Meskwakiinaki, also called the Meskwaki Settlement, is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

in Tama County,

Iowa Iowa ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the upper Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west; Wisconsin to the northeast, Ill ...

, United States, west of Tama.Elias Ellefson, "What it Means to be a Meskwaki": Ray Young Bear interview
''Des Moines Register,'' 4 September 1994 It encompasses the lands of the Meskwaki Nation (federally recognized as the Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa), one of three Sac and Fox tribes in the United States. The others are located in Oklahoma and Kansas. The settlement is located in the historic territory of the

Meskwaki The Meskwaki (sometimes spelled Mesquaki), also known by the European exonyms Fox Indians or the Fox, are a Native American people. They have been closely linked to the Sauk people of the same language family. In the Meskwaki language, th ...

(Fox), an Algonquian people. Meskwaki people established the settlement in 1857 by privately repurchasing a small part of the land they had lost in the Sac and Fox treaty of 1842.

Government

The Nation operates a tribal school, tribal courts, public works department, and police force. As of 2009, there were about 1,300 members of this Meskwaki Tribe, of whom about 800 live on the settlement; non-tribal members, including spouses, also live on the settlement. The Meskwaki Casino Resort is located on the settlement and generates revenue for the welfare of the tribe. The tribe holds a large pow-wow at the settlement each year. Legislation in 2018 restored the Meskwaki Nation's legal jurisdiction over tribal members within the settlement boundaries. The state of Iowa continues to exercise jurisdiction over pre-2018 legal cases and non-tribal citizens on tribal land. The Meskwaki natural resource office has raised a herd of approximately twenty

bison A bison (: bison) is a large bovine in the genus ''Bison'' (from Greek, meaning 'wild ox') within the tribe Bovini. Two extant taxon, extant and numerous extinction, extinct species are recognised. Of the two surviving species, the American ...

on the settlement's southern edge, mainly for cultural purposes, but has periodically distributed bison meat to families in the community. A

community gardening A community garden is a piece of land gardening, gardened or cultivated by a group of people individually or collectively. Normally in community gardens, the land is divided into individual plots. Each individual gardener is responsible for thei ...

project has also resulted from a partnership between federal

AmeriCorps AmeriCorps ( ; officially the Corporation for National and Community Service or CNCS) is an Independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the United States government that engages more than five million Americans in ...

volunteers and the Meskwaki, titled the Meskwaki Food Sovereignty Initiative (MFSI).

History

The Meskwaki traded with French colonists of the Illinois Country but were forced west by competition in the 18th-century

fur trade The fur trade is a worldwide industry dealing in the acquisition and sale of animal fur. Since the establishment of a world fur market in the early modern period, furs of boreal ecosystem, boreal, polar and cold temperate mammalian animals h ...

and later United States development pressures. In the early decades of the 19th century, the Meskwaki and Sac were being forced to cede land in Iowa and nearby areas to the United States and to move west of the

Missouri River The Missouri River is a river in the Central United States, Central and Mountain states, Mountain West regions of the United States. The nation's longest, it rises in the eastern Centennial Mountains of the Bitterroot Range of the Rocky Moun ...

, culminating in the Sac and Fox treaty of 1842. Some Meskwaki people resisted Indian removal, but they were initially unable to buy property because they were not considered citizens under Iowa law. In 1856, the Iowa state legislature passed a law permitting the Meskwaki to reside in Tama County, and Meskwaki people began to purchase land in 1857 with the state governor acting as a legal trustee. Over the following 150 years, the Meskwaki gradually expanded the settlement by purchasing nearby lands. The lands entered into federal trust in 1896. As the settlement was never formally incorporated as a city it has no official name, and was commonly called "Indian Town" or “Indian Village” into the 20th century. The anthropologist Duren Ward suggested the settlement be named "Meskwakia," but this name never caught on. The total lands owned by the tribe is called "Meskwakiinaki" by the Meskwaki tribal government. In the 21st century, there are two other federally recognized Sac and Fox tribes, who have independent reservations and governments in present-day states of Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska.

Geography

The Meskwaki Nation owns more than in parts of Indian Village Township, Toledo Township, Tama Township, and Columbia Township. The settlement did not begin as an

Indian reservation An American Indian reservation is an area of land land tenure, held and governed by a List of federally recognized tribes in the contiguous United States#Description, U.S. federal government-recognized Native American tribal nation, whose gov ...

in the traditional sense, because it was privately purchased by Meskwaki people rather than being reserved by treaty or federal legislation. However, a portion of the area gained federal reservation status after 1896. According to the

United States Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the Federal statistical system, U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and American economy, econ ...

, of the Meskwaki Settlement had legal reservation status in 2020, and an additional were off-reservation trust land. The combined reservation and off-reservation trust land had a total area of , all of it land.

Demographics

As of the census of 2020, the population of Meskwaki Settlement (including both reservation and off-reservation trust land) was 1,142. The

population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...

was . There were 345 housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the settlement was 85.9% Native American, 2.9%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no chroma). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully (or almost fully) reflect and scatter all the visible wa ...

, 0.3% Asian, 0.2%

Black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

, 0.3% from other races, and 10.5% from two or more races. Ethnically, the population was 8.8%

Hispanic The term Hispanic () are people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or broadly. In some contexts, Hispanic and Latino Americans, especially within the United States, "Hispanic" is used as an Ethnici ...

or Latino of any race.

Education

The community is within the South Tama County Community School District. There is also the Sac and Fox Tribe-operated Meskwaki Settlement School (MSS), a PK-12 school. It was formed in 1938 as a merger of two Native American day schools. Typically settlement students attend the tribal school or South Tama County High School.

Notable Meskwaki

* Jean Adeline Morgan Wanatee, activist for Native American and women's rights * Ray Young Bear, writer * Lelah Pekachuk, successfully challenged her detention in the Toledo Indian School

References

{{authority control Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi in Iowa Unincorporated communities in Tama County, Iowa Unincorporated communities in Iowa 1857 establishments in Iowa Populated places established in 1857 Native American populated places Bison herds Meskwaki