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The Silver Man: The Life and Times of Indian Agent John Kinzie
In The Silver The Life and Times of John Kinzie, readers witness the dramatic changes that swept the Wisconsin frontier in the early and mid-1800s, through the life of Indian agent John Harris Kinzie. From the War of 1812 and the monopoly of the American Fur Company, to the Black Hawk War and the forced removal of thousands of Ho-Chunk people from their native lands—John Kinzie’s experience gives us a front-row seat to a pivotal time in the history of the American Midwest.
As an Indian agent at Fort Winnebago—in what is now Portage, Wisconsin—John Kinzie served the Ho-Chunk people during a time of turbulent change, as the tribe faced increasing attacks on its cultural existence and very sovereignty, and struggled to come to terms with American advancement into the upper Midwest. The story of the Ho-Chunk Nation continues today, as the tribe continues to rebuild its cultural presence in its native homeland.
Through John Kinzie’s story, we gain a broader view of the world in which he lived—a world that, in no small part, forms a foundation for the world in which we live today.
As an Indian agent at Fort Winnebago—in what is now Portage, Wisconsin—John Kinzie served the Ho-Chunk people during a time of turbulent change, as the tribe faced increasing attacks on its cultural existence and very sovereignty, and struggled to come to terms with American advancement into the upper Midwest. The story of the Ho-Chunk Nation continues today, as the tribe continues to rebuild its cultural presence in its native homeland.
Through John Kinzie’s story, we gain a broader view of the world in which he lived—a world that, in no small part, forms a foundation for the world in which we live today.
177 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 8, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
June 18, 2016
American-Indian interaction did not begin with John Wayne at Fort Apache or a struggle over gold. Before that the cultures had met thousands of times in hundreds of places. “The Silver Man: The Life and Times of Indian Agent John Kinzie” is a look into the saga that played out in Southern and Central Wisconsin in the early Nineteenth Century.
John Kinzie, Jr. was a cog in the great system through which the government talked the Indians out of their land and distributed the payments due under treaties. John’s facility for native languages man him an indispensable man for commercial and government agencies negotiating with the Indians. He accompanied a delegation of Ho-Chunk to meet their Great White Father at the White House in 1828 and was a sub-agent to the Ho-Chunk at Fort Winnebago, now Portage, Wisconsin from 1828 to 1833 before settling in Chicago. He concluded his career as a paymaster with the rank of major during the Civil War.
Though billed as a biography, this work is really the chronicle of the meeting of cultures during a period of great change. The War of 1812 removed the British presence from the Upper Midwest and the Black Hawk War of 1832 rebuffed the Indians’ attempt to relocate to their homelands in Wisconsin. Americans sought Ho-Chunk land for lead deposits found beneath it. The storyline is familiar. The American are flooding into an area, something valuable is found, agents, such as Kinzie are commissioned to get the Indians to sell their lands, the Indians do not really understand what is happening but, after the pressure is applied and assurances given, are moved west until their whites want their new reservations.
I found this to be very interesting from many angles. The close up view of White-Red relations in times of general tranquility makes for a fascinating study. The glimpse at other figures of history such as Lewis Cass and William Clark provide perspectives not seen in other histories. Wisconsin Indians of the day are introduced as vital players in the drama. After reading this I have a better understanding of the War of 1812 in the West and the Black Hawk War. It enticed me to take another look at “Indian Nations of Wisconsin” by Patty Loew (see my review) to review how the events of “The Silver Man” are recorded in Loew’s chapter on the Ho-Chunk. It also encouraged me to revisit “Life, Death, and Archaeology at Fort Blue Mounds: A Settlers’ Fortification of the Black Hawk War” by Robert Birmingham (also see my review) for a reminder of the Black Hawk War as seen through the settlers’ eyes. History is not all presidents and generals. It includes the men and women who settled the land, negotiated the peace and paved the way for change. John Kinzie was one such man. Meet him on the pages of “The Silver Man.”
I did receive a copy of this book to read and review.
John Kinzie, Jr. was a cog in the great system through which the government talked the Indians out of their land and distributed the payments due under treaties. John’s facility for native languages man him an indispensable man for commercial and government agencies negotiating with the Indians. He accompanied a delegation of Ho-Chunk to meet their Great White Father at the White House in 1828 and was a sub-agent to the Ho-Chunk at Fort Winnebago, now Portage, Wisconsin from 1828 to 1833 before settling in Chicago. He concluded his career as a paymaster with the rank of major during the Civil War.
Though billed as a biography, this work is really the chronicle of the meeting of cultures during a period of great change. The War of 1812 removed the British presence from the Upper Midwest and the Black Hawk War of 1832 rebuffed the Indians’ attempt to relocate to their homelands in Wisconsin. Americans sought Ho-Chunk land for lead deposits found beneath it. The storyline is familiar. The American are flooding into an area, something valuable is found, agents, such as Kinzie are commissioned to get the Indians to sell their lands, the Indians do not really understand what is happening but, after the pressure is applied and assurances given, are moved west until their whites want their new reservations.
I found this to be very interesting from many angles. The close up view of White-Red relations in times of general tranquility makes for a fascinating study. The glimpse at other figures of history such as Lewis Cass and William Clark provide perspectives not seen in other histories. Wisconsin Indians of the day are introduced as vital players in the drama. After reading this I have a better understanding of the War of 1812 in the West and the Black Hawk War. It enticed me to take another look at “Indian Nations of Wisconsin” by Patty Loew (see my review) to review how the events of “The Silver Man” are recorded in Loew’s chapter on the Ho-Chunk. It also encouraged me to revisit “Life, Death, and Archaeology at Fort Blue Mounds: A Settlers’ Fortification of the Black Hawk War” by Robert Birmingham (also see my review) for a reminder of the Black Hawk War as seen through the settlers’ eyes. History is not all presidents and generals. It includes the men and women who settled the land, negotiated the peace and paved the way for change. John Kinzie was one such man. Meet him on the pages of “The Silver Man.”
I did receive a copy of this book to read and review.
November 11, 2019
Not truly biography because there's more of the "times" than "life" of this Indian agent, but rather the history of the SW Wis / NW Ill lead region and the Ho-Chunk / settler conflicts which resulted the Ho-Chunk being moved off their land. This area was part of the 1832 Blackhawk War, but the book addresses many more skirmishes, giving a better picture of the miners vs. native issues. Kinzie was rare in that he respected and understood the Ho-Chunk, yet he did not promote their causes nor fight for their concerns,and ended up rich partly because of payments from the government for personal losses caused by native Americans.
April 12, 2020
Indian Affairs and those involved in policy making and enforcement.
Thought provoking and informative look at native American policy and the development of the upper Midwest in the early nineteenth century. A quick and easy read that is well referenced and includes some very interesting character development.
Thought provoking and informative look at native American policy and the development of the upper Midwest in the early nineteenth century. A quick and easy read that is well referenced and includes some very interesting character development.
June 2, 2023
I usually read and review fiction. I'm not sure of how to review a nonfiction book. This is my best attempt.
The Silver Man is a loose biography of John Kinzie during his time as Indian Agent in the Portage, WI area. I write "loose" because there's not much direct material about Kinzie from that time. His journals and personal letters are lost to history.
The author relies on indirect sources to create a rough sketch of Kinzie's life during a four year period, which is about 1829-1833. The reader doesn't get much of a feel for who Kinzie was- what he felt, what he thought, or what he was like from day to day. Instead, the reader gets a dry recitation of facts. Where Kinzie was, what treaties and councils he participated in, and what his job duties were. Some of the indirect sources hint that Kinzie was less prejudiced towards the Native Tribes he oversaw. One source faults him for being too lenient and permissive. Another discusses Kinzie's apparent fondness towards the Tribes in a positive light. But these hints are brief. There simply isn't enough information to say what the man was really like.
That said, I give this book a four star rating because it excels at setting the context for Kinzie's work. He was sent to keep the peace with the local Native Tribes: primarily Ho-Chunk, but also Potawatomi, Menominee, Ojibwe, and more. As the local Indian Agent, Kinzie distributed annuity funds from treaties with the tribes and settled disputes between the white and Native populations.
The repeated pattern is this: white colonists arrive in the area and move onto Native land. Sometimes there's a desirable & lucrative resource on the land like lead. Native Tribes protest. The US Government calls the Tribes together in council and forces them to sign treaties requiring them to sell the land to the colonists. The money from those treaties is then distributed to the Tribes annually by men like Kinzie. White colonists frequently request reimbursement for damages from these annuities. Sometimes these claims are paid, sometimes not. No one is happy.
Then the government decides to push all the Tribes out of Wisconsin onto "neutral ground" west of the Mississippi. The Ho-Chunk are relocated to a narrow strip of land that between the Sauk, Meskwaki, and Dakota. The intent was that they should act as a buffer between Tribes that had fought in the past.
Everyone is miserable. The situation doesn't last. Colonists arrive and take the land. The tribes are forced to move again and again.
I picked up this book because I wanted to know more about Native American history in Wisconsin. It is an excellent introduction to that topic.
The Silver Man is a loose biography of John Kinzie during his time as Indian Agent in the Portage, WI area. I write "loose" because there's not much direct material about Kinzie from that time. His journals and personal letters are lost to history.
The author relies on indirect sources to create a rough sketch of Kinzie's life during a four year period, which is about 1829-1833. The reader doesn't get much of a feel for who Kinzie was- what he felt, what he thought, or what he was like from day to day. Instead, the reader gets a dry recitation of facts. Where Kinzie was, what treaties and councils he participated in, and what his job duties were. Some of the indirect sources hint that Kinzie was less prejudiced towards the Native Tribes he oversaw. One source faults him for being too lenient and permissive. Another discusses Kinzie's apparent fondness towards the Tribes in a positive light. But these hints are brief. There simply isn't enough information to say what the man was really like.
That said, I give this book a four star rating because it excels at setting the context for Kinzie's work. He was sent to keep the peace with the local Native Tribes: primarily Ho-Chunk, but also Potawatomi, Menominee, Ojibwe, and more. As the local Indian Agent, Kinzie distributed annuity funds from treaties with the tribes and settled disputes between the white and Native populations.
The repeated pattern is this: white colonists arrive in the area and move onto Native land. Sometimes there's a desirable & lucrative resource on the land like lead. Native Tribes protest. The US Government calls the Tribes together in council and forces them to sign treaties requiring them to sell the land to the colonists. The money from those treaties is then distributed to the Tribes annually by men like Kinzie. White colonists frequently request reimbursement for damages from these annuities. Sometimes these claims are paid, sometimes not. No one is happy.
Then the government decides to push all the Tribes out of Wisconsin onto "neutral ground" west of the Mississippi. The Ho-Chunk are relocated to a narrow strip of land that between the Sauk, Meskwaki, and Dakota. The intent was that they should act as a buffer between Tribes that had fought in the past.
Everyone is miserable. The situation doesn't last. Colonists arrive and take the land. The tribes are forced to move again and again.
I picked up this book because I wanted to know more about Native American history in Wisconsin. It is an excellent introduction to that topic.
October 13, 2021
A lot of his letters did not survive. So I believe some of this is guesswork and a piece together from other letters that were found from his professional writings and things like that period a lot of his materials I think were lost in the great Chicago Fire. But this was still a good book.
September 23, 2025
It was a difficult book to read, because of the dishonest way the U.S. Government/Indian agents/commissioners/U.S. Military treated the different Native American tribes by forcing them to give up their lands little by little at each council when they met together.
April 19, 2019
John Kinzie was an Indian agent for 4+ years in the 1820 and 30s, in the Territories of Michigan and Ouisconsin, stationed at what’s now Portage. Peter Shrake sets out to describe a bit of this turbulent but formative time, what he terms with considerable understatement “this period of transition.”
The subtitle (“The Life and Times of Indian Agent John Kinzie”) is a tad misleading. There’s just not much documentation of his life that survives, much of it apparently having been lost in the Chicago Fire. Shrake forthrightly acknowledges that, as a result, this work “is a challenging exercise.” His solution is to report what little is known about Kinzie, focusing on his term at Portage, but then to place him in a larger context — as much if not more about the “times” than the “life” of the man.
The material is a little short for a book (130 pages, excluding footnotes, with some of that being maps and drawings), but too long for an article or pamphlet. Still, the result is not entirely unsatisfactory, even if the territory is well-trod. The lamentable stories of the Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) War of 1827 and the Black Hawk War of 1832 are well-known, and Shrake touches on them but lightly. (He mentions but doesn’t dwell on the butchery that ended the latter.) But he does convey some sense of life on the frontier, and just about any WHS publication, this one included, will have well-chosen illustrations. And as with any WHS publication there’s always something to be learned: in this instance, the existence of an Indian Agency substation at Portage and more importantly the still-standing Historic Agency House at Fort Winnebago (Kinzie’s house at Portage, actually). Website here: http://www.agencyhouse.org/, which touts the House this way: “Arguably the most significant historic site in Wisconsin AND the Midwest. Our story is not just that of John and Juliette Kinzie, the Winnebago tribe, or even Fort Winnebago. it is the story of the opening of the West and the ending of the Native way of life.”
The subtitle (“The Life and Times of Indian Agent John Kinzie”) is a tad misleading. There’s just not much documentation of his life that survives, much of it apparently having been lost in the Chicago Fire. Shrake forthrightly acknowledges that, as a result, this work “is a challenging exercise.” His solution is to report what little is known about Kinzie, focusing on his term at Portage, but then to place him in a larger context — as much if not more about the “times” than the “life” of the man.
The material is a little short for a book (130 pages, excluding footnotes, with some of that being maps and drawings), but too long for an article or pamphlet. Still, the result is not entirely unsatisfactory, even if the territory is well-trod. The lamentable stories of the Winnebago (Ho-Chunk) War of 1827 and the Black Hawk War of 1832 are well-known, and Shrake touches on them but lightly. (He mentions but doesn’t dwell on the butchery that ended the latter.) But he does convey some sense of life on the frontier, and just about any WHS publication, this one included, will have well-chosen illustrations. And as with any WHS publication there’s always something to be learned: in this instance, the existence of an Indian Agency substation at Portage and more importantly the still-standing Historic Agency House at Fort Winnebago (Kinzie’s house at Portage, actually). Website here: http://www.agencyhouse.org/, which touts the House this way: “Arguably the most significant historic site in Wisconsin AND the Midwest. Our story is not just that of John and Juliette Kinzie, the Winnebago tribe, or even Fort Winnebago. it is the story of the opening of the West and the ending of the Native way of life.”
August 31, 2016
This is an excellent overview of the early days of Wisconsin History. For those who want a good grounding in understanding the Native Americans (first nations people or American aboriginals) who then lived in what is now Wisconsin this is the place to start. It is a relatively short book, very easy to read, not a scholarly tome. But the ease of reading does not in any way detract from the excellent information which the author provides. John Kinzie was a witness to Wisconsin and Illinois and Michigan territories before they became states. He was the indian agent for the US government to the Ho-chunk (Winnebago) nation.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews