At the time when white men first came to Wisconsin, there were found
here several widely differing tribes of Indians, and these were often at
war with one another. The Winnebagoes, an offshoot of the Sioux,
occupied the valleys of the Wisconsin and the Fox, and the shores of
Green Bay as far down as Sturgeon Bay. If the theory of the ethnologists
be correct, that most of the Wisconsin mounds were built by the
Winnebagoes, then at times they must have dwelt in nearly every corner
of the State. This is not unlikely, for the centers of Indian population
were continually shifting, the red men being driven hither and thither
by encroachments of enemies, religious fancies, or the never-ending
search for food. We know only that when the whites found them, they were
holding these two valleys, between Green Bay and Prairie du Chien. A
broad-faced people, with flat noses, they were in personal appearance,
habits, and morals the least attractive of all our tribes. Their
cousins, the wild and dashing Sioux, were still using northwest
Wisconsin as a hunting ground, and had permanent villages in Minnesota,
and elsewhere to the west of the Mississippi River. The Chippewas (or
Ojibways, as the name was originally spelled), the best of our
Wisconsin aborigines, were scattered through the northern part of the
State, as far south as the Black River, and perhaps as far eastward as
the Wolf. East of them were the Menominees (Wild-Rice Eaters), a
comparatively gentle folk, who gathered great stores of grain from the
broad fields of wild rice which flourishes in the bayous and marshy
river bottoms of northeast Wisconsin. The Pottawattomies, with feminine
cast of countenance, occupied the islands at the mouth of Green Bay, and
the west shore of Lake Michigan, down into Illinois. The united Sacs (or
Saukies) and Foxes (Outagamies) were also prominent tribes. When first
seen by whites, the Sacs and Foxes were weak in numbers, but, being a
bold and warlike people, they soon grew to importance, and crowded the
Winnebagoes out of the Fox valley and, later, out of much of the
Wisconsin valley, becoming in their pride and strength bitter enemies of
the French.
Scattered elsewhere through the State were some smaller tribes: the
Mascoutins (Fire Nation), chiefly in the neighborhood of the present
city of Berlin; the short-limbed Kickapoos, in the Kickapoo valley; and,
at various periods, bands of Hurons, Illinois, Miamis, and Ottawas, none
of whom ever played a large part here. The Stockbridges, Oneidas,
Brothertowns, and Munsees, now numerous in northeast Wisconsin, are
remnants of New York and Massachusetts tribes who were removed hither by
the general government in 1822 and later.
No two tribes spoke the same language. In Wisconsin, the Indians were
divided by language into two great families, the Algonkin and the
Dakotan. The Sioux and the Winnebagoes belonged, by their similar
speech, to the Dakotan family, just as the English and the Germans
belong to the great Teutonic family. All the others were of the Algonkin
group, just as the French, the Spanish, and the Italians belong to what
is called the Latin family, and speak languages which have the same
origin. The Indian history of Wisconsin is the more interesting, because
here these two great families or groups met, clashed, and intermingled.
Despite the diversity of tongues, they were, with certain variations,
much the same sort of people; and for our present purpose, the
description of one tribe will serve for the description of all.
In size, Indians resemble Europeans; some are shorter than the average
white man, some taller; the Kickapoos were among the short men. Indians
have black eyes and coarse, black hair. Most of them wear no beard, but
as the hairs appear, pluck them out with tweezers of wood or clam shell.
They have thin lips, high cheek bones, broad faces, and prominent noses;
the Winnebago's nose is large, but much flattened.
In primitive times, the summer dress of the men was generally a short
apron made of the well-tanned skin of a wild animal, the women being
clothed in skins from neck to knees; in winter, both sexes wrapped
themselves in large fur robes. In some parts of North America,
especially in the south, where the Indians were more highly developed
than those in the north, they wove rude cloths of thread spun from
buffalo hair, or of sinews of animals killed in the chase. It is not
supposed that there was much of this cloth made in Wisconsin. What
specimens have been discovered in our mounds, no doubt were obtained
from the native peddlers, who wandered far and wide carrying the
peculiar products of several tribes, and exchanging them for other
goods, or for wampum, the universal currency of the forest. Moccasins of
deerskin were in general use; also leggins, with the fur turned inward
or outward according to the weather. Much of their clothing was stained
red or black or yellow; some was painted in stripes or lace work, and
some was decorated with pictures of birds and beasts, or with scenes
which they wished to commemorate. One old writer quaintly speaks of "a
great skinne painted and drawen and pourtrayed that nothing lacked but
life." Their dress was also ornamented by beads and porcupine quills; in
the fringed borders of their leggins and robes were often fastened
deer's hoofs, the spurs of wild turkeys, or the claws of bears or
eagles, which rattled as their wearers walked along. Around their necks
were strings of beads, and their ears and noses were pierced for the
hanging of various other ornaments. In their hair, the men tied eagle
feathers, one for each scalp taken.
The "war bonnet," worn by the leading warriors, was a headdress of skins
and feathers, which trailed down the back and often to the ground, and
was highly picturesque. Add to this, the general habit of tattooing, or,
on ceremonial occasions, of fantastically, often hideously, painting the
face and neck and breast in blue, black, and red, and one can well
imagine that an Indian village, on a fete day, or at other times of
popular excitement, presented a striking scene.
Each tribe could be readily distinguished from others, by the shape and
material of its wigwams or huts. The Chippewas, for instance, lived in
hemispherical huts, covered with great sheets of birch-bark; the
Winnebago hut was more of the shape of a sugar loaf, and was covered
with mats of woven rushes; the Sioux dwelt in cone-shaped huts
(_tepees_), covered with skins, the poles sticking out at the top. These
huts were foully kept, and all manner of camp diseases prevailed;
pulmonary complaints and rheumatism were particularly frequent, and both
men and women looked old and haggard before they reached middle age.
In the old mound building days, the huts of the village leaders or
chiefs were no doubt built upon the tops of the mounds, while the common
people lived on the lower level. On top of a very large, conspicuous
mound was the council house, where important events were discussed and
action taken. Every warrior, that is, every man who had taken the scalp
of an enemy, was permitted to be heard around the council fire; but the
talking was for the most part done by the privileged class of headmen,
old men, wise men, and orators.
The political organization of the Indians was weak. The villages were
little democracies, where one warrior considered himself as good as
another, except for the respect naturally due to the chiefs or headmen
of the several clans, or to those who had the reputation of being wise
and able. The sachem, or peace-chief, whose office was hereditary
through connection with his mother's family, had but slight authority
unless his natural gifts commanded respect.
When war broke out, the fighting men ranged themselves as volunteers
under some popular leader, perhaps a regular chief, or perhaps only a
common warrior. When the village council decided to do something, any
man might, if he wished, refuse to obey. It was seldom that an entire
tribe, consisting of several villages, united in an important
undertaking; still more unusual was it, for several tribes to unite.
This was, of course, a weak organization, such as a pure democracy is
sure to be. The Indian lacked self-control and steadfastness of purpose,
and the tribes and villages were jealous of one another; so they yielded
before the whites, who better understood the value of union in the face
of a common foe. The formidable conspiracies of King Philip, Pontiac,
and some others were the work of Indians of quite unusual ability in
the art of organization; but the leaders could find few others equal to
their skill, and the uprisings were shortlived.
The Indian's strength as a fighter lay in his capacity for stratagem, in
his ability to thread the tangled forest as silently and easily as the
plain, and in his habit of making rapid, unexpected sallies for robbery
and murder, and then gliding back into the dark and almost impenetrable
forest. He soon tired of long military operations, and, when hard
pressed, was apt to yield to the white men who were often inferior in
numbers, but who soon learned to adopt the aborigine's skulking method
of warfare.
Lord of his own wigwam, and tyrannical over his squaws, the Indian was
kind and hospitable to unsuspected strangers, yet merciless to a
captive. Nevertheless, prisoners were often snatched from the stake, or
the hands of a cruel captor, to be adopted into the family of the
rescuer, taking the place of some one killed by the enemy. The red man
was improvident, given to gambling, and, despite the popular notion, was
a jolly, easy-going sort of fellow around his own fire; but in council,
and when among strangers, he was dignified and reserved, too proud to
exhibit curiosity or emotion. He indulged in a style of oratory which
abounded in metaphors drawn from his observations of nature. He was
superstitious, peopling the elements with good and bad spirits; and was
much influenced by the medicine men, who were half physicians and half
priests, and who commanded long fastings, penances, and sacrifices, with
curious dances, and various forms of necromancy.
The Indian made tools and implements which were well adapted to his
purpose; the boats which he fashioned of skins, of birch-bark, or of
hollowed trunks of trees have not been surpassed. He was remarkably
quick in learning the use of firearms, and soon equaled the best white
hunters as a marksman. A rude sense of honor was developed within him;
he had a nice perception of what was proper to do; he knew how to bend
his own will to the force of custom, thus he overcame to some extent the
natural evils of democracy. He understood the arts of politeness when he
chose to practice them. He could plan admirably, and often displayed
much skill in strategy; his reasoning was good. He knew the value of
form and color, as we can see in his rock-carvings, in his rude
paintings, in the decorations on his leather, and in his often graceful
body-markings. In short, he was less of a savage than we are in the
habit of thinking him; he was barbarous from choice, because he had a
wild, untrammeled nature and saw little in civilized ideas to attract
him. This is why, with his polite manner, he always seemed to be
yielding to missionary efforts, yet perhaps never became thoroughly
converted to Christianity.
When first discovered by white men, Wisconsin Indians were using rude
pottery of their own make. Their arrowheads and spearheads, axes,
knives, and other tools and weapons were of copper obtained from Lake
Superior mines, or of stone suitable for the purpose. They smoked
tobacco in pipes wrought in curious shapes from a soft kind of stone
found in Minnesota, and ornaments and charms were also frequently made
from this so-called "pipestone." Game they killed with arrows or
sling-shots, and in war used these, as well as stone spears and hatchets
and stone-weighted clubs. The bulk of their food they obtained by
hunting, fishing, and cultivating the soil, although at times they were
forced to resort to the usually plentiful supply of fruits, nuts, and
edible roots. Indian corn was the principal crop. Beans were sown in the
same hills, while sometimes between the rows were planted several
varieties of pumpkins, water-melons, and sunflowers. Tobacco and sweet
potatoes were grown by some tribes, but not in Wisconsin. In our State,
wild rice (or oats) furnished a good substitute for corn, and was
similarly cooked.
The whites wrought a serious change in the life and manners of the
Indians. They introduced firearms among the savages, and induced them to
become hunters, and to wander far and wide for fur bearing animals, the
pelts of which were exchanged for European cloths, glass beads, iron
kettles, hatchets, spears, and guns and powder. Thus the Indian soon
lost the old arts of making their own clothing from skins, kettles from
clay, weapons from stone and copper, and wampum (beads used both for
ornament and money) from clam shells. It did not take them long to
discover that their labor was more productive when they hunted, and
purchased what they wanted from the white traders, than when they made
their own rude implements and utensils and raised crops. But the result
was bad, for thereby they ceased to be self-sustaining; their very
existence became dependent on the fur traders, who introduced among them
many vices, not least of which was a love for the intoxicating liquors
in which the traders dealt.
The Indian, at best, was never a lovable creature. He was dirty,
improvident, brutal; he was, as compared with a European, mentally and
morally but an undeveloped man. He is to-day, as we find him upon the
reservations, pretty much the same as when found by the French over two
and a half centuries ago, except that to his original vices he has added
some of the worst vices of the white man. The story of the Indian is
practically the story of the fur trade, and that is the story of
Wisconsin before it became a Territory.