Imagining the History of the Early American Republic without Indian Removal

This paper will explore the Upper Great Lakes, specifically the Michigan and Wisconsin Territories where the policy of Indian removal largely failed. This failure meant that these important free soil states were organized with significant Native populations. I will examine the strategies employed by Anishinaabe communities to remain in their homelands. I will also examine the relationship between these communities and their mixed-race relatives who were engaged in a dying fur trade. These mixed-race Anishinaabeg attempted to assert American citizenship while maintaining an indigenous identity. Straddling these two worlds became important in the treaty process that provided a subsidized land base for white settlers immigrating to the Old Northwest.