CHAPTER I.WISCONSIN AND THE RED MAX

IF WE MAY BELIEVE THE story of the rooks, Wisconsin is old, much older than most of America and Europe, for the northern pail of its surface was almost the first land of the continent to be lifted above the “waters that covered the earth.”

How many hundreds—nay, thousands—of years elapsed before this region was ready to be the dwelling-place of even the rudest savage, we cannot tell. We know that the land rose, sank beneath the waters, rose again and was covered, all but the southwestern portion, with vast masses of ice which plowed their way over its surface, scooping out hollows and valleys which later were filled with water from the melting ice. Thus was the land of the Badger State not only bounded on two sides by great fresh-water seas, but beautified, enriched and drained by more than two thousand lakes and many streams.

The heat that melted the ice also made vegetation grow, thus in time covering the naked earth with forests and grass, and it was ready for man.

Who the first dwellers within the borders of Wisconsin were, and whence they came, history does not tell. They left no records on parchment, paper or stone of their origin or race. We can only guess about them, fancy, imagine and end by saying, “We do not know.’’

But we do know that when the first white man, on his way to find the Great Sea (the Pacific), set foot upon Wisconsin’s soil, its fertile valleys were already fruitful with maize grown by the Red Man, its streams and forests teeming with fish and game which he skillfully made the victim of his bow, spear and net, its natural lines of travel marked by populous Indian villages.

Many have believed and many would still like to believe that these Red Men were not the first comers, that a people of different race, manners and customs preceded them and were driven out by them; but this belief seems not to be founded on facts. Its proof has rested upon the various mounds of earth scattered over this and neighboring states, said to have been built by a peculiar people, who have been called, for lack of a better name, Mound Builders.

That these mounds exist is true. Built upon the banks of streams and lakes or on neighboring highlands are thousands of them—some mere piles of earth overgrown with grass, others rude outlines of bird, turtle, lizard, snake, squirrel, deer or buffalo, man and weapons (the club and spear), and still

others in parallel lines having circles and corners, with high earthworks enclosed.

Of the last-named forms the most famous, and the only one of its kind in Wisconsin, is that at Aztalan, Jefferson County, discovered about seventy years ago. It was long believed to have been a citadel for defense, its position on Rock River seeming to give color to this belief, but excavations made in recent years have shown that it may have been a burial or worship mound, or possibly both. Two bodies in a sitting posture have been found in it, and various fragments of earthenware—broken vessels varying in width from a few inches to three feet. The wall making the enclosure is nearly three thousand feet long and the ridge, when first examined, was twenty-two feet wide. At regular intervals on the outside were mounds about eighty feet apart and forty feet in diameter.

Of the man-shaped mounds, the most nearly perfect one is that near Baraboo, Sauk County. This

represents a giant striding toward the setting sun, with a body one hundred eighty-four feet and a head thirty feet long.

Who were the builders of these strange tumuli? For what purpose were they built—for worship, burial, defense, as dwelling-sites or as clan totems?

Men have earnestly searched and studied in their

desire to answer these questions. They have dug into the depths of hundreds of the mounds, and are now practically agreed that they are the work not of a peculiar race preceding the Indians, but of the Indians themselves; not, indeed, those whom the French explorers found dwelling here, for the mounds were even then old and the Indians denied all knowledge of them—their purpose or how they came to be— but of the forefathers of these and kindred tribes.

Wisconsin probably was occupied by two or three different mound-building tribes, the common mound forms, found also extensively in other states, being burial sites, while the figures, peculiar to Wisconsin, may have been worship huts, dwelling sites, council houses or defensive earthworks. No positive statement concerning them can yet be made. The fact that the Indians found here by the Europeans disclaimed all knowledge of these mounds and that they no longer built them is of no especial importance in determining their builders. Many modern peoples have dropped customs of their ancestors, and, had no records been kept, would probably show total ignorance of them.

Accepting, then, the results of study and research and discarding mere conjecture, we should drop from our history the term Mound Builder as meaning a distinct, singular race of people. If we use it at all, we should do so meaning simply mound-building Indians.

So far as we know, then, the Red Man was the original owner of the soil of Wisconsin, if priority of discovery followed by settlement constitutes a basis of ownership for any but the white man. The Red Man it was who roamed at will over valley and forest, prairie and stream, raising his crops of maize, beans, squashes and tobacco in summer and hunting the buffalo, elk, moose, bear, deer and beaver in winter. He it was whom the white man slew, despoiled of his lands, drove beyond the confines of the state, or penned up within a few undesirable acres called reservations. By might, not right, did the white man enter and possess the land, for he looked upon it and saw that it was good.

That it was not the English but the French who began this work of dispossession and spoliation is accidental, a mere matter of geography and not of superior morality. The French began, the English

completed, and we, their descendants, enjoy the spoils.

The belief that there is no good Indian but a dead one is responsible for many of the wrongs done the Red Man, greed may account for the remainder. That the Indian was and is a savage— cruel, crafty, ofttimes treacherous and faithless — is doubtless true, but the white man has not always been kind, open, trustworthy and without guile even in his relations with his brother white man.

The simple truth is, our ancestors wanted the valleys of the Rock, the Wisconsin, the Fox, the Chippewa, the Mississippi, for their own use. To obtain these they must dispossess the original owners. This they did, for the most part by fire and sword, by superior numbers and skill, not by honorable purchase and treaty.

Prom the few representatives left within our borders to-day (less than ten thousand, and that number yearly decreasing) we can learn little of our first inhabitants, for the Indians are a people of legend and tradition handed down from generation to generation, and not of recorded history. If we would know of them—their life, manners, customs, beliefs—we must go to the records of the French explorers and missionaries who first visited them, traded with them and lived among them.

From scattered letters and journals of these men, we learn that Wisconsin was once the home of different nations of three of the greatest Indian stocks— the Iroquois, the Sioux, and the Algonquins.

The Hurons, kindred of the Iroquois, yet harried and pursued with fury by these fierce savages, took refuge in the forests of northern Wisconsin, where they disputed the ground with the Chippewas, an Algonquin nation.

The Algonquins were the most numerous of the Wisconsin Indians and also the most intelligent. To prove this latter assertion, we have only to cite the fact that Powhatan, King Philip, Tecumseh, Pontiac and Black Hawk were all of this stock.

Of the many Algonquin tribes which made their home within our borders, the Menominees are the only ones still living here. They are fine looking and of light complexion, the latter mark of distinction said by the French to be due to their eating so freely of the wild rice abundant in their lakes and streams. They used to believe that they had once been animals or birds and that they had been changed into human beings at the mouth of the Menominee River where

Marinette now stands. At the death of any one of them a picture of the animal from which he was descended was painted on a board and placed at the head of his grave.

The Pottawattomies, on the islands of Green Bay, were the most restless of the Algonquin tribes. Later we find them at Sault Ste. Marie, driven there by the Sioux. These are the Indians whose traditions gave to Longfellow much of the material for ‘’Hiawatha.”

The Sacs (Sauks) and Foxes (Outagamies), once friends of the French, became their bitter enemies. Against them and them only of the Algonquins the French for many years waged one of the most barbarous of wars. They at first lived in the Fox River valley, but later the valleys of the Rock and Wisconsin were covered by their trails and dotted with their villages.

The Mascoutens, the “Fire Nation,” were an Algonquin tribe dwelling in the Green Lake region. They have disappeared from the face of the earth, no trace of them having been discovered since the time of the Revolutionary War.

The Kickapoos once lived on the Wisconsin River, but long ago they...