Histories: Trempealeau Co. Historical Accounts:
"History of Trempealeau County Wisconsin, 1917":
Chapter 5:
Winnebago
-As transcribed from pages 41 - 43
The
Winnebago were an outlying tribe of the Siouan family, believed by some
writers to be an older branch than the Dakota themselves. They were
visited at Green Bay by Jean Nicolet 2 as early as 1634.3
He knew them as the Men of the Sea or the Men of the Salt Water, from
the aboriginal name, Ouinipegou, which appears in the modern name of
Winnebago. Literally the word ouinipeg meant "ill-smelling or dirty
water," and the early French called the Winnebago Puants, or
"Stinkards."4 In early fur-trading days Winnebago were ranging as far westward as the Mississippi River.5
For some two centuries thereafter central Wisconsin continued to be
their home. The treaty of Prairie du Chien, signed August 19, 1825, by
the Chippewa, Sauk and Fox, Menominee, Iowa, Sioux, Winnebago, and a
portion of the Ottawa, Chippewa and Potawatomi living on the Illinois,
fixed various boundaries.6 The eastern
line of the Sioux territory was to commence on the Mississippi opposite
the mouth of the "Ioway" River, run back two or three miles to the
bluffs, and follow the tops of the bluffs to the mouth of Black River,
and thence to a point a short distance southwest of Eau Claire on the
Chippewa River, "half a day's journey below the falls."7
The Winnebago territory lay east of the Sioux. In defining a part of
their western territory, the Winnebagoes claimed from the mouth of the
Black River, up that stream to a point due west of the source of the
left fork of the Wisconsin. Thus a part of Trempealeau County was
neutral territory between the Winnebago and Sioux.
By the Treaties of Butte des Morts on Fox River, August 11, 1827; of
Green Bay, August 25, 1828, and of Prairie du Chien, August 1, 1829,
the boundaries of the Winnebago were gradually curtailed, and on
September 15, 1832, at Ft. Armstrong, Rock Island, Illinois, they
agreed to relinquish their claim to all land south and east of the
Wisconsin and Fox Rivers, and to remove to the "neutral ground" a tract
lying west of the Mississippi in northeastern Iowa and southeastern
Minnesota. By the treaty of Washington D. C., November 1, 1837, they
relinquished all their land east of the Mississippi. Subsequently, by
treaty of October 13, 1846, they agreed to cede the tract assigned them
in 1832, and to accept in return a tract north of the Minnesota and
west of the Mississippi. The larger part of the tribe was removed to
Long Prairie, in the central part of Minnesota, in 1848, and small
bands were moved from time to time in the years immediately following.8
In 1855 the Winnebago agency was transferred, under the terms of the
treaty signed February 27, and proclaimed March 23, to Blue Earth
County, near Mankato, Minnesota, but the Sioux Massacre caused the
whites to be apprehensive of the peaceful Winnebago, so (under an Act
of Congress approved February 21, 1863) they were removed to Crow
Creek, on the Missouri River, in North Dakota. In 1865 they agreed to
move to a tract in Nebraska purchased from the Omaha Indians. The
removal of the Winnebago to this Nebraska tract, known as the Black
Bird Reservation, was accomplished in 1866. There a part of the tribe
is still located.
But the Winnebago have never been satisfied with any territory but the
lands of central Wisconsin. Only a portion moved to the Turkey River
country, in northeastern Iowa, under the agreement of 1832. The removal
to Long Prairie, in Minnesota, in 1848 was accomplished under duress
and with the aid of soldiers. In fact, upon reaching Winona, the
Winnebago expressed their determination to go no further, and bloodshed
was narrowly avoided. Before the trouble was ended many had slipped
away and found their way back to their homes in Wisconsin. Others went
to southeastern Nebraska and joined the Ottawa. The Indians. who were
taken to Long Prairie soon drifted southward in Minnesota or back to
Wisconsin. Later others came back to Wisconsin from Blue Earth and from
North Dakota. During the Minnesota Massacre of 1862 it was difficult
for the citizens and volunteer soldiers to distinguish between a Dakota
and a Winnebago Indian, so that many Winnebago who were absolutely
innocent were shot without mercy. The Winnebago were, therefore, in
danger from both the whites and the Dakota Indians, and many turned
their faces toward the peaceful land of Wisconsin, and soon joined
their friends on the old camping grounds.
No sooner was the removal to the Black Bird Reservation accomplished in
1866, than others of the Winnebago took the trail that led to the old
familiar haunts among the pine forests. Within two years, a large part
of the tribe was back again in Wisconsin.
Soon a new movement was on foot to compel them to return to Nebraska,
and by a display of military force, hundreds were again removed to that
region in the winter of 1873-74. During the troubles attending the
forced removal, no less than 56 Indians were arrested in Trempealeau County.9
Taken to far-away Nebraska, the people of the unfortunate race still
longed for their native woods and streams, and their thoughts wandered
over the old hunting grounds and berry fields of Wisconsin. In the pine
woods were the graves of their dead, which made the soil more sacred in
their minds, and there were the camping grounds where all of their
festivities were held, and they hungered for the scenes and
associations of the olden days.
The homeward trail was soon thronged with the returning stragglers, and
within a year, half of the tribe were back. This time Fate was kinder
to them, for in 1875 the government gave them the homestead right,
which enabled them to gain a home of their own by building houses and
doing a certain amount of improving on their land. The larger part of
the Winnebago are now scattered through a territory in the Black River
Valley and to the westward.
The land they live on will probably never be of any particular benefit
to them; it is sandy, poor soil, among the scrub oaks and jack pines.
Some little corn is raised, as well as potatoes, and a few of the
Indians raise chickens.
During the blueberry season the Indians pick berries and sell them, and
during the cranberry season they find employment, and go in bands to
the marshes, where they camp until the crop is gathered.
Thus live the descendants of a race which once had at its command the
unmeasured sweeps of nature, and the boundless wealth of forest and
plain, lake and river.
Resources
for the above information:
2
- Reuben Gold Thwaites, ed. French Regeme in Wisconsin (Extract from
Jesuit Relations, Cleveland issue, XXXIII, 275-279); Wis. Hist. Colls.,
XVI, 1-2. Also see: Ibid, 4 (Extract from La Potherie's Histoire de l'
Amerique, printed at Paris in 1722 and again in 1753). Also: Consul W.
Butterfield, History of the Discovery of the Northwest by Jean Nicolet
(Cincinnati, 1881). Also: Henrie Juan, Jean Nicolet (Translated from
the French by Grace Clark), Wis. Hist. ColIs., XI, 1-22. For
bibliography see: Butterfield, Ibid., 23-25. An excellent summary of
the subject, together with the extract from the Jesuit Relations,
XXXIII, 275-279, just mentioned, is found: L. P. Kellogg, Early
Narratives of the Northwest (New York, 1917), 11-16.
3 - Thwaites, editorial note, Jouan, Nicolet, Wis. Hist. Colls., XI, 1-2.
4 - Juan, Nicolet, Ibid., 13, note.
5 - Thwaites, The French Regeme in Wisconsin, Part 2, Wis. Hist. Colls., XVII, 207.
6 - Richard Peters, ed., Treaties Between the United States and the Indian Tribes, U. S.
Statutes at Large (Boston, 1861), VII, 272. See same volume for all Indian treaties from 1778 to 1842.
7 - Chas. C. Royce, Indian Land Cessions, 18th
Annual Report, Bureau of Ethnology (Washington, 1899), II, 710-712. See
same volume for all Indian Land Cessions.
8 - Return I. Holcombe, Minnesota in Three
Centuries (New York, 1908), II, 207-218. Also: L. H. Bunnell, Winona
and Its Environs (Winona, 1897), 337-341. Also: Maj. J. E. Fletcher,
Report, Ex. Doc., No. 1, Second Session, Thirtieth Congress. Also: Eben
D. Pierce, Recollections of Antoine Grignon, Wis. Hist. Soc.,
Proceedings, 1913, 118-119.
9 - Thwaites, The Wisconsin Winnebago, Wis; Hist.
Colls., XII, 414. (The entire article, -399-433,- is a most excellent
history of the Winnebagoes in Wisconsin since 1828.)
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