Causes of the Battle

The keepers of Ojibwe oral tradition recount that the the Battle of Sugar Point was caused by the stealing of valuable timber from Ojibwe reservations.  The “Dead and Down Timber Act” allowed the timber men to cut down trees on Ojibwe land only if it was lying on the ground.  Stories abound, both in Ojibwe communities and in federal reports, that timber companies abused the law by setting fires on the edge of the reservation and then cutting down living timber .

According to newspapers across the country, the Battle of Sugar Point was caused by Bugonaygeshig’s resisting arrest on the charge of “bootlegging.”  Bugonaygeshig had been arrested once before on the charge of bootlegging and taken to Duluth, where he was set free for lack of evidence.  When the federal marshal in Walker, MN tried to arrest him a second time, he cried out to his people, who overwhelmed the marshals and cut Bugonaygeshig’s chains, allowing him to flee to Sugar Point. 

The _______ reported that:

The disturbance began when a United States marshal arrested two of the Indians and the others came to their rescue and took them from the marshal and his posse by force.  They then declared to the authorities that they would make laws of their own and would refuse to obey the laws of the United States.

Keepers of the oral tradition at Leech Lake remember a deeper history of Bugonaygeshig’s trouble with the marshals and a different take on who overthrew “the marshal and his posse by force”: