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Military Expulsion Letters
Most of what is known about the 1840-1841 uprootings comes from the perpetrators of the trauma. The picture is thus severely limited. However, the letters written by officers and agents during these expulsion drives offer at least an outline view of what Hoocąk families endured from 1840-1841.
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**Please note that the following sources refer to Ho-Chunks (HoocÄ…ks) as "Winnebagoes," a name used for the Ho-Chunk by other tribes and the U.S. Government. The word's meaning differs from the tribe's preferred name for themselves, but it refers to the same people group.
January 12, 1840​
Indian agent David Lowry comments on logistics for the impending arrival of Hoocaks in Iowa via the planned application of military force. He offers an ironic insight about the futility of these traumas just weeks before the "removal" drives commenced.
“You may force them from Fort Winnebago and drive the whole of them from the Miss River, out upon the neutral ground, but before your troops can be disbanded the Indians will have returned…Nor will they hesitate to ascend the Wisconsin, in their canoes to any point they may choose, so that even a removal of the Indians of Fort Winnebago, to the neutral ground, can be of but little service…”
May 19, 1840​
Atkinson reports arriving at Fort Winnebago three days prior. Eight more companies of soldiers are enroute. He is concerned that the military is perpetrating a bait and switch on the Hoocąk Nation: He had been promising military protection against neighboring Tribes at the reservation, but now he has received instructions to establish the military post elsewhere.
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Atkinson has confined Yellow Thunder and Black Wolf's son at Fort Winnebago in a bid to silence resistance. Hoocąk people who have assembled for the journey to Iowa have been instructed to make dugout canoes for their own eviction since government watercraft are not available.
"[M]any [Hoocąks] have already come in, and others are arriving hourly…Finding it extremely difficult, indeed impossible to procure transportation for them, at this extreme low stage of water, I proposed to the chiefs to allow them three dollars per head if they would find their own transportation, most of them have accepted the proposition, and have for several days been busily engaged in making new canoes.
Finding before I left Fort Crawford that Yellow Thunder & Little Soldier interposed the great obstacle to a free and peaceable removal, I ordered them to be arrested and put in confinement at this post…"
June 3, 1840​
June 3, 1840, Atkinson reports that 1076 Hoocąk people are now enroute down the Wisconsin River in canoes and other small craft (which they had just made). He believes that this is the main body of the Nation in the area except for a few straggling lodges which will be taken care of “now that the Troop of Dragoons have arrived.”
July 28, 1840​
General Atkinson has returned to Jefferson Barracks at St. Louis. He forwards an agreement he coordinated in an effort to keep the peace between the Hoocąk, Sauk and Meskwaki Nations. He believes that the removal has been successful and disputes agent Lowry's claims that Hoocak people have already returned to Wisconsin.
"Any alarm that may have reached Washington, through the Agent Mr Lowery, of the Winnebagoes having recrossed the river, should have no weight, all the facts when inquired into prove to be erroneous, and I think I may safely say that no apprehension should be felt on the subject. I have adopted such measures as to prevent such occurrence, were the Winnebagoes disposed to do so, of which I have no idea."
November 6, 1840​
Fort Crawford's commanding officer George Brooke reports to General Atkinson that 1,000 Hoocąk lives have been lost over the course of the past summer. He reports that the payment of the first post removal annuity is late and incomplete. It is distributed dozens of miles from the areas to which the military had forced Hoocąk communities on the reservation. The new agency and military dragoon stables on the reservation have now been completed.
April 1, 1841​
A continued Hoocąk presence and an additional wave of returns to Wisconsin spurs a second expulsion effort. General Brooke plans to leave Fort Crawford for the Black River as soon as supplies arrive. Big Thunder's band is reported to be on Black River, and he has received word that Dandy and another group are at Fox Lake. Scores more are reported on the Rock River. A repeat of the previous year's military intervention is planned in the ensuing weeks.
December 16, 1841​
Brooke forwards accounts of expenditures incurred in the second expulsion effort. He recounts that his force had scoured the Black River corridor and Fort Winnebago's soldiers had completed a sweep through the Four Lakes region. He boasted again that when the operations were completed, "Not one single Indian remained in the Wisconsin territory."