Iowans will not receive mail and banks will be closed on Oct. 14, as it is a federal holiday, but Iowa is one of 10 states that recognize it not as Columbus Day, but rather, Indigenous Peoples Day.
Remember….“Columbus sailed the ocean blue, in fourteen hundred and ninety-two.”
In 1992, 500 years post-Columbus coming to America, Indigenous Peoples Day was initiated in California. In 2021, President Biden formally commemorated the holiday with a presidential proclamation. It was initiated to call attention to the losses suffered by the Native American people and their cultures through disease, warfare, massacres, and forced movement.
It was on October 8, 2018, that Governor Reynolds signed this proclamation, “This day recognizes the land now known as the State of Iowa, named in recognition of the Iowa Tribe, as well as the language used to identify many of our lakes, rivers, cities, counties, schools, buildings and considerably more, and reflects the inherent imprint of Indigenous Peoples….This land has been home to Indigenous People since time immemorial, and without whom, the building of this state would not have been possible.”
An older Greene County farmer shared that when farming with horses they could hear the “clink” of the plow unearthing a hatchet, a grinder, or other Native American artifact. Several searchers now seek artifacts along riverbanks, or in the hills or bluffs above the rivers. A successful artifact collector shared the best time is to go in early spring, after a rain.
In 1967 an Indian grave was unearthed while installing the tow rope at Seven Hills Park. In an article from The Jefferson Bee; The bones were sent to the University of Iowa and were identified as a young female Indian, a male Indian fully grown but not mature, and one Indian of undetermined sex and age. The time of the original burial is not known, but the grave was discovered Nov. 25,1967.
Under the supervision of Barney Hobart, Greene County conservation director at that time, the bones were reburied south of the shelter house at Seven Hills Park. A plaque with the above writing identifies the reburial site.
When traveling our state, you will note we have numerous Indian names identifying counties, towns, rivers, and creeks: Cherokee, Chickasaw, Ioway, Keokuk, Mahaska, Osceola, Pocahontas, Pottawattamie, Poweshiek, Sac, Sioux, Tama, Wapello, Winnebago, Winneshiek, Nodaway, Nishnabotna, and many others. It is humbling to think that we continue to recognize our Native American forebearers with their language by using these names.
Historians have documented that approximately 17 different Indian tribes resided in Iowa at various times, but by 1830 the federal government issued orders to the Dragoon soldiers to remove all Native Americans out of the state to a site in Kansas. Some of the Meskwakis clandestinely stayed and over the years several returned. In 1857 the Iowa Legislature was petitioned and granted permission for the Meskwakis to purchase land.
Eighty acres were sold by Isaac Butler in the interest of his wards, William Butler, and Ozias Butler Infants to the Meskwakis under authority by the County Court of Tama, IA.
An excerpt from 1867: “The tribe traded 130 trees to obtain funds to purchase another 40-acre parcel in January of 1867. This expanded the Meskwaki Settlement to almost 3000 acres”. The web site now shows ownership of nearly 8,000 acres in Iowa and Marshall County.
In what was some apparently backroom politics the Meskwakis fell out of favor with the Iowa Legislature as in 1896, Iowa transferred the settlement’s title to the United States. It was placed into federal trust. The federal government argued that this transfer made the Meskwaki Settlement a “reservation” subject to the authority of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
The outdated federal law was later repealed in 2019. The Meskwaki Settlement is not an Indian Reservation but private purchased property – a Sovereign Nation.The land is held in common by all tribal members.
So, on Oct. 14, we will experience a federal holiday, formally known as Columbus Day, but here in Greene County, and Iowa we can celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day.
VIEW FROM MY WINDOW is written by Mary Weaver from her home near rural Rippey.
