The White Earth Tragedy

Ethnicity and Dispossession at a Minnesota Anishinaabe Reservation, 1889-19

by Melissa L Meyer

"Melissa Meyer combines historical methods with approaches from sociology, anthropology, and economics to produce a thought-provoking account of the evolution and development of a single reservation community. . . . Rather than focusing solely on Indian/white relations, as historians have often done in the past, Meyer highlights the relations between conservative Anishinaabe bands and . . . ‘mediators’ [of mixed descent]. In doing so, she reveals the diversity within the White Earth Anishinaabe community. . . . Meyer’s meticulously researched case study is one of the most significant contributions to the field of Indian history in recent years."—Western Historical Quarterly. "An enduring contribution to Anishinaabe historiography as well as a significant work for the comparative study of indigenous dispossession throughout North America."—Ethnohistory.

"A rich history of the Anishinaabeg . . . This is not a history of Indian policy, but rather the story of an ethnic community in all its complexities, contradictions, and subtleties."—Choice.

This compelling interdisciplinary history of an Anishinaabe community at the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota offers a subtle and sophisticated look at changing social, economic, and political relations among the Anishinaabeg and reveals how cultural forces outside of the reservation profoundly affected their lives.

Melissa L. Meyer is an associate professor of history at the University of California, Los Angeles.

352 pp ~ illustrated — ©1999