p1  I
A Prologue

The scenes of this narrative lie in the Upper Valley of the Mississippi River, in an area which now forms a part of four Commonwealths — Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa. The center of the stage is a flood plain some •eight or ten miles long and from one to two miles wide, lying just above the junction of the swift Wisconsin and the Father of Waters. A ridge of serrated, limestone bluffs, tree-crowned, bounds this flood plain in the rear, while in front the isle-strewn expanse of the Mississippi separates it from the high, forest-clad bluffs of the Iowa shore •a mile to the westward.1

This was a strategic point — the site of the quaint, old village of Prairie du Chien — and a convenient meeting place for the Indians and traders of the Upper Valley. It was a focal point in an area where a colorful pageant of the Middle West unfolded — the coming of the French, the supremacy of the English, Spanish influence in the trans-Mississippi country, the establishment of military posts by the United States, and the founding of American communities. Indians, French explorers, missionaries, traders, trappers, voyageurs, and coureurs des bois, Englishmen, Spaniards, Americans, miners, frontier soldiers, and settlers were the characters in this struggle of nations for the wealth of the Upper Mississippi Valley — furs and lead and homes.

For over a century and a half before the United States asserted control over this area by erecting military posts  p2 at Rock Island, at Prairie du Chien, and at the Falls of St. Anthony, foreign influence dominated the region of the Upper Mississippi. Stopped on the south by hostile Indians the French moved up the valley of the St. Lawrence River and around the Great Lakes.​2 It was in keeping with a wish "to explore the interior — to develop its enormous fur‑trade, to convert the painted and befeathered heathen to the gospel of the cross, and to extend the empire of the great Louis"​3 that Samuel de Champlain, Governor of New France and himself a leader in daring exploration, sent Jean Nicolet to visit the Indians in the unknown region to the west. When the latter, in 1634, reached a Winnebago Indian village on the Fox River, the French advance toward the Mississippi had begun.4

Champlain died in 1635 and the discoveries of Nicolet were forgotten for many years. But with the coming of Jean Talon as intendant of New France a renewed impetus was given to explorations. He cared little about a route to far Cathay, the goal of other explorers; it was his wish rather to make firm the claim of his king to the broad interior of North America and to discover that mysterious great river to the west about which persistent rumors found their way back to Quebec. It was Talon who sent François Daumont, Sieur de Saint Lusson to take possession of the yet unexplored country, and on the fourteenth of June, 1671, at Sault Ste. Marie a magnificent pageant was enacted before the eyes of astounded natives. Holding a piece of earth in one hand and his drawn sword in the other Saint Lusson took possession of the country "in the name of the Most High, Most Mighty and Most Redoubtable Monarch Louis, the Fourteenth." Louis Joliet was there, and also Nicolas Perrot,  p3 two men destined to help extend the power of New France on the far‑flung frontier.5

Before Talon completed his preparations for the exploration of the western country he was recalled to France, and Louis de Buade, Count de Frontenac — perhaps the greatest of the governors of New France — succeeded him in the rôle of the director of western explorations.​6 Frontenac sent Louis Joliet, who had already established a reputation as an explorer and woodsman, on this voyage of discovery which Talon had planned. Joliet brought with him from Quebec to the distant mission at St. Ignace​7 permission from Father Claude Dablon, the superior of the Jesuit order in North America, for Father Jacques Marquette to accompany him on this fateful journey.8

On the seventeenth of May, 1673, these two Frenchmen, with five rugged voyageurs, set out in two birch bark canoes from the Indian mission at St. Ignace. Along the shore of wind-swept Lake Michigan, and up Green Bay they shaped their course. Thence up the lower reaches of the Fox, through reedy Winnebago Lake, then up the marshy upper stretches of the Fox River to the Indian village of the Mascoutens they made their way. No whispered dangers from astounded Indian lips could turn them back. So far they had followed the route traversed by Nicolet nearly forty years earlier, but now they pushed on to the portage, and reëmbarked on the rushing, twisting current of the Wisconsin River. On the seventeenth of June they glided from the swift, bubbled torrent of the Wisconsin out upon the broad bosom of the Mississippi.

With joy and wonder they gazed upon the magnificent panorama before them. A mile to the west towered the  p4 green-clad bluffs of the future Iowa country. Up stream on the east was the prairie destined to become the site of Prairie du Chien and Fort Crawford. Below them stretched the river which the Indians called "Messepi", dotted with islands, emerald-green with foliage, and bounded on either side by scallops of high limestone bluffs. They had blazed the trail over the Fox‑Wisconsin water route which was destined to become a great highway over which the riches of the fur trade would pass from the Mississippi to the Lakes, which was to be cut off for a time by the bitter half-century of conflict between the French and the Fox Indians, and over which in turn American troops would be sent between the lake posts and the forts of the Upper Mississippi.

Marquette and Joliet turned the prows of their two canoes down stream and beheld new wonders at every turn of the river. For eight days they paddled down the long sweeps of the Mississippi without seeing any signs of human life. Finally on the twenty-fifth of June the explorers discovered footprints on a sandy beach along the Iowa shore. Leaving the boatmen to guard the two canoes and their supplies, Joliet and Marquette followed the tracks along a beaten path inland about two leagues. Here they came upon a drowsy village of Illinois Indians who were startled into sudden life by the appearance of the two strangers. The woodsman and the missionary were taken before the chief of the Illinois, who welcomed the white men. Presents were exchanged and the calumet was smoked. Indian women served the visitors a feast, and that night they slept in the cabin of the chief as his guests. On the next afternoon, accompanied by hundreds of Indians, the Frenchmen retraced their steps to the Mississippi. Amid the farewells of their new found  p5 friends, Joliet and Marquette ended the first visit of white men and red men on soil that is now Iowa, and set out down the river to continue their adventures in the Great Valley. The return of Joliet and Marquette to New France and their report of the journey "opened a highway through the land, and showed the Fox‑Wisconsin route to be in many respects the most feasible path to the interior of the continent."9

The French advance into the Upper Valley of the Mississippi now began to assume new proportions. There came into the Illinois country Robert Cavelier de la Salle who celebrated New Years Day, 1680, at the great village of the Illinois Indians on Peoria Lake.​10 Here La Salle built Fort Crèvecoeur, and from this rallying point sent Michel Accault, Antoine Auguel, and Father Louis Hennepin, a Recollect friar, to explore the upper reaches of the Mississippi while he in due time set out on an expedition toward the Gulf of Mexico. Henri de Tonty, the man with the iron hand, was left in command of the post on the Illinois. The Hennepin party made their way up the Mississippi past the mouth of the Wisconsin, past the prairie later the site of Prairie du Chien and Fort Crawford, through Lake Pepin, to the Falls of St. Anthony. They were captured by the Sioux and taken with the Indians on wandering trips through the land of the Upper Valley. Then occurred a strange meeting in this wilderness. Daniel Greysolon Duluth, gentleman of the King's Guard, who with a small band of followers had come to the Upper Northwest by the St. Croix-Bois Brule route, and was trading for furs with the Sioux of the Upper Mississippi region, heard rumors of white captives below. Hastening down the Mississippi Duluth encountered the three Frenchmen and secured their release.11  p6 Together the entire party returned to Mackinac over the Fox‑Wisconsin thoroughfare.

When La Salle reached the Gulf on April 9, 1682, he took possession of "the seas, harbors, ports, bays, adjacent straits, and all nations, peoples, provinces, cities, towns, villages, mines, minerals, fisheries, streams, and rivers, within the extent of the said Louisiana".​12 Thus future Iowa country, which was made a part of New France by Saint Lusson eleven years earlier, was now remade a part of Louisiana by La Salle.

There came to the Upper Mississippi Valley in 1685 the daring Frenchman, Nicolas Perrot, with instructions to promote peace and trade with the Indians. He built trading post or "forts" at strategic posts, one of Lake Pepin, another near the present village of Trempealeau, one somewhere on the Mississippi, and still another in the Illinois country near the lead mine region. Perrot traded extensively with the Indians on both sides of the Mississippi, mined lead near his trading post below the Wisconsin, and figured in many thrilling adventures. He maintained himself and his small corps of soldiers from the profits of his trade in furs and lead. On the eighth of May, 1689, at Fort St. Antoine, one of his trading posts, Perrot in a ceremony similar to the one in which he had participated at Sault Ste. Marie in 1671, repeated formally the act of taking possession of the country for his king.13

At the close of the seventeenth century, then, Saint Lusson, La Salle, and Perrot, each in turn by impressive ceremonies, had advanced the claim of the King of France to the Mississippi Valley. With the founding of La Salle's proposed city at the mouth of the Mississippi in 1718 by  p7 Sieur de Bienville "France stood guard at the mouths of the two great rivers of the continent, the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence, and bending around the Great Lakes stretched the empire of her dreams". Near the center of this far‑flung curve was the site of old Prairie du Chien which became the common meeting place for Indians and traders of the Upper Mississippi region.14

But the loss of this wide empire was apparently predestined. In the Upper Mississippi country trouble came at the beginning of the eighteenth century from the turbulent and warlike Fox Indians. This half-century of bitter conflict seriously interrupted free communication between New France and Louisiana by the Fox‑Wisconsin route and weakened materially the fabric of French control. The struggle between the Fox Indians and the French raged intermittently in Wisconsin, in Michigan, and in Illinois. Apparently vanquished, the Indians would show new life and menace anew French control.15

One event in this long drawn out conflict resulted in the union of the Sauk with the Fox Indians — two tribes so prominent later in early Iowa. Although the Sauk tribe sympathized with the Foxes they took no part in the struggle until the killing of a prominent French official, Nicolas Antoine Coulon de Villiers, by a Sauk Indian led the Sauk through fear of punishment to make common cause with the Foxes. The French determined to punish the allied tribes who meantime had taken refuge on the Wapsipinicon River in the Iowa country. This punitive expedition was placed under the command of Captain Nicolas Joseph Fleurimont Des Noyelles who left Montreal in 1734 with some eighty Frenchmen and a number of Indian allies who proved unfaithful and hard to manage.16

 p8  Des Noyelles was instructed to spare the Sauk if they would forsake the Foxes, otherwise he was to destroy both tribes and "to let our Savages eat them up." Before the French and their allies reached the Wapsipinicon, they learned that the Sauk and Foxes had retreated to the "Rivière sans fourche", or the Des Moines River. Des Noyelles led his detachment over the prairies crossing in turn the Cedar, the Iowa, and the Skunk rivers. It was in the middle of winter and the men suffered from cold and hunger. Supplies ran low and at one time the little force lived for four days on the meat of twelve dogs and one dead horse. They came upon the enemy suddenly, probably near the site of the present city of Des Moines, and an indecisive battle was fought on April 19, 1735. Two Frenchmen were killed and many Indians, but the battle decided nothing more than to show the endurance and fortitude of the French. If it did anything it cemented the bond between the two tribes who continued to menace the French and their allies, the Illinois Indians. Eventually the Sauk and Foxes made themselves masters of the whole Mississippi from the Wisconsin River down to the Illinois.17

Other factors in addition to the Fox wars weakened France in America and helped to determine the outcome of the struggle between the French and the English for the new world. Clashes between officials in New France and Louisiana over conflicting trade and military interests and boundaries of their respective provinces, almost universal official corruption, and the folly of requiring explorers and military commanders to maintain themselves from the fur trade of their respective districts were weaknesses in the overseas dominions of the king.18

The fact, too, that in 1754 there were more than a  p9 million settlers in the Atlantic colonies, while the French from Quebec to New Orleans did not number more than a hundred thousand, was an important element in the failure of the French cause.​19 In 1763, at the close of the long struggle between the French and English for North America, Canada and the St. Lawrence and the eastern half of the Mississippi Valley ceased to be French and became English. The western half of the Mississippi Valley, or Louisiana, which included the Iowa country, had been transferred secretly to Spain to prevent its falling also in the hands of the English.20

The transition from French to English rule west of the Great Lakes created no disturbance such as Pontiac's conspiracy to the east.​21 Indeed, the English traders won the friendship of the tribes of the Upper Mississippi by their judicious distribution of gifts, by paying better prices for furs, and by the superior quality of their goods. Continuing the French policy of trade and also their posts and voyageurs the English entered the trade in the Northwest with little difficulty. In fact, the French policy of living with the natives, of supplying their needs, and of marrying Indian wives had gained a control over the tribes west of the lakes that caused the Indians to regard all who came from Canada as their friends, even after the English supplanted the French in power.22

After Canada became British and Louisiana Spanish, Americans, who were still British subjects, began to find their way to the Upper Mississippi region, and to compete for part of the Indian trade. Jonathan Carver of Connecticut was a pioneer in this respect and spent three years — 1766‑1768 — in the new country.​23 He reached the Mississippi by the Fox‑Wisconsin waterway and opposite the mouth of the latter river he noted "a mountain  p10 of considerable height", the high bluff which had caught the attention of Marquette and Joliet nearly a century earlier. Arriving at the site of Prairie du Chien he found an Indian community of three hundred families who owned "many horses of a good size and shape". "This", wrote Carver, "is the great mart, where all the adjacent tribes, and even those who inhabit the remote branches of the Mississippi, annually assemble about the latter end of May, bringing with them furs to dispose of to the traders." He observed that the different tribes while here refrained by voluntary agreement from any acts of hostility toward each other. He crossed the Mississippi and proceeded until he reached a small river called by the French "La Jaune Rivière", the Yellow River. Leaving his traders at this place he himself ascended the Mississippi.24

Some years later another man from Connecticut, Peter Pond, came into this region and in 1773 established himself in the Iowa country opposite the mouth of the Wisconsin.​25 He is remembered for his remarkable spelling and for one of the earliest fish stories told in Iowa.​26 He described the life at Prairie du Chien in those days in a picturesque manner: "All the traders that Youseis [uses] that Part of the Countrey & all the Indans of Several tribes Meat fall & Spring whare the Grateist Games are Plaid Both by french & Indans. The french Practis Billiards — ye latter Ball. Hear the Botes from New Orleans Cum. Thay are navagated By thirtey Six men who row as maney oarse. Thay Bring in a Boate Sixtey Hogs-eats of Wine on one. . . . Besides Ham, Chese &c — all to trad with the french & Indans. Thay Cum up the River Eight Hundred Leages. These Amusements Last three or four weakes in the Spring".27

 p11  Of the gathering at the Prairie in the spring Pond says: "we came to the Plane whare we Saw a Large Colection from Eavery Part of the Misseppey who had arived Before us — even from Orleans Eight Hundred Leages Belowe us. The Indans camp Exeaded a Mile & a half in Length. Hear was Sport of All Sorts. We went to Colecting furs and Skins. . . . The french were Veray Numeres. There was not Les than One Hundred and thirtey Canoes which Came from Mackenaw Caring from Sixtey to Eightey Hundred wate Apease all Made of Birch Bark and white Sedar for the Ribs. Those Boates from Orleans & Ilenoa and other Parts ware Numeres. But the natives I have no true Idea of thair Numbers. The Number of Packs of Peltrey of Differant Sorts was Cald fifteen Hundred of a Hundred wt. Each which went to Mackana. . . . After all the Bisness Was Dun and People Began to Groe tirde of Sport, thay Began to Draw of for thare Differant Departments and Prepare for the Insewing winter."28

By the time of the outbreak of the Revolutionary War several American traders had come to the Upper Mississippi Valley, and through their activities the struggle of the American colonists was extended into this region. It was largely a traders' war on the Mississippi, however, where British, Spaniards, and Americans contended for control of the fur trade.​29 A barge loaded with goods belonging to American traders was seized and plundered at the mouth of the Turkey River in April, 1780.​30 A little later a number of Spaniards and Americans were made prisoners at the lead mines.​31 George Rogers Clark was advised that "people from Michilimackinac who are at the River des Moines" were stirring up the savages against him. This was Iowa's share in the Revolution.32

 p12  In June, 1780, traders had assembled a collection of peltries at Prairie du Chien and deposited them in charge of Charles de Langlade, the noted trader of Green Bay and Mackinac. American forces were then in the Illinois country, and the British commandant at Mackinac, hearing reports that they intended to capture Prairie du Chien, sent John Long, a lieutenant in a company of traders enrolled at that post, to bring away the stores. Long proceeded with his force — some twenty Canadians and thirty‑six Indians of the Fox and Sioux tribes — in nine large birch canoes laden with presents for the Indians at Prairie du Chien. The party followed the Fox‑Wisconsin water route and reached the Mississippi in seven days. At the mouth of the Wisconsin they met some two hundred Fox Indians on horseback, armed with spears, bows, and arrows. These Indians at first appeared hostile but after a parley conducted Long and his party to their village and feasted them upon "dogs, bear, beaver, deer, mountain cat, and raccoon, boiled in bear's grease, and mixed with huckleberries." A council was held and the chiefs gave their assent to the removal of the pelts. The visitors reëntered their canoes, and moved up to a log house where Captain Langlade stood guard over the furs. Three hundred packs were placed in the canoes — all that could be taken — and the remainder, some sixty in number, were burned to prevent their falling into the hands of the Americans. The party then returned to Mackinac, but the Americans never came.33

Although this bluff-fringed plain above the junction of the Wisconsin and Mississippi rivers had long been widely known as a convenient meeting place for natives and fur traders who "tarried here, both spring and  p13 autumn, for bartering, merry-making, or purposes of rendezvous", and that Perrot and probably occasional successors maintained trading stations there or in the immediate vicinity, it has been asserted that a permanent white settlement at this place was not established until 1781.​34 In that year three French-Canadians, Basil Giard, Augustin Ange, and Pierre Antaya came to the Prairie and built themselves homes. Michel Brisbois came a few months later and Pierre La Pointe in 1782.​35 A number of French-Canadians arrived within the next few years and settled at Prairie du Chien.

These newcomers were traders and voyageurs for the most part who engaged in traffic with the Indians. They usually spent the winter months among the Indian villages, and during the summer transported their collection of furs to Mackinac, returning with their canoes laden with a supply of provisions and goods for the next season's trade. In the winter the village of Prairie du Chien was half deserted, but in the spring its numbers were swelled not only by the return of the villagers, but also by other traders in the Upper Valley, and by throngs of Indians. The villagers were not interested much in agriculture yet they found time to cultivate small strips of land in a crude way, and occasionally a voyageur, wearied with his roving life or unable longer to endure its hardships, married an Indian woman, settled down, and devoted himself to farming. Their houses were built by planting posts upright in the ground with grooves in them so that the sides could be filled in with split timber or round poles. These walls were then plastered over with clay, white washed, and covered with bark or clap-boards for a roof.36

When the Revolutionary War ended and Americans  p14 and Spaniards held the two sides of the Upper Mississippi country, Spanish officials saw the advantages of developing the land and of promoting the fur trade. To accomplish the latter a monopoly of the fur trade in what is now Iowa was granted to Andrew Todd, and to encourage settlements princely grants of land were made.37

One of these grants was made to Julien Dubuque, a French-Canadian who came to Prairie du Chien in 1785 seeking fortune and adventure. He won the friendship of the chief of the Fox Indians and obtained from him a claim to a tract of land •some twenty‑one miles long and nine miles wide along the west bank of the Mississippi including the site of the present city of Dubuque. Here Dubuque, with the permission of Todd, carried on an extensive trade for furs. He mined lead, built a smelting furnace, engaged in farming, and operated a mill. Twice a year his boats laden with lead and furs went to St. Louis and brought back goods and money. His title to this claim was confirmed by the Spanish Governor of Louisiana, Baron de Carondelet, and his mines became known as the "Mines of Spain".38

Two other settlements were made within the present boundaries of Iowa under Spanish authority. In 1796 Basil Giard, one of the early settlers of Prairie du Chien, received a grant of •some five thousand acres of land within the present limits of Clayton County, Iowa, from the Spanish Lieutenant Governor, Don Carlos Dehault Delassus.​39 This tract was located immediately south of the area which became in later years the Fort Crawford Military Reservation.​40 The other settlement was made by Louis Honoré Tesson in 1799 on the site of the present town of Montrose in Lee County, Iowa. In exchange for this grant he agreed to make himself "useful  p15 in the trade in peltries in that country, to watch the savages and to keep them in the fealty which they owe His Majesty", the king of Spain.41

But Spanish authorities in Louisiana and western settlers of the new republic had already clashed over the navigation of the Mississippi and shipping rights at the port of New Orleans. This trouble, however, seemed to be settled in 1795 when Spain conceded to the Americans the right to navigate the Mississippi and to deposit and reship goods at the mouth of the river.42

Then the treaty of San Ildefonso in 1800 proposed to place the Louisiana country once more under the control of France. At this point the threatened abrogation of American shipping rights by a Spanish official at New Orleans made it desirable for the new republic to get possession of this port. But before the Spanish authorities at New Orleans and St. Louis had turned over their respective areas to the representatives of Napoleon, the unexpected purchase of all of Louisiana by American Commissioners in 1803 gave both sides of the Mississippi, in name at least, to the United States.​43 Thus after a century and a half the curtain was lowered on foreign rule in the Upper Mississippi Valley, and the resetting of the stage for the stirring events in the early years of the new century was in order.

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The Author's Notes:

1 For a description of the site of Prairie du Chien see Long's Voyage in a Six‑Oared Skiff to the Falls of St. Anthony in 1817 in the Minnesota Historical Collections, Vol. II, pp60, 61.

2 For a splendid account of French exploration and occupation of the Upper Mississippi Valley see Kellogg's The French Régime in Wisconsin and the Northwest. Folwell's A History of Minnesota, Vol. I, pp1‑52, and Thwaites's Wisconsin, pp1‑84, are excellent summaries of this period. Kellogg's Early Narratives of the Northwest is a most convenient collection of source materials on French explorations in this region.

3 Wisconsin in Three Centuries, Vol. I, p9.

4 Parkman's Pioneers of France in the New World, pp187‑454, contains a good account of Champlain's exploits in America. References to Nicolet's explorations may be found in Thwaites's Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Vol. XVIII, pp233, 237, Vol. XXIII, pp275‑279. See also Kellogg's The French Régime in Wisconsin and the Northwest, pp77‑83.

5 Kellogg's The French Régime in Wisconsin and the Northwest, pp83, 131, 181‑191. For Saint Lusson's official report see the Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XI, pp26‑29. Perrot's account is in Blair's Indian Tribes of the Upper Mississippi, Vol. I, pp220‑225, 342‑348. The Jesuit account appears in Thwaites' Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Vol. LV, pp105‑115.

6 For an estimate of Frontenac's services see Winsor's Cartier to Frontenac, p232, or Parkman's Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV, pp458, 459.

7 Thwaites's Father Marquette has an excellent secondary account of this voyage of discovery. Thwaites's Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents, Vol. LIX, pp85‑163, contains Marquette's journal and facing p108 is a copy of Marquette's map. Marquette's manuscript as edited and prepared for publication by Father Dablon was first published in 1852 by John G. Shea in his Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley, pp3‑55, 235‑258. See also Kellogg's The French Régime in Wisconsin and the Northwest, pp191‑201.

8 Parish's The Man with the Iron Hand, pp5‑47, and Parkman's La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West, pp48‑72, contain graphic accounts of this voyage.

9 Cole's A History of the People of Iowa, pp8, 9, 12‑18; Parkman's La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West, pp56‑58. Shea's Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley, pp. xxxiii‑xxxv, 8‑27; Thwaites's Wisconsin, p62. The Fox‑Wisconsin route was for a century and a half the most frequented northern passage from Lake Michigan to the Upper Mississippi. — Thwaites's Down Historic Waterways, pp143‑294.

10 Parkman's La Salle and Discovery of the Great West, p157.

11 Parkman's La Salle and Discovery of the Great West, pp160‑261.

12 Parkman's La Salle and Discovery of the Great West, pp286‑288; Kellogg's The French Régime in Wisconsin and the Northwest, pp212, 213. Accault is variously spelled Accau, Ako, and Aco, while the name Auguel often is found Auguelle. — See Parish's Michel Aco — Squawman in The Palimpsest, Vol. II, pp162‑169.

13 Kellogg's The French Régime in Wisconsin and the Northwest, pp231‑234, 241, 242, 248, 359, 360. Blair's Indian Tribes of the Upper Mississippi Valley, Vol. I, is a valuable source of information about Perrot's activities in the Upper Mississippi Valley. Considerable controversy has developed over the location of Perrot's post above the junction of the Wisconsin and the Mississippi. Fort St. Nicholas, as it was called, seems to have been located at or near the site of Prairie du Chien. — Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. X, pp305‑772; Clark's Early Forts on the Upper Mississippi in the Proceedings of the Mississippi Valley Historical Association, Vol. IV (1910‑1911), pp93‑98.

14 Cole's A History of the People of Iowa, p21.

15 Quaife's Chicago and the Old Northwest 1673‑1835 A Study of the Evolution of the Northwest Frontier, together with a History of Fort Dearborn, pp51‑78, contains an excellent account of the conflict between the French and the Fox Indians. For a detailed narrative of the Fox wars in the Upper Northwest see Kellogg's The French Régime in Wisconsin and the Northwest, pp268‑340.

16 Des Noyelles' report of the expedition may be found in the Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XVII, pp221‑229. It is reprinted in The Iowa Journal of History and Politics, Vol. XII, pp245‑261. See also Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XVII, pp231, 232. Interesting accounts of the expedition are also found in Quaife's Chicago and the Old Northwest, pp70‑75, and in Kellogg's The French Régime in Wisconsin and the Northwest, pp333‑335.

17 Cole's A History of the People of Iowa, p33; Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XVII, pp231, 232.

18 Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XVI, pp. xv, xvi; Kellogg's The French Régime in Wisconsin and the Northwest, pp439, 440.

19 Cole's A History of the People of Iowa, p23.

20 For an excellent account of the negotiations at the close of the struggle see Alvord's The Mississippi Valley in British Politics: A Study of the Trade, Land Speculation, and Experiments in Imperialism Culminating in the American Revolution, Vol. I, pp45‑75. A translation of the text of the act whereby France ceded Louisiana to Spain may be found in Register of Debates in Congress, Vol. XIII, Pt. 2, Appendix, pp226, 227.

21 Hansen's Old Fort Snelling, 1819‑1858, p3; Turner's The Character and Influence of the Indian Trade in Wisconsin in the Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science, Vol. IX, pp584, 585.

22 Thwaites's Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, Vol. VII, pp373, 374; Hansens' Old Fort Snelling, pp3, 4.

23 See Quaife's Jonathan Carver and the Carver Grant in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. VII, pp3‑25.

24 Carver's Travels through the Interior Parts of North America in the Years 1676, 1677, 1678 (Third Edition), pp50, 51.

25 Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XVIII, pp314, 331‑338.

26 Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XVIII, p338.

27 Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XVIII, pp339, 340.

28 Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XVIII, p341.

29 Cole's A History of the People of Iowa, p35; Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XVIII, pp. xx, xxi.

30 Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XI, p151, footnote.

31 Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XI, p151.

32 Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. XVIII, pp405, 406; Cole's A History of the People of Iowa, p35.

33 See the Voyages and Travels of an Indian Interpreter and Trader in Thwaites's Early Western Travels, Vol. II, pp185‑191.

34 Thwaites's Wisconsin, p127.

35 History of Crawford and Richland Counties, Wisconsin (1884), p280.

36 History of Crawford and Richland Counties, Wisconsin (1884), pp281, 282, 288, 289; Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. II, p119.

37 Van der Zee's Fur Trade Operations in the Eastern Iowa Country under the Spanish Régime in The Iowa Journal of History and Politics, Vol. XII, p366; Cole's A History of the People of Iowa, p36.

38 Van der Zee's Fur Trade Operations in the Eastern Iowa Country under the Spanish Régime in The Iowa Journal of History and Politics, Vol. XII, p368. Dubuque's petition may be found in American State Papers, Public Lands, Vol. III, p678.

39 Van der Zee's Fur Trade Operations in the Eastern Iowa Country under the Spanish Régime in The Iowa Journal of History and Politics, Vol. XII, p369; American State Papers, Public Lands, Vol. III, p332.

40 See plat showing the site of Old Fort Crawford, the military reservation on the Iowa side, and Basil Giard's claim in the File Record of Fort Crawford in the office of the Judge Advocate General, War Department, Washington, D. C. This plat is reproduced on page 276 of this volume.

41 Van der Zee's Fur Trade Operations in the Eastern Iowa Country under the Spanish Régime in The Iowa Journal of History and Politics, Vol. XII, p369, 370; House Executive Documents, 27th Congress, 3rd Session, No. 38, pp42, 43. The United States confirmed the Spanish grants to Giard and Tesson, but the claim of Dubuque's heirs was not allowed on the basis that he held peaceable possession but not absolute owner­ship of the tract. — Chouteau v. Molony, 16 Howard (57 U. S.) 203 at 224.

42 Cole's A History of the People of Iowa, pp24‑27; Hosmer's The Louisiana Purchase, p35.

43 Hosmer's The Louisiana Purchase, pp36, 61‑66, 130‑147.

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