87 (page [page 273]).—By the treaty of November 3, 1804, the Sacs and Foxes, for the paltry sum of $1,000, ceded to the United States Government 50,000,000 acres of land in what are now Missouri, Illinois, and Wisconsin; this tract included the lead region. Unfortunately, the Indians were given permission to remain in the ceded territory until the lands were sold to settlers. This privilege was the seed of the Black Hawk War. Most of the Sac and Fox villages moved to the west of the Mississippi River during the first quarter of the century. Black Hawk’s band, living at the mouth of Rock River, alone remained. Settlement gradually encroached on them, and squatters sought to oust the Indians from the alluvial river-bottom. Black Hawk did not consider the squatters as legitimate settlers, and when they persisted for several seasons in destroying his cornfields, stealing his crops, and physically maltreating his people, he threatened vengeance. This led, in 1831, to Governor John Reynolds, of Illinois, calling out the militia, and in June making a demonstration before Black Hawk’s village. The Sacs thereupon withdrew to the west of the Mississippi, and promised to remain there. But discouraged by lack of food, and encouraged by promise of help from the Winnebagoes and Pottawattomies of Illinois, Black Hawk recrossed the river at Yellow Banks, below Rock Island, on April 6, 1832. Governor Reynolds again called out the militia, and secured the aid of United States troops from Fort Armstrong. The Black Hawk War ensued, ending disastrously for the Sac leader and his people.
88 (page [page 274]).—French-Canadian patois, so called, is but the seventeenth-century speech of Normandy and Brittany, with some local color derived from the Indians and the new conditions of the frontier. It is a mistake to term this survival a rude dialect, as is so often done by those English-speaking people who have learned only the modern and somewhat artificial French of Paris and the Academy.
89 (page [page 275]).—See [Note 20].
90 (page [page 281]).—Mrs. Kinzie here corrects a popular misconception regarding the division of labor in an aboriginal household. In a primitive stage, the Indian male of proper age and normal strength devoted himself to the chase, to war, and the council, leaving to the females the care of the household, which included the cultivation of crops and the carrying of burdens. Aiding the females were those males who were too young, or otherwise incapacitated for the arduous duties of the warrior; also, slaves taken or bought from other tribes. Before whites or strangers of their own race, the Indian warrior disdained to be seen at menial occupations; but in the privacy of his own people he not infrequently assisted his women.
91 (page [page 285]).—See [Note 27].
92 (page [page 303]).—Daniel Whitney arrived at Green Bay in 1816, and was the founder of Navarino (1830), on the site of the modern city of Green Bay. He conducted an extensive fur trade in Wisconsin and Minnesota, built numerous sawmills on Wisconsin waters, developed the shot-making industry at Helena, Wis., and in many fields was one of the most enterprising pioneers of Wisconsin.
Miss Henshaw was a sister of Mrs. Whitney.
Miss Brush was visiting her relative, Charles Brush, a resident of Green Bay.
93 (page [page 305]).—Colonel Samuel C. Stambaugh was Indian agent at Green Bay in 1831-32. He had been a country newspaper publisher in Pennsylvania, and received the office as a reward for political services. The Senate refused confirmation of his appointment, and he was withdrawn from the agency. He however served the department for four or five years more as a special agent, when he retired from public employment.