USA > Kansas > A standard history of Kansas and Kansans, Volume I > Part 29
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The construction of the Pacific Railroad destroyed the Oregon Trail as a national highway. And soon other railroads spanned the conti- nent. Now we live in the era of the railroad. Transportation is the blood-circulation of the political body. Webster and even Benton objected to extending our borders to the Pacific. They could not see how so vast a country could become homogeneous, and they feared it would break of its own weight. But for railroads their fears might have been realized. San Francisco is now nearer Boston than was Philadelphia in Franklin's day. By the railroads America is rendered a compact political unity.
The most important questions we shall have to grapple with and solve in the near future arise ont of railroad management. These ques- tions concern largely the trans-continental lines-successors of the Old Oregon Trail. This solution we cannot foresee. The tendency now is to socialism and government ownership. These may or may not come. When we decide what shall be done with these lines the problem of railroad management in America will be solved. For the lines of these old trans-continental trails are the lines of American destiny. In sup- port of this position here are some statistical facts.
In 1910 there were in the United States 240,438.84 miles of railroad. Of this amount, 119,237.33 miles were west of the Mississippi River. That is but 1.000 miles short of half the total mileage. The area of the United States, including Alaska, is 3.616,484 square miles. That portion west of the Mississippi contains 2,704,866 square miles. These
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figures make it easy to see where the future railroad building in Amer- ica will have to be. The Mississippi Valley is the strategie point of the world. In considering the Mississippi Valley and its destiny we must remember that the world is now turned around. Man has ever traveled with the sun. Westward has been the course of empire. In that sense, there is no longer a West. Having come from the East, mankind has ever looked to the East. But now we see the East from the West. Gil- pin was the first man who called attention to the fact that politically the Pacific Slope faced Asia. For four hundred years the Atlantic Ocean has been the field of the large operations of the world-powers. But the great centers of human activity are now to be reversed. The crisis developed strangely and unexpectedly in the Spanish-American War. Dewey's guns in Manila Bay opened for us a conflict with the world. That war made it necessary for us to build the Panama Canal. Whether we would or not we must now challenge any and all who eross our path. And whether we wonld or not we must now battle for the mastery of the Pacific Ocean. There were students and statesmen in the former generation who saw the coming changes and cried them aloud. Chief among these were Gilpin and Benton, but man is slow to see and accept the vast and inevitable changes always in process as the result of inexorable and self-executing laws of nature. The Pacific Ocean and its shores must now become the scenes of the world's chief activities. America now faces west, not east. The Mississippi Valley is now aligned with California and Alaska-not with New England and South Carolina In ruling America this great valley will exert an increasing influence on the destiny of mankind.
What the centuries may hold for us we do not know. It would seem reasonable for us to expect that our government in some form shall exist for many centuries. Also that our population shall attain such proportions and density as we can not now conceive of. In that future many of the primitive usages and institutions of mankind may have to be revived. As well as the highest, we may have the lowest devices of communication and industry. It is not impossible, nor even improbable, that when we have the railroad with a minimum speed of two hundred miles an hour with more safety than we now have with a velocity of ten miles-when we shall have the flying machine that will in safety eross the continent in a day-we may build again the Old Oregon Trail. For we shall always have with us, as Benton said, those to whom toil is little and time nothing, and who will wish to walk with human feet on God's good solid carth. For them roads so splendid that they will vie with the finest streets may be built from sea to sea.
AUTHORITIES
The best authorities on the subject of the Oregon Trail are the pub- lications of the Government. It is not possible to set out here all those consulted in the preparation of this chapter-space will not permit it. They are to be found in most libraries now, where they are accessible to every student.
Explorations and Surveys for a Railroad Route from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean-War Department. Twelve volumes issued
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by the Government, 1859. There are many valuable maps in this series. Also much about the early explorations.
History of Utah. Four volumes. Orson F. Whitney. Salt Lake City, 1892. Some things of value found in no other work.
History of American Fur Trade of the Far West. Hiram Martin Chittenden. Three volumes, 1902. One of the best authorities.
Early Western Travels-1748-1846. This is the Thawaites series and embraces the works of Wyeth, Townsend, Gregg, and many others. A good work but the notes are sometimes insufficient.
The Overland Stage to California. Frank 'A. Root and William E. Connelley. Has much valuable information. The text was written by Root. There are many repetitions.
Indian Sketches, by John T. Irving. Two volumes. London, 1835. Takes too long to come to the point, but a reliable authority.
The City of the Saints, by Richard F. Burton. New York, 1862. Good authority. Original, fresh, stirring, strong. Generally accurate, but contains some very ridiculous statements.
Utah and the Mormons, by Benjamin & Ferris, New York, 1856.
Seventy Years on the Frontier, by Alexander Majors. Chicago, 1893. Good authority. The author had a personal acquaintance with Mr. Majors for several years. Ile was a very conscientious man.
Missions of the North American People, by William Gilpin, Phila- delphia, 1873. Also
The Central Gold Region, by the same author. Good authority. Gilpin was the apostle of the West. Benton adopted his views. No other author ever discussed many of the subjects thoroughly treated by Gilpin. He was the first man to recognize fully the resources and destiny of the West. He was a prophet as well as a student, a soldier, a pioneer. The West which he pictured will not be fully attained for another century.
The Pony Express, by William Lightfoot Visscher, Chicago, 1908. Not mueh in it of original authority. Claims J. H. Keetley was the first Pony Express rider out of St. Joseph.
Pioneer Tales of the Oregon Trail, by Charles Dawson. Confined principally to Jefferson County, Nebraska. A faithful and reliable book.
Oregon and California, by J. Quin Thornton, New York, 1849. Re- liable. Valuable. Students wish there were more like it.
The Oregon Trail, by Franeis Parkman. Boston, 1875. As an authority on the Oregon Trail it is a failure. The poorest of all the works of Parkman. It is a charming narrative, but not worth reading for information of a substantial kind.
Recollections of an Old Pioneer, by Peter H. Burnett, New York. 1880. One of the best authorities.
Travels in North America, by Charles Augustus Murray. New York, 1839. Good authority.
A History of Oregon, by W. H. Gray. Portland, Oregon, 1870. A reliable work.
Astoria, by Washington Irving. Philadelphia, 1836. One of the best authorities.
Captain Bonneville, by Washington Irving. Good authority, but it is to be regretted that the original Journals and maps were not set out.
Memories of My Life, by John Charles Fremont, Chicago, 1887. It is a loss to history and science that the second volume was never pub- lished. There is little to be found on some of the later explorations of Fremont.
I consulted many other authorities, among them the Kansas Histori- cal Collections, the publications of the Oregon Historical Society, and those of the Nebraska Historical Society.
CHAPTER X
INDIANS
The Indian Linguistic families represented in Kansas may be sep- arated into two principal divisions or heads :
1. Native Linguistic Families.
2. Emigrant Linguistic Families.
The Native Linguistic Families were :
1. Algonquian.
2. Caddoan.
3. Kiowan.
4. Shoshonean.
5. Siouan.
The Emigrant Linguistic Families were:
1. Algonquian.
2. Iroquoian.
3. Siouan.
4. Tanoan.
The tribes native to Kansas are enumerated as follows : Of the Algonquian Linguistic Family :
1. Arapahoe.
2. Cheyenne.
Of the Caddoan Linguistic Family :
1. Pawnee-
a. Grand Pawnee.
b. Republican Pawnee.
c. Tapage Pawnee.
d. Loup Pawnee.
2. Wichita.
Of the Kiowan Linguistic Family :
ยท 1. Kiowa.
Of the Shoshonean Linguistic Family :
1. Comanche.
Of the Siouan Linguistic Family :
1. Kansa.
2. Osage.
The Emigrant tribes of Kansas are enumerated as follows :
Of the Algonquian Linguistic Family :
1. Chippewa.
2. Delaware.
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3. Kaskaskia.
4. Kickapoo.
5. Miami.
6. Munsee.
7. Ottawa.
8. Peoria.
9. Piankishaw.
10. Pottawatomie.
11. Sac and Fox.
12. Shawnee.
13. Stockbridge.
14. Wea.
15. Brotherton.
Of the Iroquoian Linguistic Family :
1. Caynga.
2. Cherokee.
3. Oneida.
4. Onondaga.
5. Seneca.
6. St. Regis.
7. Tuskarora.
8. Wyandot.
Of the Tanoan Linguistic Family :
1. Tigua of Picuris.
Of the Sionan Linguistic Family :
1. Iowa.
2. Missonri.
3. Otoe.
4. Quapaw.
A brief review of the foregoing will show that there were five native linguistic families in Kansas. The emigrant linguistic families were four in number. Two of these, however, were also native to the soil. One of them-the Siouan-occupied or claimed to own by far the greater part of Kansas at the period when treaty-making began in the West. Of native tribes in Kansas there were eight, belonging to the Algon- quian, Caddoan, Kiowan, Shoshonean, and Siouan families. There were twenty-eight emigrant tribes in Kansas. They belonged to the Algon- quian, Iroquoian, Tanoan, and Sionan families. In the matter of impor- tance the Kansa, Osage, and Pawnee stood first in the list of native tribes. This arose from the fact that they were treated with for the lands at an early date. Their cession of land to the Government embraced almost all the State. They did not own this land in any proper sense. They had not occupied it, and in the case of the Kansa, had not even hunted over much of it for any great length of time. Other tribes were not called upon to dispute their claims. The Government accepted their word, and, taking account of the consideration paid by
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the United States, the Indians could boast little. In dealing with the Indians our Government was mean and stingy from the first.
It will appear later that a number of the emigrant tribes did not move to Kansas. Some of them had no representative on the lands assigned them in the State. This is especially true of the tribes of the Iroquoian family, and, to a considerable extent, of the Sionan family. In the treatment of the Indian tribes of Kansas they will be considered in their historical importance, and not by linguistie families, as logie might suggest. In this respect the Kansa come first.
The Siouan family is exceptional in that it was the only Indian family moving bodily in a western direction when the interior of America was first known to Europeans. The cause of this movement is not now known. It may have been that the Siouans were foreed out of their ancient seat in the regions of the Allegheny Mountains by the Iroquois. Whatever the reason, the tribes of the Siouan family were drifting towards the West when they became known to white men. Their traditions confirmed this westward tendeney. Historical condi- tions also bore out the traditions of this family, for in the Carolinas were still found the Catawbas,-Siouans. Small tribes of the family other than the Catawbas were found in Virginia and North Carolina- and even in Kentucky. Tribes of this family still claimed up the Ohio Valley as far as the Wabash in the period of treaty making. In their westward mareh the tribes of the Dhegiha group of this family reached the mouth of the Ohio River. There divisions arose in their councils and purposes. One portion desired to go down the Mississippi. The other portion, it seems, thought best to go np that river. No agreement could be reached, and a division of the group oeeurred, part going up and part going down. This is the conclusion generally accepted, but this division may have arisen from other causes. The people of the group crossed the Mississippi at the month of the Ohio and occupied the country directly opposite. In the course of time they may have spread both up and down the Mississippi Valley with- out any design to form a permanent separation. The old theory is that when the division took place at the mouth of the Ohio, the Quapaw (or Kwapa) were called the down-stream people, from their going down the Mississippi. The other division was then known as the Omaha. Or there was at least an Omahan group. These people were spoken of as the up-stream people, as their name signifies a people pushing upward or traveling against the current. This name may have come from the fact that the group gradually grew and drifted up the Valley of the Mississippi without any design of a permanent separation from the Quapaw group.
The fact remains, however, that such a separation did take place. Whether it was by design or otherwise ean not be now certainly said. The group which went up-stream kept to the Missouri Valley when the mouth of that stream was reached. At the month of the stream which came to be called the Osage River there seems to have been a long resi- denee of the group. If the tribes of the Dhegiha group had not taken
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form previous to the arrival of the up-stream group at the mouth of the Osage, they developed into tribal individuality there. The Osages started on a slow ascent of the river to which they gave their name. One must understand Indians and their nature to have any conception of how persistent, and at the same time how erratic, an Indian migra- tion is. In such an instance as that of the Osages, it is very rare indeed that there is any prior agreement or understanding or even the recognition of the possibility that the tribe would in the future occupy and live on any particular spot. Chanee and conformity to circum- stanees have always been very great factors in the destination of primal migrations.
In time the up-stream group of Siouans departed from the country about the mouth of the Osage. The Osages aseended the Osage River. The Omahas and Ponkas crossed the Missouri River and went north through what is now the State of Missouri. The Kansas were evi- dently among the last to leave the family seat at the mouth of the Osage-perhaps the very last. And their progress up the Mis- souri must have been at about the same pace of the Osages up their river. For there was ever a connection between these two tribes of the Siouans. Not that they were ever and always on terms of amity, for they had their disagreements and even their wars. But they were always elosely associated. Their language remained practically the same. Inter- marriage of members of these tribes was common well down into his- toric times. Each tribe was a sort of refuge for the renegades of the other. There are, indeed, those who maintain that the Kansas were a sort of renegade band of the Osages, yielding always a sullen and unsat- isfactory allegiance to the discipline of the mother tribe. This may have been true in the early period of the existence of the Kansas, but they became a nation of themselves, so recognized by all the tribes, including the Osages. before they were known to white men.1
The course of the Kansas Indians from the historic seat at the mouth of the Osage was up the Missouri, and possibly on both sides of the river. They were far enough in the rear of the Omahan group to not become involved in the traditionary wars between the Pawnee on the one side and the Omahas and Otoes on the other side. This would indicate that they remained for a long time below the mouth of the Kansas River, and that they were the last of the Sionans to leave the mouth of the Osage. There is no evidence whatever that the Kan- sas Indians left the banks of the Missouri River to establish a resi- dence until after their contact with white people. Their settlement in the valley of the Kansas River is clearly within historic times.
This raises the question of ownership to the country baek from the Mississippi and Missouri rivers during the period of migration of the
1 The fifteenth Annual Report, Bureau of Ethnology, contains a very excellent article on the migration of the Siouans.
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Siouan people. There is no record. If positive evidence exists it lies concealed in uncovered village sites westward from the two great rivers. But the habitat of the Siouans when first seen by Europeans can be reasonably estimated. De Soto, Coronado, and other Spanish explorers found them on the banks of the Mississippi and the Missouri. It is known that the Caddoan family, with its various tribes, lived immedi- ately back and west of them. If the Siouans displaced any peoples on the west banks of those streams they were Caddoans. And the conn- tries of the Siouans and the Caddoans must have joined. As the Kan- sas Indians were not in possession of any lands away from the Missouri River even in historic times, the Caddoans must have possessed the country well down all streams toward the Mississippi and the Missouri. And in the days of Coronado the country of the Kansas Indians con- sisted of a narrow strip on each side of the Missouri from the vieinity of the mouth of the Kansas River to Independence Creek. These were, indeed, the bounds of their country nearly two hundred years later. Their holdings in what is now Kansas were insignificant. The Paw- nees, Wichitas, and perhaps other Caddoans owned the plains-country, and their possessions reached to within a few miles of the Missouri, especially in Kansas. The Kansas Indians hunted westward for buf- falo, no doubt, but for generations they were intruders, and they were always at war with the Pawnees. It is said 2 that the Kansas were forced up the Kansas River by the Dakota. There may have been pressure on the Kansas by some other Siouan stock, but this is improb- able. The more probable cause, however, of the passage of the Kansas up the Kansas River, is that they pressed into the Caddoan (Pawnee) country in pursuit of the receding buffalo. This was made possible for the Kansas by the final gathering of the Pawnees along the Platte. According to John T. Irving, Junior, the Pawnees claimed all the coun- try between the Platte and Kansas rivers as late as 1833, and this elaim was supported by the Otoes. It was the cause of the war with the Delawares. Of course the Kansas may have been subject to pres- sure from tribes to the eastward, and the Sac and Fox, together with the Iowa, did war on them in later years. The migration to the mouth of the Blue might have been in consequence of the hostility of the Sacs and Foxes, but if even so that does not alter the facts as to the owner- ship of the valley of the Kansas River by the Caddoan stock-the Pawnees -to a comparatively late date in historic times, say 1780. They made claim to it to as late a date as 1842.
There has been much discussion of the probable origin of the name Kansas as applied to this tribe of Sionans. It is never safe to accept positive conclusions which admit no possibility of error. They are rarely correct. The theory that the name Kansas is derived from any term found in an European language must be rejected as untenable. The word is a genuine Indian term. It is imbedded in the Siouan
2 Fifteenth Annual Report, Bureau of Ethnology, p. 193; article by MeGee.
Vol. 1-13
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tongue far back of historie times. In the Omaha tribe there was a Kansa gens. Its designation was-Wind People. The Omaha was, as has been shown, the mother group, or the up-stream people. In a sense, probably, the Kansas developed tribal identity from the Omahan group of Siouans. It is certain and well settled that the gens or elan organization of the Siouan, and other linguistic families, was perfected long before contact with Europeans. There are Kansas gens in other Siouan tribes than the Omaha. Kansa, the Siouan form of the word, is so old that its full signification was lost even to the tribes of the
BLACK BIRD. CHIEF OF OMAHAS
Siouan family when they first met white men. It has some reference to wind. Exactly what this reference means there is little hope of ever finding out. In every mention of the word in the Siouan tongue generally, and in all tribal tongues of the family, it bears some refer- ence and application to wind. The fourth gentes in the Kansas tribe is the Kansas gentes. Dorsey calls this the Lodge-in-the-rear, or Last- lodge Gentes. It is separated into two subgentes-first, Wind people, or South-wind people, or Camp-behind-all ; second, Small-wind, or Makes- a-breeze-near-the-ground.
The winds had some mystie references to the eross in the Kansas mind-at least in the Siouan mind. The Omahas and Ponkas praved to the wind and invoked it. In the pipe danee the ceremonial imple-
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ments had drawn on them with green paint a cross indicating the four quarters of the world-the four winds. The Kansas warriors drew out the hearts of their slain enemies and burned them as a sacrifice to these four winds. In 1882 the Kansas still sacrificed and made offerings to all their ancient wakandas-including the four winds. They began with the East Wind, then they turned to the South Wind, then to the West Wind, and then to the North Wind. In ancient times they eut pieces of flesh from their own bodies for these offerings.
The idea or conception that wind was a wakanda or was supernat- ural seems to lie at the very base of Siouan development. It may have been the first wakanda, being associated with the breath of life. In the Order of the Translucent Stone, of the Omaha tribe, the Wind or Wind Makers were invoked. The four winds were associated with the sun in the ceremonies of raising the sun pole. In the Dakota each of the four quarters of the heaven or winds was counted as three, making twelve-always a saered number with mankind. Mr. Dorsey asks if there might be any reference to three worlds in this custom-an upper world, our world, a lower world. Or were there three divisions of the wind, or three kinds of wind-that near the earth, that in mid air, and that high and bearing the clouds. The wind gentes of the various Siouan tribes are thus enumerated by Mr. Dorsey :
The following social divisions are assigned to this category : Kanze, or Wind people, and the Te-da-it'aji, Toueh-not-a-buffalo-skull, or Eagle people, of the Omaha tribe; the Cixida and Nikadaena gentes of the Ponka; the Kanze (Wind or South Wind people), Quya (White eagle), Ghost, and perhaps the Large Ilanga (Black eagle), among the Kansa; the Kanze (also called the Wind and South Wind people), and perhaps the Hanka Utacantse (Black eagle) gens of the Osage: the Pigeon and Buffalo gentes of the lowa and the Oto tribes; the Hawk and Momi (Small bird) subgentes of the Missouri tribe : the Eagle and Pigeon and perhaps the Hawk subgens of the Winnebago Bird gens.
Each wind or quarter is reckoned as three by the Dakota and pre- sumably by the Osage, making the four quarters equal to twelve. Can there be any reference here to a belief in three worlds, the one in which we live, an upper world, and a world beneath this one? Or were the winds divided into three elasses, those elose to the ground, those in mid air, and those very high in the air? The Kansa seem to make some such distinction, judging from the names of the divisions of the Kanze or Wind gens of that tribe.
It would appear to be against reason that a word which runs through all the mysticism of an Indian linguistie family should have any alien origin whatever. It is impossible that such a word should have its origin in any European language. Kansa (the Kansas of our day is an old Siouan word. Its application and use go back to the social organization of the Sionan group. It lies at the foundation of the polit- ieal systems of various tribes of the Sionan linguistie family. To these uses it had been assigned perhaps many centuries prior to the diseov ery of America. While the full meaning of the word Kansa may never be known, it is established beyond question that it does mean Wind People, or People of the Sonth Wind. To the Sionans of ancient times
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it probably meant much more, but it did mean Wind people, or People of the South Wind, whatever else it may have included.
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