Chippewa Bands Drop $300-Million Treaty Claim
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MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin officials and Chippewa leaders announced Monday that they are ending a 17-year-old legal battle over 19th-Century treaty rights.
The decision lets stand federal court rulings protecting the rights of the Chippewa to gather plants, hunt deer and spear fish on land in northern Wisconsin that was ceded to the tribe in the 1800s.
The chairmen of Wisconsin’s six Chippewa bands, representing about 12,000 members, said in a statement that court refusals of their claim of more than $300 million in damages for the loss of treaty rights for more than a century will not be appealed.
The Chippewa custom of fishing with fork-like spears soon after the ice breaks up on lakes has provoked angry protests.
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