of
Muscatine County Iowa
1911
| History of Muscatine County Iowa 1911 | |
Source: History of Muscatine County Iowa, Volume I, 1911, pages 15-16
INDIAN TREATIES. The territory known as the "Black Hawk Purchase," although not the first portion of Iowa ceded to the United States by the Sacs and Foxes, was the first opened to actual settlement by the tide of emigration which flowed across the Mississippi as soon as the Indian tide was extinguished. The treaty which provided for this cession was made at a council held on the west bank of the Mississippi where now stands the city of Davenport, on ground now occupied by the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad Company, September 21, 1832. This was just after the Black Hawk war and the defeated savages had retired from east of the Mississippi. At the council the government was represented by General Winfield Scott and Governor Reynolds, of Illinois. Keokuk, Pash-a-popo, and some thirty other chiefs and warriors were there. By this treaty the Sacs and Foxes ceded to the United States a strip of land on the eastern border of Iowa, fifty miles wide, from the northern boundary of Missouri to the mouth of the Upper Iowa river, containing about 6,000,000 acres. The western line of the purchase was parallel with the Mississippi. In consideration for this cession the United States agreed to pay annually to the confederated tribes, for thirty consecutive years, $20,000 in specie, and to pay the debts of the Indians at Rock Island, which had been accumulating for seventeen years and amounted to $50,000, due to Davenport & Farnham, Indian traders. The government also donated to the Sac and Fox women and children, whose husbands and fathers had fallen in the Black Hawk war, thirty-five beef cattle, twelve bushels of salt, thirty barrels of pork, fifty barrels of flour and six thousand bushels of corn.
The treaty was ratified February 13, 1833, and took effect on the 1st of June following, when the Indians quietly removed from the ceded territory and this fertile and beautiful region was opened by white settlers.
By the terms of the treaty, out of the "Black Hawk Purchase" was reserved for the Sacs and Foxes four hundred square miles of land, situated on the Iowa river, and including within its limits Keokuk village, on the right bank of that river. This tract was known as Keokuk's reserve and was occupied by the Indians until 1836, when by a treaty made in September between them and Governor Dodge, of Wisconsin territory, it was ceded to the United States. The council was held on the banks of the Mississippi above Davenport, and was the largest assemblage of the kind ever held by the Sacs and Foxes to treat for the sale of land. About one thousand of their chiefs and braves were present, Keokuk being the leading spirit of the occasion and their principal speaker.
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