Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma

The Iowa (also spelled Ioway), also known as the Baxoje, are a Native American Siouan people. Their name comes from ayuhwa ("asleep"), but they called themselves pahotcha or Bah-kho-je ("dusted faces" or "grey snow"). The state of Iowa is named after them. Together with the Missouri, the Omaha, the Oto and the Ponca, the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma are part of the Chiwere-speaking peoples, claiming the Ho-Chunks as their "grandfathers." In 1824, the Iowa were moved to reservations in Brown County, Kansas and Richardson County, Nebraska. Some of them also live in the Iowa Trust Kensan Reservation, in Oklahoma.

In prehistoric times the Iowa emigrated from North of the Great Lakes region to present-day Iowa. Until the 16th century, they moved from the Mississippi river to the Great Plains, and possibly then separated from the Ho-Chunk tribe. By the 18th century they settled in the Red Pipestone Quarry region (Minnesota), reaching by the 19th century the shores of the Platte River, where they were visited in 1804 by Lewis and Clark.

Between 1820 and 1830 the Iowa ceded their Minnesota, Iowa and Missouri lands to the U.S. government and in 1821 were relocated to a reservation along the Kansas-Nebraska border. In 1836 they settled in a strip of land in Missouri, along with the Sauk and the Fox, but a number of discontent individuals were marched to Oklahoma in 1838.

In 1861 two official reservations were created for the Iowa, in Nebraska and Kansas, but in 1883 the discontent group was taken to Lincoln, Payne and Logan counties, in Indian Territory, Oklahoma where they were aculturated and had their lands divided.