The history of Des Moines is closely intertwined with westward expansion and the settling of the frontier. The Native American tribes who lived throughout what is now Iowa were displaced to make room for settlers who tamed the prairie, established farms and towns, and created a new nation.
Prehistoric settlements dating back at least 3,000 years have been found in Iowa. Mound Builder culture flourished, with earthworks and stone mounds the legacy of five distinct civilizations. The Woodland were the most prolific, with their stone mounds found in practically every county in Iowa, including effigy mounds in the shapes of various creatures. They also left behind a plethora of chipped flint instruments and pottery objects. The Hopewellian civilization was concentrated along the banks of the Mississippi River, the Oneota and Mill Creek in northwestern Iowa, and the Glenwood in southwestern Iowa.
The Mound Builders were the ancestors of the Indian tribes who lived in Iowa at the time of European exploration and conquest. The Sauk (or Sac) and Fox were perhaps the most numerous, spread out over Illinois, Wisconsin, and Iowa, hunting and growing pumpkins, corn, beans, potatoes, and melons. The Sioux also used the area as a hunting ground, moving their tepees across the northern part of present-day Iowa. Other tribes included the Winnebago, Pottawatomie, and Mascoutin, as well as the Ioway people, who gave the state its name.
The first Europeans in Iowa were Father Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet, whose 1673 expedition down the Mississippi landed on the west bank of the river and made note of the soaring bluffs. With the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the vast sweep of prairie and rivers became part of the United States. Lead mining drew a wave of settlement to the Dubuque area along the Mississippi, while British and French fur trappers stalked farther and farther west.
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark passed by the western edge of present-day Iowa as they moved up the Missouri River. The 1805–06 Zebulon Pike expedition led to the establishment in 1809 of Fort Madison, the first US military installation in Iowa, located on the Mississippi between Keokuk and Burlington. The Sauk and Fox viewed the fort as a violation of an earlier treaty and, led by their chief, Black Hawk, who had allied his warriors with the British in the War of 1812, attacked the fort in 1813. American troops burned the fort as they retreated.