Alcohol in the fur trade

The following letter was published in the Mille Lacs Messenger on March 17, 2010.

Roman Catholic French colonists used the Ojibwe’s weakness to abuse alcohol during the fur trade era to force the Dakota from their northern Minnesota homelands, including Mille Lacs, the center of their world.

Governmental authorities would not regulate the fur trade so that the alcohol abuse related genocide and ethnic cleansing of native peoples would come to an end.

One historian wrote: “The difficult problem of alcohol in the fur trade was never eliminated. In fact, its effect on the Indians increased as the fur-bearing animals were depleted and the Indians began to surrender their lands.”

When addicted tribes’ lands were depleted of fur-bearing animals they would either surrender their lands or invade and steal other tribes’ original lands to acquire furs for more alcohol.

European governmental and religious leaders were aware of this and did nothing to stop it. They used alcohol as a chemical weapon of warfare to influence addicted tribes to force other tribes from their original homelands. It was easier to subjugate and exploit tribes when they had been forced from their long-established sacred homelands.

It was also easier to subjugate and exploit tribes when their populations had been greatly depleted by intertribal warfare.

The colonists’ “Doctrine of Discovery” mandate, which was based on a series of 15th century papal degrees and 16^th century European charters, was to “subjugate” the natives, by taking away their lands, resources and full sovereignty rights.

Another historian wrote: “The Ojibwe had used up most of the beaver on their own lands supplying the French. This forced them to rely more on hunting territory shared peacefully with the Dakota and to look with a jealous eye on the fur and rice lakes the Dakota had in Minnesota. … These conflicts became exacerbated with the arrival of the White cultural, especially with the trading posts selling guns and whiskey.”

Starting from Chequamegon (La Pointe), the Pillager Band began an invasion of the Dakota homeland. The initial movement was inland towards Lac Courte Oreilles and Lac Flambeau to take northern Wisconsin. From there they spread west into Minnesota to attack the center of the Dakota world, Mille Lacs.

Following the three-day battle at Kathio in 1750, the Dakota abandoned most of their villages in northern Minnesota (Mille Lacs, Sandy Lake, Red Lake, Leech Lake, Cass Lake, and Lake Winnebegosh) and retreated south. By 1780 there was not a single Dakota village north of the Minnesota River.

When the United States was established, it was founded on the racist “Doctrine of Discovery” and it also approved of the use of spreading alcohol addition amongst some tribes for the propose of having them steal other tribes’ original land. Therefore, it did not give the Dakotas’ northern Minnesota land back to them. It took possession of it and gave the Ojibwe occupancy rights to some of it. The Dakota remain an exiled people to this present-day.

Thomas Dahlheimer

Wahkon