Wisconsin Vacation Guide System
Wisconsin History
The history of Wisconsin encompasses the story not only of the
people who have lived in Wisconsin since it became a state of the U.S.,
but also that of the Native American tribes who made their homeland in
Wisconsin, the French and British colonists who were the first
Europeans to live there, and the American settlers who lived in
Wisconsin when it was a territory. 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.
Painting of Jean Nicolet's 1634 discovery of Wisconsin
Pre-Columbian history
The
first known inhabitants of what is now Wisconsin were called
Paleo-Indians, who first arrived in the region in about 10,000 BC. They
hunted animals such as mammoths and mastodons. The Boaz mastodon, and
the Clovis artifacts discovered in Boaz, Wisconsin, show that hunting
was a primary occupation for these people. The Plano cultures began to
dominate Wisconsin around 7000 BC, as the last glaciers retreated from
the state. During the Archaic stage, from 6000 – 1000 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 and gathering for their existence.
By the time
of the early Woodland period that began around 500 BC, farming began to
replace hunting and gathering 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 Ojibwa, Ho-Chunk,
Menominee, Sac, and Fox.
Exploration and colonization
French exploration
The
first known European to enter Wisconsin was French coureur des bois
Jean Nicolet. In 1634, Samuel de 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
New France 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.
The
next major expedition into Wisconsin was that of Father Jacques
Marquette and Louis Jolliet in 1673. After hearing rumors from Indians
telling of the existence of the Mississippi River, Marquette and Joliet
set out from St. Ignace, in what is now 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 in June, 1673.
French colonization
French
colonists were interested primarily in the fur trade, and established
only a few small outposts. The first, 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.
Nicolas
Perrot, French commander of the west, established Fort St. Nicholas at
Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin in May, 1685, near the southwest end of the
Fox-Wisconsin Waterway. Perrot also built a fort on the shores of Lake
Pepin called Fort St. Antoine in 1686, and a second fort, called Fort
Perrot, on an island on Lake Peppin shortly after. In 1727, Fort
Beauharnois was constructed on what is now the Minnesota side of Lake
Peppin to replace the two previous forts. A fort and a Jesuit mission
were also built on the shores of Lake Superior at La Pointe, in present
day Wisconsin, in 1693 and operated until 1698. A second fort was built
on the same site in 1718 and operated until 1759. These were not
military posts, but rather small storehouses for furs.
During
the French colonial period, the first black people came to Wisconsin.
The first record of a black person comes from 1725, when a black slave
was killed along with four French men in a Native American raid on
Green Bay. Other French fur traders and military personnel brought
slaves with them to Wisconsin later in 1700s.
None of the French
posts had permanent settlers; fur traders and missionaries simply
visited them from time to time to conduct business.
The Second Fox War
In
in the 1720s, the anti-French Fox tribe, led by war chief Kiala, raided
French settlements on the Mississippi River and disrupted French trade
on Lake Michigan. From 1728 to 1733, the Fox fought against the French
supported Potawatomi, Ojibwa, Huron and Ottawa tribes. In 1733, Kiala
was captured and sold into slavery in the West Indies along with other
captured Fox.
Before the war, the Fox tribe numbered 1500, but by 1733, only 500 Fox were left. As a result, the Fox joined the Sac tribe.
The British period
The
British gradually took over Wisconsin during the French and Indian War,
taking control of Green Bay in 1761 and gaining control of all of
Wisconsin in 1763. Like the French, the British were interested in
little but the fur trade. One notable event in the fur trading industry
in Wisconsin occurred in 1791, when two free African Americans set up a
fur trading post among the Menominee at present day Marinette. The
first permanent settlers, most of them French Canadians, arrived in
Wisconsin while it was under British control. Charles Michel de
Langlade is generally recognized as the first settler, establishing a
trading post at Green Bay in 1745, and moving there permanently in
1764. Settlement began at Prairie du Chien around 1781.
The territorial period
The
United States acquired Wisconsin in the Treaty of Paris (1783).
Massachusetts claimed the territory east of the Mississippi River
between the present-day Wisconsin-Illinois border and present-day La
Crosse, Wisconsin. Virginia claimed the territory north of La Crosse to
Lake Superior and all of present-day Minnesota east of the Mississippi
River. Shortly afterward, in 1787, the Americans made Wisconsin part of
the new Northwest Territory. Later, in 1800, Wisconsin became part of
Indiana Territory. Despite the fact that Wisconsin belonged to the
United States at this time, the British continued to control the local
fur trade and maintain military alliances with Wisconsin Indians.
The War of 1812 and the Indian wars
Chief Black Hawk
The
United States did not firmly exercise control over Wisconsin until the
War of 1812. In 1814, the Americans built Fort Shelby at Prairie du
Chien. During the war, the Americans and British fought one battle in
Wisconsin, the July, 1814 Siege of Prairie du Chien, which ended as a
British victory. The British captured Fort Shelby and renamed it Fort
McKay, after Major William McKay, the British commander who led the
forces that won the Battle of Prairie du Chien. However, the 1815
Treaty of Ghent reaffirmed American jurisdiction over Wisconsin, which
was by then a part of Illinois Territory. Following the treaty, British
troops burned Fort McKay, rather than giving it back to the Americans,
and departed Wisconsin. To protect Prairie du Chien from future
attacks, the United States Army constructed Fort Crawford in 1816, on
same site as Fort Shelby. Fort Howard was also built in 1816 in Green
Bay.
Significant American settlement in Wisconsin, a part of
Michigan Territory beginning in 1818, was delayed by two Indian wars,
the minor Winnebago War of 1827 and the larger Black Hawk War of 1832.
The Winnebago War
The
Winnebago War started when, in 1826, two Winnebago men were detained at
Fort Crawford on the charges of murder and then transferred to Fort
Snelling in present day Minnesota. The Winnebago in the area believed
that both men had been executed. On June 27, 1827, a Winnebago war band
led by Chief Red Bird and the prophet White Cloud (Wabokieshiek)
attacked a family of settlers outside of Prairie du Chien, killing two
men. They then went on to attack two keel-boats on the Mississippi
River that were heading toward Fort Snelling, killing two men and
injuring four more. Seven Winnebago warriors were killed in those
attacks. The war band also attacked settlers on the lower Wisconsin
River and the lead mines at Galena, Illinois. The war band surrendered
at Portage, Wisconsin, rather than fighting the United States Army that
was pursing them.
The Black Hawk War
In the Black Hawk War,
Sac, Fox, and Kickapoo Native Americans, led by Chief Black Hawk, who
had been relocated from Illinois to Iowa, attempted to resettle in
their Illinois homeland on April 5, 1832. On May 10 Chief Black Hawk
decided to go back to Iowa. On May 14, Black Hawk's forces met with a
group of militia men led by Isaiah Stillman. All three members of Black
Hawk's parley were shot and one was killed. The Battle of Stillman's
Run ensued, leaving twelve militia men and three to five Sac and Fox
warriors dead. Of the fifteen battles of the war, six took place in
Wisconsin. The other nine as well as several smaller skirmishes took
place in Illinois. The first confrontation to take place in Wisconsin
was the first attack on Fort Blue Mounds on June 6, in which one member
of the local militia was killed outside of fort. There was also the
Spafford Farm Massacre on June 14, the Battle of Horseshoe Bend on June
16, which was a United States victory, the second attack on Fort Blue
Mounds on June 20, and the Sinsinawa Mound raid on June 29. The Native
Americans were defeated at the Battle of Wisconsin Heights on July 21,
with forty to seventy killed and only one killed on the United States
side. The Black Hawk War ended with the Bad Axe Massacre on August 1–2,
with over 150 Native Americans dead and 75 captured and only five
killed in the United States forces. Many of the Native American
warchiefs were handed over to the United States on August 20, with the
exception of Black Hawk and White Cloud, who surrendered on August 27,
1832. Black Hawk moved back to Iowa in 1833, after being held prisoner
by the United States government.
Territorial settlement
The
resolution of these Indian conflicts opened the way for Wisconsin's
settlement. Many of the region's first settlers were drawn by the
prospect of lead mining in southwest Wisconsin. This area had
traditionally been mined by Native Americans. However, after a series
of treaties removed the Indians, the lead mining region was opened to
white miners. Thousands rushed in from across the country to dig for
the "gray gold". Expert miners from Cornwall, England, formed a large
part of the wave of immigrants. Boom towns like Mineral Point,
Platteville, Shullsburg, Belmont, and New Diggings sprang up around
mines. The first two federal land offices in Wisconsin were opened in
1834 at Green Bay and at Mineral Point. By the 1840s, southwest
Wisconsin mines were producing more than half of the nation’s lead.
Wisconsin was dubbed the "Badger State" because of the lead miners who
first settled there in the 1820s and 1830s. Without shelter in the
winter, they had to "live like badgers" in tunnels burrowed into
hillsides.
Although the lead mining area drew the first major
wave of settlers, its population would soon be eclipsed by growth in
Milwaukee. Milwaukee, along with Sheboygan, Manitowoc, and Kewaunee,
can be traced back to a series of trading posts established by the
French trader Jacques Vieau in 1795. Vieau's post at the mouth of the
Milwaukee River was purchased in 1820 by Solomon Juneau, who had
visited the area as early as 1818. Juneau moved to what is now
Milwaukee and took over the trading post's operation in 1825.
When
the fur trade began to decline, Juneau focused on developing the land
around his trading post. In the 1830s he formed a partnership with
Green Bay lawyer Morgan Martin, and the two men bought 160 acres (0.6
kmē) of land between Lake Michigan and the Milwaukee River. There 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 in
1835. Each of these three settlements engaged in a fierce competition
to attract the most residents and become the largest of the three
towns. In 1840, the Wisconsin State Legislature ordered the
construction of a bridge over the Milwaukee River to replace the
inadequate ferry system. In 1845, Byron Kilbourn, who had been trying
to isolate Juneautown to make it more dependent on Kilbourntown,
destroyed a portion of the bridge, which started the Milwaukee Bridge
War. For several weeks, skirmishes broke out between the residents of
both towns. No one was killed but several people were injured, some
seriously. On January 31, 1846 the settlements of Juneautown,
Kilbourntown, and Walker’s Point merged into the incorporated city of
Milwaukee. Solomon Juneau was elected mayor. 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.
Wisconsin Territory
Wisconsin
Territory was created by an act of the United States Congress on April
20, 1836. The new territory initially included all of the present day
states of Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa, as well as parts of North and
South Dakota.
The first territorial governor of Wisconsin was
Henry Dodge. He and other territorial lawmakers were initially busied
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 territorial politicians. 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.
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. In 1837, while Madison was
being built, the capitol was temporarily moved to Burlington. This city
was transferred to Iowa Territory in 1838, along with all the lands of
Wisconsin Territory west of the Mississippi River.
Statehood
By
the mid 1840s, the population of Wisconsin Territory had exceeded
150,000, more than twice the number of people required for Wisconsin to
become a state. In 1846, the territorial legislature voted to apply for
statehood. That fall, 124 delegates debated the state constitution. The
document produced by this convention was considered extremely
progressive for its time. It 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, however, and voted
it down in an April 1847 referendum.
In December 1847, a second
constitutional convention was called. This convention resulted in a
new, more moderate state constitution that Wisconsinites approved in a
March 1848 referendum, enabling Wisconsin to become the 30th state on
May 29, 1848. Wisconsin was the last state entirely east of the
Mississippi River (and by extension the last state formed entirely from
territory assigned to the U.S. in the 1783 Treaty of Paris) to be
admitted to the Union.
With statehood, came the creation of the
University of Wisconsin-Madison, which is the state's oldest public
university. The creation of this university was set aside in the state
charter.
Early state economy
In 1847, the Mineral Point
Tribune reported that the town's furnaces were producing 43,800 pounds
(19,900 kg) of lead each day. Lead mining in southwest Wisconsin began
to decline after 1848 and 1849 when the combination of less easily
accessible lead ore and the California Gold Rush made miners leave the
area. The lead mining industry in mining communities such as Mineral
Point managed to survive into the 1860s, but the industry was never as
prosperous as it was before the decline.
A railroad frenzy swept
Wisconsin shortly after it achieved statehood. The first railroad line
in the state was opened between Milwaukee and Waukesha in 1851 by the
Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad. The railroad pushed
on, reaching Milton, Wisconsin in 1852, Stoughton, Wisconsin in 1853,
and the capital city of Madison in 1854. The company reached its goal
of completing a rail line across the state from Lake Michigan to the
Mississippi River when the line to Prairie du Chien was completed in
1857. Shortly after this, other railroad companies completed their own
tracks, reaching La Crosse in the west and Superior in the north,
spurring development in those cities. By the end of the 1850s,
railroads crisscrossed the state, enabling the growth of other
industries that could now easily ship products to markets across the
country.
Early State Politics
Nelson Dewey, the first
governor of Wisconsin, was a Democrat. Between 1848 and 1862, Wisconsin
had three democratic governors, all of whom were in office prior to
1856, four Republican governors, all of whom were in office after 1856,
and one Whig governor, Leonard J. Farwell, who served as the second
governor for one term from 1852 to 1854. Under Farwell's governorship,
Wisconsin became the second state to make capital punishment illegal.
In
the presidential elections of 1848 and 1852, the Democratic Party won
Wisconsin. In the elections of 1856, 1860, and 1864. The Republican
Party won the state.
Between the 1840s and 1860s, settlers from
New England, New York and Germany arrived in Wisconsin. Some of them
brought radical political ideas to the state. In the 1850s, stop-overs
on the underground railroad were set up in the state and abolitionist
groups were formed. One such group was the Republican party. On March
20, 1854, the first county meeting of the Republican Party of the
United States, consisting of about thirty people, was held in the
Little White Schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin. Ripon claims to be the
birthplace of the Republican Party, as does Jackson, Michigan, where
the first statewide convention was held. A notable instance of
abolitionism in Wisconsin was the rescue of Joshua Glover, an escaped
slave from St. Louis who sought refuge in Racine, Wisconsin in 1852. He
was caught in 1854 by federal marshals and put in a jail at Cathedral
Square in Milwaukee, where he waited to be returned to his owner. A mob
of 5000 people led by Milwaukee abolitionist Sherman Booth sprung
Glover from jail and helped escape to Canada via the underground
railroad.
Immigration
In the 1850s, two thirds of immigrants
to Wisconsin came from the Eastern United States. The Other one third
were foreign born people. The majority of them were German immigrants
who settled in Wisconsin because of similarities between Germany's
climate and environment and Wisconsin's climate and environment. Many
Irish and Norwegian immigrants also came to Wisconsin in the 1850s.
Civil War and Gilded Age
Wisconsin
enrolled 91,379 men in the Union Army during the American Civil War.
272 of enlisted Wisconsin men were African American, and the rest were
white. Of these, 3,794 were killed in action or mortally wounded, 8,022
died of disease, and 400 were killed in accidents. The total mortality
was 12,216 men, about 13.4 percent of total enlistments. Many soldiers
trained at Camp Randall, which currently houses the University of
Wisconsin's athletic stadium.
Most Wisconsin troops served in
the western theater, although several Wisconsin regiments fought in the
east, such as the 2nd Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment, 6th
Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment, and 7th Wisconsin Volunteer
Infantry Regiment, which formed part of the Iron Brigade. These three
regiments fought in the Northern Virginia Campaign, the Maryland
Campaign, the Battle of Fredericksburg, the Battle of Chancellorsville,
the Gettysburg Campaign, the Battle of Mine Run, the Overland Campaign,
the Siege of Petersburg, and the Appomattox Campaign.
The 8th
Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry Regiment, which fought in the western
theater of war, is also worthy of mention, having fought at the Battle
of Iuka, the Siege of Vicksburg, the Red River Campaign, and the Battle
of Nashville. The 8th Wisconsin is also known for its mascot, Old Abe.
Economic growth
Agriculture
Agriculture
was a major component of the Wisconsin economy during the 19th century.
Wheat was a primary crop on early Wisconsin farms. In fact, during the
mid 19th century, Wisconsin produced about one sixth of the wheat grown
in the United States. However, wheat rapidly depleted nutrients in the
soil, especially nitrogen, and was vulnerable to insects, bad weather,
and wheat leaf rust. In the 1860s, chinch bugs arrived in Wisconsin and
damaged wheat across the state. As the soil lost its quality and prices
dropped, the practice of wheat farming moved west into Iowa and
Minnesota. Some Wisconsin farmers responded by experimenting with crop
rotation and other methods to restore the soil’s fertility, but a
larger number turned to alternatives to wheat.
In parts of
northern Wisconsin, farmers cultivated cranberries and in a few
counties in south central Wisconsin, farmers had success growing
tobacco, but the most popular replacement for wheat was dairy farming.
As wheat fell out of favor, many Wisconsin farmers started raising
dairy cattle and growing feed crops, which were better suited to
Wisconsin's climate and soil. One reason for the popularity of dairy
farming was that many of Wisconsin’s farmers had come to the state from
New York, the leading producer of dairy products at the time. In
addition, many immigrants from Europe brought an extensive knowledge of
cheese making. Dairying was also promoted by the University of
Wisconsin–Madison's school of agriculture, which offered education to
dairy farmers and researched ways to produce better dairy products. The
first test of butterfat content in milk was developed at the
University, which allowed for consistency in the quality of butter and
cheese. By 1899, over ninety percent of Wisconsin farms raised dairy
cows and by 1915, Wisconsin had become the leading producer of dairy
products in the United States, a title it held until the 1990s.
Wisconsin continues to promote itself as "America's Dairyland",
Wisconsinites are referred to as cheeseheads in some parts of the
country, including Wisconsin, and foam cheesehead hats are associated
with Wisconsin and its NFL team, the Green Bay Packers.
Brewing
The
first brewery in Wisconsin was opened in 1835 in Mineral Point by
brewer John Phillips. A year later, he opened a second brewery in Elk
Grove. In 1840, the first brewery in Milwaukee was opened by Richard G.
Owens, William Pawlett, and John Davis, all welsh immigrants. By 1860,
nearly 200 breweries operated in Wisconsin, more than 40 of them in
Milwaukee. The huge growth in the brewing industry can be accredited,
in part, to the influx of German immigrants to Wisconsin in the 1840s
and 1850s.
Logging
Agriculture was not viable in the densely
forested northern and central parts of Wisconsin. Settlers came to this
region for logging. The timber industry first set up along the
Wisconsin River. Rivers were used to transport lumber from where the
wood was being cut, to the sawmills. Sawmills in cities like Wausau and
Stevens Point sawed the lumber into boards that were used for
construction. The Wolf River also saw considerable logging by
industrious Menominee. The Black and Chippewa Rivers formed a third
major logging region. That area was dominated by one company owned by
Frederick Weyerhaeuser. The construction of railroads allowed loggers
to log year round, after rivers froze, and go deeper into the forests
to cut down previously unshippable wood supplies. Wood products from
Wisconsin's forests such as doors, furniture, beams, shipping boxes,
and ships were made in industrial cities with connects to the Wisconsin
lumber industry such as Chicago, Milwaukee, Sheboygan, and Manitowoc.
Milwaukee and Manitowac were centers for commercial ship building in
Wisconsin. Many cargo ships built in these communities were used to
transport lumber from logging ports to major industrial cities. Later a
growing paper industry in the Fox River Valley made use of wood pulp
from the state’s lumber industry.
Logging was a dangerous trade,
with high accident rates. On October 8, 1871, the Peshtigo Fire burned
1,875 square miles (4,850 kmē) of forest land around the timber
industry town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin, killing between 1,200 and 2,500
people. It was the deadliest fire in United States history.
From the 1870s to the 1890s, much of the logging in Wisconsin was done by immigrants from Scandinavia.
By
the beginning of the twentieth century, logging in Wisconsin had gone
into decline. Many forests had been cleared and never replanted and
large corporations in the Pacific Northwest took business away from the
Wisconsin industry. The logging companies sold their land to immigrants
and out of work lumberjacks who hoped to turn the acres of pine stumps
into farms, but few met with success.
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