Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/218



A serious conflict arose some years later between the states of Missouri and Iowa over the true meaning of the phrase “Rapids of the River Des Moines.” Missouri contended that “it referred to certain ripples in the River Des Moines,” which would carry the line come twenty-five or thirty miles farther north. Iowa held that the rapids in the Mississippi River, called by the early French explorers “La Rapid de la Riviere Des Moines,” was the point meant. Lieutenant Pike in his journal of explorations of 1805 called the rapids beginning just above the mouth of the Des Moines River, in the Mississippi River, “The Des Moines Rapids.”

In May, 1819, the first steamboat undertook to ascend the ever-shifting channel of the Missouri River. The “Independence,” with Captain Nelson in command, steamed up the rapid current of the “Great Muddy” for a long distance. It had been seriously doubted by experienced river navigators whether it was practicable to run steamers among the shifting sands and channels of that river.

In June of the same year Major S. H. Long was sent with a party to explore the Missouri, Platte and Yellowstone rivers and valleys to the Rocky Mountains. The trip to Council Bluffs was made on board the steamer “Western Engineer.” Great difficulties were encountered in ascending the uncertain channel. The water was high, the current exceedingly rapid, while great masses of flood wood and the shifting sands formed bars obstructing the passage. Major Long found settlements at different points along the Missouri Valley and numerous rude forts and stockades which had been erected by the settlers during the late war with England, to protect themselves from Indian attacks. Several tribes of Indians in this remote region had been instigated by British emissaries during the war to attack these isolated settlements. Some fine farms were found which had been under cultivation for five to ten years, from which the explorers obtained