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The Sullivan Line originally marked in 1816 forms three quarters of the border between Missouri and Iowa and an extension of it forms the remainder. The line was initially created to establish the limits of Native American territory (they would not be permitted south of it); disputes over the boundary were to erupt into the Honey War.
In 1804, in the Treaty of St. Louis the Sac and Fox ceded Missouri north of the Gasconade River (but not their villages on the Mississippi River near Keokuk, Iowa). In 1808, in the Treaty of Fort Clark, the Osage Nation ceded all of Missouri and Arkansas west of the fort (now called Fort Osage in Jackson County, Missouri). The exact boundaries of the treaties were never formally surveyed. Resentments about the treaties caused many members of the tribe to side with the British in the War of 1812. At the conclusion of the war, the tribes in the 1815 Treaties of Portage des Sioux reaffirmed the earlier treaties.
In 1816, surveyor John C. Sullivan was instructed to survey the Osage territory starting 20 WEST of Fort Clark at the Kansas River and Missouri River confluence. From the north bank of the river opposite Kaw Point in what is today Kansas City Downtown Airport he was instructed to survey a line 100 miles (160 km) straight north and then east to the Des Moines River (the Sac and Fox owned the land east of the river). Sullivan's line going north (the Indian Boundary Line (1816)) was to ultimately form the longitudinal line from Iowa to Texas west of which Native Americans were to be removed in the Indian Removal Act of 1830.
The beginning point, also known as "the old northwest corner of Missouri" at the western end of the Sullivan Line is north of Sheridan, Missouri, at north latitude 40.5710859. [1] Despite his intention to draw the border straight east, he drifted north to about 40.6135698 at the boundary's eastern terminus just south of what is now Farmington, Iowa. This drift of 2.9 miles (4.7 km) northward is generally thought to be due to the change in magnetic declination, for which he did not correct his compass as the survey progressed.
When Missouri prepared to enter the Union in 1820, various boundaries were discussed before it was finally decided to go with a boundary that had already been formally surveyed, so the Sullivan line was picked. However the Missouri Constitution muddied the debate with phrase: "to the intersection of the parallel of latitude which passes through the rapids of the River Des Moines". As it happened, there were no rapids where Sullivan came to the Des Moines River. However, the Des Moines Rapids on the Mississippi River were just 15 miles (24 km) in a straight line east of Sullivan's eastern terminus.
In the Indian Removal Act of 1830, Sullivan's lines were used for the removal of almost all Native Americans from the eastern portion of the United States (in such events as the Trail of Tears). In 1832, at the conclusion of the Black Hawk War, the Sac and Fox conceded the eastern section of Iowa and the western section of Illinois. In the terms the 12-mile (19 km) stretch between the end of the Sullivan Line and the Mississippi was conceded (in what was called Half Breed Tract because it was to be set aside for mixed race residents). In 1836, the western boundary of the Sullivan Line latitude was extended 45 miles (72 km) west to the Missouri River just south of Hamburg, Iowa when the federal government relocated the already relocated tribes further west in the Platte Purchase. The land was annexed to Missouri.
The western extension did not have the same quirks as the first survey since the solar compass had made it easier to make accurate east–west surveys. However the quirks of the eastern portion of the Sullivan Line were to stir passions as Iowa prepared to enter the Union. Missouri, citing evidence from surveyor Joseph C. Brown, who had established the meridian grid for the Louisiana Purchase, said using the Kaw Point starting point was invalid and that the survey should have been based on the mouth of the Ohio River.[ citation needed ] Using that calculation, he said that Missouri's border should extend about 9.5 miles (15.3 km) even further into Iowa (with the town of Keosauqua, Iowa, specifically coming into play).
In 1839, the Clark County, Missouri sheriff went into this new stretch to collect taxes. When the residents of Iowa refused to pay, he is said to have cut down three trees to collect honey bee beehives in lieu of taxes. He was arrested. Residents from both sides threatened to fight, before the governors agreed to let the United States Supreme Court settle the matter.
Also, in 1839, Latter Day Saints followers of Joseph Smith, regrouped at Nauvoo, Illinois, on the Mississippi River after having been kicked out of Missouri in the Mormon War. Nauvoo lies in a straight line with the Sullivan Line. In 1844 after Smith was killed, his followers began their trek west that was to ultimately lead them to Utah. The first Iowa leg of the trail is just north of the Sullivan Line.
In 1849, the Supreme Court ruled that the Sullivan line was the boundary, [2] since it had been written into the Missouri Constitution and ordered it resurveyed. Commissioners Hendershot and Minor reported in 1850 they found many of the original 1816 markings in their survey. They set cast iron monuments at the initial point on the boundary and every 10 miles (16 km) along it as well as more frequent markings. [3] [4]
A dispute in the late 1800s caused a portion of the line near Decatur County Iowa to be surveyed and re-marked with granite monuments every mile for 20 miles (32 km). In 2005 the State of Missouri contracted a resurvey of the border, locating the markers from the Supreme Court survey of 1850 and those added in the 1890s. [5]
Montrose is a city in Lee County, Iowa. The population was 738 at the time of the 2020 census. The town is located on the Mississippi River. It is part of the Fort Madison–Keokuk, IA-IL-MO Micropolitan Statistical Area.
The Platte Purchase was a land acquisition in 1836 by the United States government from American Indian tribes of the region. It comprised lands along the east bank of the Missouri River and added 3,149 square miles (8,156 km2) to the northwest corner of the state of Missouri.
Iowa Highway 9 is the most northern of Iowa's east–west highways, traversing the entire northern tier of counties. It runs from the eastern terminus of South Dakota Highway 42 at the South Dakota border east of Sioux Falls, South Dakota near Benclare, to the Wisconsin border at Lansing where it continues as Wisconsin Highway 82. It is largely rural in character, bypassing any large city. Making a few dips north and south, the highway largely follows a very straight east–west alignment.
The One Hundred and Two River is a tributary of the Platte River of Missouri in northwestern Missouri in the United States. It flows from source tributaries in southwestern Iowa about 80 miles (130 km) to the Platte. Via the Platte, it is part of the watershed of the Missouri River. Much of the river's course has been straightened and channelized.
The Raccoon River is a 30.8-mile-long (49.6 km) tributary of the Des Moines River in central Iowa in the United States. As measured using the longest of its three forks, its length increases to 226 miles (364 km). Via the Des Moines River, it is part of the watershed of the Mississippi River. The river runs through an intensely cultivated area of croplands and livestock farming, receiving Tile drainage from slow-draining rich natural bottomland.
The parallel 36°30′ north is a circle of latitude that is 36 and one-half degrees north of the equator of the Earth. This parallel of latitude is particularly significant in the history of the United States as the line of the Missouri Compromise, which was used to divide the prospective slave and free states west of the Mississippi River, with the exception of Missouri, which is mostly north of this parallel.
Joseph Cromwell Brown Brown (1784-1849) was an American surveyor in the United States who made several major surveys in the Louisiana Territory. In addition to his surveying duties he was a sheriff of St. Louis County, Missouri as well as county engineer.
John C. Sullivan was a surveyor who established the Indian Boundary Line and the Sullivan Line which were to form the boundary between Native Americans and white settlers in Indian Territory from Iowa to Texas.
The Treaty of Fort Clark was signed at Fort Osage on November 10, 1808, in which the Osage Nation ceded all the land east of the fort in Missouri and Arkansas north of the Arkansas River to the United States. The Fort Clark treaty and the Treaty of St. Louis in which the Sac (tribe) and Fox (tribe) ceded northeastern Missouri along with northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin were the first two major treaties in the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase. The affected tribes, upset with the terms, were to side with the British in the War of 1812. Following the settlement of that war, John C. Sullivan for the United States was to survey the ceded land in 1816 (adjusting it 23 miles westward to the mouth of the Kansas River to create the Indian Boundary Line west of which and south of which virtually all tribes were to be removed in the Indian Removal Act in 1830.
A Half-Breed Tract was a segment of land designated in the western states by the United States government in the 19th century specifically for Métis of American Indian and European or European-American ancestry, at the time commonly known as half-breeds. The government set aside such tracts in several parts of the Midwestern prairie region, including in Iowa Territory, Nebraska Territory, Kansas Territory, Minnesota Territory, and Wisconsin Territory.
The Royal Colonial Boundary of 1665 marked the border between the Colony of Virginia and the Province of Carolina from the Atlantic Ocean westward across North America. The line follows the parallel 36°30′ north latitude that later became a boundary for several U.S. states as far west as the Oklahoma Panhandle, and also came to be associated with the Missouri Compromise of 1820.
The Meskwaki Settlement is an unincorporated community in Tama County, Iowa, United States, west of Tama. It encompasses the reservation lands of the Meskwaki Nation, 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 (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.
State of Missouri v. State of Iowa, 48 U.S. 660 (1849), is a 9-to-0 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States which held that the Sullivan Line of 1816 was the accepted boundary between the states of Iowa and Missouri. The ruling resolved a long-standing border dispute between the two states, which had nearly erupted in military clashes during the so-called "Honey War" of 1839.
The fourth Treaty of Prairie du Chien was negotiated between the United States and the Sac and Fox, the Mdewakanton, Wahpekute and Sisseton Sioux, Omaha, Ioway, Otoe and Missouria tribes. The treaty was signed on July 15, 1830, with William Clark and Willoughby Morgan representing the United States. Through additional negotiations conducted in St. Louis on October 13, 1830, Yankton Sioux and Santee Sioux agreed to abide by the 1830 Treaty of Prairie du Chien. The US government announced the treaty and its numerous adherents on February 24, 1831.
The Treaty of St. Louis of 1804 was a treaty concluded by William Henry Harrison on behalf of the United States of America and five Sauk and Meskwaki chiefs led by Quashquame.
The Treaty of St. Louis is the name of a series of treaties signed between the United States and various Native American tribes from 1804 through 1824. The fourteen treaties were all signed in the St. Louis, Missouri area.
