USA > Wisconsin > Racine County > Racine > Racine, belle city of the lakes, and Racine County, Wisconsin : a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Vol. I > Part 3
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One of the finest collections of Mound Builders' relies known was that of Frederick S. Perkins, of Burlington. Part of this collection was sent to the National Museum, part of it to the Wisconsin State Historical Society, and is now on exhibition in the Historical Library Museum at Madison, and some of it was left at Racine. Dr. P. R. Hoy also had a fine collection of arrow points, flint knives, stone axes, celts, etc., gathered at various points in Racine County.
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HISTORY OF RACINE COUNTY
THE INDIANS
When the first white men came to this country from Europe, they found the continent of North America peopled by a race of copper colored individuals unlike any they had ever seen before. Believing that Columbus had cireunavigated the earth and that the country was India, they gave these people the name of In- dians. Subsequent explorations corrected the error in geography, but the name given to the natives still remains. This race was divided into several groups or families, each of which was distin- guished by certain physical and linguistic characteristics. In the extreme northern part of the continent were the Eskimo, a tribe that has never played any conspienous part in history, except to serve as guides to explorers in the Arctic regions.
The great Algonquian family inhabited a large triangle, roughly bounded by the Atlantic coast line from Labrador to Cape Hatteras, and lines from those two points to the western end of Lake Superior. Within this triangle lay the present State of Wisconsin. In the heart of the Algonquian country, along the shores of Lake Ontario, were the Iroquoian tribes - the Cayugas, Oneidas, Onondagas. Mohawks and Senecas - which formed the confederacy known as the "Five Nations." Later the Tuscarora tribe was admitted to the confederacy, when it became known as the "Six Nations."
South of the Algonquian country, in the southeastern part of the United States, lay the territory occupied by the Muskhogean group, the principal tribes of which were the Cherokee, Choctaw, Creek and Chickasaw. To the northwest, about the sources of the Mississippi River, were the fearless, hardy, warlike Sionan tribes, of which there were quite a mumber, while the country farther west was inhabited by the fierce Apache, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche and kindred tribes, closely allied to the Sionan group in appearance, habits and dialect. In the far Southwest were a mmber of tribes living in pueblos and differing in many respects from any of the others. The principal tribes inhabiting the terri- fory now comprising the State of Wisconsin were the Chippewa (or Ojibwa), Menominee, Sac, Fox, Ottawa, Potawatomi and Winnebago.
THE CHIPPEWA
A tribal tradition says the Chippewa originally dwelt along the shores of Lake Huron, their country extending northwestward
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HISTORY OF RACINE COUNTY
to Lake Superior, and that they were part of a great Algonquian tribe which included the Ottawa and Potawatomi. When the white men first came in contact with those tribes they were living in a sort of loose confederacy known as the "Three Fires." The word Ojibwa, the Indian name of the tribe, means "to roast till puckered up," and was given to these Indians on account of their way of making moccasins with a seam that puckered the leather. The tribe was divided into five phratries, or brotherhoods, and these were divided into twenty-three gentes, or clans, the most important of which were the Turtle, Bear, Beaver, Loon, Catfish, Swan and Snake. In early days they were engaged in a war with the Sioux for several years over their hunting grounds in North- ern Wisconsin, but they persistently maintained their ground and continued to occupy the country until after the United States Government extended its jurisdiction over it, when by successive treaties their right to the region was recognized. In course of time they ceded their lands to the United States and accepted reservations in some of the northern counties of the state.
THE MENOMINEE
This tribe was one of the Algonquian group, though the dia- leet differed greatly from that of the other tribes, having peculiar guttural sounds, accents and inflections, so that for a long time they were supposed to have a distinct language. The Menominee were known as "wild rice men," the wild rice that grew along the streams forming a large part of their food. The harvest time for this rice was in the month of September. The harvesters paddled their canoes along the streams and shook or beat the grain into a bark receptacle. To clear the rice of chaff it was put to dry upon a sort of lattice work above a small fire, where it was kept for several days. When it was thoroughly dry, it was placed in a leather bag and tramped until the chaff was freed from the grain, when it was easily winnowed. The rice was then pounded into meal and made into a kind of bread, or it was boiled in water and seasoned with grease. They were also skillful fishermen and hunters. The French called them Folles Avoines.
One of their traditions points to an emigration from the East at some remote period in the past, but their first habitat known to white men was on the Bay de Noque and along the Menominee River. Those living on the bay were called by the French the
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HISTORY OF RACINE COUNTY
Noquet Indians. According to the Jesuit Relations, the tribe was first visited by Nicolet in 1634, when he found the main body living near the month of the Menominee River. He sent some young Winnebago Indians in advance to notify them of his com- ing, and on his arrival he wore "a robe of Chinese damask and carried thunder in his hands." The thunder was a pair of pistols and when they were discharged the women and children fled in terror. At one of their feasts mentioned by Nicolet over four thousand people were present and 120 beavers were eaten. The Relations of 1671 tell of the Menominee having been driven from their country, "the lands of the south next to Michilimackinac," when they went to the country about the shores of Green Bay. This statement is no doubt based upon the report of Father Claude Allonez, a Jesuit missionary, who visited the tribe in May, 1670, and found it a "feeble one, almost exterminated by war." Allonez remained with them but a short time and was succeeded by Father Louis Andre, who built a cabin on the Menominee River and took up his residence. His work was evidently fruitful, for when Father Marquette visited the tribe in 1673 he "found many good Christians among them."
The principal gentes of the tribe were those that bore the totems of the Bear, Eagle, Crane, Wolf and Moose. When the French post, at what is now the City of Green Bay, was surren- dered to the British in the fall of 1761, the Menominee claimed the land upon which the fort stood and for a time it looked as though they were going to make trouble for the English. But when they found out that they could purchase supplies from them at much lower prices than they had been accustomed to pay the French, they became reconciled and remained friends of the British, fight- ing with them against the American colonists in the Revolution- ary war. They also fonght against the United States in the War of 1812. In July, 1816, a force of United States troops arrived at Green Bay to take possession of the country and the commander asked the head chief of the tribe for permission to build a fort. To this request the chief replied as follows:
"My brother, how can we oppose your locating a council fire among us? Even if we wanted to oppose von we have scarcely got powder and ball to make the attempt. One favor we ask is that our French brothers shall not be disturbed. You can choose any place you please for your fort and we shall not object."
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HISTORY OF RACINE COUNTY
The commander was diplomatic enough to make a reply that won the confidence of the chief and the friendship thus commenced was greatly strengthened by the treaty of peace concluded on March 30, 1817, in which the Government recognized the Menom- inee title to the lands occupied by them and established boundaries between them and the adjacent tribes. The friendship was still further strengthened when the British failed to make their annual contribution of eloth, copper kettles, utensils, etc. After that the Menominee were known as "American" Indians instead of "Brit- ish" Indians. As late as 1831 this tribe claimed "all the land from the mouth of the Milwaukee River to the mouth of the Green Bay, and on the west side of Green Bay from the height of land between it and Lake Superior, to the headwaters of the Fox and Menom- inee Rivers." Although they made no claim to the lands south of the Milwaukee River, there is abundant evidence that the Menom- inee hunted there at times and there is no question that they fre- quently visited the country now included in Racine County.
THE SAC
These Indians, also called the Sauk or Saukies, were known as "the people of the outlet," or "people of the yellow earth." They belonged to the Algonquian family and according to their traditions were once a very powerful people. They are first men- tioned in history by Father Claude Allouez, who found them in the lower peninsula of Michigan in 1665. Two years later he wrote: "They are more savage than any other people I have met, great in numbers, and appear to have no permanent dwelling place." In December, 1669, the same missionary visited a Sac village upon the shores of Green Bay, and the following year found some of them upon the Fox River of Green Bay, "four leagues from its month." From their traditions it is believed that they once lived east of Detroit, perhaps as far east as the shores of Lake Ontario, but were driven out of that country by the pow- erful Iroquois and finally drifted westward to what is now the State of Wisconsin.
The Sac tribe was divided into fourteen gentes, viz .: Trout, Sturgeon, Bass, Great Lynx, Sea, Fox, Wolf, Bear, Potato, Elk. Swan, Grouse, Eagle and Thunder. Marriages between men and women of the same gens, while not positively prohibited, were extremely rare. They had numerous feasts and ceremonies, the
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HISTORY OF RACINE COUNTY
most important of which was probably the initiation into the "Grand Medicine Society" - a ceremony that is said to have been a severe test of the courage and fortitude of the candidate who underwent the ordeal. After locating in Wisconsin they gained something of their former prestige and again became a powerful tribe, especially after their alliance with the Fox Indians.
THE FOX
Evidence, traditionary and otherwise, shows that the Fox Indians, in the early part of the Seventeenth Century, lived on the Atlantic coast, in the vicinity of Rhode Island. They were an Algonquian tribe, the Indian name of which was Mesh-kwa- ke-hng, which was corrupted into Musquakies, and after their migration westward they became known as the Ontagamie. The name Fox originated with the French, who called these Indians Reynors. They called themselves "people of the red earth." Of all the North American Indians the Fox was the only tribe that had a coat of arms. It consisted of "an oblique line, representing a river, with a fox at each end on opposite sides." It was a sym- bol of victory and after a snecessful raid was painted on rocks or carved in the bark of trees as a warning to their enemies. Their gentes were the Fox, Wolf, Elk, Big Lynx, Buffalo, Swan, Pheas- ant, Potato, Eagle, Sea, Sturgeon, Bass and Thunder.
Driven westward by the warlike Iroquois and their allies, the Fox came to Wisconsin and first settled upon the shores of Green Bay, where Nicolet found some of them in 1634. Their presence there was not agreeable to the Menominee and they moved on to the Fox River. In the spring of 1670 Father Allonez visited their villages there and on the Wolf River, a northern tributary of the Fox. Concerning these Indians he wrote: "The nation is re- nowned for being numerons, having more than four hundred men bearing arms. The mber of women and children is greater, on account of polygamy which exists among them - each man hay- ing commonly four wives, some of them six, and others as high as ten."
In 1712 a large number of the Fox warriors took part in the attack on the French post at Detroit, but were defeated with heavy loss. The remnant of the war party returned to the Fox River and a few years later the Dutch and English traders oper- ating in Wisconsin and Northern Michigan formed an alliance
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HISTORY OF RACINE COUNTY
with them for the purpose of driving out the French. As a defensive measure the French traders enlisted the aid of the Ottawa, Potawatomi, Huron and some minor tribes. Again the Foxes were defeated and sought a refuge among the Saes. A French officer named De Villiers, with a force of French soldiers and Indian allies, marched to the Sac village and demanded the surrender of the refugees. The demand was refused and a battle ensued which lasted for several hours, the Indians finally being defeated, but the refugees were not surrendered. The Sac and Fox then formed an alliance and from that time they have been regarded as one tribe, though their alliance was more in the nature of a confederacy, each tribe maintaining its identity, even when one chief ruled over both. Two of the greatest chiefs in the history of the North American Indians belonged to these allied tribes. They were Black Hawk and Keokuk, both born of Sac parents yet acknowledged chiefs by the Foxes. During the war of the Revolution the Sacs and Foxes were friendly to the British. In 1804 they ceded to the United States the last of their lands in Wisconsin, though they afterward wielded considerable influence upon the history of the state.
THE OTTAWA
The Ottawa belonged to the Algonquian family and according to their traditions were originally four or five separate tribes. which became united for purposes of defense against their ene- mies. They were known among the other tribes as "the traders." because they were always ready to barter anything they possessed for something that they wanted. In 1615 Champlain met with this tribe on the shores of the Georgian Bay, where they were drying huckleberries for their winter food. This is the first men- tion of them in the white man's history. Father Claude Dablon. writing of these Indians in 1670, said: "We call these people the Upper Algonkin, to distinguish them from the Lower Algon- kin, who are lower down, in the vicinity of Tadoussac and Queber. People commonly give them the name Ottawa, because, of more than thirty different tribes which are found in these countries, the first that descended to the French settlements were the Ottawa, whose name remained afterward attached to all the others."
From the time this was written until about the beginning of
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HISTORY OF RACINE COUNTY.
the Eighteenth Century, the Ottawa lived with the Huron Indians about Detroit. They then moved up to Saginaw, where they formed an alliance with the Potawatomi and gradually moved westward until they reached the western shore of Lake Michigan. In the French and Indian war the Ottawa, Potawatomi and Me- nominee all fought on the side of the French and rendered con- spicuous service in the battle of the Monongahela, in which the British General Braddock was so ingloriously defeated. After the treaty of 1763, which concluded that war, the French troops moved out of the country about the Great Lakes and the British came in. This increased the dissatisfaction of the Indians and the Ottawa chief, Pontiac, planned the general uprising against the British posts. Certain chiefs of the Ottawa, Chippewa and Pota- watomi were to collect their warriors where the City of Milwau- kee now stands and lead them against the whites. But the Menominee refused to enter into the conspiracy and their chief warned the British, for which service he was awarded a medal. Some of the Ottawa and Potawatomi warriors living in what is now Racine County were enlisted in this movement.
THE POTAWATOMI
The name of this onee powerful Algonquin tribe is spelled in various ways, but the form adopted in this work is that used by the United States Burean of Ethnology. They were known as "the people of the place of fire," or the "Nation of Fire." Their traditions claim that the Potawatomi, Ottawa and Chippewa were originally one people, living north of the Great Lakes; that they separated at Mackinaw, though they remained friendly to each other and afterward formed a sort of loose confederacy for their mutual protection against their enemies. As early as 1667 Father Allonez found some three hundred of them at Chaquame- gon Bay, and three years later he encountered another band about the mouth of the Green Bay. After the Revolutionary war some of them moved down into the Miami country and established sev- eral villages along the Wabash River, in what is now the State of Indiana.
Morgan, of the Bureau of Ethnology, divides the tribe into the following gentes: Wolf, Bear, Beaver, Elk, Loon, Eagle, Sturgeon, Carp, Bald Eagle, Thunder, Rabbit, Crow, Fox, Turkey and Blackhawk.
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HISTORY OF RACINE COUNTY
During the Revolution the Potawatomi fought on the side of the British. Their chiefs signed the treaty of peace conchided at Greenville, Ohio, on August 3, 1795, but they afterward violated the treaty and fought against the United States in the War of 1812. A portion of this tribe once inhabited the region now in- cluded in Racine County.
THE WINNEBAGO
The Winnebago belonged to the Siouan family and was inti- mately related to the Iowa, Otoe and Missouri tribes. When Nicolet visited the country about the Green Bay in 1634, he found some of them along the shores, where they informed him they had always dwelt. Although a Sionan tribe, the Winnebago generally kept on friendly terms with the neighboring Algonquian nations and on several occasions formed alliances with them for offensive or defensive operations against their common enemies. The name "Winnebago" first appears in the Jesuit Relations for the year 1640, where they are referred to as a tribe calling them- selves "the people of the parent speech." At that time the main body of the tribe was living about the Green Bay. From there they removed northward to the shores of Lake Superior, but returned to their old habitat on the shores of the Green Bay about the middle of the century. Jonathan Carver, in 1778, found a large body of them dwelling along the west side of Lake Winne- bago, where ten years later one of their principal villages was located. From Lake Winnebago they moved southwest to the Mississippi River and formed a friendly alliance with the Sacs and Foxes. -
Dorsey says the tribe was divided into two phratries - one known as the "Upper Air," and the other as "The Earth." The former was divided into four gentes called Thunderbird, War People, Eagle and Pigeon, and the latter into the gentes of the Bear, Wolf, Water-Spirit, Deer, Elk, Fish and Snake. Men of the upper air phratry generally married women of the earth phratry, and vice versa. There was no tribal law or established rule to that effect, but it was the prevailing custom. Their prin- cipal ceremonials were the Medicine Dance, which was celebrated in the summer, and the Big Feast in winter.
Although the Sac. Fox and Winnebago tribes never inhabited that part of the state in which Racine County is situated, their
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HISTORY OF RACINE COUNTY
history has been given because they played a conspicuous part in the events which led to the negotiation of the treaties by which the Indian title to the lands in that region was extinguished and the country turned over to the white men. During the Black Hawk war of 1832, the last battle of which was fought upon Wisconsin soil, the Winnebago secretly aided the war party of the Saes and Foxes led by Chief Black Hawk. After the war the United States forced the Winnebago to cede all the lands claimed by them on the Fox and Wisconsin Rivers and remove to the tract known as the "Neutral Ground," in what is now the State of Iowa. The renmant of this great tribe is now living on a reservation in Eastern Nebraska.
INDIAN TREATIES
During the colonial period numerous treaties were made with the Indians by the French and British authorities, but they were merely treaties of friendship or alliance. The English claimed the land by "right of discovery" and did not recognize the neces- city of purchasing it from the occupants. The French were inter- ested chiefly in the fur trade and cared nothing for the land. It therefore remained for the United States to inaugurate the sys- tem of treaties by which the Indians gave up their lands and removed to another part of the country. Article IX of the Articles of Confederation provided: "The United States, in Congress assembled, have the sole and exclusive right and power of regu- lating the trade and managing all affairs with the Indians not members of any of the states; provided, that the legislative right of any state, within its own limits, be not infringed or violated."
The Federal Constitution, which superseded the Articles of Confederation, conferred on Congress the same power, and on March 1, 1793, President Washington approved "An act to regu- late trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes." Section 8 of this act provided:
"That no purchase or grant of lands, or any title or claim thereto, from any Indians or nation or tribe of Indians, within the bounds of the United States, shall be of any validity, in law or equity, unless the same be made by a treaty or convention entered into pursuant to the constitution."
On the last day of April, 1803, Robert R. Livingston and James Monroe, ambassadors of the United States, concluded the Treaty of Paris, by which the French Province of Louisiana be-
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HISTORY OF RACINE COUNTY
came the property of the United States. Article VI of that treaty pledged the Federal Government "to execute such treaties and articles as may have been agreed between Spain and the tribes and nations of Indians, until, by mutual consent of the United States and the said tribes or nations, other suitable articles shall have been agreed upon."
By an act of Congress, approved by President Jefferson on March 26, 1804, Louisiana was divided into two territories. Sec- tion 15 of that act reads as follows: "The President of the United States is hereby authorized to stipulate with any Indian tribes owning lands on the east side of the Mississippi River and resid- ing thereon, for an exchange of lands, the property of the United States, on the west side of the Mississippi, in case the said tribe shall remove and settle thereon, but in such stipulation, the said tribes shall acknowledge themselves to be under the protection of the United States, and shall agree that they will not hold any treaty with any foreign power, individual state, or with the indi- viduals of any state or power."
This law took effect on October 1, 1804, and under it and subsequent supplementary acts all the treaties of cession affeet- ing the Indian title to lands east of the Mississippi have been negotiated. The first cession of lands within the present State of Wisconsin was made by the Chippewa, Ottawa and Potawatomi Indians in a treaty made at Prairie du Chien on July 29, 1829, when those tribes relinquished all their claims to a tract in the southwest corner of the state, extending back from the Mississippi River thirty miles. Prairie du Chien is in the northwest corner of this cession.
Two days later, at the same place, the Winnebago coded a tract immediately east of the above. Of this tract the Wisconsin River formed the northern boundary. The eastern boundary was described as a line from the portage between the Fox and Wis- consin Rivers to the headwaters of Sugar Creek and down that stream to the Illinois line.
Mention has been made of the treaty foreed upon the Win- nebago at the close of the Black Hawk war. That treaty was concluded at Fort Armstrong (Rock Island), Illinois, September 15, 1832, when the tribe ceded all lands claimed by it within the following boundaries: "Beginning at the mouth of the Pec-kee- tol-a-ka River: thence up Rock River to its source; thence with
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HISTORY OF RACINE COUNTY
a line dividing the Winnebago Nation from other Indians cast of the Winnebago Lake to the Grand Chute; thence up the Fox River to the Winnebago Lake and with the northwestern shore of said lake to the inlet of the Fox River; thenee up said river to Lake Puek-a-way and with the eastern shore of the same to the most southeasterly bend; thence with the line of a purchase made of the Winnebago Nation by the treaty at Prairie du Chien on August 1, 1829, to the place of beginning."
The eastern boundary of this cession passes through or near the present cities of Janesville, Jefferson, Juneau, Fond du Lac and Oshkosh. From Winnebago Lake the boundary is a devious line to near Portage and the western boundary runs west of the City of Madison. By the negotiation of this treaty the southeast- ern part of the state was left in the hands of the Indians and steps were soon afterward taken to extinguish their title. The chiefs of the Chippewa, Ottawa and Potawatomi confederacy, which claimed the lands in question, were invited to Chicago, where a treaty was concluded on September 26, 1833, by which those tribes ceded to the United States "all their land along the western shore of Lake Michigan and between this lake and the land ceded to the United States by the Winnebago Nation at the treaty of Fort Armstrong, made on September 15, 1832; bounded on the north by the country lately ceded by the Menominee tribe of Indians, and on the south by the country ceded at the treaty of Prairie du Chien, made on July 29, 1829, supposed to contain about five million acres."
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