Post by Cliff Krainik on Dec 8, 2002 23:37:19 GMT -5
"Our people once owned the lead mines in Southwestern Wisconsin ... They made lead mining their regular work. Every fall and spring hunters would go down to the mines and get a stock or lead for bullets, and sometimes give goods for it and sometimes furs. When the whites began to come among the mines, the Big Father said to his Winnebago children: 'I want this land and will have my own people to work it, and whenever you go out hunting come by this way, and you will be supplied with lead.' But this agreement was never carried out... Never was a bar of lead or a bag of shot presented to us. This was a very great sorrow to our people. For many years there was much sorrowful talk among the Winnebagoes, at the manner in which the Big Father had treated them, with regard to the mines. No, we never saw any of our lead again, except what we paid dearly for; and we never will have any given to us, unless it be fired at us out of white men's guns, to kill us off." Spoon Decorah, Winnebago
Lee Miller, FROM THE HEART: VOICES OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN, Alfred A. Knopf, 1995
Lee Miller, FROM THE HEART: VOICES OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN, Alfred A. Knopf, 1995