CHAPTER II

ABORIGINAL INHABITANTS

THE MOUND BUILDERS CHARACTER OF THEIR RELICS- WHO WERE THEY? - WORK OF THE UNITED STATES BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY— DISTRICTS IN THE UNITED STATES - RECENT THEORIES - MOUNDS IN RACINE COUNTY - THE INDIANS - TRIBAL DISTRIBUTION AT THE CLOSE OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY - WISCONSIN TRIBES CHIPPEWA MENOMINEE SAC FOX OTTAWA POTAWATOMI WINNEBAGO-INDIAN TREATIES- INDIAN TRAILS - REFLECTIONS.

Nearly a century and a half elapsed after the first white settlements were established along the Atlantic coast before attention was drawn to the fact that the interior of North America had once been peopled by a peculiar race. Says one of the reports of the United States Bureau of Ethnology: "During a period beginning some time after the close of the Ice Age and ending with the coming of the white man - or only a few generations before-the central part of North America was inhabited by a people who had emerged to some extent from the darkness of savagery, had acquired certain domestic arts, and practiced some well defined lines of industry. The location and boundaries inhabited by them are fairly well marked by the mounds and earthworks they erected.'

The center of this ancient civilization if such it may be called appears to have been in what is now the State of Ohio. Iowa may be regarded as its western frontier, though a few relics have been found west of the Missouri River. From the mounds and earthworks they left, the name of "Mound Builders" has been given to this race by archæologists. Most of the mounds are of conical shape and when opened have generally been found to contain human skeletons, hence they have been designated as burial mounds. Others are in the form of truncated pyramids - that is, square or rectangular at the base and flat on the top. The mounds of this class are generally much higher than the ordinary conical or burial mounds and are supposed to have been used as lookouts or signal stations, a theory which is supported by the fact that charred wood and ashes have been found upon the summits of several of such mounds, indicating that signal fires had once been lighted there. Here and there are to be seen well-defined lines of

earthworks, apparently having been thrown up as places of defense against invading enemies. In a few instances, the discovery of a large mound, surrounded by an embankment, outside of which are a number of smaller mounds, has given rise to the theory that such places were centers of religious ceremony or sacrifice.

Who were the Mound Builders? The question is more easily asked than answered. Among the earliest archæologists to study the subject were Squier and Davis, who, about the middle of the Nineteenth Century, published a work entitled "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley." Between the years 1845 and 1848 these two investigators opened over two hundred mounds, the description of which was published by the Smithsonian Institution. They advanced the hypothesis that the Mound Builders first established their civilization in the Ohio Valley, whence they worked their way gradually southward into Mexico and Central America, where the white man found their descendants in the Aztec Indians. Other early investigators accepted this theory, but Baldwin, in his "Ancient America," published in 1874, takes a different view: Says he:

"Careful study of what is shown in the many reports on these ancient remains seems plainly to authorize the conclusion that the Mound Builders entered the country at the south and began their settlements near the Gulf. Here they must have been very numerous, while their works at every point on the limit of their distribution north, east and west indicate a much less numerous border of population. Remains of their works have been traced through a great extent of country. They are found in West Virginia and are spread through Michigan, Wisconsin and Iowa to Nebraska. They are found all over the intermediate and more southern country, being most numerous in Ohio, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Texas."

WORK OF THE BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY

Prior to the establishment of the United States Bureau of Ethnology, the investigation of the Mound Builders' relics was conducted by individuals, and much of it was done in a desultory sort of way. Soon after the bureau was organized it began a systematic study of the remains left by this ancient race and discovered many things that private investigators had overlooked.

Prof. Cyrus Thomas, of the bureau, divided the region inhabited by the Mound Builders into eight districts, each of which is marked by certain characteristics not common to the others. Beginning at the eastern part of the country, these districts are as follows:

1. The Huron-Iroquois District, which embraces the country once inhabited by the Huron and Iroquois Indians, including the lower peninsula of Michigan, a strip across Northern Ohio, the greater part of the State of New York, and extending northward into Canada. Burial mounds are numerous throughout this district, a few fortifications or earthworks have been noted, but the "hut rings," or foundations of ancient dwellings are more plentiful here than elsewhere and form the distinguishing feature of the district.

2. The Appalachian District, which includes the mountainous regions of Eastern Tennessee, Western North Carolina, Southwestern Virginia, and the northern part of Georgia. Abundant evidences were found in this territory to show that it was inhabited by a tribe different in many respects from the people of other districts. The mounds are of a different construction, stone graves are numerous, and among the relics discovered are a number of more or less ornamental tobacco pipes and utensils of

copper.

3. The Tennessee District, which includes Middle and Western Tennessee, Southern Illinois, nearly all of Kentucky, a strip through the central part of Georgia, and a small section of Northern Alabama. This district is marked by fortifications with covered ways leading to streams or springs, indicating that they were constructed with a view to withstanding a siege. Pottery is plentiful, especially the long-necked water jar, and several stone images, believed to have been worshiped as idols, have been found in the mounds of this district.

4. The Ohio District, which takes in all of the State of Ohio, except the strip across the northern part that is included in the Huron-Iroquois District, the eastern half of Indiana, and the southwestern part of West Virginia. In this district both the burial mounds and fortifications are numerous. The former are larger than the burial mounds found elsewhere, frequently having a diameter of one hundred feet or more and rising in a few instances to a height of eighty feet. The Grave Creek Mound, in West