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History of Wisconsin

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Wisconsin became a state on May 29, 1848, but the land that makes up the state has been occupied by humans for thousands of years. The history of Wisconsin encompasses not only the stories of the people who have lived in Wisconsin since it became a state of the U.S., but also the stories of the Native American tribes who made their homelands in Wisconsin, and the French traders who were the first Europeans to live here.

Contents

Pre-Columbian history

The first known inhabitants of what is now Wisconsin were the Paleo-Indians, who first arrived in the region in about 10,000 BC. They used primitive weapons to hunt animals such as mammoths and mastodons. The Boaz mastodon, and the Clovis artifacts discovered in Boaz, Wisconsin, show that hunting was the primary occupation for these people. The Plano culture began to dominate Wisconsin around 7000 BC, as the last glaciers retreated from the state. During the Archaic stage, from 6,000 – 1,000 BC, Wisconsin was inhabited by the Boreal Archaic and the Old Copper Indians. People during this time lived in small groups or bands, and continued to depend on hunting for their existence. By the time of the early Woodland period that began around 500 BC, farming began to replace hunting as a means of supplying food. This allowed for the creation of permanent settlements. With permanent settlement came more advanced art and pottery. The first Indian mounds were built during this period, mainly for burial purposes. As the Hopewell culture emerged in around 100 BC, farming, art, and mound building were significantly advanced. The late Woodland period began in about 600 AD. The Effigy Mound culture dominated Wisconsin during this time, and built sophisticated mounds in the shapes of animals for ceremonial reasons. The Mississippian culture began to expand into Wisconsin in 1050 AD, and established a settlement at Aztalan, Wisconsin. The Mississippian culture was replaced by the Oneota people in around 1200 AD. This culture eventually evolved into the Siouan tribes known to European explorers. When the first Europeans reached Wisconsin, the primary inhabitants were the Chippewa, Ho-Chunk, Menominee, Sac (tribe), and Fox.

Exploration and colonization

French exploration

The first known European to enter Wisconsin was French Voyageur Jean Nicolet. In 1634, Samuel Champlain, governor of New France, gave Nicolet the task of searching for a water route to China through North America. Accompanied by seven Huron Indian guides, Nicolet left Canada and canoed through Lake Huron and Lake Superior, and then became the first European to enter Lake Michigan. Nicolet proceeded to row into Green Bay and came ashore near the present-day city of Green Bay, Wisconsin. When Nicolet reached land, he was greeted by several Ho-Chunk living in the area. Nicolet remained with the Ho-Chunk at Green Bay through the winter and established a trading post there before returning to Canada in 1635.

The next major expedition into Wisconsin was that of Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet in 1673. After hearing rumors from Indians telling of the existence of the Mississippi River, Marquette and Joliet set out from St. Ignace, Michigan and entered the Fox River at Green Bay. They canoed up the Fox until they reached the river’s westernmost point, and then portaged, or carried their boats, to the nearby Wisconsin River, where they resumed canoeing downstream to the Mississippi River. Marquette and Joliet reached the Mississippi near what is now Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin on June 17 1673. Their route along the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway remained the primary route used by Europeans to reach the Mississippi River until the 19th Century. Marquette and Joliet continued exploring the Mississippi River as far south as Arkansas before turning back and returning to Mackinac. Marquette and Joliet bypassed Wisconsin on their return journey, traveling through Illinois instead.

French colonization

Unlike the British colonists, who created several agricultural cities and towns in their colonies on the Atlantic coast, the French were interested primarily in the fur trade, and established very few settlements in their colonization of Wisconsin. The first settlement, at Green Bay, was called simply “La Baye” by the French, and was started with Nicolet’s original trading post in 1634. A Jesuit Mission was established at Green Bay in 1671, and a Fort was built at the settlement in 1717.

When the French made Nicholas Perrot commander of the west in 1685, he established two “forts” at locations along the Mississippi River. The first, Fort St. Nicholas, was built at Prairie du Chien, at the southwest end of the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway. The second of Perrot’s forts was located over a hundred miles northwest of Prairie du Chien on the shores of Lake Pepin. It was named Fort St. Antoine. While these structures were called forts, they were actually little more than small warehouses to store furs and other goods used in the fur trade.

In addition to the outposts at Green Bay, Prairie du Chien, and Lake Pepin, a Jesuit mission and a trading post were built on the shores of Lake Superior at La Pointe, Wisconsin at the end of the 17th Century.

None of the French settlements had any permanent settlers, only traders and missionaries who would live at one temporarily to conduct their business, and then either return east to Quebec or Montreal, or move on to a different settlement. Permanent settlement of Wisconsin did not begin until the British took control in 1763.

The British period

The British gained control of Wisconsin in 1763, after winning the French and Indian War. They did little to change what the French had started, and were interested in little but the fur trade. The first permanent settlers, most of them French, arrived in Wisconsin during this period. Sieur Charles Michel de Langlade was the first settler, he settled at Green Bay in 1764. Settlement began at Prairie du Chien around 1781. The British briefly used Wisconsin as a base for western operations during the American Revolutionary War. After the Americans won the conflict, Britain gave Wisconsin to the United States in the Treaty of Paris (1783).

The territorial period

For the first several years of its existence, the United States had little interest or influence over what would later become its thirtieth state, although the new government did organize the land that would later become the states of Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and part of what would later be Minnesota into the new Northwest Territory in 1787. A few years later, in 1795, a French trader named Jacques Vieau built a series of trading posts that would later grow into the cities of Milwaukee, Sheboygan, Manitowoc, and Kewaunee. Wisconsin became part of Indiana Territory in 1800.

Because the U.S. government was so slow to present any authority over the region that would become Wisconsin, the area remained largely controlled by the British into the 1810s. British colonists lived in Wisconsin towns, British companies controlled the local fur trade, and British troops kept law and order. This would soon change, however; as the United States and the United Kingdom went to war in 1812.

War of 1812

The War of 1812 began when the U.S. declared war on Britain, due largely to the impressment of American sailors into the British Navy by the United Kingdom. What began as a war over rights at sea soon spread to the U.S. border with Canada and the American frontier. In June, 1814, General William Clark ordered the construction of Fort Shelby at Prairie du Chien in order to defend the nation’s interior from attack via the Fox-Wisconsin Waterway. On July 17, before Fort Shelby could be fully completed, several hundred British troops and their Indian allies attacked the American forces at Prairie du Chien. The outnumbered Americans sought protection in their unfinished fort, and the battle continued into the next day. A steady but ineffectual gunfire barraged both sides at all times. By the third day of the battle, the well in Fort Shelby had collapsed, leaving the U.S. troops without water. Water was essential not only for drinking, but also to put out any fires that sprung up in the wooden fort. With the looming possibility of the British setting fire to the fort, the Americans surrendered on July 20. Wisconsin’s only battle in the War of 1812 resulted in no human deaths and only five injuries. For the next year, the British controlled Wisconsin and Fort Shelby, which they renamed Fort McKay. In 1815 the Treaty of Ghent returned Wisconsin, now a part of Illinois Territory, to the United States. After the treaty was signed the British left Wisconsin for the last time. In order to prevent any future invasion, the United States Military constructed two forts in Wisconsin during 1816, Fort Howard in Green Bay and Fort Crawford in Prairie du Chien.

The lead boom

Lead was first discovered in the hills of southwest Wisconsin by Native Americans long before any Europeans had come to the area. French explorer Nicholas Perrot was the first white man to find lead in Wisconsin, which he did in 1690. But when Wisconsin became part of Michigan Territory in 1818, there were still only a few local Native Americans actively mining lead. As industry grew in the United States, however, the demand for lead increased. During the 1820s, a series of treaties were signed with the local Indian tribes, removing them from their land and leaving the lead mining region open to white miners. Soon thousands of people were coming to southwest Wisconsin to mine lead. At first the miners came from Missouri and Illinois, but soon men were coming from New York and the northeastern part of the country to mine the “gray gold”, as lead was sometimes called. Eventually people from as far away as Europe, especially from Cornwall, England, were coming to southwest Wisconsin to start mines. Oftentimes these miners didn’t even bother to build homes for themselves, opting instead to live in their mines. All the people burrowing and living in the ground earned Wisconsin its nickname: “The Badger State”. Around the mines, boomtowns like Mineral Point, Platteville, Shullsburg, Belmont, and New Diggings sprang out of the wilderness. In 1836 nearly half of Wisconsin’s people were living in the lead mining region, leading to the establishment of the territorial capitol at Belmont. By the 1840s, southwest Wisconsin mines were producing more than half of the nation’s lead.

Indian wars

While the settlers who arrived in Wisconsin during the lead boom usually maintained tense but peaceful relations with the local Native Americans, violence sometimes broke out. In 1827 the Winnebago War caused significant panic in the southwest part of the state following the murder of two men in Prairie du Chien by a Winnebago leader named Red Bird. Red Bird and his followers went on to commit more murders, and they terrorized settlers throughout the lead mining region. Militias were organized in Prairie du Chien and Galena, Illinois to fend off possible attacks. In September, 1827, the uprising came to an end in Portage, Wisconsin, when Red Bird and his companions surrendered before the threat of open warfare with the United States military. Following these events, the military constructed Fort Winnebago in Portage to discourage future uprisings. While the Winnebago War caused little loss of life, it instilled a significant amount of fear into the early settlers of Wisconsin, and discouraged many from coming to the territory.

A few years after the Winnebago War, the Black Hawk War of 1832 began in Illinois and spread across the border into Wisconsin. Two major battles of the war took place in Wisconsin. The first of these was the July 21 Battle of Wisconsin Heights, fought two miles from what is today Sauk City, along the Wisconsin River. Later, at the start of August, the war came to an end at the Battle of Bad Axe, fought along the Mississippi River at the mouth of the Bad Axe River near present day Victory, Wisconsin. The leader of the Sac and Fox uprising, Chief Black Hawk, was absent at the Battle of Bad Axe, and remained in hiding until August 27, when he surrendered to U.S. forces at Fort Crawford.

Territorial status

Settlement began while the area was still part of the Michigan Territory, when the first two public land offices opened in 1834 at Mineral Point and Green Bay.[#endnote_Landoffices] As the Indian conflicts were resolved, more and more people began to arrive in Wisconsin. The lead mines in the southwestern part of the state drew most new settlers, but some were drawn by other factors. As the population grew it became clear that Wisconsin was ready to break with Michigan Territory and become a territory in its own right. Wisconsin Territory was created by an act of Congress on April 20, 1836. The new territory included all of the present day states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa, as well as parts of North and South Dakota. Henry Dodge was appointed to be the territory’s first governor. Dodge and the other territorial officials began their terms of service by organizing the territory’s government and selecting a capital city. The selection of a location to build a capitol caused a heated debate among the new lawmakers. At first Governor Dodge selected Belmont, located in the heavily populated lead mining district, to be capital. Shortly after the new legislature convened there, however, it became obvious that Wisconsin's first capitol was inadequate. Numerous other suggestions for the location of the capital were given representing nearly every city that existed in the territory at the time, and Governor Dodge left the decision up to the other lawmakers. After much intense deliberation, the legislature accepted a proposal by James Duane Doty to build a new city named Madison on an isthmus between lakes Mendota and Monona and put the territory’s permanent capital there. While the capitol building was being constructed in Madison, a temporary site had to be chosen for the legislature to meet in the meantime. It was decided that the temporary capitol would be located in Burlington, a city that is today in the state of Iowa. Burlington was used as the capital city until the city became part of the new Iowa Territory in 1838. Madison has been used as the capital ever since.

As Madison was being built up for use as the territorial capital, towns in southeastern Wisconsin were developing into the city of Milwaukee. Settlement in Milwaukee began in when Frenchman Jacques Vieau built a trading post on the site in 1795. In 1818 Solomon Juneau bought Vieau’s trading post and took over its operation. When the fur trade began to decline, Juneau began to focus on developing the land around his trading post. In the 1830s he formed a partnership with a Green Bay lawyer named Morgan Martin, and the two men bought 160 acres (0.6 km²) of land between Lake Michigan and the Milwaukee River. Upon this land they founded the settlement of Juneautown. Meanwhile, an Ohio businessman named Byron Kilbourn began to invest in the land west of the Milwaukee River, forming the settlement of Kilbourntown. South of these two settlements, George H. Walker founded the town of Walker’s Point. Each of these three settlements engaged in a fierce competition to attract the most residents and become the largest of the three towns. By the 1840s, however, it became clear that cooperation between the three communities was necessary for their survival. In 1846 the settlements of Juneautown, Kilbourntown, and Walker’s Point merged into the city of Milwaukee. The new city had a population of about 10,000 people, making it the largest city in the territory. Milwaukee remains the largest city in Wisconsin to this day.

Statehood

Admittance into Union

By the mid 1840s, the population of Wisconsin Territory had grown greater than 150,000. This was more than twice the number of people required for Wisconsin to become a state. The territorial legislature accepted a proposal to apply for statehood in 1846, and in the fall of that year Wisconsin’s first constitutional convention was held in Madison. The one hundred and twenty-four delegates of the convention met through the fall to draft the constitution that would be used when Wisconsin became a state. The document they produced was extremely progressive for its time. The first constitution banned commercial banking, granted married women the right to own property, and left the question of African American suffrage to a popular vote. Most Wisconsinites considered the first constitution to be too radical, and for that reason they voted it down in an April 1847 referendum.

In December 1847, a second constitutional convention was called to create a constitution that would be more acceptable to the people. This convention removed the concepts deemed too radical in the earlier attempt at a constitution, and drafted a new, more moderate constitution for the state. The new constitution was completed early in 1848, and was accepted by the people when it came to the vote in March 1848. The ratification of a constitution allowed Wisconsin to be admitted to the Union as the thirtieth state on May 29, 1848.

Further reading

Surveys

Detailed scholarly studies

Primary sources

References

  1. ↑  [Background on land offices and settlement]

See also

External links

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