From 1671 through 1689 the Iowa region was claimed for France by Sieur Saint-Lusson, Daniel de Greysolon Sieur de Luth (Du Luth), Robert Cavalier Sieur de la Salle, and Nicolas Perrot. Several jurisdictional changes occurred in Iowa's early history. France ceded Iowa to Spain in 1762, although it was returned in 1800 preceding the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, which made it United States territory. As part of the United States, Iowa was first included in the Illinois Territory (1808) and then the Missouri Territory (1812). Migrating groups from the states began the first settlements in 1832. Before statehood was established in 1846, these settlements were included in the Michigan Territory (1834), Wisconsin Territory (1836), and finally its own territory in 1838.

Prior to 1800, Native Americans and French were the only residents of the Iowa Territory. Julien DuBuque, a French Canadian, began mining lead in 1788 near present-day Dubuque, employing some of the normally unfriendly Fox tribal members in his mines. In 1796 DuBuque received a grant of land, including the lead mines, from the Spanish governor of Louisiana. The Spanish government gave additional grants. Louis Honore Tesson obtained 6,000 acres in 1799 in the present Lee County, and Basil Giard acquired land a year later in Clayton County. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark spent time near the Missouri River in Iowa in 1804. On 23 August 1805, the explorer Zebulon Pike raised the first American flag in Iowa, flying the stars and stripes from an area now on the southern edge of Burlington. A U.S. Army detachment from St. Louis built Fort Madison in 1808. Five years later, the fort was abandoned and burned by the departing troops whose exodus was caused by Chief Black Hawk and the War of 1812.

The year 1816 included the establishment of Fort Armstrong on Rock Island. Settlers from the east arrived as early as 1820. Danish immigrants settled in Lee County in 1832. A year later settlements were established by pioneers from Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio, and Indiana.

With the creation of the Iowa Territory in 1838, there was a great influx of settlers. The first territorial capital was established at Burlington. The new Iowans in the 1840s included Scandinavians, Dutch, Germans, Irish, Scots, and Welsh. New Englanders arrived in 1840, Quakers in 1841, and Mormons migrated across Iowa in 1846, the year Iowa became a state. The following year immigrants from the Netherlands settled at Pella. A large number of families migrated from Ohio to Iowa in 1854. From 1850 through 1880, there was a mass migration of Germans to the state. Migration from Iowa also occurred during this period, with a large exodus to California as a result of the gold rush beginning in 1849.

The steamboat industry peaked from 1850 to 1877, while the first railroad in the state was completed in 1855. Both had significant influence on the settlement of the state. By 1860 the state population was 674,913. Ten years later it was 1,194,020.

Most of the immigrants seetling in Iowa during the latter part of the nineteenth century were from northwestern Europe. They could purchase land cheaply but found the thick prairie sod difficult to improve for farming. Because of the need for heavy equipment and cooperative drainage plans, farming was much more commercial than family-oriented. The com,merical aspect necessitated an extensive railroad network, resulting in high freight prices and a response in the form of the Grange Movement rebelling against the railroads. Financial depressions in 1873, 1893, and the 1930s greatly affected Iowa. As the twentieth century brought more efficient farming methods for mass production, many of the families who had owned farms moved to the cities. Today, farming continues to be an important aspect of the economy and exists with a sizeable number of urban industries as well as the still rural ones like the community-owned Amana Colonies.

Native American

In 1781 the wife of Peosta, a Fox warrior, reported the discovery of lead deposits in the Iowa country. Seven years later Julien Dubuque, a fur trader, obtained sanction from the Indians to work lead mines near what is now Dubuque. The following time-line of the Native Americans in Iowa will provide a guideline to their disbursement within and beyond the state.
• 1824: Half-Breed Tract established in present Lee County
• 1825: Neutral lines established between Sioux, Sac, and Fox
• 1830: Neutral ground is established between Sioux, Sac, and Fox
• 1832: Black Hawk War terminates in cession of strip of lands west of Mississippi River known as Black Hawk Purchase; Winnebago tribe is given part of neutral ground
• 1833: Title to Black Hawk Purchase is transferred to United States Government; Ottawa, Pottawattomie, and Chippewa tribes are given lands in what is now southwestern Iowa
• 1834: “Half-breeds” are given fee simple title to Half-Breed Tract by act of Congress
• 1836: Sac and Fox cede Keokuk's Reserve of the United States
• 1837: Sac and Fox cede to the United States 1,250,000 acres of land known as the second Black Hawk Purchase
• 1838: Chief Black Hawk dies at his home near the Des Moines River in Davis County
• 1842: Sac and Fox cede all remaining lands in Iowa
• 1843: Sac and Fox vacate lands east of line passing north and south through the Red Rocks of Marion County
• 1845: Sac and Fox withdraw from Iowa
• 1846: Pottawattomie relinquish lands in western Iowa
• 1848: Removal of Winnebago tribe begins
• 1851: Sioux cede lands in northern Iowa
• 1857: Spirit Lake Massacre: Sioux attack settlers and kill thirty; Small band of Sac and Fox return, permitted to buy eighty acres of land in Tama County; Members of these tribes still live on a semi-reservation north of the village of Tama
• 1862: Blockhouses erected in northwestern Iowa for protection against the Sioux

See the following for Native American research in Iowa:

Rafert, Stewart. “American-Indian Genealogical Research in the Midwest: Resources and Perspectives.” National Genealogical Society Quarterly 76 (September 1988): 212–24.

African Americans

In the 1840s only slightly more than 300 blacks were living in Iowa. Free blacks were discouraged, if not totally forbidden, from migrating to the state by a ruling in April of 1839. It stated any black or “mulatto” must provide “a fair certificate of actual freedom under a seal of a judge and give bond of $500 as surety against becoming public charges” before being permitted to settle in Iowa. After 1865, however, the black population in the state tripled, most migrating from Missouri and other Mississippi and Ohio river areas. Very few histories of blacks in Iowa exist at this time. William J. Peterson's Iowa History Reference Guide (see Background Sources) lists numerous periodical articles and some books for Negro history in Iowa. The following are a brief sampling of those articles.

Bergmann, Leola Nelson. “The Negro in Iowa.” Iowa Journal of History 46 (January 1948): 3–90.
Gallaher, Ruth A. “Slavery in Iowa.” Palimpsest 28 (May 1947): 158–60.
Van Ek, Jacob. “Underground Railroad in Iowa.” Palimpsest 2 (May 1921): 129–43.

Additional suggestions for reference on Black American history in Iowa include:

Iowa Bystander, 1894–1987, Des Moines. Renamed New Iowa Bystander in 1971, this newspaper was established for the black community in Iowa in 1894 by I. W. Williamson, Billy Colson, and Jack Logan. Some years are available on microfilm.
Schweider, Dorothy, Joseph Hraba, and Elmer Schweider. Buxton: Work and Racial Equality in a Coal Mining Community. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State University Press, 1987. Buxton, which existed as an “integrated community” coal camp in south-central Iowa during the 1900s, was referred to as “the black man's utopia in Iowa.”

Other Ethnic Groups

The following sources are valuable in gaining an understanding of various ethnic groups in Iowa from both a historical and genealogical standpoint.

Foreman, Grant. “English Emigrants in Iowa.” Iowa Journal of History 44 (October 1946): 385–420.
Calkin, Homer L. “The Coming of the Foreigners,” Annals of Iowa 43 (April 1962). This issue of Annals deals exclusively with foreigners including those immigrants from Germany, Scandinavia, and the United Kingdom.
Christensen, Thomas P. “A German Forty-eighter in Iowa.” Annals of Iowa 26 (April 1945): 245–53.
———. A History of Danes in Iowa. New York: Arno Press, 1979.
Van der Zee, Jacob. The Hollanders of Iowa. Iowa City, Iowa: State Historical Society of Iowa, 1912.
Wick, Barthinius Larson. The Amish Mennonites: A Sketch of Their Origins, and of Their Settlement in Iowa, with Their Creed in an Appendix. Iowa City, Iowa: State Historical Society, 1984.
———. “The Earliest Scandinavian Settlement in Iowa.” Annals of Iowa 29 (October 1948): 468–72.

Luther College, Koren Library, Decorah, Iowa 52101, holds over 20,000 Norwegian manuscripts and 1,000 volumes of Norwegian American newspapers.