The Burt Lake Burn-Out was a forced relocation of the Burt Lake Band of Chippewa and Ottawa Indians in northern Michigan's "Tip of the Mitt" region on 15 October 1900. On that day sheriff Fred Ming and his deputies burned down the band's village at the behest of a local land developer who claimed to have purchased the village land parcels for back taxes.
The event has been since labeled: "A Bitter Memory," "A Shameful Past," or "Legalized Arson." Professional research by Richard White, Stanford University, George Cornell, Michigan State University, and Alice Littlefield, Central Michigan University, has shown that it was all of these things and was allowed to happen as a result of the state and federal government officials' inclination to either misinterpret, forget, or deny the written treaty language of the 1830s and 1850s, in the agreements between Washington, D.C., and the Michigan-based Burt Lake Band of Ottawa Indians.
Background
The Tip of the Mitt area of northern Michigan has been categorized by Charles Cleland at Michigan State University as a "prehistoric crossroads", an avenue of travel by water beginning at the Straits of Mackinac, southwest along the shoreline of Lake Michigan, and south to Grand Traverse Bay. This waterway was used by Native Americans as far back as 10,000 years and was the centerpiece of the Woodland Indian "canoe culture" beginning in the mid-1600s. The Ottawa (Odawa) bands of Indians used as their base, what Cleland refers to as, the "Grand Traverse Corridor." It was the area of origin for the many trade goods they canoed to other Great Lakes-based Indians of the Upper Mid-West Region.
The Ottawa were farmers, fishermen and hunters, as well as gatherers, who used the warm months of the year to inhabit various Lake Michigan and inland lake shorelines of the Tip of the Mitt area in lower northern Michigan. It was here that they procured the goods that would later be traded. Unlike the political organization found to exist within Native American societies in other areas of North America, the Ottawa (Odawa) and fellow Chippewa (Ojibwa) people of northern Michigan existed as separate small bands of Indians, some migrating with the change in weather, others living in small (100–200 people) fixed villages. The small Ottawa-Chippewa village along the western shoreline of the inland lake once referred to as Lake Cheboigan, and later, Burt Lake, had its beginnings sometime in the mid to later 1600s. By 1850, the Cheboigan Band of Ottawa and Chippewa at this site on Burt Lake had their home referred to as Indian Village.
The federal government treaties signed by representative of the Burt Lake Band of Ottawa in Washington -1836, and Detroit-1855 (1856), both declared the area of the Indian Village (375 acres) on the Cheboigan (Burt Lake) to be regarded as an "Indian Preserve" or reservation. That was the INTENT of both documents and that fact was passed down from generation to generation by the "Oral Tradition" of the band's elders. When signed, the literacy of the Burt Lake Band signers was such that only a mark was placed on the document, but that was a mark of faith, one that meant there was trust in what was said (what was intended) and agreed to (in 1836 and again in 1855) The treaty language was thought by the Native signers to be in perpetuity; however, that did not happen.
The area of Indian Point on Burt Lake's western shore has been shown by archaeologists to possess pottery fragments that date back over 500 years. Soil samples reveal that the existence of charcoal deposits existing in the same area due to periodic fires being set to help clear the land for cultivation. These fires were set by Native people historians refer to as the "Chaboiganing Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians," and today referred to as the Burt Lake Band.
This land area of the Burt Lake Band was approximately 20 miles inland, due south of the Michigan's Straits of Mackinac, an area of water separating Lake Michigan to the west from Lake Huron to the east. The Burt Lake Band's Indian Point was located on a peninsula of land in Burt Lake that was part of the "Inland Waterway Route." It had been used for centuries by Native people for transportation, and then later by summer tourists for travel throughout the area's interconnecting rivers and lakes.
The Act
On Monday, October 15, 1900, during the morning hours, a contingent of white men from the Cheboygan, Michigan area came to the small settlement on Indian Point, called Indian Village. They came to remove the inhabitants from their homes and fields. All who lived there were of Ottawa or Chippewa blood and were members of the Burt Lake Band of Indians.Department of Justice File No. 15812. Burt Lake Band of Indians. Leading the group of men was Cheboygan lumberman, banker, and land speculator John Walter McGinn. He had a two-year-old writ of assistance issued in 1898 by Circuit Court Judge Oscar Adams. McGinn had summoned the county sheriff, Fred Ming and his deputies to remove all villagers from the land he now claimed to own through his purchases of (supposed delinquent) "tax titles." Ming and his deputies sat the household possessions of the nineteen families in front of their cabin homes and one by one, McGinn set fire to the houses. Only the St. Mary's Catholic Mission Church built in 1838 with aid from Bishop Frederic Baraga survived. It later became the Ming pig barn when he later built his farm on the nineteen evictee's property.
Following the October "Burn-Out" by McGinn, many of the families moved in with Burt Lake Band members who lived close by on Indian Trail road, just north of Indian Village. Others took up residence further to the west in Middle or Cross village. As time progressed, the Burn-Out families built new homes on the land owned by the Massey and Nongueskwa families along Indian Trail (today it is Indian Road). This area then became known as Indianville. In 1908, a second St. Mary's Catholic Church was built there and remains active today.
In 1911, the United States Attorney General, on behalf of the Burt Lake Band, instigated legal action against John W. McGinn in the Eastern District Court of Michigan-Bay City, Michigan. A "Bill of Complaint" was filed on June 22, 1911, by Frank H. Watson, District Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan asking that the land expropriated by McGinn in 1900 be returned to its nineteen owners. The federal government's cases hinged on the premise that: "all the deeds and attempted conveyances made by the persons named as grantees in the deeds... and the petition for a Writ of Assistance used by McGinn to force the assistance of the Cheboygan County Sheriff were wholly null and void.Department of Justice File No. 158012. Burt Lake Band. It was the federal government's claim that the Burt Lake Band had been granted the Indian Village area land by treaty and should not have been evicted for non-payment of property taxes. Burt Township, Cheboygan County and the State of Michigan had errored in assessing the federally recognized Burt Lake Band's Indian Village property. Added to that was that at no time did the Governor of Michigan, whose name in perpetuity was on the six in question land deeds, receive notice of a property tax assessment on the lands (which all had been placed in trust to his office). Nor did the Governor received any legal notice that the six land deeds in question were delinquent in any wrongly assessed property taxes.
Consequences
The first sovereign nations the newly created United States of America dealt with was the North American-based "Indigenous People" who had arrived first in the New World. The 1789 adopted United States Constitution followed the established European tradition begun by the French in North America of dealing with the Native People encountered in the new country as separate and sovereign nations. Article 1, Section 8 of this document stated: "The Congress shall have power to- regulate commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes."
Article VI then stated:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and ALL TREATIES made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
The Territory of Michigan was organized as part of the Northwest Ordinance of 1789, one of the first acts signed by President George Washington under the newly ratified United States Constitution. In fact, the Congress of the United States reaffirmed the Northwest Ordinance under the Constitution meaning it could not later be repealed. Section 14, Article 3 stated:
The utmost good faith shall always be observed towards the Indians; their lands and property shall never be taken from them without their consent; and, in their property, rights, and liberty, they shall never be invaded or disturbed, unless in just and lawful wars authorized by Congress; but laws founded in justice and humanity, shall from time to time be made for preventing wrongs being done to them, and for preserving peace and friendship with them.
A few years later the Treaty of Greenville was signed in 1795, Article 5 of this treaty stated:
To prevent any misunderstanding about the Indian lands relinquished by the United States in the fourth article, it is now explicitly declared, that the meaning of that relinquishment is this: the Indian tribes who have a right to those lands, are quietly to enjoy them, hunting, planting, and dwelling thereon, so long as they please, without any molestation from the United States; but when those tribes, or any of them, shall be disposed to sell their lands, or any part of them, they are to be sold only to the United States; and until such sale, the United States will protect all the said Indian tribes in the quiet enjoyment of their lands against all citizens of the United States, and against all other white persons who intrude upon the same. And the said Indian tribes again acknowledge themselves to be under the protection of the said United States, and no other power whatever.
For many years before and after the arrival of Europeans in the area of Mackinac Island (1640s) located in the upper region of the lower peninsula of Michigan, the Ottawa and Chippewa people of the area existed in small villages of 100 to 200 people. These villages were politically organized not as one tribe of people in the area of Michigan but rather as small individual bands of Ottawa or of Chippewa. Many of these were migrating bands who would come to northern Michigan for the summer months to fish and gather.
The group of Ottawa and some Chippewa people who gathered along the western shoreline of the large inland body of water first known as Cheboigan Lake began to make a permanent village there by the early 1800s. They girdled the large trees and burned the area to clear the land, planting corn, beans and squash. They fished the inland lake, hunted, gathered maple syrup, and lived a life rather isolated from other Native people of the north. By the 1830s, they were known to the federal government as the Cheboigan Lake or Sheboygan band of Ottawa Indians.
Their small village became known as Indian Village and was located on a peninsula that jutted out into Cheboigan Lake (later to be called Burt Lake). This location in the center of the Tip of the Mitt's "inland waterway" extending from Lake Michigan northeast to Lake Huron made the village a key spot in the avenue of trade for the Ottawa People. Its remoteness made it one of the last areas to be visited by the officials of the new American government in Washington, D.C.