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Taki maka a-ieha'gha hena mita'wa-ye lo-Yo,
yoyo! All that grown upon the earth is mine-Yo, yoyo!
Translation of a Sioux song. |
The Winnebago tribe is the fourth group of the great
Siouan, or
Dakota, family. The
Wninebagoes were styled by the Sioux,
Hotanke, or the "big-voiced people;" by the Chippewas, Winipig,
or "filthy water;" by the Sauks and Foxes, Winipyagohagi, or
"people of the filthy water." Allouez spells the name Ovenibigouts.
The French frequently called them Puans, or Puants, names often
roughly translated Stinkards. The Iowas called them Ochungaraw.
They called themselves Ochungurah, or Hotcangara. Dr. J. O.
Dorsey, the distinguished authority on the Siouan tribes, states that the
Siouan root, "changa," or "hanga," signifies "first,
foremost, original or ancestral." Thus the Winnebagoes called themselves
Hotcangara, "the people speaking the original language," or "people
of the parent speech." Traditional and linguistic evidence shows that the
Iowa Indians sprang from the Winnebago stem, which appears to have been
the mother stock of some other of the southwestern Siouan tribes.
The term "Sioux" is a French corruption of
Nadowe-is-iw, the name given them by the Chippewa Indians of the
Algonquin family. It signifies "snake," whence is derived the further
meaning "enemy." The name Dakota, or Lakota, by which the principal tribes
of the Siouan stock call themselves, means "confederated," "allied."
Regarding the remote migrations that must have taken
place in such a widespread stock as the Siouan, different theories are
held. An eastern origin is now pretty well established for this stock; for
in Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Mississippi were the homes of
tribes now extinct, which ethnologists class as belonging to the Siouan.2
The prehistoric migration of these Indians, which undoubtedly was gradual,
proceeded towards the west; while the Dakotas, Winnebagoes, and cognate
tribes, it appears, took a more northerly course.
Passing to the authentic history of the Winnebagoes the
first known meeting between this tribe and the whites was in 1634, when
the French ambassador, jean Nicolet, found them in Wisconsin near Green
Bay. At this time they probably extended to Lake Winnebago. How long the
tribe had maintained its position in that territory previous to the coming
of the whites is unknown. They were then numerous and powerful. Father
Pierre Claude Allouez spent the winter of 1669-70 at Green Bay preaching
to the Winnebagoes and their Central Algonquian neighbors.
The Winnebagoes constituted one party in a triple
alliance, to which also the Sauk and Foxes belonged, and were always
present with the Foxes in their battles against the French, and their
ancient enemy the Illinois Indians. In an effort to combine all the tribes
against the Foxes, the French in some way won over the Winnebagoes. After
being on unfriendly terms with the Foxes for several years, the old
friendship was revived; yet the Winnebagoes managed to retain the
friendship of the French and continue in uninterrupted trade relations
with them, for, following the missionary, came the trader.
In 1763 France ceded Canada to England. The
Winnebagoes, however, were reluctant to transfer their allegiance to the
English; but when they did, they remained firm in their new fealty. The
English were known to the Winnebagoes as Monhintonga,
meaning "Big Knife;" this term is said to have originated from the kind of
swords worn by the English.3 When the thirteen
colonies declared their independence in 1776, the Winnebagoes allied
themselves with the British and fought with them through the Revolutionary
War. They participated in the border outbreaks in Ohio and were among the
savages defeated by General Anthony Wayne on August 20, 1794. In the War
of 1812-15 they espoused the cause of England, and in the years
immediately following this war they became quite insolent.
The so-called Winnebago War of 1827 was of short
duration. The energetic movements of Governor Cass, the promptness of the
militia under Colonel Henry Dodge, and the dispatch of General Atkinson of
the federal army filled the Winnebagoes with such respect for the power of
the United States that the disturbance was quelled before it had fairly
begun. At this time the tribe numbered nearly 7,000. It might also be
mentioned that a few of the tribe secretly joined the Sauk and Foxes in
the Black Hawk War of 1832.
Smallpox visited the tribe twice before 1836, and in
that year more than one-fourth of the tribe died. Mr. George Catlin,
famous painter of the Indians, made the statement, when at Prairie du
Chien in 1836, that, "The only war that suggests itself to the eye of the
traveler through their country is the war of sympathy and pity."
2 "The Siouan Tribes of the East," by James
Mooney, Bulletin Bureau of Ethnology, 1894, Washington.
3 "The Omaha Tribe" by Alice C. Fletchr and
Francis La Flesche, Eth. Ann 27, page 611
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