Latest news with #FirstNationsWisconsin
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Yahoo
False sightings, hoaxes plague search for missing Ojibwe woman in northern Wisconsin
Tribal police in northern Wisconsin have been frustrated in their efforts to find a missing Ojibwe woman, Melissa Beson. Lac du Flambeau Ojibwe Police Chief TJ Bill said in a statement that police have been following up on numerous leads, including on the reservation and in the Wausau area, only to learn they are false sightings or hoaxes. Beson, 37, was last seen March 17 near Indian Village Road and Chequamegon Forest Trail on the Lac du Flambeau Reservation within Vilas County. She was wearing red sweatpants, a black sleeveless shirt and a gray sweatshirt. She is 5'7' with a medium build, brown hair, brown eyes and has numerous tattoos, including on her neck, arms and legs. Beson was reported missing by her family members on March 23. Bill said that police and tribal officials have searched more than 1,300 acres of forested reservation land, much of which is extremely treacherous terrain. He said the tribe's emergency management director nearly lost her life during one of the searches in a floating bog area. Bill said police have not requested untrained volunteers in the search because of the dangerous terrain. He said Beson's family members have not given up hope that she will be found safe. Bill said it has been suggested that Beson is 'hiding out' somewhere for some reason and is afraid to come back to Lac du Flambeau. If that's the case, he said, he has a message: 'Melissa, please know that you are not in trouble. We are not going to arrest you or take you to jail. All anyone wants is for you to come home. Your family is frantic and the entire community is worried about you. There will be relief and much happiness upon your return. We all know that it was not your intent to cause such concern and worry." Sign up for the First Nations Wisconsin newsletter Click here to get all of our Indigenous news coverage right in your inbox Frank Vaisvilas is a former Report for America corps member who covers Native American issues in Wisconsin based at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact him at fvaisvilas@ or 815-260-2262. Follow him on Twitter at @vaisvilas_frank. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Hoaxes plague search for missing Ojibwe woman in northern Wisconsin
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Recount ordered in tight race involving tribal member running to lead non-tribal town
A recount is scheduled for Saturday in a tight race involving a Lac du Flambeau tribal member who ran to lead a non-tribal town caught in a well-known road dispute with the tribe. Stephanie Minisinookwe Thompson requested a recount of the votes for chairperson of the town of Lac du Flambeau. Unofficially, Thompson is down by just seven votes, 583 to 590, against incumbent Matthew Gaulke. The use of four roads — Elsie Lake Lane, Center Sugarbush Land, Ross Allen Lake Lane and Annie Sunn Lane — by non-tribal members on the reservation has divided the community. It also appears to have brought a record number of voters to the polls, doubling the town's turnout for last year's presidential election. 'I'm beyond proud of my community for showing up to vote in record numbers,' Thompson said. 'Regardless of the outcome, this election demonstrates our community's growing engagement and commitment to local politics.' Even if election results are confirmed, a tribal member won election to the town's board of supervisors. Raymond Wildcat is an LDF tribal member and Thompson's work partner as paramedic. He won with the most votes of any candidate with 693. Thompson said another person, Bob Hanson, who won with the second most votes for town board supervisor at 614, is non-tribal, but an ally to the tribe and well-respected by tribal members. Two others who won seats, Stephanie Greeneway and Dennis Pearson, are non-tribal homeowners within the reservation whose properties have been impacted by the roads dispute. The conflict started in January 2023 when tribal officials barricaded the four roads. Tribal President John Johnson Sr. stated that the roads were built illegally decades ago and leases for non-tribal citizens to use them had expired long ago. He said tribal requests to renegotiate the leases were ignored. Tribal officials removed the barricades later that year after an agreement was reached with the town to pay a fee to keep them open while a more permanent solution was negotiated. The tribe threatened to barricade the roads again this year when those payments from the town stopped. However, a federal judge ordered the roads to remain open during pending litigation. The issue has made national news and prompted top elected officials in the state to call for some kind of resolution. Gaulke did not return requests for comment. More: As Lac du Flambeau road dispute drags on, latest threat is to ticket non-tribal drivers Sign up for the First Nations Wisconsin newsletter Click here to get all of our Indigenous news coverage right in your inbox Frank Vaisvilas is a former Report for America corps member who covers Native American issues in Wisconsin based at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Contact him at fvaisvilas@ or 815-260-2262. Follow him on Twitter at @vaisvilas_frank. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: The non-tribal town board of Lac du Flambeau remains divided
USA Today
05-02-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
Landowners against tribal sovereignty over land may not find ally in Trump team
Boozhoo ("hello" in Ojibwe) and miigwech ("thank you") for reading the First Nations Wisconsin newsletter. If certain lawmakers in Wisconsin were looking to the Trump Administration to help resolve land disputes with tribes on reservations in favor of non-tribal entities, they may be disappointed given recent actions from the White House. President Trump's recently confirmed pick for the Secretary of the Interior, Doug Burgum, is considered by many tribal leaders as a friend to Indian Country. The department's responsibilities include fulfilling the federal government's trust responsibilities to Indigenous tribal nations with the U.S. It also oversees the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is responsible for moving land into a federal trust for the benefit of sovereign tribes removing that land from local non-tribal control and taxes. Burgum, who stepped down as the governor of North Dakota to serve in the role, replaces Deb Haaland, the first Native American to head the department. Standing Rock Sioux Chairwoman Janet Alkire, whose reservation is located in the Dakotas, said she fully supports Burgum as the secretary because he has had a good relationship with tribes in North Dakota. 'I trust that Governor Burgum will serve Indian Country well as the nominee for the position of Secretary of the Department of Interior because of his knowledge and support of tribal sovereignty,' Alkire said in her address to the North Dakota Legislature on Jan. 7. Village of Hobart Trustee Vanya Koepke recently posted on social media pleading with President Trump to help resolve a dispute over the use of four roads on the Lac du Flambeau Reservation. Tribal officials said the roads were built illegally on tribal land and their requests to renew the leases for use by non-tribal members were ignored more than a decade. Hobart is located just west of Green Bay and faces its own land disputes with another tribe, the Oneida Nation, because it sits almost entirely within that tribe's reservation boundaries. Hobart officials have been arguing against the sovereignty of the tribe in federal court cases for more than 20 years as the tribe continues to reclaim reservation land that was promised to it through treaty with the federal government. With both Hobart and Lac du Flambeau, federal courts have upheld the sovereignty of the tribes, and that doesn't appear likely to change under Burgum and the Trump administration. There's also the Trump Administration's recent announcement of its intent to support federal recognition for the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina, indicating it's open to even more U.S. land being transferred to sovereign tribal control. If you like this newsletter, please invite a friend to subscribe to it. And if you have tips or suggestions for this newsletter, please email me at fvaisvilas@ About me I'm Frank Vaisvilas, the Indigenous affairs reporter for USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin based at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. I cover Native American issues in Wisconsin. You can reach me at 815-260-2262 or fvaisvilas@ or on Twitter at @vaisvilas_frank.
USA Today
28-01-2025
- Politics
- USA Today
President Jackson: A villain to Indigenous peoples and hero to President Trump
President Jackson: A villain to Indigenous peoples and hero to President Trump Shekóli ('hello' in Oneida) and yaw^ko ('thank you') for reading the First Nations Wisconsin newsletter. As he did in his last term, President Trump hung a portrait of his presidential hero, Andrew Jackson, prominently in the Oval Office. Trump has expressed admiration of Jackson for his populist style of politics. Jackson served as the nation's seventh president from 1829 to 1837. Trump also said Jackson was the most politically attacked president before him, weathering all of it and still emerging triumphant. In Indian Country, Jackson is seen by Indigenous peoples as probably the most villainous of all past U.S. presidents. He enacted and enforced the Indian Removal Act forcing Indigenous peoples from their lands east of the Mississippi River to make room for slave plantations. And when Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that the government had no right and no enforcement power in Cherokee Nation lands in Georgia, Jackson ignored the ruling and said: 'John Marshall has made his decision. Now, let him enforce it.' The quote is apocryphal but sums up Jackson's belief that the Indigenous population was an obstacle to American success, an violence against tribes was preferable to friendship. The ensuing forced removal became know as the Trail of Tears in which many Indigenous people, including children, died on the forced march by foot to Oklahoma. 'That those tribes cannot exist surrounded by our settlements and in continual contact with our citizens is certain,' Jackson said about Indigenous peoples. 'Established in the midst of another and superior race, and without appreciating the causes of their inferiority or seeking to control them, they must necessarily yield to the force of circumstances and ere long disappear.' If you like this newsletter, please invite a friend to subscribe to it. And if you have tips or suggestions for this newsletter, please email me at fvaisvilas@ About me I'm Frank Vaisvilas, the Indigenous affairs reporter for USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin based at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. I cover Native American issues in Wisconsin. You can reach me at 815-260-2262 or fvaisvilas@ or on Twitter at @vaisvilas_frank.
