The Winnebago (Ho-chunk) are a Siouan-speaking tribe originally found in the Green Bay-Lake Winnebago area of northeastern Wisconsin. The Winnebago ceded their lands in Wisconsin in the treaties of 1829, 1832 and 1837. Because of disagreements about the terms of the 1837 treaty, the tribe split into the treaty-abiding faction and Wisconsin remnant.

Attempts were made to remove the Wisconsin Winnebago in 1840, 1846, and 1850 before the final attempt was made in 1873-4. This is the story of that removal effort and their subsequent return to Wisconsin. In the 1870s, the Wisconsin remnant, about 800-1,000 in number, were scattered between the Wisconsin and Black rivers from the Mississippi River on the west, east to Marquette County, and north to Black River Falls and Wisconsin Rapids. The headwaters of the Yellow, Lemonweir, and Black rivers in Juneau, Monroe and Jackson counties were favorite haunts.

Cited by: The removal of the Winnebago/ Ho Chunk from western Wisconsin to Nebraska. Cited: Clyde E., Lassiter, LE, Dunham, GH, eds., Pow Wow, Lincoln, NE, Univ of Nebraska Press, 2005, pp. 64-5; Boatman, John, Wisconsin American Indian history and Culture: A Survey of Selected Aspects, 1996, p. 91; Hausam, Sharon Lynn, Native American and Non-Native Involvement in Collaborative Planning Processes: Interactions and outcomes: a Case Study of a Planning Process for the Reuse of the Badger Army Ammunition Plant, Madison, University of Wisconsin, 2006, p. 115; Hoelscher, Steven D., Picturing Indians: Photographic Encounters and Tourist Fantasies in H. H. Bennett's Wisconsin Dells, Univ of Wisconsin Press, 2008, pp. 166, 181.