The only known female chief of the Hocąk or Winnebago nation was named Glory of the Morning, a translation of Hąboguwįga. Born during the Fox Wars (c.1712-1737) in what is now known as Wisconsin, Glory of the Morning was the only child of the tribe’s principal chief.
Aged around 18, Glory of the Morning was chosen by the Grand National Council to succeed her father upon his death. She ruled during a period of multiple inter-tribal wars, conflict with colonisers and the influx of European diseases. She was a member of the Thunderbird Clan.
She united the Winnebago with the French by marrying a fur-trader and French army officer called Sabrevoir or Joseph le Carrie in around 1730. They had two sons and a daughter before le Carrie left the nation for Quebec or Montreal and took their daughter with him.
Glory of the Morning’s skilful and diplomatic political leadership saw an end to the Fox Wars in 1737. Her sons and grandchildren also became prominent diplomats and officials. She was referenced as the ‘queen’ by European visitors and colonisers well into the 1750s and 60s.
The last mention of Glory of the Morning was by historian Juliette Kinzie in 1832, meaning the chief had survived to an unprecedented age. She was allegedly visited by an owl who spoke her name just before her death, a night which raged with thunder symbolic of her clan.
Recommended Reading
Catherine M. Coats, ““Extermination or Removal”: The Knights of the Forest and Ethnic Cleansing in Early Minnesota,” PhD. Diss. St Cloud University, 2017
Juliette Augusta McGill Kinzie, Wau-Bun: The “Early Day” in the North-West (Chicago & New York: Rand, McNally & Company, 1901 (1856))
Lucy Eldersveld Murphy, A Gathering of Rivers: Indians, Mätis, and Mining in the Western Great Lakes, 1737-1832 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000).
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