Medweganoonind Explained

Medweganoonind (meaning "who is heard spoken to," recorded variously in English as Med-we-gan-on-int,^[1] May-dway-gon-on-ind,^[2] May-dway-gwa-no-nind^[3] and Ma-dwa-ga-no-nint;^[4] died 1897 or 1898, lived approximately 84 or 91 years) was a chief of the Ojibwe tribe at Red Lake, Minnesota.

Medweganoonind was a tall and strong man. According to Joseph Gilfillan, "Nobility was stamped upon all his actions and words and his looks...He was very level-headed, true to his friends, patient under seeming neglect, unselfish, and of such a broad vision and sound judgment as would have made him an ideal ruler anywhere."

Medweganoonind was the head chief of the Red Lake Band at the time of the 1889 treaty negotiations, intended to implement the Nelson Act of 1889. He took responsibility in front of a visiting commission appointed by President Benjamin Harrison^[5] for defending the rights of the Red Lake Band to a diminished reservation at Red Lake. That reservation remained the common property of the tribe, and was not individually allotted as the U.S. government preferred. The Medweganoonind Library of Red Lake Nation College is named after Chief Medweganoonind.^[6]

References

Gilfillan . Joseph A. . The Ojibways in Minnesota . April 1901 . Monthly Meeting of the Executive Council, Minnesota Historical Society, November 8, 1897 . Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society . 9 . 75–76. 14 January 2024. Internet Archive.
Web site: 1889 - Minnesota Chippewa Commission . Lawrence . Melvin . Maquah Publications . 19 June 2022.
Book: Mittelholtz, Erwin F. . Historical Review of the Red Lake Indian Reservation, Redlake, Minnesota: A History of its People and Progress. Mittelholtz. Erwin F.. Graves. Rose. Noted Red Lake and Pembina Ojibwa Names . https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-03/documents/attachment_f_-_1889_agreement.pdf . 129–137 . General Council of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians and the Beltrami County Historical Society. Bemidji, Minnesota. August 1957. 14 January 2024. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Book: Whipple, Henry Benjamin . Lights and Shadows of a Long Episcopate . 1899 . Chapter XIII . 142–152. The Macmillan Company . New York . 14 January 2024. Internet Archive.
Web site: Message to Congress Reporting on the Chippewa Indians of Minnesota . Harrison . Benjamin . 4 March 1890 . The American Presidency Project . UC Santa Barbara . Peters . Gerhard . Woolley . John T. . 19 June 2022.
Web site: Medweganoonind Library . Red Lake Nation College . 19 June 2022.