The Iowa (also spelled Ioway), also known as the Báxoje, are a Native American Siouan people. Today they are enrolled in either of two federally recognized tribes, the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma and the Ioway Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska.


European settlers applied Ioway to the state (Iowa) where this tribe of Native Americans were once found in various locations, as well as to a county and river (Iowa County, Iowa, Iowa River) within it.


Together with the Missouria and the Otoe, the Ioway are part of the Chiwere-speaking peoples, claiming the Ho-Chunks as their "grandfathers."


Their estimated population of 1,100 (in 1760) dropped to 800 (in 1804), a decrease caused mainly by smallpox, to which they had no natural immunity.


In 1824, the Iowa were moved to reservations in Brown County, Kansas, and Richardson County, Nebraska. Bands of Iowa moved to Indian Territory in the late 19th century and settled south of Perkins, Oklahoma, becoming the Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma.


The Ioway Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska operates the Casino White Cloud at White Cloud, Kansas on the Ioway Reservation.


In 1760 the Iowa tribe population was roughly 1,100, but their numbers were reduced to 500 by 1900. In 1960 there were 100 in Kansas and 100 in Oklahoma.


By 1980 their population had recovered to 1,000 (of which only 20 spoke Iowa). In 1990 there were 1,700 people.


According to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, in 1995 there were 533 individuals living in the Iowa reservations of Kansas and 44 in Nebraska (Horton Agency), while 857 people lived in the Oklahoma Iowa Tribe (Shawnee Agency), amounting to a total of 2,934 people.


According to the 2000 census, 1,451 people identified as full-blood Iowa, 76 were of mixed-Indian descent, 688 of mixed-race descent, and 43 of mixed-race and tribe descent, amounting to 2,258 people.


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The Iowa (also spelled Ioway)

(Native American Siouan people)

Iowa Ghost Towns