The way it was explained to me is that Michigan never did challenge the liberal interpretation of the treaty in court and instead went with a "shared" agreement approach. They said it would be too risky to take it to court because the Indians may win and the resources could be damaged as a result. Well, now we are seeing that the Indians don't give a rip about the resources and want to saturate the Great Lakes will gill nets. What's next, trawling.... At this point we really have nothing much left to loose by taking the mater to court. There are always reasons to appeal judges rulings since in this case, if it were to go against the state, it would be purely a political decision. This statement in the treaty is pretty clear to me and anybody with a grade school reading ability:
The Indians stipulate for the right of hunting on the lands ceded, with the other usual privileges of occupancy, until the land is required for settlement.
Anybody that sees fishing rights (especially on the Great Lakes) in that statement or thinks that Michigan has not been settled is either an idiot, incompetent, or politically motivated to ignore or intentionally misinterpret that statement. Now more than ever the Supreme Court may be occupied by a majority of justices that may actually just rule on this issue based on the actual letter of law (working of the treaty) and not some political ideology that many judges and justices seem use these days. If our current state government will not take measures to save our valuable natural resources, then they don't give a rip about them either.
The way it was explained to me...... True, the Supreme Court has not ruled on this Treaty and probably never will. This Treaty is really a States issue and the writing of the Treaty does not have National implications because it is unique to the situation. The Federal Circuit Court has ruled and any challenges have been denied. The Circuit has ruled that "privileges of occupancy" means hunting, fishing , gathering and any other privileges. To better clarify fishing rights,the Consent Agreement was approved in 2000. In the Treaty, the Natives "sold" the land to the Fed's as Michigan was not even a State yet, and received "perpetual" use of it.
The issue the States and Fed's do not want to address is the word "settlement". What does it mean and what are the ramifications? Does it mean all private land is off limits? Does it mean the Natives can use all unoccupied land? The Treaty defines land for "habitation", at the time of the writing of the Treaty, the white man authors had no understanding of nomadic life and thought the Indians needed land to live on.
In earlier posts I talked about reading a book published by Michigan State that discusses the fur trade, the trade routes and lists the various Treaties included in the Great Lakes region. The 1836 Treaty was identified and had defined areas for habitation. Some of these area's are now towns and very early plat maps have those areas of habitation defined. Maybe the Natives own those towns?
I am not a lawyer nor a legal scholar, just a concerned citizen who has done some research and had conversations with Natives and some legal people who investigated issues in NW Michigan.
Maybe some legal scholars, reporting on this site, can clarify any errors or misinformation I reported.
