Lessons in the Local

I was walking around Old Town Saginaw with a friend one day and noticed this historical marker.  The facts displayed are nominal; one might rather say skeletal.  The real story has substance.

Erected in 1919 at the corner of S. Hamilton Street and Cass in Old Town Saginaw, this bronze plaque commemorates the 1819 Treaty of Saginaw between the United States Government and the Native American Tribes of the region, by which the Tribes ceded over 6 million acres of land.  Different accounts of the circumstances and formation of the treaty may be found here, here, here, and here.  Reading each of these accounts side by side, comparing text, has the effect of giving a richer, deeper understanding of a significant event that happened here, and subsequently beyond, to a region that includes Lansing, Midland, Alpena, Bay City, Saginaw, and Flint -- an event that has not been well-remembered in the culture we call America.

The monument words are,

"On this spot on the 24th day of September A.D. 1819 General Lewis Cass made and executed a Treaty with Chippewa Indians of Saginaw by which they ceded the largest part of their lands situated in Northeastern Michigan to the United States Government. This tablet was erected by the Daughters of the American Revolution and the City Federation of Women's Clubs 1919."

The monument should read,

On this spot on the 24th day of September A.D. 1819 General Lewis Cass bribed selected leaders of the Chippewa Indians into signing a Treaty by promising large reserves for them and their families. Cass also brought a standing military, enlisted the aid of influential Indian traders, and supplied copious amounts of alcohol to the gathered Chippewa, who came from all over the territory.  The predictable result was the Chippewa Indians ceding six million acres of land, situated in Northeastern Michigan, to the United States Government.  Cass was quoted to have said to a recalcitrant Chippewa leader, "If you don't treat with us, we'll take it anyway."

Below are other images of Old Town Saginaw as it exists today, as well as other monument-plaques of note.  Many reveal certain aspects of the psyches of colonizing Europeans as they relate to the Indigenous.