The Rest of the Story in Packrat

I've just finished reading Wau-bun, The Early Day in the Northwest, written by Juliette Augusta Kinzie and first published in 1856. My mother bought the book for me on my birthday when we stopped at the home of Juliette Gordon Low, the founder of the Girl Scouts, in Savannah, Georgia.

The Low house tour guide pointed out portraits of Low's grandparents and mentioned that her grandfather, John Kinzie, had "worked with Indians in Wisconsin and Illinois". What?! I asked the guide for more information about this, certain that here was a part of my history. She knew that Low's grandmother had written a book about the experience, and when we walked out of the gift shop I had a copy in my possession.

It took me a little while to start reading this book because, although a sign of the times, the attitude of the writer is usually that the native people are either scary savages or primitive, and the ways of the settler were better. That attitude has cost us much.

A touch of that appears here, too, but I'm shocked to see how Kinzie balances her narrative. She acknowledges why our peoples could have an uneasy alliance with each other and understands why there might be no love between us.

Most interesting to me is her perspective of the Sauk "war". As it occurred, she was there, and she lived in fear of my people. She and others of the agency slept within the nearby fort's walls each night until her husband sent her away for her safety. Any native spotted caused great anxiety until his tribal affiliation could be ascertained.

She speaks of "the Sauk" and "the enemy" interchangeably; we were one and the same to her. Part of that old blood stirs within my present day existence; I'm proud we scared the living daylights out of her.

It also feels a little odd to read such an account, knowing that at the time no one could really perceive that a Sauk of the time would produce his own autobiography (Black Hawk is recognized as an Illinois author) and that one of the descendants of his band would be here, alive and well, to read both.

She includes an appendix that tells our side of the story, and even as she wrote her memoirs she had empathy for how the conflict started. She was one of the first to point out that Black Hawk's followers during the conflict were women and children, not warriors.

She is long gone, but in the present day I appreciate her efforts. I wonder what she would think about us today - still adhering to our traditions and customs but also incorporating them and adapting to a way of life partially introduced by her. I'm writing, am I not? The State of Wisconsin formally apologized for the events of that conflict, and a new visitor's center not yet built wants to tell the story properly. That's in the spirit of her wanting the whole truth told, and I think she would like that.

Yeah, I'm proud of my people for scaring her, but I deeply appreciate that she set that aside to look more deeply and saw us as people.