USA > Iowa > Chickasaw County > History of Chickasaw and Howard counties, Iowa, Volume I > Part 9
USA > Iowa > Howard County > History of Chickasaw and Howard counties, Iowa, Volume I > Part 9
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THE INDIANS
The name of "Indian," which was given to the natives of North America soon after the continent was discovered, although a misnomer, has remained to the present time. At first the Indians were regarded as all belonging to one family, but it has since been learned that they were really divided into several groups or tribal confederacies each of which differed from the others in certain physical and linguistic characteristics. At the beginning of the Sixteenth Century these groups were distributed over the Continent of North America as follows :
In the Far North, the country about the Arctic Circle was inhabited by the Eskimo, a tribe that has never played any conspicuous part in history, except as guides to polar expeditions.
The Algonquian family, the most numerous and powerful of all the Indian groups, occupied a large triangle, roughly bounded by the Atlantic Coast from Labrador to Cape Hatteras and lines drawn from those two points to the western end of Lake Superior. This group was composed of numerous tribes, the best known of which were probably the Delaware, Ottawa, Miami, Sac, Fox and Potawatomi.
Along the shores of Lake Ontario and the upper waters of the St. Lawrence River, in the very heart of the Algonquian triangle, was the domain of the Iroquoian tribes, viz : The Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, Mohawk, and Cayuga. To the early colonists these tribes became known as the Five Nations. Some years later the Tuscarora Indians were added to the confederacy, which then took the name of the Six Nations.
South of the Algonquian country was a large region inhabited by the Musk- hogean tribes, the principal ones being the Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw and Chero- kee. The last named, so far as known, is the only Indian tribe that ever had a written language based upon a regular alphabet-a fact that bears out Adair's statement that the Muskhogean stock was the most intelligent of all the North American tribes.
In the Northwest, about the sources of the Mississippi River and extending westward to the Missouri, was the territory of the Siouan family, which was composed of a number of tribes noted for their physical prowess and warlike disposition.
South and west of the Siouan country the great plains and the foot hills of the Rocky Mountains were inhabited by the bold, vindictive Apache, Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche, Pawnee and other tribes, and still farther south, in what are now the states of Arkansas and Louisiana, lay the region occupied by the Caddoan group. Scattered over the country, here and there, were a number of isolated tribes that claimed kinship with none of the great families. Inferior in numbers and often nomadic in their mode of living, these tribes are of little significance.
Volumes have been written about the North American Indians-their legends, traditions and customs-and the subject is practically inexhaustible. In a history such as this it is not the design to enter into any extended account of the entire
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Indian race, but to notice only those tribes whose history is intimately interwoven with the territory now comprising the State of Iowa, and especially the part where the counties of Chickasaw and Howard are located. These tribes were the Iowa, Sac and Fox, Sioux, Winnebago and Potawatomi.
THE IOWA
Although the Iowa Indians were not the most numerous or of the greatest importance historically, they are first mentioned because it was this tribe that gave the Hawkeye State its name, and they were probably the first Indians to establish themselves in the territory included in this history. Ethnologically they belonged to the Siouan group, but, according to their traditions they became allied at an early date with the Winnebago and lived with that tribe in the country north of the Great Lakes. They are first mentioned in history in 1690, when they occupied a district on the shores of Lake Michigan, under a chief called Man-han-gaw. Here they separated from the Winnebago and with the Otoe, Omaha and Ponca tribes moved toward the Southwest. At the time of this separa- tion the Iowa received the name of "Pa-ho-ja," or "Gray Snow Indians." They were also known as the "Sleepy Ones."
Schoolcraft says this tribe migrated no less than fifteen times. After separat- ing from the Winnebago they took up their abode on the Rock River, in what is now the State of Illinois, where they were temporarily affiliated with the Sacs and Foxes. From there they removed to the valley of the Iowa River. In 1848 an Iowa Indian prepared a map showing the movements of the tribe from the time they left the Winnebago Nation. Connected with this map was a tradi- tion giving the following account of the occupation of the Iowa Valley :
"After living on the Rock River for several years the tribe left the Sacs and Foxes and wandered off westward in search of a new home. Crossing the Mississippi, they turned southward and reached a high bluff near the mouth of the Iowa River. Looking off over the beautiful valley spread out before them, they halted, exclaiming 'Ioway! Ioway!' which in their language means 'This is the place !' "
Following their residence in the valley of the Iowa, they lived successively in the Des Moines Valley, on the Missouri River, then in what is now South Dakota, and in what is now Northwestern Iowa, about Spirit Lake and the headwaters of the Des Moines and Big Sioux rivers. As the Indian had no way of keeping an accurate record of time, the dates when these various places were occupied are somewhat problematical. A Sioux tradition says that when that tribe first came to the country about the falls of St. Anthony they found the Iowa Indians there and drove them out. Le Sueur found some of that locality in 1700 and supplied them with firearms. In his report of the expedition up the Mississippi River, Le Sueur says the principal villages of the Iowa were "at the extreme head waters of the River de Moyen."
In 1707 William de Lisle compiled a map of the northwestern part of Louisiana, on which is shown a traders' trail marked "Chemin des Voyageurs," beginning at the Mississippi River a few miles below the mouth of the Wisconsin and running westward across Northern Iowa to the vicinity of Spirit Lake. There, on the shore of a small lake, the identity of which is rather uncertain, is marked a "Village
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des Aiaouez." From this village the trail continues almost due west to the Big Sioux River, where two more "Villages des Aiaouez" are shown, one on either side of the river. Jacob Van der Zee, in his "Reminiscences of the Northwest Fur Trade," mentioned this trail, and it is also mentioned by Chittenden in his "Amer- ican Fur Trade."
Dorsey divides the tribe into eight gentes or clans, to wit: Bear, Beaver, Buffalo, Eagle, Elk, Pigeon, Snake and Wolf. They worshiped a Great Spirit and had a tradition of a great flood which destroyed all the animals and people except those who escaped in a great canoe. The Great Spirit then made a new man and a new woman from red clay, and from this couple were descended all the Indian tribes. Hawks and rattlesnakes were objects of veneration and were never killed by these Indians.
Mahaska (White Cloud), one of the most noted chiefs of the Iowa tribe, claimed to be a direct descendant of the great chief Man-han-gaw. It is said that during his chieftainship he led his warriors in eighteen battles against the Sioux on the north and the Osage on the south and always came off victorious. Mahaska County, Iowa, bears his name. In 1824, accompanied by his wife, Rant-che-wai-me, he was one of a party of chiefs that visited the Great White Father at Washington. Upon their return Rant-che-wai-me cautioned the women of her tribe against the vices and follies of their white sisters as she saw them in the national capital. The following year the Iowa Indians ceded their interest in Iowa lands to the United States.
THE SAC AND FOX
These two tribes, which at one time inhabited practically the entire State of Iowa, are generally spoken of as one people, though as a matter of fact they were two separate and distinct tribes of the great Algonquian family, which formed an alliance for their mutual protection against their common enemies.
The Sacs-also called Sauks and Saukies-were known as the "People of the Outlet." Some writers refer to them as the "People of the Yellow Earth." Their earliest known habitat was in the lower peninsula of Michigan, where they lived with the Potawatomi. The name Saginaw, as applied to a bay and city in Michi- gan, means "the place of the Sac" and indicates the region where they once dwelt. According to their traditions, they were here allied with the Potawatomi, Fox, Mascouten and Kickapoo tribes before they became an independent tribe. They are first mentioned as a separate tribe in the Jesuit Relations for 1640, though even then they were confederated with the tribes above mentioned and also with the Miami and Winnebago nations. Father Allouez, one of the early Jesuit missionaries, writing of these Indians in 1667, says: "They are more savage than all the other peoples I have met ; they are a populous tribe, although they have no fixed dwelling place, being wanderers and vagabonds in the forest."
Sac traditions tell how they were driven from the shores of Lake Huron by the Iroquois and Neuters before the middle of the Seventeenth Century. Upon being expelled from their hunting grounds there they retired by way of Mackinaw and about the middle of the century found a new home along the shores of Green Bay, Wis. This portion of their traditions is first told by Father Dablon, in the Jesuit Relations for 1671. Says he : "The Sacs, Pottawatomies and neighboring
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tribes, being driven from their own countries, which are the lands southward from Missilimackinac (Michilimackinac), have taken refuge at the head of this bay, beyond which one can see inland the nation of fire, with one of the Illinois tribes called Oumiami, and the Foxes."
In the same year that this was written by Father Dablon, the Huron and Ottawa Indians started out to invade the country of the Sioux. On the way they persuaded the Sac and Potawatomi warriors to join the expedition. The allied tribes were defeated by the Sioux and suffered heavy losses. The surviving Sacs returned to the shores of Green Bay, where it seems they were content to remain quiet for several years before making any further warlike demonstrations against their enemies.
According to Dorsey, the tribe was divided into fourteen clans or gentes, to wit: Bass, Bear, Eagle, Elk, Fire Dragon, Fox, Great Lynx, Grouse, Potato, Sea (or Lake), Sturgeon, Thunder, Trout and Wolf. Ordinarily marriages were made between men and women belonging to different clans, though they were not forbidden between couples of the same clan. Polygamy was practiced to some extent, though in this respect the Sacs were not so bad as some of the other Algonquian tribes. Their religion consisted of a belief in numerous "Manitous" and was rich in myth and fable.
The Foxes were also Algonquian Indians and resembled in many respects the Sacs, with whom they ultimately became confederated. Their Indian name was Mesh-kwa-ke-hug (nearly always written Musquakie), signifying "People of the Red Earth." Sometimes they were designated as the "People of the Other Shore." Their original dwelling place is somewhat uncertain. According to their traditions they lived at a very early date on the Atlantic Coast, in the vicinity of the present State of Rhode Island. Subsequently a portion of the tribe occupied the country along the southern shore of Lake Superior, from which they were driven by the Chippewa. In the early part of the Seventeenth Century Nicollet found a band of the Indians living on the Fox River, not far from Green Bay, Wis., and in 1676 Father Allouez found some of them on the Wolf River in the same state. In his writings of that year he speaks of a "Musquakie village with a population of about 5,000."
The name "Fox" originated with the French, who called these Indians "Rey- nors" or "Renards." They were regarded by neighboring Indian tribes as "avaricious, thieving, passionate and quarrelsome." With an intense hatred for the French they planned the attack on the post at Detroit in 1712. The timely arrival of reinforcements saved the post and the Indians suffered an overwhelming defeat. Those who took part in this assault on Detroit then went to the village on the Wolf River spoken of by Father Dablon.
About 1730 the English and Dutch traders operating in the country about the Great Lakes, knowing of the hatred of the Foxes for the French, decided to take advantage of it for the purpose of driving out French competition. An alliance was therefore formed with the Fox chiefs, who were incited to make war on the French. In opposition to this movement the French enlisted the cooperation of the Huron, Ottawa, Potawatomi and some minor tribes. In the conflict which ensued the Foxes were defeated and found shelter among the Sac bands in the neighborhood of Green Bay. The French authorities in Canada, thinking the tribe had not been sufficiently punished and desiring to make their victory more
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complete, sent a detachment of French soldiers and Indian allies, under Lieutenant- Colonel De Villiers, to the Sac villages to demand the surrender of the fugitives. The demand was indignantly refused by the Sac chiefs, whereupon De Villiers ordered an attack on the Sac village. A hard-fought battle followed, in which the French were the victors, but the refugees were not surrendered.
This occurred in 1733 and resulted in the alliance between the two tribes, who have since been regarded as one people. Their alliance, however, was more in the nature of a confederacy, each tribe retaining its identity, while one chief ruled over both.
Twelve Fox gentes are mentioned by Dorsey in one of the reports of the Bureau of Ethnology, viz: Bass, Bear, Big Lynx, Buffalo, Eagle, Fox, Pheasant, Sea, Sturgeon, Swan, Thunder and Wolf. It will be noticed that nine of these clans bear the name and totem of the same number of the Sac gentes, which seems to indicate that the two tribes sprang from the same stock. The principal deities worshiped by the Fox Indians were Wisaka and Kiyapata. The former ruled the day and the latter the night. Animal fable and mythology were the leading features of their religion and the tribe had many ceremonial observances. They practiced agriculture in a primitive way, rasing corn, beans, tobacco, squashes, and some other vegetables. In a few instances some big chief or warrior of note was permitted to have more than one squaw, but as a rule polygamous marriages were discountenanced.
Of all the Indians the Fox tribe was perhaps the only one which had what might be termed a coat-of-arms. This was a design consisting of an oblique line (supposed to represent a river) with the figure of a fox at each end on opposite sides. After a victory in war this emblem was painted or carved on rocks and trees to tell the story of their valor and at the same time serve as a warning to their enemies.
In 1731 the Sac village of Sau-ke-nuk on the Rock River, in Illinois, was founded. After the expedition of De Villiers the Sacs and Foxes living in Wis- consin were driven from that part of the country by the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, allies of the French, and joined those living at Sau-ke-nuk. At the beginning of the Nineteenth Century there were some 8,000 of the allied tribes living along the Rock River near its mouth. About 1780, or perhaps a few years before, some of these Indians crossed the Mississippi River near the present City of Prairie du Chien and located near the present City of Dubuque, Iowa. In 1788 these Indians granted to Julien Dubuque a concession to work the lead mines and sold him part of the lands claimed by them. Before the close of that year Dubuque established upon his concession the first white settlement in what is now the State of Iowa.
BLACK HAWK AND KEOKUK
Two of the greatest chiefs in the history of the North American Indian belonged to the allied tribes of the Sacs and Foxes. They were Black Hawk and Keokuk, both born of Sac parents, but recognized as chiefs by both tribes. Black Hawk was a warrior and Keokuk was a politician.
Black Hawk, whose Indian name was Ma-ka-ta-wi-mesha-ka-ka, was a mem- ber of the Thunder clan and was born at the Village of Sau-ke-nuk, on the Rock Vol. 1-6
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River, in 1767. His father, Py-e-sa, was a direct descendant of Nan-a-ma-kee (Thunder), the founder of the clan and custodian of the great medicine bag of the Sac Nation, which had been intrusted to him by the Great Spirit. Black Hawk was trained in the arts of war by his father and established his prowess in battle before he was nineteen years old. About that time his father was mortally wounded in an encounter with the Cherokees and the custody of the medicine bag passed to his son. This medicine bag represented the soul of the Sac Nation and had never been disgraced. To prepare himself for the onerous duty of preserving it unsullied, Black Hawk took no part in the military affairs of his tribe for some five years. During that period he passed his time in praying to the Great Spirit for the necessary strength and wisdom to perform his duty as. custodian of the sacred bag. Hour after hour he sat upon the promontory near his home on the Rock River, smoking and meditating. The promontory is still called Black Hawk's Watch Tower, now a summer resort, connected with the City of Rock Island by an electric railway. At the end of his five years of preparation he assumed the chieftainship of his tribe and the custody of the medicine bag, and from that time until his death he guarded carefully the sacred relic and the interests of his people according to his view.
By the treaty negotiated at St. Louis in the fall of 1804 between some of the Sac and Fox chiefs and Gen. William H. Harrison, the United States was given permission to build a military post on the west side of the Mississippi River. In 1808 the old post of Fort Madison was established where the city of that name now stands. Black Hawk and some of his followers were dissatisfied with the terms of the treaty and insisted that the building of Fort Madison was a violation of Indian rights. When the relations between the United States and Great Britain became strained in 1812 the British government took advantage of this dissatis- faction and secured the cooperation of the Black Hawk band. Colonel Dixon, the English officer in command at Green Bay, sent two large pirogues loaded with goods to the Sac and Fox village on the Rock River, and then went in person to superintend the distribution of the goods among the Indians. No better man could have been selected for that purpose. Dixon was crafty and thoroughly understood the Indian character. When he took the hand of Black Hawk he looked straight into the eyes of the chief and said: "You will now hold us fast by the hand. Your English father has found that the Americans want to take your country from you, and has sent me and my braves to drive them back to their own country."
This speech won Black Hawk, who joined the British and was with the Shawnee chief. Tecumseh, when the latter fell at the Battle of the Thames. After the close of the War of 1812 a large part of the Sacs and Foxes entered into a treaty of peace with the United States and agreed to remove to the west side of the Mississippi River. . Black Hawk and his immediate followers remained obstinate and their obstinacy finally culminated in Black Hawk's war in 1832. At the close of the war further negotiations between the allied tribes and the United States were undertaken. In these negotiations the representatives of the Government ignored Black Hawk and recognized Keokuk as the principal chief of the Sac and Fox confederacy. It is said that when the announcement of Keokuk's recognition was made in open council, Black Hawk was so enraged that he jerked off his loin cloth and slapped Keokuk in the face with it. A
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report of the United States Bureau of Ethnology says: "The act of creating Keokuk chief of the Sacs has always been regarded with ridicule by both the Sacs and Foxes, for the reason that he was not of the ruling clan."
After Black Hawk was thus unceremoniously deposed as chief he retired to his new village on the Des Moines River, near Iowaville, where he passed his last years in peace. He died there on October 3. 1838. About a year later it was discovered that his grave had been robbed, but through the efforts of Governor Lucas the bones were recovered and sent to St. Louis, where they were properly cleaned and the skeleton was wired together. It was then returned to the governor, and the sons of the old chief were content to permit it to remain in the custody of the state. The skeleton was afterward presented to the Bur- lington Geological and Historical Society and it was among the relics destroyed by the fire in 1855. Black Hawk was probably never in that portion of Iowa comprising Chickasaw and Howard counties, but his people claimed the land in this section of the state. Through the treaty of 1832, which followed imme- diately after the Black Hawk war, the first land in the State of Iowa was opened to white settlement under the laws of the United States. Gradually the white settlements were extended westward until Chickasaw and Howard counties came within the domain of civilization.
Keokuk (the Watchful Fox) was born near Rock Island, Ill., in 1788, and was therefore Black Hawk's junior by about twenty years. It has been claimed by some that his mother was a French half-breed. If so, he was not a chief by heredity, but won that distinction through his political ingenuity and power of intrigue. One of his biographers says: "He was ambitious and while always involved in intrigue, never openly exposed himself to his enemies, but cunningly played one faction against the other for his personal advantage."
It was during the War of 1812 that Keokuk inaugurated the policy that made him a leader among his people and afterward resulted in his being recognized as chief by the United States. While Black Hawk and some of his warriors were absent from the village on the Rock River, fighting on the side of the British, news was received that a body of Federal troops was marching into the Sac and Fox country. Consternation reigned in the village and some of the Indians began making preparations to cross the Mississippi. Keokuk saw his opportunity and was quick to grasp it. Calling the inhabitants of the village together, he addressed them thus: "I have heard with sorrow that you have determined to leave our village and cross the Mississippi, merely because you have been told that the white soldiers are coming in this direction. Would you leave our village, desert our homes and fly before an enemy approaches? Give me charge of your warriors and I will defend the village while you sleep."
This little speech won the confidence of the people and Keokuk was placed in command. The troops failed to appear and many of the inhabitants of the village, with that superstition which formed a part of the Indian character, believed that an attack was prevented through the precautions taken by Keokuk. By the time of the Black Hawk war his influence was great enough to prevent a large number of the young men from taking part. It was chiefly because he was the leader of the peace party that the United States officials recognized him as the principal chief of the allied tribes after the war, and in all subsequent dealings with the Sacs and Foxes.
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During the Black Hawk war an incident occurred that illustrates the manner in which Keokuk molded public opinion. A number of warriors grew dissatisfied and wanted to join Black Hawk in the effort to recover the Rock River country. They importuned Keokuk to permit them to take part in the war, and some of them even went so far as to hold a war dance and commence preparations for taking the field. Keokuk apparently acquiesced in the demands and took part in the war dance, at the conclusion of which a council was held. With solemn mien Keokuk arose and addressed the council as follows:
"Warriors, I am your chief. It is my duty to lead you to war if you are determined to go. (Here the speaker made a long pause while a murmur of approbation ran through the council, after which he continued.) But, remember, the United States is a great nation. The great father at Washington has a long arm. Unless we conquer we must perish. I will lead you to war against the white men on one condition. That is, we shall first put our old men, our women and our children to death, to save them from a lingering death by starvation, and then resolve that when we cross the Mississippi we will never retreat, but perish among the graves of our fathers, rather than yield to the white men."
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