Algic stock. The exceptions are the Winnebagoes and the Sioux, who
belong to the Dakota family. Of these Wisconsin tribes it is probable
that the Sauks and Foxes, the Pottawattomies, the Hurons and Ottawas and
the Mascoutins, and Miamis and Kickapoos, were driven into Wisconsin by
the attacks of eastern enemies. The Iroquois even made incursions as far
as the home of the Mascoutins on Fox river. On the other side of the
state were the Sioux, "the Iroquois of the West," as the missionaries
call them, who had once claimed all the region, and whose invasions,
Allouez says, rendered Lake Winnebago uninhabited. There was therefore a
pressure on both sides of Wisconsin which tended to mass together the
divergent tribes. And the Green bay and Fox and Wisconsin route was the
line of least resistance, as well as a region abounding in wild rice,
fish and game, for these early fugitives. In this movement we have two
facts that are not devoid of significance in institutional history:
first, the welding together of separate tribes, as the Sauks and Foxes,
and the Miamis, Mascoutins and Kickapoos; and second, a commingling of
detached families from various tribes at peculiarly favorable
localities.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 66: On these early locations, consult the authorities cited by
Shea in Wis. Hist. Colls., III., 125 _et seq._, and by Branson in his
criticism on Shea, _ibid._ IV., 223. See also Butterfield's Discovery of
the Northwest in 1634, and _Mag. West. Hist._, V., 468, 630; and Minn.
Hist. Colls., V.]

[Footnote 67: Some early estimates were as follows: 1640, "Great
numbers" (Margry, I., 48); 1718, 80 to 100 warriors (N.Y. Col. Docs.,
IX., 889); 1728, 60 or 80 warriors (Margry, VI., 553); 1736, 90 warriors
(Chaurignerie, cited in Schoolcraft's Indian Tribes, III., 282); 1761,
150 warriors (Gorrell, Wis. Hist. Colls., I., 32).]

[Footnote 68: Margry, I., 46.]

[Footnote 69: Jes. Rels., 1667, 1670.]

[Footnote 70: 1718, estimated at 80 to 100 warriors (N.Y. Col. Docs.,
IX.,889); 1762, estimated at 150 warriors (Gorrell, Wis. Hist. Colls.,
I., 32).]

[Footnote 71: Jes. Rels., 1670.]

[Footnote 72: French leagues.]

[Footnote 73: 1670, Foxes estimated at 400 warriors (Jes. Rels., 1670);
1667, Foxes, 1000 warriors (Jes. Rels., 1667); 1695, Foxes and
Mascoutins, 1200 warriors (N.Y. Col. Docs., IX., 633); 1718, Sauks 100
or 120, Foxes 500 warriors (2 Penn. Archives, VI., 54); 1728, Foxes, 200
warriors (Margry, V.); 17