CHAPTER VI
THE INDIAN WAR DANCE
When the Jesuit Fathers, those early French path-finders for civilization in the central region of the American continent, pushed down from Canada over the lakes and by the rivers into the great forest that stretched from the inland sea to the great river, they found a people warlike, indeed, yet hospitable and kindly; reserved and shy, yet open-hearted and unsuspicious; uncivilized according to Old World standards, yet wise in the great secrets of nature; poor as to stores of gold, yet rich in the abundance of all that went to make for their simple necessities, their comfort and their pleasure. So entranced were the Frenchmen with the natural, free, and abundant life of these red men of the forest, and with their noble physical bearing, and untutored courtesy and dignity, that many then and there forever forsook the land and ways of their fathers, and bequeathed the names of France to dusky families, and to streams and lakes and heights.
The Great Sioux Nation, not a people, but a federation of peoples, lay principally to the west—the land of Hiawatha—in what was to become Minnesota, and extended well across the barren plains of Dakota to the Missouri river where possession was disputed by the Blackfeet. The eastern border of the nation rested upon the shores of the two fresh water seas. The central portion of the great forest was the home, principally, of two tribes: to the eastward the Menominees, and to the westward the Winnebagoes. To the south was the land of the Sac and Fox.
From the standpoint of the red man, this land between the Mississippi river and the great lakes could only be equalled by that Happy Hunting Ground on the Isle of the Blest, the home of Manitou, the Great Spirit. Little lakes and running streams, teeming with fish, abounded. Wild fowl and the smaller fur- and game-animals were ever within reach of even the arrows of the unclad children. Blackberries grew in riotous profusion in sandy openings of the forest; while blueberries in the summer and huckleberries in early fall gave a welcome change of diet. Food was plentiful. And as for wild creatures whose taking would test the sagacity and valor of the wisest and bravest, were there not the bear, the panther, and the lynx? While upon the plains west of the great river the neighbors depended upon the bison for winter’s meat, for tent covering and a large portion of their clothing, the great forest afforded the Winnebagoes, for these necessities, the flesh and skins of deer.
It is true that such a bountiful nature bred an improvident disposition, and times of lack and suffering had come to them in the past, but so rare were they, that the tales of such disasters became great epics to be rehearsed and chanted about winter fires.
To this forest had come the welcomed priests and their friendly companions—but that was indeed the beginning of a new order; where one white man puts a foot, there other white men spring up. It would seem strange that from the time of pathfinder Pierre Marquette to the time of pathfinder John C. Fremont, the simple, free, self-sufficient lives of these forest tribes should have been so little disturbed, and yet there was a reason. From the Atlantic coast the white man’s civilization had spread westward, ever westward, opening up farms, building cities—always crowding before it the red man, and appropriating his lands. After the bloody days of the establishing of New England upon the eastern shore, there came, later, Tecumseh, with his vain hope of stemming the tide of invasion. Then still later, in the newer west, Black Hawk, with impassioned words strove to turn the faces of his warriors toward the coming horde. But steadily, surely, the white man pressed forward. As a stream is turned aside by a barrier, to seek some other and easier course, so was this human stream of immigration and occupation for a long time held back by the vast forests of Wisconsin. As yet there was no lack of fertile prairies ready for the plow, and so the tide swept below and on around the home of the Winnebagoes. It crept up into Minnesota, and, still westward, planted its outpost at beautiful little lake Cheteck, the head of the Des Moines river. Here the red men of the plains called a halt. From Cheteck to New Ulm they wrote their fearful warning in blood and fire. The answer of the whites was quick and no less terrible, and so relentless, that many of these plains folk took refuge among their neighbors in the Winnebago forests. For three hundred years the history of the Winnebagoes and Menominees had been one of almost unbroken peace with the whites. While there had been settlements made here and there, so far there had been no serious crowding. There was yet room and food in plenty; and abundance of food predisposes to peace.
But the white dwellers of the cities and on the plains farms increased; always new homes were to be built; the small forests were soon exhausted, and the lumber scout came on to view the great woods of Wisconsin.
In early days when white men desired the skin of otter or beaver possessed by an Indian he might give the red man a bit of copper wire as barter, but he took the skin. So it was when the great forests of pine and oak and ash became desirable to the white man, he did not steal outright the home of the red man; he made some sort of present in return, as he took the land. To the Winnebagoes was allotted, as exchange for their claim to the forests which had sheltered and nourished the generations of their ancestors, a treeless, waterless tract in the far south, in what had been called the “Indian Territory.” To be sure they had had nothing to say as to the trade, and entertained no notion of going to their new “home,” but the white man had appeased his conscience, and the red man would now be considered an intruder in the forest.