January 25, 2009 12:00 am World War II was breaking out in Europe in 1939, and life for Peshawbestown Indians was about as bad. Most American Indian homes and property had reverted to the state for failure to pay property taxes, and the State Conservation Commission soon would receive deeds to all the delinquent property in Michigan. "What Does the Future Hold for Them?" read a Nov. 1, 1939, headline above three large photos of Peshawbestown residents. "What is to become of tax delinquent Peshawbestown, that picturesque Indian village in Leelanau County ... which for generations has remained a community within itself, withstanding the march of a white man's civilization that has engulfed the remainder of this area until today the little group of drab, unpainted houses and log cabins remain as the final vestige of the red man's tenancy in the Grand Traverse region?" Most of the 200 residents there had no means of livelihood, according to 1938 federal documents. Of 30 families then in Peshawbestown, only two had public Works Progress Administration jobs. Most lived on subsistence farming, lumbering, fishing, sale of native baskets and meager wages earned during the few weeks they found work harvesting cherries, beans, potatoes and guiding white hunters. Elderly American Indians couldn't get county aid. The newspaper questioned what the state commission would do when it received the tax-reverted lands, saying Peshawbestown's fate "and probably several other Michigan Indian communities" must be decided soon. "What will become of this village of Indians? Will they actually become "vanishing Americans" and be scattered to the four winds ... ." The final answer didn't come until 1980, with federal recognition of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians. But a World War II-era solution was devised by Peshawbestown leader Casper Ance, Leelanau Prosecutor Emelia Schaub, Circuit Judge Parm Gilbert and the Leelanau County Board of Supervisors in 1943. The county board, at Schaub's urging, asked the conservation department to return the land to the county for "Indian community purposes." It took a while, but in 1944 the state finally deeded 51 lots and 72 acres of land to the county to be held in trust for the tribe. -- Loraine Anderson
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Photos
An entire page from the Nov. 1, 1939 Record-Eagle was devoted to the plight of Peshawbestown Indians.