The Indians in Wisconsin's History

The quite considerable friction between the colonies of Canada and Louisiana provided the background for the events which led directly to the Second Fox War. There was considerable argument as to the exact boundaries of Illinois which now was annexed to Louisiana, although originally settled by Canadians. The Fox took advantage of these feelings of hostility by attacking the Illinois in the vicinity of Kaskaskia, even killing Frenchmen in this area. The Fox claimed the Illinois would not return Fox prisoners as they had promised according to treaty. The Canadian governor, Vaudreuil, tended to side with the Fox in the argument.

After the death of Vaudreuil, his temporary successor, Baron de Longueuil ordered the Sieur de Lignery, commandant at Mackinac, to enforce a peace between the Fox, Kickapoo, and Mascouten, and their enemies, the Illinois. The Fox promised to obey this demand, and in order to ensure their obedience, a new post was built in the Sioux country. This was rendered necessary by the fact that the Dakota Sioux had now become allies of the Fox, and the French intended to make sure that no aid would be coming to the Fox from that warlike tribe. The three forts in the northwest, at Chequamegon Bay, La Baye, and on the upper Mississippi in the Sioux country were to be maintained rather steadily until near the end of the French regime.

Meanwhile the Fox chief Kiala had succeeded in forming an alliance against the French between the Fox and their long-time allies the Kickapoo and Mascouten, and a series of other tribes including, in addition to the nearby Winnebago, such far distant tribes as the Abnaki and Seneca in the East, and the Dakota Sioux, Missouri, Iowa, and Oto in the West. Kiala hoped by this means to form a hostile circle about the French which would end in their complete defeat, a plan similar to that later attempted by Pontiac, and Tecumseh.

The Marquis de Beauharnois, appointed governor of Canada to replace Vaudreuil, was determined that the raids on the Illinois and the French at Kaskaskia must be stopped. A French army once more was sent against the Fox. This time, headed by the Sieur de Lignery, the expedition numbered about four hundred French and approximately one thousand Indians. Warned by the Potawatomi, the Fox escaped from their villages and the army arrived at each to find it deserted. At Little Lake Butte des Morts the soldiers refused to go farther and Lignery had to be satisfied with the burning of the Fox and Winnebago villages and their stores of food.

Despite the poor showing of Lignery’s expedition against the Fox, Kiala’s confederacy began to fall apart. Even their old allies, the Mascouten and Kickapoo, were persuaded by the French to turn against them, and the Sioux, closely watched by the French, no longer could give the Fox refuge in their country. Discouraged by these losses and defeated by the French under the capable Paul Marin, the Fox decided to flee to the Iroquois country. The Fox had long been secretly treating with the English and the Seneca, a member tribe of the Iroquois Confederacy and hoped to find a friendly reception in their country.

Warned by the Mascouten and Kickapoo regarding the plans of the Fox, French officers from nearby posts hastily gathered together Indian allies and prepared to attack their fleeing enemies. The Fox, warned by their scouts of the force advancing against them, hastily erected a stockade and prepared to fight for their lives. They managed to fight off the besiegers for twenty-three days. Then on a stormy night they attempted flight but were quickly overtaken. Almost all of the band were either slaughtered or taken as slaves.

After the few survivors of this disaster, seeking refuge in their village near the mouth of the Wisconsin River, were attacked by Detroit Indians, Kiala and three other chiefs offered to give themselves up, asking mercy for themselves and the fifty surviving warriors, supposedly all that were left of the entire tribe. De Villiers accepted the surrender and hastened to Montreal with his prisoners. De Villiers was ordered to return and kill off the rest of the Fox, taking only the women and children as prisoners. These were to be sold into slavery, like Kiala, who was fated to end his days as a slave in the West Indies.

De Villiers returned to the Sauk village at Green Bay and demanded that the Sauk release the remnant of Fox survivors. The Sauk declined to release warriors with whom they had strong blood ties, and in an attempt to force an entrance, one of de Villiers’ sons was killed. The French quickly retaliated and in the exchange of fire de Villiers himself was killed by a twelve year old boy, who later became renowned as the Sauk Chief Blackbird. In the battle that followed, the Sieur Duplessis, the Sieur de Repentigny, and six other Frenchmen quickly met the same fate. The Sauk and Fox, too, lost heavily and fled to the vicinity of the present-day city of Menasha. The bloody battle that ensued there, it is said, accounts for the name Butte des Morts, or Hill of the Dead.

As a result of this battle, the remainder of the Fox and the Sauk amalgamated and for all practical purposes became one tribe. They fled into Iowa where they erected a new fort, and gradually their ranks were swelled by Fox released from captivity by tribes now secretly in sympathy with the Sauk and Fox. One more expedition was sent against them, led by the Sieur de Noyelles, but although he followed the Sauk and Fox to the vicinity of the Des Moines River, they were so well entrenched that it was impossible to dislodge them and the expedition returned home without success. Eventually the Fox Wars were brought to an end through a policy of conciliation inaugurated in 1740 by Paul Marin, the new commandant at La Baye. Force had, in the long run, proven a failure in the campaign to completely subjugate the Fox.

Throughout the first half of the Eighteenth Century the French, as we have seen, had been occupied with more or less constant warfare with the Fox. This warfare was the dominant note in the history of Wisconsin for this period, and in general, the role of other Wisconsin tribes during this era was that of serving as allies either of the French or of the Fox.

The failure of Noyelles’ expedition against the Fox had helped to lower French prestige among the western tribes, and in 1736 the Sioux, angered by French friendship for the Chippewa and Cree, murdered a French officer, a priest, and a party of nineteen voyageurs. From this time on the Sioux could no longer be numbered among the allies of the French. By 1739, the Sioux-Chippewa War flamed into action and the Sioux were driven westward from the areas in Wisconsin now held by the Chippewa.

Warfare between the English and the French in America again was to seriously affect the western tribes. This conflict, lasting from 1744 to 1748, saw the fur trade with the western tribes reach extremely low proportions. Goods were very scarce due to the loss of French ships at the hands of British fighting vessels, and this failure to produce sufficient goods for the Indians, in addition to the already declining prestige of the French, encouraged some of the western tribes to seek more favorable relations with the British. Most of the Huron, under Chief Nicolas, began trading with the British, and many other western tribes exhibited the same inclination.

The end of the current conflict with the English enabled the French to regain control of these tribes, but the Miami had moved into Ohio and established a large village called Pickawillany which became a fairly permanent camp for a number of English traders. Several expeditions against this village by the French failed. In 1752, however, Charles de Langlade, later famed as one of Wisconsin’s pioneer French settlers at Green Bay, who was part French and part Ottawa and who thus had tremendous influence among the Indians, led an expedition against Pickawillany which enjoyed remarkable success. The village was destroyed, the English traders captured, and the Miami returned to French allegiance.

For a while France again enjoyed supremacy in the West. In 1755, Langlade and his contingent of Wisconsin and Mackinac braves participated in the famous battle culminating in “Braddock’s Defeat”. Chippewa, Menomini, Potawatomi, and Winnebago were said to be present at this engagement, and for many years thereafter trophies of this battle were to be found in Wisconsin Indian lodges. Despite this severe defeat of the British and American Colonials, the fortunes of the French were destined to take a turn for the worse. By 1761, Wisconsin was under British control, and in 1763, France formally surrendered the rest of her American possessions to England. She had ceded Louisiana to Spain the year before.

Much had happened to Wisconsin’s Indians during this period, roughly from 1700 to 1760. The long and bloody Fox Wars had wrought hardship on the other tribes as well as on the Fox. The Sioux-Chippewa war had resulted in the Sioux being forced to relinquish most of their Wisconsin territory to the Chippewa. The Potawatomi Indians, who had fought under Langlade and participated in the killing of the unarmed English and Americans at Fort William Henry, were visited by a grim vengeance in the form of smallpox, contracted from the English soldiers and brought back by the tribes to their own country where it raged virtually unchecked. Great numbers of Indians lost their lives as a result.

Other tribes left Wisconsin, some never to return. The Kickapoo and Mascouten were now in Illinois and Indiana. The Potawatomi were below Lake Michigan at St. Joseph. Thus many of the tribes here when the French traders and missionaries first arrived, no longer were in the Wisconsin scene. The tribes remaining here were destined to know new masters, the British, who were to control the fur trade in Wisconsin until the end of the War of 1812.

CHAPTER FOUR
THE PERIOD OF BRITISH CONTROL

British military control of Wisconsin was ushered in with the arrival of Ensign James Gorrell at Green Bay on the twelfth of October, 1761. With the aid of his two non-commissioned officers and fifteen privates, Gorrell set about to restore the old French fort which he renamed Fort Edward Augustus, in honor of the Duke of York. His next task was to win over the French habitants about the fort and to gain the sympathy of the Indians in the area for the British cause. Apparently Gorrell was quite successful in both tasks.

The French habitants about the posts taken over by the British found it rather easy, for the most part, to transfer their allegiance to the British Crown since they were given the same privileges they enjoyed under French authority. Moreover, the British traders found it more advantageous to form partnerships with the more experienced French traders than to attempt to supersede them.

British success with the Indians varied according to local conditions at the different forts. The British were not inclined to give presents as liberally as the French had done, and it was not British policy to fraternize or intermarry with their savage allies. The feeling of inferiority prompted by this treatment caused resentment among many tribes.

In central Wisconsin, however, Gorrell’s diplomatic treatment of the Indians, added to the fact that the Sauk, Fox, Winnebago, and Menomini held a certain amount of resentment towards the French, swung these tribes over to the British. The promises of medals and commissions to the Indian chiefs, and the fact that the British trade goods were cheaper by far than those offered by the French, also tended to offset the more arrogant treatment of the tribes by the British.

Gorrell’s success with the Indians of central Wisconsin was very important to Wisconsin history, for in 1763 the British were compelled to deal with a widespread Indian uprising largely led by Pontiac, chief of an Ottawa tribe from around the Straits of Mackinac, and one of the most able Indian leaders who ever lived. It was Pontiac’s plan to drive all the British and Colonials into the sea by means of an alliance of Indian tribes from the Alleghenies to the Mississippi River, and from the Ohio River to the Great Lakes. Pontiac’s chief claim to greatness lies in his remarkable feat of keeping a number of tribes together for a seven-month siege of Detroit, a unique event in Indian warfare.

In addition to the attack on Detroit, concerted attacks were made on other British posts, of which a number fell, including the one at Mackinac. The failure of the Indians to take Forts Detroit, Pitt, and Niagara assured defeat for Pontiac’s campaign.

On June 2, 1763, the Chippewa Indians took Fort Mackinac by a clever subterfuge. They faked a game of LaCrosse in front of the stockade and pretended accidentally to knock the ball into the fort. As the players rushed after the ball they seized guns from the watching Indian women who had concealed the weapons under their blankets. Most of the garrison was massacred before they had a chance to defend themselves.

The loyalty to the British of Wisconsin’s Sauk, Fox, Winnebago, and Menomini Indians, and the timely arrival of a delegation of Sioux, sworn enemies of the Chippewa, probably saved Green Bay from a similar fate.

Etherington hastily summoned Gorrell to his assistance. Gorrell abandoned Fort Edward Augustus at Green Bay and with the aid of 90 men of the Sauk, Fox, Menomini, and Winnebago tribes succeeded in obtaining the prisoners’ release from the Indians. The party then proceeded on to Montreal. British military occupation of Wisconsin was not resumed until the War of 1812.

The Pontiac rebellion also served to bring the problems relating to the Indians home to the British Government and probably helped as an incentive to the issuance of the Proclamation of 1763. British subjects were now forbidden to purchase lands west of the Appalachian mountains without special license. It was hoped that this would prevent further encroachments by white settlers upon Indian lands. Trade with the Indians was to be permitted where licenses with the various colonial governments had been procured. Moreover, since Wisconsin was not included in the limits of any of the colonies, Wisconsin was left without any government other than that exercised by the military at Mackinac. This matter was not rectified until 1774 when the Quebec Act placed Wisconsin under the authority of the Governor of Canada.

Mackinac became the seat of Wisconsin’s fur trade when the fort was rebuilt there in 1764. It was the only fort northwest of Detroit with government officers and Indian agents. By 1767, large numbers of traders were coming into the Wisconsin area. The Indians by this time were so dependent on the white trader that any interruption in the supply of goods flowing to the Indians worked severe hardships upon them.

Wisconsin’s fur trade was still largely controlled by Montreal investors, mostly British. The actual traders, however, who contacted the Indians were still primarily Frenchmen, and this was to remain so throughout Wisconsin’s fur-trade period. Some competition in Wisconsin was given to the British by Spanish and French traders from Louisiana, which had become Spanish territory by the peace treaty in 1763. But the British managed to retain the bulk of the northwest fur trade with the Indians.

Wisconsin’s Indians did not participate strongly in the American Revolution, but they did take part in some action. Charles de Langlade, half French, half Ottawa Indian leader who helped the French so efficiently during the French and Indian War, now espoused the British cause as ardently as he had the French. Langlade’s tremendous influence over the Indians was well known, and the British hoped to persuade him to obtain Wisconsin Indian help in fighting the Colonists. Langlade did succeed in leading Chippewa and Ottawa east to help Burgoyne in 1777, and in 1778 Wisconsin Indians went to Detroit to help General Hamilton. On the whole, however, Wisconsin’s Indians were too disinterested in the white man’s war to be enthusiastic about long trips east to aid the British.

The American Revolutionary War hero, Major George Rogers Clark, whose capture of Vincennes and Kaskaskia, and the French villages of the Illinois country, provided the basis for United States claims to the Northwest Territory during the peace negotiations between the British and the United States, called together a great assembly of Indians at Cahokia, Illinois, in 1778, and succeeded in obtaining their pledges of allegiance to the United States. Many Wisconsin Indians attended the meeting, including the noted Blackbird, chief of a Milwaukee village composed of Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi. Blackbird apparently remained loyal to the American cause. Major Clark’s influence with the Wisconsin Indians tended to nullify the efforts of Charles Langlade, and other French officers in the service of England, to mobilize the Wisconsin Indians against the United States.

In 1780, England utilized some Wisconsin Indians in an attack on the Spanish with whom she was then at war. Twelve hundred warriors were assembled at Prairie du Chien, and marched on St. Louis. Aided by the fact that they had advance knowledge of the enemy movements, that some of the tribesmen were more or less sympathetic with the American cause, and that the Indians showed no enthusiasm for attacking in the face of cannon fire, the Spanish and Americans succeeded in routing the attackers. After this action Wisconsin’s Indians were not involved in any important campaigns during the remaining years of the American Revolution.

British control of Wisconsin’s Indians did not cease with the end of the Revolutionary War. Despite the British agreement in the Treaty of Paris, in 1783, to turn over their posts at Niagara, Detroit, and Michillimackinac, they continued to hold these forts until after the Jay Treaty of 1794. It was not until October, 1796, that Mackinac, the last post to be turned over by the British, was officially occupied by American troops. The British, however, still maintained their control over Wisconsin’s Indians through the fur trade now operating from posts just across the Canadian border.

Within a month after the declaration of war against England by the American Congress in 1812, Mackinac was retaken by the British and Menomini and Winnebago Indians from Wisconsin. Among the Menomini were chiefs Tomah and Oshkosh, the latter destined to become a famous Menomini leader and friend of the Americans. Within another month Fort Dearborn (at Chicago) was attacked by Indians and most of its civilian and military inhabitants massacred. Menomini, Potawatomi, and Winnebago Indians from Wisconsin took part in this attack.

The Americans were well aware of the strategic importance of Prairie du Chien in any attempt to control Wisconsin’s Indians. In June, 1814, Fort Shelby, probably the first building over which an American flag ever flew in Wisconsin, was erected at this strategic location. Lt. Perkins and sixty men were left in charge at the fort.

The British quickly determined to drive out the Americans and succeeded in forcing Perkins to surrender the fort on July 19, 1814. About 500 Indians, mostly Menomini, Chippewa, Winnebago, and Sioux, took part in the assault on the American post.

The British renamed the post Fort McKay and managed to hold it against the Americans until, in agreement with the Treaty of Ghent, they finally abandoned the fort in May, 1815, and British control of Wisconsin’s Indians was finally at an end. The fate of Wisconsin’s Indians was now in the hands of the United States Government.

CHAPTER FIVE
THE PERIOD OF AMERICAN SETTLEMENT

Wisconsin’s Indians, under the French and British had become increasingly dependent upon the white man. Without the invaders’ tools, weapons, utensils, and various other things which the Indian had come to depend upon, he found himself unable to supply himself with the necessities of life. The French and British traders, of course, were interested almost exclusively in procuring furs from the Indians, and as long as the aborigines could obtain furs for them, the traders would supply their needs.

The Americans, however, were primarily interested in exploiting and settling the Indians’ land; fur trading was secondary. As they pushed into the new territory in ever increasing numbers, first to exploit the lead mines of southwestern Wisconsin, and then to farm the fertile soil, the Indian was doomed to be relentlessly pushed aside. He had lost his independence. Now he was to lose his land and the very means of his livelihood.

The arrival of the Americans upon the Wisconsin scene pleased neither the Indians nor the French traders. Both relied to a great extent on the fur trade, and they knew that the clearing of land by the settlers would hasten the end of this activity. Many of the French, too, had Indian blood and considered their cause as one with the Indians. The United States government first showed poor judgment in its attempt to make these people conform to American standards. For example, the French and Indians were warned that common-law marriages between the two races would no longer be tolerated, but must be legalized by either a civil or church ceremony, and violators would face punishment. Both the French and Indians bitterly fought what seemed to them oppression, and eventually later decisions recognized the legality of common-law unions of earlier regimes.

Wisconsin’s Indian agents were for a time under the authority of two superintendents of Indian affairs. Lewis Cass, Governor of Michigan Territory, of which Wisconsin was a part from 1818 to 1836, was in charge of the Indian agent at Green Bay. The agent at Prairie du Chien worked under the direction of William Clark who, as Superintendent of St. Louis from 1807 to 1838, had authority to the source of the Mississippi River. These agents distributed annuities and payments due the Indians and attempted to keep white settlers from squatting on Indian land. The settlers, however, rudely took over Indian land and, in the inevitable conflict that followed, the militia and army would be called out to protect the whites. In the ensuing “peace treaty” the Indians would be forced to cede their lands and move westward.

Wisconsin’s early territorial period was also the era of the frontier fort manned by the regular U. S. Army. Since the pay for the ordinary soldier was very small, the army attracted men who could not succeed elsewhere, or immigrants who wished to desert at the first opportunity and travel westward. The officers, however, were of different character entirely. Educated at West Point, they were by far the most educated and cultured men in the frontier settlements. With their wives, they represented the cream of Wisconsin society of this period.

Wisconsin had three main forts along the Fox-Wisconsin waterway. Fort Howard was erected at Green Bay in 1816, the same year that Fort Crawford was established at Prairie du Chien. Fort Winnebago was built at what is now Portage in 1828, shortly after the Red Bird rebellion. The United States army did its best to maintain peace between the Indians and whites, and to protect the Indians from unlicensed traders, and sometimes legitimate ones, who illegally sold whiskey to them. In their efforts in this direction they often found themselves in conflict with civil authorities who sometimes protected the traders apprehended in such violations.

The fur trade continued in Wisconsin while the population was primarily Indian, but by 1835 it was no longer of any significance in this area. Following the War of 1812, the United States Government set up fur trade “factories” at Prairie du Chien and Green Bay, hoping by this means to control some of the evils, one of the most vicious of which was the peddling of whiskey to the Indians. The whiskey was usually diluted with water, and adulterants such as turpentine, or even corrosive acids, added to restore the “bite.”

The government entry into the fur trade was unsuccessful. The factors, as the proprietors of the trade “factories” were called, lacked experience in dealing with the Indians. They did not give credit advancements to them as did the other traders, and the American Fur Company applied pressure on Congress to end this system. Gradually this Company acquired the fur trade monopoly in this area; Solomon Juneau, Milwaukee’s famous founder, was one of the American Fur Company’s agents in what is now the State of Wisconsin. The gradual decadence of the fur trade, of course, increased the hardships of Wisconsin tribes.

As settlers began encroaching on the Indians’ land, conflicts were inevitable. John C. Calhoun, the Secretary of War in 1825, sponsored a plan for the removal of eastern tribes across the Mississippi to the western plains. It was believed that by furnishing them with equipment for hunting and farming they could survive readily and would be safe from further pressure by white homesteaders. No one realized at this time how soon these western lands would be overrun by the relentless pressure of the American pioneer. The land purchased from the Indians was to be made available to American settlers. The lands of certain tribes of Wisconsin Indians were to be included in this overall plan.

Unfortunately for the smooth functioning of this operation, the Indians did not care to leave the land on which they and their ancestors had hunted for so long a time, and travel to new hunting grounds. In many instances they were not removed without a show of force, sometimes with considerable blood being shed by both whites and Indians.

In 1825, Lewis Cass and William Clark held a conference of Wisconsin tribes at Prairie du Chien. They hoped to establish definite boundaries for the holdings of the different tribes in order to eliminate friction between them. This would also facilitate future land purchases from the Indians. Roughly these boundaries were recognized: the southwest and southeast corners of Wisconsin were allotted to the southern Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi; the Winnebago held the remainder of southern Wisconsin; the Menomini kept the northeast part of the state from the Milwaukee River up; and the Chippewa held all of northern Wisconsin west of the Menomini. These Indian territories were not to be respected for very long by white squatters, however, and the Winnebago were to be among the first to encounter trouble from this source.

The fact that southwestern Wisconsin was very rich in lead was discovered quite early in the French regime, and it is probable that the French taught the Indians how to mine and smelt the ore. By 1811, the Sauk and Fox are reported to have devoted almost all their attention to lead mining, only hunting to supply themselves with meat. They exchanged the metal with Canadian traders for the goods they needed. Some early American traders who attempted to get in on this trade were killed by the Indians, who feared that once the Americans learned of the value of the lead deposits their cupidity would be aroused and the Indians would lose their land. Later events were to prove the excellence of this reasoning.

Aroused by the rich deposits, Cornish miners, particularly, began to arrive in force by 1827. The Indians were rudely expelled from their diggings and their mines appropriated by armed whites. In the same year, Red Bird, a young Winnebago chief, killed two settlers and scalped a baby who, interestingly enough, survived to become the mother of a large family and live to a ripe old age. Following this attack Red Bird and his warriors, about forty in number, celebrated the scalp taking with a drunken carousal at the mouth of the Bad Axe River, about forty miles north of Prairie du Chien. Two keelboats on their way from Fort Snelling to St. Louis were fired upon by the drunken Winnebago braves, and after a battle of about three hours, the keelboats escaped with a loss of four men dead and several wounded. The Indians were reported to have suffered losses of seven dead and fourteen wounded.

United States troops rapidly arrived at the scene, and after fleeing up the Wisconsin River, Red Bird found himself and his tribe surrounded. The Americans agreed to forget the matter of the keelboats providing the murderers of the settlers would give themselves up for trial. On Sept. 3, 1827, Red Bird, rather than engage his people in a hopeless war against the whites, voluntarily surrendered to Major Whistler at Portage. Arrangements were made for the Americans to use the lead mines until a treaty could be arranged, and in July, 1829, another Grand Council was held at Prairie du Chien. The Winnebago, southern Potawatomi, Chippewa, and Ottawa agreed to cede their land. The United States Government now owned the rich lead mining country of southwestern Wisconsin.

During this period of American settlement, beginning as early as 1821 and lasting through 1834, a migration of Indians from New York occurred which was to add some permanent residents to Wisconsin’s Indian population. The Oneida and Munsee settled near Green Bay, and the Stockbridge and Brotherton Indians settled along the eastern shore of Lake Winnebago. The Menomini ceded 500,000 acres of their land to these tribes in 1831.

Meanwhile the stage had been set for what was to become the most famous, and also, perhaps, the most infamous Indian and white conflict in the Wisconsin area. This was the so-called Black Hawk War, although it was more of a systematic extermination of Indians by whites, hardly deserving the term “war.”

Black Hawk was leader of the “British band” of the Sauk with a large village, said to number about 500 families, situated near the mouth of the Rock River in Illinois. His people were known as the “British band” because of their known sympathies with the English, and also since Black Hawk and his warriors had fought with Tecumseh and the British against the Americans in the War of 1812.

White settlers began squatting on Black Hawk’s land as early as 1823, despite the fact that according to treaty the Indians were not required to give up their land until land offices had been set up, an event which had not occurred. The Indians’ cornfields were fenced in, wigwams were burned, and the women mistreated. Black Hawk went to the British agent in Canada, near Detroit. He was advised that the treaties of 1804 and 1816 were being violated and that he rightfully could resist the settlers and expect the backing of the United States Government. Black Hawk returned and warned the settlers that they would be attacked unless they left at once.

The alarmed settlers sought help from the Illinois militia which was rapidly called to arms in 1831. This show of force compelled Black Hawk to retire to the west side of the Mississippi River with his people, and promise not to return without government permission. Chief Keokuk, head of the combined Sauk and Fox tribes, had already taken all of his people, except the rebellious Black Hawk and his band, into what is now Iowa in 1830, realizing the futility of fighting the tremendously superior white forces.

On April 6, 1832, Black Hawk crossed back into Illinois with approximately 1000 of his people, about 400 of whom were warriors. He had been promised aid by emissaries of the Potawatomi, Winnebago, Ottawa, and Chippewa, but before a month had passed Black Hawk realized he would get little aid either from these tribes or from the British in a war against the settlers. The militia had been called out again in the meantime, and Black Hawk now only desired to make peace and get his people back to Iowa. He sent messengers under a white flag to Major Stillman who was encamped nearby with about 400 volunteers. The white flag was ignored, and three of the Indians were killed. Black Hawk had only forty warriors with him at the time, but angered by this treachery, he attacked Stillman’s men in what he himself called a “suicide charge.”

The tremendously superior force of volunteers, upon seeing Black Hawk’s charging braves, fled frantically with the first volley fired by the Indians. As they fled they spread the alarm over most of northern Illinois, and maintained that Black Hawk had ambushed them with 2000 warriors. Following this event Black Hawk removed his women and children to the Lake Koshkonong area in Wisconsin, so that they could forage for desperately needed food and be relatively safe from attack. Black Hawk and his warriors spent the following two months attacking settlements along the Wisconsin-Illinois frontier. Two hundred whites and possibly as many Indians were killed in these border skirmishes.

Black Hawk soon found himself pursued by a greatly superior force of militia and regular U. S. Army troops. He and his band fled through the Madison, Wisconsin, area and were overtaken attempting to cross the Wisconsin River, where the Battle of Wisconsin Heights took place on July 21, 1832. Black Hawk’s braves succeeded in holding back the Americans while the tribe crossed the river, and the following morning one of his men made a surrender speech in the Winnebago language. No one in the American camp understood the plea for surrender terms, since the Winnebago followers of the Americans were not in their camp at the time. The Indians were again compelled to flee.

Black Hawk then divided his people into two groups, one of which obtained rafts and canoes from friendly Winnebago, and proceeded down the Wisconsin River, hoping to reach the Mississippi River and cross back to Iowa. Soldiers from Prairie du Chien captured or shot most of them. Some others were hunted down in the woods by Menomini Indians led by white officers. As the rest of Black Hawk’s band fled overland toward the Mississippi River, they were pursued by the combined forces of General Atkinson, General Henry, and Major Dodd, a total force of some four thousand men.

When Black Hawk’s band arrived at the Mississippi River, they were met by the steamboat “Warrior.” Black Hawk again attempted to surrender, but the “Warrior’s” captain preferred to believe this a trick and opened fire on the Indians. The infantry then arrived and attacked the Indians from the rear. Men, women, and children were forced into the river at bayonet point. Many were drowned as they attempted to swim the river, and others were picked off by American sharpshooters from the shore. This was the massacre of the Bad Axe River, which lasted three hours, and in which 150 Indians were killed and as many more drowned. A band of Sioux, brought there for the purpose by General Atkinson, set upon the 300 Indians who reached the other bank and killed about half of them.

Only about 150 survivors remained of the thousand Indians who had crossed with Black Hawk into Illinois in April only four months before.

Black Hawk fled to the Winnebago, who later surrendered him to the Americans. He was then taken on a tour through the eastern states to impress him with the power of the American Government, and released in June, 1833. His tribe was given a small reservation in Iowa on the Des Moines River, where he died October 3, 1838. The treatment of Black Hawk and his people in the so-called “Black Hawk War” will always remain a blot on American history and a discredit to the Government.

From the time of the “Black Hawk War” on, Wisconsin Indians were rapidly deprived of their land. In September, 1832, the Winnebago ceded the rest of their holdings south and east of the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers. Upon promise of payment of about one million dollars to the Indians and their creditors, the southern Chippewa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi, in a treaty at Chicago, Illinois, turned over their holdings in southern Wisconsin in 1833. The Menomini ceded almost four million acres between Green Bay and the Wolf River to the United States Government in 1836. In 1838, the Oneida ceded most of their land in this same area to the United States. The Chippewa, Sioux, and Winnebago, in three separate treaties, ceded the western half of Wisconsin, above the Wisconsin River, in 1837. With the final cession of some small holdings of the Menomini in the east central part of the state, in 1848, the United States Government now had possession of all Indian land in Wisconsin.

The Indians, in most cases, had western lands assigned to them. The United States army forcibly removed many Winnebago to Nebraska, some of whom remain there today. Other Winnebago, homesick for Wisconsin and afraid of the Sioux, gradually wandered back to Wisconsin where they still are. In 1854 the Menomini were placed on a reservation on the Upper Wolf River. Shortly after this, they sold two townships to the Stockbridge Indians. In 1854, also, three large reservations: Lac Court Oreilles, Lac du Flambeau, and Bad River, were assigned to the Chippewa.

CHAPTER SIX
WISCONSIN’S INDIANS TODAY

In considering the story of those Indians who were important in the history of our state, we have seen that from time to time some tribes have left the Wisconsin scene. We might well wonder what has been their final fate and where they may be found today. As we remember the United States Government removal plan, we are not too surprised to find many of them located at reservations and agencies in our western United States.

The Sauk and Fox are at agencies in Iowa, Kansas, and Oklahoma. The Sauk and Fox reservation in Iowa has an Indian population of 473, and there are 129 Sauk and Fox at the Kansas reservation and an additional 910 at the Sauk and Fox reservation at the Shawnee agency in Oklahoma.

The Kickapoo have small reservations in Oklahoma and Kansas. The Indian population at the Kickapoo reservation in Oklahoma numbers 269; and at the Kickapoo reservation in Kansas, 343. In addition, there are some 350 Kickapoo living in the state of Coahuila, Mexico, having split off from the Oklahoma band in 1852. Population figures given here for the Sauk, Fox, and Kickapoo are from the estimates of the Office of Indian Affairs of the United States Department of the Interior for the year 1940.

The present whereabouts of the Mascoutens presents somewhat of a mystery. Most students of the subject at present believe that members of the Prairie Band of the Potawatomi, who also call themselves the Mascoutens, are the descendents of that tribe, which is so often referred to in early Wisconsin history. The early Mascoutens were closely related to the Sauk, Fox, and Kickapoo, according to early reports, in language and culture, and usually were the political allies of these tribes as well. Some bands of the Prairie Potawatomi are found associated with the Kickapoo in Oklahoma and Kansas, and also in Mexico.

As for the Santee Sioux, who were in northern Wisconsin even before the arrival of the white man, it is again difficult to give accurate present population figures. The term Santee originally designated one band of Indians, but eventually came to mean all of the forest bands of the Sioux, of whom, in all probability, many never resided in Wisconsin. There are, according to the 1940 estimate, 1,197 Sioux living on the Santee reservation in Nebraska, and there are 585 Sioux in Minnesota who would be included in the Santee division. If we were to include all tribes generally classed as Santee Sioux today, expressed in round numbers, 5,000 would probably be a conservative estimate. However, many of these are not derived from those bands formerly living in Wisconsin.

Returning to the Wisconsin scene today, we learn from the 1940 estimates of the Office of Indian Affairs that the present Indian population in Wisconsin is 13,678. Of this total, 5,605 are Chippewa, residing at the Bad River, Lac Court Oreilles, Lac du Flambeau, and Red Cliff reservations. Also included in this figure are the Mole Lake Chippewa and the St. Croix band.

Included in Wisconsin’s present Indian population are also 2,454 Menomini, located at their reservation in Shawano County; 460 Stockbridge and Munses, on their reservation adjoining that of the Menomini; 1,700 Oneida, scattered around the village of Oneida, 10 miles southwest of Green Bay; 1,498 Winnebago, on public domain land allotments, primarily in Jackson, Wood, and Shawano counties; and 310 Potawatomi, in Forest County. While only a small number of Potawatomi have returned to this state since their removal, over half of the Winnebago are now back in their Wisconsin homeland. In addition to the Winnebago who returned to Wisconsin after their removal by the United States Army, 1,268 remained at their reservation in Nebraska. Thus of this reportedly numerous and powerful tribe first encountered by the French when Nicolet landed near Green Bay, in 1634, about 2,766 still survive.