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From: Archaeology, Ethnicity, and Oral Tradition.
Doctoral Thesis, Rutgers University-New Brunswick, Anthropology Program, 1994
(c) 1994 John P. Staeck, Revised Version (c) 1998 John P. Staeck
**Note the term Winnebago is used here for consistency with now outdated academic terminology. No disrespect to the Ho-Chunk is intended.
Chapter 4
Review and Reinterpretation of French Ethnohistorical Accounts and World Views
Introduction
This chapter discusses and evaluates early historical accounts made by the French regarding the Winnebago. Since the French records are the most frequently utilized in attempts to reconstruct Winnebago cultural identity at the point of face-to-face contact with Europeans, and thus to infer precontact identity as well, the primary emphasis of this chapter is placed on accounts dealing with the so-called French Regime in the Western Great Lakes, 1634-1762 (Thwaites 1902; Kellogg 1925).
Historical Chronology
The Winnebago were first noted by the French in the 1623 writings of the Recollet missionary Gabriel Sagard. His work, first published in 1632 as Le Grand Voyage du Pays des Hurons, notes that the Huron language is useful in dealing with several populations in addition to the Huron, including "...that of the Stinkards (a celle des Puants)..." (Sagard 1939:9). As noted in chapter 2, Puants, translated as Stinkards, is used similarly to the previously noted term gens puants.
In the same year Sagard's work was first published, 1632, Champlain prepared a map of New France. The map was based on Champlain's personal knowledge of the region as well as upon information he had garnered from other sources, including the Huron and possibly from Gabriel Sagard (Lurie 1960) and Etienne Brûlé (Cumming et. al. 1974). Champlain placed a notation for La Nation des Puants near a large lake between and north of Lakes Superior, named Grand Lac on the map, and Lake Huron, named Mer douce on Champlain's map. The map, however, is inaccurate and reflects the limited knowledge obtained by the French regarding the physical geography of the westernmost Great Lakes. For instance, as discussed below, Lake Michigan is entirely absent from the map and there is no substantial body of water near the location identified as Mer douce.
The position of the Winnebago on this map is ambiguous and therefore epitomizes one of the major issues surrounding Winnebago history and protohistory. That is, placement of the core area of Winnebago settlements is of central interest to anthropologists and ethnohistorians attempting to locate pre-European contact or contact-era Winnebago homelands. Both Green Bay and Lake Winnebago have been postulated as potential centers for Winnebago habitation at and immediately preceding the time of French contact (Lurie 1960, 1974, 1978; Overstreet 1976). Although it has often been assumed that Green Bay was part of a Winnebago heartland because it is the reputed location of Nicolet's 1634 landfall (Lawson 1906, 1907), Lurie (1960) has argued that Nicolet's account of his journey to Wisconsin is vague and lacks specific mention of visiting any Winnebago villages. Furthermore, Nicolet apparently traveled for two days prior to meeting with large numbers of Indians. Such travel may well have put Nicolet in east-central Wisconsin, somewhere between Lake Winnebago and Green Bay (Lurie 1960).
Lurie (1960) argues that on Champlain's map, the lake around which the Winnebago live is Lake Winnebago and is not a misrepresentation of Lake Michigan, which is absent from the map. She notes that the river leading into the lake from the south approximates the confluence of the Fox River with Lake Winnebago and this makes it unlikely that the lake is an attempt to represent Lake Michigan. This suggests the Winnebago were centered around Lake Winnebago at the time of contact and archaeologists should center their search for pre-1634 Winnebago sites in this region. The importance of this implication is discussed at length in chapters 4 and 6.
The logic of this argument implies that Champlain's informants reached the Winnebago via a riverine rather than lacustrine route. Had the route to the Winnebago involved Lake Michigan, this lake would surely have appeared on Champlain's map. Likewise, were travelers to bypass Lake Michigan and travel to the Winnebago, whether at Green Bay or Lake Winnebago, from Lake Superior, the map would not have placed the residence of the Winnebago to the north of Saulte Ste. Marie and Lakes Huron and Superior. The most likely alternative is that travelers to the lands occupied by the Winnebago traveled north, from what is now Illinois or southern Wisconsin, along a riverine course to a large body of water, either Lake Winnebago or Green Bay. As Lurie (1960) argues, the former body of water appears more likely to be this final destination than does the latter. In addition, a simple miscalculation of the distance traveled northward along a riverine route to Winnebago lands could explain Champlain's placement of the Winnebago north of Lake Superior.
These early accounts of the Winnebago reveal several important aspects of French understanding of these people. As discussed later in this chapter, the French clearly relied on information supplied to them by their American Indian allies and trading partners, in particular the Ottawa and Huron. As will be discussed later in this chapter, such reliance is crucial to understanding how the French perceived the Winnebago. Likewise, European knowledge of the Western Great Lakes region was not sophisticated, being recorded through second-, third-, or even fourth-hand sources. This suggests that French knowledge of the inhabitants of the region was equally vague. The early French records, then, are more of a composite of reports given to them by their Indian allies, populations which are noted by Sagard (1939) to have had their own interests, both political and economic, in monopolizing access to both the French and the fur trade. Sagard, for example, relates how both the Ottawa and Huron claimed to dominate waterways that provided access from western fur-trapping areas into French-controlled regions. Only those Indian populations which had acknowledged the control of the routes by the Huron and Ottawa and paid the requisite toll were allowed to travel unmolested to French outposts.
Such Native American interests may have been partially responsible for the advent and form of direct contact between the French and the Winnebago. According to the Jesuit Relations for 1643-44, Samuel Champlain, governor of New France, sent Sieur Jean Nicolet to the Winnebago in order to establish peace between these warlike people and their easterly Indian neighbors, the latter of whom were already allied with the French and involved in the fur trade. Lurie (1960:793) also notes the presence of "a romantic tradition" which claims Champlain was deeply interested in accounts of an unusual people, the Winnebago, who spoke a language then unknown to the French, Siouan. This tradition also suggests that Champlain thought these powerful, warlike people might be related to the Chinese. If this were the case, then Champlain reasoned he had found the long-sought western route to the Orient. This intriguing (and obviously incorrect) possibility is less important, however, than the fact that the Winnebago had forestalled French entrance into the Western Great Lakes region and thus jeopardized the continued growth of the fur trade. Likewise, the Winnebago were considered a "foreign" population since they spoke an unknown language and were hostile to those Indian populations with whom the French were familiar. As discussed later in this chapter, the foundations for French misinterpretations of the Winnebago were set here, before the two groups ever met.
In 1634 Nicolet arrived in Wisconsin and encountered the Winnebago firsthand. The 1634 date for this event has been questioned by Heberd (in Thwaites 1902), who suggests a date of 1638 for the journey. Sulté, however, is credited with convincingly dating Nicolet's journey to 1634 (in Thwaites 1902; Lurie 1960) and this is the most frequently accepted date for Nicolet's voyage (Lurie 1960, 1978; Thwaites 1902; Lawson 1907; Jones 1974). Regardless of the date of his trip, however, Nicolet became the first European for whom we have records to visit what is now Wisconsin and his arrival there marks the advent of the Historic Period in the region.
Although Nicolet's journey was an important event, representing the first direct European contact with Native Americans in Wisconsin, his mission to establish peace between the Winnebago and the French-allied Indians failed. Although Nicolet did meet with some Winnebago (Relations 1642-43), they rejected both a treaty with their eastern enemies and any trade with the French. It is also important that there are no records of Nicolet having visited any Winnebago villages, nor does he provide any reliable estimates of population or military strength. Likewise, Nicolet did not provide a detailed list of the populations he encountered in Wisconsin (Lurie 1978). Thus, although Nicolet is credited with being the first European to meet with the Winnebago, his direct impact on the political activities of the American Indians in the Western Great Lakes region was minimal.
No French contact with the Indians of Wisconsin was reported again until 1658, when the traders Radisson and Des Groseilliers entered the region (Scull 1885; Thwaites 1902). Radisson's accounts of the journey are sometimes suspect (Scull 1885; Jones 1974) as he seems to inflate his own importance to various aspects of the endeavor. Nonetheless, the arrival of these two men in Wisconsin marked the advent of a regular French presence in the region. French discussions of Indian attributes in the region, however, remained scant and provide little information regarding the activities of these people (Relations 1657-58) until a decade later, when missionaries and traders began to establish regular contacts with the Indian populations in the region.
In 1665 Nicolas Perrot, a French agent and interpreter, was sent to the Western Great Lakes region (Perrot 1911) and initiated what Lurie (1978) has labeled the Fur Trade Period (1665-1828). Perrot's presence in the area was part of a wholesale expansion of French interests in New France and was accompanied by the arrival into the Western Great Lakes region of missionaries, traders, and soldiers. Perrot's accounts stand out, however, for they provide the first substantive observations on the American Indians who lived there. Additional information is recorded by Jesuit missionaries such as Gabriel Druilletes and Claude Allouez, as well as the Jesuit Father Superior for New France, Claude Dablon.
The accounts of the Winnebago that emerge from this period are dramatically different from those which incited Champlain to dispatch Nicolet on his mission to what is now Wisconsin. Rather than confronting a powerful nation capable of stopping the westward expansion of the fur trade, the French encountered only small numbers of Winnebago. Far from denying the French, Ottawa, and other Indian populations access to lands and furs in the Wisconsin, the Winnebago could scarcely maintain a hold on the lands they had apparently once dominated (Relation 1669-70; La Potherie 1911). The Relations dealing with French missionary activity in Wisconsin, such as at St. Xavier near Green Bay, report that the Winnebago were living near or with the Menominee and that both populations had been devastated by warfare (Relations 1669-70, 1670-71)
Likewise, Allouez (Relations 1669-70(1)) reports in 1670 that "About thirty years ago, all of the people of this Nation [Winnebago] were killed or taken captive by the Iliniouek [Illinois], with the exception of a single man who escaped." Allouez continues and describes his travels across east-central Wisconsin, particularly around Green Bay, Lake Winnebago, and the Fox and Wolf rivers. He notes which rivers lead to Ottawa and Fox villages, but he makes no mention of any Winnebago settlements or people in the region (Thwaites 1902).
The lack of mention of the Winnebago in the French records, and the apparent lack of interest regarding these Indians by the Europeans, is highlighted by a map of the region made by Dablon and Allouez in 1671 (Cumming et. al. 1974). The map is extremely detailed and clearly delineates the region around Green Bay and Lake Winnebago. The map locates an area labeled the Fox Nation southwest of Lake Winnebago, a Potowatami village to the north of the lake, and the St. Xavier Mission near Green Bay. As with Allouez's written accounts, however, the Winnebago are absent.
In 1673 a report similar to Allouez's account of the Winnebago's wars was included by Dablon in the Relations for that year.
...the people named Puans [Stinkards] who have always lived here as in their own country, and who have now been reduced to nothing from their very flourishing and populous state in the past, having been exterminated by the Illinois... (Relations 1673-74)
Likewise, a map dated to 1673 and attributed to the French missionary Marquette sketches the region from Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico (reproduced in Cumming et. al. 1974, and in Thwaites 1902). This map clearly shows Lake Michigan, Green Bay, and Lake Winnebago, but the Fox rather than the Winnebago are shown as controlling this region. In fact, Marquette places a Fox village immediately to the west of Lake Winnebago. The absence of the Winnebago is significant because the mapmakers took pains to identify the lands of major Indian populations, including Siouan-speaking groups such as the Osage and Kansa, in relation to the Wisconsin and other major rivers which join the Mississippi. The fact that the Fox rather than the Winnebago are placed on the map reinforces the relative unimportance of the latter population to the French as early as 1673.
French reports that the Winnebago had been drastically diminished in number due to a series of wars were recorded outside the Jesuit records for the first time at the end of the 17th century. Claude Charles Le Roy, Bacqueville de La Potherie, a French nobleman and administrator who came to New France near the end of the 17th-century (Blair 1911), recorded a history of the Winnebago's wars. He included accounts of the Winnebago's first conflict with the Ottawa and then summarized a second and disastrous war with the Illini (La Potherie 1911).
In former times, the Puans were the masters of this bay, and of a great extent of adjoining country. This nation was a populous one, very redoubtable, and spared no one; they violated all the laws of nature; they were sodomites, and even had intercourse with beasts. If any stranger came among them, he was cooked in their kettles. The Malhominis {Menominee}(2) were the only tribe who maintained relations with them, [and] they did not complain of their tyranny. Those tribes believed themselves the most powerful in the universe; they declared war on all nations whom they could discover, although they had only stone knives and hatchets. They did not desire to have commerce with the French. The Outaouaks {Ottawa}, notwithstanding, sent to them envoys, whom they had the cruelty to eat. This crime incensed all the nations, who formed a Union with the Outaouaks, on account of the protection afforded to them by the latter under the auspices of the French, from whom they received weapons and all sorts of merchandise. They made frequent expeditions against the Puans-who reproached one another for their ill-fortune, brought upon them by the perfidy of those who had slain the envoys, since the latter had brought them knives, bodkins, and many other useful articles, of which they had no previous knowledge. When they found they were being vigorously attacked, they were compelled to unite all their forces in one village, where they number four or five thousand men; but maladies wrought among them more devastation than even the war did, and the exhalations from the rotting corpses caused great mortality. They could not bury their dead, and soon were reduced to fifteen hundred men. Despite all those misfortunes, they sent a party of five hundred warriors against the Outagamis {Fox}, who dwelt on the other shore of the lake {Lake Winnebago or Green Bay (Lurie 1978)}; but all those men perished, while making that journey, by a tempest which arose. Their enemies were moved by the disaster, and said that the gods ought to be satisfied with so many punishments; so they ceased making war on those who remained. All these scourges, which ought to have gone home to the consciences, seemed only to increase their iniquities. All savages, who have not yet embraced the Christian faith have the notion that the souls of the departed, especially of those who have been slain, can not rest in peace unless their relatives avenge their death; it is necessary, therefore, to sacrifice victims to their shades, if their friends wish to solace them. This belief, which animated those barbarians, inspired in them an ardent desire to satisfy the manes of their ancestors, or to perish utterly; but, seeing that this was impossible for them, they were obliged to check their resentment - they felt too humiliated in the sight of all the nations to dare undertake such an enterprise. The despair, the cruel memory of their losses, and the destitution to which they were reduced, made it still more difficult for them to find favorable opportunities for providing their subsistence; the frequent raids of their enemies had even dispersed the game; and famine was the last scourge that attacked them.
Then the Islinois {Illini}, touched with compassion for these unfortunates, sent five hundred men, among whom were fifty of the most prominent persons in their nations, to carry a liberal supply of provisions. Those man-eaters received them at first with the utmost gratitude; but at the same time they meditated taking their revenge for their loss by the sacrifice which they meant to make of the Islinois to the shades of their dead. Accordingly, they erected a great cabin in which to lodge these new guests. As it is the custom among the savages to provide dances and public games on splendid occasions, the Puans made ready for a dance expressly for their guests. While the Islinois were engaged in dancing, the Puans cut their bow-strings, and immediately flung themselves upon the Islinois, massacred them, not sparing one man, and made a general feast of their flesh; the enclosure of that cabin and the melancholy remains of the victims, may still be seen. The Puans rightly judged that all the nations would league themselves together to take vengeance for the massacre of the Islinois and for their own cruel ingratitude toward that people, and resolved to abandon the place which they were occupying. But, before they took that final step, each reproached himself for that crime; some dreamed at night that their families were being carried away, and others thought that they saw on every side frightful spectres, who threatened them. They took refuge on an island, which has since been swept away by the ice-floes.
The Islinois, finding that their people did not return, sent out some men to bring news of them. they arrived at the Puan village, which they found abandoned; but from it they descried the smoke from the one which had just been established in that island. The Islinois saw only the ruins of the cabins, and the bones of many human beings which, they concluded, were those of their own people. When they carried back to their country this sad news, only weeping and lamentation were heard; they sent word of their loss to their allies, who offered to assist them. The Puans, who knew that the Islinois did not use canoes, were sure that in that island they were safe from all affronts. The Islinois were every day consoled by those who had learned of their disaster; and from every side they received presents which wiped away their tears. They consulted together whether they should immediately attempt hostilities against their enemies. Their wisest men said that they ought, in accordance with custom of their ancestors, to spend one year, or even more, in mourning, to move the Great Spirit; that he had chastised them because they had not offered enough sacrifices to him; that he would, notwithstanding, have pity on them if they were not impatient; and that he would chastise the Puans for so black a deed. They deferred hostilities until the second year, when they assembled a large body of men from all the nations who were interested in the undertaking; and they set out in the winter season, in order not to fail therein. Having reached the island over the ice, they found only the cabins, in which there still remained some fire; the Puans had gone to their hunt on the day before, and were traveling as a body, that they might not, in an emergency, be surprised by the Islinois. The army of the latter followed these hunters, and on the sixth day descried their village, to which they laid siege. So vigourous was their attack that they killed, wounded, or made prisoner all the Puans, except a few who escaped, and who reached the Malhominis' village, but severely wounded by arrows. The Islinois returned to their country, well avenged; they had, however, the generosity to spare the lives of many women and children, part of whom remained among them, while others had liberty to go whither they pleased. A few years ago, they [the Puans] numbered possibly one hundred and fifty warriors. (La Potherie 1911:293-300)
Subsequent French accounts of the Winnebago are substantially less detailed and lengthy. The Winnebago are periodically mentioned as living in or near Potowatami or Menominee villages in the vicinity of Green Bay. Jones (1974) places the Winnebago east of Green Bay based on the 1674 map of Joliet, but this cannot be confirmed. Cumming and his colleagues (1974) note that Joliet's original 1674 map has been lost and, although a number of later maps may have been inspired by the original work, there is now no way to confirm what was actually recorded on the Joliet map.
The Winnebago are mentioned briefly during October of 1723 in a series of letters from the Frenchman Vaudreill to the Minister of the Colonies (Thwaites 1902). The subject of the letters is the growing hostility between the Fox and the Illini in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois. The Winnebago are mentioned as living near the Fox and as having allied with them against the Illini. As discussed later in this chapter, the fact that the Winnebago are mentioned apparently stems from their involvement in large-scale conflicts which might have potentially threatened the French presence in the Western Great Lakes region. Thus, the mention of the Winnebago stems less from their living in Wisconsin, which they had apparently done throughout the French tenure and continue to do today, but from their involvement in activities which directly concerned the French.
Other accounts of the Winnebago follow a similar pattern, although the Jesuits did periodically record visiting Winnebago villages. Accounts of such visits are important because they provide a more complete, albeit still limited, portrait of the situation of the Winnebago than do French historical records dealing with military and political encounters. Shea (1856), for example, includes a portion of the Jesuit Louis Guignas' account of his 1727 journey through Wisconsin. Guignas reports that he encountered dignitaries from a Winnebago village situated somewhere near the Fox River. Upon visiting the village he reports the presence of 60 to 80 men which, estimating one adult male to every three females and non-adults (Kay 1984; see below), suggests the population of the settlement was approximately 240 to 320 people. These people were reported to be well-fed, in good health, and in control of the area around a small lake surrounded by fertile soils. Contrary to the impression that can be derived from French accounts of military actions (Jones 1974), the impression provided by Guignas is that the Winnebago, at least in this village, were not only surviving, but prospering. Moreover, a rare glimpse is provided of Winnebago activities and life not involved directly with military encounters or the fur trade. Thus, although not frequently mentioned in the French documents, the Winnebago seem to be present in the region and living independently.
Kay's (1984) demographic analysis sheds some light on possible Winnebago population dynamics in this era. Kay presents a sequence of population estimates for the Winnebago based on a survey of historical records (see table 8). As noted above, Kay employs an estimate that for every one adult male there were at least three females or non-adults. Although this formula may be questioned as arbitrary, it is nonetheless a consistent figure which yields a consistent bias in population estimates, regardless of input, and maintains proportional differences among samples being compared.
Kay contends the population estimates reflect the decline and gradual increase of Winnebago population during the era that begins with European contact and closes in 1762, the end of the French regime in Wisconsin. The argument is based in part on the data in table 8, which Kay argues provides basic population information for the Winnebago. Kay assumes that the historical sources she cites account for all Winnebago settlements in the region at the times of the observations (i.e., that all the Winnebago in Wisconsin were accounted for by each observer, and/or that each settlement seen and recorded was of the same relative size in terms of the Winnebago population in the state). Both archaeological research dealing with village size and ethnographic information describing the Winnebago as living in multiple dispersed villages (Radin 1923) suggest Kay's assumption is likely wrong.
The basic data she assembles is valuable, although perhaps not in the fashion Kay originally envisioned. Rather than reflecting the total Winnebago population levels in Wisconsin, as Kay suggests, these accounts probably reflect more closely the number of Winnebago the French actually encountered in the course of their political, economic, and religious activities in the region. As argued later in this chapter, French documents emphasize interactions with politically and economically important American Indian populations, and the relative importance of individual groups to the French can by measured by the length of discussions concerning these populations and the frequency with which the groups are mentioned. Those populations which are relatively less important to French interests during a given period of time are mentioned less frequently. The frequency of mention of populations also varies, not surprisingly, with changes in French interests in different regions of North America and with the comparative importance of one area to another in any given time period. Consequently, I suggest that the population estimates for the Winnebago provide a crude measure of the importance the French attributed to these people during the Gallic tenure in the Western Great Lakes region.
As can be seen from table 8, the number of Winnebago recorded by the French decreases steadily through time. This decrease is accompanied by an increase in French references first to the Ottawa, then the Huron, the Illini, and finally the Fox. Not surprisingly, each of these Indian populations was closely tied to French survival in the Western Great Lakes and success in the fur trade. Thus, the Winnebago, who originally spurned French trading advances and who were later too few in number to produce large numbers of pelts, became increasingly unimportant to the Europeans. The Huron, Ottawa, Illini, and Fox, however, either acted as principal agents for the French traders or vigorously opposed French interests in the Great Lakes region (Sagard 1939; Heidenreich et. al. 1976; Jaenen 1976). The activities, locations, and population sizes of these groups were of vital interest to the French and therefore dominated their writings.
Introduction to Revisionist Interpretations
This section presents a revisionist perspective on late prehistoric and early historic interpretations of Winnebago culture. The social ideologies present among the first Europeans to arrive in the Western Great Lakes region are argued to have influenced significantly the historical documents produced in this era and, in turn, later interpretations of the archaeologists, anthropologists, and ethnohistorians who relied on these documents (Lawson 1906, 1907; Radin 1911a, 1923; Mott 1938; McKern 1945; Griffin 1937, 1960). Based on historical records, oral traditions, and glottochronological evidence, it is argued here that the Winnebago and the Chiwere-speaking populations combined to form a powerful political and military population opposed to the expansion of the fur trade, or at least populations involved in the fur trade, into the Western Great Lakes region. The opposition this Siouan-speaking population posed to Native American groups allied with the French and involved in the fur trade may be responsible in part for how the French construed notions of Winnebago identity. Men such as Perrot, Sagard, La Potherie, and Champlain were all conditioned by their own culture, a culture that maintained distinct ideas about what proper forms of behavior and belief were. Prior to the actual arrival of the French in the Western Great Lakes region, however, this Siouan hegemony had dispersed as a result of prolonged conflicts with Algonquian-speaking immigrants and the rapid spread of European diseases from the American southeast and east.
Anthropologists, particularly ethnohistorians, have long been aware of the dangers inherent in employing European-authored ethnographic documents to interpret early historic American Indian cultures. As early as 1902, Thwaites observed that French documents often refer to the same historical event from very different perspectives. Likewise, Tailhan (in Blair 1911) has commented on Nicolas Perrot's various adventures in the New World, noting that accounts of the explorer's actions are sometimes overstated or misrepresented by his chroniclers. Unfortunately, other researchers have simply acknowledged the shortcomings of ethnohistoric records and proceeded with their research as though the records were, on the whole, accurate.
As noted previously, and despite French historical accounts suggesting otherwise, the Winnebago have maintained an ethnic identity distinct from those of westward-moving Central Algonquian Indian populations. There are substantial differences between colonial records of Winnebago identity, many of which are still accepted by some anthropologists today, and Winnebago oral traditions, and these differences need to be systematically addressed. Should the Winnebago oral traditions be found to contain clues to earlier customs, then the ethnohistorical and ethnological records of the Western Great Lakes region would be brought into question.
17th-Century French World View
The French who explored the Western Great Lakes region in the 17th century brought with them a well-developed view of American Indians and how these people fit into French constructions of the world. These world views had three sources: (1) Aristotelian or Aristotelian-like philosophies, (2) conservative economic and social orders, and (3) political doctrines emphasizing Gallic domination of Europe. These sources were closely related and served to precondition French ideas toward the American Indians they met in the Western Great Lakes region.
The 16th and 17th centuries saw Europe in the midst of religious and philosophical upheavals. The strict doctrines of Medieval Catholicism were being supplanted by new world outlooks, such as Skepticism and Aristolelianism. In spite of the new theoretical trajectories such philosophies eventually projected, these ideologies were still nonetheless firmly rooted in later Medieval Catholic traditions, especially at their outset (Potts 1974). For these reasons these movements are combined in this discussion under the broad headings of Aristotelianism and its two sub-divisions, Scholastic Science and Naturalism. More detailed discussion of 16th- and 17th-century French philosophies can be found in the works of authors such as Potts (1974), Vyverberg (1989), and Wade (1967).
French Aristotelianism can be subdivided into Scholastic Science and Naturalism (Potts 1974). As a whole, Aristotelianism was a blending of Late Medieval and Renaissance Christian conservative doctrine with Neoclassical interpretations of Aristotle's physics. This combination produced philosophical outlooks which sought to observe and explain the world in greater detail but which did not ultimately question the divine inspiration and creation of the world and everything associated with it. Secular philosophers, drawn largely from the privileged classes professed and advanced Aristotelian world views, as did members of the clergy.
Potts (1974) notes that the two schools of thought differed primarily in their interpretations of the role of God in directing the natural order of the world. According to Potts, adherents of Scholastic Science argued that Christian divinity placed a "secret quality" directly into each creature and object. This "secret quality," which Scholastic Scientists argued could be discovered through observation and basic quantification, was the source of each object's actions and role in the World. In essence, by instilling a unique quality into each creature, God had programmed the actions of that entity.
Adherents of Naturalism, on the other hand, argued that God was the source of a so-called "world soul" which was found in every natural object on earth. This world soul determined the nature of the world and was designed so that similar objects had similar properties. Naturalists argued that through observations and quantifications general traits could be identified among different objects. From these observations generalized trends describing relative "godliness," in terms of French interpretations of Catholicism, could be identified and thus the nature of the world could be known (Potts 1974).
When French depictions of American Indians are viewed in light of these world views, the source of many French diatribes on Indian morals and beliefs becomes clear. Since the French of the 17th century, whose limits of cultural exposure were the various cultures of Europe, expected all people to behave in ways familiar to them, it should be unsurprising that they were shocked by the behaviors of the American Indians.
The Eurocentric world outlook of the French explorers, coupled with their Aristotelian philosophical trends, combined to portray the American Indians as aberrant. Further, adherents of the Naturalistic position, following the notion that similar things possessed similar world spirits, extended to all American Indians their interpretations of the behavior of the Indians they had first met. The writings of Sagard (1939) and Allouez (Relations 1666-67), for example, demonstrate elements of a Naturalist outlook. Both men, based on limited experiences with a small number of Indian populations, presumed a similar range of behaviors for all Indians. As will be discussed later, such presumptions in the historical record have served to obscure the presence of many kinds of social and cultural variation, including a multiplicity of distinct Native American ethnic groups engaged in complex political relations apart from those involving the French.
Scholastic Scientists, on the other hand, were less quick to apply a universal interpretation of all American Indians. For example, the communications of Menard in the Relations of 1660-61, the accounts of Perrot (in Blair 1911), and Allouez's later writings (Relations 1673-76) exhibit deeper levels of sophistication in their comprehension of the different American Indian ethnic groups and their political goals. These writings reflect at least a basic French awareness of political and social differences between Indian populations. While the depth of such comprehension appears to have varied according to the experiences and views of the French observer, the fact that these observers were becoming aware of Indian ethnic boundaries as defined by the Indians themselves illustrates their willingness to accept that these people were engaged in a more complex set of behaviors than the Naturalists had allowed.
This greater sophistication on the part of some of the later French probably reflects a combination of two factors, a greater familiarity with the American Indian populations with which they dealt and the presence of a Scholastic Science or related outlook which did not assume that all American Indians possessed the same "nature" or "world soul." This second point might seem inconsequential but it is the key which allowed later French explorers to begin to speculate on differences among American Indian populations without seeming to contradict French social and religious doctrines. This accounts for some of the differences in the type, detail, and conclusion among French authors discussing Indian culture and ethnicity.
French Economics and Social Stratification
Along with the philosophical outlook the French brought with them, they also brought conservative economic and social policies. Despite vigorous and successful efforts by the French monarchy to undermine Spain's legal claims to the entirety of the New World, France was unable to establish strong or populous colonies anywhere in the hemisphere. Allain (1988) has argued that the French colonial efforts in the regions bordering the Gulf of Mexico were hampered by a lack of French interest in the New World, especially among the merchant classes of France. Confer (1964) and Saintoyant (1929, 1935) have both documented France's apparent lack of ambition in establishing populous colonies in North America. Similar arguments can be applied to the French colonial efforts along the St. Lawrence. In the latter area, however, it is the fur trade, not policies designed to contain Spanish and English colonial expansion, that can be argued to be the prime motive for the French presence in the region.
Regardless of motivations for their presence in the New World, the French colonies never became populous and consistently failed to attract large numbers of investors. Fieldhouse (1971) notes that between 1599 and 1789 a total of 75 different companies were chartered in France to trade in her colonies. None of these companies proved especially profitable and most collapsed shortly after being founded.
One of the chief problems these companies faced was a lack of interest in colonial investments on the part of French merchants. Allain (1988) notes that of the 100 members of the Company of 100 Associates, a French trading company founded in the early 17th century, only 20 were merchants. The remainder of the investors were political officials who sought to support the lead of France's principal minister, Richelieu, who was the driving force behind the establishment of the French trading companies. Those merchants who did invest in trading companies almost invariably sought to draw quick and easy profits from the French colonies, much as Spanish investors had drawn from Spain's expeditions into Mesoamerica and South America (Allain 1988). Unfortunately for the French merchants, however, no gold was discovered in North America and the fur trade proved to be the only source for easily obtainable profits. Expeditions to locate tin and copper sources proved largely unsuccessful, although some copper was discovered in the Western Great Lakes region.
The reasons for French mercantile disinterest in colonial investments are rooted firmly in France's frequent civil wars during the preceding era and the subsequent formalizing of the institution of venality. Simply described, venality is the process through which political and social titles are purchased, along with any incomes attached to such offices. The purchaser paid the French monarchy a sum equal to 1/60th of the value of each title in exchange for reaping the social and economic benefits of those titles. Upon the death of the original purchaser, his heirs were free to either assume the titles or sell them as they saw fit (Allain 1988).
Through this system, a shrewd investor assured himself of a steady income, fixed and supported by the French monarchy. In addition, he also gained the benefits of whatever enhanced social status his purchased offices carried with them. By reinvesting the profits from purchased offices into increasingly lucrative and prestigious offices, an investor both increased his economic situation and climbed upward through the ranks of the French aristocracy.
The goal of the French who participated in this system was honnetete. This term meant aspiration to the standards considered to befit civilized nobles and wealthy merchants (Potts 1974). In particular, emphasis was placed on living in the fashion that most French ascribed to the aristocracy. Such a lifestyle, especially as constructed by upwardly mobile social climbers, included the right to enjoy one's honnetete at the cost of other people's labors and without personal risk. This desire for leading a leisured life fed directly into the system of venality and arguably contributed to the eventual failure of French colonial endeavors (Allain 1988).
The alternative route to high status, that of investing in highly speculative colonial endeavors, did not appeal to most moneyed French. These potential investors, reacting to decades of bitter internal warfare and the increasingly powerful French monarchy, opted to place their fortunes in the purchase of offices. This seemed to be both a sound economic policy to the investors as well as consistent with the concept of honnetete. The situation became even worse after the initial reports from French controlled territories in the New World yielded no tales of gold or other easily gotten riches. Without the promise of immediate and substantial financial returns, even less impetus was provided to French investors. Only the lure of a potential Northwest passage to Asia and the initially lucrative fur trade drew the attention of French investors.
For France, the corollary to this lack of interest in the New World was a lack of settlers to control newly claimed territories (Allain 1988). Since the few French investors in colonial ventures sought to make a profit, expenditures in the New World were kept to a minimum. Neither the fur trade nor exploration required large numbers of colonists; consequently, few French citizens were drawn to the New World. Most of those who did go were involved directly in fulfilling France's economic goals and in maintaining the minimum number of missionaries and soldiers set by the Papacy to legally control colonial claims. As a consequence, the French colonies in the New World never became biologically (in terms of reproduction), economically, or militarily self-sufficient (Allain 1988).
Politics and Power
As noted above, this mercantile disinterest was largely the result of the protectionistic economic policies instituted by Richelieu during his tenure as France's chief minister. His primary interest was to restore France to the leadership of the European community. For Richelieu and his successors this meant a strong economic policy to make the French monarchy wealthy and strong social policies designed to increase the glory of the king (Carmona 1983, 1984). Both goals came together in the policies which dictated colonial expansion. The colonies and the trading companies which founded them were designed solely to increase France's world prestige and income. In return, the colonies were to receive the protection of a rejuvenated French military, while the trading companies were to receive exclusive rights to the profits from the colonies they founded (Allain 1988). The rugged colonial life-style and relatively limited opportunities for increased wealth, however, combined with factors discussed in preceding sections to keep population levels in the colonies low.
When it became clear to the French in the 1660's that trading companies were failing to provide needed colonists, France sought to rectify the situation by adjusting its governmental policy. The intent of the policy shift was to populate the New World with Gallicized American Indians. The original policy toward American Indians instituted by Richelieu, which called for the wholesale Christianization and Gallicization of the Indians, had failed when too few Native Americans converted. In fact, Allain (1988) argues that rather than Gallicizing the Indians, the French were Indianized. In the mid-17th century, however, France was becoming desperate to increase the strength of its American possessions so it revitalized Richelieu's Gallicizing scheme and weakened its stance on allowing religious dissidents to emigrate. The Huguenots, who had heretofore been prevented from settling in the New World for fear of their disloyalty to the monarchy, were to be allowed to settle there providing they verbally professed Catholicism. Furthermore, increased proselytizing of American Indians was undertaken in order to increase the Christian population of France's colonies (Carmona 1983, 1984; Allain 1988).
Unfortunately for the French government, the verbal commitment required of the French Protestants, perhaps coupled with the strong Jesuit presence in the Americas, proved sufficient to deter most Huguenots from moving to the New World. Likewise, as before, France's campaign to Catholicize large numbers of American Indians failed. Moreover, those American Indians who did convert to Christianity did not become Gallicized Indians who served the French crown, but instead maintained interests in their own political and cultural dealings. France was again deprived of its much hoped-for American population increase and, without sufficient numbers of loyal colonists, Gallic economic and political aspirations in the Americas could not be achieved.
French Interpretations of Native American Customs
Combined, the philosophical, political, and economic situations discussed above produced a series of responses by French explorers in North America which shaped their outlook on the New World and its occupants. First, the French in the New World found themselves often nearly abandoned by their mother country, which was absorbed with European power politics. Second, their small numbers in the Americas made them vulnerable to attack by hostile American Indians, as well as to potential British and Spanish military incursions. A review of missionary and explorer accounts, such as those of Perrot (in Blair 1911), Allouez, Menard, Le Jeune, and de Lamberville (Thwaites 1902) make it clear that the French had few means by which they could protect themselves.
Consequently, the French readily allied themselves with those American Indian populations who seemed to offer both political stability and military support. In general, American Indian allies met three conditions: (1) they were willing to protect the Europeans, usually in exchange for gifts and influence with other American Indian populations; (2) they were willing to trade furs to the French engaged in such activities, again in exchange for goods and influence; and (3) they were willing at least to tolerate the ministrations of missionaries where such were present. As with the trading agreements, acceptance or tolerance of the missionaries also often brought to the American Indian populations increased political leverage, both with neighboring Native American groups, as well as with the French themselves.
As a result of such alliances, the French became dependent on select Native American groups for information as well as for protection. On the surface this may seem inconsequential, since the French ethnohistorical records deal almost exclusively with American Indian-French relations. A deeper reading of these same documents, however, reveals that the French were either unaware of, or uninterested in, most political relations among different American Indian populations. Indeed, the French seemed to be interested in such dealings only when one or more of the three aforementioned conditions for alliance were threatened.
The French in the Western Great Lakes Region
The French records of their expansion into the Western Great Lakes region document a sequence of contacts with new ethnic groups, people who spoke languages unrelated to any the French had yet encountered. Furthermore, as noted previously in this chapter, these new populations were apparently both militarily powerful and opposed to the westward expansion of the French trading network. The conditions discussed in the previous section are significant because they represent a model for the beliefs and motives, philosophical, economical, and political, through which the French sought to comprehend these new people.
The French were closely allied with populations who had originated in the Central Great Lakes region(3), most notably the Huron, Ottawa, members of the Illini Confederation (Sagard 1939), and those who were now pushing westward in conjunction with French economic and political interests (Vandiveer 1929). Not surprisingly, much of what the French say of the people they encountered in the Western Great Lakes region appears to have been preconditioned by information given them by their trading partners and allies, as well as their own Eurocentric background. This situation is not unique to the French but was a common scenario during European colonial expansion in the New World. For our purposes, though, it is important to note that this is the case when the French encountered Siouan-speaking populations, such as the Winnebago, dwelling on the western frontier.
For example, the Siouan-speakers are named almost universally in a derogatory fashion by the French, who, in turn, had borrowed these derogatory names their non-Siouan-speaking informants (see Jones 1974; Dorsey and Radin 1910; Swanton in Blair 1911; Thwaites 1902). For instance, as discussed in chapter 3, the Winnebago were named by the French "Puants," "Puans," or "Stinkards," all names or translations of names applied to them by Central-Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking populations engaged in the fur trade. The Winnebago, however, called themselves Hotcangara, a name known and used by these people when they first encountered the French in 1634 (Radin 1923). Nonetheless, the majority of the French historical documents, including those written nearly a century later, occasionally refer to the Winnebago as "Puants." Even the name Winnebago is based on the anglicization of the French Ouinipigou and not upon a modification of Hotcangara.
In the Western Great Lakes region, the biases incorporated toward the Winnebago by the Ottawa and Huron may have been especially influential in the French ethnohistorical documents. The French had engaged in extended periods of trading with both the Ottawa and the Huron, effectively making these peoples their brokers with more distant groups engaged in the fur trade, such as the Illini and Miami (Perrot 1911; Heidenreich and Ray 1976; La Potherie 1911). At the same time, the French had also involved the former populations in their rivalries with the Iroquois in the Eastern Great Lakes region and the English on the eastern seaboard. This is significant because the French were now obliged to mobilize their Indian allies against English competition on their southeastern frontier. The French, already dangerously few in numbers and dealing with a complex and sometimes volatile network of allies (Dubuisson in Thwaites 1902; Letter from the King to Marquis de Vaudreuil June 30, 1707, in Thwaites 1902), now had to allocate more of their limited resources to securing a new frontier. This meant that the French had fewer resources to expend on the westward expansion of the fur trade and were therefore more dependent than ever upon their Native American allies for economic and military survival.
Winnebago Response
It is at this point, while the French-allied Indians were seeking to expand their influence and the fur trade into the Western Great Lakes region (Perrot in Blair 1911), that the Winnebago were apparently exerting a great deal of power in the same region. This exertion of political and military power was apparently designed to block the westward expansion of more easterly American Indian groups involved in the fur trade (Lurie 1978). Two lines of evidence supporting this assertion are discussed here: (1) the timing and historical reality of Winnebago power, and (2) Winnebago opposition to the fur trade, to the westward expansion of more easterly groups, or to both.
Winnebago Military Power
As noted earlier, there is little doubt the Winnebago were once a powerful force in the Western Great Lakes region. The oral histories given to the French by both the Illini and the Winnebago describe large-scale hostilities between these groups and suggest that the tales are founded in historical actions (Lurie 1952, 1960, 1978; Lawson 1907; Jones 1974). While the timing of the warfare cannot be precisely known, being invariably referred to as in the time of the informants' grandfathers(4), the details of the accounts support the idea that a war or a series of wars was fought in which the Winnebago were defeated. These oral histories seem to imply that the war was a relatively recent event but the absence of references to French trade goods in tales of war exploits suggests that the conflict probably occurred prior to European contact.
The oral histories of warfare are further supported by the isolation of the Winnebago from the closely related Chiwere-speakers during the late prehistoric period and the expansion and control of the region by Algonquian-speaking allies of the Illini (Mott 1938; Springer and Witkowski 1982; Grimm 1985). Had the Winnebago and any of their own allies proved victorious in such a conflict, or conflicts, it would have been they who controlled the rich resources of the Western Great Lakes region. As the French document, however, the 17th-century Winnebago were relegated to a relatively small portion of the region and it therefore appears unlikely that the Winnebago emerged from the alleged pre-European conflict in a strong position.
Winnebago Opposition to the Fur Trade
There is good evidence to suggest the Winnebago opposed the expansion of the fur trade, or at least the movement of more easterly Indian populations involved in the fur trade into the Western Great Lakes region as part of the expanding fur trade. Such evidence can be found in the motives for Nicolet's 1634 journey to Green Bay (Le Jeune in Relations 1642-43) as well as in the oral traditions of the Winnebago. According to Le Jeune, Nicolet was sent by the French colonial government to Wisconsin in an effort to secure the continued westward expansion of the fur trade. The fact that the French were forced to embark on such an expedition themselves, rather than relying on their American Indian trading partners, as had been their normal custom, suggests that these trading partners were in some way prevented from moving into the Western Great Lakes region. Given the aforementioned oral traditions of hostility between the Winnebago and various Algonquian groups, it is likely that the Winnebago, perhaps in conjunction with some of the Chiwere-speaking populations, were in some way preventing the Algonquian groups from expanding. The French expedition headed by Nicolet, then, may have been organized in response to Winnebago opposition to the expansion of populations involved in the fur trade as well as to their opposing the fur trade itself. As noted previously, it may be significant that the Winnebago rejected both Nicolet's attempt to secure a peace between the Winnebago and French-allied Indians as well as his offer of trading relationships with the French. Likewise, the Winnebago spurned earlier American Indian attempts to establish trading relationships between the Winnebago and the Huron.
An examination of Winnebago oral traditions supports opposition to the westward expansion of the fur trade and suggests that there is considerable time depth to this opposition. Winnebago tales, for example, consistently portray beaver, one of the staples of the fur trade, as evil creatures killed solely for their meat by both Water Spirits and Thunderbirds, beings at opposing poles of Winnebago cosmology (see chapters 3 and 6). Mention is rarely given to the killing of any animal for its pelt, although a brief sequence of tales of apparently recent origin does mention trapping. In general, however, Winnebago oral traditions cast the beaver in a negative light and do not mention its taking for pelts. Empirically, this line of evidence can be considered less firmly-grounded than the historically documented rejections of trading relationships discussed above. As discussed in chapter 6, however, there is no firm way to date chronometrically the development of the oral traditions collected by Radin and utilized in this research. It is possible, for example, that the oral traditions casting beaver and other animals commonly trapped, such as muskrat, in a negative light date to Winnebago involvement with Tecumseh or Black Hawk and a pan-tribal reaction against colonialism and the fur trade (see Lurie 1978; Tanner 1987). Given accounts of Winnebago hostilities against populations closely tied to the fur trade as well as the rejection of French overtures, however, it appears more likely that the Winnebago maintained an opposition to the fur trade from an early date.
It remains unknowable whether the beaver symbolizes enmity toward the fur trade as an institution, antipathy toward populations such as the Ottawa, who regularly trapped these animals for the French, or a symbolic reaction against Water Spirits (sometimes associated with beavers in Winnebago tales) tied to increasing Algonquian influences (see chapter 6). For example, as previously noted, Lurie (1978) defines a Fur Trade Period (1665-1828) during which the Winnebago regularly participated in trapping activities. The advent of this period, however, coincides with Jesuit reports that the Winnebago were a depleted and relatively unimportant population. These reports suggest that the period had passed when the Winnebago fought with the Illini and blocked the westward advance of the Ottawa, thus prompting at least in part Nicolet's 1634 visit to Wisconsin. The Winnebago of 1665, therefore, do not seem to have been engaged in the same political and military milieus as were their ancestors. The small total population and partially disenfranchised status of the Winnebago, who had begun to abandon their lands in eastern and central Wisconsin (Lurie 1952, 1978), may also help to explain acceptance of the fur trade during the historic era. Nonetheless, there can be little doubt of Winnebago opposition to the population movements that accompanied the arrival of the fur trade in the Western Great Lakes region. Both opposition to immigration of new populations into the region and opposition to the fur trade would ultimately serve the same function, placing the Winnebago into positions of potential conflict with Ottawa and Algonquian emigrants into the region,
The motives for such opposition are also unclear, although the continued pressure placed on Winnebago control of their Wisconsin territories by other Native Americans engaged in the fur trade may have contributed to this opposition. French support of these expanding groups may also have become one of the sources of Winnebago-French tensions. Likewise, Barth's (1969a) discussion of ethnicity suggest that populations which move into territories controlled by other ethnic groups frequently become embroiled in conflicts with the controlling populations, commonly over ideological, religious, or economic matters. Regardless of the causes, however, the Winnebago opposition to westward expansion appears to have been one of the factors which prompted Nicolet's 1634 journey to Green Bay in an effort to pave the way for the continued westward expansion of the fur trade (Le Jeune in Relations 1640).
Additional Sources of French Bias
Ethnic and Political Rivalry
The portrait emerging here suggests that the American Indian populations involved in the fur trade, especially the Illini, Ottawa, and Huron, had reason to come into conflict with the Winnebago. Conflict among populations is almost universally accompanied by a mobilization of ethnic identity, as seen currently in the former Yugoslavia and Soviet Union, in order to express and bolster one's own identity and causes (Barth 1969a,b; Braroe 1968, 1975; Hodder 1979, 1982). The corollary to this is that the opposing factions in conflicts are often portrayed in negative fashions, perhaps both to identify them as different as well as to legitimize the ongoing conflict. It is therefore possible, perhaps even likely, that the information given to the French by their allies about the Winnebago reflects the mobilization of ethnic identity. In other words, the French were receiving and accepting information and accounts that had been systematically altered by their Native American allies in order to meet the cultural and political needs of these allied populations.
The results of this process can apparently be seen in the French accounts of Winnebago behavior. For instance, the Winnebago were regularly accused of cannibalism, unwarranted aggression, duplicity, and outright treachery (La Potherie 1911; Perrot 1911). Similar claims were subsequently leveled against the Fox when they opposed French aims in the Western Great Lakes region in the 18th century (La Potherie 1911) and against both the Ottawa and Huron when they too rebelled against the French regime in the region (Allouez in Relations 1666-67, 1669-70; La Potherie in Blair 1911; Marest in Thwaites 1902; Dubuisson in Thwaites 1902).
When sources of the accusations leveled at these groups, especially at the Winnebago and Fox, are identified, the sources are usually found to originate with native informants. Because the French were dependent on friendly American Indian groups for their survival, it is likely that they drew their informants from such friendly populations. Even unattributed accounts are likely to have originated in these same French-allied populations. Since the French who penned the ethnographic accounts had been exposed almost exclusively to the Indian cultures and opinions of their allies, it is likely that written accounts of non-allies were influenced at least in part by the political stances of friendly and allied Indian populations.
The fact that the French chose their allies from Indian populations already hostile toward other native groups who opposed the French suggests that strong and consistent biases existed among the informants employed by the European chroniclers. The presence of such systematic biases may account for the consistent underrepresentation or misrepresentation of Indian peoples opposing French aims in the Western Great Lakes region.
Accusations of cannibalism, for example, are frequently recorded in the ethnohistorical record of the Western Great Lakes region (see La Potherie 1911, Perrot 1911). The oral traditions of the Native American populations living in the Great Lakes region indicate that cannibalism there is considered an aberrant behavior and is universally condemned. The very accusations of cannibalism, made to the French by their Indian allies against other Indians, make it clear that such behavior is considered revolting. It is possible, however, that "cannibalism" is used metaphorically and was mistranslated by the French. It is interesting to note that the Winnebago, and perhaps the closely related Chiwere-speaking populations as well, have a series of myths which describe their conflicts with a race of cannibalistic giants (Radin 1948). The ethnohistoric emphasis on cannibalism may be a case of the French accepting a literal translation or mistranslation of terminology used metaphorically by Native Americans to express a high level of contempt for rival ethnic groups. As noted in the previous pages, the French had established a precedent for accepting the terminology of their Indian allies in favor of collecting what may have been more appropriate, culturally accurate terminology. Such accusations then, may reflect more a mobilization of ethnic identity, and thus a process of legitimizing aggression against rival populations, rather than reflecting an accurate ethnographic assessment of these rival groups.
As noted above, it is precisely this type of legitimation which might be expected in culture-conflict situations (Braroe 1975; Eidheim 1969; Siverts 1969; Goffman 1956, 1959; Gonzalez 1989; Roosens 1989). Accusations of cannibalism or other culturally unacceptable behavior both legitimize conflict against an opposing group, on the basis that such populations are aberrant, while also marking opponents in a negative fashion. In addition, any sympathies present among the accusing peoples toward an opposing group are removed by marking the opponents in a way that is antithetical to the belief system of the accusers (Braroe 1975; Eidheim 1969).
This mobilization of ethnic values may also have been used as leverage to increase French support for their allies. American Indians were doubtless aware of French philosophical and moral tendencies, especially those of the various missionary groups (Dablon in Relations 1669-70; Allouez in Relations 1669-70), and may have been exploiting such European philosophical tendencies to increase the support received from the French. The initial accusations of cannibalism against the Winnebago, for instance, may have been made both to identify these people as a rival ethnic group and to elicit a response of disgust from the French toward the Winnebago. By playing on European moral and philosophical stances, groups such as the Illini may have been moving to block any potential alliance between the French and the Winnebago. The Illini may have perceived that it was not unusual for the French to attempt to influence Indian populations through trade rather than risk a direct military confrontation. Were such a trading arrangement to have been made, however, the Illini would have been restricted from expanding their own trade network into the Western Great Lakes region as the French would have already had a trading partner, the Winnebago, in the region. Consequently, it would have been to the Illini's best interest to sway the French into despising or fearing the Winnebago so that the Illini could continue to manipulate local political and trading contacts with the Europeans.
Without some form of documentation we can never be sure if such exploitation existed, but it is clear that the French were aware of the shrewdness of American Indian political leaders. Bobe, reviewing La Potherie's Historie, states this very clearly:
We shall recognize that these people who we treat as savages are very brave, capable leaders, good soldiers, very discreet and subtle politicians, shrewd, given to dissimulation, understanding perfectly their own interests, and knowing well how to carry out their purposes. In short, the French and the English have need of all their cleverness and intellect to deal with the savages. (Bobe 1753, in Blair 1911:135-36)
Lack of Direct Importance of the Winnebago to French Endeavors
The paucity of colonial records regarding otherwise known populations who neither participated directly in the fur trade nor presented a direct military threat to the French provides additional support for a hypothesis postulating both deliberate provision of inaccurate information to the Europeans and the acceptance of such tales. For example, the French seldom mention the presence or activities of Siouan-speaking groups east of the Mississippi even after having encountered these groups firsthand. The lack of comment concerning such populations is striking, especially for the Winnebago, who were living very near the Algonquian-speaking peoples with whom the French regularly interacted. The silence cannot be attributed solely to population sizes, because the French comment regularly on the condition and activities of the Potowatami and Menominee populations, both of which were quite small but whose members were generally friendly with missionaries and traders. Likewise, the situation cannot be attributed to inaccessibility of Winnebago settlements to the French, as the latter noted that the Potowatami and Menominee lived very close to the Winnebago near Green Bay.
Rather, the lack of mention of Siouan-speakers appears to stem, at least in part, from the lack of importance these groups held for French survival, trading, and missionary activities. By the middle of the 17th century, when the French had established themselves in what is now Wisconsin and Illinois, the Winnebago had been decimated by warfare and disease (Lurie 1960, 1978). The Winnebago probably posed little threat to the French. In chronicling Nicolet's 1634 voyage to Wisconsin, Vimont mentions the Winnebago as commanding the entrance to Green Bay (Relations 1640). Writing 20 years later, however, Allouez describes the Winnebago as having been almost entirely destroyed by warfare with the Illini (Lurie 1978; Lawson 1907; Jones 1974). Allouez states that the Winnebago were fierce warriors who had once dominated the Western Great Lakes region but had subsequently been reduced through warfare and consequently no longer posed any substantial military threat. Far from the powerful nation which had reportedly controlled Green Bay and waged continuous wars with the Illini and their allies, the people encountered by the French were only a small, normally endogamous group recently forced to begin intermarriage with the Potowatami and Menominee (Allouez in Thwaites 1902).
Once the French assessed the military capability of the Winnebago for themselves, as opposed to relying on reports from their Indian allies, few subsequent references are made to the Winnebago, although Allouez visited them in 1670 (Relations 1671). At this time these people were living with the Potowatami and were characterized as having the same lifestyle as their Algonquian neighbors. In fact, subsequent references to the Winnebago, such as those of Dablon who visited them in 1673 (Relations 1673), invariably describe them in terms of their Algonquian neighbors. Thus, from the French perspective, the Winnebago had moved from potentially dangerous opponents in 1634 to little more than a series of small, undifferentiated groups of people in 1670, only occasionally worthy of mention in the field reports of Jesuit missionaries.
Language Barriers
An additional element which affects the French records regarding Siouan-speakers seems to have been a language barrier. The French missionaries and explorers were familiar with the Iroquoian dialects spoken by the Neutral and Huron populations and also knew many of the Central Algonquian dialects. It appears that the farther west and south the French traveled, however, the more difficulty they had in comprehending the various dialects and languages spoken by the Indians they encountered. Allouez (Relations 1666-67), for example, reported that although he was familiar with the dialects of many of the Algonquian-speaking populations he had met, he had a great deal of difficulty understanding the dialects of the Illini (also Algonquian-speakers), especially those who were living far to the south of the Great Lakes.
A review of the glottochronological and archaeological records for the Western Great Lakes region and adjoining regions of the American Midwest (where many of the populations once resident in the Western Great Lakes region eventually migrated) suggests that a language barrier should be expected. The different peoples resident in the Western Great Lakes region were widely separated geographically and, by the time the French arrived on the scene, represented linguistically diverse groups which had, over the course of centuries, emigrated to these areas from throughout the eastern and midwestern portions of North America (Springer and Witkowski 1982; Grimm 1985; Mott 1938).
Likewise and as noted previously, many of the French names for Siouan-speaking groups are derived from Algonquian dialects and not from the Siouan dialects themselves. The names the various Algonquian- and Iroquois-speaking peoples gave to themselves, on the other hand, were known to and sometimes employed by the French. This largely reflects French familiarity with Algonquian languages and traditions and relative ignorance of comparable Siouan traits. The fact that the French could not easily communicate directly with Siouan-speakers while they could readily converse with at least some Algonquian-speakers made the latter more likely to be used as informants by colonial agents. Coupled with apparent hostilities by some Siouan-speaking populations toward European activities in the Western Great Lakes region, the language barrier may have severely limited French exposure to the Siouan-speaking peoples during the first several decades of direct contact, or at least until the French mastered the fundamentals of Siouan linguistics.
It can be argued that language should have presented no barriers at all to the French explorers since they could have, and probably did, engage Native American translators. The fundamental pitfalls with such an attack on the importance of linguistics to exploration are legion, though, and need to be considered briefly. First, and as demonstrated by Allouez's comment on his difficulties with dialects of the Algonquian language noted above, the French were rarely fluent even in the languages of the people with whom they regularly dealt. Certainly they could communicate adequately to convey meaning and could, in at least some cases, do so with the subtlety of a native speaker. In general, however, the nuances and multiple meanings of much vocabulary seem to have been either missed entirely or altered with geographic and cultural distance. This sort of linguistic variation between groups speaking a common language is a common form of marking identity (Blom 1969; Gonzalez 1989; Barth 1969a,b).
Second, and as argued above, this small-scale linguistic barrier is likely to have been increased on an order of magnitude at least when the French began to deal with Siouan-speakers. At least initially, and it is to be noted that the early French records are of particular importance to the discussion at hand, the French seem to have been forced to rely on Algonquian- and Huron-speakers to translate from French into a language with which the Siouan-speakers were familiar. This translation was likely not perfect and, in fact, given the hostile attitudes documented between the Algonquian- and Huron-speakers and the Winnebago, it seems possible that the translations were far from perfect. The two groups simply do not seem to have interacted regularly enough to develop a comprehensive understanding of each other's language. Sagard (1939), for instance, notes that knowledge of the Huron language is valuable because the language is understood by other Indian groups, including the Tobacco, Neutral, and Puans, or Winnebago, and could be used as sort of a lingua franca. A closer reading of Sagard's accounts, however, makes it clear that he refers to a basic ability to communicate in the Huron language, not necessarily in a sophisticated or unbiased fashion.
Further, if the basic tenet is that the French employed guides and translators predisposed against the Siouan-speakers, then it is likely that these translators also introduced their own biases into the translations, further complicating an already complex sequence. At the same time, and regardless of how savvy they may have been, the French had little recourse or, as argued above, little desire to question the linguistic information they received from their translators. Consequently, it appears that only slowly did the French develop a more comprehensive understanding of the various Siouan dialects. The initial Gallic ideas about and toward the Siouan-speakers, and hence the ideas and attitudes reflected in the early historical writings so frequently cited by ethnohistorians, reflect this earlier period of linguistic and ideological ignorance and, as a result, are at least partially the result of linguistic barriers.
Precontact Disease and Rapid Depopulation
Even allowing for the biases discussed above, there are still dramatic differences between the early French accounts and later reports of Siouan-speaking populations in the region. The transition from a dominant military and political role in the region to that of a minor one is striking. It was apparently very rapid, and likely affected organization, customs, and perception of the Winnebago by other groups. The discrepancies are not easily explained by any single factor but may be related to both ethnic biases in reporting and changes in demography of those reported about. For example, early accounts of the Winnebago, especially those related to warfare with their neighbors, paint a portrait of a large, hierarchically organized, warlike population powerful enough to repel Illini aggression. By 1650, however, the Winnebago were clearly perceived to be minor players in the complex Native American-French interactions in the region. Given the effects of disease on Indian populations elsewhere in the New World (Dobyns 1983; Ramenofsky 1987), it is possible, perhaps even likely, that epidemics were also partially responsible for some of the aforementioned discrepancies in the ethnohistoric records.
Recent work by Ramenofsky (1987) has demonstrated that Old World diseases such as measles and smallpox affected populations along the length of the Missouri River during the 17th and 18th centuries, often prior to direct contact with Europeans. Ramenofsky argues that the epidemics were spread through normal contacts between Indian populations and brought with them widespread depopulation, frequently forcing adoption of new settlement strategies designed to cope with reduced numbers of potential mates and labor forces. If such an episode occurred among the Siouan-speaking populations in the Western Great Lakes region, then it could have important implications for illuminating the processes through which the influx of French goods and influence entered that region. Similarly, such an episode may prove important in the construction of the histories of Winnebago hegemony and decline in the region.
A documented avenue for disease transmission traversed the Great Lakes and caused widespread death throughout the 18th and 19th centuries (Tanner 1987). An earlier sequence of epidemics than those documented by Tanner (1987), however, devastated the Winnebago sometime prior to 1660 (Lurie 1960) and these epidemics too may have moved westward through either direct or indirect transmission from the French. Disease as well as trade goods may have spread westward through American Indian populations dealing with French traders based in the Eastern and Central Great Lakes.
The second entry point for diseases into the Midwest may have been the American southeast, up the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers from the Gulf and Atlantic coasts (Ramenofsky 1987; Dobyns 1983). A similar avenue into the Western Great Lakes region is possible, moving from the Mississippi River up the Wisconsin and Rock Rivers into central Wisconsin (figure 1). This possibility seems feasible given the connections between the Chiwere-speaking groups, the Winnebago, and, as argued later, other populations involved with the archaeologically defined Mississippian cultures. This may have proven especially relevant to Upper Mississippian peoples, such as those responsible for the various Oneota complexes throughout the Western Great Lakes region, as it was the more southerly Mississippian and related populations which bore the initial brunt of the Old World diseases (see below). If there is an intimate connection between peoples of the Upper Mississippian and Mississippian archaeological cultures (see chapters 5 and 6), then there may be a previously unexamined vector for disease transmission into the Western Great Lakes region and, with it, widespread depopulation. The presence of such a vector may help to account for the dramatic population loss the Winnebago seem to have undergone between Nicolet's visit and Perrot's arrival in Wisconsin. The Winnebago may have been contracting communicable diseases through contact with both their Chiwere- or other Siouan-speaking relations to the south and west and the Algonquian-speaking peoples moving into Wisconsin from the east.
In fact, disease may have played a greater role in the massive population displacements of the protohistoric era in the American Midwest than has heretofore been recognized (see chapters 2 and 5). If this second set of avenues for disease transmission did exist, then the late precontact and protohistoric populations living in the region may have been exposed to repeated epidemics from two directions. Such a situation could well have resulted in the catastrophic population loss inferred previously and could plausibly have forced dramatic accommodations in the social structures of the populations caught between repeated epidemics.
Certainly, this possibility warrants additional investigation by researchers concerned with the history of the region. One possible avenue of research into this problem would be to analyze samples of skeletal remains from throughout the Midwest. Such an approach is problematic, however, on both ethical and legal grounds. Consequently, alternative lines of research need to be developed in ordered to pursue this avenue of research.
The oral traditions of the Ioway and Winnebago may provide one such alternative means through which to infer the impact of Old World diseases in the region during the 16th and 17th centuries. Winnebago and Ioway tales of a settlement at Red Banks (see chapters 1, 5, and 6) where a substantial archaeological site is known to exist, describe a large population center which was abandoned due to disease. Oral traditions record that this settlement was inhabited by a single population that is ancestral to both the Chiwere-speaking populations and the Winnebago. The population at the site dispersed across the landscape and founded new, smaller, settlements probably organized into family units. This is similar to the response detailed by Ramenofsky for epidemics among Siouan-speakers, such as the Mandan and Hidatsa along the Missouri River, and corresponds closely to the disease responses inferred for the American southeast by both Ramenofsky (1987) and Dobyns (1983).
The timing of European-introduced diseases arriving in the Western Great Lakes region might actually predate their arrival elsewhere in the Midwest, based on the proximity of Wisconsin and Minnesota to the potential main disease corridors, the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes. Although this assertion remains speculative and requires additional work, there may be a connection in the spread of diseases along the Mississippi River and its major tributaries.
In addition to the possibility for rapid population loss through disease, warfare could have reduced population levels as hinted in oral traditions and the ethnohistoric documents mentioned earlier describing conflicts between the Winnebago and the Illini and their Algonquian-speaking allies. As noted earlier, the French record such wars as having been responsible for the destruction of the Winnebago (Allouez in Jones 1974) while the Winnebago themselves acknowledge that they had lost a large portion of their population through military clashes (La Potherie 1911; Lawson 1907; Radin 1915e).
In cases both of warfare and disease, the Winnebago in Wisconsin are likely to have been forced to adopt new subsistence and, perhaps, social strategies in order to survive. Radin (1911b, 1915b, 1923) has documented that the Winnebago were forced by the lack of eligible endogamous marriage partners to intermarry with the same Algonquian-speaking tribes the French once reported the Siouan-speakers as combating. Similarly, Radin also inferred the deterioration of other Winnebago social structures along with subsistence shifts from gardening to hunting and gathering. The net result of such shifts is that the Winnebago began to resemble their Algonquian-speaking neighbors in increasing numbers of ways. As Radin (1915, 1926b, 1923) noted, however, the Winnebago retained their own language and actively projected a distinct "Siouan" identity despite having undergone numerous social adaptations.
In addition to the Gallic cultural biases discussed earlier, it seems probable that French descriptions of Winnebago identity and behavior, sparse as they are, reflect adaptations of an Indian population under severe economic and physical duress. In chapter 6 Winnebago oral traditions are examined to evaluate further the accuracy present in ethnohistoric documents. For instance, the extent to which ethnographic and ethnohistoric documents reflect Winnebago ethnic identity during the precontact era may be interpreted in light of how the Winnebago defined their own ethnic identity through their oral traditions (see chapters 5 and 6).
Implications and New Directions
The inferences which can be and have been drawn from the French documents would identify the 16th- and 17th-century Winnebago as having a lifestyle similar to those of Algonquian-speaking Woodland groups (Radin 1915b, 1923; Dorsey 1887; Lawson 1907; Overstreet 1976). This, in turn, suggests that the Winnebago engaged in seasonal rounds in parts of Wisconsin, participated in religious customs similar to those of their neighbors, and were organized patrilocally and patrilineally. Precisely such customs were subsequently inferred by Paul Radin, who worked extensively with the Winnebago during the opening decades of the 20th century (see chapter 3).
Questions regarding the antiquity of such behaviors, however, are raised when researchers attempt to trace Winnebago origins into the prehistoric era. Because of the numerous disruptions brought on by epidemics, migration, and European contact, it is possible that the ethnic signatures archaeologists have been looking for are inadequate or inaccurate. Although researchers such as Overstreet (1976, 1978) and Griffin (1937) have attempted to link the Winnebago with the late prehistoric populations responsible for the remains of Upper Mississippian Oneota phases in Wisconsin, no substantiating evidence has been uncovered. None of the Oneota sites yet to be examined has revealed or suggested the presence of cultural traditions which are distinctly Winnebago. Further, without a distinctly Winnebago archaeological signature (i.e., an assemblage of artifacts or suite of settlement traits) it is unlikely that archaeologists employing solely a direct historical approach (see chapter 5) will be able to tie Winnebago occupations in the region specifically to Oneota or other archaeological traditions. Consequently, researchers are hampered in their attempts to reconstruct the ethnohistorical sequence of the Western Great Lakes region and Upper Midwest.
As discussed in chapters 6 and 7, examination of Winnebago oral traditions suggests additional difficulties with treating the French interpretations as valid. As noted earlier in this chapter, oral traditions regarding the origin of the populations we now call the Winnebago and the closely related Ioway identify Red Banks on the shores of Green Bay as being the location for the ethnic unification of these groups. Both the Ioway and the Winnebago (Skinner 1926; Radin 1923; Lurie, personal communication, 1990) have traditions which relate how widespread disease devastated the population at Red Banks and how people subsequently moved away.
According to the legends, which are remarkably similar between the two groups, the Ioway moved west onto the plains to hunt buffalo while the Winnebago left Red Banks but remained in Wisconsin, attracted by the plentiful fish in the Western Great Lakes region. One of the important aspects of these legends is that they indicate the occupation of a legendary site, called Red Banks, by a combined Winnebago-Chiwere population prior to the linguistically determined dates for the fissioning of these populations (see figures 2 and 3).
It should be noted, however, that Lurie (personal communication, 1991) has suggested the presence of multiple prehistoric villages bearing the name of Red Banks, each of which may represent a combined Chiwere-Winnebago settlement. Consequently, it is important for archaeologists not to focus on the search for a single homeland for these people but to keep in mind that traditions of Red Banks may reflect a symbolic accounting of a sequence of events that occurred over a significant period of time. Hence, the antecedents to the later Winnebago and Chiwere-speaking peoples may have been responsible in part or whole for a wide variety of archaeological sites throughout the Western Great Lakes region. At least as significantly, and as discussed in chapters 6 and 7, there is no reason to suspect that such antecedents were restricted to producing cultural materials typical of a single material culture.
New avenues of research need to be explored in order to better understand the ethnohistory of the region, especially pertaining to the formation of distinct Winnebago, Ioway, Oto, and Missouri ethnic identities. Examinations of the archaeological and glottochronological records as well as the oral traditions of the various populations known to have been present in the Western Great Lakes region during the early years of European contact may shed new light on salient identities and Native American political relationships (see chapters 5, 6, and 7). For example, preliminary examinations of Winnebago and Chiwere oral traditions, coupled with linguistic evidence, suggest these populations may have been living as a single, larger unit in the Western Great Lakes region as recently as 1500 A.D. Consequently, accounts of a Winnebago hegemony in the region may better reflect a combined Winnebago-Chiwere hegemony.
As will be documented in chapter 6, the oral traditions of the Winnebago, at least, may demonstrate a consistent emphasis on matrilineal relationships and highly stratified social rankings. Given the likelihood that these populations may have undergone extreme population stress as a result of warfare and disease during the late precontact era, it is possible that modern accounts of these populations do not accurately reflect their precontact social organizations. Powers (1977), for example, has documented a complex system of social and political relationships among Lakota-speakers which demonstrates the fluidity with which this population can shift from functioning as localized communities to operating as a single, multi-community political entity. The possibility that the Chiwere and Winnebago may have operated as closely allied, or even a single, population during the late precontact era, may provide additional insights into the political environment and relationships among American Indian populations prior to the direct intervention of Europeans.
Summary
Based on the review of materials presented above, it is clear that conventional historical and anthropological interpretations of French ethnohistoric accounts of Siouan-speaking populations in the Western Great Lakes region, especially those pertaining to the Winnebago, lack specific and accurate information pertaining to ethnic groups. The shortcomings present in the French accounts seem to be closely related both to political interactions between American Indian populations and to French social ideologies. In particular, it appears likely that American Indian populations seeking to increase their political and economic leverage with the French deliberately misinformed the latter regarding the behaviors of potential rivals for European economic support. Consequently, populations such as the Winnebago, who opposed the westward expansion of the fur trade and of the various American Indian populations who supported it, found themselves at political and military odds with both the French and their Indian trading partners.
As the conflict among the American Indian populations increased, ethnic boundaries were mobilized which eventually led to French chroniclers' accepting inaccurate attributions of ethnicity regarding people opposed to the fur trade. Such ascriptions were provided to the French by allied Indian populations who sought to manipulate French military and economic support in order to increase their own political positions. Consequently, the French ethnohistoric documents are biased in favor of those groups who supported French aims in the Western Great Lakes region while being biased against those populations which were either unimportant to such aims or actively opposed to them.
As discussed in chapters 6 and 7, analysis of Winnebago oral traditions suggests that a very different social structure may have been in place during the precontact era. In particular, Winnebago mythical and historical accounts seem to indicate that earlier times were marked by greater social differentiation and greater importance of women in tracing family lineages and village social hierarchy.
Researchers concerned with the ethnohistoric record of the Western Great Lakes region should place greater emphasis on the oral traditions of the native peoples in the region than is currently done. Among other things, such emphases may provide more accurate ethnographic analogies than are currently available from historic documents. Likewise, such approaches probably more accurately portray the salient identities of the people who operated within these structures than does direct ethnographic analogy based on narrative ethnographies (e.g., Radin 1923).
1. 0 No page numbers were available in the copy obtained for the work undertaken here. 0 Brackets such as {} surround material added here. Squared brackets, such as [], are retained from the original text as presented by La Potherie and edited by Blair (1911). 0 For purposes of this volume the Central Great Lakes region includes eastern and central Michigan, northern Indiana, Ohio, southern Ontario. 0 "Grandfathers" is a term frequently used by Native American groups to refer to a past generation and not specifically to the generation Westerners assign to their parents' parents.
