On the shores of the Straits of Mackinac is the homelands of the Objiwe. Generations of Objiwe people have lived here at Ettakwaamshing (The Place of the Lookout), today known as St. Ignace, and in the surrounding area. The Objiwe responsibly utilized northern Michigan's unique natural resources while building a culture centered around kinship, mutual respect and beneficial exchange, and equality. The history of the Objiwe people is long, but it is not yet finished -- the Objiwe and their culture remain here today. The Museum of Ojibwa tells their story.
Let's go back outside and look at the information about Father Marquette before we head back inside the museum:
The Objiwa roamed the Upper Great Lakes for many years, setting up their portable wigwams wherever the hunting and fishing were good. French fur traders, missionaries and refugee tribes came, attracted to the strategic location of the Straits. The Jesuit mission stood here, at the center of the community. To the north of the mission there were villages of the Huron and Odawa. The Huron lived in huge longhouses. They farmed, fished, traded with the French, and maintained a defensive footing against their Iroquois enemies.
St. Ignace continued to grow when French fur traders and soldiers, in the 1680s, built Fort deBuade to the south of the mission. At its peak, the population here numbered 2,000. St. Ignace had established itself as the trade center of the Great Lakes Country. Hundreds of Huron and Odawa (Ottawa) people fled their homeland in Ontario following their defeat at the hands of the Iroquois in 1649. They retreated through the Straits of Mackinad to Green Bay, and later to northern Wisconsin. There they met Father Jacques Marquette.
Jesuit priests were also called "Black Robes" because they wore long clerical cassocks. They believed that native people already believed in the Creator, and that native cultures were inherently good. They also believed these people would benefit by Christian teaching. Therefore, the priests gave up their family and friends, and their special position in France, to live among Native people, risking privation and death in the New World.
By 1671, hostilities had developed with the neighboring Lakota and the refugees were again forced to move. Deciding to relocate at the Straits of Mackinac, they first settled on Mackinac Island. When the island proved to unsatisfactory for farming, they moved to St. Ignace. A chapel was built at the head of the protected bay, and the Huron and Odawa each constructed palisaded villages directly to the north.
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| The Huron and Odawa flight after defeat at the hands of the Iroquois in 1650 |
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| Father Jacques Marquette |
Jacques Marquette was a Jesuit priest; he began his missionary work in 1668 when he came to the Objiwa mission at The Rapids of St. Mary (Sault Ste. Marie), then to the Huron at Chequamegon Bay, Wisconsin, and in 1671, to the Huron who came to the Straits of Mackinac. He was a gifted linguist and diligent missionary priest. Like other missionaries, Marquette learned to be a chronicler, explorer, and cartographer, functions he assumed in 1673 when he accompanied Louis Joliet on the exploration of the Mississippi River Valley for France.
After Father Marquette's Mississippi voyage, he was determined to establish a mission among the Illinois Indians he had met, but he was plagued by an unnamed illness. When he arrived among the Illinois in the spring of 1675, his health worsened. Knowing he was dying, he asked his French companions to return him to St. Ignace. On May 18, 14 days before his 38th birthday, he died enroute, probably near Ludington. His two companions buried him and brought the sad news to the St. Ignace community.
A returning hunting party of Odawa Christians disinterred the bones two years later, placing them in a birch bark box and bringing them to St. Ignace. Marquette was reburied under the chapel floor on June 8, 1677. After Cadillac relocated his fort to Detroit and French life became centered across the Straits at Fort Michilimackinac, the location of Marquette's grave was lost. But stories persisted, especially among the Indians, that a great and brave white leader was buried at the head of this bay.
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| Odawa Christians bringing back Marquette's bones |
In the spring of 1877, the bicentennial year of Marquette's burial in St. Ignace, a gardener working in this spot discovered a limestone foundation. Suspecting he had found Marquette's chapel, he told the landowner, who told the parish priest, who in turn told the bishop. During a subsequent excavation, everyone concerned came to the conclusion that Father Marquette's grave had indeed been found. A monument was erected in this park in honor of Father Marquette.
This monument was erected by the citizens of St. Ignace in 1882, to mark the grave of Father Marquette.
Who are the Ojibwa? Chippewa. Objiwe. Anishnaabe. All of these names refer to the same people, who today live throughout the Great Lakes region. The Ojibwe of northern Michigan are part of a larger group of people, the Anishnaabek, which also includes the Odawa and Pottawatomi. Together, the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Pottawatomi are also known as the Council of Three Fires. These groups speak dialects of the same language, Anishnaabemowin, and have similar yet unique beliefs and traditions. Oral traditions relate that long ago, the Anishnaabek took part in a great westward migration, with the Ojibwe mostly settling in the lands surrounding Lake Superior. Today Ojibwe bands live in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, as well as Ontario and Manitoba in Canada.
Ojibwe culture is rooted deeply in the kinship of the family. Kinship networks consisted of large families linked through fathers and male relatives, and extended beyond parents and children to include grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and occasionally, adoptees. These networks helped govern divisions of labor, marriages, economic relationships, and political interactions, and provided a safety net to protect and nourish the members. One or more families formed individual bands, small political and economic groups linked to a specific place or leader. Several bands might gather together here at the Straits of Mackinac in the summer months to socialize, trade, fish, and conduct ceremonies before returning to their individual hunting grounds for the winter.
Additionally, each Ojibwe person claims membership in a clan, again based on their father's identity. There are many different clans, each embodying a trait such as leadership or bravery that helps the community as a whole. Each clan utilizes a different ancestral animal and unique stories, songs, symbols, and traditions to create an identity. Women historically married outside of their clan, joining new kinship networks and creating complex identities for their children.
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| Manoomin, or wild rice, was harvested inland and was a key source of food for the Ojibwe |
French and British officials held regular councils with the Ojibwe and other groups, usually to set trading terms or to convince indigenous leaders to support them.
After the war of 1812, the American government finally established control over the Great Lakes. By the 1830s, the Ojibwe and Odawa of northern Michigan faced increasing threats as the fur trade diminished, white settlers clamored for land, and the American government started forcibly relocating indigenous groups to undesirable lands west of the Mississippi River. To protect their way of life, Ojibwe and Odawa representatives traveled to Washington, D.C. in 1836 to negotiate a treaty with the federal government. The resulting Treaty of Washington ceded some 14 million acres to the United States, but allowed the Ojibwe and Odawa to remain in the homelands and guaranteed them goods, services, and the right to hunt and fish throughout northern Michigan in perpetuity. Rights promised in the Treaty of Washington remain crucial to Ojibwe sovereignty today.
Through the Treaty of Washington in 1836, the Ojibwe and Odawa ceded 14 million acres (shaded yellow on this map) to the federal government. Another treaty signed at Detroit in 1855 allotted portions of the ceded land to individual Ojibwe and Odawa bands.
Although they avoided forced removal, the Ojibwe faced many more challenges. Federal policies increasingly attempted to force the Ojibwe to assimilate into white American society. Ojibwe children were forced to attend boarding schools where they learned trades and were generally forbidden from living in a traditional manner, including speaking Anishnaabemowin. At home, state and local policies often denied the Ojibwe the rights guaranteed to other Americans.
Run by the federal government or religious orders, boarding schools were an attempt to forcibly assimilate the Ojibwe and other indigenous groups into white society. In Michigan, children were forced to attend schools in Baraga, Mount Pleasant, and Harbor Springs.
Before and after photos of Wounded Yellow Robe, Timber Yellow Robe, and Henry Standing Bear, students attending Boarding school.
"We had to wear uniforms... and we marched everywhere, everywhere we went, and we had to salute [Superintendent Frank Conser] whenever we saw him."
"A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one, and that high sanction of his destruction has been an enormous factor in promoting Indian massacres. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man." ~~ The words of Richard H. Pratt, in his speech "Advantages of Mingling Indians with Whites" in 1892.
In the 1880s there was a large effort by the federal government, in the form of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA), who would send Indian Agents to tribal communities to remove Native children from their homes and families to send them away to boarding school. Some children were as young as four when taken away from their families. In these early years, the BIA also gave certain freedoms to Christian missionaries to aid them in the process of assimilation and the deconstruction of Native American identity.
Although assimilation was a primary goal of sending Native American children away to boarding school, it should also be known that during the same period the federal government was working hard to take over land that many tribal nations already occupied across what is now the United States.
"I was four years old when stolen and taken to Chemawa, Oregon. The matron grabbed me and my sister, stripped off our clothes, laid us in a trough and scrubbed our genitals with lye soap, yelling at us that we were 'filthy savages, dirty.' I had to walk on my tiptoes screaming in pain." ~~ Elsie (Yakima), Chemawa Boarding School, Oregon
Policies and systems were put in place to ensure that Native American traditional knowledge, child-rearing practices and spirituality were broken from from family to child.
"Imagine if you were taken from your home at a young age...so you didn't get to have that mother/father [relationship]. You're in the boarding school, you're treated badly and then you're out and you don't really belong anywhere. And then you have kids...so you're trying to be a mother/father but you don't belong anywhere...And it just goes on and on..." ~~Ojibwe boarding school descendent
Common practice when students got to school, particularly in the early years of the boarding school era, was to immediately bathe the students, but their long dark hair, and dress them in uniforms.
By 1926, it was estimated that nearly 83% of Indian school-age children were attending boarding school.
Many survivors testimonies speak of physical, sexual and psychological abuse. They reported rape, homesickness, and being used as child laborers. This form of trauma severely changes a person throughout their lifetime, and indirectly effects the lives of the people around them.
During the dark period of boarding school history, many Native American children were separated from their loved ones and spent years away from their homes and communities. Students became sick and died from influenza and tuberculosis in these schools.
By the 1910s/1920s, a new generation of young Native students were entering the boarding schools. Now more Native American youth were bilingual in their Native language and English. Some children were being sent to schools by their families to learn trades that would earn them wages to provide for their families. Some were also sent to school because their families could not afford to feed them at home during these hard years, and parents knew that the children had a roof over their head.
In part because of the regimented lifestyle that was being taught in the schools, many young Natives enlisted in the military after school. It was an easy transition. During World War I, 25% of the male Native population enlisted to serve in the war. During World War II, 44,000 Natives enlisted to serve, 800 of them were women.
The legacy of the boarding school era reverberates across the generations in ways that are so commonplace and wide-felt that it can be hard for some to make the connection back to their relatives boarding school experience.
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| The Choctaw Telephone Squad |
During World War I and II, Native servicemen provided assistance to the U.S. military by using their first language to send and receive coded messages. The Navajo are the most commonly known code talkers, however those of Cherokee, Choctaw, Lakota, Meskwaki, and Comanche decent also served to assist the U.S. in successful military campaigns.
The warriors faced immense challenges when returning home from time spent engaged in conflict on foreign lands. They faced barriers when transitioning back to civilian life and trouble finding jobs. They had trouble finding health care when needed and in a timely manner, especially if they lived in rural areas. They suffered from PTSD, and not a lot of people around them when dealing with memories of being at war.
Native Americans often continue to serve in a military service capacity once they return home. During powwows one of the highest honors is serving as Head Veteran. With that role comes certain responsibilities such as leading all Veterans into the circle to post flags and eagle staffs, and for ensuring powwow celebrations are conducted in the most respectful way. Native Americans often take on the responsibility of mentoring the youth. With historical trauma effecting all corners of Turtle Island (North America), the Veterans embody what it means to serve their culture and community, serving to keep their people safe. They lead the way for younger generations of warriors to follow.
Holy Childhood of Jesus Indian School was in Harbor Springs, Michigan, making it our most local boarding school. The school started as a small log cabin in 1829 and grew into a three-story building. It was run by Catholic nuns who were known for strict discipline and corporal punishment. Corporal punishment was common among all U.S. schools at that time. The school was closed in 1983, due to low enrollment. The building was demolished in 2007 and replaced with a parish hall. During the renovation of the Holy Childhood of Jesus Church, near the boarding school grounds, a Native American cemetery revealed remains of young children along with many historical artifacts.
The personal stories, the memories, the first-person accounts are only now being brought to the forefront, as more and more light is being shed on these unique experiences. For many, sharing or talking about their time at the boarding school was not typical, whether due to shame, unresolved grief, or disbelief from others at the events described. As the voices join together, however, a strength arises, and a need grows. Not only to heal from the transgressions against the Natives from years ago, but a demand to take back an identity that had nearly been eliminated.
The effects of the boarding school era has had on Native American people and communities is vast, affecting every tribal citizen directly or indirectly. Generations of Native people have been impacted by the practices of these schools, trying to disconnect youth from their culture, spirituality, family and traditions. This intergenerational trauma still has consequences that we see in communities today.
Many board school survivors' testimonies speak of physical, sexual, and psychological abuse. They reported rape, homesickness, and being used as child laborers. The disconnection from family and community also impacted students. This form of trauma severely changes a person throughout their lifetime and that, in turn, effects the lives of people around them.
"I was locked in a closet by a nun for discipline. It was pitch black, they used a skeleton key to lock the door. I had to pee and banged on the door for hours, crying. When they opened the door and saw that I had peed my pants, I was whipped with a short belt, doubled." ~~ Claire, unknown Catholic Boarding School
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| 300-year old wine bottle |
This rare 300-year old French glass bottle was found intact just south of this building during the 1972 archeological excavation. It probably contained communion wine. Archeologists seldom find unbroken bottles because they were used for storing other liquids until accidently broken.
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| 500-year old Chalice |
In 1912 two elderly Indians turned a silver chalice over to a Roman Catholic priest in the copper country of Michigan's Upper Peninsula, saying Father Marquette had entrusted their ancestors with it many years before. They said Marquette had placed it in the tribe's care asking tribal elders to keep it in safekeeping for him. If he did not return, they were to give it to the next Catholic priest they met. Marquette did not return. Thereafter, the job of steward was passed down through many generations. It is not known why the chalice was held so long, nor has it been proven that Father Marquette used it. However, its age has been confirmed by a modern silversmith. The chalice is now held in trust by Jesuits in the Detroit area, and is loaned to this museum on special occasions.
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| Jim being "blessed" |
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| 126+ year old quilts. Made as a set, they are the last "Aunt Jane" quilts still around |
Finishing up in the museum, we went outside to look at the various gardens that they had. The first thing outside was the Ojibwe Doodems. The Ojibwe look to Mother Nature for knowledge. To grasp the function of the clan system and the roles and responsibilities of each clan member, you must look at each representative clan animal in their habitats. The clans collaborate to fulfill necessary societal functions that allow for the survival, dignity and well-being of the tribal community. Working together, the clans attend to the physical, intellectual, psychological and spiritual needs of the community.
There were seven original clans each known by its animal totem or doodem. The animal doodem symbolizes the strength and duties of the clan. While each clan differs, all are considered equal. To meet all the needs of the nation the clans work together to achieve their goals. The clan system has built into it equal justice, voice, law and order. It reinforces the teachings and principles of a sacred way of life.
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| Fisherman |
Fishing in Lake Huron and Lake Michigan was vital to the Anishinaabe survival. During warm seasons these large lakes required nets made of bark fiber cord and nettle-stalk twine which were dipped in a liquid made of sumac leaves in order to kill any odor on the cord. The net floats were made of wood and the net weights are made of stone.
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| Medicine Man |
The traditional healers or medicine men were highly respected individuals among the village due to their medicinal and spiritual knowledge passed down for thousands of years. Illness was cured both of the body and spirit. The medicine men continue to be honored to this day.
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| Woman |
An Anishinaabe woman plays many important roles in the village. Other than childbearing, she builds, farms, crafts, hunts, cooks, and gathers. She collects over 250 species of fruits and berries to use for nutritional and medicinal values.
The Three Sisters Garden was a traditional way of planting three main agricultural crops: corn, beans and squash. Each crop benefitted from one another. The corn seed was planted in a mound. As the cornstalk began to grow the beans were planted. The stalk created a structure for the beans vines to climb. The beans provided a source of nitrogen to enrich the soil. The squash seeds were planted and began to spread along the ground. Their large leaves helped retain moisture and provide a natural sunblock thus preventing weeds from taking over the garden.
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| Drying Rack |
The Anishinaabe village preserved their meat and fish proteins by using a drying rack. Meats such as venison, beaver and bear were cut into thin strips and hung over the wooden racks to get the full effect of the sun and air. Fish were gutted, cut and hung on the rack. Both proteins could be smoked with a low fire if time was a factor. Once the meats were dried they could store them for later use as jerky or in soups.
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