Abstract
This is an accepted article with a DOI pre-assigned that is not yet published.
This thesis examines how the Iowa Tribe preservedits survival from 1812 to 1824. Rather than being victims of tribal warfare, asearly histories portrayed, it argues that Ioway leaders actively negotiatedwith rival tribes and colonial powers in the decade leading up to their firstremoval. Prior to the nineteenth century, the Iowa Tribe lived in most of themodern-day State of Iowa and Northern Missouri. The War of 1812 divided theIoway between allegiances to the United States and Great Britain but emergedunited under the leadership of Chief Hard Heart. The following decade sawincreased pressure from American settlement, and relations between the Iowayand Sauk and Meskwaki tribes deteriorated to the point where the Iowa Tribeleft behind their old villages on the Des Moines and Mississippi Rivers toreside with the Otoe in Northern Missouri. In 1824, in wake of Missouriachieving statehood, Ioway chiefs White Cloud and Great Walker signed awaytheir lands in Northern Missouri, beginning a long period of removal andattempts by the United States to assimilate the Iowa Tribe. Although they losttheir lands as a result of this agreement, the Iowa leaders’ pragmatismultimately preserved the tribe.Keywords: Iowa Tribe, Sauk and Meskwaki, War of 1812, Indian Removals