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THE RED MEN OF IOWA.

CHAPTER VI.

FIRST TRIBES KNOWN IN IOWA.

MORE than two centuries ago--one bright June day, in 1673--the eye of the white man first beheld the beautiful landscapes of what is now our beloved Iowa. On the 17th of June, of that year, the "Black-robe priest," Marquette, and his companion Joliet, with their five assistants, pursuing in canoes their lonely voyage in search of new lands, silently glided from the mouth of the Wisconsin out upon the broad waters of the "Father of Rivers." No keel, other than the rude canoe of the Indian, so far as they knew, had ever disturbed the surface of that grand and wonderful river, and yet more than another century was destined to pass away before, "in the fullness of time," it was to become a highway for the commerce of civilized man. As those primitive voyageurs pursued their silent journey down the great river they looked upon a land clothed in all the wild luxuriance of nature. Bold and rugged bluffs alternating with wooded slopes and far-stretching prairies, bordering the margin of the stream, presented to their