Kaush-kau-no-nein, the leading orator of the Menominee Nation, stood before the Pennsylvania legislature. The image he presented must have been striking. A contemporary portrait by George Catlin depicts a man wearing strings of wampum steadfastly holding a ceremonial pipe and casting the viewer a wary look. It was late March 1831. Over the course of the previous five months, Kaush-kau-no-nein, or Grizzly Bear, and eleven other Menominee leaders had traveled from Green Bay in the Michigan Territory to Washington, DC. They had met President Andrew Jackson in the executive mansion. Now they were on their way home. Passing through Harrisburg, the group was invited to address the state legislature. As he had on so many other occasions, Grizzly Bear spoke for the Menominee: “We have been to Washington, to see our Great Father the President, on important business to our Nation.… We have a
ccomplished it.”1
The “important business” Grizzly Bear referred to was the Treaty of February 8, 1831, sometimes referred to as Stambaugh’s Treaty. Listed in the US Senate records as Ratified Treaty No. 161, the treaty was one in a series of agreements that aimed to settle a bitter nine-year dispute between the Menominee and seven tribes from New York State who had been persuaded by the US government and commercial interests to relocate to Wisconsin’s Fox River Valley. Though Stambaugh’s Treaty did not end the dispute, it laid the groundwork for the formation of reservations for the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin and the Stockbridge-Munsee. The treaty also included the first cession of Menominee land, 2.5 million acres, to the United States.
In 1831, northeastern Wisconsin was a region in flux. The War of 1812 was a recent memory, the fur trade was still an important but declining part of the local economy, and populations were shifting. Longtime residents like the Menominee Nation and the French-speaking voyageurs were forced to come to terms with the arrival of new Indian nations and Americans confident of their supremacy. Stambaugh’s Treaty, in one way or another, touched on all their futures.
The origins of the treaty can be traced as far back as 1815 when the Ogden Land Company, a land speculation venture led by Thomas Ogden, pressured seven Indian nations—the Oneida, St. Regis, Munsee, Stockbridge, Brothertown, Seneca, and Onondaga, collectively referred to in period accounts as “the New York Indians”—in west-central New York to sell their remaining land holdings and immigrate west. Such a move would free up land that the company could purchase cheaply and then sell at great profit. The tribes were already under increasing pressure from state and federal officials to relocate west. Numerous missionaries, in particular the eccentric Episcopalian Eleazar Williams, also encouraged the move, arguing that it was the only way the Indians could survive the onslaught of white settlement. These combined pressures convinced the tribes to send a delegation to what was then the Michigan Territory to seek land for resettlement.2
In 1821, after several failed attempts, the Ogden Land Company, with the aid of federal officials, facilitated an agreement between the New York Indians and the Menominee and Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) providing the Eastern tribes with a modest tract of land along the Fox River near Little Chute.3 When the New York delegation members returned to the east, they found their people dissatisfied with their efforts. The tribes’ growing resistance to moving west resulted in a lack of consensus on any aspect of the treaty. Some leaders felt that the Wisconsin tract was too small to allow all of the tribes to settle comfortably.4
The tribes sent another delegation to Green Bay the following year to seek additional The Stockbridge and Munsee Nations paid in 1822. The other Eastern tribes would pay separately over the course of the next two years. It would be the last nation-to-nation agreement between the tribes; the remainder would be with the US government. Within a year, the Menominee challenged the validity of the agreement. The principal Menominee leader, Cha-Wa-Non, had died the previous year. In the absence of a new chief, the Menominee questioned whether the signees had the authority to make the deal.
