GRAND RAPIDS, MI — A federal judge in Kalamazoo has ruled against an Indian tribe who claimed that a pair of historical treaties gave the tribe sovereignty over 337 square miles of land and 103 miles of shoreline in northern Michigan.
In a lawsuit filed against the state of Michigan in 2015, the Little Traverse Band of Odawa Indians said treaties signed in 1836 and 1855 created a reservation encompassing most of Emmet County, part of Charlevoix County, as well as the cities of Petoskey, Harbor Springs and Good Hart.
If established, the area would be the largest Indian reservation in Michigan.
But in an Aug. 15 opinion, U.S. District Court Judge Paul Maloney said the tribe’s interpretation of the treaties was incorrect. He said the tribe’s argument did not provide a “cohesive interpretation” of the treaty, and instead isolated “particular phrases” to suggest that tribal members were to receive reservations.
“In sum, it is only through a vast rewriting of the treaty, that the Tribe arrives at its conclusion that an Indian reservation was created,” Maloney wrote.
Tribal chairperson Regina Gasco-Bentley said the tribe is “disappointed” with the decision.
“We are looking at our legal options and have no further comment,” she said in a statement.
While the lawsuit targeted the state of Michigan, a host of local governments joined the lawsuit as “intervening defendants.” They included Emmet County, Charlevoix County, 11 townships, and the cities of Petoskey, Charlevoix and Harbor Springs. Two groups of private landowners also opposed the tribe’s effort.
Emmet County Administrator John Calabrese said he was pleased with Maloney’s ruling.
“There were a lot of taxpayer dollars spent by a lot of different units of government on the lawsuit, and it would be nice for us to not have to worry about spending taxpayer dollars on that lawsuit,” Calabrese said.
An attorney representing the city of Petoskey previously told MLive that local government officials were worried that the tribe’s push to add the land to a reservation could impact “taxes, law enforcement, environmental issues, building codes and liquor licenses."
The Odawa tribe has scattered parcels held around Emmet County, including land on which the tribe built the Odawa Casino and Resort in Petoskey, as well as another casino in Mackinaw City.
In the lawsuit, the tribe said the 1855 treaty created a 216,000-acre reservation consisting of 11 townships, stretching 32 miles north-to-south from the Straits of Mackinac to the northern shore of Lake Charlevoix. The area also includes part of the city of Charlevoix, as well as Garden Island and High Island in the Beaver Island archipelago.
The tribe claims land frauds and federal agents kept ancestors from exercising sovereignty over their treaty land and the lawsuit quotes historical references from 19th century state and federal officials in support of its claim.
The tribe also said that modern state and local cooperation agreements over taxation, hunting rights, road maintenance, law enforcement and environmental cleanup within the claimed reservation area effectively acknowledge the boundary.
But Maloney objected to the tribe’s argument. He said the tribe’s “predecessor bands bargained for — and received — permanent homes in Michigan in the form of individual allotments.”
He went on to say that the tribe “did not bargain for an Indian reservation, and no such reservation was created by the unambiguous treaty terms because the terms do not establish a federal set aside of land for Indian purposes or indefinite federal superintendence over the land.”
The 337 square miles of claimed area by the tribe would be the largest reservation in Michigan, surpassing the 328-square-mile Lac Vieux Desert Indian Reservation in southeastern Gogebic County on the Michigan-Wisconsin border.