150 Years for Leelanau, Its Natives

As Leelanau County celebrates its 150th anniversary this year, its original inhabitants can look back on a century and a half of heartache and broken promises, with progress in recent decades.

While they’re in a period of relative prosperity because of the Indian-owned casinos in the area, the native people have a long history of fighting for religious, cultural, commercial and other rights.

“We’ve never had a moment of peace with the state of Michigan since it formed,” says John Bailey, widely recognized as a local native historian. Bailey has chosen not to join the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians or any other tribe, though he is eligible.

Leelanau became a county in 1863, as the United States was embroiled in its bloodiest war.

Many Native American men enlisted in the Civil War, expecting fulfillment of the federal government’s promise of farm land in exchange for their service; it never happened.

Early on, some Native Americans started businesses in an increasingly white man’s world of commerce. One group operated three schooners in Suttons Bay, hauling lumber, potatoes and other crops.

But soon, steam engine came along and the small group couldn’t afford to keep up or compete with changing technology.

For decades, Indians were prohibited from speaking their own languages and observing their own religious practices. As Catholics and Methodists were competing to convert them to their own denominations, many native children were sent to boarding school at Holy Childhood in Harbor Springs.

In 1934, a law was passed allowing native children to attend public schools in Michigan, though many say it was a struggle to force all districts comply. In 1979, a law was finally passed to ensure religious freedom for Native Americans in Michigan.

At one time, the federal government had promised a reservation stretching from Cathead Point to south of Suttons Bay – a good chunk of northern Leelanau County – though, over time, that parcel was whittled away until they were left with “12 pitiful acres” to call their own, Bailey says. Bailey adds that the federal government tried to take that away, but attorney Amelia Schaub successfully helped them fight to keep it.

“She was the only advocate they had in the area,” Bailey says of the key turning point.

As early as the 1930s, there were efforts to gain federal recognition for a local tribe, though those initial claims were denied.

But the Indian Self-Determination Act, championed by President Richard Nixon in the 1970s, led the way for the federal government’s recognition of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians in 1980, likely the biggest single milestone for Native Americans of northern Michigan.

“He’s one of our heroes,” Bailey says of Nixon.

The recognition made possible the Leelanau Sands Casino in Peshawbestown and later Turtle Creek Casino in Williamsburg and Grand Traverse Resort & Spa in Acme, which have become among the largest employers in the region. Those business enterprises, in turn, helped ease poverty among its people and the tribe as a whole has gained the respect that comes from improved finances.

Bailey also credits former Traverse City Police Chief Ralph Soffredine, who took that post in the early ‘80s, for cracking down on police who were stopping native Americans without due cause.

“We’re not getting arrested all the time in Traverse City like we were,” Bailey says.

More on the Grand Traverse Band's history can be found here.