ing annuities: by the treaty of 1824, $1000 a year for ten years; by the treaty of 1830, $6000 a year for ten years; and by the treaty of 1832, $20,000 annually for thirty years. All this money, and indeed all such payments the country over, really impoverished the Indians because the traders found it just so much plunder: they were quite as willing to exchange their goods for Uncle Sam's cash as for the skins and furs of wild animals. It is said that when these annuities were paid out, the employees of the American Fur Company reaped rich harvests: men made their fortunes trading with the natives. On these great jubilee occasions when the Indians freely bought blankets, guns, ammunition, and whisky, the traders gathered in all the Indians' money at very high rates of profit.163

THE PAYMENT OF SAC AND FOX DEBTS

After the treaty of peace in September, 1832, Marmaduke S. Davenport, the new Indian Agent at Rock Island who had succeeded to the vacancy left by the murder of Felix St. Vrain, contrary to regulations of the War Department paid to George Davenport $6000 of the Sac and Fox annuities, instead of distributing the money among the families and individuals of those tribes. A letter from Washington in December called upon him to explain such an unwarranted course and to require "Mr. George Davenport, or Messrs. Farnham and Davenport", to replace the specie immediately. If the Indians, after receiving it, should choose to pay it to the traders in satisfaction of debts, that would be their own business, but the Indian Agent was emphatically informed that it was his "duty to investigate all claims or accounts presented against the Indians, to prevent their paying more than fair and reasonable prices for articles which have been furnished them."

Failing to justify his course the Indian Agent received 168 Wisconsin Historical Collections, Vol. V, p. 236.

The

answer that his "official conduct must in future be governed by instructions from the department, and not by the importunities of your friends. If traders see fit to trust the Indians, they must look to them alone for payment." annuities were to be distributed to every member of the Sac and Fox tribes, not merely to the chiefs to be paid to traders who might be "in collusion with the chiefs or have them under their influence and management." Elbert Herring, Commissioner of Indian Affairs at Washington, added the assurance that the foregoing observations were not intended to disparage Messrs. Farnham and Davenport.164

The Indian Agent explained that it had been customary for at least one Indian Agent to engage traders to carry annuity money to the tribes with which they dealt, and that the Sacs and Foxes themselves, far from expecting or wishing to see a dollar of it, were extremely anxious that the money should be brought on to their hunting camps in the interior for the purpose of satisfying Farnham and Davenport who had in former times brought them government annuities. Furthermore, the only possible way for an Indian Agent to show that he had actually paid the annuity was to affix to his voucher the names of some Indians and "get those interested to certify that the money has been paid over to the Indians." Mr. Davenport, therefore, assured the department that he had been actuated by motives which he was "always willing for the world to know," and that the Sacs and Foxes had told him they would "sign cheerfully" any receipt that was necessary when they returned from their hunts in the spring: they could then claim the money which Farnham and Davenport had given back,165

164 Senate Documents, 1st Session, 23rd Congress, Vol. VIII, No. 512, pp. 967, 968; and Vol. IX, No. 512, p. 599. See also p. 673 for an order of April 22, 1833, relative to current speculation in certificates issued to Indians by the government.

185 Senate Documents, 1st Session, 23rd Congress, Vol. X, No. 512, pp. 110, 176.

To end the incident for all time the Indian Agent furnished a full report of a council of Sacs and Foxes held at Rock Island on the first day of June, 1833, for the purpose of paying the annuities. Keokuk, chief of the Sacs, and Poweshiek and Wapello, chiefs of the Foxes, expressed surprise that the arrangement they had made with General Scott in 1832 regarding the annuity had not been carried out - they expected the money had been paid to their trader who had furnished goods to "every man, woman, and child in the nation." "We waited a long time for our money to come on", said Keokuk, "that we might pay it to him ourselves; but were forced to go out to hunt for the subsistence of our families before it arrived. We then gave him the paper and told him when the money came to present it to you [Marmaduke S. Davenport], and get the money. We thought then that everything was settled; but now we see the money returned again. We don't understand what this means. We are surprised to find that everything has to be done over again." The chiefs emphasized a wish reiterated many times that the government would pay all annuities to them, declaring that the prevailing method of distributing the money to individuals was ruinous in that many of the Sacs and Foxes "would take their money and buy whiskey, instead of such articles of necessity as they would otherwise receive.'' 166

It appears that Pierre Chouteau, Jr., of St. Louis applied to the Office of Indian Affairs for the $40,000 which the government had agreed to pay to Farnham and Davenport in satisfaction of years of Sac and Fox debts. Chouteau. received answer that the sum would be paid to him on presentation of legal evidence of his right to receive it. Soon afterward William B. Astor addressed a letter to the Secretary of War, enclosing the claim of Farnham and Davenport 166 Senate Documents, 1st Session, 23rd Congress, Vol. X, No. 512, pp. 442,

for settlement. Arrangements were then made at Washington to have the amount remitted.167

Thus at last did the American Fur Company resume with a clean slate its trading operations with the Sacs and Foxes in their new homes west of the Black Hawk Purchase. As the wild game animals in the territory along the Mississippi became more and more scarce and white settlers were crowding in closer upon the native inhabitants, the profits of traders decreased in proportion. Only the Indians' removal farther west, ahead of the oncoming wave of whites, offered hope of the revival of business in furs and peltries. Thus it happened that upon the heels of the Sacs and Foxes departing from their villages along the Mississippi went their traders from Rock Island. The scenes of barter and exchange were being shifted westward as the vanguard of sturdy Anglo-Saxon conquerors with axe and plow began to reach the west bank of the Mighty River, not in search of furs but in their quest for excellent lands and better homes. JACOB VAN DER ZEE

THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF IOWA

IOWA CITY IOWA

167 Senate Documents, 1st Session, 23rd Congress, Vol. IX, No. 512, pp. 699, 717.

THE PUBLIC DOMAIN AS A FIELD FOR

HISTORICAL STUDY1

"Questions of land domination and of land distribution have formed the ultimate ground of political division and debate among men ever since the human race, in the evolution of society, passed from political organization on the basis of common territory. The great leading factor in the formation of our governmental polity, and in the subsequent divisions of party among us, has always been, in the last analysis, a question relating more or less directly to the distribution of the national domain considered as the source and seat of political power.''2

Such a factor in human development is of course too vast to be successfully claimed by any one of the currents of historical progress since its influence has been wide and deep upon educational, social, financial, and economic life. The public domain has engrossed the efforts of statesmen and legislators; Indian wars have grown out of it; and land grabbers, speculators, and timber thieves have feasted thereon.

In the history of the West the public domain can well be regarded as the fundamental factor. The nearness, cheap

1 The total area of unappropriated and unreserved lands in the United States on June 30, 1913, was 297,927,206 acres (land surface). The total area of the States (land surface), not including Alaska and our insular possessions, is 1,903,289,600 acres, and the difference between this area and the unappropriated and unreserved lands on June 30, 1913, or 1,605,362,394 acres, is the total area disposed of to and including June 30, 1913.-Letter from the Assistant Commissioner of the General Land Office, dated September 15, 1913.

2 Quoted from Welling's The Land Politics of the United States, published by the New York Historical Society, 1888. Cf. Trimble's The Influence of the Passing of the Public Lands in the Atlantic Monthly, Vol. CXIII, pp. 755–767.