LAND PURCHASES

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This map indicates the various land purchases from tribes of Native Americans in Iowa. Image courtesy: Don Nelson

LAND PURCHASES. Over hundreds of years, Iowa has belonged to Spain, England and France. In 1803 the United States acquired title to it as part of the LOUISIANA PURCHASE. Sometimes forgotten were the purchases of land from tribes of Native Americans. As white settlement moved west, wars were fought with tribes who were then forced from their land--sometimes with some payment. The actual price paid to tribes will never be fully known. Part of the price was cash. Another part of the price was in merchandise and food. It has been estimated that the amount paid to tribes for Iowa was approximately $2,887,500. (1)

The first land lost to the Native Americans was the "Half-Breed Tract." A "half-breed" was a person with a white father and a Native American mother. These people usually lived in the tribe of the person's mother. The "Half-Breed Tract" at the southernmost top of Lee County was traded and cheated away by the whites. (2)

The "Western Slope" was an area in far western Iowa. In 1830 the SAUK and FOX, SIOUX, Omahas, Otes, and Missouri tribes sold this land to the United States government. Each tribe received a small amount of money with the promise the site was to be reserved for their hunting grounds. (3)

On July 30, 1830, at Fort Crawford, in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, a 40 mile wide, 200 mile long “ neutral ground” was established to separate the Sac and Fox Tribes from the Sioux. (4) The tribes received about three cents per acre. (5) Nathan Boone, son of Daniel Boone, headed the party that surveyed this neutral tract of land. Hunting and fishing was allowed in the “neutral ground”, but no warring. The Winnebago Indians, who lived in the northern portions of Fayette County, were moved into the Neutral Ground as a buffer between the other tribes. The government agreed to pay the Indians $3,000 annually for ten years and help the Indians promote agriculture. The government would also supply blacksmiths, farm implements, and furnish schools for the Indian children. In 1840, an Indian mission was established about 3 miles South of Fort Atkinson. The mission was designed as a school to educate the Winnebagos and to encourage them to adopt the manners and customs of “civilized” life. (6)

Following the defeat of Black Hawk in 1832, a council was held at the present site of Davenport, Iowa. For paying all the debts of the Sauk and Fox to traders, $20,000 annually for thirty years to the tribe, and providing food to the widows and orphans of warriors killed in the Black Hawk War, the United States government took over the area known as the "Black Hawk Purchase." This amount to a cost to the government of about fourteen cents per acre.

Because Keokuk and his village had not entered the war, an area of 400 square miles was provided to them as a home along the Iowa River. In 1836 this land was sold for $198,500.37 or about eight cents per acre when they moved to the Des Moines River Valley.

The pressure of white settlement soon required the purchase of more land. A second "Black Hawk Purchase" was made in 1837. Located just west of the first purchase, the cost to the government was thirty cents per acre. In 1842 the Sauk and Fox sold the title to remainder of land they owned in Iowa for about ten cents per acre. They were to move to a reservation in Kansas.

In 1838 the Iowa tribe sold all of their lands. In 1846 the Potawatamis agreed to move from their southwest Iowa lands to a Kansas reservation. The same year the Winnebagoes agreed to leave the Neutral Strip where the government had put them to Minnesota. The last tribe to sell their lands was the Sioux. They sold their Iowa land in 1851 for about eight cents per acre.

While the government agreed to pay, in practice the tribes often did not receive all they were promised. Members of the Sauk and Fox eventually returned to Iowa where they lived quietly around Tama.

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Source:

1. "Buying Iowa From the Indians," The Des Moines Register, Nov. 28, 1932

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Clayton County Leadership Group, "Old Mission Road," Online: http://www.strawberrypt.com/Files-in-pdf/Old-MRd.PDF

5. "Buying Iowa..."

6.