- Today we are pleased to introduce Eugene Tesdahl as part
of the Wisconsin Historical Museum's "History Sandwiched In"
lecture series.
The opinions expressed today are those of the presenters,
and not necessarily those of the Wisconsin Historical Society or
the museum's employees.
Eugene Tesdahl serves as associate professor of history
at UW-Platteville.
He is currently completing a book manuscript about 18th
century smuggling between Albany and Montreal.
When not teaching early America Native American history and
women's history, he dotes on his family in Platteville,
Wisconsin.
Here today to share "Lessons of the Fox Wars from 1712 - 1737,"
please join me in welcoming professor Eugene Tesdahl.
[applause]
- Thank you, and can you hear me all right everyone?
All right, so thank you for joining me today on
"History Sandwiched In" and as you see here
the Fox Wars is perhaps a topic
which most of you have heard of but have varying
degrees of familiarity with.
So I hope to give you a little more depth in your understanding
of the Fox Wars and how it impacted not just what would
become the state of Wisconsin, but the entire Upper Midwest in
the early eighteenth century.
So let us begin this perpetual war of the Foxes.
History is a conversation,
and it should be always a dialogue
and never a monologue.
Scholars are in dialogue with each other through their
developing and competing historiographies.
Classes are in dialogue with their teachers about the lessons
of the past.
Readers are in dialogue with authors of history.
Perhaps most importantly primary sources are in dialogues with
the sources who read and analyze them.
Thank you for joining me here today in this conversation about
history.
Today our conversation concerns what some have termed one of the
earliest markers of Wisconsin history: the Fox Wars:
1712-1737.
The average fourth grader recognizes this phrase,
the Fox Wars.
Though along with most grown Wisconsinites,
their understanding goes no further than the name.
The title of today's talk comes from governor of New France
Philippe de Rigaud who in 1719 claimed
"All would be...
All would be peace on this continent
if it were not for this perpetual War of the Foxes."
This statement obscures French
and native attempts to cheat the Meskwaki in trade,
thwart them in diplomacy, and enslave them in and outside of
Wisconsin.
During the Fox Wars, French officials aimed to exterminate
the Meskwaki Nation and this attempted genocide reveals
competition in imperial North America,
the significance of Native American peoples,
and the rich colonial history of Wisconsin.
Contested ground.
Our glimpse of the Fox Wars 1712-1737 must in fact start
much before 1712 for Wisconsin was contested ground.
Paleo-Indians including mound-building peoples,
had inhabited this rich and varied landscape for thousands
of years.
By the fifteenth century, modern Native American nations
including the Menominee, Ho-Chunk,
and Potawatomi negotiated the seasonal rhythms of this region.
Ojibwe, Kickapoo, Sauk, Sac, and Utagamie or Meskwaki,
or Fox newcomers from the east joined their native
neighbors here in Wisconsin by the seventeenth century.
Multiple factors pushed and pulled these native peoples into
the area.
Competition for resources.
Pressure from the powerful Haudenosaunee or Iroquois
confederacy of the east.
And ultimately colonial expansion of Dutch, French,
and English interlopers drew new native peoples including
the Meskwaki into this region.
And the inset on this map, you'll see states...
right here.
Hopefully I can find it.
Here we go.
So here with the mouse if you'll see the arrow
where it says Nation de Renard.
This is Fox Nation, so this is what is designated
as where the Meskwaki or the Red Earth people
were living at this time,
and notice Lake Michigan here or Green Bay rather,
is known as Baye des Puants or Stinking Bay.
And you can insert your joke there.
Though that comes from a derogatory term of people like
the Meskwaki for the Ho-Chunk or the Ho-Chunk nation.
So beginning in 1607,
English, French, and Dutch
invaders along the east coast of North American
aimed to replicate
Spanish success in Mexico in 1521.
And in the East rather than hierarchical native empires rich
in cochineal and silver, these colonial competitors found
diverse native nations, varied typography,
harsher winters and minimal exportable commodities.
Yet, in a regional like this one, furs,
lumber and other commodities secured minimal French
settlement and trade.
The St. Lawrence River Valley--notable key settlements
of Quebec and Montreal--
again here
far to the east.
This is where the key
French settlements were in
North America, but the French vision extended far further.
Jean Nicolet whose expedition arrived
at Green Bay or Bay Vert or Baye des Puans in 1634
inaugurated a minimal,
yet significant French presence in this region.
The French view the "Oiusconsing"--
and here we have some of those colonial competitors--
the blue territory here denotes
French settlement.
The red, English settlement.
Some this yellow, Spanish settlement.
And you'll note the large blank white space
which in traditional textbooks
would be deemed vacant.
Of course, along with the Meskwaki this space is not
blank, it's full of dominant, thriving,
vital native nations and even native empires.
So this map is strange in some ways,
but I put it up here today to remind us that in fact this
space was not blank, but full of native peoples.
But from the European perspective they viewed it as
land to be settled.
And here again is another view of how then even more the French
weren't just in the St. Lawrence River Valley here to the
northeast, but in fact this extended far into the Great
Lakes where we are even today.
And then down into the Mississippi Valley all the way
down to New Orleans and Mobile, Alabama by the early 18th
century.
So this "Oiusconsing."
So here you see the outline of modern Wisconsin over here.
This is where our story resumes
in the late seventeenth century.
Jean Nicolet had arrived here in 1634,
and the French viewed the "Oiusconsing" as part of
the pays d'en haut or Upper country.
Within their North American empire.
And the term "Oiusconsing" from which we get the modern term
"Wisconsin" comes from an Algonquin language of Miami
meaning "this river meanders through something red."
And we believe that that refers to the Wisconsin Dells,
and the red cliffs, therein.
By 1671 Jesuit missionaries had built a series of
settlements in northern Wisconsin including here La
Point or La Pointe on Madeline Island.
St. Esprit, and Fort LaBay at what would become Green Bay
right here.
These missions served long-time native residents alongside
native refugees fleeing from the Beaver Wars of the east.
And expanding Haudenosaunee influenc
e.
In turn, Dakota and other nations then moved westward onto
the plains.
The late seventeenth century witnessed relative stability for
Wisconsin.
Very few French habitaunts lived in the area.
And most who did
were priests, itinerant soldiers
and peripatetic fur traders
known as courer des bois or runners of the woods.
Traders eagerly sought furs from largely Algonquin-speaking
native nations including the Meskwaki by the late 17th
century.
And in most cases fur traders practiced métissage or
intermarriage-- marrying members of a native nation to gain trust
and in some cases
either fictive or real kinship relations
with the people
with whom they were trading.
This would bolster cooperation and commerce with nations the
French traders with like the Ojibwe, the Potawatomi,
and the Odawa yet few were examples of métissage in fact
transpired between the French and the Meskwaki as we will see.
In the late 17th century the Meskwaki numbered about 6000
strong.
And they largely resided in a series of on the Upper River
that now bears their name, the Fox River.
And they also lived in a sizable community
near Baye des Puants or the Bay.
And here we have an early 18th century image of this
settlement.
And here, we have the Fox settlement
just off of Bay Vert
as it would come to be called.
And French observers translated the name of the
Meskwaki from they heard other natives calling the Meskwaki.
Other natives called the Meskwaki at this time
the "Utagami", and the Utagami,
the French translate into renard ,
meaning "fox",
suggesting the Meskwaki were wily or deceptive people.
And Meskwaki itself, in fact,
translates as "people of the red earth" or "red earth people."
Again signifying their link to upper Wisconsin.
And one thing then is clear by the turn of the 18th century
about the Meskwaki.
The Meskwaki has often frustrated Ho-Chunk, Potawatomi,
Ojibwe, and French neighbors.
And despite competing explanations,
this frustration reveals not their wiles or their deception,
but the power and significance, and entrepreneurialism of a
nation unwilling to yield to outside influence.
And yet increasingly, outside pressure followed the Meskwaki
into the 18th century.
Deterioration of French and Meskwaki alliance began in the
very late 17th century.
And shrewd Meskwaki business acumen often collided with
deceptive courer des bois who rarely heeded French imperial
directives from the St. Lawrence.
The Meskwaki resented Haudenosaunee power to
the east and Dakota prominence to the west.
And the situation would grow far worse by the Great Peace of
Montreal part of the Grand Settlement treaties that remade
Native America, North America, and diplomacy in 1701.
So, the Grand Settlement of 1701.
Some of you might have heard of this before,
some of you might be unfamiliar with it,
but scholars of especially eastern North America see the
Grand Settlement treaties as turning points in Native
American diplomacy.
And I'm about to tell you that, in fact,
while you might think of this as a series of events that relate
to only northeastern North American,
in fact they were also deeply linked to things that were going
on in what would become the state of Wisconsin.
These two treaties known as the Grand Settlement of 1701
transpired in July and August of 1701 and
the Lakoiane, or Haudenosaunee Council of Clan Mothers
of the Iroquois Confederacy--
These women elected and sent male diplomats
to these two treaties at Albany and Montreal respectively.
There, the Haudenosaunee established neutrality between
the English and the French.
And the impacts of these treaties extends far
beyond Haudenosaunee history.
And in fact the Montreal treaty, August 4 of 1701,
deeply affected French and native lives in the Midwest.
And these treaties are so well-know today,
that especially the 1701 Treaty of Montreal is immortalized in
2001 in a postage stamp.
Which again, your typical Wisconsin fourth grader
does not know that.
But here in 1701 Governor of New France Louis de Callière hoped
to gain a full Haudenosaunee alliance in the 1701 treaty.
He failed.
Instead, he did establish favorable trade and diplomatic
policy toward the Haudenosaunee that would endure until the
outset of the Seven Years War in 1754.
And this favored status permitted the Haudenosaunee to
pit the English against the French in both trade and
diplomacy for about five decades.
In de Callière's attempt to please the Haudenosaunee he
largely gave the Iroquois control over most French-allied
native nations.
Even while away from the St. Lawrence valley.
This litany topped 40 nations, and included most native people
of Wisconsin, including the Meskwaki.
Most nations of the Great Lakes also saw this feature of the
Grand Settlement Treaties as the Haudenosaunee power grab
that it was.
Although that fact is often overlooked even by some scholars
today.
Tribes like the Meskwaki sent delegates to this treaty at
Montreal hoping to speak for their own tribal sovereignty.
de Callière heard these pleas but largely ignored them in
hopes of securing full Haudenosaunee military
alliance.
Such support could have strengthened power so much in
North America that is could have even expelled the British from
North America in 1701.
Instead, eventually the Haudenosaunee alliance would
form with the English in the 1750s and would ultimately lead
to the end of the French regime in North America by 1763.
The Great Peace of Montreal then in many ways signaled anything
but peace for most parties involved.
Potowatami, Ojibwe, Meskwaki, Sauk, Odowa,
and others who had already fled west away from Haudenosaunee
influence found that very influence foisted upon them
again in 1701.
Here we have some of the idiograms of the Haudenosaunee
and other native delegates who signed and approved this treaty
of neutrality of 1701.
And again note that the Meskwaki while they contested this
treaty, ultimately were forced to accept it-- Haudenosaunee
power over them in 1701.
Also in the Grand Settlement Treaty de Callière hoped to
strengthen French control in the somewhat distant Pay du Eau what
includes Wisconsin.
And he introduced at this treaty Antoine de Cadillac at
this Montreal gathering.
That very year, Cadillac would found
Fort Pontchartrain du de trois the Straights,
at what we now today know as Detroit.
And so here the treaty of Montreal is here in 1701 and
just months later Cadillac will be established at Detroit and
from there hopes to bring a more strong French government and
bureaucratic presence to French possessions in the Midwest.
So the message of 1701 for nations like the Meskwaki was
clear: Haudenosaunee influence in the west was stronger than
ever before, and with it French integrity seemed at its nadir.
One Fox delegate at the Treaty of Montreal 1701 stated,
"I now regard the Iroquois as my brother,
but I am yet at war with the Sioux." This description
denotes the intricacy of life and diplomacy in Wisconsin by
the end of the 18th century and French and British traders vied
for dominance of the fur trade.
French and British governments competed for political and
military control of the Great Lakes Region.
But many Algonquin-speaking nations including the Meskwaki,
Sauk, Potawatomi, and Ojibwe found themselves pinched between
the powerful Haudenosaunee or Iroquois of the East and the
Dakota now residing on the Plains.
These tensions would give way even more to disagreement and
violence that would ultimately be termed the Fox Wars.
The Fox Wars: 1712-1737.
French authorities aimed to strengthen their hold on the
XXXX in the 18th century.
Central to this aim was Antoine de Cadillac's encouragement that
French allied natives abandon traditional villages throughout
the Midwest including the large Meskwaki settlement near Green
Bay, and settle near the new French seat of power in the
Great Lakes, Detroit.
In 1710 Cadillac increased the intensity of this message
recruiting thousands of Mascouten, Kickapoo, Sac,
and Foxes to eastern Michigan.
Cadillac's plan made sense from the French perspective--most of
their Algonquin-speaking allies would now reside in a pan-Indian
settlement near the regional seat of French power.
Including men like Coulipa, this Fox warrior.
But ultimately this plan failed spectacularly.
The French misunderstood the inter-tribal tensions and
politics in which they themselves lay enmeshed.
Most notable of these miscalculations was the false
conclusion that the Meskwaki and the Odawa would cooperate.
The Meskwaki also incorrectly assumed that the French
invitation to Detroit signaled more diplomatic gifts and
material support.
It did not.
These misconceptions congealed by 1712.
Meskwaki headman Pemoussa, and Fox warriors like Coulipa,
pictured here, threatened the life of Odawa headman Sagima.
And they spread the false rumor that the Meskwaki had gained the
support of the English at Albany and with it the Seneca of
the Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
They had not secured that support.
The Meskwaki drastically underestimated Sagima's pull
with the new French power at Detroit.
Jacques-Charles Renaud Dubuisson and with the new governor of New
France Philippe de Rigaud.
What began as squabbles between native nations near Detroit then
sent complaints instantly to the St. Lawrence River and French
intervention to aid the Odawa and Ojibwe against the Meskwaki
swiftly followed in the spring of 1712.
What would soon be labeled the first Fox War 1712-1716 engulfed
eastern Michigan and sent shockwaves throughout the French
Great Lakes.
The Meskwaki fortified their village near Detroit with a
stockade by early May and attacks and counter-attacks
between Fox fort and Detroit occupied French and native
alike.
The Meskwaki and Mascoutam burned the Odawa village and
took three woman captive.
This included Odawa headman's wife- Sagima's wife.
Dubuisson then negotiated with Pemoussa for the release of
these prisoners and the Meskwaki hoped for a prompt resolution
with the French and to return to Wisconsin.
Instead Dubuisson went against his promises and refused to
honor them after the prisoner exchange.
The Meskwaki response to this treachery then was a flight of
hundreds of flaming arrows into Fort Pontchartrain.
At the end of May 1712 Meskwaki and Mascouten forces fled
eastward to the succor of Seneca allies.
The French, Ojibwe and Potowatami pursued.
Only Pemoussa and about one hundred others survived and
attack near Gross Pointe.
What is today Michigan.
Dubuisson crowed to Governor Vol Droy of annihilate "these
two wicked nations, the Foxes and Mascouten,
who so badly afflicted all the country." The Mascouten and
Meskwaki remained.
Pemoussa reminded both nations of their enemy's betrayal.
And survivors then redoubled their efforts for recovery and
autonomy from French and other native hegemony.
Slavery also permeated the Fox Wars.
Some native nations had long enslaved prisoners of war.
Since the 17th century some French native allies sought
prisoners from enemy native nations,
particularly the Pawnee, and sold them for use among the
French in places like Montreal and even the French Caribbean.
Native people like the Pawnee, which in French is Pa Nee,
in fact, became a byword in Montreal for "Native American
slave," because so many enslaved Pawnee were being sold
3,000 miles away to Montreal.
Ojibwe, Odawa, and others enslaved the Meskwaki during the
Fox Wars.
Including Coulipa here.
He was enslaved in the middle of the Fox Wars.
By the close of the first Fox Wars one French observer said
this, "To make peace, it is necessary to begin by restoring
to the Renard all the slaves of their nation whom the French
hold.
And that it is not in nature to think that peace can be made
with people whose children we are holding-- withholding." So,
again, this is the ugliness and complexity of the Fox Wars.
Hostilities between the French and their allies including the
Iroquois Confederacy--sorry the Illinois Confederacy--the Ojibwe
and the Odawa with the Meskwaki ebbed and flowed for the next
three decades after 1716.
These tensions punctuated the Great Lakes with battles in
Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin at a time when more
generally detente reigned between the English and the
French.
The Second Fox War spanned from 1728-1733 by this time most of
the Meskwaki had relocated to Illinois and built stronger
fortifications.
The Meskwaki would then suffer a huge loss at what would be
termed Fort Fox or For du Renard on the upper grand prairie of
Illinois.
This would take place on September 8-9 of 1730 and this
Meskwaki defeat Piankashaw, Illinois and Potowatami nations
would aid the French assault against the Meskwaki.
And in two days the French and pan-Indian force would decimate
the principal remaining body of Meskwaki warriors.
So ultimately what we have by the early 1730s is that the
Meskwaki nation that had numbered 6000 had been
diminished to only a few hundred.
Survivors regrouped and intermarried increasingly with
Sauk, Sac, Mascouten, and other neighboring native peoples in
Illinois and Wisconsin.
French attempts then at complete ethnic cleansing in the
Fox Wars failed.
Yet left a terrible impact on the Red Earth people.
Conclusion: Surviving genocide, life beyond 1737.
The Fox Wars offer many lessons on Wisconsin history.
First they disclose that the 18th century witnessed great
turbulence for the native population of Wisconsin.
A population of refugees and belligerents of both native and
European aggression.
Second, the Fox Wars signaled that the history of the Midwest
starts well before the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 or well before
the War of 1812.
And it contains complex clues about sovereignty,
diplomacy and negotiation.
Finally, these conflicts known as the Fox Wars reveal the
ugliness of French and native attempts to destroy and
autonomous, indigenous neighbor.
Herein lies the ultimate beauty in this complicated tale.
Part of why some Algonquin-speaking neighbors and
the French ultimately resented the Fox enough to attempt
destroying them lay in their indomitable spirit.
The Meskwaki knew who they were as the red earth people.
They possessed advanced skills in trade, diplomacy,
and military tactics.
They stood up to aggression.
And even in the face of defeat they remained resilient.
The Meskwaki held these strengths
as they reinvented themselves
in the métis community of Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin,
before and after the War of 1812.
They retained their identity even as they intermarried with
Sauks, Sacs, Mascouten, and the United States government forced
them to move west of the Mississippi River in the early
19th century.
And these skills enabled the Meskwaki to purchase the tract
of land for their settlement near Tama, Iowa in 1857,
an independent native community that thrives still today.
These strengths mark the dynamic Meskwati nation even
now.
This conversation that we've had today reminds us of substantial
native contributions to the Wisconsin story.
And unsettling questions that linger about Wisconsin's past.
Thank you for joining me in this conversation today.
And remember, it's never too late to start your own
conversation about history, in an archives or somewhere else.
Thank you.
[applause]