Book
Indian Nations of Wisconsin
Histories of Endurance and Renewal
Patty's general-audience adult history of Wisconsin's twelve Native nations. Two thematic prefatory chapters followed by one chapter per nation, then a closing 'Beyond' essay where she signals her active beats. The 2013 second edition updated some material; a third edition is in progress and will need to fold in everything below.
Chapters
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Preface · Preface
How the book came to be. Frames her sourcing philosophy (Native voices first), names her tribal historian collaborators, and contains the famous 'as often as necessary' anecdote about a Mohican reader correcting her draft.
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Ch. 1: Early History
Pre-contact Wisconsin: rock art, mound builders, the Mississippians, the Anishinabe / Three Fires, wampum and pictographs as record-keeping, creation stories from each nation.
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Ch. 2: European Arrivals
The fur trade era: Nicolet 1634, French and British rivalries, Three Fires alliance, intermarriage, disease, and how Native nations played European powers against each other.
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Ch. 3: The Menominee Nation
Tribal traditions, the Browning Ruling, termination 1954, DRUMS and Ada Deer's leadership of restoration 1973, Wolf River sustainable forestry, and the College of Menominee Nation.
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Ch. 4: The Ho-Chunk Nation
Tribal traditions, removal and return, Black Hawk's War, the Cranberry People and migrant labor, Tomah Indian Industrial School and assimilation, contemporary Ho-Chunk Nation governance. (Also Patty's grandfather Edward DeNomie's boarding school.)
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Ch. 5: The Ojibwe Nation
The six Ojibwe bands of Wisconsin: Bad River (Patty's home), Red Cliff, Lac Courte Oreilles, Lac du Flambeau, Sokaogon (Mole Lake), and St. Croix. Madeline Island and the Three Fires diaspora, Chief Buffalo and the Sandy Lake removal averted, the 1837/1842/1854 treaties, allotment, boarding schools, the spear fishing battle. The longest and most personally invested chapter.
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Ch. 6: The Potawatomi Nation
Forest County Potawatomi history: Three Fires alliance, removal and return, Big Drum (Dream Dance), the Class One Air Quality designation in 1999, gaming and economic development, language revitalization.
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Ch. 7: The Oneida Nation
From Haudenosaunee homelands to Wisconsin: the American Revolution, Polly Cooper, the Eleazer Williams migration, allotment and land loss, the New York land claims, contemporary Oneida governance and economic diversification.
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Ch. 8: Stockbridge-Munsee Community (Mohican)
The Mohican Nation Stockbridge-Munsee Community's journey from the Hudson Valley through Stockbridge, Massachusetts and Oneida, New York to their current Wisconsin reservation. The Stockbridge mission, allotment, the Indian Reorganization Act, and the contemporary leadership of Shannon Holsey. Split into its own chapter in the second edition.
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Ch. 9: Brothertown Indian Nation
The Brothertown Indians' migration from southern New England to Wisconsin in the 1820s, congressional citizenship in 1839, and the resulting termination of their tribal status. Split into its own chapter in the second edition. The decades-long fight for federal recognition continues.
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Ch. 10: Urban Indians
Wisconsin's urban Native communities, primarily Milwaukee, Brown County / Green Bay, and Madison. The Indian Council of the Elderly, Indian Community School (Franklin), the Gerald L. Ignace Indian Health Center, Consolidated Tribes of American Indians, Indian Summer Festival, and the legacy of the 1956 Indian Relocation Act. New to the second edition.
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Beyond · Beyond
The closing essay where Patty signals her active beats: Crandon mine, Class One Air Quality, treaty rights backlash, Lac du Flambeau roads, gaming and the misperception that 'all Indians are rich,' and the cultural renaissance. This essay is where the third edition's structural updates land hardest.