USA > Kansas > A standard history of Kansas and Kansans, Volume I > Part 37
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and ride to the western and northern boundary lines of the reserve to celebrate the victory and satisfy himself that their frontiers were clear.
The Pottawatomies have the social organization found in the tribes of the Algonquian family. The clans or gentes of the tribes are as fol- lows :
1. Wolf.
2. Bear.
3. Beaver.
4. Elk.
5. Loon.
6. Eagle.
7. Sturgeon.
8. Carp. (Golden Carp.)
9. Bald Eagle.
10. Thunder.
11. Rabbit.
12. Crow.
13. Fox.
14. Turkey.
15. Black Hawk.
The Pottawatomies made a treaty in 1862 under which the greater portion of their reservation was disposed of. There was a disagreement in the tribe on the subject of land. The Prairie band refused to accept their land in severalty, and severed their relations with the other bands. They were given a reservation in common eleven miles square in Jackson County, Kansas, a part of the old home tract, and now reside upon it. It was provided that the other bands should or might become citizens of the United States and have their lands allotted to them. There was a surplus after the allotment, and this went through the usual process of graft in the final extinction of the Indian title.
In 1868 the Citizen Pottawatomies secured a reservation in what is now Oklahoma, to which they moved, and where they now live.
THE CHEROKEES
The Cherokees belong to the Iroquoian linguistie family. No Indians in North America have a more interesting history. In prehistorie times they lived in what is now the State of Ohio, where they ereeted many mounds and other earthworks. Other tribes expelled them from the Ohio country. They retreated from the Ohio River up the Kanawha, settling about the headwaters of that stream and the Tennessee. They also claimed the country extending far down into Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. They were virtually expelled from their Eastern home by the United States, and were given a reservation in what is now Oklahoma, where they now live. They were one of the large tribes. The seven mil- lions of acres there did not seem to satisfy them as to quantity of land. In 1836 they purchased the Osage lands known as the "buffer" traet, lying
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immediately east of the Osage reservation. The tract contained eight hundred thousand acres, and the Cherokees paid five hundred thousand dollars for it. But they never occupied the land. The tract came to be known as the Cherokee Neutral Lands.
On July 19, 1866, this tract was ceded to the United States to be sold for the benefit of the tribe. The Cherokee Nation joined the Southern Confederacy in the Civil War. If this act had any binding force, then this eight hundred thousand acres of Kansas land was technically, at least, a portion of the Southern Confederacy during the Rebellion.
It was at length determined that the South boundary of the Osage reserve was not the thirty-seventh parallel. The Osage line was found to be about two and one-half miles north of that parallel of latitude. As the north line of the Cherokee land-from the west line of this eight hun- dred thousand acre traet-was the south line of the Osage land, there remained the strip between the Osage line and the Kansas State line belonging to the Cherokees in Kansas the full length of their outlet. This treaty provided for the sale of this narrow strip also for the benefit of the Cherokee tribe.
THE NEW YORK INDIANS
None of these Indians ever lived in Kansas. The only reason for their appearance here is the fact that they owned a portion of the soil of the State. Their mention will require but a brief space.
The tribes coming under this head are as follows : Senecas, Cayugas Tuscaroras, Oneidas, St. Regis (of Iroquoian stock), Stockbridges, Mun- sees. and Brothertons. The last three tribes are of the Algonquian stock. Through the frauds practiced on these Indians by certain State Governments they were cheated out of their lands in the State of New York. By the treaty of 1838 they were given a tract in Kansas. This tract was laid off immediately north of the Osage reservation, about twenty miles broad (nineteen, in fact) by about one hundred and ten miles long. It contained one million eight hundred and twenty-four thousand acres. The treaty provided that each individual of these tribes should be allotted three hundred and twenty acres upon application. Only thirty-two persons ever made such application, Provision was made for the sale of these allotments for the benefit of the allottees. The remainder of the reservation was declared forfeited to the United States because of non-occupancy, the Indians refusing to move west. The legal status of the land and the compensation for the Indians required years for settle- ment, and the matter was finally decided by the courts. The reservation was restored to the public domains in 1860, by President Buchanan.
KICKAPOOS
The Kickapoos were first mentioned in history about 1670, when they were found about the water-shed between the Wisconsin and Fox rivers. That region seems to have been their prehistoric home. They drifted to
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the southward in historie times, finally stopping on the Sangamon and Wabash rivers. Those dwelling on the waters of the Wabash had their town on the Vermiliou River, and from that circumstance came to be ealled the Vermilion band. Those to the westward were known as the Prairie band. All of them were followers of Tecumseh, and many of them fought under Blackhawk in his war against the United States. The Government employed one hundred of them to go to Florida, as soldiers. There they fought the Seminoles, in 1837. In 1852 a considerable num- ber, with some Pottawatomies, went to Texas. Later they went on to Mexico, where they have a reservation east of Chihuahua, in the Santa Rosa Mountains.
The first removal of the Kickapoos was to the State of Missouri, living there on the Osage River. By the treaty of October 24, 1832, they were assigned the following lands now in Kansas:
"Beginning on the Delaware line, six miles westwardly of Fort Leavenworth, thenee with the Delaware line westwardly sixty miles, thenee north twenty miles, thence in a direct line to the west bank of the Missouri, at a point twenty-six miles north of Fort Leavenworth, thenee down the west bank of the Missouri River, to a point six miles nearly southwest of Fort Leavenworth, and thence to the beginning."
They were all gathered on this reservation in due time. In 1854 this reservation was given baek to the United States, excepting a tract contain- ing one hundred and fifty thousand aeres on the head of the Grasshopper River retained for a future home. Much of this diminished reserve was lost through grafters and railroad promoters. Only sixty-four hundred and sixty-eight acres remain. This tract is held in common to this time and is the home of those still in Kansas.
IOWAS, SACS AND FOXES OF MISSOURI
The Iowas are of the Siouan family, but here we find them confed- erated with two tribes of the Algonquian stock. The Iowas elaim to be an offshoot from the Winnebagos. They were the wanderers of the Siouans, and have lived in Missouri, Minnesota, Iowa, and some of them have lived in Nebraska. This was before they were settled in Kansas. At one time they lived on the Missouri River opposite the site of Fort Leavenworth. The name signifies "The Sleepy Ones." Their social organization is similar to that of other Sionan tribes. There are two phratries, each having four gentes :
First phratry :
1. Black Bear.
2. Wolf.
3. Eagle and Thunder-being.
4. Elk.
Second phratry :
5. Beaver.
6. Pigeon.
7. Buffalo.
8. Snake.
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There was an Owl gens, but it is extinct.
In 1830 the confederacy of which the Iowas were a tribe consisted of the Sacs, Foxes, Iowas, Omahas, Missouris, Otoes, and Sioux.
The Sacs, or Sauks, are one of the first of the Western Algonquian tribes seen by the Europeans. Their Indian name signifies "Yellow Earth People." They were said to be more savage than neighboring tribes-forest vagabonds and wanderers. Their prehistoric home was about the south shore of the Great Lakes, probably in Michigan. It is said that "they could not endure the sight of the whiskers of the Euro- peans," killing those of their captives who wore them. They were active in the wars among the Indian tribes, and suffered accordingly. In 1804, at St. Louis, one band of the Sacs made a treaty ceding all the lands of the Sacs and Foxes in Wisconsin, Illinois, and Missouri. This act enraged the other portion of their tribe, and the Foxes. In fact, it was resented by all the tribes of those regions, and was one of the causes of the Blackhawk War. The band committing this crime against the tribe was later called the Missouri River Sacs. A band of Sacs once lived on the Osage River, in Missouri.
The Blackhawk War almost destroyed the Sacs and Foxes. They came together in Iowa, where they soon regained their prowess, mak- ing war on a number of tribes, expelling the Sioux from that territory.
The Foxes were the Red Earth People. They were first met along the Red River, in Wisconsin, and on Lake Winnebago. They were fierce warriors, and their Indian neighbors said they were stingy, moved by avarice, thieves, and always turbulent and quarrelsome. From their first acquaintance with Europeans they were closely associated with the Sacs. Their migrations and history are practically the same.
By the year 1836 the confederacy of which the Sacs and Foxes were a part seems to have retained only themselves and the Iowa. On the 17th of September of that year these made a treaty with the United States by which they were given a reservation lying immediately north of that of the Kickapoos in Kansas and Nebraska. Thither the con- federacy of the three tribes migrated. There dissensions arose between the Sacs and Foxes due to the intrigues of Keokuk. They maintained separate villages. While the Foxes were absent on a buffalo hunt, about 1857, the Saes made a treaty providing that the Sacs and Foxes should accept their lands in severalty and sell the surplus. This treaty was fomented by thieves and grafters. The Government is always beset with an unsavory rabble- scoundrels and scalawags-who make them- selves useful politically. For their services they intrigue and plan lar- eenies of anything from a public document to an Indian reservation. If their transactions become a public seandal the Government repudiates
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them. If their plans do not arouse too much adverse sentiment, the Government permits them to mature, and the dishonest officials take a portion of the loot.
The Foxes would not be bound by the treaty, and their chief was deposed, an action the Foxes did not agree to. The chief and most of the Foxes went to Iowa, where some of their tribe had always lived. In 1854 some Foxes had slain a number of Plains Indians in battle while on a buffalo hunt, and fearing punishment by the Government, had gone back to Iowa. These Foxes bought a small tract of land on the Iowa River upon which they settled. This small reservation is in Tama County, and has been increased until it contains three thousand acres.
By the treaty of May 17, 1854, the reservation secured to the Iowas in 1836 was decreased. The confederacy had ceased to exist, so the Iowas made their own terms with the Government. They accepted a small tract about the mouth of the Great Nemaha as their future home. The residue of their lands were sold for their benefit. June 5 to 9, 1857, these lands were sold at Iowa Point. They comprised some of the best lands in Brown County.
On the 18th of May, 1854, the Government concluded a treaty with the Sacs and Foxes. They disposed of all their lands except fifty sec- tions, which were to be selected within six months. Some eight thou- sand acres yet remain to members of those tribes who chose to remain there. Most of the Sacs went to what is now Oklahoma in 1867.
The Presbyterians established a mission among the Iowas while they dwelt yet in Missouri. Samuel M. Irvin and his wife were the first missionaries. They came with the Indians to the new reservation, arriv- ing in 1837. The site of the future mission was fixed at a point about two miles east of the present town of Highland, in Doniphan County. The first building erected was a log cabin. In 1845 the Presbyterian Board of foreign missions erected a brick mission building to replace the log cabin and other temporary structures. The new building was one hundred and six feet long by thirty-seven feet wide, three stories in height, and contained thirty-two rooms. This structure was standing as late as 1907, but it was much damaged by a tornado in that year-prac- tically destroyed, in fact.
THE SACS AND FOXES OF THE MISSISSIPPI
The history of the Sacs and Foxes of the Mississippi is the same as that of the Missouri portion of the tribes, except that they had never wandered so far from the ancestral home. They lived nearer the Mis- sissippi River, and the other band lived on the Missouri River-or the Osage, a branch of the Missouri, and from these circumstanecs came the names of the two bands. One band was the Sacs and Foxes of the Mis- sissippi, and the other the Sacs and Foxes of the Missouri.
The Saes and Foxes of the Mississippi owned and held about three- fourths of the State of Iowa up to the year 1842. On the 11th day of October of that year they ceded that magnificent domain to the United
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States. They were to be given another reservation "upon the Missouri River, or some of the waters." They were given a tract of land thirty- four miles long by about twenty miles wide on the Marais des Cygnes west of the present town of Ottawa, Kansas. They did not arrive in Kansas until 1846. By January 1, of that year all the Sacs and one- fifth of the Foxes were on the Wakarusa. They were permitted to stop there by the Shawnees until the remainder of the Foxes could be pres- ent, when the reservation was to be selected. The missing Foxes were visiting the Pottawatomies. In the Spring those assembled on the Wakarusa selected the reservation, not wishing to wait longer. Those on the Wakarusa numbered something less than one thousand. They finally took up their residence abont the point where Lyndon was later founded.
October 1, 1859, these Indians made a treaty by which all their lands lying west of the range-line of range sixteen, about three hundred thousand aeres, were to be sold for their benefit. This left them about one hun- dred and fifty-three thousand acres. A strip of these trust lands six miles wide lay in Franklin County, Kansas, and was soon the prey of "speculators," as they were called. One of these was John P. Usher, Secretary of the Interior in the Cabinet of President Lincoln, and who long lived at Lawrence, Kansas. These Indians were soon made the vietims of a fraud. One Robert S. Stevens was in various very ques- tionable schemes in Kansas in the early days. By some devious con- nection with the Indian Department he was employed to build for these Indians one hundred and fifty little stone houses on the lands remaining to them. They did not want these houses, and protested against the waste of their money for any such purpose. But their protests were unheeded at Washington. The grafters had the ear of the Government. as usual, and the Indians were robbed. This same Stevens worked the identical seheme on the Kansas Indians, on the Couneil Grove reserva- tion. All these Indians, as soon as the little stone houses were completed. sold the doors, windows, and floors for whiskey, and stabled their ponies in the dilapidated ruins. They would not live in sueh houses.
The divestment of these Indians of the residue of their lands ran the usual course of frand. The allotment plan was brought into play, and the cunningly devised chicanery wound their devious ways. They were given seven hundred and fifty square miles of land, supposed to be worthless, in what is now Oklahoma. In 1867 they began to migrate to that tract, and in a period of five years they were mostly living on it.
The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, did some missionary work among the Saes and Foxes before the Civil War. In 1860 the Methodist Episcopal Church appointed Rev. Richard P. Duvall missionary to this tribe. Ile began his labors at the tribal agency at once. April, 1863, he opened the mission school. This was in two large buildings distant about a mile from the agency. In 1862-63 some of the tribe sent their children to Baker University, at Baldwin. No great progress was ever made in the work of Christianizing the Saes and Foxes.
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THE OTTAWAS
The Ottawas were found on the Georgian Bay by Champlain in 1615. They seem to have been a people who traded much with other tribes. They had developed a commerce in tobacco, medicinial herbs and roots, rugs, mats, furs and skins, cornmeal, and an oil made of the seeds of the sunflower. They were in close alliance with the Hurons, or
REV. JOTHAM MEEKER
|Copy by Willard of Portrait in Library of Kansas State Historical Society ]
Wyandots, from the first. And the Wyandots raised tobacco for the Indian trade.
The history of the Ottawas runs much like that of the other tribes found along the Great Lakes. They claim that they owned the coun- try through which flowed the Ottawa River, in Canada. They were pushed westward. They lived in 1635 on Manitoulin Island. They were at war with the Iroquois, and fled from these fierce children of the League. With the Wyandots, they found themselves about Detroit, where their chief and greatest warrior, Pontiac, formed a confederacy and made war on the English. The war was not successful because of the peculiar disposition of the Indians. The Ottawas were always a
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factor in the wars waged by the Indians against the advancing settlers.
On the 26th day of September, 1833, the Ottawas ceded their lands on the west shore of Lake Michigan for a reservation in the country which was to become Kansas. This treaty was made by only a portion of the tribe, which was, and is to this day, widely scattered. The Otta- was of Blanchard's Fork were to have thirty-four thousand acres, and those of Roche de Boeuf were to have forty thousand acres. This land was laid off in a single tract, which contained seventy-two thousand acres. It was on the Marais des Cygnes River, and the city of Ottawa,
JOHN T. JONES, KNOWN AS "OTTAWA" JONES [Copy by Willard of Portrait in Library of Kansas State Historical Society!
Kansas, is located about the center of the reservation. The Ottawas settled on their new land in 1837 (a few arrived in 1836), and there were arrivals for some years later.
The Baptists founded a mission among these Ottawas. Rev. Jotham Meeker had labored among those of the tribe in Michigan. In 1837 he was at the Shawnee Baptist Mission. When Rev. John G. Pratt came to the Shawnee mission, Mr. Meeker went on to the Ottawas, arriving in June, 1837. Buildings were created on what is now the northwest quarter of section twenty-eight (28), township sixteen (16), range
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twenty (20). They stood on the south side of Ottawa Creek directly east of the present town of Ottawa. All the buildings put up there must have been of temporary character, for they had entirely disappeared before 1866. The old cemetery is still preserved. Meeker died at the mission January 11, 1854. Mrs. Meeker died March 15, 1856. Both are buried in the old cemetery. The church which they founded was presided over by John T. Jones, known as "Ottawa" Jones, a half-blood Ottawa, who had been educated at Hamilton, New York. The printing press which had been installed at the Shawnee Baptist Mission was moved to the Ottawa mission, where many books for use among different tribes were printed. This was the first printing press brought to the country which became Kansas. G. W. Brown bought it of Mr. Meeker, and used it in the office of the Herald of Freedom, at Lawrence. S. S. Prouty bought it from Brown, and used it to print Freedom's Champion, at Prairie City. It was then taken to Lecompton and used in the office of Solomon Weaver. From Lecompton it was taken to Cottonwood Falls, and from thenee to Cowley County, finally going into the Indian Territory. The type used at the mission was scattered over the prairie by the Indian children. The press was a Seth Adams press. There were twenty stars on it, indicating that it was made in 1817, when the Union contained twenty states.
The Ottawas left Kansas in 1870, going to the Indian Territory. On June 24, 1862, they had made a treaty disposing of their lands. The land-shark stood by to despoil the Indian. There is not a more miserable story in all land transactions than that of the Ottawa reserve.
MIAMIS
The Miamis were called Twightwees by the Early English writers. They were sometimes spoken of as the Crane people. Little Turtle, their chief, replied when asked the bounds of his country by "Mad" Anthony; "My forefather kindled the first fire at Detroit ; from thenee he extended his line to the headwaters of the Seioto; from thence to its mouth; from thenee to the mouth of the Wabash; and from thenee to Chieago, on Lake Michigan. These are the boundaries within which the prints of my ancestors' houses are everywhere to be seen."
The Miamis were an important tribe in the Ohio Valley, where they bore a part in all the border wars. They are of the Algonquian stoek and have the social organization of that family. There are ten clans in the tribe :
1. Wolf.
2. Loon.
3. Eagle.
4. Buzzard.
5. Panther.
6. Turkey.
7. Raecoon.
8. Snow.
9. Sun.
10. Water.
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By the time of general treaty-making to divest the Indians of their land east of the Mississippi, the Miamis were mostly in Indiana. By the treaties of 1839 and 1841 they were possessed of a reservation adjoining the State of Missouri, immediately north of the land of the New York Indians, south of the country of the Weas, and east of the Pottawatomies. Miami County was made from a portion of this reser- vation. They arrived and began a settlement on Sugar Creek in 1846. By the end of 1847 there were eleven hundred of them on their reser- vation, but half of them died the following year. Many of them returned to their old homes east of the Mississippi. The remainder moved to the Marais des Cygnes, in the south part of Miami County, where they established what was called Miami Village. The Baptists and Catholics had missions among the Miamis in Kansas.
The Miami reservation contained about five hundred thousand acres. The land was as good as can be found in Kansas. The land-stealers soon came to demand it. A treaty was concluded June 5, 1854, by which the reservation was sold to the United States for two hundred thousand dollars. There was excepted a tract containing seventy-two thousand acres. This tract was later secured by the white settlers by the usual methods in use for getting possession of Indian land. In 1871 the Miamis removed to a reservation on the Spring River, in what is now Oklahoma.
CHIPPEWAS
The Chippewas are one of the largest of the Algonquian tribes. The correct form of the name is Ojibwa. It signifies "to roast till puckered up" and has reference to the puckered seam in their mocca- sins, it being peculiar to the tribe, no others making the moccasin in that way.
The original territory occupied by this tribe bordered both shores of Lake Huron and Lake Superior, and extended westward to the Tur- tle Mountains, in North Dakota. This land was beyond and beside the trails and courses of the first settlers, and as a consequence the Chip- pewas were not embroiled in so many of the border wars as were other tribes less fortunately situated.
The Chippewas, as did many other Indian nations, became widely scattered as a result of the settlement of the country by Europeans. A number of small bands settled and remained about Lake St. Clair. The hand on the Swan Creek of that lake came to be known as the Swan-Creek band. The Black River flows into Lake St. Clair, and the band living on that stream came to be called the Black-River band. By a treaty made May 9, 1836, these bands ceded their lands on the stream named, and were guaranteed a reservation west of the Mississippi of eight thousand three hundred and twenty acres. This tract was finally located a few miles west of Ottawa, in Franklin County, Kansas. Only a few families were settled on these lands. To these the whole reserva- tion was given. By the terms of the treaty made July 16, 1859, the
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Munsee or Christian Indians were united with these Chippewas and made joint owners of the reservation. This band was composed of the Christian Indians of the Munsee tribe, and this tribe has had notiee in our account of the Delawares. In the treaty of 1859 provision was made for allotment of lands in severalty. In the course of time this was done. In 1871 the surplus land was sold. The Chippewas then asked that they be permitted to sell all their lands and move to the Indian Territory. This was complied with, but the process was slow. It was 1901 before the transaction was completed and the Indians received the proceeds of the sales of their lands.
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