This is my first book, as in, the very first book that ever belonged to me and me alone. I'm not the only one who has it, but this particular copy is mine, as it has been for 65 years. It's mine because I'm in it, part of the kindergarten class at Oostburg, Wisconsin, in 1954.
It's what we called an "annual," a book which included, back then, pictures of all the children--kindergartners through high school seniors--who attended school in my hometown. For years, the only meaning I knew of the phrase "Sauk Trail," was that it was school yearbook. If there is such a thing today, I'm guessing the Oostburg High School Flying Dutchmen still title it the same way.
Today, there's a old road, once a busy highway 141, just east of town. Today it's named the "Sauk Trail." Schoolchildren in and around Oostburg, Wisconsin, likely know the phrase because of the road too. It lays between town and the western shore of Lake Michigan.
Saturday, on my way to Michigan, I pulled over at an I-80 rest stop somewhere in western Illinois for the reason most of us pull over at rest stops. I got out of my car and walked into this sign:
Even though I know more about "the Sauk Trail" today, I had no idea the lake road from which my kindergarten picture album takes its name extended a couple hundred miles west and south. That convenient rest stop is also on "the Sauk Trail."
I'm quite sure no teacher in Oostburg, Wisconsin, ever told me much about "the Sauk Trail," even though it was lay a mile east and the words were plastered over the cover of every yearbook the school turned out, even though tons of kids--some older than I am, many more long gone--have books with that title tucked somewhere in the attic.
Why didn't some teacher talk about what still lays just outside of town? Because standard curriculums when I was a kid didn't take time for Native American history, didn't bother, didn't, as we say, "go there."
But why not? I was a teacher. I'm guessing teachers like me would say, "Well, we've got a lot of ground to cover in American history or literature. Just didn't have time to get to it," even though any reference to the Sauk Trail would link into the War of 1812, into the fur trade, into the press of Native peoples from the east who'd already lost their homeland to European settlers, to a mix of Native tribes who all too often killed each other off, to unimaginable treks over hundreds of miles by nomadic people who knew hundreds of miles of territory like the back of their hands.
Imagine trapping beaver all the way out here on the river some white man would call "the Floyd," skinning 'em, fletching 'em, drying the hides, and tying them into bundles, then walking or riding on a horse all the way to Green Bay, Wisconsin--no planes, no trains, no steamships, no ATVs--all that way.
For centuries, the Sauk Trail was a highway. Part of the story, out here in Iowa, is the state's own name, derived from the Ioways, and where are they today? In Oklahoma. How'd that happen? Well, we're here. We moved 'em out, got 'em out of the way, sent them to "Indian Country."
There really isn't a nice or an easy way to teach Native American history. No matter how you dish it up, it's not sweet story really. The First Nations lived where we wanted to, so we moved them out. It was Manifest Destiny.
And that's a story that's neither nice nor easy--like, for instance, the Fugitive Slave Law or the Kansas-Nebraska Act or the Dawes Act. Like Manifest Destiny. Like the institution of slavery.
My great-great-great Grandfather came up the Sauk Trail from Milwaukee and settled lakeshore land in 1846. A biography in a book of early Sheboygan County pioneers says, . "The red men were still numerous in this section, but were not troublesome to the white settlers, except as beggars." That's a beginning chapter in my story, I guess.
"Sauk Trail" looks good, even a little exotic, on a high school annual though, doesn't it? Nice name for a road, preserves history.
But only if you care to know it.
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| Iowa, Sauk, and Fox |
Great post!
ReplyDeleteI traveled on the Sauk Trail many many times, first with my bicycle and later with my car. As my mother shared with me,long before I was born, my told me about a cousin who was killed while off-boarding a school bus by an oncoming car.
Old Hwy 141 was the main thorough fare between Sheboygan and Milwaukee. Heavy traffic. As a foolish kid,I navigated my bike to Terry Andre, the BIG Hole, and to a farm to bale hay. The good Lord protected me despite the heavy traffic and my lack of fear.As a youngster I hardly recognized the danger.
The Sauk Trail most likely holds many other vivid memories for those who traveled its parh. Including Native Americans.