Anton Troyer

government, for its part, was more than happy to have just one single Ojibwe leader to negotiate with.

Hole in the Day plays a heavy hand, and he was very, very effective.

But the game was rigged.

He had just come from Washington, D.C.

It was 1868.

The previous year, Hole in the Day had negotiated another very controversial treaty that was trying to consolidate all Ojibwe people onto one single reservation.

It was a hard deal to swallow.

He had some really telling things that he told his people.

He said, look, these are heartbreaking times for our people.

At the time, westward migration was at a fever pitch.

The government had just purchased Alaska, and the idea of Manifest Destiny, the God-given right of white Americans to expand across the entire continent, was being realized.

Holnaday saw all this and adapted his strategies.

He told his people, I would love to say that there's a way to get all the white people to leave us alone and to leave our lands and let us live as we always have.

But I don't think there's a way to go back in time.

But there is a way forward.

And so he said, I want them to build a house for every single one of you.

I want them to build a grist mill and a sawmill so that we can adopt these modern enterprises and have good homes.

And to make sure they actually got these things, Holna Day had a plan.

They would all stay put until the reservation was built.

Don't go anywhere.