First People  |  The Archaic Age  |  The Woodland People

The Historical Era  (1634 A.D.- Present) 

            Native American storytellers used words spoken in council, in lodges, and around campfires  to tell their people about the history, legends and sacred beliefs of their ancestors.  Because of their great skill, there was no need to develop a written alphabet.  So it was not until the European explorers came during the Seventeenth Century that written records were made concerning the Native Americans and their beliefs.   The journals of the  French Jesuit missionaries give us the first historical accounts of the late Woodland people and their way of life.  These important historical documents are called the Jesuit Relations.   As time went on more Europeans  came to Wisconsin and began to record their impressions of the first people. 

            According to existing historical accounts, there were four tribes that dominated the state of Wisconsin during the 1600's.  They were the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago), the Menominee, the Anishnabeg (Chippewa) and the Santee Dakota (Sioux).  The Ho-Chunk, whose name means “people of the first or loud voice,” lived along the shores of Green Bay and throughout the Fox River valley to Lake Winnebago.  The Menominee lived farther north on the western shore of the bay and along the river which today bears their name. The Anishnabeg were an Algonquin speaking tribe, like the Menominee.  They lived primarily in the Lake Superior region, but their territory extended into much of northern Wisconsin.  The Santee Dakota lived  to the west near the Mississippi River, but their hunting grounds also extended far into northern Wisconsin.   

             Sometime after 1608, when the French founded the city of Quebec,  Europeans first learned of the tribes of Wisconsin.  The Governor of New France, Samuel de Champlain,  heard reports of  them from other tribes that had traveled to Quebec to trade their furs for European goods.  In the year 1634, Champlain sent his  trustworthy agent and interpreter, Jean Nicolet,  to the Great Lakes to establish trade relations with the Wisconsin tribes.  Nicolet had come to New France in 1618 and had spent over ten years living with the local Native American tribes and learning their language and customs.  Governor Champlain hoped to make peace between the Ho-Chunk of Green Bay and the Hurons, who lived closer to Quebec and were close allies of the French.  Not realizing just how big North America was, Champlain sent Nicolet to the western Great Lakes and Wisconsin, hoping to discover a northwest passage across the continent.   This would have enabled  the French e to trade with countries well known to Europeans,  such as India and China in the Far East.  In the spring of 1634, Nicolet set out on a voyage to Green Bay.  When he got there,  he met with the Ho-Chunk people along the shores of Green Bay.  Soon afterwards, he became the first known European to paddle up the Fox River.  It is quite likely that he traveled to the small rapids at De Pere in Brown County, and to the much larger rapids at Kaukauna and Grand Chute in Outagamie County. 

            Twenty-five years later in 1659, another Frenchman came to Wisconsin and many years later wrote an account of his discoveries.  This time it was not an explorer sent by the governor, but a fur trader seeking his fortune.   The man’s name was  Pierre Esprit Radisson.  Many years later he wrote down the events that occurred during his travels.  Much had changed during the twenty years since Nicolet’s voyage of discovery.  The Ho-Chunk had suffered greatly from disease and many of their people had died.  In addition, a ferocious Eastern tribe, the Iroquois, had gone to war with the French and their Native American  allies.   These tribes fled to Wisconsin from their original territories in the east.  Two of the tribes that came during the Seventeenth Century were the Pottawatomie and  the Outagamie (Fox).  They built villages in Wisconsin and defended themselves as best they could from the war parties of the Iroquois that attacked them. 

            In 1669, Fr. Claude Allouez built a mission house at the rapids six miles upstream from the mouth of the Fox River.  This place came to be known as “Les Rapides des Peres.”  The name has been shortened and anglicized to its present day form of De Pere.  The following year,  Fr. Allouez made contact with many tribes on the lower Fox River, the upper Fox River beyond Lake Winnebago, and the Wolf River, which joins the Fox from the north at Lake Poygan.  The tribes that he met at Green Bay were the Potawatomie and the Menominee.  Farther to the south, along the lower Fox, he encountered the Ho-Chunk, the Sauk, and  the Outagamie.  On the upper Fox River, beyond Lake Winnebago, he stopped first to meet the Miami and Mascoutin, and then went on to visit a village of Kickapoo and Illinois people.  At this village, the people spoke to him of a great river called, “the Messi-Sipi.”   All of these tribes except for the Menominee and the Winnebago had removed to Wisconsin to escape the Iroquois. 

            For many decades afterwards, the first people traded furs for European-made goods.  One of the greatest French traders of this time was Nicholas Perrot.   He was able to learn the language and customs, and earn the trust and respect of many of the tribes of Wisconsin.  During the late 17^th century, the Outagamie (Fox)  tribe, resisted  the influence of the European traders by demanding  tribute from  French traders passing by  their villages on the lower Fox River.  If the traders did not pay, the Outagamie attacked them.   This was the beginning of the Fox Wars, which gave the Fox river its name.  The Fox Wars lasted until 1738, when the Outagamie were finally driven down the  Wisconsin River by the French.

      During the early 19th Century, more tribes of Native Americans came to Wisconsin.  The Oneida, the Stockbridge, the Munsee, and the Brotherton people all came to live in the Fox River Valley.  These tribes were forced out of their ancestral lands in New York and New England by pressure from European settlers who wanted their land in the state of New York.   The Oneida eventually settled to the west of Green Bay in Brown County, Wisconsin.  The southern tip of their land extended into what is today Outagamie County.

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