Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/158



than 50,000,000 acres were sold for the insignificant sum of $2,000 per year?" The question could never be satisfactorily answered.

In 1824 they were parties to the treaty negotiated by Governor William Clark on part of the United States to settle the dispute among the Chippeways, Sacs and Foxes, Winnebagoes and other tribes as to the limits of their respective hunting grounds in Iowa. In 1829 by a treaty they ceded to the United States a portion of their lands in southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois. In 1833 they also ceded all of their remaining lands along the west shore of Lake Michigan in exchange for 5,000,000 acres in southwestern Iowa.

In 1835 they moved to the lands thus acquired, which were also occupied in part by some of the Ottawas and Chippeways, who owned an interest in them. An agency known as Traders' Point was established in what is now Mills County. At this place Colonel Peter A. Sarpy, a French trader from St. Louis, for many years supplied the Indians with powder, lead, tobacco, blankets and other goods. Colonel Sarpy became a prominent man in the early history of Nebraska, which named one of its counties for him.

In 1838, while the Pottawattamies were occupying the country along the east shores of the Missouri River, now embraced in the counties of Mills and Pottawattamie, Davis Hardin was one of their agents. He opened a farm and built a mill in the vicinity of Council Bluffs. The Indians in that region numbered about three thousand. The following year two companies of United States troops were sent there to preserve peace. They selected a camp on the side of the bluffs descending into the valley of Indian Creek, near which was found a large spring. here they proceeded to erect a blockhouse of logs. Its walls were pierced with holes for musket firing and from a pole floated the American flag. Barracks and tents were erected in the vicinity of the parade ground. With the