Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/136



ceded to the United States. The Sacs and Foxes then moved to a reservation on the Des Moines River, where an agency was established for them on the site where Agency City has been built. Here Keokuk, Appanoose and Wapello, chiefs of the united tribes, had each a large farm under cultivation. The farms belonging to Keokuk were on what is known as Keokuk Prairie, lying back from the right bank of the Des Moines River. Appanoose's farm included a portion of the present site of the city of Ottumwa. The memory of these chiefs has been perpetuated in our State by three counties and two cities, which bear their names, while a county in northern Iowa bears the name of the famous old war chief, Black Hawk.

On the 11th of October, 1842, another treaty was made with the Sac and Fox Indians, in which they conveyed all of their remaining lands in Iowa to the United States. They were to vacate the eastern portion of the lands ceded, to a line running on the west side of the present counties of Appanoose and Lucas and north through Marion, Jasper, Marshall and Hardin counties, to the north limit of the grant, on May 1, 1843, and the remainder on October 11, 1845.

When the time came for the departure of the Indians they were sad and sorrowful. They lingered around their old homes reluctant to leave them forever. The women were weeping as they gathered their children and household goods together for the long journey to a strange and distant country. The warriors could hardly suppress their emotion as they looked for the last time upon the beautiful rivers, groves and prairies that they had owned so long and were so reluctant to surrender. As the long line of the retreating red men silently an sorrowfully took its way westward, the booming of guns and the light of a hundred bonfires gave evidence of the advancing hosts of white settlers who hastened in to occupy the vacant places. In the progress of years these