Taylor county, Iowa 1881 History: page 377

INDIAN AFFAIRS

(Page 377)

The Indian! What crowds of memories, incidents and adventures come trooping to the mind at the bare mention of that name, once fear-inspiring, now commonplace and powerless. A name once so dreaded, and often frighted with murder and rapine, is history's, as a memento of which but a few outcast and hunted tribes alone remain.

The savage of nature and he of whom poets sing are different beings. The latter, kingly in mien and sullenly morose in habit, animated by the noblest of motives, engaging in chase or in war as fancy or necessity dictated, disdaining peril and knowing no fear - such as he existed only in the imagination of Cooper, or is painted in the verse of authors equally gifted with him. The former, with passions unrestrained and by nature treacherous, slothful, repulsive and unclean - such is the savage of nature, as unlike him celebrated in song as well he could be. Yet, there is something that calls for our sympathy in the history of this unfortunate race. The same harrowing lust for gold which impelled Pizarro to the conquest of the Incas, and Cortez to the destruction of the mighty empire of the Montezumas, in a newer, and perhaps less revolting form, has driven the red man from the homes in which his ancestors, for many generations past, have roamed at will, and left him - what? The inheritance of extinction, and that alone. He was, rather than is. "The only hope of the perpetuity of his race seems now to center in the Choctaws, Cherokees, Creeks and Chickasaws of the Indian Territory. These nations, numbering in the aggregate about eight thousand souls, have attained a considerable degree of civilization; and with just and liberal dealing on the part of the government, the outlook for the future is not discouraging. Most of the other Indian tribes seem to be rapidly approaching extinction. Right or wrong, such is the logic of events. Whether the red man has been justly deprived of the ownership of the New World will remain a subject of debate; that it has been deprived, cannot be denied. The Saxon has come. His (page 378) conquering foot has trodden the vast domain from shore to shore. The weaker race has withdrawn from his presence and his sword. By the majestic rivers and in the depths of the solitary woods the feeble sons of the bow and arrow will be seen no more. Only their names remain on hill, and stream, and mountain. The red man sinks and fails. His eyes are to the west. To the prairies and forests, the hunting-grounds of his ancestors, he says farewell. He is gone! The cypress and the hemlock sing his requiem."

But whence did he come? This opens up a field of inquiry which has engaged the attention of earnest students since the Indian first was known. It seems to be still a mooted point whether he came from Asia, that mythological "cradle of the race." Long ages anterior to the red man's occupancy of the land there lived and thrived other races - men who, in that far-off time, built the mounds and made the implements that are now so commonly found. The evidence which exists shows that that ancient civilization belonged to a great people; a people which covered a large part of the continent, and with whom the Indians of to-day have little or nothing in common. Over the past of these strange people hangs a veil, which yet remains for some Columbus or Pizarro to remove. In the valley of the Ohio, that of the Mississippi, the prairies of Kansas and Texas, the mysterious and inexplicable animal representation of Wisconsin, are mounds all of which contain relics which are the works of these primitive people, of whom the later Indians retain not even a tradition. Suppose that these latter were the lineal descendents of the mound-builders - what then? We have removed the difficulty by a step back, and still man was, there is no knowledge, revealed or human, that throws any light upon the origin of the race of men, other than that which comes to us through their structural affinities - that afforded by comparative anatomy. Concerning the mound-builders there is nothing historical to enlighten us as to what kind of men they were. They have left their works; but tell us more than a few social or domestic habits, and their distribution, they do not. They are a race shrouded in mystery, affording us not even the argument deduced so commonly from philology to determine their affinity to the present tribes of the Far West.

With reference to a more complete account of the Indians who formerly made this county their home the reader is referred to a preceding page of the volumne, where will be found all the various treaties made, either by the Territorial or general governments. It is sufficient to state that the Territory of which the county is now composed was once possessed by the Iowas, (page 379) a tribe of Indians at one time identified with the Sacs, of the Rock River, but from whom they separated and formed a band by themselves. At an early day in the history of the Indians the Sac and Fox races were distinct nations, the latter of whom lived almost solely within the territory embraced by the river St. Lawrence. They engaged in fierce wars with the famed Iroquois, by whom they were conquered and finally driven to the west. On reaching Illinois they formed an alliance with the Sacs. With them were finally joined the Pottawattamies, all of whom were of the great family of the Algonquins. This family, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, numbered nearly a quarter million souls; but their habits, their wars, and wasting diseases, have reduced their numbers to a mere handful, a disheartened and reckless remnant of a once proud race. The original owners of the soil belonged, however, to another family - the great race of the Dakotas, who were the possessors when first the known history of the Territory begins. The Sac and Fox Indians did not come into the State until the close of the celebrated Black Hawk War, when they were unable longer to resist the advance of the white man. In 1842 was made a treaty, in accordance with the provisions of which the Sacs and Foxes and Pottawattamies ceded to the general government the western portion of the State of Iowa, (page 380) and "their right of title and interest therein." The parties to the treaty were….Governor Chambers, of Iowa Territory, on the part of the government, and chiefs Keokuk, Appanoose, and Panassa, among others, in behalf of the red men. In the spring of 1846 the Indians finally retired to Kansas, and here the history of their connection with Iowa finally ends.