Two men standing in a fishing boat holding fish, the man on the right may be Ojibwe, end of birch bark canoe, hundreds of fish in foreground on the beach, may be Duluth or Grand Marais, may be fish drying stands in background, may be in a cove
Contributing Institution:
University of Minnesota Duluth, Kathryn A. Martin Library, Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections
Portrait of Elmer M. Eaton, oldest survivor from the Maine Prairie Fort. This event is also referred to as the Sioux Uprising and the Dakota Conflict of 1862.
Studio portrait of local Chippewa band members, including: Jim Cobenas, Tigoble, Red Lake, Joe Cobenas (holding a ceremonial pipe), and Charles Cobenas (holding a ceremonial pipe).
Informal portait of the Ross Indian Village in 1887. Individuals in the photograph include Chief Cobenas (center with feathered headdress) with two of his wives, Billy McGillis and a young girl. McGillis' wife is in the bonnet. Nineteen local Indians, including men, women, children and babies posed for this photograph. Two tipis and an oxcart are also visible in the photograph.
Leone Aronson, a resident in the Rice Creek and Long Lake area of New Brighton, collected these Indian arrowheads through her childhood. A large Indian village is believed to have been located at the location prior to the Revolutionary War.
Five young Ojibwe women in western dresses each holding a wooden stick used to play Double Ball. Double Ball is a woman's game that resembles Lacrosse. The women are identified as wives of John Druilard. Two frame buildings and Lake Superior are visble in the background.
Contributing Institution:
University of Minnesota Duluth, Kathryn A. Martin Library, Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections
St. Benedict's Mission, White Earth Indian Reservation (White Earth Band of Ojibwe). The Ojibwe accepted their missionaries, "blackrobes," as they called them. Sister Philomene Ketten, always in the midst of action, is standing among the women near the center tree in this photograph. [SBMA]
St. Benedict's Industrial School was established in 1884 when St. Benedict's Convent contracted with the U.S. government, through the Catholic Indian Bureau, for support of 30 girls from the White Earth Indian Reservation (White Earth Band of Ojibwe). Since St. Benedict's Convent had sent sisters to teach at the White Earth mission in 1878, recruitment contacts could easily be made. However, the parents were reluctant to have their daughters leave home and the children did not take to the rigors and formalities of institutional life and education. As a result of the resistance of the Ojibwe, most of the students who came from the reservation were of not fully native but of mixed white and Indian blood. Thus, the sisters inadvertently became a part of the suppressive system which disregarded the spirit and culture of the American Indians. "The federal government, aided by church-sponsored missionaries, marched steadily toward its goal of assimilation for Indians. The drive was particularly strong between the 1880s and the 1930s. Their aim was detribalization, individualization and 'Americanization' of the American Indian." (Berg, p. 159) In the boarding schools, students, taken from their homes, were given a new wardrobe, new language and a whole new way of life. It is not surprising that before the turn of the century the government rescinded the contract system. But it has taken almost another century and the experience of assimilating peoples of different cultures for the American people to begin to appreciate the enrichment that multicultural living can offer. (SBMA, McDonald, pages 120-122 and Sister Carol Berg, OSB, "Agents of Cultural Change: the Benedictines in White Earth," Minnesota History, winter 1982, page 159).