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Waverly
6 to independence
Leaving Waverly, you
will be traveling through In 1830, the U.S. Government designated
the territory once defined a 40-mile wide strip of land between the Upper
as the Iowa Neutral Iowa River and the Des Moines River as the Neu-
Ground. This was one tral Ground to separate the warring Isanti Dakota
of only a handful of land to the north and the Meskwaki, Sauk, and Ioway
tracts established to create to the south. As part of this plan, more than 2,000
a buffer between hostile Na- Ho-Chunk (Winnebago) were removed from their
tive American nations. Native homeland in Wisconsin and resettled into this
people had long established tract. The Ho-Chunk had no wish to leave the
traditions in their homelands land that held their sacred places and the graves
and were closely tied both of their ancestors, and they had concerns about
physically and spiritually to their being situated in between the warring tribes.
environment. They also had exist- The U.S. military at Fort Atkinson (Winneshiek
ing relationships, both positive and negative, County) promised it would provide protection for
with one another as independent nations. By the Ho-Chunk from their tribal enemies and from
the 19th century, mounting pressure from the encroachment by settlers. The Ho-Chunk reluc-
westward expansion of Euro-American settlers tantly left under a military escort in 1849.
and competition for land and resources increased
tensions and hostilities, causing the U.S. Govern- This began a 50-year odyssey for the Ho-
ment to become involved. Chunk that moved them many more times into
increasingly shrinking territories in Iowa, then
Ho-Chunk Chief Yellow Thunder (H.H. Benet Studio, Minnesota, and finally South Dakota. Today, two
courtesy of the Wisconsin Historical Society) separate Ho-Chunk tribes reside in Nebraska and
Wisconsin.
