MCGEE] XOIWE'rE and WINNEBAGO HISTORY 195 



tbe Missouri, and that they gradually ascended tlie latter stream, 

 remaining for a time between Grand and Chariton rivers and establish- 

 ing a town oil the left bank of the Missouri near the month of the 

 Grand. There they were found by French traders, who built a fort on 

 an island quite near their village about the beginning of the eighteenth 

 century. iSoon afterward they were conquered and dispersed by a 

 combination of Sac, Fox, and other Indians ; they also suffered from 

 smallpox. On the division, five or six lodges joined the Osage, two or 

 three took refuge with the Kansa, and most of the remainder amalga- 

 mated with the Oto. In 1805 Lewis and Clark found a part of the 

 tribe, numbering about 300, south of Platte river. The only known 

 survivors in 1829 were wilh the Oto, when they numbered no more 

 than 80. In 1842 their village stood on the southern bank of Platte 

 river near the Oto settlement, and they followed the latter tribe to 

 Indian Territory in 1882. 



According to Winnebago tradition, the j^.iiwe're tribes separated from 

 that " People of the parent speech " long ago, the Iowa being the first 

 and the Oto the last to leave. In 1673 the Oto were located by Mar 

 quette west of Missouri river, between the fortieth and fortyfirst 

 parallels; in 1080 they were 130 leagues from the Illinois, almost oppo- 

 site the mouth of the Miskoncing (Wisconsin), and in 1087 they were 

 on Osage river. According to La Hontau they were, in 1090, on Oton- 

 tas (Osage) river; and in lGi)8 Hennepin placed them ten days' journey 

 from Fort Creve Coeur. Iberville, in 1700, located the Iowa and Oto 

 with the Omaha, between Wisconsin and Missouri rivers, about 100 

 leagues from the Illinois tribe; and Charlevoix, in 1721, fixed the Oto 

 habitat as below that of the Iowa and above that of the Kansa on the 

 western side of the Missouri. Dupratz mentions the Oto as a small 

 nation on Missouri river in 1758, and Jeff'erys (1761) described them 

 as occupying the southern bank of the Pauls (Platte) between its mouth 

 and the Pawnee territory; according to Porter, they occupied the same 

 position in 1829. The Oto claimed the land bordering the Platte from 

 their village to the mouth of the river, and also that on both sides of the 

 Missouri as far as the I5ig Xemaha. lu 1833 Catlin found the Oto and 

 Missouri together in the Pawnee country; about 1841 they Mere gath- 

 ered in four villages on the southern side of the Platte, from 5 to IS 

 miles above its mouth. In 1880 a part of the tribe removed to tlie Sac 

 and Fox reservation in Indian Territory, where they still remain; in 

 1882 the rest of the tribe, with the remnant of the Missouri, emigrated 

 to the Ponka, Pawnee, and Oto reservation in the present Oklahoma, 

 where, in 1890 they were found to number 400. 



WINNEBAGO 



Linguistically the Winnebago Indians are closely related to the 

 jjOiwe're on the one side and to the Mandan on the other-. They were 

 first mentioned in the Jesuit Eelation of 1636, though the earliest 



