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Sonny Smart
Sonny Smart lives on the Bad River Reservation near
Lake Superior and he is from the Fish Clan. On his
Ojibwe reservation he serves as a Tribal Judge. Sonny
and his wife, Penny, have three sons.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

If I were at home, I would say Bojou. Enwo myhoemenu nehuse emowuene asawuea ene Wausau cdu
minua ugeba edebe Bad River yigideu edigeyen. What I was saying is that in my language, if asked who
I am, josauaniqua would be my spiritual name, which is a name that all children are given when they are
born. Im from the Fish Clan, thats where I was born and thats the clan I was born into. Its the clan of
my father and his father, and the father of his father, etc. It goes back to what we say, maweja, a long time
ago. My sons are all Fish Clan too. Im from the Bad River Reservation, which is the northern part of
Wisconsin right on Lake Superior, which is one of the Ojibwe bands of Anishanabe people. There are a
number of different Ojibwe bands: Bad River, Red Cliff, Lac du Flambeau, and Mole Lake. Im from
Bad River, which is where I was born. Both my parents are from Bad River, and my grandparents live
there. My grandparents moved to Odena, which is a town on the Bad River Reservation where I was born.

We pretty much lived by a reservation earlier in our lives; we lived there for about five or six years, then
we moved out of the reservation. There used to be a program called relocation. If you look at history, the
government has been trying to assimilate Indian people. One of the ways to help them assimilate was
basically to remove them from reservations to big cities. The hope was that the melting pot theory would
take place, and the Indians would kind of melt into the cities. The federal governments goal was in a way
to get rid of the Indian people, which has been the policy for about 150 years now. So, we were a part of
one of those policies, specifically relocation. We went to Cleveland, then Chicago, and we finally went
to Milwaukee. And thats where I spent some of my earlier years. In Milwaukee, I went to a missionary
boarding school on a reservation. The federal government also had boarding schools to educate or
assimilate the tribal peoples. The missionary schools were run by various Christian organizations, and the
one that I went to was a Catholic school, called Saint Marys. I went to school there for about a year.
When I was 18, I went into the service, which I was in for three years. Then I got out and decided I
wanted to go to school again. So I decided I would go into nursing, because I was a field medic. I went
to Vietnam, Germany, and different parts of the United States. So thats what I went to school for. Then,
I changed courses and went into social work, sociology mainly, and thats where I had my training and
worked with the tribe. Thats also where I met my wife. She grew up here, and I relocated down here.
Thats where I started teaching at the University here in November of 1990. We have three sons. Our
oldest son Gary has a spiritual name of minogesiac, which means good sky or good day. Our second son
is David, and wabegagogesiac is his spiritual name. Then our youngest boys spiritual name is limosetgisigum. Davids name wabegagogesiac means early morning spirit, and our youngest boys name means
sky walker. Theyre also from the Fish Clan.
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ofWisconsin

Do you ever visit your reservation? Can you tell us a little about it?
Im a tribal judge at Bad River, so Im probably up on the reservation anywhere from once a month to
maybe four or five times a month depending on whats going on. There are sometimes different occasions
or ceremonies going on. So Im probably up there, back
and forth, at least a dozen times in the course of the year.
My relatives are there as well. Ive been a tribal judge
for about 20 years now; I first became a tribal judge in
And then in the 1960 s
85. Its a tribal court, but it only hears cases on the tribal
and the 1970 s, where
reservation, it doesnt have to do with state court. Then
I participate in ceremonies or cultural activities that I go
there was a lot of
up there for.

Could you give us some background about your

nation?
The nation is Ojibwe, which is actually pronounced
Anishinabe. Its like German people or French people
referring to themselves, so for Ojibwe people its just
Anishinabe. It means were the first people or the
original people. So when I say Ojibwe Anishinabe,
thats who I am. The Ojibwe people are a large group,
probably one of the largest in the United States. Navajos
are the largest, but Ojibwe people are probably one of
the largest groups here if you include their relatives in
Canada. They cover basically from lower Michigan to the upper peninsula or northern part of Wisconsin,
northern part of Minnesota, Ontario, and into Manitoba. So, its a very large area of tribal people. And
again, theyre part of what they call the Three Fire Society. The Three Fire Confederacy was basically
the Ojibwe people, the Potawatomi people, and the Ottawa people. All three of the groups were from
one group. All three of them referred to themselves as Anishinabe. But when the French came here, they
ran into the Potawatomi. Their job was called the fire keepers. And so they thoughtthats their tribe
the Potawatomi. They just called them Potawatomi, and thats how they recorded them down. Then,
they ran into the Ottawa. They couldnt pronounce Odawa, so they just ended up with Ottawa. And the
Odawa are what they called the traders. And so actually those three tribes were one group at one time,
but today theyre all separate. But they were basically one group of people. And thats the nation where
Im from, and its a large group of people.

cultural awareness, a
lot of the younger
individuals at that time
started using the word
Native American,
because they didn t like
American Indian.

What is your opinion of the word Indian versus Native American?

Oh, when I was growing up, everybody just said that we were American Indian. You know, thats how
it is in the history books. You were just Indian, just American Indian or Indian. And then in the 1960s
and the 1970s, where there was a lot of cultural awareness, a lot of the younger individuals at that time
started using the word Native American, because they didnt like American Indian. So they said we were
native to this country, you know, we were indigenous to this country. So they said we really should be
called Native Americans rather than American Indian because we were natives to this continent. We
were the first people here. So they started using Native American at that time. And then they kind of
changed it a little bit to - well, then people started saying that anybody who was born in America is a
Native American because they were born here, so that would include everybody. So some of them didnt
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like the term Native American, so they moved the term to First Nation People, indigenous people. Most
people now, they use a version of American Indian, Native American or First Nation. A lot of them talk
about Nation - like the Oneida Nation or the Menominee Nation, Ojibwa Nation, Lakota Nation, or the
Navaho Nation. Thats pretty much how they all refer to
themselves today. So it probably depends upon the era
It went into over half
that you grew up in. It doesnt really matter to me. If
the Indian population,
they call it American Indian, thats fine; Native
American, thats fine; Tribal Person, thats fine; First
and as I mentioned
Nation Person, thats fine. I dont really have an opinion.
before, people were
I dont have an issue about either one.
ofWisconsin

Were there any key events in your nations history that

urban areas like
you can tell us about?
We could probably sit here for about fifteen hours and
Chicago, Minneapolis,
youd get a little peek. You know, I teach a whole course
Denver, Los Angeles,
on the big events that happened. But probably
historical events? Well, I guess the ones that have an
San Francisco, and
effect today, key events, I would probably say what I
New York. They had a
mentioned before, which would be the boarding school
era. You know, thats where a lot of individuals were
large agency called the
sent off the reservation to these boarding schools. And
Bureau of Indian
its not like the boarding schools you would think of, like
prep schools that you would see today. If you think of
Affairs.
boarding schools today, you think of prep schools.
People go away to these schools to stay and theyre prep
schools. But these types of schools were not prep schools. These schools were built basically to strip
you of your language and strip you of your culture. Thats what they were built for. They had nothing
to do with preparing you for going to college or anything. And besides that, at that point in time, they
didnt believe that Indian people were smart enough to go to college. They were just trained to go to
work on a farm or do manual labor, and thats basically all they would do. It was primarily to strip you
of your native language and your culture and assimilate you into mainstream society. So well over half
the population went to boarding schools. Most of the schools at that time were rough and much like
corporal punishment. Just a lot of things would go on there. It wouldnt be like today, but in those days
it was everyday behavior. You know, corporal punishment was standard, such as hitting, pulling your
hair, kicking, slapping you, you know. Whatever they wanted to do, basically they could do to get you
to change. So, a lot of people went to boarding schools in those days.

relocated to large

The second event that I think I mentioned earlier was relocation, which started right after World War II.
It went into over half the Indian population, and as I mentioned before, people were relocated to large
urban areas like Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. They had
a large agency called the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The Bureau of Indian Affairs is a large federal
bureaucracy that has the overall trust responsibility for the tribes. Since the BIA was responsible for this
relocation of tribal people, they set up all these sort of educational centers throughout the country. And
thats where they would send tribal people to. Youd get there and youd meet the BIA agent and then
he would find a place for you to stay and give you some temporary money to live on for about six months,
and they would come help with your rent and they would try to find you a job as either a welder or a
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mechanic, but nothing college educated. They still didnt think Indian people should go to college or do
anything in that area. And then the hope was that you would stay in the city and then sort of assimilate.
You would never go back to the reservation again, and that would be the end of it. But cultural identity
is very, very strong. So what Indian people did is that once they got to the city, they just sort of found
each other and created their own urban centers and cultural centers. So when I grew up in these
relocation places, there were other Indian families all around. And they were around each other, and there
were a lot of kids from different tribes. But everybody knew who they were. That was something -that
even though we moved there, we never really forgot who we were. Then people would go back to the
reservation anyway. You know, they would go back there to visit. Wed always go back there every
summer, and during various fall activities or for spring. We would always make a trip up to Bad River
on a regular basis. All of my relatives still live there, my grandmother, they still live up there. So we go
up there on a regular basis. But relocation was probably another big event that happened at that time.

ofWisconsin

And probably the newest event is when they reaffirmed the treaty rights in the late 1980s, which was a
real difficult time, because it was when they made treaties with the federal government. See, at one time,
all this land in Wisconsin, for example, was owned by the tribes here in Wisconsin. And like any land
contracts, wed make an agreement with land. If Id buy land from you, then I agreed to give you
something for it. And so the stakes involved, you know, well buy this land from you and then well give
you in return a certain number of dollars but also the right to hunt not the right, but to retain your right
to hunt, fish and gather animal resources here. Its something that you had before; we are not taking it
away, so you just retained that right.

Well, a lot of people the State kind of came in and said many people didnt exercise that right, and they
took that to the Federal Court and it finally went to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court ruled that
these treaties, in fact, gave them the right to hunt and fish and it was built into the treaty. So for example,
if you bought some land over here from someone outside of Wausau, and you sold them the land, you
could put in the provision, also as part of my agreement I get to say you had a pond there, I can come
there and fish once a year. So you could go there and fish every year because you put that into the contract
and they cant break that, if they break it they are going to have to compensate you for it. So, in order for
you to sell the land, you need to keep that provision in that contract. And that was part of the treaty, a
part of the agreement, that they have the right to be able to do that.

Also, the casinos came too, that also gave them the right to. The tribe is like a 51st state. The state
basically can, every state can have gambling if they choose to do it. And so, since the tribes are like the
51st state, the tribes are a part of federal land, its not state land. So the state has no jurisdiction on federal
land. So, for example, if you go down to Fort McCoy or Camp Phillips, and commit a crime, you
wouldnt be charged in state court, you would be charged in federal court. If you were punished you
wouldnt be sent to a state prison, you would be sent to federal prison. So its a federal crime if you go
on federal land and commit a crime. Its the same thing with reservations, its federal so what happens
there is not under the jurisdiction of the State. So what that does, it allows the tribes to be like a separate
nation, and they can decide if they want to have gambling or not. They can make the choice to do that.
Almost all of the tribes did do that, and the reason they did do that is because its very economically
beneficial for them. Most of the tribes are out in real rural areas, theres not a lot of economical
development, and there are no jobs. This is something that helps them with education, health, housing,
their government, and it pays for all of those things, too. So thats where mostly all of their resources go
into. That has changed a lot of life on the reservations. Also, now they got used to dealing with money,
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whereas before they were very social-natured and everybody shared with everybody. Now when you
bring in money and gambling, everybodys all of a sudden like, wheres mine? How come you seem to
get more and I get less? Now people are arguing about money where before they never really got into
money. Before it wasnt a big deal, and it wasnt a part of their values. It was there, but it wasnt a real
high value. But in the American society, we are a very
capitalist society, money is very very important. You
know it makes everybody want more money, people go
The prophecy did
to school for money. Everybody wants to be rich, and
everybody wants power. So thats what drives people.
become true because
That has gone on to the reservation, and has caused
when I turned 18,
conflict within the tribe. You know, its a double-edged
sword - one end provides economical benefits but it also
Uncle Sam flew me to
creates that change in value system that wasnt there
Washington state,
before. Thats now causing some conflict too. Those are
probably the events I would summarize, theres more but
and from there he
those are some of the bigger events that affect the tribes
flew me to Vietnam.
today.
ofWisconsin

Can you share some Ojibwe legends or creation stories

with us?
The Ojibwa people came to what they call Turtle Island. Turtle Island is actually North America. Actually
if you look on a map, North America looks like a turtle. The Ojibwa people that came here used to talk
about it in early stories, that they actually came through Wisconsin while traveling to where the sunrise
was. They came to a great salt lake and thats where they decided to live. Theres more to it, but they
lived there for a while. Then this cultural hero came to them in their dreams, and talked to them about
people who were coming their way, so they should probably move inward because things were going to
happen to them. People were going to come across this great salt lake, what they called the Atlantic
Ocean, and were going to cause a lot of destruction and pain. In that story there are seven stopping places
along the way, and they start the migration in the late 1400s and they start to move eastward. And there
are seven stopping points. They kind of follow the Saint Lawrence to the Great Lakes, up to Mackinaw
Island, and then they kept going west. Part of the prophecy was that they finally come to a place where
food grows on water. And that was one of their final stopping places. So they got there and they found
wild rice in the northern part of Wisconsin and Minnesota, so that was where they started to settle. One
of their big islands was Madeline Island. So that was part of what brought them this far from the Ojibwa
people. I guess if you take a look at more creation stories, theres a number of different variations on the
stories of the creator.

How is your band different from other Ojibwa nations?

It probably depends on where you are located, and were located on Bad River so there are a lot of rivers,
swamps, and wild rice there. Other nations, like Flambeau, have a lot of inland lakes so they dont have
a lot of wild rice there. Thats probably about the only difference. It just depends on where they are
located, whether it's right on a lake or inland. But they are pretty much about the same, there isnt a whole
lot of difference because they are all one people. They used to just all live in northern Wisconsin. Its the
federal government that kind of, basically, split them up. They all lived in the same community, and they
were just sort of put in different places and thats where they had the reservations developed, so theres
no big difference really.
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Any last words?

As I mentioned in the beginning, josauaniqua is my spiritual name, and that means yellow cloud. What
it loosely translates as is that just before a storm, theres a yellow cloud that comes. Im also called a
sonny, and the reason for that is that my mothers older brother's name was sonny memosh. He went to
war as a Marine in 1945 and landed on Iwojima in the Pacific. He was killed there when he was 18 years
old. So when they came back, the old people at the reservation had to tell my grandmother that her son
had died. The old man saw in the future that there was going to be a grandson born shortly. They told
my grandmother that they wanted her to come to the ceremony because that grandson was going to go
west like her son did They said he was going to go over the ocean like your son, he was going to go to
a war like your son, and he was going to do it at about the same age. They told my grandmother about
that, and my family members knew, so they started to call me Sonny, because I was the first one born
after that. Although, my grandma never called me Sonny because her Sonny got killed in Iwo Jima. So
she always called me by my name, James or Jimmy. The prophecy did become true, because when I
turned 18, Uncle Sam flew me to Washington State, and from there he flew me to Vietnam. And thats
part of who I am too, the prophecy. And I guess, for last comments, you know, one of the most important
things is education and coming to an understanding. What you learn in history books doesn't always tell
you everything. They just selectively pick things out and then selectively leave things out, too, so you
never really hear about various groups of people, their contributions, or what the federal government
doesnt want to say anything about. Because of that, people have a lot of ignorance about what goes on
around us; for example gaming, or treaties.

Interviewed by Kayla Johnson & Katie Hale

Smart, Sonny

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D.C. Everest Area Schools