The Indians in Wisconsin's History

by John M. Douglass

The Detroit commandant sided with the Ottawa and Huron and permitted them to seek refuge in the French fort. Shortly after, the Fox erected a stockade of their own and made preparations for a long fight. The French and their allies were reinforced by a large band of Illinois, Missouri, Osage, Potawatomi, and Menomini. This greatly superior force laid siege to the Fox fort and the latter soon offered to surrender. The French and their Indian supporters, however, were now determined to completely exterminate their enemies.

After a siege of nineteen days, the Fox attempted to escape by taking advantage of cover offered on a dark, rainy night. They were pursued, overtaken, and the great majority of them were slaughtered. This was a victory for the French, but a very costly one, for the Fox and their allies still had a great many warriors in the forests of Wisconsin. These, in retaliation, began a war of extermination against the allies of the French who had participated in the Detroit massacre and the hunted tribesmen soon complained that their people were starving because they dared not hunt in the forests lest their men be slain by the vengeful Fox.

The summer of 1716 saw the first white army ever to invade the forests of Wisconsin. The Sieur de Louvigny, in May of that year, left Montreal with an army of several hundred French and a force of mission Indians determined to compel the Fox to sue for peace. He arrived in Wisconsin with his army augmented by western tribesmen, and coureurs de bois who had been granted pardons for joining the expedition at their own expense. With this total force amounting to about 800 men, Louvigny besieged the fortified Fox village, situated near Little Lake Butte des Morts. While the French kept up a fire with two small cannon and a grenade mortar, they sank a trench towards the Fox fort determined to mine the place and blow it up.

The Fox surrendered after three days of fighting and agreed to accept terms which Louvigny thought very severe, but which his Indian allies regarded as overmild. The terms included the requirement that the Fox pay for the costs of the expedition against them by means of furs yet to be gathered, to give up prisoners taken from the allies of the French, to furnish a number of hostages to guarantee their future good behavior, and to cede their territory to the French King.

The peace temporarily halted the bloody warfare of the four preceding years and permitted the fur trade to be resumed. The concentration policy had proven to be a failure, and shortly after the death of Louis XIV, in 1715, the posts were once more occupied and the licensing system for the fur trade was restored. A fort was built at La Baye (Green Bay) in 1717, and a post was occupied at Chequamegon Bay to keep the Chippewa from attacking the Fox and causing a resumption of war, and also to regulate the fur trade in that area.

EARLY FORT AT MICHILLIMACKINAC (MUSEUM MURAL BY GEORGE PETER).

The quite considerable friction between the colonies of Canada and Louisiana provided the background for the events which led directly to the Second Fox War. There was considerable argument as to the exact boundaries of Illinois which now was annexed to Louisiana, although originally settled by Canadians. The Fox took advantage of these feelings of hostility by attacking the Illinois in the vicinity of Kaskaskia, even killing Frenchmen in this area. The Fox claimed the Illinois would not return Fox prisoners as they had promised according to treaty. The Canadian governor, Vaudreuil, tended to side with the Fox in the argument.

After the death of Vaudreuil, his temporary successor, Baron de Longueuil ordered the Sieur de Lignery, commandant at Mackinac, to enforce a peace between the Fox, Kickapoo, and Mascouten, and their enemies, the Illinois. The Fox promised to obey this demand, and in order to ensure their obedience, a new post was built in the Sioux country. This was rendered necessary by the fact that the Dakota Sioux had now become allies of the Fox, and the French intended to make sure that no aid would be coming to the Fox from that warlike tribe. The three forts in the northwest, at Chequamegon Bay, La Baye, and on the upper Mississippi in the Sioux country were to be maintained rather steadily until near the end of the French regime.

Meanwhile the Fox chief Kiala had succeeded in forming an alliance against the French between the Fox and their long-time allies the Kickapoo and Mascouten, and a series of other tribes including, in addition to the nearby Winnebago, such far distant tribes as the Abnaki and Seneca in the East, and the Dakota Sioux, Missouri, Iowa, and Oto in the West. Kiala hoped by this means to form a hostile circle about the French which would end in their complete defeat, a plan similar to that later attempted by Pontiac, and Tecumseh.