Against the tide of American history

Europeans started arriving, among them French, British and American fur traders. Some European colonists stayed and began to compete with the Mille Lacs Band for resources and to encroach on their land. Such settlers continued to violate the treaties and agreements which the Mille Lacs Band made with the United States and British representatives over the decades. The Ojibwe also suffered because of new infectious diseases, which killed many. By the end of the nineteenth century, only a few hundred Ojibwe remained on the Mille Lacs Indian Reservation. At that time, pressing for assimilation, the United States government prohibited the Ojibwe from practicing their religion (many had converted to Catholicism but still combined it with traditional prayers and rituals), tried to have their children sent to boarding schools at which they were forced to learn and speak English, and virtually denied their right to govern themselves. Their traditional way of life was nearly impossible to follow. ..."--Frp, Wikipedia, Jan. 2013.