In the 17th century, the Algonquian-speaking
Ojibwe migrated into present-day Minnesota from the north around the
Great Lakes. Their warriors went ahead of colonizers and were told to clear the way for the Anishinaabe families. Before invading the
Mille Lacs region, Ojibwe warriors had forced their way into the region just west of what is now
Duluth, Minnesota, on
Lake Superior. They established a village known as
Wi-yah-kwa-kit-chi-ga-ming. It was later called
Fond du Lac (Bottom of the Lake) by French fur traders, the first Europeans to interact with the Ojibwe in this area. From there, Anishinaabe warriors invaded the
Sandy Lake and Red Lake regions. Their
conquest of the Red Lake region may have occurred between 1650 and 1750. By that time, Anishinaabe people were already living in the
Grand Portage,
Rainy Lake, and
Pembina region of present-day northern Minnesota. In 1862 a commission composed of
U.S. Senator Wilkinson,
Indian Commissioner Dole, and Indian Superintendent
Thompson had been selected to make a treaty with the Red Lake Nation, prior to the
Sioux uprising. Lincoln sent his private secretary Nicolay to represent him to the Chippewa/Ojibwa peoples. A newspaper reported that the Sioux had learned that a commission had been sent to treat with the Red Lake leaders. The Sioux thought that the commission was going to give their annuities to the Red Lakers and sent a war party to intervene. Both the Red Lake and Pembina bands waited at the agreed treaty location on the
Red River. When the Commission failed to show the two bands raided a Red River
oxcart train bound for the
Fort Garry Selkirk settlement of the
Hudson's Bay Company. Afterwards the Red Lakers objected to the Pembina band taking the cattle and saw to it that the cattle were returned. Included in this were 200
annuity cattle intended for the Red Lake Chippewa. The cattle had been diverted to Abercrombie for safe keeping from a Sioux attack. However, when the Red Lakers were informed that the Sioux actions were the cause of the delay of the Treaty Commission meeting them and their cattle having been taken, they offered to defend the frontier from the Santee Sioux. In 1863 the
Pembina Band of Chippewa Indians and the Red Lake Band negotiated the
Treaty of Old Crossing in Minnesota with the
United States. They agreed to cede their lands in the
Red River and Pembina area. They made additional agreements for land cessions in the following decades, under pressure of increased numbers of
European-American settlers in the area. The Reverend
Bishop Henry Whipple was furious at what the treaty called for. The United States and the British surveyed the
international border to adjust previous errors. The corrected boundary included the
Northwest Angle within the United States as well as its native inhabitants, the
Bois Forte Band of Chippewa. As the Bois Forte lacked
federal recognition from the U.S.
Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau consolidated the small Bois Forte Band with the Red Lake Nation administratively. While the tribe
ceded large
tracts of land to the U.S., it maintained a central
geographic location. It resisted U.S. attempts to gain its approval for
allotment of
communal land to individual
households under the
Dawes Act of 1887. This involved dividing communal
tribal land into individual household plots for farming and
private ownership. The US would declare any land remaining on the reservation after allocating
160 acres to each head of household as "surplus" and available for sale to non-Indians. During this period, some of the
Pembina band, refused relocation to either
Turtle Mountain or the
White Earth reservation. They located to the Red Lake Reservation because it was "untouched Indian land." It has never left tribal control and is unique for that. In part because of the reservation's isolation, it has struggled economically. Many people are unemployed. High unemployment has contributed to high rates of poverty, alcoholism, violence and suicide. As a result, since the 1990s, the school board has added classes to the high school curriculum to include drug and alcohol abuse prevention, anti-gang training, anti-bullying training, and instruction about
fetal alcohol syndrome. As a result of gang killings in the 1990s, the school added security measures to the high school, including guards. The Red Lake Band of the Chippewa are the only entity beside state governments and Pacific dependencies currently eligible for SAMHSA Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment block grants Since the mid-20th century, the tribe has asserted a significant level of
sovereignty. Due to its status as a "closed reservation", the tribe can assert a considerable amount of control over non-residents, including controlling their movements within the reservation or expelling them altogether. As an example, the tribe has barred
journalists from entry on several occasions. The prosecution of crimes is often complex due to issues of
jurisdiction, which often have to be clarified on a case-by-case basis. The reservation tribal police have jurisdiction over misdemeanors, but the US government, the
Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) police, legally has jurisdiction over felonies. The state of Minnesota has no criminal jurisdiction over the reservation. Political tensions have sometimes erupted into violence. In 1979, during a struggle over leadership, men with rifles attacked the tribal police station, and two teenagers were killed. One shot himself accidentally and the other was accidentally shot while struggling with a companion over control of a weapon. Men burned several buildings, including the home of the tribal chairman. The tribe and reservation was the first in the United States to issue its own vehicle
license plates as a measure of its sovereign status. It is struggling to find ways to develop its economy. It is collaborating in the 21st century with the
White Earth and
Leech Lake bands to reach out to the business and academic communities to promote job development. (See "Economy" below.) The
Red Lake shootings occurred on March 21, 2005, in two locations on the reservation. ==Demographics==