However, the very treaty intended to provide the Grand River Ottawas with a permanent reservation "homeland" eventually allowed non-Indians to acquire title to nearly two-thirds of the land within the reservation by 1880. McClurken explains how the Little River Band was forced, in 1858, onto a reservation on the Pere Marquette and Manistee Rivers where they settled with a number of other Ottawa bands. Although the Little River Ottawas were successful at integrating their economic and cultural practices with those of Europeans, they were forced to cede land in the face of American settlements. He describes the Band's struggles to find land to call its own over several centuries, including the hardships that began with European exploration of what is now the upper Midwest. In his thoroughly researched chronicle, McClurken documents in words and images every major lineage and family of the Little River Ottawas. McClurken claims, rightly, that the Little River Ottawa are a people in constant transition culturally and have now found value in at least two world views. "Our People, Our Journey "is a landmark history of the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, a Michigan tribe that has survived to the present day despite the expansionist and assimilationist policies that nearly robbed it of an identity in the late nineteenth century. Our People, Our Journey makes a major contribution to the writing of Great Lakes tribal histories.
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