Ethnobotany: At the Intersection of Nature and Culture

Huron Smith came to the Milwaukee Public Museum to head the newly formed Botany Department in 1917. A specialist in dendrology (the study of trees), he received degrees from De Pauw and Cornell Universities, and spent time as an Assistant Curator of Botany at the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL before coming to Milwaukee.

Smith’s work was conducted at a time when knowledge of the many uses (food, household goods, medication, etc.) of the local flora was still common among the tribal members. Up to the mid-twentieth century, U.S. Government policies intentionally sought to erode traditional knowledge through cultural assimilation. Smith’s notebooks preserve a portion of the languages and plant uses that were freely shared by the Native people who collaborated with him.

Huron Smith’s first ethnobotanical field trips were to the Menominee Reservation in 1921 and 1922. The Menominee are the oldest known continuous inhabitants of Wisconsin. They remain exclusively a Wisconsin tribe and still reside on a portion of their homeland (Lurie 11, 2002). The original territory of the Menominee extended north to Escanaba in Michigan and south to Oconto in Wisconsin. At their greatest extent, the Menominee controlled most of east central Wisconsin as far south as Milwaukee.

The Meskwaki originally lived east of Michigan along the Saint Lawrence River. The tribe may have numbered as many as 10,000 but European conquest reduced their population and forced them west through Michigan, Wisconsin and into Iowa. Huron Smith met with members of the Meskwaki Nation in 1923 in Tama, Iowa.

Also known as the Chippewa, the Ojibwe are one of the largest tribes in North America. Ojibwe communities stretch from the Saint Lawrence River in Canada across northern Michigan and Wisconsin to Montana and Saskatchewan (Ritzenthaler 743, 1978). Huron Smith met with members of the Ojibwe during three separate trips. The first was made in 1923 to the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in Vilas County, WI. The next, in 1924, was made to the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe in Minnesota. His final trip was made to the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in Bayfield County, WI; Bad River Chippewa Band in Ashland and Iron Counties, WI, and the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in Sawyer County, WI.

Huron Smith met with the Oneida in 1929. He set up his field station in the yard of Mrs. Electa Powless whose father, Solomon Skenandoah [Skenadore], helped Smith learn the Oneida language names for plants. The Oneida are one of the five original tribes of the Iroquois Confederacy. At the time of European contact, they controlled land in central New York between the Mohawk tribe to the east and the Onondaga tribe to the west. The Oneida eventually divided into three groups in New York, Ontario, and Wisconsin. 

Like the Chippewa bands, Potawatomi bands are spread over a wide area. Between 1789 and 1867 through 43 treaties, the Potawatomi were forced to cede their lands between Wisconsin and Ohio. Most Potawatomi were forcibly removed west but some remained in their ceded territory and were referred to as “strolling Potawatomis.” Some of the “strolling” Potawatomis who remained in Milwaukee and Waukesha counties migrated to Forest County, WI to avoid forced removal west (Lurie 9, 2002). Huron Smith met with the Forest County Potawatomi in 1925.

The Wisconsin Ho-Chunk are spread out through more than ten state counties as dispersed households or settlements. This unique pattern resulted from resistance to forcible removal subsequent allotment of forty to eighty acre homesteads after 1874. The Ho-Chunk are the only Wisconsin tribe who were able to benefit from a federal policy of offering homesteads as an alternative to reservations (Lurie 13, 2002). Huron Smith met with members of the Ho-Chunk during most of the summer of 1928. Smith camped at the family farm of Ulysses A. White near Wisconsin Rapids.

Some of Smith’s work was published in a series of papers (Smith 1923, 1928, 1932, 1933) prior to his death and a fifth paper on this collection was published by Kindscher & Hurlburt in 1998. The sixth, reviewing his work with the Oneida, remains as an unpublished manuscript.