Wisconsin magazine of history: Volume 64, number 4, summer, 1981

              Ethnocide in the Schoolhouse:
Missionary Efforts to Educate Indian Youth
in Pre-Reservation Wisconsin
By Suzanne Elizabeth Moranian
Savages we call them, because their Manners differ from ours, which we think the Perfection of Civility: They think the same of theirs.
Benjamin Franklin
B] 1
' EFORE the Black Hawk War, the 'lands of Wisconsin belonged to the Indians. When the war ended in 1832, however, Wisconsin received an influx of set¬ tlers from the East and abroad. The white population skyrocketed from less than 4,000 to over 300,000 between 1830 and 1850, while In¬ dian population declined.^ One by one, each tribe was forced through treaties to cede its territorial claims to the United States, until all Indian title to Wisconsin was extinguished in 1848. By the mid-1850's, Wisconsin's In¬ dians had become wards of the government. Many were confined to reservations, and oth¬ ers, such as the Winnebago, had officially been removed from Wisconsin.^
Throughout Wisconsin's dramatic transition from Indian to white. Christian missionaries played a significant role. During the pre-reser- vation years, 1820-1850, various missionaries came to Wisconsin to convert the tribes and in¬ struct Indian youth.   Using Christian educa-
^ Felix M. Keesing, "The Menomini Indians of Wis¬ consin," in Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, X: 127   (1939).
^ See Thurman Fox, Wisconsin Indian History (Madi¬ son, 1975); Nancy Oestreich Lurie, Wisconsin Indians (Madison, 1980); Alice E. Smith, The History of Wis¬ consin, Volume I: From Exploration to Statehood (Madison, 1973).
tion, the missionaries sought to transmit white values, knowledge, and institutions to the In¬ dians. Their schools embodied the determina¬ tion of the missionaries to make Indian culture extinct by initiating the process of accultura¬ tion. Yet the subsequent failure of the mission schools during the pre-reservation era high¬ lighted the Indians' preservation of their cul¬ ture while they still had the choice.
The tribes among whom the missionaries preached were the Menominee in the east, the Ojibwa (or Chippewa) and the Sioux in the northwest along the Mississippi River and Lake Superior, and the Winnebago near Prai¬ rie du Chien. In 1822, the Oneida, Stockbridge, and Brotherton tribes arrived in the Green Bay area. These tribes came from New York, where the whites thought the Indians were hindering the advance of white civilization and "must be swept out," though many had converted to Christianity.^ Through the me¬ diation of the Episcopal Church, the United States government presented a treaty to the tribes, offering them Wisconsin lands in ex¬ change for theirs in New York. Tribal chiefs held meetings, and a few were even able to examine the Wisconsin land before signing the treaty.  The Stockbridge were later joined
" Indian Tribes and Missions (Hartford, Connecticut, 1926), 20.
Copyright (c) 1981 by The State Historical Society of Wisconsin All rights of reproduction in any form reserved
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