Widow Four Legs​

​

Although known to history only as the Widow Four Legs, or Four Legs’ wife, this Hoocąk woman was far from obscure in the eyes of those who knew her.  Mrs. Four Legs was born into the Meskwaki tribe.   Marriage brought her into the Four Legs (Hoo-tshoap-kaw) family of the Hoocąk Nation.  Her husband had assumed leadership of the tribal members living at the Winnebago Rapids—the keystone of Lake Winnebago.  Mrs. Four Legs experienced the years of her husband’s involvement in Techumseh’s War; saw the family through tense times, including confrontation with military forces traversing the state in 1820; and emerged in the pivotal 1830s seasoned with influence in her own right.

​

A fluent knowledge of Ojibwe meant that Mrs. Four legs spoke the trade language of the entire Great Lakes Midwest.  Ojibwe was known in common by many leaders of linguistically distinct people groups.  Her linguistic ability brought her into a position of inter-tribal respect.  Juliette Kinzie (wife of sub-agent John Kinzie), who formed a personal relationship with this individual, described her position in the tribe:

​

“She was a Fox woman, and spoke the Chippewa, which is the court language among all the tribes, so that she was often called upon to act as interpreter, and had, in fact, been in the habit of accompanying her husband, and assisting him by her counsels upon all occasions. She was a person of great shrewdness and judgment, and, as I afterwards experienced, of strong and tenacious affections.”

 

Mrs. Four Legs advised her husband, but also bore influence directly.  During the Red Bird conflict of 1827, government officials noticed how she “followed the chiefs like their shadow” at the Treaty of Butte De Morts, dissuading them from joining forces against a government which could do their people much harm in the event of a war.  She knew, for the very treaty grounds upon which they were standing was the burial place of large numbers of her Meskwaki ancestors who had been all but wiped out by the French military only a few generations prior.

​

Prior to the 1832 census, Mrs. Four Legs appears to have made her presence known as the tribe gathered at the Portage during the Black Hawk War.  Whether she served as an interpreter or just wished to be close to the sources of information is unknown, but when sub-agent John Kinzie wished to send a message from Portage to Green Bay following the Battle of Wisconsin Heights, Mrs. Four Legs was the messenger.