John A. McIntosh, born in Kentucky in 1806, one of the very earliest settlers in Galland's Grove and an early missionary of the Latter-day Saints church, was known to the Pottawattamies and Omahas as "the Mormon Chief," and was especially beloved by them. Mr. Mcintosh relates that he did not know of the Indians ever taking any of his property except a rooster, which was taken by an Indian boy, who subsequently was severely chastised by his father.
A beautiful story of the confidence of the Indians in Mcintosh is told thus: One of the Indian chiefs was overtaken by a band of warriors from another tribe and wounded, so they supposed he would shortly die; however, he made out to crawl on his hands and knees to the cabin door of "Uncle Mcintosh," to whom he gave advice as to his burial. He wanted to be placed in a white man's coffin and buried on Mcintosh's land, all of which was sacredly carried out. A daughter of the hardy old pioneer died and was buried near the grave of the Indian chief, who had such implicit confidence in her father, who was a great peace-maker between the Indians themselves, as well as between the white race and the Indians.
In the early sixties, it will be remembered, the Sioux were acting badly in Crawford county and elsewhere adjacent to Shelby county. At the meeting of the board of supervisors of Shelby county, held September 1, 1862, it was "ordered that Mansel Wicks and Asahel Roundy be appointed a committee of two to go to Mason's Grove, Crawford county, and elsewhere, if necessary, to make the necessary inquiries relative to Indian depredations." They were further authorized to employ scouts to keep a lookout for Indians and danger. And it was further provided that the county would pay all necessary expenses. The committee was further directed to act in concert with the authorities of Crawford county. Later it appears from the record of claims allowed by the board of supervisors that the following named per sons were paid for service as Indian scouts: B. Johnston, of Cuppy's Grove, Penthus Billeter, residing near Harlan, and A. Roundy, of Galland's Grove.
Henry Custer says that in the fifties and perhaps later the Omahas, Pawnees and other Indians would come into Shelby county in May or June, and remain until fall, hunting, and that on one of these occasions a very large number were in camp on the ridge where Harlan now stands, and that they practically destroyed the prairie grass over a large area where they encamped.
What Indians were here before the end of the seventeenth century cannot be known. Even after that century it appears that the Indians preferred to reside upon the Nebraska side of the river and that it was on the Nebraska side chiefly that they set up their tribal villages, and it was there that the fur traders settled or visited among them about the year 1800. (See Iowa Journal of History and Politics for July, 1913, page 324 and following, contributed by Jacob Van der Zee.)
The following quotation is from this article, page 325 of the Journal:
"One of the most interesting records of western Iowa's hazy past is a map of the northwestern part of Louisiana compiled in 1703 by William de
L'Isle, the most noted French cartographer of his day. This chart, with its French nomenclature, indicates a trader's trail, 'Chemin des Voyageurs,' commencing at the Mississippi river a few miles below the mouth of the Wisconsin river and running westward across northern Iowa to the vicinity of Spirit lake. There, near one of the many lakes, was a village des Aiaouez' (Ioways), thence the trail continued due westward to the Big Sioux river, on either side of which were two more loway villages, probably near the site of the present city of Sioux Falls, South Dakota. To the south, below the mouth of the Little Sioux river, three Teton Sioux villages are shown, and opposite the mouth of the Platte river were four Yankton Sioux villages. Near the southwestern corner of the present state of Iowa, 'Les Octotata' (the Otoes) were located, and south of them three villages of 'Yoways.'"
Mr. Van der Zee in the same article concludes that the French traders came into relations with the Indian inhabitants of western Iowa about the beginning of the eighteenth century, but that they aimed primarily at trade with the various Sioux tribes of what is now South Dakota and southern Minnesota, where the Indians were much more numerous than in western Iowa, "which was really little more than the hunting ground of several tribes."
This author also states that in 1757, on the site of Fort Leavenworth, the French had a garrison, and that, at this point, came the Missouri and Kansas Indians with packages of deer and bear skins, and that from a point fifty leagues above came "the Otoks and the Ayoues (Ioways); two hundred men furnish eighty packages of beaver."
Mr. Van der Zee concludes that the Ioway Indians were nomadic to a marked degree, and that they moved their villages from one locality to another often, and that they journeyed annually to the French markets for the purpose of trade. He further says that Spanish reports for the years 1769 and 1777 show that the "Ayooua" or "Hayuas" (Ioways) then dwelt upon the Des Moines river in what is now the northwestern corner of Van Buren county, Iowa. Mr. Van der Zee sums up the whole Indian occupation of western Iowa, thus: "These (Ioway) Indians and their Sac and Fox friends probably hunted all over western Iowa, while bands of Sioux descended from the north and Otoes and Omahas crossed the Missouri from the west." During the latter part of the eighteenth century Englishmen carried on a brisk traffic Upon the Des Moines river and penetrated as far westward as the Missouri to secure their share of the Indian fur trade.
In December, 1780, it appears from a letter of Francisco Cruzat, governor of Spanish Illinois, that a band of (Aioas), (Ioways) excited by the enemy (the English), had corrupted the Hotos (Otoes), living near the mouth of the Platte river. It appears from the assertions of a Spanish governor that the St. Louis merchants were losing to the English the fur-trade of the nations of the Missouri. About 1800 an Englishman, Thomas G. Anderson, wintered among the Ioway Indians fifty miles up the Des Moines river as an agent of a Green Bay trader. The Iowas, described as "a vile set," then hunted near the Missouri river. This English trader appears to have made a six-days' journey to some point near the Missouri river. He speaks of having found "the little islands of wood, scattered over the boundless plains, swarming with wild turkeys."
On July 28, 1804, the Lewis and Clark expedition, according to the journal kept by it. landed just north of the mouth of Indian creek (now Pigeon creek), about eight or ten miles north of the present city of Council Bluffs, at "the spot where the Ayauway (Ioway) Indians formerly lived before emigrating to the Des Moines river." In this connection it is interesting to note that this expedition held a council with the Otoes on the west side of the Missouri river, calling the place Council-bluff. According to Lewis and Clark, the "Ayouwais" (Ioways) and the "Saukees" (Sacs) and "Foxes" claimed the western Iowa country. The "Ayouwais" (Ioways) were reported to be a savage race, frequently abusing the traders and committing depredations on those navigating the river. These Indians supplied deer skins chiefly, also skins of black bear, beaver, otter, grey fox, raccoon, muskrat and mink.
In 1810 a regiment of United States soldiers, under Col. Henry Atkinson, arrived at the old "Council-bluff" late in Scptember, 1819, the British influence being then supreme in the councils of the Indians on the upper Missouri and many traders having been ambushed and killed, the troops having been sent to prevent such lawlessness.
Following the expedition of Colonel Atkinson was one commanded by Major Stephen H. Long, who, with a number of scientists, came on the first steamboat on the Missouri, having traveled all the way from Pittsburgh on the Ohio river. The name of this boat was the "Western Engineer." It appears that this expedition noted the remains of a late Ioway village near the mouth of the Mosquito (Musketo) river (our Shelby county stream), a few miles below the present city of Council Bluffs. In October this expedition held a council with about one hundred Otoes, seventy Missouris and fifty or sixty Ioways.
A number of Indian treaties made with the United States government affected the Indian sovereignty and occupation of southwestern Iowa of which Shelby county was a part. On July 15, 1830. by treaty at Prairie du Chien. the Sacs and Foxes, Omahas, Iowas, Otoes, Missouris, Medewakanton, Wahpekuta, Wahpeton and Sisseton bands of Sioux, ceded to the United States all of their claims to western Iowa, including practically one-fourth of the state.
By the treaty of Chicago. September 23, 1833. the Chippewas. Ottawas and Pottawattamies ceded to the United States all their lands in northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin, west of Lake Michigan, in exchange for five million acres of land between the Boyer river and the Nodaway river in western Iowa. The boundaries of the five million acres of land so ceded the Pottawattamie nation are difficult to determine, and the tract was never entirely surveyed. It seems likely that the tract described contained more nearly ten million acres than five million.
Although this tract of land was never completely surveyed, attempts have been made to ascertain its northern boundary. The recent maps that the writer has seen, run a northern boundary diagonally across the northwest part of this county, excluding practically all of Grove township and part of Union.
An interesting report on the character of this land between the Boyer and Nodaway rivers was made by Captain Gordon, who explored this territory in the spring of 1835. He reported "that the new land was mostly prairie, that there was scarcely timber enough for wigwams, there were no sugar trees, that some of the land was too poor for snakes to live upon, and that war-like tribes lived to the north."
In any event, Shelby county, or most of it, was in the Pottawattamie reservation, and this nation has therefore a peculiar interest for us.
By November, 1837, a little more than two thousand of the Pottamattamie Indians had removed west of the Mississippi. A writer says: "One
band (i. e. of the Pottawattamie Indians), consisting of about one-third of the united nation, headed by Chief Bigfoot, did not enter the Iowa country until the fall of 1838, and then retired eastward to set up a village on the Nishnabotna river, almost fifty miles away. (This was undoubtedly in the vicinity of Lewis, Cass county, as this place was known at an early day as 'Indiantown.' Dr. J. L. Pickard says there is an Indian burying ground there.) All the other villages were from two to fifteen miles distant from the agency. Scarcely had the two thousand established their tepees in southwestern Towa when fierce Sioux, in hunting parties from the north, came south.
"We know much of the Pottawattamies through a famous Catholic missionary and explorer. Father Pierre Jean DeSmet. who was born in the village of Termonde, Belgium, January 28, 1801, of a prosperous and respectable family. As a boy he showed great skill and strength in his sports and was therefore nicknamed "Samson." He became a member of the Society of Jesus, otherwise known as the Jesuits (an order founded in 1534). of whom it was said, "there was no faltering amidst hardships, no yielding to discouragement, no flinching in the presence of danger, but complete extinction of all personal considerations and a sublime devotion which looked for- ward to martyrdom as the most welcome reward of all their labors."
In July, 1821, Father DeSmet started for America and in this connection it is interesting to note that before his career ended he had crossed the Atlantic nineteen times, "Ad majorem Dei gloriam." He made one voyage around Cape Horn and two by the way of Panama. On April 11, 1823, in a company of twelve, he set out from Chesapeake bay to the Mississippi. At Wheeling, now West Virginia, some Hat boats were procured and the journey made to Shawneetown, Illinois. Thence they walked to St. Louis, going later to the village of Florissant near St. Louis.
In the spring of 1838, he, together with Father Verreydt and two lay brothers, were sent to found a mission among the "Potawatomies" (I take Father DeSmet's spelling), a part of whom were located at and near Council Bluffs, with several other tribes in the same vicinity. After a short stay at Fort Leavenworth (now in Kansas), he arrived May 21, 1838, and began the occupation of an abandoned fort turned over to the missionaries by Col. S. W. Kearney. A small house was also erected. The mission was named St. Joseph, but was more frequently referred to as the mission of St. Mary. It was maintained for only three or four years, being mentioned in 1840 by Father DeSmet in his journal, but not in 1842 or in 1846. In 1839 he made an expedition to Vermillion (now South Dakota), which was a Sioux post, a short distance above Sioux City, Iowa, the purpose of this mission being to bring about peace between the Sioux and Pottawattamie Indians. Bent on this purpose, he left the mission at Council Bluffs April 29, 1839, by the American Fur Company steamboat, "St. Peters," on which the famous geographer, Jean N. Nicollet was leading a government exploring party, and returned by canoe about the middle of May.
Father DeSmet's impressions of the Missouri river at this time are interesting and would well apply to the character of this stream today. He says that during the navigation of it the snags raked and scraped, and there was much trouble with sandbars. The party had only the warm muddy water of the Missouri to drink and they were annoyed by "myriads of mosquitoes." Speaking further of the voyage up the Missouri, he says, "I fear the sea I will admit, but all the storms and unpleasant things I have experienced in four different voyages did not inspire so much terror in me as the navigation of the somber, treacherous and muddy Missouri. The Missouri has the same characteristic features from its mouth to Council Rluffs, and even one thousand five hundred miles farther. After you pass the fort the prairies along the river are more extensive. The eastern shore is being settled very rapidly as far as across the
Nishnabotna, insomuch that we were not once obliged to stop to have the crew cut wood."
The journal and letters of Father DeSmet were written in French and were published only a few years ago, under the title, "Life and Travels of Father DeSmet." The work is thus dedicated: "To the Memory of the Men of Whatsoever Creed or Nation Who Spent Themselves in the Forming of the West."
Father DeSmet arrived among the Pottawattamie Indians at what is now Council Bluffs, Iowa, on the afternoon of the 31st of May, 1838. He described the Pottawattamies in the following language: "Nearly two thousand savages, in the finest rigs and carefully painted in all sorts of patterns, were awaiting the boat at the landing. I had not seen so imposing a sight or such fine looking Indians in America; the Iowas, the Sauks, and the Otoes are beggars compared to these. Father Verreydt and Brother Mazelli went at once to the camp of the half-breed chief, Mr. Caldwell, four miles from the river. We were far from finding here the four or five hundred fervent Catholics we had been told of at St. Louis."
"Of the two thousand Pottawattamies at the landing, not a single one had knowledge of our arrival, and they all showed themselves cold, or at least indifferent toward us. Out of some thirty families of French half breeds, two only came to shake hands with us; only a few had been baptized, and they all were very ignorant concerning the truth of religion. * * * They change their wives as often as the gentlemen in St. Louis change their coats. Mr. Caldwell, though far advanced in years, seems to be a very worthy and pleasant man; he is well disposed toward us and ready to assist us. The half breeds generally seem very affable and are inclined to have their children instructed. We receive many tokens from them and they come to visit us every day. The chief gave us possession of three cabins and we changed the fort which Colonel Kearney has given us into a church."
"This nation is divided into different bands living from five to twenty-five miles apart. We try to visit them once a week to instruct the children and preach to the elders through an interpreter."
"Providence has placed us at some distance from any government. Since the arrival of a steamboat which brought large quantities of liquor they (the Indians) are quarreling and fighting from morning until night. When they are sober the most perfect harmony prevails throughout the nation, and whole years afterwards pass without quarrels. They are not at all addicted to the pernicious practice of slander; the most corrupt regard a slanderer
(7)
with disdain, while the more respectable avoid him as they would a snake. As for the good-for-nothings, they do not lower themselves so far as to speak of them."
Father DeSmet described the architecture of a Pottawattamie Indian village thus: "Imagine a great number of cabins and tents made of the bark of trees, buffalo skins, coarse cloth, rushes and suds, all of a mournful and funeral aspect, all sizes and shapes; some supported by one pole and others by six, with coverings stretched in all different styles imaginable and all scattered here and there in the greatest contusion, and you will have an Indian village."
Under date of May 25, 1839, the priest records the fact that a war party of Sauks (Sacs) at the headwaters of the Hover murdered nine Omahas and took captive twelve women, having first invited the Omahas to a friendly smoke.
In the fall of 1840, Father DeSmet met a Santee Sioux war party, which he says was "just back from an excursion against my dear Pottawattamies, bringing one scalp with them on the end of a long pole."
Under date of May 30, 1839, he states that fifty barrels of whiskey, brandy, run and alcohol were brought in on the Missouri steamboat "Wilmington" and that the Indians were stabbing one another, and selling horses, blankets and guns to buy whiskey at four dollars per bottle. Under date of August 6, 1839, he records the fact of a battle between the Omahas and Sioux, with forty killed on each side.
Speaking of the Pottawattamie Indians, John James Audubon, the celebrated ornithologist, writing on May 11, 1843, at Council Bluffs, said: "We were told that the Pottawattamies were formerly a warlike people, but recently their enemies, the Sioux, have frequently killed them when they met on hunting expeditions, and that they have become cowardly, which is a change in their character."
In a work entitled, "Hand Book of American Indians," published by the United States government in 1910, and edited by Frederick Webb Hodge, the following sketch of the Pottawattamies appears: "The Pottawattamies are an Algonkian tribe. In 1641 they were at Sault Ste Marie, fleeing before the Sioux. In 1670 they were living on the islands in the mouth of Green bay. By the close of the seventeenth century they were on the Milwaukee river at Chicago and on the St. Joseph river, and later were found in southern Michigan near Illinois and on the Wabash. In the nineteenth century they were in possession of the country around the head of Lake Michigan, and then had fifty villages.
They sided actively with the French and were prominent in the rising of Pontiac. They took up arms against the United States in 1775, and continued hostilities until the treaty of Greenville in 1795. They again took up arms in the British interest in 1812, peace being made with them in 1815. As the settlers pressed upon them, they sold their lands, chiefly during the years 1836 and 1844. They were driven out of Indiana by force. Some of them now live on Walpole Island in Lake St. Clair, Canada. Those who went west and settled in western Iowa, together with many individuals of other tribes, were known as the "Prairie Pottawattamies," and the ones who went to Kansas were called "Pottawattamies of the Woods."
By treaty of June 5, 1846, the Pottawattamie nation, including the Chippewa and the Ottawa tribes, ceded their lands in western Iowa to the United States. This was but five years before the passage of the Act of the General Assembly at Iowa City providing for the organization of Shelby county.
In 1846 the two branches of the Pottawattamies were united on a reservation in southern Kansas. In 1861 a large part of the tribe took land in severalty and were called the "Citizen Pottawattamies." In 1868 they were removed to Oklahoma, where they now reside. How strange, indeed, would Shelby county look now to the aged braves if any there be alive who pursued the buffalo, elk and deer here in the forties!
