| The Winnebagot
live at Red Banks on the south shore of Green Bay. Their occupation of Wisconsin
is very ancient, perhaps thousands of years. Although they have no memories
of mound-building, they may well be descendents of the earlier Mississippian,
Hopewell, and Adena cultures. Their homeland lay between Green Bay and Lake
Winnebago in northeast Wisconsin but they dominated the area from Upper
Michigan south to present-day Milwaukee extending west to the Mississippi.
Beginning in the 1640s, thousands of Algonquin refugees from the Beaver
Wars (1630-1701) invaded Wisconsin from the east, and the resulting wars
and epidemics brought the resident tribes, Winnebago and Menominee, to the
point of near extinction. The Winnebago who survived remained near Green
Bay but were forced to share their homeland with other tribes. |
