When the country west of the Mississippi was first explored by the whites, the Sioux Indians were found in possession of Minnesota and northern Iowa. This family of red men consisted of the following tribes: Sissetons, Ioways, Winnebagoes, Osages, Otoes, Missouris, and Omahas. The tribes of the Algonquin family, consisting of the Sacs, Foxes, Illinois, Pottawattamies, Ottaways, and Chippewas, occupied northern Missouri and southern Iowa. Of all of these tribes only a bare remnant of the Foxes still remain in Iowa. They are found along the Iowa River in Tama County and are known as the Meskwaki Indians.
Indian Conflicts. — Although the warlike spirit of the Indian had been much broken by his contact with the white man, the possession of the Iowa country was not given up without a struggle. Indian raids and depredations within the limits of Iowa are recorded as late as 1863. The most bloody of these Indian outbreaks was the Spirit Lake Massacre of 1857. The Black Hawk War, which was waged in 1832, was, however, the one great contest between the white man and the Indian of the Iowa country. It was fought in Illinois and Wisconsin, and resulted in the first cession of lands in the Iowa country in September, 1832.
Indian Cessions of Land. — A restless throng of immigrants, with all their worldly possessions packed in covered wagons, were waiting on the frontier eager to enter the Indian country and there to make permanent homes and settlements. Little by little the Indians were induced or coerced to give up their rights to occupy the Iowa lands.
