The Yankee and the Teuton in Wisconsin

BY JOSEPH SCHAFER
Reprinted from the Wisconsin Magazine of History Volume VI, No. 2, December, 1922
THE YANKEE AND THE TEUTON IN WISCONSIN Joseph Schafer
Wisconsin in its racial character is popularly known to the country at large as a Teutonic state. That means the state has a German element, original and derivative, which numerically overshadows the American, English, Irish, Scandinavian, and other stocks also represented in the Badger blend. It is not necessary to quarrel with this widely accepted theorem, though some of the corollaries drawn from it can be shown to be unhistorical; and one can demonstrate statistically that if Wisconsin now is, or at any census period was, a Teutonic state she began her statehood career in 1848 as a Yankee state and thus continued for many years with consequences social, economic, political, religious, and moral which no mere racial substitutions have had power to obliterate. My purpose in the present paper is to present, from local sources, some discussion of the relations of Yankee and Teuton to the land—a theme which ought to throw light on the process of substitution mentioned, revealing how the Teuton came into possession of vast agricultural areas once firmly held by the Yankee.
The agricultural occupation of southern Wisconsin, which brought the first tide of immigration from New England, western New York, northern Pennsylvania, and Ohio—the Yankee element—may be said roughly to have been accomplished within the years 1835 and 1850. The settlements which existed prior to 1835 were in the lead region of the southwest, at Green Bay, and at Prairie du Chien. The population of the lead mines was predominantly of southern and southwestern origin; that of the two other localities—the ancient seats of the Indian trade and more recent centers of military defense—was mainly French-Canadian. When, in 1836, a territorial census was taken, it was found that the three areas named had an aggregate population of nearly 9000, of which more than 5000 was in the lead region included in the then county of Iowa. The Green Bay region (Brown County) was next, and the Prairie du Chien settlement (Crawford County) smallest.