The Missing Map

The Spiritual and Historical Geography Absent from Quaker Formation in Iowa

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South Dakota Minnesota Nebraska WI / IL Missouri Kansas I O W A Grant "Peace Policy" — Quaker administrative jurisdiction over Indigenous affairs, 1869–1882 ▲ Quaker-run boarding school sites — 30+ across the region (representative locations shown) MESKWAKI AND SAUK GROUND thousands of years of Indigenous stewardship, prairie burning, and seasonal movement Iowa Home / Gt. Nemaha Ioway and Meskwaki Path of Removal Ioway & Meskwaki 1836–1845 Removal Destination Kansas Territory, 1842 12-Mile Walk, 1969, 2013 Resilience Hub 2026 Fort Dodge End of 94-Mile Walk, 2018 Des Moines Start of 94-Mile Walk, 2018 Dakota Access Pipeline route Des Moines Mutual Aid Toward Right Relationship with Native Peoples Paula Palmer presentations, 2019 Bear Creek Meeting Earlham, Iowa settler ancestors arrive 1840s Prairie Awakening annual Indigenous celebration Tama County Meskwaki Settlement, 1857 Purchased back Iowa homeland Scattergood Friends School West Branch, Iowa · Est. 1890 Quaker boarding school where many Iowa Quaker children received their high school education Lodging for workers at the Hub which includes Scattergood alumni Toward Right Relationship with Native Peoples, 2019 Paula Palmer workshops and film Grace Yellowhair Ceremony West Branch · July 2024 Jeff Kisling, December 2025 spoke to students about the Hub West Branch Iowa City GPAS Urban Resilience Hub Iowa City, Iowa · Present Day Great Plains Action Society Decolonial Repair Network led by Sikowis Nobiss LEGEND Quaker / Settler Site Meskwaki Settlement Iowa City (walk endpoint) Boarding School Site (30+) Path of Removal, 1836–1845 Peace Walk, 1969 Earth Walk, 2013 94-Mile Walk, 2018 The Shadow Side of the Peace Testimony The peace testimony taught at Scattergood was not false — but it carried a shadow not part of our formation. The very land that formed us was dispossessed through colonial and military violence, and Quakers were complicit. 12-Mile Walk, 1969 — Scattergood Friends School to Iowa City We protested colonial violence in Vietnam while unknowingly crossing dispossessed Meskwaki land. We walked without this map. 12-Mile Walk, 2013 — Earth Walk We walked from Scattergood to Iowa City to call attention to the environmental devastation of Mother Earth, the day after a Climate Conference at Scattergood — supported in part by the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL). 94-Mile Walk, 2018 — Des Moines to Fort Dodge Along the Dakota Access Pipeline route. Native and non-native people walked together for 8 days, sharing stories across difference. Made with full awareness of whose land lay beneath our feet. Housing for workers at the Hub · Present (2026) Scattergood Friends School provides lodging for volunteers working at the GPAS Urban Resilience Hub, connecting Quaker formation roots to present-day decolonial repair; some volunteers are Scattergood alumni. Having this map is the essential first step toward active objection and decolonial repair activeobjection.substack.com GENERATIVE CONTRADICTIONS in place of cardinal directions Structural Paradoxes N The Inner Light that of God in every person S Cultural Erasure boarding schools denied the Inner Light in children E The Peace Testimony refusal of war W Military Settlement land secured by violence Stylized historical map — geographic proportions approximate · Meskwaki Treaty 1842 · Quaker Boarding Schools 1830s–1900s · Grant Peace Policy 1869–1882