D.C. of Washington Thomas Foster

“ The United States of America have seen with much regret, that wars have for many years been carried on between the Sioux and the Chippewas, and more recently between the confederated tribes of Sacs and Foxes, and the Sioux; and also between the Ioways and Sioux; which, if not terminated, may extend to the other tribes, and involve the Indians upon the Missouri, the Mississippi, and the Lakes, in general hostilities. ”

“ Schoolcraft is authority for the statement that the tribes called themselves Pa-ho-ches, meaning “Dusty Nose,” or “Dirty Face,” and Foster in the text emphasizes this point. One writer boldly asserts that the word Iowa is a corruption from Kiowa, and Antoine Le Claire, the celebrated half-breed interpreter, stated that the word in his tongue signified “this is the place.” Taylor Pierce, long connected with the trading post of Fort Des Moines, testified in favor of Kiowa, giving it the same definition as last named. ”

“ To pay out of said income to Jeffrey Derroin interpreter for said tribe for services rendered, the sum of fifty dollars annually during his natural life the balance of said income shall be delivered, at the cost of the United States, to said tribe of Ioway Indians in money or merchandise, at their own discretion, at such time and place as the President may direct, Provided always That the payment shall be made each year in the month of October. ”

“ It is understood by all the tribes, parties hereto, that no tribe shall hunt within the acknowledged limits of any other without their assent, but it being the sole object of this arrangement to perpetuate a peace among them, and amicable relations being now restored, the Chiefs of all the tribes have expressed a determination, cheerfully to allow a reciprocal right of hunting on the lands of one another, permission being first asked and obtained, as before provided for. ”

“ Now we the chiefs, warriors, and counsellors of the Ioways, and Missouri band of Sacks and Foxes, fully understanding the subject, and well satisfied from the local position of the lands in question, that they never can be made available for Indian purposes, and that an attempt to place an Indian population on them, must inevitably lead to collisions with the citizens of the United States; and further believing that the extension of the State line in the direction indicated would have a happy effect, by presenting a natural boundary between the whites and Indians ”

“ In order, therefore, to promote peace among these tribes, and to establish boundaries among them and the other tribes who live in their vicinity, and thereby to remove all causes of future difficulty, the United States have invited the Chippewa, Sac, and Fox, Menominie, Ioway, Sioux, Winnebago, and a portion of the Ottowa, Chippewa, and Potawatomie Tribes of Indians living upon the Illinois, to assemble together, and in a spirit of mutual conciliation to accomplish these objects ”

“ Marquette’s map of 1674-79 gives the Pahoutet (Iowa) , Otontanta (Oto) , Maha (Omaha) a position on the Missouri river, but this is done by mere chance and without authority. La Salle, writing Hennepin August 22, 1682, mentions both Oto and Iowa under Otontanto and Aiounonea.
61 It has often been a matter for conjecture why Le Sueur should have given himself so much concern over a mine of “green earth” as the discovery does not seem to be one meriting a great amount of distinction. ”

“ It is not probable that the game-pursuing Indians were more fixed in their ancient, than in their modern locations. Indeed, the very reverse is true; for the modern hunter tribes avail themselves of the proximity of military posts, and out-settlements, to guard themselves from the approaches of hostile bands. ”

“ The gens is to be found in Greek and Roman history, where it is known as the agnatic kindred. The tribe remains a body of consanguineal kindred: it is composed of groups of gentes that are incest groups, and the mates in marriage must belong to different gentes. See appendix A.
30 For an account of the mythical origin of each of the Iowa gens, see J. O. Dorsey, Social Organization of the Siouan Tribe in the Journal of American Folklore, Vol. ”

“ The Iowas who escaped on this occasion fled and erected their next village at the mouth of the Iowa river, from which they were again eventually driven by the Dakotas towards the Missouri. The old man from whom we gather the substance of what has gone before says that these mounds are the remains of the dwelling houses of the ancient Iowas. Some say that they are not the remains of the dwellings of the Iowas, but those of some other people with whom tradition does not acquaint them ”

“ The opponents choose what appears to be the lucky covering and if successful, win the stakes. The game, xxxaccording to this writer, appeared simple and almost foolish, yet he professes to have seen it played for hours without intermission in perfect musical rhythm, and states that it “forms one of the principle gambling games of these gambling people.” Among the Omaha, Ponca, Oto, and Iowa the game of Arrow (Manmuqpe) , was most common. This however was more of a religious game and now practically obsolete since the introduction of fire arms. ”

“ But Black Tomahawk, who is by some of the most intelligent half-breeds considered the best Mdewakantonwan traditionist, says that in the earliest years of the existence of the Dakotas they became acquainted with the Iowa Indians, and that they lived in a village at the place which is now called Oak Grove, seven or eight miles from Fort Snelling, on the north side of the Minnesota river. The numerous little mounds which are to be seen about Oak Grove, he says, are the works of the Iowa Indians. ”

“ In 1836 the Iowa were assigned a reservation in northeastern Kansas, having two years previous, ceded all their lands in Missouri. A portion of the tribe later moved to another tract in Oklahoma allotted to them in 1890 in severalty, the surplus acreage being opened to settlement by the whites.
It is difficult to compile a bibliography that will treat exhaustively of this tribe. Catlin’s Works, Lewis and Clark’s Travels, Long’s Expedition, Pike’s Explorations, Maximilian’s Travels, and in fact nearly all of the prominent trans-continental explorers knew the tribe under one or another name. ”

“ In the absence of any cognate facts referring in detail to the Iowa tribe it has been deemed best to reprint Foster’s sketch in its entirety from the Record and to add to it, as xii appendices, some features which will be of special interest and value to the student of American aboriginal history and ethnology. In this textual portion will be found much from Schoolcraft’s Indian Tribes of the United States, also extracts, some of considerable length, from the first volume of the Minnesota Historical Society’s Collections, 1850-56, and Neill’s History of Minnesota. ”

“ It is agreed that all roads and highways laid out by authority of law shall have a right of way through the lands herein reserved, on the same terms as are provided by law when roads and highways are made through the lands of citizens of the United States ”

“ The Iowa tribe of Indians forms one of the Southwestern branches of the great Dakota or Siouan stock and has been included both linguistically and ethnographically by careful students, with the Oto and the Missouri tribes, forming the so-called Chiwere group.9 The real difference existing between the tribes here noted is one of dialect only. ”

“ Quinn of Oak Grove removed the earth of one of these mounds at the same place where Black Tomahawk says the ancient Iowa village stood. As the earth was removed on a level with the natural surrounding surface, charred poles and human bones were found. 31 It was easy and natural for the imagination to supply the rest, and make the fact corroborate the tradition of the old man, when he says that the Iowas constructed their houses by leaning poles together at the top and spreading them at the foot, forming a circular frame, which they covered with earth. ”

“ From their primal home, to the north of the Great Lakes, as tradition has it, came the forebears of these tribes. Attracted by the abundance of fish, the Winnebago halted on the shores of Lake Michigan, while the other bands continued southwestward, eventually coming to the Mississippi. ”

“ These savages do not know the use of (fire?) arms....
The memorial, (a manuscript copy of 21which, quoted by Professor Neill in his Minnesota history, is in possession of the Historical Society of that State) , contains the first attempt we have upon the record at a Census of the Tribes of the Mississippi, and partially of the Missouri Valleys: made thirty-four years before the French Census of the Cass manuscript76—a census formerly claimed as being the very first extant—so claimed by Schoolcraft, in the third volume of his Collections. ”

“ On the 3d of October, they received at the fort several Scioux, among whom was Wahkantape, chief of the village. Soon two Canadians arrived who had been hunting, and had been robbed by the Scioux of the east, who had raised their guns against the establishment which M. Le Sueur had made on Blue river. On the 14th the fort was finished and named “Fort L’Huillier,” and on the 22d two Canadians were sent out to invite the Ayavois and Otoctatas to come and establish a village near the fort, because these Indians are industrious [?] and accustomed to cultivate the earth, [?] ”

“ They do not, it would seem, aspire to the area of their ancient residence on the lower and upper Iowa rivers, and about the region of St. Anthony’s falls.86
We are taught something by these migrations. They were probably determined by the facility of procuring food. They relied, ever, greatly on the deer, elk, and buffalo. As these species are subject to changes, it is probable they carried the Indians with them.87 It is not probable that their locations were of long continuance at a place. Not over a dozen years at a location, on the average. ”

“ They next made an extraordinary migration, abandoning the Mississippi and all its upper tributaries, and ascending the Missouri to a point of land formed by a small stream, on its east shore, called by the Indians Fish creek, which flows in from the direction of, and not 38far from, the celebrated Red Pipe stone quarry, on the heights of the Coteau des Prairies. No. 3.
They next descended the Missouri to the junction of the Nebraska, or Great Platte river, with that stream. No. 4. They settled on the west [or right] bank, keeping the buffalo ranges on their west. ”

“ It is also worthy of remark, that notwithstanding the hostility between the Iowas and Sioux, the former, who are called by the latter Ayukba, (they sleep, or “sleepy ones”) , from which we probably got Iowa, remain much nearer their original location than the Shiens, or any of the other tribes, who dwelt in the Minnesota valley before the Dakotas. ”

“ At the best the work is poorly done. The proof-reading is wretched and the statements of fact often in grave error. Abject carelessness in the matter of transcription appears without excuse, hence quoted portions through the present text have invariably been read and compared with the originals, obviously enhancing the value of such a reissue. ”

“ Sometimes, in these dialectical translations, the original meaning of the tribal name was correctly rendered, and sometimes not: the early French in fact, made frequent failures. Now, the Sioux were well acquainted with the Ioway. They were, at the advent of the whites, their allies and neighbors, living as the Ioway did in 1700, on the borders of Iowa and Minnesota, about the headwaters of the Blue Earth and Des Moines rivers:59 though they soon wandered from there to the Missouri again. ”

“ Like many other Mississippi Valley tribes the Iowa are not to any great extent associated with the tumuli of America. With the exception of some few mounds in Wapello County, Iowa, at a point near Iowaville, the site of an early trading post, there is little evidence that the Iowa were in any way connected with the mounds in that State. ”

“ Mooney also advocates this theory though he suggests it applied only to the Sioux and not to the whole Siouan stock and is doubtful as to the common interpretation of the sign—a sweeping motion of the hand in front of the neck—as the Kiowa and certain other tribes called the Iowa the xvii “Necklace People.” He also says that this tribe was a little too far from the plains to have a special sign and were probably merged with the Oto, Missouri, Sauk and others in the general region of the “shaved heads.” ”

“ The term however must be extended that it may include the ceremonies which the savage believed to be religious. Peace and warfare, health and disease, welfare and want, pleasure and pain, all, whether good or evil, are believed to be under control of such societies as noted. ”

“ When Le Sueur first supplied these Indians with firearms in 1700 they were situated at the extreme headquarters of the Des Moines river, though from the translation of this explorer’s narrative, as contained in Wis. Hist. Coll., Vol. XVI, it would seem that this band and the Oto removed and “established themselves toward the Missouri river, near the Maha.” In Jefferys’ French Dominions in North and South America, 1760, the Iowa are located on the Mississippi in latitude 43° 30’. ”

“ The President may cause the country the Ioways have reserved for their future home, to be surveyed, at their expense, and in the same way as the public lands are surveyed, and assign to each person or family such portion thereof as their industry and ability to manage business affairs may, in his opinion, render judicious and proper ”