THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION OF IOWA

1833 TO 1860

The purpose of this paper is to summarize the settlement of Iowa between the years 1833 and 1860. An examination of the maps of settlement which accompany the census reports published by the United States government will show that by the latter year the territory included within the present boundaries of Iowa had been occupied with the exception of a portion, somewhat triangular in shape, in the northwest. Even here islands of settlements are shown in the uncolored area and a colored line extending up the Missouri indicates that the population had reached the southeastern corner of the present State of South Dakota. On the other hand there were comparatively few white settlers within the present boundaries of the State before 1833. It had been crossed by explorers, however, some of whom had declared it unfit for habitation, and a few French and American traders had built trading posts along its eastern border. These may be considered briefly before taking up the subject of actual settlement.

Mr. Jacob Van der Zee in his Episodes in the Early History of the Des Moines Valley, published in THE IOWA JOURNAL OF HISTORY AND POLITICS for July, 1916, says that cattle were driven from points in Missouri through the Iowa country to Selkirk's settlement on the Red River in 1815 and 1821. The route used in this trade by Dixon and McKnight in 1822, is shown on "I. Judson's Map of the Territory of Iowa in 1838". During this same period a military expedition was traversing the State on its way from Council Bluff to the mouth of the St. Peter's (Minne

sota) River. It was a detachment from Major Long's expedition led by Captain Magee of the Rifle Regiment sent out for the purpose of opening a road between Council Bluff and the military post recently constructed on the Mississippi River. Accompanying the party was Stephen Watts Kearny to whom we are indebted for our knowledge of the expedition.1 Leaving Camp Missouri on July 2, 1820, the company consisting of about twenty men followed a route leading in a general northeasterly direction, veering occasionally either to the east or to the north, finally arriving at Camp Cold Water twenty-three days later. "A very great portion of the country in the neighborhood of our route", Kearny wrote in his journal, "could be of no other object (at any time) to our gov't than the expulsion of the savages from it. for the disadvantages (as above) will forever prevent its supporting more than a thinly scattered population. The soil generally we found good, but bears no comparison to that I saw between Chariton & C. B."2

But the earliest white settlements were not made in that

1 Journal of Stephen Watts Kearny, edited by Valentine M. Porter, in the Missouri Historical Society Collections, Vol. III, pp. 14, 15.

This expedition was a part of Calhoun's plan for opening routes and erecting military posts along the entire frontier. See Goodwin's A Larger View of the Yellowstone Expedition, 1819-1820, in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. IV, pp. 299–313.

2 Missouri Historical Society Collections, Vol. III, pp. 14, 15, 104, 106, 107. A somewhat similar estimate of the Iowa country was given in the St. Louis Enquirer, edited by Thomas H. Benton, in 1819: "After you get forty or fifty miles west of the Mississippi the arid plains set in. The country is uninhabitable except upon the borders of the rivers and creeks. The Grand Prairie, a plain without wood or water, which extends to the northwest farther than hunters or travelers have ever yet gone, comes down to within a few miles of St. Charles and so completely occupies the fork of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers that the woodland for three hundred miles of each forms a skirt from five to twenty miles wide, and above that distance the prairie actually reaches the rivers in many places."- Quoted in Gue's History of Iowa, Vol. I, p. 132.

part of the State through which Kearny passed. The best known among the early French residents of the territory of Iowa and perhaps the first white man to settle within the present boundaries of the State was the French-Canadian, Julien Dubuque. He won favor with the chief of the Fox Indians, and in September, 1788, received from this friendly leader a claim to about one hundred and fifty thousand acres of land extending along the western bank of the Mississippi and including the site where the present city of Dubuque is located. This is said to have been the "first conveyance of Iowa soil to the whites, by the Indians" Dubuque had already examined the country included in the cession and had concluded that lead mining could be profitably conducted. The actual work in the mines was done by Indian women and by old men of the Fox tribe whom Dubuque employed for the purpose, but he brought ten Canadians from Prairie du Chien to assist him in superintending and directing operations.

But Dubuque did not confine himself to mining. Farms were cleared and fenced, houses were erected and a mill opened. A smelting furnace was constructed on a point now known as Dubuque Bluff. He opened a store and exchanged goods with the Indians for furs. Twice each year his boats went to St. Louis loaded with ore, furs, and hides, and re3 Negus's The Early History of Iowa in The Annals of Iowa (First Series), Vol. V, p. 877. See also Gue's History of Iowa, Vol. I, Ch. X.

Dubuque's title was later confirmed by the Governor of Louisiana territory, Carondelet. In 1805 he and August Chouteau, to whom he had given some of the land for the purpose of canceling a debt, filed a claim with the United States for a title. The land for which this petition was made extended along the west bank of the Mississippi for a distance of twenty-one miles and was nine miles wide. The claim remained unsettled for nearly half a century. The courts finally decided, long after Dubuque and Chouteau were in their graves, that the original grant made by the Indians in 1788 and the subsequent confirmation of that grant made by the Spanish Governor Carondelet in 1796 were both in the nature of permits or leases to mine lead on the lands described.― Gue's History of Iowa, Vol. I, pp. 113, 114.

turned with goods, supplies, and money. These semi-annual trips became important events at St. Louis, and he was recognized as one of the largest traders in the Upper Mississippi Valley. For twenty-two years, until his death in 1810, Dubuque and his Canadian countrymen lived among the Indians, worked the mines and carried on trade, and his headquarters became widely known as the "Mines of Spain".

Two other settlements had been made within the present boundaries of the State during the period in which Dubuque was operating in the vicinity of the place which still bears his name. One of these was within the present limits of Clayton County, and was known as the Giard Tract. Basil Giard, a French-American, had received more than five thousand acres of land here in 1795 from the Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana. The grant was later confirmed by the United States after that country acquired Louisiana, and the patent issued to Giard was said to have been the first legal title to land obtained by a white man within the boundaries of the State of Iowa. Another settlement was made during this early period by Louis Honoré Tesson, a French-Canadian, in 1799. Having received permission from the Lieutenant Governor of Louisiana, he built a trading post in Lee County where the town of Montrose now stands. Here he planted an orchard, and raised corn, potatoes, and other products for several years. His heirs received a confirmation of the grant from the United States in 1839.5

After Dubuque's death the Indians took possession of the mines, expelling the whites and evidently working them at intervals during the next twenty years. In the latter

4 Gue's History of Iowa, Vol. I, pp. 111, 116, 117.

5 Gue's History of Iowa, Vol. I, p. 117.

part of the third decade of the nineteenth century the lead mines in northern Illinois and in southwestern Wisconsin attracted settlers by the thousands. Among these enthusiasts was a New Englander by the name of James L. Langworthy. Having explored the old "Mines of Spain", he brought a company of operators to the west bank of the Mississippi in 1830, and again the white men began to smelt lead ore in the land once claimed by Dubuque. The new mining camp soon attracted settlers from the east bank of the Mississippi. The settlement of these squatters west of the river was in violation of the treaty compacts between the United States and the Indian tribes, and the government was soon requested to remove the intruders. Accordingly troops were sent over in 1831, the settlers were driven back to the east bank of the river, and a detachment was left at the mines to protect the Indians against further intrusion.7

8

In 1832 the Black Hawk Purchase was concluded. By this the United States secured from the Indians the cession of a strip of territory about fifty miles wide extending along the western bank of the Mississippi from the northern boundary of Missouri to the vicinity of a parallel running through Prairie du Chien. The acquisition of this territory marks the real beginning of white settlements in Iowa. Not until several years later, however, when land sales were held, were the occupants able to procure actual title to the soil, but the mere absence of a title was not enough to check the advance of the frontiersmen. They came in large

For a brief summary of lead mining in this region see Thwaites's Early Lead-Mining in Illinois and Wisconsin in the Annual Report of the American Historical Association, 1893, pp. 191–196.

Gue's History of Iowa, Vol. I, pp. 155, 156.

Toole's Sketches and Incidents Relating to the Settlement of Louisa County in The Annals of Iowa (First Series), Vol. VI, p. 50.