John Fiske, one of the scholarly writers on American history, has the following to say on the early races in the United States:
"Whether the Indians are descended from this ancient population or not, is a question with which we have as yet no satisfactory method of dealing. It is not unlikely that these glacial men may have perished from off the face of the earth, having been crushed and supplanted by stronger races. There may have been several successive waves of migration of which the Indians were the latest."—Fiske's Discovery of America, Vol. I, p. 15.
"The aboriginal American, as we know him with his language and legends, his physical and mental peculiarities, his social observance and customs, is most emphatically a native and not an imported article. He belongs to the American continent as strictly as its opossums and armadillo, its maize and its golden rods, or any number of its aboriginal fauna and flora belong to it."—Ibid., p. 20.
An Iowa investigator, C. L. Webster, some years ago examined several mounds on the banks of the Cedar river near Charles City and "found the skulls small which would show an extremely low grade of mental intelligence."—American Naturalist, Vol. 23, p. 1888.
This may go to show that the early inhabitants were different from the nomadic Indians that the first whites saw as they landed on the bleak shores of New England in the eleventh century.
Most writers on this subject are led to believe that we have conclusive evidence that man existed before the time of the glaciers and that from primitive conditions he has lived here and developed through the same stages which may correspond to the development of primitive man in Europe and Asia. Whether the first settlers in Iowa then, were Mound Builders, or Indians, or some other race may never be known, for a certainty. It is enough to say, that man existed and lived on what has become known as Iowa many, many centuries ago, and he left few if any remains which can testify to his stage of development or to his mode of living. This is no doubt true, that man existed in Linn county countless ages ago, but whether it was a different race, or simply the Indian race at a different stage of development may never be known and thus will always remain a mystery.
INDIANS
When the first white settlers located in Linn county the Red Men still occupied the land, and even after treaties had been fully ratified, Indians were slow to give up these choice hunting places along the Red Cedar and the Wapsie. It is needless to say that the rights of Indians were not protected and they invariably were set aside and driven away as fast as possible. Still nearly all of the early settlers were very friendly toward the Red Men, and in return received many favors from their hands. Of course, the Red Men were jealous of the whites, who gradually kept coming in and drove the Indians away. The Indians who most frequented this part of Iowa after the settlement by whites were the Sac and Fox and Winnebagoes. The Winnebagoes were a remnant of a warlike tribe, and at one time in Wisconsin were very powerful. These joined with the Sac and Fox in the Black Hawk war and were driven across the Mississippi river after the signing of the treaty of peace.
