The Winnebago number to-day about 3000 people of whom 1100 to 1500 live
in Nebraska directly north of the Omaha reservation, and the rest in
Wisconsin, mainly in Jackson county but scattered all over the region
directly to the north, east and west of that county, also. When first
discovered, toward the middle of the seventeenth century, they occupied
the region between Green Bay and the Wisconsin River to the west, and
their villages extended to the southern portions of Lake Winnebago to
the south. Toward the end of the seventeenth century and beginning of
the eighteenth century, we find them as far west as the Mississippi and
as far south as Madison, Beloit, and even northern Illinois. While,
unquestionably, they had been in part forced into this region by the
warlike activities of the Fox Indians, there seems sufficient evidence
to show that they had always roamed over the greater part of this
country.
After their discovery by the French, much of their time was spent
in fighting with the Foxes by whom they seem generally to have been
defeated. They were, from the beginning, exceedingly faithful to the
French. To what degree they were influenced by the French missionaries
and traders, it is difficult to say, but in all probability this
influence was greater than has generally been supposed. After the
cession of the old Northwest to the United States, they remained rather
quiet but were definitely implicated in the Black Hawk War.
About the middle of the nineteenth century, they were forcibly
transferred to Nebraska but many of them made their way back to
Wisconsin, and these, together with scattered Winnebago, who had
managed to escape the enforced transference to Nebraska, form the
majority of those now living in Wisconsin. Since their partial removal
to Nebraska, a number of minor differences in dialect and customs have
developed between the two divisions. The division in Wisconsin is
undoubtedly the more conservative.
The immediate neighbors of the Winnebago were the Menomini to the
north, and the Fox to the south; with these tribes they were always
in intimate contact. With the Menomini they seem always to have been
on peaceful terms, but with the Fox they were frequently at war. They
seem to have known the Potawatomi quite well, and the Ojibwa fairly
well. The eastern Dakota they also knew to a certain extent. In the
main, however, they knew their Algonkian neighbors (Menomini, Fox,
Potawatomi) best and they were profoundly influenced by these tribes
in their material culture. The mythology and certain religious notions
of their Central Algonkian neighbors they also adopted, but these
seem to have been kept apart and distinct from their old Winnebago
mythology and religion. In their social organization, they were
totally uninfluenced and, on the contrary, influenced their neighbors
profoundly.
They present the interesting spectacle of a people entirely surrounded
by alien tribes, absolutely cut off from all communication with groups
speaking related languages and having similar civilizations, who
nevertheless have preserved many archaic Siouan cultural traits. What
they have, however, they have in part completely assimilated, in part
kept distinct.