140 



tribes, who had been like Lshmael, their bands against every body, and, of course, in 

 self defence, every body's hand against them, were driven from the St. Lawrence 

 step by step, until they were reduced in numbers, and compelled to unite their 

 fragments of bands for mutual defence and self-protection, and settle on Fox River, 

 fifty miles from Green Bay, where in l706, they were defeated by the French 

 and some allied Indians, who killed and took most of them prisoners.* It 

 is probable that soon after this event they moved over upon the Wisconsin 

 River, and wrested the country from the Sioux ; with whom and tbe Chippewas ■ 

 they kept a continual war, until, as Black Hawk says, in his life by Le Clerc, they 

 discovered the beautiful country on Rock River, the occupants of which, were 

 weak and unable to defend themselves. Of this country they took possession, 

 driving oft" the former occupants. This being the way this banded confederated 

 tribe got possession of the countries they occupied, we can have the less pity for 

 them, even if their sorrowful story of frauds practised upon them by the whites 

 were true. 



Some where between 1706 and 1736, they must have moved to the Wiscon- 

 sin; and they were there as late as 1790, as I was informed by Michael Cadotte, 

 who showed me mounds with holes in them for breast-works, about five miles 

 north of the Falls of Chippewa River, which were made by the Sacs and Foxes 

 when warring against the Chippewas. The chief of the Foxes, who was first 

 found by the whites at Prairie du Chien, Avas named Dog ; and the Prairie 

 upon which he built his town, was called his, or Dog's Prairie. 



After the Sauks and Foxes left the Wisconsin and the country north of it, and 

 took up their abode on Rock River and west of the Mississippi, the Winnebagoes 

 moved from the vicinity of the Lake of their name, to the countiy vacated 

 by the former ; at what date is uncertain. But as the Sauks and Foxes were 

 here in 1790, and not here in 1805 when Lieutenant Pike ascended the river, 

 the Winnebagoes came here probably about the beginning of the present cen- 

 tury. At this period tlie Sioux, Chippewas and Winnebagoes, were the occu- 

 pants of the soil as hunting grounds. The Menomonees claiming a part of the 

 country west of the Wisconsin, and above the Portage. In 1825, the metes 

 and bounds of these respective claimants were settled, in a general council of all 

 the tribes within reach; and continued so until 1837, when the Sioux and Win- 

 nebagoes sold out to the United States all of their claims east of the Mississippi, 

 and the Chippewas sold all that they claimed to it, south of 46" N. latitude. 

 And within ten years the Chippewas and Menomonees have sold out the 

 remainder of their claims, so that the Indian title to the soil is now fully extin- 

 guished. 



Carver's Travels, p. 45. 



