USA > Wisconsin > Winnebago County > History of Winnebago County, Wisconsin, and early history of the Northwest > Part 11
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" The generosity of our savages merited the most lively gratitude on our part; already for some time not having been able to find suitable hunting grounds, we had been compelled to eat nothing but bacon ; the moose and elk which they gave us, removed the disgust we began to have for our ordinary fare. "
" The fourteenth of the same month we continued our journey as far as the Detour de Chicagou, and as we were doubling Cap a la Mort, which is about five leagues across, we encountered a gust of wind, which drove ashore several canoes that were unable to double a point in order to obtain a shelter ; they were broken by the shock ; and we were obliged to dis- tribute among the other canoes the men who, by the greatest good fortune in the world, had all escaped from the danger. The next day we crossed over to the Folles Avoines, in order to entice the inhabitants to come and oppose our landing ; they fell into the trap, and were entirely defeated. The following day we camped at the mouth of a river called La Gasparde. Our savages went into the woods, but soon returned, bringing with them several roebucks. This specie of game is very com- mon at this place, and we were enabled to lay in several days provisions of it. "
" About mid-day, on the seventeenth, we were ordered to halt until evening, in order that we might reach the post at the Bay during the night, as we wished to surprise the enemy whom we knew were staying with their allies, the Sacquis, whose village lies near Fort St. Francis. At twilight we com- menced our march, and about midnight we arrived at the mouth of Fox River, at which point our fort is built. As soon as we had arrived there, M. De Lignery sent some Frenchmen to the commandant to ascertain if the enemy were really at the village of the Sacquis ; and having learned that we ought still to find them there, he caused all the savages and a detachment of French troops to cross over the river, in order to surround the habitation, and then ordered the rest of our troops to enter the village. Notwithstanding precautions that had been taken to conceal our arrival, the savages had received information of it, and all had escaped with the excep- tion of four; these were presented to our savages, who, after having diverted themselves with them, shot them to death with their arrows."
" I was much pained to witness this spectacle; and the pleasure which our savages took in making those unfortunate
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EARLY HISTORY OF THE NORTHWEST.
[1728.
persons suffer, causing them to undergo the horrors of thirty deaths before depriving them of life. I could not make this accord with the manner in which they had appeared to think some days before. I would willingly have asked them if they did not preceive, as I did, this opposition of sentiment, and have pointed out to them what I saw condemnable in their pro- ceedings; but those of our party who might have served me as interpreters were on the other side of the river, and I was obliged to postpone until another time the satisfaction of my curiosity."
" After this little coup de main we went up Fox River, which is full of rapids, and is about thirty-five or forty leagues in length. The twenty-fourth of August we arrived at the village of the Puants (Winnebagoes) much disposed to destroy any inhabitants that might be found there; but their flight had preceded our arrival, and we had nothing to do but to burn their wigwams, and ravage their fields of Indian corn, which is their principal article of food. "
" We afterwards crossed over the little Fox Lake, at the end of which we camped, and the next day (day of St. Louis,) after mass, we entered a small river which conducted us into a kind of swamp, on the borders of which is situated the grand habita- tion of those of whom we were in search. Their allies, the Sacquis, doubtless, had informed them of our approach, and they did not deem it advisable to wait our arrival, for we found in their village only a few women, whom our savages made their slaves, and one old man, whom they burnt to death at a slow fire, without appearing to entertain the least repugnance towards committing so barbarous an act."
" This appeared to me a more striking act of cruelty than that which had been exercised towards the four savages found in the village of the Sacquis. I siezed upon this occasion and circumstance to satisfy my curiosity, about that concerning which I have just been speaking. There was in our company a Frenchman who could speak the Iroquois language. I entreated him to tell the savages that I was surprised to see them take so much pleasure in torturing this unfortunate old man - that the rights of war did not extend so far, and that so barbarous an action appeared to me to he in direct opposition to the principles which they had professed to entertain towards all men. I was answered by an Iroquois, who in order to justify his companions, said, that when they fell into the hands of the Foxes and Sacquis, they were treated with still greater cruelty, and that it was their custom to treat their enemies in the same manner that they would be treated by them if they were vanquished. " * * *
" I was about to give him some further reasons, when orders were given to advance upon the last stronghold of the enemy. This post is situated upon the borders of a small river which empties into another called the Quisconsin, which latter dis- charges itself into the Mississippi, about thirty leagues from there. We found no person there, and as we had no orders to go any farther,we employed ourselves several days in destroying the fields, in order to deprive the enemy of the means of sub- sisting there. The country here is beautiful; the soil is fertile, the game plenty and of very fine flavor; the nights are very cold, and the days extremely warm. In my next letter I will speak to you about my return to Montreal, and of all that has happened to me up to the time of my embarking for France. " * * *
Your affectionate brother,
EMANUEL CRESPEL, Recollet.
From Messrs. De Beauharnois and De Arge- mait, September Ist, 1728, to the French Ministers of War:
" It having been signified to them that his Majesty wished that they had awaited his orders before commencing this undertaking, they answer, that the information which they received from every quarter, of the secret wampums which the English had sent among the nations of the Upper Country, to cut the throats of the French in all the posts, and the war parties which the Foxes were raising every day, did not allow them to defer this expedition for a year, without endangering the loss of all the posts in the Upper Country."
" They learned with great regret that the Foxes had fled before the army had arrived in their country. They will do all they can to prevent any results from this, and will attentively observe all the movements which any of those nations who could enter into the interests of the Foxes might make, so as to prevent any surprise. "
" The Marquis De Beauharnois, by a private letter of the same day, sends the instructions which he had given to M. De Lignery for this expedition, and the letter which this officer entreated to enclose in his dispatches, and by which he attempts to justify himself. This letter states, that he made usc of all his skill to succeed in the expedition ; but it was impos- sible for him to surprise the enemy, not being able to conceal from them, any further than the Bay, the knowledge of his march. "
" He took at this post, before day break, three Puants of the Foxes, and one Fox, who were discovered by some Sakis whom he had brought from Mackinac. These four savages were hound and sent to tribes, who put them to death the next day. He afterwards continued his march, composed of 1,000 savages and 450 French, as far as the village of the Puants, and afterwards to the Foxes. They all fled as soon as they heard that we were at the Bay, of which they were informed by some of their own people, who escaped by swimming. They captured, however, in the four Fox villages, two women, a girl and an old man, who were killed and burnt. He learned from them that the tribe had fled four days before ; that it had a collection of canoes, in which the old men, the women and children had embarked, and that the warriors had gone by land He urged the other tribes to follow in pursuit of them, but there was only a portion of them who would consent, the others saying the enemy had got too far for them to be able lo catch up with them. The French had nothing but Indian corn to eat, and this, added to the advanced season, and a march of 400 leagues on their return, by which the safety of half the army was endangered. decided them upon burning the four Fox villages, their forts and their huts, to destroy all that they could find in their fields - Indian corn, peas, beans and gourds, of which they had great abund- ance. They did the same execution among the Puants. It is certain that half of these nations, who number 4,000 souls, will die with hunger, and that they will come in and ask mercy. Major De Cavagnal, who has been in the whole expe- dition, and has perfectly performed his duty, is able to certify to all this." * *
This expedition had the effect of keeping the Sauks and Foxes in cheek for a number of years; but the Foxes, who had their chief vil- lage and stronghold on the banks of Little Buttes des Morts, again became troublesome
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EARLY HISTORY OF THE NORTHWEST.
1730.]
to the traders by stopping their boats, and compelling them to pay tribute for the privil- ege of passage, and this and other griev- ances committed by them, caused the French authorities to determine upon their expulsion.
The Sanks, whose principal village was opposite the French fort at the Bay, had for some time been conducting themseves better than their allies - the Foxes; and they were ordered to deliver up the Foxes living among them. A difficulty occurred about this demand, in which De Vielie, the commandant of the fort, killed two chiefs, when a young Sauk, only twelve years old, named the Black Bird, shot the officer dead.
A severe battle followed this encounter, in which many French and Indians were killed. It ended disastrously to the Sauks, who fled from the country, and located at Sauk Prairie, on the Lower Wisconsin River.
CHAPTER XVI.
Battle of Little Butte des Morts - Sanguinary Engagement - The Most Populous Village of the Foxes Destroyed - The Expulsion of the Foxes from the Fox River Valley -. The Menominees Take Possession of the Fox Country -Tomah, the Great Menominee Chief.
APT. MORAND held an office in the French Indian Department, and had control of several important posts; one near Mackinaw and one on the Mis- sissippi. His boats, in their passage up the Fox, had been frequently stopped at the " Little Butte," and compelled to yield to the exactions of the Foxes. A young Canadian trader, in command of one of Morand's fleets, refused to pay the tribute demanded at the "Little Butte," and in the encounter which fol- lowed, was killed with some of his men, and his boats plundered. This raised the ire of Morand; and the French authorities, having determined on the expulsion of the Foxes, a large force of men were placed under his com- mand, and he commenced the preparation of his expedition. A number of large Mackinaw boats were got in readiness, and Morand then opened up negotiations with the Menominees to take part in the enterprise of expelling their enemies from the Valley of the Fox; declaring his intention of not leaving one of the tribe in that section, and promising the former the possession of the Fox hunting grounds. The Menominees replied, that what was said was
"good talk;" but a little of their fathers' skoo- tay wawbo would help to quicken their thoughts and make them more favorable to the proposition.
Morand complied with these demands, and a general Menominee drunk was the conse- quence; after the termination of which, the expedition, composed of a large force of Menominees and a body of French and half- breeds, proceeded up the Fox to the belliger- ent village.
The morning sun shone pleasantly on the bark and mat wigwams of the Little Buttes des Morts. The inhabitants reposed in fancied security; the squaws moved about in the per- fomance of their usual duties; the dogs quar- reled over their bones and refuse; the papooses played at their juvenile games, and the war- riors lolled about dreamily, comfortably con- templating their next foray on the boats of the voyagers, which should furnish them a gener- ous supply of the white man's delicacies, and especially tobacco, and their favorite skootay waubo. They had not long to wait for their expected opportunity. Morand's fleet was rapidly nearing their village. It was com- posed of bateaux and canoes, covered with oil cloths, such as the traders used to protect their goods from the weather. Under these oil cloths were concealed armed men. When the expedition approached to within a mile of the village, a large detachment of the French and the Menominees was sent from that point to take a position in the rear, and cut off the retreat of the Foxes. Morand's fleet then pro- ceeded up the river. As soon as it hove in sight of the village, the dogs barked, the squaws screamed with delight, and the war- riors proceeded in a body to the shore, eagerly expectant of the rich booty.
When the foremost boats came opposite to the Indians congregated on the shore, the lat- ter commenced to violently gesticulate, and demand their stoppage; which, not being com- plied with, a number of balls were fired across their bows-a peremptory demand for them to heave to. The rowers immediately stopped their further progress, when Morand asked what they required? Skootay waubo was yelled by hundreds of voices. "To shore with with the boats!" ordered Morand; and they were immediately along side the river banks, the swarming savages rushing forward impetu- ously to board them. "Back! Back! Don't touch the boats", warned Morand; but on they came. "Ready!" shouted the commander. In an instant the oil cloths were thrown off, and a hundred men, with guns at their shoulders arose, as if by magic. "Fire!" shouted Morand.
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EARLY HISTORY OF THE NORTHWEST.
[1730.
A hundred muskets were simultaneously dis- charged, and scores of dark forms dropped on the river bank, and writhed in the agonies of death. The suddenness of the unexpected attack sent the Indians howling and panic stricken from the shore. They hastily retreated towards their wigwams. Here a more terrible foe approached them. They were now greeted with the war-whoop of the Menominees, with tomahawk and scalping knife in hand, and the appalling sight of their blazing wigwams and their fleeing squaws and papooses; for the Menominees who had come up in the rear, had industriously applied the torch. Then came a desperate hand to hand conflict; the Foxes fighting bravely, but compelled at last to retreat to the woods. Here the unfortunate wretches were met by the detachment of French that formerly landed, and a discharge of musketry checked their flight. The pur- suing Menominees again came upon them, and tomahawk and bayonet completed the bloody work. Morand endeavored to stop the terrible carnage; but "no quarter" was the revengeful war-ery; and they perished, man, woman and child- almost the entire village, which had contained the most numerous bands of the Fox tribe. A few escaped and fled to the upper Fox.
The populous village that, an hour before, reposed in the enjoyment of peace, was in that short time transformed into a scene of utter desolation. There was nothing left but the dead bodies of the slain. The storm of war had swept over the Petite Buttes des Morts like a besom of destruction, and annihilated the greater portion of a tribe. Such is the history of the memorable battle of the Little Buttes des Morts ( the hills of the dead ) ; a spot com- memorative of the overthrow of the supremacy of the Fox Indians, in the Valley of the Fox.
The few Foxes who had escaped during the battle, joined other bands of the tribe, and congregated at a point on the south side of the river, about three or four miles above Big Lake Buttes des Morts, near the present site of Winneconnee, where they were again attacked by Morand, and defeated with great loss.
Augustin Grignon, in his " Seventy Years Recollections," says " My grandfather, De Langlade, and aged Indians told me that the second battle of Morand with the Foxes took place about three miles above the Great Buttes des Morts. "
This tribe next concentrated its remaining force near the mouth of the Wisconsin, where Morand subsequently followed and again defeated them. They then fled, and took refuge with the Sauks, on Sauk Prairie, across
the Wisconsin. The united tribes must have recuperated rapidly after their settlement at Sauk Prairie; for they had several desperate encounters with the Sioux, and became pow- erful enough in time, to deprive the Kaskaskias of their possessions on the Rock River, where Black Hawk, their distinguished chief, was born.
The discovery of the lead mines, in 1822, on the territory then occupied by them, brought American settlers into that section, and they again were routed from their posses- sions, by what Black Hawk alleges to have been a fraudulent treaty. They were removed across the Mississippi, and here came into conflict with the Sioux, their hereditary foes.
The Foxes and Sauks seem to have affiliated with no other tribes. For over a century they were known to have been continually on the war-path. The other tribes held them in great awe. Their children, for generations, may be said to have been born on the battle-field, with the sound of the warwhoop ringing in their mothers' ears. No Indians ever surpassed them in bravery or devotion to the cause of the red-man in resenting the eneroachments of the whites; and, as the Black Hawk war was the closing scene of the strife of the Sauks and Foxes, who had been so long the domi- nant tribes of this valley, which will be forever associated with their fame, a sketch will be given, on a subsequent page, of that last struggle of these tribes against the fate elosing so remorselessly around them.
After the expulsion of the Sauks and Foxes, the Menominees came into the possession of the territory formerly occupied by the former tribes. As they remained the firm allies of the French, and pursued a peaceable course in their relations with other Indian nations, they rapidly increased in numbers and power; and when the Americans commenced the set- tlement of this country, the Menominee lands included the tract north of the Upper Fox, extending from one of the branches of the Wisconsin, on the west, to a point on Lake Michigan, north of the Menominee River, and from there south to the mouth of the Milwau- kee River; embracing the tract between Lakes Winnebago and Michigan, the Lower Fox country and the Wolf and its tributaries.
The French seem, from the first, to have affiliated very closely with the Menominees, intermarrying with them to such an extent that at one time the population of the Lower Fox country was composed largely of people of mixed blood.
About the year 1812, they had a very remarkable man for a chief, the great Tomah;
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EARLY HISTORY OF THE NORTHWEST.
1816.]
a man of great abilities and virtues. He was held in the highest esteem by the neighboring nations, and is spoken of by the whites as one of Nature's noblemen.
James W. Biddle, who had the contract for supplying the troops at Green Bay and other western posts, in 1816, thus speaks of him in his published " Recollections of Green Bay."
"When at Mackinaw, early one morning in the latter part of May, or early in June, 1817, I had come out of my lodgings and observed approaching me one of the many Indians then on the Island; and taking a look at him as he emerged from the fog, then very heavy, I was struck as he passed, in a most unusual manner, by his singularly imposing presence. I had never seen, I thought, so magnificent a man. He was of the larger size, perhaps six feet, with fine proportions, a little stoop-shouldered, and dressed in a somewhat dirty blanket, and had scarcely noticed me as he passed. I remember it as distinctly as if it was yesterday. I watched him until he disappeared again in the fog, and remember almost giving expression to a feel- ing which seemed irresistibly to creep over me, that the earth was too mean for such a man to walk on ! This idea was, of course, dis- carded the moment it came up, but existence it had, at this, my first view of Tomah. I had no knowledge, at the time, of who he was, or that Tomah was on the Island, but while stand- ing there, before my door, and under the influ- ence of the feeling I have described, Henry Graverat, the Indian interpreter, came up, and I enquired of him whether he knew of an Indian who had just passed up. He replied, yes, that it was Tomah, chief of the Menom- inees.'
"When Tecumseh visited the Indians at the Bay, and addressed them in council, advocating a union of tribes against the Americans, his eloquent recital of his success in the many battles he had fought, was well calculated to arouse a war-like spirit in the Indians. Tomah, desirous of allaying this, replied, 'that he had heard the words of Tecumseh - heard of the battles he had fought, enemies they had slain, and the scalps he had taken,'" "He then," says Biddle, "paused; and while the deepest silence reigned throughout the audience, he slowly raised his hands, his eyes fixed on them, and in a lower, but not less proud a tone, contin- ued: 'but it is my boast that these hands are unstained with human blood !"
"The effect is described as tremendous; nature obeyed her own impulse, and admira- tion was forced, even from those who could not, or did not, approve of the moral to be implied, and the gravity of the council was disturbed,
for an instant, by a murmur of approbation- a tribute to genius, overpowering, at the moment, the force of education and habit. He concluded with remarking, 'that he had ever supported the policy of peace, as his nation was small and consequently weak; that he was fully aware of the injustice of the Americans in their encroachments upon the lands of the Indians, and for them feared its consequences, but that he saw no relief for it in going to war, and, therefore, as a national thing, he would not do so; but that if any of his young men were desirous of leaving their hunting grounds and following Tecumseh, they had his permission to do so.' His prudent councils prevailed."
The Menominees became partially civilized at a very early period of their known history, through the christianizing influence of the missionaries and intimate association with the French, whom they regarded as their greatest benefactors.
CHAPTER XVII
Wisconsin the Border Ground in the Long Contest Between the Algonquins and Dacotahs - The Historic Ground of the Northwest - The Sioux the Original Inhabitants of Wisconsin - The Sioux Expelled by the Chippewas - Hole-In The-Day, his Exploits and Influence - The Win- nebagoes, their Villages and Chiefs - Ludicrous Encounter Between the War Chief of the Pottawattamies and the Head Chief of the Menominees - The Defeat and Discomfiture of a Bully - Hoo-Choup Attempts to Control the Entrance to Lake Winnebago.
S this State was the border ground where the great Algonquin and Dacotah races first met and came into conflict, and as the Fox and Lower Wisconsin valleys were the scenes of the earliest intercourse of whites and Indians of the West, and of the sanguinary battles between the French and Sauks and Foxes, it is, therefore, the chief his- toric ground of the Northwest; and its early history is replete with important occurrences incidental to the earlier civilization of the coun- try.
The Indian tribes that inhabited this region, at the time of the advent of the French missionaries and traders, were the Chippewas, Pottawattamies, Sauks, Foxes, Menominees and Winnebagoes. They were all recent immigrants from Canada except the Menomi- nees, who had emigrated from the east at a more remote period, and the Winnebagoes, who came from Spanish America, in the Southwest.
56
EARLY HISTORY OF THE NORTHWEST.
[1600-70.
The earliest known occupants of the territory now included in the limits of Wisconsin were the Dacotahs, or Sioux. Their hunting grounds and possessions included the now States of Wisconsin and Minnesota, and parts of Iowa and Illinois. They were the sole inhabitants of the country up to about the year 1600, when this district began to be invaded by tribes of the Algonquin or Algic race, that great branch of the Indian family which inhabited Canada and what is now the Eastern and Middle States.
The Chippewas, a branch of the Ojibwa, one of the most powerful nations of the Algon- quin race, were originally from Canada. They traveled by the way of the Lakes, in their birch bark canoes, and first met the Sioux at the straits of Sault St. Marie. The period of their invasion of the south shore of Lake Michigan, is, according to tradition, about the year 1600; and then began that struggle between the Algonquin and the Sioux, which made Wis- consin the great battle ground in the long con- test between the Dacotah and Algic races. By the year 1650, the Chippewas had pushed their way to the mouth of our Fox River; and to the northwest as far as the head waters of the St. Croix. But, in 1670, the Sioux had driven them back to the Sault St. Marie and the mouth of the Fox.
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