EMMET AND DICKINSON COUNTIES 59
was called to meet at the Sac and Fox agency (now Agency City) in
what is now Wapello County. John Chambers, then governor of Iowa
Territory, was appointed commissioner on behalf of the United States
to negotiate the treaty.
The council was held in a large tent set up for the purpose near the
agency. Governor Chambers, dressed in the uniform of an army officer,
made a short speech stating the object for which the council had been
called. Keokuk, clad in all his native finery and bedecked with ornaments,
responded. After that there was "much talk," as almost every
chief present had something to say. On October 11, 1842, a treaty was
concluded by which the allied tribes agreed to cede all their remaining
lands in Iowa, but reserved the right to occupy for three years from the
date of signing the treaty "all that part of the land above ceded which
lies west of a line running due north and south from the Painted or Red
Rocks on the White Breast fork of the Des Moines River, which rocks
will be found about eight miles in a straight line from the junction of the
White Breast and Des Moines."
The red sandstone cliffs, called by the Indians the Painted Rocks, are
situated on the Des Moines River in the northwestern part of Marion
County, near the town called Red Rock. The line described in the treaty
forms the boundary between Appanoose and Wayne counties, on the
southern border of the state, and passes thence northward between Lucas
and Monroe, through Marion, Jasper, Marshall and Hardin counties to
the northern limit of the cession. East of this line the land was opened
to settlement on May 1, 1843, and west of it on October 11, 1845.
TREATY OP TRAVERSE DES SIOUX
By the treaties concluded at the Indian agency on the Missouri River
on June 5 and 17, 1846, the Potawatomi, Ottawa and Chippewa tribes
relinquished their claims to "all lands to which they have claim of any
kind whatsoever, and especially the tracts or parcels of land ceded to them
by the treaty of Chicago, and subsequent thereto, and now in whole or
in part possessed by their people, lying and being north and east of the
Missouri River and embraced in the limits of the Territory of Iowa."
With the conclusion of those two treaties all that portion of the State
of Iowa south of the country claimed by the Sioux became the property
of the white man. It remained, however, for the Government to extinguish
the Sioux title to Northwestern Iowa before the paleface could come
into full possession. This was done by the treaty of Traverse des Sioux
on July 23, 1851, when the Sisseton and Wahpeton bands ceded to the
United States "All their lands in the State of Iowa, and also all their
lands in the Territory of Minnesota lying east of the following line.
60 EMMET AND DICKINSON COUNTIES
to wit: Beginning at the junction of the Buffalo River with the Red
River of the North; thence along the western bank of the said Red River
of the North to the mouth of the Sioux Wood River; thence along the
western bank of the said Sioux Wood River to Lake Traverse; thence
along the western shore of said lake to the southern extremity thereof;
thence in a direct line to the junction of Kampesa Lake with the Tchan-
kas-an-da-ta or Sioux River; thence along the western bank of said river
to its point of intersection with the northern line of the State of Iowa,
including all the islands and said rivers and lake."
The treaty of Traverse des Sioux was agreed to by the Mdewakanton
band in a treaty concluded at Mendota, Minnesota, on August 5, 1851,
and by the Wahpekute band a little later. Thus the great State of Iowa
became the complete and undisputed domain of the white man. The period
of preparation for a civilized population ‐ a period which began more
than two centuries before ‐ was now completed and the hunting grounds
of the savage tribes became the cultivated fields of the Caucasian. The
Indian trail has been broadened into the highway or the railroad. Instead
of the howl of the wolf and the war-whoop of the red man is heard the
lowing of kine and the shriek of factory whistles. Halls of legislation
have supplanted the tribal council; modem residences occupy the sites of
Indian tepees; news is borne by telegraph or telephone instead of signal
fires on the hilltops, and the church spire rises where once stood the totem
pole as an object of veneration; Indian villages have disappeared and in
their places have come cities with paved streets, electric lights, stately
school buildings, public libraries, newspapers, and all the evidences of
modern progress. And all this change has come about within the memory
of persons yet living. To tell the story of these years of progress and
development is the province of the subsequent chapters of this history.