page_title: Ho-Chunk
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Ho-Chunk / History
caption_attribution_description: Winnebago family
context_page_description: The Ho-Chunk, also known as Hoocągra or Winnebago, are a Siouan-speaking Native American people whose historic territory includes parts of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois. Today, Ho-Chunk people are enrolled in two federally recognized tribes, the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin and the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska.
  The Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska have an Indian reservation in Nebraska. While related, the two tribes are distinct federally recognized sovereign nations and peoples, each having its own constitutionally formed government, and completely separate governing and business interests.
  Since the late 20th century, both tribal councils have authorized the development of casinos to generate revenue to support economic development, infrastructure, health care and education. The Ho-Chunk Nation is working on language restoration and has developed a Hoocąk-language iOS app. Since 1988, it has pursued a claim to the Badger Army Ammunition Plant as traditional territory; the area has since been declared surplus, but the Ho-Chunk have struggled with changes in policy at the Department of the Interior.
context_section_description: Ho-Chunk oral history states that, "We have always been here" in their current homelands of Wisconsin, but also in surrounding parts of Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, and Illinois. Their Siouan language indicates common origin with the other peoples of this language group. They state their ancestors built the thousands of effigy mounds through Wisconsin and surrounding states during the Late Woodland period.
  The tribe historically adopted corn agriculture at the end of the Late Woodland period as well as hunting, fishing, and gathering wild plants. They cultivated wild rice (Zizania spp.), gathered sugar from sugar maple trees.
  European contact came in 1634 with the arrival of French explorer Jean Nicolet. He wrote that the Winnebago/Ho-Chunk occupied the area around Green Bay of Lake Michigan in Wisconsin, reaching beyond Lake Winnebago to the Wisconsin River and to the Rock River in Illinois.
  The oral history also indicates that in the mid-16th century, the influx of Ojibwe peoples in the northern portion of their lands caused the Ho-Chunk to move to the south of their territory. They had some friction with the tribes of the Illinois Confederacy, as well as fellow Chiwere-speaking peoples splitting from the Ho-Chunk. These groups, who became the Iowa, Missouria, and Otoe tribes, moved south and west because the reduced range made it difficult for such a large population to be sustained.
  Nicolet reported a gathering of approximately 5,000 warriors as the Ho-Chunk entertained him. Historians estimate that the population in 1634 may have ranged from 8,000 to more than 20,000. Between that time and the first return of French trappers and traders in the late 1650s, the population was reduced drastically. Later reports were that the Ho-Chunk numbered only about 500 people. They lost their dominance in the region. When numerous Algonquian tribes migrated west to escape the problems caused by the powerful Iroquois tribes' aggressiveness in the Beaver Wars, they competed with the Ho-Chunk for game and resources, who had to yield to their greater numbers.
  The reasons given by historians for the reduction in population vary, but they agree on three major causes: the loss of several hundred warriors in a storm on a lake, infectious disease epidemics after contact with Europeans, and attacks by the Illinois Confederacy.
  The warriors were said to be lost on Lake Michigan after they had repulsed the first attack by invading the Potawatomi from what is now Door County, Wisconsin. Another says the number was 600. Another claim is that the 500 were lost in a storm on Lake Winnebago during a failed campaign against the Meskwaki, while yet another says it was in a battle against the Sauk.
  Even with such a serious loss of warriors, the historian R. David Edmunds notes that it was not enough to cause the near elimination of an entire people. He suggests two additional causes. The Winnebago apparently suffered from a widespread disease, perhaps an epidemic of one of the European infectious diseases. They had no immunity to the new diseases and suffered high rates of fatalities. Ho-Chunk accounts said the victims turned yellow, which is not a trait of smallpox, however. Historians have rated disease as the major reason for the losses in all American Indian populations.
  Edmunds notes as a third cause of losses the following historic account: that many of the Ho-Chunk's enemies, the Illinois Confederacy, came to help the tribe at their time of suffering and famine, aggravated by the loss of their hunters. The Winnebago then attacked the Illinois Confederacy. Enraged, additional Illinois warriors retaliated and killed nearly all the Ho-Chunk.
  After peace was established between the French and Iroquois in 1701, many of the Algonquian peoples returned to their homelands to the east. The Ho-Chunk were relieved of the pressure on their territory. After 1741, while some remained in the Green Bay area, most returned inland. From a low of perhaps less than 500, the population of the people gradually recovered, aided by intermarriage with neighboring tribes
caption: Winnebago family in 1852
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