USA > Kansas > A standard history of Kansas and Kansans, Volume I > Part 33
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All the land east of that line was ceded to the United States. There was much dissatisfaction on the part of the Osages, and they never did understand why the eoneession was enacted.
The Osages began to move to the westward from their homes in what is now Vernon County, Mo., in 1815. Some of them may have gone before that date. They fixed their new towns on the Neosho. In the year 1817 the Cherokees destroyed the Osage town on the Verdigris. They also destroyed the erops and carried off as prisoners some fifty old people and children. The warriors were absent at the time, but they took up the hatchet upon their return. The Delawares assisted the Cherokees, and the war eontinned until 1822.
In 1820 the Great Osages had one village on the Neosho. and the Little Osages had three on the same stream. Of these Colonel Sibley reported in that year :
The Great Osages of the Osage River .- They live in one village on the Osage river. 78 miles (measured) due south of Fort Osage. They hunt over a very great extent of country. comprising the Osage, Gas- conade, and Nerozho rivers and their numerous branches. They also hunt on the heads of the St. Franeois and White rivers, and on the Arkansas. I rate them at about 1,200 souls, 350 of whom are warriors or hunters, 50 or 60 are superannuated, and the rest are women and ehildren.
The Great Osages of the Necozho .- They have one village on the Neeozho river, about 130 or 140 miles southwest of Ft. Osage. They hunt pretty much in common with the tribe of the Osage river, from whom they separated six or eight year ago. This village contains about. four hundred souls, of whom about 100 are warriors, and hunters, some
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10 or 15 are aged persons, and the rest are women and children. Papuisea, or White Hair, is principal chief.
The Little Osaye .- Three villages on the Neeozho river, about 130 or 140 miles southeast of this place (Ft. Osage). This tribe, comprising all three villages and comprehending about twenty families of Missouries that are intermarried with them, I rate about 1.000 souls, about 300 of whom are hunters and warriors, twenty or thirty superannuated and the rest are women and children. They hunt pretty much in common with the other tribes of Osages mentioned, and frequently on the head- waters of the Kansas, some of the branches of which interlock with those of the Neeozho. Nechoumani, or Walking Rain, principal chief. [Called "Nezuma, or Rain that Walks" by Pike and Wilkinson. ]
Of the Chancers, or Arkansas tribes of Osages, I say nothing, because they do not resort here to trade. I have always rated that tribe at about
Hi
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[ From Photograph Owned by William E. Connelley ]
an equal half of all the Osages. They hunt chiefly on the Arkansas and White rivers, and their waters.
From this time until after the Civil War the Osages lived principally in Kansas. One post in Kansas resulted from trade with the Osages while they lived yet in Missouri. The Missouri Fur Company had a trading- post near their towns before 1812. It was abandoned that year. When other posts were established is not now known, but the founders of IIar- mony Mission, who came out in 1821, found several traders seated in the country along the Osage River. One was where Papinville, Vernon County, Mo., was afterwards laid out. Another was at the Collen Ford, ou the Osage. The founders of these posts are not now known. About 1831 Michael Gireau and Melieourt Papin had stores at Collin Ford. Papin had another at the site of Papinville. There were half a dozen French families at Girean's store, as well as some half-breed families. They were probably hunters and petty traders. In 1839 Gireau moved his store and
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established himself further up the Marais des Cygnes, in what is now Linn County, Kansas. The place was later known as Trading Post, a name it still bears. About 1842 this post was sold to one of the Chou- teaus, probably Gabriel Chouteau, and it was then ealled Chouteau's Trading Post. It bore a part in the Territorial history of Kansas.
The one village of the Great Osages on the Neosho mentioned by Colonel Sibley was that of White Hair. It was established about the year 1815, as noted, before. In 1796 when the Arkansas band was indueed to settle on the Lower Verdigris by Chouteau a trail from these Lower Towns to the old home on the Little Osages, in Vernon County, Mo., where Pike had found the Osage Nation, was marked, and theneeforth used by traders and Indians alike. This trail followed up the Marmaton, in what is now Bourbon County, Kansas. It erossed over to the waters of the Neosho near the southeast corner of the present Allen County, bearing all the time to the southwest. The Neosho River was reached and erossed just above the present town of Shaw, in Neosho County, Kansas. In migrating to the Neosho River, White Hair and his baud followed this old trail. The Great Osage town was fixed at the crossing of the Neosho, and on the west side of the river. When the Government survey of Kansas was made the site of White Hair's village fell within the bounds of section sixteen (16). township twenty-eight (28) rauge nineteen (19).7
The exact date of the settlement of the Great Osages in this village on the Neosho is not known. It was abont 1815, as said before. Colonel Sibley, writing in October, 1820, says it was "Six or eight years ago." The Little Osages must have settled on the Neosho, in the great bottom about the present town of Channte. Or they may have been on the east bank of the Neosho, opposite the town of the Great Osages. The Little Osages on the Neosho were more numerous than the Great Osages. In their three towns there were about one thousand souls, including some twenty families of Missouris, intermarried with them.
The missionaries came down from their establishments in the old Osage country to proclaim the Gospel to Osages on the Neosho. The Presbyterians set up a mission there as early as 1824, with Rev. Benson
7 The site of White Hair's village has long been a matter of both doubt and controversy. In later years it has been supposed to have been near Oswego, Labette County. The correct location was determined by this author from measurements made on an old manuseript map (and other maps) in the Library of the Kansas State Historical Society, and the consultation of various anthorities and treaties.
The White Hair who founded this first town of the Great Osages on the Neosho was a descendant of Old White Hair, the great chief of the Big Osages, abont the time of Pike's visit. This first White Hair died in what is now Vernon County, Mo. It seems that all the chiefs named White Hair had the Osage name P'ahnsea, pronounced Paw- hoos-ka. They had a conneil name-Papuisea. Also a war name, Cahagatongo.
The Neosho River was named by the Osages. The name is composed of two words-ne, water; and osho, bowl or basin. It was so named from the fact that it has innumerable deep places-bowls or basins of water. It means a river having many deep places.
Vol. 1-15
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Pixley in charge. What this effort accomplished is not fully known. In March, 1830, Rev. Nathaniel B. Dodge, was sent from Independence, Mo., where he had gone after strenuous labors at Harmony Mission, to take up the work with the Osages, on the Neosho. There he established what was known as the "Boudinot" Mission. It was on the east bank of the river opposite the town of White Hair. He remained at that charge until 1835, when he returned to the Little Osage River, in Vernon County, Mo., settling near Balltown, where he died in 1848. IIis departure from the Neosho was the end of the Presbyterian Mission there.
The Baptists made no efforts to establish a mission among the Osages on the Neosho. McCoy says the Osages were much to be pitied at that time, but does not explain why the Baptists were unable to help them.
The Roman Catholic Mission was founded at the point where the town of Osage Mission was afterwards located. The town was the result of the mission. In 1822 the Bishop of New Orleans appointed Rev. Father Charles de La Croix missionary to the Osages on the Neosho. He reached the field of his labors in May of that year. On the 5th of that month he baptized Antone Chouteau, who was born in 1817, and whose baptism is the first recorded in Kansas. This missionary succumbed to the hardships of pioneer life, dying at St. Louis. He was succeeded by Rev. Charles Van Quickenborn, who appeared on the Neosho in 1827. In 1828 he performed the ceremony of marriage between Francis D. Agbeau, a half- breed, and an Osage woman named Mary. There is no record of an earlier marriage ceremony in Kansas. The progress of the mission was slow. Rev. Father John Schoenmakers, S. J., arrived at the mission April 28. 1847, accompanied by Fathers Bax and Colleton. They were accorded possession of two buildings then being erected by the Indian Department. In these buildings were started two schools-one for girls and one for boys. In October a number of Sisters of Loretto arrived from Kentucky. Father Paul Ponziglioni came to the mission in 1851. The work went forward with energy from that time. Additions were made to the build- ings, and attendance increased. The Civil War scattered the Osages, but Father Ponziglioni followed from village to village to minister to them.
The Osages disposed of their vast domain in Kansas in 1825. In June of that year they made a treaty with the United States by which they ceded all the land of the State of Kansas south of the land ceded by the Kansas. The Osages and Kansas were, in fact, in St. Louis together to conclude these treaties. That with the Osages was made on the second of June, and that with the Kansas the following day. The south limit of the Kansas cession has been already noted. The Osage cession extended from that line south into Oklahoma and west as far as the Kansas had elaimed. It was an imperial domain, and the Osages had no good title to any great portion of it. The Government could take title from the Osages; none could ever dispute this title with the United States. That is why it was accepted from the Osages.
In this same treaty a new reservation was ent from the ceded lands for the Osages. Its bounds were to be arrived at in much the same
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manner as in the new reservation for the Kansas. . This new Osage reser- vation was thus defined :
"Beginning at a point due east of White Hair's village and 25 miles West of the western boundary line of the State of Missouri, fronting on a North and South Line so as to leave 10 miles North and 40 miles South of the point of said beginning, and extending West with a width of 50 miles to the western boundary of the lands hereby ceded and relin- quished."
OSAGE INDIAN FAMILY [From Photograph Owned by William E. Connelley ]
All this reservation was disposed of under the terms of a treaty made with the Osages at the Canville Trading Post, near Shaw, in Neosho County, September 29. 1865. By this treaty the Ceded Lands were eut from the east end of the reservation to be sold to create a fund for the benefit of the Osages. This traet was twenty-eight miles in width -- east and west-by fifty miles north and south. Another cession made by the treaty was a traet twenty miles wide off the north side of the reservation as it remained after taking off the Ceded Lands. This traet was to be held in trust for the tribe and sold for its benefit at a stipulated sum. It was provided also that if the Osages should determine to move to the Indian Territory to lands secured for them there, the diminished reserva-
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tion in Kansas might be sold by the Government for their benefit. They did so determine, and by an act of Congress of July 15, 1870, the remainder of the Osage lands in Kansas passed to the Government to be disposed of for their use. 'The Osages left Kansas in 1870. They settled on land bought from the Cherokee, east and north of the Arkansas River, where they yet live.
The Osages were loyal to the Union in the Civil War. They destroyed a band of Confederate soldiers, who were crossing their reservation in May, 1863. The incident is worth preserving, and the account of Warner Lewis, the only survivor of the expedition, is here set out :
The Only Survivor's Story of Tragedy
In May, 1863, an expedition was organized on the western border of Jasper County, Missouri, under command of Colonel Charles Harrison, who had been commissioned by Major-General Holmes to proceed to New Mexico and Colorado for the purpose of recruiting into the Confederate service the men who had fled there from Missouri and other states, to avoid being drafted into the Federal army-of whom there was then supposed to be a large number, anxious to make their way into com- panies, regiments and brigades-and as soon as this was done to drop down into western Texas and then unite with the main army. The plan appeared feasible, though very hazardous; so much so that many of those who had at first volunteered, finally refused to go.
Colonel Harrison appeared to be the man above all others to lead such an undertaking, since his entire life had been spent upon the western plains, and he had been a protege of the celebrated Indian fighter, General Kit Carson. He was tall, athletic, and almost as brown as an Indian, of whose blood he was said to have a mixture. He knew no fear and he staggered at no hardships. On the early. morning of the 22nd day of May, 1863, the mules were packed with rations for the men. The party consisted of eighteen men, rank and file. The starting point was Center Creek where it crosses the line of the state in Jasper county. The route pursued was westward over the trackless prairie in the Indian Territory about fifteen or twenty miles north of and parallel with the Kansas state line. There was no human habitation to be seen and no living person discoverable, and no incident worthy of note until the afternoon of the second day. After crossing a ravine fringed with brush and small timber, we halted on an eminence just beyond for rest and rations; our animals were tethered to grass or left to roam at will, while we were resting under the shade of some scattering oaks, inapprehensive of danger.
We had begun saddling up to renew our journey when we dis- covered a body of men on our trail at full gallop. By the time we were all mounted they were in hailing distance, and proved to be a body of about 150 Indian warriors. To avoid a conflict we moved off at a brisk walk, and they followed us. We had not gone far until some of them fired and killed one of our men, Douglas Huffman. We then charged them vigorously and drove them baek for some distance. My horse was killed in this charge and I was severely wounded in the shoulder with an arrow. I mounted the mule from which Huffman was killed. The Indians kept gathering strength from others coming up. We had a running fight for eight or ten miles, frequently hurling back their advances onto the main body or with loss. Our horses were beeoming exhausted, so we concluded to halt in the bed of a small stream that lay across our path, to give them rest. The Indians here
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got all around us at gunshot range, and kept up an incessant fire. We had only side arms, and pistols and were out of range. Here Frank Roberts was shot through the head and fell from his horse. I imme- diately dismounted the mule and mounted Robert's horse. This incident was the saving of my life. Colonel B. II. Woodson of Springfield, Mo., preferred this mule to his horse and mounted it. When our horses were rested we made a dash for liberty. On aseending the bank of the stream the saddle of Captain Park MeLure of St. Louis slipped back and turned and he fell into the hands of the savages. Colonel Harrison was shot in the face and captured. Rule Pickeral had his arm broken.
We broke the cordon as we dashed out, but from now on the race was even, and our ranks much reduced. It was about two miles to the Verdigris river. When we were in about two hundred yards of the timber Woodson was caught. I tried to get the men to halt and give them a fire so as to let him get into the timber but did not succeed. We could not eross the stream with our horses, owing to the steepness of the banks on both sides. I went down to get a drink and heard the Indians coming to the bank below us. John Rafferty stood on the bank above me, and I said to him "Follow me." IIe obeyed. We made our way up the stream under cover of the bank for about half a mile, and notieing some fishing poles and some fresh traeks, and hearing the barking of dogs on the other side of the stream we eoneluded it safest to seerete ourselves in some dense bushes near the prairie until the darkness of the night eame on.
We had just escaped a eruel death from savages. We were without food and about eighty miles from a place where relief could be obtained. We were without animals to ride, and our journey lay through a traekless prairie beset by hostile Indians.
We dared not attempt to travel by day, for fear of being discovered by roving bands of Indians and put to death. By accident I lost my boots in the Verdigris river, so we took it "turn about" wearing Rafferty's shoes, and used onr elothing to protect our feet when not wearing the shoes.
We concealed ourselves by day and traveled by night, with only the sky for our covering and the stars for our guide. Just before we reached the Neosho river we frightened a wild turkey from her nest, and seenred nine eggs in an advanced stage of incubation. Rafferty's dainty appetite refused them but I ate one with relish and undertook to save the rest for inore pressing need.
We found the Neosho river not fordable, and Rafferty could not swim ; so we construeted a rude raft with two uneven logs and bark. I put the eggs in the shoes and the shoes between the logs and undertook to spar Rafferty across the river. When we got midway of the river. Rafferty became frightened, tilted the raft, and we lost both the shoes and the eggs. On the morning after the second night the Missouri line appeared in sight, and we nerved ourselves for the final struggle. We reached the neighborhood from which we had started about 11 o'clock, footsore, wounded and half dead. The good women concealed us in the brush, and there fed us and nursed our sores until we were strengthened and healed. Rafferty was soon after killed, so that I, only, of the eighteen men who entered upon that fatal expedition, survived the war.
On the 28th day of May, 1863, Major Thomas R. Livingstone made a report to General Price from Diamond Grove, Missouri, in which, among other things, he says, "Colonel Warner Lewis is also here, who has just escaped from the Indians, and consequently without a force. He will make a report of the unfortunate disaster he escaped."
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THIE PAWNEES
As in the case of the Osage and Kansas, much of the history of the Pawnees was told in the accounts of explorations. It has been already noted that the view that the Turk was a Pawnee was scarcely tenable. It is much more likely that he was a Quapaw. In the account of Coro- nado the argument was made that Quivira was the country immediately north of the Arkansas River, extending to the northern watershed of that stream, and the land of the Wichita. Also that Harahey was the eonntry of the Pawnees, and began at the north boundary of the Wiehita domain, or Quivira. From these eonelusions future students are not likely to depart. Investigations to be made will, no doubt, confirm them. In the aecount of the Kansas the bounds of the country of the Caddoan linguis- tie family were discussed. There is no fear that the views there arrived at ean be sueeessfully controverted. Prior to the northward migration of the Kansas from the mouth of the Osage the Caddoan eastern boundary was the Missouri River. The Kansas penetrated the Caddoan country to the mouth of Independence Creek, but were there halted by the Pawnees, who continued to dwell on the west bank of the Missouri about the mouth of Wolf River into historie times. The tribes of the Siouan family passed to the Upper Missouri by keeping to the east shore of that stream and to the country still eastward. The Caddoan territory taken by the Kansas and held when they lived at Independence Creek did not extend westward from the Missouri beyond the heads of the small streams. And the Kansas did not venture into the valley of the Kansas River until long after the establishment of Louisiana. The Pawnees kept the Kansas confined to the narrow strip along the Missouri until the shifting of the tribes and their eoneentration in villages due to the coming of the white man, and the appearance of white traders among them. Then the Pawnees ceased to defend the valley of the Kansas River below the mouth of the Big Blue. Finding the valley prac- tically abandoned, the Kansas entered it and ascended it to the Blue, but were ever in terror of the more powerful Pawnees. These matters are all factors in determining the extent of the explorations of Coronado and subsequent Spanish expeditions. In treating the Pawnees it was found necessary to make this review of tribal holdings and movements west of the Missouri.
The Pawnee lands in Kansas were taken by the Government through treaties with the Kansas and Osages. The cession of the Pawnees in Kansas was insignificant. They had a much better title to Kansas west of the BIne than any other tribes. Irving found the remains of their towns on the ('imarron as late as 1832. Brower elaimed to have traeed them or their kindred from the Ozarks to the forks of the Kansas River. They lived on the Lower Neosho, in the vicinity of the present Vinita, in the time of Du Tisne. But they were despoiled by the agents of the Government, and their place in Kansas history was thereby cireumseribed.
The name Parence, Dunbar tells us, comes from the word pa-rik-i, a horn. The tribal mark of the Pawnees was the sealp-loek. No other
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tribe had one like it. With the Pawnees the scalp-lock was bound about and held in a solid body by buffalo tallow and the paints used by the Indians. It was thus so stiffened that it stood erect. Sometimes it was curved baek in the shape of the horn of a buffalo bull. It is said that the term, pá-rik-i, at one time embraced the Pawnee Piets, known to us now as the Wichita Indians.
The four bands of the Pawnees were known among themselves by the following names :
1. Xau-i, or Grand Pawnees.
2. Kit-ke-hak-i, or Republiean Pawnees.
3. Pit-a-hau-e-rat, or Tapage Pawnees.
4. Ski-di, or Loup Pawnees.
The origin and meaning of some of these tribal designations are lost. Indeed. only the Pit-a-hau-e-rat signification is remembered, and is sup- posed to imply that the Tapage were the Noisy Pawnees. They were also known as the Smoky Hill Pawnees, having lived on that stream in what is now Kansas well down into historie times. In 1836 they pointed out to Mr. Dunbar the remains of their villages on the Smoky Hill. In 1719 there was a Pawnee town at the mouth of the Republican River-most probably a Tapage Pawnee town.
There were, among the Pawnecs, the usual divisions of gentes, but the names of these eannot now be stated with certainty. Morgan gives the following as probable names of Pawnee gentes, but does not pretend that the list embraces all the gentes of the Pawnees as their organization originally existed :
1. Bear.
2. Beaver.
3. Eagle.
4. Buffalo.
5. Deer.
6. Owl.
The eompaet manner in which the Pawnees were always found, and which remained until recently, would seem to justify the conclusion that these gentes or clans extended through all four of the tribal divisions, as with the Iroquois. The chiefs of the band were the governing power. the individuals having little influence in tribal matters.
The principal expeditions to the country of the Pawnees in early times have been noted. In 1833 John T. Irving, Junior, went with Commissioner Ellsworth on a tour of the Indian country tributary to Fort Leavenworth, visiting the Pawnees. Later, he was present when the various tribes gathered at the fort to compose their differences. At that time he witnessed a Pawnee danee, his deseription of which is here given to show the savage nature of the Pawnees :
In the evening it was determined to bring the Delawares and the Pawnees together as friends, for as yet they had held no intercourse. A large fire was accordingly built before the onthouses in which the
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Pawnees had taken up their quarters, and the wild troop sallied forth, prepared to commence one of their national danees round the flame. A group of eight or ten savage-looking fellows seated themselves a little distance off, furnished with a drum and rattle. They commeneed a song, accompanied by their rude instruments. For a time there was no move- ment among the Pawnees who stood huddled in a large, condensed crowd. Suddenly one of them, a tall museular savage, sprang into the middle of the eirele, and gazed around with a hurried air; then with a loud yell he commeneed his danee. He jumped slowly round the fire, with a kind of zigzag step; at every leap uttering a deep guttural "Ugh!" occasionally accompanied with a rattling sound from the very bottom of his lungs. His eomrades looked on silently, but with intense interest. They were a savage group; face and body begrimed with paint; their fierce features reflecting the flame, their teeth bared, and every brow knotted into a frown. Head rose behind head, and gleaming eyes were seen peering through the living mass, until those farthest off were hid by the darkness.
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