One trait remains to be mentioned—a trait common to the entire South. I allude to the ardent patriotism and intense State-love of the people. This is proved by the records of the Civil War, which show how gladly substance and life were both devoted to the service of their beloved country. Even now, a thrill runs through one, at the recollection of the heroic self-sacrifice and whole-hearted devotion of the united Southern people to their “Lost Cause.”
Charleston, S. C. H. E. Belin
(Conclusion next month.)
INDIAN AGRICULTURE IN SOUTHERN WISCONSIN
Early writers and travellers were lamentably negligent in recording many phases of Indian life which it would be desirable to know, especially those related to the economic activities of these primitive people. An undue amount of “historical divination” is required in arriving at satisfactory or even plausible conclusions concerning some of these matters. The real influence which aboriginal agriculture exercised upon the exploration, settlement, and development of the Western lands, is well worth our study. The new comer often received therefrom suggestions as to what crops would most likely flourish on the various soils and in the different rain-belts; not to mention the direct effect upon lines of supplies bought or stolen from the retreating tribes—these are interesting questions, but we must not expect much specific information concerning them. The methods of hunting and fighting; of making weapons, utensils, and implements; of dancing, singing, wooing, are all told by early chroniclers with painstaking minuteness and detail, but the products of the soil are noticed by them only in parenthetical phrases or general observations. There is hardly a line yet found, relating to the agricultural tools used, or the sort of ground chosen for fields—absolutely nothing as to yield, and next to nothing concerning the importance of these crops to the Indians themselves.
For a long time the Sauk and Foxes had their principal villages near the Wisconsin River, at the east end of Sauk Prairie, just opposite the northwest corner of Dane County. These Indians were somewhat above the average of the tribes of this region in civilization; they lived in more compact and larger settlements, hence naturally depended more on their corn-fields than did their more nomadic neighbors to the west. Their corn was planted along the edge of the woods which fringe the Wisconsin, and this belt is choice corn-land to-day. Some small parts of it have been kept in grass from the time of the earlier white settlement, and in those places old Indian corn-hills may still be seen, the sod holding them in shape. The Indian cultivated the growing corn by hoeing toward the hill; and as this became the mellowest spot, the corn was planted each succeeding year in the same little mound, which grew to be a foot or more in height.
“There was a large settlement of Sauk at the lower end of Sauk Prairie. I have often examined the remains of their tillage there, and should suppose they raised corn in one lot of at least four hundred acres * * * the four hundred acres is covered with well formed, regular corn-hills.”[[4]] Just what this writer means by “regular” is not quite clear—probably that the hills were of uniform size, and approximately the same distance apart, for it does not appear that the Indians often planted corn in rows, there being, with their mode of culture, very little occasion for such methods.[[5]] The Indians of northern Michigan at the present day generally care for their corn much as did their ancestors of a century ago; and the few who attempt its cultivation with a horse cultivator do not take the precaution to plant the corn in rows, but run here and there wherever there happens to be sufficient room between the hills.
Whether or not the Wisconsin Indians, like those of Ohio or New England, girdled trees so as to rid the land of them, and leave it in a suitable condition for cultivation by their rude and ineffective tools, is not stated; but the probability is that little of such work was necessary.[[6]] The field at Sauk Prairie just mentioned, lay along the border of the woodland; and as the prairie was burned off nearly every year, it is reasonable to suppose that the fire crept into the woods for a greater or less distance, killing the trees and leaving a considerable belt neither distinctively prairie nor woods. Naturally this would become overgrown with weeds and saplings, which could be much more easily eradicated than the heavy growth of trees or grass. The prairie sod was altogether too tough to be subdued by the Indians, and nowhere do we find them tilling any considerable area of genuine prairie soil.
There are one or two direct references to Indian fields within Dane County. While stationed at Fort Crawford, Jefferson Davis visited this section and left in his journal some remarks pertinent to our subject: “While on detached service in the summer of 1829, I think I encamped one night about the site of Madison. The nearest Indian village was on the opposite side of the lake. * * * The Indians subsisted largely on Indian corn and wild rice.”[[7]] Probably he referred to the place now known as Winnequah, on the eastern shore of Lake Monona, where a few Indian corn-hills are still discernable. The nature of the land here at the time of the Indian occupancy, cannot now be estimated with the same accuracy as in the case of the Sauk district. It is not on the edge of a prairie; but from the condition of the present woods about Winnequah, and the sandy nature of the soil, it is altogether likely that there were sufficient open spots for all the corn-fields which the small villages of Indians would be likely to cultivate.
Capt. Jonathan Carver, who made a trip through the northwest in 1766, in speaking of the Winnebago Indians remarks: “The land adjacent to the lake [Winnebago] is very fertile, abounding with grapes, plums, and other fruits, which grow spontaneously. The Winnebagoes raise on it a great quantity of Indian corn, beans, pumpkins, squashes, and watermelons, with some tobacco.”[[8]] Carver also gives an interesting description of the kind of corn grown by the Indians. We should infer from what little he says that it is very similar, although not identical, with the corn raised by the New England Indians in the seventeenth century: “One spike generally consists of about six hundred grains which are placed closely together in rows to the number of eight or ten, and sometimes twelve.”[[9]] He does not tell us whether or not it is dented; but since he finds it maturing as far north as Lake Winnebago, and especially as the ears are long and slender, it is safe to infer that it was the hard flint variety known as “Yankee corn.” In case the four hundred acres near Sauk Prairie produced such remarkably large ears—averaging, we should judge, at least a foot in length, the aggregate yield must have been very great. Reasoning from this, it is easy to believe the various reports of discoveries of fifty thousand bushels of corn in cache by armies in the Ohio Valley, and to the southward. However, the element of uncertainty is by no means a negligible quantity, and the reader must draw his own conclusions as to the probable amount of farm produce raised by the Wisconsin Indian.