Bear Island: The War at Sugar Point

by Gerald Vizenor, Jace Weaver (Foreword)

Drawing on the traditional ways of Anishinaabe storytelling, acclaimed poet Gerald Vizenor illuminates the 1898 battle at Sugar Point in Minnesota in this epic poem. Fought between the Pillagers of the Leech Lake Reservation (one of the original five clans of the Anishinaabe tribe) and U.S. soldiers, the battle marked a turning point in relations between the government and Native Americans. Although out-numbered by more than three to one, the Pillager fighters won convincingly.

Weaving together strands of myth, memory, legend, and history, Bear Island lyrically conveys a historical event that has been forgotten not only by the majority culture but also by some Anishinaabe people—bringing back to light a key moment in Minnesota’s history with clarity of vision and emotional resonance.

Gerald Vizenor is professor of American studies at the University of New Mexico. He is a member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, White Earth Reservation. His previous books include The People Named the Chippewa and Griever , for which he won an American Book Award.

Jace Weaver is professor and director of the Institute of Native American Studies at the University of Georgia.

Genres: Poetry, Native American

112 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Gerald Robert Vizenor is an Anishinaabe writer and scholar, and an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, White Earth Reservation. Vizenor also taught for many years at the University of California, Berkeley, where he was Director of Native American Studies. With more than 30 books published, Vizenor is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, and Professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico.

Reviews

[Sam Orndorff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Gerald Vizenor at his finest. The poem format is a perfect vehicle for such a chance and obscured moment in Ojibwa history, when the infantry comes in to make a claim, to colonize the birch and pine forest of Leech Lake. The history comes alive with his grounded prose, which bounces along with a slightly stilted efficiency. In part I think this gives full due to the deep cultural conflict at the core of this closing era of the so called Indian Wars. Overall this book amazingly rich and readable. I savored many pages again and again.

I feel that many of the questions Vizenor poses he intentionally leaves blank, which is almost a trickster form that he often evokes. Besides that, there is a rich history on nearly every page and turn of phrase. While ‘Bear Island’ is probably not his best or even most poetic (‘Chair of Tears’ is his magnum opus in my humble opinion), he is undoubtedly one of the masters. Perhaps one of the greatest living writers the world has. Read this book and you will see why. Forever grateful that I randomly found his work on the library shelf.

[Phillip · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an epic (or mock epic) poem about the last clash in the official "Indian Wars" between the US and Indigenous nations in the late nineteenth century. The war was a rather pointless one. Bugonaygeshig ("Hole in the Day") was a leader of the Pillagers, a group of Chippewa, who refused to come a hundred miles to testify against someone illegally selling whiskey to Natives. Mainly, Bugonaygeshig refused to come because the last time he'd been brought to testify he was forced to walk all the way home. So, the Indian Agents claimed this was a rebellion and the army sent a detachment from the Third US Infantry, of about 80 men. The army captured Bugonaygeshig's house, but were surrounded by roughly 20 Pillagers. Depending on which side you believe, either a stacked rifle fell over and accidentally discharged at which point the Pillagers began shooting, or the army attacked a canoe filled with Native women who had come to plead for peace. Either way, the upshot of the battle fought over Bugonaygeshig's vegetable garden was that six soldiers, including a major, were dead and ten wounded. The only Indigenous person killed or wounded was an Indian policeman, shot by the soldiers who didn't realize he was on their side.

Vizenor presents this story through imagistic language, with very short lines (one-two words, generally) that create impressions rather than developed, informative prose. Vizenor also continually uses words like "survivance" or "storying," which link to his theory of survivance, which involves Indigenous people using stories to establish their presence and their legitimate existence on Turtle Island.
https://youtu.be/5OajMrkGgyM

[Patricia Strot · Rating 4 out of 5]

According to Wikipedia, the battle at Sugar Point was the last one between Native Americans and the US Army. Gerald Vizenor writes about it in breathtaking poetry that left me waiting for the next thing to happen. Vizenor captured both lively and lovely imagery in this piece filled with angst.

[Fredrick Danysh · Rating 3 out of 5]

In 1898 there was a short conflict between the Anishinaabe tribe of Native Americans and the Third US Infantry as the result of a failure to appear in court. The author uses poetry to tell the little known story using a handful of long poems. Everything is written in lower case which makes he poetry a little difficult to read. The story is interesting but as a retired history teacher I woulld have liked some documentation of sources for the information.