A-ni-m-ka-ge Welcome.

I am Na-me-qua (Na me k), daughter of Makatai-me-she-kia-kiak and As-she-we-qua. (accent the 3rd syllable). I am Nah-seu-skuk, their son. The settlers called us Running Fawn, Roaring Thunder and our parents they called Blackhawk and Singing Bird but those weren’t our real names.

Our People camped and hunted and fished in the beautiful and bountiful lands near the great river…the Mase’ sibowi.

We are Sauk and Mesquakie…..First Nations People, also called the Sac and Fox Nation. We didn’t ‘own’ this land before Aaron and Harriet Pierce and the other early settlers came, because in our beliefs, land cannot be ‘owned’.

But we cherished the land and the waters. We survived from the gifts the land and the water offered. They were all a gift of Gitchie Manitou, the God of us all. If we cut a tree, for example, we had a ceremony to thank Mother Earth for the gift of the tree.

So why are we not still living here, you may wonder? Some of us still are. But many of us were forced to leave the area after the law of 1832 was passed. It was called the Indian Removal Act.

Our parents fought against leaving. And although we were hunters and farmers, a peaceful people, we did fight, to remain on this east side of the Misi Ziibi.

We lost the battle. Some of our people moved to Tama, Iowa, but many were forcibly moved far away to a state called Oklahoma.

Most of us are now what we call ‘assimilated’ into the culture and society of the United States of America. But we do not forget our origins, our languages and our customs, as People that were the First Nation of this land.

Remember us…especially when you gaze upon the river…the Misi Ziibi, the Great River, the Mase’sibowi. The spirits of our ancestors remain here forever.