People of all ages gathered in Veteran’s Memorial Park for the grand entrance, clad in amazing regalia and turning in dazzling circles of ribbons, bells, and feathers under the July sun.
The Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska held its annual homecoming ceremony, celebrating the return of Chief Little Priest and the Company “A” Scouts from the United States Civil War, with booming drum circles and dozens of American flags flying.
However, they had another victory to celebrate this year, the 158th.
President Joe Biden signed the Winnebago Land Transfer Act into law on July 12, returning to the tribe approximately 1,600 acres of land near the Missouri River that they had previously seized.
The homecoming coincides with a prolonged, nationwide “land back” movement to restore reserve land lost to a century of US government policies. It also comes at a time when other Nebraska tribes, notably the Winnebago, are successfully reclaiming territory that was previously theirs.
In 1970, the United States Army Corps of Engineers used eminent domain to take the Winnebago Tribe’s Missouri River land for a never-completed recreation project. In the fifty years that have passed, the tribe has struggled in court and on Capitol Hill to reclaim it.
At the time of the land confiscation, 28-year-old former chairman James “Louis” LaRose was a member of the tribe’s council.
When the bill began to progress through Congress in 2023, he was back on the council at the age of 81, still fighting for the property’s return.
Brian Chamberlain, editor of Winnebago Indian News, said that celebrating a homecoming is especially meaningful this year since the tribe is able to reclaim some of its own land and complete LaRose’s legacy.
A Rightful Home
Chamberlain, the tribe’s previous vice chairman, stated that the Winnebago Reservation is unique in that the tribe purchased its own land.
Throughout the 1800s, the United States government forcefully relocated the Winnebago Tribe five times, from its ancestral territory in Wisconsin to Nebraska. With each move, the group encountered hardship, disease, and death.
“If you look at the treaties, it’s really heartbreaking to see that every single one, they kind of reshuffle the deck and take something away,” said Victoria Kitcheyan, the tribe’s chairperson.
According to Kitcheyan, the tribe received compensation from the US government for the relocation, which it utilized to construct its permanent home in northeast Nebraska. The treaty declared the territory as “set apart for the occupation and future home of the Winnebago Indians, forever.”
Kitcheyan stated that ancestors and relatives fought to ensure that the tribe had a place to call home, providing them land to care for while respecting Mother Nature and their creator.
Kitcheyan told me that it is crucial to return this land to the tribe because these values have endured over generations.
However, when the Winnebago discovered in 1970 that the Army Corps was seizing the tribe’s 1,600 acres, LaRose informed Kitcheyan and other tribal elders that they had only one day to locate a qualified and willing lawyer to defend them.
The tribe fought, filing litigation in numerous courts in Nebraska and Iowa. In 1976, a federal Court of Appeals decided that the Army Corps lacked authorization to take the land.
However, the court concluded that it did not have the authority to return it.
The tribe demanded that Congress return its lands. As a result, it initiated a legislative effort that would continue for over 50 years.
The Right Recipe
Kitcheyan and the council have persevered through various drafts of the bill over the last seven years, traveling back and forth between Winnebago and Washington, D.C., to educate a constantly changing collection of senators, congressmen, and staffers.
“Being able to articulate the case to our federal partners is half the battle, then to do it over and over again,” said Kitcheyan. “The education piece was the primary factor that I would say drove our success, telling our story over and over again.”
Chamberlain predicted that a bill would acquire momentum before fizzling out once the politicians who supported it left power. He stated that the tribal council’s “tenacity and stick-to-it-ness” was the only reason the subject moved forward.
Finally, this year, the “recipe was right,” according to Kitcheyan, the tribe’s chairperson. Politicians had noticed Winnebago’s previous advocacy and strong presence, she added.
By sharing firsthand accounts of the property confiscation and court battles, LaRose helped reenergize the land return drive after his reelection to the council.
“Having that teaching, having the strength and values of our ancestors… we didn’t go there as ourselves; we went there as a nation of people,” Kitcheyan explained. The realization that I wasn’t alone and the constant reminder of the ancestors’ presence was profound.
Rep. Randy Feenstra, an Iowa Republican, inspected the confiscated land and agreed to introduce the bill, Chamberlain said, with support from the remaining Iowa and Nebraska legislators. Rep. Sharice Davids, a Kansas Democrat and member of the Ho-Chunk Nation, Winnebago’s sister tribe, supported the endeavor from the start.
It took some time, Chamberlain claimed, but Nebraska senators Deb Fischer and Pete Ricketts eventually joined in.
The tribe regarded each stage of the bill’s meandering route as a success.
LaRose returned to Washington, D.C., last fall with his grandson, an attorney who now works there, and assisted with the endeavor, according to Kitcheyan. She wanted to cry when LaRose, who has Parkinson’s illness, stated he knew it was his last trip.
Kitcheyan called LaRose to celebrate after learning that the bill would make it to the Senate floor.
Despite losing his ability to communicate, his mind remained sharp.
On November 7, just one day after Fischer introduced the bill in the Senate, LaRose died. He was 81.
“We thought he’d always be there; I thought we had more time,” Kitcheyan told the reporter. “He was extremely agile in other ways. I believed we had more time, but I believe he understood his task was complete. Our primary responsibility is to complete it for him.”
And his work was over. In June, the United States Senate unanimously passed the bill.
“Our bill becoming law corrects a decades-old wrong,” Senator Fischer stated in a statement. “We can finally return this land to the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska.” I’d like to thank my colleagues for their unequivocal support, as well as the Winnebago Tribe for their patience and commitment to their people.”
An impromptu party broke out in Winnebago that day, with drummers and singers gathering to commemorate the event, according to Kitcheyan.
The tribe plans to throw a larger celebration now that Biden has signed the bill into law, with representatives from both major parties participating.
Land Back
The Winnebago Tribe is not the only tribe that has lost territory to the Army Corps of Engineers as it seeks to build dams on the Missouri and Columbia rivers, according to Cris Stainbrook, an Oglala Lakota and president of the Indian Territory Tenure Foundation.
“What they’re finding, too, is that the Army Corps took more than they actually ended up using, which is the classic case,” said Stainbrook.
Now that the Winnebago land transfer is complete, Stainbrook thinks other tribes might be able to take advantage of this political momentum and reclaim their own property.
Stainbrook stated that by constantly pushing over time, tribes had been able to persuade enough people in D.C. that a land seizure was inappropriate and that something needed to happen.
Kitcheyan explained that Winnebago’s achievement coincided with a greater shift in attitudes toward Native issues.
“I call it an awakening, but it’s like this in Native culture: we’re more visible; we see ourselves in fashion; we see ourselves in comics and movies,” Kitcheyan told me. “So we’re not like these stereotypical renditions of our people that were in the mass media.”
Kitcheyan believes that reclaiming land is an important aspect of reclaiming those stories. The US government’s return of Winnebago land is a source of healing for the tribe.
“To put those words and mass messaging to work, it’s like, hell yeah, land back, hashtag Land Back,” Kitcheyan told me. “During this kind of movement, it’s just appropriate that we would have success.”
The Winnebago Tribe lost more than 75% of their approximately 120,000 acres of treaty land over the course of a century due to US government actions.
Winnebago, along with two other Nebraska tribes, has recently invested in purchasing back agricultural property, paying far more per acre than the average to restore what was once theirs.
We will use the newest land reclamation, covering approximately 1,600 acres on the Iowa side of the Missouri River, for conservation. The wooded land extends right along the river, which floods during severe rains. The Winnebago Site Transfer Act prohibits the tribe from using the site for a casino, but Chamberlain believes it would not be developed that way.
“If you guys saw the land, it’s a no-brainer; it’s literally not made for that,” Chamberlain told the crowd.
The transfer drew opposition from locals who utilized the land for hunting and fishing, Chamberlain said, but the tribe will issue licenses through its own Wildlife and Parks Department.
Over 20 years ago, when the Iowa Department of Natural Resources updated its agreement to administer the area, Kitcheyan explained, the tribe’s legal team requested “brilliant” language stating that if the tribe restored the land, the DNR’s management would cease.
That provision saves the tribe a step today, according to Kitcheyan, when the land moves to the Department of Interior and is once again held in trust for the tribe.
“We persisted. “We never went away,” Kitcheyan explained. “Some of our tribe chiefs said, ‘The Winnebago never give up.’ And I could say, “I’ve seen this; it’s proven to be true.”