SAC & FOX NATION OF MISSOURI

COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENTAL PROFILE

HISTORY

Originally separate and independent Tribes of the Algonquin linguistic family, the Sac (or Sauk) and Fox Tribes have long been affiliated and allied. The name Sac is from their own name "Osakiwug," which means "people of the outlet" or "people of the yellow earth," and differentiates them from the foxes, whose own name is Meshkwakihug, "red earth people." The name Fox was applied to the entire Tribe by the French, from the name of one clan, the "Wagosh" or "Red Fox" group.

The original homeland of the Sacs and Fox was in the Great Lakes region, where the Sacs inhabited the upper Michigan peninsula and the Foxes, the south shore of Lake Superior. Their indigenous culture, later influenced by contact with Plains Tribes and the acquisition of horses in the nineteenth century, was that of the eastern woodlands. Although they established fixed villages and practiced extensive cultivation of maize, beans, squash and tobacco, they devoted much time to fishing, hunting of small game and buffalo, and harvesting wild rice. Travel was by dugout and birch-bark canoe. The two Tribes lived in bark houses in the warm weather and in oval flag-reed lodges during the winter. Their social and religious organization was a complex one in which the Grand Medicine Society played an important part.

By 1667, when Father Allovez made the first recorded white contact with the two Tribes, Iroquois and French pressure on the Sacs, and Chippewa pressure on the Foxes, had pushed both groups to the vicinity of the present Green Bay, Wisconsin. French attacks on the Sacs and Foxes in the eighteenth century, attributed to Indians, contributed to a strengthened alliance amounting to confederation of the two Tribes. Forced to migrate south, they attacked the Illinois Tribe and forced them from their lands along the Mississippi in the present states of Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa. Those groups that stayed near the Mississippi river became known as the "Sac and Fox of the Mississippi" to distinguish them from the "Sac and Fox of the Missouri," a large band that settled further south along the Missouri River.

The Missouri band became the source of much trouble for the other Sacs and Foxes, for in 1804, at St. Louis, Missouri band chiefs were persuaded to sign a treaty ceding to the U.S. Government all Sac and Fox lands east of the Mississippi River, as well as some hunting grounds to the west of the river. Government efforts several years to enforce the land surrender embittered the Sacs and Foxes, most of whom knew nothing about the 1804 Treaty. A brave and warlike people, they had aided the British in the war of 1812, and had fought constantly with the Sioux, Omahas, Menominees and other Tribes.

Government attempts to remove the Sacs and Foxes caused a split in the confederation. The majority of the Tribes followed the conciliatory Sac chief Kaokuk, and intelligent and able (though somewhat pompous and ambitious orator and politician) who agreed to removal. The remainder of the federation, however, supported his rival, Black Hawk, a brave Sac warrior who was bitterly opposed to the 1804 treaty and led his "British Band" into revolt and bolder skirmishes which became known as "Black Hawks War." Despite broken promises of help from other Tribes, and pursuit by superior U.S. Forces, Black Hawk skillfully led his followers north as far as Prairie du Cien, Wisconsin, where they were defeated and their leader was captured. With the 1832 treaty of Ft. Armstrong, Sac and Fox power on the frontier came to an end. In 1833 the Tribe was removed to Iowa.

They lived there for only thirteen years, then were moved to the Osage River Reservation in Kansas for a 23-year stay. Although Sac and Fox warriors had been able to drive the Sioux from their Iowa lands during their stay there, and to win fights in Kansas with Comanches, Cheyennes, Iotas, Osages and other Tribes, the inexorable westward movement of white settlers resulted in still another removal of the Sacs and Foxes in 1869, this time to Indian Territory (Oklahoma). Cakewalk, and later his son Moses, continued to lead the conciliatory faction of the Tribes, but most of the Foxes opposed the many cessions of land to the Government and, under the leadership of Chief Poweshiek, returned to Iowa in 1850 to join a small number who had steadfastly refused to leave.

Today, the Sac & Fox Tribe of Missouri has 420 members of whom 55 live in the area. Their reservation borders the Iowa Reservation on the west. All that remains of the allotted land on this reservation is 44.60 acres. There are 453 acres of tribal land.

TRIBAL LAND

COMMUNITY BUILDING

Reserve, Kansas

In 1996, Tribal environmental staff were unaware of any environmental problems which may be hazardous to the health of reservation residents.