Iowa: Native trails and villages

The Sac and Fox, Ioway and Ho-Chunk countries, from Nicollet's 1843 map of the upper Mississippi basin.

Historic maps for Iowa

Gallatin's tribes of North America, 1836

Hon. Albert Gallatin; published by the American Antiquarian Society, Pendleton's Lithography, 1836 · about 100 km accuracy

Albert Gallatin's founding map of American ethnology, published by the American Antiquarian Society with his Synopsis of the Indian Tribes: the homelands of the continent's nations tinted by language family — Algonkin-Lenape, Iroquois, Cherokee, Muskogee, Choctaw-Chickasaw, Sioux, Blackfeet, Pawnee, Athapasca, Eskimaux — as of about 1600 along the Atlantic and about 1800 westward. A continental baseline: every state shows its nations here.

Source: Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division · Rights: public domain

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Nicollet's Upper Mississippi, 1843

J. N. Nicollet, assisted by J. C. Frémont; U.S. War Department, Bureau of the Corps of Topographical Engineers, 1843 · about 25 km accuracy

Joseph Nicollet and John C. Frémont's War Department map of the upper Mississippi country — the most accurate map of its era, made with Dakota and Ojibwe guides. It names each nation's country — Mdewakanton, Wahpekute, Sisseton, Yankton, Yanktonai, Teton, Ojibwe, Ho-Chunk, Sac and Fox, Omaha, Otoe, Ioway, Ponca, Pawnee — with villages and hundreds of Dakota and Ojibwe place names: Mini Wakan, Kichi Gummi, Minsi Sagaigoning.

Source: Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division · Rights: public domain

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Warren's map of the West, 1857

Lieut. G. K. Warren, Topographical Engineers, U.S. War Department, 1857 · about 50 km accuracy

Lieutenant G. K. Warren's master map of the West, compiled in the Office of Pacific Railroad Surveys from every reliable exploration to date: the named country of each nation — Dacotas, Sheyennes, Comanches, Shoshonees, Utahs, Navajoes, Apaches, Blackfeet, Crows, Nez Perces, Pawnees and many more — with villages, forts, and the explorers' and emigrant routes that followed Native trails.

Source: Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division · Rights: public domain

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What the 1843 map shows

Joseph Nicollet mapped the upper Mississippi country in 1836–40 with Dakota and Ojibwe guides, and his War Department map records each nation’s country and hundreds of Dakota and Ojibwe place names — the most accurate map of the region for decades.

Reading the overlay

The southern sheet lands within about ten kilometres; the northern lake country nearer twenty-five. Switch to the scan layer to read the engraved names.