Settling in with the Ojibwe at Bad River

In winter, the Ojibwe sometimes run out of food and become indebted to traders. Wheeler thinks learning to farm would help the Ojibwe and believes the fertile land on the south shore of Lake Superior at a place the Ojibwe called Mashkii Ziibi offers more possibilities than the sand on Madeline Island. Wheeler builds a house there and waits to see if any Ojibwe follow. Enough Natives move there that they establish a place called Odanah, the Ojibwe word for community. The U.S. government refuses to give the Ojibwe their annuity payments unless they travel to Sandy Lake, Minnesota. Those who travel to Sandy Lake discover that their money has not yet arrived. While they wait, the government gives them spoiled food and eventually pays them less than they are owed. Winter arrives, freezing the waterways, making the Ojibwe’s canoes useless for travel; so they burn them for warmth and trudge miles through deep snow. Hundreds perish. The Ojibwe vow not to remove and the Wheelers stand with them. After two years, the government relents and gives the Wisconsin Ojibwe land for reservations at Red Cliff (La Pointe), Bad River (Odanah), Lac Courte Oreilles, and Lac Du Flambeau in the 1854 treaty.