The Indians of Iowa

SAUK

SAUK Name means: “People of the Outlet” Other names: Sac, Saki, Sac and Fox They call themselves: Osakiwuk, “People of the Outlet,” sometimes mistranslated as “Yellow Earth People” Language spoken/language family: Sauk/Algonkian Residence in Iowa: 1760 to 1836 Location today: Sac and Fox Nation of Missouri near Reserve, Kansas; Sac and Fox Nation near Stroud, Oklahoma    There was no such tribe as the “Sac and Fox.” The Sauk and the Meskwaki (known also as the Fox) are two different tribes. They are often spoken of as the Sac and Fox because of their historical alliance, especially since the 1804 treaty that caused them to lose most of their lands. Both nations were located in Michigan and Wisconsin before the 1700s. The Sauk are usually mistranslated as being the Yellow Earth People as a companion set to the Meskwaki, the Red Earth People. But Meskwaki say that the Sauk name is really Osakiwuk, which means the People of the Outlet, because they lived on the mouth of a river when the Meskwaki met them. The Sauk were pushed south from homelands in Wisconsin and Michigan in the 1700s by the French and Chippewa and formed an alliance with the Meskwaki. The Sauk were the closest allies of the Meskwaki during the period when the French attempted to destroy the Meskwaki, and both tribes often sought refuge in Iowa. One group of Sauk were noted in Iowa at the rapids north of present-day Keokuk in the late 1700s. Another group, mostly Sauk, settled in Il- 22 Sauk linois, while a group made mostly of Meskwaki settled in Iowa, in Ioway tribal territory. The Iowa River was the western boundary of Sauk territory in the 1800s. The Sauk and Meskwaki groups of eastern Iowa would become known as the Sauk and Fox of the Mississippi. This was to distinguish the eastern group of Sauk and Meskwaki from the western Sauk and Fox of the Missouri, a large band of mostly Sauk who settled along the Missouri and Osage rivers in Missouri in the late 1700s. In 1804, through a combination of alcohol and coercion, a few Sauk headmen living in Missouri were misled into signing a treaty with the UnitedStatesthatgaveawayallSaukandFoxlandsonbothsidesofthe Mississippi. This naturally angered the Sauk and Meskwaki living in Iowa and Illinois along the tributaries of the river. The Sauk and Fox of the Mississippi moved farther into Iowa, where they fought the Sioux over territory there. One story told of a Sauk attack, led by Pashepaho and Black Hawk, on the Ioway town at Iowaville on the Des Moines River in about 1819, which destroyed at least part of the Ioway nation. Encouraged by the Treaty of 1804, American squatters illegally seized the principal Sauk village on Rock Island, as well as the Meskwaki and Ioway lead mines at Dubuque. Sauk warrior Black Hawk led his band in resistance, in the Black Hawk War of 1832, which was fought primarily in Illinois. Because of his earlier alliance with the British and his resistance against American intrusions, his group was known as the British band. However, Black Hawk was defeated within a year by Americans assisted by Sioux and Winnebago. In 1837, Sauk and Fox claims to Iowa lands were established by the mixed-blood Sauk leader Keokuk in debate with the Sioux and the Ioway. Keokuk based his claim on the concept of ownership through conquest rather than through aboriginal title. Of course, this idea was close to the hearts of the Americans. They thus chose to recognize Keokuk as the leader of both tribes in treaty-making, although he had no traditional right to authority even in his own Sauk tribe, let alone the Meskwaki. Various bands of Sauk and Fox continued to settle all over Iowa Sauk 23 from the early 1800s until the 1840s. The Sauk village of Appanoose was on the Des Moines River. Meanwhile, Keokuk and other compliant leaders continued making land cession treaties. Keokuk’s last village was on the old site of the last Ioway town at Iowaville, where his Sauk lived until 1842. After a series of treaties, both Sauk bands (the Missouri and Mississippi /British bands) were moved onto reserves in Kansas. After the Meskwaki/Fox contingent returned to Iowa, the remaining Sac and Fox of the Mississippi, mostly Sauk from Black Hawk’s group, moved in 1869 from Kansas to Indian Territory, which eventually became Oklahoma. Most of the Sauk who remained in Kansas as the Sac and...