This Is the Route of My Forefathers

by William Green

2026 · University of Iowa Press

"Description: Historical maps are fascinating but often enigmatic, especially early Native American maps with few easily recognizable features. Indigenous people made numerous maps, but understanding and appreciating these documents requires an interdisciplinary approach. When integrated as in this book, oral traditions, written records, and archaeological information can decode Indigenous maps and help them attain the recognition they deserve as cultural as well as political documents. This book focuses on maps the Ioway people made in the 1800s. The State of Iowa is named for the Ioways, but most Iowans-and the vast majority of other Americans-know little about them. Maps made by Ioways depicted tribal history and defended tribal land claims. Examining these maps provides insights into the tribe's history, its political and diplomatic strategies, and its relationships and interactions with colonial and neighboring tribal nations. The maps show how many tribes-not just the Ioway-resisted and negotiated in the face of dispossession and removal. The map Ioway leaders drafted in 1837 depicts settlements in what is now Iowa as well as Illinois, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. The Ioway leader No Heart, who presented the map, said that the connections between these settlements comprised "the route of my forefathers." Integrated analysis of oral traditions, written records, and archaeological data allows us to identify most of these settlement locations, assign dates or age ranges to their occupation, and understand their historical and cultural contexts. More than this, however, the book exemplifies the use of an interdisciplinary, object-history approach while elucidating the value and limits of oral tradition. The 1837 map illustrates nearly 200 years of Ioway history, but it also shows that certain types of information-group accounts of specific locations and events-can fade over time while accounts of origin-legendary history-remain rich and vibrant"--