Winnebago War

Winnebago War
Part of the American Indian Wars

Red Bird, dressed in white buckskin for his surrender to U.S. authorities, with Wekau
DateJune 27 – September 1, 1827
Location
Result United States victory
Territorial
changes
Ho-Chunks cede lead mining region to the United States
Belligerents
Prairie La Crosse Ho-Chunks, with a few allies United States United States, with some Choctaw and a few other Native allies
Commanders and leaders
Red Bird Henry Atkinson,
Henry Dodge
Casualties and losses
7 killed 9–11 civilians killed
Tribal boundaries negotiated at the 1825 Prairie du Chien treaty.

The Winnebago War, also known as the Winnebago Uprising,[1] was a brief conflict that took place in 1827 in the Upper Mississippi River region of the United States, primarily in what is now the state of Wisconsin. Not quite a war,[2] the hostilities were limited to a few attacks on American civilians by a portion of the Winnebago (or Ho-Chunk) Native American tribe. The Ho-Chunks were reacting to a wave of lead miners trespassing on their lands, and to false rumors that the United States had sent two Ho-Chunk prisoners to a rival tribe for execution.

Most Native Americans in the region decided against joining the uprising, and so the conflict ended after U.S. officials responded with a show of military force. Ho-Chunk chiefs surrendered eight men who had participated in the violence, including Red Bird, whom American officials believed to be the ringleader. Red Bird died in prison in 1828 while awaiting trial; two other men convicted of murder were pardoned by President John Quincy Adams and released.

As a result of the war, the Ho-Chunk tribe was compelled to cede the lead mining region to the United States. The Americans also increased their military presence on the frontier, building Fort Winnebago and reoccupying two other abandoned forts. The conflict convinced some officials that Americans and Indians could not live peaceably together, and that the Natives should be compelled to move westward, a policy known as Indian removal. The Winnebago War preceded the larger Black Hawk War of 1832, which involved many of the same people and concerned similar issues.

  1. ^ The conflict has also been called the Winnebago Outbreak, the Red Bird War, the Red Bird Uprising, the Fever River War, and the Le Fèvre Indian War.
  2. ^ The conflict is "hardly qualified for designation as a war"; Zanger, 64.

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