Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/166



Iowas and Chippeways. In 1830 the Sioux ceded to the United States a strip of land twenty miles north of the line of 1825, from the Des Moines River to the Mississippi, receiving in part payment a tract on Lake Pepin, fifteen by thirty-two miles in extent. Seven years later the Sioux ceded to the United States all of their lands east of the Mississippi River. They were always more or less hostile to the Americans and only restrained from open hostilities by the wholesome fear of troops stationed in the frontier forts. They were also deadly enemies of the Sac and Fox nation.

In 1841 a party of Sioux a party of Sioux surprised a hunting camp of twenty-four Delawares on the Raccoon River, killing all but one of them. The Delawares, led by their chief, Neo-wa-ge, made a heroic fight against overwhelming numbers, killing twenty-six of their enemies, four of whom fell beneath the terrific blows of the Delaware chief. But one escaped to carry the tidings to their Sac and Fox friends, who were camped on the east bank of the Des Moines River, near where the State House now stands. Pashepaho, the chief, who was then eighty years of age, mounted his pony and, selecting five hundred of his bravest warriors, started in pursuit of the Sioux. He followed the trail from where the bodies of the Delawares lay unburied, for more than a hundred miles up the valley of the Raccoon River, where the Sioux were overtaken. Raising their fierce war cry and led by their old chieftain, the Sacs and Foxes charged on the enemy's camp. The battle was one of the bloodiest ever fought on Iowa soil. Hand to hand the savages fought with a desperation never surpassed in Indian warfare. The Sioux were fighting for life and their assailants to revenge the slaughter of their friends. The conflict lasted for many hours. The defeat of the Sioux was overwhelming. More than three hundred of their dead were left on the field of battle. The Sacs and Foxes lost but seven killed.

In 1852 a band of Musquakies from Tama County,