USA > Iowa > Poweshiek County > History of Poweshiek County, Iowa: a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume 1 > Part 3
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HISTORY OF POWESHIEK COUNTY
The French took such complete possession of important points at or near the mouth of the Mississippi that one there might easily imagine himself in a rural district of France itself in the eighteenth century. Iberville and Bienville began settlements at New Orleans, Biloxi, Natchez and elsewhere, nearly two hundred years ago, and the language and customs of France are most manifest there still.
Louis XIV was rightly called the "Great Monarch," although he was only five feet, two inches tall. He was a great sovereign, at least Colbert was his great prime minister, yet the king was marked by many a weakness. His suc- cessor was a weakling and involved in a war with England over the eastern boundary of their claim north of the Ohio and south of Lake Erie. They claimed the region to the Allegany river, as has been noticed, and were making preparations to defend it by fortifying points on their eastern frontier. It was time for the English to protest. Virginia sent a young man of twenty-one to the French fort, Le Boeuf, to learn the plans of the French. That boy was Washington, and carrying a man's head on his shoulders, he hastened away to Will's creek, down the Monongahela and up the Allegany to the fort near Lake Erie to find it strongly fortified with cannon.
The French officer in command was impertinent and impudent, determined to obey his superior's orders at all hazards. Washington hastened home through many a peril. The news aroused some colonies to vote men, others to vote money to repel the French, but Virginia moved at once without waiting for the dilatory. When the spring of 1754 opened, the French hastened down from Venango to what is now Pittsburg and captured the English fort there and called it Fort Duquesne. Washington set out to meet the French, passed Will's creek and soon heard that the French were at the crossing of the Youghiogeny, a few miles away. They were soon discovered and were attacked at night by Washington as they were concealed in a ravine and while they were seizing their arms. The French commander, Jumonville, and nine other Frenchmen were killed and twenty-one taken prisoners.
Such was the commencement of the French and Indian war in America. A war was carried on at the same time in the Old World and between the same parties. At its end, in 1763, poor France surrendered Canada and its dependencies to the English, and most of eastern Louisiana, while Spain gave Florida to England and received New Orleans and western "Louisiana," the part west of the Mississippi.
IOWA BECAME SPANISH TERRITORY FROM 1763 TO 1800.
During those thirty-seven years the Canadian French continued to visit and to do business in the Mississippi valley, and began before long to give the name of "The Spanish Mines" to the lead regions about Dubuque, which the Foxes then occupied.
During the earlier part of that period the wife of Peosta, a Fox apparently of some prominence in his tribe, discovered something glittering in the dirt in the northern part of what is now the city of Dubuque, that is, in Heebs Hollow. It proved to be lead. It was noised abroad, and Julien Dubuque, a native of the
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HISTORY OF POWESHIEK COUNTY
county of Nicollet, some fifty or sixty miles above Quebec, heard of the dis- covery in 1788 when he was trading with the Indians across the Mississippi from Prairie du Chien. He recognized his opportunity and at once obtained from the chief and his braves in the vicinity a contract giving him the exclusive privilege of mining on the land twenty miles along the river at and near Du- buque, and nine miles back from it. That contract was signed at Prairie du Chien, September 22, 1788. He never resided in Dubuque but made his home in the village of Kettle, the chief, some five miles away. He promptly began mining and shipped his product to St. Louis twice a year, where the arrival of his consignment created more than a ripple of excitement in the little village. He was very polite, especially to the women, although he never married. He died in 1810 and was buried on Dubuque's Bluff, at the base of which he had lived twenty-two years.
The name of one of his companions in Dubuque need be preserved, Basil Giard, for whom the township of Giard in Clayton county was named, and to whom the lieutenant governor of Upper Louisiana granted 5,860 acres in Clay- ton county in 1795. The land was held by Giard and his heirs until after the United States gained possession of Iowa and gave them a patent to it. It is said that his heirs eventually sold the whole to James B. Lockwood and to Thomas P. Burnett for $300. If that is true there is some evidence that in- sanity affected some of the heirs of one early French settler in northeastern Iowa.
Dubuque claimed in 1796 that he owned the property which the Indians in- sisted that they had merely leased. That was their constant claim. At the death of Dubuque the Indians drove off the white men and mining was sus- pended for a time. After that territory became the property of the United States Dubuque transferred most of his rights in Iowa to Auguste Choteau in 1804. White men settled on the disputed territory. Dubuque was incorporated on it in 1836. 'White claimants brought a writ of ejectment against a settler. It was carried to the supreme court of the United States and decided in 1853 against them and in favor of the settlers, on the ground that the land was leased and not sold to Dubuque.
In 1799 the acting lieutenant governor of Upper Louisiana granted a tract of land where Montrose, in Lee county, now stands, to another Frenchman, Louis Honore Fesson, or Ferson, or Fresson. It was thought that Honore (as we will call him) would be useful to the trade in peltries and would aid in keeping the Indians "in the fidelity which they owe to his Majesty." Honore became heavily involved and this land was taken in 1803 by his creditor, who died soon after. A question as to title to the land arose in 1805, and was set- tled by the United States supreme court in 1839, in favor of the claimant under Honore but only for one-ninth of the original grant, that is, for one mile square instead of one league square as originally promised. This is the oldest legal title to land in the state of Iowa.
THE FRENCH REPOSSESS LOUISIANA.
The Spanish government began to be unfriendly to Protestants, to with- hold commercial privileges on the lower Mississippi, which had been granted
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HISTORY OF POWESHIEK COUNTY
before, and to arouse their anger. War was feared, privileges restored, trade improved, immigrants poured into Louisiana in alarming numbers. Land ces- sions to them were forbidden by Spain ; Americans became increasingly hostile. Spain saw it was wiser to sell; France was glad to buy on easy terms ; the peo- ple in the Mississippi valley welcomed the French to power there.
THE UNITED STATES BUY LOUISIANA, 1803.
Napoleon soon found himself in deadly war and England was his foe. The navy of England could strike any possession of France with destructive force if as far away as New Orleans. Then, too, the sovereign was carrying empty pockets, or those fearfully thin, and he was hoping to create an enemy of England across the Atlantic if possible. The sale of Louisiana might bring aid in all these respects.
The United States wanted to buy commercial privileges in New Orleans and asked for them. It is Napoleon's opportunity. "Why not buy all Louisi- ana ?"-he suggests. They begin to dicker.
Napoleon-"You may have it for 100,000,000 francs."
Livingstone-"I am authorized to pay 50,000,000 francs."
The trade was made. 80,000,000 francs were paid and France remits some small debts.
The negotiators congratulate one another on their good bargain. Living- stone rejoices that he has placed his country among the most powerful of the world, and Jefferson is as happy as a loose constructionist could be, while the American people are still rejoicing over their grand bargain.
TREATY OF NOV. 3, 1804, UNJUSTIFIABLE.
The first treaty made with the Sacs and Foxes after the Louisiana Purchase . conveyed to the United States about 51,000,000 acres located in Missouri, Illinois and Wisconsin. It was made at St. Louis, November 3, 1804. It conveyed no land in Iowa, but it had much to do with the Black Hawk war and also with many collisions between the whites and Indians before that time, and was the cause of many a conflict, more or less direct, until the death of Ma-tau-e-qua, the last war chief of the Musquakies, in Tama county, in 1897, when he ceased to murmur to himself, as if asking for redress of the United States for that "robbery in 1804," as the Indians regarded it.
Black Hawk and many of the Indians insisted that it was a gross fraud and that Black Hawk himself had been deceived into assenting to the treaty after- wards. The whites insist that the treaty was made by those who had a right to make it and that those Indians who signed it were lawful representatives of their tribes for that purpose. The Indians declare that they sent representa- tives to St. Louis solely (and for no other service) to get one of their num- ber released who was held there for murder, and that the officers promised to release him, did so and told him to run, and then shot him dead as he was running.
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The Indian delegates returned finely dressed, bearing gewgaws, the posses- sion of which they could not explain. Quashquame, a leader among them, had the delicious luxury of a barrel of whiskey. Although the delegates acted for the Foxes as well as for the Sacs, not a Fox was in St. Louis or within one hundred miles of them, at that time, probably.
The treaty itself seems very suspicious. The government was said to have paid the Indians $2,234 down, and promised to pay them $1,000 annually for several years. That paltry sum was paid for how much land?
About 51,000,000 acres were bought at that astounding price, one cent for 250 acres! That land extended along the east side of the Mississippi river from the mouth of the Missouri river to the mouth of the Wisconsin, some of the richest land in Illinois and Wisconsin, and included some in Missouri also.
An honest, large-minded, generous-hearted American will blush as he reads this treaty. He will not wonder that the Indians repudiated it even though they ratified it in 1815, in 1816, and at other times. He will readily believe that Quashquame was drunk when he signed it and that when Black Hawk ratified it by "touching the goose quill" in 1816 in assent to the bargain which admits of no apology, he "didn't know what he was doing." There was no shadow of compulsion in that sale. All was apparently satisfactory between the pale faces and the red men at the sale of 1804. At the sale of 1832 when the same Indians were compelled to make peace with the whites at the close of the Black Hawk war, when the blood shed in bitter fight was scarcely dry and the burning anger for fathers and sons slain had scarcely begun to cool, this government paid four- teen cents an acre for 6,,000,000 acres, or thirty-five hundred times as much per acre as in the peaceful hours of 1804!
Who can defend the agreement to give one cent for 250 acres without blush- ing? A sad confession for one so daring, if there are any such.
FORT MADISON A CLEAR VIOLATION OF THE TREATY OF 1804.
A prominent statesman and author of the completest history of Iowa says that the erection of Fort Madison in 1808, (named for James Madison, later President,) on the land of the Sacs and Foxes (without their consent) was "a clear violation of the treaty of 1804." The Indians promptly complained of it. They attempted to capture the fort in 1812, but were repulsed after having burned several buildings. The next year they renewed the attack and were again driven back. A renewed attack compelled the little garrison to choose between starvation, the tomahawk, or escape by boat. They boldly chose the latter, crept out on "all fours" and the last man set fire to the fort. The darkness and storm favored the fugitives until they were beyond rifle shot when the Indians became aware of what was occurring, and the garrison was soon safe in St. Louis.
Fort Madison was never rebuilt, but the government erected Fort Arm- strong in 1817 on the island of Rock Island, near the site of Davenport today.
THE "BRITISH BAND" IN 1814.
The British treated the Indians of the upper Mississippi valley kindly before our war of 1812, and drew many into that contest. They flattered them, British
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HISTORY OF POWESHIEK COUNTY
traders won the friendship of many by their artifices in trade, and encouraged their hope to recover their lands and to drive the Americans from their country.
Among these was a group of Sacs led by Black Hawk. They were called the "British Band." Here Black Hawk lost much influence, while Keokuk gained much by insisting on neutrality.
THE WHITES VIOLATE THE TREATY OF 1804.
The whites were pouring into Illinois during 1820-1830 with great rapidity, and were forcing their way into the central and western part of the state. During that time population rose from 55,000 to 157,000 and still they came till 1840, when the census showed 476,000 in the state, and largely in northern Illinois. They very frequently disregarded the treaty of 1804, whether it was an honorable one or not, for settlers often disregarded the contract in that the Indians should not be disturbed in possession of it until it was surveyed and in the market. This was especially true of Black Hawk's village and vicinity on Rock river, a rich and beautiful section of the state, more beautiful then than now. There on the Rock river, near where Moline and Rock Island now stand, Black Hawk was born, and there his ancestors were buried. He looked on their graves, and out over the beautiful prairie, and on the majestic Mississippi, and he loved them as the gallant Switzer loves his inspiring mountains and valleys.
The Rock river Indians, Black Hawk's band, returned from their winter hunt in the spring of 1830 to find that their lands had been occupied by whites more insolent than ever, their village had been preempted, although there were practically no white settlements within fifty miles on their east. Those white squatters had been along Rock river seven years before they could enter an acre, for the land had not been surveyed.
We will not give the story of Black Hawk and his Sacs in detail up to 1832, or through it. There is probably no part of Indian history that is more diversely told than during that time, and writers who ought to know differ widely as to events, numbers, results, and who were the culpable parties. The report appar- ently most trustworthy has been given by Professor Reuben Gold Thwaites, of the Wisconsin University, president of the Wisconsin Historical Society, editor of the Wisconsin Historical Collections, 1892, and author of the History of Wis- consin, 1908.
Professor Thwaites says: "Conditions were ripe for an Indian war in 1830-2. It would give occupation to the small but noisy class of pioneer loafers and cause government money to circulate freely to the numerous and respectable body of Indian haters." The whites were determined to drive back the one thous- and Sacs (men, women and children), who had crossed over from Iowa into Illinois to raise corn. Illinois was ablaze with fear. Black Hawk with forty Sacs saw two hundred or more soldiers not far away and sent out three men under a flag of truce to the general in command of all the whites to ask for a parley.
Stillman's "drunken men" saw the envoys approaching and made a dash for them, killing one of them. Black Hawk sent out five more to see what became of the three. Twenty others of the whites rushed out from Stillman's force to
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HISTORY OF POWESHIEK COUNTY
attack the five and killed two of them. The three survivors turned back, and reported the murders. This flagrant disregard of the rules of war caused the blood of the old Sac to boil with righteous indignation. The three hundred whites started pell mell for the Indians. The Indians took position behind a clump of bushes. The whites came near and halted. Black Hawk gave the war whoop and attacked them. The whites quickly dreamed of "Home, sweet Home," and in a flash turned back, dashed through their camp, and were off with twenty-five redskins at the heels of the three hundred valiants till night fall.
Professor Thwaites gives a somewhat different account of the affair at Stillman's creek after he had considered the subject a few years longer. When he wrote his "Wisconsin" in 1908, he said of it: "His (Black Hawk's) mes- sengers on approaching with their white flag the camp of a party of twenty-five hundred half drunken Illinois militia cavalry, were brutally slain. Accompanied by a mere handful of braves, the enraged Sac leader now ambushed and easily routed this large and boisterous party, whose members displayed rank cowardice. In their mad retreat they spread broadcast through the settlements a report that Black Hawk was backed by two thousand bloodthirsty warriors, bent on a cam- paign of universal slaughter."
Ah! their tongues were as unreliable as their legs! "On that occasion their worst fault was their dishonorable treatment of bearers of a flag of truce, a symbol which few savage tribes disregard. But for this act of treachery, the Black Hawk war would have been a bloodless demonstration. Unfortunately, for our own good name, this violation of the rules of war was more than once repeated by the Americans during the ensuing contest."
Stillman's Run was a term of reproach. It would have been still more ap- propriate to have called the place Stillman's "Skedaddle."
Four thousand whites were soon under arms, some of them from the regu- lar army. Self defense alone was possible now for the Sacs. Again and again they raised the white flag in token of surrender. Again and again it was dis- regarded. The Indians scalped many of those whom they slew. The whites often imitated their example.
In the crossing of Wisconsin river, July 21, 1832, Black Hawk won the eulogy of Jefferson Davis, who saw the splendid skill he displayed in getting his women and children over. He said: "It was the most brilliant exhibition of military tactics that I ever witnessed-a feat of most consummate manage- ment and bravery, in the face of an enemy of greatly superior numbers. I never read of anything that could be compared with it. Had it been done by white men, it would have been immortalized as one of the most splendid achieve- ments in military history." Jefferson Davis, the hero of Buena Vista, was not a poor judge of military skill when he saw it displayed.
The last battle-massacre, rather-of that war occurred at the attempted crossing of the Mississippi near the river Bad Axe. The despairing chief had only a few hundred left, chiefly women and children. He ran up a white flag but the approaching steamer replied to it with grape and canister among the starving crowd on shore. A slaughter of three hours followed, the cannon of the "Warrior" mowed many a swath through the groups of Indians, a bayonet
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charge cleared the island, many were drowned on the way to the west bank of the Mississippi, or coolly picked off by sharpshooters who exercised no more mercy towards squaws and children than they did towards the braves, treat- ing them all as if they were rats instead of human beings.
"Thus out of the band of nearly one thousand persons who crossed the Mississippi at the Yellow Banks in April, not more than one hundred and fifty all told, lived to tell the tragic story of the Black Hawk war-a tale fraught with dishonor to the American name," says our Wisconsin professor, Thwaites.
Winnebagoes, treacherous to both parties during the war and traitors to the beaten one at the end, delivered Black Hawk up to the whites. His band was gone, he lost position and influence among the Sacs and lived and died at Iowa- ville, near Eldon, Iowa.
THE BLACK HAWK PURCHASE, SEPTEMBER 21, 1832.
The following extracts are taken from the treaty of 1832, at Fort Arm- strong, by which the Sacs and Foxes surrendered eastern Iowa.
"Whereas, under certain lawless and desperate leaders, a formidable band, constituting a large portion of the Sac and Fox nation, left their country in April last, and, in violation of their treaties, commenced an unprovoked war upon unsuspecting and defenseless citizens of the United States, sparing neither age nor sex; and whereas, the United States at a great expense of treasure, have subdued the said hostile band, killing or capturing all its principal chiefs and warriors, the said states, partly as indemnity for the expense incurred and partly to secure the future safety and tranquility of the invaded frontier, de- mand of the said tribes, to the use of the United States, a cession of a tract of the Sac and Fox country, bordering on said frontier, more than proportional to the numbers of the hostile band who have been so conquered and subdued.
"Article I. Accordingly the confederated tribes of Sacs and Foxes hereby cede to the United States forever, all the lands to which the said tribes have title, or claim (with the exception of the reservation hereinafter made), in- cluded within the following bounds, to wit: Beginning on the Mississippi river, at the point where the Sac and Fox northern boundary line, as established by the second article of the treaty of Prairie du Chien, of the fifteenth of July, one thousand eight hundred and thirty, strikes said river; thence, up said boun- dary line to a point fifty miles from the Mississippi, measured on said line; thence, in a right line to the nearest point on the Red Cedar of the Ioway, forty miles from the Mississippi river ; thence, in a right line to a point in the northern boundary line of the state of Missouri, fifty miles, measured on said boundary from the Mississippi river; thence, by the last mentioned boundary to the Mississippi river and by the western shore of said river to the place of be- ginning. And the said confederated tribes of Sacs and Foxes hereby stipulate and agree to remove from the lands herein ceded to the United States, or be- fore the first day of June next; and, in order to prevent any future misunder- standing, it is expressly understood that no band or party of the Sac or Fox tribes shall reside, plant, fish, or hunt on any portion of the ceded country after the period just mentioned.
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"Article II. Out of the cession made in the preceding article, the United States agree to a reservation for the use of the said federated tribes, of a tract of land containing four hundred square miles, to be laid off under the directions of the President of the United States, from the boundary line crossing the Ioway river, in such manner that nearly an equal portion of the reservation may be on both sides of said river and extending downwards, so as to include Ke-o-kuck's principal village on its right bank, which village is about twelve miles from the Mississippi river.
"Article III. In consideration of the great extent of the foregoing cession, the United States stipulate and agree to pay to the said confederated tribes an- nually, for thirty successive years the first payment to be made in September of the next year, the sum of twenty thousand dollars in specie.
"Article VI. At the special request of the said confederated tribes, the United States agree to grant, by patent, in fee simple to Antoine Le Claire, interpreter, a part Indian, one section of land opposite Rock Island, and one section at the head of the first rapids above said Island within the country herein ceded by the Sacs and Foxes.
"Article X. The United States, besides the presents, delivered at the sign- ing of this treaty, wishing to give a striking evidence of their mercy and lib- erality, will immediately cause to be issued to the said confederated tribes, prin- cipally for the use of the Sac and Fox women and children, where husbands, fathers and brothers have been killed in the late war, and generally for the use of the whole confederated tribes, articles of subsistence as follows: Thirty- five beef cattle, twelve bushels of salt, thirty barrels of pork and fifty barrels of flour; and cause to be delivered for the same purpose in the month of April next, at the mouth of the lower Ioway, six thousand bushels of maize, or In- dian corn."
This treaty was signed by Ke-o-kuck and eight other leading Sacs, and by twenty-four Foxes, of whom "Pow-sheek" was the third. It was the famous Black Hawk Purchase of 6,000,000 acres, the first purchase made in Iowa for the occupancy of the whites. (See map showing Accessions of Territory from Indians.)
THE INPOUR OF WHITES BEGINS.
The Sacs and Foxes withdrew from the Black Hawk Purchase, June I, 1833,-the time they had agreed to vacate the region, but the whites began to creep in before that, and the United States dragoons drove them back across the Mississippi and burned their cabins. Zachary Taylor, ere long to be presi- dent of the United States, was in command of some of these dragoons and Jef- ferson Davis, twenty years later to be president of the Confederacy, was in command of others.
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