Leonard Peltier is a Native American activist and a member of the American Indian Movement (AIM) who, following a controversial trial, was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents in a June 26, 1975, shooting on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. He was sentenced to two consecutive terms of life imprisonment and has been imprisoned since 1977. Peltier became eligible for parole in 1993. As of 2022, Peltier is incarcerated at the United States Penitentiary, Coleman in Florida.
Hayward is a city in Sawyer County, Wisconsin, United States, next to the Namekagon River. Its population was 2,318 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Sawyer County. The city is surrounded by the Town of Hayward. The City of Hayward was formally organized in 1883.
The American Indian Movement (AIM) is an American Indian grassroots movement which was founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in July 1968, initially centered in urban areas in order to address systemic issues of poverty, discrimination, and police brutality against American Indians. AIM soon widened its focus from urban issues to many Indigenous Tribal issues that American Indian groups have faced due to settler colonialism in the Americas. These issues have included treaty rights, high rates of unemployment, the lack of American Indian subjects in education, and the preservation of Indigenous cultures.
The Wisconsin Walleye War became the name for late 20th-century events in Wisconsin in protest of Ojibwe (Chippewa) hunting and fishing rights. In a 1975 case, the tribes challenged state efforts to regulate their hunting and fishing off the reservations, based on their rights in the treaties of St. Peters (1837) and La Pointe (1842). On August 21, 1987, U.S. District Court judge Barbara Crabb ruled that six Ojibwe tribal governments had the right under these treaties for hunting and fishing throughout their former territory.
Dennis Banks was a Native American activist, teacher, and author. He was a longtime leader of the American Indian Movement, which he co-founded in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1968 to represent urban Indians.
The Lac Courte Oreilles Tribe is one of six federally recognized bands of Ojibwe people located in present-day Wisconsin. It had 7,275 enrolled members as of 2010. The band is based at the Lac Courte Oreilles Indian Reservation in northwestern Wisconsin, which surrounds Lac Courte Oreilles. The main reservation's land is in west-central Sawyer County, but two small plots of off-reservation trust land are located in Rusk, Burnett, and Washburn counties. The reservation was established in 1854 by the second Treaty of La Pointe.
Annie Mae Aquash was a First Nations activist and Mi'kmaq tribal member from Nova Scotia, Canada. Aquash moved to Boston in the 1960s and joined other First Nations and Indigenous Americans focused on education and resistance, and police brutality against urban Indigenous peoples. She was part of the American Indian Movement, participated in several occupations, and participated in the 1973 Wounded Knee incident at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, United States.
Hanging Cloud was an Ojibwe woman who was a full warrior among her people, and claimed by the Wisconsin Historical Society as the only woman to ever become one. She was the daughter of Chief Nenaa'angebi and his wife Niigi'o. Aazhawigiizhigokwe was of the Makwa-doodem, and was born and lived most of her life at Rice Lake, Wisconsin. Her community became part of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians after the 1854 Treaty of La Pointe.
The Wounded Knee Occupation, also known as Second Wounded Knee, began on February 27, 1973, when approximately 200 Oglala Lakota and followers of the American Indian Movement (AIM) seized and occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, United States, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. The protest followed the failure of an effort of the Oglala Sioux Civil Rights Organization (OSCRO) to use impeachment to remove tribal president Richard Wilson, whom they accused of corruption and abuse of opponents. Additionally, protesters criticized the United States government's failure to fulfill treaties with Native American people and demanded the reopening of treaty negotiations to hopefully arrive at fair and equitable treatment of Native Americans.
The Sandy Lake Tragedy was the culmination in 1850 of a series of events centered in Big Sandy Lake, Minnesota that resulted in the deaths of several hundred Lake Superior Chippewa. Officials of the Zachary Taylor Administration and Minnesota Territory sought to relocate several bands of the tribe to areas west of the Mississippi River. By changing the location for fall annuity payments, the officials intended the Chippewa to stay at the new site for the winter, hoping to lower their resistance to relocation. Due to delayed and inadequate payments of annuities and lack of promised supplies, about 400 Ojibwe, mostly men and 12% of the tribe, died of disease, starvation and cold. The outrage increased Ojibwe resistance to removal. The bands effectively gained widespread public support to achieve permanent reservations in their traditional territories.
The Lake Superior Chippewa are a large number of Ojibwe (Anishinaabe) bands living around Lake Superior; this territory is considered part of northern Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota in the United States. They migrated into the area by the seventeenth century, encroaching on the Eastern Dakota people who had historically occupied the area. The Ojibwe defeated the Eastern Dakota, who migrated west into the Great Plains after the final battle in 1745. While they share a common culture including the Anishinaabe language, this highly decentralized group of Ojibwe includes at least twelve independent bands in the region.
Lake Lena is an unincorporated community and Native American village in Ogema Township, Pine County, Minnesota, United States, located along the Lower Tamarack River. It currently is the administrative center for the Mille Lacs Indian Reservation, District III.
Lac Courte Oreilles is a large freshwater lake located in northwest Wisconsin in Sawyer County in townships 39 and 40 north, ranges 8 and 9 west. It is irregular in shape, having numerous peninsulas and bays, and is approximately six miles long in a southwest to northeast direction and with a maximum width of about two miles (3 km). Lac Courte Oreilles is 5,039 acres (20.39 km2) in size with a maximum depth of 90 feet (27 m) and a shoreline of 25.4 miles (40.9 km). The lake has a small inlet stream that enters on the northeast shore of the lake and flows from Grindstone Lake, a short distance away to the north. An outlet on the southeast shore of the lake leads through a very short passage to Little Lac Courte Oreilles, then via the Couderay River to the Chippewa River, and ultimately to the Mississippi River at Lake Pepin.
The Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC) is an intertribal, co-management agency committed to the implementation of off-reservation treaty rights on behalf of its eleven-member Ojibwa tribes. Formed in 1984 and exercising authority specifically delegated by its member tribes, GLIFWC's mission is to help ensure significant off-reservation harvests while protecting the resources for generations to come.
Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe College (LCOOC) is a public tribal land-grant community college in Hayward, Wisconsin. It is one of two tribal colleges in the state of Wisconsin. The enrollment averages 550 students. The LCOOC has a main campus in Hayward. More than one-third of students are enrolled at the four outreach sites at Odanah, Bayfield, Hertel, and Lac du Flambeau.
Richard Two Elk is a Native American combat veteran, journalist and civil rights activist. He is perhaps best known for participation in the Wounded Knee incident in the 1970s and for being a radio host.
Darlene Nichols, also known by the names Kamook, Ka-Mook, Kamook Nichols and Ka-Mook Nichols, is the name of a former AIM member and Native American protester. She is best known for her role in the American Indian Movement for organizing The Longest Walk, and for serving as a key material witness in the trials of Arlo Looking Cloud, Richard Marshall, and John Graham that ultimately led to the conviction of two AIM members in the murders of Anna Mae Aquash.
Arlo Looking Cloud is a former Native American activist. He is perhaps best known for his involvement with the murder of fellow American Indian Movement activist Anna Mae Aquash.
Theda Nelson Clarke, born Theda Rose Nelson (1924-2011), was a Native American activist. She is perhaps best known for her involvement in the Wounded Knee incident with the murder of fellow American Indian Movement activist Anna Mae Aquash.
Namekagon Transit is the primary provider of mass transportation in Hayward, Wisconsin and the Lac Courte Oreilles Reservation with three routes serving the region. The name "Namekagon" in the Ojibwe language means "place of the sturgeon". As of 2021, the system provided 58,404 rides over 32,795 annual vehicle revenue hours with 16 vehicles.
