USA > Iowa > Lee County > Story of Lee County, Iowa, Volume I > Part 4
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At the time of the Black Hawk war he was the leader of the peace party and managed to convert a majority of the men of the tribe to his view, leaving Black Hawk with a force entirely too small to hope for success. While the war was in progress some of Keokuk's warriors became dissatisfied with the peace policy and began making preparations to take the field. A war dance was held, in which Keokuk took part, apparently moved with the spirit of discontent that pervaded the tribe. At the conclusion of the dance a council was held to make preparations for war. Keokuk addressed that council as follows :
"Warriors: I am your chief. It is my duty to lead you to war if you are determined to go. But, remember, the United States is
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HISTORY OF LEE COUNTY
a great nation. Unless we conquer them we must perish. I will lead you to war against the white men on one condition. That is we shall first put all our old men, our women and 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."
This speech checked the warlike sentiment among the Indians and the expedition some of them had been planning was abandoned. It was characteristic of Keokuk's methods in dealing with weighty problems. In the negotiations growing out of the Black Hawk war he played so deftly into the hands of the Government officials that he was declared by the United States to be the head chief of the Sac and Fox allied tribes.
Keokuk was fond of debate, in which he was always cool, delib- erate and logical, sometimes growing intense and energetic in his earnestness. In the negotiations at Washington, D. C., he won the regard of the Sacs, Foxes and white men alike, when in a debate he vanquished the Sioux and other northern tribes and established the claim of the Sacs and Foxes to the territory now comprising the State of Iowa. He was a man of far more than ordinary ability, and though he disliked the Foxes he managed to retain his power as chief until after the removal of the Indians to Kansas in 1845. His death occurred in Kansas in the spring of 1848, and there is a rumor that he was poisoned by a member of the tribe, because he was charged with dishonestly appropriating money received from the Government for the Indians. In 1883 his remains were brought to Keokuk, Iowa, and interred in Rand Park. A monument was erected over his grave by the Keokuk Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, and the inscriptions on this monument practically tell the story of his life. The monument is a handsome bronze statue of the old chief, mounted upon a pedestal of limestone and facing the river. On the east side of the pedestal is a marble slab that was taken from his grave in Kansas, bearing the inscription :
"Sacred to the memory of Keo Kuck a distinguished Sac Chief Born at Rock Island in 1788 Died in April 1848."
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HISTORY OF LEE COUNTY
On the west side of the pedestal is another marble slab which bears the following inscription: "This monument is erected by popular subscription in memory of the SAC CHIEF, KEOKUK, for whom the city is named. In 1883 his remains, together with the marble slab on the reverse side of this die, were brought from Franklin County, Kansas, where he died and was buried. His grave was located about three and one-half miles southeast of the Village of Pomona, Frank- lin County, Kansas, on the S. E. 14 of the N. W. 1/4 of section 16, township 17, range 18, east of the 6th principal meridian and was covered by the slab above mentioned. His remains with other matter of historical value are deposited in the base of this structure."
The tablets on the north and south sides are of bronze. On the north side the inscription reads as follows :
"To the Memory of the Pioneers who entered Iowa by Keokuk the Gate City and either settling in our State or passing farther west travelled over the well-worn road known as the Mormon Trail.
With this tablet the Daughters of the American Revolution of Iowa officially open the marking of that early and important Pioneer Highway.
They crossed the prairies as of old The Pilgrims crossed the sea ; To make the West as they the East The homestead of the free.
Erected October, twenty-second Nineteen Hundred and Thirteen."
The inscription on the south tablet is of a historic nature and refers to an incident in the life of Keokuk. It is as follows:
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HISTORY OF LEE COUNTY
"Keokuk's Speech in 1812 which made him a war chief :
'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 Americans were coming in this direction. Would you leave ·our village, desert our homes and fly before an enemy approaches? Would you leave all, even the graves of our fathers, to the mercy of an enemy, without trying to defend them? Give me charge of your warriors and I will defend the village while you sleep.'
"This bronze statue of Keokuk was erected by popular subscrip- tion, through the efforts of the Keokuk Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution. Unveiled October 22, 1913.
COMMITTEE
Susie Smythe Collier, Chm.
Jane Ewing Blood Anne B. Davis
Lorene Curtis Diver Lida Hiller Lapsley
Winona Evans Reeves Minnie Beardsley Newcomb Marcia Jenkins Sawyer."
There was one chief of the Sacs and Foxes, who although he never lived in Lee County, is deserving of notice. That was Matanequa, the last war chief of the allied tribes. He was born at Dubuque in 1810 and was a typical Indian, both in intellect and physique. Like Keokuk, he was not a chief by heredity, but won that distinction by his bravery and executive ability. He was one of the five sent out in 1857 to find a place in Iowa for his band. In July of that year he and his four associates purchased eighty acres of land from a Tama County pioneer, to which they removed their men, women and chil- dren. From time to time other purchases were made until the band owned about three thousand acres. Matanequa was the last survivor of the five who selected the location. His death occurred on October 4, 1897, and he was held in such high esteem by the white people of Tama County that many men closed their places of business to attend the funeral. He was known as the "Warwick of the Mus- quakies," from the fact that while he made chiefs he was never king himself.
CHIEF KEOKUK MONUMENT, KEOKUK
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In this chapter the object has been to give the history in brief of the principal tribes that once inhabited Southeastern Iowa, as well as character sketches of their principal chiefs. In another chapter will be found an account of the treaties by which the white man gained possession of the territory.
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Vol. 1-3
CHAPTER III
EARLY EXPLORATIONS-PREPARATION
SPANISH, ENGLISH AND FRENCH EXPLORATIONS IN AMERICA -- CLAIMS OF THE THREE NATIONS TO TERRITORY-THE JESUIT MISSIONARIES -MARQUETTE AND JOLIET THE FIRST WHITE MEN IN LEE COUNTY -LA SALLE-THE PROVINCE OF LOUISIANA-CROZAT AND LAW- THE MISSISSIPPI BUBBLE-CONFLICT BETWEEN ENGLISH AND FRENCH TRADERS-FRENCH AND INDIAN WAR-IOWA UNDER
SPANISH DOMINATION-THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION-CLARK'S CONQUEST OF THE NORTHWEST-FREE NAVIGATION OF THE MIS- SISSIPPI-THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE-IOWA UNDER VARIOUS JURISDICTIONS-ITS ORGANIZATION AS A TERRITORY-ADMITTED AS A STATE.
The old saying, "Rome was not built in a day," applies with equal appropriateness to every political division or subdivision of the civilized countries of the world. Long before Lee County was even dreamed of, the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. started a chain of events that led to the establishment of the Republic of the United States and the division of the central portion of North America into states and counties. It is therefore deemed advisable to give a brief account of these events, in order that the reader may form some idea of the evolution of the State of Iowa and Lee County.
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." At that time the extent of the con- tinent just discovered by Columbus was not known, but, in a vague way, this papal grant included the present State of Iowa.
Henry VII of England, in 1496, 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." During the next three years the Cabots explored the Atlantic Coast and made discoveries upon which England, at the close of the Fifteenth Cen- tury, claimed all the central part of North America.
Farther northward the French, through the discoveries of Jacques Cartier, claimed the Valley of the St. Lawrence and the region about
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HISTORY OF LEE COUNTY
the Great Lakes, from which they pushed their explorations west- ward toward the headwaters of the Mississippi and southward into the Valley of the Ohio.
Following the usage of nations, by which title to land was claimed by right of discovery, it is not surprising that in course of time a controversy arose among these three great European nations as to which was really the rightful possessor of the soil. The grant of the pope was strengthened in 1541-42 by the expedition of De Soto into the interior and the discovery of the Mississippi River, by which Spain claimed all the land bordering on the great river and the Gulf of Mexico. The charter granted by the English Government to the Plymouth Company in 1620 included "all the lands between the fortieth and forty-eighth parallels of north latitude from sea to sea." In 1628 the Massachusetts Bay Company received a charter from the English authorities that included a strip about one hundred miles wide through the central part of Iowa. The northern boundary line of this grant crossed the Mississippi not far from the present city of Prairie Du Chien, Wisconsin. Thus Iowa, or at least a portion of it, was claimed by both England and Spain "by right of discovery." No efforts were made by either nation, however, to extend their explorations into the interior, the English being content with the colonies established in Virginia and New England, while the Spaniards were so intent on discovering rich gold or silver mines that they made no attempt to found permanent settlements.
As early as 1611 Jesuit missionaries from the French settlements in Canada were among the Indians along the shores of Lakes Michi- gan and Superior. In 1634 Jean Nicollet passed still farther to the westward and reached the country about the Fox River in Wisconsin. In the fall of 1665 Claude Allouez, one of the most zealous of the Jesuit fathers, held a council with representatives of several of the leading western Indian tribes at the Chippewa Village on the southern shore of Lake Superior. At this council were chiefs of the Chippewa, Sioux, Sacs, Foxes, Pottawatomi and Illini. Allouez promised the Indians the protection of the great French father and thus opened the way for a profitable trade with the natives. At the council some of the Sioux and Illini chiefs told the missionary 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, and along which fur- bearing animals abounded."
In 1668 Allouez and another missionary, named Claude Dablon, founded the mission of St. Mary's, the oldest white settlement within the present State of Michigan. The accounts of the region carried
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HISTORY OF LEE COUNTY
back by Nicollet and the missionaries led the French authorities in Canada to send Nicholas Perrot as the accredited agent of the Gov- ernment to arrange for a grand council with the Indians. The council was held at St. Mary's in May, 1671, and before the close of that year Jacques Marquette, another Jesuit missionary, founded the mission among the Huron Indians at Point St. Ignace, which mission was for many years regarded as the key to the great unexplored West.
Marquette had heard the reports concerning the great river and was filled with a desire to discover it, but was deterred from doing so until after Perrot's council, which resulted in the establishment of friendly relations between the French and Indians. In the spring of 1673, having received authority from the Canadian officials, he began his preparations at Michilimackinac for the voyage. It is said the friendly Indians there tried to dissuade him from his undertaking by telling him that the Indians along the great river were cruel and vin- dictive, and that the river itself was the abode of terrible monsters that could swallow both canoes and men.
Such stories had no effect upon the intrepid priest, unless it was to make him more determined, and on May 13, 1673, accompanied by Louis Joliet, an explorer and trader, and five voyageurs, or boat- men, in two large canoes, the little expedition left Michilimackinac. Passing up Green Bay to the mouth of the Fox River, he ascended that stream, crossed the portage to the Wisconsin River, floated down that river and on June 17, 1673, first saw the Mississippi, opposite the present town of McGregor, Iowa. Turning their canoes south- ward, they descended the Mississippi, carefully noting the landmarks as they passed along. On the 25th they landed on the west bank, "sixty leagues below the mouth of the Wisconsin River," where they noticed footprints in the soft earth. Sixty leagues from the mouth of the Wisconsin would throw this landing somewhere near the present town of Montrose, in Lee County. This is the earliest account of any white men having been within the present State of Iowa.
Leaving the five boatmen to guard the canoes and supplies, Mar- quette and Joliet followed the trail westward until they came to an Indian village, and noted two other villages in the vicinity. They were received with hospitality and a dinner of four courses was served. The first course consisted of a stew of coarse corn meal, cooked in oil, which the Indians called "tagamity"; the second course was of fish, which the visitors enjoyed; the third was of roast dog, but this the Frenchmen declined and it was taken out, and the fourth was roast buffalo, cooked in a way that rendered it quite palatable.
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HISTORY OF LEE COUNTY
After dinner the calumet, or pipe of peace, was tendered to the visitors.
Marquette and Joliet remained for several days among the Indians, who were a part of the great Illini tribe or nation. They informed Marquette and Joliet that the name of their village was Moingona and that the river upon which it was built bore the same name. Some authorities state that the explorers went back from the Mississippi a distance of six miles to the Indian village, but it was probably farther, as nowhere does the Des Moines (Moingona) River run within six miles of Montrose. At the conclusion of their visit, they were accompanied back to their canoes by the chiefs and a large party of warriors, who watched them reembark for the continu- ance of their voyage down the river. One of the chiefs, on behalf of the band, presented Marquette with a finely decorated calumet as a token of the good wishes of the tribe. The explorers then descended the river to the mouth of the Arkansas. There they came to some Indians whose language they could not understand and 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 part of New France. After several unsuccessful attempts to reach and de- scend the great river to its mouth, La Salle finally carried out his purpose, and on April 9, 1682, at the mouth of the Mississippi, claimed all the territory drained by that river and its tributaries, to which region he gave the name of Louisiana, in honor of the French king. This claim was afterward acknowledged by other European nations and Iowa became recognized as part of the French posses- sions in the New World.
On April 8, 1689, Nicholas Perrot took formal possession of the upper Mississippi Valley in the name of France and built a fort and trading post on a river, to which he gave the name of St. Nicholas. Eleven years later Le Sueur went up the river seeking lead mines, which Indian traditions said existed somewhere along the river, but it was not until many years afterward that the mines were discovered by white men. Thus matters stood at the close of the Seventeenth Century.
During the next century the frontier of civilization was pushed gradually westward. The Hudson's Bay Company had been organ- ized by the English in 1667 and its trappers and traders went into all parts of the interior in spite of the French claim to the territory. In 1712 the French Government granted to Antoine Crozat a charter fix- ing his control of the trade of Louisiana. Crozat, who was a wealthy
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HISTORY OF LEE COUNTY
merchant of Paris, sent agents to America, but found the Spanish ports on the Gulf of Mexico closed to his vessels, because Spain, while recognizing the claim of France to the Territory of Louisiana, was jealous of French ambitions. At the end of five years Crozat surrendered his charter and was succeeded by John Law, who organ- ized the Mississippi Company as a branch of the Bank of France. Law sent some eight hundred colonists to Louisiana in 1718 and the next year Philipe Renault went up the Mississippi to the Illinois country with about two hundred more, the intention being to estab- lish posts and open up a trade with the Indians. In 1720 Law's whole scheme collapsed. It has become known in history as the "Mississippi Bubble." On April 10, 1732, he surrendered his charter and Louisiana again became subject to the jurisdiction of the French Government.
In the meantime the English traders had been extending their operations into French territory and in 1712 incited the Fox Indians to hostilities against the French. The first open conflict between the English and French did not come, however, until in 1753, when the latter nation began building a line of forts from the Great Lakes to the Ohio River to prevent the English from extending their settle- ments west of the Allegheny Mountains. The territory upon which these forts were built was claimed by Virginia and Governor Din- widdie of that colony sent George Washington, then just turned twenty-one, to demand of the French commandant an explanation for this invasion of English domain while the nations were at peace. The reply was insolent and the following year Washington; with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, was again sent into the disputed territory. This time he was furnished with a detachment of troops and instructed "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. This incident aroused the indignation of France and in May, 1756, that nation formally declared war against Great Britain. The conflict that followed, known as the "French and Indian War," kept the American colonies of both nations and Indian tribes in a state of turmoil for several years.
On November 3, 1762, the French and Indian war was concluded by the preliminary treaty of Fontainebleau, by which France ceded all that part of Louisiana lying east of the Mississippi River, except the city and island of New Orleans, to Great Britain. The treaty 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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HISTORY OF LEE COUNTY
in secret, all that portion of Louisiana lying west of the Mississippi, "including the whole country to the head waters of the great river and west to the Rocky Mountains," was ceded to Spain. By this treaty the jurisdiction of France in America was brought to an end and Iowa became a part of the Spanish possessions. The French inhabitants became Spanish subjects, though many of them remained in the province and took an active part in business affairs. About the time the transfer was made to Spain, a fur company was organized in New Orleans to trade between the Upper Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains. Pierre Laclede, one of the projectors of this com- pany, laid out the City of St. Louis, Missouri-its representatives were operating in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota.
Independent English trappers and traders also visited the upper valley about 1766, and some writers think they traded with the Iowa Indians. They operated without the sanction and support of the English colonial authorities and were not always strictly within the limits of the law in their transactions. This was the beginning of the Northwest Fur Company, which a few years later contested with the French traders for the patronage of the Indians of the North- west.
Then came the American Revolution, which again changed the map of Central North America. At the close of the French and Indian war, many of the people living east of the Mississippi refused to acknowledge allegiance to Great Britain and removed to the west side of the river. Shortly after the beginning of the Revolutionary war a number of them recrossed the river and allied themselves with the colonists in the struggle for independence. The British had estab- lished several military posts in the territory acquired from France, the most important of which were the ones at Vincennes, Indiana, and Kaskaskia and Cahokia, Illinois. In 1778 the Virginia Legisla- ture authorized an expedition under Gen. George Rogers Clark for the reduction of these posts, and by Clark's conquest of the North- west the western boundary of the United States was fixed at the Mississippi River by the Treaty of 1783, which ended the Revolu- tionary war and established the independence of the American Re- public.
It was not long until the new nation became involved in a con- troversy with the Spanish authorities in Louisiana over the free navi- gation of the Mississippi. The final settlement of this question had a direct and important influence on the region now comprising the State of Iowa. The great river constituted the natural outlet for the com- merce of a large part of the United States, but the Spanish officials
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HISTORY OF LEE COUNTY
established posts along the river and every boat descending the stream was forced to land at these posts and submit to arbitrary revenue duties. This was not only humiliating to the American merchants, but it also materially decreased the profits of their trade. After much diplomatic discussion and correspondence, the vexed question was finally settled by the Treaty of Madrid, concluded on October 20, 1795, which stipulated that "the Mississippi River, from its source to the gulf, for its entire width, shall be free to American trade and commerce, and the people of the United States shall be per- mitted, for three years, to use the port of New Orleans as a port of deposit, without payment of duty."
At the expiration of the three years the free navigation of the Mississippi again became a subject of vital interest to the people of the United States. While it was under discussion a secret treaty was negotiated between France and Spain, at San Ildefonso in the fall of 1 800, by which Spain agreed to cede Louisiana back to France, under certain conditions. The terms of this treaty were made public by the Treaty of Madrid (March 21, 1801) and soon after that Rufus King, the United States minister to England, sent a copy of the treaty to President Jefferson. The transfer of the province back to France changed the whole situation and offered a favorable oppor- tunity to secure the free navigation of the river.
Slow progress was made, however, and on January 7, 1803, the lower house of the United States Congress adopted a resolution declaring that "It is the unalterable determination of the United States to maintain the boundaries and the rights of navigation and commerce through the Mississippi River, as established by existing treaties." Before the close of that month President Jefferson sent Robert R. Livingston and James Monroe as special envoys to Paris, to negotiate a treaty that would secure the free navigation of the great river, "not as a favor, but as a right." Livingston and Monroe were instructed to secure, if possible, the cession of New Orleans and its island to the United States. When this subject was presented to M. Talleyrand, the French prime minister, he suggested that it might be possible for the United States to acquire the entire Province of Louisiana. A few days later Livingston had an interview with Napoleon, who offered to sell all Louisiana to the United States for $25,000,000. Further negotiations followed and the purchase price was modified to $15,000,000, which was accepted by the American envoys and a treaty on this basis was concluded on the last day of April, 1803, making Iowa a part of the territory of the United States.
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