Morality vs. Legality: Michigan's Burt Lake Indians and the Burning of Indianville

Abstract

Morality vs. Legality: Michigan's Burt Lake Indians and the Burning of Indianville by Matthew J. Friday By 1900, Native Americans had lived for nearly three centuries on and around a small point of land jutting into northern Michigan's Burt Lake. A small village on the peninsula known as "Chaboigan" or "Indianville" was home to many of them. These Indians believed that their land held in trust was tax exempt, creating a de facto reservation. But a timber speculator named John McGinn thought otherwise. He had purchased a sizeable section of land for back taxes on Cheboygan County's Burt Lake, land that had once belonged to the area's Native American population. And on a rainy day in October 1900, he decided to take what was his. Together with the county sheriff Fred R. Ming and some deputies, McGinn proceeded to seize the property, on which stood the small Indian village known as Indianville. As soon as the men arrived at the village, they immediately began to empty the Indians' log cabins, depositing the residents' few possessions on the community's single dirt road. Most of the men who lived in the village worked in the area's lumber industry, and as it was payday, they were in Cheboygan collecting their wages. Only women, children, and the elderly were left in Indianville that day. McGinn and his men proceeded to douse the houses with kerosene and set them on fire. Within a few minutes the entire village, about fifteen buildings in all, was in flames.1 Decades later, tribal chief John Parkey noted that the conflagration could be seen for many miles.2 Those who called Indianville home could do nothing. Defenseless and without recourse, they could only watch as the flames consumed their homes. A small Catholic church was the only structure that was spared.3 Michigan Historical Review 33:1 (Spring 2007): 87-97 ?2007 by Central Michigan University. ISSN 0890-1686 All Rights Reserved. 1 Cheboygan Democrat, October 7,1900. 2 John Parkey to Ellis Olson, June 23, 1969, in Historical Society of Cheboygan County, Collection 2004-2005, Clarke Historical Library, Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant. 3 Cheboygan Democrat, October 7,1900. 88 Michigan Historical Review The Indians had no place to go. The land on which they had been living had been theirs for many generations. Now, with no homes, no land, and no real understanding of the reasons behind what had happened, they were left to fend for themselves. As the fire raged, the bewildered villagers sat in the rain. Finally, young and old alike, they trudged to Cross Village, which was about twenty-five miles away. One extraordinary woman named Negonee reportedly made this arduous journey at the age of 106.4 This brutal eviction is perhaps one of the least-known and least understood incidents in the long history of Native-American struggles in Michigan. It still evokes an emotional response and is rife with controversy and ambiguity. Although white people's dealings with Michigan's Native Peoples were often morally dubious and sometimes illegal, an examination of the facts surrounding this case indicates something more complicated. Although it was unquestionably immoral, the eviction of the Indians and the burning of Indianville were within the law. This does not make McGinn's actions acceptable, but it does shed light on how and why Native Americans were treated the way they were, and how the adroit use of tax laws allowed white people to seize their land legally. Historians have asserted that the destruction of Indianville and the seizure of the occupants' land were criminal acts, but the facts underlying the case reveal that these acts were not illegal, but rather the result of confusion regarding treaties, trusts, and tax laws. The Indian settlement at Burt Lake was a long-established Native American community. By the seventeenth century, a number of different tribes lived in the upper Great Lakes region. At the tip of the Lower Peninsula, the Ottawa and Chippewa (Ojibwe) tribes were the most populous groups. As white influence increased in the Northwest Territory, zealous missionaries sought to convert the Native Peoples to Christianity. In the region that would become...