Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/107

CHAPTER VI ORE than four hundred years have passed since Europeans began the invasion of America, and the savages whose ancestors exterminated the Mound Builders are rapidly meeting a similar fate. When Twentieth Century shall have passed away, the American Indians will have almost, if not quite, disappeared from the face of the earth. They seem to be incapable of civilization and consequently their complete extinction is probably near at hand. Whatever of the history of the Indian nations and tribes of Iowa can be found must be of interest to the civilized millions who now occupy the State.

The wresting of Iowa from its Indian inhabitants was attended with little of the cruelty of war which followed the advent of the Spanish, English and Portuguese invaders in other portions of America. Three hundred years of sturdy but unavailing resistance to the advance of the European races had exhausted the original fierce and unyielding courage of the Indians and impressed them with the gloomy conviction that resistance was unavailing. Nation after nation of their ancestors had been vanquished in the unequal contest. Slowly but surely they had been dispossessed of their homes and hunting grounds. The most powerful Indian tribes of America had disappeared in the warfare. Their lands had long been peopled by the white men who had forced the savages step by step westward. Their conquerors must be their historians, and justice demands that we shall record their virtues as well as their vices.

If they were cruel, treacherous, revengeful and merciless as enemies, it is no less true that they were brave