"All that relates to the Indian tribes of Wisconsin," says Dr. Shea,
"their antiquities, their ethnology, their history, is deeply
interesting from the fact that it is the area of the first meeting of
the Algic and Dakota tribes. Here clans of both these wide-spread
families met and mingled at a very early period; here they first met in
battle and mutually checked each other's advance." The Winnebagoes
attracted the attention of the French even before they were visited.
They were located about Green bay. Their later location at the entrance
of Lake Winnebago was unoccupied, at least in the time of Allouez,
because of the hostility of the Sioux. Early authorities represented
them as numbering about one hundred warriors.[67] The Pottawattomies we
find in 1641 at Sault Ste. Marie,[68] whither they had just fled from
their enemies. Their proper home was probably about the southeastern
shore and islands of Green bay, where as early as 1670 they were again
located. Of their numbers in Wisconsin at this time we can say but
little. Allouez, at Chequamegon bay, was visited by 300 of their
warriors, and he mentions some of their Green bay villages, one of which
had 300 souls.[69] The Menomonees were found chiefly on the river that
bears their name, and the western tributaries of Green bay seem to have
been their territory. On the estimates of early authorities we may say
that they had about 100 warriors.[70] The Sauks and Foxes were closely
allied tribes. The Sauks were found by Allouez[71] four leagues[72] up
the Fox from its mouth, and the Foxes at a place reached by a four days'
ascent of the Wolf river from its mouth. Later we find them at the
confluence of the Wolf and the Fox. According to their early visitors
these two tribes must have had something over 1000 warriors.[73] The
Miamis and Mascoutins were located about a league from the Fox river,
probably within the limits of what is now Green Lake county,[74] and
four leagues away were their friends the Kickapoos. In 1670 the Miamis
and Mascoutins were estimated at 800 warriors, and this may have
included the Kickapoos. The Sioux held possession of the Upper
Mississippi, and in Wisconsin hunted on its northeastern tributaries.
Their villages were in later times all on the west of the Mississippi,
and of their early numbers no estimate can be given. The Chippeways were
along the southern shore of Lake Superior. Their numbers also are in
doubt, but were very considerable.[75] In northwestern Wisconsin, with
Chequamegon bay as their rendezvous, were the Ottawas and Hurons,[76]
who had fled here to escape the Iroquois. In 1670 they were back again
to their homes at Mackinaw and the Huron islands. But in 1666, as
Allouez tells us, they were situated at the bottom of this beautiful
bay, planting their Indian corn and leading a stationary life. "They are
there," he says, "to the number of eight hundred men bearing arms, but
collected from seven different nations who dwell in peace with each
other thus mingled together."[77] And the Jesuit Relations of 1670 add
that the Illinois "come here from time to time in great numbers as
merchants to procure hatchets, cooking utensils, guns, and other things
of which they stand in need." Here, too, came Pottawattomies, as we have
seen, and Sauks.
At the mouth of Fox river[78] we find another mixed village of
Pottawattomies, Sauks, Foxes, and Winnebagoes, and at a later period
Milwaukee was the site of a similar heterogeneous community. Leaving out
the Hurons, the tribes of Wisconsin were, with two exceptions, of the
Algic stock. The exceptions are the Winnebagoes and the Sioux, who
belong to the Dakota family. Of these Wisconsin tribes it is probable
that the Sauks and Foxes, the Pottawattomies, the Hurons and Ottawas and
the Mascoutins, and Miamis and Kickapoos, were driven into Wisconsin by
the attacks of eastern enemies. The Iroquois even made incursions as far
as the home of the Mascoutins on Fox river. On the other side of the
state were the Sioux, "the Iroquois of the West," as the missionaries
call them, who had once claimed all the region, and whose invasions,
Allouez says, rendered Lake Winnebago uninhabited. There was therefore a
pressure on both sides of Wisconsin which tended to mass together the
divergent tribes. And the Green bay and Fox and Wisconsin route was the
line of least resistance, as well as a region abounding in wild rice,
fish and game, for these early fugitives. In this movement we have two
facts that are not devoid of significance in institutional history:
first, the welding together of separate tribes, as the Sauks and Foxes,
and the Miamis, Mascoutins and Kickapoos; and second, a commingling of
detached families from various tribes at peculiarly favorable
localities.