Even when the Iroquois threat receded in the early 1700s, Wisconsin remained unstable: smaller tribes found themselves caught in periodic warfare of the larger tribes, and the Meskwaki faught the French almost continually until the 1760s.ĭecades of warfare and European diseases weakened Wisconsin tribes enough by the time of American settlement that most were forcibly moved beyond the Mississippi. Lawrence River along the Northern and Southern shores of Lake Superior, where they also came into conflict with the Menominees and Lakotas. About the same time, the Ojibwe expanded from their original lands north of the St. This sixty-year conflict drove the Potawatomi, Kickapoo, Sauk, and Meskwaki (Fox) tribes from their territories in Michigan and Ohio into Wisconsin, where they came into conflict with the Ho-Chunks and Lakotas. In the 1640s, the powerful Iroquois League (Haudesaunee) went to war against the Odawa (Ottawa), who had worked as the primary intermediaries between the French and Great Lakes Tribes. In subsequent years Wisconsin became home to a much larger number of tribes as a chain of events begun by the French fur trade pushed thousands of refugee peoples into the Western Great Lakes Area. ![]() Further to the south along the Wisconsin River lived the Mdewakanton band of the Lakota people (the Santee Sioux). When Jean Nicolet, searching for the fabled Northwest Passage, first set foot on the land that would become Wisconsin in 1634, he encountered two large tribes living in the area: the Menominee and the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago). Ethnicity once served to separate different peoples, but now ethnicity can provide opportunities of understanding those different from ourselves.īelow is a series of brief descriptions of some of the different ethnic settlements in Wisconsin, many of which retain their distinctive culture. The Directory of Wisconsin Ethnic Organizations seeks to facilitate such communication and education by demonstrating that ethnicity remains a living part of Wisconsin’s heritage and more than just a splotch on the state map. In short, the culture and folklore of any of Wisconsin’s ethnic groups does not belong solely to the descendants of that group but rather to all people of Wisconsin who can appreciate and learn from the diverse cultures of the state. Ethnic revivals in the 1960s and 70s have spurred new interest in ethnic roots, and festivals such as Milwaukee’s Germanfest, Madison’s Greekfest, or Ojibwa powwows, attract visitors of all backgrounds. Most people in Wisconsin now have a mixed ethnic heritage, and some customs, once the sole prerogative of a single ethnic group, have become widely diffused throughout the state: one need not be of any particular ethnicity to enjoy a Polish-style polka, wild rice, a lutefisk dinner, or a Cinco-de- Mayo celebration. ![]() The romantic image of Norwegian bachelor farmers in Vernon County and quaint Swiss cheesemakers in Green County do, of course, hold some truth, but such views are too simplistic as ethnicity takes on increasingly complicated meaning. Advances in communication and transportation have broken down these ethnic strongholds as the children and grandchildren of immigrants have moved on to new locations and new occupations. Such ethnic cohesiveness, reinforced by religious and social institutions, preserved language and folk customs (such as ethnic foods, music, and dress) well into the twentieth century.Įthnicity, however, is not static. Milwaukee itself by 1920 had become a virtual checkerboard of ethnically homogenous urban villages populated by different ethnic and racial groups. These ethnic enclaves offered the comfort of familiar languages and customs as well as insulation from the dominant–and often hostile– Yankee culture. For these immigrants, ethnicity was a key factor in choosing a place to live, as settlers of different ethnicities tended to cluster together, often in communities named for locations in the old country–New Glarus, Scandinavia, and Pulaski are some of the more obvious examples. Wisconsin became a favored location for hundreds of thousands of immigrants because it offered abundant, inexpensive land (first in the south and later in the cutover), industrial jobs, and a free political climate. In the nineteenth century, ethnicity was a critical element in Wisconsin’s social fabric more likely than not, ethnicity determined one’s religion, politics, and even such mundane aspects of life as dress or diet. ![]() Ethnicity in Wisconsin: Historical Background
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