Treaty of 1837 An unfair exchange On July 29, 1837, the United
States entered into a treaty with several bands of Ojibwe
Indians. Under the terms of the treaty, the Indians ceded the
northern third of present-day Wisconsin and more than three
million acres of land between the St. Croix and Mississippi
rivers and south of Lake Mille Lacs in what would become
Minnesota to the United States. The United States, in turn,
guaranteed to respect certain Indian hunting, fishing, and
gathering rights on the ceded land and made payment of annuities
for twenty years. According to nominator Joe Niznik of
Minneapolis, among other things the treaty "opened the great
white pine forest in the St. Croix River valley to lumbermen
from the eastern United States. Easy to harvest, with strong and
durable wood, the white pine was the lumberman's tree of choice.
For over half a century, white pine lumber fueled the economic
development and settlement of Minnesota." In August 1990, the
Mille Lacs Band of Chippewa Indians filed suit i