The 24th of April, 1905, was set as the date on which the white, Norway and other valuable pine tracts would be allotted to the Indians of White Earth. The word was passed throughout the reservation, and the French-Canadians, who are there in considerable numbers and most of whom show very slight trace of Indian blood, were the first to appear. Educated mixed-blood Indians also arrived some days previous. A line was formed near the United States Government building door some time Saturday afternoon. The allotting was to begin Monday morning. It is interesting to note that first in the line was Margaret Lynch, a young white girl, whose father and mother were white people, and who, the Indians properly maintained, had no right to an allotment. The girl received allotment number one, for which her father refused $22,000 cash the next day.
The Agent at this time was Simon Michelet. He was possessed of a violent temper, according to the sworn testimony of a policeman employed at the White Earth Agency for nearly ten years. Michelet was friendly with Gus H. Beaulieu, the Nichols-Chisolm Lumber Company and others who were equally interested in obtaining timber from the White Earth Indians. It was bad form, to say the least, for the United States Agent to use his office at this time to hold long conferences with the representatives of the lumber companies.
What was said behind the closed doors no one knows, but what occurred at the time of the allotting sheds a little light on the situation. The chief clerk of agent Michelet was one J. T. Van Metre. As he resigned his position after the timber was allotted and entered the real estate business, this added another complication to the already confused affairs at White Earth.
During the allotting of the pine timber there was such confusion, the line became broken and many people lost their places. My two investigations on the reservation, covering nearly seventeen weeks, lead me to believe that the most valuable tracts were selected in advance, and that the names of those who were to have them were entered on a list for use at the allotment.
In support of this contention is the affidavit of Robert Henry, sworn to September 24th, 1909, who came early to White Earth at the time of the allotment and passed into the agent’s office shortly after the allotting began. He held in his hand descriptions of forty or fifty different pine tracts, and yet was told that all had been selected and he could not have a good pine allotment. Not enough people preceded Henry to have drawn each of these allotments. The same is true of a woman who had in her hand fifty descriptions, and she was told that all of these had been selected. It early in the day became evident that the full-bloods were, if possible, to be kept from getting any land, for by the Clapp amendment only the mixed-bloods could sell their land.
Early in the day when the full-blood Indians were clamoring for recognition and insisting that the French-Canadians and white people be kept back, John St. Luke, the policeman, testifying under oath, September 24th, 1909, says: “Agent Simon Michelet came out of his office in an excited manner, and told me to keep the Indians out and let the mixed-bloods in. There seemed to be confusion in the line. Michelet pushed some of these Indians back, swearing at them, and told me to club them if necessary, to keep them from crowding in.” St. Luke refused to do this.
At last the full-bloods registered a protest, some of the Indians sent for their guns, and things took on a serious aspect. Presently by way of compromise it was agreed that for every mixed-blood that received a pine allotment a full-blood should also obtain one. This continued until all of the twenty or more miles of pine timber had been allotted in tracts of eighty acres each to the Indians.
OJIBWA CHIEF, KE-WAY-DIN, PINE POINT, WHITE EARTH RESERVATION, MINNESOTA, 1909
The pine timber allotted these Indians ranged all the way from tracts worth $2,000 or $3,000 to those valued as high as $25,000. Since the lands were allotted, iron ore has been found in quantities under certain parts of the reservation. How extensive are these bodies, no man may know, and the value might be a few millions, or many hundreds of millions.