The Indians in Wisconsin's History

by John M. Douglass

Etherington hastily summoned Gorrell to his assistance. Gorrell abandoned Fort Edward Augustus at Green Bay and with the aid of 90 men of the Sauk, Fox, Menomini, and Winnebago tribes succeeded in obtaining the prisoners’ release from the Indians. The party then proceeded on to Montreal. British military occupation of Wisconsin was not resumed until the War of 1812.

The Pontiac rebellion also served to bring the problems relating to the Indians home to the British Government and probably helped as an incentive to the issuance of the Proclamation of 1763. British subjects were now forbidden to purchase lands west of the Appalachian mountains without special license. It was hoped that this would prevent further encroachments by white settlers upon Indian lands. Trade with the Indians was to be permitted where licenses with the various colonial governments had been procured. Moreover, since Wisconsin was not included in the limits of any of the colonies, Wisconsin was left without any government other than that exercised by the military at Mackinac. This matter was not rectified until 1774 when the Quebec Act placed Wisconsin under the authority of the Governor of Canada.

Mackinac became the seat of Wisconsin’s fur trade when the fort was rebuilt there in 1764. It was the only fort northwest of Detroit with government officers and Indian agents. By 1767, large numbers of traders were coming into the Wisconsin area. The Indians by this time were so dependent on the white trader that any interruption in the supply of goods flowing to the Indians worked severe hardships upon them.

Wisconsin’s fur trade was still largely controlled by Montreal investors, mostly British. The actual traders, however, who contacted the Indians were still primarily Frenchmen, and this was to remain so throughout Wisconsin’s fur-trade period. Some competition in Wisconsin was given to the British by Spanish and French traders from Louisiana, which had become Spanish territory by the peace treaty in 1763. But the British managed to retain the bulk of the northwest fur trade with the Indians.

Wisconsin’s Indians did not participate strongly in the American Revolution, but they did take part in some action. Charles de Langlade, half French, half Ottawa Indian leader who helped the French so efficiently during the French and Indian War, now espoused the British cause as ardently as he had the French. Langlade’s tremendous influence over the Indians was well known, and the British hoped to persuade him to obtain Wisconsin Indian help in fighting the Colonists. Langlade did succeed in leading Chippewa and Ottawa east to help Burgoyne in 1777, and in 1778 Wisconsin Indians went to Detroit to help General Hamilton. On the whole, however, Wisconsin’s Indians were too disinterested in the white man’s war to be enthusiastic about long trips east to aid the British.

MICHILLIMACKINAC, RESTORATION OF LAST FORT.

The American Revolutionary War hero, Major George Rogers Clark, whose capture of Vincennes and Kaskaskia, and the French villages of the Illinois country, provided the basis for United States claims to the Northwest Territory during the peace negotiations between the British and the United States, called together a great assembly of Indians at Cahokia, Illinois, in 1778, and succeeded in obtaining their pledges of allegiance to the United States. Many Wisconsin Indians attended the meeting, including the noted Blackbird, chief of a Milwaukee village composed of Ottawa, Chippewa, and Potawatomi. Blackbird apparently remained loyal to the American cause. Major Clark’s influence with the Wisconsin Indians tended to nullify the efforts of Charles Langlade, and other French officers in the service of England, to mobilize the Wisconsin Indians against the United States.

In 1780, England utilized some Wisconsin Indians in an attack on the Spanish with whom she was then at war. Twelve hundred warriors were assembled at Prairie du Chien, and marched on St. Louis. Aided by the fact that they had advance knowledge of the enemy movements, that some of the tribesmen were more or less sympathetic with the American cause, and that the Indians showed no enthusiasm for attacking in the face of cannon fire, the Spanish and Americans succeeded in routing the attackers. After this action Wisconsin’s Indians were not involved in any important campaigns during the remaining years of the American Revolution.