Logging on the Great Plains Reservations: Greed and Ignorance Masquerading in the Name of Science

Logging on the Great Plains Reservations: Greed and Ignorance Masquerading in the Name of Science

I read the article, “Logging in the Great Lakes Indian reservations” from the American Indian Culture and Research Journal, written by Steen-Adams, M.M.N.E Langston, and D.J. Mladenoff. First of all I would like to state that I really did enjoy reading something written by my professor that is directly relative to our class. I have never done this in another class and it just made me feel a more literal connection to the literature and that the one teaching it is very passionate about the subject matter. I know that there isn’t a place for this in a seminar paper but I really wanted to share this. As for the article itself, the message I got out of it was that white domination of the Ojibwa and their land allowed for total white control of the management of the forest, which unlike native management by the Ojibwa, allowed for total devastation of the forest and the Ojibwa who depended on them. I see this case study as more evidence to the trend throughout history as well as in today’s world where white dominated government came charging into a native landscape and lifestyle, and while never taking a second to step outdoors saw fit ignore the people who lived within the natural system and govern how these people used the natural resources in a way that is only beneficial to the white government.

Throughout history we have done this to the native peoples of the lands we have come to occupy, each time overriding the profound knowledge of these people of their homelands. After lying to and abusing the Ojibwa for centuries we procured control of all their land and their people. We then decided that we knew best how they should live and supposedly attempted to try and switch them to logging industry and farming. These practices were not native to the Ojibwa but, as proclaimed by the all-knowing white government, they were logging practices that were based on science....