Summary
“Beaver Island Band” is the name used by the 1855 Treaty of Detroit for the Anishinaabe group associated with High Island and Garden Island. The 1836 Treaty of Washington uses the related phrase “Beaver-island Indians” for a five-year reservation of the Beaver islands and names Kainwaybekis and Pazhikwaywitum in its schedule.
This article models the treaty-era label because it is a real legal actor in the held documents. It does not identify the band’s members, assign a modern ethnonym, or equate it with a present-day tribal government. Those would require Indigenous-authored, tribal, genealogical, and legal sources not yet held here.
Open questions
- What Indigenous names and political identities did the people called the Beaver Island Band use for themselves?
- How should the treaty-era band be related, if at all, to the present-day Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians and Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians?
- What sources document continuity, reorganization, or changes in island residence after the treaties?
Sources
- Treaty with the Ottawa, etc., 28 March 1836, 7 Stat. 491, Article Third and schedule.The treaty reserves the Beaver islands of Lake Michigan for the “Beaver-island Indians” for five years and names Kainwaybekis and Pazhikwaywitum in its schedule. The treaty wording is retained as a historical label, not silently converted into a modern ethnonym.web · treaty_1836_washington
- Treaty with the Ottawa and Chippewa, 31 July 1855, 11 Stat. 621, Article First.Article First schedules “For the Beaver Island Band—High Island, and Garden Island.” This is the clearest held legal attestation of the phrase “Beaver Island Band.”web · treaty_1855_detroit
- Beaver Island knowledge-base theme, *Anishinaabe presence in the archipelago*.Project synthesis preserves the distinction between treaty language, settler descriptions, and present-day tribal governments; it does not infer that the treaty-era label is identical to LTBB or GTB.kb · articles · themes · anishinaabe-presence