Ho-Chunk

The Ho-Chunk, also known as Hoocąk, Hoocągra, or Winnebago are a Siouan-speaking Native American people whose historic territory includes parts of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois. Today, Ho-Chunk people are enrolled in two federally recognized tribes: the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin and the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska.

In the Late Woodland Period (650–1200 CE), precontact Ho-Chunks built thousands of effigy mounds in Wisconsin and surrounding states. They are successors to the Oneota culture. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Ho-Chunk were the dominant tribe in its territory in the 16th century, with a population estimated at several thousand. They lived in permanent villages of wigwams and cultivated corn, squash, beans, wild rice. They hunted wild animals, and fished from canoes. The name Ho-Chunk comes from the word Hoocąk and "Hoocąkra" (Ho meaning "voice", cąk meaning "sacred", ra being a definite article), meaning "People of the Sacred Voice". Their name comes from oral history that state they are the originators of the many branches of the Siouan language. The Ho-Chunk have 12 clans, each with specific roles. Wars with the Illinois Confederacy and later wars with the Ojibwe, Potawatomi, Meskwaki, and Sauk peoples pushed them out of their territories in eastern Wisconsin and Illinois, along with conflicts with the United States such as Winnebago War and Black Hawk War. The Ho-Chunk suffered severe population loss in the 17th century to a low of perhaps 500 individuals. This has been attributed to casualties of a lake storm, epidemics of infectious disease, and competition for resources from migrating Algonquian tribes. By the early 19th century, their population had increased to 2,900, but they suffered further losses in the smallpox epidemic of 1836. In 1990 they numbered 7,000; current estimates of total population of the two tribes are 12,000.

Through a series of moves imposed by the U.S. government in the 19th century, the tribe was relocated to reservations increasingly further west: in Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, and finally Nebraska. Oral history suggests some of the tribe may have been forcibly relocated up to 13 times by the federal government through forced treaty cession, losses estimated at 30 million acres in Wisconsin alone (they ceded lands in Wisconsin in 1829, 1832 and 1837; further removal attempts occurred in Wisconsin in 1840, 1846, 1850, and 1873–1874). During these removals, bands of Ho-Chunk hid out in Wisconsin rather than be moved.

In 1832, other bands of Ho-Chunk were moved to the Neutral Ground Reservation in eastern Iowa and the southeastern tip of Minnesota, where they faced hostile conditions between the warring Dakota people and Sauk peoples and a small pox outbreak. In 1846, they signed a treaty which exchanged the Neutral Ground lands for a new reservation known as "Long Prairie Reservation" in Todd County, Minnesota. In 1855, this group signed its final treaty for Minnesota land giving back the Long Prairie Reservation in exchange for land near Mankato, Minnesota. This new reservation was referred to as the "Blue Earth Reservation". After the Dakota War of 1862 and tensions created by the hate group Knights of the Forest, about 2,000 Ho-Chunk were interned at Camp Porter in Mankato before being expelled from Minnesota to Crow Creek, South Dakota in 1863.

The Ho-Chunk often nonviolently resisted removal by staying home, or simply returning home, rather than engaging in uprisings. Poor conditions at Crow Creek led many Ho-Chunk to leave for the Omaha Reservation in Nebraska. The Winnebago Reservation was founded for the Ho-Chunk in Nebraska in 1865. The Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin is considered a "non-reservation" tribe, as members historically had to acquire individual homesteads in order to regain title to ancestral territory. They hold land in more than 13 counties in Wisconsin and have land in Illinois. The federal government has granted legal reservation status to some of these parcels, but the Ho-Chunk Nation does not have a contiguous reservation. While related, the two tribes are distinct federally recognized sovereign nations and peoples, each with its own constitutionally formed government and completely separate governing and business interests. Since the late 20th century, both tribal councils have authorized the development of casinos. The Ho-Chunk Nation is working on language restoration and has developed a Hoocąk-language iOS app and online dictionary.