They live on the south-eastern extremity {145} of their lands, near Cantonment Leavenworth.[89] In regard to civilization, their condition is similar to that of the Peorias. They are raising a surplus of the grains, &c. have cattle and hogs, £140 worth of the latter, and three hundred and forty head of the former from the United States, in obedience to treaty stipulations; have about thirty yoke of oxen, fourteen yoke of them purchased chiefly with the produce of their farms; have a saw and grist mill, erected by the United States. Nearly one-half of the tribe are unsettled and scattered, some in Texas, others with the southern tribes, and still others ranging the mountains. The treaty of October 24th, 1832, provides that the United States shall pay £100 per annum for ten successive years, for the support of a school, purchase of books, &c. for the benefit of the Kickapoo tribe on their own lands. A schoolhouse and teacher have been furnished in conformity with this stipulation. The same treaty provides £200 for labour and improvements on the Kickapoo lands.[90]
The Sauks, and Reynards or Foxes, speak the same language, and are so perfectly consolidated by intermarriages and other ties of interest, as, in fact, to be one nation.[91]
{146} They formerly owned the north-western half of the State of Illinois, and a large part of the State of Missouri. No Indian tribe, except the Sioux, has shown such daring intrepidity, and such implacable hatred towards other tribes. Their enmity, when once excited, was never known to be appeased, till the arrow and tomahawk had for ever prostrated their foes. For centuries the prairies of Illinois and Iowa were the theatre of their exterminating prowess; and to them is to be attributed the almost entire destruction of the Missouris, the Illinois, Cahokias, Kaskaskias, and Peorias. They were, however, steady and sincere in their friendship to the whites; and many is the honest old settler on the borders of their old dominion, who mentions with the warmest feelings, the respectful treatment he has received from them, while he cut the logs for his cabin, and ploughed his "potato patch" on that lonely and unprotected frontier.
Like all the tribes, however, this also dwindles away at the approach of the whites. A melancholy fact. The Indians' bones must enrich the soil, before the plough of civilized man can open it. The noble heart, educated by the tempest to {147} endure the last pang of departing life without a cringe of a muscle; that heart educated by his condition to love with all the powers of being, and to hate with the exasperated malignity of a demon; that heart, educated by the voice of its own existence—the sweet whisperings of the streams—the holy flowers of spring-to trust in, and adore the Great producing and sustaining Cause of itself, and the broad world and the lights of the upper skies, must fatten the corn hills of a more civilized race! The sturdy plant of the wilderness droops under the enervating culture of the garden. The Indian is buried with his arrows and bow.
In 1832 their friendly relations with their white neighbours were, I believe, for the first time, seriously interrupted. A treaty had been formed between the chiefs of the tribe and commissioners, representing the United States, containing, among other stipulations, the sale of their lands north of the Rock River, &c. in the State of Illinois. This tract of country contained the old villages and burial-places of the tribe. It was, indeed, the sanctuary of all that was venerable and sacred among them. They wintered and summered there long before the date of their historical legends. And on {148} these flowering plains the spoils of war—the loves of early years—every thing that delights man to remember of the past, clung closely to the tribe, and made them dissatisfied with the sale. Black-Hawk was the principal chief. He, too, was unwilling to leave his village in a charming glen, at the mouth of Rock River, and increased the dissatisfaction of his people by declaring that "the white chiefs had deceived himself and the other contracting chiefs" in this, "that he had never, and the other chiefs had never consented to such a sale as the white chiefs had written, and were attempting to enforce upon them." They dug up the painted tomahawk with great enthusiasm, and fought bravely by their noble old chief for their beautiful home. But, in the order of nature, the plough must bury the hunter. And so it was with this truly great chief and his brave tribe. They were driven over the Mississippi to make room for the marshalled host of veteran husbandmen, whose strong blows had levelled the forests of the Atlantic States; and yet unwearied with planting the rose on the brow of the wilderness, demanded that the Prairies also should yield food to their hungry sickles.[92]
{149} The country assigned them as their permanent residence, adjoins the southern boundary of the Kickapoos, and on the north and north east the Missouri river. They are but little improved. Under treaty stipulations, they have some few houses and fields made for them by the United States, and are entitled to more. Some live stock has been given them, and more is to be furnished. The main body of the Sauks, usually denominated the Sauks and Foxes, estimated at four thousand six hundred souls, reside on the Iowa river, in Iowa Territory. They will ultimately be removed to unappropriated lands adjoining those already occupied by their kindred within the Indian Territory. Both these bands number twelve thousand four hundred. By the treaty of Prairie du Chien of 1830, the Sauks are entitled to £100 a year for the purposes of education. By treaty of September, 1836, they are entitled to a schoolmaster, a farmer, and blacksmith, as long as the United States shall deem proper. Three comfortable houses are to be erected for them, two hundred acres of prairie land fenced and ploughed, such agricultural implements furnished as they may need for five years, one ferry-boat, two hundred and {150} five head of cattle, one hundred stock hogs, and a flouring mill. These benefits they are receiving, but are making an improvident use of them.
The country of the Iowas contains one hundred and twenty-eight thousand acres adjoining the north eastern boundaries of the Sauks, with the Missouri river on the north east, and the great Nemaha river on the north. Their condition is similar to that of the Sauks. The aid which they have received, and are to receive from the government, is about the same in proportion to their numbers. The villages of the Sauks and Iowas, are within two miles of each other.[93]
The Otoes are the descendants of the Missouris, with whom they united after the reduction of the latter tribe by the Sauks and Foxes. They claim a portion of land lying in the fork between Missouri and Great Platte rivers. The government of the United States understand, however, that their lands extend southward from the Platte down the Missouri to Little Nemaha river, a distance of about forty miles; thence their southern boundary extends westward up Little Nemaha to its source, and thence due west. Their western and northern boundaries are not particularly {151} defined. Their southern boundary is about twenty-five miles north of the Iowa's land.[94]
By treaty, such of their tribe as are related to the whites, have an interest in a tract adjoining the Missouri river, and extending from the Little Nemaha to the Great Nemaha, a length of about twenty-eight miles, and ten miles wide. No Indians reside on this tract.