White Earth Indian Reservation

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The White Earth Indian Reservation (Ojibwe: Gaa-waabaabiganikaag, lit. 'Where there is an abundance of white clay') is home to the White Earth Band, in northwestern Minnesota. It is the largest Indian reservation in the state by land area. The reservation includes all of Mahnomen County, plus parts of Becker and Clearwater counties in the northwest part of the state along the Wild Rice and White Earth rivers. The reservation's land area is 1,093 square miles (2,830 km²). The population was 9,726 as of the 2020 census, including off-reservation trust land.^[1] The White Earth Indian Reservation is one of six bands that make up the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, their governing body for major administrative needs. It is about 225 miles (362 km) from Minneapolis–Saint Paul and roughly 65 miles (105 km) from Fargo–Moorhead.

The White Earth Reservation was created on March 19, 1867, by a treaty (16 Stat. 719) signed in Washington, D.C. Ten Ojibwe Indian chiefs met with President Andrew Johnson at the White House to negotiate the treaty. The chiefs Wabanquot (White Cloud), a Gull Lake Mississippi Chippewa, and Fine Day, of the Removable Mille Lacs Indians, were among the first to move with their followers to White Earth in 1868.

The reservation originally covered 1,300 square miles (3,400 km²). Much of the community's land was improperly sold or seized by outside interests, including the U.S. federal government, in the late 19th century and early 20th century. According to the Dawes Act of 1887, the communal land was to be allotted to individual households recorded in tribal rolls, for cultivation in subsistence farming. Under the act, the remainder was declared surplus and available for sale to non-Native Americans. The Nelson Act of 1889 was a corollary law that enabled the land to be divided and sold to non-Native Americans. In the latter half of the 20th century, the federal government arranged for the transfer of state and county land to the reservation in compensation for other property that had been lost.

In 1989, Winona LaDuke formed the White Earth Land Recovery Project, which has slowly been acquiring land privately held to add back to the value of the non-profit 501(c)(3) to be used for collateral. At that time, less than ten percent of the land within reservation boundaries was owned by tribal members.

The White Earth Band government operates the Shooting Star Casino, Hotel and Event center in Mahnomen, Minnesota. The entertainment and gambling complex employs over 1000^[2] tribal and non-tribal staff, with a new location in Bagley, Minnesota. White Earth, like the Leech Lake and Red Lake Indian Reservations, is known for its tradition of singing hymns in the Ojibwe language.^[3]