History, Winnebago County, Wisconsin: Its cities, towns, resources, people

              174 HISTORY OF WINNEBAGO COUNTY.
of license. The Indian agent at Green Bay had a habit of charg¬ ing fifty dollars for a license to trade, which sum he claimed as his own property.. Mr. Lewis Rouse and Mr. Thomas P. James were licensed and fitted out with Indian goods for trade by the United States Indian agent, and factor at Green Bay in 1819. Mr. Ramsey Crooks, Lieut, elohn Lawe, Mr. Lewis Grignon, Capt. Augustin Grignon, Lieut. Peter Powell, Mr. Peter Grignon, Mr. Jacobs, Mr. Chaperau.x, Mr. J. B. Grignon, Mr. Lusienaux, were* all licensed by the United States Indian agent at Mackinac to trade along the Wisconsin waters in 1819. At other times licenses were issued to James Porlier and son, and to a Mr. Armitger. It was for this reason these people were permitted to trade in the territory of the Indian lands. Some of the people like the Grig¬ nons and Knaggs had rights as mistiffs or Creoles in the lands of the tribes and therefore would be permitted to occupy the lands as natives, or they had old French claims, which were recognized and confirmed to them by the government by special acts. No un¬ authorized person would be permitted to occupy Indian lands. When Mr. Webster Stanley selected a site on the south side of the Fox river at Coon's Point he was obliged to remain on that side of the river, as at that date he would not have been permitted to erect his shanty on the north side of the Fox river.
Another error often indulged by very intelligent people is the belief in the destruction and falling away of the Indian. There are more Indians in the United States today than known to any prior historic period. The tribes who have occupied this county have made wonderful increases. The Foxes reported in 1716, by the exaggerated official letter of Louvigny as 3,500, were said by the Indian agent in Iowa one hundred years later to number 6,000 people. The Menominee reported one hundred and fifty -years ago as a small band of about three hundred are said to number now 1,500 people. The Winnebago, reported to have had two hundred to three hundred people two centuries past, now have upwards of four thousand.
In the extinguishment of the Indian title to lands in. this county the Fox tribes, who maintained a half century of bloody war for their home on the western shore of Little Lake Butte des Morts, seem to have yielded all claim to their ancient home. They had moved away about seventy.years before the title to these lands was sought after; and the Menominee tribe had taken their place and claim their lands.
The claim of ownership to the soil in the territory covered by