West Liberty History 1838-1938

Source: One Hundred Years of History
* Commemorating a Century of Progress in the West Liberty Community * WEST LIBERTY, IOWA
LOG CABIN HISTORY

Chapter II

THE SAC AND THE FOX INDIANS

A sketch of the Sac and Fox Indians and allied tribes will not be out of place in this chronicle, as showing the relation of those tribes to the whites at that time and in this territory. These tribes had drifted before the encroachments of the whites from the North and East till they had spread over and claimed possession of part of Wisconsin, the greater part of Illinois and the eastern parts of Iowa and Missouri. Their council grounds were on the Rock River, a short distance above Rock Island, where was also their principal village. There, too, they buried their dead; hence it was a place sacred to them. They had always been inclined to be friendly to their white neighbors, and acts of treachery were rare.

But the whites were looking with envious eyes over that beautiful land and were insidiously encroaching on them. At length the Government through its agents persuaded the Indians to cede this Illinois territory for certain considerations of merchandise and an annual annuity, and an agreement to protect them in their remaining territory against the encroachments of its own people, and any other persons. There was the iniquity of the St. Louis Treaty of 1804. The chiefs who signed that treaty afterward claimed that they had been so plied with liquor that they did not know what they did do, and when the Indians realized that their council grounds and the graves of their fathers had been wrestled from them, they were filled with remorse and resentment, which eventually led to the Black Hawk War. The time at which this story opens, was soon after the close of the Black Hawk War, when Chief Black Hawk was captured and held as hostage for the good behavior of his people, and his band of " British Indians" were dispersed to the west side of the Mississippi supposedly joined the band of friendly Sacs whose council grounds were on the west side of the river in the northeast part of the State. But prairies and forests were ranged over by the bands of Sac, Fox, and Sioux Indians, who were sullen at their removal.

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