Nett Lake, Minnesota (ICC)

Bois Forte Chippewa Chairman Kevin Leecy has announced a major initiative to change how tribal enrollment is determined for some Minnesota Chippewa.

The Bois Forte Band is one of six bands that make up the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe (MCT), a federally recognized tribal government that provides services and unified leadership for its members. Besides Bois Forte, the MCT includes the Fond du Lac, Grand Portage, Leech Lake, Mille Lacs, and White Earth bands.

For persons born after July 3, 1961, the MCT requires an applicant for enrollment to demonstrate that he or she has at least one quarter degree, “Minnesota Chippewa blood‚” derived from one or more of the six MCT bands.

However, the heritage of Chippewa people in Minnesota (also known as the Ojibwe) includes other bands that are not members of the MCT, including the Red Lake Band in northern Minnesota, and other Chippewa Bands in Wisconsin, Michigan, the Canadian First Nation Ojibwe, and North Dakota and Montana.

“The current system of determining blood quantum is deliberately narrow, because it was forced on tribes by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the early 1960s when the federal government was trying to reduce the services it provides to Indian people and even eliminate tribes from existence,” Leecy said.

The Bois Forte Band wants the MCT enrollment criteria expanded to recognize ancestry from additional Chippewa bands in the region.