U PEEHfSTdHK When the discoverers of North America _a*_~___ii these shores in the last decade of the fifteenth century, they found the main- land, and the islands adjoining, inhabited by a hitherto un- Cx known race of men, who we re, called Indians .by Columbus, who believed that he had reached India. During the intervening years. since those discoveries, diligent research has been made, and many theories advanced, in the effort to account for their pres­ ence here, but no acceptable solution of their origin is extant, and no data has been brought to light on which to base an esti­ mate as to haw far back in pre-historlc times they had occupied this country; while such memorials as haaxbeen found of those auUeutu times and people, furnish too scant material for anyAwritten ac- <•' ' count of the$_C OftyjMA «

Those memorials consist chiefly of artificial mounds, of great variety in size, shape, and content, which have^a subject aj>(fiw 'to of perennial interest to antiquarians. Frequently they, have served the purpose of graves, and many skeletons of human beings, with remains of personal ornaments, weapons and implements have been found tha*e4«.The heads of arrows and of spears, In both stone and copper; rings, sledges, hatchetsu knives, and pottery f&-CUl4 &E&4 in various shapes for domestic use were ____3_e©-w_s»_ in the mounds. din dew™ u( The .Indians aa„__ed all knowledge of. the origin of these mounds and their contents, np of the people by whom they were made, which led to the conjecture that it was another race of men who built them; but patient investigators of late years have suc- S A ceeded in tracing their origin toJ the Indians, themselves,- tne progenitors of those who were here when the country was discovered. I «

1, p

Wisconsin has been rich beyond most states in these antiqui­ ties, and fortunate also in the number% high character and attain- ments of its archeologists, who by persistent and scholarly re- v\J search have given them an added and increasing significance. They also very early took the necessary steps to assure the permanent • (I) preservation of many of the more important specimens.

Among the early records of Racine county's Indian memorials (2) is the following, printed in 1857;-

*$£•• "At Racine there are a number of very interesting remains, chiefly on the high ground near Root River, from one to two miles from the lake. Here are numer­ ous circular burial mounds, though of small size and elevation, embraced in one circular enclosure, with several tapering ridges. The mounds are without sys­ tematic arrangement, from five to fifty feet in diam­ eter, and from one to seven feet in height. Dr. Hoy, of Racine, opened one in which were found the skele­ tons of seven persons, ir|a sitting posture, facing the east, but unaccompanied with ornaments. In an­ other he discovered two vases of pottery, one made of cream-colored white sand, li_ce pale brick, of the capacity of five quarts; the other, which was af a red brick color, was smaller. Both were thought to re­ semble those in culinary use among the Burmese. The great antiquity of these remains is made clear by the gigantic size of the trees now standing upon.thejm,- one with three hundred rings, showing, as Dr. Hoy es­ timates, an antiquity of a thousand years. But the most numerous group o>f these mounds lies about a mile west of Racine, and apart of them has been embraced in the modern cemetery of that beautiful city."

(I) Foot-note;- Dr. P.R.Hoy, of Racine, is one of five Wiscon­ sin scientists, who have been given distinguished honors by the State, see biographical sketch of Dr. Hoy. (2) Foot-note;- William Barry, in Wisconsin Historical Coll­ ections, Volume III, page 188. 1 3 /& Ahum CimTERi When Racine's oldest burial ground - Mound Cemetery - was loisated and platted, in I85I. Dr. P. R. Hoy was chairman of the committee in charge, and was very insistent that the Indian mounds on the property should be preserved intact. As on Dec. 15, 1851, a first step, the city counciljsadopted a resolution directing the city surveyor to"designate upon the plat of tne Cemetery some of the principal Indian mounds, and that so much of the lots or blocks as shall be necessary to preserve them shall be reserved from sale." The Cemetery committee then began setting out rows Of*evergreen trees - Arbor Vitae - around the rims of the larger mounds, which have served as an effective barrier to (I) any violation of them. Native trees were also growing on some of them, and are today, one of which, a burr oak, is nearly thirty inches in diameter. On Mar. 3, 1908, the city council authorized the purchase of a marker for the Indian mounds, and ^Mxwrmm. €i#ffl erected a concrete tmagesx^*fca_£ Hasr feet high,was j__t__jx on the crest of the largest of them. (I) Foot-note;- These Arbor Vitae, set out naar-aty eighty years ago, are nearly all dead, and should be replaced by oth­ er similar trees. '., W iscot/siN INDIANS I The Wisconsin Indian known to history was a race of hunters, who with the bow and arrow, the spear and tomahawk, (fhshioned by his own hands) provided food, clothing and shelter, such as he had. He hunted and fished, and fought and died, and except for a few mounds and their contents, left behind him a scaecely more authen­ tic memorial of his existence, or of his antecedents, than we have of his contemporaries - the victims of his hunting exploits.

FUR TRAOZ. Taotfrtc § With the coming of the white man began the trade in peltries, and in the late seventeenth, and during the eighteenth centuries, Wisconsin was the frontier of the North American fur trade, and the chief source of supply. The Indian was the hunter and trapper, and in the early days of the trade, Immense fleets of Indian canoes, loaded with furs, requiring in some instances, from 500 to 1,000 Indians to handle, (I) and piloted by a few white traders, took the water route to Montreal; first by portage from Lake superior to the upper Ottawa River, down ?rhich they floated to the St .Law­ rence; later taking a shorter route by portage from Georgian Bay to Lake Ontario, and down the St.Lawrence to Montreal.

On the return trips to their forest homes, the Indians brought in exchange^quantities of blankets and cloth; kettles, knives and cooking other T-S-uw utensils; hatchets and pocket knives, combs, mirrors and beads, and trinkets in. metal and glass that excited the cupid­ ity or the childish cariosity.of the savage. Later the French traders established convenienthy located stations, with stocks of

(I) See "The French Regime in Wisconsin and the North­ west"; Kellogg; page 136 \ ^

goods, where the Indian could trade his skins for such sup­ plies as he wanted, on equitable terms; provided he was a match for the trader in the fine art of exchange, as he eventually came to be, after an expensive experience in its practise.

XARLY iMOfAN HABrTAT

Early comers to Wisconsin found the islands of Green Bay in- (I) habited by the Potawatomi Indians. Crossing the eighteen miles of water to the eastern shores of the bay, was found the chief vil­ lage of the Menomonees, or as the French called them, the Wild Rice Eatsrs. Their wigwams were clustered about the mouth of the river bearing their name. They are the oldest Algonkln dwellers in the stase, and are still living on a portion of the lands they decupled when Nlcolet first came to Wisconsin, nearly three hundred years ago. At the head of the bay were the Winnebago Indians,- the "men of the sea", whom Nicoletssught in I634-, under the erroneous Impression that they were Chinamen. Following the Fox River, next were encountered the Mascoutens, known as the Fire Nation; and near­ by were the war-like sacs and Foxes. Along the shore of Lake super­ ior dwelt the Ojlbwas, better known later as the Chippewas; and to the south of them, on the aaa&SOL St.Croix, were straggling bands of the Sioux, whose main body was on the opposite side of the Mississippi River. In the southwestern section of the state were the Kickapoos.

(I) The Potawatomies were the Indians whose traditions furnished Longfellow much of the material for his great poem,"Hi awa tha". ALQ QNKIN AND DAKOTAt/ 3 The above are the prominent tribes of red men that figure in

_ hi tic stocks of Indians - the Algonkin and the Dakotan. Here on Wis­ consin soil the two powerful confederacies first came in contact. Indian boundaries were never well defined, and therefore the hunt­ ing grounds of these various tribes were subject to incessant shift - Ings. There seems to have been but little conflict between the Win- nebagoes, who are of Dakotan extraction, and their Algonkin neigh­ bors, but between the Chippewa and the Sioux hostilities were al­ most continuous, and bloody wars frequent over boundary disputes. f THE WISCONSIN INDIAN IN 1817

An extract from notes of a land journey through south eastern Wisconsin in I8I7» by SAmuel A. Storrow.# ©

During the first third of the nineteenth century, there were no settlements in southeastern •visconsin, - none whatever. There were plenty of Indians in the country, however. On August 17, 1817, -Samuel A. Storrow, Judge Advocate of the United States Army, well escorted, embarked in a barge, at Detroit, Michigan Territory, and journeyed by *^ay of Lake Huron, the Straits, Lake Michigan and Green Bay, to Fort Howard, from which place he undertook and completed a foot journey of 250 miles to Fort Dear­ born, (Chicago), accompanied only by _CXM1 an Indian guide, and a soldier of the Third regiment, who led a pack horse loaded with provisions, and presents for trie Indians. Leaving Grsen Bay on Sept. 22, he arrived at Fort Dearborn on October 2nd.; a descrip­ tion of his experiences on this Journey, quite in detail, ap­ pears in volume 6, Wisconsin Historical Collections, in which hs tells of finding a village of Pottowotomies at tne mouth of ths Millewackie river, and the next day of swimming the Sohlplcoten, (Root) river, "a dark and sluggish stream, to©deep to be forded." On this trip Mr. Storrow saw much of the Indian in-his native habitat, uncontaminated or otherwise influenced by the whites, and tsok pains,XS in his report, to record his impressions, and to express his opinion that the Indian could not be degraded by association with the whites, contrary to the generally accepted idea. Concerning these matters Mr. Storrow said;

"During tne day (October/ 1817 ) I had met a great number of Indians, sometimes in large groups, moving'like caravans. During the several previous days I had b^en with them; a circumstance I did not mention in its place, from the little pleasure it gives me to refer to them. Thus far, in tracing them to their haunts, I have found none of the high qualities which have been so lavishly imputed to them; nothing to justify the contradictory expression of'savage virtus!, or to warrant the belief of a radical difference between the Arab, the Algerins or the Indian. Whatever immoralities may arise from contact with the whites, it is still benevolence to to promote the Union. Left to their forests and themselves, they become the victims of their own wants and vices; but is this less the fault of the world he has left, than of that which he enters? Is it not the sad and necessary consequences of the savage condi­ tion, which a___.es the aenravlties of tne new state the only accept­ able parts of it. Assentjl-ng however to the unjust position that society has nothing but its eyiis to give; that Heaven forbids the Indian to become enlightened by means that have molded his fellow men; he gains enough if he but exchange vices. Even If Instinct should fail in its ordinary effects; if necessity should not in­ duce industry, nor industry virtue; yet society can give him noth­ ing worse than his original properties, nor lead him to any viler" state than that in which it finds him.* -• - —-,—

(Foot-note ) From Wisconsin Historical Collections; Vol. VI, page 177. |_, _. »jf j carried with me any respect for savage life, it is obvious that I brought none away. If I ever looked with com­ placency on man left to himself, I discarded the doctrine in the wilderness. " „ /0MANS IN JiAC/AfE CdWTj The early history of Racine county is singularly bare of any­ thing like violence or tragedy in the relations of the pioneers with the Indians of this section. The Black Hawk War, with its saiutory lessons, had then but recently been fought, and the treaty with the.Potawatomls, Chippewas and Ottawas concluded. By the terms of the latter a tract of land containing about five million acres had been ceded to the United States, sub­ ject to Indian occupancy until 1836*, and the right of the Gov­ ernment to survey it in the meantime. Previous to the .'date of this^treaty,(September 26, 1833) the title to the land was in the Indians, and they were the sole occupants in fact, for in I832 there were but four white men in the tract of country south of Green Bay and east of Rock River; and they were French trad­ ers. Gilbert Knapp, coming in November, 1834, was the first permanent settler- on any portion of that tract of land now in­ cluded in the counties of Racine, Walworth and Rock*r*

/i/or/l/uME/?dUs AypJ'/tvAce.

After ratification of the treaty on February 21, 1835, the Indians involved were removed, ir\accordance with its terms, to lands of equal extent beyond the Mississippi; those in Illinois going immediately,on ratification, while those in Wisconsin had * three years of grace before removal. While waiting transfer, their destiny fixed, the Wisconsin Indians scattered over their old hunt­ ing ground, their chief Interest being found lr.-Ubt periodical trips to the agencies at Milwaukee and Chicago, for food supplies and other allowances, under the treaty,* and they were not numerous enough or savage enough to create more than a mild interest in their presence in the neighborhood of the new settlements thet shortly began to appear.

(I) Foot-note;- See "Address to Racine County Old Settlers" by Charles E. Dyer; I87I; page 18. A^T AN FSCAPAPF

One reason for this, very likely, was that when the settlers began to come in,-in 1835- they came in a flood, and the salutory lessons of 1332 had not yet been forgotten, whatever the reason, it is the fact that in all reminiscenses of the early settlers of Ra­ cine , city and county, that I have listened to or read, all ref­ erences to Indians have been very brief, and without color or in­ terest. Not a fight, not a scare, not an escapade of any sort in­ volving an Indian in Racine county do I recall. The writer has made an index of the proceedings of the City Council of Racine, and of the Board of Supervisors of Racine County, beginning with 1838, and It is significant that in neither is there record of a single transaction involving an Indian. The Indian stories related below are typical of all those I have heard In connection with the early history of Racine county, and they are not without some In­ terest, but will answer to>the general description of pioneer con- ditions with respect to triNK given above. •A

/M)/AN GftA YE tN TREE Daniel Newton, who came to Racine in May, 1835* related the following Incident of his trip here, in a letter to his daughter in Sept., 1877;— "When within three or four miles of Root River, the timber and trail came close together, and now and then a tree was seen at the left of the trail. The trees were oak, with short bodies and large tops, and some distance apart, and such is commonly called "oak openings ". Up in a fork of one of those trees was discovered that which had the appearance of a log of wsod, about three or four feet long, and the bark nicely taken off. One of our company whose bump of curiosity was quite prominent,- I think it was broth­ er Weed - managed to get it down, and in the log were the remains of a little Indian child, probably tw_ years old. It was very much decayed, yet the form and size were very plain to be seen. The log had been split about one-fourth from the center. The larger part was dug out similar to a sap trough. The corpse was then put In and then the two pieces were put together and made fast with bark or some­ thing similar. After curiosity was satisfied, I think it was buried near the tree from whence it was taken." n Rev. Jason Lothrop came to Pike Creek,(Kenosha ) Wrhlch was then in Racine County, in I835> where, on March 12, 1838, he organized the first Baptist church In the village. Two years later, on April \& 25, 184-0, he organized the First Baptist church In Racine, and be­ came its first pastor. Mr. Lothrop was a prominent character in the business, social and educational, as well as the religious life, of souths.*! Wisconsin in pioneer days. AlRs,BURR'S IATOJANSTCR^ A daughter of Jason Lothrop, who l_ter married a Mr. Burr, was ten years of age when the family arrived at Pike Creek in 1835; she died in Kenosha in 1912 or 1913* A few years before her death she wrote her remlnlscenses, which I have been privileged to read In manuscript. They are of very great interest, and I will quote here a paragraph or two that relaU-to early Indian exper­ iences. [XufaLlteo f<&n*4jU wuj ^ajt&ftiiu***/ _-_*fc»__j_ "Now imagine yourself Inside.' (tne log house)- When first occupied no floor but the earth, upon which branch­ es were thickly strewn, bedding laid thereon, and more than glad, aye thankful, for so comfortable a place to rest their weary limbs, forgetful of the reptiles colled underneath, that were abundant, though very few harm­ ful. The windows with 7x9 panes of glass you imagine flooded the apartment with light. The stairs a ladder, two steps In one. A battened door that boasted a wooden latch, with string fastened inside with a peg, put in a hole in one of the logs. Children would be left in the house with orders not to remove the peg lest the Indians might carry them off. The latter would try the door, pass around to the 7x9, to discover if possible the matter with the door, take an inventory of the in­ mates and.fumitureibut make no trouble. "Aside from these, two hundred Indians in birch- bark canoes, on. the way to Milwaukee for their annu­ ities, were driven ashore about a mile south amd camPed there, the storm continuing until they became disagree­ ably familiar. One night, after imbibing Mr. Reslgue*s fire-water, some of them pounded on the door for admit­ tance, past the time for retiring, and an inmate was restrained by force from firing through the door. It was a terrible thought that such an act meant the mas- sacre of the whole settlementrUfoiie under the Influence" of said fire-water, they would leap high and emit blood­ curdling yells, and it was a was a joyful sight and re­ lief to the few inhabitants, when one pleasant morn their canoes were seen gliding northerly over the calm sur­ face of the lake." • " ; t i

JA ZURCPE/SNS IMPRESS IOA/$ In a letter from his farm home in Mt.Pleasant, to friends in Guernsey, dated September 12, 1840, Nicholas LePrevost, one of the first emigrants from that Island to Racine county, gave, in a paragraphs European's impressions of the American Indian, as he saw him here e4shty=Mse years ago. Mr. LeProvost said; " There are Indians in these parts but they have taken oath to conform themselves to the laws of the state. They neither say nor do anything to any per­ son. They are *_ae of a yellow taint, and long black hair.. Some paimt their faces, and have rings to their ears, and some even in their noses, for ornament. Their dress which consists generally of a blanket to envelop them - some wear trousers and others stock-* ings; others knee-breeches, and a waist-band orna­ mented with beads; and they make baskets, _c, &c, with ash splits, which they sell for a livelyhood. They kill game, for there Is no want of it here. In three hours I shot;jl5 pigeons and three ducks - all wild".

In an interview about the year 1920 with Charles Bucking­ ham, an early boot and shoe dealer in Racine, he told me that In t$?6 r?

W I have no recollection, however, of having been disturbed by the noise of it. \ *'' THE CcvEANMtNT AND THB INDIAN Since the indSfpendence^of the United States was established, the Indians of the country have been the wards of the Nation, and even before that event the inconsistent practice was begun of making treaties with them, thereby recognizing the dependent In­ dian tribes as independent powers. The Government's first Indian treaty was with the Delawares, dated September 17, 1778. By act of Congress, approved March 3, I87I, the practice was discontin­ ued, leaving 370 Indian treaties on the statute books.

The Indian Bureau was established March II, I824-, and the office of Indian Affairs created in I832. In 184-9 the Bureau of Indian Affairs was transferred from the War department to the de­ partment of the Interior, created that year, where it has since re­ mained . ALL IMQJANS Atow t/T/ze-Ns By act of Congress approved June 2, I924-, all Indians in the United States became citizens. In June, I925» there were a total of 350,695 Indians In the country. In June, 1927. there were 11,622 in the state of Wisconsin, divided numerically among the follow­ ing tribes in the order of mention;- Oneidas, Chippewas, Menorao- nies, Wlnnebagoes, Potawatomles, Stockbrldges and Munsees.

if!

(I) Foot-note;- The statistical information in theAabove paragraphs was obtained from/official reports of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. A