By Joshua Jongema
Introduction
People of the Upper Peninsula (UP) of Michigan and the Lake Superior region once lived in a state of freedom, but today are shackled to a raw deal. It was evidently a place where all people had the liberties of bodily autonomy and self-determination, but the opposite is certainly true now thanks to the dominance of control by Lansing, Washington DC, and foreign states. Treaties made between the indigenous and the federal government were evidently predatory, despite minor generational concessions to a few. Laws concerning resource extraction grant more than a competitive advantage to white settlers and cronies of government officials, including foreign companies. This history of resource exploitation has caused harm to those who get little to nothing out of the deal. The harm caused to humans in society cannot be washed away by a lump-sum and annual payments to a small and select group of people. They weren’t even alive to sign any contract which is now used to justify lording over them. It is beyond past the time for all individuals residing in the UP to take the power over their own lives back through localization, nullification, and decentralization, or legal secession.
The Superior State of Freedom
The book Prehistoric Copper Mining in the Lake Superior Region (1961) reveals the UP has had an economy since prehistoric times. It is the only place in the world where native copper has been commercially viable. Copper deposits range from the Porcupine Mountains to Copper Harbor, and were scooped from the earth, from there to Saint Ignace and even on Isle Royale. In the mid-1950s Professor Roy W. Drier’s investigations found that as much as 500 million pounds of copper was mined, between three and five thousand years ago, in as many as 5,000 prehistoric pits along the south edge of Lake Superior. Although very little evidence is found of the interesting people who mined pits there, one author of the book speculated free men did the work, presumably because slaves would not have carried out their dead. Since the studies of Professor Drier, new evidence suggests copper mining began in the UP about 7,000 years ago! To put that in perspective, evidently free people were copper mining in the UP of Michigan perhaps 6,750 years before the existence of parliament.
Military Authoritarianism vs. Free State
The history of the people of the Superior region, over the last few hundred years, is one of systematic displacement, disempowerment, and disregard for human welfare, using military might to negotiate, and law as a cudgel. Since the mid-1700s when French explorers and Jesuits reported copper in the UP, many settlers, British Kings, and French companies became interested in getting their hands on it. Of those who tried to mine minerals in the UP in the 1700s, all of their novice attempts failed. In the years to follow, great interest was shown, and much effort was made, to rip those minerals away from the indigenous who claimed the land.
The 1827 St. Joseph’s Treaty demonstrates the fairness and validity of the treaties signed between indigenous and the federal government in that era. Chief Pierre Moran of the Huron Potawatomi signed away every bit of land claimed by his tribe except for the land his house was on. This seriously begs the question of whether that tribe was being represented, or in other words if they consented at all.
In 1841, Douglass Houghton, working as a state geologist, reported his findings of copper to the state legislature. Such interest developed that by 1842 another in a series of treaties was signed between the federal government and the indigenous people of the Superior region. One important line of it reads, “The Indians residing on the Mineral district shall be subject to removal therefrom at the pleasure of the president of the United States.” The dozen or so indigenous representatives who signed the treaty did so with just an X, and so it seriously begs the question of whether or not they could read or fully understand what they were signing.
Cornell Law has an excellent online article, “MINNESOTA V. MILLE LACS BAND OF CHIPPEWA INDIANS (97-1337) 526 U.S. 172 (1999).” It explains the history of treaty relations between the federal government and the Ojibwa, and the 1999 court decision to not recognize any continued claim to the land. It reveals that by 1850 white settlers in Minnesota and Wisconsin officially asked the President to remove the indigenous to Minnesota for the gain of Minnesota, and that year President Taylor signed an executive order breaking the treaties signed with the Ojibwa. There was much conflict, and by the next year failed efforts to displace them from the land where their ancestors freely lived, abruptly ended. This loss in relations appears to have led to the signing of the 1854 treaty, which lasts until this day. This seriously begs yet another question, of whether the Ojibwa can just rip up any treaty they deem convenient to rip up, the way President Taylor did to them in 1850.
According to the Treaty of 1854, those indigenous who resisted displacement, again, could live, hunt and fish in their homeland, but had to move if minerals were found where they resided. Signers of the treaty might have felt as if securing food and good land for hunting was worth the trade for the copper that was plentiful everywhere, as the next men with guns might not even offer them hunting grounds. Still, this tale seriously begs the question whether a dozen or so coerced and desperate people in 1854 can actually legally speak for those resisters in their own camp, as well as every person yet born in the UP of Michigan.
In 1872 the General Mining Act, on extraction of minerals in the US, was signed into law. To this day it enables foreign and domestic companies to mine for minerals on public lands for free, leaves residents no real opportunity for input, and exposes nearby rivers and communities to perpetual toxic waste. Investors in corporations with no incentive to benefit these communities use their profits for the best lawyers one can buy, and reap dividends, while broken residents are left holding the bag on a legacy of pollution. Earthworks.org advocates for this law’s reform here.
Current Times
In modern times, mining has transformed from skimming off the surface of the earth, to digging deep for what’s left, mixed into other materials, and using toxic processes in the extraction of the copper itself. Many mines shut down in the 1960s, and by 1997 the last copper mine was shut down at White Pine Mine. However, new interest has been revived recently, with the price of minerals skyrocketing due to government mismanagement of the economy as well as other subsequent factors. Mines such as White Pine, Back Forty, and Eagle Mine have been pushing courts to let them reopen or have reopened. Tribes, local residents, and various organizations have pushed courts to reject the reopening of these mines and are left wondering why their logical concerns have been accepted at times and rejected at others. It seems the science of harm has not changed, but politics has.
Once again foreigners to the UP, with foreign companies, have paid for the privilege to come, take, and leave the land and its people with a toxic living space. If local residents owning local companies were allowed by local authorities to ruin the land of the local area, I wouldn’t complain, but the long and short of it is state and federal governments are giving resources for cheap or free, to foreigners, and glossing over the harm caused in their wake.
Conclusion
People have a right to sign contracts regarding property they own and should honor those contracts. However, it seems unreal that a contract can be considered legally binding against those who were not party to its signing, especially those evidently & vehemently opposed to it or those not yet born at the time.
In Canada there is a tradition in indigenous negotiations, from the sixteen- and seventeen-hundreds, wherein treaties should be periodically renewed. This practice follows a principle of continued mutualism and is referred to as ‘treaty federalism’. This would be an adequate solution here, though the US federal government and its courts appear bent on never allowing it. Demonstrably, our monstrous government has no issue with violating the human rights of people who are not properly or legally represented, despite the fact that very government is paid by those very people to represent them.
The best solution to this dilemma would be to practice decentralization, localization, and nullification, if not legal secession. Locals alone have a natural right to decide what risks they want to take, and locals should profit from the risks they themselves take. Locals have the most incentive to do something properly, and the most power to stop it if it cannot be done safely. If locals choose to not mine, they should have the final say on the matter, and anyone who doesn’t like should at least propose fair compensation for every aspect of that arrangement. Ultimately, a person forced into a contract they did not or do not want to sign, is one signed under duress and therefore void. The people of the UP would be better off without the meddling force and coercion of the modern state and its cronyism and corruption. Through decentralization, localization, and nullification, or legal secession, people of the UP can regain their identity, culture, bodily autonomy, liberty, and their justice, finally.
*Article was featured in the October 2023 Michigan Libertarian newsletter.
