In time matters grew so bad and the Indians became so rebellious that Congress, in March, 1843, stipulated by law that no payment of Indian debts to traders should henceforth be provided for in treaties. But the traders were ingenious and evaded the law.[29] Matters came to a crisis in 1853 when the Indians rebelled, claiming that by misrepresentation in the treaties of Traverse des Sioux and Mendota in 1851 they had signed away their annuities to the traders to the amount of two hundred thousand dollars. Investigation proved nothing.[30] As Superintendent Cullen remarked upon this act of fraud, “it is equally important to protect the Indians from the whites as the whites from the Indians.” It is safe to say that if the traders had been curbed in their operations many a frontier horror might have been averted. It is no wonder that the Indian’s “untutored mind was, now and then, driven to the distraction of savage vengeance”.[31] III THE UNPROTECTED FRONTIER While failing to protect the Indians against the traders, the government also failed to protect the frontier in an adequate manner against the vengeance of the Indians who had a desire to even matters. Apparently the government failed to realize that as the frontier expanded to the west and northwest in Iowa there was also a growing need for protection. Many unfortunate incidents had occurred along the border before a government surveyor by the name of Marsh, from Dubuque, was attacked near the Des Moines River in 1849.[32] Upon the filing of Marsh’s complaint, soldiers, dispatched from Fort Snelling in Minnesota, established Fort Clarke (later renamed Fort Dodge) on August 23, 1850.[33] The inadequate garrison of this post, numbering two officers and sixty-six men, was at this time practically the only defense on the northwestern Iowa frontier.[34] Following the establishment of this fort the predatory Sioux bands generally retired westward ten or twenty miles.[35] By 1851 the last remaining Sioux lands within the limits of Iowa had been ceded and opened to settlement. Trouble for a time seemed at an end. Until that time the only protection against the Indians was the “watchfulness, courage and trusty arms” of the settlers themselves, with the nearest troops probably one hundred fifty miles away at Fort Randall on the Missouri and Fort Snelling in Minnesota near the mouth of the Minnesota River. Occasional rumors of Sioux activity still came from the outlying settlements. The most definite of these came from the valley of the Boyer more than fifty miles to the southwest of Fort Dodge. Here a family was attacked and some of its members carried away as prisoners. This was in October, 1852. A detachment was sent from Fort Dodge which took and held as hostages the Indian leaders, Inkpaduta and Umpashota. Upon the return of the prisoners, the Indians were liberated. Other Indian incursions reported from the north usually dissipated into mere rumors.[36]