Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration
Detail of “Nova et Aucta Orbis Terrae Descriptio ad Usum Navigantium Emendate Accommodata” by Gerardus Mercator (1569)
Land-history research research for:
The Marywood Franciscan Center (11195 Marywood Cove, Arbor Vitae, WI 54568)
The Villa (W2658 WI-33, La Crosse, WI 54601)
The Motherhouse (01 Franciscan Way La Crosse, WI 54601)
Prairie Woods Franciscan Spirit Center (120 E Boyson Road, Hiawatha Iowa, 52233)
Neshonoc Lake Cottage (W3092 State Road/Hwy 16, West Salem, WI 54669)
“Taking possession of Louisiana and the River Mississippi, in the name of Louis XIVth, by Cavalier De La Salle” by Jean-Adolphe Bocquin (c. 1860)
European Contact
The Doctrine of Discovery at the FSPA Parcels
Detail of signature of Carey Allen Harris in “Letter from C. A. Harris, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, to General N. Smith” (1838)
Settler Colonization
The Treaty Period
Secured.
“The [Ho-Chunk] Indian population will be removed further from the frontier of the States, and will no longer be subject to a contaminating intercourse, while our people will be secured from incursions and attacks upon their persons and property.”
Letter from C.A. Harris, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, to Joel R. Poinsett, Secretary of War (Dec. 1, 1837)
Portrait of Moses Henry Dodge, Wisconsin’s first Territorial Governor, U.S. Senator, and negotiator of the 1837 Pine Treaty, by William Cogswell (date unknown)
Control.
“I have no doubt, if the proper steps are taken, the Chippewas will become attached to the Government, and can be easily controlled by their [federal] agents.”
Daguerreotype of Robert Stuart by unknown artists (c. 1830)
Delighted.
“[T]hese Indians are through our late efforts entirely reconciled among themselves, and highly delighted with the kind and generous dealings of the government toward them.”
1842 Treaty Negotiator Robert Stuart to Thomas Hartley Crawford, Secretary of Indian Affairs (Nov. 19, 1842)
Portrait of Chief Buffalo by unknown artist (c. 1810)
Listen.
“I am very sorry for that treaty we made here this fall. I thought to make a very good one, and spoke always to that purpose, but… the commissioner would not listen to us at all.”
“From Buffalo, Head Chief at La Pointe,” enclosed in correspondence from Alfred Brunson, La Pointe sub agent, to James Duane Doty, Governor of Wisconsin Territory (Oct. 29, 1842)
“Father, Your commissioner came and took our lands away with him, and we could not say, no.”
“In Council at La Pointe, Jany 5th, 1843, Buffalo, Head Chief of This Band Spoke as Follows,” Records of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
"Rev. Alfred Brunson, A.M. Aged 44 – 1837. Missionary to the Sioux and Chippewa Indians,” painted by Henry Shaffer and engraved by J.W. Paradise (1861)
Schemes.
“The fault, in part, tho’ unintentional, lay with the Govt. in appointing the commissioner; who, it is known, connived at the schemes of the speculators, if they did not abet and share with them the profits of the enterprise.”
Alfred Brunson, La Pointe sub agent, to James Duane Doty, Governor of Wisconsin Territory (Jan. 6, 1843)
“Map of Treaty Cessions by Charles C. Royce, Bureau of American Ethnology (1899)
Primary Sources
Prairie Woods Franciscan Spiritual Center
The Motherhouse
Marywood Franciscan Center
& Markups
Neshonoc Lake Cottage & The Villa
Current Law
Land Becomes Property
Primary Sources
Marywood Franciscan Center
& Markups
The Motherhouse
“Map of the State of Wisconsin,” by Snyder, Van Vechten & Co. (1878)
“Log jam on the St. Croix River at the Head of the Dalles,” photographer unknown (1886)
Neshonoc Lake Cottage | West Salem, WI
Prairie Woods Franciscan Spiritual Center | Hiawatha, IA
The Villa | La Crosse, WI
Curated Resource List for the Franciscan Sisters of Perpetual Adoration
There’s more
To learn about tribes in Wisconsin from an Anishinaabekwe author:
Read Patty Loew, Indian Nations of Wisconsin: Histories of Endurance and Renewal (Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2013)
For detail about legalized profiteering in the Northwest Territory by an Ojibwe author:
Read Michael John Witgen, Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion, and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America (Omohundro Institute, 2022)
“La Crosse, Wisc. 1873,” by George H. Ellsbury (1873)
To learn more about modern Ojibwe treaty rights:
Read the Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission’s A Guide to Understanding Ojibwe Treaty Rights (Great Lakes Indian Fish & Wildlife Commission, 2005)
For Indigenous perspectives on U.S. history:
Read Ned Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History (Yale University Press, 2023)
Read Anton Treuer, Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians But Were Afraid to Ask: Revised and Expanded (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2023)
Share Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People (Beacon Press, 2019)
To hear indigenous speakers describe their 1800s experience in Wisconson
Read Carol Cornelius, A History In Indigenous Voices” Menominee, Ho-Chunk, Oneida, Stockbridge, and Brothertown Interactions in the Removal Era (Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2023)