While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
Iowa ('sleepy ones'). One of the
southwestern Siouan tribes included by J. O. Dorsey with the Oto and
Missouri in his Chiwere group. Traditional and linguistic evidence proves
that the Iowa sprang from the Winnebago stern, which appears to have been
the mother stock of some other of the southwestern Siouan tribes; but the
closest affinity of the Iowa is with the Oto and Missouri, the difference
in language being merely dialectic.
Iowa chiefs informed Dorsey in 1883 that their people
and the Oto, Missouri, Omaha, anti Ponca "once formed part of the
Winnebago nation." According to the traditions of these tribes, at an
early period they came with the Winnebago from their priscan home north of
the great lakes, but that the Winnebago stopped on the shore of a great
lake (Lake Michigan), attracted by the abundant fish, while the others
continued southwestward to the Mississippi. Here another band, the Iowa,
separated from the main group, "and received the name of Pahoja, or Gray
Snow, which they still retain, but are known to the white people by the
name of Ioway, or Aiaouez. The first stopping place of the Iowa, after
parting from the Winnebago, as noted in the tradition, appears to have
been on Rock river, Ill., near its junction with the Mississippi. Another
tradition places them farther north.
In 1848 a map was drawn by a member of the tribe
showing their movements from the mouth of Rock river to the place where
they were then living. According to this their first move was to the banks
of Des Moines river, some distance above its mouth; the second was to the
vicinity of the pipestone quarry in southwest Minnesota, although on the
map it was placed erroneously high up on the Missouri; thence they
descended to the mouth of Platte river, and later moved successively to
the headwaters of Little Platte river, Mo.; to the west bank of the
Mississippi, slightly above the mouth of Des Moines river, a short
distance farther up on the same side of the Mississippi; again
southwestwardly, stopping on Salt river, thence going to its extreme
headwaters; to the upper part of Chariton river; to Grand river; thence to
Missouri river, opposite Ft Leavenworth, where they lived at the time the
map was drawn. These successive movements, which are of comparatively
recent date, are generally accepted as substantially correct. The Sioux
have a tradition (Williamson in Minn. Hist. Coll., 1, 296) that when their
ancestors first came to the falls of St Anthony, the Iowa occupied the
country about the mouth of Minnesota river, while the
Cheyenne dwelt higher up on the
same stream. The Iowa appear to have been in the vicinity of the mouth of
Blue Earth river, Minn., just before the arrival there of Le Sueur in 1701
for the purpose of erecting his fort. His messengers, sent to invite them
to settle in the vicinity of the fort because they were good farmers,
found that they had recently removed toward Missouri river, near the Maha
(Omaha), who dwelt in that region.
The Sioux informed Le Sueur that Blue Earth river belonged to the Scioux
of the West (Dakota), the Ayavois (Iowas),
and Otoctatas (Oto), who lived a little farther off. Father Marest (La
Harpe, Jour., 39, 1851) says that the Iowa were about this (late
associated with the Sioux in their war against the Sauk. This does not
accord with the general tradition that the Dakota were always enemies of
the Iowa, nevertheless the name Nadoessi Maseouteins seems to have been
applied to the Iowa by the early missionaries because of their relations
for a time with the Sioux. Pere Andre thus designated them in 1676, when
they were living 200 leagues west of Green Bay, Wis. Perrot (Mem., 63,
1864) apparently located them in the vicinity of the Pawnee, on the
plains, in 1685. Father Zenobius (1680) placed the Anthoutantas (Oto) and
Nadouessious Maskoutens (Iowa) about 130 leagues from the Illinois, in 3
great villages built near a river which empties into the river Colbert
(Mississippi) on the west side, above the Illinois, almost opposite the
mouth of the Wisconsin. He appears to locate a part of the Ainoves
(perhaps intended for Aioues), on the west side of Milwaukee river, in
Wisconsin. On Marquette's map (1674-79) the Pahoutet (Iowa), the Otontanta
(Oto), and Maha (Omaha) are placed on Missouri river, evidently by mere
guess. La Salle knew of the Oto and the Iowa, and in his letter in regard
to Hennepin, Aug. 22, 1682, mentions them under the names Otoutanta and
Aiounouea, but his statement that Accault, one of his company, knew the
languages of these tribes is doubtful. It is probable that in 1700, when
Le Sueur furnished them with their first firearms, the Iowa resided on the
extreme headwaters of Des Moines river, but it appears from this
explorer's journal that they and the Oto removed and "established
themselves toward the Missouri river, near the Maha." Jefferys (Fr. Dom.
in Am., 1761) placed them on the east side of the Missouri, west of the
sources of Des Moines river, above the Oto, who were on the west side of
the Missouri and below the Omaha; but in the text of his work they are
located on the Mississippi in lat. 43º
30'.
In 1804, according to Lewis and Clark (Orig. Jour., vi,
91-92, 1905), they occupied a single village of 200 warriors or 800 souls,
18 leagues up Platte river, on the south east side, although they formerly
lived on the Missouri above the Platte. They conducted traffic with
traders from St Louis at their posts on Platte and Grand Nemaha river, as
well as at the Iowa village, the chief trade being skins of beaver, otter,
raccoon, deer, and bear. They also cultivated corn, beans, etc. In 1829
(Rep. Sec. War) they were on Platte river, Iowa., 15 m. from the Missouri
state line. Schoolcraft (1853) placed them on Nemaha river, Nebr., a mile
above its mouth. By 1880 they were brought under the agencies.
The visiting and marriage customs of the Iowa did not
differ from those of connate tribes, nor was their management of children
unlike that of the Dakota, the Omaha, and others. They appear to have been
cultivators of the soil at an early date, as Le Sueur tried to persuade
them to fix their village near Ft Sueurr because they were "industrious
and accustomed to cultivate the earth." Pike says that they cultivated
corn, but proportionately not so much as the
Sauk and
Foxes. He also affirms that the Iowa were less civilized than the
latter. Father Andre (Jes. Rel., 1676, Thwaites ed., Lx, 203, 1900) says
that although their village was very large, they were poor, their greatest
wealth consisting of "ox-hides and red calumets," indicating that the Iowa
early manufactured and traded catlinite pipes. Some small mounds in
Minnesota and Iowa have been ascribed to them by two distinct traditions.
In 1824 they ceded all their lands in Missouri, and in
1836 were assigned a reservation in north east Kansas, from which a part
of the tribe moved later to another tract in central Oklahoma, which by
agreement in 1890 was allotted to them in severalty, the surplus acreage
being opened to settlement by whites.
Various estimates of the population of the Iowa at
different dates are as follows: In 1760, 1,100 souls; by Lewis and Clark
in 1804, 800, smallpox having carried off 100 men besides women and
children in 1803; the Secretary of War gives the number in 1829 as 1,000;
Catlin in 1832 at about 1,400, but in 1836 at 992; the Indian Affairs
Report of 1843 gives their number as 470; the number at the Potawatomi and
Great Nemaha agency in Kansas was 143 in 1884, 138 in 1885, 143 in 1886,
and 225 in 1905. At the latter date they were under the jurisdiction of
the Kickapoo School. At the Sauk and Fox agency, Okla., in 1885 they
numbered 88; in 1901, 88; in 1905, 89.
There was an Iowa village called Wolf village.
See Catlin, Iowa Inds., 1844;
Dorsey (1) in 11th Rep. B. A. E., 1894, and 15th Rep. B. A. E., 1897, (2)
Trans. Anthrop. Soc. Wash., 11, 1883; Hamilton and Irvin, loway Gram.,
1848; Hayden, Ethnog. and Philol. Mo. Val., 1862; Lewis and Clark, Orig.
Jour., i-vim, 1904-05; Long, Exped. Rocky Mts.,1,1823; Minn. Hist. Soc.
Coll., 1, 1872; Sen. Doc. 452, 57th Cong., 1st sess., H, 1903
