USA > Iowa > Calhoun County > Past and present of Calhoun County, Iowa, a record of settlement, organization, progress, and achievement, Volume I > Part 4
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THE POTTAWATOMI
This tribe was at one time one of the powerful tribes of the great Algonquian family. They were closely allied with the Sacs and Foxes and a portion of the tribe at one time dwelt in Iowa. Many
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of the early treaties made with the Sacs and Foxes were approved or ratified by the Pottawatomi before they became effective. French missionaries and traders first came in contact with these Indians near the northern limits of the Michigan peninsula, where they were known as the "Nation of Fire." Nicollet met with some of them in Wiscon- sin as early as 1664. Bacqueville de la Potherie, an early French writer, says: "In 1665 or 1666 the Pottawatomi took the southern and the Sac the northern shores of Green Bay, and the Winnebago, who were not fishermen, went back into the forests to live on venison and bear meat."
About the close of the Revolutionary war a part of the tribe moved eastward and in the early years of the nineteenth century occupied practically all that part of Indiana north of the Wabash River. By the treaty of August 24, 1816, they ceded to the United States the greater portion of their lands along the shores of Lake Michigan, including the site of the present City of Chicago, and received in exchange therefor some of the Sac and Fox lands in Western Illinois. In 1833 they ceded all their lands in Indiana and Ilinois and received a traet of 5,000.000 acres in Southwestern Iowa, to which they removed in 1835. Peter A. Sarpy was one of the first traders among these Indians after they came to Iowa, and in 1838 Davis Hardin opened a farm and built a mill for the tribe near Council Bluffs, which city is the county seat of a county bearing the tribal name, though their agency was located in what is now Mills County. At the time they removed to their Iowa reservation the tribe numbered about three thousand people. By the treaty of June 5, 1846, the Pottawatomi surrendered their lands in Iowa in exchange for a reservation thirty miles square in Kansas, where a few of them still live.
THE WINNEBAGO
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Strictly speaking, this tribe belonged to Siouan family, but far back in the past they became allied with the Algonquian tribes liv- ing about the Great Lakes and some ethinologists class them as being members of the Algonquian group. They are first mentioned in his- tory as early as 1669, when they were allied with the Iowas, Pottawa- toni. Chippewa, Sac and Fox and other Algonquian tribes. In the Revolutionary war the Winnebago fought on the side of the Brit- ish; took part in the battle of Fallen Timbers against the forces com- manded by Gen. Anthony Wayne in the summer of 1794: some of the tribe was in the battle of Tippecanoe in November, 1811, and
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joined the Pottawatomi in the massacre at Fort Dearborn (now Chi- cago) in 1812. They were friendly to Black Hawk at the time of his uprising in 1832, though it was through the treachery of some of this tribe that Black Hawk was captured. For some time the Winnebago occupied the traet known as the "Neutral Ground" in Northeastern Iowa as a reservation, which they received in exchange for their lands east of the Mississippi. One of the leading Winne- bago chiefs was Wee-no-shiek (or Winneshiek), in whose honor one of the counties in Northeastern Iowa was named. By intermarriage with the Saes and Foxes they became closely allied with those tribes and roamed freely all over the State of Iowa.
THE SIOUX
Under this general name were grouped all the tribes of the Siouan family. The French first met with these Indians in 1640, near the headwaters of the Mississippi River. Father Hennepin and his band of explorers were captured by the Sioux in April, 1680, and held in captivity until the following September, when they were rescued by DuLuth. When the French traders came into the Sioux country five years later they found there sixteen distinct tribes. During the fol- lowing years most of the tribes beeame hostile to the French and in the hostilities some of the Indians were driven back to the country about the sources of the Des Moines River and Okoboji and Spirit lakes. in Northwestern lowa. All the Sioux tribes were noted for their bravery and warlike disposition. One of their most noted chiefs in the early part of the nineteenth century was Waneta, the leader of the Yankton band, who, with a number of his tribesmen espoused the cause of the British in the War of 1812 and took an active part in the battle of Sandusky. Another Sioux chief of later years was Inkpadutah, who led his bloodthirsty warriors against the early white settlers of Diekinson County, Ia., in what has become known as the "Spirit Lake Massacre."
In this chapter the aim has been to give to the reader some general idea of the character of the Mound Builders-the first inhabitants of the interior of the United States-and of the leading Indian tribes that once had their hunting grounds in the present State of Iowa. In the next chapter will be found an account of the treaties by which the white man gained possession of the land. Through the operation of the various treaties of cession, the red men had nearly all been removed from lowa before the first settlement was made by white men in
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Calhoun County, though small hunting parties of Indians occasion- ally passed through the county after the first settlers eame. Although no well-defined Indian village sites, nor no relies of historie impor- tanee have been found in the county, evidence is not wanting that the Sacs and Foxes, the Pottawatomi, the Winnebago, the Sioux, and perhaps the Iowa Indians all, at some period or another, hunted through this section of the state and sojourned for a time at least within the present limits of the county. There is a legend or tradition that a battle was once fought between two tribes near Twin Lakes, but the partienlars of the engagement cannot be learned.
CHAPTER IH
THE PERIOD OF PREPARATION
EARLY EXPLORATIONS IN AMERICA-CLAIMS OF ENGLAND, FRANCE AND SPAIN-THE JESUITS-DISCOVERY OF THE MISSISSIPPI BY MAR- QUETTE AND JOLIET-LA SALLE-LOUISIANA-CONFLICTING INTER- ESTS-FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR-FUR COMPANIES-CLARK'S CON- QUEST OF THE NORTHWEST-NAVIGATION OF THE MISSISSIPPI-THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE-UNITED STATES JURISDICTION-TERRITORY OF IOWA-ACQUIRING THE INDIAN LANDS-POLICIES OF DIFFERENT NATIONS IN DEALING WITH THE INDIANS-TREATY OF 1804-BLACK HAWK WAR-THE NEUTRAL GROUND-TREATY OF 1830-TREATY OF 1832-TREATY OF 1842-FORT DES MOINES-THE LAST TREATIES.
The old saying "Rome was not built in a day," will fitly apply to every eity, every politieal division or subdivision of the various civilized countries of the world. Civilization is the product of a grad- ual evolution, and Calhoun County, like all other political subdivisions of the United States, is the outcome of a series of events running back for many years. Long before the county, as such, was even dreamed of, the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus started the chain of events that has led to the establishment of the Republic of the United States and the division of the interior of the continent into states and counties. It is quite probable that many of the citizens of Calhoun County never gave this subject a serious thought, but in order that the reader may be able to form some gen- eral idea of the evolution of the State of lowa and the County of Calhoun, it is deemed appropriate to give a general account of the events that preceded and led up to their establishment.
In 1493, the year following the first voyage of Columbus to the New World, the pope granted to the King and Queen of Spain "all countries inhabited by infidels." The extent of the continent diseov- ered was not then known, but this papal grant included in a vague way the present State of Iowa, the whole of what is now the United
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States being then inhabited by Indian tribes that knew not the reli- gion of the Catholic Church and therefore came within the category of "infidels."
Three years later Henry VII of England granted to John Cabot and his sons a patent of discovery, possession and trade "to all lands they may discover and lay claim to in the name of the English crown." Between that time and the close of the fifteenth century the Cabots made explorations along the Atlantic coast, and their discoveries formed the basis of England's claim to all the eentral portion of North America.
While Spain was operating in the West Indies and along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, and the English along the Atlantie coast from the vicinity of Cape Hatteras northward, the French Gov- ernment sent Jacques Cartier on an expedition to America. Cartier discovered and laid claim to the Valley of the St. Lawrence River and the region about the Great Lakes, whence the French pushed their explorations westward to the Mississippi River and southward into the Ohio Valley.
Following the custom of that period, each of these three great European nations claimed title to certain territory "by right of dis- covery." Spain's papal grant was supplemented by the expedition of Hernando de Soto into the interior in 1540-42. De Soto died in the wilds and his body was buried in the great river he discovered. The few survivors finally reached the Spanish colonies in Florida and upon their report Spain claimed all the land bordering upon the Mis- sissippi as well as the Gulf coast.
In 1620 the British Government, ignoring the authority of the pope and the explorations of De Soto, issued a charter to the Ply- mouth Company including "all the lands between the fortieth and forty-eighth parallels of north latitude from sea to sea." Eight years later the Massachusetts Bay Company received from the English crown a grant that ineluded a strip about one hundred miles wide through the central part of the present State of Jowa. The northern boundary of this grant erossed the Mississippi not far from where Prairie du Chien, Wis., now stands, and the southern boundary erossed the river a few miles south of the present City of Muscatine, Ia. Thus lowa, or at least a portion of it, was claimed by both Spain and England "by right of discovery," but no effort was made by either nation to extend settlement into the interior. The Spaniards were so busily engaged in the search for the rumored rieb gold and silver mines that they paid but little attention to the establishment of Vol. 1- 3
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permanent settlements, while the English were apparently content with their little colonies at Jamestown, Va., and in New England.
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Meantime the French were not idle. Port Royal was settled in 1604 and Quebec was founded by Samuel Champlain in 1608, only about a year after the English colony was planted at Jamestown. Three years later Jesuit missionaries from Quebec visited the Indian tribes living about the Great Lakes, and in 1616 a French explorer named Le Caron visited the country of the Huron and Iroquois Indians. The reports of Le Caron and the missionaries showed the possibilities of opening up a profitable trade with the natives, espe- cially in furs, and French explorations were pushed still farther west- ward. In 1634 Jean Nicollet reached the Fox River country, in what is now the State of Wisconsin. For more than half a century, how- ever, after the founding of Quebec, no systematic effort was made by the French to establish anything like a colony in the Great Lake country.
In the fall of 1665 Claude Allouez, who was one of the most active of the Jesuit Fathers, held a council with the Indians at the Chippewa village, on the southern shore of Lake Superior. At this eouneil sev- cral of the most powerful Indian tribes were represented. Chiefs of the Sioux, Chippewa, Sacs, Foxes, Pottawatomi and Illini were present and to them and their people Allouez promised the protce- tion of the great French father, thus opening the way for the estab- lishment of trading posts in the Indian country. Some of the Sioux and Illini chief's told Allouez of a great river farther to the westward, "called by them the Me-sa-sip-pi, which they said no white man had yet seen (these Indians knew nothing of the expedition of De Soto), and along which fur-bearing animals abounded."
The first white settlement in the present State of Michigan-the Mission of St. Mary's-was established by Father Allouez and another missionary named Claude Dablon in 1668. Friendly rela- tions were soon built up between the inhabitants of the mission and . the neighboring Indians, which, with the reports carried back by Nicollet, led the French authorities in Canada to send Nicholas Perrot as the authorized agent of the Government to arrange for a grand couneil with the natives. The council was held at St. Mary's in May, 1671. Before the close of that year Jaeques Marquette, one of the most influential of the Jesuit missionaries in America, founded the mission of Point St. Ignace, near where the City of Mackinaw now stands, for the benefit of the Huron Indians. For many years this mission was considered as the key to the great, unexplored West.
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Father Marquette had first heard of the great river through the account given by Allouez of the council held at the Chippewa village, and was filled with a desire to verify the reports of the Indians regard- ing its existence. Fearing hostility, or at least some opposition, on the part of the Indians, he made no effort in that direction until after the council of 1671. Some time was then spent in making his prepara- tions, and in obtaining the consent of the Canadian officials. In the spring of 1673, armed with the proper credentials, he went to Michili- mackinac to complete his final arrangements. It is said that the friendly Indians, when they learned his intention, tried to discourage him by telling him that the Indians along the great river were cruel and treacherous, and that the river itself' was the abiding place of ter- rible monsters that could swallow both men and canoes.
Notwithstanding all such horrible stories, Marquette hurried for- ward his preparations for the start and on May 13, 1673, accompanied by Louis Joliet, explorer and trader, and five voyageurs, with two large eanoes, the little expedition left the mission. Passing up Green Bay to the mouth of the Fox River, they ascended that stream to the portage, crossed over to the Wisconsin River and descended it in the belief that it emptied into the great river of which they were in search. Nor were they mistaken in their reckoning. On the morn- ing of June 17, 1673, a little more than a month after leaving Michili- mackinac, their canoes floated out upon the broad bosom of the Mis- sissippi and for the first time in history white men beheld the Iowa bluff's near the present City of MeGregor. Turning their canoes southward they descended the great Father of Waters, carefully noting the landmarks as they passed along. On the 25th of June they landed on the west bank of the river, "sixty leagues below the mouth of the Wisconsin River," where they noticed footprints in the soft earth. Sixty leagues below the mouth of the Wisconsin would throw this landing about the present Town of Montrose, Lee County, la. There is little doubt that Marquette and Joliet were the first white men to set foot upon the soil of Iowa.
Desirous of meeting the natives whose footprints they saw upon the river bank, Marquette and Joliet left the five voyageurs to guard the canoes and supplies and went back into the country. They fol- lowed the trail for several miles, when they came to an Indian village and noticed two other villages in the vicinity. The Indians informed Marquette and Joliet that they belonged to the Illini tribe and that the name of their village, as well as the river upon which it was situ- ated, was "Moingona," After a visit of several days among the
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Indians the two Frenchmen were accompanied back to their canoes by the chiefs and a large party of warriors. Upon arriving at the Mississippi one of the chiefs addressed Marquette as Follows:
"I thank the black-gown chief for taking so much pains to come and visit us. Never before has the earth been so beautiful nor the sun so bright. Never has the river been so calm and free from rocks, which your canoe has removed. Never has the tobacco had so fine a flavor, nor our corn appeared so beautiful as we behold it today. Ask the Great Spirit to give us life and health, and be yon pleased to come and dwell among us."
One of the chiefs then presented Marquette with a calumet, or peace pipe, elaborately decorated, as a token of the tribe's good wishes, after which the two Frenchmen continued their voyage down the Mississippi until they met with a tribe of Indians whose language they could not understand, when they returned to Canada.
In 1678 Louis XIV, then King of France, granted to Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, a patent to explore the western portions of New France, as the French possessions in America were ealled. La Salle's ambition was to follow the great river from its source to its mouth, and after several unsnecessful attempts his ambition was realized. In the expedition of 1680 he sent Father Louis Hennepin to lead an expedition from the mouth of the Illinois River to the head- waters of the Mississippi, and in April of that year Father Hennepin reached the Falls of St. Anthony. The descent of the stream was not so easy, but after several failures La Salle finally reached the mouth of the river, where on April 9, 1682, he planted the eross and took possession of all the territory drained by the Mississippi and its tributaries in the name of France, giving the territory the name of Louisiana, in honor of the French king.
On April 8. 1689, Nicholas Perrot took formal possession of the upper Mississippi Valley for his government and built a trading post on a river which he named St. Nicholas. In 1700 Le Sueur went up the river looking for some lead mines, which Indian traditions said existed somewhere in that region, but four seore years elapsed before the mines became the property of the white man through the conces- sion granted by the Sae and Fox Indians to Julien Dubuque.
It is not surprising that in time a conflict of interests arose among the English, Spanish and French. Spain elaimed the interior of the continent by virtue of De Soto's discovery of the Mississippi River. England had sent no expeditions into the interior, but upon the dis- coveries made by the Cabots claimed the country "from sea to sea."
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France was really the first to make actual explorations in the Missis- sippi Valley; the claim of La Salle was acknowledged by other Euro- pean nations, and what is now the State of lowa thus became a part of the French possessions in North America. At the elose of the seventeenth century the English settlements occupied the Atlantic coast from Maine to Georgia: Spain was in possession of Florida and that part of the Gulf coast not included in Louisiana : and France held the Valley of the St. Lawrence, the Great Lake Basin and the Mississippi Valley.
Soon after the beginning of the eighteenth century, France decided to send colonists to Louisiana through the medium of a cor- poration or proprietor. Consequently, in 1712 the French Govern- ment granted to Antoine Crozat, a wealthy merchant, a charter giv- ing him exclusive control of the Louisiana trade under certain con- ditions. But when his agents arrived in America to carry out his orders they found the Spanish ports on the Gulf coast closed to Cro- zat's vessels, for Spain, while recognizing France's claims to the province of Louisiana. as based upon the discoveries of La Salle, was jealous of French ambitions. After five years of Spanish opposition and other difficulties, Crozat surrendered his charter and was sue- ceeded by the Mississippi Company, which was organized by John Law as a branch of the Bank of France. In 1718 Law sent some eight hundred colonists to Louisiana and the next year Philipe Renault went up the Mississippi to the Illinois country with about two hundred colonists, his objeet being to establish posts and open up a trade with the Indians. Law was a good promoter but a poor executive. In 1720 his whole seheme collapsed, and so dismal was the failure that his company is known in history as the "Mississippi Bub- ble." For several years he continued his feeble efforts, but finally on April 10, 1732. he surrendered his charter and Louisiana again became a French erown province.
In the meantime the English had been gradually pushing the frontier of their civilization farther toward the west. As early as 1667 the Hudson's Bay Company had been organized and its trap- pers and traders passed freely among the Indian tribes of the interior, despite the French claim to the territory and oblivious to French pro- tests against their trespasses.
FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR
As mentioned in the preceding chapter, the Fox Indians made an attack on the French post at Detroit in 1712. Their action on
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that occasion had been incited by some of the English traders. Again in 1730 the English and Dutch traders made an effort to drive out French competition by inciting the Indians to hostility. But the first open rupture between the two nations did not come until 1753, when the French began the establishment of a line of forts from the Great Lakes to the Ohio River for the purpose of resisting further English encroachments upon French domain, claiming that the Allegheny Mountains marked the natural boundary, beyond which the British should not pass. At least one of the French forts was located upon land claimed by Virginia, and Governor Dinwiddie of that colony sent George Washington, then just turned twenty-one, to demand of the French commandant an explanation of this invasion of Eng- lish territory while the nations were at peace. The reply was insolent and in 1854 Washington was sent with a detachment of troops into the disputed territory, having been promoted to the rank of lieutenant- colonel.
Some years prior to this time a charter had been granted by the British Government to a company called the Ohio Company. The charter carried with it a grant to a large tract of land and the right to trade with the Indians on the Great Miami River. In 1750 the Ohio Company built a fort and established a trading post near the site of the present City of Piqua. O. Regarding this as an encroach- ment upon French territory, the Canadian authorities sent a detach- ment of French soldiery and Indians to break up the post. The Ohio Company then began a new post at the head of the Ohio River, where the City of Pittsburgh now stands, but again they were driven away by the French. Part of Washington's instructions in 1754 was "to complete the fort already commenced by the Ohio Company at the forks of the Ohio, and to capture, kill or drive out all who attempted to interfere with the English posts."
An order of this nature aroused the indignation of France and in May, 1756, that nation formally declared war against Great Britain. The conflict that followed is known in American history as the "French and Indian War." and in Europe as the "Seven Years War." After keeping the American colonies and Indian tribes in a state of unrest for several years, the war was concluded by the treaty of Fon- tainebleau on November 3. 1762, by which France ceded that part of Louisiana lying east of the Mississippi River (except the city and island of New Orleans) to England. The treaty of Fontainebleau was ratified by the treaty of Paris on February 10, 1763, and on the same day it was announced that, by an agreement previously made
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in secret, all that part of Louisiana lying west of the Mississippi was ceded to Spain. Through the negotiation of these treaties the juris- dietion of France in what is now the United States was brought to an end and Iowa beeame a Spanish possession.
About the time that Western Louisiana was transferred to Spain, a fur company was organized in New Orleans for the purpose of trading with the Indian tribes living in the country between the upper Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. Pierre Laelede, one of the organizers of this company, laid out the City of St. Louis, Mo., which quickly became the headquarters of the company, its repre- sentatives operating in what are now the states of Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas and Missouri.
About 1766 a number of independent English trappers and traders also came into the upper Mississippi Valley, and some writers state that they traded with the Indians of Iowa. At first they operated without the sanction of the English colonial authorities and were not always strictly within the limits of the law in their dealings with the natives. To remove this difficulty and render them amenable to law they were organized as the Northwest Fur Company, which con- tested with the French traders of the New Orleans Company for the Indian trade of the great Northwest until the commencement of the Revolutionary war.
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