The Winnebago were
obviously powerful enough for the moment to prevent the Ojibwe from moving
further south, but the loss of territory and and a growing population must have
stressed the
resources available to them. From subsequent events, it appears
that the Winnebago tried to solve this by moving into southern Wisconsin
creating confrontations with the tribes of the Illinois
Confederation. With
no place to expand, the Winnebago began to separate. Sometime around 1570, the
Iowa, Missouri, and Otoe left the Winnebago near Green Bay and moved west.
Passing
down the Wisconsin River, they crossed the Mississippi and settled in
Iowa before separating into individual tribes. Weakened by this defection, the
remaining Winnebago concentrated into large
villages near Green Bay to defend
their homeland against the Ojibwe from the north or Illinois in the south.
It was in this
state of siege that the Winnebago felt the first effects of Europeans in North
America. The French had begun their fur trade along the St. Lawrence River in
1603 and, during 1609, had
helped the Algonkin, Huron and Montagnais defeat
the Iroquois and drive them south. Following the Ottawa River west, Étienne
Brulé reached the Huron villages in 1611 and Sault Ste. Marie in 1623.
But
for the most part, the French stopped at the Huron villages on the south end of
Lake Huron and allowed native traders to conduct the fur trade beyond that
point. The Ottawa and Huron soon linked
with the Ojibwe in upper Michigan and
then made attempts to open trade with the Winnebago to south. The French first
learned about the Winnebago from the Ottawa in 1620, and what they heard
was
not especially good. Knowing that the Ottawa were closely related to and trading
with their Ojibwe enemies, the Winnebago were suspicious and refused to allow
Ottawa and Huron traders to
proceed further west.
The matter
smoldered for several years, while the Winnebago felt their first taste of the
steel weapons the Ojibwe were receiving from the French in exchange for their
furs. Trying to break the
impasse, the Ottawa finally sent envoys to the
Winnebago to arrange trade. Revealing a talent for treachery, the Winnebago
killed and ate the Ottawa representatives. While the Ottawa and
Huron
prepared for war, the French in 1634 sent Jean Nicolet west to the
Winnebago on what appeared to be a suicide mission. When Nicollet landed at Red
Banks on the south shore of Green Bay, he was
the first European the
Winnebago had ever seen which probably saved his life. Nicollet ultimately
succeeded in arranging a truce between the Winnebago, Huron, and Ottawa which
allowed trade.
The fragile arrangement lasted for some time afterwards
allowing Nicollet to make a second visit to the Winnebago villages at La Baye
(Green Bay) in 1639. Twenty-six years would pass before
another Frenchman
would visit Green Bay.
The Winnebago were
almost destroyed in the meantime. The Beaver Wars started in 1628 when the
Iroquois, having defeated the Mahican for control of the Dutch fur trade, began
a war to reclaim
their territory on the upper St. Lawrence River from the
Algonkin. Montagnais, and Huron. The fighting quickly spread west to other
tribes. Having exhausted the beaver in their homelands,
Ottawa, Neutral, and
Tionontati warriors equipped with firearms and steel weapons invaded lower
Michigan to seize hunting territory from the Algonquin living there. The first
refugees from these wars
to arrive in Wisconsin were a group of Potawatomi
who attempted to settle near Green Bay in 1641. Showing no mercy, the Winnebago
immediately attacked and by 1642 had driven them north into
upper Michigan.
Unfortunately, this
was only the beginning. The remaining Potawatomi soon joined the early arrivals
followed by other tribes from lower Michigan. As all of these refugee tribes
united against them, disagreements arose among the Winnebago over how to deal
with the situation resulting in fighting among themselves. In the end most
Winnebago decided on war and to concentrate on the Fox.
Disaster was
immediate. Crossing Lake Winnebago in canoes to attack the Fox, the Winnebago
were caught in a storm and 500 warriors were drowned. The three largest
Winnebago bands then
drew together into a single village - a traditional
defensive measure in times of war, but it proved to be a death trap. 12,000
people in a confined space was the perfect conditions for the epidemics
which
accompanied the refugees to Wisconsin, and they struck the Winnebago with
devastating effect. Smallpox has been blamed, but the Winnebago say the disease
turned their people yellow
suggesting it was something else.
The Winnebago
emerged from this with less than 1,500 warriors and 4,500 people. They were also
starving since war and epidemic had made it impossible to harvest their crops.
As mentioned, the
hostility between the Illinois and Winnebago must have
existed for many years before the refugees began to arrive. Perhaps motivated by
a need to form an alliance against the newcomers who were
also overrunning
their territory, or even pity for an old enemy fallen on hard times, the
Illinois sent 500 warriors and food to help the Winnebago. This proved a serious
mistake. The Winnebago
welcomed and held a feast for them, but in the midst
of the dancing and celebration, they secretly cut the Illinois' bowstrings. Then
they fell upon their benefactors and killed all of them to appease
the
spirits of Winnebago warriors killed earlier by the Illinois.
It took the
Illinois some time to learn what had happened. In the meantime, the Winnebago
had anticipated retaliation and retreated to an island in the middle of a lake
where they built a fort. A
sensible precaution, since it was impossible for
the Illinois to bring their heavy dugout canoes overland with them to attack the
Winnebago. The Illinois proved patient and waited a year to take
revenge.
When the lake froze that winter, a large Illinois war party crossed over the ice
to attack the village only to find the Winnebago were absent on their winter
hunt. After a six-day pursuit, they
caught up with the Winnebago and, during
the slaughter which followed, almost annihilated them. Few Winnebago escaped to
find refuge with the Menominee. About 150 Winnebago prisoners
were taken back
as slaves to the Illinois villages and, after several years of hard usage,
released to return to Wisconsin. Less than 500 Winnebago survived to provide a
future for their people, but their
near-extermination was the second serious
mistake made by the Illinois. Despite the circumstances which had caused it, the
Winnebago never forgave or forgot what had happened.
In the east the
Beaver Wars had grown in intensity and threatened the French fur trade. The
climax came in the early spring of 1649 when the Iroquois overran and destroyed
the Huron. Other French
allies fell victim during the next few years while
the Iroquois moved into the Ottawa Valley cutting French access to the western
Great Lakes. The Iroquois then invaded lower Michigan during the
1650s
expelling the remaining Algonquin. 20,000 refugees fled west to Wisconsin
producing a tide which the decimated Menominee and Winnebago could not resist.
Even the Illinois were forced to
surrender territory in southern Wisconsin.
So far as is known, the Winnebago made only one attempt at resistance during
this period when they managed to keep the Mascouten from locating
near Green
Bay in 1655. However, this success proved temporary and made the Winnebago hated
by the refugees. Within three years the Mascouten had allied with the Kickapoo
and Miami and
settled where they pleased. Only Iroquois attacks in the area
during 1660 forced them inland to a safer location at the Fox Portage.
The Iroquois
victory over the Huron in 1649 had virtually destroyed the French trade, but
they managed to continue on a limited basis by inviting tribes to bring their
furs to Montreal. This was
only possible for large, heavily-armed canoe
fleets able to fight their way past the Iroquois on the Ottawa River. Having
become dependent on French trade goods, only the Ottawa and Huron
were
willing to try, and supported by Ojibwe warriors, they fought their way
to and from Montreal. In this manner, French trade goods continued to reach the
western Great Lakes in limited amounts, but it also brought Iroquois war parties
west to Wisconsin to stop the trade at its source. The French had made a
separate peace with the Iroquois in 1645, but this collapsed in 1658. Six years
of raids and
harassment followed before the French got serious and sent a
regiment of soldiers to Quebec to deal with the Iroquois. Their attacks on
Iroquois homeland produced an alliance between the British and Iroquois and
marked the beginning of the British-French struggle for control of North
America.
Meanwhile, the
French resumed travel to the western Great Lakes. In 1665 fur trader Nicholas
Perrot, Jesuit Claude-Jean Allouez, and four other Frenchmen accompanied a large
Huron-Ottawa trading party (400 warriors) on its return journey. After fighting
their way past the Iroquois along the Ottawa River, they reached Green Bay. What
they found was a disaster: war, disease, and starvation. Allouez mentioned sadly
that only 500 remained of once-numerous Winnebago described by Nicollet. French
attacks on the Iroquois homeland produced a lasting peace in 1667. For the first
time, it also extended to French allies and trading partners, including those in
the
western Great Lakes. This allowed the French to resume their fur trade,
but they first needed to bring some order to the area and end the warfare. Using
the threat of withholding trade, they began
mediating intertribal disputes, a
role which eventually evolved into the relationship of Onontio (the French
governor of Canada) and his "Indian children."
Although the French
fur trade had been at the root of the Beaver Wars which almost destroyed the
Winnebago, it also saved them from extinction. As peace was restored, the
Winnebago accepted
the Algonquin refugees in Wisconsin and began to
intermarry with them adapting parts of their culture in the process. The
exception, of course, being that there was nothing the French could do to
end
the Winnebago's hatred of the Illinois. The peace lasted thirteen years, until
the Beaver Wars renewed to the south in 1680 between the Iroquois and Illinois.
The Winnebago must have taken a
certain pleasure during the next two years
while Seneca war parties struck the Illinois with genocidal effect. During 1684,
however, the Iroquois failed to take Fort St. Louis on the upper Illinois
River
after which the tide turned. The French strengthened their forts,
provided firearms to their allies, and organized an alliance to fight the
Iroquois.
The alliance took
the offensive in 1687, and by 1690 the Iroquois were on the defensive and
retreating towards their New York homeland. The warfare (coinciding with the
King William's War
(1688-97) between Britain and France) continued until a
peace was signed in 1701 which left the French and their allies in control of
the Great Lakes. Still recovering their population, Winnebago
participation
in this victory was minimal but the benefits enormous. With the Iroquois
defeated, refugees began leaving Wisconsin for new homes to the south and east.
This relieved the
overcrowding and competition for resources, and after
60-years, the Winnebago regained most of their homeland. Meantime, the French
fur trade had continued unrestricted and by the 1690s had
produced a glut of
fur on the European market. The resulting price drop motivated the French
monarchy to finally listen to protests from Jesuit missionaries about the
corruption the fur trade was
creating among Native Americans. In 1696
licenses were revoked and trade suspended in the western Great Lakes.
Since the French
alliance was based on trade, it was a terrible decision. Even while they were
going down in defeat, the Iroquois sensed the French vulnerability and began to
offer French allies
access to British traders at Albany. Suspecting the
French would make their own peace with the Iroquois, the alliance began to
unravel, and the French had great difficulty getting their allies to
agree to
the peace signed with the Iroquois in 1701. Urgent appeals sent to Paris from
Canada asking for a resumption of trade in the Great Lakes brought limited
relief in 1701 when Antoine
Cadillac was allowed to build Fort Pontchartrain
at Detroit to trade with the Great Lakes tribes. Cadillac quickly invited just
about every tribe in the region to move to Detroit, and the result
was
overcrowding and warfare between former allies. Rather than solving the
problem, it further strained what remained of the French alliance and during
1712 erupted into the First Fox War (1712-16).
Following
confrontations with neighboring tribes, the Fox, Kickapoo, and Mascouten
attacked the French at Fort Pontchartrain. In midst of the siege, Ottawa, Huron,
and Potawatomi warriors arrived
to save the French and killed most of the
Fox. The survivors retreated west to southern Wisconsin from where they
continued to war on the French and their allies. Although the Winnebago
had
helped the Fox drive the Kaskaskia (part of the hated Illinois) from
southern Wisconsin in 1700, they had never left Wisconsin. When the war between
the French and Fox moved west, the Winnebago
remained neutral. The French
used Potawatomi allies to defeat the Kickapoo and Mascouten taking them out of
the war, but an expedition against a Fox fort in southern Wisconsin ended in
frustration. Afterwards, the French offered peace, and the Fox accepted. The
fighting stopped, but neither side, trusted the other.
Unfortunately, it
did not end the fighting between the Fox and Peoria (Illinois) after the Peoria
refused to return Fox prisoners captured at Detroit in 1712. French attempts to
mediate failed, and
the war spread as the Mascouten and Kickapoo joined the
Fox against the Peoria. By 1724 the Fox had added the Winnebago and Dakota to
their side, and the French began to suspect the Fox were
forming an alliance
against them. With the Illinois getting the worst of it, the French decided to
intervene in 1726 and sent an expedition against the Fox. Like their previous
efforts to subdue a
tribe they considered a troublemaker, this accomplished
nothing, and the French decided to exterminate the Fox. However, they first took
the precaution of isolating the Fox from their allies. The Dakota dropped out,
and then the Winnebago.
With the outbreak
of the Second Fox War (1728-37), the Winnebago switched to the French. During
the winter of 1729, a combined Winnebago, Menominee, Ojibwe war party attacked a
Fox hunting
party killing at least 80 warriors and capturing some 70 women
and children. The French, in the meantime, had reoccupied their old fort at La
Baye to prosecute the war against the Fox. Concerned about Fox retaliation, the
Winnebago moved close to Green Bay and built a fort on an island in the Fox
River. The Fox found them but the fort was too strong for direct attack, so they
laid siege. To appease the Fox, the Winnebago seized two Menominee who had
married into their tribe and killed them. The headless bodies were thrown
outside the fort with the explanation that the Winnebago had killed them because
they were part of the war party which had attacked the Fox.
This did not
satisfy the Fox who continued the siege. The French finally arrived from Green
Bay with 34 Menominee warriors to help the Winnebago, but when the Menominee
learned what had
happened, it was all the French could do to stop them, with
Fox warriors just outside the gate, from killing every Winnebago in sight.
The Fox eventually
abandoned the siege, after which the Winnebago made amends with the Menominee
who had always been their allies. The war continued during which the Mascouten
and Kickapoo ended their alliance with the Fox after a fatal argument over
French prisoners. Without allies, the Fox decided in 1730 to leave Wisconsin and
flee east to the Iroquois. Caught in the open in northern Illinois, they were
almost annihilated by the French and their allies. The few remaining Fox found
refuge with the Sauk living near Green Bay, but the French were determined to
finish the Fox and dispatched an expedition in 1734 to demand the Sauk surrender
the Fox. This was
refused, and in the battle which followed, the French
commander was killed. In the confusion, the Sauk and Fox escaped and fled west
of the Mississippi into Iowa. Another French expedition against them failed in
1736, and at a conference held in Montreal during the spring of 1737, the
Winnebago and Menominee asked the French to show mercy to the Fox while the
Potawatomi and Ottawa made the same request on behalf of the Sauk.
The French
reluctantly agreed and made peace. The departure of the Fox and Sauk from
Wisconsin provided the Winnebago an opportunity to expand their range to the
south and west. Although some Winnebago remained in the vicinity of Green Bay
after 1741, most moved their villages inland.
Since the animal
populations near Green Bay had never recovered from the stress placed on them by
the refugees during the 1600s, the Winnebago had been forced to make longer and
longer trips
inland to feed themselves and find the furs they needed for
trade with the French. Although the Dakota and Ojibwe were at war with each
other over hunting territory in western Wisconsin, neither
objected to
Winnebago hunters in the area. The Menominee enjoyed the same immunity, but in
their case, the Fox and Sauk were a serious threat. The Winnebago were able to
establish a friendly
relationship with the Fox and Sauk after 1737, but the
Menominee could not.
Little fighting
occurred in the western Great Lakes during the King George's War (1744-48), but
Winnebago warriors travelled east to Montreal with the Ottawa, Menominee,
Saulteur and
Mississauga Ojibwe, Illinois, Potawatomi, and Huron to defend
Quebec from the British. The capture of the French fortress at Louisbourgh in
1745 allowed a British blockade of the St.
Lawrence which cut the supply of
French trade goods. The effect was immediate, and the French quickly lost
control of their allies in the the Great Lakes. Nowhere was this more apparent
than with
the increasingly beleaguered Illinois. In 1746 while the Winnebago
and Menominee were fighting the Missouri west of the Mississippi, the Mascouten,
Potawatomi, Menominee, and Ojibwe joined to
force the Peoria from their last
strongholds in southern Wisconsin. Without the leverage of their trade goods,
the French were powerless to protect the Illinois, and the other Algonquin
continued to attack them. Between 1751 and 1754, the Mascouten, Kickapoo, and
Potawatomi took more territory from the Peoria - this time in northern Illinois.
With the start of the French and Indian War (1755-63), the Winnebago once again went east to fight for the French. They helped to defeat Braddock at Fort Duquesne and also fought at Oswego and in the French campaign in northern New York in 1757. They paid a terrible price when Great Lakes warriors contracted smallpox at Fort William Henry and brought it back with them to their villages that winter. Smallpox swept through the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley taking most the western tribes out of the war. Meanwhile, a British blockade was having the same effect it had in 1746 in stopping French trade goods. Dissatisfaction resulted, and during the winter of 1758, an Menominee uprising at Green Bay killed 22 French soldiers. After the capture of Quebec by the British in September, 1759. France had lost the war in North America. Montreal surrendered the following year, and British soldiers occupied Green Bay in 1761.
The breakdown of
French authority in the region had brought the Winnebago, Menominee, Potawatomi,
and Winnebago at Green Bay to the verge of war with the Michilimackinac Ojibwe
in
1761, but the British assumed the old French role of mediator and provider
of trade goods. In preventing the outbreak of serious warfare, the British won
the trust and loyalty of the Winnebago
and Menominee. With the start of the
Pontiac Rebellion in 1763, the Winnebago (also the Menominee, Sauk, Fox, Iowa
and Arbre Croche Ottawa) sent wampum belts to the British as a token of their
loyalty. Pontiac's revolt quickly collapsed, and discredited among his own
people after signing a peace with the British in 1766, he abandoned his village
near Detroit and moved to northern Illinois where he still had a loyal
following. In 1769 he was murdered by the nephew of a
Peoria chief during a
visit to Cahokia (just east of St. Louis). Almost all of tribes of the old
French alliance united in a war against the Illinois and almost exterminated
them. The Peoria made their
last stand at Starved Rock that year from which
fewer than 200 reached safety at the French settlement of Kaskaskia. After a
long wait, the Winnebago finally had their revenge against the
Illinois. The
victors then occupied much of the Illinois territory - the Winnebago's share was
a portion of northwest Illinois valued because of its lead deposits.
During the next 50
years, the Winnebago would ally with the British by fighting both the Spanish
and Americans during the Revolutionary War (1775-83) and The Americans during
the War of 1812
(1812-14). Early fighting in the west during the
Revolutionary War was mostly confined to Ohio and Kentucky and did not involve
the Winnebago. George Rogers Clark's capture of the Illinois country
in 1778
created alarm. and the British moved to reconcile disputes between the Great
Lakes tribes and to use them against the Americans. To this end, they settled
the lingering hostility between the Green Bay tribes and the Michilimackinac
Ojibwe as well as other disputes between the Ojibwe, Fox, and Sauk. and the
Potawatomi and Miami. This allowed the Winnebago (also Fox, Sauk,
Potawatomi,
Dakota, and Menominee) in 1780 to join an unsuccessful British effort to capture
St. Louis from the Spanish (Spain had joined the war against Britain) and retake
Illinois from the Americans. The Revolutionary War "officially" ended in 1783
with the Treaty of Paris, but in the Ohio Valley, the British continued to
occupy Detroit and their other forts on American territory until the United
States paid its treaty obligations to British loyalists.
In the meantime, the British encouraged the formation of a western alliance to keep the Americans out of Ohio. They succeeded until the Battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. The Winnebago in Wisconsin were too far away to participate in this effort, but the British dominated the tribes and trade of the Upper Great Lakes until the 1830s. Intertribal warfare during the 1770s and 80s had hindered the fur trade, and at the request of Montreal fur traders, the British met with the tribes of upper Great Lakes at Michilimackinac in October, 1786. The treaty signed there produced 20 years of peace with the exception of the war between the Dakota and Ojibwe which continued until the 1850s. This, however, was not a problem for the Winnebago who were friendly with both parties and free to hunt in the war zone between them. They also maintained a friendship with the Fox and Sauk living along the Mississippi in eastern Iowa and western Illinois, and it can be said that during this period the Winnebago lived in peace with very few enemies. However, their ties to the Fox and Sauk and those lead deposits in northwest Illinois would soon bring this to an end.
The United States
purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803 changed the Winnebago's
homeland from being at the edge to the center of American territory. Before
this, the Winnebago had known the Americans as a distant enemy. Aside from their
foray into the Illinois with the British in 1780, the Winnebago had never really
met an American. This changed when Zebulon Pike's expedition explored the upper
Mississippi in 1805. His meeting with the Winnebago near Prairie du Chien was
peaceful, but the Winnebago soon had reason to worry. During 1804 William Henry
Harrison entertained a visiting Fox and Sauk delegation at St. Louis and, after
getting them drunk, succeeded in convincing them to sign away their tribe's
lands east of the Mississippi in exchange for a few presents. Next came Fort
Madison, the first American fort on the upper
Mississippi, built in southeast
Iowa in 1809 and garrisoned with 50 soldiers.
The Fox and Sauk
refused to acknowledge the 1804 treaty and instantly became hostile to the
Americans. The Winnebago were also concerned because of the lead deposits in
their lands in
northwest Illinois. In 1788 the Fox had allowed Julien
Dubuque, a French-Canadian from Michilimackinac, to open a lead mine near the
site of the Iowa city which now bears his name. Dubuque obtained a Spanish land
grant to the site in 1796 and became wealthy from fur trading and lead mining.
When he died in 1810, St.Louis creditors and land speculators attempted to seize
his holdings, but the Fox and Sauk prevented this by burning Dubuque's buildings
to the ground. The threat of American takeover was no longer a distant threat in
Ohio, and the Winnebago listened with great interest in 1809 to the religion of
Tenskwatawa, the Shawnee Prophet and the call for unity
and no further land
cessions by his brother Tecumseh. Within a short time, the Winnebago were one of
the most militant members of Tecumseh's alliance against the Americans.
The Winnebago began
making regular visits to Prophetstown (Tippecanoe) in Indiana during 1810 and
even established a permanent village (Village du Puant) nearby. Tecumseh went
south in the fall of 1811 to enlist the southern tribes against the Americans,
During his absence, the Potawatomi attacked American settlements in Illinois
starting a frontier war. William Henry Harrison, the
governor of the Indiana
Territory, organized an army and in November marched on Prophetstown.Tenskwatawa
ignored his brother's instructions to avoid any confrontation with the Americans
while he was absent and ordered his warriors to attack. The Winnebago lost
heavily at the Battle of Tippecanoe, but the military defeat was not nearly as
important as the damage done to
Tensquatawa's reputation as a prophet. Angry
Winnebago warriors held him prisoner for two weeks and almost killed him. When
Tecumseh returned in January, 1812, his alliance was in shambles, but he able to
rebuild and soon regained the allegiance of the Winnebago. With the outbreak of
the War of 1812 (1812-14) in June, the Winnebago threw their support to Tecumseh
and the British.
With the Fox, Sauk,
and Potawatomi, the Winnebago besieged Fort Madison and forced its abandonment
in 1813. Winnebago warriors also fought as part of Tecumseh's forces at
Maumee
Rapids and River Raisin in Ohio and Michigan. After Tecumseh was
killed at the Battle of the Thames (October, 1813), the Winnebago joined 500
warriors from the upper Great Lakes to help the British defeat the American
attempt to retake Fort Michilimackinac in August, 1814. The War of 1812 ended in
a stalemate between the British and Americans, but for the tribes of the Great
Lakes
and Ohio Valley it was total defeat. The Winnebago made peace with the
Americans at St. Louis in June, 1816. Their first treaty with the United States
did not involve land cessions and called upon
both sides to forgive and
forget injuries suffered during the war. The Winnebago kept their part of the
agreement but remained hostile. They allowed Americans to travel through their
territory from
Mississippi to the Fox portage but charged tolls.
After the War of
1812, settlement began to advance up the Mississippi from St. Louis, but warfare
in Iowa and Minnesota between the Dakota, Ojibwe, Fox, and Sauk slowed its
progress. The
government in 1825 attempted to end the fighting at a grand
council held with the area's tribes at Prairie du Chien. Attended by the Ojibwe,
Fox, Sauk, Menominee, Iowa, Sioux, Winnebago,
Ottawa, and Potawatomi, the
resulting treaty attempted to end intertribal warfare by establishing boundaries
between them. It also created a 40-mile wide buffer zone between the Dakota, Fox
and
Sauk in northeast Iowa. Called the Neutral Ground, the Americans hoped to
relocate the Winnebago there since they were friendly with both sides, but the
Winnebago did not share the Americans
optimism for this arrangement. Since
its purpose was to facilitate settlement, the treaty made almost no provision to
protect native lands from white encroachment. It had only limited success
in
preventing warfare, but settlement afterwards moved north at an
accelerated pace.
During the next 15
years the Winnebago would be forced to surrender most of their homeland. The
first target was the lead deposits in northwest Illinois, and in what can be
described as the first (and last) "lead rush," Americans rushed in to stake
their claims. Government agents described these people as "lawless" but did
nothing to prevent encroachment. Less than two years after the Treaty of Prairie
du Chien, the Winnebago were forced into war to defend their lands. The
resistance, known as the Winnebago War (1827), was led by the Winnebago Prophet
White Cloud and the war chief Red Bird. Fighting began in the summer of 1827
when a barge ascending the Mississippi near Prairie du Chien was fired upon.
Other attacks killed some settlers along the lower Wisconsin River
and struck
the lead mines near Galena, Illinois. Soldiers were rushed north from Jefferson
Barracks at St. Louis, and by August it was over. Faced with a war they could
not win, Red Bird and White
Cloud surrendered themselves to be hanged to save
their people. Red Bird died in prison, but White Cloud was pardoned by the
president and released. Meanwhile, in a treaty signed a Green
Bay in August,
1828, the Winnebago (also Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and Ottawa) ceded northern
Illinois for $540,000.
With the lead
mining district secured, the next victims were the Fox and Sauk in western
Illinois. As a condition of peace in 1816, the United States had finally gotten
their reluctant acceptance of that
dubious treaty signed at St. Louis in 1804
ceding all of their lands east of the Mississippi. The bait was that the Fox and
Sauk could stay until the Americans needed the land. Most likely. neither
the
Fox, Sauk nor the American representatives realized how soon this would
be. Illinois became a state in 1818 and within ten years was pressing for
removal. Blackhawk's Sauk at Rock Island
refused to move, but after the
Menominee and Dakota murdered 15 Fox chiefs enroute to a meeting with the
Americans at Prairie du Chien, war seemed eminent. Blackhawk brought his people
west into Iowa to protect the Fox and Sauk villages there from Dakota attacks
which never came. When he started back to Illinois, the Americans refused to
allow him to recross the Mississippi.
Throughout the
winter of 1831-32, the old war chief sat in eastern Iowa and fumed. In his
anger, he listened to arguments from his friend Neapope and the Winnebago
Prophet (White Cloud)
convincing him the British and other tribes were ready
to join him against the Americans. In the spring he defiantly crossed the river
into Illinois touching off the Blackhawk War (1832). The help did not
materialize. Only a few Potawatomi and White Cloud's small following among the
Winnebago joined the revolt. Pursued by the army and Illinois militia, Blackhawk
retreated towards Wisconsin hoping to reach safety with either the Winnebago or
Ojibwe. Most Winnebago wanted nothing to do with him and refused to help.
Finally realizing this, Blackhawk turned west to try to return to Iowa. He never
made it. Trapped between an American army and gunboat at the mouth of the Bad
Axe River, the Sauk were slaughtered before surrendering. Menominee and Dakota
warriors killed many of those who managed to elude capture by the Americans.
A marked man, Blackhawk escaped before the battle and fled north. He was captured by the Winnebago of Chief Spoon Decorah (Choukeka), a friend of the Americans, who delivered him to the Indian Agent at Prairie du Chien. Despite this, the general feeling among the Americans was that the Winnebago had cooperated with Blackhawk. By the harsh terms of the treaty negotiated by General Winfield Scott at Fort Armstrong in September, 1832, the Winnebago ceded their lands east of the Mississippi and agreed to move to Neutral Ground in northeast Iowa. They were to receive $270,000 ($10,000/year for 27 years) and were required to surrender several of their tribesmen accused of murdering whites during the war. Settlement moved into southern Wisconsin afterwards, but the Winnebago remained in their old lands, primarily because of hostility among the Fox and Sauk for the Winnebago's failure to help them during the Blackhawk War.
One out of four
Winnebago died during a smallpox epidemic in 1836, which may have been a
not-so-subtle hint for them to leave Wisconsin. A second treaty signed at
Washington, D.C. in 1837 confirmed the Winnebago cession of Wisconsin and
reduced the size of the Neutral Ground, but the Winnebago did not leave until
1840 when General Henry Atkinson refused to make their annuities except at the
Turkey River Subagency (Decorah, Iowa). By 1842 approximately 2,200 Winnebago
had settled in villages near the agency which was guarded by cavalry stationed
nearby at Fort Atkinson, a necessary precaution since the threat of attack by
the Fox and Sauk was very real.
During the winter of 1839, they had
killed 40 members of a Winnebago hunting party west of Wapsipinicon River. The
following year, Fox and Sauk decided to attack the Winnebago villages near the
agency but were only prevented by a unusually heavy snowfall that winter.
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 Winnebago had remained in their homeland giving Fort
Atkinson's cavalry the added problem of keeping the Iowa Winnebago from going
back to Wisconsin.
With Iowa statehood in 1846, it was time for the Winnebago to be moved again. In a 1845 treaty, the Winnebago exchanged their Iowa lands for the 800,000 acre Long Prairie (Crow Wing River) reserve in Minnesota and $190,000. The move ended the threat of the Fox and Sauk, but placed the Winnebago as a buffer between the Dakota and Ojibwe. Some Winnebago managed to remain in northeast Iowa for more than a century, but the main group was moved during 1848 and 1849. The new location was unsatisfactory from the beginning. Not only was there poor soil and a short growing season, but the Ojibwe used the agency as a way-station to attack the Dakota. In a treaty signed in 1856, the government allowed the Winnebago to exchange the Long Prairie reserve from another farther south in Minnesota at Blue Earth. As their population declined, the Winnebago surrendered a part of this in 1859 as excess lands.
All went well until
the Dakota uprising erupted in the Minnesota River Valley during 1862 killing
over 400 whites. The Winnebago had no part in this, but in the aftermath,
Minnesota was no longer safe. The Winnebago were forcibly gathered together and
deported by steamboat down the Mississippi and then up the Missouri to the Crow
Creek reservation in South Dakota with the Yankton (Sioux).
Some got to
leave the steamboat at Hannibal, Missouri and travel by train to St. Joseph
where they were put back on a boat for the rest of their journey up the
Missouri. Even allowing that the Civil War was in progress, conditions were
terrible at the South Dakota reservation. Many Winnebago slipped away to return
to Minnesota and Wisconsin. Finally, the remaining 1,200 left enmass and fled
down the Missouri to ask the Omaha in eastern Nebraska for a refuge.
The government
finally accepted their self-relocation and in 1865 purchased 40,000 acres from
the Omaha to provide the Winnebago with their own reservation. Life in Nebraska
was far from easy, and exposed to Lakota (Sioux) raids, many of the Nebraska
Winnebago volunteered as army scouts against Lakota during 1868. While Winnebago
were serving as scouts, the Indian Bureau - in its wisdom - conceived a plan of
relocating the Winnebago to North Dakota as a buffer between the Lakota and the
Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara. For some reason, the Winnebago declined.
Meanwhile, the Winnebago in Wisconsin were routinely being arrested and returned
to Nebraska.
Within a month, they were usually back in Wisconsin. After
ten years of this game, the government gave up after 1875, purchased homestead
lands for the Winnebago, and let them stay in Wisconsin. During the 1880s, over
half of the Nebraska Winnebago went home to Wisconsin where they have remained
ever since scattered across ten counties. The other Winnebago remained in
Nebraska although 1/3 of their original 40,000 acre reservation was eventually
lost to whites through allotment after 1887.