WI SHPO CRMP Volume 1 Historic Indians
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OVERVIEW WISCONSIN'S INDIANS SINCE 1634 (Reprinted from Wisconsin Historic Preservation Plan, Vol. 1, 1975 by John O. Holzhueter) (When this brief summary was written in 1975, the new interpretations of the fur trade suggested by Bruce Trigger, W. J. Eccles, and Conrad Heidenreich were not yet generally available, and Calvin Martin was just making known his ideas about animal biology and cultural anthropology. Their approaches reflected to a large extent the then new work of Anthony F. C. Wallace about the Black Hawk War: all parties' points of view considered, along with as much background as needed to understand them. These and other scholars have painstakingly re-examined the European-created literature and the oral traditions from the proto-historic and historic periods, and have generally concluded that Indians along the Upper Creat Lakes considered themselves firmly in charge of the area and superior in most ways to the newcomers. The Indians attitude was not lost on the few non-Indians who then lived in Canada and along the Upper Great Lakes. W. J. Eccles suggests, in fact, that maintaining harmonious relations with the tribes and outmaneuvering rival European nations--diplomacy--were more important goals for the visitors than the fur trade. Likewise, Indian tribes used the fur trade as a diplomatic tool among thelnselves and with the Europeans. Putting the long-dominant economic and exploration motive lower on the list of European motivation than diplomacy seems more logical in 1985 than it did in 1975. Seen in terms of diplomacy, the ebb and flow of people across Wisconsin from about 1600 to 1854 becomes quite a different story than one presented below.) Historians often begin the tale of Wisconsin's Indians with Christopher Columbus, move forward to the exploratory and colonial policies of various western European nations, and then specifically discuss France's activity along the St. Lawrence River. It is a useful introduction, for it explains why the French had several interrelated goals in mind by the time they reached Wisconsin: finding a water route to the Orient, locating a good supply of superior furs, "redeeming" the Indian from his non-Christian state, securing control over as much as possible of the North American continent, satisfying the human impulse to explore the unknown and expand the universe of knowledge, and imposing European government and institutions upQn newly discovered areas. But even before the French extended their activity to the Upper Great Lakes, their impact had had its effects there. The Winnebago had traded furs to the Ottawa for the European market by 1623, well before the Winnebago actually saw white fur traders. And at least one, isolated, youthful trader almost certainly had made his way to the state's lake Superior boundary before the European influx began in earnest. He was Etienne Brule, a Canadian of French birth, who reached the Chequamegon region of Lake Superior no later than 1622. It is almost equally certain that he, together with his Indian companions, encountered other Indians there, thus raising the curtain on the so-called historic period of Indian history in V\Tisconsin. Generally, however, the year designated as the beginning of the historic period is 1634, when Jean Nicolet is believed to have visited the Green Bay region and also to have encountered numerous Winnebago, some Menominee, and perhaps some Potawatomi Indians. Evidence of Nicolet's journey has been challenged, although more is known about his visit than Brule's, and consequently he usually is given the palm for having reached Wisconsin first. The first uncontested recorded visit by a European-American apppears to have been made by Medard Chouart Des Groseilliers, who in 1654 reached the Chequamegon region of Lake Superior, though to have been mapped more than thirty years earlier by Brule. Groseilliers spent the winter among Indians in Wisconsin, the first European-American known to have done so within the boundaries of the modern state. 1.. 1 HISTORIC INDIANS Well before 1654, however, furs from animals killed in the region west and south of the Upper Great Lakes had been traded among Indians and had eventually reached Europe. For example, by 1623, the Ottawa, who acted as fur wholesalers to the French, had visited the Winnebago (then called the Puants) and had exchanged goods for "furs, pigments, wampum and other rubbish." Isolated but unknown, unrecorded, and no doubt illiterate Europeans may also have traded as individuals within the state's boundaries before 1654. At any event, by that time European trade goods had to some degree appeared in Wisconsin. During the next 200 years, more than twenty tribes of Indians passed through the Wisconsin areas; but only three--Winnebago, Menominee, and, to a lesser extent, the eastern Sioux--have been associated with it from earliest historic days to the present as permanent residents. The other tribes are the Huron and Ottawa; Miami and associated groups, the Menhengakonkia, Pepicokea, Piankashaw, and Wea; Kickapoo, Mascouten, and Kitchigami; Illinois; Fox and Sauk; Chippewa, Potawatomi; Brothertown; Stockbridge-Munsee; and Oneida. This extraordinary proliferation of Indians within a relatively small area can be accounted for by using tools employed by historians, natural scientists, ethnohistorians, and anthropologists. All these disciplines, of course, are interrelated, just as the histories of the white and Indian communities are. A fresh examination of the record, however, has some advantages. First, within the last twenty or thirty years, the study of past environments (paleoclimatology) and of surviving remains (historic archeology) have begun to contribute to an understanding of the events of only 200 or 300 years ago. These new findings have not often been applied to Indian history generally. Second, Indian accomplishments and the white community's impact on Indian development need to be looked at objectively, and afresh, without reference to the "noble savage" or "mea culpa" schools that have spawned so many studies by guilt-ridden writers. Elements of both are valid enough, but their validity need tempering by other considerations. Archeologists of the Upper Great Lakes region have found it convenient to divide the years before 1820 into three periods: the early historic period, from 1670 to 1760; and the late historic period, from 1760 to 1820. Wisconsin archeologists have so far excavated few sites for any of these periods. However, more and more anthropological studies have been made of Wisconsin's Indian cultures, based upon the oral traditions of Indians and upon anthropologists' observations and testing. As for history and ethnohistory, the record is fairly dismal. Studies about early Indian history abound; they emphasize developments before and up to the times when Indians were moved to reservations. But little thoroughgoing history exists for the period after 1860, despite a plethora of official documents, This embarrassment of riches may well account for the death of scholarly history about Wisconsin's recent tribes. The most significant archeology to date has taken place on Rock Island at the mouth of Green Bay, where evidence of long-term white and mixed Indian occupation has been dicovered. The archeologist of Rock Island has published only the ethnohistorical portions of his findings, but he makes a convincing case, based upon documents, for occupation from the 1650s through the 1730s. He concludes that Potawatomi were the principal occupants, that trader-adventurer Rene-Robert Cavelier de La Salle visited there, and that La Salle's ill-fated ship Griffin sailed from Rock Island's sheltered harbor into oblivion in 1679. Artifact analysis has not been completed, but preliminary reports indicate that it will confirm the ethno-historical conclusions and very likely extend them. Artifacts recovered on Rock Island date from all three of the historic periods, and there is evidence of prehistoric occupation as well, including occupation just before the onset of the historic period. An earlier spectacular find was the Bell Site on the south shore of Lake Butte des Nlorts near Oshkosh (now a quarry), which yielded artifacts from the middle historic period. 1 .. 2 Because French grenade fragments were recovered there, and because documentary evidence points to the Bell Site as a Fox village, the site almost certainly is that of a Fox fort attacked by French forces in 1716 in hopes of bringing the tribe to heel and to reinstitute trade. On Madeline Island, one of the Apostle Islands in Lake Superior, Indian-and European-made goods have been recovered from a single site, very likely he remains of a Huron village dating between 1660 and 1670, when the Huron lived with Ottawa in the region. Two sites associated with the Winnebago have been excavated on the northwestern shore of Lake Koshkonong in Jefferson County. The first, Carcajou Point, contained artifacts from prehistoric occupation along with evidence of much later use, dated to the 1830s by the archeologist. The archeologist of the second site, Crabapple Point, a bit further southwest along the Koshkonong shore, found artifacts including trade silver and goods dating from 1760 into the early 1800s, perhaps as late as 1820s. Probably both Koshkonong settlements were occupied more or less contemporaneously. According to documentary evidence, one faction of Winnebago Indians (the tribe had split in two about 1730) lived during the late historic period on Lake Koshkonong and along the Rock River, of which the lake is a part. In all of these instances of historic Indian archeology, documents and artifacts together enabled scholars to reach conclusions that they could not have reached had they used only one body of evidence. Both the archeological and historical disciplines have been enriched as a consequence, and the discoveries suggest that knowledge of the historic Indian periods will be advanced more and more by interdisciplinary research.