Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/121



Dubuque for mining purposes the right to a strip of land northward from the Little Maquoketa in Iowa.

The first treaty made by the United States with the Indians of the Northwest was on the 9th of January, 1789, at Fort Harmar on the Muskingum River in Ohio. It was conducted by Arthur St. Claire, then Governor of Northwest Territory, on part of the government. The Indian tribes represented were the Pottawattamies, Chippewas, Wyandots, Delawares, Ottawas and Sacs.

The territory embracing Iowa was represented by two Sac chiefs. The objects of the treaty were to fix the boundary between the United States and the several Indian tribes. It was agreed that the Indians should not sell their lands to any person or nation other than the United States; that persons of either party who should commit robbery or murder, should be delivered up to the proper tribunal for trial and punishment. By this treaty the United States extended protection and friendship to the Pottawattamies and Sacs.

When Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike ascended the Mississippi River with his exploring party in 1805, he found four Sac villages. The first was at the head of the Des Moines rapids on the Iowa side and contained thirteen lodges; the second was on the Illinois side about sixty miles above; the third was near the mouth of Rock River; and the fourth was on the lower Iowa River. The Foxes had three villages: one on the west shore of the Mississippi River above Rock Rapids, one twelve miles west of the Dubuque lead mines and another near the mouth of Turkey River. Lieutenant Pike reported their numbers as follows: The Foxes, 1,750, of which 400 were warriors, 500 women and 850 children; Sacs, 700 warriors, 750 women and 1,400 children; making a population of 2,850.

The Sac village on Rock River was one of the oldest in the upper Mississippi Valley. Black Hawk, in his autobiography, says it was built in 1831; it was named