Flag of the White Earth Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe
The White Earth Band of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe,[1] also called the White Earth Nation (Ojibwe: Gaa-waabaabiganikaag Anishinaabeg, lit. "People from where there is an abundance of white clay"), is a federally recognizedNative American band located in northwestern Minnesota. The band's land base is the White Earth Indian Reservation.
With 19,291 members in 2007, the White Earth Band is the largest of the six component bands of the federally recognized Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, formed after the 1934 Indian Reorganization Act. It is also the largest band in the state of Minnesota.
The White Earth Nation was formed by joining multiple Chippewa bands, from north central Minnesota. They had been displaced by European-American settlement and consolidated onto a reservation in Mahnomen, Becker and Clearwater Counties. Six Minnesota Chippewa bands enroll members separately today, however they combine numbers when identifying the entire tribe. According to the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe council, the White Earth Band had 19,291 enrolled members in July 2007 making it the largest Anishinaabe tribe in the state.
On March 19, 1867, the U.S. Congress established the White Earth Indian Reservation for the Mississippi Chippewa Indians in Minnesota, following the ratification of a treaty between them and the United States. Congress had several session agreements regarding the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. After hearing many complaints about the Pillagers, who were then landless, Congress authorized the relocation of the western Pillagers to the White Earth Indian Reservation. They had not been included in the 1855 Treaty of Washington (10 Stat.1165), which was made with the eastern Pillagers at the Mississippi Riverheadwaters. Eventually, the Otter Tail Pillager Band of Chippewa Indians and Wild Rice River Pembina Band of Chippewa Indians also came to settle alongside the Mississippi Chippewa at White Earth Reservation and effectively became part of the White Earth Band.
Up until the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, the six bands living on the White Earth Indian Reservation acted independently of each other. Following the Reorganization Act, the six wrote a constitution forming the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. Minnesota was divided into six tribal districts uniting all Ojibwe bands not associated with the Red Lake Band of Chippewa, and the Pembina band. Both refused to relocate to White Earth thus maintaining their individual identities.
The tribe was involved in a case about how much compensation the descendants of the Pembina Chippewa should receive from the taking of land by the U.S. government during the early 1800s. The third and final settlement payment in 2022 of $59 million was split among the tribe, the Little Shell Chippewa, the Chippewa Cree, and the Turtle Mountain Tribe of North Dakota along with the 39,000 individual beneficiaries. Previous settlements in the case were in 1964 and 1980.[2]
