to the Iowa delegation in Congress on January 3, 1855, in which he expressed the hope that they would coöperate with him in pressing the matter upon the attention of the proper Federal officials and in urging badly needed relief.[43]

Not only were the settlers near Fort Dodge alarmed, but those in Woodbury, Monona, and Harrison counties were even more disturbed, owing to the hostile attitude of large bands of Omahas and Otoes in that section. Near Sergeant Bluff large bands of Sioux had gathered and expressed their determination to remain, while nearly five hundred Sioux were encamped in the vicinity of Fort Dodge. These Indians amused themselves by stealing hogs, cattle, and other property of the settlers. Fears for the safety of the settlers were increased, in view of the fact that the National government was now preparing to chastise the Sioux near Fort Laramie for their manifold crimes committed along the California and Oregon trail in Nebraska and Wyoming. It was thought this action would cause the Sioux to seek refuge east of the Missouri and, as a matter of revenge, carry death and destruction with them as they fled toward the Mississippi Valley frontier.[44]

Because the Indians were becoming more threatening, appearing in larger numbers than heretofore, and extending their depredations over an increasingly wider territory, in the early winter of 1855 Governor Grimes was asked to call out the militia; but he declined since he believed he was “authorized to call out a military force only in case of an actual insurrection or hostile invasion.”[45] Nearly everyone now anticipated bloodshed. White men, illy disposed, were reaping large profits from the sale of whiskey; while the Indians were “becoming devils”. Hence, Governor Grimes on December 3, 1855, addressed a letter to President Pierce urging that the Indians be removed to their treaty reserves.

The Governor pointedly stated that the government owed protection to these settlers in the homes it had encouraged them to occupy. He further stated that a post in this section would curb the Indians and give quiet to northwestern Iowa.[46] To be sure these troubles had not reached any great magnitude, “yet there was a continuous succession of annoying and suspicious occurrences which kept the frontier settlements in a state of perpetual dread and apprehension, and made life a burden”.[47] Even in the presence of this distressing condition of affairs the military authorities of the National government did nothing to relieve matters. No troops were sent to protect the settlers, nor were the letters of Governor Grimes even granted consideration. Thus there developed slowly but surely a situation where the Indians grew sufficiently emboldened to make a general attack.[48]

Such a policy, characterized by a disregard not only for Indian welfare but also for the well-being of the white frontiersmen, could only bring unhappy consequences. It became more and more apparent that the Indians were bent upon concerted action of some sort. Annoyances now occurred along the whole frontier, no part of which was free from alarm. War parties were in evidence in nearly every section, and the attitude of the Indians became one of defiance. Not only in Woodbury, Monona, and Harrison counties, but in Buena Vista and what are now Humboldt, Webster, Kossuth, Palo Alto, and Sac counties the settlers were feeling the effects of Indian enmity.[49]

The resentment of the Indians at this time arose partly from a feeling of jealousy toward the whites, partly from the fact that they were retrograding, and partly from the undue influence of the American Fur Company.

From the start the Indians, particularly the Sioux, had been jealous and suspicious of the whites. As time passed and the Indian observed indications of a general and permanent occupation by the whites of the territory which he had known as home, his jealous fears increased. The land of his fathers, the home of his traditions, was about to pass into the hands of another people, to the intense sorrow of the Indian. It “was a trying ordeal” and “naturally awakened in his breast feelings of bitter regret and jealousy.”[50] His “distrust grew into open protest as claims were staked off, cabins built, and the ground prepared for cultivation.” It seemed that the Indians had resolved not to submit “until they had entered an armed protest against the justice of the claim which civilization makes to all the earth.”[51]

In addition to this feeling of jealousy and distrust of the whites, the Indians were gradually retrograding by taking unto themselves many of the vices of the white race. This was the inevitable result of a loose administration of the frontier which permitted it to be invaded in many places by refugees from civilization. Although this statement may seem to be somewhat sweeping, it is a well-known fact that among the first to appear on the frontier there were always some men of the reckless, rough-and-ready type whose contempt for the finer things of civilized life made a longer residence amid such surroundings undesirable and frequently impossible.

Foremost among the causes of the red man’s retrogression may be cited whiskey.[52] But there were other causes, such as the treaty of 1855 with the Chippewas, which rendered the agent powerless to control the Indian or his seducers if he had so desired.[53] Then there were the errors committed by people who were brought to the frontier by the government as helpers in advancing the Indian’s welfare, but who had, through mistaken methods, produced opposite results. Again, the Indian had been mistakenly led downward “by many years of luxurious idleness and riotous living.... In this state of demoralization they were gathered up and thrown