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CHAPTER XII
In 1809 the population north
of the Ohio River and west of the Walbash had reached about ten
thousand, located largely along the valleys of these rivers and the
Mississippi. The western portion of the Territory of Indiana was
detached and organized into Illinois Territory, embracing the great
prairie region west of the Wabash, north of the Ohio and east of the
Mississippi River. It extended north to the British possessions. Ninian
Edwards was appointed Governor and the capital established at
Kaskaskia.
Two years later great alarm
was felt by the people in the Mississippi Valley over a succession
of earthquake shocks which prevailed at intervals for several
months. The point where the severest shocks were experienced was in
the vicinity of New Madrid, in the southeast corner of what is now
the State of Missouri. The convulsions were so great that immense
sections of land sunk, the channel of the river was changed, lakes
and swamps disappeared and low lands were elevated into hills. The
waters of the Mississippi near Madrid were rolled with a mighty
force up stream for nearly ten miles, causing destruction of life
and property. It was during the continuance of these convulsions
that the first steamboat that ever navigated a western river was
making its way cautiously down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. The
name of the steamer was the "Orleans," of four hundred tons,
commanded by Captain Nicholas I. Roosevelt. It was built at
Pittsburg, from whence it departed on the 6th of December, 1812, for
New Orleans, and, reaching that place in safety, inaugurated
steamboat transportation, which opened a new field of commerce on
western waters. Heretofore the products of the West had found a
route to the world's markets in the slowly floating flatboats, or
bateaux, propelled by poles, oars or the current of the rivers. All
of the goods and implements to supply this region were transported
from distant cities by the same expensive and toilsome methods. The
introduction of steam navigation on the rivers was the dawning of an
era of incalculable prosperity for the West.
On the 4th of June, 1812, the
Territory of Orleans was admitted into the Union as a State, under
the name of Louisiana. William Clark, one of the commanders of
Lewis and Clark's exploring expedition of 1804, was appointed
Governor. The name Missouri was given to the remaining portion of
the Territory of Louisiana.
During the War of 1812 the
Mississippi Valley suffered but little. Colonel Nichols, the
commander of a British fleet in 1814, attempted to revive the scheme
for separating that region from the Union. He issued a proclamation
in the name of the King of Great Britain to the citizens of
Louisiana, calling upon the French, Spaniards, Englishmen, Indians
and native Louisianians to rally to his standard and emancipate
themselves from a usurping, weak and faithless Government. He
declared that he had come with a fine train of artillery,
experienced British officers and a large body of Indian warriors
supported by a British and Spanish fleet. His avowed object was to
put an end to the usurpations of the United States and restore the
country to its lawful owners. To the Indians he offered a bounty of
ten dollars for every scalp taken form the enemy. His
address was distributed throughout the valley in the hope that the
people of English, Spanish and French birth might be persuaded to
conspire against the Government of the United States and aid Great
Britain in her attempt to recover possession of the Mississippi
Valley. A grim response to this appeal was given a few months
later, when the loyal pioneers flocked to New Orleans with their
rifles and met the British invaders on the field of battle. More
than three thousand of Wellington's veterans fell before the
unerring aim of the sturdy, loyal backwoodsmen under General
Jackson.
Thus the third attempt to
separate the Mississippi Valley from the eastern States,
demonstrated the unswerving fidelity of the pioneers of the West to
the new republic of which they were a most important factor,
geographically, commercially and politically. No ambitious,
plausible schemes of unscrupulous adventurers, or glowing visions of
an independent nation, could win their favor or shake their loyalty
to the American Union. They wisely preferred to form a part of a
mighty nation, rather than become a weak member of petty
confederacies.
At the beginning of the War of
1812 the entire white population of the northwest, embracing the
territories of Indiana, Illinois and Michigan, was estimated at
about forty thousand. During the war, British emissaries and
officers had succeeded by aid of presents and promises in securing
the friendly services and military assistance of many powerful
tribes of Indians. The savages were encouraged to rob and massacre
settlers on the frontier, so that for several years emigration to
the Mississippi Valley practically ceased.
In July, 1814, General William
H. Harrison and Lewis Cass, commissioners on part of the United
States, negotiated treaties with the Wyandots, Delawares, Senecas,
Shawnees and other tribes by which they became allies of the United
States during the war with Great Britain. After the close of the
war treaties were made with nearly all of the tribes of hostile
Indians. About the middle of July, 1815, a large number of Indian
chiefs, representing most of the tribes of the northwest, assembled
at Portage des Sioux, on the right bank of the Mississippi, a few
miles below the mouth of the Missouri, to negotiate treaties with
the United States. The Government was represented by Governor
William Clark, of Missouri, who was Superintendent of Indian Affairs
west of the Mississippi; Governor Ninian Edwards, of Illinois; and
Auguste Chouteau, of St. Louis. General Henry Dodge was present
with a strong military force to guard against treachery and to
protect the commissioners. Treaties were concluded with the
Pottawattamies, Piankeshaws, Sioux, Mahas, Kickapoos, Sacs and
Foxes, Osages, Iowas and Zanzans. Several other treaties were made
with various western tribes during the year 1816 and general peace
was established throughout the West.
From this time forward
thousands of settlers sought hoes in the western Territories.
Indiana had by this time acquired a population which entitled it to
admission into the Union and was made a State on the 19th of April,
1816; Jonathan Jennings became its first Governor. On the 3rd of
December, 1818, Illinois also became a State. Michigan Territory
had not, up to this time, attracted much immigration. The few
settlers about Detroit and along the Raisin River had suffered
greatly from the British and their savage Indian allies and many had
abandoned their homes. The tide of immigration kept farther south,
seeking homes in the rich lands of Indiana, Illinois and Missouri up
to 1820. Iowa had not yet been named but was embraced in the great
indefinite Northwest Territory and was occupied by Indians, as well
as the traders, miners and trappers who had permission of the
natives to come among them.
The first steamboat that
ascended the Mississippi to the limits of Iowa, reached St. Louis on
the 2d day of August, 1817. It was most appropriately named
General Pike, in honor of the young commander of the first
American expedition ever sent to explore the upper Mississippi
Valley. It was commanded by Captain Jacob Reed.
In 1818 Missouri Territory
made application for admission to the Union. When the bill was
introduced in Congress for her admission, Mr. Talmadge, of New York,
offered the following proviso:
"Provided that the
further introduction of slavery or involuntary servitude be
prohibited, except in punishment for crime where the party shall
have been duly convicted; and that all children born within said
State after the admission thereof, shall be free at the age of
twenty years."
After a brief discussion the
proviso was adopted in the House of Representatives by a vote of
seventy-nine ayes to sixty-seven nays. This was the beginning of
the great conflict between freedom and slavery in the new States and
Territories, which forty-three years later brought on the armed
attempt of the slave-holding States to overthrow the National
Government and establish a slave-holding Confederacy.
After a lengthy and bitter
contest over slavery in Missouri, a compromise was effected, largely
through the influence of Henry Clay, who was Speaker of the House.
This settlement became famous under the name of the "Missouri
Compromise." The Senate favored the admission of Missouri as a
slave State, while the House insisted upon the exclusion of slavery.
The remarkable influence and eloquence of Henry Clay finally
persuaded a majority of the members of the House to admit Missouri
as a slave State, upon the condition that slavery should forever be
excluded from that portion of the Louisiana Purchase lying north of
latitude 36 degrees, 30 minutes, excepting Missouri.
This compromise was a
guarantee by Congress that all States lying north of that line
should in the future be admitted free, while slavery might be
extended in Territories and States south of the compromise line, as
far as the limits of the original Louisiana Purchase. During the
controversy over the admission of Missouri, the District of Arkansas
was detached and organized into the Territory of Arkansas. In
defining the northern boundary of Missouri, the following language
was employed.
"From the point
aforesaid north along said meridian line to the intersection of the
parallel of latitude which passes through the rapids of the River
Des Moines, making the said line to correspond with the Indian
boundary line; thence east from the point of intersection last
aforesaid along said parallel of latitude to the middle of the
channel of the main fork of said River Des Moines, to the mouth of
the same, where it empties into the Mississippi River, thence due
east to the middle of the main channel of the Mississippi River."
A serious conflict arose some
years later between the states of Missouri and Iowa over the true
meaning of the phrase "Rapids of the River Des Moines." Missouri
contended that "it referred to certain ripples in the River Des
Moines," which would carry the line come twenty-five or thirty miles
farther north. Iowa held that the rapids in the Mississippi River,
called by the early French explorers "La Rapid de la Riviere Des
Moines," was the point meant. Lieutenant Pike in his journal of
explorations of 1805 called the rapids beginning just above the
mouth of the Des Moines River, in the Mississippi River, "The Des
Moines Rapids."
In May, 1819, the first
steamboat undertook to ascend the ever-shifting channel of the
Missouri River. The "Independence," with Captain Nelson in command,
steamed up the rapid current of the "Great Muddy" for a long
distance. It had been seriously doubted by experienced river
navigators whether it was practicable to run steamers among the
shifting sands and channels of that river.
In June of the same year Major
S. H. Long was sent with a party to explore the Missouri, Platte and
Yellowstone rivers and valleys to the Rocky Mountains. The trip to
Council Bluffs was made on board the steamer "Western Engineer."
Great difficulties were encountered in ascending the uncertain
channel. The water was high, the current exceedingly rapid, while
great masses of flood wood and the shifting sands formed bars
obstructing the passage. Major Long found settlements at different
points along the Missouri Valley and numerous rude forts and
stockades which had been erected by the settlers during the late war
with England, to protect themselves from Indian attacks. Several
tribes of Indians in this remote region had been instigated by
British emissaries during the war to attack these isolated
settlements. Some fine farms were found which had been under
cultivation for five to ten years, from which the explorers obtained
poultry, eggs, vegetables and fruit. These pioneer farmers had
immense cribs filled with corn, fine orchards of apple and peach
trees, large double log houses and corn mills run by horse-power.
The advent of a steamboat
created great excitement and was looked upon with wonder and
amazement by the backwoodsmen, as it plowed its way up the mighty
current of the Missouri at flood height. The only method of
navigation ever witnessed by the pioneers was by canoes or
flatboats, propelled by oars or poles. These farmers had no market
for their products, no stores to furnish goods or groceries. Their
nearest trading place was St. Louis, to which, at long intervals,
journeys were made to exchange furs and skins of wild animals for
such few goods as their simple life required. Major Long mentions a
new disease which he found in some localities, coming from the use
of milk, which at some seasons of the year communicates a
distressing and sometimes fatal malady to those using it. He
proceeds to describe the milk sickness which for many years
afflicted the early settlers in some sections of Indiana, Illinois
and Missouri.
On the 16th of September Major
Long reached the mouth of the Platte. Trading boats from St. Louis
were here found, which were to remain during the winter to collect
furs and buffalo hides from the Ottoe and Missouri Indians.
No settlement had yet been
found on the Iowa side of the Missouri. At the mouth of the
Mosquito River, Major Long mentions the finding of the ruins of an
old Ioway Indian village. A short distance above Fort Lisa was
reached, which was a trading station of the Missouri Fur Company.
On the 19th of September Major Long selected a place for winter
quarters about five miles below Council Bluffs. This was the
Council Bluffs named by Lewis and Clark in 1804, and it will be
remembered was on the west side of the river and must have been
about ten or fifteen miles above the city of Omaha. Major Long
describes it as a remarkable bank, rising abruptly from the brink of
the river to an elevation of about one hundred and fifty feet. It
had two important military advantages - security and complete
command of the river. It was three miles above the mouth of the
Boyer river coming in from the Iowa side. The camp was made on a
narrow beach covered with woods reaching to the river, back of which
rose a bluff near two hundred feet high. The slope from the bluff
to the camp was gradual and easy of ascent. Here an abundance of
stone, wood and water was found, and shelter from the bleak north
and west winds. A council was held here with the Ottoe Indians,
bands of the Ioways, the Missouris and Pawnees.
The principal Ioway chief at
this council was Wang-ew-aha, or Hard Heart, who had been engaged in
over fifty battles, in seven of which he had commanded. He was
regarded as the bravest and most intelligent of all of the Ioways.
Beaver seem to have been plenty in the vicinity of the camp, as
sixty were caught by an Ioway chief on the Boyer, and ten Omaha
Indians brought in more than two hundred taken on the Elk Horn.
Game in the vicinity consisted of bison, elk, deer, antelope,
wolves, wild turkey, otter, beaver and rabbits.
After making preparations for
the winter encampment, Major Long left Lieutenant Graham in command
and, descending the Missouri in a canoe, went to Washington.
Returning in the spring he left St. Louis on the 4th of May, 1820,
with a small party to make an overland journey to his camp at
Council Bluffs, traveling by the compass on as direct a line as
practicable. From the mouth of the Chariton to Grand River, the
party passed through a few settlements but the remainder of the trip
was through an unexplored region. They soon emerged from the
forests upon a prairie. Major Long writes:
"Upon leaving the forest
there was an ascent of several miles to the level of a great
woodless plain. These vast plains, in which the eye finds no object
to rest upon, are first seen with surprise and pleasure, but their
great uniformity at length becomes tiresome. The grass was now
about a foot high, as the wind swept over the great plain, it
appeared as though we were riding on the unquiet billows of the
ocean. The surface is uniformly of that description not inaptly
called rolling, and bears a comparison to the waves of an agitated
sea. The distant shores and promontories of woodland, with here and
there an insular grove, rendered the illusion more complete.
Nothing is more difficult than to estimate by the eye the distance
of an object seen on these plains. Soon after leaving our camp we
thought we discovered several bison feeding at a distance of half a
mile. Two of our party dismounted, creeping through the grass with
great care for some distance, found them to be a wild turkey with a
brood of half grown young. We often found hoofs, horns and bones of
the bison and elk near former camping places of the Indians; also
great numbers of tent poles and scaffolds."
On the 24th a camp was made on
the banks of a beautiful river, and during the night a terrible
storm came hurling the forest trees, uprooted and shivered, around
them. Their terrified horses broke loose and ran wildly over the
plains. The next day the party ascending a high range of hills,
looked over a broad valley and saw the Missouri winding its way far
off below. They had crossed the southwest corner of Iowa from some
point on Grand River, probably passing through portions of Taylor,
Page, Montgomery and Mills counties, striking the Missouri near the
mouth of the Platte River. They were probably the first white men
who ever traversed the beautiful rolling prairies of that region.
It had now been sixteen years
since the western borders of Iowa had been partially explored by
Lewis and Clark, and through their reports made known to the
country; but so far as is known no permanent settlers had erected
cabins in that region, or broken the prairie sod for farms. French
and half-breed traders made their trips up and down the Missouri and
its tributaries in pursuit of their vocation for many years after
this before we find any attempts to open farms or lay out towns.
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