Box 2, Folder 2: Scrapbook - Historical Societies

ADDRESS

DELIVERED BEFORE THE

STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY

OF

WISCONSIN,

AT

MADISON, JANUARY 21, 1851.

BY

M. L. MARTIN.

GREEN BAY: ROBINSON & BROTHER, PRINTERS. 1851.

ADDRESS

MR. PRESIDENT, and Gentlemen of the Historical Society:

THE laudable and interesting purpose for which our association is formed, commends it to the attentive consideration and encouragement of all. If in the dim and shadowy recesses of the past, incidents could be revealed and truth exposed, to aid the historian in his efforts to portray the character, civil and political, of the generations which, upon the soil we now inhabit, have ripened and decayed, our duty would be well performed. But unfortunately, we look around, and the eye rests upon mouldering and mute monuments of ancient skill and labor, their form indistinct, their purpose conjectural--if we search for specimens of the arts, they are nowhere visible--if we seek for traditions, to unfold the deeds of heroes or fame of sages who have been distinguished in their day, we seek in vain. All, all alike are buried in oblivion, and we are driven to the conflicting theories from time to time put forth by ethnologians, to determine the origin, language, character and destiny of the races, now no more, whose places we have supplied.

The early historians furnished no information relative to the existence or settlement of our continent, and some

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have consequently supposed that the accounts given by them embraced nothing more than the history of single nations, while others, equally numerous and powerful, to them unknown, existed in other portions of the globe.-- Roman inclines to the belief that the Indian population of America are a creation of this continent, and Voltaire boldly avers that this mode of peopling an hemisphere is as rational, as that the same species of the brute creation and of vegetable productions are here found as in other and remote quarters of the world.* Vague and precarious as our best information upon this subject is, we cannot avoid reverting to it with renewed interest, whenever the red man crosses our path. Twenty-five years ago, and the wide prairies and rich forests of Wisconsin were the domain of this singular race. The traveler who then traversed our borders, found it dotted over with their villages, and no vestiges of civilization save at the two isolated trading posts at Green Bay and Prairie du Chien. With many traits of character to admire, and many to condemn, we have seen them gradually and noiselessly disappear like the wild game of their hunting grounds, and the very phenomenon of their singular inability to withstand the influence of civilized life, heightens the interest which we are forced to feel in their origin, their customs and their mode of life. They seem, also, by instinct, to have foreknown the fate which awaited them upon the approach of the white man, and while we are outstripping ourselves in the race of improvement in all that elevates the character of man as a social and intellectual being, the doom of the Indian is to sink to the lowest level of human intelligence and energy. The "pale faces come

* Roman's Florida.

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and strew the earth like leaves from the trees in autumn," said the Chief of Waukesha village, just before the Treaty of Chicago, in 1833, "and the red man must give place to them, and seek his abode toward the setting sun."-- The sound of the woodman's axe had not then reached the beautiful valley of the Pishtaka, but this subdued and despondent exclamation betrayed the consciousness that its truth must soon be realized.

There have been within the limits of our State, four distinct tribes or nations of Indians, our immediate predecessors, to wit, the Chippewas, Menomonies, Winnebagos and Pottowattamies, with a few isolated bands of Ottawas. Preceding these, were the Mescoutins,* and indications are everywhere apparent that other villages, whether of the same or other and distinct tribes or races of men cannot be ascertained, formerly existed in different parts of the State. Of these, scattered remains of breastworks, apparently for defense, and uneven grounds made by a process of cultivation either with the hoe or plow, are frequently seen. The fact that mounds, upon the open prairie or plain, assume any particular shape, furnishes uo[no] evidence that they were originally thus formed, or were the work of a superstitious idolatry. Clouds take the figure of animals, in trees we discern the human form, and in promontories and rocks and islands, seen at a distance, we often fancy living images visible, though in all these, no human agency has been at work to mould them into shape. It is only in the dense forest that we may look for those earth formations which have withstood the encroachments of the elements during a long series of

* Relatives of the Kickapoos.

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years. The most remarkable of those which have fallen under my observation, are found at the "Red Banks," in Town 25 N., Range 22 E., on the eastern shore of Green Bay. The furrow is still distinct as if made with the plow in modern use, over a tract of several hundred acres, now overgrown with forest trees of large size, the products, according to usual computation, of five centuries. The remains of a parapet, enclosing some acre or two of ground, occupies and elevated position in the immediate vicinity, bearing incontestable evidence that it had been either the large plantation of a single family, who must have known some of the arts of civilized life, or the rude cultivation of a village of untutored sons of the forest, who had erected a temporary breastwork, in time of war, for defense. The former supposition is much easier sustained than the latter, by the whole character of these remains, and as similar indications are perceptible around Lake Winnebago and in the heavily timbered country bordering on Lake Michigan, I trust that a further examination may be made of them, with a view to determine that point. On the eastern side of Lake Winnebago, is found a succession of rectangular enclosures of raised earth, extending in one direction more than a mile, and several rods in width, like the ruins of an extended line of habitations. On the north shore of Lac de Boeuf, (Buffalo Lake), in the county of Marquette, are the remains of an ancient fort, which by the French is known as "Fort Gonville," and tradition says, was built and occupied by the Spaniards. Many utensils have from time to time been found, and a figure of the "blessed virgin" was by the Indians discovered among the ruins, and presented to one of the old traders at Green Bay.

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Perhaps a people may have existed here such as the Esquimaux described to the Northmen in the Fourteenth Century, "who clothed themselves in long white garments, carried before them poles to which cloths were attached, and called with a loud voice." Lief is said to have discovered America in the year 1000, and the old Icelandic documents call the first inhabitants "West-men who had come across the sea." Surely, if the missionaries had penetrated Virginia at that day, as Humboldt conjectures, and peopled it with converts, it requires but little additional evidence to favor the supposition that they may have inhabited this portion of America also.*

Should the country have been ever occupied by a civilized people, war, pestilence, or some violent convulsion in the natural world, has done its work most effectually, and extinguished every vestige of their name, origin and character; or if they were the ancestors of those erratic tribes since found in their abiding place, a moral desolation has swept over them, infinitely more deplorable in its effects, as the debasement of the human intellect is more to be deplored than the destruction of life itself.

That a race, of a higher degree of culture and less barbarous mode of life, has once peopled this portion of our hemisphere, cannot be doubted. We but adopt the prevailing opinion of the present day, when we assert that the first emigrants to our continent came from the Northwest coast, and thence from Asia. Sacred history leaves us no other mode of accounting for its settlement, and while there is nothing to contradict, there are many circumstances to confirm and strengthen this belief. That the lost tribes were the pioneers in this enterprise is extreme-

* Humboldt's Cosmos.

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ly probable, and that many of the numerous tribes of Tartary amalgamated with them, or joined them in their search for a new home, is scarcely less so.* It is not intended to discuss this question at length;--wiser heads have already found the Jewish tribes "persecuted of men, accursed of God," in the noble, fearless, but unfortunate aborigines of the New World. Should this opinion be relied upon as correct, they brought with them such refinements as still remained of their former mode of life, and only lost them as they gradually sunk in intellect and energy under the fearful curse of the Creator.

Let us here mark one era in our history, comprising the many centuries prior to the visit of the Jesuit Missionaries in 1665. The norther portion of the country had been frequently overrun by the French courriers du bois, in search of furs, who had extended their commerce to the Sioux, but in 1688 free-trade was first proclaimed throughout Canada, and the Outagamies, who had their villages upon the river bearing their name, invited a Jesuit missionary to reside with them, and Fathers Allouez and Dablon undertook this perilous enterprise.** The design of this invitation is said to have been to induce the French to establish a trading post in their country, in which it does not appear that they were entirely successful. The affairs of Canada, notwithstanding the strenuous opposition of the Governor, were controlled by this religious order, and while he put forth his whole energy and power, intent upon building up an extended and profitable commerce, they were spreading their influence and discouraging by every means all traffic save their own with the natives. The calam-

*Boudinot, Star in the West. ** Brit. Empire in America.

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ities which had lately befallen the Canadian provinces were instrumental in increasing their power. "Trees were torn up by the roots, mountains overturned, whole provinces wrapped in flames issuing in a most portentous manner from the subterraneous caverns of the earth. The troubled ocean cast on shore its monsters. All nature was convulsed, and trembled as at its approaching dissolution." The Jesuits considered all these phenomena as immediate judgments upon the sins of the people; foretold a still more terrible catastrophe if their admonitions were unheeded, and succeeded in establishing for themselves an almost unlimited authority.* These antagonist influences of the Church and State were continually and busily at work, and though the Jesuits were indefatigable in their vocation, which they prosecuted with fanatic zeal, and receive the plaudits of succeeding generation for their indomitable and self-sacrificing efforts, yet no practical benefits seem to have resulted from their labors. They penetrated the wilderness, discovered new and remote regions, but with no purpose other than acquiring an unlimited ascendancy over the minds of the convert savages, who were made indolent drones by the change wrought upon them.

Notwithstanding the discouragements which the fur trade experienced from the continued interference of the missionary fathers, a constant intercourse was carried on, and a highly valuable traffic sprung up with the nations inhabiting the country bordering on Lake Michigan. No extended settlements were, however, the result of this commerce, and we must make a stride of several years before we can locate a permanent white population in any

* Winne's Hist.