Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/111



crossed the Mississippi and occupied the country about the lower valley of the Iowa River, giving to that stream its present name, although it was for a long time called the Ayouas by the earliest French explorers. Lewis and Clark in the journal of their explorations, in 1804, refer to this tribe of Indians as the Ayouways. In later years the orthography became changed to Ioway and finally the y was dropped and we have the beautiful name Iowa, with the accent on the I.

Antoine Le Claire, a half-breed of French and Indian parentage, who was familiar with several of the Indian languages, defines the word Iowa as “This is the place.” Theodore S. Parvin, a high authority, relates an Indian legend as follows:

“This tribe separated from the Sacs and Foxes and wandered off westward in search of a new home. Crossing the Mississippi River they turned southward, reaching a high bluff near the mouth of the Iowa River. Looking off over the beautiful valley spread out before them they halted, exclaiming 'Ioway!' or 'This is the place!'”

As far back as the history of the Iowa nation has been traced by Schoolcraft and other, it is found that this tribe migrated fifteen times. It appears to have moved in about 1693 from the vicinity of the great lakes to near the mouth of Rock River and some years later to the Iowa. The next move was to the Des Moines Valley in the vicinity of Van Buren, Wapello and Davis counties. Many years later the Iowas journeyed through southern and western Iowa, up the Missouri Valley, into Dakota. For several years they lived near the red pipestone quarries in the valley of the Big Sioux River, roaming over into northwestern Iowa as far as Spirit Lake and the upper valleys of the Little Sioux and Des Moines rivers. Leaving these regions they descended the Missouri into southeastern Nebraska in the Platte Valley. They next wandered into northern Missouri and from there into southern Iowa in the region of the Chariton and Grand rivers.