This November, as Native American Heritage Month is recognized and celebrated across the United States, Iowa’s Indigenous roots reflect a history still alive today. From the Meskwaki settlement near Tama, Iowa, to the ancestral lands of the Omaha along the Missouri River in western Iowa, Native nations serve as a symbol of resilience and strength despite centuries of displacement and persecution, continuing to preserve their culture.
Iowa has long been home to many Indigenous tribes, including the Ioway, Meskwaki, Sauk, Otoe, Missouria, Omaha, Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk, Illinois, Yankton Sioux and the Wahpeton bands of the Santee Sioux. Each of these tribal nations serves a vital role in the history of Iowa, whether influencing agricultural practices, government treaties or land partitions.
The Meskwaki Nation — also known as the Sac and Fox Tribe of the Mississippi — traditionally lived in multiple Canadian provinces and the upper Midwest. Iowa’s Meskwaki settlement consists of both the Sauk and Meskwaki people, whom the U.S. government officially grouped together after the Black Hawk War of 1832 due to their close alliance and proximity.
The Meskwaki Nation is the only federally recognized Indigenous tribe residing in Iowa, a status that carries both legal and cultural significance. State recognition means the state formally acknowledges a tribe within its borders, while federal recognition grants tribes rights to self-governance and an intergovernmental relationship with the United States. Federally recognized tribes, such as the Meskwaki, can operate their own courts and warrant tribal membership.
Dr. Stephen Warren, an American studies professor at the University of Iowa who specializes in Indigenous studies, explains that sovereignty remains one of the most pressing struggles Native Americans face today.
“There are 574 federally recognized Native nations today [that] signed treaties with the United States between 1789 and 1871. Federal recognition often came to tribes because of the treaty-making process,” Warren said. “But there are members of Indigenous tribes in the United States who are not federally recognized, and it has important consequences for them as people. It limits what they can do economically [and] what they can do in terms of their religion and their government.”
According to the Library of Congress, American treaties with Native tribes often defined land boundaries, peace agreements and hunting rights. Treaties with tribes were negotiated by the executive branch; however, many were later violated by the U.S. government, such as the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty. That treaty created the Great Sioux Reservation, where gold was later discovered, prompting settlers to flood the area. This further reduced the Sioux and Arapaho’s territory.
Warren explains that the U.S. federal government ultimately controls federal recognition of tribes via Congress’s plenary power doctrine.
“The federal government has plenary power: the ability to recognize a tribal government. It can pull back that recognition, so tribes are really dependent upon the United States, [who] has the ultimate authority over who gets to be a tribe,” Warren said.
Although not explicitly stated in the Constitution, plenary power is derived from the Indian Commerce Clause and Treaty Clause, influencing judicial interpretation of tribal sovereignty. This authority has allowed Congress to exercise near-absolute control over tribal nations, often overriding tribal sovereignty. It enabled Congress’s unilateral decision to terminate federal obligations to tribes during the 1950s Termination Era — which ended the recognition of 100 tribes — while ushering in the 1968 Self-Determination Era, aimed at restoring tribal recognition and authority.
Jonathan Buffalo, the Meskwaki Nation’s Historic Preservation Director, works to repatriate Native American human remains under the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act. His work focuses on ensuring that ancestral remains and artifacts are returned to their original homes.
“Iowa City is built on our old [Meskwaki] village — part of the Old Capitol sits on our [former] village,” Buffalo said. “We moved to Fort Marengo, and by 1845, we were moved out of Iowa. But some stayed; some came back home and [settled in] Tama County.”
The Meskwaki first entered Iowa with the Sauk in the 1700s, and lived across eastern and central Iowa. After a series of land purchases in 1845, the Sauk and Meskwaki lost all of their historical lands, and were relocated to a reservation in Kansas. Some remained in Iowa, purchasing land in Tama County in 1857 through legislation passed by the state legislature, which allowed them to remain in the state. This led to the creation of the Meskwaki settlement.
In recent years, universities across the country have recognized the Indigenous heritage through land acknowledgments, including the University of Iowa. Native American Constituency Senator Ava Wheelock drafts resolutions to enact policies that acknowledge the university’s Indigenous land. However, Wheelock believes that President Donald Trump’s anti-diversity, equity and inclusion stance has complicated these recognition efforts.
“It was a difficult year at the university when it came to DEI [policies]; the university took away culturally-based [organizations] and made new policies that impacted their funding,” Wheelock said. “Last year, [we] focused on how we handled those changes and what it meant for those communities.”
Wheelock also criticized the University of Iowa’s compliance with anti-DEI legislation — notably, Iowa House Republicans passed two bills in March targeting DEI efforts in higher education institutions. As a sophomore at the University of Iowa with Meskwaki heritage, Wheelock believes the university should consider student needs when implementing such changes.
“I am disappointed in the way that the university has backtracked [on] a lot of their support in the past. The university had a land acknowledgement, but then decided to take away [statements] that considered DEI,” Wheelock said. “I understand that the university has to comply with state laws, but the university has to decide, ‘Are [we] going to prioritize students, or just do what the government says?’”
Ayla Bleil ’28, who holds San Carlos Apache ancestry on her father’s side, echoes Wheelock’s view on the government’s anti-DEI stance. She believes that such policies exacerbate the systemic disadvantages faced by marginalized communities, including Native Americans.
“If you’re taking away DEI, you’re either saying that you’re fine with companies discriminating or that DEI isn’t necessary, which is not true, because racism and discrimination still absolutely exist,” Bleil said. “It’s important that we keep acknowledging that and work to [reduce discrimination].”
Historically, language has been a factor that many Eurocentric entities have tried to claim. This renders language revitalization as crucial to preserving Indigenous identities. Many students, including Wheelock, are working to revive their ancestral tongue. UNESCO classified the Meskwaki language as critically endangered, with only a small number of fluent speakers remaining.
Initiatives such as the Meskwaki Native Language Preservation program offers language resources to Indigenous Iowans and aims to create programs for learners of all ages. The Preservation has a focus on creating immersive language programs for indigenous people of all ages via its Tribal Council Resolution, which promotes the teaching of the Meskwaki language across the settlement. Buffalo explains that the settlement teaches the Meskwaki language at the K-12 level through their settlement school and also offers adult classes through the Language Preservation Office.
“We’re fighting [the] extinction of our language, which is a basic threat, because we deal with mass media a lot. Our young people are on their phones constantly, and there’s so much [more] out there today [than there] was when I was young, so it’s a bigger threat to our language,” Buffalo said.
Since European contact, thousands of Indigenous languages have disappeared due to forced assimilation into the English language. However, Warren states that some tribal nations across the United States, including the Meskwaki and the Anishinaabemowin, continue to speak their languages due to revitalization programs.
“There were thousands of Native American languages at the time that Europeans arrived, and today, many of those languages are dormant. There are a few communities that have robust first-language programs where people continue to speak them. For most other Native nations, language loss has been a real problem, and it’s the result of boarding schools and other assimilation programs,” Warren said.
From 1819 to 1969, the federal government funded around 400 boarding schools across 37 states to assimilate Indigenous children into American culture. At these schools, students were banned from using their native languages and from celebrating their cultural and religious practices. Three such schools operated in Iowa: the Toledo Industrial School, the Winnebago Mission School and White’s Manual Labor Institute. A 2022 Department of the Interior report revealed mistreatment, and in some cases, deaths of Native children at American boarding schools. All three Iowa schools were named in the report.
Bleil underlines the importance of preserving language and culture, which are crucial to combat forced assimilation, noting governments have historically tried to suppress them.
“It’s really important to preserve language and culture, because the U.S. government and the Canadian government put so much work into trying to repress that, by saying, ‘No, you can’t do this. You can’t say these things.’ That’s forced assimilation,” Bleil said. “Anything that we can do to combat or heal from forced assimilation and genocide is always [important].”
Bleil believes the curriculum taught in Iowa classrooms — including her AP U.S. History class — reflects colonists’ negative actions toward Native Americans. However, she notes that nuances in the curriculum fail to recognize the continuous presence of Indigenous people, despite their presence being referenced in the Iowa Department of Education’s social studies standards.
“When talking about Europeans and their interactions with Natives, [the curriculum] did a much better job than I anticipated with acknowledging all the horrible things that the colonists did. But every once in a while, they’ll say, ‘Up until this point, the land belonged to the Native Americans,’ and I’m like, ‘No, the land still belongs to the Native Americans, the colonizers were just trespassing.’ There’s a point in our curriculum where we stop acknowledging that Natives are still here, which never rubs me the right way,” Bleil said.
Wheelock emphasizes that this failure to recognize Indigenous continuity in modern education has been stressed by recent state and federal policy changes that have rolled back DEI efforts.
“The administration that we live under, whether it’s the federal government or the state government, has tried to erase parts of history that they don’t think deserve to be taught. I don’t think that’s right; it’s important to teach all perspectives of history,” Wheelock said. “My culture and other cultures are just as important and just as much a part of American culture as whatever the general curriculum is. We deserve a right to learn about our history and for other people to learn about our history — there’s a big imbalance there, so it’s really important for me to advocate for what I believe in.”
Wheelock believes that this inadequacy amplifies a common misconception: that Native Americans are only part of the past. She explains that this belief erases the presence and significance of Indigenous people today, overlooking their contributions.
“Native Americans are not just a part of the past. We are here. I’m a student. I do all the things you do,” Wheelock said.
Buffalo reinforces this idea, describing how museums often treat indigenous people as relics rather than living communities.
“There are two things that are the bread and butter of museums: dinosaurs and Indians, because they’re both ‘extinct.’ And when I walk into a museum, it’s like a dinosaur walked into the room,” Buffalo said.
Warren echoes both Wheelock and Buffalo, explaining that the vanishing Indian theory — the idea that Native peoples belong only to history — continues to distort how many Americans view Native life.
“When we study, teach and write about Native Americans, we think about them as safely historical,” Warren said. “Americans have a tendency to think that Native people simply aren’t part of our modern or contemporary experience — and I think that’s wrong. Native Americans are still here.”
To combat this notion, Wheelock recognizes the importance of educational community spaces, such as the university’s Latino Native American Cultural Center.
“Currently, I’m looking at a bill to solidify the historical significance of the LNACC at the university. It’s a very important and unique community place. It is older than 50 years and was established [under] the historical AIM movement and the Chicano-American movement,” Wheelock said. “There’s a lot of rich history there.”
The American Indian Movement was spearheaded by a Native American advocacy group in 1968 to address systemic issues faced by Indigenous people, including poverty, discrimination and policy brutality. AIM paired with the Chicano-American Movement of 1960, which promoted social justice and political empowerment for Mexican Americans, to stand for one purpose: reclaiming their cultural heritage.
However, cultural assimilation — in tandem with a failure to recognize Indigenous communities — continued to influence both education and food. Warren explains the colonization of Native diets, believing that food sovereignty movements should lead cultural reclamation efforts.
“Food sovereignty means many things, from regaining control of traditional diets to reclaiming physical health to reestablishing relationships between their people and the flora and fauna that sustained their people for millennia. At base, they seek to develop alternatives to industrial agriculture and the globalized food systems that dominate our diets today,” Warren said.
Warren describes how colonization has impacted the diets of Native Americans and how this impacts Native peoples and their relationship with food.
“One aspect of Native American colonialism is that [Natives] no longer eat the foods they traditionally ate; they’ve had their diets colonized,” Warren said. “There are a lot of tribes that are trying to get back a relationship with their traditional foods, whether that’s wild rice, salmon, deer, corn, beans or squash.”
Buffalo agrees, noting how the traditional Meskwaki diet has evolved over the last century, since his mother’s childhood. Yet, Buffalo explains that many of the Meskwaki culinary traditions remain.
However, Buffalo pushes back against suggestions that traditional Meskwaki culinary traditions are disappearing. Current efforts at the Meskwaki settlement include a tribal farm that grows traditional crops to preserve the agricultural traditions of the Meskwaki.
“[My mother] ate just Indian food, [like] corn, squash and beans. It was rare to eat what she called, ‘white man’s food,’ like [a] loaf of bread,” Buffalo said. “We’ve always had our traditional foods like our crops. We have never left our crops. We like our corn, and it’s our corn.”
Ultimately, Warren believes that all consumers should remain cognizant of the influence Indigenous people hold in modern-day agriculture and food.
“About 60% of the food that we eat today was originally cultivated by Native Americans. Everything from the potato, which came from Peru, to the tomato, which came from the Valley of Mexico, are crops that were manufactured by Native people,” Warren said. “Every time we eat, we should be thinking about Native people who had the presence of mind to invent these things.”
Alongside tomatoes and potatoes, major commercial crops such as corn and beans were first cultivated by indigenous peoples. Corn — a pillar of Iowa’s economy — was domesticated from a wild grass more than 9,000 years ago in southern Mexico, before spreading across North America. Today, corn covers around 50% of Iowa cropland, more than 10 million acres, and contributes more than $16 billion annually to the state economy, according to the Iowa Farm Bureau.
Despite growing awareness and revitalization efforts, misconceptions about Indigenous peoples persist. Regardless of their influence on U.S. agriculture, food and land stewardship, Native American groups are often reduced to static figures of history. Warren states that the path to rejecting that narrative begins with visibility.
“Almost all Native tribes are known in American history for the moment in which they fought the United States militarily. What’s really interesting about Native people isn’t really who they fought or the battles that they engaged in militarily, but how they survived colonialism,” Warren said.
Native American Heritage Month — established in 1990 when President George H. W. Bush signed a joint resolution into law — recognizes the numerous contributions of Native peoples. Warren believes that in addition to celebrating the impact of Indigenous nations, the month can also prompt learning that combats misconceptions, such as the myth that Thanksgiving was peaceful for both parties.
“The [notion] of Thanksgiving is that Native Americans shared a meal with the Puritans of New England, and that they got along very well with [each other] — that is a myth. There were many more violent encounters between settlers and Puritans than there were pacifist ones,” Warren said. “The problem with Thanksgiving is that it overlooks the very real genocide that Native Americans endured when the Americas were colonized by Europeans. Native American Heritage Month is a way to recognize Native Americans outside of the lens of Thanksgiving in this stereotypical way.”
Wheelock agrees with Warren, and hopes to promote the Native American Student Association’s Truthsgiving — an event held Nov. 15 to raise awareness about the fuller history behind Thanksgiving. The association organizes multiple other events to recognize Native American Heritage Month while deepening community connection. Buffalo shares this commitment to collective advocacy with various other Native directors across the Midwest.
“My counterparts [and I] support each other. We communicate by phone, email or in person to talk about our jobs, and sometimes I write support letters to other repatriation officers, just as much as they sometimes write support letters for me,” Buffalo said. “We always work together.”
Whether it be the Meskwaki art patterns to continued culinary traditions, Iowa’s Indigenous communities remain diverse and vibrant while upholding their heritage. Wheelock recalls how the association’s events unite diverse Indigenous groups and highlight their distinctions.
“It’s hard to meet other Native Americans, so I like to hear about their cultural experiences and traditions,” Wheelock said. “A lot of people think Indigenous people have the same culture, but in reality, we don’t. For example, my tribe is a woodlands tribe, and we have different camps [we lived in seasonally]. But tribes in the southwest, [like] the Navajo or the Pueblo, lived in one place [and centered] a community around it.”
In addition to her work with the association, Wheelock plans to continue advocacy with nonprofit organizations and urges Indigenous students and community members to get involved.
“All Native American people and people of any marginalized community [should] always continue their advocacy by bringing themselves and their perspective into whatever space they join — as long as you bring yourself and your spirit with you,” Wheelock said.
