A Social History of the Mesquakie Indians, 1800–1963 Richard Frank Brown Iowa State University
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Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Retrospective Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 1964 A social history of the Mesquakie Indians, 1800–1963 Richard Frank Brown Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd Part of the Indigenous Studies Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Brown, Richard Frank, "A social history of the Mesquakie Indians, 1800–1963" (1964). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 10. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/10 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Retrospective Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. A SOCIAL HISTORY OF THE MESQUAKIE INDIANS, 1800 - 196".3 . by Biehard Frank Brown A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Partial Fulfil1ment of The Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE Major Subject: History Approved: Iowa State University Of Science and Technology Ames' Iowa 1964 ii TABLE OF CON~~NTS Page INTRODUCTION 1 Clli\_PTER I THE EARLY YEARS" TO _1800 3 CHAPTER II BETRAYAL; TEE TREATY OF 1804 7 CKA.PTER III THE 1·:\ESQUP...KIE WAY OF' LIJ?E 11 CEL~PTER IV. THE DECLI}ffi OF INDIAN POvlER 19 CF..APTER V THE BLP... CK HA\'i'K WAR 32 CHAPTER VI A FJl...LTERING NATION 37 CF~PTER VII KANSAS: THE YEARS OF DESPAIR, 1846 TO 1856 49 CHAPTER VIII GOING HOI·lE 53 CFdPTER IX THE: YEARS OF FREEDOivJ, 1867 TO 1896 59 CF.:.APTER X RESISTANCE 67 CHAPTER XI Tr:E POVJ WOVl AND COUNCIL FIRES, 1913 TO 1929 ?2 CHAPTER XII EDUCATION AND REORGANIZATION, 1930 TO 1940 76 CEL~PTER XIII THE WAR y-~RS 86 CHAPTER XIV POS~~AR PROBLEYS 95 CHAPTER XV FIREWATER 103 CE..~PTER xvi IV:ESQUP...KIE EDUCATION AND INDUSTRY 108 CHAPTER XVII !rrESQUAKIE LIFE TODAY 119 CF.-AP'I'ER XVIII TEE YEAP..S AHEAD 123 NOTES 126 APPENDIX 1'_q. 3 LIST OF REl'""ERENCES 146 iii "We are the Mesquakie, we are Indians, we are not white men and we are not going to disappear." The Tams. News-Herald - '1'b'A:pril 1953 ! I --------~- 1 INTRODUCTION The Mesquakie Indians, now living at Tama, Iowa, physically repelled domination by the white man during the :f'irst early contact in Wisconsin, and thus resisted unwanted cultural influences; Yet the Mesquakie did incorporate those white cultural traits which seemed valuable to them and which :f'i tted their own cultural :f'ramework •. Then when the ever growing population and greater military :f'orce or the white man pushed other Indian tribes o:f'f their land and onto rese:rva-· tions, the Hesquakie began to purchase land :f'rom the whites and thus secured title to their land~ This ability to use the white man's laws to preserve their own traditional way or li:f'e makes the Mesquakie Indians unique in the history o:f' Indian white relations~ By purchasing land from the white man, and thus escaping the re~ervation life that still held their Indian brothers, the Mesquakie managed to :reverse a downward population trend that had reduced their numbers from. two thousand in 1804 to less than seven hundred in 1850~· Then for about :f'ifty years theY' lived relatively free of' white domination~ This freedom gave· them time to establish themselves as an independent minority group in the loeal white community. Beginning in 1896, the State o:f' Iowa trans:f'erred jurisdiction over the Indians to the f'ederal government~ Thus began a new period o:f' ever increasing control over the ----~-- 2 Mesquakie by the United States Bureau of Indian Affairs. This close control over the Mesquakie ac~~ally hindered their opportunity to make their own decisions regarding their future3 The stated purpose of the Indian Bureau's policy of assimi lating the Indians into white society, with the eventual disappearance of the tribal group, failed completely~ ' The narrative that follows recounts the history of the Mesquakie Indian's struggle to retain their tribal identity in a white man's world~ 3 CHAPTER I THE EABLY YEARS, ~0 1800 The Mesquakie Nation belongs to the Algonkin language group, and their culture is that of Eastern woodland tribes with some intrusive streaks from the plains Indian tribes. Their social organization is rigidly based on family groupings called clans or gens, and they believe in a cosmic substance which they call Gitchi Manitu, or Great Spirit.1 Early in their history, the Mesquakie emigrated to Detroit :from near the st. Lawrence to escape from. savage encounters with the Iroquois and Wyandot tribes. 2 ~he Mesquakie then left Detroit and established themselves at Saginaw Bay along the shores of'Lake Michigan~J Pressure from the Chippewa, Pottawatomie, and Ottawa drove the Mesquakie across Lake Michigan to the region south of Lake Superior where French 4 traders found them. ~n the middle of the 17th Century. These early French traders designated the Mesquakie as Fox Indians, and this misnomer has persisted to this day. The mistake in the name occurred around 1650 when Freneh traders met a small hunting party of Mesquakie in the Lake Winnebago area. The traders asked the Mesquakie what name they went by. The Indians misunderstood and thought the Frenchmen wanted to know the clan name of the hunting party. Because this group of Indians belonged to the Fox elan of the Mesquakie tribe, the Indians gave the traders the clan name~ Hence the French erroneously referred to this Indian nation as the Fo:x: Indians.5 The Indians prefer the name r~esquakie. The name Mesquakie means Red Earth Nation and distinguishes this nati.on from their close cousins the Ousaukie (Sauk) or the Yellow Earth Nation. According to Indian legend, the two nations originally w·ere one people, but then split and occupied opposite shores of a lake. The Mesquakie lived on the shore with red sand, and the Sauk lived on the side with yellow sand.6 The next contact with white men came around 1670 when two Frenchmen, Perrot and Baudry, visited the Mesquakie village on the Wolf River, Wisconsin. The two men observed that the Indians lived in a very primitive state of barbarism, with five metal hatchets as the only evidence of European civiliza tion. Other early travelers described the Mesquakie as arrogant, avaricious, thieving, and quarrelsome. The Mesquakie were the most fierce and most interesting of the Wisconsin tribes. They managed to maintain their primitive independence longer than any other Wisconsin tribe because of their great courage and determination to live as their :forefathers did.. The Mesqua...lrie raised as many children as possible and trained them for the same savage resistance to civilization.? They fought against the French for two generations and were the only tribe against whom the French 1.1raged war in the 18th Century.8 During this time the Mesquakie continually harassed the French by exacting tribute from their traders and by attacking French forts.9 When Mesquakie 5 hostility toward the French continued to hinder their plans to dominate the West, the French attempted first to subjugate and then to exterminate the tribe.10 When the Mesquakie attacked the Indian tribes clustered about Fort Detroit in the winter of 1?11, the French provided refuge for these tribes and then aided them in a nineteen day battle against the Mesquakie. The allied French and Indian forces practically annihilated the entire group of one thousand Mesquakie warriors. A few :t<Iesquakie escaped to Green Bay where they joined a band of four hundred warriors that had not taken part in the attack at Detroit. 11 An uneasy peace followed for a number of years, but in a battle at Starved Rock in La Salle County, Illinois, in 1730, the French again defeated a number of Mesquakie warriors. The few remaining survivors settled on the Wisconsin River near the Mississippi River. In 1733, they went to live at Green Bay where they formed a close alliance with their cousins, the Sauk Indians. 12 The French demanded that the Sauk give -~up the Mesquakie refugees. When the Sauk refUsed, the French threatened to retaliate against both nations. In self defense, the two nations migrated into the western half of Illinois some time prior to 1750 where they refrained from fUrther hostile action I : against the Freneh.13 The long bitter-conflict with the French had convinced the Mesquakie that they could not successfully fight against ·. the white man. Thus during the last half of the 18th Century, -r --·- ·-------------- 6 the Mesquakie decided to live in peace with the white man. The Sauk, ho1-rever, became increasingly belligerent toward the whites as the 18th Century came to a close. Both the Sauk and l.fesquakie continued their wars against other Indian tribes, however. In the years from 1785 to 1800, they succeeded in partially subjugating the Iowa tribes and prior to 1800, the Mesquakie and Sauk lived together on land in the eastern half of Iowa and the western half of Illinois~ Because the Mesqua~ie and Sauk nations shared the same culture and occupied the same geographical area, the United States Government often referred to the two nations as one people--the Sac and Fox. The Mesquakie remained politically independent from the Sauk, however, and thus preserved their identity. 14 7 CHAPTER II BETF.AY~..L: THE TREATY OF 1804 During the early part of the 19th Century, the Indians along the r~ississippi River still lived in an area relatively free of white men, except for the traders that visited them.