Greetings Listers, Found a tidbit about the Sac/Fox ... Meskwaki Indians of possible interest to the discussion of Native Americans in Iowa: http://www.pbs.org/riverofsong/music/e1-meskwaki.html ..." By the early 1600s, the Meskwaki were identified in the Detroit area. Moving to the Green Bay region [near where Mary Beth lives] they set up their villages, planted their corn, beans, and squash, raised their children, made war against the French, and moved on to the Mississippi River. There they established villages along its tributaries as far north as Ft. Snelling and south to St. Louis. By 1848, all nations west of the Mississippi River, in the territorial region out of which the state of Iowa was created, were removed to Kansas, with some taken to the Oklahoma Territory. Only the Red Earths remained, . . . "Most of the Meskwaki lived hidden along the tributaries of the Mississippi until July 13, 1857, when the first eighty acres were sold to them by a Mr. Isaac Butler along the Iowa River, where the present Pow Wow grounds are located. " http://www.meskwaki.com/history.html History The Meskwaki are of the Algonquian origin from the Eastern Woodland Culture areas. The Language spoken is the same dialect ads the Sauk and Kickapoo. The tribe has been historically located in the St. Lawrence River Valley, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Missouri and Iowa. Meskwaki were called Renards (The Fox) by the French the tribe's first European contact in 1666 but have always identified themselves as Meskwaki. Meskwaki and Sauk are two distinct tribal groups. Linquistic and cultural similarities between the two tribes have made them often associated throughout history. Terminology established by the United States Government continues to treat the Sac & Fox as a single political unit despite their separate identities. Meskwaki fought against the French in what is called the Fox Wars (1701-1742). The Meskwaki resistance of French rule was so effective that the French King signed a decree commanding the complete extermination of the Meskwaki the only edict of its kind in history of a Major and full standing army on one particular American Indian tribe. The Sauk and Meskwaki allied in 1735 to fend off Europeans and other Indian tribes. Both tribes moved southward from Wisconsin into Iowa, Illinois and Missouri. After the Black Hawk War of 1832, the United States officially combined the two tribes into a single group known as the Sac & Fox confederacy for treaty-making purposes. Then a series of land cessions under the name of Sac & Fox, the Sauk and Meskwaki lost all lands and ultimately were removed to a reservation in east central Kansas in 1845. But some Meskwaki remained hidden in Iowa with others coming back within a few years. In 1856 the state of Iowa enacted a law allowing the Meskwaki to stay. The U.S. government however tried to force the tribe back to the Kansas reservation by withholding treaty-right annuities. In 1857 the Meskwaki purchase the first 80 acres in Tama County. Ten years later the U.S. finally began paying annuities to the Meskwaki in Iowa, an act that gave the Meskwaki a formal identity as the Sac & Fox of Iowa. The jurisdictional status was unclear since the tribe then had formal federal recognition with eligibility for BIA services but also had a continuing relationship with the State of Iowa due to the tribes private ownership of land which was held in trust by the governor. For the next 30 years the Meskwaki were virtually ignored by federal as wall as state polices. Subsequently, they lived a more independent lifestyle than other tribes confined to regular reservations that were strictly regimented by federal authority. To resolve this jurisdictional ambiguity, in 1896 the State of Iowa ceded to the Federal Government all jurisdiction over the Meskwaki. Owing to the noble sacrifices and vision of ancestors, the Meskwaki still remain and even thrive. Neither New France nor its French monarchy exist anymore. " http://www.native-languages.org/meskwaki-sauk.htm Native Languages of the Americas: Mesquakie-Sauk (Sac and Fox) Language: Mesquakie-Sauk is an Algonquian language spoken by about 800 Indians, mostly Fox, in the American Midwest. The two dialects, Mesquakie (spoken by the Meskwaki, or Fox) and Sauk (spoken by the Asakiwaki, or Sac), are mutually intelligible. Kickapoo is considered by some linguists to be another dialect of Mesquakie-Sauk, but though it is certainly a closely related language, Kickapoo has developed tone distinctions and Meskwaki and Sauk speakers cannot readily understand it. Mesquakie-Sauk is a seriously endangered language today, due to most of its speakers being older and the Sac and Fox communities being so far-flung. Some teachers are trying to revitalize the language, particularly the Meskwaki dialect, before it is too late. People: The Fox and Sac have been such closely associated allies that they are usually considered as a single tribe. They originally lived in Michigan (Saginaw Bay is named for the Sauk tribe), but multiple forced relocations left their descendants in Iowa, Kansas, and Oklahoma. There are about 4500 Sac and Fox Indians today. History: The Fox and Sauk Indians have gone down in history as "warlike" people because of the Fox tribe's immediate hostility towards the French. This hostility was far from random, though--the Huron, armed with French weapons, had just finished driving the Fox from their lands in Michigan when the French themselves arrived, and the dispossessed Fox were not pleased with the newcomers. Two Fox Wars ensued; the Fox Indians were no Iroquois Confederacy, though, and could not hold their own against the larger and better-armed French. Usually the French were the least violent of the European invaders, but on this occasion, they resolved to wipe out the conquered Fox Indians, and pursued them across the country slaughtering any they could find. The only survivors were a group of no more than 500 Fox people who were sheltered by their near relatives the Sauk, and, though they had previously maintained good relations with the French, the Sauk tribe now found themselves under assault as well. Luckily for the Fox and Sauk, the various Native Americans allied with the French were starting to put more and more pressure on them to abandon their commitment to genocide, and the French eventually gave in and made reluctant peace with the Sac and Fox tribes. After the French departed North America, the Fox and Sauk Indians were relocated to Iowa, Kansas, and finally Oklahoma; one group of Sauk, under the warrior Black Hawk, refused to leave and fought the pyrrhic Black Hawk War, which ended with American soldiers wiping out the entire company as Black Hawk brought them in for surrender. Another group, mostly Fox, returned to Iowa, where the state government was willing to sell them land. This turned out to be good farmland, unlike anything available in Oklahoma, and the Meskwaki tribe in Iowa is a prosperous one today. The rest of the Fox and Sac Indians remained in Oklahoma, where they live together to this day. " Hopefully these excerpts give a quick overview of the Native Americans in iowa in early settler's times. Mary Beth in Wisconsin