The Governor pointedly stated that the government owed protection to these settlers in the homes it had encouraged them to occupy. He further stated that a post in this section would curb the Indians and give quiet to northwestern Iowa.[46] To be sure these troubles had not reached any great magnitude, “yet there was a continuous succession of annoying and suspicious occurrences which kept the frontier settlements in a state of perpetual dread and apprehension, and made life a burden”.[47] Even in the presence of this distressing condition of affairs the military authorities of the National government did nothing to relieve matters. No troops were sent to protect the settlers, nor were the letters of Governor Grimes even granted consideration. Thus there developed slowly but surely a situation where the Indians grew sufficiently emboldened to make a general attack.[48]
Such a policy, characterized by a disregard not only for Indian welfare but also for the well-being of the white frontiersmen, could only bring unhappy consequences. It became more and more apparent that the Indians were bent upon concerted action of some sort. Annoyances now occurred along the whole frontier, no part of which was free from alarm. War parties were in evidence in nearly every section, and the attitude of the Indians became one of defiance. Not only in Woodbury, Monona, and Harrison counties, but in Buena Vista and what are now Humboldt, Webster, Kossuth, Palo Alto, and Sac counties the settlers were feeling the effects of Indian enmity.[49]
The resentment of the Indians at this time arose partly from a feeling of jealousy toward the whites, partly from the fact that they were retrograding, and partly from the undue influence of the American Fur Company.
From the start the Indians, particularly the Sioux, had been jealous and suspicious of the whites. As time passed and the Indian observed indications of a general and permanent occupation by the whites of the territory which he had known as home, his jealous fears increased. The land of his fathers, the home of his traditions, was about to pass into the hands of another people, to the intense sorrow of the Indian. It “was a trying ordeal” and “naturally awakened in his breast feelings of bitter regret and jealousy.”[50] His “distrust grew into open protest as claims were staked off, cabins built, and the ground prepared for cultivation.” It seemed that the Indians had resolved not to submit “until they had entered an armed protest against the justice of the claim which civilization makes to all the earth.”[51]
In addition to this feeling of jealousy and distrust of the whites, the Indians were gradually retrograding by taking unto themselves many of the vices of the white race. This was the inevitable result of a loose administration of the frontier which permitted it to be invaded in many places by refugees from civilization. Although this statement may seem to be somewhat sweeping, it is a well-known fact that among the first to appear on the frontier there were always some men of the reckless, rough-and-ready type whose contempt for the finer things of civilized life made a longer residence amid such surroundings undesirable and frequently impossible.
Foremost among the causes of the red man’s retrogression may be cited whiskey.[52] But there were other causes, such as the treaty of 1855 with the Chippewas, which rendered the agent powerless to control the Indian or his seducers if he had so desired.[53] Then there were the errors committed by people who were brought to the frontier by the government as helpers in advancing the Indian’s welfare, but who had, through mistaken methods, produced opposite results. Again, the Indian had been mistakenly led downward “by many years of luxurious idleness and riotous living.... In this state of demoralization they were gathered up and thrown together on their little Reserve, where all the worst characters could act in concert, and where they found bloody work for their idle hands to do.”[54] The government had liberally supplied them with tobacco, and they had never lacked money with which to buy whiskey. Their wants had been looked after so paternally that they had little else to do but spend their time in idleness. Craving entertainment they soon learned to find it in a wrong way. They no longer cared to hunt for food, since they did not need to do so. Soon their expeditions became mere raids upon their protectors, accompanied by unrestrained destruction committed to gratify their craving for some form of entertainment. Thus, while the forces of retrogression were at work the Indian was daily becoming more of a menace to the well-disposed border settlers who viewed his changing attitude in helpless terror.
But most insidious of all in keeping the Indian inimical to his white neighbors was the influence of the fur traders—especially those of the American Fur Company. The admitted purpose of this organization was to keep the Indian a savage hunter and at the same time to frighten the white settlers away from the frontier in order that the annual crop of cheaply obtained but valuable furs might not suffer diminution. To keep the Indian in such a condition it was necessary to prevent him from assuming too friendly an attitude toward the whites—in order that he might the better beat back or discourage their westward advance. There were strong suspicions that more than one attack upon border settlers by Indians occurred because the presence of these settlers threatened the fur-gathering preserves of the American Fur Company.
It would be wrong, however, to create the impression that the fur traders operated in secret. Practically everyone knew their purpose and methods: their purposes they openly admitted, and their methods consisted largely in dispensing “fire water” and in selling to the Indian on credit. The latter practice was useful, for it obligated the Indian to serve the Company in realizing its ends. Perhaps the most notable example of the Company’s interference with plans of Indian amelioration is to be found in the case of the Winnebagoes. Their agent, Joseph M. Street, one of the most enlightened Indian agents the Iowa country ever knew, had for some years been striving to improve the condition of the Winnebagoes, but without success. He had failed, not because his plan was impracticable, but because he came into direct conflict with the purposes and methods of the American Fur Company.[55]