Iowa Indians' Political and Economic Adaptations

“We are not now as we once were”: Iowa Indians’ Political and Economic Adaptations during U.S. Incorporation David Bernstein, University of Wisconsin–Madison Abstract. The historical legacy of the eastern prairies between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers in the 1830s is dominated by a series of violent confrontations between Indians and the U.S. Army. Though the “Black Hawk Wars” involved just a few of the Indians living along the Mississippi River watershed, these conflicts epitomize commonly held understandings of Indian-white relations in the region: a violent clash of cultures in which Indians valiantly, but unsuccessfully, fought against American expansion. Contradicting this binary, Iowa Indian leaders understood that their communities had potentially much to gain from aspects of white expansion. The primary purpose of this article is to look beyond circumscribed definitions of Indian-white relations and to illustrate how the Iowa used an assortment of political, economic, and social tactics to help shape their rapidly changing world. Confronting declining wildlife resources, the Iowa began reshaping their economies toward what they hoped would be a more stable agricultural future while initiating diplomatic relations with American agents to help mitigate recurring and more immediate tensions with powerful Indian adversaries. In the summer of 1830, U.S. Treaty Commissioner William Clark called a council at Prairie du Chien on the Mississippi River with members of the Sac, Fox, Sioux, and Iowa tribes in order to clarify boundaries between these rival Indian groups. Clark wanted to make the region between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers more attractive to Euro-American settlers, and he hoped that defining the Indians’ territorial boundaries would quell the intratribal warfare that had marked the previous decade. During the meeting, most Indian leaders claimed large portions of this territory as necessary hunting grounds, insisting that additional available lands were needed for hunting game. The Iowa representatives, however, highlighted Ethnohistory 54:4 (Fall 2007) doi 10.1215/00141801-2007-024 Copyright 2007 by American Society for Ethnohistory Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/ethnohistory/article-pdf/54/4/605/410227/EH054-04-04BernsteinFpp.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 606 David Bernstein their communities’ agricultural activities. Iowa chief White Cloud con- trasted his tribe’s success at farming with the other Indian groups by declaring, “I have learned to plough and I now eat my own bread and it makes me large and strong. These people [the Sac and the Fox] eat every- thing, and yet are lean. They can’t get fat even by eating their own words.” White Cloud hoped that by illustrating the Iowa’s recent transition from a hunting economy to one based on sedentary agriculture, he could convince the treaty commissioner to accept Iowa land claims over others. The Iowa chief understood that U.S. recognition of a larger territorial base would give his tribe more bargaining power in any future treaty negotiations. Another chief, The Crane, extended the Iowa’s claim, explaining, “Our Great Father has been trying, and we have been trying for several years to make us like the white people. We wish you to continue it a little longer, and you will perhaps see some of our young men profit by it.”1 Contradicting standard notions of nineteenth-century Indian economic and social strategies that portray the inevitability of Indian dispos- session and dependency, the conciliatory words of these chiefs appear as an anomaly. The historical legacy of the region is, after all, dominated by a series of violent confrontations between Indians and the U.S. Army. For example, less than two years after this council at Prairie du Chien, Sauk chief Black Hawk and his small Indian band shocked the white settlers living along the Mississippi by their refusal to leave their villages on the Rock River. Ultimately, every member of the band was either killed or cap- tured during the “Massacre of Bad Axe.” Though the “Black Hawk Wars” involved just a few of the Indians living along the Mississippi River watershed, these conflicts epitomize commonly held understandings of Indian- white relations in the region: a violent clash of cultures in which Indians valiantly, but unsuccessfully, fought against Euro-American expansion.2 Exemplifying a typical history of the period, one scholar writes that “after decades of war and white contact [Indians] were easy to dispossess. many were demoralized and drifting, with tribal structures shattered, game disappearing, and little hope of survival.”3 Rejecting the ideology of American progress and economic development, narratives of this period often suggest that Indians were forced to choose between the extremes of “acculturating to” or “resisting” the impending deluge of westward expansion.4 The words of White Cloud and The Crane reveal a complex set of motivations that defy such easy categorization. By “learning to plow” and becoming metaphorically “like white people,” the chiefs expressed conscious decisions both about their tribe’s political policies and about cultural changes they believed the Iowa should employ to meet changing Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/ethnohistory/article-pdf/54/4/605/410227/EH054-04-04BernsteinFpp.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 Iowa Adaptations 607 social and environmental pressures. Rather than having a dichotomous vision of Indian-white relations, the Iowa leaders understood that their communities could gain much from aspects of white expansion. Most sig- nificant, the Iowa used diplomatic relations with U.S. agents to help maintain economic stability and territorial sovereignty. They met with Clark and other U.S. officials in order to mitigate their recurring and immediate tensions with powerful Indian adversaries. The primary purpose of this article, therefore, is to look beyond circumscribed definitions of Indian- white relations and to illustrate how the Iowa used an assortment of political, economic, and social tactics to help shape their rapidly changing world. In contrast to declensionary portrayals of early-nineteenth-century Indian history, the words of the Indian chiefs exemplify the adaptive, and ultimately more successful, political, social, and economic maneuvers employed by the Iowa in the early 1800s. Confronting declining wildlife resources and the continued encroachment of more powerful Indian neigh- bors, the Iowa in the 1820s began reshaping their economies toward what they hoped would be a more stable agricultural future.5 Survival for the Iowa meant adaptation in both economic as well as political terms.6 Adap- tive political maneuvering, including the use of diplomacy, treaty-making, and even Euro-American cartography, complemented the Iowa’s evolving economic strategies while maintaining cultural traditions and aspects of territorial control. U.S. expansion in the first decades of the nineteenth century offered the Iowa opportunity as well as tragedy. Using diplomacy as a primary tactic to gain political leverage over their many rivals was not a new strategy for the Iowa. Between 1600 and 1800, Central-Siouan people—such as the Iowa—who dominated the region between the Missouri and the Mississippi developed customary practices for engaging and incorporating alien groups into their economic, military, and kinship networks. As Tanis Thorne has detailed, formal adoption cere- monies in which the redistribution of gifts cemented diplomatic and economic ties were integral aspects of Central-Siouan society.7 In the early 1680s, for example, French explorer and commandant Nicholas Perrot experienced such a ceremony firsthand when eleven Iowas approached him “weeping hot tears, whi[ch] they let fall into their hands along with saliva, and with other filth from their noses, with which they rubbed the heads, faces, and garments of the French. After the tears ended the calumet was again presented to him.” Aware that this was “an honor which is granted only to those they regard as great captains,” Perrot must have felt some obligation to the Iowa. This sentiment was manifest a few days later. After a band of Sioux presented Perrot with a calumet and asked to settle near the French fort, Perrot refused to give the Sioux a direct Downloaded from http://read.dukeupress.edu/ethnohistory/article-pdf/54/4/605/410227/EH054-04-04BernsteinFpp.pdf by guest on 02 October 2021 608 David Bernstein answer, afraid “that they were asking to settle near him with the intention of making some raids on the Ayoes, when the latter were least expecting it.”8 Thus, the Iowa had a long history of creating diplomatic and personal ties in order to gain territorial security. For the Iowa, as with many Indians living between the Mississippi and Missouri, Euro-American settlement pressure did not become a primary concern until well into the 1840s. Until the third decade of the century, for example, the U.S. military presence in the region was negligible and Indian groups frequently vied with one another to attract U.S. forts with which to trade.9 The Iowa repeatedly met with U.S. agents, then, not to stem the tide of U.S. expansion but to create alliances to counter a more immediate changing environmental and social landscape. While the Iowa recognized increasing U.S. presence in the region, they had little reason to believe that Euro-Americans would ultimately control not only the land between the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, but all of the lands west of the Mississippi. U.S. dominance was less of a concern for the Iowa than, for instance, Teton and Yanktonai Sioux expansion.10 The Iowa made political and social decisions in the first half of the nineteenth century not solely with U.S. expansion in mind, but with the same goals of protection and stability that had driven alliances of the previous century. However, while Iowa leadership’s primary goal was to maintain social and economic stability, the changes they fostered between 1815 and 1846 created a world drastically different from the one they had known.

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