United States. Office of Indian Affairs / Annual report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, for the year 1857
Mackinac agency, pp. 27-46 PDF (6.6 MB)
MACKINAC AGENCY. 27 No. 5. MACKINAC AGENCY. OFFICE MICHIGAN INDIAN AGENCY, Detroit, October 20, 1 857. SIR: I embrace the earliest opportunity after my return from the distribution of the government annuities to the Chippewas of Lake Superior to submit the annual report of this agency. In my recent visit to the Indians in the Lake Superior country, I availed myself of every opportunity to ascertain their condition, wants and prospects. I was happy to find that in most of them a marked change was going on in their minds and feelings in reference to their future operations. The fact that most of them have no fixed habitations, and the roving disposition that has ever characterized the race, clearly evince that they have never fully appreciated the idea of home, With its comforts, conveniences and endearments. Their possessions have ever been in common, and marked by exten- sive boundary lines, and only valuable to them as they could pursue the chase and secure the game for present subsistence. The dissoluteness and improvidence, the want of regard for the marriage relation, and that other great evil so common among them, especially with the men, laziness, with its kindred influences, may be readily traced to a cause or causes not beyond the ken of the observing and thoughtful. The late treaties made by the government with nearly all the In- dians in this agency have provided, in due form, what I regard as essential to their elevation and prosperity, viz: the agricultural and educational provisions made for them; colonizing them from their scattered localities upon ample reservations; and their giving to each family, each unmarried person over twenty-one years of age, and each orphan child, a liberal amount of land, with proper restrictions as to the power of alienation. At each of the points where payments were made, those to whom reservations had been assigned expressed a strong desire that the land should be immediately surveyed, and they would forthwith select their lots and begin to improve them. For the Chippewas of Lake Superior, six reservations have already been made; two of them have been partially surveyed, the remaining four are unsurveyed. The reservations are- 1st. Grand Portage. 2d. Fond du Lac. 3d. Old Buffalo's, for his band. 4th. Bad river. 5th. L'Anse bay, west side. 6th. L'Anse bay, east side.
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