Page 20 - DesMoinesRiver

in a succession of intense and devastating intertribal wars with the Sioux As the federal government moved to settle native people onto increasingly
and other groups (Foster 2009:7). On top of these conflicts, European restricted reservations the Ioway, Sauk, Meskwaki, and Sioux all claimed
diseases were taking a toll on the population. In the mid-1760s a smallpox territory in Iowa. In order to defend their claim a delegation of Ioway lead-
epidemic swept through the population, killing about half of the Ioway. ers traveled to Washington D.C. in 1837 and presented a map to govern-
Their population weakened by war and their numbers reduced by epi- ment officials which showed the locations of ancestral villages and the trails
demic diseases, the Ioway gradually withdrew from the northern portions they had traveled for centuries. Known as the No-Heart Map after one of
of their territory. By the early 18th century the main Ioway villages were the Ioway leaders who presented it, this valuable historic document, now
in southern Iowa although small bands probably continued to hunt in the in the National Archives, represents a history of the Ioway from the time
western portion of the state. of their creation to 1837. It shows the Ioway homeland between the Missis-
In the opening years of the 19th century a second small pox epidemic sippi and Missouri Rivers and identifies trails, villages, and other significant
struck. This time between 25 and 50 percent of the tribe died, leaving
only about 800 survivors (Peterson and places. Many of the locations
Artz 2006:27). Tradition tells that at this indicated on the map can
time the main Ioway village was on the be correlated with known
lower Des Moines River. It was here that archaeological sites (Green
the Ioway settled to trade after receiving 1995). Unfortunately for the
confirmation that Northwest Company Ioway, the government of-
fur traders would come. This village has ficials decided in favor of the
come to be known as Iowaville. claims of the more numer-
ous Sauk and Meskwaki. The
Ioway artifacts: bear claw Ioway eventually signed a
necklace, pipestone pipes. treaty that surrendered all of
their land in Iowa, and most
1837 No-Heart Map. of the population moved to
two reservations in Kansas
and Nebraska. Another
Ioway reservation was later
established in Oklahoma.
Today, many Ioway continue
to live on these two reserva-
tions (Foster 2009:7). The
land around the village of
Iowaville was subsequently
occupied by a band of
Sauk (Peterson and Artz
2006:42).

20 A River of Unrivaled Advantages—Life Along the Lower Des Moines River