The Story Of Wisconsin, 1634-1848


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The Wisconsin Magazine of History
June, 1919
Volume 2
Number 4
Published Quarterly by the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.
page 413 to 430


The Story Of Wisconsin, 1634-1848
Louise Phelps Kellogg

Chapter II - The Red Men And The Fur Trade

A large portion of the surface of Wisconsin is covered
with small heaps of earth or mounds that are without doubt
the work of man and not of nature. The formation of these
earthworks was formerly attributed to a pre-Indian race of
men known collectively as the Mound Builders; modern
archaeologists, however, have repudiated the theory of a pre-
historic race, and now are certain that the true mound builders
were none other than the Indians. A peculiar kind of mound
occurs in southern and central Wisconsin and in the neigh-
boring regions of northern Illinois, eastern Iowa, and South-
eastern Minnesota, that is not found elsewhere in the United
States. These are the effigy mounds, slight eminences that
have the outline of deer, bears, panthers, turtles, various kinds
of birds, and in one or two instances of man. The origin of
these effigy mounds has been much discussed. It is now
accepted by scientists that their makers were a tribe known
to the first discoverers of the Northwest as the Puant or
Winnebago Indians.

The great number and extent of the mounds scattered
over the surface of Wisconsin indicates the presence of a
large Indian population in prehistoric times; but at what era
in the world's history, or in what way the Winnebago reached
Wisconsin is not known. The Winnebago belong to the
Siouan division of Indian peoples, and their aboriginal name
for themselves was Hochungara or O-chunk-o-raw, "speakers
of the parent language." Their nearest affinities are with the
Omaha, Oto, Iowa, and Missouri to whom they claim to, be
elder brothers. There is much difference of opinion among
ethnologists concerning the first home of the Siouan peoples,
some thinking that they migrated from the Atlantic coast
plain down the Ohio to its mouth, where divisions occurred,
which severally occupied the lower Mississippi, the upper
Mississippi, and the Missouri valleys. More recent investi-
gators place the early home of these peoples north of Lake
Superior, in which case the Winnebago must have crossed the
straits of Mackinac and advanced into Wisconsin at a very
early period. From the size of certain trees growing upon
artificial mounds, it is inferred that the settlement of the
Winnebago in Wisconsin must have occurred some time be-
fore the discovery of America by Columbus.

The Winnebago, who peopled Wisconsin's valleys and
built their mounds along her streams and lakes, were in what
is known as the Stone Age of primitive culture. Contrary
to the common belief they were not a wandering but a home-
loving people, devotedly attached to the places of their birth,
the homes of their fathers, and the sites of their villages.
These villages were so advantageously placed that the sites
of most of Wisconsin's present cities were those once occupied
by Indian towns. The woods and streams supplied their
simple needs of food, clothing, and shelter. From the skins
of animals they fashioned their garments; by hunting, and
by harvesting wild rice, they gained their food. Their lodges
were built of slender trees covered with bark and with mats
formed of plaited reeds. Gradually they learned a rude form
of agriculture; by cultivating the ground with hoes of bone
and plows of wood, corn and pumpkins were raised for
food. They had no domestic animals except dogs, which
also served as an addition to their food supply. Their
tools and implements of warfare and of the chase were made
of stone. Flints chipped to a point tipped their arrows; axes
and hatchets were of edged stone; war clubs swung a heavy
stone head. The only metals known were lead and copper.
The former, mined in a crude fashion, was mostly used for
ornament. Copper secured by intertribal trade from Lake
Superior was beaten by hand into ornamental shapes, and
occasionally used to tip weapons and domestic implements.

The change of seasons brought to Wisconsin Indians
changed modes of living. During the winter they left their
permanent villages and in small groups scattered through the
forests subsisting as best they might on the products of the
chase. They built temporary wigwams of pelts thrown over
poles, within which fires were kindled that kept them from
freezing. Upon the return of spring they sought their vil-
lages and cornfields. The summer was the time for religious
rites, for council, and for warfare. Raids upon neighboring
enemy groups were a normal part of the Indian's life. In
every village a council house was built where questions of
war and alliance were discussed by the chiefs and elders. The
religious rites clustered about a unit resembling a clan; the
effigy mounds were the symbols of the clan totems. Near
to these totems burial mounds were placed. The sacred mys-
teries of the tribe and the clan were there celebrated.

Aside from warfare, intercourse was maintained with
other tribes by means of trade. The extent and volume of
intertribal trade was considerable. Sea shells found in Wis-
consin mounds prove that they bad passed from hand to hand
among all the tribes between its inhabitants and the Atlantic
coast. Shells, bits of metal, articles of dress and ornament
constituted the bulk of the exchange. Shells pierced and
strung or wrought into belts were both the medium of ex-
change and the binding symbol for intertribal treaties and
agreements. While the fate of captives taken in war was
horrible, envoys were sacred, and treaties were observed
inviolate.

The red man's life was by no means an idyl, such as chil-
dren of nature have been supposed to lead. Famine and
disease stalked his footsteps; war and wild animals carried
away his youth; struggle and hardships made up his lot in
life. None the less it is open to question whether the contact
with the white man did 'not make the condition of the Indian
worse. He soon became dependent upon the former's
products for clothing, implements, and weapons. He forgot
the arts of his primitive economy. Urged on by the greed
of traders he rapidly killed off the wild game or drove it
farther into the wilderness, which he had to penetrate in order
to secure the store of furs with which to purchase his necessi-
ties. Thus hunting became more and more important to his
existence, and with increased efforts and superior weapons
brought ever diminishing returns. The red man became de-
pendent upon the trader for the very means of life. After
the French and Indian War, when all traders of the French
race were withdrawn from Wisconsin, the English traders
who after a lapse of two years went to Lake Superior found
naked, starving savages, who in less than one hundred years
had ceased to he self-sufficing, and could live only by means
of relations with white men. Thus arose the fur trade, which
was not only a commercial or an economic regime, but a
system of government, a form of social life, a means of ex-
ploitation, and a stage in the development of the American
frontier.

The Coming Of The White Man

For one hundred and forty years after the discovery of
America by Columbus Wisconsin's forests slept in quiet,
unvexed by the presence of any but their red children. Then
suddenly out of the East, and skirting the coasts of Green
Bay in a bark canoe driven by strange red men, the first white
man came, and "women and children fled at the sight of a
man who carried thunder in both hands-for thus they called
the two pistols that he held." "He wore a grand robe of
China damask, all strewn with flowers and birds of many
colors." "They meet him; they escort him, and carry all his
baggage." They call him the Manitouiriniou, the wonderful
or godlike man. From all quarters they haste to see him until
four or five thousand are assembled. "Each of the chief men
made a feast for him, and at one of these banquets they
served at least six score Beavers."  (3) Then the mysterious
stranger made a peace with them, under such forms and cere-
monies as were customary in intertribal negotiations, and
vanished into the East whence he had come.

To the whites who had crossed the ocean to begin a small
colony on the banks of the St. Lawrence this first white
stranger to visit Wisconsin was known as Jean Nicolet. He
had come to the New World with the express purpose of
dealing with the red men, learning their languages and cus-
toms, and opening a way into their country for trade and
missions. Sent by Champlain, the founder of New France,
to dwell among the forest inhabitants, Nicolet spent several
years among the Algonquian Indians of the upper Ottawa
River; then he visited the Huron in the peninsula between
Lake Erie and Georgian Bay. There he heard of a far
western tribe known as the "people of salt water," whom
Nicolet supposed must dwell on the borders of the Western
sea, and whence the way would lead to the tribes of Tartary.
Instead of a route to Cathay, however, Nicolet found merely
a new tribe of Indians whose name-the Winnebago-meant
equally "people of the salt water" or "people of bad-smelling
springs," and who were known henceforth to the French as
the Puants or Stinkards.

After Nicolet's advent to Wisconsin in 1634, no more of
these mysterious white strangers disturbed the dwellers on
Lake Michigan and Green Bay for over twenty years.
Nevertheless in these far regions great changes were taking
place, due to the widespread disturbance in Indian geography
caused by the coming of the white man. Upon the peninsula
of Ontario, then occupied by the Huron tribesmen, mission-
aries some years before the voyage of Nicolet had begun what
proved to be the largest and most successful of their missions.
Throughout all the Huron villages the Jesuits preached.
Later, impelled by a desire to evangelize distant Indians, two
of the fathers in 1641 accompanied some of their neophytes
to the shores of Lake Superior, and named the strait, where
the waters leap down from this mighty basin, the Sault de
Ste. Marie.

But the Huron were not long left in peace. Suddenly
from central New York appeared large bands of their heredi-
tary enemies, the Iroquois. By one blow after another the
Huron missions were destroyed. Some of the Jesuits fell
martyrs to their cause; others escaping sought refuge with
the remnants of their mission children under the cliffs of
Quebec. The remainder of the Huron fled westward; their
alarm was communicated to the Algonquian peoples living
beyond them, and for fear of the Iroquois whole tribes left
their ancestral homes for shelter in the farther forests. It
happened that shortly before this disturbance the Winnebago
of southern and central Wisconsin had suffered a severe de-
feat at the hands of the Illinois tribes living to the South,
wherein they were so reduced in numbers that but a small
fragment of the former tribe was left in its Wisconsin home.
Into this sparsely settled land the fugitives from Ontario
and Michigan poured by both southern and northern routes.
They hid from the pursuing Iroquois in the swamps and
marshes of our state, and the Winnebago, being in no condi-
tion to resist, made alliances with the intruding tribes, and
yielded to them new homes on the lakes and streams where
their own ancestors had dwelt. Thus came the Sauk and
Foxes, the Miami, Mascouten, and Kickapoo. Thus, pressed
down from the north and the islands of Lake Michigan, came
the Menominee and Potawatomi to mingle with the Winne-
bago around Green Bay; while the Huron and Ottawa, im-
pelled by a more dreadful fear, sought refuge on the southern
shores of Lake Superior and about the head waters of Black
River. Thus in the middle of the seventeenth century Wis-
consin became crowded with Indian villages, and was sus-
taining a larger number of red inhabitants than at any other
time throughout her history. This aggregation of tribesmen
conditioned her discovery and exploration, and made her a
region tempting both to the French fur trader and to the
French missionary of the cross.

Missionaries And Traders

Before the dispersion of tribes incident to the Iroquois
wars the Huron and their neighbors had learned the value of
the white men's goods, and had ventured as far as Three
Rivers and Montreal, there to exchange their skins and robes
for the weapons, clothing, and trinkets that the white men
had taught them to covet. Immediately there sprang up an
intertribal trade that extended so far westward that tribes
which bad never seen a white man became familiar with his
wares. The Ottawa Indians were especially skillful in trade,
and so long acted as middlemen for the western tribes that
all the region of the Upper Lakes was called by the French
the Ottawa country.

The Iroquois wars of the middle of the seventeenth cen-
tury interrupted the northwest trade and both the colony of
New France and the interior tribes suffered from the break
in the intercourse. Of the two, the French suffered the more,
because the Indians had not yet forgotten their wilderness
lore and were able to be self-sufficing. The lack of the annual
harvest of furs from the Northwest had almost ruined the
little French colony along the St. Lawrence, when suddenly
it was gladdened by the arrival of a caravan of Indians at
Three Rivers that came to exchange its hoarded treasure of
peltry over northern streams and portages, uninfested by the
dreaded Iroquois. Prosperity once more promised for
Canada, the Indian visitors were royally treated, and when
they embarked for their return voyage two young Canadians
accompanied them, and wandered for two years or more
among the tribes of the Northwest learning their customs
and languages, and teaching them the white man's arts.

The explorations of Radisson and Grosseilliers during
the latter half of the sixth decade of the seventeenth century
were not known to historians until the journals of Radisson
were discovered late in the nineteenth century in the Bodleian
Library at Oxford. They were written in English, by one
unfamiliar with that language, and their descriptions are so
vague that it yet remains an open question where these ex-
plorers went, and whether or not they were the first white
men to view the Mississippi River.

Radisson and Grosseilliers made a second voyage to the
Ottawa Country two or more years after their first adven-
ture. Upon this occasion they explored Lake Superior, and
the headwaters of the Mississippi, and passed a desolate and
famishing winter probably on the Wisconsin shore of Che-
quamegon Bay.

Meanwhile the first -white missionary to Wisconsin bad
lost his life in her northern forests. Father Rene Menard
in 1660 came to the Northwest with a returning party of
trading Indians. They abandoned him on the shore of
Keweenaw Bay and after a wretched winter he started with
one companion to visit the Huron fugitives, formerly mem-
bers of the Ontario mission, then thought to be in biding on
the headwaters of Black River. While descending the Wis-
consin in a tiny craft, the reverend father stepped aside at
some one of its upper portages and was lost in the forest.
Whether he was slain by beast or Indian or perished from
starvation is not known; no trace of his fate was ever found.

In 1665 the colony of New France was reinforced by a
regiment of soldiers; the next year Iroquois enemies were
punished and forced to conclude a reluctant peace. There-
after the wilderness waterways became safer and traders and
missionaries again sought the tribesmen in the Wisconsin
forests. Notable among the traders was Nicolas Perrot,
who in 1665 began a career of discovery and exploration in
Wisconsin that lasted over thirty years. Among the mis-
sionaries Father Claude Allouez was a pioneer. His first
mission in 1665 was on the shore of Chequamegon Bay, where
for two years he instructed large bands of Indians from all
the Wisconsin region. Even the Illinois visited the good
father in his northern home, and listened for the first time to
the gospel message. In 1669 Allouez transferred his min-
istrations to the neighborhood of Green Bay where among
the Menominee, Potawatomi, and Sauk of the Bay shore, the
Foxes on the Wolf, and the Miami, Mascouten, and Kickapoo
of the upper Fox Valley he founded missions, and worked
with unflagging zeal for the conversion of their souls. The
first permanent building in Wisconsin was the mission of St.
Franqois Xavier established in 1671 at the De Pere rapids
of Fox River by Allouez and his fellow workers. The fol-
lowing decade was the most flourishing in the Jesuit mis-
sionary history of Wisconsin. After 1682 their influence and
success began to wane, and by the close of the century was
almost extinct.

In the meantime the King of France bad in 1671 staged
a pageant on the far shore of Sault Ste. Marie wherein his
representative, Simon Francois Daumont Sieur de St. Lus-
son, took possession of all the western country for the French
sovereignty. Nicolas Perrot was sent in advance to notify
the Wisconsin tribesmen, and persuade them to send chiefs
as representatives on this great occasion. With wondering
awe the simple savages watched the impressive ceremony
wherein priests and warriors chanted the praise both of God
and of the great King Louis XIV, and declared the latter's
benevolence in annexing the Indians' country to his own
domain. All unwittingly they assented to an acknowledg-
ment that made them thenceforth subjects of a foreign mon-
arch. Some years afterward Perrot was sent as governor
general of the new French territory west of Lake Michigan.
He built therein a number of French posts, most of them
upon the Mississippi. At Fort St. Antoine on Lake Pepin
in 1689 Perrot took possession for France of the Sioux terri-
tory lying along the upper waters of America's greatest river.
He likewise was the first white man to explore the lead mines
of southern Wisconsin. So long as he ruled in the West,
French trade and French influence was supreme and the
Indians of Wisconsin were his docile instruments.

Wisconsin's great waterway to the Mississippi River was
first traversed in 1673 by Louis Jolliet and Father Jacques
Marquette. Seven years later Daniel Greysolon Duluth, who
had previously threaded the upper portage from Lake Su-
perior to the Mississippi, came eastward by the Fox-Wis-
consin route from the Sioux country. By these two voyages
connection was established between Wisconsin's portage route
and both the lower and the upper Mississippi.

Rapid changes in the Indian geography of Wisconsin
occurred during the last twenty years of the seventeenth
century. The population that had massed along the Fox-
Wisconsin waterway was pressing upon the food supply-
Moreover, in 1680 Robert Cavelier de La Salle took posses-
sion of the Illinois River Valley, and invited the Wisconsin
Indians to remove thither for a permanent home. The Miami,
Mascouten, and Kickapoo, acceded to his request; the Pota-
watomi likewise moved south along the shore of Lake Michi-
gan; the Foxes ventured from Wolf River to the river now
called by their name. The Menominee surrounded Green
Bay; the Sauk and Foxes controlled the Fox-Wisconsin
waterway; the Winnebago occupied the upper Rock River.
The Huron and Ottawa left northern Wisconsin for homes
on the Strait of Mackinac; all the southern shore of Lake
Superior was abandoned to the Chippewa, who at intervals
continued their hereditary wars upon the Sioux of the St.
Croix and upper Mississippi valleys.

The French Fur Trade

Along with the shifting of tribal homes grew up changes
in the method of handling the fur trade. The Indian hunters
no longer made yearly pilgrimages to Montreal to exchange
their gathered peltry for the white man's goods. Instead the
white men came to them offering their wares, and with tribal
consent built in their country at convenient places little log
forts where an officer and a few soldiers kept order over the
motley crowd of traders and coureurs de bois that enriched
themselves by the wilderness traffic. Most of the traders
were licensed by the government and subjected to strict rules
for the conduct of their trade. The illegal trader, however,
flourished, and followed his Indian customers into the depths
of the forest, beyond the reach of the orders and regulations
enforced by the commandants at the wayside posts. These
unlicensed traders carried to the red man the alcoholic liquors
the white man bad taught him to crave; and in disregard of
the regulations of the French government the Indian grew
more and more debauched and degraded by his association
with the whites. International rivalry also occurred in the
fur trade. Radisson, who had explored the western forests
for the French, deserted to the English government, and in
1670 aided in forming the Hudson's Bay Company, that
greatest of all fur trade monopolies, which after nearly two
hundred fifty years is still the greatest fur company in the
world. Its traders early penetrated to the north shore of
Lake Superior, and drew away many Indians who had pre-
viously contributed to the wealth of Canada. The English
also attempted to secure the Northwest fur trade by the route
of the Great Lakes. Utilizing the Iroquois as middlemen,
the tribes of Wisconsin were tempted to carry their wares to
white men, who paid a larger price for furs and gave better
goods in return than those of the French merchants.

Thus through illegal traders and foreign rivals the French
fur trade was by the close of the seventeenth century so de-
moralized that the Canadian authorities, spurred thereto by
the missionaries, determined upon drastic measures. All
licenses for traders were revoked, and in 1696 a decree went
forth that all the Northwest posts should be evacuated and
that missionaries should be the only white men allowed in the
Ottawa country. It was thought that the old custom of
yearly caravans to the St. Lawrence would be revived; thus
governmental control could be exercised over the trade, and
the aborigines protected. These measures were only partially
successful. Coureum de bois refused to obey the summons
to return to New France, and shamelessly brought in English
goods; soldiers deserted from the garrisons before evacua-
tion, married among the Indian tribes, and introduced the
white man's arts. Albany and Hudson Bay traders vigor-
ously pressed their advantage, and the Canadian authorities
feared that the whole of the Northwest trade would slip from
their control.

This danger of disintegration was checked by two events
that occurred in the first year of the eighteenth century by
which the French recovered their morale, and resumed opera-
tions in the Northwest. The first of these was the founding
of Detroit, a post whose position barred the English from the
upper lakes. The second was the peace with the Iroquois
which was signed at Montreal after a great ceremony and
an exchange of prisoners among all the warring tribes. The
license system for the fur trade was then restored, the
coureurs de bois called in by proclaiming pardons for past
offenses, and the policy of control by posts and garrisons was
reestablished throughout the Northwest.

The establishment of Detroit caused new changes in the
Indian geography of Wisconsin. The Miami and Mascouten
entirely withdrew from the state, and moved eastward
towards the new post. The Potawatomi progressed south-
ward around the bend of Lake Michigan, while the Winne-
bago filled in the vacant territory near Lake Winnebago,
and along the Rock River Valley. In 1706 a large portion
of the Fox and Sauk tribes deserted Wisconsin and settled
in the vicinity of Detroit, whither the Ottawa and Huron
from the neighborhood of Mackinac had preceded them.
This new accumulation of savage peoples did not long dwell
in harmony. In 1712 a fierce intertribal. quarrel broke out
in which the commandant of Detroit took sides against the
Wisconsin tribesmen. Many of the Sauk, Foxes, and Kicka-
Poo were slain; the remainder fled back to their former homes
in Wisconsin, where the remnant of these tribes waged bar-
baric warfare against the French for over thirty years. This
hostility closed the Fox-Wisconsin waterway to French
traders, rendered their lives insecure on all the western path-
ways, and greatly diminished French influence in the far
Northwest.

In the course of these Fox wars the first military invasion
of Wisconsin occurred when in 1716 Louis La Porte Sieur
Louvigny led a considerable army of Canadian soldiers, ac-
companied by a miscellaneous host of traders, voyageurs,
and Indians, through Green Bay to the Fox fort at Little
Butte des Morts. The Foxes withstood for a time a consid-
erable siege, which ended in a compromise with the invading
forces. The succeeding year a French post was built on the
site of Fort Howard that was maintained until the fall of
the French sovereignty in the New World. In 1718 in order
to develop the copper mines that were thought to exist on the
shores of Lake Superior an official post was built at Chequam-
egon. From 1727 to 1750 in order to exploit the fur trade
among the Sioux several French posts were erected on the
upper Mississippi. Chequamegon and the Mississippi posts
were abandoned during the French and Indian War. In
1743 a French post was erected on the Mississippi near the
lead mines, where a beginning was made in developing this
industry. Thus the French found copper, lead, and furs in
Wisconsin, the most valuable of which was peltry.

After the Fox wars were over the fur trade grew with
startling rapidity, and the only rivals to the Canadian traders
were the French merchants from Louisiana, the northern
boundary of which lay between the Rock and Wisconsin
rivers. In 1752 the Green Bay post was leased to a relative
of the reigning governor, who exploited it so dishonestly that
the Marquis of Montcalm declared, "Never have theft and
license gone so far." (4) The yearly harvest of Wisconsin furs
was from five hundred to six hundred packs, valued at a quar-
ter of a million dollars.

Peculation and dishonesty led to the downfall of New
France. Unprotected by rapacious officials the lilies of
France fell before the cross of St. George and St. Andrew,
and the British replaced the French not only on the St. Law-
rence, but along the Great Lakes and in the eastern part of
the Mississippi Valley.


Development And Decline Of The Fur Trade Under
The British

The change from French to British sovereignty in Wis-
consin was not accompanied by any marked upheaval in the
little hamlets and among the Indian villages of the western
wilderness. Most of the French traders transferred their
allegiance to the new sovereign with only mild regrets. The
earliest British officers were conciliatory in attitude, and the
Indians docilely exchanged their French medals and flags for
those of England. The British traders employed the same
voyageurs and coureurs de bois as had served the traffic
under the French regime. The language most in use in Wis-
consin's forests continued to be French. Beyond the bounds
of Wisconsin there was much discontent, which culminated
in the revolt known as Pontiac's Conspiracy. In this uprising
Wisconsin tribesmen, almost alone among those of the North-
west, refused to participate. Possibly the old grievances
against the French, repressed since the Fox wars, still ran-
kled, and made Wisconsin Indians more favorable to their
new British masters. Be this as it may, the garrison at Green
Bay was escorted by friendly and protecting tribesmen to
Mackinac, and there aided in rescuing the captured British
officers from the hands of the hostile Chippewa and Ottawa.
When Sir William Johnson met the Indian chiefs at Niagara
in 1764, he signalized the -loyalty of the Wisconsin Menominee
by presenting to their chief a medal and a certificate.(5)

With the withdrawal of the garrison from Green Bay
in 1763, Wisconsin's British post was permanently aban-
doned. Thenceforward the metropolis of the fur trade was
at Mackinac, where each summer a great mart was held.
Traders brought from Canada an abundance of goods for
forest traffic, and exchanged them for the peltry that had
been gathered during the previous winter and spring at
dozens of small posts throughout the West.

With the growth of the trade subsidiary marts were estab-
lished, and the one in Wisconsin at Prairie du Chien became
next in importance to that at Mackinac.

The first years of the British trade in Wisconsin were
years of unregulated and fierce competition between rival
traders and rival companies. Slight restraints were imposed
by the post officers, who in most cases participated in the
profits of the traffic. Therefore this unrestricted rivalry
wrought great havoc among both the fur-bearing animals
and their red hunters. Liquor became the ordinary medium
of exchange. The traders' outfits were largely composed of
kegs of beverages, and so fierce were the drunken orgies of
the Indians that it seemed that they would soon exterminate
themselves. The traders in like measure grew demoralized,
and employed all kinds of subterfuges to secure the advan-
tage. Even murder and robbery went unpunished, and the
law of force and cunning ruled the ' forests.

Excess of competition finally suggested its own remedy.
In 1778 a representative group of Canadian merchants made
at Mackinac a temporary combination to control the trade.
Two years later the agreement was renewed, and became in
1783 the basis of the North West Fur Company, a powerful
organization of Scotch and French Canadian merchants who
controlled the Canadian trade for a third of a century. About
the same time the Mackinac Company was formed, whose
operations lay farther south than those of the North West
Company. In 1786 the Mackinac Company had a post
opposite the mouth of the Missouri, and was competing for
the trade of Spanish Louisiana.

The Spanish strove unsuccessfully to bar the British
traders from the trans-Mississippi. The lower Missouri trade
they succeeded in possessing, but that of the waters of the
upper Mississippi and the Minnesota (then called the St.
Peters) was practically in the hands of the Scotch from
Canada. All this upriver trade centered at Prairie du Chien,
and was supplied by means of the Fox-Wisconsin waterway.

The headquarters of the North West Company lay on
the northwest shore of Lake Superior; two subsidiary posts
in Wisconsin-at Fond du Lac of the great lake and at
Madeline Island-served the interior forts along the southern
shore of Lake Superior. Around these posts small com-
munities gradually grew up, composed chiefly of retired
voyageurs and engages no longer able to endure the hard-
ships of forest wintering. These occupied themselves with
a primitive type of agriculture, and supplied the products
to the active traders. The most important of these settle-
ments was at Green Bay, where before the close of the French
regime a few families had settled. Thither after Pontiac's
Conspiracy, the Langlades removed from Mackinac, and by
their superior education and ability became the recognized
leaders of the little community. Charles Langlade, called
the "Father of Wisconsin," had been an officer in the French-
Canadian army. Under the British he held a commission in
the Indian Department, and his influence over both the white
and the red men of Wisconsin was unbounded. It was Lang-
lade, who during the American Revolution rallied the Wis-
consin Indians for participation in the defense of Canada
and in the invasion of Burgoyne. It was due to his loyalty
to the British that George Rogers Clark's agents had so little
success in detaching Wisconsin Indians for the American
alliance. It was Langlade who was depended upon to protect
the Wisconsin settlements against the dangers from the Span-
ish of Louisiana; and upon his death in 1801 the French-
Canadian settlements in Wisconsin mourned a protector and
leader. His leadership, fell into the hands of his descendants
and relatives, the Grignons and Gautiers, who were allied to
the better families of Green Bay and Prairie du Chien. The
patriarchal condition of society in Wisconsin lasted until the
coming of the Americans, who with their democracy and
energy broke down the class system founded on the fur trade
hierarchy, and introduced the elements of modern life into
the trading posts and settlements that grew up during the
fur trade regime. In the fur trade the bourgeois or master
trader was all powerful; his will and the exigencies of the
traffic were the sole source of authority. To make this more
binding, each voyageur and engage' was obliged before leav-
ing the main trading post to sign a contract by which be
bound himself in consideration of a small wage and certain
supplies "to serve, obey, and faithfully execute all that the
said Sieurs his Bourgeois * * * shall lawfully and bon-
estly order him to do; without trading on his own account,
nor absenting himself from nor leaving the said service."(6)
This constituted a species of peonage which to the honor of
the fur trading fraternity was seldom abused. In truth the
tie that bound master and man was not purely economic; it
was composed of personal elements of loyalty and attach-
ment. It was compounded from two loyalties-the French
system of subordination and responsibility, and the Scotch
Highlander's attachment to the bead of his clan, and the
clan leader's obligations therefor.

Many of the prominent traders of Wisconsin were
Scotchmen, and in the War of 1812 they commanded retinues
of voyageurs and Indians who successively captured Macki-
nac, and Prairie du Chien, and drove every American from
the vicinity. These traders fondly hoped and loudly boasted
that new boundaries would be drawn and the territory now
Wisconsin would become a fur trading preserve. Disap-
pointed in that hope, they planned to adjust the exigencies
of the forest trade to the demands of the American system.
The Mackinac Company was dissolved and in its stead was
organized the American Fur Company, many of whose opera-
tors were the Scotch Canadians who had been partners in the
British concern. For twenty years after the American occu-
pation the new Company conducted a flourishing trade along
the old lines. From 1816 to 1824 the United States sought
to better the Indians' condition by the so-called Factory sys-
tem, government posts operated not for profit but for benevo-
lence towards its Indian wards. The Factory system failed
because of the powerful opposition of the American Fur
Company, and because the factors were unacquainted with
the conditions of Indian trade.

Gradually the fur trade, which for two; hundred years bad
ruled Wisconsin, declined. The local traders, deeply in debt
to Astor's monopoly, the American Fur Company, mort-
gaged their lands and lost them. Of recent years a new com-
merce in furs has sprung up and grows increasingly valuable.
But the fur trade as a regime passed from Wisconsin with
the coming of the Americans and the development of modern
industries.

(To be continued)

3.  Wis. Hist. Colls., XVI, 1-3.
4.  Ibid., XVIII, 206.
5.  Ibid., 268-269.
6.  See a specimen engagement contract in Wis. Hist. Colls., XIX, 343.