Black Hawk Purchase - Description

Description

The land granted was described as follows:

"Beginning on the Mississippi River at a point where the Sac and Fox northern boundary line, as established by the second article of the treaty of Prairie du Chien, July, 1830, strikes said river; thence up said boundary line to a point 50 miles from the Mississippi measured on said line; thence in a right line to the nearest point on the Cedar River, of Iowa, 40 miles from the Mississippi; thence in a right line to a point in the northern boundary of the State of Missouri, 50 miles measured on said boundary from the Mississippi River; thence by the last mentioned boundary to the Mississippi River, and by the western shore of said river to the place of beginning."

According to The Making of Iowa (1900), "The Black Hawk Purchase extended along the west side of the Mississippi River from the north boundary of Missouri north to the Upper Iowa River. The Upper Iowa River is in the northeast corner of Iowa, and must not be confounded with the Iowa River in the southern half of the state. Therefore this tract extended from Missouri nearly to Minnesota. It was 50 miles wide at the ends, and 40 in the middle."

According to The History of Jefferson County, Iowa (1879), "This was a strip of land on the west bank of the Mississippi River, the western boundary of which commenced at the southeast corner of the present county of Davis; thence to a point on Cedar River, near the northeast corner of Johnson County; thence northwest to the neutral grounds of the Winnebagoes; thence to the Mississippi to a point above Prairie du Chien..." Still another history describes it as extending from the Yellow River in the north to the Des Moines River in the south.

Two areas were held back as special awards; one was assigned to the chief Keokuk and his Sauk people in thanks for their neutrality (later known as Keokuk's Reserve); the other was given to "half-breed" translator Antoine LeClaire. (Note: LeClaire's reserve was different from the Half-Breed Tract, which was designated and set aside west of the Missouri River before the Black Hawk Purchase.)

The land of the purchase was successively governed by the legislatures of the Michigan Territory, the Wisconsin Territory, Iowa Territory and finally Iowa.

The Black Hawk Purchase was followed by the so-called Second Black Hawk Purchase (1837) and New Purchase (1842).