The Leech Lake Reservation (''Gaa-zagaskwaajimekaag'' in the

Ojibwe language Ojibwe ( ), also known as Ojibwa ( ), Ojibway, Otchipwe,R. R. Bishop Baraga, 1878''A Theoretical and Practical Grammar of the Otchipwe Language''/ref> Ojibwemowin, or Anishinaabemowin, is an Indigenous languages of the Americas, indigenous la ...

) is an

Indian reservation An American Indian reservation is an area of land land tenure, held and governed by a List of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States#Description, U.S. federal government-recognized Native American tribal nation, whose gov ...

located in the north-central

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

counties of

Cass Cass may refer to: People and fictional characters * Cass (surname), a list of people * Cass (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Big Cass, ring name of wrestler William Morrissey * Cass, in British band Skunk Anansie * Cass, ...

, Itasca, Beltrami, and Hubbard. The reservation forms the land base for the federally recognized Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe, one of six bands comprising the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, organized in 1934. The Leech Lake Reservation has the second highest population of any reservation in Minnesota with White Earth Nation being the largest Minnesota Ojibwe tribe, Leech Lake Nation has a resident population of 11,388 indicated by the 2020 census. 1940R Leech Lake Reservation Locator Map

1940R Leech Lake Reservation Locator Map

History

The Leech Lake Reservation was not established in a single legislative act. Rather, it grew from the amalgamation of multiple treaties, executive orders, and various articles of legislation spanning many decades. The core areas of the reservation were established by the 1855 treaty of Washington, which formed three smaller reservations for the Pillager Band of Chippewa Indians at Leech Lake, Cass Lake, and Lake Winnibigoshish. These reservations were reshaped and consolidated by new treaties in 1864 and 1867, when the United States sought with little success to concentrate Ojibwes from other reservations together at a single location. The reservation was further modified by several

executive order In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. The legal or constitutional basis for executive orders has multiple sources. Article Two of the ...

s in the 1870s, one of which created the White Oak Point reservation of the Mississippi Band. Under the Dawes Act of 1887 and the Nelson Act of 1889, the United States allotted tribal land on the Ojibwe reservations into private parcels. Some parcels were held by individual tribal members, but much of the reservation was alienated into the ownership of timber companies and white settlers. In addition, the United States established what became the Chippewa National Forest in the early twentieth century on the remaining unallotted tribal land. As a result, by 1934, less than 5% of the reservation was still in Ojibwe ownership. Following the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, the present "Greater" Leech Lake Indian Reservation was formed from the administrative merger of the Leech Lake, Cass Lake, and Lake Winnibigoshish reservations of the Pillager Band, the Chippewa Indian Reservation of the Lake Superior Band, and the White Oak Point reservation of the Mississippi Band. Between 1948 and 1959, the U.S. Department of Interior continued to transfer thousands of acres of tribally owned reservation allotments at Leech Lake to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for incorporation into Chippewa National Forest. The Department of Interior discontinued these transfers in 1959 after finding that it had acted illegally by selling allotments without the consent of tribal landowners. In 2020, Congress passed legislation to return approximately 11,760 acres of this illegally taken land from the Chippewa National Forest back to the Leech Lake Reservation. The returned parcels regained trust status as part of the reservation in 2024. Even after the return of national forest land in 2024, the Leech Lake Band owns a smaller percentage of its reservation than any other Ojibwe nation in Minnesota. The returned land had constituted about 1.75% of the Chippewa National Forest, and about 40% of the national forest continues to occupy reservation land.

Geography

According to the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...

, the Leech Lake Reservation has a total area of , of which is land and is water. In addition, the Leech Lake Band held off-reservation trust land with a land area of in 2020. About one-fourth of the reservation is covered by lakes. The largest lakes on the reservation are Leech Lake, Lake Winnibigoshish, and Cass Lake. The band uses 40 lakes for the production of wild rice, and the community produces more rice than any other reservation in the state. The reservation is the second-largest in Minnesota (after the White Earth Indian Reservation) in terms of land area, and the largest in terms of total area.

Communities

The reservation consists of eleven villages; two additional communities have a substantial number of Leech Lake Band members. Nearly all Leech Lake communities are located in or near the woods of the Chippewa National Forest. The largest community is Cass Lake, situated on the southwestern shores of the eponymous lake. The next largest settlements are Ball Club, Onigum, Inger, and Bena. In some communities, housing is located along only one road, with each side lined with homes. * Ah-gwah-ching (part) *

Baker A baker is a tradesperson who baking, bakes and sometimes Sales, sells breads and other products made of flour by using an oven or other concentrated heat source. The place where a baker works is called a bakery. History Ancient histo ...

* Ball Club * Bena * Benedict (part) * Brevik * Cass Lake * Deer River (part) *

Dunbar Dunbar () is a town on the North Sea coast in East Lothian in the south-east of Scotland, approximately east of Edinburgh and from the Anglo–Scottish border, English border north of Berwick-upon-Tweed. Dunbar is a former royal burgh, and ...

* Inger * Longville (part) *

Max Max or MAX may refer to: Animals * Max (American dog) (1983–2013), at one time purported to be the world's oldest living dog * Max (British dog), the first pet dog to win the PDSA Order of Merit (animal equivalent of the OBE) * Max (gorilla) ...

* Mission * Oak Point * Onigum * Oslund * Pennington * Ryan Village * Smokey Point * Squaw Lake * Sugar Point * Whipholt *

Wilkinson Wilkinson or Wilkinsons may refer to: Businesses and brands * Wilko, formerly Wilkinson Hardware, a British retail chain * Wilkinson Sword, a British manufacturer of razor blades, formerly swords, motorbikes and other products ** Wilkinson TMC ...

Demographics

As of the census of 2020, the population of the Leech Lake Reservation was 11,388. The

population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...

was . There were 7,229 housing units at an average density of . The Leech Lake Reservation has a significant non-native population due in part to the allotment and sale of reservation lands in the late nineteenth century. In 2020, the racial makeup of the reservation was 49.3%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 43.8%

Native American Native Americans or Native American usually refers to Native Americans in the United States. Related terms and peoples include: Ethnic groups * Indigenous peoples of the Americas, the pre-Columbian peoples of North, South, and Central America ...

, 0.1%

Black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 0.1% Asian, 0.4% from

other races Other often refers to: * Other (philosophy), a concept in psychology and philosophy Other or The Other may also refer to: Film and television * ''The Other'' (1913 film), a German silent film directed by Max Mack * ''The Other'' (1930 film), ...

, and 6.3% from two or more races. Ethnically, the population was 1.7%

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

or Latino of any race.

Education

There are two tribal schools,

Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig School Bug-O-Nay-Ge-Shig School is a K-12 tribal school in unincorporated Cass County, Minnesota, near Bena. It is affiliated with the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE). Located on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation, it serves the Leech Lake Band of Ojib ...

and Leech Lake Tribal College.

History

Geography

Communities

Demographics

Education

See also

References

External links

Further reading