History of Crawford and Richland counties, Wisconsin, Part 15

Author: Butterfield, Consul Willshire, 1824-1899. [from old catalog]; Union publishing company, Springfield, Ill., pub. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Springfield, Ill., Union publishing company
Number of Pages: 1298

USA > Wisconsin > Richland County > History of Crawford and Richland counties, Wisconsin > Part 15
USA > Wisconsin > Crawford County > History of Crawford and Richland counties, Wisconsin > Part 15

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In 1830 a party of Sauks and Foxes killed some Sioux, on or about the head-waters of Red Cedar river, in the now State of Iowa; and the same season a band of Fox Indians, who resided about where Dubuque now is, had occasion to visit Prairie du Chien on business with the agent, whom they had previously informed that they would arrive on a certain day.' An Indian called the Kettle was their chief. It was gener- ally believed that John Marsh gave the Sioux information of the coming of the Foxes, and of the time they were expected; and on the morn- ing of the day appointed for the arrival of the Foxes at Prairie du Chien, a small war party of young Sioux made their appearance here, and joined by a few of the Menomonee young men, Thomas P. Burnett, the sub-Indian agent, was sleeping with me in my store. It being very warm weather, we had made a bed of blankets on the counter, when about two hours before daylight, we were awakened by the cries of a Menomonee woman at the store door. We let her in, when she told us of the disaster to the Menomonees. Mr. Burnett took my horse and went to inform Gen. Street, the Indian agent, who lived about four miles above this, and who arrived about daylight and gave the first infor- mation to the fort. Although there had been a great firing of guns and hallooing among the Indians, the sentinels had reported nothing of it to the officers; but on hearing of the affair, the commandant immediately dispatched a com- pany of men in boats after the Foxes, but they did not overtake them. The government de- proceeded down the Mississippi to the lower end of the Prairie du Pierreaux, some twelve or fifteen miles below Prairie du Chien, where a narrow channel of the Mississippi runs close to that end of the prairie, fringed with small trees, bushes and grass. They knew the custom of the Indians in going up stream to avail them- selves of all such side channels, as there was less current in them than in the broad river; and seereting themselves among the bushes, trees and grass, awaited their unsuspecting vie- tims. When the Foxes came within point blank shot, they all fired upon them, killing their chief Kettle and several others. The Foxes finding their chief killed, returned down the river to carry the news of their misfortunes to the tribe, while the Sioux and Menomonces returned home with the tidings of their vietory | manded of the Sauks to deliver up the perpe-

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HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.

trators of this deed. The Foxes fled to the Sauks, and their chief, Kettle, being dead, they remained among and amalgamated with them, and have not since continued a separate Nation or tribe. I have always believed this to be the origin of the Black Hawk War. There were, I suppose, other causes of discontent, but I believe that this transaction was the immediate cause of the movements of Black Ilawk.

III .- BY JOHN H. FONDA.

The same year, 1830, the Fox and Sank In- dians killed some Sioux, at the head of Cedar river, in Iowa. Capt. Dick Mason* started with a number of troops for the scene of dis- turbance, and I went along as guide. We ar- rived at the place of the fight, found every- thing quiet and all we did was to turn about and go back the way we came.

Soon after, the Sioux and a number of Monom- onees attacked a party of Sanks and Foxes at Prai dn Pierreaux and killed some ten Indians, among whom was Kettle, the great Fox chief. +

The Sauks and Foxes were coming up to a treaty unarmed, and the Sioux, made aware of this through their runners, got the Monomonees and laid in ambush on the east shore. The un. suspecting Foxes were fired into from the am- buscade and their best warriors lost their scalps.

After the fight the Monomonees and Sionx came up here to have a dance over the sealps. The Indians presented a horrid appearance. They were painted for war and had smeared themselves with blood and carried the fresh sealps on poles. Some had cut off a head and thrust a stick in the throttle and held it on high; some carried a hand, arm, leg or some other portion of a body, as trophies of their success. They commenced to dance near the mound over the slough, but Col. Taylor soon stopped that

by driving them across the main channel on to the islands, where they danced until their own sealps went to grace the wigwams of the Sanks and Foxes.

In April of 1831, I was in the hospital at Fort Crawford, when, through the influence of Col. Taylor and Dr. Beaumont, I got my dis- charge. When I was convalescent, which was about June, a war party of Sank and Fox Indians came up from their part of the country to the bluff north of Bloody Run, from where they watched the Monomonees, who were en- camped on an island opposite Prairie du Chien, a little north of the old fort. One night the Monomonee camp was surprised by the Fox and Sauk war party, and all in the camp killed ex- cept an Indian boy, who picked up a gun and shot a Fox brave through the heart and escaped. After massacreing, sealping and mutilating the bodies, the Fox Indians got into canoes and paddled down the river past the fort, singing their war song and boasting of their exploits. Soldiers were sent to punish them, but I believe they failed to catch them. In the morning I helped to bury those killed. There were twenty-seven bodies, all killed with the knife and tomahawk, except the Fox brave shot by the boy. They were buried in three graves on the landing below the present Fort Crawford, and until within a few years the spot was marked by a small muslin flag kept standing by the few Monomonees who lingered in this vicin- ity; but nothing is now left to preserve the graves from sacrilege, and soon the iron horse will course o'er the bones of those red men, long since gone to their happy hunting grounds.

After the Monomonee massacre, a warrior of that tribe was found in the old Catholic grave- yard and buried. He had no wounds and it is thought that when the Foxes attacked the Indi- ans on the island, he got away and ran so fast that he had to lean against the wall to rest, and that he rolled over and died.

The Indian agency was removed this year to Yellow River and the Rev. Mr. Lowrey ap-

* Richard B. Mason, a native of Virginia, was a Ist lieu- tenant in 1817, captain in 1819; served in the Black Hawk War; major of dragoons in 1832, lieutenant-colonel in 1836 and colonel in 1846. He commanded the forces in California and was ex-officio governor 1847-48; brevetted brigadier-gen- eral and died at Jefferson Barracks, Mo., July 25, 1850.

+ This was in 1830.

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pointed agent. It was afterwards removed to Fort Atkinson, Iowa. The mission buildings can be seen now on Yellow river, about five miles from its mouth.

THIE WINNEBAGOES.

The Nation which displaced the Sacs and Foxes upon the Wisconsin river and its contig- nous territory, including what is now Vernon county, was the Winnebagoes. It is now 250 years since the civilized world began to get a knowledge of the Winnebagoes-the "men of the sea," as they were called, pointing, possibly, to their early emigration from the shores of the Mexican gulf, or the Pacific. The territory now included within the limits of Wisconsin, and so much of the State of Michigan as lies north of Green bay, Lake Michigan, the Straits of Mackinaw and Lake Huron were, in early times, inhabited by several tribes of the Algon- quin race, forming a barrier to the Dakotas, or Sioux, who had advanced eastward to the Mis- sissippi. But the Winnebagoes, although one of the tribes belonging to the family of the latter, had passed the great river, at some un- known period, and settled upon Winnebago lake. llere, as early as 1634, they were visited by John Nicolet, an agent of France, and a treaty concluded with them Little more was hu ard of the Winnebagoes for the next thirty- five years, when, on the 2d of December, 1669, some of that Nation were seen at a Sae village on Green bay, by Father Allouez.

As early at least as 1670, the French were ac- tively engaged among the Winnebagoes trading. "We found affairs," says one of the Jesuit mis- sionaries, who arrived among them in September of that year, "we found affairs there in a pretty bad posture, and the minds of the savages much soured against the French, who were there trading; ill treating them in deeds and words, pillaging and carrying away their mer- chandise in spite of them, and conducting themselves toward them with insupportable in- solences and indignities. The cause of this disorder," adds the missionary, "is that they

had received some bad treatment from the French, to whom they had this year come to trade, and particularly from the soldiers, from whom they pretended to have received many wrongs and injuries. It is thus made certain that the arms of France were carried into the territory of the Winnebagoes over 200 years ago.

The Fox river of Green bay was found at that date a difficult stream to navigate. Two Jesuits who ascended the river in 1670, had "three or four leagues of rapids to contend with, when they had advanced one day's journey from the head of the bay, more ditli- cult than those which are common in other rivers, in this, that the flints, over which they had to walk with naked feet to drag their ca- noes, were so sharp and so cutting, that one has all the trouble in the world to hold one's self steady against the great rushing of the waters. At the falls they found an idol that the savages honored; never failing, in pass- ing, to make him some sacrifice of tobacco, or arrows, or paintings, or other things, to thank him that, by his assistance, they had, in ascend- ing, avoided the dangers of the waterfalls which are in this stream; or else, if they had to ascend, to pray him to aid them in this perilous navigation. The missionaries caused the idol to be lifted up by the strength of the arm, and cast into the depths of the river, to appear no more, to the idolatrous savages."

The Winnebagoes, by this time, had not only received considerable spiritual instruction from the Jesuit fathers, but had obtained quite an insight into the mysteries of trading and tratlic- ing with white men; for, following the foot- steps of the missionaries, and sometimes pre coding them, were the ubiquitous French fur traders. It is impossible to determine precisely what territory was occupied by the Winneba- goes at this early date, farther than that they lived near the head of Green bay.

A direct trade with the French upon the St. Lawrence was not carried on by the Winneba-

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HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.

goes to any great extent until the beginning of the eighteenth century. As early as 1679,an advance party of LaSalle had collected a large store of furs at the mouth of Green bay, doubtless in a traffic with this tribe and others contiguous to them; generally, however, the surrounding Na- tions sold their peltries to the Ottawas, who disposed of them, in turn, to the French. The commencement of the eighteenth century found the Winnebagoes firmly in alliance with France, and in peace with the. dreaded Iroquois. In 1718, the Nation numbered 600. They had moved from the Fox river to Green bay. They were afterward found to have moved up Fox river, locating upon Winnebago lake, which lake was their ancient seat, and from which they had been driven either by fear or the prowess of more powerful tribes of the west and south- west. Their intercourse with the French was gradually extended and generally peaceful, though not always so, joining with them, as did the Menominees, in their wars with the Iro- quois, and subsequently in their conflicts with the English, which finally ended in 1760.

When the British, in October, 1761, took pos- session of the French post, at the head of Green bay, the Winnebagoes were found to number 150 warriors only; their nearest village being at the lower end of Winnebago lake. They had in all not less than three towns. Their country, at this period, included, not only that lake, but all the streams flowing into it, espe- cially Fox river; afterward extended to the Wisconsin and Rock rivers. They readily changed their course of trade-asking now of the commandant at the fort for English traders to be sent among them. In the Indian outbreak under Pontiac, in 1763, they joined with the Me- nomonees and other tribes to befriend the British garrison at the head of the bay, as- sisting in conducting them to a place of safety.

They continned their friendship to the Eng- lish during the revolution, by joining with them against the colonies, and were active in the Indian war of 1790-4, taking part in the at-

tack on Fort Recovery, upon the Manmee, in the present State of Ohio, in 1793. They fought also on the side of the British in the War of 1812-15, aiding, in 1814, to reduce Prairie du Chien. They were then estimated at 4,500. When, in 1816, the government of the United States sent troops to take possession of the Green bay country, by establishing a garrison there, some trouble was anticipated from these Indians, who, at that date, had the reputation of being a bold and warlike tribe. A deputation from the Nation came down Fox river and re- monstrated with the American commandant at what was thought to be an intrusion. They were desirous of knowing why a fort was to be established so near them. The reply was that, although the troops were armed for war if nec- essary, their purpose was peace. Their response was an old one: "If your object is peace, you have too many men; if war, you have too few." However, the display of a number of cannon, which had not yet been mounted, satisfied the Winnebagoes that the Americans were masters of the situation and the deputation gave the garrison no further trouble.

On the 3d of June, 1816, at St. Louis, the tribe made a treaty of peace and friendship with the general government; but they con- tinued to levy tribute on all white people who passed up Fox river. English annuities also kept up a bad feeling. At this time a portion of the tribe was living upon the Wisconsm river, away from the rest of the Nation, which was still seated upon the waters flowing into Green bay. In 1820 they had five villages on Winnebago lake and fourteen on Rock river. In 1825 the claim of the Winnebagoes was an extensive one, so far as territory was concerned. Its southeast boundary stretched away from the source of Rock river, to within forty miles of its mouth, in Illinois, where they had a village. On the west it extended to the heads of the small streams flowing into the Mississippi. To the northward, it reached Black river and the Upper Wisconsin, in other words, to the Chip-

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pewa territory, including what is now Vernon county, but did not extend across Fox river, although they contended for the whole of Win- nebago lake. In 1829 a large part of their ter- ritory in southwest Wisconsin, lying between Sugar river and the Mississippi, and extending to the Wisconsin river, was sold to the general government.

Just previous to this time occurred the Win- nebago war, an account of which will be found in the next chapter. In 1832, all the residue of the Winnebago territory south and east of the Wisconsin and the Fox river of Green bay, was disposed of to the United States.

Finally, in the brief language of the treaty between this tribe (which had become unsettled and wasteful) and the United States, of the 1st of November, 1837, "the Winnebago Nation of Indians" ceded to the general government "all their lands east of the Mississippi." Not an acre was reserved. And the Indians agreed that, within eight months from that date, they would move west of "the great river." This arrangement, however, was not carried out fully. In 1842 there were only 756 at Turkey River, lowa, their new home, with as many in Wisconsin, and smaller bands elsewhere. All had become lawless and roving. Some removed in 1848; while a party to the number of over 800 left the State as late as 1873. The present home of the tribe is in Nebraska, where they have a reservation north of, and adjacent to the Omahas, containing over 100,000 acres. Ilow- ever. since their first removal beyond the Mis- sissippi, they have several times changed their place of abode. The period of Winnebago oc- enpaney of Crawford county and the region of country contiguous thereto, .properly began about the commencement of the present cen- tury and ended, virtually, in 1848.

Within the last two years steps have been taken toward paying such of the Winnebagoes, in Wisconsin, as might come forward to be en- rolled, at least a portion of the money due to them under the act of Jan. 18, 1881. It has

been found by this enrollment that the whole number of Winnebagoes in Wisconsin at this time (1884) is about 1,200; while those in Ne- braska number about 1,400; so that the entire Nation now consists of about 2,600 souls.

Concerning the removal of the Winnebagoes, John II. Fonda says:

During the year 1848, just previous to the adoption of the State Constitution, the Win- nebago Indians were scattered through the country along the Wisconsin and Fox rivers, through the Kickapoo timbers, and the Lemon- weir valley. Orders came from the sub-Indian agent, J. E. Fletcher, to collect and remove them to their Reservation, near Fort Atkinson, Iowa.

In 1848, when orders were received at Fort Crawford to remove the Winnebagoes, several attempts were made to do so, but with poor success. Early in the same year I received the following official letter:

OFFICE SUB-INDIAN AGENT,

TURKEY RIVER, JAN. 4, 1848. S

SIR :- In answer to your inquiry respecting the disposition to be made of the Winnebago Indians, who may be found wandering about through the country, I have to say that I wish you to arrest them, cause them to be securely guarded, and report them to me as early as may be practicable.

Very respectfully your obd't servant, J. K. FLETCHER,

To Lieut. Indian Ag't. Commanding Ft. Crawford, W. T.

Upon receipt of the above, I made all neces- sary preparation, and started with fifty men to collect the Indians. This attempt was quite successful, and several hundred were arrested, and sent to Fort Atkinson, Iowa. It may ap- pear strange to some persons that such a hand- ful of men could take many hundred Indians prisoners, and guard them day and night as we traveled through a wild unsettled country: but it was done, and I have a list of names of those men who accompanied me on that expedition.

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HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.

My journal, kept during the time we were hunt- ing the Indians, presents numerous interesting items, only one or two of which, I will relate.

In taking the Indians, great caution was necessary to enable us to approach them. When the scouts reported that Indians had been dis- covered, four or five of the men would start on ahead, enter the Winnebago eamp, collect all the guns and take off the locks before the Indians were aware of their intention. Frequently a hunting party would come in while the men were un-locking the guns, and make a demonstration of resistance, by which time our entire party would arrive, and prevail on them to submit to the same treatment, telling them if they came along with us quietly, no harm would be offered them. On the 10th of May we eneamped in a valley near the Baraboo, and three days after were on Dell creek. Here the scouting party captured a Winnebago Indian, who told me his part of the tribe were encamped at Seven Mile ereek. I sent eleven men to the camp, which was very large and comprised many lodges. When the main body had come up to the Indian camp, we found the men had sue- ceeded in getting all the guns but one, which belonged to a young brave who refused to give it up. Fearing he might do mischief, the gun was taken from him. It was a fine rifle, of which he was proud; but in spite of his remon- stranee, the lock was taken off, and put in a bag with others. When the piece was rendered un- servieable, they handed it back to the young Indian. He looked at it a moment, and then grasping the barrel he raised it above his head, and brought the stock down with such force against the trunk of a young sapling, as to break it to splinters, and threw the barrel many rods from him. His sister, an Indian girl about sev- enteen years old, picked up the barrel and handed it to him. The brother bent it against the tree and then hurled it over the bank into the creek.

The addition of the Indians put us on short allowance, and I was obliged to send one of the wagons baek to Baraboo for provisions and

grain. Just before making camp on main ridge the 15th of May, my horse was bitten on the nose by a rattlesnake. The horse's head was soon swelled to twice its natural size, and I thought him as good as dead, when an okl Frenchman offered to make the horse well by the next morning. I turned the horse over to his eare, and sure enough, the morning follow- ing the swelling had all disappeared, and the horse was as well as ever. Iasked what he had put on to effect the sudden cure, he said he did not apply anything, but one of the men told me that he cured the horse by looking at and talking to it. This was the same man who eured one, Theo. Warner, now [1858] living in Prairie du Chien, when he was bitten by a rattlesnake. His name was Limmery, and a strange man he was; his eyes were the smallest I have ever seen in the head of any human being, with a piereing expression that onee seen could never be forgot- ten. He would never allow a snake to be killed if he could help it, and could take up the most venomous snake with impunity. I saw him take up a large moccasin snake while we were in the Kickapoo bottoms, and it never offered to bite him, while it would strike fiercely at any third person who approached it. I could only attribute the strange power of this man to some mesmeric influence.

We were fortunate enough to bring all the Indians to Prairie du Chien without accident, where they were delivered to a body of regulars from Fort Atkinson, who moved them to their Reservation. That was the last of the Winne- bagoes in Wisconsin as a tribe. There are now a few stragglers loitering near their old hunt- ing grounds, in the Kickapoo and Wisconsin bottom lands, but altogether they do not exceed a hundred souls.

TIIE WINNEBAGOES IN 1816.

In 1816 the Menomonees inhabited the eoun. try about Green bay, and their women occasion- ally married Winnebagoes, but not often. The Menomonees were a quiet and peaceful race, well disposed and friendly to the whites. To-

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HISTORY OF CRAWFORD COUNTY.

mah, the acting chief of the Nation, was well spoken of by all the traders who knew him.

The principal villages of the Winnebagoes were at the lower and upper end of the lake of that name, with an occasional lodge along the Fox river. At the season that traders generally passed the Portage of Wisconsin, they would find old grey headed Day-Kau-Ray at the Portage with his band. Their village was a short distance from there up the Wisconsin, and the Winnebagoes had villages up the Bara- boo river, and several small ones along down the Wisconsin to near its mouth and up the Mississippi. They were estimated at that time by the traders best acquainted with them, to be about 900 warriors strong. Of the Day-Kau- Rays, there were four or five brothers, who were all influential men in the Nation. One sister had a family of children by a trader named Leeuyer, who had married her after the Indian manner. Tradition says that their father was a French trader, who, during the time the French had possession of the country, married a Winnebago woman, the daughter of the principal chief of the Nation, by whom he had these sons and danghter; that at the time the country was taken possession of by the English, he abandoned them, and they were raised among the Indians, and being the de- seendants of a chief on the mother's side, when arrived at manhood they assumed the dignity of their rank by inheritance. They were gen- erally good Indians, and frequently urged their claims to the friendship of the whites by saying they were themselves half white.

THE WINNEBAGOES IN 1818.

The locations of the different tribes of Indi- ans in the vicinity of Crawford county, in 1818, including also the homes of the Winnebagoes, is clearly pointed out in the narrative of Ed- ward Tanner, published in the Detroit Gazette of January 8 and 15, 1819 :

"The first tribe of Indians after leaving St. Louis is the Oyiwayes, (Iowas). This tribe live about 100 miles from the west side of the Mis- 1

sissippi, on the Menomonee, and have about 400 warriors. The next tribe are the Sauks, who live on the Mississippi, and about 400 miles above St. Louis. They emigrated from the Ouisconsin (Wisconsin) abont thirty-five years ago. Their military strength is about 800 warriors, exclusive of old men and boys, and are divided into two divisions of 400 men. Each division is commanded by a war chief. The first are those who have been most distin- guished for deeds of valor, and the second the ordinary warriors. They have also two village chiefs who appear to preside over the civil concerns of the Nation. The next tribe is the Fox Indians. This tribe have a few lodges on the east side of the Mississippi near Fort Arm- strong and about four miles from the Sauk vil- lage. Thirty miles above this, at the mine De Buke (Dubuque), on the west side, they have another village, and another on Turkey river, thirty miles below Prairie du Chien. Their whole military strength is about 400 warriors. They are at this time in a state of war with the Sioux; and as the Sauks are in strict amity with the Fox Indians, and have the influence and control of them, they are also drawn into the war. This war was in consequence of depreda- tions committed by the Fox Indians on the Sioux.

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History of Crawford and Richland counties, Wisconsin, Part 15

Author: Butterfield, Consul Willshire, 1824-1899. [from old catalog]; Union publishing company, Springfield, Ill., pub. [from old catalog] Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Springfield, Ill., Union publishing company Number of Pages: 1298

Author: Butterfield, Consul Willshire, 1824-1899. [from old catalog]; Union publishing company, Springfield, Ill., pub. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Springfield, Ill., Union publishing company
Number of Pages: 1298