Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians
The Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians (Ojibwe language: Mikinaakwajiw-ininiwag) is a federally recognized Native American tribe of Ojibwe based on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in Belcourt, North Dakota. The tribe has 30,000 enrolled members. A population of 5,815 reside on the main reservation and another 2,516 reside on off-reservation trust land (as of the 2000 census).[1]
Jamie Azure was appointed chairman in 2017 replacing acting chairman Robert Marcellais after the removal of chairman Wayne Keplin for theft of funds. Jaime Azure was elected for both 2018–2020 and 2020–2022 terms.
Bands[edit]
As the fur trade dwindled, many of the bands from the Red, Rainy, Leech and Sandy Lakes areas who had settled near the Post, drifted back into Minnesota and North Dakota. One band, the Mikinak-wastsha-anishinabe, established their community in the Turtle Mountains.[21] In an 1849 letter, Canadian Catholic priest, Father Belcourt, described the people of the Pembina Territory in 1849 as being from Red Lake, Reed Lake, Pembina, and Turtle Mountain bands, mixed with biracial Métis, who he said far outnumbered those of majority Chippewa ancestry.[22]
In 2003 a United States court ruled that the Little Shell Band of Chippewa Indians (of Montana) is a separate tribe, in keeping with their documentation: this band had developed independently and created a separate government since the 1890s and relocation to Montana.[23] The courts have recognized three independent units claiming the name Chippewa, and several unassociated members of that band.[24] This case refers to cases of the Indian Claims Commission and United States Court of Claims, which can no longer be found online at their original sources, as the cases are old.[25]
Economy[edit]
The tribe has founded the Turtle Mountain Community College, a two-year college that is one of numerous tribal colleges established by tribes in the United States.
The tribe has established online, short-term installment loans as a business to serve underbanked Americans. The business has brought new employment opportunities and has generated financial support for other tribal business ventures and social programs for the reservation.[26] The tribe established BlueChip Financial in 2012, which is based on the reservation in Belcourt, North Dakota. It employs more than two dozen enrolled tribal members. BlueChip Financial is doing business under the Spotloan.com brand. Since launch, the company has made 250,000 loans.
Other tribes that have also set up programs of online short-term lending include the Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake,[27] the Otoe-Missouria Tribe,[28] the Chippewa Cree Tribe,[29] the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma, the Fort Belknap Indian Community in Montana,[30] and the Santee Sioux Nation of Nebraska.[31]
The Native American Financial Services Association (NAFSA) says, “Tribal online lending provides a critical economic lifeline for sovereign tribes in remote areas, whether or not they engage in tribal government gaming. While many out-of-the-way tribal communities have developed gaming facilities as a way to create jobs and generate essential government revenues, remote reservations and gaming properties have been more severely impacted by the economic downturn."[32]
There is high unemployment and poverty rates within the tribes and according to U.S. News & World Report and Pew Research “more than 1 in 4 native people live in poverty[33] and labor force participation rate – which measures the share of adults either working or looking for a job – is 61.6 percent, the lowest for all race and ethnicity groups.”[34]
Delvin Cree, a writer with The Tribal Independent, criticized such tribal lending in an opinion piece published on Indianz.com in February 2012, describing it as predatory lending.[35] On the other hand, The Wall Street Journal and other publications have written about how tribal online lending programs have generated funds for much-needed economic development to tribes without many other economic development opportunities.[36]
Chairperson Sherry Treppa of the Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake testified before the US House Committee on Financial Services regarding tribal online small dollar lending programs becoming a vital part of many tribes’ economic development strategies, saying that they provided much-needed jobs and revenue. She also argued that attempts to regulate tribes engaging in online lending is an attack on state and tribal sovereignty.[27]
In addressing tribal sovereignty and the relationship with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Saba Bazzazieh argues that “the bureau has disregarded tribal sovereignty since its creation, the problem has recently reached an all-time high.” Additionally, “the bureau has demonstrated a patent misunderstanding of what tribal sovereignty actually means in practice, including the fundamentally important issue of preemption of state law.”[37][38]
In 2016, Gavin Clarkson wrote an analysis on the law and economics of tribal online lending programs, finding that the programs were lawful. Its title is "Online Sovereignty: The Law and Economics of Tribal Electronic Commerce.”[39] In this analysis Clarkson also identified ways in which lending has supported the tribal economies to include employment, infrastructure, education, healthcare, tribal services and social services. He notes that “many tribes participating in tribal lending have few other options in the wake of federal funding shortfalls and shrinking tribal budgets.”[39]