10/04/2026
Thomas Little Shell III (1830–1901) — known as “Little Shell,” “Little Clam,” and recorded in Ojibwe as Ase-anse or Es-sence — stood at the front lines of one of the most difficult chapters in Anishinaabe history. In the mid-1800s, when Ojibwe homelands stretched from the plains of Montana to the forests of southern Canada and across the Dakotas, Little Shell became a fierce defender of a nation facing relentless pressure.
In the 1850s, the United States began pushing the Anishinaabeg to give up their vast homelands. Little Shell signed the 1863 Treaty of Old Crossing, which surrendered millions of acres in Minnesota and North Dakota. But when the U.S. returned the next year demanding more, he stood firm and refused.
For nearly 30 years after, Little Shell would not bend. He refused every attempt to force the Anishinaabeg into further land loss — even as settlers flooded into the Dakotas and Montana, squatting on Native ground without waiting for any treaty or agreement.
By the 1880s, hardship pressed in. Little Shell moved his band south from Canada into the Turtle Mountains of present-day North Dakota, fighting to protect what remained of Ojibwe land title. Food was scarce, so families followed the buffalo far into Montana and Saskatchewan — a journey of survival in a land changing beneath their feet.
When they returned in the early 1890s, they found their homeland slipping away. In 1892, Little Shell met with U.S. officials one last time, hoping for justice. He offered to sell land at $1 per acre and asked that 10 million acres across Montana and the Dakotas be secured for his people as a reservation — a place where the Ojibwe could live, hunt, and exist without fear of removal.
The U.S. refused. They countered with an insult: 10 cents per acre, the price that became known as the infamous Ten-Cent Treaty. No agreement was reached.
Little Shell never gave up the fight. His leadership carried his people through exile, hunger, and relentless pressure — and his legacy remains a symbol of resistance, sovereignty, and the unbroken spirit of the Ojibwe Nation.