GRAND RAPIDS, MI — Michigan’s territorial governor Lewis Cass is the namesake behind both Grand Rapids’ and Detroit’s Cass Avenue. Cass was instrumental in growing Michigan from a territory into statehood, but for Indigenous communities throughout the state, Cass’s legacy is one of systematic dispossession of tribal lands.
As territorial governor, he negotiated approximately 20 treaties with tribes, including the 1821 Treaty of Chicago that ceded a large amount of territory south of the Grand River.
In recent years, this legacy has been reassessed…