Canku Ota

(Many Paths)

An Online Newsletter Celebrating Native America

February 2013 - Volume 11 Number 2

Place of Lac du Flambeau in Early Wisconsin History

(Compiled from the Wisconsin Historical Collection by Earle S. Holman, secretary of the Langlade Historical Society, and published in the Antigo Journal September 2, 1931)

credits: submitted by Timm Severud (Ondamitag)

Green Bay and Chequamegon Bay region have long been associated in popular knowledge with the earliest white settlement in Wisconsin, due to the attention they have received from the writers for the magazines and newspapers, and from organizations interested in marketing of historical site and the commemoration of historic events. But at Lac du Flambeau, inland northern Wisconsin also had a community, which in relations to the fur trade of more than a century ago has historic and romantic interest not inferior to its splendid natural attractions.

The name Lac du Flambeau is associated with a collection of lakes on the reservation to which they gave their name. The lakes abounded in fish, which the Chippewa Indians used to take by torchlight, hence Lac du Flambeau, the French for Torch Lake.

The first trading post at Lac du Flambeau of which we have record appears to have been established by Michel Cadotte. He located about 1792 at La Pointe village, Madeline Island, whence he frequently went to winter at Lac du Flambeau and Lac Courte Oreilles, where he had posts. Cadotte was agent for the Northwest, and later for the American Fur Company.

For most of our information concerning Lac du Flambeau we are dependant on the Journal of Malhiot.

Malhiot
Francois Victor Malhiot was born in 1776, the year of the Declaration of Independence. He was only fifteen years of age when he became an articled clerk to the North West Fur Company. In 1796 he was appointed to the Upper Red River Department where he remained about eight years. In the summer of 1804 he was sent to take charge of the post at Lac du Flambeau, where the complaints with respect to the clerk in charge, Charles Gauthier, seemed to make some change necessary.

The journal published in the Wisconsin Historical Collections, recounts the experiences of the succeeding winter. In 1807 he resigned. He married an Indian woman on August 8, 1800, at the fort at the mouth of the Winnipeg River. On leaving the interior he left her with her own people but took with him his half-breed son, Francois Xavier Ignace. Settling at Contreceacouer he educated his son and lived there until his death in 1840. He was known to his relatives and fiends as Erambert.

He was a cousin of Jaques Porlier of Green Bay, great-grandfather of Mrs. Gust. Kawalski of Antigo, and a short time after his return from the Northwest he lived with the latter's maiden sisters at Vercheres. He is frequently mentioned in family letters.

Route Traders Followed
Malhiot's Journal shows that two days were spent in canoe journey from Portage (Long) Lake to Lac du Flambeau. The party first made its way by a network of lakes and streams to Turtle Lake, in northwest Vilas County: thence by short portages they reached the Manitowish River; they went eighteen miles down-stream to the Flambeau River, and twenty-four miles to Lac du Flambeau.

Doty, in a letter to Governor Cass, described the route as from the mouth of the Montreal River to Turtle Lake, 'From where there is a portage one-fourth of a mile to a small pond, thence up the outlet of a small lake one-fourth of a mile, from which a portage of three miles is made to the Old Plantation River. This is descended eighteen miles to the entrance of the Flambeau River, which rises in the lake of the same name, and is twenty four miles long."

In Malhiot's day a comparatively small, insignificant village of Chippewa dwelt at the mouth of the Ontonagon River, and was closely connected with the Lac du Flambeau Band, so that the trade was usually conducted from that point.

Won From Enemies
The Chippewa were not always in possession of Lac du Flambeau but settled there about a generation before the trading post was established, fighting their way against the Sioux on one hand and the Fox & Sauks on the other.

The fur traders called the Indians who used wild rice Folles Avoine (Wild Oats) Sauteurs, and the territory between the St. Croix and the Lac du Flambeau was known as the Folles Avoine District.

Famous Chippewa Chiefs
Malhiot writes of giving a coat to 'le Muffle d'Original' (The Moose's muzzle). He is believed to be the chief known as Mozoboddo sho succeeded his father Keeshkenum, one of the noted Chippewa chiefs said to have been the first settlers at Lac du Flambeau. Keeshkenum was still alive in 1827, but was very old, and died soon thereafter, when Mozoboddo was invested the chieftainship. He in turn died about 1832 and was succeeded by White Crow.

Relations with Indians
That Malhiot traded with Indians from or near what is now Langlade County is suggested by the following excerpt from the his journal:

"Two young men from the Pelican Lakes were sent here by La Chouette, arrived here this morning. I got 110 muskrats and two beaver skins from them. I am sending him George Yarns, his father-in-law, to get the key he has belonging to me and to take him ammunition and a few goods he asks for the purpose of trading on commission with the savages of the Pelican Lakes."

Chrysostom Verwyst, O.S.F., writing of "Historic Sites on Chequamegon Bay," mentions Boyd's Creek and states that a man named Boyd once resided there, married to an Indians woman. He was shot in a quarrel with another man. One of his sons lived at Flambeau Farm, and two of his granddaughters at Lac du Flambeau.

Other journals than that of Malhiot bear reference s to Lac du Flambeau. Michael Curot's journal, 1803-4, written from the Yellow River trading post speaks of the arrival of La Pierre a Filer and Le Plot at Sayer's fort and demanding rum. They were celebrated chiefs of the Lac du Flambeau Band connected with this company.

L. Grignon, in a letter to Robert Dickson written May 29, 1815, at La Baye (Green Bay) said:
"I learned yesterday that it was about seven days since the Indians (Sac) were at Lac du Flambeau, having pasted Lac Chawaunon (Shawano) with 100 men for me to conduct to Mackinac, with La Boul at the head of the party."

Malhiot tells of giving Les Grande Orellie seven chopines of mixed rum for nothing, "because every spring he gives quantities of fish for our people when the come from the interior."

This practice was a common one, for there has been preserved a long list of Indians who have received goods for 'nothing'. Included in these names are those of La Cramalliere, La Chouette, Le Petit Forgeron, Le Petit Racine, Le Outarde, Le Chef des Oisasur, Le Tete Grise, La Loche, La Cornerlie, Le Grand Loutre, Le Petite Tonner, L'epaule de Canard, L'egle Barcelaux.

Roster of Employees
A roster of employees of the American Fur Company for 1818 and 1819 shows that Alex Beudrin was engaged in June 1818 as boatman for the period of one year with wages of $1,200.

Paul Bourdinion of Montreal was engaged as boatman, on July 11, 1817, for three years, In view of the wages paid Beudrin it is strange to find that Bourdinion was to receive only $700 for three years.

Even in this remote wilderness employment was insecure, for another entry contained the memoranda "Discharged" after a note that James Cook of Montreal was engaged as a clerk at Lac du Flambeau. March 20, 1818, at $150.

Evidently other white men than French were in northern Wisconsin early in the nineteenth century, for the roster lists Tunis Hagerman, engaged as fisherman May 1818, at Lac du Flambeau for $150. Apparently it was his duty to keep the trading post stocked with fish.

There were Indians on the payroll, too, for we find the name of Kieneigwin Macken engaged August 1818 as boatman for one year at $300. He could not have given satisfaction, for 'discharged' is written after the entry.

Of indubitable Teutonic origin is the name of Joseph Neumanville, hired at Mackinac for Lac du Flambeau serves as clerk on August 7, 1818. Other names in the roster of employees are those of Edward St. Arno and Leon St. Germaine, both boatmen. The last entry is dated July 7, 1819.

Had Notable Career
There were several traders named St. Germaine in the northwest. Leon St. Germaine is believed the one who served as Chippewa interpreter during the War of 1812. He visited Grand Portage, endeavoring to enlist the Chippewa of Lake Superior in the contest. He was commended fro keeping his detachment from plundering. Leon St. Germaine was associated with the Cadotte family marrying a daughter of the elder Michel.

A letter to John Asken Jr., to John Asken, Strabane, dated St. Joseph, August 8, 1811, says 'Johnny has made his agreement with Mr. Lewis Crawford and is to winter at Lac du Flambeau, Superior.'

Crawford was a member of the Northwest Company.

Worked for Grignon
Alex Beaudoin, in 1818 was employed by the American Fur Company at Lac du Flambeau. In the same year Roderick Lawrence was clerk for the American Fur Company at that place and was there discharged. He is supposed to have been a former American soldier. After his trading venture in 1819, wherein as an American citizen he served as an agent to the Green Bay traders, then British subjects, he disappeared from view. He served under Louis Grignon, who not being an American citizen could not get a license for himself.

Lyman Warren was made a partner in the lake traffic by the American Fur Company and in 1824 established at La Pointe as the company's agent at Lac du Flambeau, Lac Corte Oreilles and St. Croix departments, an arrangement which continued for some fourteen years.

Met Flambeau Trader
Bishop Jackson Kemper, in his journals of an Episcopalian missionary's trip to Green Bay in 1834, speaks of meeting on board a vessel sailing Lake Michigan a man named Charles H. Oakes and his wife and two children from Lac du Flambeau. Oakes has resided there four years as a trader. A footnote tells us that his first wife, Teegaushau, a Chippewa, and each of here children were awarded a tracked a section of land by the Treaty of Fond du Lac, August 5, 1826. (Verified by TLS - this is mentioned in the supplemental portion of the treaty)

Oakes told Kemper that in the winter of 1832-33 several lodges of Chippewa had gone after buffalo were starved to death, including about sixty persons. The Sioux had driven away the animals and the Chippewa perished before they could return.

Stock in Trade
A list of goods for the provision and expenses of the fort and dated 1804 gives some idea of what entered into the daily fare. It includes liquor and tobacco, powder and shot for deer and bear meat, corn, wild rice and pumpkins.

A statement of goods sent to the Wisconsin River in charge of Jean Baptiste Basinet and J.Q. Racicot and made out by Malhiot includes items such as chief's coats and shirts, hats, plums for hats, black silk handkerchiefs, white porcelain beads, knives, steels for striking fire, 'wormers' for cleaning guns, horn combs, wire for snares, packs of cards, needles, silver jewelry, powder, tomahawks, spear heads, brass and tin kettles.

Outward invoices of the American Fur Company show one to John Hogle and others for trade at Lac du Flambeau and its dependencies dated at Michilimackinac July 21, 1821.

One to Truman A. Warren for the trade of Lac du Flambeau and its dependencies dated July 15, 1822, at Mackinac.

Active up to 1820
James D. Doty reported to Governor Cass, September 27, 1820, that "In Lac du Flambeau the Northwest Company have an establishment of five traders and twenty hands, the return from which last season was about 50 packs."

Later, in a bill for organizing "Chippewa" Territory (drawn in 1824) and the first bill to establish a government west of Lake Michigan, Doty notes among the places inhabited the permanent trading establishment at Lac du Flambeau. He also makes further reference to this place in a communication to James Strong, chairman of the committee on territories, dated December 25, 1827.

Creation of Reservation
The influence of the Rev. Leonard Hemenway Wheeler, pioneer Protestant missionary, is said to have counted for much in the setting aside by the Treaty of September 20, 1854, of three reservations, Odanah, Lac Courte Oreilles and Lac du Flambeau. Later Lac du Flambeau was segregated from La Pointe and made a separate agency. The reservation although provided for by the treaty of 1854, was not laid out and surveyed until nine years later.

Not Always a Holiday
Life at the Lac du Flambeau trading post was far from being a protracted holiday in sylvan surroundings. Malhiot's Journal is punctuated with outbursts of disgust and impatience. He says in one of them: "The heat is excessive, such as we have not had this summer, and strange to say there are frequent frosts at night, which, in my opinion is not very good for the crops; and we could easily dispense with sickness, having famine. O! Wretched people of Lac du Flambeau, everything is against you! Little to eat, much to do: sometimes ill, uncertain of obtaining returns, with reproaches to be dreaded from the partners, anxieties about the goods out of the fort, savages to satisfy, and adversaries to watch. What a life!"

Sometimes there were quarrels with Indians resulting in bloody fighting that verged on warfare or massacre.

"We had quarrels all day with the savages of Lac du Flambeau; spears, knives, hatchets, etc., wear all brought into play. They mad a breach in the fort, broke one of the doors, and had it not been for the aid of Epaule de Richard and two or three young me who were quite sober at the time, there would certainly have been bloodshed and somebody even killed on one side or the other. After a two hour quarrel we succeeded in getting those wild beasts out of the fort."

Next day Malhiot writes how the saves of Lac du Flambeau finished their noise only at 9 o'clock the night before, and to sign the treaty of peace he gave them a "keg of 4 pots and a brasse of tobacco."

The village of Lac du Flambeau appears to have been attached at this time to the rival XY Company, while Malhiot, for the Northwest Company, relied upon the trade of the outlying villages.

Dissentions
Sharp dissentions between the whites, together with complaints of mistreatment by them and also by the Indians, which sometimes reached headquarters, figured into trading post life. A good illustration is the following from Malhiot's Journal:

"Our people form Lac du Flambeau, Tremble, Martineau and Le Beau, arrived here at 6 o'clock last evening with their baggage; decided to go on to Mr. Cadotte at La Pointe if they had not found another clerk to replace Charles Gauthier. They are thin and emaciated like real skeletons. They say are more ill-treated than ever by Gauthier; that half the time they had nothing to eat, while he never passed a day without a good meal; that he is resolved to go and work for the XY if he is replaced by another; further he has sworn to kill Racicot for having written against him, and that there would be murder before he left Lac du Flambeau; that he is resolved to pull up all the clearings, that is to say the potatoes and the corn he has planted or caused to have planted; finally, that he is like a wild beast, and not a day passes without his swearing, storming and inveighing against those who wintered with him last year."

Possibly Gauthier was not as black as he was painted in this indictment, and we would prefer to believe him better than this picture, since he has living descendants on the reservation.

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