River Through a Red Place
Meskousing, originally written by Jacques Marquette in a June 1673 journal entry, was Wisconsin’s first name, roughly translating to “River Running Through a Red Place.”
The long translation refers to how the Wisconsin River splits the red sandstone bluffs of the Wisconsin Dells.
The First Wisconsinites
Prior to becoming the new home for Jan Willem and his family, the Wisconsin territory was inhabited for the previous 10,000 years by Paleo-Indians who arrived at the end of the last Ice Age. As glacial masses retracted from the surface, conifer forests covered the landscape and large mammals in the Americas slowly went extinct.
Over the next 4,000 years, conifer-hardwood forests and mixed prairie-forests would replace the flora once again and smaller mammals such as deer and bison began to thrive in the wake of these vast environmental changes.
The growth of small communities of native peoples across the region continued, and villages emerged along rivers, streams and lakes, with tribes adopting more complex religious beliefs, such as the construction of burial mounds in the hillsides.
Until the seventeenth century, Native American tribes spread from the Mississippi River to Lake Michigan and included the Siouan (Sioux) speaking Dakota Oyate to the northwest, the Chiewere speaking Ho-Chunk (Winnebago), and the Algonquian Menominee to the northeast. South of modern-day Green Bay were Chiwere lands, who followed the rivers south through the Fox Valley. Other tribes included the Ojibwe, the Illinois, and the Sauk.
Arrival of the Europeans
The Landing of Jean Nicolet Painting by Edwin Willard Deming (1907) | Courtesy the Wisconsin Historical Society Museum Collection
Jean Nicolet, a French explorer, left New France in 1634 and canoed through Lake Huron and Lake Superior, stumbling upon what is today Lake Michigan. He and his Huron guides proceeded into Green Bay where they met the Ho-Chunk and Menominee tribes.
Various French explorers continued to traverse the area over the next half-century, however, the next major expedition to be sponsored by New France occurred in 1673 and was led by Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet. The Frenchmen sought to canoe and portage until they reached the Mississippi River.
As one may expect, the main interest of the French in Wisconsin was its economic value, including the fledgling fur trade and the hope of discovering a water route to the Pacific Ocean from the East Coast.
Nearly a century would pass before the French released the region to their New World British rivals, who took control of the area during the French and Indian War. The British, more economically organized than the French, succeeded in establishing the first self-sustaining farms in the area and driving a significant fur trade network.
Through the revolutionary years of the late 1770s, Green Bay became a prosperous, self-sustaining community that produced its own resources and held some of the first large community events in the territory such as festivals and dances.
The Wisconsin Territory & Statehood
Shortly after the signing of the United States Constitution in 1787, the Americans made Wisconsin part of the new Northwest Territory, and later moved it as part of the Indiana Territory in 1800. Although the United States technically controlled the land, the British retained local fur trade control and military alliances with the Native American tribes still scattered throughout the area. Over the following decades, a handful of treaties would be signed to remove Native Americans from their occupied lands across the state, paving the way for Wisconsin’s settlement.
While many were drawn from the east by the prospect of lead mining, others rushed to the state for its fertile lands and plethora of natural resources. After the Wisconsin Territory was established by the United States Congress in 1836, the area attracted Yankees from the East Coast and immigrants from Europe, primarily those of German, Norwegian, Dutch, and Irish descent, including Loomans family ancestors from the Netherlands.
The addition of tens of thousands of immigrants drove the territory’s total population to more than 150,000 people. Prospects of statehood appeared in the mid-1840s, and in the fall of 1846 the territorial legislature voted to apply to the United States Congress. Delegates debated on the state’s constitution, adopting many extremely progressive measures for the time (including such provisions as the right for married women to own property and leaving the issue of African-American suffrage to a popular vote by the state’s citizens).
While some measures were ultimately struck down in referendum, the convention ultimately approved the state constitution and Wisconsin became the 30th state admitted to the United States of America on May 29, 1848.
Loomans family ancestors including Jan Willem and his family lived in Wisconsin prior to statehood, raising the likelihood that they participated in the referendum that brought Wisconsin into the union.
Special Note: It is important to recognize and acknowledge that the growth and development of Wisconsin came at the significant expense of Native American suffrage and removal from tribal lands since Europeans arrived in the mid-seventeenth century. Destruction of the Native American way of life and the decimation of entire tribes are among the dark spots in Wisconsin State history that should be noted and reflected as we investigate the complexities of these periods.
LEARN MORE:
The Landing of Jean Nicolet Painting, Courtesy the Wisconsin Historical Society: Link Here
Wisconsin State History, Collected by History.com: Link Here
History of Wisconsin, Compiled by Britannica: Link Here
Wisconsin: A Very Brief History Historical Essay, Written by the Wisconsin Historical Society: Link Here