Door Peninsula
The Door Peninsula is a peninsula in eastern Wisconsin, separating the southern part of the Green Bay from Lake Michigan. The peninsula includes northern Kewaunee County, northeastern Brown County, and the mainland portion of Door County. It is on the western side of the Niagara Escarpment. Well known for its cherry and apple orchards, the Door Peninsula is a popular tourism destination. With the 1881 completion of the Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal, the northern half of the peninsula became an island.
Limestone outcroppings of the Niagara Escarpment are visible on both shores of the peninsula, but are larger and more prominent on the Green Bay side as seen at the Bayshore Blufflands. Progressions of dunes have created much of the rest of the shoreline, especially on the east side. Flora along the shore demonstrate plant succession during periods of low lake levels. The middle of the peninsula is mostly flat. Beyond the peninsula's northern tip is a series of islands, the largest of which is Washington Island. The partially submerged ridge extends farther north, becoming the Garden Peninsula in Michigan's Upper Peninsula.
History
Archaeology
Paleo-Indian artifacts have been found at two sites in the town of Union and two sites in the city of Sturgeon Bay. The Cardy and Salisbury Steak sites are located about a mile from each other in the south side of the city, and the Heyrman I and Boss Tavern sites are a quarter-mile from each other along Highway 57 in the town of Union. It is thought that the Boss Tavern site was used as a base camp, while the Heyrman I site was used as a workshop area for producing stone tools and possibly also as a very brief campsite. Both sites were occupied multiple times by Paleo-Indians.A microwear analysis of the scraping tools found at the Boss Tavern site found that the tools had been used for butchering, skinning, and working with dry hides, and for scraping and smoothing wood. One scraping tool resembled an adze and was used to support the hypothesis that Paleo-Indians built watercraft. A layer of sand was found at the Boss Tavern site, indicating it was a beach when lake levels were higher than they are today.
The tools and waste chips at the Heyrman I site suggest that the Paleo-Indians there may have been less mobile than those who resided at the Boss Tavern site. Additionally, they appear less mobile the Paleo-Indians at the Cardy Site, which primarily used Moline chert from Illinois, and the group at the Salisbury Steak site, which used chert and sandstone from a variety of sources.
One possible explanation for why the two sites in the town of Union featured more local stone material than the Cardy site could be from their occupants using different travel routes. The Niagara Escarpment was a local source of material to make stone tools, and because the bluffs of the escarpment stretch across the western side of the peninsula, Paleo-Indians traveling on the Green Bay side would have come across it. It has been suggested that those living at the Cardy Site may have instead traveled on the east side of the peninsula away from the bluffs. They could have arrived at the Cardy Site from an area to the east of Lake Winnebago where other Moline chert artifacts have been found.
The Salisbury Steak site was used as a stone tool workshop, and appears to have been occupied later than the other three sites. The stone materials found at the site come from only a single occupation, and include local material, sandstone coming from the south or west, and chert from the Hudson Bay Lowlands in Canada. How they acquired Canadian stone is unknown, but they could have found it in a glacial deposit, traded for it, or migrated from the far north.
As of 2007, seven Clovis points have been found in Door County, and four Gainey points were found at the Cardy Site. The relationship between Gainey points and the more ubiquitous Clovis points is being researched, but there are some similarities.
Careful study of certain Paleo-Indian artifacts from western Wisconsin suggests that they were made in the Door Peninsula and carried across the state. Paleo-Indian stone tools from made from stone sourced from the Door Peninsula or its immediate vicinity have been found as far west as in Trempealeau, La Crosse, Jackson, and Jackson, and Monroe counties and as far south as Dane County.
Archaeological evidence shows habitation of the peninsula and its islands by several different Native American groups. Artifacts from an ancient village site at Nicolet Bay Beach date to about 400 BC. This site was occupied by various cultures until about 1300 AD.
In 246 B.C, a dog was buried in a Native American burial site on Washington Island.
Etymology
The name of the peninsula and the county comes from the name of a route between Green Bay and Lake Michigan. Humans, whether Native Americans, early explorers, or American ship captains, have been well aware of the dangerous water passage that lies between the Door Peninsula and Washington Island, connecting the bay to the rest of Lake Michigan. It was named by the Native Americans and translated into French as Porte des Morts: in English, "Death's Door".The earliest known written reference to this comes from a 1728 mention of "Cap a la Mort" in French.
The Menominee name for the peninsula was "Kenatao", meaning "cape".
Potawatomi and Menominee
Before and during the 19th century, various Native Americans occupied the Door Peninsula and nearby islands. 17th-century French explorers made contact with various tribes in the area. In 1634, the Jean Nicolet expedition landed at Rock Island. This is considered the first visit by a European to what is now Wisconsin. There are competing claims to the landing site of French explorer Jean Nicolet in 1634, who was searching for a water route through North America to Asia: Horseshoe Island, which is part of Peninsula State Park, and Red Banks, which is about 7 miles north of what is now Green Bay. Nicolet is remembered in Wisconsin lore for having mistaken the Ho-Chunk Indians for Asians and celebrating, believing he had reached the Far East. Nicolet had heard long before coming that the people living along these shores were called Winnebago and, perhaps erroneously, "the People of the Sea". He concluded that this name meant they were from or living near the Pacific Ocean with its aromatic salt air and that they would be a direct link to the people of China, if not from China.In 1665, Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard des Groseilliers spent the winter with the Potawatomi. Explaining his travels, Radisson reported that
We embarked ourselves on the delightfullest lake of the world. I tooke notice of their Cottages & of the journeys of our navigation, for because that the country was so pleasant, so beautiful & fruitfull that it grieved me to see that the world could not discover such inticing countrys to live in. This I say because that the Europeans fight for a rock in the sea against one another, or for a sterill land and horrid country, that the people sent heere or there by the changement of the aire ingenders sicknesse and dies thereof. Contrarywise those kingdoms are so delicious & under so temperat a climat, plentifull of all things, the earth bringing foorth its fruit twice a yeare, the people live long & lusty & wise in their way. What conquest would that bee att litle or no cost; what laborinth of pleasure should millions of people have, instead that millions complaine of misery & poverty! What should not men reape out of the love of God in converting the souls heere, is more to be gained to heaven then what is by differences of nothing there, should not be so many dangers committed under the pretence of religion! Why so many thoesoever are hid from us by our owne faults, by our negligence, covetousnesse, & unbeliefe. It's true, I confesse, that the accesse is difficult, but must say that we are like the Cockscombs of Paris, when first they begin to have wings, imagining that the larks will fall in their mouths roasted; but we ought that vertue is not acquired without labour & taking great paines.
In 1669, Claude-Jean Allouez also wintered with the Potawatomi. He mentioned an area called "la Portage des Eturgeons." In 1673, Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet stayed in the area about three months as part of their exploration. In 1679, the party led by La Salle purchased food from a village of Potawatomi in what is now Robert La Salle County Park. During the 1670s Louis André ministered to about 500 Native Americans at Rowleys Bay, where he erected a cross. The cross stood until about 1870. Around 1690, Nicolas Perrot visited the Potawatomi on Washington Island. In 1720, Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix visited the area with eight experienced voyageurs.
Six Jesuit rings marked with letters or symbols and turquoise colored glass trade beads were found on Rock Island in remains left by Potowatomi, Odawa, and Huron-Peton-Odawa Native Americans during the 17th and 18th centuries. The remains of four Native American buildings were documented at the Rock Island II Site during 1969–1973 excavations.
By the end of French rule over the area in 1763, the Potawatomi had begun a move to the Detroit area, leaving the large communities in Wisconsin. Later, some Potawatomi moved back from Michigan to northern Wisconsin. Some but not all Potawatomi later left northern Wisconsin for northern Indiana and central Illinois.
In 1815, Captain Talbot Chambers was falsely reported to have died fighting Blackhawk Indians on Chambers Island; the island was named for him in 1816. In the spring 1833, Odawa on Detroit Island were baptized during an eight day visit by Frederic Baraga. During an attack in 1835, one of two fishermen squatting on Detroit Island was shot and killed along with one or more Native Americans. The other fisherman was rescued by a passing boat. From the 1840s to the 1880s, the Clark brothers operated a fishing camp at Whitefish Bay that employed 30 to 40 fishermen. Additionally, 200–300 Potawatomi extracted fish oil from the fish waste at the camp.
The Menominee ceded their claim to the Door Peninsula to the United States in the 1831 Treaty of Washington. As a result of this treaty, settlers could purchase land, but many fishermen still chose to live as squatters. At the same time, the more decentralized Potawatomi were divested of their land without compensation. Some Potawatomi as late as 1845 made sure to visit and gamble with the Menominee shortly after the periodic annuity payments were issued. Many emigrated to Canada because of multiple factors. One factor was invitations from Native Americans already in Canada for the Potawatomi to join them. Another was British policies to invite and encourage as much Indian emigration from the United States as possible. Even prior to their final emigration, many Potowatomis had periodically migrated into Canada to receive compensation related to their service on the British side during the War of 1812 and to pledge their continued loyalty. Another factor was a desire to avoid the harsh terms of the 1833 Treaty of Chicago, which compensated the Wisconsin Potowatomi with less than what was paid to Potowatomi from the Chicago area. Although not all Potawatomi participated in the Treaty of Chicago, it was federal policy that any who did not relocate westward as the treaty stipulated would not be compensated for their land. Additionally, some preferred the climate of the Great Lakes area over that of the Plains, and American governmental policy for the area beginning in 1837 tended towards forced rather than voluntary Indian removal. Moving to Canada became a way to stay in the Great Lakes area without risking removal.
Potawatomi leader Simon Kahquados traveled to Washington, D.C. multiple times in an attempt to get the land back. In 1906, Congress passed a law to establish a census of all Potawatomi formerly living in Wisconsin and Michigan as a first step toward compensation. The 1907 "Wooster" roll, named after the clerk who compiled it, documented 457 Potawatomi living in Wisconsin and Michigan and 1423 in Ontario. Instead of returning the land, a meager monthly payment was issued. Although Kahquados was unsuccessful, he increased public awareness of Potawatomi history. In 1931, 15,000 people attended his burial in Peninsula State Park.