In the mid 1800’s the US government persuaded the Meskwaki to sell their inhabited Iowa lands for 7-11 cents per acre. Capitalist land grabbers quickly leaped in, knowing the US government was actively seeking white immigrants from Scandinavia and British Isles with offers of rich farmland and future prosperity (creating more tax revenue for governments). In 1860, arriving immigrants found farmland for sale in 80 acre parcels at $3 an acre with $50 down and balance carried at 12% interest. In addition, there were government subsidies to encourage tiling and dredging of “wasteful wetlands” in Iowa to farm those, too (creating more tax revenue for governments). Today prices of farmland in Iowa average $12,000 per acre with some ranging to $26,000. And today we have deadly chemicals and pollutants spilling from crop lands, and packed factory farms and slaughterhouses, all destroying the quality of our streams, lakes, rivers, underground aquifers and air, while many pollutants are streamlined down through the old tile and dredging systems once paid for by US taxpayers.

Surely those formerly uneducated Indigenous people from whom we basically stole the land, are now able to see the wonderful things that our greatly advanced civilization has produced