Bios transcribed by Kay R. & History by Jan Cortez
Indian History
In writing the history of Winnebago County, it is not necessary to trace in detail the various changes in location of the tribes who were shifted around the Northwest by the fortunes or calamities of war for one hundred and fifty years. This portion of history, full of interest and thrilling in parts as it is, partakes more of a broad and general character, and has thus been treated. When Father Claude Allouez and other early missionaries or military leaders came among the fierce Foxes and Sacs, to the region near Winnebago Lake, the Winnebagoes country lay to the north around Green Bay, and on the southern shore of the Upper Fox was the Nation of the Mascoutins. The Foxes were scattered along the streams of the Wolf River, and were occupying the whole Fox River Valley. To the northeast of the Winnebagoes were the peacable and friendly Memomonees, but who were to prove true and powerful allies of the whites in driving the wild and bloddy Foxes from the beautiful valley which they would neither improve nor allow civilization to inhabit. With the exception of the Winnebagoes, all of these tribes were members of the great Eastern nation - the Algonquins. The Winnebagoes were a branch of the Dakotas. The Algonquins called them Wennibegouk, or "Men of the Salt Sea." They formed the Eastern van of the Dakota migration, and ruled for a time over all the neighboring Algonquin tribes. In the early part of the seventeenth century, by an Alliance of subject tribes, however, and a second war with the Illinois, who had previously befriended them and been deceived, the Winnebagoes were almost exterminated, and never gained their former power. But, though weak, they always retained a haughty and defiant spirit, as if ever having present before their eyes a remembrance of former greatness. Their manners and language were different from the Eastern tribes. The ealy French explorations, by way of the Fox River Valley and consequent contact with the Winnebagoes, seemed to confirm the travelers in their belief that this tirbe, who had wandered from the Far West, were in communication with the Celestials of the East. Thus it was that religious fervor, worldly ambition and greed combined to bring this beautiful valley of the Foxes into notice and favor. This powerful tribe, in accordance with the usual belief of savages, calimed all the land they could hunt over or fish in, and continued to levy tribute upon all traders or travelers who passed through their valley, until punished by the French with such dire results at Little and Grande Butte des Morts, and other battle-fields. They deserted their villages and camping-grounds at these places, at Grand Kaukalin, the Chute, and Sauk-eer (Oshkosh), and finally by the middle of the eighteenth centruy, finding the French and nearly all the Canadian tribes allied against them, deserted the valley altogether. Moving toward the mouth of the Wisconsin, the Winnebagoes took their places, crowding them, within the next forty years, further to the South and West. The Menomonees, in the meantime, had occupied the country abandoned by the Winnebagoes north of the Fox River. These two tribes, were as a rule, not only friendly to each other, but to the whites, whether French or English. When Capt. Jonathan Carver, an English traveler, stopped at Doty Island in 1766, he found Ho-po-ko-e-kaw (Glory of the Morning), the young widow of a French trader, not disinclined to an alliance with an English gentleman. Later, the English traders were received with favor b the Winnebagoes and Menomonees, and the English Army was assisted in the seige of Mackinaw in 1812. During this campaign against the American forces, the Menomonees were led by the war chief Tomah, who had in his charge the young but intrepid boy who there earned the title of "Oshkosh" - "brave." Fifteen years thereafter, when Cha-kau-cho-kama, their old chief, had breathed his lat, and left no male issue upon which the honro might descend, there was great commotion and threatened anarchy. But through the Government commissioners and the wishes of a majority of the tribe, the choice fell upon the brave and friendly Oshkosh, and the medal was hung around his neck as the last Chief of the Menomonees.
The treaties made by the Winnebagos in 1832, and by the Menomonees in 1836, brought all the land of this county within the jurisdiction of the United States. The Winnebagoes were given a reservation on the Mississippi above the Upper Iowa. After several removals, to Dakota, Minnesota and Nebraska, finally in 1866, most of them were located in the latter State. Those left in Juneau, Adams and Wood Counties - nearly 1,000 - are mostly self-supporting. IN 1854, the Menomonees accepted their reservation in Shawano County, and most of them removed from the Chippewa Reservation on the Mississippi.
