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No return of investment: ‘U.P. Colony’ subject of upcoming book talk

MARQUETTE — Resource exploitation is the topic of the Aug. 11 U.P. Notable Book Club author event.

The 20th event, which involves the Crystal Falls Community District Library partnering with the Upper Peninsula Publishers and Authors Association, will feature Phil Bellfy, Ph.D., whose “U.P. Colony” is the story of research exploitation in upper Michigan, with a focus on Sault Ste. Marie industries, and is a reinterpretation of 300 years of history in the Soo.

There will a question-and-answer session with the author.

The free event will be at 7 p.m. Aug. 11 via Zoom. Contact Evelyn Gathu in advance at eegathu@crystalfallslibrary.org or 906-875-3344. The UPPAA recommends participants borrow a copy of the book from a local library or purchase from a local bookseller in advance to get the most out of the presentation.

Bellfy is editor and publisher of the Ziibi Press, an enrolled member of the White Earth Band of Minnesota Chippewa, co-director of the Center for the Study of Indigenous Border Issues and professor emeritus of American Indian Studies, Michigan State University, according to the UPPAA. He has been involved in environmental issues, at the tribal, international, national, state and local levels for over 45 years.

He is also a lay advocate, qualified and admitted to practice tribal law in the courts of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians. Bellfy is author of “Indians and Other Misnomers: A Cross-Reference Dictionary of the People, Persons, and Places of Native North America” and “Three Fires Unity: The Anishnaabeg of the Lake Huron Borderlands,” and the editor of the second edition of “Honor the Earth: Indigenous Response to Environmental Degradation in the Great Lakes.”

In the U.P. Book Review, author Deborah K. Frontiera wrote that Bellfy goes into great detail to prove his thesis that the U.P. — and Sault St. Marie in particular — was an “internal colony” subject to financial interests in the Lower Peninsula, the Eastern Seaboard of the United States and other areas.

“His statistics and examples show how companies outside the U.P. exported the area’s resources of furs, forests, copper, and iron for some 400 years, shipping resources away from the area for outside gain rather than true development of the Upper Peninsula,” Frontiera said.

Beginning in the 1600s, the French, then the British and finally American John Jacob Astor, made millions shipping out furs without returning the tiniest fraction to the areas from which those furs came — and taking full advantage of the Native American population in the process, she said. Once Michigan became a state, “downstate” interests dominated the U.P.

Frontiera wrote that while many small companies began the copper and iron booms, they were eventually bought out or “died out” themselves, creating monopolies controlled by out-of-area boards of directors who invested the money they “earned” in the U.P. in other operations elsewhere. They then left when copper, iron and timber played out, leaving the U.P. destitute.

“Bellfy demonstrates the same pattern in one city, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, and shows how the lack of other industries brought to the area to develop its resources affected the process,” Frontiera said.

Bellfy also shows how the pattern of exploitation continues today.

More information about the U.P. Notable Book list, U.P. Book Review and UPPAA can be found on www.UPNotable.com

The UPPAA was established in 1998 to support authors and publishers who live in or write about the U.P. The nonprofit has more than 100 members, many of whose books are featured on the organization’s website at www.uppaa.org. UPPAA welcomes membership and participation from anyone with a UP connection who has an interest in writing.

Christie Mastric can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 250. Her email address is cbleck@miningjournal.net.

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