Called the “fairest portion of the Great West,” Wisconsin was first observed by Europeans in 1634. Late that summer a young but seasoned voyageur, Jean Nicolet, sent by New France, arrived at Red Banks on the Green Bay of Lake Michigan. He explored the area and returned to Canada to explain to Samuel de Champlain that he had not found the passage to China. In the spring and summer of 1673, Louis Joliet, a cartographer and explorer, Father Jacques Marquette, and five others made a journey that would greatly expand the French knowledge of this territory. The course of their canoes was guided by two Miami-nation guides down the Fox, Wisconsin, and Mississippi rivers. They traversed the Mississippi south to a Quapaw village near the present boundary of Arkansas and Louisiana.

Nicolas Perrot, born in France about 1644, and Toussaint Baudry, one of his partners in a trading company in New France (Canada), visited Green Bay in 1668 by invitation of the Potawatomi they had met in an earlier visit at Chequamegon Bay. Perrot, known as an expert in tribal diplomacy, visited many natives, creating valuable alliances with them. His influence with the Wisconsin tribes continued at least through 1698.

Jesuit Father Claude Allouez opened a mission in 1669 in what is now Brown County. It became a major point in the French fur-trading empire until it was closed in 1728. Fort Francis, built on the Fox River in 1717, was rebuilt by the British as Fort Edward Augustus, establishing their presence in the area in 1763. Charles de Langlade and his family arrived at Green Bay in 1765, establishing the first permanent white settlement in Wisconsin.

The Treaty of Paris in 1783 theoretically put Wisconsin under U.S. control, although in reality the British were in command of the area. Four years later Wisconsin was included in the newly organized Northwest Territory and in 1800 was included in Indiana Territory. When Michigan Territory was created in 1805, it left Wisconsin in Indiana Territory. On 3 February 1809, Wisconsin, except for the Door County Peninsula, became part of Illinois Territory. Nine years later Illinois became a state, and Wisconsin was redefined as Michigan Territory. Wisconsin became a territory in 1836 and a state in 1848.

Two years after statehood, the population of Wisconsin was over 300,000. The ratio of American-born to foreign-born was two to one, with immigrants' birthplaces being Canada, England, Switzerland, Germany, Ireland, Wales, the Netherlands, and Norway. Approximately one-fifth of the American-born were Wisconsin-born, and most were children. The migrants came from Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, New England, New York, the mid-Atlantic, and the South. New Yorkers numbered about 68,600 in Wisconsin in 1850 (see Smith in Background Sources).

A few generalizations are important in researching immigrant or migrant Wisconsin ancestors. Most of them traveled directly from their home state or their port of debarkation. Some Germans and some Dutch stayed temporarily in the east for financial reasons, and the Irish often took years to work their way west from the east coast or Canada. Those from New York, Pennsylvania, and New England traditionally made the journey in stages, as indicated by birth records for their children which may be found from the Northeast through Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.

Naturalization

Naturalization records for Wisconsin have historically been kept in the county courthouses. However, they are now generally being transferred to the respective Area Research Center. As of 1989, it is estimated that three-fourths of counties have transferred these records. Two significant exceptions to this policy are Milwaukee and Waukesha counties, where the papers are deposited with the respective county historical society. Some naturalizations for La Crosse and all those applied for in federal courts are at the National Archives-Great Lakes Region.

Black American

Records indicate, according to Zachary Cooper in Black Settlers in Rural Wisconsin (Madison, Wis.: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1977), that blacks were in Wisconsin as early as the 1700s serving as trappers, guides, boatmen, and interpreters to the French voyageurs and fur traders. Southerners from Kentucky, Virginia, and North Carolina who migrated to Wisconsin during the territorial period settled in the lead-mining, southwestern counties of Grant and Iowa, some bringing their black slaves. Blacks also came as slaves to military personnel, immigrated as freemen or runaway slaves. In 1840 Wisconsin Territory counted 185 free blacks and eleven slaves. Ten years later the there were 635 free blacks and no slaves counted.

The numbers from that 1840 census exemplify the state's position on slavery. The first abolition society was formed in Racine County in 1840, followed by the publication of the anti-slavery newspaper, Wisconsin Aegis, in 1843. Blacks from the South were assisted in the 1850s through the “underground railroad” of Wisconsin to freedom in Canada. In 1857 the legislature passed a “personal liberty law.”

The Wisconsin Black History Museum, 4508 North 39th Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53209, is collecting museum artifacts, photographs, papers, and books related to Wisconsin's black population, especially from rural areas.

Native American

When Jean Nicolet landed at the Red Banks of Lake Michigan in 1634, he would have been met by the Winnebago tribe which lived in large numbers in the Green Bay region. The Native Americans in the seventeenth century included the Sioux, Potawatomi, Sauk, Fox, Mascouten, Miami, Kickapoo, Huron, and Ottawa. In the early nineteenth century, the removal and containment of the natives began its deceptive chronicle. In some cases, land vacated by one tribe was occupied by another, resulting in two treaties on one parcel of land, sometimes requiring the repurchase of that same land.

There were eleven treaties between 1829 and 1848 with the Native Americans of Wisconsin. The Kickapoo, Winnebago, and Potawatomi migrated to Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Mexico after surrendering all their land except for their reservations. The Menominee nation remained in Wisconsin, as did a few Potawatomi and many Chippewa.

In 1984 there were six Chippewa reservations in northern Wisconsin, a group of Potawatomi on federal trust tribal land in Forest County, and a Menominee reservation in Menominee County. The Stockbridge-Munsee reservation is in Shawano County, and the Brotherton tribe has been assimilated into this group. The Oneida reservation lies in Brown and Outagamie counties. The Wisconsin Winnebago, versus those removed to a reservation in Nebraska, live in tribal settlements and scattered tracts of land across the state. For further information refer to Stewart Rafert, “American-Indian Genealogical Research in the Midwest: Resources and Perspectives,” National Genealogical Society Quarterly 76 (September 1988): 212–24. This excellent and informative article identifies pertinent local and county level records, extensive federal documentation, and miscellaneous resources.

A search of the county court records could be useful. Many Native Americans tried to sue those settlers who they believed had unjustly acquired their Indian land allotments. Probate files may contain guardianship records. National Archives collections of treaties and annuity rolls are of utmost importance .

The State Historical Society of Wisconsin has the largest collection in the United States of Native American newspapers and periodicals. Refer to James P. Danky, Native American Periodicals and Newspapers, 1828–1982: Bibliography, Publishing Record and Holdings (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984).

Other Ethnic Groups

French-Canadians were the earliest European immigrants in Wisconsin. They had crossed the border as fur traders and military personnel, settling in Prairie du Chien, Green Bay, and points west, marrying into the native families. Later French-Canadian immigrants came to the state with the lumber industry, and many migrated from previous homes in New York state. There were also numerous Canadian immigrants who were neither of French descent nor from Quebec. Many came from Ontario and the Atlantic provinces.

In 1850 there were over 21,000 Irish living in Wisconsin. The Irish were the largest English-speaking foreign-born group in the state. Their population was spread across the southern counties, with the largest number in Milwaukee County and a sizeable number in the lead-mining county of Lafayette. The English also settled in the southern counties, coming to the lead region as early as 1827. Colonies of English settlers were established in Racine, Columbia, and Dane counties. The Scots settled, although not in great numbers, in the southern and eastern sections of the state; the Welsh immigrated to Wisconsin basically in the 1840s and 1850s. The German influx began in the late 1830s, the first German colony of 800 (possibly an exaggerated number) landing in Milwaukee in 1839. By 1850 first-generation Germans constituted about 12 percent of the state population. The government had actively sought German immigrants, beginning in the 1840s, by distributing leaflets in Germany's coastal areas. Later they established, via an 1852 law, a commissioner of immigration to live in New York and promote Wisconsin's advantages. In 1854 a branch office was established in Quebec, although German immigration through that port was small. It was, however, letters sent from Wisconsin to Germany by the first settlers that actually stimulated the continued immigration to Wisconsin. Many of the letters, telling of good available land and the freedom to prosper, were published in Germany.

Although there were not large numbers of Norwegians in Wisconsin compared to Germans, two-thirds of all Norwegians in the United States in 1850 resided in Wisconsin. Most of the Dutch that had immigrated early to Wisconsin, lived in Sheboygan, Brown, and Milwaukee counties. A few Swiss were in the state as early as 1834 but came in larger numbers in the 1840s. The village of New Glarus in Green County still maintains the Swiss heritage of the original settlers in 1845. Danish immigrants to Wisconsin settled in Winnebago, Racine, and Dane counties prior to 1870. Icelanders settled on Washington Island in Door County in the early 1870s. From 1870 through 1920 there was immigration from Poland to Wisconsin, and by the 1890s Russians made their way to this midwest state. Finns and Italians arrived after 1900 as did Russian Jews who relocated in Milwaukee in 1910 and 1911.