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THE RED MEN OF IOWA.

CHAPTER VIII.

SACS AND FOXES.

PROMINENT among the aboriginal tribes of the Northwest were the united tribes known and designated in our treaties as the Sacs and Foxes. These were not the national names of these tribes, but for some reason they were the names adopted in the treaties made with them. The Sac does not so call himself, but Sau-kie, which signifies "the man with the red badge or emblem." Red, with them, was the favorite color in the adornment of their persons. When the Sau-kie mourned for his dead he covered his head with red clay, as the Hebrews, on similar occasions, sprinkled ashes upon their heads. The national or Indian name of the associate tribe known to us as Foxes was Mus-qua-kie, which means "the man with the yellow badge or emblem." The name Fox originated with the early French voyageurs, on account of their adroitness in

The Sacs and Foxes belonged to the great Algonquin group of the Indian races, as indicated by their language, and other characteristics which they possessed in common with the other tribes of that race. We find the Foxes, however, in 1712, joined with the Iroquois in an attempt to destroy the French post at Detroit. They failed in that enterprise, were routed, and retired to a peninsula in Lake St. Clair, where they were afterward attacked by the French and driven out. They next appear on Fox River, at Green Bay. Here they greatly annoyed the French traders and trappers. Again they were defeated by the French in the battle of "Butte des Morts," or "Hill of the Dead." In this battle a large number of their warriors were slain, after which the remnant of the tribe fled to the banks of the Wisconsin. From this time the Foxes or Reynards (originally called Outagamies) were scarcely noticed in aboriginal history until within the nineteenth century. The two tribes, Sacs and Foxes, became united about the year 1712, and removed together to the Mississippi.

At the close of the conquest of Canada the warriors of the Sac tribe were estimated at three hundred, and of the Fox tribe three hundred and twenty, representing a total population of about three thousand.