Life Story: Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin (1863-1952)

Marie Louise Bottineau Baldwin was born on December 14, 1863. She was a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians who lived on lands that today are known as North Dakota. She was the granddaughter of a famous Ojibwe-French Canadian explorer named Pierre Bottineau. Her father, Jean Baptiste Bottineau, was a successful fur trader. Her mother, Marie Renville Bottineau, took care of their home and family. Both of her parents had Ojibwe and French ancestors. In her community, this made Marie Louise “métis,” a person of mixed Indigenous and white heritage. 

Marie Louise was the oldest of Jean Baptiste and Marie Renville’s three daughters, only two of whom survived to adulthood. In her early years, the family lived on Ojibwe lands. Marie Louise was raised to be proud of her biracial identity. She learned to speak French, English, and Anishinaabemowin. Her daily life blended the traditions and cultural practices of the Ojibwe and white French settlers. She would carry her pride in her heritage with her for the rest of her life. 

When Marie Louise was about four years old her family moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where her father became a lawyer. Marie Louise attended public school before enrolling in St. John’s Women’s College in Winnipeg, Canada. After graduation, she took a job as a clerk in a tobacco shop. In 1887 she married a young white businessman named Fred S. Baldwin. Their marriage was not a happy one, and they divorced only two years later.

While Marie Louise was pursuing her education, Jean Baptiste had become the lead attorney of the Turtle Mountain Ojibwe. When the United States government refused to pay the Ojibwe a fair price for their land, Jean Baptiste moved to Washington, D.C. to work on the case full time. Marie Louise went with him as a clerk. She learned everything she could about the case and worked alongside her father to secure a fair payment for her people. They ultimately failed, but the experience radicalized Marie Louise. From that point forward, she dedicated her life to improving the treatment of Indigenous Americans in the US. 

In 1904 Marie Louise was offered a job in the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Marie Louise was only the second Indigenous woman to be offered an office job with the BIA. She eagerly accepted the opportunity, believing it would give her the power to improve conditions for Indigenous Americans. Marie Louise excelled at her work and earned an outstanding reputation. 

Marie Louise’s position with the BIA gave her the opportunity to meet Indigenous activists from all over the US. In the early 1900s the US government still treated most Indigenous communities as wards of the state and most white Americans looked down on Indigenous people. For all of her personal success, Marie Louise encountered anti-Indigenous prejudice nearly every day, and she heard similar stories from the activists she met at the BIA. To combat this problem, she joined with other Indigenous activists to form the Society of American Indians (SAI) in 1911. The main goal of the SAI was to counter racist stereotypes and advocate for Indigenous equality in the US. That same year, Marie Louise was asked to take a portrait for her BIA file. She wore a traditional Ojibwe dress and hairstyle to demonstrate that Indigenous Americans were active participants in the modern world, not relics of a bygone era.

In 1912 Marie Louise enrolled at the Washington College of Law, the first law school to be founded by and for women. At the time, Washington College was a hub of suffragist activity. Marie Louise was forty-nine when she enrolled, and the atmosphere at the school energized her and sharpened her political focus. She attended suffrage meetings and campaigned for the cause. 

Marie Louise’s passion for women’s suffrage always came second to her advocacy for Indigenous people. Suffrage leader Alice Paul invited Marie Louise to help design a float for the suffrage march she was planning for March 3, 1913. Alice wanted the float to emphasize that many Indigenous women had equal rights in their communities, but her vision included dressing Indigenous women in costumes from the Smithsonian Museum. Alice’s vision also did not call attention to the very real threats Indigenous women faced from US government programs. Marie Louise knew that most Americans associated Indigenous people with the past. She wanted to educate the public about modern Indigenous people and the oppression they were fighting. She declined the invitation to participate in the float. Instead, she wore the cap and gown of the Washington College of Law and marched with her school.

Marie Louise graduated with honors in 1914, becoming one of the first Indigenous woman lawyers in the US. She went on to earn her master’s degree. When President Woodrow Wilson segregated the federal government workforce in 1913, Marie Louise worried that Indigenous Americans might be categorized as Black and lose what little power they had in government. To protect her people, she came out on the side of the president’s segregation policy and condemned Black workers as inferior. 

Marie Louise also struggled to reconcile her work with the BIA and the SAI. The BIA wanted all Indigenous people to assimilate into white American culture. The SAI believed the US government was forcing assimilation to destroy Indigenous culture. Marie Louise was a proud Ojibwe woman who wanted all Indigenous people to be allowed to become US citizens and to maintain their distinct nations and culture. But she was proud of the work she had accomplished with the BIA. She visited boarding schools where she was presented as a model of an assimilated woman. She also collected traditional Indigenous art to preserve the history that boarding schools were erasing. Her attempts to find a middle ground led to her falling out with other Indigenous activists. More progressive activists like Zitkala-Ša publicly condemned Marie Louise for continuing to work with the BIA. When Zitkala-Ša became the leader of the SAI in 1919, Marie Louise all but retired from the organization. 

Marie Louise worked at the BIA until she retired in 1932. She returned to Minneapolis to live with her sister. They lived near Bottineau Field, a part of the city named in honor of her grandfather. In the early 1930s a group of Polish immigrants tried to rename the area, arguing that it should be changed to honor the Polish immigrants who had settled the land. This argument erased the long history of Indigenous culture in the area. Marie Louise campaigned fiercely against the proposal and was ultimately successful. Bottineau Field Park is still in Minneapolis today.  

After her sister’s death, Marie Louise moved to Los Angeles in 1949. She passed away in 1952.

• Anishinaabemowin: Language spoken by the Ojibwe.
• boarding schools: Educational institutions that Indigenous children were forced to attend in order to Americanize.
• Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA): An agency of the federal government that oversees all issues related to the Indigenous community.
• clerk: A person who keeps records and performs administrative tasks.
• Ojibwe: Also known as Ojibway of Chippewa. The Ojibwe once inhabited lands that stretched from the Great Lakes region to the Rocky Mountains. Today there are Ojibwe communities located throughout the US and Canada.
• Society for American Indians: An activist organization founded in 1911 to fight for Indigenous equality.
• suffrage: The right of voting; in this era, suffrage often referred specifically to women’s suffrage, or the right of women to vote.
• suffragist: A person who campaigned to win women the right to vote.
• Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians: A community of Ojibwe who inhabited the Turtle Mountains region of what is today called North Dakota. Today this band is headquartered on the Turtle Mountain Reservation in North Dakota.