CASS LAKE, Minn. (AP) - A bill passed by Congress and headed to President Donald Trump’s desk will return nearly 12,000 acres of land in the Chippewa National Forest to the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe.
The government illegally seized the land from the tribe more than 70 years ago.
U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum sponsored the legislation in the House.
“It’s an acknowledgment that what the federal government did to the Leech Lake Band was wrong. This is a wrong, and this is an opportunity to right that wrong,” she said.
The band’s original reservation covered nearly 600,000 acres in northern Minnesota, but federal policies passed in the late 1800s and early 1900s took about 530,000 acres out of trust status without the consent of the tribe, the Star Tribune reported.
Tribal Council member LeRoy Staples Fairbanks says compromises were made to get the bill through Congress, but he said the process made tribal governments more visible in the region and state.
“If you’re thinking about the pendulum of treaties and reservations, you’re starting to rebuild and legitimize tribal governments again, and this is a huge part of that,” he said. “This is a huge part of reclaiming what we are and who we are. Land is a big part of who we are. Land is culture.”
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