hoffman] CAPTIVES HELD AS SLAVES 35 



is composed of Nio'pet, Chickeny (Ma'tshikineu T ), and M'aqtawa'pomi, 

 tbree worthy representatives of the Menomini, the former being at the 

 same time civil chief of the tribe, while the last named is second chief. 

 During the early part of the present century Indian captives were 

 held as slaves. Augustin Grignou ' is responsible for the following 

 statement : 



During the constant wars of the Indians, several of the Wisconsin tribes were in 

 the habit of making captives of the Pawnees, Osages, Missouries, and even of the 

 distant Mandans, and these were consigned to servitude. I know that the Ottawas 

 and Sauks made such captives; but am not certain about the Menomonees, Chippe- 

 was, Pottawottamies, Foxes and Wiunebagoes. The Menomonees, with a few indi- 

 vidual exceptions, did not engage in these distant forays. The Menomonees, and 

 probably other tribes, had Pawnee slaves, which they obtained by purchase of the 

 Ottawas, Sauks and others who captured them ; but I never knew the Menomonees to 

 have any by capture, and but a few by purchase. For convenience sake, I suppose, 

 they were all denominated Pawnees, when some of them were certainly of other 

 Missouri tribes, as I have already mentioned, for I have known three Osages, two 

 Missouries, and oue Mandan among these Indian slaves. Of the fourteen whom I 

 have personally known, six were males and eight females, and the most of them 

 were captured while young. I have no recollection as to the pecuniary value of 

 these slaves or servants, but I have known two females sold, at different times, each 

 for one hundred dollars. 



Speaking of the treatment of slaves by their owners, Mr Grignon 

 continues: 2 



When these Pawnee slaves had Indian masters, they were generally treated with 

 great severity. ... A female slave owned by a Menomonee woman, while sick, 

 was directed by her unfeeling mistress to take off her over-dress, and she then delib- 

 erately stabbed and killed her; and this without a cause or provocation, and not in 

 the least attributable to liquor. It should also be mentioned, on the other hand* 

 that Mas-caw, a Pawnee among the Menomonees, was not treated or regarded as a 

 slave, and married a chief's daughter, and lived with them till his death, and has 

 now a gray-headed son living at Lake Shawanaw. 



It has already been stated that Osh'kosh, fifty years ago, publicly 

 asserted that his family was without doubt the only one of pure Men- 

 omini blood. From an examination of the genealogies of many of the 

 old men, this statement does not seem at all incredible, and it may be 

 questioned if at this day there remains a. single individual free from 

 the taint of foreign blood, either white or Indian. Concerning this 

 Dr Morse makes the following statement: 



Judge Reaume, an Indian Trader, who has resided at Green Bay thirty years, said 

 to me — "The Menomonees, in great part, are of mixed blood, Ottawas, Chippewas, 

 Pottawattamies, Sacs, and Foxes, with whom they intermarry. There is an inti- 

 mate intercourse between all these tribes, who have a common language, (the Chip- 

 pewa), which they all understand, and many of them hunt together in the interior 

 of the N. W. territory, on the headwaters of tbe Fox and Ouisconsin rivers." 3 



The better informed men of the tribe at the present time are aware 

 of the intermixture of blood, and marriages are frequently formed with 



1 Seventy-two years' Recol. of Wis. ; in Coll. Hist. Soc. of Wis. for 1856. vol. iii, 1857, p. 256. 



3 Ibul.,p.258. 



3 Report to Secretary of War, New Haven. 1822, pp.57, 58. 



