The Iowa

by D.C. of Washington Thomas Foster

EARLY HISTORY OF THE IOWAY

The earliest mention[60] of the Tribe is in Le Sueur’s narrative of his expedition in 1700 to the fancied copper mines[61] of Riviere de Vert, (the Blue Earth tributary of the Minnesota river), embodied in La Harpe’s mss.[62] History of Louisiana, parts of which including Le Sueur’s Narrative, have been recently published.[63] As to this mine, we are told in the mss. copy[64] in the Congressional Library of the Relation of Penicaud, the shipwright who accompanied Le Sueur—“a man, (says Neill,[65] the erudite historian of Minnesota) of discernment but little scholarship”—that:

M. Le Sueur had heard of the mine some years before while travelling in the country of the Aiaos—(or Aivoe: the name has been written twice: and the orthography is obscure,)—where he traded.

This acquaintance with the Ioway must have been achieved when, as chief trader,[66] he occupied the “factory” of “Fort Perrot” on the “left” or east bank of the Mississippi,[67] just below Point Le Sable, near the foot of Lake Pepin: which first trading post of the upper Mississippi was erected in 1683, by Nicholas Perrot[68] and M. le Sueur by order of Governor De la Barre,[69] of Canada, “to establish (says the historian Neill) friendly alliances with the Ioway and Dakota”; and this post was for years the only one in all that region, until Le Sueur himself, in 1695, built the “French factory” of “Isle Pelee,” at the “right” bank, on Prairie or “Bald” Island, about ten miles below the St. Croix. The Ioway, (as will hereafter appear), occupied at that time a not very remote nor inaccessible location from Fort Perrot, in the region around and amidst the head waters of the Des Moines and Blue Earth rivers, and being allies of the Sioux, they doubtless brought their furs and obtained their trading supplies of Le Sueur at this “Fort”: and it is not improbable that Le Sueur (and his engages) also travelled in their country on hunting or trading expeditions.

In La Harpe’s account of Le Sueur’s long “voyage” up the Mississippi from its mouth to the “mine” with his “felucca,[70] two canoes and twenty men,”[71] the Ioway are frequently mentioned. The first instance is when about the 14th[72] of July, 1700, as he passed the mouth of the Illinois, he “met three Canadian voyageurs, who came to join his band, and received by them a letter from Father Marest,[73] Jesuit, dated July 10, 1700, at the Mission of the Immaculate Conception of the Holy Virgin in Illinois:” of which the following is a copy:

I have the honor to write in order to inform you, that the Saugiestas have been defeated by the Scioux and the Ayavois.[74] The people have formed an alliance with the Quincapous, and some of the Mecoutins, Renards, and Metesigamias, and gone to revenge themselves, not on the Scioux, for they are too much afraid of them, but perhaps on the Ayavois, or very likely upon the Paoutees, or more probably upon the Osages, for these suspect nothing, and the others are on their guard. As you will probably meet these allied nations, you ought to take precaution against their plans, and not allow them to board your vessel, since they are traitors, and utterly faithless. I pray God to accompany you in all your designs.

This letter of Father Marest shows, that the Ioway were then in alliance with the Sioux, and establishes, that their Indo-French name of “Ayavois” was already pretty well understood: and that even their own name for themselves was not unknown, Paoutees, or—(to transliterate the French orthography into our Indian alphabet),—Päut’æs, was not far off from their true designation of Pähutchæs: though, curiously enough, they are held to be another tribe! The warning of this war-party given Le Sueur by the “Father” proved no false alarm; for just below the Wisconsin, “five Canadians” were met with, “descending from the Scioux to go to Tamarois,” who, above the Wisconsin, had been fallen in with by a war-party of “ninety savages in nine canoes,” being of “four different nations, the Outagamis [Foxes], Saquis [Saukes], Poutouwatamis and Puans [Winnebago], who had “robbed and cruelly beat them.” Taking these five men with him as volunteers, Le Sueur proceeded up the river until he met this war-party near Black River, returning from an unsuccessful encounter with the “Scioux,” and brought them to terms, and, being evidently too strong for them to maltreat or meddle with in any way, extorted a kind of apology from them for what they had done.

On the first of October Le Sueur finally reached his destination near his “mine.” We extract from the narrative of his proceeding while here so much of it as refers to the Ioway:

After he [Le Sueur] entered into Blue river, thus named on account of the MINES of blue earth found at its mouth, he founded his post, situated in 44 degrees 13 minutes north latitude. He met at this place nine Scioux, who told him the river belonged to the Scioux of the West, the Ayavois [Ioways], and Otoctatas [Otoes], who lived a little farther off: that it was not their [the “Scioux”] custom to hunt on ground belonging to others, unless invited to do so by the owners, and that when they would come to the fort to obtain provisions they would be in danger of being killed in ascending or descending the rivers, which were narrow, and that if he would show them pity, he must establish himself on the Mississippi, near the mouth of the St. Pierre, where the Ayavois, the Otoctatas, and the other Scioux, could go as well as them.... Le Sueur had forseen that the establishment of Blue river would not please the Scioux, ... because they were the first with whom trade was commenced, and in consequence of which they had already quite a number of guns.... On the 3d of October, they received at the fort several Scioux, among whom was Wahkantape, chief of the village. Soon two Canadians arrived who had been hunting, and had been robbed by the Scioux of the east, who had raised their guns against the establishment which M. Le Sueur had made on Blue river. On the 14th the fort was finished and named “Fort L’Huillier,” and on the 22d two Canadians were sent out to invite the Ayavois and Otoctatas to come and establish a village near the fort, because these Indians are industrious [?] and accustomed to cultivate the earth, [?] and they hoped to get provisions from them and to make them work [!] in the mines.

An assertion, a hope and an expectation which rather proves, that Le Sueur knew nothing of these Indians from actual observation in their country, but only knew of them from report and by a few individuals whom he probably met for trade at the posts at Forts Perrot or Isle Pele; for there is no evidence that they ever were “industrious,” or given to “cultivating the earth” any more than other Indians: nor are they at this day. But, to continue our extracts:

The same day [the 24th] the Canadians, who had been sent off on the 22d arrived without having found the road which led to the Ayavois and Otoctates.

... On the 16th [of Nov.] the Scioux returned to their village, and it was reported that the Ayavois and Otoctatas were going to establish themselves towards the Missouri river, near the Maha [Omahaw], who dwell in that region.

In May, 1701, Le Sueur left Fort d’Huillier in charge of M. d’Evaque, a Canadian gentleman, with a force of twelve Frenchmen, while he himself in his felucca with the rest of his men returned to Mobile, carrying with him “three canoe loads,” or “four thousand pounds,” of the “green earth,” supposed to be oxide of copper, but which was really from a kind of shelly marly strata, interposed between the fossiliferous limestone and the sandstone of that region, that was colored bluish-green by silicate of iron. We next find Le Sueur—(who it has been stated was the father of the three distinguished brothers D’Iberville, DeBienville, and Sauvolle)[75]—in the summer of 1701 accompanying D’Iberville, the Governor of Louisiana, on his return to France, and assisting him while on shipboard in concocting a Memorial on the Mississippi Valley, addressed to the French government: in which D’Iberville says:

He [M. Le Sueur] has spoken to me of another, [nation] which he calls the Mahas, [Omahaw], composed of more than twelve hundred families [!], the Ayooues and the Octootatas, their neighbors, are about three hundred families. They occupy the lands between the Mississippi and the Missouri, about one hundred leagues from the Illinois. These savages do not know the use of (fire?) arms....

The memorial, (a manuscript copy of which, quoted by Professor Neill in his Minnesota history, is in possession of the Historical Society of that State), contains the first attempt we have upon the record at a Census of the Tribes of the Mississippi, and partially of the Missouri Valleys: made thirty-four years before the French Census of the Cass manuscript[76]—a census formerly claimed as being the very first extant—so claimed by Schoolcraft, in the third volume of his Collections.

Penicaud, the carpenter, states, that D’Evaque and the men Le Sueur left in charge of the Blue Earth post, abandoned it, and returned to Mobile [arriving there on the 3d of March], 1703, having left, as they alleged, on account of being warred upon “by the nations of Maskoutens and Foxes,” and “seeing that he was out of powder and lead.” Le Sueur for several years after his operations on the Blue-Earth was kept busy leading expeditions against the Natchez and other Indians of the southwest; and is said to have died[77] on the road during one of them.

Some further information in regard to the Ioway is gathered from a chart of the northwestern part of Louisiana, by “William De L’Isle, de l’Academy Royale des Sciences, et Premier Geographe du Roy: a Paris: 1703” in the preparation of which Le Sueur probably assisted by his notes and observations.[78] A section of this map, (lithographed for Neill’s History of Minnesota), shows a traders trail marked “Chemin des Voyageurs,” across the State of Iowa, commencing at the Mississippi, a few miles below the mouth of the Wisconsin, and following west by a little north until in the vicinity of Spirit Lake, it struck just below the lowest of the lakes which are at the head of the Little Sioux river, upon which lower lake is marked “Village des Aiaoues ou Paoutez” (Pähutch’æ); then continuing due westward towards the Big Sioux this Chemin du Voyageurs bends a little southward towards the mouth of that river; on which river, near the Missouri, three or four villages of “Maha” (Omahaw), are marked. Besides these a couple of minor “Aianouez” villages are likewise set down at the west end of the Chemin des Voyageurs where it strikes the Big Sioux, which is apparently about the junction of “Fish Creek” with it: [See Waw-non-que-skoon-a’s map of Ioway migrations in Vol. III, Schoolcraft, page 256],[79] and again further westward, considerably beyond the western termination of the “Chemin” on the James River, four minor villages of “Aiaouez” are also noted: while far south by a little east of the first mentioned main “Village des Aiaoues ou Paoutez,” upon the north or “left” bank of the Missouri river at a point nearly due west from the mouth of the “Des Moines ou le Moingona,” we find located the “Yoways,” and a few miles above them on the same side, the “Les Octotata”: which locations were not a great distance from the spot where the Ioway and Otoe now live upon one common “Reservation,” on the opposite side of the Missouri just within Nebraska.