Chapter Three

The name Iowa was first applied to a large district of country lying between Lake Michigan and the Mississippi river. The Wisconsin river was the north line and the Illinois bounded it on the south. This extensive area was called Iowa county in 1829. It was so named because it had been the former home of the Iowa Indians. In about the year 1700 they migrated westward, crossing the Mississsippi and locating on the Iowa river. This tribe of Indians gave their name to the river on which they located and from it the territory and state were named.

On the 30th of April, 1803, France ceded to the United States her territory between the Mississippi river· and the Rocky mountains, known as the "Louisiana Purchase," for $15,000,000. In 1804 what is known as the State of Iowa was included in the District of Louisiana. March 3, 1805', it was organized into the Territory of Louisiana. In 1812 it was included in the jurisdiction of the Territory of Misso~lri. June 28, 1834, Congress provided that "All that part of the territory of the United States bounded on the east' by the Mississippi river, on the south by the State of Missouri, on the west by the Missouri and White Earth rivers and on the north by the northern boundary of the United States, shall be attached to MichiganTerritory."

The state of Iowa was embraced in this territory and for judicial purposes was made a part of Michigan. In September of 1834 the Michigan Assembly divided the· Iowa District into two counties by running a line due west from the lower end of the island of Rock Island. The territory north of this line was named Dubuque county and all south of the line was called Des Moines county. The courts were organized in each county. The place of meeting for the county on the north was Dubuque, and Burlington on the south.

The first court was held in a log house in Burlington in April, 1835. The Governor of Michigan appointed the judges for these new counties. Isaac Loeffer was appointed to preside in Des Moines county and John King in Dubuque county. Judge King was the founder  and publisher of the Dubuque Visitor, the first newspaper established within the limits of the state of Iowa.

A census taken in 1836 gave the two counties in the Black Hawk Purchase, Dubuque and Des Moines, a population of 10,531.

The first book ever published descriptive of Iowa, or Iowa District, as it was then called, was published in 1836 by Lieutenant Albert M. Lea, for whom Lee county was named. Lieut. Lea was a civil engineer and a skilled draughtsman. His work as a soldier enabled him to explore much of the then unknown region in central and southern Iowa. Mr. Lea pays this tribute to the Iowa pioneers he had met while scouring about over the new country:· "The character of the population settling in this beautiful country is such as is rarely found in other new territories. With few exceptions there is not a more industrious, orderly and energetic population west of the Alleghenies than are found in the Iowa District."

Mr. George Catlin, a famous Indian painter and historian, visited the Indian tribes in Iowa· some years earlier than Mr. Lea and has many enthusiastic descriptions of the beauty and solitude of these western prairie lands. We give a short extract: "The stately march of our growing population to this vast garden spot will surely come in surging columns and spread farms, houses, orchards, towns and cities all over these remote wild prairies. Half a century hence, the sun is sure to shine on countless villages, silvered spires and domes, denoting the march of intellect and wealth's refinement in this beautiful and far-off solitude of the west, and we may perhaps hear the tinkling of the bells from our graves."

In the Louisiana Purchase from France on April 30, 1803, as in all purchases made by the United States, it was always the policy of the government to recognize the claims of the various Indian tribes to the territory which they occupied. No bona fide grant or guarantee could be given by the government to any of these lands until the Indians' title had been satisfied by treaty and purchase.

A number of treaties were made with the Sacs and Foxes, who occupied almost all of eastern Iowa.

A treaty made September 21, 1832, known as Black Hawk Purchase, opened the first lands in Iowa for settlement by the whites. This treaty was made on the spot where the city of Davenport now stands.

General Winfield Scott and Governor John Reynolds, of Illinois, represented the United States. The Indian tribes were represented by Keokuk, Pash-e-pa-ho, Black Hawk and other chiefs. The negotiations were conducted ina large tent erected on the west bank of the river. It is described as an unusually interesting scene. In contrast with the gay uniforms of the soldiers and the painted warriors, adorned in their very best costumes, were the hardy hunters and trappers who hung about the council to watch the proceedings.

June 1, 1833, was the date when the first Iowa purchase was thrown open to the settlers. Antoine Le Claire acted as interpreter for this treaty. He had long lived among the Indians andlradmarried an Indian wife. To show their strong friendship for him they had reserved for his wife 640 acres of land where Davenport now stands and an equal amount for himself north of Davenport, where the town of Le Claire is now located.

By this treaty the Sacs and Foxes ceded to the United States a tract of land containing six million acres extending from the northern boundary of Missouri to the mouth of the Upper Iowa river, having an average width of fifty miles west of the Mississippi river.

The consideration paid for this grant of land was the payment of an annual sum of twenty thousand dollars for thirty years, and also the sum of fifty thousand dollars of indebtedness which these tribes owed to certain Indian traders on the river. It was estimated that the cost to the government was about nine cents per acre for this splendid cession of lands. At this time the Sacs and Foxes numbered about thirty-five hundred persons. They moved their families over near the Des Moines river between Ottumwa and Agency City, which latter place became the new Indian agency.

On October 11, 1842, a final purchase was made from the Sac and Fox Indians of all their remaining lands west of the Mississippi. The treaty was negotiated at Agency by John Chambers, governor of Iowa Territory.

These deliberations took place also in a large tent. To insure good order a troop of dragoons from Fort Des Moines were present under the command of Captain Allen. There was always considerable display on these treaty occasions. The Indians loved show and parade and the government officials encouraged it so that the dignified chiefs and their braves might be properly impressed. The governor at this treaty wore a brilliant uniform of a brigadier general of the United States Army. He and his staff sat at one end of the tent on a slightly elevated platform. The chiefs were seated in front of this platform and the interpreter occupied a position between the two representative bodies. The Indians were likewise attired in their best. Each had purchased a new blanket at the agency. Leggins of white deer-skin, feathers, beads, rings and painted faces made up their apparel. It is said aiso that each chief carried a profusely decorated war club to give decorum to the occasion. There was much talk, for the Indians love to make speeches and listen to them. The words of each speaker were translated by the interpreter that it might be clearly understood.

The Indians pleaded eloquently for their charming hunting grounds with their beautiful forests and meadows. They loved Iowa as dearly as the white man does today. The compensation seemed a large sum to them; but it was as trash compared with the home of their forefathers.

The winter of 1842-3 was the severest that had yet been known in Iowa. It was a trying winter on the settlers as well as the disheartened savages. The chief medicine man of the tribes who had strongly opposed giving up their lands, now said to the Indians: "This cold weather and these hardships have come upon you because the Great Spirit is angry at you. You have parted with the last of your possessions. You have sold the home of your fathers. Manitou is displeased."  

The Indians had confidence in their prophet and observed solemn ceremonies to pacify the Great Spirit.

This grant of land comprised perhaps two thirds of the present state of Iowa, containing 10,000,000 acres, for which the disheartened and retreating red man received $800,000 in annual payments, with five per cent interest per annum.

It was this purchase from the Sacs and Foxes which, included the territory from which Mahaska county was surveyed, the history and growth of which should be of absorbing interest to every citizen within its limits.

The early settlers almost always speak of this grant as the "New Purchase." The Indians were to vacate the eastern portion of these lands on May 1, 1843, and two years later they were to leave their beautiful Iowa hunting grounds and cross the Missouri, never to return. They had been crowded westward from the state of Ohio. They lingered about their once cheerful camp fires, brooding sadly over their certain doom. Women wept as they went about the drudgery of gathering their household goods together for the long journey. Men were melancholy and silent as they looked for the last time on forest, stream and prairie. But there is no alternative. Primitive races must retreat or be absorbed by the aggressive forces of civilization. Over and over again history has written this almost unalterable decree. Only once in all recorded history has this law been reversed. When William the Conqueror came over to England from the continent in the year 1066 with his Norman-French army and subdued our forefathers, the gritty Anglo-Saxon never gave up his native tongue. He submitted as best he could to the dominion of the French Court, but clung with everlasting tenacity to his own language and his own individuality and in the end of the centuries the strong character and life of the Anglo-Saxon dominated and his once proud conquerors were absorbed and lost to sight in the jostle of the years.