大象传媒

Shanai Matteson, a 39-year-old White settler, sat in the stuffy overflow room watching the packed Public Utility Commission meeting, along with more than a hundred others, in St. Paul, Minnesota, in June 2018. Over several hours, she listened as dozens of people鈥擭ative elders, local landowners, and young people concerned about their futures鈥攖estified against the Line 3 tar sands pipeline, urging the commission to deny the project a key permit. She listened, too, as Enbridge workers, bused in by the company, voiced their support for the pipeline.

Matteson remembers the collective dismay and anger in the room as the five-person board approved Enbridge鈥檚 permit request. She also remembers what happened next: Tania Aubid, a member of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, stood up and told the commissioners that they had just declared war on the Ojibwe people. 

Outside of the conference hall, organizers held a rally. Matteson listened as Winona LaDuke, a member of the White Earth Nation and executive director of the nonprofit Honor the Earth, spoke alongside several youth interveners鈥攖eenagers who were suing to stop the pipeline in court. Listening to their words, Matteson was moved by their unwavering dedication鈥晅o the land, water, and climate, but also to upholding the treaty agreements, which were being violated by this pipeline project.

Only by confronting the context of the U.S.鈥檚 settler-colonial history can settlers begin to reckon with their personal identity as treaty people. 

After the news conference, Matteson packed her two young children into the car. They drove for nearly three hours before reaching a part of the land where the Mississippi starts to widen into one of the nation鈥檚 most storied rivers. It was a place she knew well. Matteson鈥檚 family had lived in the area for five generations, ever since her great-great-grandfather, Amasa, settled a homestead and opened a small sawmill on 1855 Treaty land. She鈥檇 grown up in the nearby town of Palisade, Minnesota, population 150.

Here was where Enbridge planned to drill the Line 3 pipeline under the Mississippi.

Standing on the riverbank that night, Matteson made a pledge to do everything she could to uphold the treaties and to stop Line 3. 鈥淚 remember that day, saying to myself 鈥業 am making a commitment to this fight,鈥� 鈥� Matteson recalls. 

Defending Treaty Rights: From the Salish Sea to Line 3

On July 25, a Lummi Nation-carved totem pole will pass through the Mississippi Headwaters, under which Enbridge plans to drill the Line 3 pipeline. It鈥檚 part of a 1,500-mile journey from the Salish Sea in the Pacific Northwest through numerous Indigenous sacred sites, including Bears Ears in the Southwest and Standing Rock in the Midwest, en route to Washington, D.C. The totem pole is intended to invite Native and non-Native people to connect with the idea of broken treaties and the ongoing efforts to honor them, especially when treaty rights come into conflict with extractive capitalism.

Putting a hand on the totem pole, as people are invited to do at each sacred site event stop, one can鈥檛 help but feel a sense of awe for the many stories, hopes, and prayers it carries鈥攁nd to offer their own. The 24-foot pole, hauled on a trailer behind a pickup, bears images that tell stories of the present-day struggles faced by Indigenous communities鈥攊ncluding the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women, the crisis of children held in cages at the U.S.-Mexico border, and the work of language revitalization. One carving is a grandmother with seven tears, using culture to teach her granddaughter how to turn trauma into wisdom. The totem pole aims to serve as 鈥渁 reminder of the promises that were made to the first peoples of this land and waters,鈥� Lummi master carver Jewell James told . 

Once you know the true history, you can learn from it, and become wise from it.

These promises were made in the form of nation-to-nation treaty agreements, recognized in the U.S. Constitution as 鈥渢he supreme law of the land.鈥� For non-Native individuals residing in the U.S., treaty rights are still the legal mechanism giving people the right to live on ceded tribal land. Put another way, if settlers (like the two of us writing this piece) are not actively holding up their end of the deal, then they forfeit the right to be here.

In exchange, the U.S. government promised tribes services, such as health care, education, and housing鈥攁nd in many cases, treaties reserved the right for Native people to hunt and fish within their traditional territory. Instead, the reality has been a history of genocidal massacres, forced displacement, brutal residential schools, the outlawing of language, religion, and culture, and broken treaty obligations. Only by confronting the context of the U.S.鈥檚 settler-colonial history can settlers begin to reckon with their personal identity as treaty people. 

鈥淧art of what鈥檚 so wonderful about the pole is how it invites people to learn about the treaty, and to learn about the true history of this country,鈥� says Lummi tribal fisher and treaty advocate Ellie Kinley, co-founder of Sacred Sea, a Indigenous-led nonprofit whose mission is to defend Lummi sovereignty and treaty rights and promote Indigenous stewardship of the Salish Sea.

鈥淥nce you know the true history, you can learn from it, and become wise from it.鈥�

鈥淲e Are All Treaty People鈥�

On June 7, 2021, about 2,000 people attended Treaty People Gathering, a mass Line 3 protest in rural northern Minnesota. At one of two actions that happened that day, more than 1,000 people marched to a part of the Mississippi where the pipeline is slated to be drilled; at the other action, hundreds risked arrest (and more than 200 were arrested) shutting down an Enbridge work station for the day. 

鈥淲e Are All Treaty People鈥� was one of the gathering鈥檚 main rallying cries. They are words that Matteson has thought seriously about since that night at the Commission hearing.  

In 2020, after two decades living and working in Minneapolis, Matteson moved her family back to Palisade. She quickly got involved with the , a cultural camp supporting people standing with the Ojibwe opposing Line 3. She is now close friends with Tania Aubid, the founder of the camp and the Ojibwe woman who informed the PUC commissioners that Line 3 was an act of war upon her people. The women鈥檚 friendship has given them both the strength to do more. In early 2021, they embarked on a hunger strike together. To bring attention to the fight to stop the pipeline, Matteson went 21 days without food; Aubid went 38.

When asked why she moved with her two young children to the Welcome Water Protector Center, Matteson is clear that protecting the water and the climate were reasons, but so too was ensuring that her government upholds its side of the treaties. 

The treaties are not just a concern for Indigenous people.

鈥淚鈥檝e been reminded by so many Indigenous people that the treaties are not just a concern for Indigenous people,鈥� she says, golden light falling between the trees at camp. 鈥淭hey were entered into by the U.S. government, and as citizens, we have a responsibility to ensure our government honors that law.鈥�

Over the course of the 19th century, the Red Lake Nation, the White Earth Nation, and the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe signed treaties with the U.S. government鈥攖reaties that granted rights to U.S. citizens and reserved rights for tribal members. In recent years, tribal attorneys have argued that Line 3 would infringe upon those treaty-protected rights, including the right to cultivate and harvest wild rice鈥�manoomin in the Ojibwe language鈥晈hich is regarded as a sacred species and is a vital source of sustenance for local tribal members. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a perpetuation of cultural genocide,鈥� founder of Line 3 resistance group, , Tara Houska told , describing the impact Line 3 would have on manoomin.   

It has been a long road for the tribal attorneys, a road made more complicated by the fact that some Native-owned and two other Ojibwe nations . Most recently, on June 14, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled against the tribes, finding that Enbridge had appropriately demonstrated that there was a need for the pipeline. There are, however, reasons to believe the Tribes鈥� case will fare better in a case at federal court, where it is to be heard in the coming months. In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the favor of treaty rights in high-profile .

But as the case makes its way slowly through the federal court system, the fight for treaty rights is playing out on its own timeline in the woods of rural Minnesota.

Before Line 3 was anywhere near the edge of the great Mississippi, Aubid and Winona LaDuke built a waaginogaaning, a traditional Ojibwe prayer lodge, on the banks of the river, in the exact spot where Line 3 was slated to be drilled under its waters. Earlier this year, in the depths of the Minnesota winter, Enbridge workers appeared on site, nailing 鈥淣o Trespassing鈥� signs to trees.
   
The workers informed Aubid and LaDuke that they were trespassing on Enbridge property. 

鈥淣o, you鈥檙e trespassing,鈥� Aubid replied.
   
When the workers returned with law enforcement, Aubid handed the police officer a copy of the 1855 Treaty Authority letter, informing them of her legal, treaty-protected right to practice her religion there. The police and the Enbridge workers left Aubid in her prayer lodge soon after, but nobody expected Enbridge to stay away for long.

They didn鈥檛. In July 2021, Enbridge drilled under the river, despite Aubid, Matteson, LaDuke, and others to try and stop them.

The prayer lodge still stands in the path of the pipeline, and dozens more people have joined the Welcome Water Protector Center as the fight against the pipeline is reaching a boiling point. Since December alone, nearly 600 people have been arrested for actions related to stopping the construction of Line 3 and tens of thousands more have marched, intervene, and funding the pipeline.
   
Aubid is clear on what she hopes will happen next. 鈥淲e鈥檇 like more people to come here,鈥� she says. 鈥淲e鈥檇 like people to help us protect the lands, protect the waters, and to do what they can to uphold their side of the treaties.鈥� 

Later, as we walk beside the languorous waters of the Mississippi, Matteson reminds us of the importance of settlers upholding the treaties. 鈥淭his isn鈥檛 history,鈥� she says. 鈥淭his is happening here. It is happening now.鈥�

CORRECTION: This article was updated at 5:26p.m. on July 20,2021, to reflect the current state of the drilling. Read our corrections policy here.