thing. We have been led into errors and confusion by the Agent, and by his means have been scattered and divided.

I have done."

Aus-kin-naw-wa-wish, concluded, saying,

Father, I look upon you the same as upon our Great Father the President. The sky is clear. It is a happy day. The Traders here have been our friends, have raised our children; and we wish, whatever may happen in regard to our lands, that they may not be molested, but remain quietly with us.

Father, The Chiefs, your children, whom you see before you, are happy to see you, and hear you talk. They live in hope and belief, that they shall receive the blessings which our Great Father proposes to give us, if we comply with their wishes, which is our intention.”

With another Menomine chief and three warriors, I afterward had a short conversation. The name of the chief was Sa-que-tock, in English, very good natured. His face and manners correspond very well with his name. His village, of only thirty-six souls, is on Green Bay, three miles below Fort Howard. Their food is fish, wild fowl, wild rice and corn.

I asked him concerning the origin of the immense swarms of flies, which, at the time we were talking, filled the atmosphere, and covered the trees and houses?* He answered, “They doubt

The Green Bay Fly.

Of the Fly here alluded to, Lewis Morgan, Esq. U. S. agent of Fortifications, and resident four years at Green Bay, gave us verbally the following

account:

The French call this fly, Les Mannes, or Le Epervier de Maranquoin. Its body is one and a quarter inches long, and three eighths of an inch in circumference; its wings long and narrow; its legs long and barbed. It has four feelers, two on the head, at an angle with each other of 20°, and two at the tail, one and a half inches long. A swarm of them makes its appearance about the 10th of July, and disappears in ten days; is followed by a second, that by a third, which disappears about the 26th of August. They light on the shady sides of buildings, which are made black with them. The limbs of trees and

their small branches, on which they hang in clusters, like a swarm of bees, are bent down and often broken with their weight. At particular times the atmosphere is so filled with them, that at mid-day one cannot see across the parade of Fort Howard. A very thick snow storm does not more effectually ob

less come from the swamps and bad water along the shores of the Lake."

I stated to them the design of the Government concerning the Indians, viz. to teach them agriculture and the arts, to dress and live like the white people, &c.

"It will look droll," said he, "to see Indians in such a situation. We are willing," he added, "to receive these blessings, if others will." On this condition they were willing to quit their village and to live with others of their tribe as farmers, at a place (which they name,) thirty miles north-east of the Fort. This chief was not present at the late treaty held by the Indian Agent for the purchase of a part of the lands of the Menominees, and seemed very indifferent about the sale, though his own village was included in the purchase.

Major Irwin informed me, on the authority of Col. Bowyer, and an old Ottawa chief, living at Ma-nitou-wauk, the river of bad spirits, that more than a century ago, the Fox and Sac Indians, who then inhabited the country on Green Bay and Fox river, were conquered and driven away by the Menominees, aided by the Ottawas and Chippawas; that the Menominees hold this country by conquest, and that their title is admitted to be good by the Sacs, Foxes, Chippawas, and Ottawas. Charlevoix found the Menominees here, on his visit to this place in 1719.

Judge Reaume, an Indian Trader, who has resided at Green Bay thirty years, said to me-" The Menominees, in great part, are of mixed blood, Ottawas, Chippawas, Pottawattamies, Sacs, and Foxes, with whom they intermarry. There is an intimate intercourse between all these tribes, who have a common language, (the Chippawa,) which they all understand, and many of them

struct vision. Under an elm tree, whose wide spread boughs formed a shade of twelve or fifteen yards in diameter, the depth of several heaps of these flies, which had fallen dead from the trees near the edge of the shade, measured by a rule, were found to be four inches deep, and increasing in depth toward the trunk of the tree, were, there found, on measurement, to be nine inches deep. Swine feed on them, as they fall from the trees and buildings. Their appearance is sudden, after a warm night. They cast their skin about once in twenty-four hours. While they remain, the musquitoes entirely disappear. These flies, when dead, in fect the air for a short time; but a hot sun soon dries up what are not eaten by the animals.

hunt together in the interior of the N. W. Territory, on the head waters of the Fox and Ouisconsin rivers."

Fort Howard, now Fort Brown, is on the north side of Fox river, a mile from its mouth. Its situation is so low and sandy, that it has been deemed expedient to select another spot for the Fort. This has been done. An elevated, commanding site, a quarter of a mile ascending from the south side of the river, three miles above the present Fort, has been fixed upon, where a new Fort and appendages are now (1820,) building, and when finished, and occupied by the troops, the Old Fort will be converted to another use. It may be converted into a residence of an Education Family, and used for the accommodation of such Indian youth, as may be induced to attend the schools, which such a family may here establish. For a purpose of this kind it is well adapted.

In this place, on both sides of the mouth of Fox river, are about eighty families; some say less, principally French-all the married men, but one, connected with Indian women. There are here about two hundred and sixty children of mixed blood, beside the children of the officers and men belonging to the Fort, and of other inhabitants of the place. These children, falling little short of three hundred in number, are growing up without any public school education, and by far the greatest part of them, without any education at all.

A small colony of French Jesuits settled in this place about the year 1700, from whom descended the greater part of its present inhabitants.

The Menominees have ever shewn themselves to be friends to the white people, and have acted in their defence, whenever attacked by any tribe of their Red brethren. Some striking proofs were given of their friendship, particularly by a principal man of the nation, called the Rubber, during the last war with the British in this quarter.

Winebagoes.

The following account of the Winebagoes, and description of their country were verbally given by Mr. Law, and the other gentlemen, Indian Traders, who gave me the account of the Menominees.

46

Eight years ago, (1812,) the Winebagoes were numbered, and amounted to seven hundred warriors, one thousand women, and about two thousand eight hundred children-whole number, three thousand five hundred souls. Their present number, (1820,) is estimated at nine hundred warriors, one thousand three hundred women, three thousand six hundred children. Total, five thousand eight hundred souls; an increase in eight years of two thousand three hundred souls, a remarkable fact in the history of Indian population.

The Territory of the Winebagoes embraces what is called the Rock river country, and commences at the south-east end of the Rapids, in Fox river, at the entrance of Winebago Lake. Here they have a large village, and two other villages at the S. end, where they raise considerable quantities of corn. On other parts of the Lake, they have two other villages, five in all. On Rock river and its branches they have fourteen villages, one of which, the largest, the lowest down Rock river, three hundred miles by water from its mouth, is called Kus-kou-o-nog. This village is the resort of Renegadoes from the other villages, and from other tribes, and the inhabitants have a corresponding character. Their village is on the west side of a Lake of the name of their village, six miles long by three wide, abounding with fine flavoured firm fish, suckers, pickons, and catfish. On this Lake are three other Winebago villages. On Green Lake, about the size of the one above named, with few fish, pure water; rocky and high banks, is another village, twenty five miles west of Winebago Lake, four or five miles south of Fox river, fifty south-east of the Portage.

The Rock river country, extending south one hundred miles, to Illinois river; on the north-west side about sixty miles; thence north to Ouisconsin river, is Prairie land, without trees, except here and there an island, if it may be so called. This country has abundance of springs, small lakes, ponds and rivers; a rich soil, producing corn and all sorts of grain.”

[The remainder of the account of this interesting tribe of Indians, of their country, character, and dispositions as to civilization, &c. was to have been committed to writing by the gentlemen, and forwarded to the Secretary of War, or to me, but has not yet been received. It is still expected.]

Historical facts relating to Northern Tribes.

The following facts, of a general and historical nature, relating to the Indian tribes, who anciently possessed the northern part of our country, from the Hudson to the Mississippi river, are derived chiefly from Bowen and Gibson's map of N. America, published in 1763, and may be properly introduced in this place.

The Iroquois, after expelling the Hurons, and exterminating the Eries, who inhabited the country bordering on the great Lakes, which now bear their names, events which happened about the years 1650 to 1660, took possession of this vast Territory, and retained it for more than a century after. Their hunting country, which they once occupied, is now embraced in the State of Ohio, and while in their possession, was called Canahague.

The hereditary country of the Iroquois was between Lake Champlain and the Iroquois, now called St. Lawrence, river.

In 1701, the Six Nations, by deed of sale, surrendered to Great Britain the vast Territory lying south and east of a line, beginning at the Mississippi, up the Illinois river, through the south and east parts of Illinois to Lake Michigan; across this Lake; thence across the west end of Lake Huron, and embracing the country of the Messasaugua Indians,* on the north side of Lake Huron, Upper Canada. This tribe, (the Messasauguas,) had been subdued by the Iroquois, and afterwards united with them.

As early as 1740, the English had a Fort and settlement on the head waters of the Great Miami, at the forks, one hundred and fifty miles from Ohio river; and another settlement, called White woman's town, on Elk's Eye, now Muskingum river.

Green Bay was formerly called Puans Bay, and the northern part Noquett's Bay, "north-east of which, toward Mackinaw, is St. Helena Island. At the bottom or south end of Green Bay,

* A remnant of these Indians, a poor, filthy, wandering, wretched set of beings, are in the neighborhood of York, in Upper Canada. I saw numbers of them, when I visited this place in the summer of 1821.

On this desert island, (formerly visited by Charlevoix,) July 5th, 1820, passing from Mackinaw to L'Abre Croche, four of us, my son, the Indian Agent and Interpreter, and myself, in two birch canoes, paddled by sixteen