Beginning in February 1846, the vanguard of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints struggled across southern Iowa from Nauvoo, Illinois, to Kanesville (Council Bluffs), Iowa, on the way to their "New Zion" in the Rocky Mountains. An Iowa winter of frozen ground soon became nearly impassable mud and muck, testing the endurance of people, animals, and equipment, but faith and determination carried thousands of men, women, and children to the Missouri River under extremely difficult conditions. After wintering in the present-day Omaha/Council Bluffs district, they continued across Nebraska and Wyoming to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. In southwest Iowa, where 2,500 Pottawattamie, Ottawa, and Chippewa Indians had been moved in 1837 after being deprived of their Great Lakes homelands, about 450 refugees lived at the village of Mi-au-mise near the Nishnabotna River until their removal to Indian Country in northeast Kansas in 1847. In early June 1846, the Mormon pioneers crossed the Nishnabotna River near this village. Indian leaders first demanded payment for passage near the village and for the grass the emigrants' stock would eat, but when the Mormons pointed out the usefulness of the bridge they had built, the Indians allowed the wagons to pass. Friendly meetings followed, and Indians and Mormons exchanged views about the United States. Journal entries from Orson Pratt, William Clayton, and Eliza R. Snow portray crowds of Pottawattamie men, women, and children gathering around the emigrants at the river crossings and village, playing music, riding out to meet them, and trading corn and beans while appearing curious, friendly, and well clothed.