Description
The Chippewas of Lake Superior is a reprint of Edmund Jefferson Danziger's 1979 historical text about the Ojibwe of Bad River, Red Cliff, Lac Court Oreilles, Keweenaw Bay and Lac du Flambeau reservations in Wisconsin, and the Nett Lake, Fond du Lac, and Grand Portage reservations in Minnesota. Historian Edmund Danziger portrays Ojibwe culture as static in the opening chapter and then goes on to describe the impact of French, British and American fur traders, missionaries and government officials on the Ojibwe people. These opening chapters merely rely on the standard historical interpretation that places the Ojibwe in the position of pawns and victims who become dependent on fur traders and then succumb to the advance of American settlers and government treaties. Nevertheless the remaining chapters cover the way the Ojibwe communities dealt with American government programs and policies during the First World War and the Depression. The impact of the Indian Reorganization Act (1934) is covered as well as the way the communities dealt with social issues and poverty. The final chapter deals with the way the Ojibwe reservations utilized the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act in 1975. For this final chapter the author interviewed 24 Ojibwe community members for their views on the changes of the sixties and seventies. This is the only chapter where the reader can hear the Ojibwe “voice” clearly. Despite the author's use of dated vocabulary and dated methodology, the work can be useful because it covers the modern era of Ojibwe reservations in Wisconsin and Minnesota. The book contains archival and modern photographs, maps, an index, and bibliography.