Ho-Chunk

Like, remember how I said there are hundreds of Native Nations inside the US alone? Well, even that's complicated.

About 40 Native Nations today have territories split in half by the US border, like the Kanehsatake or Mohawk Nation of Akwesasne to the north, or the Tohono O'odham Nation to the south, and many, many, many Native Nations, like the Ho-Chunk, were forced away from their ancestral homelands and live in a totally different region today.

But with just 24 episodes, we needed to narrow down so we have room to go deep, so that's why we'll be focusing mainly on the history of Native peoples in the United States, and that's why we're calling this series Native American History.

I fought for the name A Brave and Handsome History of Native America, but I was not successful.

I didn't realize how much until later and until everyone starts telling me, you're lucky you're only one and all that.

Because my wife, she's Paiute Pit River and Ho-Chunk.

Oh, okay.

Paiute Pit River from California and Ho-Chunk from her dad in Nebraska.

Okay.

So I met her when she was going to Cal Berkeley and her brother was also going there.

Joliet followed the St. Lawrence to Fort Frontenac at the entrance of Lake Ontario, and with the exception of the portage at the Falls of Niagara, skirted in his canoe the shores of the Great Lakes until he reached the Straits of Mackinac, on the north side of which, at Point St. Ignace, he found the enthusiastic Marquette devotedly laboring for the spiritual welfare of the Hurons and Ottawans there gathered.

The contemplated line of travel was that of Jean Nicolet, an interpreter who had spent many years with the Indian tribes, who was sent in 1638 to bring about a peace between the Hurons and Winnebagos who lived near Green Bay.

After his negotiations, he ascended the Fox River, and making a portage to the Wisconsin, descended that stream some distance, so that, as he thought, from the designation of the Great Water by the Indian guide to the Mississippi, he was within three days of the South Sea.

Joliet, however, was too practical to trust entirely to tradition or oral description.

May the Great Spirit favor you with a prosperous voyage.

May he give you an unclouded sky and smooth waters by day, and may you lay down by night on a beaver blanket to uninterrupted sleep and pleasant dreams, and may you find continual protection under the calumet of peace.

Carver followed the route of Joliet and Marquette through Green Bay and up Fox River to the great town of the Winnebagos, where he found the Indians presided over by a queen instead of a sachem.

Carver speaks of the extreme richness of soil and abundance of cultivated products and wild game, mentioning grapes, plums, Indian corn, beans, pumpkins, squashes, watermelons, and tobacco from cultivation, fish from the lake, wild fowl so abundant that frequently the sun would be obscured by them for some minutes together, while deer, bears, and beavers were very numerous.

general atkinson states it as his opinion that the persons who committed the murder at the prairie and a few of the principal winnebagoes who attacked the boat should be apprehended at all events and that nothing short of this measure will afford security to the frontier He doubts whether he ought to take any offensive operation without the instruction of the government and requests the opinions of Governor Cass respecting the measures he ought to undertake.

Six Winnebago chiefs had been apprehended and were in confinement at the prairie.

He was determined to remain inactive at all events until the return of the express.

Copy of a letter from General Atkinson to General Gaines, dated at English Prairie, 80 miles above Prairie du Chien, 20th September, 1827. general i moved with the brigade under my immediate orders from prairie du chien on the morning of the twenty ninth ultimo in five keel and four mackinaw boats last evening i was joined by general dodge with one hundred and thirty galena volunteers mounted men After proceeding this morning some six or eight miles, I crossed his party to the north side of the river.

We proceed in the morning for the Wisconsin portage.

I yet think the Winnebagoes will give up the offenders.

This I shall press.

I shall endeavor to adjust the difficulty with as little delay as possible.

That's gotta upset Prime.

[laughs] And now I'm seeing Atakatt closed, but Ho Chunk is building a new casino and track.

Yeah, I'd be shocked if it's open.

[laughs] And now I'm confused.

Upon leaving Saint Ignace, Marquette had been transferred to the Des Peres mission by his superior in order to be convenient to the Illinois tribes, and we shall see that after his return from the Mississippi he spent the succeeding winter at these first rapids of the Fox.

End of chapter 15 Chapter 16 of Father Marquette by Reuben Gold Thwaites This LibriVox recording is in the public domain Chapter 16 At the Mascouten Village From the Des Peres rapids to Lake Winnebago, a distance as the stream winds of some twenty-eight miles, Fox River is a deep, rapid, and picturesque stream.

Its banks are for the most part soft, rolling terraces, which rise from twenty to fifty feet above the flood, being varied now and then by park-like glades and bold rocky bluffs.

Still retaining much of their original beauty, these shores were in their primitive condition densely wooded with oaks, maples, pines, and cedars, from whose branches hung rich festoons of the wild grape.

Clumps of wild crab apples and plums flourished in sheltered nooks by the side of the cataracts, and ferns and mosses made of each damp ravine a veritable paradise.

The course of the river is obstructed by several rapids, most of them so formidable as even in the descent to necessitate usually the unloading of cargoes, while at a few the empty canoes often had to be taken around by the portage path.

In the order of ascent they were Rapides des Peres, des Peres, Petit Cacaline, now Little Rapids, La Croche at Kimberly, Grand Chute, now Appleton, and Winnebago Rapids at Doty's Island.

The entire fall of the river in this distance is about 169 feet.

Section 7 of Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, December 1827. memorandum of a letter from general atkinson to governor cass which has been accidentally left with major whistler commanding at green bay the substance of it is stated from recollection it is dated prairie du chien july thirty first eighteen twenty seven general atkinson states his arrival at the prairie with about five hundred men colonel snelling had previously reached there with about four companies of his regiment making general atkinson's whole force about seven hundred men a detachment had been sent into the country but no traces of the indians had been discovered it was supposed that the hostile party had left the mississippi and had concentrated on the wisconsin general atkinson states it as his opinion that the persons who committed the murder at the prairie and a few of the principal winnebagoes who attacked the boat should be apprehended at all events and that nothing short of this measure will afford security to the frontier He doubts whether he ought to take any offensive operation without the instruction of the government and requests the opinions of Governor Cass respecting the measures he ought to undertake.

Six Winnebago chiefs had been apprehended and were in confinement at the prairie.

He was determined to remain inactive at all events until the return of the express.

Copy of a letter from General Atkinson to General Gaines, dated at English Prairie, 80 miles above Prairie du Chien, 20th September, 1827. general i moved with the brigade under my immediate orders from prairie du chien on the morning of the twenty ninth ultimo in five keel and four mackinaw boats last evening i was joined by general dodge with one hundred and thirty galena volunteers mounted men After proceeding this morning some six or eight miles, I crossed his party to the north side of the river.

We proceed in the morning for the Wisconsin portage.

I yet think the Winnebagoes will give up the offenders.

This I shall press.

I shall endeavor to adjust the difficulty with as little delay as possible.

Fort Howard was erected at Green Bay in 1816, the same year that Fort Crawford was established at Prairie du Chien.

Fort Winnebago was built at what is now Portage in 1828, shortly after the Redbird Rebellion.

The United States Army did its best to maintain peace between the Indians and whites and to protect the Indians from unlicensed traitors and sometimes legitimate ones who illegally sold whiskey to them.

In their efforts in this direction, they often found themselves in conflict with civil authorities who sometimes protected the traitors apprehended in such violations.

Roughly these boundaries were recognized.

The southwest and southeast corners of Wisconsin were allotted to the southern Chippewa, Ottawa, and Pottawatomie.

The Winnebago held the remainder of southern Wisconsin.

The Menominee kept the northeast part of the state from the Milwaukee River up, and the Chippewa held all of northern Wisconsin west of the Menominee.