Part 2 (1/2)
Mr. Ellis relates another incident of his life among the Indians. He came to an Indian camp near Quasqueton on his way to Ft. Atkinson and had to spend the night in the camp. Unfortunately nearly all of the Indians were drunk and insisted on killing every one. The squaws, who were sober, and a few of the old men, got Mr. Ellis to help, and all the drunken bucks were tied so they could scarcely move. Mr. Ellis then retired, and in the morning all were sober and untied, and then the squaws and the old men who had been sober started in to get gloriously drunk. Mr. Ellis wanted to hire an Indian to show him the way to West Union, but the Indian shrugged his shoulders and replied, ”wolf eaty you.” Mr. Ellis started out alone afoot over the snow covered prairie on a cold winter day and finally reached a cabin late at night, nearly overcome from cold. He still believes he would have perished if it had not been for the words of the old Indian which kept ringing in his ears all day and which added courage to his exhausted spirits.
At one time a large number of Muskwaki Indians were camping near Indian creek, and as the winter was severe and snow deep the Indians were out of food. They came to the home of Susan Doty, who gave them the best and only thing she had--hominy--which she warmed on the fire and gave to the Red Men, who expressed their thanks by grunting and continually asking for more, till the entire supply was exhausted. From that time, when the Indians returned from the hunt with a deer or two Mrs. Doty was always remembered with a good share of game.
When the Indians lost ponies they would go to the old settlers like Usher, N. B. Brown, the Hunters, Oxleys, or Dotys, asking them to a.s.sist in catching the thieves. One day Usher and Brown came to Doty's with an Indian chief who had lost his pony. Hunter was also called in, and off the party started in pursuit of the horsethief, who was caught near Viola and who made himself scarce at once, for he was branded as an outlaw by the Indians, who would shoot him at sight. The Indian was more than happy in getting back his pony. These men who were willing to help the Indians were sure to get anything they cared for which could be procured by the red brother. A white man who would help an Indian to recover stolen property was forever a friend of the Indians of the tribe.
The Indians in Linn county during the thirties and forties dressed in skins, lived in tepees, and owned ponies; all wore government blankets and had guns, also procured from the government. The men and women dressed much the same. The women carried home the game, looked after the tepee, made maple sugar, which was traded to the whites for sugar, flour, and woolen goods. Flour especially was much relished by the Indians. The localities much frequented by the Indians were along the Red Cedar and Wapsie rivers, Cedar lake, Indian creek, the Palisades, Linn Grove, Scotch Grove, and Prairie creek. In these places they would remain for weeks at a time, when they would all pull up and leave on some hunting trip, not returning till in the fall or spring of the year. Where they went to no one knew, and where they came from no one inquired. But the Red Men in early days in this county were all treated with due courtesy by the whites, who, in turn, were spared by the Indians. The best of feeling always existed among the whites and Indians.
The Sioux very seldom came into this part of Iowa. William Abbe and Robert Ellis were the agents for the government in supplying the Winnebago Indians at Ft. Atkinson with food, thus these men were well acquainted with the Winnebagoes, who, in turn, were on terms of friends.h.i.+p with the Sacs and Foxes. The Winnebagoes, like the other tribes, became addicted to the use of fire water to such an extent that they would sell their guns and ammunition for whiskey. One of the early experiences of W. H. Merritt as a young store keeper at Ivanhoe was to clean out the store single-handed of a crowd of drunken Indians who intended to take possession of the store for a sufficient length of time at least till they could consume the large quant.i.ty of whiskey stored therein, but they had not figured on the courage of the young man who later distinguished himself during the Civil war. Young Mr.
Merritt drove out the intruders and saved the store, as well as the property of the company for which he worked.
Many of the old settlers tell stories of the quant.i.ty and variety of food these wandering tribes of Indians were capable of consuming, which seemed to be beyond the comprehension of the white man. Mr. Ellis relates how he and William Abbe were notified to forthwith procure beef cattle for an Indian conference at Ft. Atkinson. These men promptly drove a large number of young cattle to Ft. Atkinson from Linn county, and the Indians consumed in a very short time rations which were expected to have lasted for several weeks.
Others have left records of straggling bands of Indians who were fed at some pioneer cabin and consumed quant.i.ties of food at a sitting several times more than the ordinary white man could eat in a week. But then it must be remembered that these Indians did not have their regular meals three times a day, by any means. They seemed to go for days and for a week without eating much of anything, and when a feast was set before them they did full justice to the repast.
The Indians had an abnormal fondness for sweets. The making of maple sugar, especially in Wisconsin, had been one of the industries of the aborigines; a little was always made in Iowa. The season for sugar making came when the first crow appeared; this occurred about the first of March, while there was yet snow on the ground. As a subst.i.tute for sugar the Indians were very fond of honey, and it was said by the early settlers that the squaws could smell a bee tree further than anyone else. These bee trees were claimed by the Indians, and woe to the white man's son who by stealth or otherwise would encroach upon the Indian's rights in this regard.
While the Indians were called cruel and merciless during the Black Hawk war and later, the pioneers of Linn county found them friendly, hospitable, devoted and loyal friends. Many instances have been cited how the Red Men risked their own lives even to a.s.sist their white friends. While they never forgave an injury, they never forgot a deed of kindness.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A SCENE ON THE CEDAR RIVER AT CEDAR RAPIDS IN THE FIFTIES]
[Ill.u.s.tration: RESIDENCE OF ISAAC CARROLL IN 1839]
CHAPTER III
_Iowa Historically_
We take the liberty of quoting here a chapter from ”The Louisiana Purchase,” by C. M. Geer, in _The History of North America_, Vol. VIII, edited by Guy Carleton Lee, and published by George Barrie & Sons, Philadelphia, 1904. It gives in brief s.p.a.ce the more important historical facts connected with the formation of the State.
”The governmental experiences of Iowa before its admission into the Union as a State were many and varied. Its discoverers were the missionary priest Jacques Marquette and the explorer Louis Joliet, who were living at St. Mary's, the oldest settlement in the present State of Michigan. On May 13, 1673, with five Canadian boatmen, these two men left on an exploring expedition, and on June 25, 1673, landed near the mouth of Des Moines River.[B] By right of discovery France claimed jurisdiction over the country thus visited until 1763, when the Territory was ceded to Spain. On October 1, 1800, it was ceded with the rest of Louisiana Territory from Spain back to France. On the 30th of April, 1803, it was in turn ceded to the United States by France as a part of the Louisiana Purchase.
”These changes of government had little effect upon what was to const.i.tute the future State of Iowa, because the Indians remained in almost undisputed possession. Although discovered and claimed by France in 1673, no attempt at settlement was made until 1788, when Julian Dubuque, a Canadian, obtained from Blondeau and two other Indian chiefs a grant of lands. This claim was twenty-one miles long and extended from the Mississippi westward nine miles. The grant was confirmed, in a qualified way, by Carondelet, Spanish governor at New Orleans. Dubuque engaged in mining and trading with the Indians, making his headquarters at the place which now bears his name. The question of the validity of his claim to this great tract of land came before the United States Supreme Court in 1854, and the decision of that body was that his grant was only a temporary license to dig ore.
”In 1799, a trading post was established on the Mississippi within the present territory of Iowa. This settlement and the one at Dubuque were abandoned, so that Iowa was practically an unknown and undesired country at the time when it came under the control of the United States in 1803.
It was at that time Indian territory, occupied by the Sacs, Foxes, and Iowas, with the still more warlike Sioux on the north and east.
”On the 31st of October, 1803, a temporary government was authorized for the recently acquired territory. By Act of Congress, approved March 26, 1803, Louisiana was erected into two Territories and provision made for the administration of each. The upper part was known as the District of Louisiana and included Arkansas, Missouri, and Iowa. This was placed temporarily under the jurisdiction of the Territory of Indiana. On July 4, 1805, all this northern district became the Territory of Louisiana, with a separate Territorial government. The legislative power was vested in the governor and three judges to be appointed by the President and Senate. This condition continued until December 7, 1812, when the Territory of Louisiana became the Territory of Missouri. In 1821, Missouri was admitted into the Union, and this admission of Missouri carried with it the abolition of the government of Missouri Territory, so that for a time Iowa was without any government. It is a question how much law remained in force in Iowa after the admission of Missouri. It is probable that the only civil law in force was the proviso of the Missouri bill, which prohibited slavery north of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes north lat.i.tude. No provision was made for that portion of the Territory of Missouri until June 28, 1834, when Congress attached the present State of Iowa, together with other territory, to the Territory of Michigan.
”On July 3, 1836, it was included in the newly organized Territory of Wisconsin. On June 12, 1838, the Territory of Iowa was const.i.tuted by Act of Congress. This Territory included 'all that part of the present Territory of Wisconsin which lies west of Mississippi River and west of a line due north from the sources or headwaters of the Mississippi to the territorial line.'
”From the time of the purchase in 1803 up to the date of the organization of the Territory in 1838 there had been a gradual increase in the knowledge of this land and a growing appreciation of its value. There had been parties of hunters and trappers who made temporary settlements on the banks of the Mississippi in the period from 1820 to 1830. It was not till steam navigation was established on the Mississippi that there grew up a demand for Iowa lands. Southeastern Illinois and northwestern Missouri were settled and the pioneers naturally looked to the equally desirable lands in Iowa. Various exploring expeditions also contributed to a desire to settle in the territory. Lewis and Clark added to the knowledge of its western borders by their expedition in 1805. Pike in the same year traversed another part of the Territory, and these explorers brought back accounts of its great fertility and of its desirability for settlement.
”The government established a broad strip of neutral ground between the Sioux in the north and the Sacs and Foxes in the south to keep these tribes at peace, and in 1830 acquired lands on the Missouri to be used as Indian reservations.
Here and there in the Iowa Territory were white men who had gained the friends.h.i.+p of the Indians and lived with them.
There were trading posts of the American Fur Company and miners at Dubuque, who were licensed by the government to work at that point. Iowa remained the home of the Indians until the close of the Black Hawk War, when General Winfield Scott, on September 15, 1832, concluded a treaty of peace with the Sacs and Foxes, by which the Indian t.i.tle was extinguished to that part of land known as the Black Hawk Purchase. This was the eastern part of Iowa and extended along the Mississippi, from Missouri on the south to the 'Neutral Grounds' on the north, and westward a distance of fifty miles. It contained about six million acres and was to be surrendered by the Indians on June 1, 1833. This gave the first opportunity for the legal settlement of Iowa by citizens of the United States.
”June 1, 1833, was fixed as the day on which the Indians were to be removed from the Black Hawk Purchase and the lands opened for settlement. The would-be settlers came in large numbers to the banks of the Mississippi, ready to cross and get the choice of the land. United States troops kept guard on the western sh.o.r.e of the river and prevented any persons from entering the Purchase before the appointed time. At precisely twelve o'clock, midnight, June 1st, there was a wild rush of settlers from East and South and the settlement of Iowa was begun.