The Assassination of Hole in the DayOn June 27, 1868, Hole in the Day (Bagonegiizhig) the Younger left Crow Wing, Minnesota, for Washington, DC, to fight the planned removal of the Mississippi Ojibwe to a reservation at White Earth. Several miles from his home, the self-styled leader of all the Ojibwe was stopped by at least twelve Ojibwe men and fatally shot. Hole in the Day's death was national news, and rumors of its cause were many: personal jealousy, retribution for his claiming to be head chief of the Ojibwe, retaliation for the attacks he fomented in 1862, or retribution for his attempts to keep mixed-blood Ojibwe off the White Earth Reservation. Still later, investigators found evidence of a more disturbing plot involving some of his closest colleagues: the business elite at Crow Wing. While most historians concentrate on the Ojibwe relationship with whites to explain this story, Anton Treuer focuses on interactions with other tribes, the role of Ojibwe culture and tradition, and interviews with more than fifty elders to further explain the events leading up to the death of Hole in the Day. "The Assassination of Hole in the Day "is not only the biography of a powerful leader but an extraordinarily insightful analysis of a pivotal time in the history of the Ojibwe people.
--Ned Blackhawk, author of "Violence Over the Land: Indians and Empires in the Early American West" Anton Treuer, professor of Ojibwe at Bemidji State University, is the author of "Ojibwe in Minnesota "and several books on the Ojibwe language. He is also the editor of "Oshkaabewis Native Journal," the only academic journal of the Ojibwe language. |
Contents
1 The Nature of Ojibwe Leadership | |
2 Becoming ChiefThe Rise of Bagonegiizhig the Elder | |
3 Testing His MettleBagonegiizhig the Elder in the Early Treaty Period | |
4 Pride and PowerBagonegiizhigs Inheritance | |
5 The Art of DiplomacyBagonegiizhig and the Conflict of 1862 | |
Epilogue The Leadership Vacuum and Dispossession | |
Appendix A Participants in the Assassination of Bagonegiizhig | |
Appendix B Principal Figures | |
Appendix C Important Event Chronology | |
Appendix D More on LanguageThe Meaning of Ojibwe and Anishinaabe | |
Acknowledgments | |
Notes | |
Bibliography | |