
Protecting a gift from the creator: Anishinabe harvest wild rice to test their treaty rights
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What’s a person supposed to do when they are trying to engage in an act of civil disobedience and the authorities refuse to arrest them, let alone issue a citation? That’s the predicament a group of protesters from the 1855 Treaty Authority found themselves in when the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) decided to allow certain members of the group to harvest wild rice without licenses outside of reservation land, on the very day the protest took place. The plan was to harvest wild rice without a permit, outside of reservation land. The arrest and/or citation was hoped to draw a federal court case which would help to force a judge to uphold the tribe’s right to hunt, fish and gather on land they ceded over the course of several treaties in the 1800s. The cornerstone of those treaties, the Treaty of 1837, unequivocally grants the right to hunt, fish and gather in the entire amount of land the Anishinabe gave up. Continue Reading