Wisconsin magazine of history: Volume 50, number 1, autumn, 1966

              A MISSION TO THE MENOMINEE:
Alfred Cope's Green Bay Diary (Part II)
Synopsis
rpiVE MONTHS after Wisconsin entered -*- the Union as the thirtieth state, the last Indian tribe retaining portions of its ancestral lands within the state's borders was forced to cede them to the United States government. On October 18, 1848, the Menominee wearily and reluctantly gave up an unequal struggle that had been in progress between Wisconsin Indians and the federal power since 1829. In return for this final extinguishment of Indian title, the Menominee were promised a tract of 300,000 acres in Minnesota and $350,000. At the tribe's request, $40,000 of this sum was to be given to what they called their cousins—people of mixed Menominee blood who had befriended the tribe in one way or another in the past.
To make certain that the $40,000 was fairly distributed. President Zachary Taylor asked Thomas Wistar, a wealthy, humanitarian Quaker and a proven friend of the American Indian, to journey to Green Bay to oversee the transaction. To serve as his aide and com¬ panion, Wistar chose Alfred Cope, a fellow Quaker and Philadelphian of similar back¬ ground and philanthropic interests. Cope, a sensitive observer and fluent writer, kept a diary of the two men's adventures in Green Bay in the spring of 1849, the second install¬ ment of which is presented here.
In the previous issue of the Magazine (Sum¬ mer, 1966), Cope described the boat trip from Buffalo along the Great Lakes and recorded his first impressions on arriving in Green Bay. To their dismay, the two Quakers learned on landing that no plans had been made to as¬ semble the Indians to discuss the terms of the payment. While waiting for runners to summon a delegation from the Menominee headquarters   at   Lake   Poygan,   Wistar   and
Cope busied themselves as best they could. Together they paid a call at Fort Howard, ungarrisoned at the time, and persuaded Cap¬ tain Ephraim Shaler, in charge of the fort, to allow the preliminary council and the sub¬ sequent payment to be held within its confines. Thomas Wistar then visited the settlement of the Stockbridge Indians, of whom he dis¬ approved; and he and Cope spent a night or so in the home of Alonzo Dick, the Ameri¬ canized head chief of the Brothertown Indians, of whom they both approved most heartily. In Green Bay they made the acquaintance of, and were impressed by, the controversial Eleazer Williams.
On May 10, a delegation of Menominee chiefs arrived at Fort Howard and, in council assembled, insisted that all business be con¬ ducted at Lake Poygan, the traditional pay¬ ment ground. To Wistar's arguments that Fort Howard afforded greater privacy and pro¬ vided more security from the hordes of traders bound to show up, the Indians were politely deaf until William H. Bruce, the Indian Sub- Agent, bluntly informed them that the council would be held at Fort Howard on May 14 and that there would be no further discussion on that score.
Thereupon the delegation meekly departed for Lake Poygan to spread the news. In the days that followed—beset on all sides with tales of Menominee violence and drunkeness, and particularly of the alcoholic excesses of the head chief, Oshkosh—Wistar and Cope, both dedicated temperance men, grew increas¬ ingly nervous. Expecting the worst, the two Quakers timorously await the arrival of the Menominee chieftains as this portion of the diary  opens.
W.C.H.
18