Saga of the Des Moines River Greenbelt

Chapter 4

Indian Lands Usurped by the Whites

1500-1845

After Columbus’ discovery of America in 1492, it became known in Europe that across the ocean was a vast wilderness" inhabited by people of another color, a people who had different beliefs and customs. Exploiting this new land was an exciting prospect. The natives, of course, had not the faintest notion of the effect these European ambitions would have on their lives. They would soon meet the vanguard of the whites—the trappers, the fur tmders, the soldiers—and finally, the settlers.

The Ioways

During the 17th century, the loways, prehistorically known as the Oneotas, controlled much of southern Iowa including the Des Moines River Valley. They hunted, fished, planted a few crops, and from 1763-1830 carded on a profitable trade in furs with the English, though Spain claimed the land and protested the intrusion of the English. The loways, raided by the Sioux from the north and harassed by the Sac and Fox Indians coming into Iowa from, the southeast, apparently left the Des Moines River Valley in the early 1800’s and went to Kansas.

The Sioux

The Sioux, who lived in a broad area north of Des Moines, were little inclined to raise corn and vegetables. They depended on hunting the buffalo and smaller game and on the gathering of wild seeds.

They made temporary homes of skin, earth, or pole and thatch. Often they were on the move as they followed the migrations of the wild buffalo.

They were often cold in winter because their tepees offered insufficient protection, and hungry because their food supply was exhausted. At such times, the Siouxs raided their neighbors in search of food and stole horses from the Omahas and other tribes. The horses gave them the mobility they needed to conduct their raids. The Siouxs obtained the reputation for being a warlike people, though they had many noble and generous leaders among them.

- 17 -

The Sac (Sauk) and Fox

The Sac and Fox Indians, who came to be identified with the Des Moines River Valley more than any other Indian tribe, came from Wisconsin after an altercation with the French to whom they had been selling furs. The Sacs and Foxes, two separate tribes in Wisconsin joined together to protect themselves from the French following the murder of a Frenchman. They fled from Wisconsin and occupied the Des Moines River area in Iowa, where they all but annihilated the Ioways.

The Sac and Fox had not yet seen the end of the French. In 1735, Captain Joseph do Noyelles, with a band of 50 men, left Detroit to force the Indians to return to Wisconsin to assist in the fur trade. They followed their prey up the Des Moines River, and on April 19, 1735, they fought a pitched battle with the Indians at the present site of Des Moines, the first and only battle between Indians and whites on Iowa soil. The battle ended in a draw, and de Noyelles and his army went back to their fort in Wisconsin, having accomplished nothing.

Sac Chief Keokuk, about 1780-1848 (Annals of Iowa, July, 1943)

- 18 -

Sac and Fox Ways of Life

The Sac and Fox were a very religious people. They worshipped the Great Spirit Manitou who created the land and then created man out of the yellow earth and breathed the breath of life into him. W.M. Donnel, an early settler in the Red Rock area, recounts many incidents concerning their ways of life. He tells how a group of white men came upon a large tent where a number of red men were seated, chanting and praying in worship of Manitou. A squaw rebuked the whites when they pushed back the tent flap because they were talking loudly and disturbing the prayers. (Donnel: 1872, 150).

A witness of the ceremony following the death of a child, by scalding, reports that the chieftain (who Donnel said was Keokuk) and some of his braves were engaged in silent prayers followed by chants. The father of the child invoked the Great Spirit to take good care of his little one, ‘You, God know what is best, and I know he will be happy with you.’ The braves then made offerings of some of their most precious possessions by throwing them into the fire. (Donnel: 1872, 204).

The white man depended on the printed Bible. The Indian could not read; his revelation came from the earth itself.

Red Rock (in Marion County) became an important meeting place for bands of Sac and Fox Indians. A huge sycamore tree, 24 feet in girth and more than 50 feet in height, near the banks of the river was a favorite rendezvous. (This impressive landmark was covered by the waters of Lake Red Rock in 1969 and has since rotted away).

The Indians camped in the red sandstone river bluffs which they called the ‘Painted Rocks’ and in the nearby Whitebreast Creek areas. Indian trails from the Red Rock area extended in all directions.

Keokuk’s Town, according to Dr W.I-I.H. Barker, early settler in the area, was the only Indian village known to be located in Marion County. It was abandoned soon after the whites began to settle in the neighborhood. Of it, he wrote,

Keokuk’s town was a noted point in Indian history. It lay on the north side of the Des Moines River on a slight ridge between Prairie Lake and the river. Numerous trails led to this village from various points of the compass. One of these led upstream to the red rocks and then on to the confluence of the Des

- 19

Moines and the Coon (present city of Des Moines). Another crossed English Creek just a few feet below where the river is spanned by the Rock Island bridge within the precincts of the present town of Harvey (Barker in Knoxville Journal, September 25, 19S0).

The men of the tribe went on three-month hunting and gathering expeditions during the summer. Before going, they made sacrifices to Manitou, who gives all good gifts to man. Following a successful hunt, they celebrated by holding a feast of thanks. Such a ceremony at Red Rock village involved 50 warriors under the leadership of Chief Kish-ke-kosh. ‘They gathered around an altar where various offerings were burned. Each brave arose, one at a time, and spoke a few solemn religious thoughts, followed by dances of a symbolic nature.!~ (Donnel, 1872, 218).

According to a pioneer settler, ‘In the early days when the broad open prairies were in their native state. . .they were a harbor for wild game, It was the custom for the Indians in the fall of the year. . .when the wind was in the right direction. . . to start fires and to burn a large tract of the country. This was done to drive the game from the grassland to the timber belts, thus giving the red man a better advantage to secure a winter supply of meat. (Barker in Knoxville Journal, September 25, 1930). The squaws, after grubbing out hazel brush from the banks of the streams, planted and tended patches of corn. It is doubtful that the Indian men loafed very much, and certainly the Indian woman did not. She cultivated the corn, brought in the game after the men had slaughtered it, procured fuel for cooking, picked up the tents and household goods when they were preparing to move, and set them up again when they were relocated.

The Sac and Fox children were taught at home. They learned early how to use the bow and arrow and other useful arts and also the social regulations of the tribe. Story telling was often employed as a means of teaching. They also learned by observing Nature.

W.H.H. Barker writes of the Sac and Fox Indians, ‘He utilized the birch for his canoe, and the sugar maple he scarred with his rude tomahawk. Only these trees bore the mark of his presence. The Indian had not marred Nature in the least, save here and there a small plot of land where maize was planted

- 20

and tended by his squaw." (Knoxville Journal,Jubilee Edition, Sept. 25, 1930).

Presence of the United States Government

The Louisiana Purchase

The U.S. purchase of the Louisiana territory from France in 1803 marked the beginning of the end of the Sac and Fox way of life. It was the biggest real estate deal ever perpetrated by mankind. Americans living in the Eastern Seaboard were excited at the prospect of obtaining some of this practically free land.

But though the U.S. had purchased the land from France, actually it was the Indians who owned it by virtue of their occupation of the land through the centuries.

The U.S. took every step possible to extinguish Indian titles as rapidly as possible. By a combination of military force and persuasion of the Indians in council meetings, the U.S. drew up treaties, the significance of which were often not understood by the Indians, and then purchased the land from them.

The Neutral Ground

One of the first U.S. Government actions was to establish a belt known as the Neutral Ground (see Figure 9). The Sioux Indians were raiding the Sac and Fox as they had previously raided the loways.

A great battle between the two tribes was once fought in Boone County near Pilot Mound. Keokuk commanded the Sacs and Foxes, and Little Crow commanded the Sioux, with several hundred warriors engaged on either side.

Keokuk was said to have been victorious. Early settlers in the Pilot Mound area plowed up bones, and skeletons of slain warriors were exhumed from the top of one of several mounds (Union Historical Company; 1881, 255).

In order to separate these warring tribes, the U.S. ordered the Sioux to cede a 20-mile strip of their lands, north of a line drawn from the Upper Iowa River to the Upper Forks of the Des Moines River (just south of Fort Dodge). The Sac and Fox were to cede a 20-mile wide strip of their lands south of this line. This 40-mile strip was designated as the Neutral Ground. Both tribes were forbidden to enter the area. In fact, a number of Winnebago

- 21 -

Indians were settled in the strip to act as a buffer between the warring parties.

The Neutral Grounds, which included most of present-day Webster and Hamilton Counties, became a bloodier area than before; it did not accomplish its purpose. Years later, settlers were inhibited from going into Webster and Hamilton Counties for fear of the Sioux, and those who did settle were harassed by remnant Indian groups. More than once, they appealed to the soldiers at Fort Dodge for protection.

The US. Dragoons

In 1835, the U.S. sent an expedition of 150 cavalrymen with Indian scouts and guides, under the command of Col. Stephen A.Kearney, from Keokuk up to Raccoon Forks (Des Moines) and then to Fort Dodge and northward (see Figure 9). Second in com-

Dragoon Trail Marker, Highway #14, north of Knoxville. (George Gitter)

- 22 -

mand was Captain Nathan Boone, son of Daniel Boone. His memory is perpetuated in such place names as Boone, Boone County, and Boone River They were to scout the land, ascertain the location and number of Indians, prevent intertribal wars, and keep white settlers out of the land. They were known as the Dragoons and their route as the Dragoon Trail.

New Purchase, 1842

The treaty that pertained to the acquisition of the Des Moines River area was known as the Sac and Fox Cession of 1842, or as the New Purchase of 1842. By its terms, the Sac and Fox in an assembly of the entire tribe under Keokuk, their spokesman, ceded all of their remaining lands west of the Mississippi (12 million acres) to the U.S. Government for a sum of $800,000. The Indians agreed to surrender their lands east of the Red Rock Line (north-south line drawn through the red sandstone outcroppings in Marion County) by May 1,1843, and west of the Red Rock Line by October 11, 1845 (see Figure 9).

Immediately after ratification of the treaty, fur traders moved to the Red Rock Line, among them the American Fur Trading

Figure 9 — Indian Land Cessions in Iowa Territory.

(Showing also the Red Rock Line and the Dragoon Trail) (Adapted, Wall, Iowa, a Bicentennial History)

- 23

Company, which moved from the Indian Agency near Ottumwa. The Indians, now west of the Red Rock Line, exchanged furs and skins and maple sugar for blankets, guns, and whiskey. Red Rock became a rough place, where because of the white man’s sharp practices and availability of liquor to both races, drunken brawls, stabbings, and thievery took place.

Military Forts and the Evacuation of the Indians

The first fort to be established was Fort Des Moines at Raccoon Forks, the location recommended by Col. Kearney of the Dragoons. The mission of the forts was to guarantee the Indians sole right to their lands until such time as they had agreed to vacate them, and then to facilitate Indian removal from Iowa. Fort Des Moines was a busy focus of activity Whites sought permission to enter before the legal time to establish trading posts, or offered to perform services for the fort. Some tried to sneak in early.

Destitute Sac and Fox Indians whose hunting grounds had been impoverished by white trappers were begging for food and seeking Army protection from both the whites and the Sioux Indians. Chief Keokuk located his dispirited tribe on the west side of the river, and he and his men watched the soldiers who would remove them from their beautiful Iowa in May, 1845, which would mark the saddest day in their history. The trading posts at Fort Des Moines were scenes of a great deal of violence, the fault often lyirg with certain unscrupulous whites, among them Henry Lott, of whom more will be said later.

In May 1845, Keokuk led his people west into the State of Kansas. He became a confirmed inebriate and died three years later.

Dr. W.H.H. Barker, an early Marion County pioneer, described the departure of a group of Indians from Red Rock:

The Red Man’s farewell occurred in May, 1845. At that time, the entire body of Indians were assembled at Red Rock, preparatory to vacating their ancient domains. This was done in a dual manner The braves rode their war steeds across to a point known as Council Bluffs. All the rest—the aged warriors, squaws, papooses—took passage in canoes, some 300 or more In number and going down the Des Moines River to its mouth, they were transferred to the same point. (Council Bluffs).

24 -

It was a pathetic site but colorful. The Indians gave their war whoops, chanted their war songs, ran boat races, and splashed in the water like aquatic birds.

No proper tribute can ever be paid that vanished people. They were ever the friends of the whites and yielded to them without parley and for a mere pittance, all their holdings. Never did they show revenge or shed a drop of innocent blood. (Knoxville Journal, September 25, 1980).

At midnight, October 10,1845, soldiers fired girns to announce the opening of the land west of the Red Rock Line. Settlers were already lined up in their wagons or on horseback, and they rushed in and by daylight had staked out claims to thousands of acres. They were the new owners of the land

Having accomplished its mission, Fort Des Moines was abandoned in 1846.

Not every Sac and Fox Indian left Iowa, however. A few hid in forests at the time of evacuation and were seen by the first settlers from time to time. They were usually destitute and begging or stealing. As reported in a pioneer’s journal:

During the first years of white settlement, parties of Indians were frequently seen passing along their frequented route up and down the Des Moines River Valley, visiting the trading houses and returning to their villages. Hunting and fishing were the principal occupations. Their villages were merely camps consisting of huts and tents. . . the people could easily gather up their houses and load them, with all their baggage on ponies and move to a more plentiful locality. (Knoxville Journal, September 25, 1930).

Others escaped removal by going up the Des Moines River. They encamped near present-day Madrid in Boone County, where they hunted and fished for a living. A company of Dragoons was sent to capture them and escort them out of Iowa to Kansas. Later, a stone tablet was found near the mounds where the Indians had camped, on which these words were scratched:

December 10,1845. Found 200 Indians Hid On and Around this Mound. They Cried, No Go! No Go!", But we took them to Fort Dodge.

—Lt. R.S. Granger

- 25 -

The above stone is on display lit the Historical Museum, Madrid, Iowa.

The Fox Indians who moved to Kansas found it a desert as compared to their beloved Iowa. In 1850, a number of them returned to Iowa and were allowed to purchase 80 acres of land (later expanded to 3,600 acres) along the Iowa River, where they are known as the Mesquakies. They still longed for their old haunts along the Des Moines River. Pefla pioneer, Herman Rietveld, wrote in his journal, "Each fall, a group of Indians from ‘Tama came here to camp and stayed until cold weather came. I think there were 30 or 40 of them. The men trapped for furs, the women gathered nuts for food and tramped around begging anything they could get." (Pella Chronicle, May 2,1940).

Fort Dodge and the Sioux Indians

The Government ordered the establishment of Fort Dodge (originally called Fort Clark) in 1850 in response to pleas from settlers at Boone Forks who were being harassed by the Sioux. The Sioux were becoming more and more resentful as they saw the whites take their lands and kill their game.

- 26

16 by 16" stone found near abandoned stone quarry in Boone County (Heusinkveld)

Some good relationships developed as well. For example, Wakonsa, son of a Sioux chieftain, spent many hours with James Williams, son of Major William Williams of the Fort. These two were close friends and went elk hunting together and often visited in each other’s homes.

The Government purchased all the Sioux lands in Iowa in 1852, proceeded to remove the Sioux, and then abandoned the Fort in 1853. Perhaps the Fort had been abandoned too soon, as a number of Siouxs had escaped the soldiers’ detection and remained in the land and continued to harass the settlers.

The Henry Lott Incident

An almost legendary incident, one which exacerbated the fear and hostility between the races, concerned Henry Lott, who had come from Pennsylvania, operated a trading post at Red Rock for a time, then moved to Fort Des Moines to open a trading post. He also stole horses from the Indians and sold them elsewhere. Soldiers from the Fort attempted to seize him and bring him to trial, but he escaped to Boone Forks (Webster County), where he engaged in the same business.

The Siouxs soon discovered the loss of several horses and traced them to Lotts quarters. A group of Siouxs descended upon the Lott cabin, finding only Mrs. Lott and her 12-year old son Milton at home. Henry Lctt and his older son, however, were watching from someplace in the yard where they were working, and, instead of rescuing the family in the cabin, they ran to get help. Meanwhile, the Indians plundered the cabin, went out and killed some cattle, took back their stolen horses, and left.

Tragically, young Milton had run out to get help and was later found frozen to death some 20 miles down the river (about three miles north of Boone). He may have been on his way to Red Rock where they had formerly lived. An historical marker later placed on his grave by the Madrid Historical Society may be seen less than a half a mile north of where County Road £26 crosses the Des Moines River. Mrs. Lott also fled the house and hid in the woods for a time. She took cold and died some days later An obelisk in Vegor’s Cemetery in the Boone Forks area in Webster County marks her grave.

In 1858, Lott learned that Sioux Chief Sidominadotah was camped in Humboldt County. He found him, and in retaliation

- 27 -

for the deaths of his wife and son, Lott murdered the chief, his two squaws, and their four children, lie took the chief’s pony and fled the country.

Fearful of Indian vengeance, settlers became more paranoid than ever, and several of them moved ‘‘back to civilization." It is believed that the Lott murders were the direct cause of the Spirit Lake Massacre in 1857, following which it was no longer safe for the Siouxs to remain in the Des Moines River area. The white man had won the land.

Indian ways of life were incompatible with those of the whites. The Indians needed large tracts of land for their seasonal hunt. They had no desire to kill more than for their immediate needs. On the other hand, the early white trappers, when they realized the enormous wealth obtainable from furs and skins, wantonly killed and decimated the herds of buffalo, and hunted as well for beaver, mink, fox, and other animals. The white settlers wanted to use the land intensively for crops. They cut down the timber and plowed the prairies, the natural habitat of the game animals. The land could not accommodate these two diverse ways of life.

28 -

Milton Lott grave (GD. Bennett) and Obelisk noting Mrs. Loft’s grave (Heusinkveld)