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- Herausgeber: Charles River Editors
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
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Seitenzahl: 291
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
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THE MAKING OF WISCONSIN (ILLUSTRATED)
Carrie Smith
WAXKEEP PUBLISHING
Thank you for reading. In the event that you appreciate this book, please show the author some love.
This book is a work of nonfiction and is intended to be factually accurate.
All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.
Copyright © 2015 by Carrie Smith
TABLE OF CONTENTS
The Making of Wisconsin (Illustrated)
INTRODUCTION
THE MAKING OF WISCONSIN
CHAPTER I.WISCONSIN AND THE RED MAX
CHAPTER II.WISCONSIN’S PIONEER—1634-1635
CHAPTER III.TWO VOYAGEURS—1654-1656
CHAPTER IV.WISCONSIN’S FIRST SOLDIER OF THE CROSS—1660-1661
CHAPTER V.CLAUDE ALLOUEZ, FATHER OF WISCONSIN MISSIONS—1665-1676
CHAPTER VI.PERROT, PINCH OF FOREST RANGERS—1665-1699
CHAPTER VII.THE MYSTERIOUS RIVER FLOWING SOUTHWARD- 1673
CHAPTER VIII."THE HOUSE THAT WALKED UPON THE WATER"—1679
CHAPTER IX.THE THORN IN THE FLESH—1712-1743
CHAPTER X.WISCONSIN BECOMES ENGLISH DOMAIN—1756-1763
CHAPTER XI.WISCONSIN’S FIRST ENGLISH TRAVELER—1766-1768
CHAPTER XII.REVOLUTIONARY DAYS—1775-1783
CHAPTER XIII.THE NORTH WEST—1780-1787
CHAPTER XIV.THE TAKING OF PRAIRIE DU CHIEN—1814
CHAPTER XV.THE STORY OF RED BIRD—1827
CHAPTER XVI.EARLY SETTLEMENTS
CHAPTER XVII.BLACK HAWK WAR—1832
CHAPTER XVIII.OUR NAME AND OUR BOUNDARIES
CHAPTER XIX.TERRITORIAL EVENTS
CHAPTER XX.STATEHOOD AND THE BOUNDARIES
CHAPTER XXI.THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
CHAPTER XXII.THE LOST DAUPHIN
CHAPTER XXIII.CIVIL WAR INCIDENTS
CHAPTER XXIV.OUR INDUSTRIES
CHAPTER XXV.OUR GOVERNMENT, OUR PEOPLE, AND OUR SCHOOLS
THE MAKING OF WISCONSIN (ILLUSTRATED)
BY CARRIE SMITH
INTRODUCTION
THIS LITTLE VOLUME APPEALS TO me in a variety of ways. Not only is it a clear, comprehensive review of the main forces that have builded this commonwealth; not only is it history—but in a sense it is prophecy, for it is written for the young, and in them lie the disposition of coming events. I am glad of its advent. We need more state pride in the hearts of our people. A study of the history of the United States leaves the student with the impression that the destiny of our country has been contributed to mainly by two states, Massachusetts and Virginia. Nobly have they done their share, but here in the Mississippi valley lies the great heart of the Nation, and “Wisconsin lies very close to that heart. An honest pride in one’s state, vocation and home is one of the most powerful incentives to meritorious action, a builder of desirable character and citizenship.
We are a wonderfully composite people. Wisconsin has felt the influence of two great waves of immigration that have wrought its transformation out of a wilderness of exquisite beauty. It received in pioneer days the choicest blood of New England and the Middle States. These people gave us our matchless state constitution and laid the foundation of our system of laws and state institutions. Most impressively did they stamp the love they bore for education upon the unfolding thought of the state. But the spirit of conquest was in them, and they moved on, in a large measure, to build the states to the west. Following came the sturdy farmers and artisans of northern and middle Europe—the German, the Scandinavian, the Bohemian—with their intense love of the soil, industry and thrift. Born conservators of fertility, they have brought Wisconsin to the forefront in the prosperity of her agriculture and the advancement of agricultural education. It is a pleasant picture to contemplate.
In the great field of industrial conquest of mind over matter, the building up of a noble civilization, the firm establishment of law, order and liberty, no state in the Union has made a prouder record. It is one that should fill the hearts of our youth with hope, ambition and honest purpose.
W. D. Hoard.
Fort Atkinson, Wis.
THE MAKING OF WISCONSIN
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 journeyed south and became absorbed in the Creek nation.
Mightiest of Wisconsin hunters were the supple Chippewas, or Ojibwas, as they called themselves. They crowded out the Sioux from the Lake Superior region and forced them to remain near the Mississippi, St. Croix and St. Louis Rivers, but it took them
nearly a century of bitter warfare to do it. The Chippewas had but one word for “Sioux” and “enemy.’’
The Winnebagoes, of Sioux stock, occupied the region of Lake Winnebago. At present they are said to be the “poorest, meanest and most ill-visaged of Wisconsin Indians,” but originally they were warlike, of fine physique and great strength.
These, in brief, were the Indians of Wisconsin when the country was first visited by the French. We have only to glance at a county map of the state at the present time to get a fair idea of their location.
That the Indians were not much more numerous than they were in those days before the white man had reduced their number, is due to famine and pestilence and their many wars. We know that tribe warred upon tribe, nation upon nation, kinsman against kinsman, as their white brethren have done through all time. But, cruel and savage as was their warfare, this did not reduce their numbers as did famine and pestilence. Disease naturally follows war, and in a settlement of savage people who know nothing of sanitation, fatal epidemics are unavoidable. Winter was always a time of famine, for although the Indian raised crops of maize, squash and beans, his methods of farming were so crude that his harvests were not abundant.
One of the earliest French explorers of Wisconsin spent a winter in a famine-stricken village and has left a description of it. When the winter hunt failed, scores of men, women and children slowly starved to death. Letting to-morrow take care of itself, the Indian starved in what might easily have been a land of plenty. The story of Minnehaha, Laughing-Water, of whose sad death from famine Longfellow sings so sweetly, finds hundreds of parallels in the history of the long, cold winters of Wisconsin before
the white man possessed the land. Often these people escaped starvation only by eating acorns, bark, fur robes and ground bones.
Contrary to general belief, the Indians were not a wandering race. They were, as a rule, devotedly attached to their native soil, and their villages were as numerous in proportion to their numbers as are the cities of the white man. The Foxes and the Winnebagoes lived in the same localities for many generations, and when the former were driven out by the French, they tried again and again to return. It is true that they moved about some, but this was to find came and fish, and was within what were to them well-defined limits.
The Indians were divided into clans, and each clan had its sign—bird, beast or reptile—this sign being-called totem by the Algonquins. There were different tribes in the same clan, and they often spoke different languages, but the members of a clan were always closely bound together. In the wigwam of a clansman, far from his own home, an Indian was as welcome as in his own village.
The Indians had no settled form of government. True, they had tribal heads, called chiefs, but these chiefs could only advise, not command. Even the war chiefs had no more power, their real influence coming from their personal force or past achievements, not from delegated authority. They could say to their tribes only, “It would be better to do so and so.”
Should a war chief desire to undertake an expedition against some neighboring or faraway tribe, he would fast for several days, then invite the young braves to a feast of dog-flesh at night, he himself, however, still fasting. After eating, the guests would form in a circle, whereupon he would suddenly leap in among them and recite to them in loud, monotonous tones the wonderful deeds he and his ancestors had done, accompanying this recital with gestures expressive of shooting, tomahawking and scalping, usually slashing at a post that represented the enemy, but occasionally making a feint of attacking someone in the circle.
Thus worked up to an excitement that bordered on madness, the warriors would follow his example, giving their terrible war whoop with all the power of their savage lungs. This, the oft-referred-to war dance, was their enlistment for war. The next morning, covered with war paint and adorned with feathers, they left the village, the war whoop still resounding, until, at a short distance out, they relieved themselves of their finery and stole through the forest in single file, stealthy, silent, swift.
The weapons used by the Indian in warfare were the tomahawk, the War club and the bow and arrow. The first-named had a stone blade shaped like a hatchet and fastened to a wooden handle by means of thongs. War clubs were made in a similar manner, these being used to brain the foe in battle.
The bow and arrow were the implements of the chase as well as weapons in war. Buffaloes were very numerous along the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers and on southern Wisconsin prairies. Elk, moose, deer and even caribou were found in the forests of the central and northern parts. Deer were hunted all through the year, but the bear and the beaver were the principal objects of the winter hunt.
To hunt the larger animals big parties often were formed, but small game was plentiful near
home. When wild ducks came to eat the wild rice in the Fox River, they were snared with nets. Pigeons by the hundreds, swan, geese and even wild turkeys, were caught in nets spread in open places in the woods.
The Indian used nets in fishing, also, but spearing was practised when conditions were favorable. Whitefish, trout and sturgeon were abundant.
Feasts and ceremonials of various kinds were common among the Indians. In these the calumet, or peace-pipe, played an important part. Its name signifies its use, it being always the token of friendship and peace.
In “Hiawatha” Longfellow tells us that the adoption of the peace-pipe occurred somewhere in the vicinity of Lake Superior—that here the Great Spirit, Gitche Manito the Mighty, called the nations together in council. They came with painted faces and hearts burning with hereditary hatred. The Great Spirit was moved with pity.
From the red stone of the quarry
With his hand he broke a fragment,
Moulded it into a pipe-head,
Shaped and fashioned it with figures;
From the margin of the river
Took a long reed for a pipe-stem.
With its dark green leaves upon it;
Filled the pipe with bark of willow,
With the bark of the red willow;
Breathed upon the neighboring forest,
Made its great boughs chafe together,
Till in flame they burst and kindled.
He then told the warriors to bathe in the stream and wash the war paint from their faces and the blood from their hands; to bury their war clubs and to make for themselves the pipe of peace. This they did,
And departed each one homeward.
The Indians not only made tents, or tepees, of pelts, but they also built roomy cabins and forts of bark. For their cabins the Unions drove into the ground long poles as thick as a man’s leg, joined them by bending, and fastened them with strips of basswood bark. Cross-pieces a little less in diameter were interwoven between these poles, and the whole was then covered with fir or cedar bark. A door at each end gave entrance. The cabins were often large enough for several families.
The forts were made of stakes planted in three rows. The outside row were as thick as a man’s thigh and thirty feet high, the stakes in this and the second row being about seven inches apart. The second row, a foot inside the first, supported the first by leaning over at the top. The third row, four feet from the first, was made of the trunks of trees fifteen or sixteen feet high, placed very close together. Loopholes were cut in the timbers, the whole making a structure of strong defense.
The Sioux made their cabins of buffalo skins, which they laced and sewed together. The Pottawattomies built theirs of mats made of reeds.
The Indians of the Great Lakes were fortunate in having at hand and in great abundance the birch to furnish bark for their canoes. In “Hiawatha” Longfellow describes how these canoes were made,—
“Giveme of your bark, O Birch-Tree!
Of your yellow bark, O Birch-Tree!
I a light canoe will build me,
That shall float upon the river.
Like a yellow leaf in autumn!’’
With his knife the tree he girdled;
Just beneath its lowest brandies,
Just above the roots he cut it,
Till the sap came oozing outward;
Down the trunk, from top to bottom,
Sheer he cleft the bark asunder,
With a wooden wedge he raised it,
Stripped it from the trunk unbroken.
“Give me of your boughs, O Cedar!
Of your strong and pliant branches,
My canoe to make more steady,
Make more strong and firm beneath me! ‘’
Down he hewed the boughs of cedar,
Shaped them straightway to a framework,
Like two bows lie formed and shaped them,
Like two bended bows together.
“Give me of your roots, O Tamarack!
My canoe to bind together,
So to bind the ends together
That the water may not enter.
That the river may not wet me!”
From the earth lie tore the fibres.
Tore the tough roots of the Larch-Tree,
Closely sewed the bark together.
Bound it closely to the framework.
“Give me of your balm. O Fir-Tree!
Of your balsam and your resin.
So to close the seams together
That the water may not enter.
That the river may not wet me!”
And he took the tears of balsam.
Took the resin of the Fir-Tree.
Smeared therewith each seam and fissure.
Made each crevice safe from water.
Thus the Birch Canoe was builded
In the valley, by the river,
In the bosom of the forest.
In the southern part of the state, where there is no birch, the Indians made “dugouts,"‘ canoes formed of the hollowed-out trunks of butternut trees. They used the butternut in preference to lighter woods because they believed it stood long contact with water better, and was less likely to be injured by the boulders and gravel they were often obliged to run over.
Life among the Indians was not all made up of hunting, fishing and fighting. They had their games of chance and skill. In summer they played a kind of ball game called la crosse, from the crosse (racquet) used by each player to receive and return the ball. This game was not unlike a combination of modern tennis and football.
The Red Man was a born gambler, and in all his games of chance was inclined to play for heavy stakes. The Indians often made large bets on la crosse, but the dish game and “straws” were their favorite gambling games.
Wisconsin Indians, in common with others of their race, had a religion, and, such as it was, followed it faithfully. They believed in good and evil spirits, and in almost every step they took prayed for the aid of the good spirit or sought to appease the evil one. They offered sacrifices with ceremonies, reminding us of the ancient peoples of Europe and Asia. During storms they would often throw a dog into the lake, saying to the manito, or spirit, “That is to appease thee.”
In Emerson’s “Indian Myths” is given the Winnebago tradition corresponding to the Bible story of the creation of man and woman:
“Having created the earth and the grass and the trees, the Great Spirit took a piece out of his heart, near which had been taken the earth, and formed the fragment into a man. The woman was then made, but a bit of flesh sufficed for her; therefore it is that man became great in wisdom, but the woman very much wanting in sense. To the man was given the tobacco seed, that, thrown upon the fire, it might propitiate the messenger—manitos to convey prayers or supplications; to the woman a seed of every kind of grain was given, and to her were indicated the roots and herbs for medicine. Now the Great Spirit commanded the two to look down; and they looked down, when lo! there stood a child between them. Enjoining the pair to take care of all the children they might obtain in the future, he created the male and female the first parents of all tribes upon the earth. He then informed them, in the Winnebago language, that they should live in the center of the earth. The Spirit then created the beasts and birds for the use of all mankind; but the tobacco and fire were given to the Winnebagoes.”
CHAPTER II.WISCONSIN’S PIONEER—1634-1635
IN JULY, 1634—TWENTY-SEVEN YEARS AFTER the settlement of Jamestown, fourteen years after the May-flower anchored in Plymouth Bay, and two years before Roger Williams fled from Boston into the wilderness—a canoe, with its prow turned up stream, was launched in the Ottawa River at Montreal. With steady, swift, sure strokes of the paddles were the waters of the rushing current parted, and steadily, swiftly, surely did the canoe press forward, hearing to Wisconsin her first white visitor, Jean Nicolet.
Who was he, and what sought he in this vast wilderness inhabited only by savage beast and still more savage man? What purpose was strong enough to give him courage to venture into this wild unknown, by a long and tedious waterway full of peril and hardship ?
Jean Nicolet was a French youth of Normandy, son of a mail carrier. He came to New France in 1618, when the Quebec settlement was only ten years old and Montreal seven. He himself was very young, young enough to be filled with that spirit of adventure and daring which leads men through all dangers and privations if only they may find the new, the untrodden, the unexplored the same spirit that has animated Arctic explorers for nearly two centuries.
Champlain was then Governor of New France—a brave, daring, adventurous spirit, tempered with wisdom and judgment. A keen student of his fellow men, Champlain soon recognized in this stripling-qualities which would make him an able lieutenant in furthering the governor’s own ambitious plans, and he speedily found employment for young Nicolet. He sent him to spread French influence among the Indians, an honorable and dangerous mission.
Strange as it may seem, the finest young men of France, coming to the New World, were sent to live among the Indians, to learn their language, to become their friends, not that they might advance their own interests, but that they might thus add to the glory and riches of the loved mother country by helping to extend her empire and her fur-trade.
Nicolet was first sent to the Algonquins along the Ottawa River about three hundred miles from Quebec. Here, with no faces but the copper-colored ones of Indians about him, hearing not one word of his native tongue, he spent two years—years of hardship and peril, for as usual the Red Men were wasteful and heedless of the future, the natural result being the winter’s famine. Starvation is not a pleasant companion, but Nicolet did not lose courage, even though once for a period of seven weeks he had no food but the bark of trees, and at another time he had not a morsel to eat for an entire week.
Afterward Nicolet was stationed among the Nipissings, near the lake of that name, he lived with them many years, probably ten or twelve. During that time he became one with the Indians, learning their language and entering into their life, thereby gaining much influence over them. There must have been much in his nature akin to theirs, or else not even the love of France would have been a sufficiently powerful motive to induce him to remain away from the comforts of friends and home for over ten years.
But in the course of time even his zeal and devotion began to flag, and he asked to he permitted to return to civilized life. His request was granted and about 1632 he returned to Quebec, where he remained as clerk and interpreter for two years.
Champlain was dreaming the same dream that Columbus had dreamed a century and a half before. That will-o’-the-wisp, a short route to the Indies and fabulous wealth, had lured Columbus to the discovery of a new continent, and the same delusion ─a short highway to China (Cathay) and Japan (Cipango)─caused Champlain to have visions of fame, honor, and wealth for his country and himself.
Through him it led the brave and devoted Nicolet into the very heart of Wisconsin, for Champlain, in common with others, believed that only a narrow strip of land separated the Great Lakes from China.
At this time the Indians were the source of all geographical knowledge of the New World west of the narrow Atlantic strip. Guided by their reports, Champlain drew a map, absurd and inaccurate of course, and this he gave to Nicolet in July, 1631, with instructions to proceed westward, making peace between the different tribes as he went, for it was to the interest of the French fur-trade that the Indians along the water route to the West should not be at war.
We see from this map that something was known of Lake Superior and Green Bay, although some writers hold that Lake Michigan was meant by the latter.
Lake Winnebago and the Fox River had been heard of, but the knowledge of the general contour and relative location of these different bodies of water was, as may be seen, very inaccurate.
The Mascoutens of the Fox River region and also another nation living near Green Bay were not unknown by report ; the latter were said to be a strange people of different language and customs from the Indians─ “Men of the Sea,” as there were called, Nicolet was given a special message to these people, for Champlain believed them to be the rich Orientals of his dreams. Nicolet was indeed, well fitted for this perilous undertaking. His years of life among the Indians had given him physical strength and endurance, a knowledge of their language and their habits, and influence over them, had given him physical strength and endurance, a knowledge of their language and their habits, and influence over them, all indispensable to the task before him. The lack of any one of these qualities would have added many fold to the dangers of the enterprise and the possibility of its failure.
His route was up the Ottawa, past his old station among the Algonquins, then up a branch of the Ottawa and by easy portage to Lake Nipissing, across this lake, and, for the time being his westward course abandoned, down the French River to Georgian Bay.
Being familiar with the language of the Hurons, with whom he now tarried a short time, he told them of the desire of their White Father to make peace between them arid the Winnebagoes, the “Men of the Sea.”
Starting ont again, this time with seven Indians, probably Hurons, he went back to the French River, and there began his passage westward into ‘the unknown. Slowly but surely, ever toward the setting sun, the gleaming paddles carried them, until they reached the Sault Ste. Marie, a river which connects Lakes Superior and Huron. Here at the rapids they rested. It is possible that Nicolet made short excursions from this point, and, so doing, saw Lake Superior, but that he explored it to any extent is not probable. Had he done so, some record of this great discovery would have been made, especially as his travels are very fully recorded in the annals of his time.
On re-embarking, he turned to the south and reached the isle of Mackinac, from which he could see the vast expanse of Lake Michigonong—the first white man to gaze upon its waters. This lake has since been called by many different names— Mitchiganon, Lake St. Joseph, Lake Dauphin, Algonquin Lake, and Lake of the Illinois—but finally Michigan, a corruption of the Indian Michigonong, prevailed.
From Mackinac, Nicolet skirted the northern shore of Lake Michigan until he reached the mouth of the Menominee River, where Marinette now stands, and at last set foot upon Wisconsin’s soil. Here he met the Menominee Indians, a numerous Algonquin tribe whose descendants to-day occupy a reservation in Shawano and Oconto counties. These Indians, as has been said, were of light complexion, due, as the French thought, to their eating the wild rice of their rivers.
