History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century/1/12
IN 1809 the population north of the Ohio River and west of the Walbash had reached about ten thousand, located largely along the valleys of these rivers and the Mississippi. The western portion of the Territory of Indiana was detached and organized into Illinois Territory, embracing the great prairie region west of the Wabash, north of the Ohio and east of the Mississippi River. It extended north to the British possessions. Ninian Edwards was appointed Governor and the capital established at Kaskaskia.
Two years later great alarm was felt by the people in the Mississippi Valley over a succession of earthquake shocks which prevailed at intervals for several months. The point where the severest shocks were experienced was in the vicinity of New Madrid, in the southeast corner of what is now the State of Missouri. The convulsions were so great that immense sections of land sunk, the channel of the river was changed, lakes and swamps disappeared and low lands were elevated into hills. The waters of the Mississippi near Madrid were rolled with a mighty force up stream for nearly ten miles, causing destruction of life and property. It was during the continuance of these convulsions that the first steamboat that ever navigated a western river was making its way cautiously down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. The name of the steamer was the “Orleans,” of four hundred tons, commanded by Captain Nicholas I. Roosevelt. It was built at Pittsburg, from whence it departed on the 6th of December, 1812, for New Orleans, and, reaching that place in safety, inaugurated steamboat transportation, which opened a new field of commerce on western waters. Heretofore the products of the West had found a route to the world's markets in the slowly floating flatboats, or bateaux, propelled by poles, oars or the current of the rivers. All of the goods and implements to supply this region were transported from distant cities by the same expensive and toilsome methods. The introduction of steam navigation on the rivers was the dawning of an era of incalculable prosperity for the West.
On the 4th of June, 1812, the Territory of Orleans was admitted into the Union as a State, under the name of Louisiana. William Clark, one of the commanders of Lewis and Clark's exploring expedition of 1804, was appointed Governor. The name Missouri was given to the remaining portion of the Territory of Louisiana.
During the War of 1812 the Mississippi Valley suffered but little. Colonel Nichols, the commander of a British fleet in 1814, attempted to revive the scheme for separating that region from the Union. He issued a proclamation in the name of the King of Great Britain to the citizens of Louisiana, calling upon the French, Spaniards, Englishmen, Indians and native Louisianians to rally to his standard and emancipate themselves from a usurping, weak and faithless Government. He declared that he had come with a fine train of artillery, experienced British officers and a large body of Indian warriors supported by a British and Spanish fleet. His avowed object was to put an end to the usurpations of the United States and restore the country to its lawful owners. To the Indians he offered a bounty of ten dollars for every scalp taken form the enemy. His address was distributed throughout the valley in the hope that the people of English, Spanish and French birth might be persuaded to conspire against the Government of the United States and aid Great Britain in her attempt to recover possession of the Mississippi Valley. A grim response to this appeal was given a few months later, when the loyal pioneers flocked to New Orleans with their rifles and met the British invaders on the field of battle. More than three thousand of Wellington's veterans fell before the unerring aim of the sturdy, loyal backwoodsmen under General Jackson.
Thus the third attempt to separate the Mississippi Valley from the eastern States, demonstrated the unswerving fidelity of the pioneers of the West to the new republic of which they were a most important factor, geographically, commercially and politically. No ambitious, plausible schemes of unscrupulous adventurers, or glowing visions of an independent nation, could win their favor or shake their loyalty to the American Union. They wisely preferred to form a part of a mighty nation, rather than become a weak member of petty confederacies.
At the beginning of the War of 1812 the entire white population of the northwest, embracing the territories of Indiana, Illinois and Michigan, was estimated at about forty thousand. During the war, British emissaries and officers had succeeded by aid of presents and promises in securing the friendly services and military assistance of many powerful tribes of Indians. The savages were encouraged to rob and massacre settlers on the frontier, so that for several years emigration to the Mississippi Valley practically ceased.
In July, 1814, General William H. Harrison and Lewis Cass, commissioners on part of the United States, negotiated treaties with the Wyandots, Delawares, Senecas, Shawnees and other tribes by which they became allies of the United States during the war with Great Britain. After the close of the war treaties were made with nearly all of the tribes of hostile Indians. About the middle of July, 1815, a large number of Indian chiefs, representing most of the tribes of the northwest, assembled at Portage des Sioux, on the right bank of the Mississippi, a few miles below the mouth of the Missouri, to negotiate treaties with the United States. The Government was represented by Governor William Clark, of Missouri, who was Superintendent of Indian Affairs west of the Mississippi; Governor Ninian Edwards, of Illinois; and Auguste Chouteau, of St. Louis. General Henry Dodge was present with a strong military force to guard against treachery and to protect the commissioners. Treaties were concluded with the Pottawattamies, Piankeshaws, Sioux, Mahas, Kickapoos, Sacs and Foxes, Osages, Iowas and Zanzans. Several other treaties were made with various western tribes during the year 1816 and general peace was established throughout the West.
From this time forward thousands of settlers sought hoes in the western Territories. Indiana had by this time acquired a popularion which entitled it to admission into the Union and was made a State on the 19th of April, 1816; Jonathan Jennings became its first Governor. On the 3d of December, 1818, Illinois also became a State. Michigan Territory had not, up to this time, attracted much immigration. The few settlers about Detroit and along the Raisin River had suffered greatly from the British and their savage Indian allies and many had abandoned their homes. The tide of immigration kept farther south, seeking homes in the rich lands of Indiana, Illinois and Missouri up to 1820. Iowa had not yet been named but was embraced in the great indefinite Northwest Territory and was occupied by Indians, as well as the traders, miners and trappers who had permission of the natives to come among them.
The first steamboat that ascended the Mississippi to the limits of Iowa, reached St. Louis on the 2d day of August, 1817. It was most appropriately named General Pike, in honor of the young commander of the first American expedition ever sent to explore the upper Mississippi Valley. It was commanded by Captain Jacob Reed.
In 1818 Missouri Territory made application for admission to the Union. When the bill was introduced in Congress for her admission, Mr. Talmadge, of New York, offered the following proviso:
“Provided that the further introduction of slavery or involuntary servitude be prohibited, except in punishment for crime where the party shall have been duly convicted; and that all children born within said State after the admission thereof, shall be free at the age of twenty years.”
After a brief discussion the proviso was adopted in the House of Representatives by a vote of seventy-nine ayes to sixty-seven nays. This was the beginning of the great conflict between freedom and slavery in the new States and Territories, which forty-three years later brought on the armed attempt of the slave-holding States to overthrow the National Government and establish a slave-holding Confederacy.
After a lengthy and bitter contest over slavery in Missouri, a compromise was effected, largely through the influence of Henry Clay, who was Speaker of the House. This settlement became famous under the name of the “Missouri Compromise.” The Senate favored the admission of Missouri as a slave State, while the House insisted upon the exclusion of slavery. The remarkable influence and eloquence of Henry Clay finally persuaded a majority of the members of the House to admit Missouri as a slave State, upon the condition that slavery should forever be excluded from that portion of the Louisiana Purchase lying north of latitude 36 degrees, 30 minutes, excepting Missouri.
This compromise was a guarantee by Congress that all States lying north of that line should in the future be admitted free, while slavery might be extended in Territories and States south of the compromise line, as far as the limits of the original Louisiana Purchase. During the controversy over the admission of Missouri, the District of Arkansas was detached and organized into the Territory of Arkansas. In defining the northern boundary of Missouri, the following language was employed.
“From the point aforesaid north along said meridian line to the intersection of the parallel of latitude which passes through the rapids of the River Des Moines, making the said line to correspond with the Indian boundary line; thence east from the point of intersection last aforesaid along said parallel of latitude to the middle of the channel of the main fork of said River Des Moines, to the mouth of the same, where it empties into the Mississippi River, thence due east to the middle of the main channel of the Mississippi River.”
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
A MISSOURI RIVER STEAMER SNAGGED
poultry, eggs, vegetables and fruit. These pioneer farmers had immense cribs filled with corn, fine orchards of apple and peach trees, large double log houses and corn mills run by horse-power.
The advent of a steamboat created great excitement and was looked upon with wonder and amazement by the backwoodsmen, as it plowed its way up the mighty current of the Missouri at flood height. The only method of navigation ever witnessed by the pioneers was by canoes or flatboats, propelled by oars or poles. These farmers had no market for their products, no stores to furnish goods or groceries. Their nearest trading place was St. Louis, to which, at long intervals, journeys were made to exchange furs and skins of wild animals for such few goods as their simple life required. Major Long mentions a new disease which he found in some localities, coming from the use of milk, which at some seasons of the year communicates a distressing and sometimes fatal malady to those using it. He proceeds to describe the milk sickness which for many years afflicted the early settlers in some sections of Indiana, Illinois and Missouri.
On the 16th of September Major Long reached the mouth of the Platte. Trading boats from St. Louis were here found, which were to remain during the winter to collect furs and buffalo hides from the Ottoe and Missouri Indians.
No settlement had yet been found on the Iowa side of the Missouri. At the mouth of the Mosquito River, Major Long mentions the finding of the ruins of an old Ioway Indian village. A short distance above Fort Lisa was reached, which was a trading station of the Missouri Fur Company. On the 19th of September Major Long selected a place for winter quarters about five miles below Council Bluffs. This was the Council Bluffs named by Lewis and Clark in 1804, and it will be remembered was on the west side of the river and must have been about ten or fifteen miles above the city of Omaha. Major Long describes it as a remarkable bank, rising abruptly from the brink of the river to an elevation of about one hundred and fifty feet. It had two important military advantages—security and complete command of the river. It was three miles above the mouth of the Boyer river coming in from the Iowa side. The camp was made on a narrow beach covered with woods reaching to the river, back of which rose a bluff near two hundred feet high. The slope from the bluff to the camp was gradual and easy of ascent. Here an abundance of stone, wood and water was found, and shelter from the bleak north and west winds. A council was held here with the Ottoe Indians, bands of the Ioways, the Missouris and Pawnees.
The principal Ioway chief at this council was Wang-ew-aha, or Hard Heart, who had been engaged in over fifty battles, in seven of which he had commanded. He was regarded as the bravest and most intelligent of all of the Ioways. Beaver seem to have been plenty in the vicinity of the camp, as sixty were caught by an Ioway chief on the Boyer, and ten Omaha Indians brought in more than two hundred taken on the Elk Horn. Game in the vicinity consisted of bison, elk, deer, antelope, wolves, wild turkey, otter, beaver and rabbits.
After making preparations for the winter encampment, Major Long left Lieutenant Graham in command and, descending the Missouri in a canoe, went to Washington. Returning in the spring he left St. Louis on the 4th of May, 1820, with a small party to make an overland journey to his camp at Council Bluffs, traveling by the compass on as direct a line as practicable. From the mouth of the Chariton to Grand River, the party passed through a few settlements but the remainder of the trip was through an unexplored region. They soon emerged from the forests upon a prairie. Major Long writes:
“Upon leaving the forest there was an ascent of several miles to the level of a great woodless plain. These vast plains, in which the eye finds no object to rest upon, are first seen with surprise and pleasure, but their great uniformity at length becomes tiresome. The grass was now about a foot high, as the wind swept over the great plain, it appeared as though we were riding on the unquiet billows of the ocean. The surface is uniformly of that description not inaptly called rolling, and bears a comparison to the waves of an agitated sea. The distant shores and promontories of woodland, with here and there an insular grove, rendered the illusion more complete. Nothing is more difficult than to estimate by the eye the distance of an object seen on these plains. Soon after leaving our camp we thought we discovered several bison feeding at a distance of half a mile. Two of our party dismounted, creeping through the grass with great care for some distance, found them to be a wild turkey with a brood of half grown young. We often found hoofs, horns and bones of the bison and elk near former camping places of the Indians; also great numbers of tent poles and scaffolds.”
On the 24th a camp was made on the banks of a beautiful river, and during the night a terrible storm came hurling the forest trees, uprooted and shivered, around them. Their terrified horses broke loose and ran wildly over the plains. The next day the party ascending a high range of hills, looked over a broad valley and saw the Missouri winding its way far off below. They had crossed the southwest corner of Iowa from some point on Grand River, probably passing through portions of Taylor, Page, Montgomery and Mills counties, striking the Missouri near the mouth of the Platte River. They were probably the first white men who ever traversed the beautiful rolling prairies of that region.
It had now been sixteen years since the western borders of Iowa had been partially explored by Lewis and Clark, and through their reports made known to the country; but so far as is known no permanent settlers had erected cabins in that region, or broken the prairie sod for farms. French and half-breed traders made their trips up and down the Missouri and its tributaries in pursuit of their vocation for many years after this before we find any attempts to open farms or lay out towns.