Wisconsin Frontier (A History of the Trans-Appalachian Frontier) - Tapa dura

"A handful of black-and-white photographs illustrate this thoroughlyaccessible history, highly recommended especially for Wisconsin history shelves andpublic library collections." -- Midwest Book Review, April 2011 "A highly readable, balanced account of the area that became the state ofWisconsin in 1848... [Wyman] elevates his narrative from a limited state history toa fascinating story of the gains and perils, ebbs and flows that characterize theAmerican frontier saga." -- Western Historical Quarterly "An informative and readable overview.... [Wyman's] integration of Indianhistory into the work is well done and commendable." -- Journal of IllinoisHistory "Wyman has a smooth style, with an eye for informative yet catchyquotations. He has compressed volumes of material without losing the 'you-are-there'dynamic that characterizes all good history. This is a book for the general publicto which professional historians might well turn to discover an originalinterpretation.... A well-told, well-documented tale." -- Wisconsin AcademyReview "A superb history." -- Wyman relates these oft-told stories with relish and color, andillustrates how the needs and beliefs of the people who participated [in theexploitation of natural resources] often precluded careful thought about theresulting depletion of flora, fauna, and minerals....Wyman presents the frontier asa series of novel challenges for those who sought opportunities there [and] howthose experiences changed them.Journal of the Early Republic

From French coureurs de bois coursing through its waterways in the 17th century, to the lumberjacks who rode logs down those same rivers in the late 19th century, Wisconsin's frontier era saw thousands arriving from Europe and other areas seeking wealth and opportunity. Indians mixed with these newcomers, sometimes helping and sometimes challenging them, often benefiting from their guns, pots, blankets, and other trade items. France, Britain, and the United States fought to control the Upper Lakes, for besides its natural riches, Wisconsin lay astride the major water route linking the St. Lawrence and the Gulf of Mexico. The British were long reluctant to give up this region they lost through war and diplomacy, but eventually the victorious Americans arriving in the early 19th Century transformed the region seeking lead, cropland, wild game, and timber.As population grew the Indians realized that incoming groups wanted land as well as furs, and a series of struggles erupted that eventually left Chippewas, Menominees, and the New York Indians with reservations while the Winnebagoes and Potawatomis obtained smaller holdings; but many of them, as well as members of such tribes as the Foxes and Sacs, moved beyond the Mississippi under government treaties. The settlers frontier produced a state with enormous ethnic variety, but one whose rambunctiousness worried distant governmental and religious authorities, who soon dispatched officials and missionaries to guide the new settlements. By 1900 an era was rapidly passing, leaving Wisconsin's peoples with traditions of optimism and self-government but confronting them also with tangled cutover lands and game scarcities that were a legacy of the settlers - belief in the inexhaustible resources of the frontier. A history of the Trans-Appalachian Frontier - Walter Nugent and Malcolm Rohrbough, general editors.