Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/176



1762. He was well educated, an accomplished writer and conversationalist. He had given particular attention to mineralogy and mining. He went to the then far west in 1784, when but twenty-one years of age, settling in the province of Louisiana, near Prairie du Chien. lead mines had been discovered several years before near the Mississippi River and young Dubuque determined to procure an interest in some portion of the mineral region. The Fox Indians then occupied a portion of northeastern Iowa. Dubuque, who was a shrewd, plausible man, succeeded in gaining the confidence of the Kettel Chief and his tribe and explored the country in that vicinity for lead ore, soon finding that it existed in considerable quantities.

The wife of a prominent Fox warrior, named Peosta, had in 1780 discovered lead within the limits of the present city of Dubuque and the shrewd Canadian soon succeeded in persuading the Indians to grant him the exclusive privilege of lead mining on a tract of land extending along the river from the mouth of the Little Maquoketa to the Tete des Morts, a distance of seven leagues, and running westward about three leagues. In drawing up the papers making this grant Dubuque had written, “We sell and abandon to Dubuque all the coast and the contents of the mines discovered by the wife of Peosta, so that no white man or Indian shall make any pretentions to it without the consent of Sieur Julien Dubuque.” The grant was dated at Prairie de Chien, September 22, 1877.

As soon as he had secured the lease, he brought from Prairie du Chien ten Canadians to assist him as overseers, smelter, wood choppers and boatmen. There was a Fox village near where the city of Dubuque now stands, called the village of the Kettle Chief. it consisted of Indian lodges extending back from the river, sufficient to shelter about four hundred people, one hundred of whom were warriors. Dubuque had secured the friendship of the Indians who permitted him and his companions to make