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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.

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