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THE RED MEN OF IOWA.
establishment, and at the same time to render it useful to the commerce of the peltries of this country, to watch the Indians and keep them in the fidelity which they owe to his majesty." The grant contained other provisions to enable Honori to carry on a successful trade with the Indians. He took possession and retained his claim until 1805. In the meantime he had become indebted to one Joseph Robedoux, who for his debt obtained a judgment against Honori, and the property was sold on execution, May 14, 1803, Robedoux being the purchaser. At the time of the sale part of the tract had been improved by Honori, "by building houses, planting orchards, and a small piece was under fence and in cultivation." Such is a description of the condition of the property at that early day. It throws some light upon the origin of the old apple orchard found at Montrose by the first settlers after the "Black Hawk Purchase." This claim, however, of Honori, that he planted the orchard, is discredited by Hon. D. W. Kilbourne. Elsewhere we have given Mr. Kilbourne's account, claiming that the apple trees were planted by a half-breed Indian named Red Bird, as early as 1798.
Soon after purchasing the property Robedoux died, leaving Auguste Choteau as his executor, and authorizing him to dispose of the property. It was accordingly sold in April, 1805, to one Thomas F. Reddeck. Up to this time Honori had continued to occupy it, although it had been sold to pay his debt, in 1803. This grant, when first made by the Spanish government, embraced a league square, but the United States subsequently confirmed by the issuing of a patent, a tract of only one mile square. This little tract, being within the limits of the Half-breed
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SPANISH GRANTS AND INDIAN TREATIES.
reservation, of 1824, the different claimants of the latter subsequently brought it, into litigation to invalidate the title of the Reddick heirs. The Supreme Court of United States, in 1839, decided in favor of the heirs.
THE HALF-BREED RESERVATION.
On the 4th of August, 1824, as we have seen, a treaty was concluded at Washington with the Sacs and Foxes by which they relinquished to the United States their title to a large extent of country extending from the Mississippi west, and embracing the northern portion of Missouri. In this treaty was reserved a tract embracing 119,000 acres for the use of the half-breeds of the Sac and Fox nation. This reservation comprised a tract of country lying between the Mississippi and Des Moines rivers, south of a line drawn from a point on the latter river about one mile below the town of Farmington, in Van Buren county, east to the Mississippi River, at the lower end of Fort Madison. It included the site of the present city of Keokuk, and all the land between the above named east and west line and the junction of the rivers. It was known as the "Halfbreed Tract." By the terms of the treaty the United States retained (or rather acquired) a reversionary interest in the tract, so that the half-breeds were deprived of the right to sell or dispose of their interest in the land.
After the Black Hawk War, when the whites began to settle west of the Mississippi, and desired to acquire title to the fertile lands embraced in this tract they found that the half-breeds could not convey. The settlers then petitioned Congress to pass an act relinquishing to the halfbreeds the reversionary interest of the United States, and
