WINNEBAGO
Linguistically the Winnebago Indians are closely related to the {~LATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED T~}{~LATIN SMALL LETTER OPEN O~}iwe're
on the one side and to the Mandan on the other. They were first mentioned
in the Jesuit Relation of 1636, though the earliest known use of the name
Winnebago occurs in the Relation of 1640; Nicollet found them on Green bay
in 1639. According to Shea, the Winnebago were almost annihilated by the
Illinois (Algonquian) tribe in early days, and the historical group was
made up of the survivors of the early battles. Cbauvignerie placed the
Winnebago on Lake Superior in 1736, and Jefferys referred to them and the
Sac as living near the head of Green bay in 1761; Carver mentions a
Winnebago village on a small island near the eastern end of Winnebago lake
in 1778. Pike enumerated seven Winnebago villages existing in 1811; and in
1822 the population of the tribe was estimated at 5,800 (including 900
warriors) in the country about Winnebago lake and extending thence
southwestward to the Mississippi. By treaties in 1825 and 1832 they ceded
their lands south of Wisconsin and Fox rivers for a reservation on the
Mississippi above the Oneota; one of their villages in 1832 was at Prairie
la Grosse. They suffered several visitations of smallpox; the third, which
occurred in 1836, carried off more than a quarter of the tribe. A part of
the people long remained widely distributed over their old country east of
the Mississippi and along that river in Iowa and Minnesota; in 1840 most
of the tribe removed to the neutral ground in the then territory of Iowa;
in 1846 they surrendered their reservation for another above the
Minnesota, and in 1856 they were removed to Blue Earth, Minnesota.
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