History of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska

WINNEBAGO LOCATION
The Winnebago do not remember a time when they did not live at Red Banks on the south shore of Green Bay. Their occupation of Wisconsin is very ancient, perhaps thousands of years. Although
they have no memories of mound-building, they may well be descendents of the earlier Mississippian, Hopewell, and Adena cultures. Their homeland lay between Green Bay and Lake
Winnebago in northeast Wisconsin but they dominated the area from Upper Michigan south to present-day Milwaukee extending west to the Mississippi. Beginning in the 1640s, thousands of Algonquin refugees from the Beaver Wars (1630-1701) invaded Wisconsin from the east, and the resulting wars and epidemics brought the resident tribes, Winnebago and Menominee, to the point of near extinction. The Winnebago who survived remained near Green Bay but were forced to share their homeland with other tribes.

After the French and Great Lakes Algonquin victory over the Iroquois in 1701, many of the refugee tribes left Wisconsin allowing the Winnebago to reclaim some of their homeland - especially after
the near-annihilation of the Fox during the Fox Wars (1712-16 and 1728-37). The Winnebago spread south afterwards along the Wisconsin and Rock Rivers into southern Wisconsin eventually
claiming a portion of northwestern Illinois. American settlement of Wisconsin began after 1825, and the Winnebago rapidly lost territory. By 1840 the Winnebago had ceded their Wisconsin land and
agreed to move to northeast Iowa. Despite this many Winnebago remained in Wisconsin defying efforts to remove them. During the next 50 years, the the Winnebago were shifted around like a
piece of unwanted baggage. In 1848 the Winnebago were sent north to the Crow Wing River in Minnesota. Eight years later, they were moved south to Blue Earth county, Minnesota where they
remained until after the Sioux uprising in 1862. Although the Winnebago had no part in this, the government deported them to South Dakota and placed with the Nakota (Yankton Sioux).

At this point, the Winnebago began to rebel. Many left the reservation and returned to Iowa, Minnesota or Wisconsin. The others fled down the Missouri to the Omaha Reservation in Nebraska.
In 1865 the government accepted this and created a separate Winnebago Reservation (40,000 acres) in northeast Nebraska. During their many moves, many Winnebago never left Wisconsin. In
addition, some had managed to stay in northeast Iowa and southern Minnesota when the main group was moved. Raided by the Lakota and pressured to allot their reservation, many Winnebago
left Nebraska during the 1870s and 80s and went home to Wisconsin. The government would send them back, but the Winnebago just kept going, and the government finally gave up and purchased land in Wisconsin for the Winnebago. As a result, there are two separate Winnebago tribes today: the Wisconsin Winnebago with 4,400 acres (333 acres tribally owned) scattered in small holdings across ten counties; and the Nebraska Winnebago who still have 27,500 acres from their 1865 reservation, 3,100 belongs to the tribe.