WALLEYE WARRIORS
BY WALT BRESETTE & RICK WHALEY
Walt Bresette is a Lake Superior Chippewa from Wisconsin who
lectures throughout the United States. He and Green activist Rick
Whaley have recently completed a book about treaty rights and
spearfishing in Wisconsin. WALLEYE WARRIORS tells the story of
how an alliance of concerned people helped defuse violent
confrontations against the Chippewa of northern Wisconsin.
It is an important addition to the literature on treaty rights, civil
rights, environmental protection, and sustainable economic
development.
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INTRODUCTION: WALLEYE WARRIORS
By Walt Bresette
An obscure court ruling in early 1983 in favor of the Lake Superior
Chippewa, a Woodland Native nation in the upper Great Lakes, turned
into a violent struggle against Chippewa people and their exercise of
off-reservation harvesting rights.
This treaty rights battle garnered national and international
attention, with the media focusing on the racism and conflict of
sports versus subsistence fishing.
This is the story behind that media event that began on January 25,
1983. Beyond the headlines and symptoms of the problems, we offer
a perspective on the social, political, economic and environmental
earthquake that hit Wisconsin in the 1980s.
It is a story of various groups responding, sometimes violently, to
the court ruling and of new people responding to that violence.
It is a tale of fear, political denial, and the attempted looting of
Chippewa rights and northern Wisconsins resources. It is a tale of
vile and violent racism and of official plundering of law, with a near
Rold westS mentality overtaking Wisconsin.
And it is a tale that speaks of other violence, other stories, other
similar forces, where people and earth are victimized.
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Shipping/Handling $1.75 each P.O. Box 1350. Bayfield, WI 54814
Phone: 715-779-3687 or 779-5071
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