Wisconsin in its racial character is popularly known to the country at
large as a Teutonic state. That means the state has a German element,
original and derivative, which numerically overshadows the American,
English, Irish, Scandinavian, and other stocks also represented in
the Badger blend. It is not necessary to quarrel with this widely
accepted theorem, though some of the corollaries drawn from it can be
shown to be unhistorical; and one can demonstrate statistically that
if Wisconsin now is, or at any census period was, a Teutonic state
she began her statehood career in 1848 as a Yankee state and thus
continued for many years with consequences social, economic, political,
religious, and moral which no mere racial substitutions have had power
to obliterate. My purpose in the present paper is to present, from
local sources, some discussion of the relations of Yankee and Teuton
to the land--a theme which ought to throw light on the process of
substitution mentioned, revealing how the Teuton came into possession
of vast agricultural areas once firmly held by the Yankee.
The agricultural occupation of southern Wisconsin, which brought the
first tide of immigration from New England, western New York, northern
Pennsylvania, and Ohio--the Yankee element--may be said roughly to
have been accomplished within the years 1835 and 1850. The settlements
which existed prior to 1835 were in the lead region of the southwest,
at Green Bay, and at Prairie du Chien. The population of the lead mines
was predominantly of southern and southwestern origin; that of the
two other localities--the ancient seats of the Indian trade and more
recent centers of military defense--was mainly French-Canadian. When,
in 1836, a territorial census was taken, it was found that the three
areas named had an aggregate population of nearly 9000, of which more
than 5000 was in the lead region included in the then county of Iowa.
The Green Bay region (Brown County) was next, and the Prairie du Chien
settlement (Crawford County) smallest.
The census, however, recognized a new county, Milwaukee, whose
territory had been severed from the earlier Brown County. It was
bounded east by Lake Michigan, south by Illinois, west by a line drawn
due north from the Illinois line to Wisconsin River at the Portage, and
north by a line drawn due east from the Portage to the lake. In terms
of present-day divisions, the Milwaukee County of 1836 embraced all of
Kenosha, Racine, Walworth, Rock, Jefferson, Waukesha, and Milwaukee
counties, nearly all of Ozaukee, Washington, and Dodge, a strip of
eastern Green County, and most of Dane and Columbia. In that imperial
domain the census takers found a grand total of 2900 persons, or almost
exactly one-fourth of the population of the entire territory.
Two significant facts distinguish the Milwaukee County census list
from the lists of Brown, Crawford, and Iowa counties--the recency
of the settlement and the distinctive local origin of the settlers.
These people had only just arrived, most of them in the early months
of 1836. One could almost count on his ten fingers the individuals
who were there prior to the summer of 1835. In reality they were not
yet “settled,” for most of the rude claim huts--mere shelters of the
pre-log house stage--were haunted at night and shadowed at noonday
by men only, resident families being still rare, though many were on
the lakes, at the ports of Milwaukee and Chicago, or on the overland
trail which was to end at the cabin door. It was the prophecy of new
communities, not the actuality, that the census taker chronicled when
he recorded the names of claim takers with the number of persons,
of each sex, comprising their households. We have reason to believe
that the numbers were inscribed almost as cheerfully when the persons
represented by them were still biding in the old home or were en route
west, as when they were physically present in the settler’s cabin or in
the dooryard, eager to be counted.
[Illustration:
WISCONSIN TERRITORY
1836