Jefferson County Online A part of the IAGenWeb and USGenWeb Projects Original Occupants

Less than half a century ago, the great State of Iowa, an empire in extent, was a vast uncivilized wild, inhabited only by untutored red men and animals native to the climate, herbage and grasses. Of all this region, now so full of life, of princely farms and farmhouses, of towns and cities, schools, colleges and churches, railroads and telegraphs, and all the other adjuncts of modern civilization, but little was known. It was an unexplored territory, to the interior of which no white man had ever penetrated.

Until the close of the Black Hawk war in 1832, the country was in the undisputed possession of the Indians. Different tribes occupied different parts of the Territory. They toiled not, neither did they spin. They subsisted upon the fruits of the chase, and dwelt in rude tents or camped in the open air. To them the arts of industry were unknown and unpracticed. They occupied the land, but improved it not. the command of the great Creator that by the sweat of his brow man should earn his daily bread, was lost upon them. Of flocks and herds they had none, while the earth was regarded by them as only a hunting-ground that had been created by the Great Spirit for their special benefit and occupancy. The history of such a people is one full of interest.

The Sauks and Foxes* inhabited the eastern slope of Iowa, including the county whose history is being considered, and a history of the last years of their dominion is as much a part of the history of the county as are the incidents that have occurred since they gave way before the advancement of enlightened civilization. These sketches will necessarily extend to and include the area of several of the adjacent counties, but they will preserve to the present and future generations a record of aboriginal events that were familiar to the men and women who pioneered the way to the fertile prairies of the Black Hawk Purchase, and almost kindled their camp-fires from the smoldering embers left by the Indians when they turned their backs upon the lands that had been theirs for generations agone.

  * The Sauks or Saukies (white clay), and the Foxes or Outagamies (so called by the Europeans), and Algonquins, respectively, but whose true name is Mus-quak-ki-uk (red clay), are in fact but one nation. When the French missionaries first came in contact with them in 1665, they found that they spoke the same language, and that it differed from the Algonquins, though belonging to the same stock. -- Albert Gallatin.

Human improvement, rushing through civilization, crushes in its march all who cannot grapple to its car. This law is as inexorable as Fate. "You colonize the lands of the savage with the Anglo-Saxon," says Stephen Montague; "you civilize that portion of the earth; but is the savage civilized? He is exterminated! You accumulate machinery, you increase the total of wealth; but what becomes of the labor you displace? One generation is sacrificed to the next. You diffuse knowledge, and the world seems to grow brighter; but Discontent at Poverty replaces Ignorance happy with its crust. Every Improvement, every advancement in civilization, injures some to benefit others, and either cherishes the want of to-day or prepares the revolution of tomorrow."

It is only yesterday, as it were, since the prairies and grove-covered hillsides of Eastern Iowa, now so full of happy homes and agricultural and mechanical industry, re-echoed the mournful dirge of the departing red men. The years are comparatively few in number since the sorrowful cortege passed slowly toward the setting sun, leaving behind the noble dead, sleeping in the cold embrace of the grim monarch, by the side of their beloved white father; leaving the homes they had been taught to claim as their own; leaving all, even hope, behind. There still live, in different parts of the country, many persons who beheld the strange sight of a remnant of a race departing forever from the scenes of their early life, and such will, doubtless, be disposed to sneer at the pen which finds a source of sadness in the contemplation of this event. But worthy hands have written lines of living power upon the theme, nor can the harsh character of the fact denude the subject of a glamour which poetry and romance have cast around the dusky subject and his fate. There is a grandeur in the record of the race which the stern force of truth is powerless to dispel.

Those men who were compelled to meet the groveling band which had survived the first shock of defeat, saw only the ruin which the strong had wrought upon the weak. The native power had fled; a subjugated race was subsisting in its helplessness upon the bounty of its conquerors. There was no spot on earth left for them. Foot by foot their mighty possessions were taken from them, not in the din and whirl of battle, but by the humiliating process of peace. Here, at last, they stood, with bowed heads, meekly awaiting the decree which should compel them to resume their endless march. Behind them was the tradition of their strength; before them, annihilation of their clans. Even their warlike instincts were dwarfed in the presence of their masters. Had they disputed titles with the whites, the memories clustering about them now would be far different. But that resort to arms, that defiant struggle to the end, that disappearance in dramatic furor -- all was denied them. Had they been other in nature than they were, this placid surrender to fate would seem less pitiful. Once fierce and bloody, then subdued, their stolid acceptance of destiny carried with it a mournful air that will be breathed through history's pages while our race shall live.

The Indian is the embodiment of the dramatic, and when the curtain is rung down upon a scene so spiritless and tame as this of which we write, the admiration which is his due is turned to pity. The actual spectators of the drama find it impossible to forget the sordid character of the players, it is true; but at so short a remove of time as this which has already elapsed since this country was the theater of the play, a shade of romance is imparted and the events become absorbing in their interest.

In the State history which precedes this department of the work, an extended history of the several tribes is given. It is the purpose of this chapter to take up the thread of narrative at a point where this immediate section becomes the scene of action, extending backward far enough to merely gather the scattered ends.

In this work the writer is dependent largely upon a series of papers from the pen of the late Maj. John Beach, son-in-law of the original Indian Agent, Gen. Street, and who in turn was Agent after the death of the General in 1840. These papers were prepared in the summer of 1874, and published in the Agency Independent. Maj. Beach died September 2, 1874, or before the series was published in full. That such forethought was manifested by him, is a matter of congratulation among all who are interested in this country. It is to be regretted, however, that the Major did not prepare a still more elaborate history of the tribes he was so long associated with. While we do not consider it essential to preserve, in exact form, the series of articles alluded to, we have carefully extracted all salient points, and have added to them much more information, obtained from those conversant with the matter.