Page 230 - La Société canadienne d'histoire de l'Église catholique - Rapport 1961

226 WISCONSIN HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS.

mound builders was farther back in the world's history than is
generally supposed.
Of the origin of the Sioux, or how long they had inhabited
and hunted over this country before the whites came to it, we
have no means of determining. They claim-and their tradi-
tions, together with the traditions of the Chippewas and the
earliest history of both by the whites, sustain the claim-the
earliest occupancy of the country to which any known history
or tradition refers.
In 1639, NICOLET found the Pottawottomies in the vicinity
of Green Bay. But in 1641, they were at Sault Ste. Marie,
fleeing before the Sioux, who, claiming the country, as far at
least as to that point, were driving the intruders from their
soil and country. In 1642 a missionary was killed near
Ke-wee-we-na, by the Sioux, as an intruder upon their terri-
tory. From 1652 to 1670, the Hurons appear to have been
wandering about the country, between Green Bay and La
Pointe, when they were expelled by the Sioux. In 1667, the
Kiskasona, a band of the Ottawas, were driven, by the Sioux,
from the western shore of Lake Michigan, south of Green
Bay.
In 1660, Father MARET and others established a mission
among the Sioux, on Che-goi-me-gon Bay, which lies south of
La Pointe. In 1668, there appears to have been a large
gathering of the floating bands of the Algonquin or Chippewa,
race, who were encroaching upon the territory of the Sioux, at
this mission, amounting to eight hundred warriors, for a kind
of protracted religious meeting. The Jesuit missionaries
coming to the country through Canada, first became acquainted
with the Algonquins, and being kindly received by them, of
course felt partial to them; and knowing that the Sioux and
they were enemies, it would be natural for them to favor their
early friends, and gathered them around their mission, notwith-
standing they were intruders in the country.
Not a Sioux appears to have been there at the meeting, and
the preaching was in the Algonquin tongue. But this meeting