USA > Louisiana > The province and the states, a history of the province of Louisiana under France and Spain, and of the territories and states of the United States formed therefrom, Vol. IV > Part 21
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47
Supplementary to this new north and south trade movement will come St. Louis's triumph in her deep water programme for the Mississippi, in which she will have a powerful ally in Chi- cago, as well as in New Orleans, Memphis, Cairo, St. Paul, Cin- cinnati, Pittsburg, Kansas City, St. Joseph and Omaha, for Ohio and Missouri river improvement will also receive an impetus from this shifting into a north and south direction of the Mis- sissippi valley's trade currents, Chicago's desire for deep water communication with the Gulf by way of the drainage canal, the Illinois and the Mississippi will be championed by St. Louis and all the interests which seek improved navigation along the great river.
Ambitious for many years to become a seaport, St. Louis sees, in the Isthmian canal construction and the Mississippi and Illi- nois river improvement which it will incite, the realization of its desires. By way of the great lakes probably-by way of New Orleans certainly-it will get direct access to the ocean. Ships loaded at the St. Louis levees will pass down into the Gulf and the Caribbean, out into the Atlantic, across into Pacific, and traverse the world's seas. Very likely they will also pass up the Mississippi and Illinois, and, by way of the lakes, sail out into the North Atlantic and over to Europe. Temporarily abol- ished by the railroads, the Mississippi probably is destined, through the short-cut by way of the Gulf of Mexico across the Isthmus, that will swing a powerful trade current into a north and south direction, to recover at least part of its old glory, and to again become one of the country's great economic forces. All this, supplementing the influences which are working for the advancement of Missouri and St. Louis, means an increased ascendency for both of them among the communities of the Mis- sissippi valley.
St. Louis, which had only 1,000 inhabitants at the time of the Louisiana : mexation, a century ago, had almost three times as many people in 1900 as were in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and all the rest of the country's cities in 1800. The territory com-
222
THE PROVINCE AND THE STATES.
prised in the present Missouri, which at the time of the annex- ation had only a few hundred more inhabitants than were in St. Louis then, had more population in 1900 than was in the thirteen original states when they won their independence at York- town. Moreover, its citizens feel that an era is approaching for Missouri which will far surpass its expansive, heroic and pictur- esque past.
State of Kansas
Frank Wilson Blackmar A. M., Ph. D. Associate Editor
Kansas
CHAPTER I
Events Preceding the First Territorial Administration
P RIOR to the time that the province of Louisiana passed into the hands of the United States, but little is known of that portion of the country now comprising the state of Kansas. The first account of the region given to the civilized world was the report of Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, who set up a wooden cross in the northeastern part of the state in 1541, for- mally taking possession in the name of Spain. In 1719 M. Du- tisnet, acting under the orders of Governor D'Bienville, visited the villages of the Osage and Pawnee Indians in what is now eastern Kansas. The Pawnee villages he describes as being two in number, with about one hundred and thirty cabins and two hundred and fifty warriors each. From these villages, located somewhere near the present site of Junction City, he trav- eled west for fifteen days of the country of the Padouca (Coman- che) Indians,* near the source of the Smoky Hill river, where he erected a cross bearing the arms of the king of France. This was on September 27, 1719, and Dutisnet was the first French- man to visit or lay claim to what is now the state of Kansas.
Five years later M. De Bourginont, the commandant at Fort Orleans, near the mouth of the Osage river, made a tour from
* For a fuller account of those and other early Spanish and French expeditions, seo the first Lwo volumes of this work.
224
THIE PROVINCE AND THE STATES.
the village of the Kansas Indians, near where Atchison now stands, to the great village of the Padoucas, his object being to establish peace between the various tribes along the Kansas and Smoky Hill rivers, in the interest of the French fur traders. The destruction of De Bourgmont's fort the following year caused the French to abandon all efforts to settle the country or establish trading posts until the advent of Pierre Lignest and. Pierre Chou- tean near the close of the eighteenth century.
The expedition of Lewis and Clarke, sent out from St. Louis in May, 1804, to explore a portion of the new purchase, reached the mouth of the Kansas river on the 27th of June, and encamped on the present site of Kansas City, Kan. By the 4th of July they had ascended the Missouri to a point not far from the pres- ent city of Atchison, where they landed about noon and spent a few hours in celebrating the twenty-eighth anniversary of the birth of American independence. Near the place where they landed, and on the Kansas side, was a little stream which they called Fourth of July creek ; and a few miles farther up the river on the same side they christened another stream Independence creek, by which name it is still known.
In July, 1806, Lient. Zebulon M. Pike was sent from St. Louis to explore portions of the new purchase and to restore to their tribe several Osage Indians who had been rescued from captivity among the Pottawatomies. After first returning the Osage cap- tives to their people, Pike paid a visit to the Pawnees in what is now Republic county and to the Conianches farther south and west. The route followed by him led through what is now Linn, Miami, Franklin, Osage, Lyon, Morris, and Dickinson counties, to the month of the Saline river, which he reached on the 18th of September. From this point he turned almost directly north, and on the 25th reached the Pawnee village near where the town of Scandia now stands.
Some time before Lieutenant Pike left St. Louis, news of his projected expedition was carried to the governor of New Spain (Mexico), and a party of over 300 Spanish troops, under Lieu- tenant Malgares, was sent out to intercept him. Between the month of the Saline and the Republican rivers, Pike crossed the trail of this party, but was fortunate in not coming in contact with the Spaniards at that time. Malgares had been to the Pawnee village before Pike arrived there, and had endeavored to poison the minds of the Indians against the Americans. He had par- tially succeeded, too, for when Lieutenant Pike held a grand con- cil with the tribe on the 20th of September, he noticed that the
225
PRETERRITORI.IL EVENTS IN KANSAS.
Pawnee chiefs showed a tendency to look with disdain upon his little force of twenty white soldiers, which certainly made a much less imposing appearance than the large Spanish force of Mal- gares. Of this council Pike gives the following account :
"The notes I took at the grand council held with the Pawnee nation were seized by the Spanish government, together with all my speeches to the different nations. But it may be interest- ing to observe here in case they should never be returned, that the Spaniards had left several of their flags in this village, one of which was unfurled at the chief's door the day of the grand council ; and among various demands and charges I gave them was, that the said flag should be delivered to me, and one of the United States' flags be received and hoisted in its place. This probably was carrying the pride of nations a little too far, as there had so lately been a large force of Spanish cavalry at the village, which had made a great impression on the minds of the young men, as to their power, consequence, etc., which my appearance with twenty infantry was by no means calculated to remove. After the chiefs had replied to various parts of my discourse, but were silent as to the flag, I again reiterated the demand for the flag, adding 'that it was impossible for the nation to have two fathers; that they must either be children of the Spaniards, or acknowledge their American father.' After a silence of some time an old man rose, went to the door, took down the Spanish flag, brought it and laid it at my feet, and then received the American flag, and elevated it on the staff which had lately borne the standard of his Catholic Majesty. This gave great satisfaction to the Osage and Kaws, both of whom decid- edly avow themselves to be under American protection. Perceiv- ing that every face in the council was clouded with sorrow, as if some great national calamity was about to befall them, I took up the contested colors and told them 'that as they had now shown themselves dutiful children in acknowledging their great American father, I did not wish to embarrass them with the Spaniards, for it was the wish of the Americans that their red brethren should remain peaceably round their own fires, and not embroil themselves in any dispute between the white people; and that for fear the Spaniards might return there in force again, I returned them their flag, but with the injunction that it should never be hoisted again during our stay.' At this, there was a general shout of applause, and the charge was particularly attended to."
* The Expeditions of Zobulon Pike, by Elliott Couos, Vol. II, pp. 411 116. IV ---- 15
226
THE PROVINCE AND THIE STATES.
Having obtained horses from the Indians, Pike left the Pawnee village on the 7th of October, took a course a little west of south, and on the 18th reached the great bend of the Arkansas river. There the party divided. Two canoes, one of elk and buffalo skins, and the other of green cottonwood were constructed, and in these Lieutenant Wilkinson, with six of the soldiers and two Osage Indians, embarked for Fort Adams on the Mississippi below Natchez. January 8, 1807, they reached Arkansas Post near the mouth of the Arkansas river, after a winter of severe hardships during which they passed through many dangers from hostile Indians.
Pike, with the remainder of the party, went up the Arkansas, his purpose being to treat with the Ietan (Comanche family) Indians near the head waters of that river, then to strike across the country to the head of Red river, and then to descend to Natchitoches according to the original plan. While he was in camp on the Rio del Norte in what is now New Mexico, in Feb- ruary, 1807, his party was captured by a detachment of Spanish cavalry and conducted to Santa Fe. He was well treated and after being taken to Chihuahua, where his papers were confiscated, was conducted east through what is now Texas and finally lib- erated near Natchitoches, La. He reached that town about the middle of July, 1807. Three years later his journal was published, and the wonderful possibilities of Kansas were thus made known to the English-speaking nations.
General Atkinson, Major O'Fallon and Maj. Stephen H. Long in the summer of 1819, ascended the Missouri river by steam- boat from Fort Osage to Council Bluffs. This boat, the "West- ern Engineer," was the first steam craft to ascend the Missouri past the present state of Kansas. It had a stern wheel and an escape pipe, protruding from the forward part and shaped like a serpent, the object being, it is said, to create the belief among the natives that it was some kind of monster, belching fire and smoke from its mouth and lashing the water into foam with its tail.
A detachment of the party under Doctor Say left the boat and, entering the state of Kansas about three miles south of the Kan- sas river, marched across the country to the Kansas villages. On the 16th of August they camped where Topeka now stands and on the roth arrived at the Kansas village, at the mouth of the Big Bhe at Manhattan. Doctor Say's intention was to visit the Pawnve villages, but being robbed of his horses and camp equipage, he was forced to return to the Kansas village, from
227
PRETERRITORIAL EVENTS IN KANSAS.
which point he struck across the country, northeast, and caught the boat near the month of Wolf river.
Meantime the American Fur Company had been formed, and one of its early posts was that known as "Four Houses,"* built by Francis Chouteau on the north bank of the Kansas river abont twenty miles from its mouth.
The first formal treaty with the Indians of Kansas was made in 1815. It was merely a treaty of peace with the chiefs and head men of the Kansas (or Kaw) Indians, Ninian Edwards and Auguste Choutean representing the United States. By this treaty the Indians agreed to acknowledge the sovereignty and accept the protection of the United States and of no other nation, and thus the trade with the tribes west of the Missouri was strength- ened and expanded.
Early in the nineteenth century Baptiste Lalande, acting as agent for William Morrison of Kaskaskia, and James Purcell, a hunter and trapper, went to Santa Fe to work up a trade with the. people of New Spain. Others followed them, and by 1822 this trade had grown to such proportions that a highway was desir- able. In 1824 Thomas II. Benton secured the passage of a bill by congress for a government road from Independence, Mo., to Santa Fe. The following year Major Sibley was employed to survey and establish this road. It followed the course of the old Santa Fe trail. It crossed the eastern bound- ary of Kansas in what is now Oxford township, Johnson county ; thence passed west through the counties of Douglas, Osage and Lyon to Council Grove in Morris county; and thence turned southwest to the Arkansas river and advanced up that stream beyond the great bend near the present station of Cimarron on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railroad. There the Arkan- sas was crossed, and the road followed the valley of the Cimarron river to the southwest corner of the state. The distance from Independence to Santa Fe is 780 miles. More than two-thirds of the entire route lay through what is now the state of Kansas. The trade, which in 1824 amounted to thirty-five thousand dol- lars, had reached four hundred fifty thousand dollars in 1843, when war between Texas and Mexico led greatly to its reduction.
On June 2, 1825, a treaty with the Great and Little Osage Indians, by which those tribes ceded to the United States all their lands west of the state of Missouri and the territory of Arkansas south of the Kansas river, north of the Red river, and
*So called by the Indians because It consisted of four bulldings arranged in the form of n square.
228
THE PROVINCE AND THE STATES.
east of a line drawn through the Rock Saline,* except a reserva- tion corresponding almost to the present counties of Neosho and Labette, was concluded by representatives of the government. The next day the Kansas, or Kaw, Indians ceded to the United States a tract bounded as follows: Beginning at the mouth of the Kansas river; thence north to the northwest corner of the state of Missouri; thence west to the Nodaway river thirty miles from its mouth ; thence to the mouth of the Nemaha river ; thence up the Nemaha to its source; thence to the source of the Kansas river; thence along the divide between the Kansas and Arkansas rivers to the western boundary of Missouri, and thence north along said boundary thirty miles to the place of beginning. A strip thirty miles wide, beginning twenty leagues from the Missouri river and extending west to the western boundary of the cession, was set apart for a reservation.
The lands thus ceded were not opened to white settlers, but were held as territory to be divided among the tribes east of the Mississippi. The first of these reservations to be established was that given to the Shawaneset by the treaty of November 7, 1825. It extended from the Kansas river to about the south line of Johnson county, and from the western boundary of Mis- souri to fifteen miles west of Council Grove.#
Early in the spring of 1827 Col. Henry H. Leavenworth, of the Third United States infantry, was ordered to take four companies of his regiment and select a site for a permanent post on the Missouri river, within twenty miles of the mouth of the Platte. On May 8, he reported in favor of a location a few miles above the mouth of the Platte (of Missouri) on the west bank of the Missouri. The report was approved and the post was called Cantonment Leavenworth in honor of the officer who had selected the location. Later a fort bearing the same name was built there, and the settlement that grew up around this early military post became in time the city of Leavenworth.
With the trading and military posts came the missionary. As carly as 1820 the Presbyterians had two mission stations among the Osage Indians: Union station on the Neosho river, and Harmony station on the Marais des Cygnes. In October, 1821, the value of mission property at these two stations was estimated at twenty thousand dollars.
*By the Rock Saline Is meant the salt plains along the Cimarron river In the nosshern part of the Indian Territory.
I 'This fact was not mallafactory to the Shawanese, and they were given a reservation ES by to0 miles near the southwest corner of Missouri
1 Sha ,anve Nation, or as commonly used, Showruce, The original Treaty uard The Term Sherrener, The best modern usage Is Shownet, or Showunese.
229
PRETERRITORIAL EVENTS IN KANSAS.
In 1829 Rev. Thomas Johnson established a mission among the Shawanese, in what is now Johnson county. A year later William Johnson began mission work among the Kaws. These missions were founded under the anspices of the Methodist church. In 1839 the Shawanese mission was removed to Westport, Mo., where a manual training school was opened.
The first Baptist mission among the Shawanese was opened in 1831. Its establishment was due to the efforts of Isaac McCoy, a United States surveyor, who had for years been engaged in missionary work among different tribes in Michigan and Indiana. Doctor Lykins and his wife had charge of the work at first. Later came Robert Simerwell and his wife, and Rev. Jotham Mecker, who, in the winter of 1833-34, brought the first printing press to Kansas. It was used to print hymn books in the Indian language. A paper called the "Shawnee Sun" was also published. Meeker went to the Ottawas in 1837 and continued his mission work with that tribe until his death. .
Catholic missions were founded among the Kickapoos in 1836. In 1847 a Catholic school for boys and another for girls were in successful operation among the Osages in southeastern Kan- sas. About the same time a mission at St. Mary's on the Kan- sas river, in the Pottawatomie country, was established by Rev. Christian Hoeken, who, with Fathers Gailland, Vesseydt and Schoenmakers, was the pioneer Catholic missionary among the Indians of Kansas. These and other missions were the fore- runners of the civilization that was soon to come.
By the act of congress approved May 26, 1830, the final pro- visions for the removal of all the Indian tribes to reservations west of the Mississippi were made. By this act a tract of 120,000 square miles, extending from the Red river to the mouth of the Ponca, and as far west as the country was habitable, was set apart as a permanent home for the Indians. In the center of this tract lay Kansas, and, for several years after the passage of the act, the principal events related to this region had to do with the removal of the Indian tribes to the homes thus established for them.
In August, 1831, by treaties made at Miami bay on Lake Erie, the Shawanese of Ohio were given lands with the Shawanese of Missouri, and the Ottawas of Blanchard's Fork and Oquan- oxie's village were given a reservation in what is now Franklin county. An agreement with the Kickapoos by which they ceded their lands on the Osage river, and accepted in exchange a tract about twenty miles wide and sixty miles long, lying north and
230
THE PROVINCE AND THE STATES.
west of Fort Leavenworth, including all of Atchison county and part of the counties adjoining, was reached on the 24th of Octo- ber, 1832. October 27, a treaty with the Kaskaskias, Peorias, and some minor bands, by which those tribes were given homes in Miami county, was concluded at Castor Ilill, St. Louis county, Mo. Two days later the Piankeshaw and Wea tribes were included in the same reservation. The Quapaw reservation was established May 13, 1833, that part of it in Kansas being a nar- row strip across the southern end of Cherokee county. On the ninth of the following October the Confederated Pawnee tribes ceded all their lands south of the Platte river of Nebraska. By this treaty the government acquired title to a triangular piece of land in Kansas, lying north and west of Prairie Dog creek, the Pawnees accepting a reserve in Nebraska.
On December 29, 1834, a treaty with the Cherokees, in which they relinquished all claims to their lands cast of the Mississippi and were given a reservation containing about 800 square miles in the southeast corner of Kansas, was made at New Echota, Ga .**
Between the years 1835 and 1850 several other tribes were removed from the states east of the Mississippi and given lands in Kansas. In May, 1836, the Chippewas of Michigan were located in Franklin county. In September of the same year the Iowas and Sacs and Foxes were given small reservations along the Missouri river in the extreme northeastern corner of the state. Various New York tribes were quartered on a strip twenty-seven miles wide, lying directly north of the neutral land and running west from the Missouri boundary through Bour- bon, Allen, Woodson and Greenwood counties. Just north of this New York reservation, the Miamis were given lands by the treaty of November 6, 1840. March 17, 1842, the Wyandots of Ohio ceded their lands in that state and accepted a reserve, beginning at the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas rivers, running up the Kansas to the lands of the Kansas Indians, and extending up the Missouri to Fort Leavenworth.
The Kansas Indians ceded 2,000,000 acres off the east end of their reservation on January 14, 1846, for the benefit of the Methodist mission, and received in exchange a tract of timbered land lying a little southeast of Council Grove.
Whik the lands were being thus parceled out, military posts, designed to preserve order among the various tribes and pro-
*This reservation was afterward known as the "Neutral Land" and was coded to the Failed States July 19, 1866, to be sold for the benefit of the Cherokee Nallon.
231
PRETERRITORIAL EVENTS IN KANSAS.
tect their interests were established. Fort Scott was begun in 1812, though it was not completed until two years later.
In 1850 Colonel Sumner built a fort near the present site of Dodge City, which at first bore the name of Fort Sumner, but the following year was named Fort Atkinson. It was constructed of poles, brush, and sod, and was garrisoned by a port of the Sixth United States infantry under Captain Buckner until 1853, when it became uninhabitable and was torn down to prevent the Indians from taking possession. Fort Riley, first called Camp Center, because it is the geographical center of the United States, was established in 1852, and named in honor of Gen. Bennett C. Riley. It was one of the most important and best constructed military posts of Kansas.
Notwithstanding the fact that the Indians were promised in 1830 that, if they would surrender their eastern lands and accept homes west of the Mississippi, they should never again be dis- turbed, hardly had the last of the tribes been quartered in the new region than negotiations were instituted to secure their reserva- tions for white settlers. It is a fact worthy of note that nearly all the treaties by which the lands of Kansas were secured to the white people, were made at Washington, D. C. The chiefs of these untutored children of the forest and plain were induced to visit the national capital. There they were wined and dined ; they were shown the sights; there, amid the seductive surroundings, they listened to the persuasive tongues of their Great Father's regents, and, like Esan of old, sold their birthrights for a mess of potage. What wonder that settlers upon the frontier have been ruthlessly murdered, and their homes been burned to the ground ? Unable to cope with the white man in the art of bargaining, the chiefs frittered away the patrimony of their people. The masses of the tribe knew no remedy but brute force to wrest the lands from the hands of the pale-faces.
On April 1, 1850, the Wyandots ceded all claims to 148,000 acres of their reservation lying between the Kansas and Missouri rivers, for which the government agreed to pay one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre. May 6, 1853, the Delawares relin- quished their claims to the lands of the tribe lying between the Missouri and Kansas.
On May 10, 1854, the Shawanese chiefs while in Washington, ceded all the reservation established for them in 1825, except 200,000 acres. The boundaries of the ceded lands were as fol- lows. I' ginning at a point on the western boundary line of the state of Missouri three miles south of the Kansas river ; thence
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.