Spirit Lake Reservation

One of several Reservations in the State of North Dakota, the Spirit Lake Indian Reservation is one of the largest Indian Reservations in North Dakota, and has a population which does include a smaller non Indian population. It was opened up to white settlement after the illicit Dawes Act did its ugly work. It does have an Arikara, Assiniboine, Hidatsa (the Hidatsa are the Crow and are also known as the Gros Ventre which means they are partly Anishinabe) and Mandan population, along with an Anishinabe and Lakota population also. All Dakota peoples living on the Spirit Lake Reservation were once allied (subjugated) by the military of the Algonquin's or Anishinabek who are also known as the Chippewa's. That occurred during the early and mid 1700s. Spirit Lake Reservation has a total size of 495 sq. mi. The Dakota peoples and Chippewa's of the Spirit Lake region, signed a treaty in 1867 which established this Reservation. Around the same time period many of the Chippewa's and Dakotas of the Spirit Lake region, also settled down on the White Earth Reservation of northwestern Minnesota.

It is the Chippewa's (the Anishinabek or Ojibwa's) who are the famous Sioux Indians of the Great Plains. When the French commenced contact with the Lake Superior Anishinabek in the 17th century, they supposedly named them the Saulteaux. However, that information was very likely corrupted by the whites. The French really named the Chippewa's who lived along Lake Superiors eastern Shores, the Sault, after the name of a French trading post located along Lake Superiors eastern shores. The name of that French trading post was Sault Ste. Marie. Sault is pronounced identically to Sioux. The English adopted the French name for the Chippewa's but used it to identify the plains Chippewa's. In Canada, the Sault was eventually changed to Saulteaux which is pronounced like "soe-toe." After the Reservation was established and Indian children were forced to go to white Christian schools, the whites eventually forced the Chippewa's living on the Spirit Lake Reservation, to lose their Chippewa Tribal identity. The same occurred to the Dakotas including Winnebagos, living on the White Earth Reservation of Minnesota. Whites make up around 25% of the Reservations population. Whites also own (184,451 acres of the 316,800 total acres this Reservation covers) most of the Reservations land. Below are the demographics of this Reservation. Average household size for the Spirit Lake Reservation is 3.6 persons per housing unit. There is a total of 1,254 housing units on the Reservation, with renter occupied units numbering 530, while owner occupied units number 724.