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MARCH 8:

 March 8, 1865: The Winnebago sign a treaty reagrding the Omaha reservation.
 

BACKGROUND:

From Jordan Dill's website, http://www.dickshovel.com/win.html , an excerpt from one of Lee Sultzman's superb historical texts.
 

After the War of 1812, settlement began to advance up the Mississippi from St. Louis, but warfare in Iowa and Minnesota between the Dakota, Ojibwe, Fox, and Sauk slowed its progress. The government in 1825 attempted to end the fighting at a grand council held with the area's tribes at Prairie du Chien. Attended by the Ojibwe, Fox, Sauk, Menominee, Iowa, Sioux, Winnebago, Ottawa, and Potawatomi, the resulting treaty attempted to end intertribal warfare by establishing boundaries between them. It also created a 40-mile wide buffer zone between the Dakota, Fox and Sauk in northeast Iowa. Called the Neutral Ground, the Americans hoped to relocate the Winnebago there since they were friendly with both sides, but the Winnebago did not share the Americans optimism for this arrangement. Since its purpose was to facilitate settlement, the treaty made almost no provision to protect native lands from white encroachment. It had only limited success in preventing warfare, but settlement afterwards moved north at an accelerated pace.

During the next 15 years the Winnebago would be forced to surrender most of their homeland. The first target was the lead deposits in northwest Illinois, and in what can be described as the first (and last) "lead rush," Americans rushed in to stake their claims. Government agents described these people as "lawless" but did nothing to prevent encroachment. Less than two years after the Treaty of Prairie du Chien, the Winnebago were forced into war to defend their lands. The resistance, known as the Winnebago War (1827), was led by the Winnebago Prophet White Cloud and the war chief Red Bird. Fighting began in the summer of 1827 when a barge ascending the Mississippi near Prairie du Chien was fired upon. Other attacks killed some settlers along the lower Wisconsin River and struck the lead mines near Galena, Illinois. Soldiers were rushed north from Jefferson Barracks at St. Louis, and by August it was over. Faced with a war they could not win, Red Bird and White Cloud surrendered themselves to be hanged to save their people. Red Bird died in prison, but White Cloud was pardoned by the president and released. Meanwhile, in a treaty signed a Green Bay in August, 1828, the Winnebago (also Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and Ottawa) ceded northern Illinois for $540,000.

With the lead mining district secured, the next victims were the Fox and Sauk in western Illinois. As a condition of peace in 1816, the United States had finally gotten their reluctant acceptance of that dubious treaty signed at St. Louis in 1804 ceding all of their lands east of the Mississippi. The bait was that the Fox and Sauk could stay until the Americans needed the land. Most likely. neither the Fox, Sauk nor the American representatives realized how soon this would be. Illinois became a state in 1818 and within ten years was pressing for removal. Blackhawk's Sauk at Rock Island refused to move, but after the Menominee and Dakota murdered 15 Fox chiefs enroute to a meeting with the Americans at Prairie du Chien, war seemed eminent. Blackhawk brought his people west into Iowa to protect the Fox and Sauk villages there from Dakota attacks which never came. When he started back to Illinois, the Americans refused to allow him to recross the Mississippi.

Throughout the winter of 1831-32, the old war chief sat in eastern Iowa and fumed. In his anger, he listened to arguments from his friend Neapope and the Winnebago Prophet (White Cloud) convincing him the British and other tribes were ready to join him against the Americans. In the spring he defiantly crossed the river into Illinois touching off the Blackhawk War (1832). The help did not materialize. Only a few Potawatomi and White Cloud's small following among the Winnebago joined the revolt. Pursued by the army and Illinois militia, Blackhawk retreated towards Wisconsin hoping to reach safety with either the Winnebago or Ojibwe. Most Winnebago wanted nothing to do with him and refused to help. Finally realizing this, Blackhawk turned west to try to return to Iowa. He never made it. Trapped between an American army and gunboat at the mouth of the Bad Axe River, the Sauk were slaughtered before surrendering. Menominee and Dakota warriors killed many of those who managed to elude capture by the Americans.

A marked man, Blackhawk escaped before the battle and fled north. He was captured by the Winnebago of Chief Spoon Decorah (Choukeka), a friend of the Americans, who delivered him to the Indian Agent at Prairie du Chien. Despite this, the general feeling among the Americans was that the Winnebago had cooperated with Blackhawk. By the harsh terms of the treaty negotiated by General Winfield Scott at Fort Armstrong in September, 1832, the Winnebago ceded their lands east of the Mississippi and agreed to move to Neutral Ground in northeast Iowa. They were to receive $270,000 ($10,000/year for 27 years) and were required to surrender several of their tribesmen accused of murdering whites during the war. Settlement moved into southern Wisconsin afterwards, but the Winnebago remained in their old lands, primarily because of hostility among the Fox and Sauk for the Winnebago's failure to help them during the Blackhawk War.

One out of four Winnebago died during a smallpox epidemic in 1836, which may have been a not-so-subtle hint for them to leave Wisconsin. A second treaty signed at Washington, D.C. in 1837 confirmed the Winnebago cession of Wisconsin and reduced the size of the Neutral Ground, but the Winnebago did not leave until 1840 when General Henry Atkinson refused to make their annuities except at the Turkey River Subagency (Decorah, Iowa). By 1842 approximately 2,200 Winnebago had settled in villages near the agency which was guarded by cavalry stationed nearby at Fort Atkinson, a necessary precaution since the threat of attack by the Fox and Sauk was very real. During the winter of 1839, they had killed 40 members of a Winnebago hunting party west of Wapsipinicon River. The following year, Fox and Sauk decided to attack the Winnebago villages near the agency but were only prevented by a unusually heavy snowfall that winter. Meanwhile, more than 1,000 Winnebago had remained in their homeland giving Fort Atkinson's cavalry the added problem of keeping the Iowa Winnebago from going back to Wisconsin.

With Iowa statehood in 1846, it was time for the Winnebago to be moved again. In a 1845 treaty, the Winnebago exchanged their Iowa lands for the 800,000 acre Long Prairie (Crow Wing River) reserve in Minnesota and $190,000. The move ended the threat of the Fox and Sauk, but placed the Winnebago as a buffer between the Dakota and Ojibwe. Some Winnebago managed to remain in northeast Iowa for more than a century, but the main group was moved during 1848 and 1849. The new location was unsatisfactory from the beginning. Not only was there poor soil and a short growing season, but the Ojibwe used the agency as a way-station to attack the Dakota. In a treaty signed in 1856, the government allowed the Winnebago to exchange the Long Prairie reserve from another farther south in Minnesota at Blue Earth. As their population declined, the Winnebago surrendered a part of this in 1859 as excess lands.

All went well until the Dakota uprising erupted in the Minnesota River Valley during 1862 killing over 400 whites. The Winnebago had no part in this, but in the aftermath, Minnesota was no longer safe. The Winnebago were forcibly gathered together and deported by steamboat down the Mississippi and then up the Missouri to the Crow Creek reservation in South Dakota with the Yankton (Sioux). Some got to leave the steamboat at Hannibal, Missouri and travel by train to St. Joseph where they were put back on a boat for the rest of their journey up the Missouri. Even allowing that the Civil War was in progress, conditions were terrible at the South Dakota reservation. Many Winnebago slipped away to return to Minnesota and Wisconsin. Finally, the remaining 1,200 left enmass and fled down the Missouri to ask the Omaha in eastern Nebraska for a refuge.

The government finally accepted their self-relocation and in 1865 purchased 40,000 acres from the Omaha to provide the Winnebago with their own reservation. Life in Nebraska was far from easy, and exposed to Lakota (Sioux) raids, many of the Nebraska Winnebago volunteered as army scouts against Lakota during 1868. While Winnebago were serving as scouts, the Indian Bureau - in its wisdom - conceived a plan of relocating the Winnebago to North Dakota as a buffer between the Lakota and the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara. For some reason, the Winnebago declined. Meanwhile, the Winnebago in Wisconsin were routinely being arrested and returned to Nebraska. Within a month, they were usually back in Wisconsin. After ten years of this game, the government gave up after 1875, purchased homestead lands for the Winnebago, and let them stay in Wisconsin. During the 1880s, over half of the Nebraska Winnebago went home to Wisconsin where they have remained ever since scattered across ten counties. The other Winnebago remained in Nebraska although 1/3 of their original 40,000 acre reservation was eventually lost to whites through allotment after 1887.