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History of the Ioway
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The Iowa, or Ioway, lived for the majority of its recorded history in what is now
the state of Iowa. The Iowas call themselves the Bah-Kho-Je which means grey
snow, probably derived from the fact that during the winter months their dwellings
looked grey, as they were covered with fire-smoked grey, as they were covered with
fire-smoked snow. The name Iowa is a French term for the tribe and has an unknown
connection with 'marrow.' Their language is a Chiwere dialect of the Sioux
language.
The Iowas began as a Woodland culture, but because of their migration to the south
and west, they began to adopt elements of the Plains culture, thus culminating in the
mixture of the two. The Iowa Nation was probably indigenous to the Great Lakes area
and a part of the Winnebago Nation. At some point, a portion moved southward, where
they separated again. The portion which stayed closest to the Mississippi River
became the Iowa; the remainder became the Otoe and the Missouria.
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The Iowa Tribe relocated many times during its history; the mouth of the Rock River
in present Illinois, the Root River in present Iowa, the Red Pipestone Quarry in
southwestern Minnesota, and the Spirit Lake/Lake Okiboji area of what is now Iowa.
For many years they maintained a village near Council Bluffs, Iowa, abandoning it
because of aggression by the Sioux and a desire to locate closer to the French
traders. Thereafter, the Iowa lived primarily near the Des Moines River on the
Chariton/Grand River Basin.
With the encroachment of white settlers into western lands, the Iowa Tribe ceded
their lands in 1824 and were given two years in which to vacate. Additional lands
were ceded in 1836 and 1838, and the Tribe was removed to an area near the Kansas-
Nebraska border. The Iowas, once a proud nation whose native lands encompassed an
area of the Missouri and Mississippi River Valleys in what is presently Wisconsin,
Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska, now found themselves with a strip
of land ten miles wide and twenty miles long. Subsequent treaties would find this
land even further reduced.
Dissatisfaction with their conditions and treatment resulted in a number of Iowa
tribal members leaving the Kansas-Nebraska reserve in 1878 and moving to Indian
Territory (Oklahoma). In 1883 an Iowa reservation was created there, but Iowas
who wished to remain on the land in the north were allowed to do so. Today, the
two are recognized as separate entities. The Northern Iowa are headquartered in
White Cloud, Kansas, while the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma has offices in Perkins,
Oklahoma.
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