“Les Sçioux n’étoient bons qu’à manger”: La Colle and the Anishinaabeg-Dakota War, 1730–1742

La Colle was an influential Anishinaabe ogimaa (leader) and mayosewinini (war chief) who led the Monsoni (moose) doodem (clan) in the Rainy Lake region during the 1730s and 1740s. A biographical study of La Colle not only restores an individual Indigenous voice to the tapestry of Native North America but also provides insight into a conflict between the Anishinaabeg, Nêhiyawak (Crees), Nakoda (Assiniboines), and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Dakota, Yankton, Yanktonai, and Lakota) that took place in the borderlands between Lake Superior and the Upper Missouri Valley. Ultimately, the conflict saw the beginning of a considerable reorientation of Indigenous geopolitics west of Lake Superior, which were, in part, driven by the actions of a cunning political and military leader—La Colle. By uniting Anishinaabeg, Nêhiyawak, and Nakoda into a coalition powerful enough to challenge the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, La Colle made one of the most significant bids for power in eighteenth-century North America, one that eventually reconfigured the political, demographic, and environmental landscapes of the Northwest.

Solidago gigantea (giant goldenrod).

S. gigantea has spread in a number of European countries after introduction as an ornamental plant from its native North America. It continues to be available as an ornamental from mail-order catalogues and web-sites of commercial nurseries and botanical gardens. Morita (2002) indicates that S. gigantea is less noxious than S. altissima, but it is an undesirable invader on account of its large rhizomes and vigorous growth leading to gross changes in the native vegetation and fauna. S. gigantea is not a serious weed in annual crops since it can be controlled by tilling. However, it invades poorly managed pasture and can be a considerable weed in forest nurseries and in perennial gardens and crops.

Longing for evidence-based traditions

In Native North America, clinical/healing spaces are caught up in political struggles for autonomy. In Canada’s Northwest Territories, where rates of alcohol consumption are substantially higher than national averages, there are ongoing attempts to align therapeutic practice with traditional Aboriginal modes of healing and well-being. This Think Piece traces the ‘therapeutic trajectory’ of alcohol treatment in and out of this subarctic region. I show how the language of ‘evidence-based practice’ affords both gains and losses with regard to the assertion of collective identity and values vis-à-vis the state. Against the backdrop of the closure of the region’s sole residential treatment program, I contrast a conversation with a clinician responsible for implementing culture-based programs with the experiences of Destiny, a young Dene woman who, in the absence of local treatment options, spends time in clinics some one thousand kilometers away from her home community. In her movements away from the place to which she is indigenous, Destiny activates different forms of Aboriginal care than those intended by state and community actors. These divergent perspectives speak to the enmeshment of addiction with the perils and politics of liberal forms of recognition.