- This topic has 10 replies, 2 voices, and was last updated 5 months, 3 weeks ago by
.
-
Posts
-
-
We discover how Cork lost his position as sheriff through a flashback. How might you have reacted if you were in Cork’s shoes during the conflict over water and fishing rights? What would you have done differently?
-
This is very difficult to answer. Cork, being both Anishinaabe and White, can see why it’s an upsetting situation to both sides of the conflict. But it’s not something, I think, Cork could resolve all by himself because it involves more than just fishing and water rights. It involves the treaty, human rights, and all the politics and history behind that. The restitution owed to the Anishinaabe has not been resolved, nor are they getting the respect owed them from the government.
I think Cork has a wise (and sadly cynical) view of the situation when he asks Blackwater and the others not to march. “…it’s always The People who suffer in the end, regardless of right.” He asks them to hold off until they’ve negotiated a settlement but they choose not to, so he can’t predict the outcome nor guarantee their safety. At this point, how Cork thinks about it (and how WKK writes it) is they are all being swept along “toward some inevitability.”
Arnold Stanley completely acted out of fear and was a wildcard. I’m not sure Cork could have prepared for the shooting at all other than to have a lot more deputies on hand and to have a wider perimeter, but even then there would not have been any guarantee.
-
There was absolutely a feeling of inevitability in this entire situation.
-
-
It feels presumptuous to respond to this question to me, like I am Monday morning quarterbacking a coach in a game I have never played and whose rules and strategies I have zero knowledge of (and that is a pretty accurate summary of my knowledge of football, too). But, if Cork asked for my advice, this is what I would suggest. “Consider having one of your deputies command the operation when the Anishanaabe arrive to begin fishing. This is too personal for you. Most of the Anishanaabe have pilloried you for even mentioning your oath to uphold the law and consider you insufficiently respectful of The People. Your wife echoes them, “You’re divided, I’m not.” You have created a careful plan. You have obtained the Anishanaabe’s commitment to follow it. You have established a team of trained law enforcement officers. Walk with the Anishanaabe fishermen and let one of your officers call the shots. It is not an abdication of your leadership to do that.” I don’t think Cork would ask for advice or step back, seeing that as a failure on his part, but that is the only thing I think that may have made a difference.
-
My takes is similar, except I think they needed outside help because they were too close to it, and I’m not sure it would have been any better. William Kent Krueger cleverly crafts no-win situations that can occur when conflict
Comes with baggage and flared tempers.-
Definitely agree.
-
-
I might have tried to escalate my concerns to the state level to see if I could get additional law enforcement support. Or, I’d request a town hall meeting where people from both sides could share their grievances and concerns to deflate the level of tension that can lead to violence. But, really, I don’t know if either thing would make a difference in the outcome. Looking at the position Cork is in, he’s just the sheriff and has little power over persuading the government to move faster on negotiations or getting either side to back down.
-
“The Iron Lake Treaty of 1873 placed the northeastern ‘cheek’ of the lake entirely within the reservation of the Iron Lake Anishinaabe. The southwestern ‘cheek’ became public waters. . . . the state of Minnesota had for years paid a small compensation to the band for not exercising the right to fish all the lake which the language of the treaty arguably gave the tribe. The arrangement had been, at least from a white perspective, reasonable. Several weeks before the first day of spearfishing season, Russell Blackwater, speaking on behalf of the Iron Lake band of Ojibwe, declared that the People intended to spearfish and gillnet all of Iron Lake and its tributaries, not just that portion within reservation boundaries. He decried the state’s policies of the past that offered the Anishinaabe a pittance in exchange for their treaty rights.” Legal maneuvering begins and a week before fishing was to begin, Blackwater declared that if the whites wanted to wage war, the Anishinaabe were more than ready.” But I think it was Russell Blackwater’s greed that helped put Cork in an impossible situation; Russel should have been working for the good of his people not his for his own power and monetary gain.
-
Russell Blackwater is intentionally provocative. But other Anishanaabe share the sense that they need to act now, to take the rights they have been granted or be dismissed and taken advantage of again. Even Joe John and Sam Winter Moon believe they need to fish if they want to be taken seriously. I wonder if a less inflammatory spokesperson or a more measured approach by the Anishanaabe would have meant cooler heads prevailed to achieve a settlement or if they would have continued to see an abuse of their rights.
-
I believe a less inflammatory spokesperson would have achieved a more satisfactory outcome.
-
I am inclined to agree.
-
-
-
-
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.