p for fear they would do worse, and when we joined
our people in the spring a great many of them complained of similar
treatment.

This summer our agent came to live at Rock Island. He treated us well
and gave us good advice. I visited him and the trader very often during
the summer, and for the first time heard talk of our having to leave our
village. The trader, Colonel George Davenport, who spoke our language,
explained to me the terms of the treaty that had been made, and said
we would be obliged to leave the Illinois side of the Mississippi, and
advised us to select a good place for our village and remove to it in
the spring. He pointed out the difficulties we would have to encounter
if we remained at our village on Rock river. He had great influence with
the principal Fox chief, his adopted brother, Keokuk. He persuaded him
to leave his village, go to the west side of the Mississippi and build
another, which he did the spring following. Nothing was talked of but
leaving our village. Keokuk had been persuaded to consent to go, and was
using all his influence, backed by the war chief at Fort Armstrong and
our agent and trader at Rock Island, to induce others to go with him. He
sent the crier through our village, to inform our people that it was the
wish of our Great Father that we should remove to the west side of the
Mississippi, and recommended the Iowa river as a good place for the
new village. He wished his party to make such arrangements, before they
started on their winter's hunt, an to preclude the necessity of their
returning to the village in the spring.

The party opposed to removing called on me for my opinion. I gave it
freely, and after questioning Quashquame about the sale of our lands, he
assured me that he "never had consented to the sale of our village."
I now promised this party to be the leader, and raised the standard
of opposition to Keokuk, with a full determination not to leave our
village. I had an interview with Keokuk, to see if this difficulty could
not be settled with our Great Father, and told him to propose to give
any other land that our Great Father might choose, even our lead mines,
to be peaceably permitted to keep the small point of land on which our
village was situated. I was of the opinion that the white people had
plenty of land and would never take our village from us. Keokuk promised
to make an exchange if possible, and applied to our agent, and the great
chief at St. Louis,