The Founding Mothers of Mackinac Island: The Agatha Biddle Band of the 1870 by Theresa L. Weller (review)

Reviewed by: The Founding Mothers of Mackinac Island: The Agatha Biddle Band of the 1870 by Theresa L. Weller Rebecca J. Mead Theresa L. Weller. The Founding Mothers of Mackinac Island: The Agatha Biddle Band of the 1870. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2021. Appendix. Bibliography. Images. Notes. Paperback: $32.95. This remarkable little book is significant for many reasons. As the author explored her family history and tribal connections, she discovered a unique [End Page 139] group: a métis band recognized by the US federal government through official treaties and confirmed by an early-twentieth-century legal settlement. Métis people are the mixed-race "children of the fur trade," a term coined by Canadian scholars to describe the offspring of Native women and European fur traders in the Northern borderlands (often mislabeled "French" historically). In Canada today, they are more numerous, visible, and actively seeking recognition as a distinct group than in the United States, but there were populations south of the border, clustered originally around fur-trade posts. When the Great Lakes fur trade declined in the early 1800s and moved further west, communities now had to find new ways to survive. This book is not a full narrative or expository study but an annotated family-tribal genealogy that provides a treasure trove of stories and information about one particular métis community—the Mackinac Island Native band (also known as "The Biddle Band"). This group was a composite of people, almost all unrelated women, from a variety of tribes and locations, including Wisconsin and Canada, as well as local Ojibwas and Odawas. What might make it unique, as the author claims, is that they were recognized as a distinct group and received annuity payments as a result of the 1836 Treaty of Washington and its updated version, the 1855 Treaty of Detroit—the last of the major Michigan Native treaties (although these "cousins" were recognized and included in earlier treaties too). The Detroit treaty payments ended in 1872, but in 1905, the Odawas and Ojibwas sued and won in the US Court of Claims for monies still due to them. A special federal agent, Horace Durant, created a new survey of eligible recipients based on the 1870 annuity rolls (which Native leaders determined as the cutoff point for receiving part of the settlement), a valuable resource still used extensively. Using these two sources, the author identified 74 original band members (66 women and 66 families) and traced each one and their descendants through several subsequent generations. Information about many of the individuals is scarce, but patterns emerge as to how they made a living and supported others. Many women continued as traders, craftspersons, and food producers; some men continued to trap or trade while others took wage work, primarily as fishers. Some stand out for their roles as leaders—particularly Agatha Biddle, who married an American from a wealthy family (or perhaps was the source of his wealth). Biddle and some of the other women grounded the community: they owned or could access material resources (especially land) and social connections to support others, and their homes became meeting places and refuges for local métis people (likely whether they were recognized band members or not). However, in the 1860s and 1870s, Biddle was recognized as the "head[wo]man" of the band by the US government, [End Page 140] and the author quotes primary sources that provide greater detail about her activities and the respect she earned. The period covered in this book—the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—was a terrible time for Natives, with US government programs of forced assimilation through boarding schools and the General Allotment Act of 1887 (Dawes Act), resulting in high rates of poverty, illness, and child mortality. Depending on their circumstances, métis people could be members of local tribes (a political, not cultural, status). They might be heavily assimilated or remained distinctively "in between," but during a period of intense racial discrimination, they still frequently suffered due to their Native heritage. The key to survival—and to preserving Native and métis culture and history—was maintaining families and communities through these difficult times. Readers...