Iowa tribe
Encyclopedia
The Iowa also known as the Báxoje, are a Native American
Siouan
people. Today they are enrolled in either of two federally recognized tribes, the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma
and the Ioway Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska.
European settlers applied Ioway to the state (Iowa
) where this tribe of Native Americans were once found in various locations, as well as to a county and river (Iowa County, Iowa
, Iowa River
) within it. Together with the Missouria and the Otoe
, the Ioway are part of the Chiwere
-speaking peoples, claiming the Ho-Chunk
s as their "grandfathers." Their estimated population of 1,100 (in 1760) dropped to 800 (in 1804), a decrease caused mainly by smallpox
, to which they had no natural immunity
.
In 1824, the Iowa were moved to reservations
in Brown County
, Kansas
, and Richardson County
, Nebraska
. Bands of Iowa moved to Indian Territory
in the late 19th century and settled south of Perkins, Oklahoma
, becoming the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma.
The Ioway Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska operates the Casino White Cloud at White Cloud, Kansas
on the Ioway Reservation
.
words use different consonants. Early European explorers often adopted the names of tribes from the ethnonyms which other tribes gave them, not understanding that these differed from what the peoples called themselves. Thus, ayuhwa is not an Ioway word. The word Ioway comes from Dakotan ayuxbe via French aiouez. The Ioway called themselves Báxoje or a variant thereof.
By 1980 their population had recovered to 1,000 (of which only 20 spoke Iowa). In 1990 there were 1,700 people. According to the Bureau of Indian Affairs
, in 1995 there were 533 individuals living in the Iowa reservations of Kansas and 44 in Nebraska (Horton Agency), while 857 people lived in the Oklahoma Iowa Tribe (Shawnee Agency), amounting to a total of 2,934 people. According to the 2000 census, 1,451 people identified as full-blood Iowa, 76 were of mixed-Indian descent, 688 of mixed-race descent, and 43 of mixed-race and tribe descent, amounting to 2,258 people.
tribes of the Great Plains
, such as the Omaha, Ponca and Osage
. They were a semi-nomad
ic people who had adopted horses for hunting, but they also had an agricultural lifestyle similar to the tribes inhabiting the Eastern woods. They planted maize
, manufactured alum
pipes and traded these along with furs with the French
colonizers.
Their more permanent houses were oven shaped, covered with earth for protection from extremes of temperature and oriented to a cardinal direction. A smoke hole enabled ventilation from a central hearth. During the hunting season or in their bellic incursions, they used the portable teepee. Like the Osage or Kansa, they shaved their heads and decorated them with deer skin. Like the tribes of the Great Plains
, they valued three feats during a battle: behaving valiantly (including counting coup), killing an enemy, and scalping
him.
region to present-day Iowa. In the 16th century, they moved from the Mississippi River
to the Great Plains, and possibly then separated from the Ho-Chunk tribe.
From the 15th to 18th centuries, they lived in the Red Pipestone Quarry
region (Minnesota
). In the early 19th century, the Iowa had reached the banks of the Platte River
, where in 1804 Lewis and Clark
visited their settlements. There they engaged in trading with the French and local tribes, thanks to their advantageous situation regarding the alum deposits.
Between 1820 and 1830, the Iowa ceded their Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri lands to the U.S. government. By 1836 most were relocated to a reservation along the Kansas-Nebraska border, led by their chief Chief Mahaska
(Mew-hew-she-kaw, "White Cloud"; archaic Ioway
Maxúshga pronounced mõxuʃꜜkɐ; contemporary Maxúhga). They finally surrendered the Little Platte territory in Missouri by 1824.
In 1836 they settled in a strip of land in Missouri, along with the Sauk and the Fox. Some 45 Iowa fought in the American Civil War
in the Union Army
, among them Chief James White Cloud, son of Mahaska
In 1883 a number of Iowa moved to Indian Territory preferring to live in the older community village way of life. The new reservation was located in Lincoln
, Payne and Logan
counties in the Indian Territory
. However, despite their efforts to block allotment, their lands were divided anyway. Today the Iowa Reservation in Nebraska and Kansas is approximately 2100 acres (8.5 km²) in size, and has more than 150 residents.
In 1988 Louis Deroin was chosen as chief of the Nebraska and Kansas Iowa. Janice Kurak is the current tribal chairperson of the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma.
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
Siouan
Sioux
The Sioux are Native American and First Nations people in North America. The term can refer to any ethnic group within the Great Sioux Nation or any of the nation's many language dialects...
people. Today they are enrolled in either of two federally recognized tribes, the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma
Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma
The Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma is one of two federally recognized Iowa tribes. The other is the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska. Traditionally Iowas spoke the Chiwere language, part of the Souian language family...
and the Ioway Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska.
European settlers applied Ioway to the state (Iowa
Iowa
Iowa is a state located in the Midwestern United States, an area often referred to as the "American Heartland". It derives its name from the Ioway people, one of the many American Indian tribes that occupied the state at the time of European exploration. Iowa was a part of the French colony of New...
) where this tribe of Native Americans were once found in various locations, as well as to a county and river (Iowa County, Iowa
Iowa County, Iowa
-2010 census:The 2010 census recorded a population of 16,355 in the county, with a population density of . There were 7,258 housing units, of which 6,677 were occupied.-2000 census:...
, Iowa River
Iowa River
The Iowa River is a tributary of the Mississippi River in the state of Iowa in the United States. It is about long and is open to small river craft to Iowa City, about from its mouth...
) within it. Together with the Missouria and the Otoe
Otoe tribe
The Otoe or Oto are a Native American people. The Otoe language, Chiwere, is part of the Siouan family and closely related to that of the related Iowa and Missouri tribes.-History:...
, the Ioway are part of the Chiwere
Chiwere language
Chiwere is a Siouan language originally spoken by the Missouria, Otoe, and Iowa peoples, who originated in the Great Lakes region but later moved throughout the midwest and plains. The language is closely related to Ho-Chunk, also known as Winnebago...
-speaking peoples, claiming the Ho-Chunk
Ho-Chunk
The Ho-Chunk, also known as Winnebago, are a tribe of Native Americans, native to what is now Wisconsin and Illinois. There are two federally recognized Ho-Chunk tribes, the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin and Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska....
s as their "grandfathers." Their estimated population of 1,100 (in 1760) dropped to 800 (in 1804), a decrease caused mainly by smallpox
Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
, to which they had no natural immunity
Immunity (medical)
Immunity is a biological term that describes a state of having sufficient biological defenses to avoid infection, disease, or other unwanted biological invasion. Immunity involves both specific and non-specific components. The non-specific components act either as barriers or as eliminators of wide...
.
In 1824, the Iowa were moved to reservations
Indian reservation
An American Indian reservation is an area of land managed by a Native American tribe under the United States Department of the Interior's Bureau of Indian Affairs...
in Brown County
Brown County, Kansas
Brown County is a county located in Northeast Kansas, in the Central United States. As of the 2010 census, the county population was 9,984. Its county seat and most populous city is Hiawatha...
, Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
, and Richardson County
Richardson County, Nebraska
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 9,531 people, 3,993 households, and 2,567 families residing in the county. The population density was 17 people per square mile . There were 4,560 housing units at an average density of 8 per square mile...
, Nebraska
Nebraska
Nebraska is a state on the Great Plains of the Midwestern United States. The state's capital is Lincoln and its largest city is Omaha, on the Missouri River....
. Bands of Iowa moved to Indian Territory
Indian Territory
The Indian Territory, also known as the Indian Territories and the Indian Country, was land set aside within the United States for the settlement of American Indians...
in the late 19th century and settled south of Perkins, Oklahoma
Perkins, Oklahoma
Perkins is a city in Payne County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 2,272 at the 2000 census. The name is derived from Walden Perkins, a congressman who helped establish the local post office. The Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma is headquartered here....
, becoming the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma.
The Ioway Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska operates the Casino White Cloud at White Cloud, Kansas
White Cloud, Kansas
White Cloud is a city in Doniphan County, Kansas, United States. It was named for James White Cloud, son of Chief White Cloud of the Iowa Tribe. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 176. White Cloud is the seat of government for the Iowa Reservation of Kansas and Nebraska...
on the Ioway Reservation
Ioway Reservation
The Iowa Reservation of the Ioway Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska straddles the borders of southeast Richardson County in southeastern Nebraska and Brown and Doniphan Counties in northeastern Kansas. Tribal headquarters are west of White Cloud, Kansas. The reservation was defined in a treaty from...
.
Name
Their name has been said to come from ayuhwa ("asleep"), but their autonym (their name for themselves) is Báxoje pronounced b̥aꜜxodʒɛ (alternate spellings: pahotcha, Bah-kho-je) ("dusted faces" or "grey snow"). The translation "dusted faces" is a likely folk etymology, since the IowayChiwere language
Chiwere is a Siouan language originally spoken by the Missouria, Otoe, and Iowa peoples, who originated in the Great Lakes region but later moved throughout the midwest and plains. The language is closely related to Ho-Chunk, also known as Winnebago...
words use different consonants. Early European explorers often adopted the names of tribes from the ethnonyms which other tribes gave them, not understanding that these differed from what the peoples called themselves. Thus, ayuhwa is not an Ioway word. The word Ioway comes from Dakotan ayuxbe via French aiouez. The Ioway called themselves Báxoje or a variant thereof.
Demography
In 1760 the Iowa tribe population was roughly 1,100, but their numbers were reduced to 500 by 1900. In 1960 there were 100 in Kansas and 100 in Oklahoma.By 1980 their population had recovered to 1,000 (of which only 20 spoke Iowa). In 1990 there were 1,700 people. According to the Bureau of Indian Affairs
Bureau of Indian Affairs
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is an agency of the federal government of the United States within the US Department of the Interior. It is responsible for the administration and management of of land held in trust by the United States for Native Americans in the United States, Native American...
, in 1995 there were 533 individuals living in the Iowa reservations of Kansas and 44 in Nebraska (Horton Agency), while 857 people lived in the Oklahoma Iowa Tribe (Shawnee Agency), amounting to a total of 2,934 people. According to the 2000 census, 1,451 people identified as full-blood Iowa, 76 were of mixed-Indian descent, 688 of mixed-race descent, and 43 of mixed-race and tribe descent, amounting to 2,258 people.
Culture
The Iowa have had customs similar to those of the other Siouan-speakingSiouan languages
The Western Siouan languages, also called Siouan proper or simply Siouan, are a Native American language family of North America, and the second largest indigenous language family in North America, after Algonquian...
tribes of the Great Plains
Great Plains
The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...
, such as the Omaha, Ponca and Osage
Osage Nation
The Osage Nation is a Native American Siouan-language tribe in the United States that originated in the Ohio River valley in present-day Kentucky. After years of war with invading Iroquois, the Osage migrated west of the Mississippi River to their historic lands in present-day Arkansas, Missouri,...
. They were a semi-nomad
Nomad
Nomadic people , commonly known as itinerants in modern-day contexts, are communities of people who move from one place to another, rather than settling permanently in one location. There are an estimated 30-40 million nomads in the world. Many cultures have traditionally been nomadic, but...
ic people who had adopted horses for hunting, but they also had an agricultural lifestyle similar to the tribes inhabiting the Eastern woods. They planted maize
Maize
Maize known in many English-speaking countries as corn or mielie/mealie, is a grain domesticated by indigenous peoples in Mesoamerica in prehistoric times. The leafy stalk produces ears which contain seeds called kernels. Though technically a grain, maize kernels are used in cooking as a vegetable...
, manufactured alum
Alum
Alum is both a specific chemical compound and a class of chemical compounds. The specific compound is the hydrated potassium aluminium sulfate with the formula KAl2.12H2O. The wider class of compounds known as alums have the related empirical formula, AB2.12H2O.-Chemical properties:Alums are...
pipes and traded these along with furs with the French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
colonizers.
Their more permanent houses were oven shaped, covered with earth for protection from extremes of temperature and oriented to a cardinal direction. A smoke hole enabled ventilation from a central hearth. During the hunting season or in their bellic incursions, they used the portable teepee. Like the Osage or Kansa, they shaved their heads and decorated them with deer skin. Like the tribes of the Great Plains
Great Plains
The Great Plains are a broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, which lies west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts of the U.S...
, they valued three feats during a battle: behaving valiantly (including counting coup), killing an enemy, and scalping
Scalping
Scalping is the act of removing another person's scalp or a portion of their scalp, either from a dead body or from a living person. The initial purpose of scalping was to provide a trophy of battle or portable proof of a combatant's prowess in war...
him.
History
In prehistoric times, the Iowa emigrated from the Great LakesGreat Lakes
The Great Lakes are a collection of freshwater lakes located in northeastern North America, on the Canada – United States border. Consisting of Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario, they form the largest group of freshwater lakes on Earth by total surface, coming in second by volume...
region to present-day Iowa. In the 16th century, they moved from the Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
to the Great Plains, and possibly then separated from the Ho-Chunk tribe.
From the 15th to 18th centuries, they lived in the Red Pipestone Quarry
Pipestone, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 4,280 people, 1,900 households, and 1,138 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,090.8 people per square mile . There were 2,097 housing units at an average density of 534.4 per square mile...
region (Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
). In the early 19th century, the Iowa had reached the banks of the Platte River
Platte River (Minnesota)
The Platte River is a tributary of the Mississippi River in central Minnesota in the United States. It is about 48 mi long.-Course:The Platte flows from Platte Lake in southeastern Crow Wing County and follows a generally southwestward course through eastern Morrison County, past the towns of...
, where in 1804 Lewis and Clark
Lewis and Clark Expedition
The Lewis and Clark Expedition, or ″Corps of Discovery Expedition" was the first transcontinental expedition to the Pacific Coast by the United States. Commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson and led by two Virginia-born veterans of Indian wars in the Ohio Valley, Meriwether Lewis and William...
visited their settlements. There they engaged in trading with the French and local tribes, thanks to their advantageous situation regarding the alum deposits.
Between 1820 and 1830, the Iowa ceded their Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri lands to the U.S. government. By 1836 most were relocated to a reservation along the Kansas-Nebraska border, led by their chief Chief Mahaska
Chief Mahaska
Mahaska , or White Cloud, was a chief of the Native American Iowa tribe.-Early life and education:Mahaska was born into the Iowa tribe...
(Mew-hew-she-kaw, "White Cloud"; archaic Ioway
Chiwere language
Chiwere is a Siouan language originally spoken by the Missouria, Otoe, and Iowa peoples, who originated in the Great Lakes region but later moved throughout the midwest and plains. The language is closely related to Ho-Chunk, also known as Winnebago...
Maxúshga pronounced mõxuʃꜜkɐ; contemporary Maxúhga). They finally surrendered the Little Platte territory in Missouri by 1824.
In 1836 they settled in a strip of land in Missouri, along with the Sauk and the Fox. Some 45 Iowa fought in the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
in the Union Army
Union Army
The Union Army was the land force that fought for the Union during the American Civil War. It was also known as the Federal Army, the U.S. Army, the Northern Army and the National Army...
, among them Chief James White Cloud, son of Mahaska
In 1883 a number of Iowa moved to Indian Territory preferring to live in the older community village way of life. The new reservation was located in Lincoln
Lincoln County, Oklahoma
Lincoln County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The population as of 2010 was 34,273. It is part of the Oklahoma City Metropolitan Statistical Area.Its county seat is Chandler....
, Payne and Logan
Logan County, Oklahoma
Logan County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The population as of 2009 was 39,301. Its county seat is Guthrie. Logan County is part of the Oklahoma City Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:...
counties in the Indian Territory
Indian Territory
The Indian Territory, also known as the Indian Territories and the Indian Country, was land set aside within the United States for the settlement of American Indians...
. However, despite their efforts to block allotment, their lands were divided anyway. Today the Iowa Reservation in Nebraska and Kansas is approximately 2100 acres (8.5 km²) in size, and has more than 150 residents.
In 1988 Louis Deroin was chosen as chief of the Nebraska and Kansas Iowa. Janice Kurak is the current tribal chairperson of the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma.
External links
- Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma
- Ioway Cultural Institute
- Download recording of a courtshipCourtshipCourtship is the period in a couple's relationship which precedes their engagement and marriage, or establishment of an agreed relationship of a more enduring kind. In courtship, a couple get to know each other and decide if there will be an engagement or other such agreement...
song from the Library of Congress' Omaha Indian Music Collection; performed by George Miller in 1897, collected by Alice Cunningham Fletcher and Francis La Flesche - "Lost Nation: The Ioway" – a historical documentary film about the Ioway Tribe
- "Maps, Material Culture, and Memory: On the Trail of the Ioway"
- Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture – Iowa (Indian tribe)