Box 2, Folder 2: Scrapbook - Historical Societies

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"cording to the testimony of the Romans, our ancestors also delighted to "celebrate the deeds and fate of their people, has however descended to "posterity !"

The obscurity in which the history of distinguished nations of Europe is involved, is not without its parallel in America; the mighty nations which once inhabited our vast continent from North to South, and from the Atlantic Ocean to the shores of the Pacific, and probably also the Polynesian groupes, have left behind them only "such memorials of "their existence, as were written on the surface of the earth, probably "more than three thousand years ago; the power, the skill, the genius "which must have presided over the civilization of ancient America, the "Earth alone has been able to remember !" (1) The Celt and the Pict, the Scythian and the Goth, the Cimbrian and the Gaul have left posterities from whom have descended the many nations of civilized Europe, with all their present perfections in industry, science and art; "though "Thebes and Palmyra, and Antioch and Petrea are in ruins, and "wild Arabs lie down at night with their camels in the deserted halls, "which once blazed with the magnificence of mighty kings; yet, we "know for what those cities have been exchanged. They have left "their sign upon the institutions of posterity. We can now look over "the earth and behold the heirs of all that ancient glory, might, majesty "and dominion. But what has become of the multitudinous races of "men who once inhabited the American continent? We look in vain "among the present races of Indians for any trace of a forming and progressive civilization; on the contrary, centuries of spontaneous growth "and development, if unassisted by the instruction of foreign nations "must elapse, before the Indian of North and South Amnrica can ap"proach in cultivation and refinement those whom we are compelled to "consider his predecessors in the occupation of this Continent. (2) Whether his predecessor in occupation only, or his progenitor is the allimportant fact to be elucidated, and in such elucidation we still have hope, from the researches of the Archeologist and the Historian.

The vestiges of the power, the wealth and the knowledge in arts and sciences of the Aborigines of Central America are found in the massive and splendid structures of temples, of palaces, of pyramids and of mausoleums, and in their elaborate architectural beauty; their existing ruins of Chi-chen, Kabah, Zayi and Uxmal, surrounded and overgrown by almost impermeable forests and all the wild exuberance of natures prodigal-

---------(1) Dem. Rev. Nov. 1842, p. 529,30. (2) Ibid.

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ity of production, presents an alarming exception to the doctrine of progress of civilization: but it is more probable that the theory should be correct with all the facts in its favor but one, than that it should ultimately prove to be erroneous from its inconsistency with the single facts. (1)

The pyramids of Mexico, the mounds of Missouri, the earth works on the banks of the Ohio at Grave Creek, and the discovery of mummies and of various tools and articles of manufacture and workmanship in parts of our country widely separated by distance, tend to prove the extended population of a partially civilized race of men; In our own portion of the ancient residence of the Aborigines, the only vestiges that remain of their presence and their numerous population, are earth works resembling fortifications, or raised protections of earth; enclosures of the like nature, apparently to include a village, with openings in the raised walls similar to places of entry; mounds of various dimensions, some indeed gigantic in structure, and resembling the buffalo, the tortoise, longtailed animals, birds, and even the human figure; and mounds used as the final resting-place of the dead.

These earth works combine all that is left of the power, the intelligence, the labor and the life-history of the ancient occupier of our soil. No tradition deposited in the memory of his descendants has travelled down the course of time! Alas, he has left no descendant who can trace back the history of his fathers! He has nevertheless been busy in his allotted time and place in creation--he has constructed lines and ridges of up-raised earth, probably both for aggression and defence--he has walled in his dwelling or his town for safety and protection--he has devoted his genius, his time and his labor to the formation, from their original earth, of the rude artificial resemblances of birds, of beasts, and even of man himself--in the wild exercise of his imagination he has magnified all these in their respective proportions, and has built up other strange figures that have no types in creation--he has multiplied these artificial works in countless numbers, and has spread them out, over the broad and naked prairies, and in the primeval forests, where succeeding forests have grown upon and covered them--in his ingenuity, or extent of laborious industry, he has so constructed each and all of these works, that no earth, apparently, has been removed from their vicinity to raise them above the common surface--and he has finally built his own burial mound, in which is now contained the first, the last, and the sole record that time has left to us of the aborigines of Wisconsin!

---------(1) Ibid.

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It remains yet to be ascertained by careful examination, whether the animal shaped mounds of Wisconsin are depositaries of the dead in masses, or solitary graves, or merely the result of Indian labor for the commemoration of events, the localities of families or tribes, or to serve the purpose of idolatrous rights and worship. The mounds at Grave Creek Flats-the immense Tumuli in many parts of the Mississippi Valley, afford evidence of burial places having been used in common for multitudes of dead, but a question is presented as to the time of their interment. Schoolcraft gives his opinion that all the mounds scattered through Northern Ohio, Indiana and Michigan are mere barrows (1) and repositories of the dead. Pere Lafitau and other writers on the ethnology of the Indian tribes, states that the Iroquois have a custom of celebrating the great feast of the dead: at certain intervals of years they disinterred all the dead who had been inhumed during the past interval, and each family brought the fragments of remains, the skeletons, the half decayed corpses, and the late dead of their own kindred to the general assemblage or feast of the dead, and after all had been exposed for some days on stages, erected for the purpose, during which time the feasting and dancing and other ceremonies took place, the numerous remains of the deceased of all ages, who had died within the lapsed period were gathered into one common depository. (2) The consideration of this custom may shed a light on the formation of our mounds of every description.

It is believed that the animal shaped mound does not occur in the Valley of the Ohio; in Wisconsin it is found more frequently than the semi-globular or conical mound. The most numerous collection of these monuments is to be found near Muscoday on the Wisconsin, extending on both sides of the river eastwardly, and descending the Fox river to Green Bay; also in the immediate vicinity of the Four Lakes, and extending westward to the Blue Mounds, and eastward to Rock river, in the neighborhood of the supposed ancient city of Aztalan. In the summer of 1837, I accompanied a few friends in a boat, across the Fourth lake, at this place, and on the north western shore, amidst a cluster of animal shaped mounds, we opened one of a conical form, and having dug about five feet from its summit, we found the scull, the bones of the hands, and clavicles of a human being; we also found some arrow heads of agate, and a few pieces of burnt pottery; we desisted in any further search, but it is probable more than one person had been buried in the mound. The earth of which this mound was composed, was different from the soil around it. ---------(1) Schoolcraft's Letters on Western Country. (2) Lafitau Moeurs Sauvages Americain, Vol. 11.

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The formation of these mounds, without surrounding cavities from which the earth had been taken, deserves our consideration; intelligent Indian traders relate that the Indians had a custom on the burial of a chief or brave of distinction to consider his grave as entitled to a tribute of a portion of earth from each by-passer. Hence the first grave formed a nucleus around which in the accumulation of the daily tributes of respect, a mound was soon formed, and as the earth was often carried to the grave from some distance the absence of neighboring depressions, from which the mound might have been raised may thus be accounted for. It also became an honorable distinction for other dead to be buried by the side of the chiefs so deposited in the first mound; and as the custom of earthy tribute continued, the mound increased in size, and the irregularity in shape and dimensions of the burial place may thus be explained: it is certain that the present race of Indians often bury their dead in these ancient mounds. The dishonored dead and the graves of those who had committed crimes, were stigmatized by the heaping of stones upon them, and the custome of adding a stone, by a traveller, to the unrespected cairn was observed with as much attention as that of heaping the handful of earth on the remains of the chieftain: in this respect a striking similarity to an ancient custom in Scotland is apparent. But this account of Indian customs is probably of modern date, as it is at variance with the acknowledged fact that the formation and use of the animal mounds is beyond the remotest tradition of the present race of red men, at least with those tribes who have been found in our region of country for near two hundred years past.

According to Indian tradition, the Chippewas was not the only one of the chief of the Algonquin stock proper, but the most numerous and widely spread of the tribes. They are represented as having migrated from the east to the west, and the chief seat appears to have been at Chagoimegon near the south-western extremity of Lake Superior; another principal seat was at the outlet of the lake and Sault St. Marie; this tribe was hence called Saulters of people of the leap or rapids. In their immigration to Michilimackinac, they became separated into three tribes, the Ojibbewas, the Odawas, and the Podawadamees. At the time of the French discoverites the Chippewas occupied both sides of Lake Superior and far beyond it--they spread to the west and north-west beyond the Lake of the Woods, Lake Nipising, and as far as the heads of the Saskatchewine, and the portage of the Misinipi of Hudsons Bay. They say that the Ouagamies or Foxes had preceded them in that section of country extending from the head of Fox river of Green Bay towards the Falls of St. Anthony, in some points reaching nigh to Lake Superior. They occupied the wild rice lakes which 2

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lie at the sources of the Wisconsin, the Ontanagon, the Chippewa and St. Croix rivers--they were associated with the Sauks and lived on friendly terms with the Dacotahs or Sioux: the Fox and Chippewa tribes are closely affiliated in general origin and in language. (1)

The Indian stocks of the eastern part of the United Sates [States], the Canadas, and Hudsons bay have been in a continual progress towards the West and North-west (2) whilst another stock of people have proceeded from the direction of the North Pacific towards the Atlantic waters in a general eastern direction. This race of people live on that part of the continent lying North and West of Athabasca lake and the river Unjigah. They are denominated by Schoolcraft Arctides (3) and although one branch of them has been described by Mackenzie, as called Che-pe-wyans; yet this Algonquin term, signifying "puckered blankets," has reference only to the most easterly and southerly division of the race. All that gives identity to general tradition and distinctive character and language relates as well to all the tribes extending to the Arctic ocean and west through the Peace river pass of the Rocky Mountains. Philology brings into one view all the dialects of a wide spread race who extend from the borders of the Atnah nation on the Columbia, across the Rocky Mountains eastwardly to the Lake of the Hills and the Mississippi or Churchill river, covering many degrees of latitude and longitude (4). These two tides of immigration are distinctly marked, and the Arctides may be therefore supposed to bring their traditions more directly from opposite portions of the Continent, and from Asia, and it may be inferred, from more unmixed and primitive sources (5). Some of their traditions are of a striking character; they believe like the more southerly tribes in the general tradition of a deluge, and of a paradise or land of future bliss. They veil the Great Spirit or Creator of the Globe under the allegory of a gigantic bird. They believe that there was nothing visible but one vast ocean, upon which the bird descended from the sky, with a noise of his wings, resembling thunder. The earth as he alighted immediately rose above the waters. This bird of creative power then made all the classes of animals, who were made out of earth. They all had precedency to man. Man alone, the last in the series was created from the integument of a dog. This they believe was their own origin, and they will not eat the flesh of this animal as is done by other tribes of the Continent. They have a tradition that they originally came from a foreign country which was inhabited by a wicked people. They had to cross a great lake or

(1) Schoolcrafts Red race of America, p. 136. (2) Schoolcraft tradition of the Arctides. (3) Ibid. (4) Ibid. (5) Ibid.

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water which was shallow, narrow and full of islands; their track lay through snow and ice and they suffered miserably from cold. They represent their ancestors as living to very great ages; and describe a deluge in which the waters spread over the whole earth except the highest mountains on which their progenitors were saved. They have also some notion of the doctrine of transmigration, and, as is observed by Schoolcraft, while this numerous family of the red race resemble in many traits the great Algic race of the eastern part of the Continent, yet in others they are contra-distinguished from them; and he adds that the farther North we go, the greater evidences do we behold, of imagination in the aboriginal race, together with some foreshadowings of future punishment (1).

The Sauks and Foxes according to their accounts originally came from the mouths of the St. Lawrence and the waters of the New England coasts; the Winnebagoes formerly dwelt far in the South in certain marshy places full of stinking waters (2); but being driven thence by their enemies they came and settled at the Bay des Puans, now Green Bay; hence the nation was called Les Puans, and the Bay also, from their original place of residence. According to the map prefixed to Hennepins second edition of his New Discovery, printed in 1698, the Potawatomies occupied a village at the entrance of Fox river into Green Bay; the Ottawas dwelt at Michilimackinaw; the Leapers at Sault St. Marie; north of the Wisconsin and between Cape Puans and the Mississippi, the Illinois are located; and South of the Fox river in the vicinity of Lake Winnebago are seated the Kickapoos. Lake Michigan is called the Lake of the Illinois and Lake Superior, the upper lake. In 1744 as appears by the map appended to the third volume of Charlevoix's Nouvelle France, the Sakis are established at Green Bay, the Foxes between Green Bay and the Mississippi; the Mascontins between Fox river and Rock river; and the Illinois south of the Mascoutins to the junction of the Ohio (then called the Ouabache) with the Mississippi.

From the year 1641, when the French Missionaries in the labors of their religious zeal had penetrated the wilds of the North west, to the Sault St. Marie at the outlet of the great "Lac Tracy" or Superior, down to the present day the collection of materials for an accurate history of events in our region of country is ample and satisfactory.

Beyond that period the antiquary in historical research must rely on tradition or resort to hypothesis; and in either case he must as-

(1) Schoolcraft Arctides. (2) Hennepin, Chapter LXVIII.

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sume positions liable to be shaken at all times, and difficult to be maintained even against any plausible objection. Our task shall be confined to tracing an outline of our authentic history from the earliest known period of our recorded annals down to the establishment of Wisconsin as an independent member of the Union of States; but in the performance of this task which we thus undertake, we expect only to be able to designate some particular matters which may deserve future and more extended investigation, and to present certain disjecta membra, to be examined, and if practicable fitted and combined by the labors of our fellow-members, and the friends of the Society into a perfect body forming the history of Wisconsin.

Adhering to the truth of Biblical history, America must have been peopled from the Old Continent, because there were only eight persons saved at the Deluge, and the principal part of their posterity during the whole of the first century after that event occupied the very centre of Asia. The boldness of assertion has not been wanting, that America was not inundated at the Deluge, and consequently, our Aborigenes were antideluvians and the most ancient people on earth. But, opposed to such an hypothesis is found the almost universal traditionary belief in a deluge by the existing tribes of Indians on our Continent. Some advance the opinion that America was peopled by Carthagenians, who possessed the Cape de Verd Islands, and whose ships with women and children on board, missing their intended voyages to the islands, before the invention of the Compass, would inevitably be driven by the trade winds to the coast of America. By some it is supposed that the population came from China or Japan; by others that it was colonized by some wandering tribes of Japeth, who penetrated into the trackless regions of North America by the supposed straits of Anian (1). Humboldt seems to lean to the opinion that the tribes of the Tartar race passed over to the North-west coast of America, and thence to the South and East, towards the banks of the Gila and those of the Missouri. Robertson also supposes the Americans to have derived their original from the Asiatics, and supports his conjecture by some ancient traditions amongst the Mexicans, which ascribe their primitive population to a horde from a remote country to the North-west, whose gradual progress from the Northern coast where they landed, to the interior provinces is distinctly traced, and in the infancy of Christianity is said to have been in a more advanced stage of civilization than Denmark, Sweden or Russia (2). ______________ (1) Supposed by the maps of 1736 to lie between the Continents of Asia, and America, about the 50th degree of north latitude. (2) Oliver Hist. of Initiation.

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From the similarity of some religious rites, and supposed analogies of customs and of language, together with the generally received opinion of their Asiatic origin, conjectures have been made, theories advanced and treatises elaborately written to establish the descent of our North American Indians from the lost ten tribes of Israel. (1.) Two tribes and a half had been settled by Moses, in the land of the Amorites (2) the remaining nine tribes and a half had the whole of the conquered land of Cannan parcelled out to them by Joshua. (3) In the reign of Hosea King of Israel 721 years before Christ, Shalmanezer king of Assyria took Israel captive and carried away the people of the ten tribes, so called (4) into Media and Persia, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river Gozan. (5) The two tribes, so called, 130 years after this event, were carried away captive by Nebuchadnezzer king of Babylon, (6) and Judea was thus left desolate; the captive population having been replaced only by Shalmanezer, and with people transplanted from Cuthah in Persia. We are informed that the ten tribes whilst captive, "took counsel amon them"selves that they would leave the multitude of the heathen and go forth "into a further country where never mankind dwelt, that they might "there keep their statutes which they never kept in their own land. (7)

No historian has traced these lost tribes beyond their entrance into the country on the Euphrates, and their journey of a year and a half through the region called Arsareth or Ararath; a perseverance of travel in the same north-eastern direction would lead to the Euxine Sea, and into Scythia. It is true that not only has the literary world doubted of any emigration whatever of the lost tribes or their descendants from Asia and the European continent, but a late writer (8) has endeavored to prove that where they were placed by the Assyrian king, they have remained to this day, and in the Nestorian Christians is to be found the remnant of the lost ten tribes of Israel. This is neither the time nor the place to discuss so grave a matter of historical doubt, and yet some suggestions present themselvs, opposed to such a theory, which certainly have some weight. If the Nestorian Christians be the remnant of the lost tribes, therein consists a most remarkable religious conversion; in their particular case, is exhibited an immense decrease of the human family, unprecedented, incredible, unless accounted for, by other than natural means: in the concentration of the ten tribes in Media, and in the total desolation of their former country. __________ (1) Vide Boudinot, Star in the West. (2) Josephus Ant. B. 4, c. 7, s. 3-(3) Ibid. B. 5, c. 1, s. 23. (4) Idem B. 9, c. 14, s. 1. (5) 2 Kings, 17. 3. (6) Josephus Ant. B. 10, c. 9, s. 7. (7) 2 Esdras, XIII, V. 40. 45. (8) Grant's History of the Nestorians.

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so far as regarded Jewish population, would be found a confliction of prophecy as to the dispersion of Israel; if the internal proofs of the identity of the Nestorians with the captive Jews be irrefragable, still there is no inconsistency in believing that a portion, at least, of the lost tribes may have persisted in their wanderings until they at length reached the northeastern portion of the old world continent.

At Behrings Straits the continents of Asia and America nearly meet. Less than forty-four geographical miles divides the distance between Cape Prince of Wales and Cape Tschowkotskoy, with three small islands between them; a short voyage easily accomplished by adventurous wanderers seekin a resting place and a home. There is nothing to militate against the plausibility of the supposition that some of the descendants of the lost tribes found their way by this passage to the American continent, which is not equally hostile to the supposition of any other Asiatic origin for our Aborigines. On the contrary, the wonderful monuments of art in Central America, the Egyptian style of architecture found in the temples and palaces; the pyramids, the mummies, the hieroglyphics, the religious rites, all point with acknowledged accuracy to a common origin of the primitive inhabitants of our continent with Asiatics; these monuments of art are not confined to Yucatan, but spread northerly and westwardly through Mexico; traces of such and origin are to be found in New Mexico, in the Vallies of the Rio Bravo, and of the Gila, and in California: is not this subject well worthy of our inquiry, as applicable not only to Wisconsin but to the whole of the Upper Mississippi, and the country extending thence to the Pacific Ocean westward, and to Mackenzies river on the north-west?

We leave this subject for future investigation, as our object in this discourse is more to designate points in our history worthy of examination and research, than to give opinions on doubtful questions; much less would it be in the discharge of our duty to the society, at this time, to advance positively any theory in regard to the ancient settlement of the country, the origin of its primitive inhabitants, and the source of their knowledge in the arts. These subjects we trust will hereafter be discussed in a manner and with a result worthy the learning and industry of our fellow members of the society; and although much has already been written on every matter herein spoken of, as appertaining to the ancient history of North America, as well in its traditional and monumental remains, as in the ethnology of its present races of Indians, yet much still remains to be accomplished. All the Archeological researches of our accurate and learned antiquarians and historians have conducted to the conclusion that nothing certain can be said of the aborigines of our land, except, to use the lan-

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guage of Bancroft, "The indigenous population of America, offers no new obstacle to faith in the unity of the human race. (1)

If we take a condensed retrospective view of the early explorations of the country bordering on the Mississippi, it cannot be considered as foreign to our immediate subject. Although more than a century elapsed from the advent of the first European to the banks of the Great River of the West, previous to any imortant exploration of its course, yet that event must be considered as the inception of its history. The first adventurers came, seeking conquest and gold; they found poverty, endured sufferings and met with death. Religious zeal and persevering self denial on the part of the early Jesuit Missionaries accomplished more with the red man than the sword, and laid the foundation of that astonishing prosperity of settlement and cultivation by civilized man, which at this day pervades the entire Valley of the Mississippi. Wisconsin as a portion of that valley is so far connected with the early discoveries of any part of it, that the story of the fortunes of adventurers, and the ultimate reduction of the whole of the Great West to the peaceable occupancy of the Unite States, necessarily becomes a part of her own history and cannot justly be omitted, in the records of her own proper annals.

The southern coast of the North American continent, near St. Augustine in Florida, was discovered on Easter Sunday, in the year 1512 by Juan Ponce de Leon; in honor of the day as well as on account of the flowers of the ground and the blossoms of the trees, he named the new found country Pascua Florida. Ponce de Leon had been one of the adventurous companions of Columbus, and in the spirit of the time he was filled with the hope of finding in his new discovery, not only mines of gold, but even waters imbued with the powers of renovating life. The only advantage he derived from his discovery was the appointment of Governor of the region, and on his return thither in 1521 to colonize the country, he was killed in combat with the Indians.

In the meanwhile, a Spanish Sea Captain, Diego Miruelo sailing from Havanna in 1516 had landed in Florida at some point which he has not distinctly described, and having taken home with him a considerable store of gold, the cupidity of the daring, and avaricious, among the listeners to his story, was effectually aroused. However, ten years elapsed before Pamphilo de Narvaez, in 1526 obtained permission from Spain to prosecute discoveries and make further conquest of Florida. The Spaniards of early times, designated by this name, all of North America extending from the __________ (1) Bancroft Vol. 3, p. 318.