Metz Family Land History Project Page

Detail of “Nova et Aucta Orbis Terrae Descriptio ad Usum Navigantium Emendate Accommodata” by Gerardus Mercator (1569)

Land-history research for:

Michigan, North Dakota
SE 1/4 Sec 7 Twp 157N Range 54W

Red River Valley European Treatment Report

Contextualization Conversation Recording

Map with annotations in brown ink by Meriwether Lewis, tracing showing the Mississippi, the Missouri for a short distance above Kansas, Lakes Michigan, Superior, and Winnipeg, and the country onwards to the Pacific, by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (c. 1803)

“Captains Lewis & Clark holding a Council with the Indians,” in A journal of the voyages and travels of a corps of discovery, : under the command of Capt. Lewis and Capt. Clarke of the Army of the United States, from the mouth of the River Missouri through the interior parts of North America to the Pacific Ocean, during the years 1804, 1805 & 1806 by Patrick Gass (1810)

European Contact

The Doctrine of Discovery

Gen. Jonathan Fletcher by unknown artist (c.1865)

Advantage.

“The principal articles furnished in trade with our northern Indians, are of British manufacture: exemption from duty on these articles, gives the [British] Hudson Bay Company a decided advantage over our citizens engaged in trade with these Indians. . . . I have long been of the opinion that the protection of the Indians requires some additional restrictions relative to the privilege allowed our citizens to travel in and through the Indian country.”

Letter from Indian Agent Jonathan Emerson Fletcher to Commissioner of Indian Affairs William Medill (Feb. 12, 1849)

Settler Colonization

The Treaty Period

Thomas Ewing by unknown artist (c.1861)

Remedy.

“[T]he most certain method to remedy the present and prevent anticipated [trade] evils, would be to cause a treaty to be made with a view of purchasing a moderate portion of the Indian country adjacent to our boundary line, and upon the Red river of the North, and thereby open the country to agricultural settlement, of which it is represented to be well adapted. . . . By making a purchase from the Indians, they would necessarily be brought under the more immediate control and influence of our agents, and becoming more dependent upon them, would be much more easily controlled.”

Letter from Secretary of the Interior Thomas Ewing to President Zachary Taylor (April 4, 1849)

Pembina Leader Ase-Anse (Little Shell) by unknown artist (c. 1892), 1863 Red Lake & Pembina Treaty Signatory

Inheritance.

“I want to give you an answer to one thing you said yesterday about the road which passes through here and the river. You told us they were not of much importance to us. The Master of Life gave us the river and the water thereof to drink, and the woods and the roads we depend on for our subsistence, and you are mistaken if you think we derive no benefits from them. The Master of Life gave it to us for an inheritance. . . .”

Red Lake Leader Ase-e-ne-wub (Little Rock), Journal of the proceedings of the 1863 Red Lake & Pembina Treaty (Sept. 24, 1863)

Photograph of Alexander Ramsey by Mather B. Brady (c. 1863)

Value.

"The amount agreed upon was not, of course, regulated by any supposed standard of value applied to the land, though it is believed that no territorial acquisitions of equal intrinsic value have been made at so low a rate per acre, or on terms so advantageous to the government.”

Letter from Governor and U.S. Treaty Negotiator Alexander Ramsey to Commissioner of Indian Affairs William P. Dole (October, 1863)