pipeline corridor through the Reservation is approximately 60 feet wide. At the time the pipeline was built in 1953, some parcels on the Reservation were owned by the Band and held in trust by the United States; some were owned by individual tribal members; and some were owned by non-native people.
[7] Line 5 has ruptured at least 33 times since 1968, spilling at least 1.13 million gallons of oil on land and in wetlands.
[8] See GLA’s interview with Whitney Gravelle of the Bay Mills Indian Community
[9] Sic. Reservation