History of Buchanan County, Iowa, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 3

Author: Williams bros., Cleveland, pub. [from old catalog]; Riddle, A. G. (Albert Gallatin), 1816-1902
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, Williams brothers
Number of Pages: 574

USA > Iowa > Buchanan County > History of Buchanan County, Iowa, with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 3

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In 1829 they had ceded to the United States their land from the Wisconsin to the Rock river, for thirty thousand dollars in goods, and an annuity of eighteen thousand for thirty years. Finally, by the treaty of Fort Armstrong, made in September, 1832, they gave up all their lands lying south of the Wisconsin and Fox rivers, amounting to two and a half millions of acres the United States agreeing to give them a reservation on the west side of the Mississippi, in that part of the Wiscon- sin territory which now forms the State of Iowa; and also to pay them an annuity of ten thousand dollars for twenty-seven years, and maintain schools among them, free of expense. Here they became unsettled and ex- travagant, and contracted a debt (though for what pur- pose and to what party we are not informed) of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars-for the payment of which they were ready to cede more land to the Govern-

ment. It can well be imagined that their frequent re- movals had had no tendency to check the nomadic dis- position which they inherited from a remote ancestry. They became restless and roving, and separated into small bands. In 1842 there were seven hundred and fifty-six on the Turkey river, their new home in Iowa, with as many more in Wisconsin, and smaller bands elsewhere. All had become lawless and wandering.

By the treaty of Washington in 1846, they surrendered their former reservation for eight hundred thousand acres north of the St. Peters, and a hundred and ninety five thousand dollars. The site to which they were removed, it is said, was not that which was promised them; and it proved to be very unhealthy. They lost many by disease and want, but were kept there by force. At length, in 1853, they were again removed to Crow river. Here schools were revived, attempts were renewed for their improvement, but by the treaty of February, 27, 1856, they were once more removed to Blue Earth, Minnesota. The climate here proving healthy and the soil fertile, they began to habituate themselves to agriculture, building houses, and sending their children to school. To foster this disposition the Government formed a new treaty with them in 1859, by which land was to be allotted to them in severalty-eighty acres to a family and forty to a single man. Several had taken up lots in accordance with this plan, when most unfortunately the Sioux war broke out, and the panic-stricken people of Minnesota demanded that the poor Winnebagoes should again be removed. Though some of the tribe may, per- haps, have sympathized with the Sioux, or even have joined in the revolt, yet there can be no doubt that the great majorlty were entirely loyal to the Government. Yet such was the prejudice against them, and so pressing was the demand for their removal, that the Government at last felt constrained to yield. They were disarmed in April, 1863, and removed to Crow creek, in the Dakota territory, near the Missouri river, above Fort Randall. The change proved to be very disastrous. The locality was unsuited to their semi-civilized habits. It was im- possible for them to make a comfortable subsistence, and they were constantly exposed to the incursions of wild and hostile neighbors. An attempt was made to keep them here by force; but rendered desperate by famine and disease-more than one third of the nineteen hun- dred and eighty-five who came from Minnesota having died-they left in a body and made their way to the res- ervation of the Omahas, a friendly tribe, half civilized like themselves, who gave them temporary shelter.

In May, 1866, they were again removed to lands as- signed to them at Winnebago, Nebraska, where the sur- roundings were favorable to their improvement, but where every thing had to be commenced anew. In 1869 they were assigned, as were the Iowas mentioned above, to the care of the Quakers. The next year the agent, finding it impossible to carry out his plans under the old chiefs, forcibly set them aside and appointed twelve new ones of his own selection-making the office thereafter elective by the tribe. Lands were again allotted in sev- eralty to such as wished to take up farms; and, in 1874,

HISTORY OF BUCHANAN COUNTY, IOWA.

they numbered in Nebraska fourteen hundred and forty- five cultivating their farms, living in cottages, dressing like the whites, and sending their children to the schools -of which there were three, very well sustained.

When the tribe removed from Minnesota, a hundred and sixty of their number, chiefly half-breeds, who had taken up lands, were allowed to remain. These received, as their share of the tribal funds, eight hundred dollars each. But many of them spent this, lost their land, and joined the tribe in Nebraska. Besides these, portions of the tribe had been left in different parts of Juneau, Adams, and Wood counties, Wisconsin, who had become self supporting and remained unmolested. They num- bered nearly one thousand ; and, in the winter of 1873-4, the most of them were removed to Nebraska, where a smaller tract, near the Winnebago reservation, had been purchased for them.

In the present condition of this tribe, as of the others that have allowed the advancing tide of white emigration and civilization to flow around them, after having for some time receded before it, we may read the final des- tiny of the Indians on this continent. The remnants of the race are doubtless to become civilized; and then to be gradually absorbed as one of the component parts of the new race that will one day dominate the western world.

THE POTTAWATOMIES.

This tribe, unlike the Winnebagoes, belong to the Al- gonquin, or eastern family of Indians. Though warlike, they are said to have had, at the advent of the whites, a less stable form of government and a ruder dialect, than the rest of their race. At the beginning of the seven- teenth century they occupied the lower peninsula of Michigan, in scattered and roving bands, apparently in- dependent of each other-there being at no period of their history any trace of a general authority or govern- ment. They lived, like the other tribes, mainly by hunt- ing and fishing, and the occasional cultivation of maize. Notwithstanding their scattered condition and nomadic habits, whenever a common danger threatened them the more influential leaders of the independent bands seemed to find little difficulty in uniting them for the common defence. They thus maintained their position for a long time, often coming out victorious in their war- like collisions with neighboring tribes. At last, however, they were driven west by the united tribes of the Iro- quois family, and settled on the islands and shores of Green Bay. Here they were favored by the Jesuit Fathers, who established a mission among them. Perrot acquired great influence over them, by which they were in- duced to take part with the French against the Iroquois. Onanguice, their most prominent chief, was one of the parties to the treaty made at Montreal, in 1701 ; and the bands united under him, actively aiding the French in their subsequent wars. Their connection with th French greatly increased their power, and they gradually spread over what is now southern Michigan and north- ern Illinois and Indiana-a mission on the St. Joseph river being a sort of a central point.

The Pottawatomies joined Pontiac, the Ottawa chief,

in his great conspiracy against the English, in 1763. They were prominent in the surprise of Fort St. Joseph, on the twenty-fifth of May in that year, when the garri- son was routed and the commandant, Schlosser, was cap- tured. During the Revolution, and the Indian wars that followed, they were hostile to the Americans; but, after Wayne's victory, they joined in the treaty of Greenville, December 22, 1795. The tribe was at this time com. posed of three bands, each under its own chief, but all united in a strong confederacy. These were called the St. Joseph, the Wabash, and the Huron river bands. There was, besides, a large scattering population, gener- ally called the Pottawatomies of the prairie, who were a mixture of many Algonquin tribes. From 1803 to 1809, the various bands sold to the Government a portion of the lands claimed by them, receiving an equivalent in cash and the promise of annuities. Yet, in the War of 1812 they again joined the English, influenced by the Shaw- nee warrior, Tecumseh. A new treaty of peace was made in 1815, followed by others in rapid succession, by which nearly all their lands were at length ceded to the Government. A large reservation was assigned to them on the Missouri; and, in 1838, the St. Joseph's band was removed by a military force, on the way losing a hun- dred and fifty persons out of eight hundred, by death and desertion. The whole tribe then numbered about four thousand. The St. Joseph, Wabash, and Huron bands had made considerable progress in civilization, and adhered to the Catholic church, having been con- verted by the Jesuit missionaries; but the Pottawato- mies of the prairie were, for the most part, pagan and roving. A part of the tribe was removed with some Chippewas and Ottawas, but they subsequently joined the rest of their tribe, or disappeared.

In Kansas the civilized band, with the Jesuit mission founded by DeSmet and Hoecken, made rapid improve- ment, good schools having been established for both sexes. The Baptists more than once undertook to estab- lish a mission and a school among the less tractable Prairie band; but meeting with little success, it was finally abandoned. The political disturbances in Kansas brought trouble to the Indians, as well as to the whites, and made the Prairie band more restless and the civil- ized portion of the tribe more anxious for a quiet and settled abode. A treaty, proclaimed April 19, 1862, gave to individual Indians a title to their several tracts of land, under certain conditions; and, although the execu- tion of this treaty was delayed by the progress of the civil war, yet the policy was subsequently carried out in the treaty of February 27, 1867. Of a population then numbering twenty-one hundred and eighty, nearly two- thirds elected to become citizens and take lands in sev- eralty. Some of the Prairie band were absent, and not included in this arrangement. The experiment met with varied success. Some did well and improved ; others squandered their lands and their portion of the funds, and became paupers. Many of these scattered in small bands, one company even going to Mexico. In 1874, the largest company of the Prairie band, number- ing four hundred and sixty seven, occupied a reservation

HISTORY OF BUCHANAN COUNTY, IOWA.

of seventeen thousand three hundred and fifty-seven acres, in Jackson county, Kansas, held in common. They, like the other tribes above-mentioned, were under the control of the Quakers, who had established schools among them, and reported considerable advancement. There were, at that timid, sixty Pottawatomies of the Huron in Michigan on a small tract of a hundred and sixty acres, with a school and log houses ; a hundred and eighty-one of the same tribe in Wisconsin, and eighty in Mexico and the Indian Territory.

The history of this tribe affords much encouragement to those who are looking and hoping for the civilization of the remnants of the Indians in this country. So long as any do well, there is ground for hope. That some should turn out badly is no more than might reasonably be expected. Let the Government persist in this plan of conferring lands in severalty upon those who are will- ing to become citizens ; but it might be well for the Government to make these lands inalienable, except to Indians, and to retain a reversionary right to them in case they should be abandoned or sold to whites. This would thwart the cupidity of white settlers, and tend to the permanence of Indian occupation.

Although there is no mention in any of the accounts we have seen, of the occupation of Iowa soil by any of the Pottawatomie bands, yet the fact that the writer of this once knew of a company of this tribe who made oc- casional visits to the Iowa river, near Marshalltown-and the further fact, stated above, in regard to their extensive wanderings and their known occupation of lands in Wis- consin on the north and Kansas on the south-these facts, we say, fully justify us in reckoning the Pottawato- mies among the tribes that doubtless, in historic or pre- historic times, made occasional hunting grounds of the woods and prairies now embraced in Buchanan county.

THE SIOUX.

There is no western tribe of Indians, except possibly the Shawnees, that have figured so largely in history as the Sioux, and none whose history is more replete with tragic and romantic incidents. They belong to the great Dakota family, and so prominently do they represent that family that they are sometimes called the Dakotas.

When first known by the whites they had their hunt- ing grounds about the headwaters of the Mississippi. It was in 1640 that the French were first informed of them by the Algonquins, who called them Nadowessioux, whence the name Sioux, given them by the French. The meaning of the Algonquin name we have never heard. About the year 1660 they became involved in war with the Chippewas and Hurons, which continued, with only occasional and comparatively brief interruptions, into the present century. In 1680 a French officer, Jean du Luth, (from whom is named the Minnesota town Duluth) set up the French standard at Izatys, near the St. Peter's river; and the next year he rescued Father Hennepin, the celebrated missionary and explorer, whom they had captured during his explorations of the upper Missis- sippi. Nicholas Perrot, in the name of France, took formal possession of their domain in 1689, erecting a

fortification near Lake Pepin. About the same time Le Sueur visited this tribe, which he describes as being com- posed of fifteen sub-tribes, seven eastern and nine west- ern. They joined the Foxes against the French; and, in war with the Chippewas, many were forced down the Mississippi and, driving other Indians from the buffalo plains in Iowa, took possession of them. Several bands wandered into the plains of the Missouri, and some re- mained at or near the St. Peter's. The English cmissa- ries secured the services of the Sioux in the War of 1812; but most of the bands soon made peace. The treaties then made were renewed in 1825 by the Tetons, Yank- tons, Yanktonais, Sioune, Ogallalas, and Oncpapas. At this time the entire nation was estimated at twelve thou- sand seven hundred and fifty, of whom five thousand were located near the St. Peter's, and seven thousand seven hundred and fifty near the Missouri. They were divided into the following bands: the Aldewakantonwans, or Spirit Lake village; the Wahpetonwans, or village in the Leaves; the Sisitowans, or village of the Marsh, also called Isantis; the Yanktonwans, or End villages; and the Tetonwans, or Prairie village, which includes the Ogallala and Oncpapa bands. Their territory extended from the Mississippi on the east to the Black Hills on the west; and from Devil's lake on the north to the mouth of the Big Sioux on the south. These confeder- ated tribes ceded to the United States, September 29, 1837, all their lands east of the Mississippi for three hundred thousand dollars down, and some minor subse- quent payments. The Indians, however, did not for many years retire from the lands thus ceded.

Few tribes have been the subjects of more persistent missionary labors than the Sioux. The American board began missions among the Wahpetonwans, near Fort Snelling, in 1835, and the Methodists in 1836. Schools were established among them, and elementary books were prepared for them in their own language. As great results, however, were not produced by these missions as by some that were established later, and that will be brief- ly mentioned farther on.

In 1851 the Sioux nation ceded to the United States all their land east of a line from Otter Tail lake through Lake Traverse to the junction of the Big Sioux and the Missouri, retaining a reservation a hundred and forty miles in length by twenty in width. The Government thus acquired thirty five millions of acres for three mil- lions of dollars. But the neglect of the Government to carry out the provisions of these treaties caused bitter feeling among the Indians; which feeling awaited only an exciting cause to break out into a warlike flame. Such a cause was furnished in :854, when Lieutenant Grattan, attempting to arrest one of the tribe for some misdemeanor, attacked an Indian village, but was cut off with his whole party. Some of the warriors thereup- on commenced a series of hostilities; but General Harney defeated them on Little Blue Water, September 3, 1855, and a general council, held at Fort Pierce, con- sented to a treaty of peace. But in 1857 the band of Inkpadutas massacred forty-seven whites near Spirit lake, Minnesota, and other murders of a like character

HISTORY OF BUCHANAN COUNTY, IOWA.

were committed at other places during the four or five years following-five whites being killed at Acton, Min- nesota, August 17, 1862. Enraged by the failure of annuities and the frauds practiced on them, the Sioux then made a general uprising, and killed nearly a thous- and of the settlers. The people of that district still shudder when they speak of the horrors of that bloody time. New Ulm, a town of fifteen hundred inhabitants, was abandoned and almost destroyed. Fort Ridgley was besieged, and was saved with difficulty. The Sioux of the Missouri and the plains also became hostile, and were reduced to submission by General Sibley, of Min- nesota, and General Sully, of the United States army. After a severe struggle, a number of white women and children, who had been captured, were rescued, and many Indians were captured and sent to Davenport. Of more than a thousand Indians thus taken, many were tried and condemned; but only thirty-nine, convicted of specific crimes, were executed. The others were finally released. Many bands fled into Dakota territory; and the war, together with disease and want, greatly reduced the nation. In 1863 the Minnesota Sioux were removed to Crow creek. About 1866 treatics were made with nine bands, promising them certain annuities, to be in- creased as the Indians should give greater attention to agriculture. An act of February 11, 1863, had annulled all previous treaties with the Sioux; but to the innocent bands a part of the amount pledged was restored, the Government reserving compensation for damages. The most guilty bands fled north, and are still in the British territory. A few bands continued longer in hostility, cutting off Lieutenant Fetterman and his party in Decem- ber, 1866, and besieging for a time Fort Phil Kearny.

In 1873, the Government liabilities, to the different bands of Sioux Indians, including payments not yet due, were estimated at over ten millions and a-half of dollars, with annual payments for their benefit of twenty seven thousand, four hundred dollars. A treaty, hastily made by General Sherman, April 29, 1868, did not prove satis- factory to either side ; and as gold had been discovered in the Black Hills, the United States wished to purchase the tract, and induce the Sioux to abandon their hunting grounds south of the Niobrara, or even to emigrate to the Indian territory. The Sioux were very reluctant to treat. Sitting Bull, Red Cloud, and Spotted Tail, with other chiefs, visited Washington in May, 1875, but Pres- ident Grant could not induce them to sign a treaty. Commissioners appointed by him met an immense gathering of the Sioux at the Red Cloud agency in September; but as the Indians set an exorbitant price upon their lands, the negotiation failed. Hostile feelings were excited by alleged frauds at the Sioux agencies, which were investigated ; but no results, satisfactory to the Indians, were reached. The feeling of discontent increased, and finally broke out into open war. After the expenditure of much blood and treasure, the Indians were at last subdued-their principal warrior, Sitting Bull, being defeated and escaping into the British terri- tory, where he still remains. The Black Hills, which were so long the bone of contention, have become the

peaceable possession of the United States Government, which, as usual, proved the strongest dog in the fight.

In 1874 the Sioux nation was composed of the follow- ing sub-tribes: The Santee Sioux on the reservation at the mouth of the Niobrara, Nebraska, numbering seven hundred and ninety-one, with five schools, principally under the care of the Episcopalians, conducted by the distinguished missionary, the Rev. S. D. Hinman; the Yankton Sioux on the Missouri, with the same mission- aries; the Sissetons and the Whapetons at Lake Traverse and Devil's lake; the Oncpapas, Blackfeet Sioux, Lower and Upper Yanktonais, Sans Arcs, Upper and Lower Brule's, Two-Kettles, Minneconjous, and Ogallalas in the Crow creek, Grand river, Whetstone, Cheyenne river, and Red Cloud agencies-in all, forty-six thousand, three hundred and forty-two, in Dakota territory; together with the Santee, Yanktonais, Oncpapa, and Cuthead Sioux in Montana, numbering five thousand three hundred and nine.

Much attention has been given to the Dakota lan- guage. A very good grammar and dictionary, prepared by Mr. Riggs, have been issued by the Smithsonian in- stitute. The missionaries have also supplied the Epis- copal liturgy; portions of Scripture, hymns, catechisms, and educational works in the language, and newspapers issue lighter reading. The Rev. Mr. Hinman, who is thoroughly familiar with the language, has probably been most successful in his labors for the christianization and civilization of this remarkable people.

THE SACS AND FOXES.

This tribe, which is the last of the Iowa Indians that we shall notice, belongs to the State more distinctly than any other tribe, and is the one of which, more positively than the other, we can assert that some of its members have trodden the soil of Buchanan county; since the writer of this saw some of them treading its soil in the city of Independence, during this very year, 1880. As the name implies, the tribe is a union of what was orig- nally two separate tribes. And the Fox tribe, of which we find the earlier historic mention, was also, in ancient times, the result of a similar union between two bands- one calling themselves Outagamies, which means foxes, and the other, Musquakinks, or men of red clay. It is a notable fact that, although probably more than two hundred years have elapsed since this union was formed, and all lineal traces of the two clans thus united must have been obliterated by intermarriages and by the sub- sequent union with the Sacs, yet the small remnant of the tribe of Sacs and Foxes now living on their own lands in Tama county, about fifty miles from Indepen- dence, call themselves Musquakies, which is evidently a revival of their old ancestral name. But how little reli- ance can safely be placed upon popular stories may be seen in the fact that many intelligent people living in the neighborhood of this band of Indians have been made to believe, though probably not by the Indians them- selves, that the name Musquiakies signifies men that won't fight; and that this name was applied to them as a term of reproach by the rest of the tribe, because they

HISTORY OF BUCHANAN COUNTY, IOWA.

refused, on a certain occasion, to take part in a war upon which the majority had resolved.

About the close of the seventeenth century, before the union of the Sacs and Foxes, the French came into collision with the latter in the region about Lake St. Clair. The Foxes were great fighters and were hostile to the French, who found them the most troublesome of neighbors. It was in the year 1714 that a war of extermination or expulsion was commenced against them by the French -- several other tribes having been induced to make common cause with the French against the Foxes. The command of the allied forces was first given by the governor of Canada to De Louvigney. The Foxes intrenched themselves on an elevated position near the Fox river, which has ever since been called Butte des Morts, or Hill of the dead, on account of the slaughter which occurred there at that time. After a desperate resistance they were forced to surrender; and the victors, more magnanimous than the vanquished had any reason to expect they would be, made a treaty of peace with them. This treaty, however, the restless and untamable Foxes soon violated; and another expedition was organized against them in 1728, under the command of a French officer by the name of De Lignerie. It proved a protracted and bloody struggle, waged with varying fortunes and occasional intermissions of truce, for about eighteen years. At length, however, the French and their allies gained a decisive victory in 1746, and the Foxes were driven out of the beautiful valley to whose river they had given their name, which it still bears as a memento of their long supremacy in the region about Green Bay.

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History of Buchanan County, Iowa, with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 3

Author: Williams bros., Cleveland, pub. [from old catalog]; Riddle, A. G. (Albert Gallatin), 1816-1902 Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Cleveland, Williams brothers Number of Pages: 574

Author: Williams bros., Cleveland, pub. [from old catalog]; Riddle, A. G. (Albert Gallatin), 1816-1902
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Cleveland, Williams brothers
Number of Pages: 574