Page 229 - La Société canadienne d'histoire de l'Église catholique - Rapport 1961

EARLY HISTORY OF WISCONSIN. 225
but few of that description are found. I can now call to mind
but one such, that at Aztalan, and in traveling extensively in
the State for twenty-two years, I have noticed but few of these
mounds south of a line drawn east from the mouth of the
Wisconsin river to the Lake, while north of this line, and
between the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers there art! prob-
ably one thousand of them. In Crawford county alone there
are at least five hundred, one hundred of which can be found
in the towns of Prairie du Chien and Wauzeka.
The evidence of ancient mining found in the Lake Superiol*
Copper Region, with trees on them of four hundred years
growth, or more, indicating some degree of intelligence and
ekill, makes it probable that those mines were wrought by the
aame race of people who made the mounds, and at about the
same time; and yet, there being no copper relics found in these
mounds, makes it probable that either they had no commerce
with each other, or that they were few in number, and migrated
from place to place, to avoid their pursuing enemies, and that
those mines were their last retreat, from which they disap-
peared from this country, either by emigration or by being
destroyed. The latter I think is the most probable.
The earliest inhabitants of the district nom included within
this State, of whom we have any positive knowledge, were the
ancestors of present Indians of this vicinity, and from the best
light I have been able to obtain upon the subject, from Indian
traditions, and the earliest history of the count.ry, the Dahkota
or Sioux were the occupants and owners of the soil of vhat ie
now our entire State, together with Minnesota, and the north-
ern parts of Iowa and Illinois. This occupancy we can trace
back for about two hundred and fifty years, and if the growth
of trees on the mounds and mines, which indicate at least four
hundred years to the time of the mound builders, be a true
index, it is very strange that the Sioux have no traditions of
them, as there would have been but one hundred and fifty years
between them. This makes it probable that the time of the
28m