USA > Wisconsin > Brown County > History of Brown County, Wisconsin, past and present, Volume I > Part 2
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The Schumacher collection of copper artifacts is one of the best and most complete in the state if not in the whole United States. Many of the articles in this exhibit were in use before Columbus discovered America, and before Leif Ericson and his northmen penetrated this strange new world.
The territory which is now Brown county was in those days thickly popu- lated; its remoteness from the Iroquois-those tigers of the east, and the Sioux, wolves of the west, gave comparative security to the more peacefully inclined Indian tribes, and together with its abundance of food made it a paradise for
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HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY
savage life. The earliest definite record we possess locates the various tribes as follows :
The Pottawatomies,1 occupied Washington Island and the greater part of the east shore of Green Bay. They also had a large village of sixteen cabins at the mouth of the Big Suamico ( Oussouamigong ) on the west side of the bay.
The Winnebagoes 2 were upon and near Red Banks on the east shore of the bay. Vimont says "they were a sedentary people and very numerous." Some Frenchmen called them Puans, because the Algonquin word Ouinipeg signifies "stinking water." ( Relations, v. 23. p. 275.) The name Winnepigous or "Men of the salt water" or sea, misled Champlain when tidings of the strange tribe living on Green Bay were brought to him, and caused him to believe that it was the sea and not a body of fresh water on the shores of which these people dwelt. Early travellers speak of the extensive marshes edging the bay, and of its thick water growth, and suggest that the marshy odor noticeable during the summer was responsible for the name "ill smelling," as the Winne- bagoes themselves were not more filthy in their habits than other tribes, were in fact considered an industrious people, the squaws neater and more careful than the ordinary savage home maker.
Entrenched on the heights of Red Banks, in legendary lore their "Garden of Eden." the place where they "first saw light," the Winnebagoes grew strong and aggressive, holding the part of master over the other tribes along the bay. By reason of their peculiar situation, a tribe of the Siouan stock, renegades from their own people, surrounded on all sides by Algonkins, and conspicuous because of their isolation, they were the most prominent among the bay Indians and from the title given to them as aliens, of "Puans" or "men of the sea" the bay acquired the name which it held for a century or more, until a still more powerful tribe, the warlike Fox ( Outagamie), became foremost in the history of this region. (One explanation of the name Puan given to the Winnebagoes is that they were excessively fond of garlic and consequently smelt of that vegetable. )
On both sides of the Winnebago fortification and village at Red Banks were villages of Pottawatomies, and across the bay lived the Menominees " on the river of the same name. They were not a very numerous people, and were called by the French "Folle Avoines." beeause of the quantities of wild rice that grew in their river.
I-Spelled variously Pottawattomies, Potéouatami, PoueteQuatamis, Pontewatomi, Pout- couatemis ; also called by the French Poux. The traditions of this tribe as first recorded by Father De Smet gave Longfellow the matter for his Hiawatha. They were a gentle, friendly tribe "very affable and cordial."-O'Shea, La Potherie.
2-Winnebagoe, Winnepigou, Ouinipigou, Puants, Puans. A tribe belonging to Sioux stock. The name derived from Winnipeg, "the sea," called "men of the sea." also called "Man eaters," because "any stranger coming among them was cooked in their kettles"- Jesuit Relations, La Potherie.
3-Menominees, Menomonees, Malouminek, Maloumines, Maroumine, Menomini, Mal- hominies, Oumalouminek. An Algonquin tribe living on their river of the same name. The name is the Algonquin term for the grain which grew in immense quantities along the borders of the stream-in English, Wild Rice. The French called both the grain and tribe Folle Avoine-Wild Oats.
DUTCHMAN'S CREEK
RED BANKS
OLD STONE LIGHTHOUSE
THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
NOWY ( VIGIL
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HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY
The principal village of the Osaukee + was on the Fox river, near where the Beaumont House now stands. This tribe was from early days an ally of the Fox Indians, who were located on the Wolf river near New London when first visited by a Frenchman, Nicholas Perrot, in 1665, but who afterward moved their village to little Lake Butte des Morts and Doty's Island, where they remained to harass the French traders for many years.
The Mascoutins,5 Kickapoos " and Miamis" were located near Berlin, in what is now Green Lake county.
For two hundred years at least and probably much longer these tribes lived in practically one section of the country, that bordering on Green Bay and its tributary stream, Fox river. The widely prevalent idea that the Indians were before the coming of Europeans a nomadic people is largely a misconception. Unless driven from a favorite village by a stronger tribe they would dwell there contentedly for years, pursuing their life without thought of change.
Algonkin (or Algonquin ) was a name originally applied to a small tribe of Indians living on the Gatina river cast of Quebec. Later the term was extended to other tribes of the same stock living on the upper Ottawa river, the shores of Georgian Bay and Lake Huron as far as Sault Sainte Marie. Some of these people were driven by Iroquois cruelties to Mackinac and westward, and became consolidated with the tribe known as Ottawa. The Indian name was spelled by Nicholas Perrot Algonkin, and by the Jesuit chroniclers Algon- quin, Algonquain and Algonkin. From this is derived Algonquian, the appel- lation given to the ethnic stock and linguistic family most widely diffused through- out North America. To this stock belonged all the tribes inhabiting what is now Wisconsin, with the one exception-the Winnebagoe.
The arts and industries of the bay Indians were not limited to the making of flint arrow points and clumsy implements of stone. With their seemingly impossible tools they accomplished remarkable results. Canoes were framed from cedar, covered with strips of birch bark, and the seams daubed with pitch gathered from resinous woods. When completed they were as tight and grace- ful a craft as ever floated, but difficult to navigate and dangerous in rough weather. One of the disasters of these days of Indian occupation is com- memorated in the name "Death's Door;" a large canoe load of Pottawatomies crossing the mouth of Green Bay was overtaken by a gale, shipwrecked and the whole crew drowned.
4-The name of this Algonquin tribe was spelled at different periods Ousakis, Saukee, Sakys, Sakis, Sauk and Sac. Their original country, according to the Jesuit Relations, the district in the east between Lake Huron and Lake Erie. The Sauks were always closely united with the Foxes, and had probably a common origin .- O'Shea, Wis. Hist. Coll., vol. 3.
5-Mascoutins, Machkouteng, Machkoutens, Maskoutens, etc., were called by the Hurons the Fire-Nation, and Allouez and Marquette also give the name of this Algonquin tribe that derivation. Dablon, Charlevoix and Schoolcraft treat this as a mistake and derive it from Muskortenac, a prairie.
6-Kickapoos, Kickabou, Kikapous, Kickaboua, etc., an Algonquin tribe. Charlevoix says: "The Kickapoos are neighbors of the Mascoutens and it seems that these two tribes have always been united in interest."
7-Miamis, an Algonquin tribe. Charlevoix says that they came from the Pacific, and in another place that they were originally near Chicago, where Perrot found their king, Tetinchoua, in 1671. The Jesuits found some tribes living with the Mascoutins on Fox river in 1669.
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HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY
Indian lodges and wigwams were constructed by means of poles driven in the ground and thatched with mats made of the long grass which grows tall on inland waters. In the center of this lodge was an opening in the thatch for the smoke of the fire to escape and the door was usually covered with a buck- skin curtain often painted with rude figures of men and animals. Later when the art of embroidering with colored porcupine quills came into use these cur- tains were still more highly embellished. The first European settlers and explorers speak of the Indian mounds at Point au Sable and extending far into the thick forests that in early days grew along the shore. These mounds had at that time, one hundred years or more ago, trees growing from their centers of apparently great age. John Rave, an intelligent Winnebago who in 1911 visited Red Banks, the home of his ancestors, says that what are often mistaken for oblong burial mounds were in reality elevations on which the In- dians built their lodges in order to keep them dry in rainy weather.
Basket making was still another pursuit of these primitive times, and pot- tery was moulded from clay obtained along the bay shore. Great kettles like the one found by J. P. Schumacher at Little Red River ( La Petite Rivière Rouge) in the northeast corner of the town of Scott near the line of Kewaunee county, one-quarter of a mile from Dyckesville, were used to cook in or to store grain. Nicholas Perrot in one of his harangues to the Indians in this vicinity in 1683 bids them remember their miserable condition before the light of their French father Onontio had brought them help, for he had found them with no utensils or tools save "earthen pots and stone hatchets." while spoons of clam shells dipped out their sturgeon and wild rice stew.
The yearly harvest of wild rice formed still another great industry. When as in Fox River and its tributaries the waving fields of grain extended to mid- channel the Indian women in July tied with strong withes great bunches together. Then when the crop was ripe they paddled their canoes through these alleys, and bending down the heavy sheaves of grain beat out the tasseled head with a paddle. Then followed the primitive method of extracting the inner kernel, which was done with a stone mortar and pestle. A fine example of a "spirit stone" or mortar is to be found on the Cormier farm at Ashwaubenon, a great stone with a depression in the center, in which the grain was placed to be ground out with stone hammers. There was also a smaller stone mortar found at the south end of Point au Sable, and a very small one of hematite was found by J. P. Schumacher at Big Snamico.
The duties of the Indian women included the skinning of animals when brought in by the hunters, stretching and preparing the hides for use and fashioning them into moccasins and leggings. The latter were sometimes richly decorated with dyed porcupine quills. To get the fish at the landing and clean it ; to make twine in order to provide nets for the men ; to plant, hoe and garner the crops and to look after the cooking were also in their province. The women were aided in their tasks by the children and old men. Often prisoners of war were used as slaves and did a large part of the drudgery.
There were few idle hands, for on the men devolved the making of canoes, paddles, poles and saddles: implements of stone and bone, and bows and arrows. They contrived conveniences for fishing such as were found by the first explorers at De Pere rapids, where the banks narrow and the waters rush
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HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY
and hurry. Here the Indians constructed an ingenious fish weir across the stream resembling in appearance a rail fence. From this picturesque, though at times somewhat unsteady structure, the fishermen deftly speared the mighty sturgeon and muskellunge that were stopped in their mad rush down stream by closely set stakes often threaded by a heavy net.
Indian cornfields were of amazing extent, and early travelers speak of the succulence of their bean and corn succotash. One of the first acts of cruelty in savage warfare was the destruction of an enemy's cornfield which doomed him to starvation and surrender, and this method of warfare was continued by the French in subduing the Indians. In the campaign against the Iroquois undertaken by Marquis Denonville in 1687, when Nicholas Perrot, Wisconsin's first governor, came into prominence, the amount of corn destroyed belonging to the enemy was 1,000,000 bushels. Beans, squashes, pumpkins and tobacco were raised in abundance, the Indian agriculturalist using primitive gardening tools of stone or wood. Sometimes sharp shells or flat bones were fastened into wooden handles by stout withes of wood or leather and used to scratch the soil for planting.
Their pleasures were first of all war. Internecine squabbles between the different tribes were constant, patched up by a make-believe peace to be broken almost immediately again. The woods, dense though they were in this vicinity, were threaded by Indian trails where half naked dusky imps chased cach other, for often the war party chose the path through the woods rather than a canoe voyage in reaching the Illinois country. The Indian mother sang her baby to sleep with chants of mighty deeds of prowess to be accomplished by him when grown.
When six years of age children whether boy or girl had their ears pierced by a flat bodkin made of bone and the nose treated in the same manner with a stout awl. This ceremony was performed by a juggler assisted by five or six disciples. The aboriginal awl, samples of which can be seen in the Schumacher collection, was indeed an indispensable article in every day work, so much so that it was usually carried in the belt. In bead work, basket work, quill work, and sewing and canoe making it was indispensable.
Their musical instruments were the flute made of two pieces of soft wood hollowed out, and tied together with leather thongs, and a small hollow bone made similar to the present flute which they blew at one end, making a shrill monotonous note. A drum formed of a hollow log with deer skin drawn tightly across the end, was beaten at all kinds of feasts, dances and games ; in dancing they kept time to the tap of the drum. Father Charlevoix in describing the ceremonies attendant on the coming of a new commandant to Fort St. Francis near the mouth of Fox river in the summer of 1721, speaks of the monotony of this music, and the never ending dances of the braves.
Gambling was a passion with the bay Indians, the game of straws and of dice being especially prized. At the game of dice a whole village would wager its entire wealth against another and lose it all. Squatting on the ground men and women would play interminably, and when one party happened to throw a pair royal of six his entire tribe would rise to their feet and dance, keeping time to the sound of rattles made of gourds filled with beans. The game of
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lacrosse belongs to the earliest ages, and was a favorite although often a dangerous pastime.
All the tribes seem to have been given much to feasts and pagan ceremonials. The Sauks and Foxes were esteenied deeply religious in that they propitiated constantly with gifts and oblations the dread spirits dwelling in caves, in fire, in air and water. The god of water was the great Panther whom the Algonkins called Michipissy.
"Devil" river is synonymous with Manitou, so named by the Indians who told the French that a monster lived in a cave within its sharply shelving shore and deep channel ; that he had a large tail and when he rose to drink the waving of his tail stirred up high winds, but when he switched it sharply it roused great tempests. Therefore when departing on a journey upon any water they uttered the invocation "Thou who art the master of the winds favor us upon our voyage and give us pleasant weather," at the same time scattering tobacco upon the water. In especial was the bear held in reverence. Long harangues were made to his effigy, and he was propitiated by warriors going into battle with strange dances and gyrations and the observance of long fasts. Father André in 1673 describes his interviews with the haughty young warriors who appeared flecked out with paint and feathers in preparation for taking the war path in pursuit of the Sioux. He tells of how they skinned the sacred bear whole and set it up as a grotesque image in the center of a lodge selected for the purpose : the animal's snout painted a brilliant green; and how around this dreadful effigy the warriors who besought the good offices of the fetich gyrated and danced "yelling all night long like one in despair."
(References for Chapter III: Blair. Indian Tribes of the Upper Mississippi and Great Lakes; Thwaites, Wisconsin: A. C. Neville, Historic Sites on Green Bay : Wis. Hist. Proc., 1905; J. G. O'Shea, Wis. Ilist. Colls, Vol. 3.)
CHAPTER IN
THE COMING OF JEAN NICOLET
For how many hundreds of years this active busy life went on, in the forests and along the streams of our county no one knows, but that for a very long time the tribal families of Pottawatomies, Sauks, Miamis, Menominees and Foxes inhabited this section of country is well proved. Although so far inland these Indians were destined to be reached by the adventurous white race almost as soon as their brothers on the Atlantic coast.
Hendrick Hudson had sailed for the first time the great river that bears his name in 1609, the Mayflower made her initial voyage in 1620, and in 1634 Jean Nicolet, an adventurous Norman, made the long trip of 1,000 miles from Quebec to Green Bay. In New France, as Canada was then called, was to be found the spirit of adventure, of romance and exploration wholly lacking among the prosaic English and Dutch on the Atlantic coast. Samuel de Cham- plain, governor of the Province of Quebec, was typical of all that the French stood for in North America. lle was himself an explorer of no mean reputa- tion, and his discoveries added material and definite territory to the vague maps of that period. Champlain's map of the great lakes country drawn in 1632 is a marvel of accurate guesswork ; drafted as it was principally from Indian report couched in allegorical language, it yet gave a fair idea of Lake Huron and Lake Superior.
Beyond the great water ( Lake lluron ) so the Indians assured him was still another inland sea, and beyond that a wide sheet of water never seen by French- men, which Champlain figured possibly might be the China Sea. We now know this to have been Green Bay, but the popular idea in that day was that not very far to the westward lay the Chinese Empire, "far Cathay," and Champlain, astute explorer though he was, had no means of judging possible distances and cor- recting erroneous impressions. His imagination took fire when the savage vis- itors told him that on the shores of this great bay dwelt a strange people, "Men of the sea." who differed entirely in appearance and custom from the surround- ing red men. Champlain, eager to discover what this nation of aliens might be, whether Indian or Mongolian, and unable to go himself chose as his envoy the man of all others fitted for the enterprise-Jean Nicolet.
Nicolet had come to New France in the year 1618, and "forasmuch as his nature and excellent memory inspired good hopes of him he was sent to winter with the Island Algonquins in order to learn their language. He tarried with them two years, and always joined the barbarians in their excursions and journeys."-Jesuit Relations.
It had been Champlain's custom for years to send young men among the Indians for the purpose of learning their language and becoming acquainted
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with their manners and customs, preparing them in short to act as interpreter or in some other capacity for the One Hundred Associates, at that time the great fur corporation of Canada and the precursor of the Hudson's Bay Com- pany.
Nicolet later spent eight or nine years with the tribes in the vicinity of Lake Nipissing, isolated from civilization, living the wild life of the savage and noting down his observations of Indian life and character. He is said to have been deeply religious and to have suffered while in this exile for the consolations of the church "without which among the savages is great peril for the soul." On Nicolet's return to Quebec he entered the employ of the fur company, and at thirty-six years of age was chosen by Governor Champlain as his envoy to arrange a peace between the Hurons and "People of the sea from whom they are absent about 300 leagues."
The chronicler of this famous voyage of Jean Nicolet's is Father Vimont of the Jesuit order. Each year a circumstantial account of the society's work was sent to its superior in Paris, and among the multiplied items of daily life in Quebec and vicinity must be gleaned the story of the coming of the first white man to Green Bay. On the first of July, 1634, two fleets of canoes left Quebec and paddled up the St. Lawrence-the one to build a fort where today stands the town of Three Rivers, Canada, the other under the direction of Father Brebeuf to found a Jesuit mission among the Hurons. With the latter party was Jean Nicolet under commission from Champlain to proceed to the IIuron villages on Georgian Bay, there to obtain men of that nation to act as his boatmen on the expedition to identify the "Winnepigous" or "men of the salt water." 1
Some time late in July Nicolet and his seven Huron savages embarked. Skirting the northern shore of Georgian Bay they rounded the Manitoulin islands and reaching Sault Sainte Marie ascended the river as far as the rapids; then on to Mackinac island where the blue expanse of Lake Huron (la douce mer) met the clear green waters of its sister. Lake Michigan.
That Nicolet pursued his journey with the knowledge that this alien people he sought was in reality a tribe of Indians instead of a horde of Mongolians, is now certain. "He passed by many small nations" on his way, the most of whom had heard of the arrogant Puans who lived on the great bay, and before he rounded Point Detour and entered Big Bay de Noquet, the voyageur, knew without doubt that red men and not Chinese mandarins were the object of this wild, adventurous trip.
Coasting along the low western shore of Green Bay he came to the Menomi- nees dwelling on the river that now bears their name and there found that the Winnebagoes were two days distant. Wherever the party landed "they fastened two sticks in the earth, and hung gifts thereon so as to relieve those tribes from the notion of mistaking them for enemies to be massacred." One of his Hurons was dispatched by Nicolet to announce that a Frenchman, "a Manitoui- riniou," that is to say "a wonderful man," was on the way bringing to the Puans
I-Later knowledge has revealed the fact that the "Gens de Mer," or Men of the Sea, were but the Winnebago of our day-a name derived from the Algonkin word Ouinipegou, meaning "men of the fetid (or stinking) water." Ethnologists now believe that the term Ouinepeg, as applied by the Algonkins to the Winnebagoes, had no reference to the sea, but to certain ill-smelling sulphur springs in the neighborhood of Lake Winnipeg .- Thwaites, Wisconsin.
LANDFALL OF JEAN NICOLET, 1634, AT RED BANKS, GREEN BAY
PUBLIC LIBRARY
NY YOUIT YOUDY TILDEN PU ATAZIONE
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HISTORY OF BROWN COUNTY
a message of peace with the Hurons. Full of curiosity and interest the Winne- bagoes received most affably Jean Nicolet's Indian messenger, and immediately dispatched several of their young men to meet and bring with honor this dis- tinguished stranger to their village. "They meet him, they escort him, they carry all his baggage," thus the Jesuit narrative runs.
From the lofty heights of Red Banks the cortege of canoes could be seen approaching for many miles distant. The steep clay bluff which rises eighty feet or more from the beach below was in 1634 crowned by a palisaded fort, the earth works of which show it to have been of large proportions and strongly built. All around this ancient fortification and its enclosed lodges were fields of Indian corn, while a village of mat-covered cabins ran down hill southwar and on to the plain below. It was an imposing stronghold for defense or obser- vation, and from it the wide stretch of blue bay gave protection from treacherous advance.
In order to impress the strange nation with the dignity of his mission Nicolet had provided himself with "a grand robe of Chinese damask, all strewn with flowers and birds of many colors," gorgeous to behold. In this the explorer arrayed himself, and the Indians watching from the rude bastions of their fort saw the long canoe propelled by swift paddles of the Huron "wild men" sweep up to their primitive landing place in fine style.
In the center of the canoe rode a gayly decked white man, who disembarked with the air of a conqueror raising in each hand as he did so a mysterious implement of iron. These with a terrific noise and. smoke he discharged toward the sun. "It is a Maniton who carries thunder. in both hands," cried the women and children, and fled before the marvelous apparition, while the men more courageous prepared to do homage to this new deity ..
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