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| Rez Times- A Confederacy of Wisconsin Ojibwe Bands, what an idea! |
By Joe Morey
Recently the leaders of the Wisconsin Ojibwe Tribes have been meeting to discuss issues of mutual importance, the most recent meeting being held at the Lake of the Torches Convention Center several weeks ago. I guess you could call it a Summit of the Tribal Chairpersons.
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Unfortunately, I haven’t been invited to cover one of these meetings yet. I’m working on finding out the date and time of the next meeting scheduled to be held at the St. Croix Rez hosted by Chairman Lewis Taylor. The first meeting was at LCO.
I believe these are important meetings to all of our tribal people throughout northern Wisconsin and that media coverage of the meetings is necessary, so hopefully, they won’t mind my attending the St. Croix meeting. I’m sure some great ideas for the future of our Ojibwe Nations comes out of those meetings.
One idea that I heard Mike Chosa speak about at the Lac du Flambeau Constitution Committee meeting this week was the idea of a “Confederacy of Wisconsin Ojibwe Tribes,” made up of the six bands of Wisconsin. He had also spoken to the Chairpersons at their meeting in Lac du Flambeau and said the same thing to them. Imagine the Great Nation we would be if united under one flag. After all, each of our tribes is loosely connected through relations already. It’s so often that I am working on another Rez and I meet up with someone’s relations from LCO. Half of my Indian Blood comes from Lac du Flambeau despite being a member of Lac Courte Oreilles. My biological mother Mary Ann was the daughter of Mary Stout from LCO and Jim Louis of Lac du Flambeau, who would be my grandfather. Jim, who is deceased now, had many brothers and sisters who still reside at LdF. Those include Lucille Stanley, Agnes Amour and Charles Louis.
Mike Chosa said that the tribes would have more power when negotiating with the federal government, or even the state government for that matter, if we addressed ourselves as the Ojibwe Nation.
In any loose confederacy of the tribes, each tribe would still maintain their identity and tribal governments. The reality is that none of the tribes would ever give up any of their own powers, but there are many ways that the tribes could unite to help each other and share in their negotiating ability. One of example of this help would be to honor tribal gas discounts on all the reservations. This idea was floated by Mike Christensen at the LdF meeting. Each tribe has member gas discounts but why not extend that gas discount to our brethrens from the other Ojibwe Tribes. This would not only help our tribal people in their travels but it might also help each tribe economically by encouraging travel.
This idea is similar to the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe which is made up of the Bois Forte, Leech Lake, White Earth, Mille Lacs and Fond du Lac and Grand Portage Chippewa Tribes of northern Minnesota. The Minnesota Chippewa Tribe is a federally recognized tribe that has a Mission Statement that says, “Through unified leadership, promotes and protects the Member Bands while providing quality services and technical assistance to the reservation governments and tribal people.”
On their website under a section Who We Are it states, “The Preamble to the Constitution of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe sets forth the purposes, aspirations, and goals of the union of the six member reservations. The Preamble states that the six member reservations of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe come together, "in order to form a representative Chippewa Tribal organization, maintain and establish justice for our Tribe and to conserve and develop our Tribal resources and common property; and to promote the general welfare of ourselves and descendants.” It is toward these ideals that the Tribe continually strives, and it is for these reasons that the Tribe exists. Tribal political action and the administration of programs and services are intended to help meet these goals. Four divisions work to ensure that programs operated by the Tribe are effective and efficient in the delivery of services to our membership. Tribal divisions include Administration, Education, Finance, and Human Services.
Well, you can use your imagination to see all the benefits to a united Ojibwe Nation. Our Ojibwe Tribes should be supporting each other, promoting each other and growing together. Another philosophy to all this is that we should buy Indian. We should share in our commerce.
In closing, since I’ve been speaking about constitutions and the Lac du Flambeau Nation rewriting their constitution, I’d like to remind LdF tribal members that another Constitution Committee meeting will be taking place June 26 at the LOTC Convention Center. Those that attend will get $25 in free play to the casino. This is a very important undertaking and you should all participate and have your voice heard in the future direction your tribe takes.
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Posted on Jun 16, 2010 19:31pm by admin
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Copyright 2010, LCoTimes.com
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