Honey War

The Honey War was a bloodless territorial dispute in 1839 between Iowa Territory and Missouri over their border.

The dispute over a strip running the entire length of the border, caused by unclear wording in the Missouri Constitution on boundaries, misunderstandings over the survey of the Louisiana Purchase, and a misreading of Native American treaties, was ultimately decided by the United States Supreme Court in Iowa's favor.

The decision was to affirm a nearly jog in the nearly straight line border between southeast Iowa and northeast Missouri at Keokuk, Iowa that is now Iowa's southernmost point.

Before the issue was settled, militias from both sides faced each other at the border, a Missouri sheriff collecting taxes in Iowa was incarcerated, and three trees containing beehives were cut down.

The wording of the boundary "extending westward of the rapids of the river Des Moines" was to cause confusion.

In the Treaty of Washington (1824), the Sac and Fox ceded their land in Missouri. The land below the Sullivan Line between the Des Moines and Mississippi was set aside as Half Breed Tract.

In the Indian Removal Act of 1830, all tribes were moved west and south of the line, Sullivan had drawn.

In 1834 Half Breed Tract was opened to public settlement. This, along with the transfer of the territory of modern-day Iowa to the Wisconsin Territory, was to spur Missouri to reconsider its northern border, first by extending its border west to the Missouri River in the Platte Purchase in northwest Missouri and then by reconsidering the northeast corner.

The "War"

thumb|Honey War Monument and Sullivan Line Marker

In 1837 the Missouri General Assembly ordered the line to be resurveyed. When Wisconsin Territory refused to participate in the survey, J.C. Brown began a survey in which he ignored the traditional definition of the rapids below Fort Madison on the Mississippi and instead looked for rapids on the Des Moines River itself and identified the rapids as being at Keosauqua, Iowa, about into modern Iowa.

As the dispute heated up, Missouri was to note there were rapids on the Des Moines all the way to Des Moines, Iowa. Meanwhile, Iowa was to maintain its ownership extended to a line about into modern Missouri at the mouth of the Des Moines.

Tax agents from Kahoka, Missouri, tried to collect taxes in what is now Van Buren County, Iowa, and Davis County, Iowa. The Iowa residents, allegedly carrying pitchforks, chased away the tax collectors who, legend has it, chopped down three honey bee trees in what is now Lacey-Keosauqua State Park to collect the honey for partial payment.

Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs sent 11 mounted members of the 14th Division of the Missouri State Militia under Major General David Willock, from Palmyra, Missouri, to the disputed border to protect the tax collector. General Willock was unwilling to shed blood over an issue that should have been resolved peacefully by the governors or by Congress, and an Iowa mob succeeded in capturing the sheriff of Clark County, Missouri, and incarcerated him in the Muscatine, Iowa, jail. The Iowa militia was also called out by Iowa Territory governor Robert Lucas. Authorization for a total payment of $46 to the Missouri Militia was for 7 days in active service.

According to one description about the Iowans:

:in the ranks were to be found men armed with blunderbusses, flintlocks, and quaint old ancestral swords that had probably adorned the walls for many generations. One private carried a plow coulter over his shoulder by means of a log chain, another had an old-fashioned sausage stuffer for a weapon, while a third shouldered a sheet iron sword about six feet long.

The two governors agreed to allow Congress to resolve the issue. An arbitrary line was drawn between the two positions. When Iowa entered the Union in 1846, Congress ruled that the border was in fact at the Mississippi confluence, a position that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in State of Missouri v. State of Iowa, 48 U.S. 660 (1849).

Timeline

1803: Louisiana Purchase
1804: Treaty of St. Louis – Sauk and Meskwaki tribes cede Missouri from the mouth of the Gasconade River through Illinois and Wisconsin
1808: Treaty of Fort Clark – Osage Nation cedes Missouri and Arkansas east of Fort Osage
1812–1815: War of 1812 – Tribes protesting the treaties side with the British in Missouri and Mississippi Valley skirmishes
1814: Treaty of Ghent ends the war and requires tribes to be treated as before the war
1815: Treaties of Portage des Sioux includes wording that the Osage, Sac and Fox agree to their earlier treaties
1816: John C. Sullivan surveys the Indian Boundary Line (1816) from the mouth of the Kansas River in modern-day Kansas City, Missouri to approximately Sheridan, Missouri and then east to the Des Moines River near Farmington, Iowa
1818: Missouri considers various boundary options for statehood.
1820: Missouri enters the Union with its western boundary being the Indian Boundary Line and its northern boundary being the Sullivan Line. Wording in the Constitution refers to the rapids on the river Des Moines which some perceive as ambiguous since the Des Moines has no rapids but the Mississippi nearby has rapids called the Des Moines Rapids.
1824: Sac and Fox cede all remaining land in Missouri and ceded the land south of the Sullivan Line between the Des Moines and Mississippi as Half Breed Tract. Missouri makes no effort to extend its claim to Half Breed Tract.
1830: Indian Removal Act – Efforts begin to remove all tribes to west of the Indian Boundary Line
1832: Black Hawk War as tribes resist the removal order
1834: Congress opens up Half Breed Tract to settlement but Missouri again makes no claim on the territory.
1836: Iowa is removed from Michigan Territory to Wisconsin Territory
1836: The federal government in the Platte Purchase buys the land west of the Indian Boundary line and it is annexed to Missouri with its northern border being the Sullivan Line.
1838: Iowa Territory is organized
1839: According to legend a Missouri tax collector in Iowa cuts down three hollow trees containing honey bee hives to collect the honey in lieu of taxes.
1839: Clark County, Missouri sheriff Uriah S. ("Sandy") Gregory is arrested by Van Buren County, Iowa sheriff while attempting to collect Missouri taxes in the disputed territory.
1839: Militias from both sides assemble at the border
1839: Matter is referred to the U.S. Supreme Court
1846: Iowa enters the Union
1849: Supreme Court issues an opinion that since Missouri never challenged its straight-line border ending at the Des Moines River for more than 10 years, the border was valid. The court further upholds the Sullivan Line as the correct border but orders it resurveyed to correct quirks in Sullivan's Line which had jogs.
2005: Following various disputes, the State of Missouri contracts to have the border resurveyed, which finds many of the markers from the Supreme Court survey of 1850.

The "War"

Timeline

See also

References

Further reading