Winnebago - A tribe of Woodland Indians of the Siouan family, who formerly occupied the territory in the area of Green Bay, Wisconsin.  The dialect of the Winnebago was almost identical to that of three other Siouan tribes - the Oto, Iowa, and Missouri - but they lived more like their Algonquian neighbors.  In the Sauk and Fox language their name meant "People of the Filthy Water," which caused the English sometimes to refer to them as "Stinkards."

The Winnebago fought beside the English in the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812, and sided with the Sauk and Fox in the Black hawk War.  After the latter war they remained at peace.  In 1825 and 1832 they ceded all their lands south of the Wisconsin and Fox rivers and went to live on a reservation west of the Mississippi River.

The name is perpetuated in Winnebago Lake in Wisconsin; the name of  counties in Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin; and places in Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Nebraska.

Related Information within this Site
[ Black Hawk ][ Sauk and Fox ][ Southern Sioux ]