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C A N A D A U N I T E D S T A T E S M É X I C O 50 0 25 Kilometers Mauston Valley Junction Black River Falls Wisconsin Rapids Oneida Keshena Lac du Flambeau Reserve Odanah Red Cliff These three Institutes were recorded in Wojta’s 1919 Annual Report, but locations were not specified. UW–Madison UNKNOWN LOCATIONS 1916 YEAR NUMBER of INSTITUTES 1917 1918 1919 1920-1929 1930-1932 Unknown MINNESOTA MICHIGAN W I S C O N S I N I O W A FOND DU LAC OJIBWE LAC VIEUX DESERT OJIBWE HANNAHVILLE POTAWATOMI PRAIRIE ISLAND MDEWAKANTON SIOUX BAD RIVER OJIBWE LAC DU FLAMBEAU OJIBWE MENOMINEE SAKAOGAN MOLE LAKE OJIBWE FOREST COUNTY POTAWATOMI BROTHERTOWN STOCKBRIDGE-MUNSEE ONEIDA H O - C H U N K LAC COURT OREILLES OJIBWE ST. CROIX OJIBWE FOND DU LAC OJIBWE RED CLIFF OJIBWE FARM, SOCIETY, ASSIMILATION The Relationship between First Nations of Wisconsin and UW–Madison’s Indian Farm Institutes 1916-1932 In 1916, UW–Madison’s Agricultural Extension Service (AES) began offering Indian Farm Institutes (IFIs) at reservations across Wisconsin. At an IFI, extension employees would give talks on the latest farming methods, similar to Institutes offered to white farmers. The IFIs fit into the progressivist Wisconsin Idea that the University’s research should spread beyond the campus and were the first long-term, institutional interactions between the First Nations of Wisconsin and UW–Madison. The IFI’s purpose was to educate Indigenous people in farming in an attempt to assimilate them into white society by breaking dependence on more traditional food production, such as farming, wild rice harvesting, hunting, gathering, and maple sugaring.¹ The white extension agents did not consider these or other Indigenous farming methods suitable, instead desiring First Nations to employ solely grain farming, dairying, and other methods which they preferred.¹ They believed that by learning the University’s farming methods, Indigenous people would learn the value of hard labor and would be cured of “discontent, restlessness, and the tendency to wander from place to place.” 2 In a 1918 article on the IFIs, their organizer, J.F. Wojta stated that Indigenous people must begin farming because their other resources were less plentiful (mainly due to overhunting and fishing by white settlers), and that the federal government would not always support them. 2 He held the erroneous belief that Indigenous people were entirely reliant on the US government, while it is more accurate to say they survived in spite of the government’s best efforts.¹ Despite the assimilationist values, no state did more to extend existing programs to serve Indigenous people.¹ Originally, there were to be four IFIs held every year, compared to the 125+ Institutes per year for white farmers. Despite this, there are only seven known IFIs that took place after 1920. This is most likely due to a lack of primary source data rather than a cessation of the Institutes. If records of these IFIs do exist, they are somewhere in the UW–Madison or Wisconsin Historical Society archives. References 1. Firkus, Angela. “Agricultural Extension and the Campaign to Assimilate the Native Americans of Wisconsin, 1914—1932.” The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 9, no. 4 (October 2010): 473-502. 2. Wojta, J. F. “Wisconsin Indians Learn Farming.” The Wisconsin Archaeologist 18, no. 1 (1919): 19-33. 3. Wojta, J. F. “Indian Farm Institutes in Wisconsin.” Wisconsin Magazine of History 29, no. 4 (June 1946): 423-434. Nick Smith, cartographer - No affiliation with any of the 12 First Nations of Wisconsin. IFI Data: 9/4/13, B105-23G6, Box 6: CoA Misc Mat. Monthly and Weekly Field Reports, JF Wojta, 1918-1923 (UW Archives), Wojta 1946, Firkus 2010 Spatial data: Natural Earth, US Census Bureau - Conformal projection centered on Wisconsin.
