. The wide range of its influence is illustrated by the task
which occupied the attention of its soldiers during the summer of 1850.
On August 8, 1849, Governor Ansel Briggs of Iowa forwarded to the
Secretary of War a petition, signed by over a hundred citizens of Iowa
County, in which they complained of the presence of a great number of
Indians who were destroying the timber, removing the section corners,
and even demanding rent from some of the settlers--claiming that they
owned the land on the Iowa River.[110]

To investigate conditions and to report upon what steps would be
necessary to remove the cause of complaint, Brevet Major Samuel Woods,
stationed at Fort Snelling, was ordered to proceed to the State of Iowa.
On the twenty-fifth of September he left for Prairie du Chien, and
arriving here set out for Fort Atkinson, thinking that probably the
Winnebagoes were the Indians causing the trouble. But he discovered that
many of them had just set out for the upper Mississippi, and those
remaining behind were so few in number that they could cause little
inconvenience to the frontier. From Fort Atkinson Major Woods passed
southward through Fayette, Buchanan, Linn, and Johnson counties to Iowa
City. At this time the region traversed was sparsely settled. For a
hundred miles south of Fort Atkinson there were only two
settlements--one, consisting of a few families, high upon the Volga
River, and the other larger in numbers clustered about some mills
on the Wapsipinicon River. About fifteen miles north of Marion the
inhabitants became more numerous. Here were found Indians--Sacs and
Foxes, Pottawattomies, and Winnebagoes--but they were not hostile and
their presence caused no objection.

It was at Iowa City that Major Woods heard that the inhabitants on the
Iowa, English, and Skunk Rivers had been making the loudest complaints.
Accordingly he started up the Iowa River to the vicinity of Marengo.
Here he learned that a few days before the settlers near the town,
becoming tired of having Indians about them, armed themselves and by
force broke up the Indian encampment. Only one lodge remained, that on
the lands of a farmer who gave permission to three of the red men to
live under his protection.

The total number of Indians, Major Woods reported, consisted of five or
six hundred Sacs and Foxes, Pottawattomies, and Winnebagoes. Among these
the Sacs and Foxes were the most numerous. They had by treaty sold their
lands some y