For week 4 of AM IN 210, I was a part of the group who did a presentation on the Meskwaki tribe of Iowa. I was very intrigued to learn about the history of one specific tribe, especially one so close to home. Throughout this presentation, I was able to learn some pretty cool things. One of the facts that I found most fascinating, was how well the Meskwaki conflicts with the Iowan government seemed to go. Though, there were definitely some hardships, they seemed to be able to live happier lives. To start off, the Meskwaki were not moved with very much force, instead there was a lot of treaties and stealing of land, though this is less than ideal, it was better than having the government hire killers to take out the tribe. After they were told to leave, some went to the Kansas reservation like they were told, but a tribal leader name Powesheik stayed behind with 1,000 other Natives and hid in South Western Iowa. Many of the Natives eventually came back and just wanted to live on the Iowa land. Eventually, the government signed a bill that stated that the Meskwaki Indians were aloud to live on the lands. In contrast, during this same time period is when the Yuki genocide was going on. So I thought it was cool that Iowa was able to have such a civil relationship with the Meskwaki tribe.
Another interesting thing I learned about the Meskwaki, is that they are not considered a reservation. They bought their own land back with their own money. Although, it does kind of suck that they once had the ability to roam freely, but now they were forced to stick to the land they purchased. They were able to build the Meskwaki casino, a state of the art high school, and continue to grow in population as well as land size. Learning about the Meskwaki was somewhat a breath of fresh air. It was nice not to hear about complete genocides and other terrible things.