To the Journal editor:
On May 27, at Eagle Rock in the Escanaba River State Forest, two members of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community were arrested for trespassing.
When dozens of Michigan State Police troopers and other local police sent by Kennecott Minerals Co. arrived, Chris Chosa and Charlotte Loonsfoot refused to leave their encampment at what they consider to be a sacred site and ceded territory.
Native Americans and non-natives had been camping out at Eagle Rock since April 23 in opposition to a underground mine with the portal at Eagle Rock by Kennecott Minerals, and also in protest of the arrest of activist Cynthia Pryor for trespassing on this same public land.
Kennecott has leased this land for its mine, but the Michigan Department of Natural Resources should have never leased it due to its ceded territory status.
The 1842 treaty was negotiated at LaPointe on Madeline Island in Wisconsin, and the Chippewa ceded parts of northern Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to the United States government for 25 years of cash payments, food, tobacco, and a final treaty stipulation that they would reserve their right to hunt, fish and gather on the lands they ceded until they left the area.
Article 6 of the same treaty states if the ceded territory is in a mineral district, only an act by the president can move them.
In 1983, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago affirmed that Chippewa Indian Tribes retained off reservation fishing, hunting and gathering rights in the 1837 and 1842 treaties. The court ruling is called the Voigt decision.
Chris Chosa presented a hunting license from KBIC for the state forest land he was on, but it was ignored by the arresting officer.
Not only were these arrests a treaty violation, but Kennecott provided huge coolers of subs and sodas to all the heavily armed officers for their efforts, and then stripped the Eagle Rock area of all Chippewa relics, tents, lean-tos, sacred fire and firewood, and fenced in the 120 acre site.
Remember, after a 28-year fight in northeastern Wisconsin, Chippewa, Potowatami and sulfide mining opponents not only stopped the Crandon mine, but the two tribes bought the 5,000 acre mine site in 2003.
Maybe Eagle Rock can still be saved if Kennecott would follow the administrative law judge’s recommendation that it place its mine portal somewhere other than Eagle Rock.
Chuck Glossenger
Big Bay
