3 9002 05350 6/14 A HISTO Wtf* { PEOPLE OF IOWA CYRENUS COLE ^ This book was digitized by Microsoft Corporation in cooperation with Yale University Library, 2008. You may not reproduce this digitized copy ofthe book for any purpose other than for scholarship, research, educational, or, in limited quantity, personal use. You may not distribute or provide access to this digitized copy (or modified or partial versions of it) for commercial purposes. A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF IOWA A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF IOWA BY CYRENUS COLE Write this for «. memorial m a book. — Exodus XVII, 14. I would have every man apply his mind seriously to consider these points, viz., what their life and what their manners were. . . — Preface to The Histobt of Bomb, by Titus Livius. To give, in detail, the several motions and resolu tions of the time, is not within the plan of this work, . . In this, I apprehend, consists the chief part of the historian's duty: It is his to rejudge the conduct of men. . . — The Annals oe Tacitus Book III. Section LXV. CEDAR RAPIDS IOWA THE TORCH PRESS NINETEEN HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE COPYRIGHT 1921 BV CYRENUS COLE THE TORCH PRESS CEDAR RAPIDS IOWA TO ANNA LARRABEE AND TO MY NIECE MARY COLE AND TO ALL WHO LOVE IOWA BY WAY OP INTRODUCTION Of course no apology is necessary for writing A History of the People of Iowa, and so none will be offered. The author believes his work is not a dupli cation of any other. Not too much, but too little has been written about Iowa. The people of this state have been neglectful of their own history. Even in their schools they have taught the history of every land except tbeir own. On one occasion tbe author interrogated four college girls, senior class students in a university, and was surprised to find that not one of them had a distinct idea of who James W. Grimes was. Tbey had beard of Samuel J. Kirkwood, largely through the fact that Mrs. Jane Kirkwood, the widow of tbe war governor, was still living in Iowa City. They knew much about the Sabine women, but very little about their own great-grandmotbers who had crossed tbe Mississippi in 1833, and in the years following. Tbey knew what Curtius did in tbe Roman Forum, but tbey were wholly ignorant about tbe Iowa hero wbo beid a fort while General Sherman signalled "I am coming." And yet the lessons derived from human experience might have been garnered from Iowa history as well as from Eoman. Tbe neglect is not unusual. Men are apt to be in different to their own historic surroundings. Nor has tbe material of Iowa history been accessible to tbe many. Gue's and Brigham 's excellent histories are too voluminous. Tbey have become books of reference for students of men and events. The author of tbe pres- vii viii A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF IOWA ent volume has undertaken to write a history in a form fitted for tbe general reader wbo is tbe average man and woman, and the average school boy and school girl. He has been equally diligent to follow historical accuracy and to avoid historical scholasticism. While his work is complete as to time covered, it is not exhaustive. It would have been easier to Iswte wsifcte-J it in two or three volumes than to condense it into one. For all disputed points he bas cited the proper authorities, but he has tried not to make bis footnotes burdensome. For a fuller statement of the purpose and the scope of tbis work, tbe reader is re ferred to Chapter XLIII, under the title, "An Inter lude the Reader May Skip," beginning on page 257, where these are somewhat fully set forth. To assist the reader to understand the history of Iowa, which extends over nearly two centuries and a half, or from 1673 to the present time, the author has divided the time into nine periods, each one of whicb is marked by some distinct achievement. He has also subdivided the periods into many chapters, eighty-five in all, and none of them long. Each chapter is so dis tinct and specific that the table of contents will serve almost as an index to tbe work. All detailed writing has been avoided, for the author has not been able to make himself believe that men and women nowadays have either tbe time or the inclina tion for details. Those who want to study any period or any question at greater length — as it is hoped there may be many — will find ample material in other books, and tbe footnotes in this volume will, in a measure, direct them to those sources. The general reader has not been burdened with facts and discussions that would be suitable to tbe specific reader. In short, what is printed in this volume is what, in tbe opinion of the BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION ix author, every man and woman of Iowa ought to know about bis own state. The author is conscious of many defects, of deficien cies and omissions even. Others may discover errors that escaped him. In making books nothing is ever perfect. The historical judgments expressed are his own, and they are not infallible. He bas tried to give to each man bis proper place in the history of the state, and to favor none above his deserts. The twenty-eight portraits were selected in tbe same manner and tbey are of tbe men and women wbo, in the judgment of the author, best represent their times. If there bas been any partiality it has been akin to that which Titus Livius ascribed to himself in his Preface to The His tory of Rome, wherein be says, "But either a fond par tiality for the task I have undertaken deceives me, or there never was any state either greater or more moral, or richer in good examples, nor one into which luxury and avarice made their entrance so late, and where poverty and frugality were so much and so long hon ored ; so that tbe less wealth there was, the less desire was there." The writing of this volume has occupied the spare time, and often more than spare time, of the author for many years. In preparing himself for tbe work, he believes he read nearly everything that has been written about Iowa. It bas been a labor of love, but not without a sense of duty. Iowa has been good to him, and Iowa was good to his parents and grand parents before him. Every Iowan owes his state some service and tbis work is part of tbe author 's service. Tbe author is under many obligations to many per sons for aid and encouragement. Some of these de serve to be mentioned especially. First of all, he wants to name Lutber A. Brewer, with whom he has been long x A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF IOWA associated in newspaper work. Mr. Brewer has been many things in tbe preparation of tbis volume — copy- editor, proof-reader, indexer and publisher. He knows how thankful tbe author is to bim, and others would not understand it if it were expressed in many words. A. N. Harbert, a diligent and intelligent collector of Iowana, bas stood by as a fidus Achates. Many of the illustrations are reproductions from bis private collec tion. Tbe author is also indebted to Newton R. Parvin of the Masonic Library of Iowa ; to Joanna Hagey and Frances E. Wolfe of tbe Cedar Rapids Public Library; to Dr. Benj. F. Sbambaugh of the State Historical So ciety at Iowa City, and to Edgar B-. Harlan and to Wil liam H. Fleming, secretary to many governors, of tbe State Historical Department at Des Moines. And last, to Jacob Van der Zee, associate professor in political science at tbe State University, for a final reading of the proof sheets. Mr. Van der Zee, burdened as be has been with his own work, bas not been able to do enough to be held responsible for the results, but he has done enough to entitle him to more than a mere acknowl edgement — be is a man from whom Iowa still has much to expect as a writer and historian. But beyond and above all, both as a source of infor mation and as an inspiration, the author is indebted to his own mother, who was one of tbe pioneer women of Iowa — and to ber he bas paid a filial tribute in tbe last chapter of this volume, under the title of "A Postscript Personal." CONTENTS PAET I — DISCOVERY AND POSSESSION I "In the Beginning" .... 1 II The Feench Look "Westward ... 5 III The Discovery of Iowa .... 12 IV Iowa Under France 19 V As Part op a Spanish Province . . 24 VI In the Iowa Country from 1673 to 1804 28 VII The Louisiana Purchase .... 38 VIII Louisiana as an Ugly Duckling . . 42 PART II — THE INDIANS (1804-1833) IX The Indians in Iowa .... 49 * X The Iowa Indians 52 « XI The Sacs and Poxes, and a Treaty . . 58 XII The Building of Fort Madison . 62 XIII Fort- Madison and the "War of 1812 . . 69 XIV The Readjustment of Indian Affairs . 75 XV The Sacs are Removed to Iowa . . 81 XVI The War Dance on the Iowa ... 86 XVH The Black Hawk War .... 95 XVHI The Black Hawk Purchase ... 101 XIX Black Hawk and Keokuk . . . 107 XX The Indians in Passing .... 114 PART III — SETTLEMENTS AND TERRITORIAL GOV ERNMENTS (1833-1846) XXI The Prairies Primeval .... 123 XXII The First American Settlements . . 126 XXIII A Government "Without Laws . . 133 XXIV Under Many Governments . . . 136 XXV The First Territorial Government . 144 XXVI Iowa City and Land Titles . . . 149 XXVII The Boundary, and Banditti Wars . . 154 XXVIII Territorial Politics .... 162 XI xii A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF IOWA XXIX XXX XXXI XXXII XXXIII PART IV — 1857) XXXIV XXXV XXXVI XXXVII XXXVIII XXXIX XL XLI XLII XLIII PART V — 1859) XLIV XLV XLVI XLVII XLVIII XLIX L LI LII LIII PART VI — LIV LV LVI LVII LV1II About Many and Various Things The Indians in Territorial Days During the Mexican War . Moral and Spiritual Influences Iowa in Her First Literary Garb 167173178181189 THE FIRST STATE CONSTITUTION (1846- Making a Constitution and a State 197 The State Government and Politics 205 Many High Aims and Defeated Hopes 210 The Last of the Indians in Iowa . 218 The Trail of the Mormons . . 223 Historic Colonists from Europe . 228 Geography and Population . . 236 LrviNG and Working in Pioneer Times 242 Social and Educational Conditions . 250 An Interlude the Reader May Skip 257 THE REMAKING OF THE STATE (1854- Iowa Becomes a National Factor A Political Revolution in Iowa How the State- was Remade The Building of the Railroads . A New Element and a New Frontier The Spirit Lake Massacre . Crimes and Counter Crimes The Course of Politics John Brown in Iowa . Just Before the War . 263268273 279285294302 309 314320 THE CIVIL WAR AND AFTER (1860-1867) The Call to Arms .... 331 The First Glory of the War The Reaction and the Recoil The Realities of War In 1863 — A Year of Victories LIX The Last Year of the War 336 342 348357 365 CONTENTS xm LX By Way of Summing Up LXI After the War LXII Iowa 's Part in the Nation 's Turmoil PART VII - LXIII LXIV LXV LXVI LXVII LXVIII LXIX LXX PART VIII- (1884-1896) LXXI LXXII LXXIII LXXIV LXXV LXXVI LXXVII LXXVIII PART IX — ' LXXIX LXXX LXXXI LXXXII LXXXIII LXXXIV THE YEARS BETWEEN (1865-1885) A Prelude to Things Modern . The Course of Politics Railroads and the Wild West in Iowa Population After the War The Causes and Growth of Discon tent Issues Settled and Postponed . Changing Conditions . Ldje in the Years Between 372377381 389392 399 407412418424 436 -SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC REFORMS A New Preface for a New Era . . 447 In the Year 1884 .... 455 The State Under Governor Larrabee 463 Iowa in National Politics . . . 469 A Great Reaction .... 474 New Issues and New Defeats . . 480 Dark Days and Then Daylight . . 486 Education and Literary Progress . 493 'UNTO THIS LAST" (1897-1920) Iowa at High Political Tide . . 505 An Era of Good Will and Progress . 511 Slates Smashed and Scores Settled 514 The Shifting Scenes .... 521 The Whirligig of Politics . . . 528 Part of the World War . . . 536 543 LXXXV A Postscript Personal xiv A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF IOWA PORTRAITS Plate I Black Hawk, Keokuk, Mahas ka, and Rantchewaime . . facing 112 Plate II Robert Lucas, Theodore S. Par- vin, Albert M. Lea, and George Davenport . . . facing 144 Plate III George W. Jones, Augustus C. Dodge, James W. Grimes, and James Harlan .... facing 272 Plate IV Samuel J. Kirkwood, Mrs. An nie Wittenmeyer, Grenville M. Dodge, and John M. Corse facing 368 Plate V Samuel F. Miller, John A. Kas- son, James S. Clarkson, and David B. Henderson . . facing 416 Plate VI William Larrabee, William B. Allison, Horace Boies, and James Wilson .... facing 464 Plate VII Jonathan P. Dolliver, Albert B. Cummins, Leslie M. Shaw, and Robert G. Cousins . . facing 528 MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS Marquette 's Map of the Mississippi . . 16 Showing First Counties Along the .Missis sippi facing 128 Illustrating Boundary Dispute . . . 156 Boundaries Defined by First Constitution 202 Boundaries Proposed by Congress . . . 203 Showing Accession of Territory from In dians facing 218 Ruins of Log Cabin of Perry M. Harbert . 423 The Early Capitols facing 456 PARTI Discovery and Possession (1673-1804) CHAPTER I "In the Beginning" To find a beginning for a history of Iowa one must go to old Quebec, the capital of New France. It was there the plans were made, in the seventeenth century, for the discovery and the exploration of the Mississippi Valley. The first white men came to what is now Iowa in boats, using the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes, and the Fox, the Wisconsin, and the Missis sippi rivers as their highways. They came as explorers and as adventurers, as men seeking fame and fortune, as mission aries of the church, and as trappers and traders. They were all Frenchmen, or French-Canadians. Their speech was easily blended with the dialects of the Indians, but it did not remain to become the language of those who came later to till the lands and build cities. The men who came by way of Quebec were merely the pathfinders. But for the student of history who seeks causes and motives, even Quebec is not an acceptable starting point. It was only a stopping place on a great historical highway, a new and a temporary center where certain human energies were re-formed and reorganized for new achievements. He who studies history must go still farther back. He must sojourn in London, in Paris, in Madrid, and in The Hague, capitals in which the old world's unrest and the new world's aspirations found expression in the centuries out of which America was born. There are no events that are detached from other events. Everything that happens in this world is part of a stupendous whole. It is at once bound to something that preceded it and related to something that is to follow it. This constitutes the chain of inevitable world destiny. If human history were made up of accidental and inconsequential happenings it 1 2 A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF IOWA would hardly be worthy of study and its recording would be a futile and fruitless task. We may find, nay, we shall find, that our fragment of American history is part and parcel of a great moral and intellectual upheaval in Europe. In the sixteenth and seven teenth centuries there was a renaissance, a re-birth in the old world. Out of it the boundary lines of nations were recast, and for the minds of men there were new flights of freedom. Efforts to make certain beliefs final and certain intellectual conceptions static had failed. The unceasing purposes of progress and development could not be thwarted. And so there came into being a new Europe to undertake the sub jection and civilization of the new world which had been discovered. In the meantime, for more than a century the new land which Columbus had revealed remained unexplored and unused. It is true that the Spaniards, in the wake of the discovery credited to them, put forth some efforts in America, but they were without adequate or permanent results. They laid the foundations of St. Augustine in Florida, a city that was born only to languish ; they despoiled the native civilizations of Mexico and of Peru ; Ponce de Leon in his old age sought for the fabled fountains of youth ; and De Soto along a trail of desolation sought for a golden empire to find only a grave in the Mississippi River which he re-dis covered and to which, as if in mockery, the Spaniards had given the name of the River of the Holy Ghost.1 Spain had played a glorious part indeed. By her strength she had stopped the Moslem tide westward bound, thereby saving Europe for Christianity. And as her supreme gift to mankind she had added a new world to the old. But when all this had been accomplished, a blight fell upon her. It may have been in the blood of the Hapsburgs which was mingled with the blood of Isabella, the sainted. Her explorers despoiled the new world which had been discovered, and in the old world her rulers sought to fasten on subject races the new forged i Rio del Espiritu Santo. Alvarez de Pifieda reaehed it in 1519 ; De Soto, marching overland from Florida, in 1541. It is said the river was known to the Spaniards as early as 1513. "IN THE BEGINNING" 3 shackles of the most cruel Inquisition ever devised from the malice of men. To America the Spaniards brought the torch and the sword. They killed and they plundered. Unfitted for the sublime work of leadership in the land which Columbus had discovered, Spain herself had to be broken as a world power before other nations could perform that service for mankind. It is the imperishable glory of a small country, of Holland, built half in the sea and half on the land, that she challenged the supremacy of the Spain which sought to fasten the Inquisi tion on a people who boasted that they had never worn a yoke. By the middle of the sixteenth century the two nations, so unequal in all respects, and so unlike also, were engaged in the great war in which it was to be determined whether Europe should become modern or remain medieval. Two generations, and almost a third, fought in, that war. But the outcome was as definite as it was inevitable. Human progress may be delayed but it cannot be stopped; right may tremble before might, but might must in the end bow before right. By the outcome of that war the nations of north western Europe were set free, and then those freed nations prepared themselves to enter America. Under these new moral stimulations and with these new intellectual conceptions, England, Holland, and France almost simultaneously sent their exploring and colonizing ships across the Atlantic. In the first decade of the seventeenth century they founded settlements along the coast from the James River to the St. Lawrence. In the great world race, Holland soon fell by the wayside by reason of her own physical restrictions, and France was eventually hampered under the sway of an absolutely monarchy by which the as pirations of her colonists were suppressed and crushed. Her subjects in the new world had no freedom left for their own development. And so it became England's destiny to shape the course of empire in North America, until she too through a bigoted ruler more than a century later sought to restrict and to restrain the liberties that belonged to the old races in a new world. 4 A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF IOWA America became the first heir of this renaissance in Europe. The time was propitious for the birth of new nations. The seventeenth century began well and became another golden age in the world. In Holland, Grotius formulated interna tional law from which ultimately will come international peace; the poet Vondel preceded Milton; and Rembrandt created a new art in which he depicted the common people who were to be glorified in the new world. In France, Descartes founded almost a new science of the mind, and Moliere, Corneille, and Racine followed with a literature for whose like we must go back to classic Greece. But most of all, the new thought blossomed in England where Bacon entered new avenues of thought and where Shakespeare summed up all human knowledge and adorned it with beauty everlasting in works that are still almost beyond man's comprehension. Shakespeare closed his career with The Tempest, in which one may find a forecast of the new world. In this play "the poet's eye in fine frenzy rolling" caught a glimpse of all the marvelous things to be. Caliban, a creature of the primeval darkness, learned a new language and a new service, and Ariel, a creature of spiritual skies, was set free to fill the world with music and with beauty. The drunken ship wrecked sailors talked of laying ten doits "to see a dead Indian," while the nobles in the scene dreamed of a land where the grass grew "lush and lusty;" in which they saw "every thing advantageous to life," and where, they were told, the clouds "would open and show riches ready "to drop" upon them. And the "admired Miranda! Indeed, the top of admiration!" on her father Prospero's " still-vex 'd Ber- moothes,"2 exclaimed, "0 brave new world, that has such people in't!" Does it not read like a dream of the new world, and is it not the prelude to America? 2 The Bermudas. CHAPTER II The French Look Westward While Shakespeare was still writing, the English founded Jamestown in 1607; the French, Quebec in 1608; and the Dutch made a beginning on the island of Manhattan in 1609. If there is added to these the founding of Plymouth in 1620, we have the genesis of the American nation, including Canada. The settlements were made by small groups of men, but the stamp of each remains on them even to this day. Within a period of two years the foundations of America were laid and the strife begun for the mastery of the opportuni ties which the sailor of Genoa had revealed to the world more than a century before. It was then far away to what is now Iowa, which is the theme of this history, but the discovery of this distant land was very directly connected with those primary settlements on the Atlantic seaboard. The French had been on the Hud son long before the Dutch settled on Manhattan Island. They had abandoned it, and in the final lottery they drew the St. Lawrence instead of the Hudson. They were not satisfied with their allotment. Quebec commanded one of the great rivers of the continent, but its climate was one of long winters and of an ice-bound river. And so the founder of the colony, Samuel de Champlain, cast longing eyes southward and dreamed of sunny skies and warm waters like those of his homeland. In the pursuit of his quest he reached the beau tiful lake which still bears his name, but which was then known as the Lake of the Iroquois. He was within reach of the Hudson in the very year that the Dutch anchored the Half Moon in its waters. But his quest was ill-omened. Chance, fate, destiny, Providence, what was it 1 On the lake, in the vicinity of the modern Ticonderoga, he came in con- 5 6 A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF IOWA tact with some Mohawk Indians. He did not know how to make peace with them and so he made war on them. The little skirmish that followed has been called one of the decisive battles of America.1 It was fought by a few men, white and red, on the thirteenth of July, 1609. The French combatants in their boats, lying far enough off shore to protect themselves against the primitive weapons of the savages, used muskets to win a victory that was their greatest defeat in America. They vanquished their adversaries of the forests on that summer day, but for a century the vanquished pursued the victors, confining them to the country of the St. Lawrence. It was the day of doom for the southward extension of their empire. But for the battle on the lake, they might have reigned on the Hudson and changed the course of American history ! Stopped on the south by hostile Indians, the French moved in the only direction that was left them, that is, up the St. Lawrence and around the Great Lakes. Quebec became a missionary colony and the Jesuit priests marched westward with the trappers and the traders; with the adventurers of the woods and of the waters. None dared more and none suffered or achieved more than those who, bent on long and hazardous journeys, bore no weapons except a staff and wore no insignia except that of the cross. Around their names are woven many of the romances of the interior of the continent. They left their impress on vast regions ; not only on those of the St. Lawrence, but on those of the Mississippi and all its tributaries, and northward on lands whose rivers flow to Arctic seas.2 The transcripts of the transactions of these missionaries were published annually in Paris under the title of the Jesuit Relations. These printed reports, together with the original materials on which they were based, are great storehouses of history, of romance, and of adventure. It is to those sources that every historian must go for his inf orma- i " It made the Iroquois the allies first of the Duteh and afterward of the English; and this is one of the great central and cardinal faets in the history of the New World." — John Fiske in The Dutch and Qxialcer Colonies of America, Vol. I, Chapter IV. 2 ' ' Not a cape was doubled nor a stream discovered that a Jesuit did not show the way." — Bancroft. THE FRENCH LOOK WESTWARD 7 tion and inspiration when he would write the history of the Mississippi Valley. Champlain died in 1635. He had been no farther west than Lake Huron. But he knew there was a farther west and he must have longed to explore it. What he could not perform himself, he sent others to accomplish. In 1634 Jean Nicollet passed through Lake Michigan, traversed Green Bay and en tered the Fox River, coming within a few days' journey of a great river to the west of which the Indians had told the French. Nicollet, and others also, thought that the water to the west was the Chinese Sea. When he went on his journey he not only believed in that myth, but he literally clothed him self in his belief. He went expecting and prepared to meet the Chinese. He is described by one of his contemporaries, who says that "he wore a grand robe of Chinese damask, all strewn with flowers and birds of many colors. ' ' 3 And so ar rayed, he wandered through the wilderness of lakes and rivers and forests. According to the same account, Nicollet was well received among the Indians. Their chiefs entertained him lavishly, serving at one feast one hundred and twenty beavers. But he did not go far enough to find the Chinese Sea. The great quest did not die with Champlain, nor did ex plorations end with Nicollet. In due time there came to New France a dreamer who was also an organizer. This was Jean Talon, who became intendant of the province. He realized perhaps more fully than others that the nations of Europe were contesting for the mastery of the American continent. He knew what the English and Dutch were doing on the At lantic seaboard and what the Spanish were doing in the south. For France he coveted the interior of the continent and he thought out ways to achieve it. He went to Paris and laid his plans before the rulers, where they were well received, and he was assured that the government deemed "nothing more important for the colony than a passage to the South Sea." To find that way became the great desire of his life.4 New light had been thrown on the unexplored country. s Thwaites's The Jesuit Relations, Vol. XXIII, p. 279. * Ibid., Vol. LI, p. 53. 8 A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF IOWA The Jesuits had a mission at La Pointe, at the tip of Lake Superior. To it Indians came from afar to trade. In the Jesuit Relation of 1666-1667 there appeared the statement that Father Claude Allouez had talked with red men who lived "toward the great river named Messepi," which is said to be the earliest printed form of the modern Mississippi. Some historians believe that Allouez himself may have looked upon the river in some of his journeyings.5 When Talon returned from France he at once proceeded with his plans to discover the mythical river and to find the South Sea passage which was so important. In 1670 he sent Daumont de Saint-Lusson to take possession of the undis covered country. With Lusson went Nicholas Perrot, a noted coureur de bois and Indian interpreter, and also Louis Joliet,6 an explorer and hydrographic engineer. On the fourteenth of June, 1671, at the Sault Ste. Marie, holding a piece of sod in one hand and his drawn sword in the other, he took posses sion of the country "in the name of the most high, mighty and redoubted Monarch, Louis XIV." It was a French proclamation that included "all countries, rivers, lakes, and streams contiguous and adjacent . . . both those which have been discovered and those which may be discovered here after, in all their length and breadth, bounded on the one side by the Sea of the North and of the West, and on the other by the South Sea ; ' ' and ' ' all other potentates, princes, sover eigns and republics" were warned against trespassing on the lands on the peril of his majesty's "resentment and efforts of his arms." By that proclamation what is now Iowa became French ter ritory, June fourteenth, 1671. To this process, Talon desired to add the rights of discovery and occupation. For this he found two men. One was Rene Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, known in American history as La Salle, and the other was Louis Joliet. Both had studied for the Jesuit priesthood but had been lured from those studies by the lust of trade and s Shea 's Discovery and Explorations of the Mississippi Valley, pp. xviii, xxv. e The French spelling of this name was Jolliet ; Father Marquette in his Journal rendered it Jollyet. THE FRENCH LOOK WESTWARD 9 exploration. La Salle was of a distinguished family, born in Rouen, France, 1643, while Joliet was the son of a humble wagon-maker in Quebec. He was born in 1645. La Salle was ambitious and became a man of many enterprises, while Joliet, more deficient in imagination, lacked the dramatic touch that brings with it the repute of glory. La Salle drew the lesser assignment, to begin with. He was sent southward and ex plored the Ohio and the Illinois, events which do not con cern this history. To Joliet fell the discovery and exploration of the river of which Father Allouez and others had heard. In New France, the church marched with the state, if it did not lead it. And so Father Dablon, who was the head of the Jesuit Missions, designated Pere Jacques Marquette, one of the younger but most enterprising missionaries, to accompany Joliet, and to look after the spiritual welfare of the new tribes that might be encountered. Marquette was a man well fitted for the work. He was born in Laon, France, in 1637. As a young man he had read the Jesuit Relations, and they had fired his heart with the zeal of the missionary. In 1666 he was sent to America, where he speedily inured himself to the hardships of pioneer life and acquainted himself with many of the Indian dialects. One of the first things he must have heard was the mention of the "Great River" of the west, for it was in the Relation of 1666-1667 that the name "Messepi" appeared for the first time. The name was made up of two Indian words, mesi or missi, signifying great, and sepe or sepo, meaning river. But the great river of the west remained still only a name, for in the Relation of 1669-1670, Father Dablon wrote that "To the south flows the great river, which they call the Missisipi, which can have its mouth only in the Florida Sea, more than 400 leagues from here. ' ' The mystery of the river was still unsolved. It is possible, however, that two French wood rangers had already reached the river as early as 1659, and some think, 1655. There is a brief reference to them in the Relation of 1660. It is now accepted that this reference was to Pierre d 'Esprit Radisson and his less enterprising brother-in-law, Medard Chouart des Groseilliers. These men seem to have been regarded as outlaws, because they conformed neither to 10 A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF IOWA the civil nor to the ecclesiastical authorities at Quebec. The treatment they received may have driven them to Boston, where they revealed secrets of their explorations that led the British to Hudson Bay, making that region British instead of French. While under this influence, Radisson seems to have written an account of some of their travels, in very poor English, in fact in a mixture of many languages, including Indian dialects. This now constitutes his Journal. The manuscript found its way to England where it was buried in the archives of the Hudson Bay Company where it was found almost two centuries later in some waste papers. The publication of this belated Journal 7 led to bitter dis cussions which divided the mid-western historical world into two factions, the one rejecting and the other accepting the discoveries of Radisson. The most essential part of the Radisson account is to this effect: "We were four months on our voyage without doing anything but goe from river to river . . . We met several sorts of people ... By persuasion of some of them we went into ye great river that divides itself into 2 . . . the forked river ... so called because it has 2 branches, the one towards the west, the other towards the south, which we believe runs toward Mexico, by the tokens they gave us."8 This forked river with two branches has been accepted as the Mississippi and the Mis souri. Radisson also speaks of the Illinois Indians and of the Sioux and of the "Maingonas," 9 probably the same Indians which Father Marquette was soon to designate as the "Moin- gouena." But whatever conclusions we may come to now about the discoveries of these rangers, neither Joliet nor Mar quette in 1673 had any knowledge of them. Before 1673 Marquette himself had heard much of the un explored river. In 1669 he was at La Pointe, where he had succeeded Father Allouez. While there he met many Indians of the Illinois tribe, who came there to trade. They told him that they lived on a great river which was thirty days' jour- i The Journal was first printed in 1885 by the Prince Society of Boston. 8 Prince Society's reprint of Badisson's Journal, pp. 151, 152. * Laenas Giff ord Weld in his On the Way to Iowa accepts this as the first record of the word from which the name Des Moines was derived. THE FRENCH LOOK WESTWARD 11 ney to the southwest. Filled with the desire to go and preach to them, he acquainted himself with their dialect. In writing about this information, Marquette said "it is hard to believe that the great river discharges its waters in Virginia, and we think rather that it has its mouth in California. ' ' He hoped some day to have "full knowledge either of the South Sea or of the Western Sea." Geographic conceptions were hazy in those days. When Marquette had been apprised by Joliet of their as signed journey, the two men spent the winter at St. Ignace, making preparations for their undertaking. From such knowledge as they had they made crude maps of the region to be traversed. They built two boats of birch bark, with splints of cedar and ribs of spruce, strong enough to resist the currents and yet light enough to be carried over the portages. For food they provided themselves with smoked meats and corn. Five hardy and trustworthy voyageurs were selected to assist them. For them the winter was an anxious season of waiting ; one of solemn anticipations. The spirit of a great adventure was upon them. Father Marquette wrote of the "happy neces sity" of exposing his life for the discovery of new lands and the salvation of strange peoples still living in darkness. In his daily prayers he placed their expedition under the protec tion of the Virgin Mary, and to her he dedicated whatever they might achieve. CHAPTER III The Discovery of Iowa On the seventeenth of May, 1673, Joliet and Marquette left the Mission of St. Ignace and set out on their immortal jour ney of discovery, "firmly resolved," says the record, "to do all for so glorious an enterprise." They followed the northern shore of Lake Michigan, and passing through Green Bay soon entered the Fox River which they ascended until they came to a narrow neck of land that separates it from the head waters of the Wisconsin. They had passed the limits of known explorations by white men. The Indians whom they met tried to dissuade them from going farther. They told them of ferocious tribes who murdered all strangers who came among them, and that without either cause or provocation ; of frightful monsters in the river which devoured both men and their canoes; of demons whose roaring could be heard afar; and of heat on treeless plains so intense that all perished in it. But undismayed, having carried their boats and stores across the portage, on the tenth of June they started down the Wis consin River, leaving "the waters which flow to Quebec ..." to follow those which would lead them "into strange lands." On the seventeenth of June they reached the mouth of the Wisconsin River, and then, looking across what was the ' ' Great Water, ' ' they discovered Iowa. It was with a joy, says Father Marquette, which he could not express. He bestowed on the river the name "de la Conception," in honor of the Virgin Mary, and in conformity with his oft-repeated vows. As they floated out upon the river they looked and listened, but there was no human sight or sound ; no evidence that any man had ever frequented the place. It was a great and primeval soli tude of silence. The place of discovery has been called "one 12 THE DISCOVERY OF IOWA 13 of the noblest scenes in America. ' ' x Rugged cliffs, deep fis sured, with trailing vines and towering trees rose like moun tains above them as they neared the western shore. The deep waters were beneath them, the blue sky was over them, and the loveliness of June was all around them ! The wonder and the awe that must have been depicted on their faces are themes for painters and poets! They soon turned their boats down stream, for it was their assigned task to determine the course and the outlet of the river which they had rediscovered. The first written descrip tion of any part of what is now Iowa was recorded by Mar quette in his Journal? It was to the effect that ' ' on the right is a considerable chain of very high mountains." They were not mountains, nor the foot-hills of mountains, but merely the bluffs where the prairies descend abruptly to meet the channel of the river. Fortunately the name which was bestowed on the river hardly survived Marquette's own journey on its waters, and the one which the Indians had given to it, the Messipi — the Mississippi — the Great Water, clung to it, a name as fluent and as majestic as its own course and current through the heart of a continent. They had not gone far when the scenery changed. ' ' There is now almost no wood or mountain," Marquette wrote, "and the islands are more beautiful and covered with finer trees. ' ' But still they saw no human beings on either shore. They saw "nothing but deer and moose, bustards and wingless swans." The latter, says the account, "shed their plumes in this country." In the water they encountered cat-fish of i By Thwaites in his Father Marquette. 2 Both Joliet and Marquette made records of their journey. Joliet lost his papers on the return trip in a wreck in the La Chine rapids. This accident lost him much of the credit that was his due. The de tails of the expedition history owes to Marquette's Journal, or report which he made to Dablon, the supervisor of the Jesuit missionaries at Quebec. Dablon forwarded a copy of it to Paris where it was printed in Thevenot's Eeceuil des Voyages Curieux in 1681. The original MS. remained in Quebec until in 1842, when it was removed to St. Mary's College, Montreal. In 1853, Dr. John Gilmary Shea published it in his Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley, from which the quotations in this chapter are taken. 14 A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF IOWA such size that one, mistaken for "a large tree," threatened to "knock" them "to pieces." They saw also "a monster with the head of a tiger, a pointed snout like a wild cat's, a beard and ears erect, a grayish head and neck all black, ' ' which has been interpreted to mean a tiger-cat crouching on the water's edge. The explorers were looking for unusual things and often they gave unusual descriptions of what they beheld. Farther down the river they saw flocks of wild turkeys and herds of bison, or buffalo, which Marquette called pisikious, and which he described somewhat grotesquely. Day followed day as they floated down the river, but still they saw no human beings. None the less they were con stantly on their guard against surprises. When they made landings to cook their food they built but little fire, lest the smoke should attract the savages, and at night they slept in their boats far enough from shore for safety. And yet they must have longed for the sight of men, to learn from them something about the strange country through which they were passing. Father Marquette's account then continues: "At last, on the twenty-fifth of June, we perceived footprints of men by the water side, and a beaten path entering a beautiful prairie. We stopped to examine it, and concluding that it was a path leading to some Indian village, we resolved to go and recon noiter; . . ." Leaving the men to guard the boats . . . "then M. Jollyet and I undertook this rather hazardous dis covery for two single men who thus put themselves at the discretion of an unknown and barbarous people. We followed the little path in silence, and having advanced about two leagues, we discovered a village on the banks of the river, and two others on a hill, half a league from the former." The place of this landing is still in dispute. Clearly, it was above the mouth of a river flowing into the Mississippi not far below. Marquette's meager description of the country might fit any one of several streams. But he says it was in latitude "40 degrees and some minutes, partly by southeast and partly by southwest, after having advanced more than sixty leagues since entering the river, without discovering anything. ' ' We THE DISCOVERY OF IOWA 15 have here the latitude and the distance below the mouth of the Wisconsin, as reckoned by the explorers. Their observations of distances and directions were very accurate, as may be noted from the fact that the course of the river as laid down on Marquette's map corresponds closely with the actual course of the Mississippi as now known. From the map we know also that it was on the west or Iowa side of the river they made their landing. The name given to the group of three villages which they discovered is Peourea, and the name Moin- gouena appears on the map near the same river. The first of these names was transferred to Illinois as Peoria and the sec ond became identified with the Des Moines River. From this association it was generally assumed by the early writers that the villages of the Peourea were on the bank of the Des Moines. But when Francis Parkman and John Gilmary Shea, in the middle of the last century, began to write history more critically both were impelled to the belief that the river was one farther north. More recent and also more critical examinations of the maps and the descriptions have given added credence to the con jectures of Parkman and Shea.3 The sixty leagues of Mar quette correspond to about two hundred and seven miles, which is not the distance from the mouth of the Wisconsin to the mouth of the Des Moines, but which is almost the exact distance from the first river to the mouth of the Iowa, which by modern steamboat charts is two hundred and twelve miles from Prairie du Chien. By the reckoning in leagues the place was therefore at the mouth of the Iowa River. But the "40 degrees and some minutes" of Marquette correspond with the mouth of the Des Moines. His leagues and his latitudes are clearly at variance with each other. In which was he in error ? Did he miscount the leagues, or misread the latitudes ? It must have been the latter, for it is found that all except one of Marquette's latitudes are in error and the error is always the same, one degree. The exception is the Akensea, or Arkan- 3 The most lucid statement of this controversy may be found in The Iowa Journal of History and Politics, Vol. I, No. 1, p. 3, by Laenas Gifford Weld. 16 A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF IOWA sas River, which is correctly given as thirty-three degrees and forty minutes. The Wisconsin, the Illinois, the Missouri, and the Ohio on his map all enter the Mississippi one degree too far to the south. The error may have been due to a defect in the instrument which was used. Adding this one degree to Marquette's "forty degrees and some minutes," we have the latitude of the mouth of the Iowa River, by degrees of lati tude. But if the historic meeting with the Illinois Indians took place on the Iowa instead of the Des Moines, it was at least on what is now Iowa soil. Without being seen, the two explorers entered the first of the villages until they were so near one of the cabins that they "even heard the Indians talk ing." They then an nounced their presence by calling to them in a loud voice. "At this cry the Indians rushed out of their cabins." Their attitude was that of friendliness. After conferring, they deputed four of their old est men to meet the white visitors. Of these four, "two carried tobacco-pipes well adorned and trimmed with various kinds of feathers." They ap proached slowly, frequent ly "lifting their pipes to ward the sun, as if offering them to him to smoke, but without uttering a single word. ' ' When they reached their unbidden guests, the Indians stopped to consider them attentively. Marquette spoke to Marquette's Map. — Dotted line shows correct course of Mississippi. THE DISCOVERY OF IOWA 17 them first, asking them who they were. ' ' They answered that they were Ilinois and, in token of peace, they presented their pipes to smoke." Happily Marquette at LaPointe had ac quainted himself with the dialect of these Indians. The two explorers were then conducted to the village where all awaited them impatiently. They were taken to the cabin of an old man who received them standing ' ' perfectly naked, with his hands stretched out and raised toward the sun." This patriarch said to them: "How beautiful is the sun, 0 Frenchman, when thou comest to visit us! All our village awaits thee, and thou shalt enter all our cabins in peace ! ' ' They were then conducted to the cabin of the great sachem, who lived in one of the other villages. He summoned a coun cil before which Father Marquette presented their joint mis sion, as emissaries from the government of New France and from God. In reply the chief said : " I thank thee, Blackgown, and thee, Frenchman . . . for taking so much pains to come and visit us ; never has the earth been so beautiful, nor the sun so bright, as today ; never has our river been so calm, nor so free from rocks, which your canoes have removed as they passed; never has our tobacco had so fine a flavor, nor our corn appeared so beautiful as we behold it today. Here is my son, that I give thee, that thou mayest know my heart. I pray thee to take pity on me and all my nation. Thou know- est the Great Spirit who has made us all ; thou speakest to him and hearest his word : ask him to give me life and health, and come and dwell with us, that we may know him. ' ' 4 These are indeed words of surpassing beauty — but we dare not doubt that Father Marquette was a faithful reporter of them. No fairer or nobler words have ever been spoken since in Iowa, and civilization and Christianity have been able to add nothing to that Indian's conception of God and man's relation to Him. A feast was soon spread for the visitors, which was served in four courses, the first of which was of corn boiled in water and flavored with grease, the second of fish, the third of dog 's meat, which was removed when the guests indicated they could * Longfellow 's paraphrase of this speech is one of the most beautiful passages in his Hiawatha. See Canto XXII of poem. 18 A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF IOWA not partake of it, and the last, of the fattest portions of buf falo meat. They exchanged presents, one of the gifts from the Indians being a calumet, or peace pipe, with which the travelers later won the favor of hostile tribes. They made a round of visits in the villages and when the white men de parted they were accompanied to their canoes by nearly six hundred natives who showed ' ' every possible manifestation of joy." Neither Joliet nor Marquette ever again returned to the Iowa country. They went down the river as far as the outlet of the Arkansas where they were able to satisfy themselves that it emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. On their return they passed up the Illinois River and down the Chicago to Lake Michigan. Father Marquette, true to his vows, returned to the Illinois Indians to preach to them and, exhausted by his labors and the many hardships he had borne in wild lands, he died on the site of the present city of Ludington, Michigan, May eighteenth, 1675. Later the Indians took his remains, followed by a retinue of canoes, back to the Mission at St. Ignace. Joliet lived many more years and made many more explorations, some of them in the Hudson Bay country. He was rewarded with offices and with the island of Anticosti. He died, according to the meager accounts, "some years prior to 1737, ' ' 5 being old in years. 5 Shea's Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley, 1858, p. lxxx. According to other authorities, Joliet died much earlier. CHAPTER IV Iowa Under France La Salle, who had been on the Ohio and on the Illinois, was one of the first to grasp the meaning of the identification of the Mississippi River with the Gulf of Mexico. He saw on it the empire in America of which other Frenchmen had dreamed. He was in many ways, if not in all ways, the great est man in French-American explorations. He had a vast and a speculative mind. He was bold in his conceptions and dar ing in his executions. He was ambitious and he was greedy. He thought of France, but also of himself; of riches and an illustrious name. But as an administrator he was a man of many defects. He was proud and taciturn. He was unable to trust others, and he was not trusted by them. He aroused hatreds that he could not subdue and he created antagonisms that he could not surmount. He became a magnificent failure in the midst of magnificent victories.1 Jean Talon, who had grasped from afar the whole scheme of the Mississippi Valley, was not permitted to remain in New France long enough to see the realization of his plans. He left his work to Frontenac, who became the greatest of the French governors in America. Frontenac was dazzled by the discoveries of Joliet and Marquette and of La Salle. For a time Frontenac and La Salle cooperated in great undertak ings. Both were opposed by the Jesuits, who saw their power declining in the presence of two such dominating minds. The traders of Canada constituted the third side of the compli cated triangle of ambitions and authority. They feared that the opening of the Mississippi would divert the trade of which they had enjoyed a monopoly. In one thing the three con flicting forces were united, namely, resistance to the English -For the life and achievements of La Salle see Francis Parkman 'a La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West. 19 20 A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF IOWA and the Dutch on the Atlantic seaboard. They must be kept out of the west. To further this end, Frontenac, aided by La Salle, concluded a spectacular peace with the Iroquois In dians who had so long been the enemies of the French. They were to constitute a red barrier to those who might come through the mountains into the Mississippi Valley. La Salle then went to Paris with fulsome letters from Frontenac. There he was well received. His achievements were acclaimed and his plans were approved. Louis XIV bestowed upon him almost unlimited powers. He could build forts and he could make wars. But colonists for the new em pire had to be approved by imperial authority. When La Salle returned to America, he sent Father Hennepin up the Mississippi while he himself proceeded toward the gulf, which he reached on April ninth, 1682. They sang Te Deums and cried "long live the king," as he called the region Louisiana, and in the name of Louis the Grand took possession of "the seas, harbors, ports, bays, adjacent straits, and all nations, peoples, provinces, cities, towns, villages, mines, minerals, fisheries, streams and rivers within the extent of the said Louisiana," and it extended in the parlance of that day to "the farthest springs of the Missouri." Eleven years before, Lusson had made the Iowa country part of New France, and now La Salle re-made it part of Louisiana. But it remained French. Once more La Salle returned to France to procure men and materials for his empire. To the financiers he talked of buf falo hides and beaver skins; of wool and gold and precious stones. All the wealth of a continent would be poured into the lap of France ! Dazed and dazzled by anticipated riches they placed men, money, and materials at the disposal of the prospective empire builder. With four laden ships La Salle returned to America. Women were included in the cargoes. They were to become the pioneer mothers of the French in Louisiana. The ships sailed for the mouth of the Mississippi. They were well armed to resist the Spaniards who might be found in those waters. But they were not worsted by Span iards, but by stormy seas and by crews that mutinied and by IOWA UNDER FRANCE 21 captains who deserted. They failed to find the mouth of the Mississippi. They sailed far past it and made a landing "somewhere between Matagorda Island and the Bay of Corpus Christi, ' ' on the coast of Texas. They sought in vain for the mouth of the river they had passed ; they were four hundred miles away from it. One of the four ships was wrecked in the surf and one of the captains, Beaujeau, sailed his ship back to France, taking the cannon and munitions with him. The others landed and built what they called a fort, to pro tect especially the women while La Salle and a company of men started overland to find the Mississippi. They sought in vain. Those in the fort perished and La Salle himself was murdered by one of his own men, probably on the nineteenth of March, 1687, and somewhere on the southern branch of the Trinity River. Even burial was denied him. His body was left to be devoured by wolves and vultures. Such is the glory of man. He who would have founded an empire was not able to find a grave in the land of his dreams. Of La Salle's overland companions many perished in the wilderness, but a few found their way back to the Mississippi and ultimately to the St. Lawrence, after toilsome journeys by water and by land, often bereft of food and always beset by Indians. No one has written their Odyssey or their Ana basis for there was no Homer or Xenophon among them, nor could the Greek poets and historians have written them ade quately. It was not until 1718 that La Salle's city at the mouth of the Mississippi was founded, when Sieur de Bienville made a beginning at New Orleans. But then, at last, France stood guard at the mouths of the two great rivers of the continent, the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence, and bending around the Great Lakes stretched the empire of her dreams — but it was vacant and void. Near the center of this region was what is now Iowa — for we must not lose sight of the theme of this history. Then for a while nothing prospered or even went well in Louisiana, in New France, or in Old France. The last years of the grand monarch, Louis XIV, were as disastrous 22 A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF IOWA as his earlier years had been glorious. In 1697 he was com pelled to sign an ignominious peace at Ryswick, dictated by the allied nations under the leadership of little Holland. He died and Louis XV came to the throne. He aped the grandeur of his predecessor, but he wielded none of his power. It was said of him that he spent thirty-six millions of francs on a strumpet, but he could not find a franc for those who would have built a French empire in America. When he had im poverished the treasury of his country, he empowered John Law, an escaped murderer from Scotland, to issue unlimited quantities of paper money against the unknown and unreal ized resources of Louisiana. When the "Mississippi Bubble" burst, the wreckage filled France and Europe. If Louis XIV had said, "L'etat, c'est moi," Louis XV was at least able to say, "Apres moi, le deluge."2 France was headed for the Revolution. In America, Frontenac, with a short interim, was able to hold out until 1698, when he died. He had become an iras cible man who quarreled with everyone, fate not excepted. Quebec remained a village while New Orleans almost perished, and no lands were tilled or cities built between the two outlets. Only trappers, traders, and missionaries traversed the vast realms of New France and of Louisiana. The colonists were treated like the slaves of their government, the government that should have nursed and nurtured them. It was the law that none might enter or leave New France without the per mission of the government in Paris, a government so incom petent that it could not meet the needs of those who lived under its own shadows. Those whose religious views were not approved might not trap nor trade in the realm. "No farmer could visit Montreal or Quebec without permission." When the dispersed Huguenots wanted to settle on the Mis sissippi, they were forbidden to enter. The king declared that he had not driven heretics out of old France to let them build a republic in New France. But they were made welcome on the Atlantic seaboard, from South Carolina to Massachusetts, where they added their splendid alloy to the American race 2 "I am the State," "After me, the deluge." IOWA UNDER FRANCE 23 that was then forming. Instead of Huguenots who were mas ters of all arts and trades, New Orleans received a cargo of distressed women from the streets of Paris who became the wives of distressed men. To each woman the king presented a chest of clothes and trinkets. Gayeties followed in New Orleans, but there was no industry up and down the Mis sissippi. Those whom we now call Americans soon began to find their way westward through the Allegheny Mountains. They were hardy and daring men; men of courage and of convictions; free men and splendid men ; men fit to subdue the wilderness and to found new states. The farther west they came the more they ceased to be Europeans and the more they became Americans. By 1754 there were more than a million of such men in the Atlantic colonies, while the French from Quebec to New Orleans and back again did not number more than a hundred thousand. When they clashed, as soon they did, there was no question of the outcome. The French claimed all the valley country to the Alleghenies, but the English-Americans insisted that their provinces extended westward to the Mississippi. Soon we catch a glimpse of George Washington as the bearer of a dispatch from the governor of Virginia to the French on the Ohio. The French answer was Fort Duquesne and the Eng lish reply was Fort Necessity. Israel Putnam moves upon the scene as a private soldier and John Stark as a lieutenant. The decisive action between the contending races took place in Canada, when the English general, Wolfe, defeated the French general, Montcalm, on the Heights of Quebec in 1759. It was only a skirmish, but like the skirmish on Lake Cham plain a century and a half before, it decided much. Canada and the St. Lawrence ceased to be French and became Eng lish. Louisiana was not affected, but fearing that the English might seize it also, Louis XV secretly transferred it to Spain, in 1762, three years after the surrender at Quebec. It was the deluge of loss and decay. France woke up with nothing left in America except a few fishing islands. And with Louis iana, the Iowa country passed under Spanish dominion. CHAPTER V As Part of a Spanish Province So unpopular was the transfer of Louisiana to Spain that the French governor was permitted to remain until 1768, when he was succeeded by the Spaniard, Antonio d'Ulloa, who, being a man of letters and of science, ruled temperately. It was while the French were still in control of the province that St. Louis was founded, in 1764. During the American Revolution the Spanish governors were friendly to the Amer icans, primarily because they wanted to be rid of their British neighbors, and they helped themselves to Florida, including a strip along the coast connecting the peninsula with Louisiana. The Spanish possessions then extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific and as far north as the headwaters of the Mis sissippi. But the region lying between the Allegheny Mountains and the Mississippi River was in dispute. In the treaty of peace at the close of the Revolutionary War, Great Britain ceded it to the United States. The British had always claimed that their seaboard colonies extended westward to the Mississippi, and whatever claims the French had to any of the lands were ceded to them with Canada. On this theory the American general, George Rogers Clark, during the Revolution, acting on a commission of the governor of Virginia, organized Ken tucky as a county of that state, and defended it with arms. He took Kaskaskia in Illinois in 1777 and Vincennes in In diana in 1779, and he built at the mouth of the Ohio a fort which he called Jefferson. In many ways the Spanish sought to gain control of that region. They offered help to the struggling colonists if they would stop at the Allegheny Mountains. But that price was too dear to pay. "Poor as we are," Benjamin Franklin wrote 24 AS PART OF A SPANISH PROVINCE 25 to John Jay who was in Europe, "yet as I know we shall be rich, I would rather agree to buy at a great price the whole of their right to the Mississippi than sell a drop of its water. ' ' He said that "A neighbor might as well ask me to sell my street door. ' ' The simile was an apt one. Franklin saw even then that the Mississippi would be a street door for the re public. Spain, reluctant to give up the region, finally pro posed to run a boundary line one mile east of the Mississippi River to keep that stream as a Spanish highway. Later she used all manner of intrigue to win over the western settlers and to alienate them from loyalty to the United States. But it was all in vain. In the meantime settlers were pouring through the Alle ghenies. In 1780 there were few white men in Kentucky, but by 1784 there were twenty thousand of them and in that year thirty thousand more are said to have entered the land. A few years later there was a similar stream of immigrants into Ohio, many of them coming from the New England states. If they were often dissatisfied with the government of the United States, still they were and they remained Ameri cans. The Spaniards were aliens to them. But the trans-Mississippi country, especially north of St. Louis, remained a sealed and unsettled area. ' ' Now and then some weather-beaten trapper," says McMaster, "came from it to the frontiers of the states with stories of great plains as level as the floor, where the grass grew higher than the waist, where the flowers were more beautiful than in the best kept gardens, where trees were never seen, and where the Indians still looked upon the white man as a God. ' ' 1 Out of the multiplication of population and discontent, what was believed to be a full settlement was finally evolved, in 1795, when Spain conceded to the Americans the right not only to navigate the Mississippi, but to deposit and reship their goods at New Orleans. Spain was at the time willing to enter into such an agreement for troubles were brewing for her in Europe. Out of the turmoil of the French Revolution i McMaster 's History of the People of the United States, Vol. I, p. 4. 26 A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF IOWA Napoleon Bonaparte had risen to become not only the master of France but the potential master of Europe. To save her self Spain made a treaty with France that angered England to the point of declaring war on her. Spain now became as anxious about Louisiana as France had been a generation be fore. She even feared an Anglo-American alliance that might oust her from all her possessions on the Gulf of Mexico and on the Mississippi River. It was America's opportunity. Thomas Pinckney was the American minister at Madrid. He was ready to open negotiations, but he insisted that rights on the Mississippi must be the basic considerations. When Spain hesitated to concede what he wanted from her, he adroitly asked for his passports. Did that mean he would go to Lon don and make an American pact with the British ? If he did, it might transfer the war between England and Spain to America with Louisiana in the balance. In that fear Spain entered into a treaty with the United States, making the Mis sissippi River the boundary between them on the west, and on the south the thirty-first parallel of latitude. And the port of New Orleans was made free to American commerce. But what Spain had saved from possible British seizure, she was not able to defend against Napoleon in whom the old French ambitions of an empire in the Mississippi Valley had reappeared. Would it not make him stronger in France to restore to her what Louis XV had lost in America ? He had the power to dictate and Spain did not have the power to resist, and so on the first of October, 1800, by the secret treaty of San Ildef onso, Spain ceded back to France all of Louisiana. The consideration named was trivial enough, the recognition of the Duke of Parma, a son-in-law of the king of Spain, as king of Tuscany. It was an American empire exchanged for a European title ! When the contents of the treaty became known in the United States there was great alarm over it. America did not covet the powerful and ambitious Napoleon as a neighbor on the west and south. The impotent kings of Spain were more to be desired as such neighbors than the ambitious French usurper. The American state of mind was aggravated by the AS PART OF A SPANISH PROVINCE 27 arbitrary, unwarranted, and unauthorized action of the Span ish intendant at New Orleans in refusing to permit the Amer icans to use the Mississippi River and the port of New Orleans for their commerce. The western settlers clamored for re dress, and when the government at Washington seemed im potent or neglectful, they threatened to take matters in their own hands by organizing an army of frontiersmen to go down the river. And some talked of seceding from the United States and setting up a western government of their own. Congress was greatly perturbed. Some members denounced the western settlers as turbulent and disloyal, but others as strenuously defended them. The Federalists, who were al ways unreconciled to President Jefferson, made an issue of the matter. They were for war on Spain, that much they loved the western Americans! The president procrastinated for he did not believe the matter was as serious as it was reported. In the senate James Ross of Pennsylvania made a two days' speech on the question and moved that the western militia be called out and five millions of dollars be appropriated to meet the situation.2 No price was too high to pay for American rights and honor! The resolution was defeated and the house passed one of confidence in the execu tive. The president was authorized to use a provisional army in the west, but he had other plans. As a remedy he named a minister extraordinary, James Monroe, to go immediately to Madrid to settle the matter. These negotiations led up to the purchase of Louisiana by America, but before we proceed with those transactions, we must recount what had been hap pening specifically in the Iowa country under one hundred and thirty years of French and Spanish dominion, for these things are important in this history. 2 Hosmer 's The Louisiana Purchase. CHAPTER VI In the Iowa Country from 1673 to 1804 Following Joliet and Marquette, Nicolas Perrot, who had been a wood ranger, was sent to the Mississippi Valley as the commandant of the west. The Quebec government instruct ed him to promote peace and trade with the Indians. Some where below the Wisconsin, in 1685 or 1686, he built a trading post which also served as a fort. According to evidence, it was on the eastern side of the Mississippi, but he carried on much trade with the Indians on the Iowa side. A Miami chief presented him with some specimens of lead ore, convey ing probably the first knowledge among white men of the mineral deposits in that region. The name of Perrot 's Mines long remained attached to the country on both sides of the river. In 1699 Pierre Charles Le Sueur came to the Mississippi River, but he did not spend much time in the Iowa country. In his notes, however, he referred to the "Ayavois" Indians. A young man named Jean Penicaut accompanied him on some of his tours.1 He referred to the "Riviere Moingona, the name of a nation of savages who dwelt on its banks. ' ' He found the grass of the prairies abundant and likened it to sanfoin. Wild animals without number thrived on it. The mines of Perrot and the "mountain" of Marquette, opposite the mouth of the Wisconsin, were noted in their reports. The map makers kept pace with the explorers. On one of Franquelin's maps, made in 1688, appears the "Riviere des Moingona. " On a more ambitious map, made in 1703, by Wil liam de L 'Isle, a noted French cartographer, we find the river designated as "des moingona," which suggests the origin of the modern name Des Moines, while the Little Sioux is called i Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XVI, pp. 175-177. 28 IN IOWA COUNTRY FROM 1673 TO 1804 29 the river "des Aiaouez." On the same map there was laid down a route across what is now northern Iowa, starting at the Mississippi, below the mouth of the Wisconsin, and ending on the Missouri River. This first river-to-river road was called the ' ' Chemin des Voyageurs, ' ' meaning the road of the traders. It ran to the south of the group of lakes in what is now Dickinson County. In the vicinity of the lakes the map maker located villages of "Aiaouez" and "Paoutez," indicating that the Iowa Indians were then known by those two distinct names. From these maps and descriptions a modern man begins to feel at home in the Iowa of two cen turies and more ago. But all that was written about the country in those days was not correct. Many wrote themselves up and wrote others down. Father Louis Hennepin did this. He accompanied La Salle, and was sent up the Mississippi River, which he ex plored as far as the Falls of St. Anthony. He was at one time taken prisoner by a band of Sioux Indians, from whom he was rescued by Daniel Greysolon Du Lhut, or Du Luth, a noted explorer. He wrote a book which he called a Descrip tion of Lomsiane, which is still valuable. But carried away with success in writing, he wrote two others, which he called Nouvelle Decouverte and Nouveau Voyage, in which he ex ploited many things which he had not done nor seen.2 In the latter he sets himself out as the, discoverer of the mouth of the Mississippi, a fact which, he says, he had concealed until then, 1698, out of regard for La Salle, who had coveted all the glory for himself. He even attempted to rob Joliet of his credit on the Mississippi. Father Hennepin, however, had very little to do with the Iowa country. But the writings of another romancer have a great deal to do with the Iowa country, for he made the Des Moines the central river of the heart of the American continent. This writer was Baron de Lahontan. He wrote a book that became the popular one of its day.3 It was printed in many languages and in many editions. Many contend that he himself was 2 See Thwaites's Hennepin's, A New Discovery. s New Voyages to North America by the Baron de Lahontan. 30 A HISTORY OF THE PEOPLE OF IOWA never farther west than Mackinac, where he may have spent one winter, and that his information was gleaned from others, or conjured up out of his own imagination. In the new land he pretended to have discovered a new river to which he gave the name Riviere Longue, or Long River. It is this that has been identified with the Des Moines. On its banks lived nations in Arcadian simplicity, without courts or laws or policemen. All men were free, and even their marriage rela tions were hampered with no "fettering covenants" that lasted through life. Of one of the chiefs he wrote, "When he walks, his way is strow'd with leaves of Trees," but usually he was carried about by six slaves ! Another chief presented the baron and his retinue with "a great many Girls." Of course, all this is fiction, although it was taken for truth in Europe, which was then ready to believe anything about the new world. He anticipated Swift's Gulliver's Travels. By some his chapter on the Long River has been interpreted as "a satire upon European life and civilization." 4 But that Lahontan 's tales were accepted as facts is shown by a map drawn on a terrestrial globe in 1720 by a Capuchin monk, Philip Legrand of Chalon, France.5 On this map the Des Moines is made the central river to the continent, with the Missouri and the Mississippi as two distorted forks. The Des Moines was not only the central river, but it was repre sented as Amazonian, extending far into the northwest where it drained lakes as vast as inland seas. Among the writers of romance may be placed also the ex plorer Radisson, reference to whose diary in English has al ready been made. He wrote things that almost discredit his veracity and his standing as an explorer. "The country is so pleasant," he recorded in his broken English, "so beautiful & fruitfull," that it grieved him that the poverty stricken hordes of Europe "could not discover such inticing country to live in." He spoke of new kingdoms that "are so delicious & under such temperat a climat, plentifull of all things, the earth bringing foorth its fruit twice a yeare, the people live *Thwaites's Lahontan' s New Voyages, p. xxxvi. « Annals of Iowa, Third Series, Vol. Ill, p. 175. IN IOWA COUNTRY FROM 1673 TO 1804 31 long & lusty & wise in their way. ' ' By coming to these new lands "what laborinth of pleasure should millions of people have," he exclaimed, "instead that millions complaine of mis ery & poverty ! ' ' This reads like an account of a visit to some fairy land. When Father Charlevoix came to travel in the country, he left us more definite information about it. He says that the clay from which calumets were made "is found in the country of the Ajouez," which is another name for the Iowa Indians. Going up the Mississippi, he writes, ' ' On the Left ... we see the Moingona come out of the Midst of an immense and magnificent Meadow, which is quite covered with Buffaloes and other wild Creatures. At its entrance into the Mississippi it has little water, and is also but narrow : It has nevertheless a course, as they say, of two hundred and fifty leagues, wind ing from the North to the West .... In going up the Moingona, they find a great deal of coal. ' ' 5 He mentions the rapids above the mouth of the Des Moines and those in the vicinity of Rock Island. Of the lead mines he says they were "discovered formerly by a famous Traveller of Canada, named Nicolas Perrot," and that they still bore his name.6 So many came to the Iowa country in those days and so many left bits of writing about what they did and what they saw that we shall not attempt to follow them all. This is not a catalogue of details. Only those men and things are cited that have a curious interest or that serve to make an impres sionistic picture of the country. Some came to trap and some to trade and others to preach. Every river bore its voy ageurs, and the language spoken was French, when it was not some Indian dialect. But none came to till the soil or to build cities. There was not a plow in the Iowa country in those days, neither were there horses nor oxen. Strong arms and oars were the motive power on the streams, and along the ' ' Chemin des Voyageurs ' ' men went afoot. The time for settlements had s Letters to the Dutchess of Lesdiguieres ; Giving an Account of a Voy age to Canada, and Travels Through that Vast Country and Louisiana, to the Gulf of Mexico, by Father Charlevoix, London, 1763, p. 295.