Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

them with insupportable insolence and indignities." The cause of this disorder, adds the missionary, "is that they had received bad treatment from the French, to whom they this year had come to trade, and particularly from the soldiers, from whom they had pretended to receive many wrongs and injuries." It is thus made certain that the arms of France were carried into the territory of the Winnebagoes over two hundred years ago.

Two Jesuits who ascended the Fox river of Green Bay in 1670, at some falls about one day's journey from the head of the bay, discovered an idol that the savages honored, "never failing, in passing, to make him some sacrifice of tobacco, or arms, or paintings or other things to thank him, that by his assistance they had, in ascending, avoided the danger of the waterfalls that are in this stream, or else if they had to ascend to pray him to aid them in this perilous navigation." The devout missionaries caused the idol "to be lifted up by the strength of arm and be cast into the depths of the river, to appear no more" to the idolatrous savages. The mission of St. Francis Xavier, founded in December, 1669, by Allouez was a roving one among the tribes inhabiting the shores of Green Bay, and the interior country watered by the Fox River and its tributaries, for about two years, when its first mission house was erected at what is now Depere, Brown County, Wisconsin. This chapel was soon afterward destroyed by fire, but was rebuilt in 1676.

The Winnebago Indians by this time had not only received considerable spiritual instruction from the Jesuit fathers, but had obtained quite an insight into the mysteries of trading and trafficing with white men; for following the footsteps of the missionaries, and sometimes preceding them, were the ubiquitous French traders. It is impossible to determine precisely what territory was occupied by the Winnebagoes at this early date, farther than they lived near the head of Green Bay. A direct trade with the French upon the St Lawrence was not carried on by the Winnebagoes to any great extent until the beginning of the eighteenth century. As early as 1679 an advance party of La Salle had collected a large store of furs at the mouth of Green Bay, doubtless in a traffic with this tribe and others contiguous to them. Generally, however, the surrounding nations sold their peltries to the Ottawas, who in turn disposed of them to the French.

The commencement of the eighteenth century found the Winnebagoes friendly to and in alliance with France and in peace with the dreaded Iroquois. In 1718, the nation numbered six hundred. They were afterward found to have moved up Fox river, locating upon Winnebago lake, which stream and lake were their ancient seat, and from which they had been driven either by fear or the prowess of more powerful tribes of the West or Southwest. Their intercourse with the French was gradually extended

and generally peaceful, though not always so, joining with them in their wars with the Iroquois, and subsequently in their conflicts with the English which finally ended in 1760.

In Shea's "Early French Voyages" there was printed a letter from Father Guignas, written May 29, 1728, at Fort Beauharnois on Lake Pepin, on the upper Mississippi river, in which an interesting reference is made to the Winnebagoes. He says:

"The Sioux convoy left the end of Montreal Island on the 16th of the month of June, last year, at 11 A. M., and reached Michilimackinac on the 22d of the month of July. This post is two hundred and fifty leagues from Montreal, almost due west, at 45. deg. 20 min. north latitude.

"We spent the rest of the month at this post, in the hope of receiving from day to day some news from Montreal, and in the design of strengthening ourselves against the alleged extreme difficulties of getting a free passage through the Foxes. At last, seeing nothing, we set out on our march the first of the month of August, and after seventy-three leagues of quite pleasant sail along the northerly side of Lake Michigan, running to the southeast, we reached Green Bay on the 8th of the same month at 5:30, P. м. This post is 44 deg. 43 min. north latitude.

"We stopped there two days, and on the 11th, in the morning, we embarked, in a very great impatience to reach the Foxes. On the third day after our departure from the bay, quite late in the afternoon, in fact somewhat in the night, the chiefs of the Puans. (Winnebagoes) came out three leagues from the village to meet the French, with their peace calumets and some bear meat as a refreshment, and the next day we were received by the small nation, amid several discharges of a few guns, and with great demonstrations.

"They asked us with so good grace to do them the honor to stay some time with them, that we granted them the rest of the day from noon, and the following day. There may be in all the village, sixty to eighty men, but all the men and women of very tall stature and well made. They are on the bank of a very pretty little lake, in a most agreeable spot for its situation and the goodness of the soil, nineteen leagues from the bay and eight leagues from the Foxes."

When the English, in October, 1761, took possession of the French post at Green Bay, the Winnebagoes were found to number only one hundred and fifty warriors; their nearest village being at the lower end of Wennebago Lake. They had three towns, and perhaps more.

Their country at this period inclosed not only the lake, but all the streams flowing into it, especially Fox river, and afterward extended to the Wisconsin and Rock rivers. They readily changed the course of their trade-asking now of the commandant of the

fort for English traders to be sent among them. In the Indian outbreak under Pontiac, in 1763, they joined with the Menominees and other tribes to defend the British garrison at the head of the bay, assisting in conducting them to a place of safety. They continued their friendship to the English during the Revolution, by joining with them against the colonies, and were active in the Indian war of 1790-4, taking part in the attack on Fort Recovery, on the Maumee, in the present State of Ohio, in 1793. They also fought on the side of the British in the war of 1812-15, aiding in 1814 to reduce Prairie du Chien. They were then estimated at 4,500.

When, in 1816, the government of the United States sent troops to take possession of the Green Bay country, by establisha garrison there, some trouble was anticipated from the Winnebago Indians, who, up to that date, had the reputation of being a bold and warlike tribe. A deputation from the nation came down Fox river and remonstrated with the American commandant on what they considered an intrusion. They were desirous of knowing why a fort was to be established so near them. The reply was, that although the troops were armed for war, their purpose was peace. The response of the Indians was an old one. "If your object is peace, you have too many men; if war, too few." However the display of a number of cannon that had not yet been mounted, satisfied the Winnebagoes that the Americans were masters of the situation, and the deputation gave the garrison no further trouble. On the 30th of June, 1816, at St. Louis, the tribe made a treaty of peace and friendship with the General Government, but they continued to lay tribute on white people who passed up Fox river. At this time a portion of the tribe was living on the Wisconsin river, away from Green Bay. In 1820, they had five villages on Winnebago Lake and fourteen on Rock river. In 1825 the claim of the Winnebagoes was an extreme one so far as territory was concerned. Its southern boundary stretched away from the source of the Rock river to within forty miles of its mouth in Illinois, where they had a village. On the west it extended to the heads of the small streams flowing into the Mississippi. To the north it reached Black river and the Upper Wisconsin, to the Chippewa Territory, but did not extend over Fox river, although they contended for the whole of Winnebago Lake.

The final removal of the Winnebagoes from Wisconsin to the westward, across the Mississippi soon followed. In 1829, a large part of the territory in southwest Wisconsin, lying between the Sugar River and the Mississippi and extending to the Wisconsin, was sold to the Government, and three years later, all the residue lying south and east of the Wisconsin and Fox rivers of Green Bay. And finally in the brief language of the treaty of November 1, 1837, (this tribe having become unsettled and wasteful). "The Winnebago Nation of Indians" ceded to the General Govern

ment "all their lands east of the Mississippi." Not an acre was reserved. And the Indians agreed that within eight months from that date, they would move west of the "great river," they being alloted territory a part of which was in the present Winneshiek County. This arrangement, however, was not fully carried out. In 1842 there were only 756 at the then Turkey River, Iowa Settlement, their new home, with as many in Wisconsin and small bands elsewhere. All had become lawless and roving. Some removed from Wisconsin in 1848, while a party to the number of eight hundred left that State as late as 1873 for Nebraska, long after the Iowa portion of the tribe had preceeded them to their western home. Their Nebraska reservation is north of and adjacent to the Omahas, containing over one hundred thousand acres. However, since their first removal, they have several times changed their homes, and scattering bands have wandered back and forth between Wisconsin and Nebraska. The total number is now estimated at less than twenty-five hundred.

The following brief paragraphs in reference to the Winnebagoes, and removals of portions of the tribe, is taken from a sketch of the "Explorers and Pioneers of Minnesota," by Rev. Edward D. Neil:

"The Ho-Tchun-Graws, or Winnebagoes, belong to the Dakatah family of aborigines. Champlain, although he never visited them, mentions them. Nicollet, who had been in his employ, visited Green Bay about the year 1635, and an early relation mentions that he saw the Ouinipegos, a people called so because they came from a distant sea, which some French writer erroneously

called Puants."

Another writer, speaking of these people, says:

"These people are called 'Les Puants,' not because of any bad odor peculiar to them, but because they claim to have come from the shores of a far distant lake, toward the north, whose waters are salt. They call themselves the people 'de l'eau puants' of the putrid or bad water."

"By the treaty of 1837 they were removed to Iowa, and by another treaty in October, 1846, they came to Minnesota in 1848, to the country between the Long Prairie and Crow Wing River. The agency was located on the Long Prairie River, forty miles from the Mississippi, and in 1849 the tribe numbered about five hundred souls.

"In February, 1855, another treaty was made with them, and that spring they removed to lands on the Blue Earth River. Owing to the panic caused by the outbreak of the Sioux in 1862, Congress, by a special act, without consulting them, in 1863 removed them from their fields in Minnesota to the Missouri River, and in the words of the missionary, they were, like the Sioux, dumped in the desert, one hundred miles above Fort Randall.'"

IN WINNESHIEK COUNTY.

The eastern line of the Iowa reservation to which the Winnebagoes were removed from Wisconsin, and which embraced Winneshiek County, was about twenty miles west of the Mississippi river. Their roving and unsettled condition had apparently changed their traditional independent and warlike character; and the large annuity given them as a condition of their removal from Wisconsin added to their vices and accellerated their progress to laziness and worthlessness. And if it is true that they were originally warlike and fierce, as has been stated in these pages, they rapidly sunk in this respect until they won a memorable reputation among the early settlers of being not only cowardly, but craftily revengeful and treacherous. Of these Winnebagoes after their removal to Iowa, Spark's History of Winneshiek County

says:

The Winnebagoes were not brave and chivalrous, but vindictive and treacherous. Instead of facing a foe and braving danger, they would stealthily steal upon him, and in an unguarded moment, wreak their vengeance. But these were not the worst features in this tribe. They possessed vices of a meaner and more degrading nature. They united the art of stealing to that of lying. Anything belonging to another on which they could lay their pilfering fingers, they appropriated to their own use. Their lying propensities were proverbial. They regarded the white man with envy, but stood in such fear of their Indian neighbors-the Sacs and Foxes that they dare not oppose him, but made him their champion and protector against these warlike and powerful tribes. They were more opulent in their annuities than any other tribe of Indians. Besides about $100,000 in cash and goods paid them annually, large sums were expended in the vain attempts to educate and christianize them. A few among them could read and write; but in proportion as they improved in book lore, in the same, and even in a greater ratio, they deteriorated morally; and those who enjoyed the greatest advantages were the most worthless and degraded of their tribe. Every attempt that has been made to civiilze them, has sunk them lower in the scale of humanity. At least this is the evidence of those who are familiar with their history. It has been reduced to an axiom, by observation and experience, that the Indian is incapable of civilization, except in rare cases. They are gradually and surely fading away. The very approach of civilization is a poison to them, from the effects of which there is no escape. Its operation is slow but sure, and but a few years will have made their annual rounds before the race will be numbered with the things of the past, and only known in history."

The Winnebagoes being of such a character, or reputation, at least, it seemed all the more necessary that there should be an arm of the General Government extended toward their control,

« ForrigeFortsett »