Early day in the north-west

Juliette Kinzie (1806-1870) published this memoir in 1856 about her life at Fort Winnebago (Portage) in 1830-1834, where her husband was the U.S. Indian sub-agent. “This book recounts the experiences of a young, genteel wife adjusting to the military life and frontier conditions of life at Fort Winnebago, Wisconsin, in the early 1830s. She describes her perilous journeys back and forth to the early settlement of Chicago, her complex cultural encounters with a diverse frontier society, and her determination to instill her own standards of civilized behavior and Christian observance. There is abundant information on the customs, folklore, economic practices, life-cycle events, medical treatments, diet, warfare, environmental responses, social hierarchies, and gender roles of the different groups of people that Kinzie comes to know best. She also provides detailed portraits of individual native Americans, voyageurs, fur traders, missionaries, pioneers, soldiers, and African Americans who impressed her positively or negatively. As pieces of local and family history, Kinzie retells stories of settlers captured by Indians; battle scenes from the wars with the British, the Sioux (Dakota) and other native Americans; and the fall of Fort Dearborn.” -Library of Congress American Memory website