Administrative headquarters Cass Lake, Minnesota | Enrolled membership 40,677 | |
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Type Tribal governmental authority | ||
The Minnesota Chippewa Tribe (MCT) is the centralized governmental authority for six Chippewa (Ojibwe or Anishinaabe) bands in the U.S. state of Minnesota. The tribe was created on June 18, 1934; the organization and its constitution were recognized by the Secretary of the Interior on July 24, 1936.
Contents
Governmental powers are divided between the tribe, which provides many administrative services, and the individual bands, which directly operate their reservations. The bands that make up the tribe are:
As of July 2003, the six bands have 40,677 enrolled members. The White Earth Band is the largest, which had more than 19,000 members. According to the 2010 US Census, the Leech Lake Band had 10,660 residents living on its reservation, the most of any single reservation in the state.
Notably, the Red Lake Band of Chippewa is not part of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe. In 1934 it declined to participate, as its citizens did not want to give up the band's system of hereditary chiefs. The Red Lake Band developed its constitution in the 1950s, electing its first chairman in 1959.
Mission and Goal
Through unified leadership, Minnesota Chippewa Tribe promotes and protects the member Bands while providing quality services and technical assistance to the reservation governments and tribal people.
The Preamble of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe states that the six member reservations of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe come together, "in order to form a representative Chippewa Tribal organization, maintain and establish justice for our Tribe and to conserve and develop our Tribal resources and common property; and to promote the general welfare of ourselves and descendants.”
Ni-Mah-Mah-Wi-No-Min (Nimaamawiinomin): We Come Together
Services
The Minnesota Chippewa Tribe provides basic services to each of its six-member Bands, unless the individual Band has signed a compact to provide these services themselves. The services are provided through their offices located in Cass Lake, Minnesota.