‘The Sound of The Rustling of The Gold is Under My Feet Where I Stand’: Mineral Rights and Responsibilities in Anishinaabe and Settler Gold Rush Narratives

My paper focuses on claims about mineral rights and responsibilities in Anishinaabe and settler narratives of gold mining around the Great Lakes in the 19th and early 20th centuries. As Treaties were negotiated on both sides of the colonially imposed border, mineral rights were always under discussion. Gold-seekers, including geologists, surveyors, and even missionaries, sought mineral rights sanctioned by cosmologies of land that valued gold on the terms of capitalist profit and by way of providential claims rooted in Christian theologies. They were challenged by Anishinaabe leaders such as Mawedopenais, quoted in my title, who played a key role in the 1870s negotiations for Treaty #3 in what is now called northwestern Ontario. Examining Anishinaabe-settler exchanges reveals anew how Anishinaabeg claimed spiritual jurisdiction given to them by the Creator when challenging settler-colonial claims to mineral rights and the right to extraction.