Pair of beaded garters, Potawatomi. Cat. 1 55680 



Photo by Ron Testa, neg 1 1 1489 



of forest fighting previously limited to how-and-arrow 

 encounters. When the Dutch provided their Iroquois 

 allies with muskets in 1641, they gave these Indians in 

 northern New York a military and psychological super- 

 iority that prevailed for half a century. The French be- 

 came obligated to provide firearms for their supporters, 

 but French guns were not as good and were distributed 

 only to Indians trusted to remain loyal. After the Iro- 

 quois acquired firearms in the 1640s, their next target 

 became the Hurons, another group of Iroquois speak- 

 ing people with an extensive trading empire based at 

 their towns near Lake Simcoe, north of present Tor- 

 onto, Ontario. The Huron country enjoyed a unique 

 climatic advantage as the most northern locale where 

 com could be raised. The Huron and their Ottawa all- 

 ies traded corn through a network that extended north 

 of Lake Superior to Hudson Bay and westward to Green 

 Bay, Wisconsin, where the Fox-Wisconsin river route 

 provided the principal gateway to the upper Mississippi 

 River and western prairies. 



Iroquois attacks drove the Hurons from their 

 homeland, many succumbing to hunger and disease at 

 a temporary encampment on Christian Island in Geor- 

 gian Bay, Lake Huron. The long odyssey of the refugee 

 Hurons and their Ottawa companions continued to an 

 island at the head of Green Bay, then to the upper Mis- 

 sissippi River below present Minneapolis-St. Paul, 

 where Dakota (or Sioux) opposition forced their re- 

 treat back to the south shore of Lake Superior. Mean- 

 while, Indians of the western Great Lakes district were 

 congregating near Green Bay, home ground for the 

 Menominee and Winnebago, forming an intertribal re- 

 fugee community estimated at 10,000 people. Among 

 the refugees were Illinois Indians, Miamis from the 

 Wabash River country of northern Indiana, and Pota- 

 watomis from southwestern Michigan. The population 

 density strained the agricultural and other food re- 

 sources of the Green Bay region. Iroquois attacks on 

 the northern sector of the Great Lakes subsided after 

 Ojibwa warriors defeated an Iroquois raiding party near 



