Pulitzer finalist: Colonizing Wisconsin was more about plunder than removing Indigenous people

Michael Witgen’s deep research of Indigenous and early North American history is evident in his 2021 book "Seeing Red: Indigenous Land, American Expansion and the Political Economy of Plunder in North America."

A finalist for this year’s Pulitzer Prize in History, the book examines colonization of a region now known as the Midwest and was previously known by settlers as the Northwest Territories.

"I think the history of Wisconsin’s colonization is new to most people," said Witgen, a citizen of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe, in an interview with Wisconsin Public Radio’s "Central Time." ...