Treaty right protesters charged

[Lee Borgersen]

    Treaty rights protesters charged

 Jan 7, 2016    at 7:01 p.m.







 

 










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Authorities charged American Indian treaty rights activists late last month in connection to a protest last summer, giving them a pathway through the court case to assert their purported right to harvest on ceded territory.
 



 



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In documents filed Dec. 30, three men and one woman were charged by the Crow Wing County Attorney's office in relation to a protest on Gull Lake on Aug. 28. The protest intended to claim modern-day gathering rights in territory the Anishinaabe ceded to the U.S. government in the 1800s, on the grounds those rights were granted to the Indians through treaties.

James Northrup, 47, and Todd Thompson, 46, were each charged with gross misdemeanor using a gill net to take fish, as well as netting fish without a license, operating an unregistered boat, and operating a boat without a life jacket, which are all misdemeanors.


According to the complaint, DNR conservation officers saw Northrup and Thompson netting from a canoe, and refused to stop after the officers pulled up to them in their patrol boat. Instead, Northup and Thompson paddled back to shore, got out of the canoe and "disappeared into the crowd" the complaint said.

The conservation officers were "unable to locate the suspects" at first, but then Northup and Thompson approached and "confronted" them.

"They claimed they had federal treaty rights to place the net in the lake," the complaint said.

Harvey Goodsky, Jr, 26, and Morningstar Shabaiash, 29, were both charged with misdemeanor harvesting or possessing wild rice without a license.


Conservation officers pulled up to their canoe, Shabaiash and Goodsky said they didn't have a license but didn't need one because they were harvesting in the 1837 Treaty area, the complaint said.

The officers told them "they were way north" of the treaty area.

1855 Treaty Authority spokesperson and attorney Frank Bibeau said Thursday he may represent the accused activists in court, and that the Authority aimed to take the case to the federal level.

"In the long run, it's about treaty rights, and that is only between the United States of America and the Chippewa," he said. "The state's not a party to the treaty, so doing things in state court isn't very useful for us, or productive."

Bibeau said both the state and the activists wanted to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.

"We all know we're going to have to work together afterwards to co-manage those things," he said.