i THE FRENCH PRESENCE IN KANSAS 1673-1854 SIMONE AMARDEIL JOHNSON Edited by: David A. Dinneen i About the Author Professor Simone Amardeil Johnson's early interest in history took her to the Université de Lyon to pursue a Maîtrise in that discipline, but the invasion of France by Nazi Germany interrupted her studies and she went to Tangier where her family lived. Later she resumed her studies at the Université d'Alger (Algiers) until she passed the entrance exam to the Corps of Interpreters of the French Army. At that point, she was assigned in Algiers to the Information Services of the Provisional Government of De Gaulle as a Spanish interpreter in the section “Les écoutes” where she listened to and translated broadcasts the Germans were transmitting toward Spain. After the liberation of Paris, she was assigned to the “Deuxième Bureau” (Intelligence Department) of the War Ministry and stationed in Paris. Her responsibility was to analyse reports sent by Allied intelligence and diplomats living in Spain, along with confessions of Spanish deserters in order to determine the location of Spanish forces and their movements. Not only her interpreting ability but her careful analysis of the information she obtained were vital to that task. While In Paris she met her husband, Robert S. Johnson, who was serving as a Captain in the United States Army. Upon returning to his home town of Topeka, he completed his law studies that had been interrupted by the war, and obtained his degree in 1948. Meanwhile, Ms Johnson first taught French and Spanish at the University of Kansas, then devoted her time to her family, volunteer work, and doing research for her husband who represented the Prairie Band of the Pottawatomies in their claims against the U.S. Government for thirty years. As soon as her family responsibilities allowed her, she started teaching French at Washburn University and chaired the Modern Foreign Language Department during part of her 25 years there. At the same time, she resumed her graduate studies and earned MA and PhD degrees from the University of Kansas. She wrote her dissertation with Professor Barbara Craig, a noted Medievalist, as her director. Her professors admired her as a tireless and thorough researcher who never tired of checking every detail, using both primary and secondary sources with a critical eye. ii In her retirement, she followed up on a number of projects including a family genealogy for her husband, more work related to his legal work for the Pottawatomies, and of course her ongoing research into the early French presence in Kansas. She became a familiar figure at the Kansas Historical Society. Professor Johnson's native ability in both French and Spanish was invaluable in her work with texts and manuscripts in the files of libraries and other institutions that her research led her to. Her graduate study of history and her training in research and critical evaluation of literary texts further prepared her for this project. iii AUTHOR’S PREFACE As a Frenchwoman born and bred who found herself transplanted to Kansas in the aftermath of World War II, I became interested in the intertwining history of France and Kansas. I found separate accounts relating to the many French men and women involved in events in the early years of the state but was unable to find a comprehensive chronological work that focused on the participation of the French in the discovery and development of what was to become the State of Kansas. This study was written in response to that concern. Extending over 171 years of the French presence in Kansas, it begins in 1673 when Fathers Marquette and Jolliet, at the mouth of the rushing waters of the Missouri River, heard from a young native guide of the existence of an American Indian tribe, called Kansa, living west of the Mississippi River. It then traces the French domination of the area after 1682, when Robert Cavalier de la Salle claimed sovereignty over the land west of the Mississippi for the French crown, and proceeds to the years between 1763 and 1800, when Spain ruled the territory that the French crown had ceded to her. It concludes with the period after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 until 1854 when the first whites were allowed to settle in what was then the Territory of Kansas. Throughout this study, references to French persons include persons born in France; those born in Canada of French parents, often called “French-Canadians or Canadians"; those born in French Louisiana of French parents, often referred to as “Creoles"; and those born of a French father and an Indian woman, therefore having a French surname, sometimes called “métis”, “half-bloods” or “half-breeds”. The word “Kansas,” the names of other western states, counties, and towns, which did not exist during the period covered by this study, have been used to identify more clearly the locations of the geographical areas being considered. The material for this work has been drawn from a large range and variety of sources. The book of Louise Barry, The Beginning of the West, 1540-1854, has been an invaluable reference throughout. Others, too numerous to mention here, are included in the notes and bibliography. A conscious effort has been made to let the participants speak with their own words whenever available and allow the contemporaries to tell their stories. Diaries and journals have been used extensively. Original sources have been searched and translated faithfully from the French, keeping the original spellings in the quotations, and without attempting to modify the style. Names of forgotten individuals have been resurrected from obscure reports. I acknowledge with gratitude the encouragement and help of the many persons who came to my assistance in completing this study. The staffs of the Kansas Historical Society, the Missouri Historical Society, and the Spencer Library of the University of Kansas were helpful in obtaining needed material. Alice Widner, Curator of the Trading Museum in Pleasanton, Kansas, furnished photocopies of the commercial iv activities of the Giraud’s trading post. Father Leo Cooper, archivist of the Catholic Chancery in Kansas City, Kansas, procured for me valuable information about the French Catholic missions in Kansas. Ola May Earnest, Curator of the Linn County Historical Library and Museum provided me with photocopies of the unpublished manuscripts of Louise Mathevon, written in French. I want to thank my friends in my French-speaking group for their interest and encouragement during the long writing of this study. Finally, I owe a special debt to David Dinneen for his critical reading of this work and his significant suggestions. v EDITOR’S PREFACE Simone Johnson’s project to write about the French in Kansas first came to my attention many years ago when my wife, who was her colleague at Washburn University, mentioned it and said she thought I’d be interested. I certainly was and Simone, who had earned her doctorate in French at the University of Kansas-- remembering my work on her dissertation committee--offered not only to let me read it but asked if I would edit it, mainly for any gallicisms that might have slipped in. I gladly did so, knowing that it would not be much of a task, since her command of written English was excellent. I did not find many expressions to correct and none that were significant, but I did suggest to Simone that she might want to do some cutting of some quotes and some paraphrasing. Simone was adamant about covering every detail and I soon came to understand how important that was to her, and also would be to her most likely audience--scholars and researchers of the history of Kansas. What she has produced is as complete a study as possible of this subject, meticulously presented with all the information necessary for anyone who wants to learn more. But this book is not just for that specialized audience; the average reader interested in Kansas history in general, or in the early French traders, trappers, entrepreneurs, guides and travelers in particular, will, I am sure, find great pleasure in reading this very well organized study, focusing as each reader pleases, on particular chapters. (Note that in the Table of Contents, we give a brief statement of the content of each chapter.) Both the specialist and the average reader will appreciate the extent of coverage of the many French individuals and groups that came to the territory of Kansas in those years and both, perhaps the average reader especially, will find exciting the many vignettes about those individuals whose exploits and activities are brought to life by Professor Johnson. It complements the current increasing acknowledgment of diversity in our history. A note about the use of words that could be replaced by others less objectionable. I did not change any that were in a section quoted verbatim (with the original scholar cited) nor did I change many that Professor Johnson used. That includes leaving “Indians” rather than replacing it with “Native Americans” and “half-breeds” rather than some circumlocution such as “offspring of a Frenchman and a Native American (or Kansa) woman”. There is no intention to be offensive, just to be true to the language of the time. vi Table of Contents Chapter 1: French Mapmakers ........................................................................... 1 Recounts the travels of the earliest French visitors to the land beyond the Missouri River, their descriptions of what they found and the maps they drew, some at the request of those who sent them, often from Quebec. Chapter 2: Explorations .................................................................................... 29 Continues the discussion of the earliest travels in this area by Frenchmen, their starting point, their purposes, the individuals and government entities that sent them. Chapter 3: Trade under the French Regime ..................................................... 52 Background and details on French traders, what they were trading for, for whom. Chapter 4: Trade under the Spanish Regime ................................................... 71 Discussion of the difficulties French traders had while the Spanish held sway in the territory later to become Kansas. Chapter 5: Lewis and Clark .............................................................................. 97 The rôles played by various Frenchmen in the Lewis and Clark expedition. Chapter 6: Traders after 1804 ........................................................................ 126 Discusses the changes in trading practices, goods that were in demand, the groups that controlled trade after 1804. Chapter 7: Mountain Men ............................................................................... 149 The “mountain men” were traders who went across Missouri and Kansas (usual starting point was St. Louis) to the Rockies and returned with furs. Includes discussion of some of the principal traders of furs and some who spent much time in Kansas. Chapter 8: Guides and Hunters after 1821 ..................................................... 179 It was after 1821 that more and more Americans and Europeans arrived in Missouri, (newly granted statehood) anxious to go further west. The French traders, guides and interpreters already in Missouri and beyond played a significant rôle in that period of development of the area of our interest. vii Chapter 9: French among the Native Americans ............................................ 216 Describes the way that the French who came to Kansas in the early years interacted with the indigenous population, different from that of the British, Spanish, and, later, the Americans who came west to settle. Chapter 10: Trading Posts .............................................................................. 244 The people who maintained the trading posts along the major routes in Kansas and the rôle they played in the development of the Kansas territory. Chapter 11: Entrepreneurs ............................................................................ 271 This chapter relates the lives and work of the French (some newly arrived, many already in Kansas territory and married to Native Americans, some the children of those couples) who developed most of the ferry crossings and some bridges, staffed them, charged fees, and started small stores to provide food and various goods that the travelers would need. Chapter 12: Steamboat Operators ................................................................. 292 Steamboats were used along the Missouri River and many were owned by the wealthy French traders in St. Louis whose names keep coming up in this study, such as the Chouteau family. Those steamboats had a strong influence on the development of towns, notably Fort Leavenworth, on the west bank (Kansas side) of the river and, of course delivered goods and took on goods important for the traders actively working in Kansas territory. Chapter 13: Travel: Cortambert, Tixier ........................................................... 315 Spanning the years 1835 to 1843, this chapter concentrates on two travelers who came from France for a specific purpose and did not settle here, plus some others who were already here but were interested in a similar study of the indigenous population. Both Cortambert and Tixier had been influenced by Jean- Jacques Rousseau's theory that civilization had corrupted mankind and they believed they could learn more by studying American Indians. They spent much of their time among the Osage Indians and kept journals that are liberally quoted in this chapter. Chapter 14: Scientific Expeditions: Fremont, Audubon .................................. 350 Once again, we see the rôle played by Frenchmen in an important aspect of the development of the west, particularly here in Kansas. This covers scientific expeditions from 1839-1847 by French scientists, among them Nicollet, Fremont and Audubon. viii Chapter 15: Missionaries: Priests .................................................................. 389 As the title indicates this chapter recounts the lives and activities of missionary priests from France. They worked mainly among the Kickapoo and the Pottawatomie. Discussion of the treatment of the Indian tribes by the United States government (removal from Indiana to “Indian Territory” in Kansas) and of the struggle of the Jesuit missionaries to support them in their attempts to obtain justice from the government—and the problems the Jesuits ran into with the local hierarchy. Chapter 16: Missionaries: Nuns .................................................................... 409 This second chapter on missionaries focuses on the teaching nuns, many from the same area of Indiana from which the priests came. It includes the stories of the earliest groups to arrive at the Sugar Creek Mission and then others, including Rose Phillippine Duchesne, (canonized in 1988). Chapter 17: François Xavier Aubry ................................................................ 438 Recounts the short but very active life of the man who was known as the fastest and most intrepid rider in the west. Before being killed in 1854, he helped develop travel by horseback and wagon between Independence, Missouri and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Epilogue .......................................................................................................... 453 Index ............................................................................................................... 503 Bibliography ..................................................................................................... 527 1 CHAPTER 1 FRENCH MAPS OF KANSAS In June of 1541, long before the French set foot on what is now Kansas, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado and Father Juan de Padilla entered Kansas, probably near Liberal in Seward County with a band of thirty men. It is believed that they came up the Arkansas River, traveled through Rice and McPherson counties, visiting several Wichita villages along the way. Although the Spaniards were impressed by the beauty and riches of the land, they returned to New Mexico in late summer, disappointed in the result of their travels, which did not produce the gold they expected to find. In 1542, Father Padilla returned to Kansas, this time with the sole mission of converting the natives. He was killed during the expedition, thus becoming the first Christian martyr dying in the United States. Three Kansas communities claim to have been the site of Padilla’s death: Lyons, Council Grove and Herington. In 1593 or 1594, an unofficial party of Spaniards, led by Captain Francisco de Leyra-Bonilla and Antonio Gutierrez de Humana, ventured into Kansas again in search of gold. They traveled north from the Quivira settlements to an unknown location where they were killed by the Native Americans who had set fire to the grass around them while they were sleeping.1 Sixty years after Coronado in 1601, with a large party of seventy men and over seven hundred horses and mules, Juan de Oñate, Governor of New Mexico, probably reached the region of the Walnut River in Cowley County but returned to New Mexico after a fruitless search for gold. During his stay in Kansas he encountered Indians who were referred to as Escansaques in the account of the expedition, written by Father Geronimo de Zarate de Salmeron.2 Their definite identity has not yet been established. John B. Dunbar asserted that they were of Ute stock. George P. Morehouse claimed that they belonged to the Kansa Tribe. More recently, William E. Unrau wrote:” Additional evidence, based on careful anthropological studies of the Escansaques, particularly their economy, further qualifies the assertion that they were the Kansas.”3 Upon Oñate’s return, Enrico Martinez drew a map of the expedition. The Arkansas River appears under the name of Rio del Robradal, with several unnamed tributaries. There are also two inscriptions: Pueblo del Nuevo descubrimiento and 600 ranchos de Escanjaques, 4 corroborating that the Spaniards had encountered indigenous peoples in the course of their explorations. It also suggests that they did not penetrate beyond central Kansas. SEVENTEENTH CENTURY MAPS 1 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 1-5; Dunbar, 54-98. 2 . Ibid., 87, 91-92. 3 . Morehouse, Kansa or Kaw Indians, 327,333,335; Unrau, Kansas Indians, 9. 4 . “Village of the new discovery” and “600 ranches of Escanjaques.” 2 Although the Spaniards had entered Kansas on four occasions, it is not until French explorers traveled down the Mississippi River from Canada that the word “Kansa” was ever recorded on a document. Toward the end of the seventeenth century, almost seventy years after Samuel Champlain founded the city of Quebec, the French government and in particular Jean-Baptiste Colbert, 5 who had been appointed Minister of Finance in 1665, showed an interest in exploring the lands south of the French colony. Colbert sent these instructions to Jean Talon, intendant 6 of Canada After the increase of the colony, there is nothing more important for the colony than the discovery of a passage to the south seas. His Majesty [Louis XIV] wishes you to give it your attention.7 On October 10, 1670, Talon reported to the king: Since my arrival, I have sent men of resolve who promise to penetrate [the land] deeper than has ever been done, some in the direction of the west and northwest, others toward the southwest and south. These adventurers must keep journals and upon their return must answer the instructions I gave them in writing. In all places they must take possession [of the land], plant the flag of the king, and draw up proceedings to establish title [to the land]. His Majesty may not hear from them for two years from now. 8 Talon prepared plans for an exploration down the Mississippi and Louis de Buade, Count of Frontenac adopted them shortly after he became governor of Canada in 1672. Upon Talon’s recommendation, Frontenac appointed Louis Jolliet to head the expedition. Frontenac wrote to Colbert: M. Talon has deemed expedient for the service to send Sir Jolliet to discover the south sea going through the Maskoutens country and the great river, which they call the Mississipi, which is believed to empty into the California Sea. He is a man of experience in this kind of discoveries. He has already been near this great river and promises to discover its mouth.9 5 . Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Marquis de Seignelay was appointed Minister of the Navy after his father’s death. 6 . The intendant was in charge of the administration of the colony, which included financial matters, police protection, criminal proceedings, and development of material resources. 7 . Margry, Mémoires et Documents, 1:225. The quotes from French sources are translated by the author. 8 . Ibid., 1: 82. 9 . Ibid., 1: 255. 3 THE JOLLIET-MARQUETTE MAPS Louis Jolliet, born in Quebec City in 1645, was well suited for the enterprise. After receiving a good education in the Jesuit School, he became a successful trader, learning several native languages while dealing with the Native Americans. He had also demonstrated an intrepid character, tempered by an excellent judgment. Father Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit missionary, born in Laon, France in 1637, was chosen to accompany him, as the exploratory mission had the dual purpose of determining the course of the Mississippi and preaching the Gospel to the inhabitants of the unknown lands they were to cross. Marquette wrote shortly before the expedition: I had always invoked since coming to the Ottawa country, in order to obtain the favor of being able to visit the nations of the Mississipi River. 10 He added: I shall go into this river as soon as we can with a Frenchman and this young man given to me, who knows some of these languages and has a readiness for learning others. We shall visit the nations that inhabit there in order to open passage to many of our fathers, who have long awaited this happiness. This discovery will give me a complete knowledge of the southern or western sea.11 Setting out on May 17, 1673 from Saint Ignace Mission at Mackinac, Canada, Jolliet and Marquette paddled down the Mississippi in two canoes with five other Frenchmen. They arrived at the mouth of the Missouri River, which the Indians called the Pekittanoui, meaning “muddy river.” They did not venture up the river as it seemed too treacherous and outside the realm of their mission. However, they gathered information about the tribes living west of the Mississippi and furnished it to the cartographers who were to draw maps to be attached to the accounts of their discoveries.12 Three maps illustrate the voyage of Jolliet and Marquette. The first, which is referred to as the “Marquette manuscript map of 1673-74,” represents the Mississippi River, named R. de la Conception, and a short stream flowing into the Mississippi from the west, named R. Pekittan8i .13 Along this latter river, starting in a westerly direction from the Mississippi, one reads 8chage [Osage] and 8messer8it [Missouri], then written up and down, parallel to the Mississippi the words Noms des 10 . Shea, Discovery and Exploration, lxv; Kellogg, Early Narratives of the Northwest, 4. 11 . Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 66: 157. 12 . According to Baron Marc de Villiers du Terrage: 21-22, the information was furnished by the Illinois Indians living along the Missouri River. 13 . The symbol “8” was used to denote the French “ou” sound. 4 Nations Esloignées Dans les Terres.14 Among the “distant nations” are named the Kansa and the Paniassa [French name for the Wichita Indians]. 15 The original of the map is in the archives of the College St. Mary’s in Montreal, Canada and is often called the “Mother Map” of the Missouri Valley cartography. The second map, known as the “Buade map of 1674” is titled: “Nouvelle Découverte de Plusieurs Nations dans la Nouvelle France en l’Année 1673 et 1674.” It is signed “Joliet”16 and the Mississippi is designated as Rivière de Buade, after Louis de Buade, Count of Frontenac, the governor of New France at that time. Along the Missouri River, which is traced but unnamed are written the words:” Mess8ris [Missouris], Kanza, 8chage [Osage] Pani [Pawnees], and Minengo (?),” reading from right to left, away from the Mississippi. To the south, on the Rivière Basire [Arkansas River] are the Panioussa [Black Pawnees], listed as the most westerly nation. The original draft was found by Gravier in the nineteenth century, and later acquired and brought to the United States. It is now in the John Carter Library in Providence, Rhode Island. 17 The third map, known as the “Thévenot map of 1681” bears the long title: “Map of the new discoveries which the Jesuit Fathers made in the year 1672 and continued by Father Jacques Marquette of the same company, accompanied by some Frenchmen in the year 1673, which map we may call in French La Manitoumie, on account of the statue which is found in a beautiful valley and which the Indians have come to consider their divinity, whom they call Manitouppi.” 18 It was drawn by Melchisedech Thévenot from a map Jolliet had sketched from memory in 1674 for Louis de Buade. On the map the Mississippi is labeled upstream Grande Rivière and Mitchisipi in the lower part. On an unnamed tributary, which enters the Mississippi from the west, are written the names of the following nations: “8Missouri, Autrechaha [Osage], and Kamassi [Kansa], the last two close to each other; then farther away are the Paniassa. The map, engraved by Liebaux, 19 was drawn to be published in Thévenot’s Recueil de voyages in Paris in 1681. It was the first printed map of the Mississippi Valley. The three maps, based on direct observations made by Jolliet and Marquette and information provided by Indians encountered along the Mississippi, gave for the first time evidence of the existence of an Indian nation, named “Kansa,” living west of the Mississippi. Unfortunately, the originals of Jolliet’s journal and map were lost 14 . “Names of Distant Inland Nations”. 15 . Ehrenberg, “Mapping North American Plains,” 178. 16 . Tucker, Indian Villages: Pt 1, Plate4. According to Tucker, Jolliet did not draw the map, as he never signed his name with only one “l”. 17 . Hamilton, “Early Cartography of the Missouri Valley,” 646. 18 . The map is called the “Manitoumie Map” as Father Dablon drew in the center of the map “a stone outcrop shaped in the form of a human figure that the Indians of the region worshipped as Manitou or Spirit.” Ehrenberg, Mapping North American Plains, 178. 19 . “Liebaux’s print was a copy of a rare manuscript, which is preserved in the department of maps in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris” Hamilton, “Cartography of Missouri Valley,” 645-646. Melchisedech Thévenot was a member of the Paris Académie des Sciences and editor of numerous journals of French explorers. 5 when he rode the Lachine Rapids near Montreal, Canada. Frontenac reported the incident in a letter addressed to Colbert on the 11th of November, 1674: I am sending you by my secretary the map he [Jolliet] made and the information he was able to remember, having lost all his memoirs and his journal in the shipwreck he had in view of Montreal when he thought he was going to drown after a voyage of 1,200 leagues20. He lost all his papers and a little Indian he was bringing to me from those lands.21 Subsequently, Marquette loaned his own copy of Jolliet’s journal and his personal notes to Father Claude Dablon, director of the Jesuit mission in New France. Using those texts and additional details furnished to him by Jolliet himself, Father Dablon is credited for having written the narrative, which was published in Thévenot’s Recueil. 22 It does not mention the Kansa Indians by name; there is no doubt however that Jolliet and Marquette reached the mouth of the Missouri River, as shortly after they left the Illinois River at the end of June, the following event was recorded: While conversing about the monsters, sailing quietly in beautiful clear and calm water, we heard the noise of a rapid into which we were about to fall. I have seen nothing more dreadful. An accumulation of large and entire trees, branches, and floating islands was issuing from the mouth of the river Pekitanoui with such impetuosity that we could not without great danger risk passing through it. The water was so rough that it was very muddy and could not become clear The Pekitanoui is a river of considerable size, coming from the northwest, from a great distance and it discharges into the Mississippi. There are many villages of savages along this river and I hope by its means to discover the Vermillion or California Sea. Judging from the direction of the course of the Missisipi, if it continues in the same direction, we think it discharges into the Gulf of Mexico. It would be very advantageous to find the river, which leads to the Southern sea toward California; and, as I have said, this is what I hope to do by ascending the Pekitanoui, according to the report made to me by the savages. From them I have learned that, by ascending it for five or six days, one reaches a fine prairie, twenty or thirty leagues long, which must be crossed in a northwesterly direction. It ends at another small river, on which one can embark, for it is very difficult to transport 20 . “Historians, tracing routes of the pre-19th century Spanish and French explorers, have estimated the league, generally, as between 2.5 and 3 miles.” Barry, Beginning of the West, 185. 21 . Margry, Mémoires et Documents, 1: 257-258. “He says only from memory something about the map he had drawn with accuracy.” Ibid., I, 259. 22 . Steck, Marquette Legends, 86-87, 90. 6 canoes through so fine a country as that prairie. This second river flows toward the southwest for ten or fifteen leagues, after which it enters a small lake, which is the source of another river that flows toward the west where it falls into the sea. I have hardly any doubt that this is the Vermillion sea, and I do not despair of discovering it some day, if God grants me the grace and gives me the health to do so, in order that I may preach the Gospel to all the people of this new world who have for so long groveled in the darkness of infidelity. Let us resume our route, after escaping as best as we can from this dangerous rapid caused by the obstruction which I have mentioned.23 Jolliet and Marquette pursued their voyage, their mission being to determine into which sea the Great River emptied. After descending it as far as the Arkansas River, the explorers abandoned their descent when they realized that the Mississippi was flowing toward the south and not toward the Vermeille or California Sea, which they had wanted to discover. 24 Along the way, Jolliet and Marquette had questioned the Indians they met as they stopped along the Mississippi but had received only cryptic answers to their inquiries about the waterways to be followed to reach the Pacific Ocean. Had the Indians been referring to the plains of Kansas as they spoke of a beautiful prairie? Had they been alluding to the Missouri River as the river that had to be ascended in order to discover the Vermillion Sea? Were the villages mentioned those of the Kansa and Padouca Indians? The explorers were disappointed for not being able to enter the Pekitanoui or reach the Vermillion Sea. However they hoped that a later voyage would take them up the Missouri River, as Father Dablon wrote in the Relation: It would have been very desirable that the end of this discovery had been the Vermillion Sea, which would have at the same time given entry into the sea of Japan and China. One must not despair of succeeding in this discovery of the sea of the setting sun by means of the Mississipi because by ascending toward the northwest by the river which empties at the 38th degree [Missouri River], as we have said, one will perhaps arrive to some lake, which empties toward the west. It is particularly wished for, as all these lands are covered with woods and rivers, which afford wonderful means of communication between these countries.25 Jolliet and Marquette were back in Canada on July 17, 1674. In a letter addressed to Colbert on November 11, 1674, Frontenac reported the results of the expedition: 23 . Kellogg, Narratives of the Northwest, 249-250; Thwaites, Jesuit Relations, 59:141; Shea, Discovery and Exploration, 50-251, 24 . Margry, Mémoires et Documents, 1: 260. 25 . Ibid.., 1, 267. 7 Sir Jolliet, whom M. Talon had recommended me to be sent to discover the South Sea when I arrived from France, has been back for three months. He has discovered wonderful countries and has found such easy navigation through beautiful rivers from Lake Ontario to Fort Frontenac that it would be possible to go by boat up to the Gulf of Mexico . . . Those are projects that we will be able to work on when peace is reestablished and when it pleases the King to continue with these discoveries. He was ten days away from the Gulf of Mexico and he believes that following the rivers which empty from the west into the great river, which he discovered flowing from the north to the south and which is as wide as the St. Lawrence across from Quebec [City], one could find a way, which could lead to the Vermillion sea and California.26 Thus, in 1673, for the first time, the word “Kansa” appeared on a manuscript map and in 1681 on a printed map. THE LA SALLE MAP René Robert Cavalier, Sieur de la Salle, born in 1643 in Rouen, France, belonged to a well-to-do and ancient family. Soon after his arrival in Canada in 1667, he was engaged by a fur company and through his work familiarized himself with various Indian languages. Later, he was recruited by Talon and, after receiving a letter of patent, left on his first recorded expedition. A letter written in Quebec City by Sir Patoulet, Talon’s secretary, to Colbert on November 11, 1669 reads: Messrs. de la Salle and Dollier accompanied by 12 men have left this country to reconnoiter a passage, which they hope to find. It would give us communication with Japan and China. The enterprise is as difficult as it is doubtful, but the good thing is that the King has not incurred any expense for that supposed discovery. God grant that they succeed.27 By November 2, 1671, La Salle had not returned to Quebec. 28 According to Abbot de Gallinée, he did not complete his mission, on account of illness.29 He spent the succeeding years visiting France, replacing old Fort Frontenac with a stronger structure, and treating with various nations of Indians in the vicinity of the 26 . Ibid., 1: 257-258. 27 . Margry, Mémoires et Documents, 1: 81-82. 28 . Ibid., 1: 92. 29 . “Relation of Abbot de Gallinée.” Ibid., 1: 112-141. 8 Great Lakes.30 During that period, he attracted the attention of the authorities and favorably impressed them, as he had “much enthusiasm for those enterprises.” On November 14, 1674, Governor Frontenac wrote to Colbert: La Salle [is] a man of imagination and intelligence and the most capable whom I know for any enterprise or discovery that would be entrusted to him since he has a most perfect knowledge of the conditions in this territory.31 A report prepared under orders of Colbert states that for several years La Salle had supported the idea that “one could reach the sea by means of a large river which some Indians called the Ohio River and others the Mississipi.” 32 Nine years elapsed after Jolliet and Marquette’s voyage before La Salle set out on the 6th of February 1682 down the Mississippi with his faithful friend Henri de Tonty, the Recollect chaplain Zénobius Membré, 33 twenty-one additional Frenchmen, seventeen Indian hunters and guides, ten Indian women, and three children.34 They reached the mouth of the Missouri River on the 14th of February 1682. The account in one of La Salle’s letter reads: The River of the Missourites enters the Colbert River [the Mississippi] ten leagues below the river of the Illinois. It comes from the west and is the most important tributary of that river, as much on account of its depth, as of its width, the quantity of its waters, the large rivers it receives, the great number of nations which inhabit along its banks, and the riches of the land it crosses. Up to it, the waters of the Colbert River or Mississipi are very clear but that tributary brings such a quantity of muddy water that from that point to the sea its water is not drinkable.35 In the same letter, La Salle stated that the river of the Missourites was 30 . A report prepared under Colbert’s order relates the discoveries and voyages undertaken by La Salle between 1679 and 1681. Ibid., 1: 437-544. 31 . Ibid., 1: 277. 32 . Ibid., 1: 435-436. 33 . Father Zénobius Membré was born in Bapaume, France. La Salle sent him to France to report to the government after they discovered the mouth of the Mississippi River on April 9, 1683. He returned to Louisiana and died at Fort Saint-Louis, Texas in 1687, massacred by the Indians. A memoir presented to the king reads:” Sir de La Salle, judging by the course of this great river that he could enter the sea that forms the gulf of Mexico, took thirty Frenchmen with him and as many Indians, each carrying a gun, descended this great river and found out that in effect it entered the Gulf of Mexico.” Ibid., 1: 424. 34 . Listed by names in Ibid., 1: 594-95. 35 . Ibid., 2:180. 9 navigable for more than four hundred leagues toward the west.36 He also mentioned that it would be easy to cross the land between the Mississippi and the territory of the western nations. However he did not deter from his course, either by ascending the Missouri River or across land as his single objective was to find the mouth of the “Great River,” which Jolliet and Marquette had failed to locate. He also wanted to claim possession officially for the French crown the territory drained by the Mississippi and its tributaries. Several members of the La Salle‘s expedition wrote reports of the 1682 voyage. In his Narrative of La Salle’s Voyage down the Mississippi, Father Membré observed: The 13th of the same month [February] we set out and six leagues below the Seignelay River (the Illinois River), we found the Ozage River [the Missouri River] coming from the west. It is full and as large as the Colbert River into which it empties, and troubles it in such a manner that, from the mouth of the Ozage, the water is hardly drinkable. The Indians assure us that the river is formed by many others, and that they ascend it for ten to twelve days to a mountain from where it rises; that beyond that mountain is the sea where they can see large ships; that on the river there is a great number of villages of many different nations and that there are arable lands, prairies, and an abundance of cattle and beaver. Although that river is very large, the Colbert River does not seem enlarged by it; but it pours in so much mud that, from its mouth down, the waters of the Great River whose bed is so slimy are more like clear mud than river water.37 From Membré’s testimony, it appears that, while the explorers did not ascend the Missouri River, they derived more precise facts about the land west of the Mississippi. The Indians’ answers, although still laconic, told them that the Grande Rivière des Missourites was navigable for 400 leagues or more. 38 Membré also learned about the Missouri’s numerous tributaries, about a mountain rising far away, about the Pacific Ocean with its many ships, about villages of various Indian nations, and also about the Kansas land with its vast prairie, abundant in buffalo and beaver. Another version of the voyage is found in Henri de Tonty’s Relation, written in Quebec City and dated 14th of November 1684. 39 It reads: Six leagues down on the right hand, we found a river, which empties into the Colbert River. It comes from the west and appears to be as large and as important as the Great River, according to the Indians. It 36 . Letter of La Salle. Ibid., 2: 168. 37 . Shea, Discovery and Exploration, 170-171. 38 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 6. 39 . Margry, Mémoires et Documents, 1: 573-614 10 is called the Emissourita, and is very populated [along its banks]. There are even Indian villages that use horses to go to war and to transport the meat of the buffaloes which they kill.40 In a third account,41 Nicholas de la Salle 42 jotted down his recollections of his voyage with La Salle: Finally we descended the Mississippi. The first day we set camp six leagues down on the right bank, close to the mouth of a river, which empties into the Mississippi and renders its water very muddy. It is called the river of the Missouris. It comes from the northwest and its banks are heavily populated. The Panis live on that river at a great distance from its mouth.43 From that short report, it appears that the Indians supplied the explorers with additional information about the occupancy of the land along the Missouri, at least up to the Platte River in Nebraska where the Pawnees lived. In addition, La Salle may have secured information from traders or hunters who had already ascended the Missouri as two coureurs des bois were reported having been taken prisoners by the Missouri Indians and held in their villages in 1680 or 1681.44 Having traveled the length of the Mississippi, La Salle planted a cross and the coat of arms of the king on the shore of the gulf and claimed the Mississippi Valley for the French crown, naming it Louisiane after Louis XIV.45 He had accomplished his mission and determined that the Mississippi emptied in the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile he had incurred many dangers and his family had contributed more than 500,000 livres toward the expenses of the expedition. 46 After spending a short time in Canada, he left for France, arriving in Versailles in December of 1683 to report to the king. Abbé Tronson wrote to Abbé de Belmont: I talked at length to M. de la Salle about his discovery of which he gave me a beautiful map. . . The Marquis de Seignelay listened to him with interest. The king received him well. 47 40 . Ibid. 1: 595. He was probably referring to the Pawnees and the horses they traded or stole from the Spaniards in New Spain. 41 . Dated 1682. Relation de la découverte que M. de La Salle a faite de la Rivière du Mississippi, et de son retour jusqu’ā Québec, Ibid., 1 :547-570. “Account of the Discovery of the Mississippi River, which M. de La Salle made, and of his return to Quebec.” 42 . No relation to René Robert Cavalier de La Salle. 43 . Ibid., 1: 549. 44 . Ibid., 2: 203, 325-326. 45 . Ibid., 1: 424 46 . Ibid., 1: 424. 47 . Ibid., 2: 355. 11 Upon his return to the New World, he was killed by the Indians on March 19, 1687 while traveling from Louisiana to the Illinois country. 48 His companions, among them his brother, Father Jean Cavalier, Henri Joutel, a native of Rouen, France, and Father Anastasius Douay 49 continued up the Mississippi. Both Joutel and Father Douay noted their passage by the mouth of the Missouri. Joutel wrote in his Relation: On the first of September [1687], we passed by the mouth of the river called Missouri whose waters are always thick and to which our Indians did not fail to offer sacrifice.50 In his Narrative, Father Douay recorded the event as follows: About six leagues above this mouth [of the Illinois River], 51 there is on the northwest the famous river of the Massourites or Ozages, which is at least as large as the river into which it empties. It is formed by a number of other known rivers, everyone navigable, and inhabited by numerous tribes.52 From the reports of the various members of La Salle’s expedition, it was established that the Missouri River was navigable, raising hope to be able to enter the territory west of the Mississippi by ascending it in order to reach the California Sea. The results of La Salle’s discoveries were incorporated into maps drawn by Jean-Baptiste Franquelin. THE FRANQUELIN MAP 53 Jean-Baptiste Louis Franquelin, born near Bourges, France around 1651, arrived in Quebec City in 1671. A trader and navigation teacher, he “was persuaded to devote his full time to mapmaking, since he was the only one in the colony equipped for this sort of work.” 54 Franquelin drew a map in 1684,entitled Carte de la Louisiane ou des voyages de Sr. de la Salle et des Pays qu’il a explorés de la Nouvelle France au Golfe du Mexique pendant les Années 1679, 80, 81, et 82. 55 In 48 . Name given to the upper region of the Mississippi. 49 . Father Douay was born in Le Quesnoy in northern France. In 1697 he was the vicar of the Recollects in Cambrai, France. 50 . Ibid., 3: 471. 51 . Tonty listed the distances covered between different places and wrote: “From the mouth of the river of the Ilinois to the river of the Missourites, 6 leagues.” Ibid., 1: 616. 52 . “Narrative of Father Anastasius Douay, Recollect of La Salle’s Attempt to Ascend the Mississippi in 1687.” Shea, Discovery and Exploration, 197-229. 53 . The maps studied extend beyond Kansas but only the sections of maps referring to that state will be considered in this chapter. 54 . Delanglez, “Franquelin Mapmaker,”29-74. 55 . “Map of Louisiana or of the voyages of Sr. de la Salle and the countries, which he explored from New France to the Gulf of Mexico in the years 1679, 80, 81, and 82.” 12 1686, he was appointed official hydrographer for the governor of New France in Quebec, his responsibility being to incorporate into future maps information brought back by missionaries, explorers, and traders The same year he produced a second map, labeled Carte de l’Amérique Septentrionale 56 in which he used information obtained from La Salle’s map and testimony, adding data furnished by La Salle’s companions. While some portions of his later map vary from the original map of 1684, the lower course of the Mississippi and the Missouri region are essentially similar.57 La Salle wrote that he had received a great amount of information from a youth who “spoke French well enough to be easily understood.”58 He belonged to the Pana [Pawnee] Nation who lived at more than two hundred leagues to the west, on a tributary of the Missouri. The young man had first been taken prisoner by the Osages who gave him to the Missouris among whom La Salle found him.59 Subsequently he traveled with the explorer for more than one hundred leagues. His information may have been fairly reliable, yet an examination of the Franquelin map reveals a number of errors in the tracing of the various rivers of the Missouri basin. He believed that the Kansas River was the upstream portion of the Missouri, which had its source due west and named that long river, La Grande Rivière des Emissourites. The lower Missouri is oddly divided into several channels encircling three large islands. The Missouri, north of Kansas City, is erroneously named Rivière des Parouke and along its banks is written the word, Panetoco (?). Dots along the rivers mark the locations of settlements of the Missourites, Zages [Osages], Pana [Black Pawnees], Paneake (?), Paneassa, and Cansa. The length and the distances between the tributaries of the Missouri are inaccurate as are the channels around the islands. Those errors are understandable when one takes into account that they were drawn from second hand information derived from unreliable sources and an immature observer. Hamilton suggested that the great length attributed to the Missouri River was explained by the fact that La Salle wanted to “convince the king that his discoveries would facilitate communication with New Spain” and that he was “in hope of being put in charge of an expedition in that direction.” 60 A memoir prepared for Colbert stressed the commercial importance of the land west of the Mississippi: The location of those vast lands is very advantageous. They are situated in the middle of all parts of North America, into which it will be possible to expand and from which trade can be drawn by means of 56 . “This precious map which formerly was to be found in the archives of the Dépôt de la Marine in Paris, to-day is missing. . . . A tracing of the map is preserved in the Harvard College Library.” Hamilton, “Early Cartography,” 651n12. 57 . Delanglez, “Franquelin Mapmaker.,” 74. 58 Margry, Mémoires et Documents, 2: 324. 59 . La Salle gave his age as fourteen or fifteen years old in a letter written to M. de la Barre. Ibid., 2: 201, and as being sixteen or seventeen in another document. Ibid., 2: 324. 60 . Hamilton, “Early Cartography,” 649. 13 lakes and navigable rivers found everywhere, several being two or three leagues long. Those colonies would be easy to keep with the help of the natives who, in all the countries of America, get along better with the French than with all the other nations. 61 The Franquelin map represents a remarkable improvement over the Jolliet and Marquette’s sketchy drawing but cannot be referred to as a very true description of the Missouri Valley. However, for the first time the Kansas River appeared on a map, although it was incorrectly labeled La Grande Rivière des Emissourites and the Cansa nation was accurately shown as living near the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas rivers. The map was never printed. Nevertheless “for twenty years, it was copied in manuscripts by the best cartographers of Europe and deserves the title of “Mother Map” of the second period of Missouri Valley cartography,” 62 as it recorded how the western world perceived the topography and occupancy of Kansas MAPS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY Through the early years of the eighteenth century, although some reports confirmed that the region along the Missouri River had not been officially entered, the correspondence exchanged between members of the colony and Paris indicates that the French government was anxious to penetrate in the land west of the Mississippi. Two documents relate the travel of Pierre Charles Le Sueur and his companions. He had emigrated from the province of Artois in France to Canada with his parents and had spent considerable time in the 1680s in the Upper Mississippi prospecting for mines.63 In 1700, returning from Louisiana, he headed for Minnesota to learn about some “green earth” in that region. An extract of a Memoir written by M. Le Chevalier de Beaurain states: On the 13th of July, having gone six and a fourth leagues and a quarter, stopped at the mouth of the Missouri River.64 The explorer had included in his party a carpenter named Pénicaut who was in charge of the maintenance and repair of the boats. Pénicaut later wrote a detailed account of the expedition and was more explicit in his Relation:65 61 . Margry, Mémoires et Documents, 2: 279. 62 . Cartographers who used all or some of the characteristics of Franquelin’s map were: P. J. Gentil, Minet. Louis Hennepin, Louis, sieur de Louvigny, Edward Wells, La Hontan, Fonville, Guillaume Delisle, Fer, Carolus Allard, Wit, Jacques Chiquet, Gerald Valk, and J. B. Nolin. Hamilton, “Early Cartography,” 651, 652n15. 63 . Williamson, “Le Sueur,” 319-333. 64 . Shea, Discovery and Exploration, 89-111; Margry, Mémoires et Documents, 6: 70. 65 . “Pénicaut’s Relation”, published under the title: Discovery and Establishments of the French on the Coast of the Gulf of Mexico and in the Valley of the Mississippi. Ibid., 5: 409- 410. 14 After embracing all the persons we knew who accompanied us to our boats, we left and ascended the Mississipy. Six leagues up we found on the left the mouth of a very large river, called the Missoury. This river has a frightfully strong current especially in the spring when it crests, for as it passes over the islands which it overflows, it uproots trees and sweeps them away. This is why the Mississipy into which it empties is covered with floating wood and the waters of the Mississipy are very muddy from the water of the Missoury. The source of the Missoury has not yet been found. Neither has that of the Mississipy. The Indians who live along the banks of the Missoury descend and ascend in the month of August when the water is low and at Christmas on the ice when they go to the mines. I shall not speak about the customs of those living along the banks of the Missoury as I have not gone up the Missoury at all.66 The testimony of Pénicaut established that Le Sueur did not enter the land along the Missouri River, his aim being to investigate the mineral resources of the Upper Mississippi region. However, Pierre LeMoyne d’Iberville wrote in 1700, the year of the Pénicaut’s Relation:” I shall take at the same time the necessary measures for the discovery by ascending the Rivière de la Marne, the Arkansas River, or the Missouri River.”67 A letter dated November 15, 1704 confirms that, except for three or four leagues west of the Mississippi, the territory was still unknown.68 Referring to the Missouri, M. de Remonville wrote from Paris in 1702:” It is a considerable river. Only in a few years will we will know its size. Fourteen different and very large nations live on its banks. “ To further the work done by French priests who had established a mission in Cahokia, near St. Louis in 1699, Father Bergier contemplated moving west into Kansas, as he wrote in May of 1702:” The two missions, which I should like to take in hand, if there are men and money, are the Cansez and the Panimahas along the River of the Missouris.” 69 The Mémoire of Pierre LeMoyne d’Iberville, 70 written on board of the Renommee on June 20, 1702, is a report on the Indians the French had met in the Mississippi Valley. Among them he listed the Canses, who, he estimated, included 1,500 families and the Panis, which comprised 2,000 families.71 He foresaw the 66 . Ibid., 5: 409-410. 67 , Ibid., 6: 178. 68 . Ibid., 6:177. 69 . Garraghan, Chapters in Frontier History, 61. 70 . Pierre Le Moyne de Bienville, born in Montreal, July 20, 1661 and died in San Domingo , July 9, 1706. He was the brother of Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, governor of Louisiana. 71 . Margry, Mémoires et Documents, 4: 601. 15 establishment of trading stations among the Indians, suggesting the creation of a poste with one officer and ten soldiers on the Missouri River. He even envisioned that families could settle there and support themselves on the crops they produced without having to depend on imports and that in addition they could process the skins of the animals in locally built tanneries. That grand vision of d’Iberville never materialized as the colony was never able to attract enough settlers. 72 Although no official party had been sent west of the Mississippi, there is evidence that that coureurs des bois were roaming through the area. La Salle’s encounter with a youth who spoke French points to the fact that the Indians must have had frequent contact with the French hunters and trappers who resided among the western tribes. La Salle wrote that “there [were] already some who speak French who belong to faraway tribes and they will be able to serve as interpreters”.73 In a letter dated September 6, 1704, d’Iberville told that Canadians were traveling on the Mississippi and Missouri rivers in small groups of seven or eight.74 In his Journal Historique: On November 6, two canoes of travelers arrived coming from the Illinois. Among them was a man, named Laurain who had been on the Missouri River. He brought back conflicting information about its course, the nations which dwell there and the Spanish establishments on the New Mexico border.75 From Louisiana on April 10, 1706, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the governor of Louisiana reported to the French Minister: Among the Canadians who have arrived were two of them who for two years have been running from village to village in the Missouri the men assured Bienville that the country is the most beautiful country in the world and that it is possible by ascending some rivers to reach nations, which have horses.76 Nicholas de La Salle wrote in a letter, dated October 16, 1708:” Having failed to inform you in my preceding [letters] about what I know concerning the Missouri River, it gives me the honor to write to you that it is very important to make its discovery. “ 77 72 . Ibid., 4 : 593-607. 73 Ibid., 2:, 201. 74 . Ibid., 6: 180; Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1:8. 75 . Margry, Mémoires et Documents, 6: 181. 76 . Ibid., 6: 182. Referring to the Pawnees. 77 . Ibid., 6. 182-183. 16 He then referred to the Spanish activities in the mines of the region and the necessity to appropriate merchandise, ammunition, food supplies, and a detachment of one hundred men to undertake the exploration of the area. By 1709, the Missouri River was no longer the frightening river, which had filled the earlier explorers with awe. Sieur de Mandeville described it as a “beautiful” river and added: “This is reason to believe that it will lead to great discoveries.”78 THE DELISLE MAP OF 1703 The Delisle 79 family of internationally known cartographers included Claude Delisle (1644-1720), the father who had been tutored by Nicholas Sanson, and his sons Nicholas, the astronomer who did the research and Guillaume (1675-1720) who was the draftsman. They were granted the title of Geographers of the king, were members of the Academy of Sciences and for decades dominated the field of cartography. The three collaborated on a series of maps during the first decades of the eighteenth century. 80 In the first one, entitled L’Amérique Septentrionale and published in 1700, the lower course of the Missouri River is named Pekitanoui. The southern section of their two-sheet map of North America published in 1703 map is entitled Carte du Mexique et de la Floride and was drawn by Claude Delisle after a number of memoirs, principally those of M. d’Iberville and Le Sueur.” 81 While it focuses on the mapping of the land east of the Mississippi where it incorporates additional features in several areas, the section corresponding to Kansas does not show any improvement over the Franquelin map. The Missouri River, named R. des Missouri ou R. de Pekitanoni flows into the Mississippi straight down from the Maha territory in a southeasterly direction making its bend at the mouth of the Osage River instead of at the mouth of the Kansas River. The Kansas River, which is called Metchigamiki, is drawn as a wavy river, devoid of tributaries and entering the Missouri a distance above the Kansas City bend. Its delineation may indicate that the cartographer had no information to draw the river properly. On the left bank of the Metchigamiki, near the Missouri is an indication of a Canse settlement. The use of the name Pekitanoni for the Missouri can be explained by one of the sources he relied upon. Delisle had consulted a map, entitled “Course of the Oubache [Wabash] and Missouri, that Father Gabriel Marest had sent to M. d’Iberville on July 10, 1700.” 82 Father Marest of the Jesuit mission in Kaskakia on the Illinois River had attached to the map a report that read:” As to the Missouri, it is a very beautiful and large river extending as far as the Mississippi. Its real name is the Pekitanoui and the French call it the Missouri on account of the people you first meet there.” 83 78 . Ibid., 6. 184. 79 . Also written de l’Isle. 80 . “Guillaume de l’Isle produced the first major map, “L’Amérique Septentrionale” in 1700, and his firm maintained its dominance for a half century.” Schwartz, Mismapping of America, 191 81 . An original print may be seen in the Ayer Collection of the Newberry Library, Chicago and the Library of Congress has two more copies. 82 . Hamilton, “Early Cartography,” 653. 83 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 9. 17 According to Father Marest, the only data available at that time were gathered from hearsay rather than direct observations. In a letter dated June 12, 1724, Derbanne, commandant of Natchitoches claimed that, in 1706 or 1707, he and a party of nine ascended the Missouri “nearly four hundred leagues,” thus being “the first of the French to have been so far into the interior.” The letter implies that they reached the Niabrara River in Nebraska. Derbanne also reported that he had seen horses, either stolen or purchased by the Indians from the Spaniards, which suggests that he may have been in contact with the Panis on the Platte River. 84 The coureurs des bois, unlicensed hunters and trappers, were the only white men known to have roamed among Indian lands. They were often referred to as Canadians as most of them came down from the French colony. Being illiterate, they left no written record of their ventures. On May 12, 1712, Diron Dartaguiette sent to the French Minister a memoir, which read: “I shall have the honor of taking to Monseigneur a map that I had made of what is known of this [Missouri] River, according to the reports of the coureurs des bois and the Indians who have been there. This map explains more and better than I would be able to say. “85 Probably depending on similar information, Father Le Maire reported in his Mémoire on January 15, 1714:”The Missouri has been ascended more than four hundred leagues without encountering any Spanish settlement. Only after five hundred leagues does one start to hear about Indians who are at war with them.” 86 The Missouri River was perceived as the means of penetration into the western country. It appears from the indications given in various reports and letters that unidentified men traveling without official license had reached Kansas. However, their first hand knowledge of the land beyond the mouth of the Kansas River must not have been communicated to the mapmakers to permit them to establish a proper rendition of the topography of the region. THE BOURGMONT MAP OF THE MISSOURI RIVER It was only in 1714 that a map of the Missouri River was drawn using the scientific methods available at that time. Compass in hand, Etienne de Véniard, Sieur de Bourgmont 87 ascended the Missouri in 1714, measuring distances as the river changed the direction of its course. Thus, Bourgmont became the first recorded white man to set foot in northeastern Kansas and give accurate measurements of the river that separates Kansas from Missouri. Before setting on that venture, he had became familiar with life in the wilderness and among the Indians, Son of Charles de Véniard, Sieur du Verger, he was born in Cérisy-Belle- Etoile in Normandy where his father was a surgeon. The reason for his leaving France for Canada around 1696 is obscure. It may have been on account of a minor law infraction. He could have been attracted to the French colony by his 84 . Ibid., 12; Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1 : 9; Giraud, History of the French Louisiana, 1: 363. 85 . Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1:10n27. 86 . Margry, Mémoires et Documents, 6:184-185. 87 . Norall, Bourgmont, 4. 18 desire of adventure or have been encouraged by his great-uncle, Pierre Pitot, Grand Vicar of the Bishop of Quebec. Bourgmont must have joined the military forces shortly after he arrived in Canada as in 1702 he participated in an expedition down the Ohio River, under the command of Louis Juchereau de Saint Denis. He was soon promoted to ensign and placed under the orders of Antoine Laumet, Sieur de La Mothe-Cadillac, commandant of the fort of Detroit. On January 29, 1703, he replaced Alphonse Tonty who had been in charge of the Fort Pontchartrain.88 There he was confronted with an extremely difficult situation on account of the small size and low moral of the garrison, the penury of ammunition, and the large number of hostile Indians in the near vicinity. He also had his first challenge as a negotiator when he intervened between Indians quarrelling among themselves. Cadillac criticized Bourgmont’s actions during an attack of the Ottawas when a missionary and a sergeant were killed. In 1706 he deserted and eloped with Madame Tichenet, also known as La Chenette, a half- blood woman of dubious reputation, who was married to a Frenchman. They hid for a few months in the wilderness on the banks of Lake Erie with other deserters. Bourgmont was not listed among the arrested fugitives. He had probably escaped. A few years later, Bourgmont is found living among the Missouri Indians. By then he had fallen in love with the daughter of a Missouri chief, whom he may have met around Detroit when he joined the Missouris in their fight against the Fox Indians. He lived among her tribe, sometimes traveling to the Illinois country where his behavior shocked the ecclesiastical and governmental authorities. Bourgmont was pursued when Father Marest reported that Bourgmont was leading a “scandalous and criminal life.” An order was issued to arrest him but once again he escaped prosecution. He seemed to have enjoyed the protection of Cadillac, as he never incurred any punishment for his desertion, his flagrant misconduct, and even the accusation leveled against him for conspiring with the English.89 Between 1706 and 1712, he had lived the life of a coureur des bois, trapping, hunting, trading, and learning Indian languages and the way of the natives. In 1712, Bourgmont traveled to Mobile and offered his services to the French officials. In the spring of 1714, Bourgmont set out on March 29 from the Mississippi and reached the confluence of the Missouri and the Kansas River on Friday, May 11. For thirty-six days, he ascended the Missouri to the mouth of the Platte River, all the while recording his observations as he traveled along the Wyandotte, Leavenworth, Atchison, and Doniphan counties. Why he undertook that journey is not known. There is no evidence that he was entrusted with an official mission and his concise report, entitled Routte qu’il faut tenir pour remonter la rivière du Missoury, 90 does not cast any light on the reason that prompted him to enter into unchartered country. The French historian, Marcel Giraud wrote:” Bourgmont 88 . Bourgmont was only twenty-six years old at that time. Ibid., 5. 89 . Villiers du Terrage , Découverte du Missouri, 43. 90 . “Route to be followed to ascend the Missouri river.” See Appendix 1 for the translation by the author of the portion of the report relating to his travel between the mouth of the Kansas River and the Platte River. 19 seemed to have made this expedition because he loved the adventurous life of the coureurs des bois, which he had taken up several years ago.” 91 However, examination of the correspondence between the officials of the Louisiana colony and the French government in Paris, makes it evident that there was a great need for accurate maps in order to continue the exploration of the land west of the Mississippi. An anonymous letter from Rochefort, France, dated November 15, 1700, expressed the necessity to improve the “geography “ of the territory west of the Mississippi as it was “very imperfect.” It states: Unfortunately, those who have been sent up to now to discover [these lands] are not expert enough to make the necessary observations or to establish plans and draw maps. It is certain that the region west of the Mississippi is absolutely unknown except for three or four leagues inland. To benefit from the immense expense made for twenty years toward its discovery, it is necessary to send coureurs des bois up to the strait, which separates California from the mainland with men capable to make plans and [appropriate] observations.92 Inspired by the same motive, Nicholas de la Salle wrote on October 16, 1708 that Canadian voyageurs had ascended the Missouri almost 3 or 400 leagues to the northwest and west crossing “the most beautiful country in the world.” He stated that the discovery would require 40 thousand pounds of merchandise, munitions and food, 100 men and that the voyage would not last more than 12 or 15 months. He concluded:” It would be good to send a young engineer to draw a map of this river [the Missouri River] to have a clear idea [of its course], and to choose experienced officers for this enterprise.” 93 An order to ascend the Missouri may have been officially given to Bourgmont as he accomplished very competently what was stated in the correspondence exchanged prior to his expedition. It may also explain why his report is limited to the specific task of drawing the course of the river and why there is no reference to the means of navigation he used, no information on the tribes that he encountered, no indication of what he did or saw during the eleven days during which he stopped on the banks of the river. The long list of precise compass readings suggests that Bourgmont had been requested specifically to keep a precise record of the course of the river to be used by future travelers during subsequent voyages. The document cannot be presently regarded as a dependable reference to retrace his route, as the course of the river has fluctuated greatly since Bourgmont’s days. Islands have disappeared; new ones have been formed along that meandering river. Aside from the daily log of leagues covered and compass readings of the changing banks of the river, there are only brief notations of the topography and vegetation along the Missouri. High bluffs of red earth, mountains in the distance, barren hills, islands located in the channel, rivers mostly unnamed emptying into the 91 . Giraud, History of French Louisiana, 1: 263. 92 . Margry, Mémoires et Documents, 6:177. 93 . Ibid. 6: 183. 20 Missouri, and willows growing on the islands are the only descriptive elements of the landscape. The document is not signed by Bourgmont; however it bears an inscription which reads: “Je crois que ce mémoire est de M. de Bourgmont” 94 and is believed to have been written by Guillaume Delisle who drew the map from that memoir. One can surmise that the Routte, as we have it today, was prepared for the sole purpose of establishing a navigational map of the river, and non-essential information was left out of the log. The document is not dated but it has been asserted that the days and months listed coincide with the calendar of the year 1714.95 A second document is also attributed to Bourgmont. The account, entitled L’Exacte Description de la Louisiane 96 is not dated. Nevertheless from events mentioned in it, it has been established that it was also written in 1714.97 Longer that the Routte, it describes his ascent of the Mississippi from the Gulf of Mexico to the land of the Caricaras [Arikaras], that is, up to the Cheyenne River in South Dakota. However Norall believed that Bourgmont did not ascend the Missouri much beyond the Platte River and gathered information from coureurs des bois or Indians for the upper portion of the Missouri River.98 The Exacte Description differs from The Routte as it contains more descriptive elements and has none of the latter technical notations. When Bourgmont came in sight of present-day Kansas and skirted its northeastern border, he became exuberant in his praise of the land and the Kansas Indians. He wrote: Higher up is another river which flows into the Missouri, called the rivière d’Ecanze [Kansas River], on which there is a tribe of the same name, allied and friends of the French. They [The Kansa Indians] trade peltries. This is the most beautiful country and the most beautiful land in the world. The prairies are like seas, and they are full of wild animals, especially buffalo bulls and cows, does and deer, which are in such number that it is beyond the imagination. Almost all of them [the Kansa Indians] hunt with arrows. They have fine horses and are very good horsemen. Bourgmont probably did not penetrate deeply into Kansas in 1714. The Routte and the Exacte Description represent his fleeting impressions of the Kansa Indians and the land he saw from the river and during the stops he made along the 94 . “I believe that this memoir is of M. de Bourgmont.” 95 . Norall, Bourgmont, 25. 96 . “The Exact Description of Louisiana.” The full text is not given in Appendix 1, which only covers the section hat refers to Kansas. Complete translation of the work is found in ibid., 99-112 and in Marcel Giraud, “Etienne de Veniard de Bourgmont’s Exact Description of Louisiana,” 8-18. 97 . Ibid., 5-6. 98 . Norall, Bourgmont., 6-7. 21 way. However they constitute the first recorded descriptions of northeastern Kansas. Bourgmont was to return to Kansas ten years later. THE LE MAIRE MAP Data provided by Bourgmont must not have been widely available as in subsequent years cartographers did not incorporate Bourgmont’s findings in their drawings. Father Le Maire’s map,99 dated 1716, is entitled Carte Nouvelle de la Louisiane et Pays Circonvoisins. Dressée sur les lieux pour estre présentée ā sa Majesté très Chrétienne par S. Le Maire Prêtre parisien et missionnaire apostolique 1716. 100 It only shows a short river, labeled R. des Cansez, drawn without any tributary. The Missouri empties into the Mississippi from a straight northwesterly direction, the cartographer not being aware that it flows into the Mississippi directly from the west and curves at the site of Kansas City. 101 It appears that the territory north of the Arkansas River was still unknown, only the settlements of the Osages and Missouri being correctly noted. THE VERMALE MAP In 1717 a map was published, entitled Carte générale de la Louisiane ou du Miciscipi dressée sur plusieurs mémoires et dissinée par le Sr. Vermale cy devant Cornette de Dragon. 102 The map is referred to as the “Vermale map”, after the name of its draftsman. 103 Both the R. des Canzes 104 and the location of the Canzes are shown. It is evident that, up to the second decade of the eighteenth century, the coastal regions of Louisiana and around the Great Lakes and Canada were drawn with relative accuracy, while the representation of rivers and villages in the central plains appears to have been the product of pure speculation on the part of the mapmakers. They sketched rivers which had been mentioned to them by Indians 99 . La Maire was a Jesuit missionary among the Indians of the Mississippi Valley for several years during the early 1700s. Hamilton, “Early Cartography,” 657. 100 . “New Map of Louisiana and Neighboring Country drawn on the spot to be presented to his most Christian Majesty by S. Le Maire, Parisian Priest and apostolic missionary 1716.” Lauvrière, Histoire de la Louisiane Française, 143. The original map is in the Library of the Hydrographis Services in Paris, France. 101 . However in his Mémoire, Le Maire wrote: “We ascended the Missouri for more than four hundred leagues without encountering any Spanish settlement.” If he had personally ascended the Missouri, it is difficult to understand how he would have given such an erroneous graphic representation of the river and missed the change of direction of its course at the site of Kansas City, Missouri. 102 . General Map of Louisiana or the Mississippi drawn after several Memoirs and designed by M. Vermale, presently serving as Ensign of Dragoons. The map is now in the Library of the Hydrographic Services in Paris, France. 103 . Hamilton, “Early Cartography,” 657. 104 . Louise Barry erroneously stated that the Kansas River appeared by that name for the first time on that map, although it had been shown under that name in the Le Maire map. Barry, Beginning of the West, 13. 22 and coureurs des bois, without being certain of their length, provenance or even of their names. THE DELISLE MAP OF 1718 The Delisle map of 1718, entitled Carte de la Louisiane et du Cours du Mississippi dressée sur les Mémoires en autres ceux de M. Le Maire par Guillaume Delisle de l’Académie des Sciences ā Paris (Juin 1718) “105 shows remarkable improvement over the preceding maps, especially as it added several unnamed tributaries to the Grande Rivière des Cansez that flows into the Missouri at about the 40th parallel. However the Delisles rendition of the river is not totally accurate as it shows it entering the Missouri from a northwesterly direction instead of straight from the west. The map indicates a Kansa village at the confluence of the Kansas River and probably the Saline River, and Padouca settlements near what may be the headwaters of the Saline and Smoky rivers. Small lodges are also sketched to indicate the presence of Padouca villages around the headwaters of what could be the Solomon River and the North Fork and South Fork of Bow Creek, tributary of that river. Other locations of Padouca villages are at the headwaters of the Saline River and on the banks of what is probably the Smoky Hill River. In eastern Kansas, a small river, which empties into the Missouri, is named the Petite Rivière des Cansez. 106 Below it is indicated a Cansez village. The Riv. Des Akansas 107 is traced with two unnamed tributaries, which could be the Walnut and Little Arkansas rivers; two additional Padouca villages are shown on their banks. The map “became the primary reference source for the Lower Mississippi and lower Missouri river valleys and was used by other cartographers as late as 1797. This map is believed to be the oldest map consulted in the planning of the Lewis and Clark exploration.” 108 W. Raymond Wood wrote:”Delisle’s map was plagiarized and reproduced essentially in its original form in several languages from the time it was issued until the 1790s.”109 105 . “Map of Louisiana and the Course of the Mississippi Drawn upon a Number of Memoirs among them those of M. Le Maire by Guillaume Delisle of the Royal Academy of Sciences,” Paris, June 1718. 106 . Villiers du Terrage in Découverte du Missouri, 57, erroneously identified the Petite Riv. Des Cansez as the Big Nemaha River. The village was on the creek named today Independence Creek near Doniphan, Kansas. Unrau, Kansa Indians, 17; Morehouse, Kansa Indians, 344-345. 107 . “Arkansas River.” 108 . Benson, Lewis and Clark, 34. The map “with virtually no changes except for the translation of French into English, was published by John Senex, a London cartographer and engraver in 1721.” Langsdorf, “Early Navigation on the Kansas River,” 140. 109 . Wood, “Mapping the Missouri River,” 30. 23 THE BEAUVILLIERS MAP In 1720, a manuscript map,110 entitled Carte Nouvelle de la Partie de l’Ouest de la Province de la Louisane sur les observations et découvertes de Sieur Bénard de la Harpe Commandant sur la Rivière Rouge . . . , was drawn by Sieur de Beauvilliers, an engineer to the king and member of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Paris. According to its title, it was based on the observations and discoveries of Bénard de la Harpe, commandant on the Red River who depicted the valley of the Mississippi and its tributaries. It shows a short river, named Cansez R. flowing into the Missouri from a westerly direction. In what is now the western part of Kansas, three groups of small lodges are shown, with the inscription Villages Panis ou Ricans. The rest of Kansas is a complete blank. De la Harpe having not gone beyond the Arkansas River explains the errors and omissions found in the map. Thus the Beauvilliers map is neither as accurate nor as descriptive as the Delisle map of 1718. THE D’ANVILLE MAP The 1746 map of Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon D’Anville (1697-1783)111, entitled Carte de la Louisiane, shows the Kansas River that is named R. des Padoucas et Kansez, as both nations inhabited its banks or the banks of its tributaries. It deviates from the Delisle’s 1718 map in that the river empties into the Missouri from a southwesterly direction rather than from a northwesterly direction. In d’Anville’s map, the mouth of the river is located downstream from the Kansas City bend while in the Delisle’s map it is shown upstream, neither of those representations being correct. Along the banks of one of its tributaries is noted the presence of Paniouassas whom du Tisné had visited in 1718. The section of the Missouri River in eastern Kansas is labeled Pekitanoui. THE VAUGONDY MAP The first map of Gilles Robert de Vaugondy (1723-1786), appeared in his Atlas Portatif, published in 1748-1749. In his 1750 map, entitled Amérique Septentrionale, the Kansas River is traced but not identified; however, Pays des Canses [Country of the Kansas] is written across what is now Kansas. A short unnamed stream that empties into the Missouri, north of the bend formed today in Kansas City, could be Salt Creek or the Little Kansas River, the stream that in earlier maps had been called Petite Rivière des Cansez. There is an indication of a Canses village at the confluence of the unnamed Kansas River and one of its tributaries. The map follows the delineation of the rivers in the 1718 Delisle map, however with fewer details. THE BELLIN MAP Jacques Nicolas Bellin (1703-1772), senior hydrographic engineer at the Dépôt des Cartes et Plans de la Marine in Paris from 1721 to 1772, drew a map, 110 . The original is in the Bibliothèque du Service Hydrographique de la Marine, Paris (No. C4040). 111 . Also written Danville. 24 entitled Carte de la Louisiane et des Pays Voisins 112 that was published in Paris in 1744 in Pierre Francois Xavier de Charlevoix’s Histoire et DescriptionGénérale de la Nouvelle France. 113 The map, reissued in 1750 and dedicated to M. Rouille, Secretary of the Navy, shows an unnamed Kansas River, sketched with two tributaries flowing down from a northwestern direction and emptying into the Missouri north of its mouth. The Petite Riv. des Canses is drawn in the same location as in earlier maps. The R. des Osages extends correctly into what is eastern Kansas and the Riv. des Akansas, without its bend, runs across southern Kansas with Padoucas indicated at its headwaters. Bellin located the Kansas Indians across Kansas, calling it Pays des Canses [Country of the Kansas]. Bellin almost duplicated Delisle’s 1718 map, except for the addition of a short unidentified river that enters the Missouri at exactly the bend of the river where the Kansas River should have been located. The Missouri Indians are found above that short river in what is now Kansas. There is a Kansa settlement indicated between the Kansas River and one of its western tributaries. Across Kansas are written the words: “Toutes ces nation’s sauvages sont très peu connues.”114 Bellin’s map of 1755, named Carte de l’Amérique Septentrionale depuis le 28 Degré de Latitude jusqu’au 72, borrows also from the 1718 Delisle map but it differs in some aspect from it and also from Bellin’s earlier map. The Kansas River, named Riv. des Padoucas flows down from a more accurate western location and its mouth is correctly placed at the bend of the Missouri River. The short unnamed river does not appear; however, a tributary of the Kansas River has been added. It is located in eastern Kansas, emptying into the Kansas River from the north, halfway between the mouth of the Kansas River and its first western tributary. It could be the Delaware River. Its existence may have been reported by Bourgmont who had crossed it in 1729 or by the troops and traders living at the Fort de Cavagnial that was built in 1744. The Missouris are no longer found in Kansas but the Paniouassas are placed between the two tributaries of the Kansas River. The inconsistencies between the two Bellin maps are evidence of the lack of precise knowledge of the configuration and occupancy of Kansas as late as 1755. American government agents often used Bellin’s maps, which were also the basis for many later European maps. 115 112 . Benson, Lewis and Clark, 46. “Map of Louisiana and the Neighboring Countries.” 113 . “Thomas Jefferson owned a copy of the book and recommended it . . . as a ‘particularly useful species of reading.’ He referred to Charlevoix’s book as he developed his own ideas on Louisiana and the Northwest.” Ibid. 40. 114 . “All these nations of natives are very little known.” If this notation is to be contrasted with the notation in the country west of the Rocky Mountains, which reads: “Vast countries entirely unknown”, it suggests that the two explorers, du Tisné and Bourgmont and coureurs des bois may have reported their discoveries. 115 . “Armstrong traced his map in pencil from the western half of Jacques Bellin’s ‘Carte de la Louisiane et des Pays Voisins . . . (Paris) 1750. The tracing sent to Knox was probably a re-drawing of this original tracing. It is the first map of the country west of the Mississippi secured by a government-ordered expedition. Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1: 142. “Bellin’s map served as the model for subsequent British maps of North America, 25 THE LE PAGE DU PRATZ MAP The map of Antoine Simon Le Page du Pratz, published in Paris in his Histoire de la Lousiane, dated 1757, is entitled Carte de la Louisiane, Colonie Française avec le Cours du Fleuve St. Louis, les Rivières Adjacentes, les Nations des Naturels, les Etablissements Français et les Mines. 116 Le Page du Pratz (c.1695-1775), a military engineer, came to America in 1718 and settled in the Natchez-New Orleans area where he was a planter until 1734. It is not known that he ever traveled to the Upper Mississippi. He acknowledged that he borrowed from the writings of Charlevoix and Dumont de Montigny but he must also have relied on more recent information as the R. des Cansez is more accurately drawn than in earlier maps. There is an indication of a Cansez settlement south of the river and the Gd [Grand] Village of the Cansez is shown on the west bank of the Missouri at a site probably close to Fort de Cavagnial, which is not indicated although it had already been built in 1757. Up the Kansas River are sketched several unnamed tributaries. One coming from the south runs into the Kansas River not far west of the junction to the Kansas and Missouri rivers. This is the first time that a tributary at that location was ever indicated; and it could represent the Wakarusa River. Four other tributaries in what is now western Kansas are drawn but were left unnamed. They may be the Smoky Hill River and its tributaries, the Big Creek and the Saline River. Two Padouca villages are noted at the headwaters of two of those tributaries; one of which is named “Gd [Grand] Village. The Riv. Des Arkansas 117is sketched with the mention of a Mine d’Or [Gold Mine]. 118 Between its north bank and a tributary named R. Blanche [White River], which was probably the Little Arkansas River. East of the bend of the Arkansas River is noted the presence of a saut or falls and to the north the words, Panis mahas ou Panis blanc [Panis Mahas or White Panis] are written between the R. Blanche and what is probably the Walnut River. South of the bend an unnamed river that could be the Ninnescah River including those of Thomas Jefferys, the most productive English cartographer of the eighteenth century (1762); Jonathan Carver (1778); and Thomas Kitchin and John Harrison (1787). Ehrenberg, “Exploratory Mapping,” 16. In the latter half of the seventeenth century and the first half of the eighteenth century, French cartographers rose to a level of prominence. Nicolas Sanson, Guillaume de l’Isle, Nicolas de Fer, Jacques Nicolas Bellin, and Jean Baptiste Bourguignon d’Anville all produced significant maps. They not only published the most inclusive and up-t-date North American maps of the times but introduced new geographic facts as they were uncovered in that region.” Schwartz, Mismapping of America, 173. 116 . ”Map of Louisiana, French Colony with the St. Louis River, the Adjacent Rivers, the Nations of the Natives, the French Establishments and the Mines.” 117 . “This probably being one of the earliest spellings of the name as we have it today.” Root, “Ferries in Kansas – Part IX – Arkansas River,” 22. 118 . A gold mine (or buried treasure) was the quest of a party of men who were guided in 1836 by Jesse Chisholm, from the state of Arkansas to the mouth of the Little Arkansas River in Sedgwick County. Barry, Beginning of the West, 317; Mead, “The Little Arkansas,” 9. Enrico Martinez named a river “River of Gold.” 26 enters from the west. Up the Arkansas River are shown two tributaries, one of which may be the Pawnee River. In Missouri, a short distance to the east from the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas rivers, is written Fort det. standing for fort détruit [fort destroyed], referring to the fort Bourgmont had built in 1724. By the time France ceded Louisiana to the Spanish in 1762, the maps of Kansas were becoming more and more precise and accurate, with many of its rivers drawn, and the placement of its tribes more correctly located. Le Page du Pratz wrote: “The largest known river which falls into the Missouri is that of the Canzas which runs for near two hundred leagues in a very fine country.” It is evident that his map was drawn from more reliable sources than the previous ones. President Jefferson owned an edition of the Histoire de la Louisiane and used the map as a reference when he prepared his treatise, An Account of Louisiana, which he presented to Congress in 1803. 119 Meriwether Lewis borrowed the English edition of the Histoire from Benjamin Smith Barton, his botany tutor in Philadelphia and took it on the expedition to the Pacific. 120 THE SOULARD MAP Even after Louisiana passed under Spanish rule, the French continued to play an important role in the exploration of the western lands, bringing forth additional data that were incorporated into improved maps. Antoine Soulard, born in Rochefort, France in 1766, 121 followed in his father’s footsteps in the French Navy. After he left France in 1794 with the rank of ensign, he was appointed surveyor general of Upper Louisiana in 1795 as his engineering and military training was much appreciated by the Spanish authorities in St. Louis. He was adjutant to the lieutenant governor in St. Louis for the last eight years of the Spanish administration of Louisiana and continued as surveyor for the American government until 1806. Baron de Carondelet, governor-general of Louisiana ordered him to prepare a map of the Missouri River to be delivered to Jean-Baptiste Truteau who was to be sent in 1795 by the Compagnie pour la Découverte des Nations du Haut Missouri” 122 to conduct the first expedition to the Upper Missouri.123 In August of 1795, he drew another map, which showed the recent discoveries made in the Missouri Valley and 119 . “Among the items of geographical lore obtained in Philadelphia was a copy of History of Louisiana by Du Pratz, one of the French chroniclers upon whom Jefferson himself relied heavily for his own understanding of Louisiana.” Allen, Passage through the Garden, 91. 120 . The History of Louisiana was carried with the expedition and was cited in several places in the field journals kept by the explorers and in notes they sent back to Jefferson from the Mandan villages after the first year in the field. It is obvious that the Du Pratz volume must have been considered adjunct to geographical lore by Meriwether Lewis.” Ibid., 91,96. Benson, Lewis and Clark, 64. 121 . Billon, Annals of St. Louis in the Territorial Days, 471-472. He married Catherine Cerré, daughter of one of the French settlers in St. Louis. 122 . Known as the “Missouri Company.” 123 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 39-40. The map is presently in the Coe Collection in the Yale University Library. 27 west of the Great Lakes. Titled Idée Topographique des Hauts du Mississippi et du Missouri,124 it added features never shown in earlier maps and gave additional information about the outline of the Kansas River and its tributaries. The Kansas River is designated as Rivière des Cans and for the first time the Big Blue River is identified as R. de l’Eau Bleue [River of the Blue Water]. Other tributaries left unnamed are shown as “confluents.” They probably are the Solomon, Saline, and Smoky Hill rivers. Also indicated by four dots are permanent settlements of the N. Can. [Kansas Nation] at the junction of the Kansas and Big Blue rivers and by three dots, the villages of the Republican Pawnees, living on the labeled R. de la Republica Pani [R. of the Republican Panis]. The Osage River extends correctly into Kansas. The section of the Arkansas River located in Kansas is named “North Fork of the Arkansas” while the Canadian River is mistaken for the Arkansas River. On the Spanish version of the map, under what appears to be the Smoky Hill River, are written the words manatial desconocido or “source unknown.” Soulard’s map of the central plains “was incorporated in printed maps for some twenty years.” 125 Aubrey Diller wrote:” It was virtually the first original and independent map of the river [Missouri] since Delisle’s famous map of 1718.” 126 A Spanish copy of the Soulard map was found among the Clark manuscripts, but it is not known if he obtained it from Soulard himself. 127 THE PERRIN DU LAC MAP François Marie Perrin du Lac,128a young French writer came to St. Louis in 1801 as he “was desirous to be acquainted with the manners of the uncivilized nations and the mode of their dealings with the Whites.” After gathering supplies and outfitting a boat, he left on May 18, 1802 with ten other men for the Upper Missouri region. When he reached the mouth of the Kansas River, he proceeded upstream until he arrived at the Kansa village, located near the confluence of the Big Blue River and the Kansas River, two miles east of Manhattan in Pottawatomie County. He remained among the Kansa Indians for twelve days, being entertained by them and learning about their customs. He was favorably impressed by them, describing them as “tall, handsome, vigorous, brave and good hunters.” The travelers returned to the Missouri, ascended it and noted on its Kansas bank an abandoned Kansa village about thirty-five miles upstream; then a second Kansa village twenty-two miles further up, also abandoned. They continued their travels through Pawnee territory along the Platte River, visited the Mahas and Poncas and reached the confluence of the Missouri and the White River. On August 26, 1802 they came down and stopped at the mouth of the Kansas River to pick up the furs they had gathered earlier among the Kansa 124 . “Topographical Representation of the Upper Mississippi and Missouri Rivers.” 125 . Ehrenberg, “Exploratory Mapping,” 20. 126 . Diller, “New Map of the Missouri River,” 175-180. 127 . Allen, Passage through the Garden, 141n 50; 148, note 60. “Hebron’s engraved Map of North America inaccurately credited the Soulard delineation of the Missouri River to Meriwether Lewis.” Ehrenberg, “Exploratory Mapping,” 20. 128 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 44-46. 28 Indians and left hidden there. Being threatened by a party of approaching Sioux, they abandoned part of their cache reaching St. Louis on September 20, 1802. Upon his return to France, Perrin du Lac wrote an account of his four-month visit in the Upper Missouri, labeled Voyages dans les Deux Louisianes et Parmi les Nations des Sauvages du Missouri,129 which was published in Paris in 1805. Included in the volume was a map, entitled Carte du Missouri Levée et Rectifiée dans toute son étendue, and dated 1802. In the section depicting Kansas, it shows the R. de l’Eau Bleue [R. of the Blue Water] with a tributary coming from the northwest, which probably is Horseshoe Creek. At the confluence of the R. de l’Eau Bleue and the Kansas River is noted the presence of a Village des Kancas. The present Republican River is named Fourche des Républiques [Fork of the Republics] and on a northern bend of the river are inscribed the words Villages des Républiques, indicating a settlement of the Republican Pawnees. Opposite the mouth of the Republican River is shown a portion of a river, probably the Clarks Creek, flowing from the south. Downstream from the R. de l’Eau Bleue are sketched several unnamed tributaries, a long one entering from the south is probably Mill Creek and opposite, on the north bank of the Kansas River, a river which could be Coryell Creek. Also downstream are two tributaries, emptying from the north, which may be Soldier and Stranger creeks. Along the west bank of the Missouri are indicated the locations of two former Kansa villages; one labeled 1e Ancien village des Kances [first former village of the Kansa)] and up the Missouri the second village indicated by the mention 2e Ancien village des Kancez (second former village of the Kansa], both villages being located on short rivers. Through the second half of the eighteenth century, American and British mapmakers were concentrating on Canada and the Northwest and relied on French maps for the section relating to Kansas, as French cartographers continued steadily improving the depiction of the topography of what is now Kansas. By examining them, it is possible to follow the progressive penetration of the French into that area during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, starting in 1673 when the existence of an Indian tribe named “Kansa” was first acknowledged on a manuscript, then on a map printed in 1683. Through the eighteenth century, after each exploration new features were added, making them increasingly more accurate. In 1804, while Lewis and Clark carried the maps of John Mitchell, Aaron Arrowsmith and Nicholas King, 130 none of those maps were as representative of the waterways and Indian occupancy in Kansas as the maps of Delisle, Soulard and Le Page du Pratz, which the explorers also took along. French maps constitute important documents in the history of Kansas as they embody all that was known about that land at the time of the Louisiana Purchase. 129 . Travels in the Two Louisianas and Among the Nations of the Savages of the Missouri. English edition published in 1807. 130 . The 1803 map of Nicholas King left the Kansas River and its tributaries unnamed. 29 CHAPTER 2 EXPLORATIONS During the last days of his reign, Louis XIV had been indifferent to Louisiana’s destiny. With the accession to power of the Duke of Orleans, Regent in charge of the government during the minority of Louis XV (1715-1723), hope was raised that the colony would be treated more favorably. 131 Memoranda were sent from France inquiring about the situation in the colony and solutions were put forth to remedy the conditions there. Marc Antoine Hubert, ordinateur or commissary- general of Louisiana, wrote a report in October 1717 addressed to the Naval Council in Paris, which controlled the administration of Louisiana. He first considered the desirability of finding silver mines as the Spaniards had. He suggested that it would be a means of replenishing the Treasury’s coffers, which had been depleted by the expenses incurred in the colony and during Louis XIV wars. Hubert deplored the fact that M. de Lamotte who had been sent on a mining exploration had been unable to do a more extensive search, due to insufficient military protection to ward off Indian attacks. To investigate and exploit prospective mines properly, he proposed the formation of a team, which would consist of an officer, fifty soldiers, twelve Canadians responsible for trading with the Indians, twelve men for the pirogues,132 forty black men to row and work in the mines, six miners for the exploitation of the mines, an engineer responsible for the mills and the ovens, two surgeons, and a chaplain. 133 Hubert also recommended that a detachment be sent to the Upper Missouri to start trading with the Spaniards living in New Mexico. He was confident that, being so far from their military forces in Old Mexico, they would be unable to oust the French traders who could count on the support of the Indian nations who hated the Spaniards. He added that it would be in the interest of the French to bring goods and gifts for the Indians. He even implied that it might be possible to become master of the territory where the Spanish mines were located and chase the Spaniards out of their own lands. If that proposal was not judged to be acceptable, he wrote that at least the French could make a lot of profit trading their merchandise with the Spaniards. Hubert had another argument to invite greater participation of the French Crown in the affairs of Louisiana. He believed that there was a “great river,” which flowed out of the same mountains where the source of the Missouri was located, and that the river emptied into the Sea of the West. He surmised that finding it would provide a shorter route to carry on trade with China and Japan. 134 Hubert’s last argument to encourage the French government into more involvement into the future of the colony was by praising the riches of the western 131 . Margry, Mémoires et Documents, 6: 187. 132 . A pirogue consisted of two large logs hollowed out and tied together, side by side. A platform was then placed across them. It could haul as much as fifteen tons of merchandise and was propelled by oars or cordelles. 133 . Ibid., 6:188. 134 . Ibid., 6: 189. 30 territory. He based his report on the testimony of voyageurs 135 that had ascended the Missouri River. He wrote: The countryside, which they saw along the river is much above the rest of the colony in beauty and bounty. It enjoys one of these climates, which favors the cultivation of everything in abundance. The air is healthful; the seasons are temperate; the country is covered here and there with woods of all species of trees; immense prairies are full of buffaloes, deer, and all sorts of wild life; salt is in abundance, although these regions are far from the sea. All this is sure proof of the fecundity of the land and the proximity of the mines. 136 Voyageurs had assured him that the Indians were kind and friendly, holding the French people in high esteem, and even more the merchandise they brought. To convince the Council of the Navy of the veracity of his statements, he revealed the sources of the information on which he based his report, saying that it did not come from a single voyageur but from many whom he had questioned separately. He concluded his report with a reiteration of the needs for such a plan and acknowledged that the expense would be considerable for the ambitious project would require ascending the Missouri almost eight hundred leagues. He assessed the prerequisites as being one hundred and fifty persons, with food, supplies, ammunition, merchandise, and at least twenty pirogues or rowboats. Hubert‘s report ended on a positive note: “The expense will not be considerable in comparison to the riches that will be brought forth from the mines and the cultivation of the land.” 137 Hubert’s report expresses clearly the objectives, both political and economic, of the Louisiana administrators. A vacuum existed between the Mississippi and New Mexico, between the French possessions and the Spanish colony. Both France and Spain looked with interest toward those vast lands. The French particularly longed to find mines and saw New Mexico as a possible important market for their goods since the Spaniards received limited supplies from Old Mexico. In order to realize these goals, they had to assure themselves that the Indians would not interfere with their passage. Therefore their first concern was to dissipate the hostility between tribes living in Kansas and assure themselves of the friendship of those Indians without which the French plans could not be carried out. CLAUDE CHARLES DU TISNE As a consequence of the impetus given by the Regency government, Claude Charles Du Tisné became the first Frenchman recorded as having entered Kansas. Born in France in the late 1680s, he was the son of a well-to-do family who 135 . The word voyageur means “traveler” in modern French but at the time was used to mean “trapper, hunter and engagé, hired man of an expedition. 136 . Ibid., 6: 190. 137 . Ibid., 6: 190. 31 opposed his longing for adventure. 138 Disregarding their feelings, he left for Canada where he first appeared in the records in 1708. He was hired by a Quebec merchant and sent into the wilderness with a canoe and merchandise to trade with the Indians.139 He showed such energy and intelligence in his endeavors that he attracted the attention of the governor and on June 15, 1705 received a commission as an ensign. Subsequently he was sent on several important and dangerous assignments all through Canada and Louisiana. After he accomplished his last mission in late August 1718, he returned to Canada, traveling from the mouth of the Mobile River to Quebec City, covering more than five hundred leagues on foot with fourteen men, only using a compass. The following year, he returned to Kaskaskia with his family.140 In 1719 Pierre Dugué de Boisbriant, commander of the French detachment at Kaskaskia in the Illinois country, under order given by the governor, Le Moyne de Bienville, sent Du Tisné on the first official French expedition into Kansas. He could not have chosen an officer better suited for this mission. Du Tisné spoke several Indian languages and knew their customs. He had already shown his effectiveness as a negotiator and his ability to trade with them. From a letter he wrote to Governor Bienville141 on November 22, 1719, it appears that he had attempted at an earlier time to visit the Panioussas, but the Missouri Indians with whom the French entertained good relations had stopped him, as they opposed the French dealing with any other Indian nation.142 He probably did not enter Kansas at that time. In 1719, he was sent to the Panis Indians to establish friendly relations with the ultimate motive of reaching the Spanish possessions for trade purposes. The only sources of information available on that expedition are Du Tisné’s letter to Bienville 143 and an excerpt from Benard de la Harpe’s Relation.144 De la Harpe, a contemporary of Du Tisné had been sent with a similar mission but assigned a southern route. He had been ordered to ascend the Arkansas River to its source but had failed before reaching Kansas. Du Tisné and his party departed from Kaskaskia and traveled through Missouri, noting on his way the many rivers crossed, the beauty of the land, and the variety of trees and animals encountered. He reached the village of the Osages 138 . Mildred Wedel, “Claude-Charles Dutisné,” 147-173; Gregg, “The Missouri Reader. Explorers of the Valley,” 505-544; Barry, Beginning of the West, 14-15. 139 . Lauvrière, Histoire de la Louisiane Française, 292-295. 140 . In 1708 Du Tisné had married Marie-Anne Gautier, widow of Alexandre Peuvret de Gandaville. They had three children, Louis-Marie-Charles, born December 29, 1708, Charles, born December 10, 1709 and Louis-Marie-Joseph, born November 17, 1710. His wife died and was buried June 18, 1711. He remarried Louis Marguerite Margane de Lavaltrie. She moved with him from Canada to Kaskaskia, along with his son, Louis. The latter was taken prisoner, tortured, and burned by the Chicksaws in 1736. Lauvrière, op. cit., 295, wrote that Du Tisné died in the above mentioned circumstances, confusing the son and the father 141 . Bienville had been appointed governor of Louisiana in September 1717. 142 . See Appendix 2. Margry, Mémoires et Documents. 6: 313-315. 143 . See Appendix 2. 144 Ibid. 6: 309-312. See Appendix 2. 32 where at first he was well received as they discussed eventual trade exchanges.145 However when he revealed his intention to pursue his voyage to the Panis, their attitude changed. Du Tisné had to warn them that their refusal would rouse the governor’s anger if he was not allowed to continue his journey. Realizing that their opposition might translate into a curtailing of French supplies, the Osages allowed him to visit the Panis. To appease their fears, he consented to take along only three guns for himself and his interpreter, as the Osages did not want French arms to fall into their enemies’ hands. After a four-day journey, covering forty leagues,146 traveling in a southwesterly direction through beautiful prairies and small hills covered with buffaloes, they arrived at the Panis village.147 By then, Du Tisné was well into Kansas. The village was established along a stream on high ground, surrounded by small hills, and in the proximity of a wooded area, which provided the necessary fuel for their cooking and other needs. It was composed of one hundred and thirty lodges, housing two hundred warriors and their families. Another village of the same size was located one league away. Between the two villages, the Indians had three hundred horses, which they were unwilling to sell as they valued them greatly.148 The explorer was told that there were many other villages to the west- northwest, but did not gain any information about them. He noted that two leagues away from the village was a deposit of beautiful and pure rock salt. When Du Tisné arrived at the Panis, he found them very hostile as the Osages had been told that he intended to take them as slaves. Twice they threatened to cut his head open with their tomahawks. After he courageously defied them to carry on their intent and convinced them of the Osages’ duplicity, they treated him well and consented to conclude an alliance with the French. He traded his three guns, powder, pickaxes, and a few knives for two horses and a mule, probably stolen from the Spaniards or their allies as they were branded with a Spanish mark. When he expressed his desire to push on to the Padoucas, 149 the Panis refused him passage to the passage to the Padoucas who were their “mortal enemies.” 145 . According to Connelley, the village was located below the Kansas-Missouri line, where the town of Trading Post was later established in Kansas. Connelley, Standard History of Kansas, 1: 35. Jones wrote that the village was not far from the Missouri-Kansas border but in Missouri. “Discoverer of Kansas,” 276-280. Lyman Kellogg states on page 90 of “Founding of the State Normal School” that Du Tisné “is supposed to have entered the state of Kansas in what is now Linn County. 146 . Margry, Mémoires et Documents, 6: 311. Louise Barry erroneously stated that Du Tisné traveled “four days and 40 leagues.” Beginning of the West, 14. 147 . The location of the village will be addressed later. 148 . There is conflicting information about the villages and their populations. Houck stated in A History of Missouri 1: 256 that there were two hundred warriors in the village. He placed the second village at four leagues from the first one. Louise Barry, op. cit., 24 wrote that there were at least two hundred and fifty lodges and five hundred warriors between the two villages. The Relation of de La Harpe estimated the population of the first village at “two hundred warriors” and the number of dwellings at one hundred and thirty in one village; the other village being “as strong” as the first. Besides there were several other villages to the west northwest, which Du Tisné did not visit. Margry, Mémoires et Documents, 6: 312. Thus the population must have been well above 200. 149 . “The Padoucas were originally thought to have been Comanche Indians, but recent archeological findings suggest that they were Plains Apaches.” Gunnerson, “Introduction to Plains Apaches Archeology,” 1733. 33 Not being able to contact the Padoucas personally, the explorer questioned the Panis at length about their dreaded neighbors. He heard that the main Padouca village was fifteen days away 150 and that those two nations were engaged in ferocious war, and even cannibalism. It was therefore understandable that the Panis would thwart his plans to visit the Padoucas. Knowing that he could not reach his ultimate goal of entering New Mexico, he inquired about the Spaniards and learned that the Panis had been to the Spanish villages in the past but that now the Padoucas did not allow them passage. He also found out that it took more than a month to travel to the Spanish colony. Before leaving the Panis, on September 27, 1719, Du Tisné planted the white royal flag in the middle of their villages and claimed that part of Kansas for France. 151. Let’s now examine the route followed by Du Tisné according to the Relation, after he left the Osage village, located in either Vernon County, Missouri, or in Kansas, close to the Missouri line. He traveled forty leagues, crossing four rivers, one being, according to La Harpe, the Atcansas [Arkansas River] where the water was three feet deep; the others, which emptied into the Osage River, being of no consequence. The rivière des Atcansas was located 12 leagues from the village 152 and there was a rock salt mine two days’ travel west one-quarter southwest from the village. Considering the data from Du Tisné and de la Harpe’s writings, historians have debated on the location of the Panis village and situated it in northeastern Oklahoma or south central Kansas. Anna Lewis wrote that Du Tisné mistook the Grand River for the Arkansas River in Rogers County. 153 Connelley came to the same conclusion, adding that “below Vinita on the east side of the Neosho [River], there are remarkable salt springs.154 Philip E. Chappell suggested that it was “on one of the Cabin creeks, near what is now Cherokee County, Oklahoma.” 155 Kellogg agreed with Chappell in locating the village on “one of the Cabin creeks.” 156 Jones assumed that the Panis village “was never in the territory now embraced in the state of Kansas.”157 Other historians on the contrary believed that it was situated in central or southeast Kansas. Lauvrière put it in Fort Riley while Kellogg proposed a location “beyond Junction City.” 158 John Rydjord, without pinpointing any definite area, wrote:” Du Tisné raised the French flag in Kansas.”159 According to Connelley, he reached the headwaters of the Smoky Hill River in 150 . Houck wrote that it was “fifteen miles” away. Houck, History of Missouri, 1: 256.. 151 . “He set up a cross, with the arms of France on it, not far from where Zebulon M. Pike first raised the American flag in Republic County.” Louise Kellogg, Early Narratives of the Northwest, 90. However in the original source there is no mention of a cross. Margry, Mémoires and Documents, 6:312. 152 . Ibid., 6: 312. 153 . Ibid., 5: 311-312. Anna Lewis, Along the Arkansas,” 59; Anna Lewis, “Du Tisné’s Exploration into Oklahoma,” 319-322.. 154 . Connelley, History of Kansas, 1: 35. 155 . Chappell, “A History of the Missouri River,” 254. 156 . Louise Kellogg, Early Narratives of the Northwest, 9n 6. 157 . Jones, “Discoverer of Kansas,” 276. 158 . Lauvrière, Histoire de la Louisiane Française, 90. 159 . Rydjord, “French Frontier and the Indian Trade,” in Bright, Kansas, the First Century, 1: 24. 34 Kansas.160 Hubert E. Bolton stated: “Du Tisné reached the Panipiquet, or Jumano, village on the Arkansas, north of the Oklahoma line”.161 Where was the Panis village visited by Du Tisné in 1719? Mildred M. Wedell analyzed the various assertions along with archeological findings and concluded that the probable location of the village was near Neodesha in Wilson County. This site had also been proposed at an earlier date by Waldo R. Wedel and John J. Mathews162. Du Tisné must have followed the Little Osage River, crossed three of its tributaries, then mistaking the Verdigris River for the Arkansas River, found the Panis village twelve leagues west of the Verdigris River near Fall River. The mystery of the location of the Panis village, which Du Tisné visited, will remain until more significant archeological findings are made. No information is given by either Du Tisné or de la Harpe on the route which Du Tisné took to return to the Osage village. They only mention that the Osages refused to give him a guide and that he had to rely on his compass to find his way back to Kaskaskia. His voyage must have been difficult as out of his fourteen horses and one mule, he lost six horses and a colt, causing a loss of more that nine hundred livres. Stressing the hardship that he had suffered and claiming his seniority in rank, he asked Bienville to grant him “the privilege of commanding a company.” His request was satisfied. He was promoted to captain in 1720 and put in command of one of the companies. Nothing appears to have resulted of his proposal to reach New Mexico by ascending the Missouri and crossing the Panimaha territory unless the report of that planned expedition has been lost. In 1725 he was killed by the Fox Indians in Illinois country.163 Although Du Tisné had partially failed, having reached neither the Padoucas nor the Spaniards as he and the governor had hoped, he had penetrated in lands never before explored and had initiated working relations with the Osages and the Panis. Valuable knowledge was gained about the land and its people. Distances between various villages and New Mexico were established. It was learned that forty leagues separated the Osages from the Panis that it was necessary to travel for fifteen more days to reach the Padoucas and a month to be in Spanish territory. Du Tisné had recorded, if not always accurately, rivers, prairies, hills, salt mines, etc. in lands that had never before been officially entered. He had concluded alliances with the Osages and the Panis assuring safe passage for the French among those nations. He had brought back information about the relation between various Indian nations, their desire to receive French merchandise, their contact with the Spaniards, and the Indians’ warring practices. After visiting the Panis villages, he had gained insight into their social organization, the size and number of their villages, their dependency on wood and water for their survival, and their living conditions: all aspects of Indian life in Kansas which had not been known 160 . Ibid., 1: 47. 161 . Bolton, “French Intrusions into New Mexico, 1749-1752,” in Stephens and Bolton, The Pacific Ocean in History, 389. 162 . Waldo Wedel , Introduction to Kansas Archeology, 154-157, 533; Mathews, The Osages, 181. 163 . Lauvrière, Histoire de la Louisiane Française, 295; Alvord, The Illinois Country, 157n31. 35 previously. Du Tisné is accredited as being the first white man to have entered the southeastern part of Kansas.164 BOURGMONT’S EXPEDITION TO THE PADOUCAS Great tension had mounted between France and Spain, both in Europe and in America after Louis XIV’s death in 1715, when Philip V, King of Spain claimed the French throne as the grandson of Louis XIV and began stirring opposition against the French Regent, the Duke of Orleans. France had also contracted an alliance with England and Holland to guarantee compliance of the Treaty of Utrecht, which the Spanish King refused to implement. Open hostilities began in July 1718 when a Spanish army landed in Sicily, and France and England declared war on Philip V. Even after peace was signed in 1719, trust between France and Spain was not reestablished. Spain wanted to maintain the country west of the Mississippi as a buffer zone between the Spanish and French possessions while France looked west, attempting to establish relations with New Mexico. The authorities in Louisiana were looking for added revenue and saw a possible source of income in trading with the Spaniards who were not receiving from Old Mexico all the supplies they needed. To reach their objective, the French decided that they needed to try again to establish a safe route across Padouca lands, Du Tisné having previously failed to make an alliance with the Padoucas and de la Harpe having been unable to reach Santa Fe following the Arkansas route. French voyageurs, independently from the government, were pushing west more and more into Indian Territory and their encroachments were alarming the New Mexico authorities. To check on the French activities, General Antonio Valdeverde, governor of New Mexico dispatched a detachment, commanded by Pedro de Villasur and guided by Padouca Indians to make a reconnaissance in the area entered by the French. On their way, as they were camping near the confluence of the North and South Platte rivers, they were attacked and destroyed by the Otoes and the Panimahas on August 14, 1720. Meanwhile, Bourgmont who had returned to France was trying to convince the directors of the Compagnie des Indes,165 which regulated trade in Louisiana, that it was imperative to control the activities of the voyageurs entering Indian Territory. His mission, conveyed in a letter from the headquarters of the Compagnie des Indes, dated October 25, 1720, was to “arrest and confiscate the merchandise of the voyageurs who will come in the territory under his command to trade without his permission and without declaring with which nation they intend to trade.”166 Impressed by his knowledge of the situation existing in that region, they appointed him captain in the troops of Louisiana on July 26, 1720 and commandant on the Missouri River. On August 12 of the same year, before accepting his assignment, Bourgmont stated the conditions under which he would leave for America. His salary was to be paid starting August 12, 1720. In addition he requested that two thousand livres be given to him to purchase merchandise. He 164 . He was also “the first Frenchman to make an official visit to the Osages.” Din and Nasatir, Imperial Osages, 37. Du Tisné died in 1730. 165 . “The Company of the Indies.” 166 . Margry: Mémoires et Documents, 6: 316. 36 observed that if they did not pay him that gratification in France before his departure, he would not be able to buy what he needed for his voyage across the Atlantic. He remarked that in consideration for what he had accomplished in the past in Canada as well as in Louisiana, he felt that he was eligible to receive the Cross of Saint-Louis from His Royal Highness. He added that, considering the hardship which he was to experience and the danger to which he was going to be exposed during that new enterprise, he should not solely be rewarded with money. He also hoped that if he were successful, the King would grant him letters of nobility. 167 To his satisfaction, he was awarded the Cross of Saint-Louis on August 22, 1720.168 The Louisiana officials, overlooking his former escapades and remembering his past services, shared the confidence, which the Compagnie des Indes had placed in him as Bienville wrote on October 5, 1720: He [Bourgmont] had much power over the Indians when he was here. They ask for him on all occasions and with much eagerness. If he were given employment among them, his services would certainly be very useful. “169 Trusting his ability to succeed, Le Gac wrote in “L’Etat de la Louisiane au mois de juin 1720:” 170 There is presently in Paris an individual very suited to govern the Savages. He is a gentleman from Normandy, named M. de Bourgmont, man of incomparable value, whose actions are known and admired by the Savages from all quarters. If he were commanding them, they would be capable of any enterprise.171 On July 20, 1721, Bienville reported the Villasur incident to the Regency Council: Two hundred Spanish horsemen came to the Missouri with a very large number of Padoucas, intending to capture Frenchmen living in the Illinois. They were discovered by the Otoe and Panimaha nations, our allies, who struck them with such vigor that they defeated all the Spaniards and part of the Padoucas. M. de Boisbriant who is in command in the Illinois sent to Fort Louis a Spaniard whose life was spared by the Indians. From that man, it will be possible to learn which route the Spaniards took and what is the distance between New Mexico and the Missouri.172 The defeat inflicted by the Indians on the Spaniards did not relieve the fears of the French as, on April 25, 1722, Bienville wrote to the Regency Council: 167 . Ibid., 6: 396. 168 . Giraud, History of the French Louisiana, 1:446. 169 . Villiers du Terrage, Découverte du Missouri, 79. 170 . Ibid., 79. “The State of Louisiana in the month of June 1720.” 171 . Ibid., 79. 172 . Margry, Mémoires et Documents, 6:386. 37 I recently learned from the Missouris that the Spaniards of New Mexico were planning to seek revenge against those who had defeated them. At the same time, they planned to build an establishment on the Kansas River, which empties into the Missouri. I gave orders to Sieur de Boisbriant to warn them by sending a detachment of twenty soldiers to build a small fort and I also asked him to station a garrison on the said river in order to protect our Indians who, themselves, will be in condition to resist any attack as soon as we furnish them with ammunition.173 After much delay, on January 17, 1722, the Regent approved the commission awarded to Bourgmont by the directors of the Compagnie des Indes,174 who gave him a set of definite instructions.175 He was to embark in Lorient without delay and, upon arrival in New Orleans, receive orders from Bienville on how to proceed to the Illinois where he would take orders from Boisbriant. The governor and the Council of the Colony in turn were to furnish him whatever he needed for his voyage and for the establishment of the fort on the Missouri. In cooperation with Boisbriant, he was to determine the exact location of a fort. After completion of the construction, his assignment was to make peace with the Padoucas. Those two missions accomplished, he was required to furnish to the French authorities proof that he had fulfilled them in accordance with the orders he had received. He was also asked to bring back with him several chiefs of the principal nations to “give them an idea of how powerful the French were.”176 Bourgmont sailed from France on the Loire in June of 1722, with the young son he had with a Missouri woman. Upon his arrival in New Orleans, he found out that nothing had been prepared for his expedition. On account of the few supplies available to the colony, Bienville had changed his mind and was unwilling to deplete his stock for a fort “so distant and so little necessary”. By August 20 in a letter written to Boisbriant, Bienville was still skeptical about the worthiness of the plans: As for me, in your place, I would order M. de Bourgmont to go to the Missouri with about twenty soldiers to establish a small fort and I would provide him with a small assortment of merchandise to be given to the Indians. You know that those nations are not used receiving large amounts and they can be satisfied with little. You know, as well as I do, that even if he made peace, it would not last long. The nations of the Missouri would infallibly quarrel afterwards and new presents would be necessary to reconcile them.177 173 . Ibid., 6: 387. 174 . Ibid., 6: 389. 175 . Ibid., 6: 389-391. 176 . Ibid., 6: 390-391. 177 . Ibid. 6: 391-392. 38 Bienville even told Boisbriant to withhold three-fourths of the supplies and half of the personnel that had been assigned to Bourgmont, using the pretext of the war against the Fox Indians. Having been delayed by the Louisiana officials’ lack of support, Bourgmont finally left New Orleans in February of 1723 with an infantry company and insufficient merchandise. His troubles were not over as he traveled up the Mississippi. No additional supplies were found when he stopped at the Natchez and Arkansas settlements. In Kaskaskia, he had a forty-nine-day delay. Men deserted. Three-fourth of the members of his party was sick for lack of meat. 178 With the help of the Missouris who met him at the IIlinois, he finally arrived with forty Frenchmen on November 5, 1723 at the Missouri village. The site of the fort was chosen on November 15.179 Named Fort d’Orléans, after the French Regent, it was built on the north bank of the Missouri River near the mouth of the Grand River in Carroll County, Missouri, to serve as a base of operation for the expedition to the Padoucas and eventually trade with the Spaniards. After completion of the fort, Bourgmont was forced to postpone his departure to the Padoucas on account of the weather conditions and ice forming on the river.180 He used that time to contact the various Indian tribes and sever the alliance the Otoes and Iowas were about to conclude with the Sioux and Fox Indians, enemies of the French. He arrived in time to prevent a serious situation as probably the Mahas and the Panimahas would have joined their friends, the Otoes and Iowas and formed with the Sioux and the Fox a league hostile to the French. The officials continued to be doubtful about the possibility of concluding peace with the Padoucas. Thus on February 18, 1724, Bourgmont complained to the Council of the Illinois about the attitude of the officials, reminding them of the sacrifices he had made by leaving France and offered to advance the money for the expedition. Only after he threatened to return to France, did Boisbriant send Bourgmont some assistance and additional merchandise. Renaudière, a mining engineer, was appointed to accompany the expedition and the elder Saint-Ange was dispatched to command the fort in Bourgmont’s absence. By June, Bourgmont was set to depart from Fort d’Orléans for his expedition to the Padoucas.181 He formed two detachments; a party of twenty-one men under 178 . Lauvrière, Histoire de la Lousiane Française, 307. 179 . Villiers du Terrage, Découverte du Missouri, 81-84. Historians have debated the exact location of Fort d’Orléans, placing it on the north bank of the Missouri River in Carroll and Chariton counties, near the mouth of the Grand River in the vicinity of Malta Band. The map of Le Page du Paz in The History of Louisiana indicated the location of a “Fort Dest[truit].” or Fort Dest[oyed] in an island of the Missouri, east of its confluence with the Kansas River. Benson, Lewis and Clark, 65. In 1727 Governor Périer was ordered to reduce the garrison which had been between twelve and fifteen to eight men. Two years later they were withdrawn and the fort was abandoned. Folmer, “Bourgmont,” 298. Garraghan, “Fort d’Orleans of the Missoury,” 373; Folmer, “Bourgmont,” 298; Hoffhaus, Chez les Canses, 29-51. 180 . “ Letter of Bourgmont to the commissionareis and members of the Louisiana Council, January 11, 1724.” Margry, Mémoires et Documents, 6: 396. 181 . See Appendix 4 for the translation of the section of Bourgmont’s Journal starting at his departure from Fort d’Orléans on the Missouri. The section covering the travel between St. Louis and Fort d’Orleans has been omitted. Margry, Mémoires et Documents, 6: 388-449.. Andreas and Cutler published some excerpts of the Le 39 the command of Ensign Saint-Ange 182 left on June 25 by boat; the second, traveling by land, departed on July 3. It included Bourgmont, Engineer Renaudière, Cadet Bellerive, two soldiers, a drummer, engagé Gaillard, and a servant, plus one hundred Missouris with eight war chiefs and the Great Chief of the nation and sixty- four Osages with four war chiefs. They marched for four days through Missouri, after which they met the Great Chief of the Kansas with six of his war chiefs and some of his people who had come to welcome Bourgmont and guide him to the Kansa village. On July 7, they camped on the left bank of the Missouri, opposite the Kansas village. On July 8, they crossed the Missouri in a pirogue; the horses swam; the Indians used crafts. By then, they were in Kansas, settled near the Kansa village. The following days were filled with celebration and expressions of friendship. On the 9th, Bourgmont forwarded supplies and men to Saint-Ange’s detachment, which had been struck with fever. He also sent a delegation of five Missouris to the Otoes to advise them of his arrival. Bourgmomt and some of his men came down with fever but they recovered promptly after he dispensed medication to them.183 The healthy ones spent their time hunting and feasting. On the 17th, Saint-Ange arrived, along with the pirogues, loaded with merchandise to be traded with the Kansas. During his stay, Bourgmont addressed the Indians explaining to them that he had been sent by the King of France to secure their loyalty and cooperation during his expedition to the Padoucas. Arguments arose when the Kansas refused his trading proposal and declared the French presents inadequate. The disagreement was finally resolved, with the Kansas providing to the explorer horses, peltries, and Padouca slaves whom Bourgmont was to return to their people as a gesture of friendship. The Kansas also promised not to abandon the French during the expedition. To seal their friendship, the Kansa chief offered his daughter in marriage to Bourgmont. He declined, stating that he was already married. The Chief replied that he would keep his daughter for Bourgmont’s son for a few years as the boy was only ten years old. After the pirogues left to return to Fort d’Orléans with sick men, and peltries, the rest of the party started packing. By that time, the Frenchmen had spent sixteen days near the Kansa village, located in Doniphan County, on the banks of the Missouri River Bourgmont and his party set out on July 24th. On the fourth day of travel, Renaudière, stationed on the side of the trail, counted two Great Chiefs, three hundred warriors with fourteen war chiefs, three hundred women, five hundred children, and at least three hundred dogs, hitched to travois 184 on which were placed tepees and supplies. On the 31st, three leagues before reaching the Kansas River, Bourgmont became so ill that he was compelled to return to Fort d’Orléans to seek medical assistance. Too sick to ride astride a horse, he was carried back on a Paz du Pratz’s History of Louisiana in which Le Page du Pratz recounts Bourgmont’s expedition. History of Kansas, 1: 48-49. 182 . Louis Groston de Saint-Ange et de Belllerive, son of the older Saint-Ange who remained at the fort. 183 . Bourgmont’s father being a doctor, he may have acquired some notion of medicine. 184 . It consisted of long poles, bound together with raw hide strips to form an A-shaped frame to which was tied a basket for carrying baggage. The poles were fastened at one end on either side of a pack saddle while the other end dragged on the ground. 40 litter. Before departing, he dispatched the rest of the party under the command of engagé Gaillard to explain to the Padoucas his delay in coming and his intention to negotiate a peace agreement between them and their enemies. For safety purposes, Bourgmont gave Gaillard documents written in Spanish and Latin in case he encountered some Spaniards or missionaries along the way. The fact that Gaillard was returning to the Padouca village two members of the tribe whom Bourgmont had ransomed from the Kansas and that he came with many gifts made a favorable impression on the Indians. By August 3, Bourgmont was back at the Kansa village. After leaving his merchandise at the village under the guard of two of his men, on the 4th, he set out in a pirogue for Fort d’Orléans to see treatment. When Gaillard’s party arrived at the Padouca village on August 25th, the Indians welcomed and feasted them with enthusiasm. It had taken the advanced detachment a month to travel the distance between the Kansa village on the Missouri and the Padouca settlements. Their voyage had been slowed down on account of the Kansas hunting along the way and the pace imposed by the women and children who were carrying heavy loads. Bourgmont, feeling better but not completely recovered, left Fort d’Orléans on September 20 and stopped at the Kansa village before proceeding to the Padoucas. There he assembled Otoes, Iowas, and Panimahas to make them gifts and smoke together the peace pipe to seal their friendship. Bourgmont, his son, and fifteen Frenchmen continued their voyage on October 8. They were accompanied by Padoucas who had come to welcome them, Kansa, Otoe, and Iowa chiefs. On the 11th they reached the Kansas River and on the 18th they were at the Padouca village. Shortly after his arrival, Bourgmont urged all the nations to live in peace; he then distributed the gifts he had brought for them. They were stunned by the generosity of the Frenchmen as the Spaniards with whom they traded regularly never made them any gifts and only traded poor quality material. In response, the Padouca Great Chief agreed to make peace with their former Indian enemies assembled there and promised to facilitate passage to the French, whenever they desired to travel to the Spanish lands. The second objective assigned to Bourgmont by the directors of the Compagnie des Indes had been attained in spite of the constant interference of the Louisiana officials and the difficulties encountered along the way. After the success of Bourgmont’s diplomatic efforts, the French could travel safely under the protection of the various tribes of the region. The notations in Bourgmont’s Journal are vague as only two rivers are named, the Grande Rivière des Canzes and the Rivière des Camps along with some vague mentions of rock formations. Milton Reichard 185 made a thorough study of the route followed by Bourgmont across Kansas, attempting to identify the unnamed rivers and creeks 186 and analyzing the various topographical and geological indications contained in the Journal and in Le Page du Pratz’s Histoire 185 . Reichart, “Bourgmont’s Route,” 96-119. 186 . Delorme, Kansas Atlas and Gazetteer for location of rivers and creeks. 41 de la Louisiane.187 According to Reichart, after leaving the Kansa village located in Doniphan County, Bourgmont and his party crossed in succession Independence Creek, “just above the village”; then, after entering Atchison County, Deer Creek, a tributary of Independence Creek, and Stranger Creek, near Farmington. Proceeding through Jefferson County, they encountered Coal Creek, a tributary of the Delaware River and forded the Delaware River in the vicinity of Half Mound. In Jackson County, they crossed the North and South Cedar creeks. In that area, the Journal mentions “slate fragments along the creeks”. Reichart noted “the North and South Cedar creeks flowing along steep and rocky hills still have shale detritus in their channels.” The Journal states that alongthe trail were “reddish marbled stones protruding one, two, or three feet out of the ground; some more than six feet in diameter.” Reichart identified those as Sioux quartzites of the glacial drift. The narrator of the Journal also noticed rocks protruding on the surface. Reichart wrote “on rocky hills are found small slabs of limestone exposed on the surface of the slopes.” Before leaving Jackson County, they crossed the East and South Fork of Muddy Creek. In Shawnee Count, they came upon Little Soldier, Soldier, and Ensign Creeks before reaching the Kansas River. They forded it near the site of Rossville. The water being three feet of water, they had to unload their horses as they were sinking in the sand. They continued in a southwesterly direction, probably crossing Mill Creek, then its South and Middle branches in Wabaunsee County. Hills which resemble castles and fortifications are mentioned in the Journal. They have not been precisely identified, but the party must have been traveling through the Flint Hills, which are noted for their rocky subsoil that surfaces in many places. James R. Shortridge compared them to “a bold stair-step effect, like the parapets of a medieval fortress.”188 After reaching Morris County, they traveled on the highlands between Munkers and Rock creeks. Although the Journal does not mention a large forest, the narrative of Le Page du Pratz noted “a large wood almost two leagues long.” By then the party may have reached Council Grove, known for its abundance and variety of trees. On the 14th, they encountered several springs, which formed creeks and small rivers that in turn empty into the Kansas River. Those must have been Lime, Kohls, Cress creeks, and other unnamed creeks, which flow into Herington reservoir before emptying into Lyon Creek, a tributary of the Smoky Hill River. All those creeks are located in Dickinson County, north of Lost Springs. The Journal reported that they found a large “quantity of rocks on the ground and walls of exposed rocks, resembling old tumbledown hovels from a distance.” Those were probably the hills located between Diamond Springs and Herington. Reichart wrote: The upper slopes of these hills are thickly strewn with scattered cobbles, while ribbons of large stones closer together go curving gracefully along the slopes. The Journal, likening them to tumbled 187 . Le Page du Patz was a contemporary of Bourgmont. Histoire de la Louisiane was published in Paris in 1758. Although his account of Bourgmont’s expedition has not been judged as accurate by many historians, it clarifies some notations found in the Journal. 188 . Shortridge, Kaw Valley Landscapes, 123. 42 hovels, is aptly descriptive but insufficient by itself to prove that this is the locality seen by Bourgmont, as the simile is applicable to other areas of the Flint Hills where the slopes are too steep for topsoil to mantle the exposed rocks. 189 On the 15th, they were north of Tampa and Durham in Marion County, probably crossing Mud Creek, then the North Cottonwood River, which flows into Marion Reservoir. After entering McPherson County on the 16th, they encountered South Gypsum and Perry creeks, then Battle Creek. The Journal made note of “finding gray and black stones, some protruding from the ground, others rolling down and very light in color.” In the Maxwell State Game Preserve, north of Canton, Reichart found: Boulders strewn thickly over about 20 acres of hillside. These boulders are sedimentary “quartzite” of Dakota formation, [They] vary in size and are in chunks rather than thin slabs, some of of which are huge. Others appear to be simply lying upon the hillside, and although not spherical, they could be “rolling”. The quartzites” in the other locations of this northeast McPherson county area are grey to black in color. However, they are not a shining, glossy back like coal, but a rather dull black somewhat like pencil lead. Significantly, the Journal gave top billing to the grey and black stones, indicating that they were the more prevalent… The light colored “quartzites” of the 20-acre tract are thickly encrusted with a mottled matting of lichens…. Renaudière could have had the pale, eerie glow of the lichens in mind when he wrote “fort claires.” 190 On the 17th, the narrator of the Journal wrote that their “guide had misled [them] and taken [them] too far south,” probably south of Galva or McPherson. Thus on October 17, they had to rectify the direction of their march and travel two leagues to the west-northwest “to return to [their] route.” Then they continued along a westerly direction all the rest of the day. They camped along a small river that could have been Dry Turkey Creek. On October 18, at nine in the morning they found a “small river of brackish water.” It must have been Saline Creek, a tributary of the Little Arkansas River in Rice County. From the “small river of brackish water,” they traveled a total of nine and a half leagues to the location where Bourgmont met the Padouca Head Chief, placing it within Rice County, about eight or nine miles west of Lyons. Historians have disagreed on the location of that village. Andreas 191 placed it at the “sources of the Smoky Hill,” basing his decision on the map drawn by du Pratz in 1757,192 which shows Padoucas’ occupancy in four different sites. The 189 . Reichart, “Bourgmont’s Route,” 107. 190 . “very light in color.” Ibid., 109-110 191 . Andreas -Cutler, History of the State of Kansas, 48. 192 . Ibid., 47, facsimile of a section of the map. 43 northern one could be along the Republican River or on one of its tributaries in western Nebraska or Kansas; another one is at the headwaters of what maybe the Smoky Hill River; the third one, defined as the “Gr. [Grand] Village” is probably the headwaters of Ladder Creek, a tributary of the Smoky Hill River; the fourth one is at the headwaters of an unnamed river which empties into the Arkansas River and may be Rush Creek in southeast Colorado. Both the Journal and the Histoire de la Louisiane report that, on his return voyage, Bourgmont traveled seventy-five leagues for seven days from the place he met the Padouca Grand Chief to the Kansa village. If the record is correct, the Padouca village could not have been at the headwaters of the Smoky Hill River, which are in eastern Colorado and are, as the crow files, more than 110 leagues or 300 miles from the Kansa village. Connelley attempted to determine the location of the encounter between Bourgmont and the Head Chief of the Padoucas and calculated that the explorer would have traveled “something like 160 miles” and “this would put the Padouca village in Russell County, or possibly in Ellis County.” 193 This does not appear plausible as the Journal noted that, after fording the Kansas River, they often traveled in a west-southwesterly direction and the above-mentioned counties are directly west of the Kansas crossing. Later, he added: “We estimate that Bourgmont went far out upon the plains, reaching Trego County - possibly Gove County.” He substantiated his assertion by the fact that there is nowhere sufficient evidence to warrant the claim that the Padoucas ever lived very far down the head branches of the Kansas River. They kept to the higher lands… If Bourgmont found them far down the Smoky Hill they were in but temporary camps, but that they were found by him to be dwelling there in improvised quarters or temporary camps would seem improbable, for the Padoucas town contained 140 lodges, 800 warriors, 1,500 women and 2,000 children. It must have been a permanent town. There is inconsistency in his statements as he believed that Bourgmont visited the Grand Village of the Padoucas and not a camp, while affirming that the Padoucas never lived “far down the head branches of the Kansas River.” Villiers wrote that the Padouca campground where Bourgmont met them must have been in the “northwest part of Rice County, not far from the source of the Little Arkansas River between the Smoky Hill Fork and Cow Creek,” north of the town of Lyons.194 Louise Barry suggested that it was in Saline or Ellsworth County.195 She arrived at that location as she surmised that the “small river with brackish water” was probably the Saline River. However the Saline River cannot be described as a “small river.” The explorer would have had to travel due west from the time he crossed the Kansas River, although on the 13th, 14th, and 15th of October, it was reported that they marched in west-southwesterly direction. William E. Unrau also 193 . Connelley, “Notes on the Early Indian Occupancy of the Great Plains,” 454-455. 194 . Villiers du Terrage, Découverte du Missouri, 112. 195 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 20. 44 placed it “at some point on the Saline or Smoky Hill rivers” 196 George E. Hyde stated: He (Bourgmont) reached a salt river, evidently the Saline Fork near the present town of Salina, Kansas…. The Padouca grand chief now appeared with a large party of his men and conducted the French to his village, which was near at hand. 197 Waldo Wedel also interpreted the reference to “the small river with brackish water” as being the Saline River and put the village near the Smoky River in the vicinity of Lindsborg or Salina. 198 After a careful reading of the Journal, examining the distances covered by Bourgmont to meet with the Padoucas, Frank Norall concluded that the explorer must have met the Padouca chief at a location near Lyons in Rice County, which was a temporary camp, not a permanent village. He supported his hypothesis by quoting the language of the Journal, which speaks of a camp.199 However in the entries of October 19, a day later, the narrator refers twice to the “village.”200 No mention is made of a move between the 18th and 19th of October. To corroborate his hypothesis, Norall wrote:”To the best of my knowledge, present archeological evidence does not support the existence in this area of the sort of village described in the journal.” He also noted that it was not unusual for Indians to travel great distance with their women and children. Earlier Gaillard had reported to Bourgmont that six hundred warriors and their families from eight Padouca villages were expected to join him when he returned to the Kansa village after Bourgmont’s illness. It is therefore possible that the Great Chief had come ahead to welcome the Frenchmen, especially anticipating additional gifts and “possibly an advantageous alliance” and was at the time of the meeting in a camp rather than in his village. No historian before Norall addressed the question of where Gaillard delivered the Padouca slaves and the presents Bourgmont had asked him to take to the Padoucas. On July 31, after arriving within three leagues of the Kansas River, being ill and having to return to Fort d’Orléans for treatment, Bourgmont sent Gaillard ahead to the Padoucas. At that time the Indians told him that they were “ten days away from the nearest Padouca village.” On September 6, Bourgmont, still in Fort d’Orléans, received a letter written by Sergeant Dubois telling him that Gaillard and his party had met the Padouca chief on August 25. Thus they had traveled for twenty-five days before reaching the Padoucas. No reason in the Journal had been put forth to explain Gaillard’s lengthy voyage. Norall justified it by 196 . Unrau,, Kansa Indians, 65. 197 . Hyde, Indians of the High Plains, 84. 198 . Waldo Wedel,”Introduction to Kansas Archeology,” 28-33. 199 . Norall, Bourgmont, 68-70. “M. de Bourgmont called for a halt at a pistol shot distance from their (the Padoucas) camp…. The Great Chief of the Padoucas immediately within our view began to make arrangement for his camp.” Margry, Mémoires et Documents, 6: 433. 200 . “The Great Chief began speaking in the middle of the village…. We are happy to see you today in our village.” Ibid., 6:437. 45 stating that “the Padoucas described in the expedition journal were Cuartelejo Apaches” and that “their main village was near the northern border of Scott County, Kansas, . . .and that is where Gaillard would have logically gone first in his mission of diplomacy.” Norall added: This was ample time for them to cover the estimated 135 leagues (370 miles), an average of about fourteen miles a day, to reach the main village – El Cuartelejo, in present Scott County, - but far more than would have been required to reach the village/encampment site of Bourgmont’s October meeting with the Padoucas, at about half that distance. It seems likely, therefore, that Gaillard went first to El Cuartelejo, where he delivered the two ex-slaves, gave some presents, and explained his mission and that of Bourgmont to the Padouca chiefs. But the summer was almost ended, and Bourgmont was still hundreds of miles away, convalescing at Fort d’Orleans. There was neither time nor any real necessity for him to march all the way to the main village. As the Plains Apaches had much to gain to travel 200 miles to meet Bourgmont’s party…. Thus, it seems possible that the sort of village described in the Journal was not the outpost where the alliance was made by Bourgmont but El Cuartelejo, the main village 180 miles farther west, which Gaillard had visited and which he would have described to Bourgmont and his journal writer, La Renaudiere. With the great majority of the streams left unnamed, only estimates of distances traveled, and indefinite topographical features, it is impossible to establish with any accuracy the routes followed by Gaillard and Bourgmont. Yet there is evidence that they reached central Kansas and possibly the western part of the state. It is believed that the journal of Bourgmont’s exploration was written by Renaudière, the mining engineer who accompanied the expedition. It is to be noted that there is no daily report of Gaillard’s voyage after he separated from Bourgmont and Renaudière when they returned to Fort d’Orléans. But the daily entries resumed after Bourgmont recovered from his illness and during his second attempt to reach the Padoucas when Renaudière was again traveling with Bourgmont. The presence of a mining engineer in the party might explain why rock formations are carefully noted along the way. While the accounts of the Route to be followed to ascend the Missouri River and the Exact Description of the Louisiana, both attributed to Bourgmont lack information about the Indians they met, the Journal furnishes a wealth of details on the Indians who lived in what is now Kansas during the first years of the eighteenth century. To the daily accounts that relate the activities and behavior of the Indians, the narrator added his assessment of the life style of the Padoucas.201 He noted that they were not a nomadic tribe as they lived in large lodges located in villages, 201 . See Appendix 4, 27-28. 46 such as the one which they visited which comprised about one hundred and fifty lodges inhabited by eight hundred warriors, more than fifteen hundred women and some two thousand children. The Padoucas did little farming, sowing only some corn and a few pumpkins and depending on the Spaniards for their supply of tobacco. Their hunting techniques are reported in detail, as is their lack of familiarity with firearms. The numerous speeches given by the grand chiefs of the Kansa and Padouca Indians reveal much about their behavior, values, and standards while Bourgmont’s actions and addresses point to his great ability as a negotiator. As stipulated by the directors of the Compagnie des Indes, to certify its accuracy, the Journal was signed by Ensign Saint-Ange, Sieur Renaudière, Sergeant Dubois and nine of the men; two additional men made their marks with a cross, as they were probably illiterate.202 After completing his mission, Bourgmont arranged for a visit of a delegation of Indians to France, as he had been asked by the directors of the Compagnie des Indes. At a Grand Council, the Indians selected one Otoe, four Osages, four Missouris, and a young Indian girl to represent the Indian tribes of the area. Later they were joined by four Illinois and Chicagou, chief of the Metchigamias. They arrived in New Orleans in July 1725. The local authorities were reluctant to incur the expenses for such a large deputation and reduced it to one representative from each nation, Chicagou, and the Indian girl. They arrived in Paris on September 20, 1725 causing a great sensation in the city and attracting the curiosity of the court. During their two-month stay, they were presented to the court by the Regent at the château of Fontainebleau, went on a stag hunt with the king, and toured Paris, Versailles and Marly. The Indians also danced at the Opera and gave a hunting demonstration in the Bois de Boulogne. The “Princess of the Missouris” married Sergeant Dubois after being baptized in the cathedral of Notre Dame with the Duchess of Orleans acting as her godmother.203 Bourgmont received his letters of nobility in December 1725. The royal genealogist designed his coat of arms that showed an Indian resting against a silver mountain on a blue field. During the crossing of the Atlantic he had to pay for supplemental food for the Indians as the Compagnie des Indes had not allowed sufficient money for their proper feeding. He spent his last days trying to obtain payment for the salary he had not received and for the reimbursement of the expenses he had incurred for the maintenance of the Indians. His death was recorded in Flers, Normandy in 1735. Bourgmont and his party of nineteen Frenchmen were” undoubtedly the first white men to travel up the Kaw (River) to its source.”204 During the almost four months that their expedition lasted, they had extended the zone of influence of the French Crown, opened a safe route of commerce with the Spanish colony by removing the obstacle created by the previous hostility of the Padoucas, and negotiated an important alliance between heretofore enemy nations. For the modern reader, the Journal is an invaluable document about Kansas at the 202 . Two of the signatures differ from the spellings of the names in the journal entries. “Jeanty” was signed instead of “Gentil”; “Derbes” instead of “Derbet.” 203 . Lauvrière, Histoire de la Louisiane Française, 315-315. 204 . Streeter, The Kaw in the Heart of a Nation. 47 beginning of the eighteenth century when the identity of the Indian tribes living in the area and their way of life had been revealed to the western world. PIERRE AND PAUL MALLET Although Pierre Mallet 205 and his brother Paul were traders who traveled from the Illinois country to New Mexico with the sole purpose of selling their goods to the Spaniards,206 they can be considered as explorers as they were the first recorded white men to enter that territory. They left Fort de Chartres sometime in 1739, without informing any French authorities of their plans. 207 The two brothers were accompanied by six other Frenchmen: Philippe Robitaille, Louis Morin, 208 Michel Beslot, 209Joseph Bellecourt, Manuel Gallien, and Jean David D’Europe. 210 The journal kept by the Mallets having been lost, the sole account of their voyage is an extract, presented to Governor Bienville and Edmé Gatien Salmon, intendant of Louisiana.211 It is impossible to ascertain the exact route the Mallets took. However, the abstract furnishes enough data to determine that the journey took them across what is Kansas today. After proceeding to the mouth of the Missouri, the party planned to ascend it to its source, as earlier explorers believed that New Mexico was located at the headwaters of the Missouri. The account states that the travelers covered one hundred leagues between the Illinois country and the Missouri villages, eighty leagues from there to the Canzes, one hundred additional leagues to the Octoctatas, 212 and sixty leagues to the river of the Panis Mahas. Following the advice of Arikara Indians whom they encountered along the way, they retraced their steps by land, following a route almost parallel to the last portion of the Missouri they had previously ascended. On the 2nd of June, they struck across the plains and reached a river, which they named the Plate.213 They followed it for 205 . Pierre Mallet was born in Canada in 1704. He moved to Illinois in 1734 with his younger brother Paul. Blakeslee, Along Ancient Trails, 26. Folmer, “The Mallet Expedition ,” 294-297. 206 . See Appendix 5 for the list of goods the Spaniards confiscated upon their arrival in Santa Fe, as listed by Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco. 207 . Margry, Mémoires et Documents, 6: 466. 208 . Also written Moreau. 209 . Also written Beleau. 210 . “ Copy of a Certificate given to seven Frenchmen by General Jean Paez Hurtado, alcade , major and captain general of this capital city of Santa Fe and its jurisdiction., lieutenant governor and general captain of this realm of New Mexico and its Provinces, ” dated April 30, 1740. Ibid., 6: 462. However in an undated letter addressed by Father Sant-Iago de Rebald, vicar and ecclesiastical judge of New Mexico to Father de Beaubois wrote that nine Frenchmen had arrived but named only eight: Brothers Pierre and Paul La Rose, Philippe, Bellecourt, Petit-Jean, Gallien, and Moreau.” Ibid., 6: 464. Petit-Jean, born in France, was the nickname given to Jean David d’Europe. He went to Illinois with Gallien and Bellecourt in 1740. Moreau is called “Morin” in Hurtado’s certificate. Beslot was also known as La Rose. 211 . “Excerpt of the Journal of the voyage presented to Messrs. de Bienville, governor, and Salmon, intendant of Louisiana.” Ibid., 6: 454-462; Folmer, “Mallet Expedition ,” 161-173; Barry, Beginning of the West, 21-22; Blakeslee, Along Ancient Trails, 46-52. 212 . The Otoe Indians. 213 . “The abstract of the Mallet journal provides the first recorded use of the modern name for the Platte River.” Blakeslee, Along Ancient Trails, 70. 48 28 leagues to its confluence with the Rivière des Padoucas. 214 On June 13, they crossed the said river and on the 14th slept on the bank of the Rivière des Costes,215 which empties into the Platte River. On the 15th and the 16th, they continued across country. The traders probably entered Kansas on July 17th. Both Folmer 216 and Blakeslee who have attempted to retrace the route followed by the Mallets agree that on that date they were near the Kansas-Nebraska line, between the sites of Superior and Red Cloud in Nebraska or in the vicinity of Ayr, also in Nebraska. 217 Therefore it can be surmised that the travelers first set foot in Jewell County, Kansas. Both historians have evaluated the brief and laconic account of the extract, which only mentions some rivers and creeks left unnamed while others bear names that do not correspond to existing streams. Furthermore, except for the total length of the voyage, there is no listing of the distances covered between crossings of rivers. From the time of the explorers’ entry into Kansas, the two historians interpreted differently the route they took; Folmer suggesting a more western course than the one proposed by Blakeslee. Correlation between the Extract and Folmer and Blakeslee’s interpretations of the route followed by the Mallet party: June 17 - Rivière des Costes Blanches (White Hills River) Republican River in Nebraska (165, note 23) White Rock Creek in Kansas (85) June 18 - Rivière Aimable (Friendly River) White Rock Creek, near Salem (165, note 24) Wacunda Springs on Solomon River (87) June 19 - Rivière des Soucis (River of the Worries) North Fork of the Solomon River near Harlan (165, note 25) Saline River (95) June 20 - Rivière des Cances South Fork of the Solomon River (165, note 26) Smoky Hill River (100) June 21 - No indication of river crossing Arkansas River (104) 214 . Probably the Loup River. 215 . They were probably mistaken as no river flows into the Platte River south of its fork with the Loup River. The Rivière des Costes (River of the Hills) must have been the Big Blue River or one of its forks, which has its source near the Platte River and flows some distance in a direction parallel to the Platte River. 216 . Folmer, “Mallet Expedition,” 165, note 23. 217 . Blakeslee, Along Ancient Trails, 81. 49 June 22 – Rivière ā la Flèche (Arrow River) Saline River – Ellis or Trego countries (165, Note 27) Rattlesnake Creek (104) June 23 - Unnamed river Smoky Hill – Trego County (165, note 28) North Fork of Ninnescah River (104) June 24 – Unnamed river North Fork of Walnut Creek, near Ness City (166, note 29) South Fork of Ninnescah River (109) June 25 – No entry June 26 – June 29 – “each day found some [rivers]” Painter Creek, Medicine Lodge River, Mule Creek (109-110) June 30 – Branch of the River of the Arkansas Arkansas River (166, note 30-32) Cimarron River (117) July 1-4 – “Followed the left [bank]” Followed the left bank (166) Followed the Cimarron River (128) July 5 – Laitane village Near Lamar, Colorado (166, note 34) Wagon Springs, Clark County, Kansas, then to Wild Horse Lake, Oklahoma (128-133) Folmer has the Mallets arriving at the Arkansas River on June 30 and then following it until July 5. Blakeslee states that they reached it on June 21st, and then traveled along the Cimarron River out of Kansas. The traders arrived in Santa Fe on July 11, 1739 where they were detained for nine months pending the decision of the viceroy in Mexico allowing them to stay. During that period, they were entertained by the local authorities who welcomed their presence among them, in the hope of establishing commercial exchanges with the French in spite of the viceroy’s interdiction. When they heard that the viceroy would allow them to remain only on the condition that they enter the service of Spain and explore the lands west of the mountains, seven of the Frenchmen left New Mexico on the 1st of May 1740. 218 Morin, who had married a Spanish woman on October 12, 1740, was allowed to remain in Santa Fe.219 After reaching the 218 . According to the Spanish records, two stayed in New Mexico. Folmer, “Mallet Expedition,” 168-169. Hafen and Rister, Western America, 42-43. 219 . Noyes, Los Comanches, 22-24. “In 1742 he was accused of fomenting rebellion among the Indians and for this was executed.” Blakeslee, Along Ancient Trails, 27; Folmer, “The Mallet Expedition,” 168-169. 50 Arkansas River and following it for three days, they separated into two groups; Bellecourt, Gallien and d’Europe returning to the Illinois country, probably through Kansas and Missouri; the Mallets brothers, Robitaille and Beslot going to New Orleans. While the New Orleans group kept a journal of their travels; there is no record of the route followed by those who opted for going north. It is regrettable that the explorers did not give any vivid descriptions of what they observed along the way and only listed the rivers they crossed, giving them names which did not survive and are now difficult to identify. However, their notations are sufficient to ascertain the general route they took through north central, central and southwestern Kansas. It is also interesting to note that they did not experience any Indian interference. Also surprising is that they were so warmly received by the Spaniards living in Santa Fe, who, up to that time, had shown great hostility toward French incursion into their territory. The Mallet expedition marked the first recorded crossing of Kansas from the Nebraska line to the southwestern part of the state. 220 The news of the hospitality extended to them during their nine-month stay spread through Louisiana. 221 Although the Mallet brothers had failed to establish any formal trade agreement with the Spaniards, Bienville, encouraged by the success of the Mallets’ daring expedition, decided in 1741 to send Fabry de la Bruyère and a party of fifteen men to Santa Fe with the Mallet brothers as guides. 222 The mission failed. In 1750 or 1751, Pierre Mallet led a party of three attempting to reach New Mexico. Pierre François Rigaud, Marquis of Vaudreuil, governor of Louisiana issued him a permit to trade with the Spaniards and merchants in New Orleans offered him a half million pesos to establish commercial exchanges with Santa Fe in spite of the Viceroy’s interdiction. Although he had established earlier contact with the Spanish authorities and Governor Hurtado had given him a certificate in 1740, the new governor, Tomas Velez Cachupin had him arrested and taken to Mexico City for trial. In the course of his interrogation, Mallet gave his age as being forty-seven years old and testified that he was a native of Montreal, was married in 1698 but was a widower at the time. He added that he had lived in Missouri at an earlier date but that in the last seventeen years he had been a resident of New Orleans. In the Spanish records of his arrest, he is named as Pedro Malee. His whereabouts 220 . The route in map No. 8, published in Socolofsky and Self, Historical Atlas of Kansas, shows the Mallets traveling through Norton County, crossing Prairie Dog Creek and the North Fork of the Solomon River in Sheridan County, the South Fork of the Saline River and the Saline River in Thomas County, Hackberry Creek, the North Fork of the Smoky Hill River and the Smoky Hill River in Logan County, and finally Ladder Creek in Wallace County. The suggested route does not represent the route described in the Journal sent to Governor Bienville and Intendant Salmon. It is too much to the west. The map drawn by Folmer, in “Mallet Expedition,” appears to better conform with the data given in the Journal. 221 . Through that time, they waited for an answer to their request to trade in New Mexico that had been forwarded to the Archbishop, Viceroy of Mexico Jean-Antoine Bizaron. They were housed in the homes of Spanish residents, ate at their tables, and were entertained by Hurtado who wrote in the certificate that the Mallet brothers had “a very Christian conduct.” Margry, Mémoires et Documents, 6: 464. 222 . The Mallet brothers were experienced travelers but they did not know how to use a compass. Ibid., 6: 480-481. 51 after his trial in Mexico City are not known. As in the case of other Frenchmen, he may have been sent to prison in Spain. During the first decades of the eighteenth century, three parties of Frenchmen entered Kansas. In 1719 Du Tisné explored the southeastern part of the state and visited the Osage and Pawnee Indians but failed in his attempt to reach the Padoucas in western Kansas. In 1724 Bourgmont led an expedition to negotiate a peace agreement with the Kansa and Padouca Indians, living in northeastern and central Kansas. In 1739 the Mallet brothers, on their way to Santa Fe, crossed the central and southwest regions of Kansas. The accounts of their travels record their encounters with the Indians living in those areas and the earliest observations of the topography of the land. By 1752, the Louisiana authorities were still hoping to find a route to the Sea of the West, which had eluded them since the end of the sixteenth century. Macarty wrote to Rouille: It is claimed that by that river (the Missouri) you can reach the Sea of the West, passing the crest of the mountains on which you can find a river in that part of the sea. 52 CHAPTER 3 TRADE UNDER THE FRENCH REGIME For years, French traders in Upper Louisiana had been attempting to reach New Mexico by ascending the Missouri and Platte rivers, then traveling across Kansas and Colorado. Those living in New Orleans and on the lower Mississippi saw the Arkansas River as the safe and fast means to enter the Spanish colony, especially since a treaty had been concluded with the Jumanos (Wichita Indians) and the Comanches.223 Authorities in Mexico City strictly prohibited any trade with the French colony, however New Mexico officials and residents welcomed the illicit articles of better quality and at lower prices to complement the supplies, which were brought by “a slow mule train that left Mexico City once a year for the north.”224 A Frenchman, born in Tours, France, having deserted while serving in the Illinois, arrived in New Mexico in June of 1744. His name was given as Santiago Velo 225 in the report, which Codallos y Rabal sent to the Viceroy in Mexico City, advising him that a Frenchman “had penetrated the kingdom and arrived at the Pueblo of Our Lady of Porciuncula of Pecos.” In the records no indication is given of the route he took to reach the pueblo.226 More is known about the three Frenchmen who came to visit the Taos fair in 1749. Pierre Satren, Louis Fabre and Joseph Michel Riballo had deserted from the post on the Arkansas River, claiming that they had received harsh treatment. Inspired by the successful expedition of the Mallet brothers, they left in the fall of 1748 with a party of twelve from a village of Zarca Indians, just west of the fort in eastern Arkansas. They ascended the Rio Napestle (the Arkansas River) and reached two villages of the Jumanos, probably in Kansas. 227 From there some of the Indians guided them to a Comanche settlement of three villages, located one hundred and fifty leagues away. They remained for a while hunting with the Comanches. Later with the Indians, they proceeded to Taos where they met Lieutenant Bernardo de Bustamante who conducted them to Governor Tomas Velez Cachupin in Santa Fe. It had taken the deserters six months to travel from the Zarca village to Santa Fe.228 The governor questioned them at length. His report reads: I asked each of the strangers his name, marital status, religion, residence, his route in coming, the country and tribes passed through, 223 . Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1: 42. 224 . Folmer, “Contraband Trade between Louisiana and new Mexico in the Eighteen Century,” 250. 225 . His name was probably Jacques Belleau or Bellot and he could have been related to Michel Beslot/Beleau who was a member of the expedition of the Mallet brothers in 1739. 226 . Folmer, “Contraband,” 265. In Pedro Vial and the Road to Santa Fe on page 55, Loomis and Nasatir wrote that Belleau “struck out across the Great Plains…. and the governor ordered him to be sent to Nueva Viscaya.” 227 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 23. 228 . Folmer, “Contraband Trade,” 265-267. 53 the names, location, and condition of the French settlements, their relations with the Indians, the extent and nature of the fur trade, whether the French had mines and numerous other items of interest to the Frontier Spanish authorities.229 Pierre Satren, named Pedro Sastre in the Spanish records, was a forty-two years old native of Quebec where he had been a carpenter before joining the armed forces in Michellimacknaw. After being transferred to the Arkansas post, he deserted fifteen days later. Louis Fabre, called Luis del Fierro by the Spaniards, was twenty-nine years old when he arrived in New Mexico. He was born in Orléans, France and was a tailor and barber by trade.230 Joseph Michel Riballo was twenty-four years old and a native of the Illinois. He was also a carpenter by trade. All three were listed as Catholic and unmarried in the record of their depositions. They were illiterate and unable to sign their names, which explains why their names were spelled according to Spanish phonetics. The governor wrote to the Viceroy asking permission to allow the three Frenchmen to stay in Santa Fe, as their trades were much in demand in the colony. He wrote: Since there is a lack of members of these professions in this villa and in the other settlements of the realm… it would seem very advantageous that they should remain and settle in it, because of their skill in their callings, for they can teach some of the many boys here who are vagrant and given to laziness. It is very lamentable that the resident who now is employed as barber and blood letter is so old that he would pass for seventy years of age; as for the tailor, there is no one who knows the trade directly. These are the three trades of the Frenchman named Luis. And resident carpenter there is none, for the structure of the houses, and repeated reports, which I have from the majority of the inhabitants, manifest the lack of carpenter in the province.231 The Viceroy did not grant permission immediately and requested further information about the three men who were again questioned on March 5, 1750. Their answers must have satisfied the Spanish authorities as they were permitted to remain in New Mexico. Mention is made in the Spanish records of the arrival of two Frenchmen who accompanied Felipe de Sandoval early in 1750. Felipe was a Spaniard who had been captured by the British and had been prisoner in Jamaica for two years before escaping on a French ship that brought him to Louisiana. While he was staying at the post of the Arkansas, he heard of the successful expedition of the Mallet brothers and decided to go to New Mexico. He ascended the Rio de Napestle and 229 . Folmer , “Contraband Trade, ” 266. 230 . He was employed as an interpreter during the interrogation of Jean Chapuis. Bolton, “French Intrusions,” 401. 231 . Folmer, “Contraband Trade,” 267-268. 54 after fifty days reached the Jumano settlement where he saw a French flag flying over the village.232 A Comanche whom they encountered guided him to his village where he met two French traders who joined him to travel to Santa Fe. Their fate after arriving in the Spanish colony is not known.233 In spite of the shortage of specific names of French traders, “one can well believe that the routes from Louisiana to Santa Fe were well known during the 1740’s and the 1750’s and that contraband passed the frontier in considerable quantity… It must be admitted that without doubt many pack trains passed the border without being reported to Mexico City.”234 By the 1740s, many French traders roaming across Kansas, the French government felt the need to intervene and regulate hunting and trading in Upper Louisiana. Coureurs des bois were stealing from the Indians and subjecting them to acts of aggression. In response the Indians were killing French adventurers.235 The French officials saw that their presence was being threatened by the actions of those lawless elements. Another reason for governmental concern was the depopulation of the frontier. Settlers in the Illinois district were abandoning their farms, attracted by the profitable activities of hunting and trading in the wilderness. At that time there was a great need for a stable population to raise crops to feed the colony and the authorities were hoping to make the Illinois district the granary and the breeding ground of cattle for the army and the civilian population of the whole province. 236 Soldiers in the Illinois garrison were also deserting to join the outlaws.237 The correspondence between Jean Frédéric Phelypeaux, Count of Maurepas, French Secretary of the Colonies, and François-Pierre Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil, Governor of Louisiana, indicates that the French crown considered various means to solve the existing problems.238 Finally Vaudreuil took it upon himself to grant to Joseph Trottier LeFebvre d’Inglebert Deruisseau 239 the trade monopoly on the Missouri River and its tributaries for a duration of five years, commencing on January 1745 and ending on May 20, 1750.240 Born in France, Deruisseau had arrived in New Orleans in 1743 with Governor Vaudreuil. On December 6, 1744, Vaudreuil forwarded to Maurepas a 232 . “These settled people lived along the river (possibly in the Wichita area of today).” The French, with whom they carried on an extensive trade, had recently paid them a visit and left gifts – and the flag.” Barry, Beginning of the West, 24 233 . Ibid., 24; Bolton, “French Intrusions,”396-398; Folmer, “Contraband Trade,” 268. 234 . Ibid., 272. 235 . Frégault, Grand Marquis: Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil et la Louisiane, 316. 236 . Alvord, Illinois Country, 170. 237 . Frégault, Grand Marquis, 317. 238 . Ibid., 317-327. 239 . Also written Desruisseaux and des Bruisseau. 240 . After the expiration of his license, Deruisseau resided at Fort de Chartres where he served as commissary, keeper of the King’s warehouse, and judge. Along with Saint-Ange, he signed the “procès verbal” by which the French surrendered Fort de Chartres to the British. He moved to St. Louis in 1765 where he was a judge until his death on April 3, 1767. Hoffhaus, “Fort de Cavagnial » ; Hoffhaus, Chez les Canses, 56; Billon, French and Spanish Dominations, 1 :24, 30. 55 copy of an agreement he had concluded with Deruisseau and assure the Secretary of the Colonies that Deruisseau’s “ability and integrity are known to us.” The agreement comprised twenty articles241 and enunciated Deruisseau's responsibilities, the first one being the construction of the most westerly fort in Upper Louisiana. FORT DE CAVAGNIAL Initially the fort was referred to as the fort “on the Missouri,” later to be designated as “Fort Trinité.” Finally it took the name of the Louisiana governor who had ordered its construction, thus being called “Fort de Cavagnial.” 242 François- Pierre Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil, had added to his name “Baron de Cavagnial” to distinguish himself from his father, Philippe Rigaud de Vaudreuil who had arrived in Canada in 1687 at the age of forty-three and had been appointed governor- general of New France in 1703.243 The Vaudreuil family had come from Normandy. Their castle on the coast was built on the site of a Roman fort and William the Conqueror spent his boyhood there. The name of Cavagnial, adopted by the younger Vaudreuil was taken from one of the estates owned by the family in Languedoc in southern France. Baron de Cavagnial was born in Quebec on November 22, 1698.244 He was appointed captain in 1715, fought against the Iroquois in 1721, was promoted to the rank of major in 1726, and participated in the campaign against the Fox Indians in 1728. In 1730 he was awarded the Grand Cross of the Royal and Military Order of St. Louis. From 1733 to 1742, he served as governor of Trois-Rivières in Canada and as governor of Louisiana from 1743 to May 1755. He returned to France for a short time but was back in Louisiana on June 23, 1755 as governor-general of all of New France. On September 8, 1760, he surrendered Montreal to the British and returned definitely to France in December 1760. Accused of having failed to check corruption around him and of having granted monopolies to his relatives, he was arrested and thrown in the Bastille prison. Finally acquitted, he received a pension for his services in New France and died in Paris, August 4, 1778.245 The fort was built on a site selected by lieutenant Pierre René Harpin Legantois, an experienced military engineer who had constructed fortifications in Louisiana and had surveyed the Missouri River from its mouth to the Platte River. It was located above the Kansa village in the Salt and Plum creeks area in Leavenworth County. The Kansa had moved there from the “village of 24” in Doniphan County. They were by then twelve leagues up the Missouri River from the mouth of the Kansas River, thus the village being called “village of 12”.246 The fort was erected among the Kansa Indians as they maintained friendly relations with 241 . See Appendix 6. 242 . Also written Cavagniol, Cavagnialle, Cavagnol, and Cavagnolle. The spelling “Cavagnial” is the one commonly used in the United States, although it is written “Cavagnal” in France. 243 . Frégault, Grand Marquis, 65. 244 . A copy of his baptismal record is located in the Archives of the Quebec Seminary, V-V, Box 19, folio 2; Ibid., 90n 4. 245 . Hoffhaus, Chez les Canses, 60-61. 246 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 22. 56 the French who supplied them with goods and firearms, and the tribe was “a dependable source of high quality furs.” 247 Baron de Cavagnial reported to Maurepas that “Sieur Deruisseau was working hard to make improvements on the fort, which his Majesty had approved on the Missouri River.” Deruisseau must have also solved some of the problems, as the governor added in the same letter: Up to now the arrangements made in this matter have not a little contributed to checking the disorders and the abuses which had determined me to take that course; and it has given rise to no complaints from those who were accustomed to trade there, and who for the most part are vagabonds and coureurs de bois who were often the cause of desertions. 248 Article I of the agreement between Deruisseau and the French government described the fort he was ordered to build among the Kansa Indians. The fort, a square enclosure eighty feet on each side, was surrounded by wooden posts with two-storied bastions at the front corners. Within the perimeter there were to be several buildings: a two-story house for the commander, measuring thirty feet by twenty; a contiguous kitchen with a chimney; a guard house twenty feet in length with also a chimney; a ten foot square powder magazine; a house to lodge the fermiers and a house for the soldiers. The type of construction was also specified in the article. Wood was to be used in the construction and then covered with mud and bark. No plan of the fort is extant but it probably conformed to other forts built by the French in Upper Louisiana. Although the post was referred to as a fort, which had an enceinte and guns to protect it, it operated mainly as a depot where neighboring Indians could exchange their furs against the supplies they needed. Article XVII of Deruisseau’s agreement gives a list of the hides traded there: beavers, martens, peckans 249(?), deer, roebuck, and buffaloes. 250 From the description of the living quarters in Article I, it is known that guards, soldiers and fermiers lived at the fort besides the commander. We can surmise that women and children 251 were also there as some of the commanders were married and French authorities discouraged contact between Frenchmen and Indian women. During Portneuf’s absence from the fort in 1752, it was reported that a woman had been wounded near the fort. She was probably French; otherwise she would have been identified as an Indian woman. The presence of women at the fort 247 . Unrau, Kansa Indians, 167. 248 . Archives Nationales (hereafter cited as A.N.) Colonies, C13A, Vol. 31, folios 17-23; Pease and Jenison, eds. “ Illinois on the Eve of the Seven Years’ War, 1747-1755,” 9 249 . Bossu mentioned the hide of a strange animal, which the Indians gave to commander Portneuf. The officer sent it as a gift to the wife of Governor Vaudreuil who had it made into a muff. Bossu wrote: “This animal probably was twice as big as an European fox, with fur as fine and soft as velvet, spotted black and white”. Bossu’s Travels, 104. 250 . It was reported that one hundred packets of skins, mainly beaver, deer and bear were collected yearly at Fort de Cavagnial. Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1:50. 251 . Both de la Barre and Portneuf were married in 1741. 57 is corroborated by the provisions made in Article XIV, which provides an appeal to the Commander “in case of dissolute behavior of their men towards the women.” There is no record of the population at the fort; it has been surmised that there could have been as many as fifty occupants during the winter of 1751-1752, counting the commander, the guards, the soldiers, the fermiers, the women, children, and a few transient traders. Four French officers are known to have commanded the fort between 1744 and 1764 when it was abandoned. The first commander was the Chevalier François Coulon de Villiers. Born in Verchères, France August 10, 1710, he served as cadet in Canada along with his father, Nicholas Antoine de Villiers, and five brothers at the La Baye and St. Joseph forts. His mother’s sister was the famous heroine who had successfully organized the defense of her village against an Iroquois attack. 252 Later in 1736 he was promoted ensign in Louisiana and lieutenant on June 1, 1746. He came as early as 1743 to the Missouri country and may have supervised the construction of the fort in 1744.253 Nothing is known about the time he spent at Fort de Cavagnial. He was praised as being a capable commander and Bertet said that he was an officer of good intelligence and exemplary conduct. 254 He later married the half-sister of Louis Saint-Ange who was the last commander at Fort de Chartres.255 After leaving Fort de Cavagnial, Coulon de Villiers remained active in the military affairs in Canada and Louisiana. In 1749, he took part in the expedition through the Ohio Valley led by Céloron de Blainville, commandant of Detroit 256 and in 1755 he conducted a convoy, which delivered personnel and supplies to Fort Duquesne.257 On November 28, 1757, he was appointed as second in command at Fort de Chartres, and the next year took part in the defeat of the British General Grant during the Eastern Campaign. He was taken prisoner at Fort Niagara in 1759. He was second in command of the French forces when they were defeated at the battle of La Belle Famille. The Cross of Saint Louis was awarded to him for his services. He died in New Orleans on May 22, 1794.258 The second commander at Fort de Cavagnial, Augustin-Antoine de la Barre, Seigneur de Jardin,259 had served as an ensign in Canada and in Louisiana before being promoted to lieutenant on June 11, 1750 and assigned to succeed Coulon de Villiers. On November 28, 1741 he had married Marie Anne Adhémar de 252 . Hoffhaus, Fort de Cavagnial, 33. 253 . Hoffhaus, Chez les Canses, 67. 254 . Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1 :41-41; Pease and Jenison, Illinois on the Eve of the Seven years’ Wars, » xxxiii, note 1. 255 . Hoffhaus, Chez les Canses, 68. 256 . Severance, Old Frontier of France, 1: 409. 257 . In western Pennsylvania. Bossu’s Travels, 103,106; Alvord, Illinois Country, 238. At that time his brother Louis was granted permission to form a party of Frenchmen and Indians to avenge the death of their brother, Monsieur de Jumonville who had been killed by Colonel George Washington’s men near Fort Duquesne. At Fort Necessity, the Frenchmen surrounded Washington’s troops, forced their capitulation but set Washington free. Stephenson and Dunn, George Washington, 1: 94-95. 258 . Hoffhaus, « Fort de Cavagnial, » 434. 259 . Hoffhaus, Chez les Canses, 69-71 58 Lantagnac who belonged to an old French family living in Quebec City and was related to Governor Vaudreuil. 260 She may have accompanied her husband to Fort de Cavagnial and have been the first white woman to live in Kansas. De la Barre was killed on February 24, 1751 by a drunken soldier of the garrison. La Jonquière, Governor of New France, wrote to Rouille, Minister of the Navy on September 25, 1751: This wretch was immediately arrested and M. de St. Claire had him put before a council of the war and disposed of immediately, being warned that the tribes were going to ask for forgiveness for him. This soldier was drunk when he struck this ill blow, and, as the Canadian voyageurs named Frigeon and La Combe were the indirect cause by selling brandy contrary to M. de St-Claire’s prohibition, I have imprisoned the first of them and will imprison the other on his arrival.261 The murderer was tried at the Illinois and shot on March 18 of the same year “for want of an executioner to inflict the punishment due his crime according to the strict terms of the ordinance.”262 After de la Barre’s death, Céloron, commandant at Detroit, wrote to Governor Vaudreuil on August 4, 1751: “I have learned with much sorrow the misfortune that has befallen M. de la Barre. It is unfortunate to lose a good officer by such an accident.” 263 As De la Barre’s two sons were stationed in Kaskaskia, his widow, Marie refused to go back to Canada. However, in the spring of 1753, she moved there, after Governor Vaudreuil to whom she was related was named governor-general.264 Baron Louis Robineau de Portneuf 265 must have been assigned as the next commandant of the fort shortly after de la Barre’s murder as Governor Vaudreuil wrote to Macarty on September 9, 1751: “I send you an annexed letter for the Sieur de Portneuf, who commands at the Missouri, by which I order him to discharge his indebtedness to M. Oliver.” Very little is available about his services and his life prior to his arrival at the fort. In the spring of 1740, he took a convoy from the Illinois to New Orleans. In the troop lists of the colony his successive appointments are recorded, to ensign on October 1, 1740, to lieutenant on June 11, 1750, and to captain on July 1, 1759.266 On August 6, 1741, he married at Fort de Chartres, Marie Thérèse Trudeau, widow of Alphonse de la Buissière, former commandant at the Illinois.267 He later served as commandant at Fort d’Orléans on the Missouri River. 260 . Pease and Jenison, “Illinois on the Eve of the Seven Years’ Wars,” xl note 1. 261 . Ibid., 368. 262 . Ibid., 410. 263 . Ibid., 291. 264 . Ibid., 788; Hoffhaus, “Fort de Cavagnial,” 435. 265 . Also referred as Porneuf. 266 . Pease and Jenison, “Illinois on the Eve.,” li note 2. 267 . Hoffhaus, “Fort de Cavagnial,” 435. 59 The correspondence between Macarty, commandant at the Illinois, and Governor Vaudreuil casts light on the extent of the difficulties that faced Portneuf upon his arrival. The building had deteriorated. After the Kansas moved down the river, the fort’s activities had suffered. Unauthorized traders were operating around the fort, competing with those controlled by the local authorities. The question of the commander’s remuneration had not been solved. As early as March 1752, the authorities were contemplating abandoning Fort de Cavagnial. The letter written by Macarty to Vaudreuil on March 18, 1752 reads: There are today no longer any tribes where M. de Portneuf is. He sees none of the voyageurs during the winter season, which makes the post useless. It is said that it would be more useful lower down even toward the villages of the Missouri or higher up.268 On March 27, 1752, Macarty wrote to the governor to communicate Portneuf’s complaints: I received a letter from M. de Portneuf, who sent three men from the garrison for want of provisions. He informs me that the tribes on his side are tranquil. He asks me, Monsieur, if you have decided to build the fort, which is all rotten as well as the barracks. He wishes to know soon so that he can get the bark in time. Where he is, he is three days’ march from any Indians. He has seen a more suitable site than that of the Missouri with reference to the Kansa tribe, which holds in respect the turbulent Missouris. He complains that he is unable to see the voyageurs who enter the Kansas River, and can cause trouble. He also complains about a certain Avion who is staying mouth of that river and who has been in dispute with the Indians whom he has seduced away from his post, which supported their people. He (Portneuf) has sent two soldiers of the garrison to bid him (Avion) to leave; but he laughed at the idea. . . He (Portneuf) claims that it would be well for all the French coming in the area of the Kansas to trade at the fort as the Indians even favor it so as to avoid the trouble with the voyageurs who snatch beaver pelts from each other. 269 A few day later, on March 27, 1752, Macarty reminded the governor that a new fort might have to be built, and he announced that he was planning to discuss the matter with Portneuf at the end of the next month during Portneuf’s visit to the Illinois.270 The question of who ought to assume the financial responsibility for the fort should have been addressed at the end of Deruisseau’ s license, which had expired 268 . Pease and Jenison, “Illinois on the Eve,” 529-530. 269 . .Ibid., 548-550. 270 . Ibid. 548-549. 60 on May 20, 1750, but it had not yet been settled. On January 20, 1752, Macarty wrote to Governor Vaudreuil to ask whether Portneuf should receive one hundred pistoles from the money paid by the voyageurs, or be granted exclusive trade for the region, since the King assumed none of the expenses. The letter reads: He (Portneuf) begs me to write you about it. I hope you will give me orders about that [matter], Monsieur. It seems just that the officer of that colony should have the same advantages as those who command the posts in Canada. I hope to see him at the end of next month. I will inform you of the place which he indicates as a site for relocating the fort and how it will be provided for the construction, since the king does not want to incur any expense for these posts. It is hardly possible for an officer to do it unless some advantage of which I am not aware of has been allowed him.271 On April 25, 1752, Governor Vaudreuil answered: I am delighted that you have left the Sieur de Portneuf in command of the Missouris… There will be no difficulty, Monsieur, in having the voyageurs who trade with those tribes pay one hundred pistoles every year to the commandant of the Missouris. This is simpler and subject to less inconvenience than retaining for the officer a place for this exclusive trade in lieu of this payment.272 In his letter of April 28, 1752, Governor Vaudreuil reiterated in strong terms that the commandant had to assume the work and the expense for the maintenance of the fort although he had not yet levied the “customary payment” from the voyageurs for the year. The governor wrote: With respect to the Missouri post, it is for the officer who commands there to make arrangements not only for the rebuilding of the fort but also for its removal to the place which you think better adapted to the good of the service and the nearness to the Indians. The king should have no part in this expense as has been the rule at the fort. It is up to the traders with the tribes, along with him [the commandant], to contribute to the completion of the fort and to its annual repairs.273 According to the governor’s directions, Portneuf had to secure pickets from the voyageurs to repair the enceinte of the fort 274 and late in September 1752, he had to take care of the chimneys and buildings, which had been damaged by a 271 . Ibid. 467-468. 272 . Ibid, 601-602. 273 . Ibid., 621. 274 . Ibid., 467. 61 windstorm. 275 Macarty transmitted to Portneuf the governor’s position on the matter of the repairs: “I have written him (Portneuf) on the subject of the repairs of Fort Cavagnal (sic) 276 that they are to be provided by the voyageurs.” 277 Later in the month, Macarty reported: “I am having that officer (Portneuf) paid the stipend which is due him for the last two years.” The problem with the traders had also been resolved as evidenced by Macarty’s letter: “I made all the traders this year contribute to the office at the Missouris.” 278 The date Portneuf left the fort has not been recorded. The last commander was Jean François Tisserant de Montcharvaux 279 who arrived at the fort in 1757. In the early 1730, as an ensign, he had commanded a small fort with a garrison of twenty men 280 that had been built among the Cahokia Indians as they had threatened to revolt. According to the list of troops of the colony, he was promoted lieutenant on October 15, 1736, and captain on December 1, 1737.281 In 1736, he participated in a campaign against the Chicksaw Indians, commanding a party from Cahokia.282 Montcharvaux started conducting convoys for the military as early as 1749. While assuming those functions, he was much criticized for his practices and his behavior. While the governor had chosen him as he was a “good officer,” Honoré Michel, general commissary of Louisiana wrote to Rouille in Versailles, on January 22, 1750, that he deplored: The small authority that they [the convoy commanders] have on the soldiers and inhabitants, and the familiarity with which some drink too indiscreetly with them. M. de Montcharvaux is among these. It is rare when Guillediv 283 does not deprive him of reason at least on a day with such company.284 In the same letter, he charged Montcharvaux and his detachment of “having been continuously drunk during the entire voyage.” 285 He added: The expenses have increased every year and have reached an excessive amount. Last year under the same command of M. de 275 . Ibid., 663. 276 . This is the only time that Fort de Cavagnial is referred to by name in the correspondence. 277 . Ibid., 770. 278 . Ibid. 772. 279 . Also written Montchervaux, Monservaux, Montchervau, and Montcherveau. 280 . Alvord, Illinois Country, 174. 281 . Pease and Jenison, “Illinois on the Eve,” xliii n 3. 282 . Alvord, Illinois Country, 177. 283 . Rum. 284 . Pease and Jenison, “Illinois on the Eve,” 158. 285 . Ibid. 162. 62 Montchervaux there was a single item of one thousand to twelve hundred livres for a hunter who had furnished him game for his table during the voyage.286 Michel remarked: I do not know what motivated his appointment to command the detachment for which one could not select a man too capable, wise and farsighted. Especially at a time when everything is to be feared from the Indians.287 The authorities in Versailles became concerned about the handling of the expenses of the convoys. Rouille answered Michel on September 20, 1750: “The expenses occasioned by the Illinois convoys each year are too great to be free of abuses.” 288 On the same date, he wrote to Vaudreuil, with a duplicate to Michel, saying: “For a long time it has been possible to see that the convoys sent each year to the post of the Illinois occasion very considerable expenses and disbursements. They have reached a point at which it is not possible to postpone remedying them.” 289Rouille continued: It is claimed that this officer, not content with having before his departure from New Orleans loaded all the goods which he could find both for his own account and for that of other persons, has nevertheless taken on at other posts he stopped at as much as the merchants and traders there would supply him. Moreover, I have noticed by the account which has been furnished me of the expenses of the colony that the costs of these two convoys are altogether too large an item for Sieur de Montchervaux not to have been guilty of abuses in this mission. It is even claimed that in addition to all these things he has been guilty of a drunken demeanor which could only draw on him the contempt of the French and the Indians who knew of it. 290 Finally, Rouille accused Montchervaux of “lewd behavior” and concluded: The conduct of S. de Montcharvaux who had the command of the two last convoys must not remain unpunished.291 Michel wrote: 286 . Ibid. 160. 287 . Ibid., 158. 288 . Ibid., 227. 289 Ibid., 229. 290 . Ibid., 230-31. 291 . Ibid., 228. 63 I can not tell why he was chosen by preference to command this detachment.292 In his answer letter to Rouille, dated May 12, 1751, Governor Vaudreuil exonerated Montcharvaux for the expenses incurred during the first convoy and promised “to make him the reproaches which his conduct merits” if there were any irregularities in the management of the second convoy. He also defended him in these terms. There is no question that Sieur de Montcharvaux has made other purchases of merchandise in the post where he stopped at, besides his necessities in New Orleans. He has never been suspected of any trade even in the posts where he commanded; the opposite is but too well proved by the poverty to which this officer is reduced.293 He added: Sieur de Montcharvaux is no more blameworthy than those who have preceded him. He has gone with the current and has, I think, done less than many others. Most of these Messieurs of his sort would regard any profit on such an enterprise as an extra allowance duly theirs. 294 The governor acknowledged that he “has not kept a very regular way of living, especially in the posts,” but answered the charge by writing that it “had prejudiced in nothing the good order and discipline of the convoy, which arrived in good condition.” He asked that Montchervaux be forgiven and on May 16, 1751 wrote that: They [the Louisiana officials] recommended in concert to M. de Montchervaux to exercise an extreme economy in the expenses which he should be obliged to incur and to keep himself within the prescribed limits. It is true that that officer made a long voyage incurring much expense as appears by the accounts which he himself has given. But the voyage is laborious and subject to a thousand inconveniences and too much bad weather. M. deVaudreuil never having known him to be a drunkard could not think him capable of such sloth. If he has become one, it is a misfortunefor him and his numerous family. But his voyages have been a result of all those 292 . Ibid., 158. 293 . Ibid., 259. 294 . Ibid., 268-269 64 which have been made, in which there has beenup to now too much slackness in everything. 295 It appears that de Montcharvaux had the protection of the governor. In December 1751, Montcharvaux was a captain in Kaskaskia where “he headed off a plot at the very moment when it was to be carried out.” 296 The Piankashaw Indians, having obtained ammunition on the false pretense of going to war against the Miamis, had planned to kill some inhabitants. Through his vigilance, a massacre had been averted.297 Nothing is known about his assignments between December 1751 and the time he arrived at Fort de Cavagnial in 1757. Neither is known the date of his departure nor what he did thereafter or who succeeded him as commander of Fort de Cavagnial. It is not clear whether commanding the fort was a lucrative endeavor. Although there is no official report on the living conditions at Fort de Cavagnial between 1744 and 1764, from notations made in the correspondence between Versailles and New Orléans, it can be gathered that life was hard, the occupants not receiving much support from the authorities. Major Macarty wrote to Governor Vaudreuil on December 7, 1752: You know better than anyone, Monsieur, how few comforts the officer of that colony enjoys, and I feel sure that you will be good enough to take up his case with the minister when you are in France, making him understand the hardships of that service.298 After Deruisseau’s license expired, the commandants were left to their own devices, having to buy supplies from the voyageur, to keep the facilities in good repair, and pay for the transportation of the merchandise destined for their subsistence, for maintenance of the garrison, and trade goods for the Indians. During the winter months, when they were totally isolated, they had to support themselves from their own resources.299 They grew their vegetable and grain. They kept cows and horses, as evidenced by the fact that Macarty reported that during Portneuf’s absence a cow was killed and Missouri Indians tried to steal horses. 300 Portneuf did not receive any payment for two years and had to incur debts to meet all his obligations. 301 Governor Louis Billouart de Kerlerec 302 in his report dated December 12, 1758 indicated that at that time the fort consisted of a “circle of piles” enclosing “some bad cabins and huts.” Left liable for the maintenance of the fort, 295 . Ibid., 272. 296 . Bossu’s Travels, 70-71. 297 . Alvord, Illinois Country, 235. 298 . Pease and Jenison, “Illinois on the Eve,” 772. 299 . Macarty wrote to Vaudreuil on January 20, 1752: “I cannot send what you have given me for M. de Portneuf on the Missouri for want of an opportunity. I will send them early in the spring.” Ibid., 464. 300 . Ibid., 663. 301. Hoffhaus, “Fort de Cavagnial,” 450. 302 . He was governor of Louisiana between 1752 and 1763. 65 the commanders were unable to continue to keep the structures in good repair. Time and storms were taking their toll.303 The duties of the commander were varied and numerous. He was responsible for maintaining friendly terms with the tribes of the region, as he was “in a position to keep the tribes in [their] interest and to make them function under the present circumstances.” Portneuf was asked to seek the help of the Missouri Indians. Macarty reported to Governor Vaudreuil: “I wrote to M. de Portneuf to engage him to have some parties raised among the Missouris to attack the Miamis and the Peanguichias304 and especially the Panimahas whose chiefs are said to yield absolute power. ” 305 On July 4th, Portneuf left on his mission and Macarrty wrote: “M. de Portneuf left July 4. I recommended to him to be tactful with the Missouri tribe and to induce them and the Osages to send some parties against the Miami.” 306 Later in the year, Portneuf traveled to contact the Illinois Indians. Macarty wrote to Governor Vaudreuil in September 1752: “I have sent M. de Portneuf and several persons to try to find them [the Illinois] in order that the chiefs might be induced to come and speak to me. 307 The commandant of the fort had to appease the jealousy of the tribes when they claimed that the French authorities favored one nation over another by granting them trading privileges. 308 He had the authority to deliver congés or special possession to enter the territory, which extended from Fort de Cavagnial to the Spanish possessions. He was responsible for sending to Macarty in Illinois “the traders who were in that region without licenses.” 309 His duty was to control the actions of the traders, being certain that they “did not annoy the Indians and … by their ill conduct did not occasion some rupture.” 310 He sanctioned the illicit voyageurs who came from Canada to sell brandy to the Indians and enforced all ordnances issued by his superiors. Within the fort, the commander dealt with problems created by his own garrison. 311 He conducted investigations when crimes were committed in his territory as when two Frenchmen were killed at the Otoes by the Little Osages 312 and when in 1753 four soldiers who had deserted were murdered by the Wichita Indians. 313 He had also to confront the threat coming from the Spaniards who were reported to be sending troop convoys in the Platte River area. 314 The Pawnees had 303 . Ibid. 450. 304 . The Panamahas. 305 . Letter from Macarty to Governor Vaudreuil, dated, March 18, 1752. Pease and Jenison, “Illinois on the Eve,” 529. 306 . Ibid., 662. 307 . Ibid., 658. 308 . The Illinois complained that the best goods were sent to the Missouri post. Ibid., 662. 309 Ibid., 662-663. 310 . Ibid., xl, li. 311 . Ibid., 820; Hoffhaus, “Fort de Cavagnial,” 443. 312 . Pease and Jenison, “Illinois on the Eve,” 770. 313 . Ibid. ,770. 314 . Ibid., 770. 66 reported to Portneuf in September 1752 that the Ietan Indians had been asked by the Spaniards to take them to the Missouris “where they had already been.”315 The encroachment by the Spaniards into land which the French considered under their influence was a constant concern to the commanders at Fort de Cavagnial. Before the year France ceded the territory west of the Mississippi to Spain by the Treaty of Paris of 1763, it had been hoped that Louisiana would become “the richest and most powerful of all the French colonies.” The plan submitted by Redon de Rassac had suggested the construction of ten additional posts fifty leagues distant from each other in the lands of various tribes. Among those listed were the Panis and the Kansas. None of his suggestions were implemented. After Spain officially took possession of the territory, the situation at first did not change much, the transfer not being known immediately. D’Abbadie, the newly appointed French director-general of Louisiana was not informed of the secret treaty until he arrived in New Orleans on June 23, 1763, The Spanish government did not replace immediately the French officials serving in their new possession. On May 22, 1764, Vilemont, a Frenchman, wrote several communications to Grimaldi, Minister of War and Colonies in Madrid, recommending the retention of Fort de Cavagnial and the “existing depot.” He even urged the authorities to strengthen it and provide the post with additional merchandise. 316 Later d’Abbadie was requested by the French crown to determine whether the “distant posts,” as Fort de Cavagnial was considered, should be closed. When the Spanish government named him governor of St. Louis, he issued an order, dated January 30, 1764, by which all the former French posts in the Upper Louisiana were to be evacuated.317 Auguste Chouteau, St. Louis trader, reported in his journal that in 1764, Neyon de Villiers (no relation to the first commander of fort de Cavagnial, Chevalier Coulon de Villiers) “brought down the little garrison” of the Fort des Canses, as well as the garrisons from other French forts. After the troops were gathered at Fort de Chartres, they traveled down the Mississippi to New Orleans on July 10, 1764 under the command of Villiers.318 The fort was visited by Lewis and Clark on July 2, 1804, forty years after it was abandoned by the French. Their curiosity had been aroused by one of their French guides and they had also seen it mentioned on one of the French maps they were consulting. The explorers, having camped on the left bank of the Missouri, crossed over and found about one mile in the rear of the Kansa village “a small fort built by the French on an elevation.” The explorers added:” The situation of the fort may be recognized by remains of chimneys, and the general outline of the fortification, as well as the fine spring which supplied it with water.” 319 Dr. Edwin James, the surgeon, naturalist and reporter for Major S. H. Long’s expedition of 1819-1820, found the remains of the fort and noted in the official journal: “The site of an old village of the Konzas, and the remains of a fortification 315 . Ibid., 770; Barry, Beginning of the West, 26. 316 . Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1: 60. 317 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 23. 318 McDermott, Early Histories of St. Louis, 52. 319 . Coues, ed., History of the Expedition under Lewis and Clark, 1: 37; Barry, Beginning of the West, 23. 67 erected by the French, were pointed out a few miles below Isle au Vache.”320 In 1833, Alexander Philip Maximilian, Prince of Wied-Neuwied noticed near Independence Creek “a naked grassy eminence where a village of Kansas formerly stood… The Spaniards had a fort of a few soldiers here.”321 By the spring of 1846, evidence of the fort may have disappeared as Francis Parkman, renowned French scholar, did not mention it when he wrote The Oregon Trail although he had visited the Kickapoo reservation, located a few miles north of the fort. The fort operated for only twenty years between 1744 and 1764. During its short existence, many “firsts’ were recorded. It was the first non-native community and the first military installation established in Kansas.322 The first agreement was drawn stipulating building requirements and commercial transactions. At the fort may have lived the first white women and children. The first murder of a white man was recorded and avenged. It is regrettable that successive archeological diggings and aerial reconnaissance have not been successful in establishing the exact location of the fort. 323 A marker on Hancock Hill near Fort Leavenworth reads: FORT DE CAVAGNIAL 1744-1764 Somewhere within the area seen from this hill, France in the reign of Louis XV maintained a log fort to facilitate trade with the Kansa Indians and the Spanish in New Mexico. It was named for its founder Gov. Vaudreuil-Cavagnial of Louisiana. It was abandoned when Louisiana was ceded to Spain. Lewis and Clark visited the remains of the fort on 2 July, 1804 Erected by Ft. Leavenworth Historical Society 1968 THE CHAPUIS AND FEUILLI TRADING EXPEDITION No information is known about the traders who operated out of Fort de Cavagnial as most of them were illiterate. However records were kept about the expedition of Jean Chapuis and Louis Feuilli who left Fort de Cavagnial for New Mexico on March 23, 1752. Jean Chapuis, a forty-eight-year old trader, native of France, had been living in Canada, when, during the summer of 1751, he obtained a passport from Duplessis Falberte, the commander at Machillimackinac.324 After purchasing a large stock of goods, mainly clothing and fabrics, he proceeded to the Illinois country. At Fort de Chartres he explained to the commander, Benoist de St. Clair his plans to 320 . Thwaites, Early Western Travels, 1748-1846, 14:175. 321 . Ibid., 22: 256. 322 . “The fort was small but it was the first white outpost of any permanency in what is now Kansas.” Richmond, Kansas: A Land of Contrasts, 16. 323 . Witty, Jr. and Marshall, Archeological Survey of the Lower Salt and Plum Creek Valley. 324 . Folmer, “Contraband Trade,” 270; Bolton, “French Intrusions,” 401. 68 conduct a trade expedition to New Mexico. He received approval for his enterprise and was granted a license on October 6, 1751, enjoining him to “make the discovery of New Mexico and carry the goods, which they may think proper.” He was entrusted with a French flag, giving his journey the official endorsement of the French crown. He left from Fort de Chartres with eight companions: Roy, Jeandron, Aubuchon, Calve, Luis 325 Trudeau, Lorenzo Trudeau,326 Betille, and Du Charme. They traveled up the Missouri to Fort de Cavagnial where they arrived on December 9, 1751, having traded along the way with the Osage and Kansa Indians.327 There he was joined by Louis Feuilli 328 who had been employed as interpreter at Fort de Chartres for eight years but by then was at Fort de Cavagnial. Before leaving for New Mexico they discussed the terms of their association and respectively a contract and a promissory note which, according to Charles E. Hoffhaus, appear to represent the “oldest legal instruments executed in Kansas of which we have any record.” The contract reads: We, Juan Chapuis and Luis Foissy, who have signed below, confess to having formed a company to go together to Spain [sic] with the obligation of reaching, during the month of April, approximately the location of the Pani Mahas, a place called Santa Bacos. The said Chapuis promises to forward to the said Foissy the sum of four hundred pounds in merchandise to make the journey to Spain under the condition that, if he repudiate what is agreed upon, he will be obliged to pay another fifty pounds, and that the present paper will serve as the obligation. Thus Juan Chapuis signed. The said Foissy has declared that he does not know how to write nor sign his name. He has made his accustomed sign in the presence of the witnesses below. Cavagnol (sic) December 9, 1751. Sign of Foissy X Juan Chapuis, Pedro Truteau, Lorenzo Truteau, Witnesses. The text of the note reads as follows: In the presence of witnesses, I, Luis Foissy, who signed below, recognize and confess that I owe Senor Chapuis the amount of four hundred and nine pounds, which sum I promise to pay to the said Chapuis, or at his order, in the month of April next, in beaver skins or others at the price of the merchants of this post. The said Foissy had 325 . It should read “Louis”. “Luis “is the name which appeared in the Spanish documents at the time of Chapuis’ declarations in New Mexico. The Spanish equivalence was used in the Spanish documents. 326 . It should read “Laurent”. 327 . Ibid., 402. 328 . Also called Foissy and Fossi. 69 made his usual sign, not knowing how to write his name, In the Fort of Cavagnol (sic) December 9, 1751. Sign of Foissy X. Pedro Truteau, Lorenzo Truteau, Witnesses. 329 Having spent the winter months at Fort de Cavagnial, with permit and agreement in hand, they departed on March 23, 1752.330 They went by boat up the Missouri, then up the Platte River. In Nebraska they purchased horses from the Pawnees who gave them information about the route to Santa Fe. 331 Although it is not known how they continued their journey, it can be surmised that they crossed the northwestern part of Kansas, following approximately the same route that the Pawnees had recommended to the Mallet brothers twelve years earlier. However, they did not succeed as their predecessors had. First, eight of their men decided to turn back, being concerned about entering into Comanche territory.332 Chapus and Feuilli continued alone with nine horses loaded with merchandise. When they arrived at the Comanche village, they were delayed by the Indians who did not allow them to pass through their land until the traders relinquished a sizeable amount of goods. They finally reached New Mexico with the help of an Indian woman belonging to the Ae tribe whom they had met north of the Arkansas River. She guided them to a camp on Rio Gallinas. The Jicarilla and Carlana Apaches accompanied them fifty leagues farther to Pecos Mission where they arrived on August 6, four and a half months after leaving Fort de Cavagnial.333 Chapuis and Feuilli had not seen the end of their hardships. They were taken into custody by Father Juan Jose Toledo 334 who informed Governor Tomas Velez Cachupin of their presence at the mission. The governor ordered Pecos’ mayor, Don Tomas de Serra to conduct the Frenchmen to Santa Fe. Upon their arrival, they were questioned by the Santa Fe authorities and sent to jail. After the failure of the Santa Fe authorities to detain the Mallet brothers and their party, the Viceroy in Mexico City had given strict orders that all Frenchmen intruding into Spanish territory had to be arrested. The traders’ merchandise was confiscated and sold at auction to pay for the expenses of their imprisonment. They tried to plead with the governor, explaining to him the advantages of establishing a trading route between Upper Louisiana and New Mexico. They suggested that the traders could follow the same route, which they had taken, with a Spaniard escort of fifty or sixty Spanish soldiers assuring their safety while crossing the Comanche and Apache territories. The governor turned down their proposal. During their interrogation on August 9, the Spanish authorities called upon Louis Fabre 335 to act an interpreter and later decided to send them to Mexico City for additional questioning. On the first of October the two traders left New Mexico. They arrived in 329 . Hoffhaus, “Fort de Cavagnial,” 429; Hoffhaus, Chez les Canses, 96-97. 330 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 24-26. 331 . Hoffhaus, Chez les Canses, 97. 332 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 26. 333 . Ibid. ,26. 334 . Father Toledo recorded their names as Zanxapij and Luis Fxuij, Bolton, op. cit., 400. 335 . He had been a member of the party of traders who had come to Taos fair in 1749 and had remained there. 70 Chihuahua on October 29 and in January 1737, they continued to journey to Mexico City. They languished in jail there until January 1754, after which they were shipped to Spain to be judged by a royal court. 336 Nothing is known of their fate after they arrived in Spain. 336 . Phillips, Fur Trade, 1:112; Bolton,”French Intrusions,” 403-404; Folmer, “Contraband Trade,” 270- 271. 71 CHAPTER 4 TRADE UNDER THE SPANISH REGIME The second half of the eighteenth century, which corresponded with the settlement of St. Louis and the establishment of the Spanish regime in Louisiana, saw great activity in Kansas. St. Louis was the center of the fur trade in that part of the continent. Traders purchased their supplies there before departing for the Indian Territory and brought back their pelts to be sold and shipped to New Orleans. Great rivalry developed between traders for the trading and hunting licenses delivered by the Spanish authorities. At that time the most visited tribes were the Kansa and Pawnee Republic Indians, both residing in what is now Kansas; the Kansa villages being on the north bank of the Kansas River, near the confluence of the Big Blue River while the Pawnee Republic lived at the confluence of the Kansas and the Republican rivers. As for the Osages, they were mostly residing in Missouri although some had penetrated into the southeastern part of Kansas. In search of new sources for furs, more adventurous traders were ascending the Missouri past what is now the border between Kansas and Nebraska. The Kansa nation was the tribe which contributed “the most to the Misuri trade.”337 Little commerce was conducted with the other tribes in Kansas on account of the hostility between the eastern tribes and the Comanches who lived to the west and the danger involved in entering their territory. The St. Louis merchants had tried for years to meet the demands for merchandise of the residents of New Mexico who toward the end of the century became aware of the advantages that would result from obtaining needed goods from St. Louis as it was well supplied with European merchandise. After 1790, commercial exchanges were initiated and encouraged between St. Louis and Santa Fe as both were by then under Spanish domination. News of the cession of Louisiana by France to Spain, first by the secret treaty of San Ildefonso of November 3, 1762, then by its ratification in Paris on February 10, 1763, did not reach the Upper Missouri for nearly two years and even then did not bring many changes. 338 In many cases French representatives were retained in 337 . “The nations living on the Misuri . . . are those who contribute best to the fur trade, especially the tribe of the Kanze whose country abounds in beavers.” Report of Francisco Riu to Governor O’Reilly, dated October 29, 1769. Houck, History of Missouri, 1: 64. 338 .“During the ensuing years of Spanish control, Missouri remained thoroughly French until its transfer to the United States in 1804.” Foley, History of Missouri, 1: 29, 46; Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1: 58. “During the thirty four years of Spanish authority . . . the place [St. Louis] continued to be French in every essential part but the partial use of Spanish in a few official documents; the intercourse of the people with each other, and their governors funerals, services in church, parish registers, everything was French; the governors and officers all spoke French, it was a sine qua non in their appointment; the few Spaniards who settled in the country soon became Frenchmen, and all married French wives; no Frenchman became a Spaniard; two or three of the governors were French by birth. . . Outside of the Spanish officials and soldiers not more than a dozen Spaniards came to the place during the domination of Spain… Nearly all the papers in the archives were in the French language. . . The country was only Spanish by possession but practically French in all else.” Billon, French and Spanish Dominations: 1, 6-77. “In 1799, it [St. Louis] was a French town. Though the 72 their functions. Charles Philippe Aubry, a Frenchman, remained in office as acting governor of Louisiana until Don Alexander O’Reilly replaced him in 1769. The Spaniards’ delay in assuring the control of the government was in part due to the opposition the French residents manifested toward Antonio de Ulloa 339 who had arrived in New Orleans on March 5, 1766 to be the first Spanish governor of Louisiana. In the Illinois, Louis Saint-Ange de Bellerive340 stayed as lieutenant governor of the Upper Mississippi until the arrival of Pedro Piernas on May 20, 1770.341 However an important change soon took place in the practice of the trade with the Indians. The exclusive commerce in the Missouri Valley, which had been granted to Maxent, Laclede, and Company of New Orleans in 1763 for a six-year period by the French governor, Jean Jacques Blaise d’Abbadie, 342 was revoked by the Spanish authorities and trade became open to those who applied for it.343 With the granting of trading and hunting licenses, names of individuals were entered in the official records, sometimes stating their nationalities and the tribes with which they were permitted to deal. During the years when Missouri and Kansas were the main suppliers of fur, the majority of the traders were French.344 As the records were sometimes kept by Spanish officials, French first names were often changed to their corresponding Spanish ones and last names were transcribed according to Spanish phonetics. Furthermore their spellings were not always consistent on the documents of that period. Men born in Canada of French parentage were referred to as Canadians and those of French extraction born in New Orleans were listed as Creoles. On account of those alterations of names, it was often difficult for historians to establish the nationalities of the men who were hunting, trapping, or trading when Kansas was a wilderness sporadically entered by white men. A petition to trade on the Missouri River was made on January 15, 1769 and was granted without mentioning along which part of Missouri nor which Indian tribe was concerned. The signers of the petition were: Laclède de Liguest345, De government was Spanish, the governors for a number of years before the transfer to the United States were French.” Douglas, “Manuel Lisa,”403. Meriwether Lewis reported that in St. Louis as late as 1803:“The Spaniards being so few in number … deserved no notice as a special class of people.” Hoffhaus, Chez les Canses, 113. 339 . “Governor Ulloa made no effort to supersede the authority of Cpt. Saint-Ange, the French commandant at St. Louis who continued to act as the chief administrative official for that position of the province.” Foley, History of Missouri, 1: 21. 340 . Saint-Ange had served in the French army in Canada and in the Illinois for about forty years. He was a member of the Bourgmont expedition to the Padoucas in 1724. He died in St. Louis on December 27, 1774. Houck, History of Missouri, 1: 12n 31. 341 . Douglas, “Manuel Lisa,”145; Barry, Beginning of the West, 28-29. 342 . Hyde, Pawnee Indians, 162-163; Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1: 55. 343 . Houck, History of Missouri, 2:51. 344 . “In the beginning practically all the men who manned the trade, the men who worked in the field were of French origin or ancestry.” Chittenden, American Fur Trade of the Far West, 1:56; Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1: 70. 345 . Pierre Laclède Liguest (he dropped the name Liguest), born in the French Pyrénées, arrived in New Orleans in 1755. As partner in the trading firm of Maxent, Laclede and Company, he received in 1762 an eight-year monopoly for the trade with the “savages of the Missouri.” At that time he was living with Marie Thérèse (Bourgeois) Chouteau who was separated from her husband, and her son, (René) Auguste Chouteau 73 Volsey,346 Dubreuil,347 Habert,348 Becquet,349 Amable Guion,350 Picar la Royer, René Kiersereaux,351 François Martigny, A. Conde352, Le Page, Costi and Joseph Labrouin, L. Arche, Picart, Beguet, Paillan, Barsalou, La Haute, and Deschenes made their marks on the petition.353 According to their last names, the majority of the petitioners appear to be of French extraction. The first official report of the Spanish administration for 1772, dated January 4, 1773, reveals the identities of the traders who shipped furs out of St. Louis to New Orleans.They were: Antonio Bérar,354 Enrique Carpantier,355 Benito Vasquez, 356 (known as Auguste). In December 1763 Laclede and Auguste went to the Illinois to select a site to establish their trading business. Two months later, he sent August, a fourteen year old lad, in charge of a party of thirty men to begin the building of St. Louis. Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1: 62n79. A county in Missouri is named after him. 346 . Pierre François de Volsay (also known as Pedro Francisco Bolsey or Vossay) was born in Paris or near Paris in about 1730 He was the French commandant at Cahokia in 1765 and was captain of the French company in St. Charles. In 1786 he petitioned for the trade with the Kansa and Maha Indians, but the request was refused as the license had already been given to others. On August 1790, he was granted the trade with the Panis for one year. He died in St. Louis on September 28, 1795, aged 65. Ibid., 1:72; Houck, Spanish Regime in Missouri, 1: 104n14. 347 . Louis Chauvet Dubreuil (also written Dubreuill) was born in La Rochelle, France in 1736. On May 12, 1774, he was one of the organizers of the “Compagnie de Commerce pour la Découverte des Nations du Haut du Missouri,” which was later known as the Missouri Company. On May 3, 1794, he received one share of the trade with the Great Osages. Billon, French and Spanish Dominations, 1:434; Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1:72. 348 . Probably Hubert. He may have been the Joseph Hubert who lived in Bellefontaine in 1788. Houck, History of Missouri, 2: 68n142; Primm, Lion of the Valley, 33. 349 . Also written Beguet. Joseph Becquet received grants of land in 1787 and 1797. He was residing in Ste. Genevieve in 1793. Houck, History of Missouri, 2: 386n91. 350 . Also written Guyon. He came from Fort Charles to St. Louis in 1765 and died when the British attacked St. Louis in 1780. Primm, Lion of the Valley, 21, 33, 40-45. His son, also named Amable Guion, was born in Fort St. Charles in 1763 and died in Carondelet, Missouri on September 28, 1813, aged 50. Billon, French and Spanish Dominations, 1: 432-433 351 . Also written Renaud Kiercereau. He was born in 1723 probably in Port Louis in Brittany, France. He died in St. Ferdinand in the Illinois in 1798. 352 . Dr. André Conde, a St. Louis surgeon, was given four lots by Laclede. His daughter married Charles Sanguinet. Primm, Lion of the Valley, 32. 353 . Houck, Spanish Regime, 1: 37-38. 354 . Also written Antoine Bérard. He was born in 1740 in Bordeaux, France and came to St. Louis with Laclede in 1768. He was an educated man. Billon wrote that he died on October 13, 1776, while Houck dated his death as of February 14, 1776. Billon, French and Spanish Dominations , 2:143; Houck, Spanish Regime, 1: 54. 355 . Also written Henri Charpentier and Carpentier. He was an early resident of Ste. Genevieve and a lieutenant in the Militia. Houck, History of Missouri, 1:54. 356 . Benito Vasquez was born in 1738 in Santiago of Compostela , Spain and came as a soldier to St. Louis where he married a Canadian native, named Julie Papin in 1774. Although his son, baptized as Antoine François Vasquez and known as “Baronet,” is included by Janet Lecompte in French Fur Traders and Voyageurs in the American West, 302-314, his activities are not recorded in this study as he probably never had French citizenship, being born in St. Louis on September 11, 1783. However his mother was French and he married a French woman, Emilie Faustin, dit Parent, daughter of François Faustin and Rosalie Kiercereau. His two daughters, Rosalie and Amelina married respectively a Mr. Mignault and Eleanor Blanchard, both of 74 Francisco Vallé,357 Esteban Barre, 358 Pablo Segond,359 Monsieur Menan,360 Diego Forten,361 Monsieur Fago,362 Monsieur Laxroy.363 In the report are also listed the names of the batteaux [boats] in which the pelts were taken to New Orleans and the nature of the furs. They included tanned and raw hides of beaver, bear, wildcat, fox, polecat, wolf, buffalo, marten, and deer; the majority being beaver and deer. It is not possible to know whether those men were traders themselves or if they sent their engagés364 to hunt and trade among the Indians and just financed the expeditions. It is also not mentioned among which tribe the pelts were gathered. However it confirmed the fact that the great majority of the men involved in the fur trade were of French ancestry. The second report for the year 1773, dated January 1, 1774 gives the following names of traders who took their furs to St. Louis: Monsieur Rocheblave365, Don Francisco Vallé366, Don Enrique Carpentier, Alexander Pin, Luis Bolcher,367 Pablo Segond,368 Monsieur Conaud,369 Monsieur Fagot,370 Monsieur Jardinier, Benito Vazquez. Out of the ten traders, nine were French and one was Spanish. The names appearing in the third report, for the year 1774, dated January 8 French descent. The correspondence between Baronet and his wife was conducted in French. According to Janet Lecompte, Baronet had been raised to be “a very good Frenchman.” Ibid., 4. Lecompte, “Don Benitez Vasquez in Early St. Louis.” 357 . The original name of the family was La Vallée when Pierre La Vallée came from Rouen, France to Canada in about 1645. The name was abbreviated to Vallé. Francisco (François) Vallé was born in Beaufort, Quebec on January 2, 1716 and in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri in 1849. He succeeded Rocheblave as commandant of the post in Ste. Genevieve. He was the first commandant of St. Louis under Spain and the wealthiest man in western Illinois. He died on September, 1783 in Ste. Genevieve. Houck, History of Missouri, 2: 349-350; Houck, Spanish Regime, 1:54n4; Dalton, “Genealogy of the Vallée Family,” 54-83. 358 . Also written Etienne Barre. 359 . Also written Paul Secon and Second. 360 . Probably the trader named Ménard whom d’Eglise found among the Mandan where he had been living since 1777. 361 . Also written Jacques Fortain or Fortin. 362 . Probably Daniel Fagot, merchant and trader from Ste. Genevieve. Houck, Spanish Regime, 1:54n7. 363 . Probably Antoine Lacroix, official trader for the Kansa Indians in 1777. 364 . Persons under contract hired for a specific work. 365 . Philippe de Rocheblave had been a resident in the Illinois country in the service of the French since 1760. He commanded the Ste. Genevieve post from 1776 to 1779. Ibid., 1: 89n1. 366 . François Vallé, also listed in the first report. 367 . Probably Louis Boucher who lived in Ste. Genevieve in 1769. Ibid.:1:89n 3. 368 . Listed in the first report. 369 . Probably Dr. Joseph Connard. Houck, History of Missouri, 2:27n 61; Billon, French and Spanish Dominations, 1:137. 370 . Listed in first report. 75 1775, 371 are: Monsieur Dupré,372 Monsieur Arlait,373 Luis Boldu,374 Trompe Riquar,375 Don Daniel Fagot,376 Pablo Segont,377 Silvestre Labady,378 Monsieur Jardinier,379 Monsieur Esteban Barre, 380Monsieur Joseph Conand,381and Luis Perrault.382 The records of Lieutenant Governor Pedro Piernas in 1775 showed that the value of the goods traded with the Kansa Indians corresponded to the sale price of 7,500 pounds of furs, and for the Pawnees to 3,000 pounds. The report however does not specify which traders were involved in the collection of the peltries, with which tribes the traders dealt, nor if the men listed in the report were personally in contact with the Indians in Kansas.383 The fourth report, dated December 10, 1775,384 lists the following names: Juan Pertie,385Juan Hege,386 Pedro Nitar,387 Luis Delorie, 388Monsieur Dupré,389 Pedro 371 . Houck, Spanish Regime, 1:93. 372 . Probably the Louis Dupré who moved from Kaskaskia to St. Louis. Ibid., 1:95n 3. 373 . Also named Alary, Alarie, Alaire. Ibid.,1: 95n4. A Baptiste Allar lived in Bellefontaine in 1795. Houck, History of Missouri, 2:69n 2. 374 . Also written Beleduc. He was originally from Kaskaskia, then moved to Ste. Genevieve where he was an appraiser in 1779 and owned the Saline salt work. Houck, History of Missouri, 1:344; 2: 52. He received a share of the trade with the Great Osages on April 24, 1794. Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1:210. 375 . Also written Tropez Recar and Trope Ricard. He lived in Ste. Genevieve and died in 1787, aged 36. Houck, Spanish Regime 1:105n22. 376 . Listed in the first and second reports. 377 . Listed in the first and second reports. 378 . Also written Sylvestre Labadie. A native of Vigonia, near Tarbes in the French Pyrenees, he was born about 1741. He arrived in St. Louis in 1769 and married Pélagie Chouteau , second daughter of Madame Chouteau , also sister of Auguste and half-sister of Pierre Chouteau. He traded with the Osage Indians in 1777 and received a share of the trade with the Loups in 1794. In 1809 he was a member of the Missouri Fur Company. He died in St. Louis on June 19, 1794. Barry, Beginning of the West, 31; Houck, Spanish Regime, 1:95n5; Houck, History of Missouri, 1:53; Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1: 21; Billon, French and Spanish Dominations, 1: 260-261. 379 . Listed in the second report. 380 . Listed in the first report. 381 . Listed in the second report. 382 . Louis Perrault was one of the principal early merchants in St. Louis He died there on May 10, 1783. Houck, Spanish Regime, 1:95n 6. 383 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 30-31. 384 . Houck, Spanish Regime, 1:101. 385 . Probably Pertuis or Pertuis. Ibid., 1:103n1. 386 . Should read Jean Huge. A native of France who lived in St. Louis. Ibid., 1:103n 2. 387 . Probably Pierre Guitard, nicknamed La Grandeur. Ibid., 1: 103n3. 388 . Probably Louis de Lorier, or Delorie, a native of the province of Bas-Poitou, in the diocese of Luçon, France. Ibid., 103n4. 389 . Also in the third report. 76 Pome,390 Benito Vasquez, Don Francisco Vallé, Jr.,391 Luis Bolduc, 392Auguste Chouteau393, Monsieur Conan(d),394 Monsieur Perrault,395 Joseph Segon,396 Antoine Marcu397, Antonio Reinal. 398 The report of 1775 does not list any fox, polecat or wolf among the furs loaded on barges for delivery to New Orleans. The report of Don Francisco Cruzat, lieutenant governor of Upper Mississippi, dated November 28, 1777,399 gives the names as well as the quantity and quality of the furs they shipped. In this report the tribes assigned to each trader are specifically noted. Antonio Hubert and Luis Lacroix were given licenses to trade with the Canzes 400and Don Eugenio Pore, 401 with the Republica (Pawnees). Other Indians were noted in the report: the Big Osages, the Little Osages, the Missouris, the Mahas, the 390 . Probably Pierre Pomet. Ibid., 1:105n5. 391 . Son of Francisco Vallé. See the first and second reports. François Vallé, Jr. was born on December 8, 1779 in Ste. Genevieve when his father was commanding the fort. He was sent to Newark, New Jersey for his schooling and returned to St. Louis in 1802 or 1803. He joined Pierre Ménard and traded in the Upper Missouri region where he stayed six years. He died in 1841. Dalton, “Notes on the Genealogy of the Vallee Family,” 54-82; James, Three Years among the Indians and Mexicans, 33 n23. 392 . See third report. 393 . René Auguste Chouteau, known as Auguste Chouteau , son of René Chouteau and Marie Thérèse, was baptized in New Orleans on September 7, 1749. At a young age, he became clerk and assistant of Pierre Laclède who was living with his mother. At the request of Laclède, he left New Orleans on August 3, 1763, as mentioned earlier, with a party of thirty men to establish the headquarters of their trading activities in the site that was to become St. Louis. He is therefore credited as being the founder of that city. With his half brother, Pierre Chouteau, he received the monopoly for the trade with the Osages from 1794 to 1804. After the Louisiana Purchase, he was appointed one of the three judges for the first territorial court and in 1818 he became a colonel in the St. Louis Militia. In 1809 when St. Louis was incorporated, he was chosen as the chairman of its board of trustees. In 1815 he served as federal commissioner in negotiating treaties with the Sioux, Iowas, Sauks, Foxes and Osages. He developed many interests outside the fur trade. He helped to secure a charter for the Bank of Missouri and was its first president in 1816. He died on Feb 24, 1829, the wealthiest citizen in St. Louis and the largest landholder Houck, History of Missouri, 2: 14n12; Loomis- Nasatir, Pedro Vial, 62n80. 394 . See second and third reports 395 . See third report. 396 . He was a merchant in St. Louis and probably a brother of Paul Segond. See first and third reports. Houck, Spanish Regime, 1:104n7. 397 . A Pierre Marcou resided in Ste. Genevieve in 1763. Ibid. 1: 104n7. 398 . Dr. Antoine Reynal was a surgeon who resided in Ste. Genevieve at that time. He was a wealthy landowner who owned 12,000 acres of land around St. Andrew. From Ste. Genevieve he moved to St. Louis, then to St. Charles. Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 2:588; Houck, Spanish Regime, 1: 104n 8; Billon, French and Spanish Dominations, 1:392. 399 . Houck, Spanish Regime, 1:139. 400 . Both Frenchmen. Antoine Hubert may be the “Habert” listed in the petition of January 15, 1769 and Louis Lacroix is probably the “Monsieur Laxroy” mentioned in the first report. 401 . Eugene Pore (also written Poree and Pourre)), a French native, nicknamed “Beau soleil” was a merchant and one of the original settlers in St. Louis. In 1780 he was captain of the Second Company and in January 1781, led an expedition composed of sixty-six Frenchmen and Spaniards and sixty Indians, six hundred miles north into the wilderness. He captured and burned the British fort of St. Joseph in Michigan, and brought back the British flag to St. Louis. When carrying goods down the Mississippi, he was captured by river pirates in March 1782. He died in St. Louis, April 30, 1783. Primm, “History of Saint-Louis,” 74n 1; 4: 199n28; Houck, Spanish Regime, 1: 183, 211-224; Houck, History of Missouri, 2:44-46. 77 Panis, the Hotos (Otoes), all living outside Kansas at that time. Antoine Hubert is listed as having taken with him merchandise to be traded of a value corresponding to 4,000 pounds of furs. Both Lacroix and Poree took goods corresponding to 3,200 pounds of fur. Lacroix is reported as having gathered one pack of otter, one hundred and fifty packs of tanned deerskin, seven packs of beaver and three packs of buckskins. Nothing is shown in the report about the furs gathered by Hubert however mention is made that “the fur of the Republic (Pawnees) has not been able to be brought down, as the river of the Canzes has no water.” 402 In 1784, the trade with the Kansa Indians was allotted to the Sarpy brothers403 and Governor Esteban Rodrigo Miro recommended that the trade with the Pawnees be given to Francisco Marmillon404 and, in case of his death, to Claudio Mercier.405 From a letter written by François de Volsay, it appears that in 1786 the trade with the Kansa Indians was reserved for Auguste Chouteau but on August 32, 1790, Manuel Perez, lieutenant governor of the Illinois, wrote to Governor Miro that he was keeping one half of the Kansa trade for himself while granting the second half to Auguste Chouteau.406 In the same correspondence, he noted that the trade with the Pawnee Republic was to go to Juan Bartelemy.407 Pierre Chouteau408 must have been sent by his older brother Auguste to reside among the Kansa nation as a letter from Perez to Miro, dated April 5, 1791, reads: “Mr. Cadet Chouteau, who was trading with the Kansas nation and had just arrived, informed me that he had spent the winter very tranquilly with the nation.” 409 In a letter to Miro, dated September 20, 1791, Perez 402 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 31; Houck, Spanish Regime, 1:40. 403 . Jean Baptiste Sarpy, the emigrant who was born in Fumel, near Agen, France came to Louisiana in 1766. He died in 1799. His sons, Sylvestre Delor, Grégoire Bérald (also known as Béral), Jean Baptiste Lille and Pierre St. Marc were all involved in the fur trade out of St. Louis. Billon, 1: 441; Houck, Spanish Regime, 1:200n 10. 404 . François Marmillon was a merchant who received a grant of land on the Mississippi. Houck, History of Missouri, 2:54. 405 . Claude Mercier was born in 1726 in Lavisière in the province of Dauphiné in France and came from New Orleans to St. Louis in 1785. He died January 20, 1787. Billon, French and Spanish Dominations, 1:385, 392; Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1:72. 406 . “Although you have permitted me to take one of the best nations for myself, I have not wished to take more than one-half of the Kans (sic).” Ibid., 1:134-135. 407 . Also written Jean Barthélémy. Ibid., 1:135. 408 . Jean Pierre Chouteau, known as Pierre Chouteau , was born in New Orleans on October 10, 1758, son of Marie Thérèse (Bourgeois) Chouteau and Pierre Laclede. He bore the surname Chouteau as his parents were not married at the time of his birth. From 1794 to 1802, he held the monopoly of the Osage trade with his half-brother, Auguste Chouteau. When Manuel Lisa was given the Osage trade in 1802, he persuaded the Osage Indians to move to the vicinity of the “Three Forks of the Arkansas”, outside Lisa’s jurisdiction. In 1806 he was appointed by President Jefferson as United States Agent for the Osages when the government terminated Lisa’s monopoly. He became a major of the territorial militia. On March 7, 1809, he joined his former rival, Lisa, William Clark and others to form the Missouri Fur Company and commanded its expedition up the Missouri to the Mandans. Later he supervised the management of several trading posts among the Indian tribes, making frequent trips to visit them until his retirement in 1829. He died on June 10, 1849, a leading citizen in St. Louis and a large landowner. 409 . Ibid., 1: 143, 145. 78 stated that he had given the trade of the Kansa nation to Picote de Belestre for two successive years.410 Earlier in the year, on April 5, 1791, Perez had complained to Governor Miro that Englishmen were trading with the Mahas and the Panis. The situation worsened during the following year as Zénon Trudeau, lieutenant governor of the Illinois wrote on November 12, 1792 to Baron de Carondelet, governor of Louisiana that the French were unable to trade with the Indians who were under their jurisdiction.411 On the next day, on the 13th of November, he forwarded to the governor “a list of the subjects to whom during the year, licenses have been given for the commerce of the Indians of the Jurisdiction of Illinois with a statement of the nationality and country of each one and the number of persons employed by them. “412 The list reads: Date of license Subjects Nationality Country Number of employees August 1, 1792 Basilio Vasseur 413 French Illinois 4 Idem Juan Beaudoin414 French Illinois 4 Idem Joseph Hébert415 French Illinois 4 August 2 Don Pedro Montardy 416 French Languedoc 9 Idem Bapta Mongrain 417 French Illinois 4 410 . Picote de Bélestre was a lieutenant in the St. Louis Militia. In 1785 he had asked for the trade with the Kansa and Maha nations but was given the trade with the Osages and the Mahas. Houck, History of Missouri, 1:17; Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark., 1:72, 146n 2. 411 . Ibid., 1:162. 412 . Ibid., 1:162. 413 . Also written Basile Vasseur. He is the trader whom Vial encountered when he was detained by the Kansa Indians on his return from Santa Fe. 414 . Also written Jean Baudoin. He was recorded as having delivered a medal and a flag to a Pawnee chief. 415 . Joseph Hébert was also called Lecompte. Houck, History of Missouri, 2:381n 59. 416 . Also written Pierre Montardy. He was a native of Montauban in southern France and a second lieutenant in the First Company of the St. Louis Militia under Auguste Chouteau in 1780. Houck, Spanish Regime, 1:183n 2. In 1790 (?), he may have met Jacques d’Eglise at the Maha village. Barry, Beginning of the West, 35, 59. On August 24, 1807, he was granted a license to trade with the Kansa Indians. Marshall, Frederick Bates, 1: 202, 204; 2:31-33. 417 . Also written Jean Baptiste Mongrain. He may have been involved with the Osage trade as he was hired as an interpreter for that nation from April, 1827 to 1838, first at the Osage Agency, then at the Osage Subagency on the Neosho in Kansas. Barry, Beginning of the West, 138, 221, 245, 284, 300, 318, 340, 362, 411. He resided in the Osage village of Manrinhabotso (The Village-that-Scrapes-the-Sky) as its chief. Tixier wrote that Mongrain spoke the Osage and French languages with perfect fluency. He entertained Rev. N. Sayre Harris on April 17, 1844 on the Neosho River. Ibid., 504-505. 79 Idem Antonio Chouteau418 Mestizo Illinois 5 August 8 Juan Meunier419 French Illinois 7 Idem 9 Pedro Quenel 420 French Illinois 6 Idem 29 Estevan de Rouin French Illinois 5 Idem Eugenio Alvarez Spanish Madrid 4 September 19 Joseph Marie 421 French Paris 8 Idem 18 Don Augustin Chouteau422 French New Orleans 14 Idem Don Pedro Chouteau423 French New Orleans 14 September 19 Pedro Duchouquet 424 French Illinois 6 Idem 19 Andres Andréville425 French Canada 7 418 . He must have been the son of one of the Chouteau brothers and an Indian woman. 419 . Also written Jean Baptiste Munier, Bautista Monier and Juan Munie. His name appears often in the chronicles of the Spanish regime. A veteran of the fur trade, he claimed to have made trips on the Missouri for over twenty-six years and to speak the Sioux language “passably”. In his petition of September 1793, he declared that he was the discoverer of the Poncas, located about four hundred leagues from the mouth of the Missouri. “In consideration to the fact that he had carried himself so well,” on September 21, 1793, Governor Carondelet granted him a license to trade with the Poncas for four years, “ which shall run from the beginning of next year, 1794.” His discovery of the Poncas having been challenged by a rival trader, Carondelet threatened him “with the most severe punishment if he relapses into error” and revoked his license on May 25, 1794. Several traders rallied to his support and testified that Meunier was “the first trader who made his way to the Poncas.” Basile Vasseur, Joseph Hébert, Pierre Quenel and Pierre Maryjuy submitted statements to that effect, which all of them, being illiterate, signed with a cross. Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1:194-195, 196, 207, 212-213, 240. Later he was enlisted by Béral Sarpy, Sanguinet and Robidoux as a sutler and saloon keeper. Ibid., 1:245. 420 . Also written Pierre Quenel. He may have been the trader whom Jean Baptiste Truteau was supposed to meet at the mouth of the Kansas River on July 12, 1794. Barry, Beginning of the West, 39. 421 . He may have been the trader who received one share of the trade with the Little Osages. He was probably one of the witnesses at a wedding on the Marais des Cygnes River at the American Fur Company trading post in Linn County, Kansas. Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1: 210; Barry, Beginning of the West, 415. 422 . Also written Auguste Chouteau. 423 . Also written Pierre Chouteau. 424 . Also written Pierre Duchouquette. He was born in 1764 and during part of his life was involved in trading in New Chartres and Kaskaskia, Illinois. He died after August, 1835. Billon, French and Spanish Dominations, 437. 425 . Also written André L’Andréville. A tavern owner and merchant, he claimed four thousand arpents of land but never settled them. He was a member of the “Compagnie des Découvertes” later to be known as the Missouri Company. He may have been given one share of the trade of the Big Osages on April 24, 1794. He 80 Idem 19 Antonio Roy426 French Canada 8 sIdem 26 Louis Bonpart427 French Illinois 6 115 It is not known which tribe was assigned to each of the licensees but it is to be noted that out of seventeen traders, fifteen are of French ancestry, one was a Mestizo (probably part-French) and one Spanish. Out of the one hundred and fifteen employees, one hundred and six were engaged by the French traders. In St. Louis, on April 24, 1794, the lieutenant governor of the Illinois, Zénon Trudeau and some merchants drew lots for portions of trade with the Indians. Benito Vasquez and three Frenchmen, Bernal Sarpy, 428 Laurent Durocher, 429 and Zénon Trudeau were each allotted one share of the Kansas trade while Auguste Chouteau was granted the trade of the Pawnee Republic. On March 4, 1795, Zénon Trudeau reported an incident that happened in Kansas 430 On the way back to St. Louis from the Kansa nation, Benito (Benoit) and Quenache de Rouin “were pillaged and beaten by a party of one hundred and sixty Iowas, who have carried two of their engagés to their nation. They left Benito, as well as the other on the seventh of the month of January at the entrance of the mouth of the Kansas River, without arms, food, or clothing. “ A few days later, on March 12, 1795, Trudeau reported to Governor Carondelet that “two voitures (boats) of our traders, coming from the Kansas nation, were stopped by one hundred and sixty-four Iowa Indians who were going to war against the same nation. The said traders were pillaged and soundly trashed with blows of sticks. 431 The useuse of the word “our” in Trudeau’s report might indicate that Trudeau still had an interest in the Kansa trade as he had been allotted one of its share in 1794. On May 30, 1795, Trudeau requested Governor Carondelet to send him two large medals, two small medals, and six gorgets to be given to ten Kansa chiefs. He listed their names as “Le Petit Chef” (The Small Chief), “Les Grands Chevaux” (the Large Horses), “Le Batard” (The Bastard), “Le Ceur qui Brule”432 (The Burning Heart), is listed as an ensign in the first Regiment in St. Louis on July 11, 1811. Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1:193-194, 210, 645; Houck, History of Missouri, 2:101n 45; Marshall, Frederick Bates, 2:26 426 . Also written Antoine Roy. He was a member of the “Compagnie des Découvertes …” He may have been given one share of the trade with the Little Osages on April 24, 1794. He was a resident of Carondelet in 1800. Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1:194, 210; Houck, History of Missouri, 2:65n 134. 427 . Also written Louis Bonpare. He was a member of the” Compagnie des Découvertes . ..” Ibid.,1:194. 428 . Son of Jean Baptiste Sarpy. Also called Grégoire and Bernald. See above. 429 . Laurent Durocher was born in Canada in 1749 and arrived in St. Louis I 1778. He ascended the Missouri with Jacques d’Eglise in 1803 or 1804, then on his own visited the Pawnee Republic before continuing to Santa Fe across Kansas. 430 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 41; Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1:329-330. 431 . Ibid., 1: 318. 432 . It should read “Le Coeur Qui Brule”. 81 “Le Petit Maigre” (The Small Thin One), “Le Couteau” (The Knife), “Le Gauche” (The Left-Handed), “Le Gendre du Coupique”433 (The Son-in–Law of the One with Pock Marks on his Neck), “Le Foulier Monille” 434(The Wet Shoe), “Le Gendre de la Butte” (The Son-in-Law of the Butte).”435 The fact that Kansa chiefs were given French names reinforces the fact that the French had been associated with that tribe for a long time. Bourgmont’s Journal stated in 1724 that the Kansa Indians were already “friends and allies” of the French. From 1795, Antoine Hubert, Louis Lacroix, the Sarpy brothers, and Picote de Belestre had commercial dealings with the Kansa Indians François Derouin 436 may have visited the Kansa Indians as he testified on May 14, 1797 that some time after leaving St. Louis on May 24, 1796 when he was on his way to the Octotacta nation (Oto), he encountered some difficulty with the Kansa Indians.437 From 1798 and for a few years after, the Spanish authorities returned the trade of the Kansa Indians to the Sarpy family. Manuel Gayoso de Lemos, Governor of Louisiana wrote to Zénon Trudeau on April 16, 1798: With the desire to make the Sarpy family see the respect andesteem which the government had for it, I have promised to take care of it, supplying to him (Seral Sarpy) the trade of the Kansas nation… you will give him a license in the customary terms, because of the promise I have given to him to serve him.438 The license was confirmed for the duration of one year in a letter written by Gayoso to Trudeau on July 9, 1798.439 The following year on May 16, the governor wrote to Charles du Hault de Lassus that “he had offered the Senores Sarpy the continuation of the present year to the branch of trade which they enjoyed last year” 440 and De Lassus forwarded evidence of the assignment to Don Seral Sarpy 441on October 28, 1799.442 During the second half of the eighteenth century when the fur trade with the Indians living in Kansas was regulated by the authorities in St. Louis, the commerce with the Kansa and Pawnee Indians was in the hands of Frenchmen as has been revealed by the official reports of that period. Nothing is known of the engagés who were employed by the licensees appointed by the Spanish officials or the countless coureurs des bois who continued to enter Indian lands without licenses or congés. 433 . It should read “Le Gendre du Cou Piqué”. 434 . It probably should read “Le Soulier Mouillé.” 435 . Ibid., 1: 327. 436 . François Derouin may have been a relative of Benoit and Quenache de Rouin who were attacked by the Iowas in January 1795 on their way back from the Kansa nation. 437 . Ibid., 1: 109; 2: 516-517. 438 . Ibid., 2:556. 439 . Ibid., 2: 568-569, 590. 440 . Ibid., 2: 597. 441 . Béral Sarpy. 442 . Ibid., 2: 605. 82 VIAL After France ceded Louisiana to Spain in 1763, the Spanish authorities in New Mexico did not object any longer to commercial relations with the former French colony, as they were both by then under the same domination. On the contrary they welcomed the opportunity to purchase goods of better quality at a saving of forty per cent in cost and sell them for a large profit to the residents of Santa Fe who were in dire need of supplies, which in the past they had only been able to secure from Mexico City. They commissioned Pierre Vial,443 a Frenchman living in New Santa Fe to travel to St. Louis to buy much needed merchandise. Pierre Vial was born in Lyon, France in about 1746. The chronicles kept in the Spanish archives indicate his presence in widely separated areas, from Canada to Louisiana and New Mexico. From the map he drew in 1787, it appears that he had visited the upper Missouri region, probably coming down from Canada.444 He lived with the Comanches for several years after they took him captive.445 In 1779 he was among the Taovayas on the Red River, selling rifles to the Indians and repairing them. Vial was first employed by the Spanish Crown when he was asked to explore a route between San Antonio and Santa Fe in 1786. Leaving San Antonio on October 4, 1786, he reached Santa Fe on March 26, 1787. After returning to Texas, he set out again for Santa Fe on June 25, 1789, where he arrived less than two months later. He is the first known white man to travel between those two places. In the early 1790s, the Spanish government, anxious to open a route between Santa Fe and St. Louis gave Vial, by then an experienced traveler, the responsibility to accomplish that feat.446 Before Vial departed, Fernando de la Concha, governor of New Mexico, gave him a letter addressed to the Commandant in St. Louis, which reads: Pedro Vial, who by order of his Excellency, the Viceroy of New Mexico, has been chosen to open communication from this province under my charge to the other settlements of the King in this America, is leaving this very day to explore the communication to Illinois, [which is} a dependency of the government of Louisiana. He goes with only two persons of this country, and according to the knowledge that he has of the barbaric nations that lie between[the two points], and the distance to the said point, it [seems] likely that he will be in the Fort of Saint- Louis, under the charge of your Excellency, sometime during the coming month of June. 447 443 . Called Pedro Vial by the Spaniards. His nickname was “Manitou”. Loomis and Nasatir, Pedro Vial, 415, n21; Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1:365. 444 . Loomis and Nasatir, Pedro Vial, 380-386. 445 . Ibid., 265. 446 . The Marques de Casa Calvo, Governor of Louisiana, writing to the Prince of Peace (Godoy) in Spain on September 30, 1804, refers to Vial as being a voyageur of the greatest knowledge and experience”. Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 2: li, 756. 447 . Letter dated May 21, 1792, Loomis and Nasatir, Pedro Vial, 369-370. 83 Vial was asked to keep a detailed diary, entering distances traveled, rivers, mountains and tribes encountered along the way. He was allowed to write it in French as he did not possess enough knowledge of Castilian to enable him to make it sufficiently clear in that language.448 The diary starts on May 21, 1792 and ends on October 1792.449 The notations are vague and it is impossible to know accurately the route he took upon leaving Santa Fe. It appears that he first traveled through New Mexico and Oklahoma. On June 27, he wrote that he and his companions “continued to march to the north across spacious lands to the Napestle (Arkansas) River, where they made camp for the night.”450 On the 29th, they traveled along the river, which runs east northeast. Suddenly they were stopped by Indians who identified themselves as Kansa, took their horses and equipment, cut their clothes with knives, leaving them naked. The Indians threatened their lives but they were saved by an Indian who had been “a servant in the village of St. Louis in the Illinois, who spoke very good French.” They were kept naked in the encampment until August 16 when they set out for the Kansa village with the Indians. They traveled for ten days, covering fifty leagues in a northeasterly course across broad plains. On the 25th they reached the village, 451 located on the banks of the Kansas River where they remained until September 16. Fortunately a Frenchman arrived with a pirogue loaded with various kinds of merchandise. Vial wrote: He supplied both me and my companions with clothing to dress ourselves, a pound of vermilion [worth] five pesos of silver, four pesos worth of tobacco, four blankets and one ell of cloth, which will be settled for with the commandant on his return, as well as two pounds of powder, four pounds of balls, and a musket worth ten pesos.452 On the 16th, Vial’s diary continues: We set out from the village of the Kansas in search of the Missouri River, embarking in a pirogue belonging to the trader from St. Louis, traveling by the Kansas River to its junction with the Missouri, which distance is one hundred and twenty leagues, inhabited on either shore. After eight days, we entered the Missouri.453 They arrived in St. Louis on October 3, 1792, after that harrowing experience at the hands of the Kansa Indians. According to Vial, they had traveled four hundred and fifty leagues in eighty-three days. He stated that he could have covered the 448 . Ibid., 372. 449 . Ibid., 372-380. 450 . Ibid., 376. “They were still in Kansas to the southwest of the great bend of the Arkansas.” Barry, Beginning of the West, 36. 451 . They were probably two miles east of Manhattan, Riley County. Ibid., 36. 452 . Loomis and Nasatir, Pedro Vial, 378-379. 453 . Ibid., 379. 84 distance between Santa Fe and St. Louis in “a good twenty-five day march” if he had not been retained by the Kansa Indians.454 Vial spent the winter in St. Louis upon the advice of Trudeau who thought “it [was] not the season to undertake a return to Santa Fe”. He set out in a pirogue on June 14, 1793 with the mission to arrange a peace agreement between the Panis and the Comanches, whom he called the Laytanes. Having been well supplied by the commandant, he left with four oarsmen and two companions. 455 They ascended the Missouri for one hundred and sixty leagues, traveling slowly “because of the strong currents that resulted from the rise of the river.” They arrived at the Little Nemaha River, near Nemaha in Nebraska on August 24 and stayed there until September 11, waiting for the Pawnee Republica Indians who were to guide them to their village. On the 12th they started with them, taking a route across a large prairie in a southwesterly direction. They continued in a southerly course, probably crossing the North Fork of the Big Nemaha River. On the 15th, they changed to a westerly direction, “marching across plains and good lands” and on the 17th took a siesta on the bank of a little stream that flows into the Kansas River.456 On the 18th they stopped for a nap on an arm of the Kansas River.457 On the 19th, they “saw a hill of great height which the Indians call “Blue Hill”458 and “slept on the banks of a small stream that flows into the Kansas River.” 459 On September 20, they arrived at the Pawnee village, probably on the Smoky Hill River near Abilene. Following the instructions given by the governor of New Mexico, Vial recorded the information he gathered from the Pawnees about the location of the tribes living near them. He noted that the villages of the Kansas were thirty leagues away from the Pawnees; the Otoes, fifty leagues, on the banks of the Platte River, and the Osages at a distance of sixty leagues to the east, on the river that bears their name. The Pawnees’ allies were the Maha, Otoe and Kansa nations, totaling one thousand one hundred members. While there were only three hundred warriors in the Pawnee village he was visiting,460 he was told that one thousand more Pawnee warriors lived in villages located at a distance of more or less twenty leagues, making it a total of thirteen hundred men for the entire nation. The Pawnees’ enemies were the Osages with one thousand warriors, the Taovayas with about four hundred, and the Comanches with a countless number. Before leaving, the Pawnee chief assured Vial that the Spaniards could “go and come when they please” through his territory and that the Pawnee chiefs would “go on to the Comanches to make peace, and that there would be no more war.” 461 With those welcome assurances and after regaling the Pawnees with various gifts, they left on October 4 with the ten horses they had bought and traveled on a 454 . Ibid., 390. 455 . The diary of his return covers the period between June 14, 1793 and November 16, 1793. Ibid., 397- 405; Barry, Beginning of the West, 37-38. 456 . Probably the Delaware River. By then they were well inside Kansas. 457 . Probably the Vermillion River. 458 . Mount Ephraim (1260 feet), near Westmoreland in Pottawatomie County. 459 . Probably the Big Blue River. 460 . The village was probably situated near Abilene, Dickinson County. Ibid., 38. 461 . Loomis and Nasatir, Pedro Vial, 401. 85 southwesterly direction. On the 14th they reached the Arkansas River.462 According to Vial, they had traveled sixty-six and one half leagues between the Pawnee village and the Arkansas River. From there they marched toward the Canadian River in Oklahoma, then to Santa Fe where they arrived on November 15. Vial said that they had covered four hundred eighty and one half leagues from their departure in St. Louis to Santa Fe. Information is lacking on Vial’s movements after November 16, 1793 until he was sent back to the Pawnee nation. Zénon Trudeau’s letter to Governor Carondelet, dated July 14, 1795 gives an account of Vial’s second peace mission: The one named Pedro Vial who two years ago was commissioned by the governor of Santa Fe to come to these establishments of Illinois arrived this year (with four men who accompanied him) as far as the Pawnee nation (commonly called Republic), which has its village on the banks of the Kansas River. There he met our traders [that is, traders from St. Louis], with whom he remained fifteen days. He said that he came in order that the said Pawnee nation might make peace with the Laytanes [Comanches]. He delivered a medal, a complete suit of clothes, and other things to the Chief. He arranged for peace to be made as he desired, and for our traders to be conducted as far as the Comanche nation.463 Contemporary documents do not cast a light on what Vial did after his visit to the Pawnees but a letter written on November 18, 1797 by Fernando Chacon, governor of New Mexico states that “Don Pedro Vial, of the French nation, domiciled in this province as interpreter . . . deserted with a servant to the Gentile nations, and on passing through the Comanche nation, bartered a musket and some burrows he had.” 464 Consequently his home in Santa Fe and his other possessions were seized and sold by the Spanish authorities to pay for the debts he had left behind.465 In 1799 he is found as a resident of Portage des Sioux and in 1801 in Florissant, both localities near St. Louis. The correspondence during these two years between François Vallé, commandant in Ste. Genevieve and Charles de Hault de Lassus 466 indicates that Vial was working in the mining district of Ste. Genevieve, near Mine ā Breton.467 He was still in the Illinois on July 26, 1801 but shortly after he returned to Santa Fe and petitioned for the back pay that was owed him. The Spanish 462 . Ibid., 401n 73. They were probably west of Dodge City in Ford County. Barry, Beginning of the West, 38 463 . Loomis and Nasatir, Pedro Vial, 413; Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1:329-330. 464 . Loomis and Nasatir, Pedro Vial, 414-415. 465 . Ibid., 415. 466 . Charles de Hault de Lassus, born in April 1764 in Bouchaine, near Lille, France, left for Louisiana during the French Revolution. Billon, French and Spanish Dominations, 256, 385. 467 . Nasatir, “More on Pedro Vial in Upper Louisiana,” in McDermott, Spanish in the Mississippi Valley, 100-119. 86 officials, remembering his past services and his “merit in having brought about the pacification of the Comanche nation,” acquiesced to his demand. In 1804 General Nemesio Salcedo, commandant of the Interior Provinces became alarmed when he learned that Meriwether Lewis was in Illinois with “the solicitation of penetrating the Missouri River in order to make discoveries and observations.”468 He wrote to the governor recommending that Indians be contacted “as far as the right bank of the Missouri River” to find out if there were “any traces or other vestiges of the expedition of Merry (Meriwether Lewis) and which direction it had taken.” In the same letter, Salcedo suggested that Vial be selected for the mission as “he is the most experienced in these territories.” He concluded: “Nothing would be more useful than the apprehension of Merry, and even though I realize it is not an easy undertaking, chance might proportion things in such a way it might be successful . . .” On October 13, 1805, Joaquin del Real Alencaster, by then governor of New Mexico, instructed Vial and his interpreter José Chalvet to go to “the head of the Kansas River between it and the Arkansas” in search of the Pawnees to assure them that an agreement and commerce with the Spaniards present no risk to them, and that the idea of the Anglo-Americans can be no other than to destroy them in a few years after obtaining their friendship in order to make themselves owners of said river and of the lands of both sides, which ideas they may not fear from the Spaniards, for in the many years that this province of New Mexico has had allied tribes, it has taken the lands of none, nor has it failed them in the slightest thing.469 Vial was instructed to submit a detailed diary of his travels.470 He was to stay among the Indians until the summer of 1806 and use any means necessary to succeed in his mission. On October 14, 1805, Vial left with fifty men and four Frenchmen. They were Lorenzo (Laurent) Durocher, Juan Baptiste (Jean Baptiste) Lalande, Dionisio (Dionèse) Lacroix and Andres (André) Terrien.471 Vial chose a different route from the one he had taken previously. He traveled through northern New Mexico and on November 2, when he reached the Rio de las Animas,472 within seventy five miles from the Colorado-Kansas line, his party was attacked by about one hundred Indians whom Vial was unable to identify. After fighting for three hours, the Indians, having pillaged their encampment and taken most of their equipment and provisions, he and his men decided to gather what was left and return to Santa Fe 468 . Letter dated, May 3, 1804. Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 2:729, 734-735. 469 . Loomis and Nasatir, Pedro Vial, 431-432. 470 . The diary covers the period between October 14 and November 19, 1805. Ibid., 433-438. 471 . Also written Terien. . André Terien belonged to a family who came from Prignac, France. Born near Montreal, Canada, he was educated in Quebec. He moved to the Illinois, then to Missouri. He was an outstanding interpreter as he knew the Arikara, Sioux, English and French languages. He commanded the second expedition of the Missouri Company in the spring of 1804. Ibid., 107. 472 . Purgatory River in southeastern Colorado. 87 as he was aware that “one cannot travel on these roads with so few men nor with so few munitions.”473 Although Governor Alencaster reported that the Frenchmen acquitted themselves with valor, their loyalty was questioned as Durocher had expressed some resentment toward the Spaniards on account of the low pay he was receiving. He was arguing that his salary as an interpreter was only ten pesos a month, while the Americans paid thirty pesos for similar services.474 The Spanish governor suspected that the attack had been conducted by Indians who either had been “well regaled by the Americans with presents furnished by the government or [were] in close relations with the merchants of the same nation or with Frenchmen who [were] living among them.”475 The governor stated in his report of the incident, dated November 20, 1805, that the attack may have been perpetrated by Indians “incited by the Americans to impede our [making] peace, trade, and commerce” among the Indians.476 As early as December 1805, Salcedo planned a new expedition to the Pawnee villages. It was approved on January 11, 1806 and scheduled for the spring.477 Vial set out on April 24 but by May 24, he was back in Santa Fe. There is no account why the expedition failed. The men may have deserted, afraid of being attacked by the Indians. No diary was kept of the short-lived attempt to curb the American influence on the Indians. It is not known if Vial was disappointed with the treatment the Spaniards reserved to him upon his return but on September 28, 1808, he was again living among the Americans in St. Louis when Meriwether Lewis, governor of the Louisiana Territory issued a license permitting him to hunt on the Missouri River. Later he returned to New Mexico where he made his will on October 2, 1814. After serving many years for the Spanish Crown, he still considered himself to be a Frenchman, as his will began with the words:” I, Pedro Vial, a Frenchman. . .”478 He must have died shortly after the accounting of his possessions, dated August 1815.479 Pierre Vial was a trailblazer, being the first known white man who succeeded in making the overland trip across Kansas several times in both directions. In spite of his daring feat, many years elapsed before any other traveler followed in his footsteps. By the Treaty of San Ildefonso of 1800, Spain transferred back the ownership of Louisiana to France; however, that recession brought no change in the administration as France was slow in taking possession of its former colony. Trade licenses were issued in the same manner as previously. On April 26, 1800, Grégoire Sarpy and [J. P.] Cabanné 480 wrote a long report to Casa Calvo, military governor of Louisiana and West Florida, reporting that “the post of Kansas, which we have been 473 . Ibid., 436-437. 474 . Ibid., 456. 475 . Ibid., 438. 476 . Ibid., 439. 477 . Ibid., 443-444. 478 . Ibid. 536. “Vial and Jarvet (Chalvet) are both Frenchmen not naturalized though in Spanish employment.” Bloom, “Death of Jacques d’Eglise”, 371n9. 479 . Loomis and Nasatir, Pedro Vial, 536-540. 480 . Jean Pierre Cabanné, born in Pau, province of Béarn in the French Pyrenees, arrived in St. Louis in 1798 as a young man. He died there on July 27, 1841. Billon, French and Spanish Dominations, 1: 473. 88 exploiting for two years is neighbored by the Panis nation, a nation for a long time enemy and always at war with the Kansas.” The traders offered to mediate between the two nations “to make for them a solid peace.” In consideration for their promise to solve the problems opposing the tribes, they petitioned for exclusive trade with the Kansas and the Pawnees.481 De Lassus supported their request in these terms: It seems to me that the solicitor is worthy of the favor . . . by virtue of the good and prudent manner which he had proven to me, in which he has conducted himself and managed in the two years in which he has held the exclusive trade to the Kansas nation.482 On November 29, 1800, de Lassus wrote again to Casa Calvo recommending that Don Gregorio (Grégoire) Sarpy be given the trade of the Kansa nation for the coming year as the Kansa warriors “are arming themselves and he (Sarpy) runs the risk of having very bad trade.” 483 The trade of the Kansas nation and the Panis Republic was granted to Monsieur Bernal (also known as Grégoire) Sarpy on December 4, 1800 and on July 11, 1801, Grégoire Sarpy and [J. P.] Cabanné were awarded exclusive trade privileges with the Kansa and Otoe Indians for two years.484 Reports for the years 1802 and 1803 show no license delivered for the Kansa Indians but Monsieur Chauvin received the license for the Panis trade.485 In addition to the traders whose licenses to trade with the Kansa and Panis Republic nations are recorded in the official reports, many other Frenchmen began adventuring farther and farther up the Missouri in search of new supplies of furs and hoping to reach the Sea of the West. Although navigating up the river presented serious risks, daring Frenchmen ventured up its course as they preferred it to journeying across country. It was the fastest and safest mode of travel and provided a relatively easy way to transport their goods and bring back the furs they collected. Most of the traders being illiterate engagés working for a fur company, few left records of their experiences. Besides the portion of the river on the eastern border of Kansas, between Kansas City and the Kansas-Nebraska border was so well known by the end of the eighteenth century that travelers devoted only vague notations regarding their stay as they camped on the banks of the river or passed by familiar landmarks, their main goal being to reach the upper region of the Missouri. 481 . Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 2: 614-616. 482 . Ibid., 2: 616; Barry, Beginning of the West, 44. 483 . Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 2: 622. 484 . Ibid., 2: 592, 638, 643. 485 . Ibid., 2: 592. Jacques Chauvin, also known as Santiago Chovin, was born in the Illinois country in 1742. He moved to St. Charles prior to 1763. On May 25, 1794, he had been given one share of the Big Osage trade and in 1799 received a tract of land in St. Charles. Billon, French and Spanish Dominations, 456. 89 JACQUES D’EGLISE Jacques d’Eglise 486 is one of the traders whose exploits are remembered. An independent trader who ascended the Missouri several times, he is credited with having discovered the Mandan and Tayones nations. He received a license to hunt in August 1790 from Manuel Perez, lieutenant governor of the Illinois and, after being outfitted by François Robidoux, Sr., proceeded up the Missouri with Joseph Garreau.487 He returned to St. Louis in October 1792 and made an oral report of his journey to Trudeau488 who transmitted it to Governor Carondelet, adding that d’Eglise “was an ignorant man… who hardly knows how to speak his own language.” However d’Eglise was an intrepid trader who had reached “eight villages of a nation about which there was some knowledge under the name of “Mandan”, but to which no one had ever gone in this direction and by this route.” 489 In March (?) 1793, he headed back to the Mandan territory, accompanied by Garreau, each one with a pirogue loaded with articles and the oarsmen necessary for their enterprise.490 Due to the hostility of the Arikaras and the Sioux, they had to stop one hundred leagues below the Mandans. D’Eglise blamed Garreau for the failure of the journey. Garreau remained among the Indians, probably not wanting to face his creditors in St. Louis. The exact date of d’Eglise’s return491 was recorded by Trudeau who wrote on June 8, 1794: “The man named de Leglise, the same person who discovered the Mandans of the Missouri arrived today from his second voyage after an absence of fifteen months.”492 On his third ascent of the Missouri, d’Eglise traveled with five men; that time he was detained by the Arikaras and had to spend the winter in what is now Charles Mix County in South Dakota.493 Two traders, named Fotman 494 and Joncquard, declared that they met d’Eglise in Pawnee territory in the spring of 1795. 495 On July 4, 1795, he was back in St. Louis, having failed for a second time to reach the Mandans.496 Without delay, he was ready to set out for the West as Trudeau wrote: He [d’Eglise] will pass the winter among the Ricaras [Arikaras], and in the spring of the coming year he intends to pass the mountain of the Rock [the Rocky Mountains] and reach the sea. He seems determined 486 . Also written Jacques l’Eglise, Santiago l’Eglise, Santiago de la Iglesia, Santiago d’Yglise, Santiago d’Iglesia. Nasatir, “Jacques d’Eglise on the Upper Missouri ”47-56;. Hafen, ed., Mountain Men and Fur Traders in the Far West, 2:126. 487 . Also written Gareau and Garo. 488 . Trudeau started his letter, dated October 20, 1792 with the words: “The aforesaid Santiago de la Iglesia, a Frenchman, has just arrived .” Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1:160. 489 . Ibid., 1:161. 490 . Report of d’Eglise to Carondelet, June 19, 1794, Ibid., 1:234. 491 . Trudeau to Carondelet, Ibid., 1: 233. 492 . Trudeau to Carondelet, June 8, 1794. Ibid., 1: 233. 493 . Loomis and Nasatir, Pedro Vial, 107. 494 . Fotman was a native of Normandy, France. Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1:330. 495 . Ibid., 1:334. 496 . Trudeau to Carondelet, July 15, 1795. Ibid., 1: 342-343. 90 to make this discovery and, since he is full of courage and ambition, he is capable of so dangerous an undertaking.497 Five days later, Trudeau confirmed d’Eglise’s intentions, writing: “He is tormented with the ambition to discover the sea beyond the Rocky Mountains, which he will undertake next year, by starting out within a week to go to the place where the ice will stop him this winter.498 By May 26, 1797, he must have partially reached his goal as Trudeau wrote that d’Eglise was among the Mandans and that “according to his plans, he should return only after having earned the three thousand piastres promised by the government to the first one who should bring evident marks of having found the said sea.”499 D’Eglise never reached the sea but continued trading as he signed two promissory notes; one500 on July 6, 1802, the second on August 2, 1802, for delivery of “merchandise to trade” on the Missouri. In 1803 or 1804, he departed from St. Louis with Laurent Durocher intending to reach New Mexico. It is known that Durocher stopped at the Pawnee village on the Kansas River but there is no record of the presence of d’Eglise at that location nor of his arrival in Santa Fe with Durocher nor of the route he followed to arrive in Santa Fe at a later date. The last appearance of d’Eglise’s name in the contemporary records is in those of the trial and condemnations of Antonio Carabajal and Mariao Venavides who murdered him in Santa Fe in 1806 and were executed on August 4, 1807.501 Jacques d’Eglise was the first known trader to dare going more than eight hundred leagues up the Missouri and reaching the Mandans.502 He navigated many times along the eastern border of Kansas and probably camped on the banks of that river. It is regrettable that he did not keep a diary of his travels nor made observations on what he saw as he stopped in northeastern Kansas.503 JEAN BAPTISTE TRUTEAU On May 12, 1794, ‘’ La Compagnie du Commerce pour la Découverte des Nations du haut du Missouri,’’ better known as the Missouri Company, was organized by a group of St. Louis merchants. As its name indicates, its purpose was to explore the Upper Missouri region and trade with the Indians upstream while attempting to 497 . Trudeau to Carondelet, July 15, 1795. Ibid., 1: 341-342. 498 . Trudeau to Carondelet, July 20, 1795. Ibid., 1: 344. 499 . Ibid., 2: 520. 500 . Ibid., 2: 703-704. 501 . Loomis and Nasatir, Pedro Vial, 457; Bloom, “Death of Jacques d’Eglise,” 369-379. 502 . Carondelet to Truteau, December 29, 1792. Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1: 163-164. Upon his visit to the Mandans, d’Eglise found a Frenchman, named Ménard, who had been living with the tribe since 1777. Ménard had probably reached the Mandans by coming down from Canada and not by ascending the Missouri. Nasatir, “Jacques d’Eglise on the Upper Missouri,”47-49; Loomis and Nasatir, Pedro Vial, 387n39a. 503 . “The one named Santiago de la Yglesia whom I have called upon several times is so simple and from a province of France of such a peculiar language that nobody can understand it, and moreover, he seems not to have made a single observation.” Trudeau to Carondelet, May 20, 1793. Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1:181. 91 contain the British influence The company’s director was Jacques Clamorgan,504 its members being: Auguste Chouteau, Pierre Chouteau, Jean Papin, Grégoire Sarpy, Jacinto St. Cyr,505 Joseph Robidoux, (Jean) Gabriel Cerré,506 Antoine Roy, and Benito Vasquez, in total a director of unknown nationality, one Spaniard and eight Frenchmen. The creation of the company intensified activities up the Missouri River. Jean Baptiste Truteau,507a well-educated Frenchman, born in Montreal on December 11, 1748, arrived in St. Louis in 1774 to be the first school teacher there. He was engaged for three years by the Missouri Company to command its first expedition to the Mandans. He left St. Louis on June 7, 1794 in a pirogue manned by eight oarsmen. In his Journal,508 he mentions the names and activities of some of his men: Pierre Berger who served as an interpreter as he understood the Ponca language “passably”; Noël Charron, the best hunter in the party; Joseph Chorette509 “one of my Frenchmen” who drowned on July 10, 1795; Quebec and Savoie510 who were sent in search of trees large enough to make an additional boat.511 Other members of the expedition may have been François Ménard, Lecuyer and Laderoute512. The instructions Trudeau received directed him to reach the Mandans, deliver medals to Indian chiefs, and establish a trading post for the commerce of furs with the nations beyond the Poncas. He was required to keep an account, noting down everything he observed during the journey. On the 12th of July when he arrived at the Rivière des Canses he wrote “in the spring it [is] navigable for more than one hundred leagues from its mouth and that beavers, otters, and other wild animals [are] 504 . Jacques Philippe Clamorgan was born and spent his early years in the Guadeloupe Island in the West French Indies. According to his biography, written by Nasatir, in Hafen, French Traders, 124, Clamorgan may have been of mixed Welsh, Portuguese, and French ancestry, with “a trace of Negro blood.” Although his given names suggest that he may have been French and he associated with Frenchmen in New Orleans and St. Louis, his accomplishments are not reviewed in this study as there is no definite proof that he was a French citizen at birth. 505 169 . Hyacinthe Rouillard, known as St. Cyr was born in Canada on September 2, 1751 and was an active and enterprising St. Louis resident. 506 . Jean Gabriel Cerré, born in Montreal on August 12, 1734, arrived in Kaskaskia in 1755 where he was a leading merchant. During the winter of 1776, he went on an expedition to the Peorias, Kickapoos and Mascoutens. In 1781 he moved to St. Louis and participated in the attack against the British fort of St. Joseph in Michigan. He died September 4, 1805 after spending fifty years in the fur trade. Loomis and Nasatir, Pedro Vial, 122n 22; Billon, French and Spanish Dominations, 1: 452; Primm, Lion of the Valley, 46-48; Houck, Spanish Regime, 2:173-178. 507 . He signed his name as Truteau but was generally referred to as Trudeau . His children adopted the latter spelling. He was a distant relative of Zénon Truteau, their family having originated from La Rochelle, France. 508 . “Journal of Jean Baptiste Truteau on the Missouri River,” in Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, Part 1 in 1: 260-294; Part 2 in 1: 294-311. First Part only in French in American Historical Review, 19: 299-333; Barry, Beginning of the West, 39; Nasatir, “Jean Baptiste Truteau,,” in Hafen, Mountain Men, 4: 381-387; Loomis and Nasatir, Pedro Vial, 107; Trudeau’s “Journal,” South Dakota Historical Collections, 7: 403-474; Nasatir, “Anglo Spanish Rivalry in the Upper Missouri,” 371-376. 509 . Also written Choret, Charet, Charette. 510 . Isodore or Jean Baptiste Savoy. 511 . Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1:265, 267, 278, 280, 282, 292, 294, 295, 303, 306. 512 . Luttig, Journal of a Fur-Trading Expedition, 114. Luttig noted that Joseph Laderoute (also written La Deroute and La De Route) was a member of the Truteau expedition and was sent with Pierre Berger to the Arikaras. 92 found in abundance.” He added that eighty leagues up the river was located a village of the Kansa Indians who were “good hunters and good warriors” and that “ten leagues further up issues (illegible) … which the Republic Panis inhabit.” There is no indication that Trudeau ascended the Kansas River, he probably obtained the information from Indians or traders he met in the area. He proceeded up the Missouri and on the 13th camped five leagues up, on the Kansas bank of the river at the mouth of the Little Platte. On the 14th he stopped “at the Parc”513 and on the 15th at the abandoned village of the Kansas, twelve leagues from the mouth of “their river”.514 He left the village on the 21st and spent the day navigating on the river. At night he camped at the second village of the Canses, twelve leagues from the first one.515 His oarsmen being exhausted from fighting the rising waters from morning to night, they stopped “at the grand detour” and stayed there an extra day on account of the rain. 516 Shortly after, he passed what is now the border between Kansas and Nebraska. In all Truteau had spent about nine days traveling along the northeastern border of Kansas without leaving any indication of what he had seen during his several stops. 517 He did not ascend the Missouri much beyond the territory of the Arikaras where he stayed for eighteen months. He was never able to reach the Mandans. Nothing is known about his return trip except that he arrived in St. Louis on June 4, 1796 and resumed his teaching. He died there in 1827. LECUYER In April 1795, the Missouri Company sent a second expedition, conducted by Lecuyer.518 He was supposed to accomplish what Truteau had not been able to do. Great trust was put in him “who was to shun nothing to remove all obstacle from a thorny and difficult route.” He was also expected to “reach the Mandans at the end of the fall before the severe cold, so as to be able to go overland to the Rocky Chain (the Rocky Mountains) whither he had orders to go without delay in order to reach, if possible, the next spring, the shores of the Sea of the West.”519 Lieutenant Governor Trudeau was skeptical about the enterprise and did not “augur for it a more fortunate success” than the first expedition conducted by his relative.520 By October 24, James Mackay521, general agent for the company, reported to the directors that Lecuyer’s 513 . The Isles of the Parques are located almost opposite the site of Leavenworth. 514 . He meant the Kansas River. The village was located in the Salt Creek valley in Leavenworth County. Barry, op. cit.,39. 515 . The village was located in Doniphan, Atchison County. 516 . Probably the great bend of the Missouri near Elwood, Atchison County. 517 . However the Journal was found informative by President Jefferson who sent extracts from it to Captain Meriwether on November 16, 1803, and a complete translation on January 22, 1804.. 518 . Also written Lequiye. Barry, Beginning of the West, 41; Houck, Spanish Regime, 2:176,178, 187, 190. 519 . Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1:92; Houck, Spanish Regime, 2:176. 520 . Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1:328. 521 . A Scotchman naturalized Spanish. Nasatir, “Anglo-Spanish Rivalry,” 379. 93 pirogue 522 had been pillaged by the Poncas. 523 According to Trudeau, the failure of the expedition was to be attributed to Lecuyer’s misconduct 524 as well as to Tabeau’s behavior and poor management of the boat. It was a great loss for the company, which had invested more than twice the amount spent on the first expedition. FRANCOIS REGIS LOISEL After petitioning on March 20, 1800 for a grant of land in the Upper Missouri region, François Régis Loisel,525 a member of the Clamorgan, Loisel, and Company, received 150,000 arpents526 on which to build a four-bastian fort. Called Fort aux Cèdres, it was located 1,200 miles up the Missouri from St. Louis, on Cedar Island,527 some distance below what is now known as Bad River, near the northern border of Lyman County in South Dakota. There is no date for the construction of the fort but it is recorded that Loisel went up to Missouri in 1800 and was back in St. Louis in July 1801. In June 1802, he left for the Mandans, accompanied by Pierre-Antoine Tabeau,528 Jean Baptiste Lacroix, and André Térien. Upon his return to St. Louis, as he was considered as being “one of those who [had] gone the most far distant in the Missouri according to the appearances”529 and was “active, young and enterprising . . . and consequently faithful in the discharge of his promises,” 530 de Lassus asked him to gather information on the conditions in the Upper Missouri. Loisel spent the winter of 1803-1804 at Fort aux Cèdres and came down in the spring of 1804,531 earlier than planned on account of the “change which the government [had] 522 . The pirogue was a double canoe, “in the shape of a flat-iron, with a sharp bow area and a square stern.” The two canoes, thirty to forty feet long and from six to eight feet wide, were tied together; the whole being covered with planks. The cargo was loaded on the floor and protected by hides. They were propelled by oars or a line and steered by an oarsman who stood on the stern. A square sail was unfolded when proper conditions existed. 523 . Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1: 92, 351, 353; 2: 441. 524 . MacKay wrote: “Lecuyer who has not had less than two wives since his arrival at the home of the Poncas, has wasted a great deal of goods of the Company.” Nasatir, “Anglo-Spanish Rivalry,” 478. 525 . Also written Loiselle. Loisel was born in Canada where his family had emigrated from Bayeux, Normandy in France. He arrived in St. Louis in 1793 and, with Clamorgan, a Portuguese native, formed a company, which succeeded the Missouri Company. 526 . One arpent is equivalent to 1.6 acres 527 . On September 22, 1804, in the Journal of the Expedition is noted: “Mr. Loiselle a trader from St. Louis built a fort of Ceder and a good house to trade with the Sioux and wintered last winter.” Thwaites, Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition , 1:160. 528 . André Terien belonged to a family who came from Prignac, France. Born near Montreal, Canada, he was educated in Quebec. He moved to the Illinois, then to Missouri. He was an outstanding interpreter as he knew the Arikara, Sioux, English and French languages. He commanded the second expedition of the Missouri Company in the spring of 1804. Loomis and Nasatir, Pedro Vial, 107. 529 . Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 2:736, note 1. Casa Calvo, Governor of New Mexico wrote to the Prince of Peace on September 4, 1804: “He knows practically about five hundred leagues of the course of the Missouri.” Ibid., 2:757. 530 . Houck, Spanish Regime, 2:358. 531 . It is reported in the Journals of the Expedition that, as they were ascending the Missouri and still close to St. Louis, they met “Mr. Loisel who was coming down from Seeder [Cedar] Isld [Island].” Thwaites, Original of the Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1: 59. 94 experienced.”532 Unfortunately in the report he gave to de Lassus on May 28, 1804, no reference is made to the portion of his journey as he traveled along the eastern border of Kansas, probably because at that time it was already familiar to everyone. To complete his promised undertaking, Loisel dispatched Tabeau, his “agent and man of affairs” with seven men, at his own expense, and with instructions to continue his work. While Tabeau was spending the winter of 1804-1805 in an Arikara village, he wrote an account of his observations among the Indian tribes. In his Narrative 533 he did not make any mention of Kansas, explaining that “the trading, which he carried on annually with them [the Kansa Indians], has given more information to those who will read this scribble. . . I shall speak only of those who have been very little visited.” Although Loisel 534and Tabeau did not write about Kansas, there is ample evidence that both of them passed several times along the eastern border of Kansas and probably stopped on the banks of the river as they traveled between St. Louis and Fort aux Cèdres. During the last years of the French monarchy and the first period of the French Revolution, France was contemplating the possibility of recovering Louisiana, which she had ceded to Spain in November 1762 by the Treaty of Fontainebleau. Spain had never firmly asserted its authority over the region and had retained many French officials to administer her new territory. The status and future of the region were uncertain. France and Spain were competing to gain the allegiance of the American settlers in the Mississippi Valley. Toward that effort, France enlisted the support of frontiersmen led by George Rogers Clark for her attempted conquest of Louisiana in 1793.... Indeed, when we recall that George Rogers Clark accepted a commission as Major General from France in 1793 and again in 1798; that Wilkinson, afterwards commander-in-chief of the American Army, secretely asked Spanish citizenship and promised renunciation of his American allegiance; that Governor Sevier of Franklin, afterwards Senator from Tennessee and its first Governor as a State, Robertson the founder of Cumberland, and Blount, Governor of the Southwest Territory, were all willing to accept the rule of another nation. 535 In 1796, the French government, wanting to assess the situation in Louisiana, commissioned General Victor Collot to travel through the western territory and provide a detailed report on the political, commercial, and military situation in the Spanish colony. Collot was familiar with the United States, as he had fought during the American Revolution under General Rochambeau, commander of the French 532 . Loisel had heard of the purchase of Louisiana by the United States. Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 2: 737. 533 . Pierre Antoine Tabeau’s Narrative of Loisel’s Expedition to the Upper Missouri, ed. Abel, 99. 534 . Loisel died at, or near, St. Louis in October 1804. Barry, Beginning of the West, 8. 535 . Turner, Frontier in American History, 185-187; Collot, Journey in North America, 1: xix, xx. “General Clark accepted a commission s general in the French army to led an expedition against Louisiana (when Louisiana was still under Spanish domination) and refused to surrender the commission when war between the United States and France seemed imminent.” Satterfield, Lewis and Clark Trail, 16. 95 forces. Afterwards he had been appointed governor of the Guadeloupe in 1793 and served in that position until he was captured by the British in 1794. Subsequently he was sent to the United States. Upon his arrival in Philadelphia, he was arrested because, as governor of the Guadeloupe, he had confirmed a sentence against the owner of an American ship. While on bail, he was ordered to remain in this country until the matter was settled. Collot used this imposed stay from March 21 to December 27, 1796 to gather information for the French government. He wrote in this Mémoire: The Indians of the Upper Louisiana are affectionate to us but have been detached by the intrigues of the English and by time. Now their pleasant memory of the French should be reawakened and communication opened with the South Sea by way of a portage of some thirty leagues.536 Collot traveled to St. Louis, ascended the Missouri to the mouth of the Osage River but did not penetrate into the western lands beyond that river.537 Therefore the information he related about Kansas was derived from his contacts with traders in St. Louis. While he added no personal observations, his comments establish what was known about the region in 1796 when he wrote: The Missouri from its mouth to the river Platte flows through a country extremely diversified: the lands on the left, toward the north, are of the best quality; fine plains sufficiently undulated to carry off the water, intersected with woods of a lofty kind, and which bear marks of the greatest fertility. 538 He added: “No one had yet penetrated as far as the spot where the Missouri River takes its sources and its banks have been explored the length of more than 600 leagues.”539 Later he specifically mentioned the Kansas River, quoting details probably learned from boatmen: The river Cans . . . is navigable a hundred leagues for barks and barges of all kind; it runs through very fertile lands, flat, wooded and intersected by rich meadows; but the country, such as we have already described, does not extend farther than one or two leagues from the banks. In ascending this river fifty leagues, we find a fortified point, on which is situated the great village of the Cans. The branch which runs to the west is called the River of the White Water; on that 536 . Sandoz, Beaver Men, 194-195. 537 . Collot, Journey in North America, 2:, 6. 538 . Ibid., 1: 272. 539 . Ibid., 1: 273, 96 of the south-west the Indian nation called Republican is established.540 His report was to support the decision of Talleyrand, French Minister of Foreign Affairs to regain possession of Louisiana. By the treaty of San Ildefonso of October 1, 1800, Spain retroceded the Louisiana Territory to France. On May 28, 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte appointed General Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte Adet, former French ambassador to the United States and Victor Collot to take possession of Louisiana. Their departure from France was planned as late as January of 1803, but the commission never left. Faced with the demands of his military campaigns, it did not take Napoleon long to abandon the idea of asserting France’s possession of Louisiana and on April 30, 1803, he sold the former French colony to the United States. William C. Claiborne and General James Wilkinson, who previously had been a Spanish agent, took formal possession of Louisiana in New Orleans on December 20, 1803. On March 9, 1804, Lieutenant Governor de Lassus, acting as France’s representative surrendered Upper Louisiana to Captain Amos Stoddard of the U.S. Army. 540 . Ibid., 1: 279; Barry, Beginning of the West, 43. 97 Chapter 5 AFTER THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE U.S. GOVERNMENT EXPLORATIONS Even before he became president of the United States, Jefferson tried to organize expeditions to explore the West. He was interested in finding out about the Indian tribes inhabiting those lands; he wanted to know about the topography of those regions, their plants and animals. He also understood how important those areas were for the future of the United States as he feared that the British, after the loss of their colonies, would be seeking to expand their influence toward the west. In 1783 General George Clark, older brother of William Clark, was asked to lead an expedition but declined the invitation. John Ledyard developed a plan for the exploration after his hope of crossing Europe, Asia and the Pacific to reach the western coast had been thwarted when Empress Catherine II of Russia refused to allow him to travel through her empire. The project was canceled when he died in Egypt on his way back from Europe.541 In 1792 Jefferson proposed to the American Philosophical Society to raise funds to finance an overland expedition by ascending the Missouri, crossing the “Stony [Rocky] Mountains,” and reaching the Pacific by descending one of the rivers which emptied into the ocean. A subscription was initiated and a French botanist, André Michaux, 542 who had written several books on the flora in the United States, offered to undertake the project.543 He received his instructions and was already in Kentucky when it was discovered that he was a secret agent of the French government, which recalled him immediately to France.544 President Jefferson was personally involved in the planning of the exploration of the West, securing maps and books depicting the newly acquired territory. It is known that he consulted the Delisle map of 1718 and owned a copy of Pierre- François-Xavier de Charlevoix‘s Histoire et description générale de la Nouvelle France, which contained the Carte de l’Amérique Septentrionale by Nicolas Bellin, and the first English edition of Le Page du Pratz’s The History of Louisiana or of the Western Parts of Virginia and Caroline (London, 1763), which included A Map of Louisiana, with the Course of the Mississipi. 545 Although there were good English maps of the Great Lakes and upper Mississippi River region, those three French maps were the most detailed maps of Kansas available in 1804. 541 . Satterfield, Lewis and Clark Trail, 16; Jackson, Letters, 2: 588. Letter of Jefferson to Paul Allen, dated August 18, 1813. 542 . Moulton, Journals, 2: 1. 543 . Jefferson wrote him on April 30, 1793: “The chief objects of your journey are to find the shortest & most convenient route of communication between the U. S. & the Pacific Ocean within the temperate latitudes & to learn such particulars as can be obtained of the country through which it passes, its productions, inhabitants & other interesting circumstances.” Jackson, Letters, 2: 669-670. 544 . Biddle, ed., Journals, ix, xix; Jackson, Letters, 2: 589, 667-672. 545 . Benson, Lewis and Clark, 34, 40, 64. 98 THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION In 1792, Captain Meriwether Lewis volunteered to find the long-sought route across the continent but was judged too young by Jefferson who knew him well. However, in 1803, after Lewis had served as his personal secretary for almost two years, the president accepted the offer. By that time, he had recognized Lewis’ “undaunted courage, his firmness and perseverance of purpose which nothing but impossibilities could divert from its direction.” 546 The captain was considered perfectly suited for the mission as he was “a person in the vigour of his age, of a hardy constitution, and already acquainted with the manners of the Indians by his residence in the Western Settlement.” 547 Jefferson asked Lewis to choose an officer to share the responsibilities of the expedition in order to assure its continuity in case he died. Lewis selected his old friend and former company commander, William Clark. At the time the president was making plans for the exploration, Louisiana had not yet been sold to the United States. L. A. Pichon, commissioner general of trade relation chargé d’affaires of the French Republic, gave Lewis a French passport on March 1, 1803 to assure him of “protection and aid” during his voyage. 548 Lewis also carried a British passport, written in French “since the British subjects he was most likely to meet would have been French-speaking traders from Canada.” 549 When time came to prepare for his departure, he realized that the main source of information available came from the French and the Indians already familiar with the land he was going to enter. Although the United States government had received formal transfer of Louisiana on December 20, 1803, the French authorities were slow in relinquishing data about the conditions in the territory. However, within a few days of the Purchase, on December 28, 1803, Lewis reported that Antoine Soulard, 550 the Surveyor General had received him “in a very friendly manner,” circumventing the French officials, and giving him important information about the land he was about to explore. After much deliberation, Lewis was also able to secure a copy of Soulard’s map of the Missouri Valley.551 In addition, the explorer took with him an English translation of Le Page du Pratz’s Histoire de la Louisiane, 552 a tracing of the Bellin’s map of Louisiana and its 546 . Biddle, Journals, xix. 547 . Letter of Edward Thornton to Lord Hawkesbury, dated march 9, 1803. Jackson, Letters, 1:27. 548 . Ibid., 1: 20, 23, 61, 104, 142-143; 549 . Ibid. 1: 20. 550 . Soulard (1766-1825) served as surveyor general of Upper Louisiana under the Spanish and French regimes and continued in that function after the Louisiana Purchase. 551 . Ibid., 1:148-155.”Monsr. S. [oulard] is a Frenchman, a man of good information, an active officer . . . .before I proceed, in order to shew you, Sir, the good faith with which Monsr. S. complyed with his previous declirations, as also to shew the difficulty, which in the present state of things is attendant on the procureing any accurate information relative to the State of the Province. ” Letter of Lewis to Jefferson, dated December 28, 1803. Ibid., I, 149. “The Soulard map must be given special mention for its possible impact on the geographical images of Lewis and Clark.” Allen, Passage to the Garden, 148. 552 . Letter of Lewis to Benjamin Smith Barton, dated 9 May 1807: “ Dr. Benjamin Barton was so obliging as to lend me this copy of Monsr. Du Pratz’ history of Louisiana in June 1803. It has been 99 neighboring countries,553 and an extract from Truteau’s journal, which Jefferson has sent him. 554 It is not known if Lewis was finally able to secure the maps of d’Anville and Delisle, which he had been attempting to find before his departure.555 Although French officials had been somewhat reticent in providing information to Lewis, he found prominent French inhabitants in St. Louis willing to help him. On January 18, 1804, a few days after the Purchase, Lewis sent to Auguste Chouteau a list of questions pertaining to the conditions in Upper Louisiana.556 On May 18, 1804, shortly before his departure, he forwarded to Jefferson articles he had received from Pierre Chouteau, 557 Auguste Chouteau, Nicholas Boilvin 558 and Antoine François Saugrain.559 The articles included Indian artifacts from the Osage Indians, mineral samples, animal specimens, charts of the Mississippi and Missouri, and plans of the town of St. Louis, drawn by Soulard. 560 The American authorities also appreciated the assistance given by Chouteau in Indian matters. They recognized that “he [was] better acquainted with their manners and their wants than any other person that could be procured.” 561 Lewis started recruiting personnel for the expedition, which was to be known as the “Corps of Discovery.” Being aware that the most experienced boatmen, guides, hunters, and interpreters were to be found among the French voyageurs, traders, and engagés 562 who had been roaming through the wilderness and traveling on the Missouri for many years. They were to row, pole, tow the pirogues and keelboats, which carried the members of the expedition and its twenty-nine tons of cargo. They were also to hunt for food and use their communication skills to since conveyed by me to the Pacific though the interior of the Continent of North America on my late tour.” Jackson, Letters, 2: 695. 553 . Ibid., 2: 666, 554 . Jean Baptiste Truteau was the agent for the Illinois trading company who resided among the Arikaras. Letter from Jefferson to Lewis, dated November 16, 1803. Ibid., 1: 138-140. 555 . “Will you be so obliging, Sir, as to mention to Mr. Gallatin, that I have not been able to procure Danvill’s map.” Letter of Lewis to President Jefferson, May 29, 1803. Ibid., 1: 96. 556 . Ibid., 1: 161-162. 557 . Clark wrote to his brother-in-law, Major William Crogham on May 2, 1804: “Mr. Peter Choteau, an inhabitant of St. Louis, is a gentleman deservedly esteemed among the most respectable and influential citizens of upper Louisiana. Mr. Choteau’s zeal to promote the public welfare had induced him, at the instance of our government, to visit the Osage nation since the session of this Country to the United States and that Nation. The promptitude and fidelity with which Mr. Choteau has fulfilled the wishes of the government on this occasion, as also the personal dangers to which he has been exposed in the course of this transaction, intitle him in an emenant degree to the particular attention and best services, not only of yourself but of his fellow Citizens generally.” Ibid., 1: 178. A similar letter was sent by Lewis on May 3, 1804 to William Preston. Ibid., 1:179. 558 . Nicholas Boilvin (1761-1827) was a trader, interpreter, and Indian subagent. 559 . Antoine François Saugrain (1767-1820) was a scientist and a physician. 560 . Ibid., 1: 192-194 561 . Letter of William Henry Harrison to Henry Dearborn, dated May 27, 1805. Ibid., 1: 246. 562 . Clark spelled the word Ingishees. Moulton, Journals, 2: 347. 100 deal with the Indians.563 Here again, Lewis turned to Pierre Chouteau to procure him seven of the engagés.564 It is difficult to identify with accuracy the French recruits as the lists of the expedition present discrepancies in both names and numbers. In addition the use of surnames and nicknames among those French men complicated the records. Besides, the spellings of their names vary in the different accounts of the expedition, having been transcribed phonetically by the captains and the other chroniclers, who did not know the French language.565 On May 6, 1804, Lewis reported to Clark: “The French hands eight in number are all engaged.”566 There is much confusion about the identity of a man called Joseph Le Barte,567 whose nickname was La Liberté. He may have been a former member of the Northwest Company at the time he was recruited in Kaskaskia on July 4, 1804. When the party arrived a few miles below Council Bluffs on July 29, he was dispatched to the Otoe villages since he spoke the Otoe language.568 He was to invite the chiefs to confer with the captains. When he had not yet returned after four days,569 a detachment was sent to apprehend him. The Otoe had caught him and planned to return him to the Americans but he escaped.570 His later fate was not known. Charles Caugée was also hired in July 4, 1804. 571 Nothing is known about his background. Joseph Collin, born about 1770 near St. Genevieve de Montreal, Canada, may have worked for the Northwest Company before he was hired on May 26, 1804 to go only as far as the Mandan villages.572 He may have been the man to whom Sergeant Orday, a member of the expedition, referred when he wrote: “We left one of our frenchman with Tabbo (Antoine Tabeau) and took his Soon (sic) (Tabeau’s son) in his place.” He may have been one of the Frenchmen who went back and forth between Fort Mandan and the Arikaras during the explorers’ voyage to the 563 . “Even the Americans admitted that the Creoles were the best oarsmen… The Creole boatmen were natives of the river villages or of Canada…Inured to labor from infancy, they were an extremely hardy race, in spite of the almost superhuman exertions of their calling, they were happy, light- hearted and their faculty for making the best of a bad situation made them the usual choice of the trading companies.” Baldwin, Keelboat Age, 61, 86. 564 . Jackson, Letters, 1: 178. 565 . Moulton, Journals, 2: 511. “Clark’s usual difficulties in spelling were compounded with French names, and Lewis’s spelling of French names were not better.” 566 . Jackson, Letters, 1: 180. 567 . Also known as Jo Bartee, La Bartie , Barter, and La Liberty. Clarke, Men of the Lewis and Clarke Expedition, 63-64; Biddle, Journals, 1: 23, 28: Moulton, Journals, 2: 526-527. 568 . “We set out Jo. Barter a Frenchman who could Speak the Zoteau Language.” Ibid, 9: 31. 569 . “The man Liberty whom we sent to the Ottoes has not come up. . . This man has either tired his horse or lost himself in the plains.” Ibid., 2: 441. Osgood, ed., Field Notes, 109. 570 . Moulton, Journals, 2: 487-488. 571 . Also called Charles Cougee. Clarke, 68, 119; Moulton, Journals, 2: 347, 526. 572 . Ibid., 2: 345-526. Sergeant Gass, a member of the expedition wrote in his Journal that Joseph Collin “was a young man who formerly belonged to the North West Company.” Clarke, Men of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 69. 101 Pacific. On August 21, 1806, on their way back the captains found him living among the Arikaras wishing to return to St. Louis and they consented to take him along. Jean-Baptiste Deschamps 573 was probably the son of Jean-Baptiste Deschamps and Marie Pinot. Being an experienced and more mature boatman, he was recruited in Kaskaskia on May 14, 1804 to be the patroon of the red pirogue; Cpl. Warfington, being assigned to the smaller white pirogue. 574 Capt. Clark exempted them from guard duty and defined their responsibilities: The two will attend particularly to their peerogues at all times, and see that their lading is in good order, and that the same is kept perfectly free from rain or other moisture.” 575 He was discharged on November 3, 1804 at the end of his engagement and spent the winter in Upper Missouri. Deschamps may have been rehired on April 7, 1805 to help man the keelboat, which took Corporal Richard Warfington’s detachment back to St. Louis. It was carrying maps drawn by the explorers, dispatches and reports for the government, letters to family and friends, and crates of natural history objects collected for President Jefferson. 576 After leaving Fort Mandan, they stopped at the Arikara village to pick up an Arikara chief 577 whom Gravelines was to conduct to Washington. They reached St. Louis on May 20, 1805 and shortly after Deschamps was discharged on June 1.578 The name of Charles Hébert,579 a native of Prairie de la Madeleine in Canada appears on the both lists of engagés, dated May 26, 1804 and July 4, 1804. Jean-Baptiste LaJeunesse, 580 probably a native of Ste. Rose, Quebec, was the son of Ambrose and Marie (Boyet) La Jeunnesse. On July 9, 1797, he married Elizabeth Malboeuf, sister of his fellow boatman. He is listed as having returned to St. Louis in the spring of 1805 with Corporal Warfington. He probably died before September, 1807 as his wife remarried in that year. 573 . Also written Dechamps and Baptist de Shone. Moulton, Journals, 2: 215, 347, 526. He may have been employed by the Northwest Company prior to the expedition. 574 . There were three boats in the expedition: the keelboat which was the captains’ flagship, the red pirogue and the smaller white pirogue. As head of the red pirogue, Deschamps commanded seven oarsmen: Joseph Collin, Charles Hébert, Jean-Baptiste LaJeunesse, Etienne Malboeuf, Paul Primaut, François Rivet, and Pierre Roi. 575 . Ibid, 2: 258. 576 . Jackson, Letters, 1: 231-236. 577 . The chief died in Washington. 578 . Clarke, Men of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 145-146; Jackson, Letters, 1: 242 579 . Also written Hubert and nicknamed Cadien, Chalo, Charlo, and Chado. Clarke, Men of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 28, 69; Moulton, Journals, 2:255, 347, 526. 580 . Also written La Guness, La Juenesse, Lasoness, Baptist Le Joness. Clarke, Men of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 64-65, 119; Moulton , Journals, 2: 347, 526. 102 Etienne Malboeuf, 581 born in 1775 in Lac du Sable, Canada, may have been a half-breed; his father having married two or three Indian women. He was baptized in St. Charles, Missouri on December 26, 1772 and was living in Kaskaskia when he joined the party in 1804. He was discharged on November 3, 1804 and returned with the Warfington party. Pierre Pinaut,582 the son of a French father, Joseph Pineau and a Missouri woman, was born “in the woods” about 1776 and was baptized on June 13, 1790 when he moved to St. Louis. He is listed among the recruits hired on May 26, 1804 but is not mentioned thereafter on Clark’s list of engagés, dated July 4, 1804. He may have returned to St. Louis on June 12, 1804 with John Robertson in Pierre Dorion’s boat. Paul Primeau 583 was born in Chateauguay, Canada in 17767, the son of Joseph Primeau and Louise Lalumière. He was recruited at Kaskaskia but prior to the expedition he may have been employed by the Northwest Company. He traveled back to St. Louis after his discharge with Warfington’s party in April 1805. François Rivet, 584 whose ancestors came to Canada from La Rochelle, France, was born in 1757 in L’Assomption County, Quebec where he was baptized in the St. Sulpice Catholic Church. He spent his early years as a hunter in the upper region of the Mississippi before moving downriver and may have been an employee of the Northwest Company. It is impossible to determine exactly in what capacity he was hired for the Corps of Discovery as in the Detachment Orders of Capt. Lewis, dated May 26, 1804, he is listed as a Private under Sergeant Charles Floyd while he is shown by Capt. Clark on July 4, 1804 among the ”french Ingishees [engagés] or Hirelens [hirelings].” 585 Rivet was already "an old man,” nearly fifty years old when he joined the Corps. He went only up to the Mandans where he constructed a cabin and spent the winter with Deschamps, Malboeuf and Carson next to the fort. In the spring of 1805 he built a canoe and with another Frenchman, Philippe Degie, a trapper in the employ of Gravelines, descended the Missouri as far as the Arikaras along with Warfington’s detachment. 586The captains found him living with the Mandans upon their return from the Pacific on August 21, 1806. He may have been with Charles Courtin in 1807 when the trader went up the Missouri to the Three Forks to build a stockade. About 1809 Rivet was living in western Montana, not far from Flathead Lake, where he had a son, born of Thérèse Tête Platte, a member of the Flathead Nation. In 1813, he was “a freeman engaged by the Northwest Fur Company as an interpreter at Flathead House in 581 . Also written Mabbauf, Malbeuf, and Mallat. Clarke, Men of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 65, 119; Moulton, Journals, 2: 255, 528. 582 . Also written Pineau and Charles in Lewis’ financial accounts. Ibid., 2: 255, 528; Clarke, Men of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 65-66, 83, 119. 583 . Also written Primaut, Preemau, and Primot. Ibid., 22, 66, 119, 145; Moulton, Journals, 2: 347, 528. 584 . Also written Revee, Rives, Rivey, Reevey and Rivee. Clarke, Men of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 22, 66-67; Moulton, Journals, 2: 255, 347, 528-529; Munnick, “François Rivet”, in Hafen, Mountain Men, 2: 237-243. 585 . Moulton, Journals, 2:255, 347. 586 . Thwaites, Original Journals, 1:283. 103 western Montana. Although he was already sixty-six years old, Alexander Ross hired him for his expedition to the Snake River in 1823-1824. When they were back, Ross assigned him to run the Indian shop at the Flathead Post where he remained until 1829. He was then transferred to Fort Colville on the upper Columbia where in 1832 Samuel Parker wrote in his Journal: Here I found an old man who thirty years before had accompanied Lewis and Clark across the continent, and for several years, resided here at Fort Colville. He is in the employ of the Fur Company and acts as an interpreter to the neighboring Indians. 587 In 1838 Rivet retired in the Willamette Valley near St. Paul, which was known then as French Prairie. After the arrival of the Catholic priests, he married Thérèse formally and his name appeared regularly in the church records as godfather and witness to several marriages. He acquired a tract of land, south of the St. Paul Mission where he lived with his wife and two sons. On July 29, 1851, the Spectator of Oregon City published the following notice: The oldest resident of Oregon, Monsieur Rivet, was in town yesterday. He came to this country in 1805 and lives in the French settlement some 20-odd miles up the river. Monsieur Rivet is the oldest man in Oregon, save one588 – he is in his 93rd year. He came to the country with Lewis and Clark – is healthy, and active, and bids fair to live out the hundred.589 Rivet became a United States citizen on September 9, 1852 and died less than three weeks later, aged ninety-five. He is considered to have been the first settler in Oregon.590 It is difficult to identify Pierre Roi 591 with accuracy, as his surname was a common one, used by families throughout Canada and Illinois. 592 He could be the Pierre Roi, born in St. Genevieve, Missouri in 1786 or the Peter Roi whose name appeared in the rosters of the Northwest Company. He is mentioned in the journals as having delivered to the captain’s letters sent by Pierre Antoine Tabeau. He possibly stayed at the Arikara village after his discharge as Clark related that the returning party found “a French man by the name of “Rokey” who was one of our 587. Parker, Journal of an Exploring Tour, 294. 588 . The exception was Philippe Degie, Rivet’s companion who died in 1847 at the reputed age of 108. 589 . Munnick, “François Rivet,” 243. 590 . Clarke, Men of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 66-67. 591 . Also written Roy, Roie and Le Roy. Ibid., 67, 136, 146; Moulton, Journals, 2: 256, 347, 529. 592 . Ibid. 2: 256, 347, 529. Clarke, Men of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 22, 67, 136 104 Engagés as high as the Mandans; this man had spend all his wages, and requested to return with us.” 593 On November 3, 1804, nine Frenchmen were discharged as they had been “procured to go as far as the Mandans and had not agreed to go any farther.” They were Charles Caugée, Joseph Collin, Baptiste Deschamps, Charles Hébert, Jean- Baptiste La Jeunesse, Etienne Malboeuf, Paul Primeau, François Rivet and Pierre Roi. There is no record of any wages paid to them as they were paid in cash at the end of their services and ” were not entitled to extra pay and land warrants as the enlisted later were.”594 The individual assignments and activities of the engagés were not recorded in the journals, where they were only referred to as Frenchmen. This reflects the captains’ lack of interest in their hirelings. It might explain why historians have given little credit to those seasoned frontiersmen, who accounted for more than a third of the members of the Corps, who provided the manpower to navigate through the treacherous Missouri, and without whom the expedition could not have been planned. Although the men complained early in the expedition “for want of Provisions, Saying that they [were] accustomed to eat 5 & 6 times a day,” their demands for additional food remained unheard by the explorers as Clark wrote that they were “roughly rebuked for their presumption.” 595 This underscores the captains’ total indifference to the basic needs of their hard working engagés. Some of the engagés remained in the Upper Missouri, four of them, Deschamps, La Jeunesse, Primeau and Marboeuf went on the keelboat, which the captains sent back to St. Louis in April 1, 1805 under the command of Corporal Warfington.596 On October 8, 1804, the captains hired Joseph Gravelines 597 to pilot the keelboat down the river. He was a Frenchman, whom they had found at the Arikaras. Not only was he an “honest, discrete man, and excellent boatman,” as Lewis describes him, 598 but he was also a valuable interpreter who spoke the Arikara and Sioux languages. Later during the winter and spring of 1804 -1805, he gave them assistance, accompanying them to the Mandans and traveling up and down the Missouri to deliver messages from Lewis to the French trader Truteau. The keelboat transported a most valuable load as its cargo comprised Clark’s report and accounts for the first months of the expedition, Indian artifacts, plants, earth and mineral specimens, buffalo and other animal hides, insects, and even live birds and animals. 599 Pierre Chouteau received the articles “two trunks, 593 . Moulton, Journals, 8: 318. The name “Rokey” does not appear on any list of members of the expedition. It may be a nickname for “Roi,” as he is identified as a Frenchman. 594 . Clarke, Men of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 28. 595 . Moulton, Journals, 2: 306; 4:12. The “almost superhuman exertions of the river boatmen undoubtedly required a great deal of energy, leading to the customs of eating frequently, which the men saw as their right.”, Ibid., 2: 307n4. 596 . Osgood, Field Notes Captain Clark, 185. 597 . Also written Graveline and Gravotine. 598 . Thwaites, Original Journals Lewis and Clark, 1: 283. 599 . On April 7, 1805, Lewis sent to President Jefferson an invoice of the articles he was sending him. Jackson, Letters, 1: 231-236. 105 two cages or boxes with some birds and one Ditto with a prairie Dog” and forwarded them to the President. 600 After the departure of the keelboat, the remaining Frenchmen who traveled to the Pacific were Cruzatte, François Labiche, and George Drouillard, who had been hired to travel for the full length of the expedition. Pierre Cruzatte, 601nicknamed St. Pierre and St. Peter, was of mixed blood, born of a French father who had lived among the Omaha nation and an Omaha mother. He must have been aged at the time of the expedition as he is referred in the records as “an old Frenchman” who had rheumatism in his legs. Before he was recruited on May 16, 1804 in St. Charles, Missouri, he had spent several winters as an employee of the Chouteaus trading up the Missouri as far as the Platte River. Being an experienced boatman, Cruzatte was in charge of manning the keelboat. Lewis noted that “he had been an old Missouri navigator and from his integrity, knowledge and skill as a waterman had acquired the confidence of every individual of the party.”602 When the pirogue turned on its side in a squall of wind, Lewis wrote that their pirogue was saved by Cruzatte’s “fortitude, resolution and good conduct,” thus avoiding a potential loss of men (including Sacagawea, the famous Shoshone guide and interpreter of the expedition and her baby) and even more seriously a loss of supplies, which would have compromised the success of the expedition. Cruzatte spoke the Omaha language fluently, had in addition a limited command of the Sioux and knew sign language, making him an essential member of the expedition in dealing with the Indians.603 In June 1804, he and Drouillard were sent to the Oto and Missouri villages to arrange a council with the Indian chiefs. Later on, he acted as interpreter during the encounters with the Bois Brule Teton Sioux and when the Sioux captured one of the pirogues. In addition, he was an expert hunter although he was myopic and had lost an eye. In spite of his handicap he was the first one to see a grizzly bear and shoot at it. Lewis wrote: “He wounded him, but being alarmed at the formidable appearance of the beast, he left his tomahawk and gun,” 604 which he recovered an hour or so later. His eyesight had failed him further when he shot Capt. Lewis in the thigh, mistaking him for an elk “from the Colour of his Cloathes which were of leather and very nearly that of the Elk.” The explorers did not appear to blame him for it as Clark wrote: “This Crusat is near Sighted and has the use of but one eye, he is an 600 . Letter of Pierre Chouteau to William Claiborne, dated 15 June 1805. Ibid., 1: 259. Letter dated July 6, 1805 from William Claiborne to President Jefferson, describing what he is shipping him to Baltimore. Ibid., 1: 250. 601 . His real name was Pierre Cruzatte or Croixette. Coues, History of the Expedition, 1: 254. Also written Cruzat, Crusatte, Crusatt, Crouzat, Crouzait, and Crousatte. Clarke, Men of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 254; Ambrose, Undaunted Courage, 235, 247, 285-286. 602 . Moulton, Journals, 4: 271. 603 . Ibid., 8: 341n 2. 604 . Ambrose, Undaunted Courage, 178. 106 attentive industerous man and one whome we both have placed the greatest Confidence in dureng the whole rout.” 605 An experienced frontier man, he built the cache where the explorers left some of their belongings before they proceeded up the river. Lewis wrote: “I found that Cruzatte well acquainted [with] this business [of digging caches] and therefore left the management of it intirely to him.” 606 Cruzatte’s violin playing contributed greatly to the morale of the members of the expedition. To the delight of his companions, he kept their spirits high, singing along with his companions to make their arduous work feel lighter. During the evening hours he took up his fiddle and invited them to dance away their fatigue. Several times, he played to the amazement of the Indians as they sat with the explorers around a camp fire. 607 On their way down the Columbia River, on October 30th, 1806, a tributary of the Columbia River was named after him 608 but it is presently known as Wind River. The year after his return to St. Louis, he received a land grant on March 9, 1807 but no special recommendation perhaps because he had wounded Lewis. François Labiche 609 was a half-breed, born of a French father and an Omaha woman, who first met the captains in Kaskaskia, Illinois on November 28, 1803 but was not hired until May 16, 1804 in St. Charles, Missouri. Trusting him implicitly, the captains often selected him to be their companion on various special missions. Labiche was also an excellent hunter, especially of waterfowl and they often depended on him for their subsistence. Being fluent in English, French and several Indian languages, he was an indispensable link between the natives and the American explorers.610 Chief Petieit Villelu Little, Chief of the Oto nation, who had known Labiche previously, said: I want Mr. La Bieche to make a piece with the Panis Loups … He can speak English and will doe well. In September 1804, his talks with the Bois Brule Teton Sioux were helpful in gaining access to the upper Missouri. He remained with the Corps during the entire 605. Moulton, Journals, 8: 290. 606 . Ibid., 4: 269. 607 . “In the evening Cruzatte gave us some music on the violin and the men passed the evening in dancing, singing & were extremely cheerful.” Ibid., 4: 272, 362. “They were able to shake a foot amused themselves in dancing on the green to the music of the violin which Cruzatte plays extremely well.” Ibid., 4: 274, 332; 5: 329, 341. “The French boatmen were great singers, far superior to the Americans.” Baldwin, Keelboat Age, 93. 608 . Biddle, Journals, 2: 314; 9: 291. It is presently named Wind River in Skamania County, Washington.. 609 . Also written Francis La Buche, Le Beiche, La Bruise. Labishe, Ladishe, Labuiche, La Buiche, Lebiche , Labieshe, and William Beise . Labiche may have been a nickname, his family name being Milhomme. Coues, History of the Expedition, 255. 610 . When Sacagawea spoke to the Shoshones, she translated the conversations into Hidatsa to her husband, Charbonneau, who, in turn, communicated it in French to Labiche, who translated it into English to the Americans. Ambrose, Undaunted Courage, 277, 348; Satterfield, Lewis and Clark Trail, 88. 107 expedition and was with the captains when they reached the Pacific Ocean. A river in Hood River County, Oregon was named after their “fine waterman,” but it is now called Hood River. Cruzatte and Labiche, the best boatmen in the party, shared the responsibility of manning the keelboat up the river on their way to the Pacific. Lewis wrote: Labuche and Crusat will man the larboard bow oar alternately, and the one not engaged at the oar will attend as the Bows-man, and when the attention of both these persons is necessary at the bow, the oar is to be manned by any idle hand on board.”611 Among all the Frenchmen, Cruzatte and Labiche enjoyed a special status. At the time they were hired, Lewis made them permanent members of the party and swore them in as privates in the U. S. Army, serving under Sgt. Nathaniel Pryor. Upon their return to St. Louis, in October 1806, Labiche was chosen to accompany the captains to Washington along with Pierre Chouteau and a delegation of Osage chiefs, the Mandan chief Shahaka with his wife and son and the interpreter, René Jusseaume with his wife and son.612 With Sergeant Ordway, he was placed in charge of the pack train loaded with “plants, seeds, bird skins, animal skeletons, and furs [that] had not been ruined in water-soaked caches” and had been collected during their travels. He received $23.50 for the services he rendered as assistant, interpreter, and pack horseman from October 21, 1806 to January 20, 1807.613 On March 9, 1807, he was also granted a land warrant for his participation in the expedition. In his report to Henry Dearborn, Lewis wrote: He (Labiche) has received the pay only of a private, tho’ besides his duties performed as such, he has rendered me very essential services as a French and English interpreter, and sometimes also as an Indian interpreter; therefore I should think it only just that some small addition to his pay as a private should be added, tho’ no such addition has at anytime been provided to me.614 In spite of the recommendation, no special appropriation was ever allowed for his extra services.615 George Drouillard 616 deserves a special place among the members of the Corps. Born probably in Sandwich, Canada, he was the son of a French father, Pierre Drouillard and a Shawnee woman. His father had served with the Americans 611 . Moulton, Journals , 2: 258; 5: 352. 612 . Jackson, Letters, 1: 325n7. 613 . Ibid., 1: 325n7. 614 . Coues, History of the Expedition, 1: 255; Thwaites, Original Journals, 1: 358. 615 . Jackson, Letters, 1: 407,414. 616 . Lewis and Clark never wrote Drouillard’s name correctly, most often Lewis wrote it: “Drewyer”, some times “Drulyard.”. In Clarke’s list of the expedition members, it is written “Drulard”. Jackson, Letters, 2: 638. Skarsten, “George Drouillard,” in Hafen, Mountain Men, 4:69-82. 108 as an interpreter during the War of Independence. When still a youth, he moved to Cape Girardeau to be near his mother’s people. When Lewis met him at Fort Massac in Illinois on November 11, 1803, he was impressed by Drouillard’s skill with Indian sign language and realized the importance of having in his party someone who could deal with the various tribes encountered. Drouillard was hired on May 11, 1804 as a hunter interpreter with a salary of $25 per month. During the preparatory period of the expedition, he was asked to recruit personnel deemed reliable for the venture and was sent to South West Point, Tennessee from where he returned on December 16, 1803 with eight soldiers. Drouillard was to be the most resourceful and faithful servant of the explorers, serving them in diverse capacities. Always near Lewis, he slept close to him, whether in his tent or in the open, ready to respond to any emergency. Being “one of the two best runners”, he pursued on horseback any Indian who stole rifles, tomahawks, and was able to recuperate the stolen objects.617 He rounded up horses when they escaped.618 He scouted ahead of the others, ascended rivers looking for good passages and reconnoitering possible land routes.619 The explorers selected him to be their trusted companion when they ventured ahead of the party to survey unknown lands and chose him to deliver messages when they were separated. He searched for Moses Reed who had escaped with La Liberté and brought him back to be prosecuted.620 In early August 1804, they sent him along with Cruzatte to find men who had not returned from a mission. Drouillard being able to communicate effectively with the Indians they met was dispatched to contact Indians of various nations, 621 to invite them to smoke together, to arrange for meetings, 622 to recruit additional guides and interpreters, and to buy horses. During the winter of 1804-05, being fluent in both French and English, he translated into English the information Sacagawea gave in Shoshone to her French husband, Toussaint Charbonneau. His sign language skill was also put to good use in their dealings with the Shoshones when Sacagawea was not available. On August 14, 1805, Lewis wrote: The means I had of communicating with these people [the Shoshones] was by way of Drewyer who understood perfectly the common language of jesticulation or signs which seems to be universally understood by all the Nations we have yet seen. It is true that this language is imperfect and liable to error but it is much less so than would be expected. The strong parts of the ideas are seldom mistaken.623 617 . Biddle, Journals, 2: 248, 469, 497-498; Ambrose, Undaunted Courage, 356. 618 . Biddle, Journals, 2: 488. 619 . Ibid. 1:211, 219; 2: 489, 493, 495. 620 . Ambrose, Undaunted Courage, 159. 621 . Harrison Clifford Dale wrote that Drouillard was “a man of unusual astuteness in dealing with the Indians.” Exploration of William H. Ashley, 30. 622 . Biddle, Journals, 2: 452, 475, 478, 527; Ambrose, Undaunted Courage, 268-271, 362. 623 . Moulton, Journals, 5: 88 109 One of Drouillard’s most important contribution to the success of the expedition and the survival of its participants may have been his expertise as a hunter. Every day he ranged the prairies and the woods for buffalo, bear, deer, elk, antelope, beaver, geese, and other birds and animals. As they traveled up the river, he left the boat in the morning with one or two men to go hunting and, at the end of the day, rode down to the river bank to meet the boat when it came along. On January 12, 1806, as a time when meat was becoming scarce, Lewis wrote: We should scarcely be able to subsist, were it not for the exertions of the most excellent hunter. The game is scarce, and nothing is now to be seen, except elk, which for almost all the men are very difficult to be procured; but Drewyer, who is the offspring of a Canadian Frenchman and an Indian woman, has passed his life in the woods, and unites, in a wonderful degree, the dexterous aim of the frontier huntsman, with the intuitive sagacity of the Indian, in pursuing the faintest tracks through the forest.” 624 On that day, Drouillard killed seven elk.625 Drouillard was also responsible for a majority of the specimens of animals sent to President Jefferson. As the explorers were going down the Snake River on October 13, 1805, they named one of its tributaries after Drouillard; however it is known now as Palouse River in Washington State. If the captains did not give recognition to the contributions of the engagés and the other Frenchmen, “ in their respective ways, Lewis and Clark made it abundantly clear that G. Drouillard, interpreter and hunter, was of more worth to them than any other man of the party. By reading their words, and between lines, we must conclude that he was an extraordinary individual.” 626 Most historians concur with Satterfield who wrote: Undoubtedly the most valuable member of the expedition was the half-breed, Drouillard. Not only was he the most trustworthy, he was the best hunter, the best shot, and the coolest head under pressure. Whenever the leaders needed a man for a tough job that of Drouillard (or Drewyer as they spelled his name) appeared in the journal entry for that day, 627 624 . Coues, History of the Expedition, 2: 754. 625 . “Sending Drouillard out after game was equivalent to sending someone to the grocery store today because he was by far the best hunter of the entire party and probably the most dependable member, other than the two leaders themselves.” Satterfield, Lewis and Clark Trail, 82. 626 . Cutright, History of Lewis and Clark Journals, 207 627 . Ibid., 51. “If Drouillard had not been there, the travelers may have starved.” Marshall Democrat News, Saline County, Missouri, July 5, 204. 110 Back in St. Louis, Lewis submitted a report recommending that Drouillard receives an additional $5.00 per month above this contract of $25.00 per month. 628 He supported the request with the following assessment of Drouillard’s services: A man of much merit; he had been peculiarly useful from his knowledge of the common language of gesticulation, and his uncommon skill as a hunter and woodsman; those several duties he performed in good faith, and with an ardor which deserves the highest commendation. It was his fate also to have encountered, on various occasions, with either Capt. Clark or myself, all the most dangerous and trying scenes of the voyage, in which he uniformly acquitted himself with honor. He has served the complete term of his whole tour and received only 25 dollars pr. month, and one ration pr. day, while I am informed that it is not unusual for individuals in similar employment to receive 30 per month.629 Upon his return, Drouillard purchased the “anticipated warrant of Privates John Collins and Joseph Whitehouse,” each for $280.00. Six months later, he sold for $1,300.00 his own warrant and the two others he had bought, making a sizeable profit.630 While living in St. Louis, he collaborated with William Clark, who was by then Superintendent for Indian Affairs for the Northwest Territory, and furnished him a map and valuable data on the topography of the west, which were incorporated into the map the explorer prepared for the government. 631 In 1806, Drouillard returned to the Upper Missouri region with Manuel Lisa and helped establish trading posts at the fork of the Big Horn and Yellowstone rivers. In the late spring of 1808, he left St. Louis for another fur trading venture to the mountains as an employee of the Missouri Fur Company and was killed in May, 1810 by the Blackfeet Indians when he had ventured alone, near Three Forks, not far from the area where he had encountered them earlier with Capt. Lewis. The Corps of Discovery in Kansas Let us retrace the travel of the Corps of Discovery along eastern Kansas. It left from near St. Louis on May 14, 1804 and on May 25, the captains stopped at La Charette, the last settlement of whites on the Missouri. There they met “Mr. Louisell [Loisel] imedeately down from the Seeder Isld. Situated in the Countrey of the 628 . Drouillard is written “Drulyard” in the report. 629 . Hoffhaus, Chez les Canses, 131; Ambrose, Undaunted Courage, 414; Jackson, Letters, 2: 368-369; Thwaites, Early Western Travels, 7: 359. 630 . Ibid., 7: 406. 631 . “The real importance of Drouillard’s work lies in the fact he incorporated his information in a crude but accurate map, the first one known to have been drawn by a mountain man. This proved especially useful to William Clark in compiling his great map of the West.” Goetzman, Exploration and Empire, 24. A reproduction of the map appears in Wheat, Mapping of Transmississippi West, II. 111 Suxex [Sioux] 400 leagues up. He gave us a good Deel of information some letters.” 632 They arrived at the mouth of the Kansas River on June 26, at sunset. The captains decided to stop a few days to make observations, take time to measure the width of the river, and inquire about the Kansa Indians and the topography of the surrounding country, while the men cleaned the boats, unloaded the white pirogue that needed to be repaired, sunned the powder and woolen articles that were wet, checked the store of provisions, some of which had spoiled and went hunting and dressed skins. 633 On the 27th they built a breastwork “least the Savages would Attempt Comeing in the Night.” 634 Corp. Ordway wrote: “All the party out early this morning cutting the Timber off across the point & made a Hadge across the Timber . . . as defence.” 635 At half past 4 p.m. on the 29th, they set out from the Kansas River, proceeded past a small creek, which was probably Jersey Creek in Wyandotte County 636 and encamped seven and a quarter miles up the Missouri. On the 30th, they passed the mouth of a small river, “called by the French Petite Rivière Platte (or Shoal River).” 637 After navigating for twelve miles, they camped on the left side of the Missouri, opposite the lower point of an island called, “Dimond Island,” located in northeast Wyandotte County, near the village of Wolcott where they had to repair the broken mast. 638 On the 1st of July, they passed a small creek, which being nameless, they called “Biscuit Creek”. 639 Later in the day, they noticed another small creek, which was called Remore (or Tree Frog) Creek 640 and two willow islands of the same name.641 They passed by a run 642 before reaching a cluster of small islands, two 632 . Cedar Island where Loisel had built a fort. He must have given them information on the Upper Missouri and letters of introduction to his friends in that region, probably Vallé, Dorion and Tabeau. Moulton, Journals, 2: 252 633 . Ibid., 2: 327. 634 . Ibid., 9: 31 635 . Ibid., 9: 17. 636 . Ibid., 2: 332n2. 637 . The Little Platte River flows into the Missouri from the northeast. 638 . Ibid., 2: 333. Diamond Island still appears on the map of Wyandotte County in the Delorme Kansas Atlas, 40. It is difficult to ascertain on which bank of the river the explorers camped. As the Missouri meanders, making sharp bends along its course, the indications “south side” and “north side” do not constitute reliable information on the sites of their encampments. Besides the bed of the river has changed considerably since 1804, as have the locations of the mouths of its tributaries, 639 . Ibid., 2:336, 338, 339n1. Probably Island Creek near the Wyandotte-Leavenworth county line. 640 . Ibid., 2:336, 338, 339n4. It might be Ninemile Creek or Fivemile Creek in Leavenworth County. 641 . If Tree Frog Creek is Fivemile Creek, then the large island might be Leavenworth Island. Ibid. 2: 339, 340n5. 642 . Probably Threemile Creek in Leavenworth County. Ibid., 2: 340n6. 112 large and two small, called “Isles des Parques or Field Islds” where they camped. 643 On July 2, on the south side, they came upon a creek, named parques, 644 then on the left side upon another creek, called Turquie or Turkey Creek.645 They skirted a large island called by the Indians Wau-car-ba-war-con-da, or Bear- Medison Island, now known as Kickapoo Island, just above Leavenworth and in the vicinity of Kickapoo City, Kansas. 646 They camped opposite the first old village of the Kanzas on the bank of the river between two high points and saw “in the rear of the village a small fort built by the French on an elevation.” 647 There was no trace of the Indian settlement. The location of the fort could be identified by the remains of some of the chimneys. By now the explorers were in northeastern Leavenworth County, in the Salt Creek Valley. On the 3rd, they saw a large island, “called by the French Isle de (la) Vache or Cow Island.” 648 Clark wrote: On the south side above the island we halted at an old tradeing House, which is now deserted, 649 and half a mile beyond it encamped on the south. The land is fine along the rivers, and some distance back. We observed the black walnut and oak, among the timber; and the honey-suckle and the buck’s-eye, with the nuts on them. 650 On the 4th, they passed by either Whiskey or Clay Creek in Atchison County,651 then came to the lower edge of a plain where the “2nd old Kanzas village stood,” near the town of Doniphan, Doniphan County.652 After celebrating the day, by the discharge of gun”, they arrived to a creek on the south about twelve yards wide and coming from an extensive prairie, which approached the borders of the river. To this creek, which had no name, we gave that of the Fourth of July Creek. 643 . Nearly opposite Leavenworth. “One of our French hands tels me that the French intended to settle here once & brought their Cows and put them on those Islands.” Ibid, 2: 336. “The french Kept their Cattle & horses on those Islands at the time they had in this quarter a fort & trading establishment.” Ibid., 2: 338-339. 644 . Perhaps Bee Creek in Platte County, Missouri. Ibid., 2: 343n2. 645 . Ibid., 2: 340, 343n3. Probably Corral Creek in Leavenworth County. 646 . Ibid., 2: 342, 343n4. Coues, History of the Expedition, 1: 37n78. 647 Biddle, Journals, 1:11. Those were the remains of Fort de Cavagnial. The French formerly had a fort at this place to protect the trade of the [Kansa] nation.” Moulton, Journals, 2: 241. “The French had a garrison for Some time and made use of water of a Spring running into Turkey Creek.” Ibid., 2:3, 343n6. 648 . Isle de (la) Vache used to be an island in the channel of the Missouri River. It is now attached to the east bank of the river although it remains part of Kansas. Hoffhauss, “Fort de Cavagnial,” 441; Coues, History of the Expedition, 37; Remshaw, “Isle au Vache,” 436-43. 649 , Above Oak Mills in Atchison County, according to Barry, Beginning of the West, 49. Sergeant John Ordway wrote in his Journal: “Their was an old Trading house built by a French merchant from St. Louis to Trade with the Kansas Indians.” Moulton, Journals, 9: 20. 650 . Biddle, Journals, 1: 12. 651 . Moulton, Journals, 2: 349n3. 652 Ibid., 2: 348, 349n3. 113 After fifteen miles sail we came to on the north a little above a creek on the southern side, about thirty yards wide, which we called Independence Creek,653 in honor of the day, which we could celebrate only by an evening gun, and an additional gill of whiskey to the men.654 On the 5th, they crossed “over to the south (Kansas bank) and came along an extensive and beautiful prairie, interspersed with copses of timber, and watered by Independence Creek. On this bank stood formerly the second village of the Kanzas from its remains it must have been once a large town.”655 Clark wrote: “I observe great quantities of Summer & fall Grapes, Berries & Wild roases on the banks.” On the same day, they set camp on the south side under a high bank, opposite low land covered with tall rushes, and some timber. They passed a small creek on the left side, which Clark called “Yellow-Oaker Creek for a quantity of that Mineral in a bank a little above,” while Lewis named it “(Roses Creek) yellow oaker [ocher] creek for (the number of roses about) a bank of that Mineral just above.” 656 On the 6th, they again “encamped on the south side” at the mouth of a creek named today Peter’s Creek in Doniphan County.657 On the 7th, they “halted on the left side.”658 On the 8th, they “camped on the north side, near the head of Nodawa Island, opposite a smaller one in the middle of the river.659 Barry wrote: “On the seventh and again on the ninth of July on which date they passed several miles beyond Wolf River, Doniphan County, their camp was on the Kansas bank of the Missouri.” 660 On the 9th, after traveling by the mouth of Monter’s Creek, 661 two miles above they saw “some cabins where our Bowman & Several Frenchmen Campd, 653 . The creek, still named today Independence Creek, empties into the Missouri near Doniphan, in Doniphan County, Kansas. 654 . Biddle, Journals, 1: 12. 655 . Ibid., 1:12.” The Cause of their moveing to the Kanzas River, I have never heart, nor Can I learn.” Moulton, Journals, 2: 348. “The Origan of this old village is uncertain. M. de Bourgmont a French officer who Comdd. a fort near the Town of the Missouris in about the year 1724 and in July of the Same year he visited this Village at that time the nation was noumerous & well desposed towards the French. . . .Those people must have been verry noumerous at that time as Mr. De B. was accompanied by 300 Warriers, 500 young people & 300 Dogs of burthen out of this Village.” Ibid., 2: 351. 656 It has been identified as Brush Creek in Doniphan County. Ibid., 2: 350, 351n2. 657 . Coues, History of Expedition, 1:40n85. Moulton, Journals, 1: 354n4. Since in the proximity of St. Joseph, Missouri the river forms three deep meanders, it is difficult to determine whether the “north side” was in Kansas or Missouri. 658 . Barry surmised that they were on Kansas soil. Barry, Beginning of the West, 49. Probably in Doniphan County. Moulton, Journals, 2: 365n4. 659 . They were near the border of Atchison County. Coues, History of the Expedition, 2: 421n88. 660 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 49. 661 . It is now called Charleston Creek or Mosquito Creek in Doniphan County. Coues, History of the Expedition, 2: 421n89; Moulton, Journals, 2: 363n4. 114 two years [ago].” 662 They passed a high land.663 That night they encamped on the south side, fourteen miles north of the Loup or Wolf River. 664 On the 10th, they passed a 15 yard wide creek called Pape’s Creek.665 By the 11th they had entered present Nebraska as Lewis wrote “they encamped on a large sand island on the north, immediately opposite the river Nemahaw.”666 On their return trip, as they traveled down from the Pacific to St. Louis in 1806, the captains had with them their three faithful companions, Drouillard, Cruzatte, Labiche, and Jean Baptiste Lepage. Nothing is known about Lepage’s background. He had been hired at the Mandans on November 2, 2804 and had traveled with them to the Pacific. When Lewis transmitted to Henry Dearborn his roll of the men of the Corps, he wrote that John B. LePages was “entitled to no peculiar merit. . . . As he did not perform the labors incident to the summer of 1804, it would be proper to give him the gratuity of only two-thirds as much as is given to others of his rank.” 667 It appears that the explorers reached Kansas on September 13th, as on that date, Clark expressed his fear of meeting with the Kanzas for they had the habit of “robbing the perogues passing up to other nations above . . . and agreeably to their common custom of examining every thing in the pirogues and takeing what they want out of them.” Therefore the explorers took the necessary precautions for such an encounter: We held ourselves in readiness to fire upon any Indian who should offer us the slightest indignity, as we no longer needed their friendship, and found that a tone of firmness and decision is the best possible method of making proper impression on these freebooters.668 On the 14th, they traveled “with a Stiff Breeze a head” and passed a little below the lower of the old Kanzas Village at 2 P.M and after covering fifty-three miles stopped near their encampment of the 1st of July 1804, on Leavenworth Island, opposite Leavenworth. 662 . Either Cruzatte or Labiche. Sergeant Ordway stated that the Frenchmen came “for to hunt & raise corn, etc.” Sergeant Floyd wrote: ”Seve[r]al French famileys had Setled and made Corn Some Years ago. Stayed two years the Indians came Freckentley to see them and was verry friendly.” Thwaites, Early Western Travels, 7: 16. This site is in Doniphan County, a few miles down the Missouri from Iowa Point. Moulton, Journals, 2, 364n11. 663 . The high bluff was later called Lookout Mountain. Ibid, 2: 363n5. 664 . The river is presently named Wolf River and flows into the Missouri in Doniphan County. They probably camped near the town of Iowa Point in Doniphan County. Ibid., 2: 363n7. 665 . Now known as Cedar Creek in Doniphan County. Ibid., 2: 365n1. 666 . Nemaha River. Biddle, Journals, 1: 10-14. 667 . Jackson, Letters, 2: 368. At the time of their travels a small river, a tributary of the Columbia River, was named La Page after him. Today it is known as John Day River. 668 . Biddle, Journals, 2: 543. 115 On the 15th, they reached “the entreance of the Kanzas river” at 11 A.M. where they landed to “let the men gether Pappaws or the Custard apple of which this Country abounds, and the men are very fond.” 669 Clark remarked: The river Kansas is very low at this time. About a mile below it we landed to view the situation of a high hill, which has many advantages for a trading house or fort; while on the shore we gathered great quantities of papaws [pecans], and shot an elk. The low grounds are now delightful, and the whole country exhibit a rich appearance; but the weather is oppressively warm, and descending as rapidly as we do from a cool open country, between the latitude of 46 and 49 degrees in which we have been for nearly two years, to the wooded plains in 38 and 39 degrees, the heat would be almost insufferable were it not for the constant winds from the south and the southeast.670 Several times during their travel down the Missouri, the explorers reported crossing boats of French traders traveling up and down the river. Most of the times they did not identify them, but in some instances they recognized familiar faces. On August 21, 1806, they met three Frenchmen, two identified as “Reevea, and Greinjea.”671 On the 3rd of September, they found two boats and several men on shore, who were stopped as they had lost much of their merchandise during a squall. 672 On the 6th, near the Little Sioux River, they met a “trading boat belonging to Mr. Auguste Chateau,673 of St. Louis, with several men, on their way to trade with the Yanktons (a Sioux tribe) at the river Jacques.”674 On the 10th, 1806, in the course of the day, they met a trader accompanied by three men, on his way to the Pawnee Loups or Wolf Pawnees, on the Platte. Soon after, another boat passed with seven men from St. Louis, bound to the Mahas. September 12, 1806 was another day when they had several encounters: a pirogue bound for the Platte River for “the purpose of trading with the Pawnees” and another “on a trapping expedition to the neighborhood of the Mahas.” A third boat transported persons with whom Lewis had been acquainted on the upper region of the Missouri. Mr. Gravelines was a French trader who had been living with the Arikaras since 1791 and “had been an invaluable source of information on the upper-Missouri country.” His command of English, French, Sioux, and Arikara made it possible for Lewis to communicate swiftly and accurately with the Arikaras.675 He was returning from Washington where he had been sent with a “Ricara” [Arikara] chief. “The chief had 669 . Thwaites, Original Journals, 5: 385. 670 . Biddle, Journals, 2: 543. 671 . The first one was probably François Rivet, one of the engagés of the expedition and second, called Grenier, was probably an employee of Joseph Gravelines” who had wintered with [ them] at the mandans in 1804.” 672 . Ibid., 2: 540. 673 . It should read “Chouteau.” 674 . Ibid., 2: 541. 675 Ambrose, Undaunted Courage, 179. 116 unfortunately died at Washington, and Gravelines was now on his way to the Ricaras, with a speech to be delivered from the president and presents which had been made to the chief. He was also directed to instruct the Ricaras in agriculture.”676 Also on board was “old Mr. Durion”.677 Pierre Dorion, who had been living among the Sioux for twenty-five years, had helped Lewis greatly through his familiarity with the area, getting him acquainted with the land, suggesting water routes and warning him of possible dangerous situations. Lewis also had hired him as interpreter on account of his knowledge of the Sioux language, as well as French and English 678 and his influence on the Sioux who referred to him as “our old friend”. Through his intervention, a friendly meeting was arranged between some seventy Sioux and the explorers. Dorion’s mission was To procure by his influence, a safe passage for the Ricara presents through the bands of Sioux, and also to engage some of the Sioux chiefs, not exceeding six, to visit Washington. .. . We authorized M. Durion to invite ten or twelve Sioux chiefs to accompany him, particularly the Yanktons whom we had found well disposed towards our country.679 The Frenchmen who constituted the backbone of the expedition taught their survival skills to the other members who had no previous experience in living in the wilderness. Their interventions were vital in establishing communication with the various Indian nations encountered during the expedition as neither the captains nor the other Americans knew sign or any Indian languages. The Missouri was at the time a well traveled route to the western regions. Many Frenchmen were familiar with its course. They were also acquainted with the Kansas landscape and resources, spent days and nights along its northeastern border, hunting, making repairs, resting, or often stopping on account of the weather or the condition of the river. They took advantage of the bounty of its soil. They appreciated the abundance of grapes, raspberries, mulberries, wild potatoes, geese, turkeys, deer, beaver and pikes, and shared it with the rest of the men for whom these Kansas products were welcomed alternatives to their monotonous diet. The descendants of the early French settlers in Louisiana whom the American officials hired around St. Louis rendered valuable services to the Corps of Discovery, which were essential to the success of the expedition and the discovery of the West. THE LONG EXPEDITION 676 . Biddle, Journals, 2: 542. 677 . Pierre Dorion, Sr. Incorrectly written by Lewis as “Durioun, Dueron, Duriaur and Durion.” He was fifty-five years old at that time and was married to a Sioux woman. “We provld [prevailed] on this old man Mr Duriaur [Dorion] man to return with us, with a view to get Some of the Soux [Sioux] Chiefs to go to the U.S.” Osgood, Field Notes, 55. 678 . Ambrose, Undaunted Courage, 146-147. 679 . Biddle, Journals, 2: 542-543. 117 After Major S.H. Long of the U.S. Top. Engineers arrived at Fort Osage on his way to the Rocky Mountains, on August 6, 1819 he sent a party of twelve men, headed by the zoologist Thomas Say, to contact the Kansa Indians in their village near Manhattan. Among them were “Chaboneau and an old Frenchman.”680 “Chaboneau” was Toussaint Charbonneau who was born of French parents near Montreal, Canada around 1759 and had participated in several prior expeditions. He was first employed by the Northwest Company at Pine Fort on the Assiboine during the year 1793-94. Two years later he was on the Knife River among the Minnetarees who gave him Sacajawea, a Shoshone girl whom they had captured when she was 14 years old. In 1802 he and his wife were engaged by Lewis and Clark as interpreters.681 In 1811 Manuel Lisa hired him as an interpreter and trader, at a salary of $250 per year. Between July 1816 and July 1817 he was employed by A.P. Chouteau and Julius De Mun to trade with the Indians on the upper Arkansas and Platte rivers. After the Long expedition in 1825, Maximilian, Prince of Wied-Neuwied found him of “great service as an interpreter and otherwise”. In subsequent years he worked for the United States Indian Department as an interpreter at the Mandans while continuing to trade with the Indians independently or for fur trading companies. On August 26, 1839, Joshua Picher, Superintendent of Indian Affairs in St. Louis wrote to the Commissioner of Indians Affairs: On this 21st inst. Toussaint Charbonneau, the late Mandan Interpreter, arrived here from the Mandan villages, a distance of 1600 miles, and came into the office, tottering under the infirmities of 80 winters, without a dollar to support him. . . . I accordingly have paid his salary as interpreter for the Mandan sub-agency . . . This man has been a faithful servant of the Government though in a humble capacity. . For the last fifteen years, he has been employed as the Government interpreter at the Mandans.682 It is not known when and where he died, but his estate was settled by his son, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau in 1843. 683 680 . “Chaboneau and the old Frenchman, who had been dispatched from Fort Osage, to summon the Konzas to meet the agent at Isle au Vache, had arrived some days previous; but the nation being at the time absent on a hunting excursion, the interpreters, after reaching the village, had proceeded immediately into the plains in pursuit of them.” Thwaites, Early Western Travels, 14: 187. 681 . The captains expressed conflicting opinions about Charbonneau. In a report sent to Henry Dearborn on January 15, 1807, Lewis evaluated the services of the various men of the expedition. He wrote about Charbonneau that he was “a man of no peculiar merit; useful as an interpreter only.” Jackson, Letters, 1: 369. While on August 2, 1806, Clark wrote to Charbonneau:” You have been a long time with me and have conducted your Self in Such a manner as to gain my friendship.” Clark offered to establish him on a farm in Illinois and let him have a horse to visit his family in Montreal. Ibid., 1: 315. Superintendent Pilcher stated that Charbonneau was “a faithful servant of the government.” His annual salary which varied between $200 and $400, the normal salary of a sub- agent, seems to indicate that he was a dependable employee. Luttig, Journal, 135-141. 682 . Jackson, Letters, 2: 648. 683. Hafen, “Toussaint Charbonneau,” in Hafen, ” Mountain Men, 9: 53, 62. 118 On their way to the Kansa village, Charbonneau and the old Frenchman probably took the same route as the rest of the party, which followed them a few days later. They traveled through Johnson, Douglas, Shawnee, and Pottawatomie counties, taking a course parallel to the Kansas River, “across the woodless plains about the sources of the Hay Cabin, Blue Water, and Warreruza Creek.” 684 When the detachment arrived at the village at the confluence of the Kansas and Big Blue rivers on August 20, Charbonneau and the Frenchman were already there.685 After being “treated with much hospitality by the Indians,” Say purchased a number of articles for their use “such as jerked bison meat, pounded maize, bison fat put up like sausages, mockasins, leggings, spoons made of the horn of the bison, two large wooden dishes, etc.” 686 The detachment left on August 24th to rejoin the rest of the expedition on the Missouri River. Their “path led along the margin of Blue Earth Creek” 687 and “at the distance of seven miles from the village,[they] encamped by the site of the creek.” While settled for the night, they were attacked by about one hundred and forty mounted Pawnee Republic Indians who were at war with the Kansa. 688 Chaboneau intervened to settle a dispute with the aggressors and went to the Kansa village to secure assistance. As Say’s health did not permit his continuing the journey on foot, they procured two pack horses and a saddle from “a Frenchman, Mr. Gunville, resident with this nation” 689 and departed, “accompanied by the French trader, who had furnished them two horses.”690 The account relates the route they took to reach to the Missouri River: In pursuing the most direct route from the Konza village to the Missouri, they crossed at the distance of seventeen miles, the Vermilion, a small stream bordered with handsome forests. Nineteen miles beyond this they arrived at the sources of Grasshopper Creek,691 where they encamped on the evening of the 27th. On the 29th they arrived at Isle au Vache. 684 . The Warresuza Creek can be identified as the stream presently named Wakarusa River, which empties into the Kansas River, east of Lawrence in Douglas County. The Hay Cabin and Blue Water could be one of the creeks, which flow into the Kansas River, east of the Wakarusa in Johnson and Douglas counties: Mill Creek, Cedar Creek, Kill Creek, Captain Creek or Coleman Creek. 685 . Thwaites, Early Western Travels, 14: 183-187. 686 . Ibid., 199. 687 . Ibid., 200. The creek is probably the creek presently named Rock Creek which is located a few miles east of Manhattan. 688 . Ibid, 203-205. 689 . Ibid., 154: 209. Probably Louis Gonville who had been trading with the Kansa Indians since 1807 and who later married two of Chief White Plume’s daughters. Chief White Plume of the Kansa nation was also known as Plume Blanche and Wom-pa-wa-ra meaning He who scares all men. Ibid., 177. See chapter on Frenchmen and half-breeds among Indian nations. 690 Ibid., 210. 691 . Now called Delaware River. The river empties into the Kansas River near Lecompton in Jefferson County. 119 Say and his men had crossed Pottawatomie, Jackson and Leavenworth counties. At their arrival at Cantonment Martin692 on Isle de la Vache, they found out that the steamboat had left four days prior without waiting for them. Except for Say and Jessup, a geologist, still too ill to travel any farther, the party proceeded by land on the 2nd of September to attempt to overtake the Western Engineer. They boarded it at the mouth of Wolf River in Doniphan County and joined the rest of the expedition. They traveled upriver until September 19 when they settled at Engineer Cantonment, “half a mile above Fort Lisa, five miles below Council Bluffs” in Washington County, Nebraska.693 While the explorers were wintering there, Major Long went east to receive new instructions 694 as Congress, annoyed by the first season’s operations, the results of which had been out of all proportion to the heavy expenditures, had refused further appropriations. Back at the Cantonment on May 28, 1820, Major Long gathered men, horses and provisions and departed on June 6 with new members in his party. Among them was Stephen Julien, a Frenchman who had been hired as an interpreter of French and Indian languages.695 On their way to the Pawnee village, he used his expertise in sign language to communicate with the Pawnee chief, who had come out on horseback to meet the party more than a mile from the village. 696 Before reaching the settlement, the party was joined by three or four Frenchmen from whom they purchased “two small brass kettles to complete [their] supply of camp furniture.” One of the Frenchmen had brought a letter from Lieutenant Graham and “a box containing quantity of vaccine virus, transmitted to the exploring party, for the purpose of introducing vaccination to the Indians.” 697 The Frenchmen had also caught a horse, which had escaped from Engineer Cantonment and returned it to the expedition. 698 The journal stated: “This formed a valuable addition to our stock of horses, as a number of them were already unfit for service, on account of sore backs.”699 The Frenchmen accompanied the party up to the Pawnee village only. When the explorers arrived at the village located on the Loup River, Major Long found out that the guide he had engaged before leaving the Missouri had quit. Before proceeding west, he was faced with the necessity to hire a new guide among the traders living there. He had to threaten them with canceling their privilege of residing, or trading among the Pawnees. It was only after much coercion that two men were recruited. Captain John H. Bell, official reporter of the expedition wrote: 692 . Cantonment Martin, the first U.S. military installation in Kansas, was established in October 1818 on Cow Island. 693 . Ibid., 210-222. 694 . Ibid., 15: 189. 695 . Ibid., 191. 696 . Ibid., 210-211. 697 . Ibid., 195, 202. 698 . The explorers were impressed by the endurance to pain of one of the Frenchmen who still had an unhealed wound received during an encounter with the Indians. . “Surprising accounts are given of the hardihood, and patience under suffering, manifested by the Indians; but we have rarely seen one of them exhibit a more striking instance of insensibility to pain, than this Frenchman.” Ibid., 195. 699 . Ibid., 202-203. 120 It was with great difficulty that the Commanding Officer could engage two Frenchmen, traders residing with the Indians to accompany our party as far as the Arkansas River – liberal efforts of reward had no effect and it was not until he threatened to report to the government and have them removed from the Villages that they agreed to go. 700 They were: Joseph Bissonnette, 701 hired as interpreter and guide and Abraham Ledoux 702 as hunter and farrier to take care of the thirty-four horses and mules of the expedition. Their agreements stipulated that they were to be paid $1.00 per day.703 Bissonnette was born in St. Louis on June 15, 1778.704 After his father’s death, he adopted the name of Bijeau or Bijou, 705 his stepfather’s name. Bijeou and Ledoux were well qualified to furnish valuable assistance in the course of the expedition: Both were Frenchmen, residing permanently among the Pawnees, and had been repeatedly on the headwaters of the Platte and Arkansas, for the purpose of hunting and trapping beaver. Bijou was partially acquainted with several Indian languages; in particular that of the Crow nation, which is extensively understood by the Western tribes and by frequent intercourses with the Indians he had gained a complete knowledge of the language of signs, universally current among them.706 Bissonnette led the explorers successfully up the Platte River as he had spent “the greatest part of six years” in that area. He was fairly effective as interpreter and able “to hold somewhat comprehensible talk with the La Plays (Padoucas?), Kiawas, Arapahoes, and Kaskaias (or Bad-Hearts), as they were known by the French) by using the Crow language.”707 He also used his language skill when their meat supply was low. He exchanged “jerky buffalo meat” for a few trinkets, such as an awl, comb, vermillion, and small looking glass. On July 21st, when they reached the Arkansas River near Rocky Ford, Colorado, Long divided his men. He ordered Captain Bell to head a detachment of eleven men and descend the Arkansas River to Fort Smith on the Mississippi. The party included Captain Bell, Lieutenant Swift, Samuel Say, the zoologist, Mr. Seymour, the three Frenchmen, Bijeau, Ledoux and Julien, five riflemen, the greater part of the pack-horses, the heavy baggage and two dogs. Before 700 . Fuller and Hafen, Journal of Captain John R. Bell, 122-123. 701 . Also written Bisssonet and Bisonet. 702 . Also written Ladeau, Landeau and Le Doux. 703 . Ibid., 103-104. 704 . See Lisa’s expedition. 705 . Bijou Creek, halfway between Denver and Limon, Colorado was named after him. Ibid., 142n43. 706 . Thwaites, Early Western Travels, 15: 220. 707 . Fuller and Hafen, Journal Captain Bell, 180, 212 121 separating, Dr. Edwin James, who was remaining with Major Long’s party, praised Bijeau’s character, writing: “He appears not only of considerable acuteness of observation but of a degree of candour and veracity which gives credibility to his accounts and descriptions. To him we are indebted for the following account of the country situated within the mountains.” 708 Having fulfilled the terms of their contracts, Bissonnette and Ledoux were anxious to return to the Pawnee villages for the fall hunting season. However they agreed to “accompany the detachment until after [they] pass the bands of Indians said to be below moving in the direction of the mountains.” On the 30th, the Bell’s detachment crossed the Colorado–Kansas line and on August 1st, while they were camping near Garden City, Julien, who was sent to reconnoiter, saw “a war party making toward them at full speed, shouting, hallowing at great rate.” They were Cheyennes, “some of them painted black and with a most horrid frightful appearance.” Through a Crow Indian, prisoner of the Cheyennes, Bijeau was able to convince them that they were “friends and Americans” and they agreed to smoke the peace pipe.709 When they parted, the Cheyenne chief, who had received a few gifts, embraced Bell warmly. Through his intervention, Bijeau had saved the lives of the members of the party. The explorers continued down the Arkansas River, passing near Dodge City. The men hunted buffalo and the weather being pleasant were able to jerk some meat. By the 6th they had reached the lower bend of the Arkansas River, some distance east of the town of Ford in Ford County. On the 7th, Captain Bell wrote: This morning Bijeau and Ladeau parted from us, having proceeded further with our party than was contemplated in their engagement with the Commanding Officer – and as long as their business, as traders with the Pawnees, could permit them to be absent – they took a course across the country, touching upon the tributary streams of the Kansas River, from which they expect to obtain water. I am told by them, it is the most practicable route in crossing from the Arkansas to the Platte – we separated from these men with feelings of regret, being truly sensible to the important services that they had rendered as guides and interpreters. In our interviews with the savages Bijeau was all important, for having spent the greater part of his life with Indians, he was well acquainted with their general disposition, and the best policy to be pursued with them – faithful as our interpreter, and I believe of the strictest truth and veracity.710 Dr. Say shared Bell’s sentiments: Monday, 7th. The services of the two French Pawnee interpreters, Bijeau and Ledoux, had terminated, agreeably to their contract, at 708 . Thwaites , Early Western Travels, 16:58-59. 709 . Fuller and Hafen, Journal Captain Bell, 211-212. 710 . Ibid., 217. 122 Purgatory Creek;711 having been highly serviceable to us on our route, it became desirable, particularly on the departure of our companions for Red River, that they should accompany us still farther, until we should have passed beyond the great Indian war- path, here so widely outspread. This they readily consented to, as they regarded a journey from that point to their home, at the Pawnee village, as somewhat too hazardous to be prudently attempted by only two individuals, however considerable their qualifications and intimate their familiarity with the manners of those whom they would probably meet. But as we now supposed ourselves to have almost reached the boundary of this region, and they again expressed their anxiety to return to their village, in order to prepare for their autumnal hunt, we no longer attempted to induce their further delay. They departed after breakfast, on a pathless journey of about three hundred miles, supposed distance from this point to the Pawnee villages of the Platte, apparently well pleased with the treatment they had received, and expressing a desire again to accompany us, should we again ascend the Missouri. We cannot take leave of them, without expressing our entire approbation of their conduct and deportment, during our arduous journey; Bijeau, particularly, was faithful, active, industrious, and communicative. Besides his duties as guide and interpreter, he occasionally and frequently volunteered his services as hunter, butcher, cook, veterinarian, &., and pointed out various little services, tending to our comfort and security, which he performed with pleasure and alacrity, and which no other than one long habituated to his mode of life would have devised. . . More important information was derived from him concerning the manners and habits of the mountain Indians, their history, affinities, and migrations.712 Before leaving, Ledoux gave them “a copious vocabulary of words of the Pawnee language . . . together with an account of the manners and habits of that nation.”713 As for Bijeau: before he parted from us, urged by his wishes for our safety, [he] drew for our information a sketch of the country over which we had to pass, as far as he had traveled in that direction on a former occasion, which sketch was terminated by two large streams entering the river near to each other, and diverging in the opposite direction. As the remarkable relative course of these two streams, as represented by Bijeau, corresponded to sufficient exactness with the representation of the Verdigrise and Grand rivers…. Bijeau’s sketch proved to be a pretty 711 . Near Las Animas in southeast Colorado. 712 . Thwaites, Early Western Travels, 16: 225-227. 713 . Ibid., 227. 123 faithful transcript of the Country as far as the two water-courses that we passed on the18th instant.714 The chroniclers of the 1820 Long’s expedition give great credit to the two Frenchmen, and especially to Bijeau for their survival and the success of the expedition as they shared their knowledge of the Kansas land, the native way of life and warned them of inherent risks as they traveled across Indian land. Their linguistic ability permitted them to communicate with the Indians in time of danger. There is no record of the route Bijeau and Ledoux took across Kansas between the bend of the Arkansas River and the Pawnee villages in Nebraska. They probably followed the Pawnee trails as they had lived among them previously. After their departure, Stephen Julien, who had been recruited on June 6 when the expedition was first organized, remained with Bell’s detachment He was very resourceful and is often mentioned in the journals, as he hunted, gathered fruit, searched for lost horses and assumed the full responsibility of dealings with the Indians. On the 8th, the reduced party was on “Demun’s Creek,” 715 named after Jules de Mun who had lost a horse there. On the 9th, they crossed a stream that they named “Vulture Creek”.716 On the 10th, they stopped to “enjoy the sweets of repose.” On the 11th, they probably reached Rattlesnake Creek, which enters the Arkansas River east of Great Bend. On the 12th, Julien was sent with the flag to investigate the identity of some Indians who “occasionally raised their heads to look at [their] party and watched [their] movements” and invite them to meet the American detachment. They were Ietans who had been defeated two nights earlier by the Oto. In the attack they had lost three men, fifty-six horses and most of their belongings. In addition, six warriors had been wounded. At first, they appeared to be friendly and agreed to smoke the pipe together but soon they showed remarkable aggressiveness, trying to steal horses and rifles, probably to compensate for their earlier losses. Julien was detained by them and was even in danger when one of the Indian partisans ordered his men to release him and let the travelers move on. 717 On the 13th, they arrived at a stream “about twenty yards wide, of clear water, and gravel bottom.” It is identified as Cow Creek 718 that empties into the Arkansas at Hutchison. On the 14th, they reached the Little Arkansas River which Bell noted correctly. On the 15th, they were in the vicinity or Wichita, and then 714 . Ibid., 255-256. Unfortunately, on August 30, these manuscripts were carried off by three soldiers who had deserted. 715 . De Mun was a partner of A. P. Chouteau in the fur trade venture of 1815-1817. According to Barry, the creek is presently named “Big Coon Creek, east of Dodge City,” Beginning of the West, 92. Fuller and Hafen also identified it as Big Coon Creek. Journal Captain Bell, 218n29. However, Thwaites erroneously wrote that it was the Pawnee River, which flows eastward from Finney County and empties into the Arkansas River at the town of Larned. Early Western Travels, 16: 227. 716 . Pawnee Creek that enters the Arkansas at the site of Larned. Barry, Beginning of the West, 92; Fuller and Hafen, Journal Captain Bell, 219n31. 717 . Ibid., 223-226. 718 . Ibid., 227n39, 124 continued down the Arkansas. On the 16th, they camped opposite the mouth of the Ninnescah River, which is erroneously shown on the map of the expedition as the “Negracka, or the Red Fork.”719 On the 17thgame being scarce, they sent “Mr. Julien and the Corporal” hunting. Julien killed two fawns and wounded a large buck. On the 18th they crossed a stream, which Bell erroneously named “the Virdigrise.” It was Walnut Creek, which enters the Arkansas near Arkansas City, close to the Kansas-Oklahoma line. 720 By the 19th, the explorers had moved out of Kansas. For twelve days Julien had been the sole interpreter of the detachment. He had found himself “in precarious situations” in the course of his encounters with the Indians and had contributed greatly to the subsistence and the safety of Bell’s detachment. Nothing is known of Julien’s whereabouts after his participation in the Long’s expedition. Bissonette is recorded as having continued trading among the Indians. On May 1846, with four others, he led a caravan of merchandise-laden wagons from Missouri to the Upper North Platte, across Kansas, by the way of the Oregon Trail.721 He also probably traveled through northeast Kansas when he and another Frenchman Badeau [James Bordeaux]722 are recorded as having passed Captain Stanbury’s camp on the Big Blue River with a train of wagons full of goods to be traded with the Sioux.723 Mounted riflemen from Fort Leavenworth reported having met “Bissenet’s” train on September 12, 1852 at Cottonwood Point. 724 By 1853, an advertisement published in the St. Joseph [Mo] Gazette announced that Bissonette, Kenceleur & Co. were building a “substantial” bridge across the North Fork of the Platte, one hundred and ten miles above Fort Laramie. The announcement added: “There will be at the Bridge two Blacksmith and Wagon maker’s shops, for the accommodation of emigrants. The company will have a good grocery Store and eating house, and all kinds of Indian handled peltries, also oxen, cows, horses, and mules at low prices.” 725 By that time, the former interpreter and trader realized the opportunity, which existed for enterprising men to build bridges and provide needed services and goods for the trains of emigrants going west. Other Frenchmen and half-breeds were developing similar facilities in Kansas along the emigrant trails. 719 . Ibid., 232n48. 720 . Ibid., 234n50. 721 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 582. 722 . On March 24, 1849 he left Fort Laramie with Bissonnette and others, arrived in St. Joseph on April 29 and reached St. Louis on May 29. Ibid., 832. He may also be the “Mons. Bordeau who “arrived in Kansas City on August 26, 1858 with the first news of gold at Pike’s Peak, and advised miners to take the Arkansas route, as the Kansas is destitute of timber and water.” Greene, “The Kansas River,” 342. 723 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 873. 724 . Ibid., 1127. Probably Cottonwood Falls in Chase County. 725 . Ibid., 1140. 125 CHAPTER 6 AFTER THE LOUISIANA PURCHASE TRADE EXPEDITIONS The sale of Louisiana by the French government to the United States in 1803 and the formal cession in St. Louis in March of 1804 did not disrupt abruptly the enterprises of the St. Louis traders. While citizens of the United States were beginning to enter the hunting, trapping, and trading business, the majority of them were still Frenchmen, following the tradition of those who for almost centuries had roamed into the wilderness between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains. After the administration of the United State government was installed in St. Louis, some traders moved to New Mexico and offered their services to the Spanish authorities in Santa Fe. Inspired by Vial’s success in crossing Kansas, others tried to link commercially St. Louis and Santa Fe, hoping to sell their goods in Santa Fe and bring back silver and gold to St. Louis. It was reported that by 1805 there were at least five French traders in Santa Fe at the employ of the Spanish Crown. William Morrison, a wealthy American merchant in Kaskaskia outfitted and sent two experienced French traders, Jean Baptiste Lalande and Jeannot Metoyer to lead a caravan of packed mules loaded with merchandise to be sold in Santa Fe. They left St. Louis in early June 1804, proceeded to the Panis village located on the Republican River. There they met Joseph Gervais 726 who had come from Santa Fe “along a route he knew” to guide them to New Mexico. 727 Lalande never returned to St. Louis, one reason may have been that he did not want to face Morrison as he had not been honest in his dealings with him. Later when Dr. John H. Robinson traveled with General Zebulon M. Pike, he carried a claim from Morrison against Lalande for non-payment of goods Morrison had entrusted him to sell in Santa Fe.728 In St. Louis the granting of trading licenses continued as it had been under the French and Spanish administrations. After the Osage trade license awarded to the Chouteau brothers was cancelled in 1802, it was given to Manuel Lisa, a Spaniard and his three French partners, Grégoire Sarpy, Charles Sanguinet and François M. Benoît. The following year, Lisa acquired the shares of Sarpy and Sanguinet. The papers of Frederick Bates, acting superintendent of Indian Affairs indicate that Frenchmen were still dominating the trade in Kansas. On July 25, 1807 a license was issued to Joseph Renard to trade with the Panis Republic. On August 24 of the same year, François Derouen 729 received a license for the “Kaas (Kans), Ottoes and 726 . Also written Jose Gervaes and Chalvet. 727 . Loomis-Nasatir, Pedro Vial, 172-173, 422. Letters of de Lassus to Casa Calvo, August 10, 1804 and from Casa Calvo to Prince of Peace, September 30, 1804; Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 2:743-744, 755- 756. 728 . Coues, Expedition of Zebulon M. Pike, 2: 499-502, 602-603; Loomis-Nasatir, Pedro Vial, 237. Lalande was still working for theSpanish officials when he was sent on March 2, 1807 to spy on Lieutenant Pike who was approaching Santa Fe. When he met Pike he pretended that he had been prisoner of the Spaniards for three years, therefore unable to return to Kaskaskia and pay Morrison what he owed him. After questioning him, Pike discovered his deception. Lalande died in Santa Fe. 729 . Also written Francis Dorion. On May 14, 1797, after returning from the Platte River in Nebraska where he had been trading with the Otoes, he reported to Trudeau that the Otoes and the Kansas had been 126 Panis,” and Pierre Montardy was granted a license for the Kansa Indians. One-year permits to hunt on the Kansas River were issued to B. and J. Vallett (on August 31), to Lebeech,730 Derchette and Louis Gonvoville 731 on September 12). 732 Many other licenses were granted to Frenchmen without specifying to which areas they were restricted to hunt or trade. Baptiste Gouveville 733 and Raphael Langlois were allowed to hunt on the Osage River, without mentioning on which section of the river. They probably hunted in Kansas as the Osages were already penetrating into that area at that time. THE LISA-DROUILLARD EXPEDITION OF 1807 Expeditions up the Missouri continued with the trading companies drawing many members of their personnel from the large number of Frenchmen accustomed to living in the wilderness. On April 19, 1807, Manuel Lisa,734 a Spaniard, and George Drouillard left St. Louis in a keelboat. 735 They ascended the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers and stopped for the winter at the mouth of the Big Horn River in Montana where they built a fort, named Fort Manuel, which was also used as a fur depot.736 They returned in July 1808 with a load of furs and arrived in St. Louis on August 5, 1808. Their party included forty-two men, out of which nineteen were Frenchmen: Etienne Brant, Joseph Brazeau, François Bouche, Jean Baptiste Bouche, François Colas, known as Sansquartier, Cousin, Jean Baptiste Champlain, Jr.737, Pierre fighting during the winter of 1796-1797. Being illiterate, after his oral report was transcribed and read to him, he signed it with the mark of a cross. 730 . Probably Labuiche. 731 . Also written Gonville, Gouveville, Gounville, Gonivillle, and Gouvenile. He occupied a prominent place in the Indian trade for over forty years. He married successively Hunt Jimmy and Wyheese, both daughters of the Kansas chief, White Plume and was the ancestor of Vice-President Charles Curtis. 732 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 59. 733 . Brother of Louis Gonville. 734 . Douglas, “Manuel Lisa,” 3: 233-268, 367-406. 735 . Grégoire B. Sarpy and Manuel Lisa shared the honor of being the first to introduce the keelboat. Chittenden, American Fur Trade, 1: 390. The keelboat was sixty to seventy feet long with a keel running from bow to stern. Its breath of beam was fifteen to eighteen feet and its mast was about thirty feet high with a square sail spreading about one hundred feet of canvas. In the center of the boat was a cargo box, which rose four to five feet above the deck. On each side of the box was a narrow passage about fifteen inches wide, called the passé avant, on which the boatmen stood when pushing the boat with poles. The boat could be fitted with cabins when needed. The cordelle was also used to propel it. It consisted of a line nearly one thousand feet long, which was fastened to the top of the mast and pulled by men walking along the bank of the river. It took twenty to forty men to cordelle a keelboat. A man, called in French bosseman (boatswain’s mate) stood at the bow to watch for snags and help steer the boat. The sail was raised when the direction of the wind was favorable. Oars were used to cross the river from one side to the other. The keelboat would carry up to twenty tons of freight and up to one hundred men. Beside the boatmen were hunters, trappers who were often called upon to assist in the navigation. The keelboats were generally built in Pittsburgh at a cost of two or three thousand dollars. Chappell, “History of Missouri River,” 268-273; Chittenden, Early Steamboat Navigation on the Missouri River, 1: 102-107. 736 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 59. 737 . Jean Champlain was an educated Frenchman who arrived in St. Louis as early as 1800. He and Jean Lafargue were sent by Lisa to the land of the Arapahoes in Colorado in 1810. They were captives of that tribe but managed to escape, to be later seized and imprisoned by the Spanish authorities of New Mexico. They 127 Desève, Antoine Dubreuil, Joseph Laderoute, also known as Casse, Jean Lafargue, Jean Baptiste Lusignan, Jean Baptiste Mayette, Calliste Montardy, 738 Jean Murez, Antoine Bissonet739, and François Lecompte740. 1807 EXPEDITIONS In a letter dated May 18, 1807, William Clark wrote to Henry Dearborn, Secretary of War: Two large Companies of Traders and Trappers set out from this place (St. Louis) about the first of the month intending to ascend the Missouri to go to the Rocky Mountains, and remain in that Country two or three years. One other party set out from this place in March – one small party set out Early in the Spring for the Mahan Nation.741 In the same letter, Clark announced how arrangements were made to send the Mandan Chief to “his Town in safety this very evening.” The chief’s accompanying party was to include Ensign Pryor and fourteen soldiers. Also in the same voyage was to be “young Choteau,” 742 accompanied by twenty-two men, who had permission to trade at the Mandans. On June 1st743, Clark reported to Henry Dearborn on the exact elements of the party, which had left St. Louis a few days earlier. It comprised: 1 Lieut. 1 Ensign 1 Serg. 1 Corpl. 18 Privates, 1 hunter & 3 boat men. Young Chouteau has a Boat and perogue and 32 men (for the Mandan trade). Young Dorion 744 has a Boat and 10 men (for the were released and returned to St. Louis with the Chouteau-de Mun party in 1817. Luttig, Journal Fur-Trading Expedition, 16, 102, 142. 738 . Calice Montargu [Calliste Montardy] was paid $7.25 for “his services and use of his ferry-boat in crossing the Kansas Nation across the Missouri” on June 4, 1828. It is the earliest item in the records of the Superintendency of Indian affairs in St. Louis concerning a ferry operation at, or near the mouth of the Kansas River. When he bought the ferry in 1826 he was recorded as being “an Old [?] Frenchman named Calisse Montarges.” It is said that he operated the ferry until 1830. A land entry, dated October 31, 1832 shows that “Calice Montardy” bought land in Section 5, Township 49, Range 33 West in Kansas City, Missouri on October 31, 1832. The Catholic records of Kansas City, Missouri state that “Calice Montredie” died June 18, 1847, aged 49 years. Barry, Beginning of the West, 148-149. 739 . Antoine Bissonet deserted at the mouth of the Osage River. On Lisa’s order, Drouillard shot him. He died shortly after. 740 . François Lecompte joined the expedition at the mouth of the Kansas River after signing a three-year engagement with Lisa. 741 . Jackson, Letters , 2: 411-412. 742 . Auguste Pierre Chouteau, son of Pierre Chouteau. 743 . Ibid., 2: 414. 744 . Pierre Dorion, Jr., son of Pierre Dorion who had traded with the Sioux for years. Young Dorion served as a guide to the Asturians in 1813. He was killed by the Indians. Ibid., 2: 414n1 128 Sieoux Trade).745 Those together with the 2 interpreters makes a total of 70 men; exclusive of the 18 Indian men 8 women and 6 children.746 The letter does not specify how many Frenchmen were on board, beside A. P. Chouteau and Dorion; however one can surmise that the unidentified interpreters, hunter, and boatmen were probably French. On October 16, 1807, Sergeant Nathaniel Pryor gave a full report to William Clark, writing “The Escort under my command for the reconveyance of the Mandan Chief to his nation has been compelled to return to St. Louis without accomplishing that object ” as they had been attacked by the Ricaras (Arikaras). While neither the Americans nor the Indians suffered any casualties, Chouteau lost three men, seven others were wounded, one of whom died nine days later. “Jesseaune”, the Mandan interpreter who accompanied the chief was also “badly wounded in the thigh and shoulder.” 747 The Arikara attack may have been prompted by the false report that they had heard of the death of their chief, Ankedouchare during his visit to Washington. FIRST EXPEDITION OF THE ST. LOUIS MISSOURI FUR COMPANY In the spring of 1809, five American citizens, William Morrison, Reuben Lewis, Andrew Henry, William Clark and Benjamin Wilkinson joined with Manuel Lisa, Pierre Ménard, Gratiot, Pierre Chouteau and Sylvestre Labbadie 748 to form the St. Louis Missouri Fur Company. They organized the first expedition up the Missoury under the Command of Mr. Pierre Chouteau, as a military command. The party included one hundred and fifty men and thirteen boats. It left St. Louis in June of 1809. 749 Among them was a military detachment under Captain Pryor whose mission was to return the Mandan chief, Shahaka to his home after the failed attempt of 1807. Under the agreement entered on February 24, 1809 between Meriwether Lewis, Governor of Louisiana and Superintendent of Indian Affairs and the St. Louis Missouri Fur Company regarding the return of the Mandan Chief, Shahaka was allowed to be accompanied by his trusted interpreter “Jesson, his wife and child.” 750 Also were 745 . Pierre Dorion, Jr., son of Pierre Dorion who had traded with the Sioux for years. Young Dorion served as a guide to the Asturians in 1813. He was killed by the Indians. Ibid., 2: 414n1. 746 . The numbers mentioned in the letter do not add up correctly and do not coincide with the total of members of the party stated in Barry, Beginning of the West, 58, which reads: “About 95 persons were in an expedition . . . ” 747 . Jackson, Letters, 2: 432-437. 748 . Sylvestre Labbadie was born in St. Louis on February 19, 1779. In 1800 he petitioned the Spanish authorities for a grant of land of some 14,000 acres in Franklin County, Missouri. The grant was confirmed by the American government. In 1806 he married a member of the Chouteau family. The town of Labbadie on the Missouri River is named after him. He retired in 1818 and died July 25, 1849. 749 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 61-62. 750 . Misspelled name of the French trader, René Jusseaume. Jackson, Letters, 2: 447. 129 Henry, Morris, Lewis, Clark, Wilkinson, Colonel Ménard, 751 James Thomas,752 Lisa,753 and members of the Chouteau’s family, Pierre’s two sons, Auguste Pierre and Paul Liguest and his nephew, Auguste Aristide, 754 son of his brother Auguste. The second objective of the expedition was to “hunt and trade on the waters of the Missouri and Columbia rivers, within the Rockey Mountains and the Planes bordering these Mountains.” Pierre Chouteau, in a letter to William Eustis, written in St. Louis on December 14, 1809, gave a detailed report of the expedition and announced the “safe arrival of the Mandan Chief, his wife and family to their Nation.” 755 The St. Louis Missouri Fur Company had charged the government “seven thousand Dollars to convey in safety the Mandan chief and Jessomme, his interpreter with their families to the Mandan Villages.” 756 Chouteau, Ménard and most of the trappers and traders remained in the upper country but Lisa, the Chouteaus and Thomas returned to St. Louis in November. THE 1810 EXPEDITION TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS In 1810, Pierre Ménard, Lisa and William Morrison sent twenty-three men to the eastern plains of Colorado between the Arkansas and South Platte rivers to hunt and trade with the Arapahoes. They ascended the Missouri River and after arriving at the Mandans, they traveled toward the Arkansas River where they spent the winter. Jean Baptiste Champlain, “an honorable man”, headed the party that also included Jean Lafargue.757 After they returned from their successful expedition, they were sent back in the spring of 1811 to the same area. Porteau, a Frenchman and Ezechiel Williams joined the party. They hunted and trapped during the winter months of 1812- 1813, and then decided to separate. Lafarge and four men went to the Spanish settlements in New Mexico; Champlain, Williams and others stayed in the Arapahoe village to avoid harassment from other Indians. Finally Williams returned to St. Louis after having been robbed and detained by the Kansa Indians.758 Champlain and his companions attempted to join Lisa at Fort Manuel traveling with eleven horses but, according to the Crow Indians, Champlain and Porteau were killed shortly after leaving the Arapahoe country. On September 11, 1812, Lisa sent Charles Sanguinet 751 . “Col. M[énard] was an honorable, high minded gentleman, and he enjoyed our esteem in a higher degree that any other member of the Company.” Ménard, a native of Quebec, was born in 12766. He moved to Kaskaskia as a young man and became a prominent citizen there. He participated in several expeditions up the Missouri. After being captured by the Blackfeet, he returned to Kaskaskia where he held several public offices until his death in 1844. Menard County in Illinois is named after him and in 1866 a statue to honor him was erected on the State Capital grounds in Springfield, Illinois. 752 . General Thomas James wrote: “The whole party, at the starting, consisted of three hundred and fifty men, of which one-half were Americans and the remainder Canadian Frenchmen and Creoles of Kaskaskia, St. Louis, and other places…. The French were all veteran voyageurs thoroughly used to boating and trapping. . . we Americans were all adventurers, each on his own hook. ” Three Years among the Indians, 9 753 . “Lisa we thoroughly detested and despised, both for his acts and his reputation.” Ibid., 44. 754 . Paul Liguest and Auguste Aristide, both being born in 1792, were only seventeen at that time. 755 . Jackson, Letters, 2: 479-484. 756 . Letter of Lewis to Henry Dearborn, dated March 7, 1809. Ibid., 2: 450. 757 . See the Lisa-Drouillard expedition of 1807. 758 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 70-71. 130 to investigate Champlain’s fate. 759 On December 13, 1812, Cadet Chevalier brought back a letter from Sanguinet informing Lisa that three men had been killed by the Blackfeet Indians, one of them probably being Champlain. THE WILSON P. HUNT EXPEDITION OF1811 Often accounts of expeditions do not indicate the number of engagés hired and most of the time, they are left nameless only referred to as “the interpreter,” “the boatman,” the hunter” or the patroon. Therefore many of the men who played a vital role in their success have remained anonymous. On March 14, 1811, Wilson H. Hunt, an Astorian, chief partner in the Pacific Fur Company, outfitted a party of nearly sixty men, which ascended the Missouri in four keelboats and reached Astoria, near the mouth of the Columbia River in January of 1813. They left from St. Charles in Missouri. Aboard, as a guest, was John Bradbury, a Scottish botanist, who wrote an account of the trip. 760 As he passed along the northeastern border of Kansas, he jotted down on the 2nd of April: “We this day passed the scite (sic) of a village on the north-east side of the river, once belonging to the Missouri tribe. Four miles above it, are the remains of Fort Orleans, formerly belonging to the French; it is 240 miles from the mouth of the Missouri.” 761 On the 15th, he noted briefly the following observations: “We passed the site of a village which formerly belonged to the Kansas Indians. I had the opportunity of going ashore, and found the soil to have the appearance to the greatest fertility.”762 Although he was most interested in the flora, birds and animals, Hunt noted the activities of some of the participants in the venture. Pierre Dorion 763 who had been engaged as interpreter was often called upon. He translated Hunt’s speech into the Sioux language when the leader addressed the Indians, then “repeated in French” the chief’s answer. He also served as interpreter “to open trade for horses” and was among those invited to one of the chiefs’ lodge. He was helpful in explaining to the white men the Indian customs and behavior thus facilitating communication between them. Bradbury did not list the members of the party but noted that among the sixty men, forty were Canadian boatmen who often sang in French as they paddled up the river.764 He only named two, Guardepee and La Liberté. Bradbbury was surprised to encounter Indians who addressed him in French, which they must have learned during their contacts with traders living among them. 759 . See note 12. 760 . Bradbury’s Travels in Thwaites, Early Western Travels, 5. 761 . Ibid., 56. 762 . Ibid., 67. 763 . A half-breed, son of the old Dorion who had lived among the Yankton Sioux and fatheres children with a Sioux woman. Both father and son had been employed by Lewis and Clark as interpreters. He traveled with his wife and family during the Hunt expedition. Later he was killed by an Indian on the Boise River in Idaho while working for the Astorians. 764 . Bradbury Travels, 39-40, 70. “The Canadians measuring the strokes of their oars by songs, which were generally responsive betwixt the oarsmen at the bow and those at the stern; sometimes the steersman sung, and was chorused by the men.” Bradbury gave the French words of one of their favorite songs and its English translation. 131 765 The Scotchman reported meeting a Frenchman when they visited the Arikaras. It was probably Joseph Gravelines who had spent more than twenty years with the tribe and had married an Indian woman with whom he had several children.766 Thanks to “Jussum,” 767 the interpreter at the Missouri Fur Company fort, the travelers were able converse with the Mandan Chief, Sha-ha-ka, visit one of his villages and attend a dance celebrating the exploits of his warriors.768 Although he named only three engagés, Bradbury gave credit to the hunters when he wrote: “I must observe of the hunters, that any accounts which I heard from them, and afterward had an opportunity to prove, I found to be correct.” 769 He added in a foot note: During our voyage, I often associated with the hunters, to collect information from their united testimony, concerning the nature and habits of animals, with which no men are so well acquainted. This knowledge is absolutely necessary to them, that they may be able to circumvent or surprise those which are the objects of chase, and to avoid such as are dangerous; and likewise to prevent being surprised by them. They can imitate the cry or note of any animal found in the American Wilds, so exactly, as to deceive the animals themselves. I shall here state a few of what I certainly believe to be facts, some I shall here state so, and of others I have seen strong presumptive proofs. The opinion of the hunters, respecting the sagacity of the beaver, goes much beyond the statements of any author I have read.” 770 While mostly illiterate and rough in their manners, these hired men were valuable assets on account of their familiarity with the Indians and the wilderness. THE MANUEL LISA EXPEDITION When Manuel Lisa led a party up the Missouri in 1812 and 1813, John C. Luttig, clerk of the Missouri Fur Company kept a diary of the expedition.771 It constitutes a valuable document, even though the daily entries are brief. It reveals the problems they faced while ascending the Missouri, having to stop along the way to penetrate into the bordering country to secure their supplies of meat and fish for the large crew. It also gives the number of the men necessary to main two boats, describes the activities and assignments of many of its participants and identifies them. Its many details allow us to follow the workings of a trading expedition at that time. The account book gives a list of the eighty-two members who were hired for 765 . Ibid., 89, 182. 766 . Gravelines had helped Lewis and Clark when they crossed the Arikara lands. Ibid. 127. 767 . Spelling used by Bradbury for René Jusseaume or Jussome who accompanied the Mandan chief and later had lived with the Gros Ventre Indians and married a woman of that tribe. 768 . Ibid. 156-160. 769 . Ibid.124. 770 . Ibid. 124-125n 30. 771 . Luttig, Journal of a Fur-Trading Expedition 132 that adventure.772 Out of that number, twelve were American, one was Spanish and seventy were of French ancestry or half-breeds born of French fathers. The two barges left St. Louis, one on May 2, 1812, the other on May 6. The two parties arrived on June 6 at a point opposite the “Cansas River” where they camped. They spent the 7th hunting during the day and slept four miles above the Little Platte River.773 On Monday 8th, they hunted, killing three deer and three bears, and fished, catching seventeen fish before camping below the “old Cansas village.” 774 From the 8th to the 11th, they navigated up the river, stopping along the way to send their hunters out for food. On the 11th, they passed the “upper old Cansas village.” 775 On Friday 12th, they made “good way cordelling, the wind all day against us.” On that day, they were able to cover a distance of twenty-one miles and camped on a sand bar where they found quantity of turtle eggs. Luttig reported that they “lost one of their swivels when swinging round and ran against the other boat.” On the 13th their troubles continued. Lisa put two hogs in the river to wash them and they swam away, which forced him to turn around and follow the animals for several miles. After two failed attempts to catch them, they finally succeeded. Later “the little boat which was ahead swung around and went off like lighting, the cordells broke.” In spite of the delay they advanced twelve miles, stopping long enough to kill five deer and one raccoon. On Sunday 14, they passed the “Nadowa River” 776 at noon and camped eight miles above it. They also killed four deer and gathered about two hundred turtle eggs. On the 15th, they ran into a storm, the wind “blew furiously.” Luttig described in details their tribulations: The boat swung and went down the river like the wind in full speed leaving all hands on shore. The few which were on board landed the boat opposite to our last night’s lodging. Our hands came on board, made a new start, but night overtook us, got on a sand bar and were very near lost running against a Sawyer. . . . The other boat came to (sic) close swept by the current we unshipped our rudder, ran against a tree and broke her mast. After a stressful day, Luttig wrote: “This ended this doleful day.” On the 18th, he jotted down: “poles and cordells all day, passed Nimoha River at 11 A.M., dined at Wolf River 777, and camped on a sand bar.” By Friday 19th of June, after traveling for thirteen days, they probably had reached the Kansas-Nebraska line. There is no doubt that they stepped on Kansas soil as they hunted along the way, looked for “some hickory for making axe handles, ramrods and a new mast” and walked along the bank of the river while pulling the boats, using poles and cordells. 772 . Luttig, Journal Fur-Trading Expedition, 157-158. See Appendix 6. 773 . Opposite Delaware Township in Leavenworth County. 774 . In the Salt Creek valley, Leavenworth County. 775 . In Doniphan County. Ibid., 68 776 . Opposite Burr Oak Township in Doniphan County. 777 . In northern Doniphan County. Named “Rivière du Loup” in early French maps, it flows through Brown and Doniphan counties. 133 It is possible to identify some of the members of the expedition mentioned in Luttig’s list: Louis Lorimier, 778 born in 1785 near Cape Girardeau, Missouri, was the son of the commandant of the post there and a half-blood Shawnee woman. His ancestors came from Paris, France to Canada in 1695. On July 17, 1804 he was appointed by President Jefferson to the United States Military Academy in West Point and graduated on November 14, 1806. He was promoted to the rank of Second Lieutenant on January 20, 1808 and served on the western frontier until December 31, 1809 when he resigned and became associated with the fur trade. In 1816 he was trading among the Shawnee and Delaware Indians on Castor River, near Bloomfield in Stoddard County, Missouri. He died in 1832. Charles Sanguinet Jr., 779 born on December 9, 1783 in Canada, belonged to a family that was prominent in Canada and in St. Louis. His father, Charles Sanguinet, Sr. had arrived in St. Louis in 1774. On March 14, 1801 he petitioned for exclusive trade with the Omaha and Ponca nations. In 1802 along with Lisa, Grégoire Sarpy and François Benoît, he was granted the trade with the Big and Little Osages. He sold his share of the Osage trade to Lisa in 1803. He joined the Missouri Fur Company in 1808 and made three trips to the mountains. Being a trusted associate, Lisa sent him on several assignments. For his mission to the “Spanish and Arapaos” rivers he received $350.00 on September 7, 1812 780 in addition to his regular pay. He owned extensive land on Cabaret Island, near St. Louis. He died in St. Louis on April 10, 1873. Juan Baptist Mayet 781 was living in Carondelet, St. Louis County in 1790. On April 17, 1807, he went with Lisa on a trapping expedition and returned in August, 1808.782 He continued in the employ of Lisa and the Missouri Fur Company for many years. By 1812, recognizing that he was trustworthy and competent, Lisa chose him to be the patroon of the large boat. On May 15, 1812, eight days after leaving St. Louis, he “fell over board on account of a log shamming against the rudder, he saved himself by taking hold of the rudder, and got on board.” Louis Lajoie 783 was born in Quebec in about 1778. He was living in Florissant in Missouri before 1800 and received a grant of land from Governor de Lassus on February 19, 1800. He moved to St. Louis where he remained until 1840 when he joined his old friends, the Robidoux, at Black Snake Hills, present St. Joseph, Missouri. Joseph Lagasse was listed as having deserted. Joseph Leme 784 was a resident of Carondelet in 1794. Baptiste Pointsable785 was a free French Indian mulatto. He or his father is reputed to have been the first settler of Chicago. He died in St. Louis prior to February 17, 1814. Louis Manègre786 was listed as a deserter. The last entry of his name in the 778 . Ibid., 51-52n67. 779 Also written Sanguinette. Ibid., 54, 76, 101, 103, 107, 110, 116, 117, 149, 150. 780 . Ibid., 158. 781 . Also written Jean Baptiste Majet and Jean Baptiste Mayette Ibid., 29n7, 82, 86. 782 . See above , expedition of 1707. 783 . Also written Lajois. Ibid., 88n 133. 784 . Also written Lemai, Lemay. Houck, History of Missouri, 2: 65. 785 . Also written Jean Baptiste Point du Sable and Pointe du Sable. Luttig, Journal Fur-Trading Expedition, 153-154. 786 . Also written Manègle and Manaigle. Ibid., 80n130. 134 account book is dated September 21, 1812. Pierre Lange was an engagé of Charles Sanguinet. He was sent with him and Latour on a mission to the “Spanish and Arapaos rivers.” François Lecompt,787 a half-blood trader of some renown made a contract with Lisa and Drouillard on September 24, 1803, but not knowing how to write, he signed the document with a mark. In it he was referred to as a “habitant de la Madelainne”. He was then engaged as a hunter and trapper for three years. On June 30, 1807, after spending much time among the Kansa Indians, he hailed Lisa when he was passing along the Kansas bank of the Missouri and agreed to join the 1812 expedition to the Upper Missouri region. Again he signed the contract with a mark. He was reported as having been killed on September 17, 1812 at the hands of the Crow Indians but he must have survived as he is recorded as having died “a poor, old, and deaf man” in Taos in 1841 when he was beaten to death while resisting arrest. Hipolite Papin 788 was born in St. Louis on December 24, 1787. His father sent him to Philadelphia to study the manufacture of hardware and firearms, which he later supplied to the traders. He married Josephine Loisel, daughter of the trader, Régis Loisel. He died December 20, 1842. François Guenville789 lived in southwest Missouri among the Osage Indians and married Wihethtanga, an Osage woman. Bte Latoulipe 790 was hired on July 22, 1805 by Louis Aimable Demarais to hunt beaver from September to the following May. In August 1806, he worked for Auguste Pierre Chouteau on the Osage River and on August 14, 1806, was one of General Zebulon Pike’s messengers. He remained in the service of Chouteau until he signed a contract with the Missouri Fur Company. On June 26, 1812, he “fell over board and never was seen again, the two boats being close together, he could not rise and was entangled by the roots of a large tree, which he was going to strike with a pole.” Juan Baptist Chapel, 791 born in St. Louis on October 10, 1792, was a half- breed, son of Jean Baptiste Lachapelle of Kaskaskia and Cija, an Osage woman. He was employed by the Missouri Fur Company from its organization to its dissolution, serving part of that time as a free trapper. He joined the expedition on May 2, 1812 and went with the Sioux on their fall hunt. On November 30, 1812, he was reported as having been killed by the Sioux while he was “trapping about the Big Bend.” Antoine Citoleur, 792 also known as Langevin, married Adrienne Trudeau, daughter of Jean Baptiste Truteau, the schoolteacher and trader of the 1794 expedition. He continued in the fur trade. In October of 1823, he was in command of a Missouri Fur Company expedition and went to the Arikara villages on the Little Missouri River to 787 . Also written Lecompte, Lecompe, Lacompe and Leconte. Oglesby, Manuel Lisa, 45; Gregg, Commerce of the Prairies, 162n11; Luttig, Journal Fur-Trading Expedition, 78n 126. 788 . Also written Leber Papin. Ibid., 53n 69. 789 . Also written Guenville in Luttig but Quenville in the original account book deposited in the Kansas History Center. Ibid., 60n 90, 61. 790 . Also written Jean Baptiste Latulipe and Latulippe. Ibid., 42-43n 40. 791 . Also written Jean Baptiste Lachapelle. Ibid., 30n12, 32, 32, 77, 98. 792 . Also written Citoleux , Citolou, Sitoleur. Ibid., 156; Lecompte, “Auguste Pierre Chouteau, Jr.” in Hafen, Mountain Men, 9: 98. 135 manage a post. He may have been killed there as shortly after making his will which he signed with a cross, he left alone and was never seen again. Antoine Mercier,793 born in Kaskaskia on November 15, 1766, had been in the service of the Missouri Fur Company since 1809. He was reported killed by the Sioux along with Lachapelle. Ustache Carier794 was born at La Rivière du Chêne in Canada before 1795. He was falsely reported killed by the Sioux on November 30, 1812. On January 3, 1820 he married Josette Thérèse Jusseaume, daughter of the Indian interpreter, René Jusseaume. Abraham Ledoux may have been the hunter who joined Major Stephen H. Long’s expedition to the Rocky Mountains in mid-June 1820 at the Pawnee village on the Loup Fork and later, on July 21, 1820, he may have gone with the detachment of John R. Bell, which proceeded down the Arkansas River.795 Cadet Chevalier was a free mulatto in the employ of Joseph Hortiz as a trapper and trader on the Osage River from 1802 to 1804. In 1805 he worked for Lisa. During the expedition of 1812, he participated with Sanguinet and Latour in the mission to investigate the disappearance of Champlain and his men on the “Spanish and Arapaos rivers.” He received an extra pay of $300.00 for that assignment on September 7, 1812. He died of fever on January 4, 1813 during the expedition.796 Charles Latour was baptized in Detroit, January 5, 1783. He was employed by Lisa and Drouillard during the expedition of 1807 and until the Missouri Fur Company was organized. During the expedition of 1812, he was sent with Sanguinet and Chevalier to find Champlain and his party. For that mission he was paid an extra $300.00 on September 7, 1812. On January 21, 1813, he was ordered out of the fort as he was accused of having participated in a plot against the company. He died, July 24, 1844 in Florissant. 797 Baptiste Provots798 a half-breed, son of Jean Baptiste Prévôt and an Otoe woman named Marie, was born in St. Louis, September 10, 1773. He appears to have caused many problems during the expedition, quarreling with Garrow’s wife, being turned out of the fort, telling lies to the Rees Indians and rousing them against the members of the expedition. Later Lisa pardoned him but his behavior did not improve upon his return to St. Louis as the records show that he was often drunk and in debt and even jailed on June 21, 1816 for his offenses. Bte Alar 799 came to St. Louis in 1795, probably from Prairie du Rocher, and settled in Florissant. Accused by Lisa of being “a good for nothing fellow,” he was discharged on July 24, 1812. Daniel Larrison 800 was with the Missouri Fur Company for several years and in 1809 was a member of the expedition organized by Lisa to the Rocky Mountains. Lisa’s party was traveling up the Missouri, not far from St. Louis, when he was picked up in 793 . Luttig, Journal of Fur-Trading Expedition, 77n122, 98. 794 . Also written Eustache Carrière. Ibid., 77n123, 79; Hafen, “Eustache Carrière,” in Hafen, Mountain Men, 9: 41-42; Kansas City Journal of Commerce, September 15, 1858. 795 . Also written Ledoux. Barry, Beginning of the West, 90, 92. 796 . Luttig, Journal of Fur-Trading Expedition, 101n147, 103, 110, 158. 158. 797 . Ibid., 110, 111n158, 114. 128, 158. 798 . Also written Jean Baptiste Prévost and Prévot. Ibid., 90-91n138, 93, 94, 99. 799 . Also written Alary, Alere, Allard, Allare. Ibid., 59n88. 800 . Also written Larison. Ibid., 35n5. Voelker, “Ezechiel Williams” in Hafen, Mountain Men, 11: 339; Coyner, Lost Trappers, 79n4. 136 1812 at Fort Osage to join the expedition. In 1814 he served in Captain James Callaway’s Company in the St. Charles County Rangers and later under Major Zachary Taylor, on the Upper Mississippi. Nicolas Glineau 801 was probably employed by the Northwest Company at River des Sauteux in 1804. He went with Lisa to the Rocky Mountains in 1809 and remained with Andrew Henry’s party on the Columbia River during the winter of 1810-1811. He may at times have been a free trader as he employed René Jusseaume and Joseph Joyal. In January 1813, he was awarded extra pay for going to the Mandans and searching for horses. For a while he was stationed at the Mandan posts. In 1831, when he was a boatman and trader in the Upper Missouri for the American Fur Company, he renewed his contract for one more year and at that time claimed American citizenship. The entries in Pierre Chouteau’s account books show Joseph Bissonette 802 as having purchased goods between July 1806 and May 1811. After the Lisa expedition of 1812-1813, he joined the Chouteau-de Mun expedition when they went hunting between the North Fork of the Platte and the Arkansas River. He was captured and imprisoned along with them in Santa Fe in 1817. In mid-June 1820, he was hired by Major Long at the Loup Fork to serve as his interpreter and guide during his journey to Colorado.803 Louis Bissonnette, 804 Joseph Bissonnette’s brother, was born in St. Louis on August 5, 1774. When he was twenty-five years old, he was sent by Auguste Chouteau to Mackinaw and continued in his service until the Missouri Fur Company was organized. He joined the Lisa expedition on June 4, 1812 and was erroneously reported as dead at the hands of the Sioux among whom he had been left to man a post. On May 22, 1820, while he was in the employ of Platte and Vasquez on the Missouri, his camp was attacked by a party of Indians, believed to be Sauks. He was severely wounded but was able to reach Council Bluffs where United States troops were stationed. In 1825 when he was working for the French Fur Company, he accompanied General Atchison to the Mandans. He was chief clerk and trader at Fort Clark in 1831 and chief trader for the French Fur Company in 1833. He may have died in 1836. Bijou Hills in South Dakota were named after him as his trading post was nearby in Brule County. Joseph Joyal 805 was employed by Nicolas Glineau in 1811. He died in St. Louis, December 5, 1841. René Jussome (Jusseaume) 806 was sometimes called St. Pierre. His family came from Saintonge in France. He claimed to have been in the Mandan village as a free agent as early as 1789. He was hired by the North West Company on the Red River in 1793 and as an illegal British agent during an expedition from La Souris Fort to the Mandans in 1794. He served as an interpreter and guide to David Thompson during his expedition of 1797. Meriwether Lewis, appreciating his services during the expedition when he served as interpreter at Fort Mandan, wrote: 801 . Also written Colla Glineau. Luttig, Journal of Fur-Trading Expedition, 103n152, 109, 116, 119. 802 . Also written Bissonnette. Hafen, “Joseph Bisonet, dit Bijou” in Hafen, Mountain Men, 9: 27-32; ibid., 4: 50n2; Thwaites , Early Western Travels, 15: 308; 16: 58-59. See Long’s expedition. 803 . Luttig, Journal of Fur-Trading Expedition, 34, 56, 57n 35 and 58, 79, 80, 104, 105. 804 . Ibid., 34, 56, 57n35, 58, 79. 805 . Ibid., 88n134, 104n192. 806 . Ibid., 74n14, 79n129, 83, 84, 104, 116, 137. 137 We were fortunate enough to engage in our service a Canadian Frenchman who had been with the Chayenne Indians in the Black mountains, and last summer descended thence to the Little Missouri.” 807 He accompanied Shahaka, the Mandan chief, on his visit to the “Great Father” in Washington in 1807 as the chief, also known as Big White, had requested his presence during the voyage.808 When he was escorting the Mandan chief back to his village, he was wounded by the Arikaras and was taken to St. Louis to be treated. After he recovered in 1809, he went back to the Mandan nation with chief Shahaka. In 1811 Lisa was often suspicious of his behavior as he wrote: Chardonneau & Jussaume keep us in constant uproar with their histories and wish to make fear among the engagés, these two rascals ought to be hung for their perfidy, they do more harm than good to the American government stir up the Indians and pretend to be friends of the White people at the same time but we find them to be our enemies. On the next day, on October 10, 1812, Luttig continued: “Some Rees arrived which were enraged against Charbonneau & Jussaume heard of their arrival from the Bigbellies; they said that C. & J. were lyars (sic) and not to be considered as good french men.” Joseph Garrot 809 was employed by André Fagot La Garnicière to hunt and trap in the Upper Missouri region. In January, 1795 he was on the Red River with the North- west Company. In March 1793, he and Jacques d’Eglise went up the Missouri but were stopped by the Sioux and the Arikaras. In the report d’Eglise made upon his return to St. Louis on June 19, 1794, he referred to Garreau’s bad conduct and to his “turbulent and dissolute attitude.” In a letter dated February 1797, John McDonnell wrote to the explorer and surveyor John Evans, that Garreau was a “canaille.” 810 During the Lisa’s expedition, the Sioux also complained about the treatment they were receiving from him. The correspondence of that period does not cast a favorable light on Garreau’s actions during his many years as a trader. In 1825 Major Kearny spoke of him as an “old Frenchman who has been with the Arikaras for thirty–seven years.” Many of the travelers of the Upper Missouri region have mentioned him in their accounts.811 He married an Arikara woman, sister of chief 807 . Thwaites, Journals, 1:77. Lewis raised and educated Jusseaume’s son, Toussaint in St. Louis. Ambrose, Undaunted Courage, 438. 808 . Ibid., 389. 809 . Also written Garreau, Gareau, Garaut, Garo, Garrow. Nasatir, Before Lewis and Clark, 1:83n 21, 105, 234-235; 2: 503; Loomis- Nasatir, Pedro Vial, 106-107; Luttig, Journal of Fur-Trading Expedition, 64n97, 68, 84, 93, 94, 97, 117. 810 . “a scoundrel.” 811 . Lewis and Clark referred to him as “Mr. Garrow” and ‘interpreter Garrow”. Irving described him as a “French Creole, one of those haphazard wights of Gallic origin who abound in the frontiers, living among the Indians like one of their own race. Thwaites, Journals, 1:64n 97. 138 Goshe (or Gaucher, meaning “Left-handed”). In spite of his bad reputation, South Dakota claims him as its first white settler. Joseph Elie 812 was born in Canada in about 1786 and entered the service of the Missouri Fur Company in 1810. He was married to a Snake woman who died on September 18, 1812 during the expedition. He died in St. Louis, January 14, 1816. Baptiste Antoine, known as Machecou may have been the brother of Pedro Antonio who was also a member of the expedition and was killed by the Sioux in the spring of 1817. Louis Archambeau 813 was killed on February 22, 1813 by Indians believed to be the Saunies Sioux while he was hauling hay. According to Luttig, he was “a very good man and had been six years on the Missouri.” Isaac Fouche 814 was employed by the Missouri Fur Company in 1809 and upon his return from the Lisa expedition went on a trapping assignment for Chouteau, Cabanne and Company. In 1825, he was at the Otoe post of the American Fur Company. Pierre Chaine 815 was sent among the Mandans on April 17, 1813. François Oulle 816 may have been previously an independent trader from Cahokia. On December 28, 1812, he was sent by Lisa on a mission to the “bigbellies.” 817 Toussaint Charbonneau did not come with the party from St. Louis but was hired in the Upper Missouri region.818 Charbonneau’s wife, Sacajawea, a Snake woman, died December 20, 1812, during the expedition. Luttig wrote: “She was a good and the best woman in the fort, abt [about] 25 years, she left a fine infant girl.” The names of Joseph Laderoute and Auguste Durocher do not appear on Luttig’s list of members of the expedition although they are mentioned in the journal. Their conduct may account for the fact that they were omitted.819 Laderoute had ascended the Missouri several times earlier. He joined Truteau in June 1794 and was employed by Jean Gabriel Cerré in 1799. Later he participated in Lisa’s expedition of April 1807 and went as a hunter in 1809 after the Missouri Fur Company obtained his release from prison for non-payment of debt. He deserted and left the company before the expiration of his contract. His behavior during the 1812 expedition was less than exemplary. He was ordered out of the fort when it was discovered that he had plotted against the company. Luttig also reported his rough treatment of his pregnant Indian girl “whom Immel had given him.” He tried to take her “by force, like a brute, without nourishment and in cold season.” The next day, on January 22, 1813, the Indian woman gave birth to a little girl and on the 29th, “Laderoute and his girls deserted through one of the port holes of the Bastion.” In spite of all of these occurrences, he was back at the fort on March 3, 1813.820 Durocher was born in about 1779. He was also ordered 812 . Also written Joseph Helie. Ibid., 1:79n128. 813 . Ibid., 124-125n167. 814 . Probably François Foucher. Ibid., 1: 111n161. 815 . Also written Chesne and Chêne. Ibid.,1:89n136, 91, 93, 94, 99. 816 . Also written Oul, Oull, Ouelle, Woal. Ibid., 1: 89n135, 99, 109. 817 . The Gros Ventre Indians. 818 . Ibid., 1:, 106, 135-140. 819 . Ibid., 1:101, 104, 105, 111, 114, 128. 820 . Ibid., 1: 114, 115, 117, 128. 139 out of the camp along with Latour, Machecou, and Laderoute as “they had made a complot against the adopted Principles of the Company. Mr. Manuel (Lisa) tried every way to get them in employment but they would neither engage nor hunt nor pay their debts.” However, he also returned to the fort on March 3, 1813. Later in St. Louis, he was engaged as an interpreter by Joseph Philibert and went on an expedition to the Arapahoes on May 16, 1814. In 1829 he was hired as a boatman by the American Fur Company and renewed his engagement as a boatman and hunter, stationed at Fort Union. He remained in the employ of the company until the fall of 1833. He then returned to St. Louis and probably left in 1849 for the gold fields of California. 821 THE CHOUTEAU–DE MUN EXPEDITION In the fall of 1815, Auguste Pierre Chouteau and his relative Jules de Mun 822 were granted a trading license to hunt in the Arapahoe country. Auguste Pierre, often referred to as Colonel A. P. Chouteau, was born in St. Louis on May 9, 1786, son of Pierre Chouteau and Pélagie Kiersereau. In spite of his young age, he was a man of experience.823 He had been appointed to West Point by President Jefferson in July 1804 in an effort of the government to integrate into the American nation the Frenchmen belonging to the leading families of Upper Louisiana.824 In June of 1806, he was appointed ensign of the 2nd U. S. Infantry and served on the southern frontier as an aide on the staff of General William Wilkinson. He resigned from the service in January of 1807 to return to St. Louis and the trading activities of his family. In the spring of the same year, he commanded a party of thirty-two men, which ascended the Missouri to trade with the Mandans, and, with a military detachment, escorted the Mandan chief, Shahaka back to his tribe. In September, the traders were attacked by the Arikaras. Chouteau lost four (?) of his men and several were wounded.825 In the summer of 1809, A. P. Chouteau was a member of the first expedition of the St. Louis Fur Co. that his father had organized.826 They traveled again up the Missouri to the Mandan lands but this time encountered no loss of lives and were successful in delivering the Mandan chief to his village. During the War of 1812, when a general Indian uprising through the Mississippi valley was threatening, he returned to military service as a captain in the Militia. Encouraged by the successful voyage of Joseph Philibert 827 who had hunted in Colorado, Chouteau joined de Mun and Philibert and planned an expedition to the mountains, traveling across Kansas.828 Jules de Mun had arrived 821 . Ibid., 1:156-157. 822 . Also written DeMun. 823 . His portrait is reproduced in Barry, Beginning of the West, 194. 824 . Houck, History of Missouri, 2: 381. 825 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 58-59. 826 . Ibid., 61-62. 827 . Joseph Philibert, born in Canada, arrived in St. Louis in 1801. He had returned to St. Louis from Colorado to purchase packhorses and supplies for the eighteen hunters and trappers he had taken the preceding year to the Arapahoe country and left on the Huerfano River to wait for his return. In 1831 or 1832, he entered a land claim in Kansas City, Missouri but died in 1866 in St. Louis. 828 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 72. 140 recently in the United States. Previously he had lived in the island of Santo Domingo where his father was a member of the French King’s bodyguard. He had been sent to France for his education, but he and his brothers were forced to leave the country during the French Revolution, fearing for their lives as members of the nobility.829 They escaped to England, disguised as peasants to join their parents who had left Santo Domingo on account of the slave rebellion. In 1802, the family fortune having been lost, Jules was sent to Cuba to manage a coffee plantation. At the death of his father, with his mother, sister, and brothers, he immigrated to the United States, first living in Baltimore and Philadelphia, before settling in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri. 830 On their way to the Rocky Mountains, Philibert sold to the two other traders “his goods, horses and the time of his men.”831 The party of forty-six men included some independent traders832 and a few Shawnee Indians. De Mun kept a detailed journal of their travel,833 which describes the route they took across Kansas. They left St. Louis in September of 1815 and by October crossed the Missouri-Kansas line. He wrote that on that day they “passed the hills which divide the waters of the Osage River from those which fall into the Arkansas River.834 They traveled through vast plains, observing that “woods [were] to be found only along the small streams and in the bottoms.” On the 13th, they arrived at “the Grande Rivière, which hunters called the Nioncho, on the western bank of which is situated Liguest’s village.” 835 On that night they camped on a branch of the Verdigris River.836 On the 14th, they were on the second branch of the Verdigris.837 On the 17th, after meeting some Osage Indians during the day, they traveled together and spent the night with them. No mention is made of their stops until the 21st when they camped on a fork of the Arkansas and in sight of that river.838 On the 22nd, they progressed to another branch of the Arkansas and on the 26th de Mun recorded that they camped in the afternoon on the banks of the Ark[ansas] River.839 On the 27th, he wrote: “Today we walked 6 hours. Until now we had only the sun for guide; we swerved from the 829 . They were descendants of an old noble family from the region of Tarbes in the French Pyrénées. 830 . Lecompte, “DeMun,” 26: 24-31; Marquis de Mun of Paris, “Brief Account of the De Mun family in France,” 5: 209-215; Holland, “Saint Louis Families from the West Indies” in Fuller-McDermott, French in the Mississippi Valley, 44-45. 831 . It must have been after November 4th, as on that day de Mun mentioned in his journal that “Philibert was obliged to abandon one of his horses.” 832 . Identified members of the party were Michel Carrière who had joined the Lisa expedition of 1812-13 and Joseph Bisonnette, also called Bijeau, the same man who traveled with Lisa and Major L. R. Long and the Bell’s detachment in 1820 when he recalled the creek where de Mun had lost “a valuable horse.” Fuller-Hafen, Journal Captain Bell, 218. 833 . Marshall, “DeMun”, 167-208, 311-326; Barry, Beginning of the West, 74-75. 834 . They probably were in Bourbon County in Kansas. Marshall, “DeMun,”196n 63; Barry, Beginning of the West, 74. 835 . The Niocho River on which was located the sub agency of the Osages where resided Paul Liguest Chouteau, Auguste’s brother. Marshall, “De Mun,” 196n 64. 836 . Probably on Willow Creek. Ibid. 197n 66. 837 . Probably on Fall River. Ibid., 197n67. 838 . Probably the Little Arkansas River, near Wichita. Ibid., 199n9; Barry, Beginning of the West, 75. 839 . Probably in Reno County. Marshall, “De Mun”199n70. 141 west for only a few hours to avoid some bad hills. We are now following the river on its way up. Its course here is from NW to SE.”840 His journal does not furnish any specific indications to determine the exact route they were following, rivers remain unnamed; there are only notations about the weather, the buffalo and wild horses they hunted and the state of exhaustion of their horses. On November 17th, de Mun mentioned sand dunes, which were probably located south of the Arkansas River. They had been traveling for over a month and his physical and mental condition is obvious from the remark he wrote down on that day: After an hour’s march I left our little caravan to go to see the sand dunes which we had on our left. Nothing is more depressing that traveling over this whitish sand in which one sinks up to one’s ankles and where, for vegetation, only tufts of wormwood are to be seen, whose brownish color contrasts in a striking manner with that of the salt which gives it nourishment. I proceeded a long way, always hoping to see the end of this dismal country, but I could not succeed, - ever numberless dunes appeared before me and always the same outlook.841 Crossing Kansas had been difficult, for men as well as for horses. The traders had to stop frequently to give the animals some rest. Later they had to continue on foot as their beasts were too weak to carry them. Some of them had to be abandoned along the way. Others still healthy were stolen by marauding Pawnees, obliging the men to guard their camp each night from hostile incursions. When grass was not to be found, they had to peel the bark of cottonwood trees to feed the horses. They often had no wood to build their huts. Sometimes the men went without food unless they were successful in killing buffalo, antelopes, deer, beaver, turkeys, and even wild horses. As they reached western Kansas, on November 19th, the weather turned cold. Wind, rain, sleet, and snow made traveling difficult. Once “the river was frozen over and the ice was strong enough to cross.” 842 On November 27th, they had reached Colorado as de Mun wrote: “During the course of the day we discovered the mountains; as yet they appear like clouds on the horizon.” 843 The journal ends abruptly on November 30th. They must have reached their destination, near the confluence of the Arkansas and the Huerfano rivers, twenty miles below Pueblo where they were to rendezvous with Philibert’s trappers. However Chouteau and de Mun did not find them there. Being destitute, the trappers had gone to New Mexico since Philibert had not returned at the prearranged time. Told by some Indians where Philibert’s men were, de Mun left for Taos in January, 1816, then proceeded to Santa Fe to arrange for their release and 840 . Ibid., 200. 841 . Ibid., 200. 842 . Ibid., 206. 843 . Ibid., 207. 142 request permission to hunt at the headwaters of the Rio Grande. The acting governor, Alberto Maynez interceded in his favor to the higher authorities but he was denied hunting privileges on Spanish territory. However he obtained freedom for Philibert’s men which whom he joined Chouteau in Colorado in February. During the winter, the hunters had scattered into separate locations, Chouteau going north to the South Fork of the Platte near Denver to trade with the Kiawas, Arapahoes, Apaches and Cheyennes. According to de Mun’s journal, Chouteau did not go back to Kansas with de Mun as he is not mentioned during the return journey to St. Louis. The two planned to meet at the mouth of the Kansas River on July 15, after de Mun had gathered additional supplies in St. Louis for a return trip to the mountains. De Mun set out for St. Louis on February 27, 1816. He did not mention how large his was party; however it is known that Philibert traveled with him. In his journal he only jotted down brief notations of mileage traveled, weather reports, number of buffalo killed, and unnamed rivers. It is impossible to determine the exact date when they entered Kansas. On the 17th of March, they “crossed a small river without woods and came to camp within sight of the woods of the Little Arkansas River.”844 On the 18th, they left the “River of the Arcs” and made camp on the Little Arkansas River. In subsequent days, the rivers are left nameless until the 25th when they passed the place where they had stopped the preceding year on Fall River and camped on a branch of the Verdigris. 845 They reached the Nioncho 846 where they discovered that the Osage village had moved two miles away. They met Sans Oreille 847 and were disappointed, as they found no meat there and had “to regale on corn meal cooked in water without salt.848 By the 28th they arrived at the village of the Great Osages 849 and stayed at the home of Noël Maugrain 850 where Cheveux Blancs 851, chief of the village and other notables came to see him. In April, after a forty-six-day journey, he arrived in St. Louis. 852 He remained there with his wife Isabelle 853 and two daughters until June 15, 1816 when he left to meet Chouteau on the Kansas River as they had agreed upon in Colorado. On July 24, when he had been on the Kansas River for eleven days, he wrote to his wife: “Upon my arrival at Fire Prairie (on the Missouri River), I fortunately met several chiefs, whom I got together and to whom I told my intention 844 . Probably near Wichita, at the confluence of the Little Arkansas and Arkansas rivers. Ibid., 313n 85. 845 . Probably Willow Creek. Ibid., 314n 89. 846 . The Neosho River. 847 . He was a chief of the Little Osages. His French name means “without ear.” 848 . Ibid., 315. 849 . In Vernon County, Missouri. Ibid., 316n96. 850 . Half Osage Indian and half French, he had been Zebulon M. Pike’s interpreter in 1806 and later was employed by Commissioner Isaac McCoy as guide and interpreter through Kansas in September, 1828. Barry, Beginning of the West, 152, 154-55. 851 . Meaning “White Hair.” 852 . Marshall, “De Mun,” 173. 853 . Lecompte, “DeMun,” 27. His wife Isabelle Gratiot was the granddaughter of Pierre Laclede, the founder of St. Louis. 143 of traveling on their river [the Kansas River]. They all seemed very satisfied, and one brave named White Plume offered to accompany me until I had passed their tribe, which I accepted. ”854 Chief Plume Blanche 855 even offered to “go ahead with his horses and wait for [him] on their river. 856.” On July 11, de Mun wrote “ In the morning, at ten o’clock, we entered the Kans[as] River (12 leagues from the Fire Prairie); we went up about 3 leagues as far as the big bank where we were obliged to stop for lack of water. After having tried in several places, and finding it was quite impossible to pass, I determined to camp a little above the bank. In the afternoon I sent two men in different directions to find the persons who are coming by land 857 and whom we had agreed to meet at the 1re côtes.858 They came back at night without having found anything. 859 On the 13th, they moved to a “very pretty campground” where Plume Blanche, two Kansas Indians, two Little Osages and their wives came to visit them. On the 14th, Plume Blanche came back to “hold counsel” and ask for tobacco. De Mun kept his men busy, hunting, packing arms, posts, hatchets, etc. and making an oar with which to steer the barge. On the 19th, he moved to another camp, “as much to divert the men as for the sake of cleanliness, and all set to work building cabins for themselves.” By the 30th, he became “very much worried about Auguste,” and wrote:“If he left off hunting June 15 as we had agreed, he should be here.” On June 31st, he was told by the Indians that: Auguste was camped on a fork of the Ark[ansa]s River, that on their way from the mountains he had been attacked by a party of Republican Pawnees, Ottos, and Rees, 860 and that Auguste had had one of his men killed and another of them wounded, but that he had killed many enemies; according to the report Auguste had made camp at the entrance of the river which I think from his description to be the Little Arkansas River.861 On August 1st, de Mun wrote to Auguste and sent off a Shawnee and a Kansas Indian to deliver his letter and to guide him. He did not feel he could leave 854 . Ibid., 28-29. 855 . Meaning White Feather. He became the head chief of the nation. His Indian name was Wom-pa-wa-ra, meaning “Who Scares All Men.” 856 . Marshall, “De Mun,” 320. 857 . Some of de Mun’s men had traveled overland from St. Louis with the packhorses. De Mun and the rest of the party had come up the Missouri in a barge. 858 . The first hills. 859 . Ibid., 320-321. Barry surmised that they were “on the south bank, a mile or so below, and across the river from Muncie, Wyandotte, Co.” Barry, Beginning of the West, 77. 860 . The Rees were a band of northern Cheyenne. Marshall, “De Mun,” 323n121. 861 . Ibid., 323-324. 144 the barge unattended as it was loaded with supplies. The last words in his journal on that day were: “If I could abandon the barge I would go myself to meet Auguste, for the state of uncertainty in which I am is unbearable.” On August 3rd, additional details about the attack were brought by a Kansas chief whom the French called Le Petit Maigre 862 and a man, named L’Eveillé 863 belonging to the Kans[sas] nation, who had been in St. Louis when very young, and who speaks French well. They told de Mun that the archers had made good use of their bows and arrows, which gave the others time to load their rifles and repulse the enemy who left behind them 7 killed. The Indians also reported that several of Chouteau’s horses were wounded and put out of service; two others broke their bridles and were lost. Chouteau’s party had seen about two hundred and fifty hostile Indians in time to cross the Arkansas River and take refuge on an island “where they immediately made a sort of rampart out of their packs, forming three small redoubts, with the horses in the intermediate space.”864 Although outnumbered by the Indians, the traders, being expert riflemen, had managed to repulse the attack. It was reported that the Chouteau party was bringing forty packs of beaver skins, that is about four thousand pounds. 865 On August 4th, Goneville,866 a French trader among the Kansa Indians, brought back more news about the attack, saying “Auguste, not having found as much beaver in the mountains as he had expected, had given up the hunt very early.” He identified the attackers as Pawnee Indians.867 The island where the Chouteau party took refuge is located about five miles southwest of Lakin in Kearny County.868 Chouteau finally arrived at the rendezvous at the mouth of the Kansas River on August 10, 1816. De Mun wrote: “We found ourselves forty-five [persons]. We shipped the furs and started again for the mountains.” He did not identify the members of the party who traveled with him. There is no record of their return trip to Colorado, across Kansas. They probably took the same route they had taken on their previous journey. 869 On May 24, 1817, as they were hunting on the Arkansas River, near its confluence with the Huerfano River, they were captured by the Spaniards, 870 taken to Santa Fe on June 1, brought before a court-martial, and jailed for forty-eight days. They had to 862 . Meaning “The Little Thin One.” 863 . Meaning “The Wide Awake One.” 864 . Ibid., 326. A marker, one mile west of Lakin, in Kearny County, on Highway 50, indicates that the attack took place a few miles southwest of the marker. 865 . Niles’ National Register, as quoted in Foreman, Pioneer Days in the Early Southwest, 78. 866 . Marshall, “De Mun,” 326. The same trader who had lived in Jefferson and Shawnee counties, Kansas and married two daughters of the Kansa Chief, White Plume. 867 . De Mun’s journal ends abruptly. The last entry is dated August 4. 868 . A marker to commemorate this event was placed in 1941 on US Highway 50 and it states that the attack took place in the N1/2 of NW ¼, Section 28, Township 24, Range 26, a few miles south of the marker. KQ, 10: 344. Today the island is covered with a thick grove of trees, heavy growth of tall grass and a ridge formed by brush, sand and debris washed by the flood waters. 869 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 77. 870 . According to Loomis-Nasatir, Pedro Vial, 237, they were twenty-seven in the party. 145 forfeit their furs and equipment; each man being left with only a few pieces of clothing and the worst horses they had. Their losses amounted to $30,000.871 Chouteau and his party returned to St. Louis on September 7, 1817 after an absence of almost 2 years. In later years, Chouteau continued to be an active trader in Kansas, but mostly in Oklahoma. In the spring of 1822, he is recorded as having rescued a man of William Brecknell’s company, near the great bend of the Arkansas River, probably in Rice County, while he was staying at an Osage camp. 872 The MacNight-James party found him at another Osage settlement, probably in Reno County during the summer of 1822. 873 In the fall of 1822 he moved to Oklahoma with members of chief White Hair’s band and took over the trading-house, near Salina, on the Grand River [the Neosho]. It had been previously managed by Joseph Revoir,874 a half-French, half- Osage associate who had received on August 23, 1817 a trading license with the Great and Little Osages. 875 Being familiar with the Indian Territory, he was often asked to guide travelers across the Kansas prairie. In the fall of 1832, Auguste Pierre led a party from Missouri to Fort Gibson in Oklahoma, at the confluence of the Arkansas and Neosho rivers. The group included Commissioner Ellsworth, General Clark, Charles Joseph Latrope, Washington Irving, Alexandre de Pourtales, a nineteen-year old Swiss count, and Dr. Thomas Dryer.876 He played an important role during the unsuccessful negotiations between the United States government and Clermont‘s band of Osage Indians. In 1833 his trading post was swept away by a flood. His loss was said to have been over $10,000.877 By then, he was spending most of his life among the Osage Indians, where “he built a two-story log palace, and there in the midst of his Indian family and attended by retainers and slaves, he lived the life of a frontier baron, the arbiter of numberless disputes and the dispenser of a lavish hospitality.” 878 By advising the Osage Indians at Clermont’s village, A. P. Chouteau prevented a cholera epidemic among them.879 In 1834, he accompanied the 871 . Marshall, , 5: 318-326;Lecompte, “DeMun,” , 26:30; American State Papers Foreign Relations, 4: 209- 13. The United States government awarded the estates of Jules de Mun and Auguste Chouteau the amount of $81,772.00, to cover the losses at the hands of the Spaniards in 1817, as well as interest accumulated in the intervening years. Lecompte, “DeMun,” 28. 872 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 105. 873 . Ibid. 106. 874 . Also written Rivar. He had been killed by Cherokee Indians in June 1821. Barry, Beginning of the West, 107. His widow was a member of the mission church of St. Francis Regis (formerly known as Chouteau’s church) in Kansas City, Missouri. Ibid., 429; Hoffhaus, Chez les Canses, 168. His son started a ferry service across the Missouri River. Ibid., 166. 875 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 78, 107. 876 . Ibid., 220-221. 877 . Ibid., 235. 878 . Dictionary of American Biography, ed. Johnson –Malone, 2: 92. In St. Louis on February 15, 1809, Auguste Pierre married his cousin, Sophie Labbadie . With her, he had two sons and nine daughters. One son and five daughters survived him. After he moved to Oklahoma, he had four sons and two daughters with four half-breed or full blood Indian women. 879 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 275. 146 Leavenworth-Dodge expedition to the Red River country to visit the Wichita, Kiowa and Comanche tribes in southwestern Oklahoma. In August of 1835, he established a small fort on the abandoned Camp Holmes site, on the Canadian River, south of Oklahoma City and five miles northeast of Purcell. That second post was to trade with the Comanches, Kiowas, Wichitas and other western tribes.880 Being a highly respected and influential man in Indian affairs, he played an important role in the negotiations between the government of the United States and the Indians. Around mid-December 1833, he witnessed the ceremony when several Osage Indians added their names to a peace treaty. 881 After being appointed Commissioner of Indian Treaties, he signed a treaty of peace and friendship between the United States government and the Kioway, Ka-ta-ka, and Ta-wa-ka-ro tribes on May 26, 1837 at Fort Gibson.882 He was fifty-two years old when he died on December 25, 1838 near Fort Gibson and was buried at the fort with military honors. Through his life, he had served well the Indians and the United States government as a trader, guide, mediator, and negotiator. Janet Lecompte wrote in her essay on Auguste Pierre Chouteau: Despite his shortcomings, Auguste Pierre Chouteau was a man of unusual mental, moral and physical stature. Tall and well-built, like most frontiersmen he was ruddy-faced from years in the sun and wind, yet he had the ease and grace of a high-born Frenchmen, and his conversation sparkled with wit and anecdote. His one-time competitor in the Indian trade called him honorable, frank and independent, which was the ultimate praise coming from a rival trader. A man who knew his family called him the most gifted and brilliant of all the Chouteaus. But to his friends and relatives in St. Louis who expected much from him, his life was a disappointment. He neglected his family; he was improvident and often incompetent in business. His debts mounted up beyond hope of repayment – both those he owed and those owed him – and he died crushed under obligations. Although debt was the hub of his existence for many years, A. P. Chouteau will be remembered not as a financial failure but as one of the best-known and best-loved of all the Indian traders. He lived with the Indians, had Indian wives and children, and his influence with many tribes was enormous. On a dangerous frontier where territory was disputed with bloodshed, his patience and wisdom helped to keep peace. He was a good trader and a good man. 883 Jules de Mun received an invitation from the King of France to return to France but he moved to Cuba in 1819 with his wife and six children to run a coffee plantation. He came back to St. Louis in 1831 when he was appointed secretary 880 . Ibid., 295. 881 . Ibid., 254. 882 . Kappler, Indian Treaties, 489-491. 883 . Lecompte, “Auguste Pierre Chouteau ,” in Hafen Mountain Men, 9 : 63. 147 and translator to the United States Board of Commissioners. His responsibility was to adjust titles of French and Spanish land grants in Missouri. He was later elected St. Louis County recorder of deeds. He died August 15, 1843, aged sixty-one. 884 884 . Ibid., 28; Marshall, «De Mun » 330-331. 148 CHAPTER 7 MOUNTAIN MEN LUCIEN FONTENELLE In the 1820s and 1830s, veteran French traders were still being mentioned in the journals of the time as traveling through Kansas. One of them whose name appears often in the accounts was Lucien Fontenelle. It is not known when his parents came from Marseilles, France to Louisiana. Being of noble ancestry, they may have fled at the time of the French Revolution. 885 Lucien, born on a plantation near New Orleans on October 9, 1800, was orphaned at a young age when his parents drowned during a hurricane.886 After being raised by an aunt for a few years, he ran away at age fifteen to engage in the fur trade in St. Louis where he was employed by his friend, Pierre Chouteau, Jr. from 1816 to 1819. Although it is difficult to follow his activities accurately, he is noted as having journeyed several times, either along the bank of the Missouri or across Kansas. In 1819, he was seen by Stephen H. Long in Council Bluffs, Nebraska.887 In the spring of 1822, he arranged for the keelboat Mary Jane to ascend the Missouri, with Louis Bompart in charge. It has not been ascertained if Fontenelle was on board for the expedition but he was recorded as being at Fort Lisa in August 1823.888 In 1824 he was married by Father de Smet to Me-um-ba-nee (meaning The Sun or the Bright Sun), the daughter of the Omaha chief, Big Elk.889 On July 4, 1825, he is recorded as having obtained a license to trade for one year at the mouth of the Kansas River, 890 and in 1825 he is found at Fort Atkinson in Nebraska. In September of 1827, Fontenelle purchased merchandise from the American Fur Company and led a caravan of forty-five men and one hundred horses on his first trip to the Rocky Mountains.891 He probably traveled up the Missouri from St. Louis to the mouth of the Platte River as he was to do again in April of 1830 when he was recorded as having returned to the mountains in company of Andrew Drips892 and Michel Robidoux. On June 19, 1831, he came down the Missouri with their packs of furs and arrived in St. Louis on October 1, 1831 with Drips and thirty trappers. Their trip to the mountains had been delayed on account of bad weather, which had forced them to winter east of the divide.893 885 . “Fontenelle in whose veins flowed the royal blood.” DeVoto, Year of Decision 1846, 63. 886 . Also written Fontenel. Trottman, “Lucien Fontenelle” in Hafen. Mountain Men, 5: 81-99. 887 . Thwaites, Early Western Travels, 14:275. 888 . Fort Fontenel was located a few miles above Omaha, Nebraska. Trottman, “Lucien Fontenelle,” 5:84. 889 . Ibid., 84-85. 890 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 125. 891 . Trottman, “Lucien Fontenelle,” 5: 87. 892 . Fontenelle and Drips established a depot on the Missouri, one mile from Bellevue in Nebraska and eight miles above the mouth of the Platte River. In the fall of 1828 or early 1829, they became affiliated with the American Fur Company. 893 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 206; DeVoto, Across the Wide Missouri, 71; Donald Jackson, Voyages of the Steamboat Yellow Stone, 38; Trottman, “Lucien Fontenelle,” 5: 90. 149 In 1833, Fontenelle boarded the steamboat, Yellowstone, which each year took parties of hunters and traders to the Rockies and passed the mouth of the Kansas River on April 21. Aboard was Maximilian, Prince of Wied-Neuwied on a scientific journey on his way to Fort Pierre in South Dakota. Fontenelle traveled with them up to the fort; then on June 8, headed for the rendezvous on Horse Creek with sixty men and one hundred and eighty-five horses. He hunted and trapped there until the late summer of 1834.894 Upon his return, the Fontenelle & Drips Company merged with Thomas Fitzpatrick, Milton Sublette, and Bridger, forming a new company called Fontenelle, Fitzpatrick & Company, which had Fort Laramie in Wyoming as its headquarters.895 After remaining in St. Louis for a while to negotiate the affairs pertaining to this new association, on May 4, 1835, Fontenelle led an ill-fated party up the Missouri. When they arrived at Bellevue, many of the passengers, including Fontenelle came down with cholera. Ten men died; 896 later those who had recuperated, left for Fort Laramie,897 with Fontenelle, leading a caravan of between fifty and sixty men, six wagons, three yolks of oxen, and nearly two hundred horses and mules.898 In October of 1835, he brought down from Fort Laramie a party of about eighty people who had assembled there. They traveled to Bellevue and then continued by different routes to St. Louis. There is no record whether Fontenellle himself returned to St. Louis or stayed in Bellevue. Fontenelle made a last trip to the mountains in 1838 as the renowned painter Alfred Jacob Miller found him at Fort Laramie and wrote: “Fontenel was in command of the fort and received us with kindness and hospitality.”899 It is believed that he returned to Bellevue with an American Fur Company train, comprised of about thirty wagons, which crossed Kansas, traveling along the Oregon Trail.900 Lucien Fontenelle died in 1838 or 1839, according to Father de Smet who attended him in his last moments. He was reputedly buried near what was once his home. His son, Logan Fontenelle, chief of the Omaha Indians, is buried next to him. Their graves are located in Fontenelle Forest on a bluff overlooking the Missouri River.901 In Wyoming, Fontenelle Creek, a small tributary of the Green River below the town of La Barge, a reservoir, and the town of Fontenelle in Lincoln County, are named after him. 894 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 228-229; Jackson, Voyages Steamboat Yellow Stone, 95. 895 . Trottman, “Lucien Fontenelle,” 94; Barry, Beginning of the West, 285. 896 . Ibid., 293. 897 . Also called Fort Williams. 898 . Ibid., 287. 899 . Trottman, “Lucien Fontenelle,” 98 ; Ferris, Life in Rocky Mountains, 21. 900 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 354 901 . Trottman, “Lucien Fontenelle,” 99. Another son, Henry, an interpreter at the Council Bluffs agency in 1853, 1855-1856, married a half-breed. She was the daughter of a fur trader by the name of Pappan who had a family in St. Louis and the sister of the Pawnee chief, White Man. Mrs. Plate, “Some Experiences as a Teacher among the Pawnees, KC, 14:785-786, 790; “Official Kansas Roster,” KC, 16: 731-732. Pappan may have been related to the Pappan brothers who ran a ferry in Topeka across the Kansas River. 150 For nineteen years, Fontenelle had been a most respected mountain man, “experienced, able and efficient commander,” a veteran leader who, however, did not fit the stereotyped image of the trapper, hunter or trader, as he was a “refined, well-educated man and a polished gentleman.” ETIENNE PROVOST Etienne Provost 902 deserves a special place among the mountain men as one who had great ability in leading travelers through difficult ventures across Indian Territory. Known in his old age as “The Man of the Mountains,” he was born in Chambly in the province of Quebec in 1782. He was first mentioned as a member of the 1815 Chouteau-de Mun expedition. After he returned to St. Louis from the eastern slopes of the Rockies, he testified along with ten other men about his imprisonment in a New Mexico jail with the other traders for having trespassed into Spanish territory. When Mexico received its independence from Spain in 1821, Provost and other Frenchmen left St. Louis and moved to New Mexico, using it as a base to hunt and trap in the Rockies and traveling “farther north and west than their contemporaries.” 903 In 1823, Major Andrew Henry assembled a party with Etienne Provost probably as the leader and sent it toward the southwest. Chittenden wrote: The party dispatched by Henry to the southwest is believed to have been the first party of white men to have crossed the South Pass. Tradition among the traders and trappers always ascribed the discovery of the pass to Provost and there is little doubt of the fact but of positive proof there is none. The date of the discovery was probably late in the fall of 1823. He may also have been the first to discover the Great Salt Lake as Morgan claimed: Later Anderson became an impassioned advocate of Provost and declared extravagantly that Provost had reached, trapped and “circumambulated” the inland sea as early as 1820, so that to him alone belonged the credit of having discovered and made known its existence. There is no doubt that Provost laid eyes on the Great Salt Lake as early as the fall of 1824.904 902 . Also written Provot, Provott, Proveau, Provo, Provoux. Hafen, “Etienne Provost” in Hafen, Mountain Men, 6: 371-385; Dale L. Morgan, Jedediah Smith, 144-148, 319-320, 400-402; Dictionary of American Biography, ed. Johnson, 8: 250-25; Alter, James Bridger, 5n2. 903 . Weber, TaosTrappers, 74. 904 . Dale L. Morgan, Jedediah Smith, 182-183; DeVoto, Across Wide Missouri, 312; Alter, James Bridger, 53n12. 151 While he was with a party of independent trappers in the Wasatch Mountains, he and his companions 905 were attacked by a band of Snake 906 Indians at the site of Ogden, Utah during the spring or early fall of 1824: The Indians fell upon them, and commenced the work of slaughter with their knives, which they had concealed under their robes and blankets. Proveau, a very athletic man, with difficulty extricated himself from them, and with three or four others, alike fortunate, succeeded in making his escape; the remainder of the party of fifteen were all massacred.907 The official report of the Secretary of War, dated October 3, 1831, stated that “8 men were killed at one time by the Snakes on the waters of Utah Lake who were in the employ of Provost and Lubro [Le Clerc].”908 Provost was working for William H. Ashley from 1822 to 1825 when the latter sold out to Smith, Jackson and Sublette. In 1825, Provost led a party to an area in northeastern Utah and southwestern Wyoming where he established a trading post with William L. Sublette while continuing to hunt until September 1826 when he went back to St. Louis. Upon his return, his services were sought by many fur companies. Bartholomew Berthold, one of the members of the B. Pratte Company wrote: “It seems to me that it would be well to assure ourselves of Provost, who is the soul of the hunters of the Mountains.” 909 He must have been highly valued, given the fact that he was paid five or six times the normal salary. In the fall of 1828, Kenneth McKenzie, judging him “the ablest trader of the American Fur Company,” trusted him to search for the trappers he had left in the Rockies and to bring them down to Fort Floyd [Fort Union] in New Mexico.910 In 1830 he was listed as a boatman working for the American Fur Company. His association with the fur company was not long lived as in 1831 he became an independant trader. In the summer of 1832, Provost and Fontenelle led an expedition of some fifty men and one hundred and fifty horses to deliver supplies to the American Fur Company 905 . Jacques (old Pino) Fournaise was among them. Voelker, “Jacques (Old Pino) Fournaise” in Hafen, Mountain Men, 8:178. He was later to be hired as a guide by the French scientist, Jean N. Nicollet. Alter, James Bridger, 44-45. 906 . The Snakes was the name given loosely to the Baunocks. Ibid., 178n17. 907 . Quoted by Hafen, Mountain Men, 6: 372-373; Chittenden, American Fur, 1: 275-276. 908 . Hafen, Mountain Men, 6: 373. Also written “Prevoux and La Clère” in the report to the Secretary of State, dated St. Louis, October 29, 1830. Dale L. Morgan, Jedediah Smith, 343-344. In the report the number of dead is listed as seven. Leclerc who had been Provost’s partner for many years may have been killed at the headwaters of the Kansas River by Indians when he was in route to St. Louis on the Santa Fe Trail. Ibid., 188, 411n43. 909 . Ibid., 376. 910 . Chittenden, American Fur, 1: 328. 152 employees. On their way down from the mountains, they brought back a load of the furs. Fontenelle wrote: “I hardly think it necessary to have them [the furs] insured, although the river is very low, but the boat will be very strong, and will have a crew formed of the very best kind of voyageurs under the eyes of Mr. Cabanné, and the superintendence of Etienne Provost. ” 911 In 1834 Provost led an American Fur Company caravan carrying supplies and headed for Bayou Solado, in South Park, Colorado. 912 In September of the same year on his way back, he superintended William Marshall Anderson’s party of sixteen men who was returning to St. Louis, traveling down the Missouri in two canoes tied together and laden with furs. They stopped briefly “within a gun sound” of Fort Leavenworth on September 21st and spent the next night “below the mouth of the Kansas River.” 913 According to the Account Books it appears that he stayed for a while in St. Louis and turned his home into a lodging house. However the respite did not last long as he was on his way back to the mountains in the 1835 and 1836 when he was paid for leading caravans to the Rockies. In the spring of 1837, Provost, traveling on the American Fur Company’s steamboat St. Peters, took up employees and equipment from St. Louis to probably the Chouteau’s Landing in Kansas City. The men spent two or three weeks west of the mouth of the Kansas River, acquiring horses, mules and supplies and waiting for the grass to have grown sufficiently high to feed the animals on their way to the mountains. Provost went as assistant to Captain Thomas Fitzpatrick. 914 The caravan comprised one hundred and twenty men. Beside the company’s men, there were ten hunters, twenty-five or more Delaware Indians, a party of ten persons accompanying William Drummond Stewart, 915 and thirty wagons and carts. Among Stewart’s party were the artist Alfred Jacob Miller 916 and a half- breed of French ancestry, Antoine Clément whom he had hired as his personal 911 . Ibid., 1: 308. 912 . No journal of this expedition is known to exist. Barry, Beginning of the West, 262. 913 . Ibid., 277. 914 . DeVoto, Across Wide Missouri, 312, 444n7. 915 . In his fictionalized book, Edward Warren, Stewart portrayed Provost as “Old Provost, the burly Bacchus . . . a large heavy man, with a ruddy face, bearing more the appearance of a mate of a French merchantman than the scourer of the dusty plains.” Hafen, Mountain Men, 6: 382. 916 . Miller sketched Provost twice. He was then fifty-two years old. The first one shows “the trapper train greeting a delegation of Indians. In the front line on his horse proudly rode Stewart, and beside him are three other men, including on his mule, plump Monsieur Proveau, a sub leader with a corpus round as a purpoise.” In a second sketch, Provost is fat and round, standing beside his tent and with hands cupped to his mouth is giving the loud call to gather his horses. Ibid., 6: 381-382. It is reproduced on the frontispiece of Hafen, Mountain Men, 5. Miller described the sketch in these words: “He [Provost] raises both hands to his mouth and with stentorian lungs bawls out something like “Attrapez les chevaux” [Catch the horses} – the men immediately rise and run towards a cloud of dust from which the horses are seen emerging.” The sketch is titled “Catching up.” The first sketch is reproduced in Ross, West of Alfred Miller, plates 76 and 197. 153 hunter and purveyor.917 They followed the route that Provost had taken in 1834. Missionary William Gray interviewed “Black” Harris, an employee of the American Fur Company, who had traveled with Provost. From his declarations, it is possible to know the rivers they crossed after leaving Missouri. He listed the Wakarusa River,918 the Kansas River, which they forded seven or eight miles above Lawrence, a small creek near the [Kansa] Agency, 919 the Sauterelle 920 River as the French called the Grasshopper River, 921 Soldier Creek, Prairie Creek, Black [now Red] Vermillion River, Big Black Creek [now the Black Vermillion], the North fork of the Blue [now the Big Blue River], Big Sandy Creek and the west fork of the Blue [now the Little Blue River]. From there they followed the Pawnee trails to the Platte River.922 On April 4, 1839, he left St. Louis and mid-month he passed along the shore of Kansas on the American Fur Company steamboat, the Antelope, 923 with Joseph N. Nicollet, a French scientist who held him in high esteem as he wrote: “I had brought up with me only five men who for my purpose were certainly worth ten. . . One of them was Etienne Provost, known as “L’homme des montagnes [The mountain man]. . . . They were most faithful, cautious and courageous in the midst of all dangers.” 924 In 1840 he formed a partnership with Clément Lambert, named “Proveau and Lambert, Tavern keepers”. It was short lived. After the winter Provost traveled again to the mountains and continued for the next two years. On May 3, 1843, he joined James J. Audubon 925 in Fort Leavenworth and they ascended the Missouri on their way to the mountains where the naturalist would collect specimens for his famous drawings. On their return trip, they stopped at Fort Leavenworth on October 10 at 4 P.M., and after a short stay left at 6:30 P.M. for St. Louis where they arrived on October 19. 926 In 1844 and 1845, Provost was back in the Rockies where his presence was noted at Fort Union and Fort Pierre. After his last voyage, on May 8, 188, Joseph La Barge, master of the steamboat Martha recounted that, although the “mountain man” was sixty-three years old by then, he still commanded the respect of the Indians who followed all the orders he would give them. Etienne Provost was a veteran mountaineer who “at that time probably knew the western country better than any living man.” 927 He also was a leader of men able to successfully conduct long caravans of often-rough trappers and hunters 917. Barry, Beginning of the West, 323. 918 . William Gray wrote it “the Wasse ree saw”. 919 . Probably Buck Creek. 920 Gray wrote it “Sorterel”. 921 . Now called the Delaware River. 922 . Ibid., 323-4 923 . Ibid., 365. 924 . Nicollet’s Account in South Dakota Historical Collections, 10: 112-113. 925 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 473, 499. 926 . Ibid., 499. 927 . Hafen, Mountain Men, 6: 379. 154 through difficult and perilous routes. Chittenden judged him as “one of the best and most reliable of the mountain men.” 928 He settled in St. Louis and died there on July 3, 1850. His funeral was held in the St. Louis Cathedral, still standing west of the Gateway Arch in the Jefferson Memorial to Westward Expansion.929 He was a legendary character during his own lifetime and he is remembered in Utah by the town of Provo, an abbreviation of his name, by Provo Peak and Provo River, 930 and in South Dakota by a town of that name.931 CAPTAIN BONNEVILLE AND MICHEL SYLVESTRE CERRE Benjamin Louis Eulalie de Bonneville 932 was born in or near Paris on April 14, 1796. During the French Revolution, his father, Nicholas de Bonneville, a well- educated publicist, attracted the attention of the government by writing pamphlets criticizing the current events. At the time the family befriended the Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Paine. The latter even lived for a while in the Bonneville home and was the godfather of one of their children who was named after him. Benjamin’s father was incarcerated for some time. When he was released from prison, he asked for permission to emigrate to the United States; it was refused and he was put under political surveillance, unable to leave France until 1807 or 1808. However his wife and three sons managed to sail secretly out of France in August of 1803. After their arrival in the States, they lived in Paine’s farm in New Rochelle, New York.933 Benjamin was accepted at West Point when he was seventeen years old and graduated on December 1, 1815, as brevet second lieutenant in Light Artillery. He served in several New England garrisons and, on March 10, 1819, joined the Eighth Infantry. He was promoted First Lieutenant on July 9, 1820. After his transfer to the Seventh Infantry on June 1, 1821, he was stationed at Fort Smith and Fort Gibson in Indian Territory for four years. In 1824 he was selected to be an aide of the Marquis de Lafayette during his tour of the United States. A friendship developed between them and Bonneville was granted a leave of absence to visit France at the invitation of the French General. While there he was promoted to the rank of captain on October 4, 1825. On his return to the United States after an absence of eighteen months, Bonneville was assigned for duty on the western frontier. In November 1826, he was back at Fort Gibson. 934 During his years of military service in the West, he became attracted by the life of the traders and the lure of financial gain. Washington Irving wrote: 928 . Chittenden, American Fur, 1: 261. 929 . Hafen, Mountain Men, 6: 383; Alter, James Bridger, 5n2. 930 . DeVoto, Across Wide Missouri, 312. 931 . Dictionary of American Biography, ed. Johnson, 7: 251. 932 . Also written Bowville. Ibid., 1: 438; Todd, “Benjamin L. E. Bonneville,” in Hafen, Mountain Men, 5: 45-63; Chittenden, American Fur,1: 397-398; DeVoto, Across Wide Missouri, 50. 933 . “Paine’s death in 1809 left Mme Bonneville a legate as well as an executrix of his estate. His will provided bequests to both parents and left a portion of his farm in trust for the future education of the Bonneville children.” Todd, ed., Washington Irving, Adventures of Captain Bonneville, 46. Irving based his account on Bonneville’s journal, which is now lost. 934 . Dictionary of Biography, ed. Johnson, 1: 438. 155 The nature of our military service took him to the frontier, where, for a number of years, he was stationed at various posts in the Far West. Here he was brought into frequent intercourse with Indian traders, mountain trappers, and other pioneers of the wilderness, and became so excited by their tales of wild scenes and wild adventures, and their accounts of vast and magnificent regions as yet unexplored, that an expedition to the Rocky Mountains became the ardent desire of his heart, and an enterprise to explore untrodden tracts, the leading object of his ambition. By degrees he shaped his vague day-dream into a practical reality. Having made himself acquainted with all the requisites for a trading enterprise beyond the mountains, he determined to undertake it. 935 Bonneville petitioned for a leave of absence from the Army from August, 1831 to October, 1833. The reply from the Major-General Commanding the Army of the United States, dated August 3, 1831 reads: The leave of absence which you have asked for the purpose of enabling you to carry into execution your design of exploring the country of the Rocky Mountains, and beyond, with a view of ascertaining the nature and character of the several tribes of Indians inhabiting those regions; the trade which might be profitably carried on with them; the quality of the soil, the productions, the minerals, the natural history, the climate, the geography, and topography, as well as geology, of the various parts of the country within the limits of the territories belonging to the United States, between our frontier and the Pacific; has been duly considered, and submitted to the War Department for approval, and has been sanctioned. You are, therefore, authorized to be absent from the army until October 1833. It is understood that the Government is to be at no expense, in reference to your proposed expedition, it having originated with yourself; and all that you requires was the permission from the proper authority to undertake the enterprise. You will naturally, in providing yourself for the expedition, provide suitable instruments, and especially the best maps of the interior to be found. It is desirable, besides what is enumerated as the object of your enterprise, that you note particularly the number of warriors that may be in each tribe or nation that you may meet with; the alliances with other tribes, and their relative position as to a state of peace or war, and whether their friendly or warlike dispositions towards each other are recent or of long standing. You will gratify us by describing their manner of 935 . Todd, ed., Adventures of Captain Bonneville; Barry, Beginning of the West, 213. 156 making war; of the mode of subsisting themselves during a state of war, and a state of peace; their arms, and the effect of them; whether they act on foot or on horseback; detailing the disciplines, and maneuvers the war parties; the power of their horses, size and general description; in short, any information which you may conceive would be useful to the government. You will avail yourself of every opportunity of informing us of your position and progress, and at the expiration of your leave of absence, will join your proper station. (Signed) Alexander Macomb, Major General, Commanding the Army. 936 Without any financial help from the government, Bonneville secured funds from New York capitalists to defray the cost of his expedition. His principal backer was Alfred Seton, one of the returned to West Point to learn about astronomy. He left New York in August, arrived in St. Louis in early September, and traveled up and down the Missouri River for several months, outfitting his expedition and hiring men.937 He decided to make the expedition with wagons. Irving explained why Bonneville selected that means of travel: In transporting his baggage in vehicles of this kind, Captain Bonneville thought he would save the great delay caused every morning by packing the horses, and the labor of unpacking in the evening. Fewer horses also would be required, and less risk incurred of their wandering away, or being frightened or carried off by the Indians. The wagons, also, would be more easily defended, and might form a kind of fortification in case of attack in the open prairies.938 On May 1st, he departed from Fort Osage, ten miles east of Independence with a party of one hundred and ten men. Michel S. Cerré, son and grandson of old French traders from St. Louis, was one of his two assistants. Among the engagés hired later were Matthieu, Le Roy,939 B. Bourdaloue, Alexis Godey, 940 936 . “Bonneville’s Adventures, in The Works of Washington Irving, 10: 427-428. Irving had met Bonneville at the John Joseph Astor’s home while writing Astoria. 937 . They “picked up at St. Louis and Independence a typical group of trappers and camp- swampers, Creole and Canadian Frenchmen and American frontiersmen. They had to pay higher wages than the companies did because they were newcomers. . . . They got some first-rate men, but the average was not high, for the companies had taken their first pick.” Ibid., 51. 938 . “Bonneville’s Adventures,” 30. 939 . Le Roy was killed by the Indians, Todd, ed. Adventures of Captain Bonneville, 66n11. 940 . Alexis Godey was one of the members of the 1848 Fremont expedition to the Pacific. 157 and Antoine Janisse,941 who, according to their last surnames, were probably of French descent.942 Bonneville’s party was well equipped. Irving described it as follows: “a train of twenty wagons, drawn by oxen, or by four mules or horses each, and laden with merchandise, ammunition, and provisions, were disposed in two columns in the center of the party, which was equally divided into a van and a rear-guard.” 943 After reaching Independence, he followed the south bank of the Kansas River, then turned northwest. Irving wrote: The buoyant and clamorous spirits with which they had commenced this march, gradually subsided as they entered upon its difficulties. They found the prairies saturated with the heavy cold rains, prevalent in certain seasons of the year in this part of the country; the wagon wheels sank deep in the mire; the horses were often to the fetlock, and both steed and rider were completely jaded by the evening of the 12th, when they reached the Kansas River, a fine stream about three hundred yards wide, entering the Missouri from the south. Though fordable in almost every part at the end of the summer and during the autumn, yet it is necessary to construct a raft for the transportation of the wagons and effects. All this was done in the course of the following day, and by evening, the whole party arrived at the agency of the Kansas tribe. This was under the superintendence of General Clarke, brother of the celebrated traveler of the same name. 944 Irving told about their encampment along the Kansas River: The twenty wagons were disposed in a square, at the distance of thirty- three feet from each other. In every interval there was a mess stationed; and each mess had its fire, where the men cooked, ate, gossiped, and slept. The horses were placed in the center of the square, with a guard stationed over them at night. The horses were “side lined,” as it is termed: that is to say, the fore and hind foot on the same side of the animal were tied together, so as to be within eighteen inches of each other. A horse thus fettered is for a time sadly embarrassed, but soon becomes sufficiently accustomed to the 941 . Antoine Janisse’s ancestor, François Janis was born in Champagne, France and moved to Canada at the end of the seventeenth century. His father, a native of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, having received a grant of land in St. Charles, Missouri, settled there where he traded with the Osage Indians and served as St. Charles justice of the peace. Antoine was an experienced mountain man, having gone to the Rockies with William H. Ashley in 1824. In 1832 he accompanied William Sublette and a Rocky Mountain Fur Company brigade. In 1833 he was part of the mess assigned to Larpenteur by Robert Campbell. According to the family tradition, he was killed by the Blackfeet on the Yellowstone River in about 1840. Lecompte, “Antoine Janis” in Hafen, Mountain Men, 8:193-201. 942 . Todd, ed. Adventures Captain Bonneville, xxviin19. 943 . “Bonneville’s Adventures,” 30. 944 . Ibid., 33. 158 restraint to move about slowly. It prevents its wandering; and it’s being easily carried off at night by harking Indians. . . The encampment of which we are speaking presented a striking scene. The various mess-fires were surrounded by picturesque groups, standing, sitting, and reclining; some busied in cooking, others in cleaning their weapons; while the frequent laugh told that the rough joke, or merry story was going on.945 While camping near the Kansa Agency, Bonneville visited White Plume, the Kansa chief who was “the personage who most attracted the captain’s attention at this place, and they became good friends.” Irving described the chief’s house: White Plume inhabited a large stone house, built for him by order of the American Government; but the establishment had not been carried out in corresponding style. It might be palace without, but it was a wigwam within; so that between the stateliness of his mansion, and the squalidness of his furniture, the gallant White Plume presented some whimsical incongruity. 946 Irving narrated the encounter of the two men as they met cordially in the middle of the camp in front of the principal lodge: Captain Bonneville and White Plume, in soldier-like communion, the captain delighted with the opportunity of meeting, on social terms, with one of the red warriors of the wilderness, the unsophisticated children of nature. The latter was squatted on his buffalo robe, his strong features and red skin glaring in the broad light of a blazing fire, while he recounted astounding tales of the bloody exploits of his tribe and himself, in their wars with the Pawnees; for there are no old soldiers more given to long campaigning stories than Indian braves.947 The whole tribe was impressed by the size of the captain’s party, as Irving remarked: The unusual sight of a train of wagons, caused quite a sensation among these Indians who thronged about the caravan, examining every thing minutely, and asking a thousand questions; exhibiting a degree of excitability, and a lively curiosity, totally opposite to that apathy with which their race is so often reproached.948 Irving continued: White Plume was so taken with the courtesy of the captain and pleased with one or two presents received from him, that he 945 . Ibid., 35. 946 . Ibid., 34. 947 . Ibid., 35. 948 . Ibid., 34. 159 accompanied him a day’s journey, and passed a night in his camp, on the margin of a stream.949 After Bonneville’s party left the Kansa village, they followed the left bank of the Kansas River, and headed in a northwesterly direction, taking the route used by Sublette and other traders, which was to become the Oregon Trail. While traveling though Pottawatomie and Marshall counties, they crossed the Vermilion, Black Vermilion, and Blue rivers before reaching the Platte on June 2. Irving described in detail their journey from the time they left the bank of the Kansas River to their reaching the Platte River: From the middle to the end of May, Captain Bonneville pursued a western course over vast undulating plains, destitute of tree or shrub, rendered miry by occasional rain, and cut up by deep water-courses where they had to dig roads for their wagons down the soft crumbling banks, and to throw bridges across the streams. The weather had attained the summer heat; the thermometer standing about fifty-seven degrees in the morning, early, but rising to about ninety degrees at noon. The incessant breezes, however, which sweep these vast plains, render the heat endurable. Game was scanty, and they had to eke out their scanty fare with wild roots and vegetables, such as the Indian potato, the wild onion, and the prairie tomato, and they met with quantities of “red root”, from which the hunters made a very palatable beverage. The only human being that crossed their path was a Kansas warrior, returning from some solitary expedition of bravado or revenge, bearing a Pawnee scalp as a trophy. The country gradually rose as they proceeded westward, and their route took them over high ridges, commanding wide and beautiful prospects. The vast plain was studded on the west with innumerable hills of conical shape, such as are seen north of the Arkansas River. These hills have their summits apparently cut off about the same elevation, so as to leave flat surfaces at top. It is conjectured by some that the whole country may have been of the altitude of these tabular hills but through some process of nature may have sunk to its present level; these insulated eminences being protected by broad foundations of solid rock. Captain Bonneville mentions another geological phenomenon north of the Red River (Vermilion), where the surface of the earth, in considerable tracts of country, is covered with broad slabs of sandstones, having the form and position of grave-stones, and looking as if they had been forced up by some subterranean agitation. “The resemblance,” says he, “which these very spots have in many places to old church-yards, is curious in the extreme.” On the 2d of June they arrived on the main stream of the Nebraska or Platte River.950 949 . Ibid., 34. 950 . Ibid. 39-40. 160 The first season of trapping and hunting in the Rockies was a total failure. Some of Bonneville’s men were hired away from him by competing traders; others deserted with furs and supplies; he was forced to pay exorbitant wages to retain his engagés. Some Indians refused to trade with him. When the time came of the rendezvous at Green River, Bonneville had not collected many furs. De Voto wrote: He had twenty-two and a half packs of beaver, about twenty-three hundred pounds or eighteen hundred pelts. Eighteen hundred prime pelts would normally have been worth about ten thousand dollars but the price of beaver was declining and Bonneville’s take for the year amounted to about eight thousand dollars St. Louis. Since he had used up more of his trade goods than he had allotted for the first year, had lost many horses, had depleted his outfit, and had had men and furs hijacked by his rivals, he was already close to bankruptcy when he reached the rendezvous.951 On July 29, 1833 Cerré took down to St. Louis the load of furs and was also asked to deliver to Major General Macomb the two reports Bonneville had written in Crow Country on Wind River, 952 according to the instructions he had been given before his departure. They included information about his travels, the geography, topography, fur trade, Indians, and the British activities in Oregon. Bonneville had ended his report with the words: On my return about the last of June [1834], I shall meet Mr. M. S. Cerré, and if you shall have any instructions for me, I shall be glad to receive them either to join any party that might be sent, to comply with any other commands in this Country, or to return to the States.953 The trader Nathaniel J. Wyett wrote of seeing Cerré on his way east: At the camp [on Twin Creek about 17 miles east of Bear River] we found Mr. Cerry [Cerré] and Mr. Walker who were returning to St. Louis with the furs collected by Mr. Bonneville’s company, about 10 packs, and men going down to where there is due $10,000.”954 The proceeds from the sale hardly paid the men’s wages.955 Cerré having returned with no instructions from Major General Macomb, Bonneville remained in the mountains under the assumption that the government approved his prolonging 951 . DeVoto, Across Wide Missouri, 94. 952 . Todd, ed. Adventures of Captain Bonneville, Appendix B, 381-390. 953 . Ibid., 390. 954 . Chittenden, American Fur, 1:425n11; Barry, Beginning of the West, 266. 955 . “It is conceded that Bonneville, out of all his grand expedition, will have only enough to pay the wages of his men.” Letter of Chouteau to John J. Astor, dated September 25, 1833. Chittenden, American Fur, 1: 406n4. 161 his stay in the West. He was completely unaware that General Macomb had reported his absence without leave on May 28, 1834, and that on May 30, he had been dropped from the rolls of the Army. The returns from the second year were even worse. Fontenelle wrote to Chouteau, on September 17, 1834: The latter [Bonneville & Co.] thinks by next year it will be at an end with the mountains. They have sent down from twelve to fourteen packs of beaver, and admitting it should sell at a high price, it is not enough to pay their returning hands.956 On his way to St. Louis, Bonneville took the same route across northeast Kansas which he had taken on his way up to the Rockies. The party arrived in Independence “ragged almost to nakedness,” but somehow happy to return to civilization. Nevertheless, the mountain man felt he would miss roaming in the wilderness, as he reminisced: Though the prospect of once more tasting the blessings of peaceful society, and passing days and nights under the calm guardianship of the laws, was not without its attractions; yet to those of us whose whole lives has been spent in the stirring excitement and perpetual watchfulness of adventures in the wilderness, the change was far from promising an increase of that contentment and inward satisfaction most conducive to happiness. He who, like myself, has roved almost from boyhood among the children of the forest, and over the unforrowed plains and rugged heights of the western wastes, will not be startled to learn that, notwithstanding all the fascinations of the world on this civilized side of the mountains, I would fain make my bow to the splendors and gayeties of the metropolis, and plunge again amidst the hardships and perils of the wilderness.957 When Bonneville found out that he had been taken off the roll of the Army, he traveled to Washington to ask for his reinstatement. He also visited John J. Astor who had contributed financially to his expedition. Irving met him in the fall of 1835 at Hellgate, Astor’s country home. Irving described Bonneville in these words: He was then just returned from a residence of upwards of three years among the Mountains, and was on his way to report himself at head quarters, in the hopes of being reinstated in the service. From all I could learn, his wanderings in the wilderness, though they had gratified his curiosity and his love of adventure, had not much benefited his fortunes. Like Corporal Trim958 in his campaigns, he had “satisfied the sentiment,” and that was all. In fact, he was too much of 956 . Ibid., I: 425n11. 957 . “Bonneville’s Adventures,” 420-421. 958 . A character in Lawrence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy. 162 the frank, freehearted soldier, and had inherited too much of his father’s temperament, to make a scheming trapper, or a thrifty bargainer. There was something in the whole appearance of the captain that prepossessed me in his favor. He was of middle size, well made, and well set; and a military frock of foreign cut, that has seen service, gave him a look of compactness. His countenance was frank, open, and engaging; well browned by the sun, and had something of a French expression. He had a pleasant black eye, a high forehead, and, while he kept his hat on, the look of a man in the jocund prime of his days; but the moment his head was uncovered, a bald crown gained him credit for a few more years than he was really entitled to. Being extremely curious, at the time, about everything connected with the Far West, I addressed numerous questions to him. They drew from him a number of extremely striking details, which were given with mingled modesty and frankness; and in a gentleness of manner, and a soft tone of voice, contrasting singularly with the wild and often startling nature of his themes. It was difficult to conceive the mild, quiet-speaking personage before you, the actual hero of the stirring scenes related.959 Around May 7, 1836, Bonneville started on another and last trip to the Rockies to “make a final close” of his fur trade business. Nothing is known about the route he took. It is believed that he traveled through northeast Kansas as he had done previously, starting from Fort Leavenworth. He arrived at Fort William in Colorado after June 6. He did not stay long in the mountains as he was back in Fort Leavenworth by August 6 where he learned of his reinstatement, dated April 19, 1836, which had been granted by President Jackson in spite of the opposition of many generals. He was also restored to the rank of captain in the Seventh Infantry. He immediately left Fort Leavenworth on horseback for his new assignment at Fort Gibson in Arkansas Territory. He participated in the second Seminole war in Florida. In 1845, during the Mexican War, he distinguished himself in the battles of Contreras and Churubusco when he was wounded. He received a citation “for gallantry and meritorious conduct.” He was promoted to lieutenant colonel of the Fourth Infantry on May 7, 1849 and was assigned to command Fort Kearny in Nebraska. He left Fort Leavenworth on May 10 to join his new post. 960 On February 3, 1855, he was made colonel of the Third Infantry and fought with the Union forces during the Civil War, although his sympathies were with the South. On September 9, 1861 he retired from the army but remained active until the end of the war. On March13, 1865, he was promoted to brigadier-general for his “long and faithful service in the Army.” 961 He died on June 18, 1878 at Fort Smith in Arkansas Territory. President Jackson’s willingness to reinstate Bonneville in the Army was probably due to the 959 . Todd, ed. Adventures Captain Bonneville, lii-liii. 960 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 851. 961 . Dictionary of American Biography, ed. Allen, 1: 438. 163 fact that at that time it was believed that Bonneville had been the first to have drawn maps of the western country, identifying the sources of the Missouri, Yellowstone, Snake, Green, Wind, and Sweetwater rivers, including the region of the Great Salt Lake. When Bonneville showed his two maps to the President, Jackson is reported to have exclaimed: “I see that you are reinstated to your command. For this valuable service to the War Department and the country you deserve high promotion.” Unknown to the President and the staff of the War Department, Albert Gallatin had published a year before a map which was in some aspects more correct than Bonneville’s. However, it had appeared in the publication of a scientific society and had not reached the government agencies. Bonneville’s trade business was a failure as he was never able to reimburse the investment made by the financial backers of the expedition. The mountain man had neither the temperament, the background, the physical stamina, nor the professional knowledge to succeed in such an enterprise. As Chittenden wrote: He was not trained to business, particularly the kind of business that was unduly afraid of the Indians, unwilling to take risks, and doubtless also held himself above the baser methods resorted to by irresponsible traders. He was lavish in his hospitality, popular with men, and a great favorite with the free trappers who would travel hundreds of miles to avail themselves of the cheer of the Captain’s tent. The Indians too liked him, but all – Indians and trappers alike – sold their furs in the other camp. The Captain hung on for three years and probably would longer had his company been willing. The final outcome must have been a loss to them of many thousands of dollars.962 The great contribution made by Bonneville to the western expansion was to demonstrate that the Continental Divide could be crossed with wagons. It was a startling experiment that changed the whole movement westward and opened the way for countless traders and emigrants. His assistant, Michel Sylvestre Cerré 963 was born May 6, 1802 into a family of successful French fur traders. His grandfather, Gabriel Cerré had come to Kaskaskia from Canada in the middle of the eighteenth century and became a leading citizen of that town. In 1794 he had received a share of the trade with the Great Osages and on May 12 of the same year became one of the organizers of the Compagnie de Commerce pour la Découverte des Nations du Haut Missouri, known as the Missouri Fur Company. Irving described Michel in these words: “He was of middle size, light complexioned, and though but about twenty-five years of age, was considered an experienced Indian trader.” 964 With a passport issued by General Clark on July 23, 1827allowing him to pass through the Indian Country to the Province of Mexico, he arrived in Santa Fe on November 12.965 He had traveled across Kansas following what was to become 962 . Chittenden, American Fur, 428-429. 963 . Also written Cerry. Hanson, “Michel S. Cerré,” 61-67. Cerré was related to the Chouteaus, as his aunt, Marie Thérèse Cerré had married Auguste Chouteau. 964 . “Bonneville’s Adventures,” 30. Irving was misled as Cerré was thirty years old at that time. 965 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 46; Hanson. “Michel S. Cerré,” 27. Cerré’s passport is reproduced in Clelland, Reckless Breed of Men, facing page 202. 164 the Santa Fe Trail. He arrived in Santa Fe on November 12.966 His party comprised thirty–two men; among the named ones three were probably French or of French descent, Paul Baillio, Louis Robidoux, and François Guérin.967 On August 6, 1829, he received a license to trade on the Missouri River. When the American Fur Company bought the P. D. Papin Company on October 13, 1830, Gabriel Cerré, Picotte and Papin were retained by the American Fur Company while Michel Cerré joined Bonneville as his assistant on May 1, 1832.968 Besides trapping and hunting, Cerré was to be his trusted messenger, delivering his furs and reports to St. Louis. The first year he transported only twenty-two packs of peltries in three large bullboats, traveling with the parties of Robert Campbell and J. B. Wyeth and stopping at “Cantonnement Leavenworth, the frontier post of the United States.” On September 27, Cerré returned to the mountains with supplies bought in St. Louis for Bonneville: Mr. Cerré arrived at the rendezvous at the head of a supply party, bringing goods and equipment from the States. This active leader, it will be recollected, had embarked the year previously on the Big-Horn freighter with with the year’s collection of peltries. He had met with his misfortune in the course of his voyage; one of his frail barks being upset, and part of the furs lost or damaged.969 After 1835, Cerré settled in St. Louis, married, and became involved in the sale of live buffaloes. Later he ran for office and was elected a Whig representative in the State Legislature. From1839 to 1853 he served as Clerk of the District Court for St. Louis County. In 1858 he was elected St. Louis County Sheriff. He died on January 5, 1860. Bonneville’s presence in Utah is remembered by the naming of a speedway and the Salt Flats Reserve. W. Marshall Anderson wrote to the National Intelligencer on February 16, 1860, protesting against Irving’s proposal to name the Great Salt Lake after Bonneville. He wrote: “In the name of Ashley, who had described this lake eighteen or twenty years before Capt. Bonneville ever crossed the mountains, I protest against that name.” CHARLES LARPENTEUR During his forty years as a fur trader in the Rocky Mountains, Charles Larpenteur traveled through Kansas and up and down the Missouri. He must have often stepped on Kansas soil as steamers were required to stop at Fort Leavenworth to verify the amount of liquor they were transporting. In the first chapter of the narrative of his experiences, entitled Forty Years a Fur Trader, he told little about his life in France before his arrival in the United States and his first years in the United States. He wrote: I was born in France, in the year 1807, five miles from Fontainebleau, on the border of the beautiful Seine, 45 miles from Paris. My father, 966 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 146; Hanson, “Michel S. Cerré,” 27. Cerré’s passport is reproduced in Robert Clelland, This Reckless Breed of Men, facing page 202. 967 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 146. 968 . Hanson, “Michel S. Cerré,” 63. 969 . “Bonneville’s Adventures,” 345. 165 who was neither rich nor poor, but a great Bonapartist, left France for America immediately after the battle of Waterloo, thinking that the American government would make some attempt to get Napoleon off the island of St. Helena. . . . The project was abandoned – I say the project, for it had been started by the many French officers who were at the time in Philadelphia. Louis XVIII, having issued a pardon, most of them returned to France. My father returned after an absence of one year, during which he found the American government and the country to suit him. So he sold all his property and left France in 1818, with a family of four children, three boys and one daughter, I being the youngest son. In his travels in America he had chosen Baltimore as his future residence. Having landed at New York we came to Baltimore, where he purchased a small farm of 60 acres, five miles from the City.970 Larpenteur was described by Dr. Matthews who knew him as a “small, spare, wiry man of distinct Gallic type.” Finding the soil in Maryland “poor and stony”, at the age of twenty-one, he left home for St. Louis as he had heard of the rich Missouri land. He worked for Major Benjamin O’Fallon, a retired Indian agent who told him about the vast western country, which led him to seek employment with fur companies. He approached Jean B. Sarpy who was in charge of hiring men for the American Fur Company. Sarpy could not understand why a “Frenchman” with some education was “willing to undergo all the hardship of such a voyage” to the mountains and referred him to William Sublette and Robert Campbell who also tried to dissuade him. No argument could change his mind and he signed a contract with them for eighteen months for the sum of $296.00. About May 7 or May 12 1833, the party left Independence on the Missouri River, east of Kansas City. Campbell who headed the expedition assigned Larpenteur to a mess “with nine first-rate old voyageurs – French boys from Cahokia”, telling him “you will be well off with them.” 971 In all, there were forty-five men. Larpenteur’s original journal recorded the route they took after entering Kansas. They followed the Santa Fe Trail for two or three days, then he wrote: The first river of any consequence that we crossed was the Caw [Kansas] River where there is an agency for the Caw Indians which is kept by General Clark [Marston G. Clark] relation of old General Clark, superintendent of the Indian affaires in St. Louis. 970 . Coues, ed. Charles Larpenteur, Forty Years a Fur Trader,1-2; Pfaller, “Charles Larpenteur,” 295-311. 971 . Campbell did not name the French boys but in his narrative, Larpenteur mentioned many Frenchmen or half breeds who were employed as guides, traders, and hunters, among them Blondeau (Blondo), Auguste Bourbonnais, Jacques Brugière, Pierre Chene, Baptiste Contois, Louis Dauphin, Charles Deschanps (a half-breed), Antoine Johnesse (Janisss/Janis), Mr. Lafferies, Lapambois (La Framboise), Antoine LeBrun, Jean Baptiste Moncravie (Moncrevier, Moncrevie), Piché (Picheau, Pichou) and Louison Vallée. Moncravie was born in Bordeaux, France and came with his brother to the United States as a refugee. Hanson,. “J. B. Moncravie,” in Hafen, French Fur Traders and Voyageurst, 229. 166 Then Larpenteur added: Crossed the Kansas May 15; camped there 16th and 17th; decamped 18th. Reached the Platte 23d.” 972 After staying one or two days near the agency of the Kansa Indians, they traveled through Jefferson, Shawnee, Pottawatomie, and Marshall counties before arriving on the Platte River on May 23rd.973 Larpenteur worked for a year as a mule wrangler, cartwright, and horse guard at Fort Williams; then on July 3, 1834 was hired as clerk for the American Fur Company in the retail store of Fort Union for which he received $250 and a complete suit of clothing. During his four years in the Rockies he was often sent on perilous trading expeditions and was fortunate to survive a devastating smallpox epidemic. Taking advantage of the early thaw of the river, Larpenteur left in March of 1838 to “surprise” his parents in Baltimore, whom he had not seen in ten years. 974 He left with Mr. Christy “paddling down in a canoe with two oarsmen.” The trip was not without incident as they were threatened by Arikaras and Assiniboines. When they arrived at the mouth of the Platte River, they saw the Antelope, traveling up the Missouri with Mr. McKenzie who advised him that he had visited Larpenteur’s parents in Baltimore. At Camden, in Ray County, Missouri, they boarded a boat bound for Fort Leavenworth, secured passage on it after abandoning their small craft to their oarsmen. While traveling along the shore of Kansas, Larpenteur wrote about his return to St. Louis: We were comfortably lodged onboard, as well as the captain. Great was the change, after paddling our own canoe for a month through all kinds of dangers, to find ourselves seated at a table and gliding down stream at the rate of 20 miles an hour. ” 975 Before leaving the Rockies, the American Fur Company had renewed his contract for another year “allowing his wages to run on during his absence.” He was back in the mountains for the fall hunting and trapping season of 1838. In the spring, Larpenteur wrote about his return trip to St. Louis: On the 3d of June [1839] I was sent to St. Louis in charge of eight Mackinaws boats, each containing 250 packs of buffalo robes, besides many small furs. The trip was very pleasant, with the exception of being shot by Assiniboines at the same place where we had been attacked the previous spring. The disagreeable features of these trips are caused, mainly, by the crews getting whiskey and 972 . Coues, ed. Larpenteur, 19n7. 973 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 232. 974 . Coues, ed. Larpenteur, 136. 975 . Ibid., 147. 167 becoming unruly; but I managed to get along admirably well, and succeeded in landing all my boats safe in the port of St. Louis.976 Larpenteur did not give any detail about his travel along the Kansas shore. For reasons unknown to him, the company refused to hire him for the next year; therefore he spent the winter of 1838-1839 in St. Louis. He was re-engaged and on March 31, 1840, he boarded the steamer of the American Fur Company, Trapper on his way to Fort Union. Larpenteur wrote: After a long, tedious trip we reached Union on the 27th of June. My being a sober man was not much to my advantage, keeping me constantly in the liquor trade, and out of the charge of posts which some of my fellow-clerks took charge of, while I did all the work, and was really in charge when they got dead drunk.977 From his remarks, it appears that he was bypassed by others from being assigned to more responsible positions, although he was a” faithful, efficient and reliable clerk.” After several years in the mountains, in 1849 he was offered to take charge of Fort Alexander on the upper Yellowstone, which was considered “the most dangerous post the Company had.” But, wishing to “take [his] family to somewhere where [he] could open a small farm,” he procured a small canoe, hired one man, and started for the States. He also wished to visit his father whom he had not seen since 1838. On reaching Fort Vermilion where he was to board the steamer, he heard of his father’s death.978 From St. Louis, he left for Baltimore to settle his father’s estate. Upon his return to St. Louis, he made a short trip to St. Paul in Minnesota, and then on April 15, he “got all [his] family on board for St. Louis.” In May of 1850, he set out from St. Louis to take charge of the Vermillion post in southeastern South Dakota. He was listed among the passengers on the El Paso, which was under charter of the American Fur Company. The steamboat log read: On the 18th of May, when near the mouth of Wolfe [Wolf] River [in Doniphan County, in northeast Kansas], we ran afoul of a snag which crashed our blacksmith shop, carrying overboard our bellows, etc. . . . .979 Trading and hunting being unsatisfactory, the Indians having pilfered his garden, he left with his family for Little Sioux City in Iowa where he had purchased land on which he had built a cabin, several structures and opened a tavern. He also operated a ferry980. He called his settlement “Fontainebleau” in memory of his birthplace in France. In the spring of 1851 he went to St. Louis “to raise what funds [he] had in the Company’s hands; and also to procure some groceries.” He was back home by November. In the spring of 1852 he rented his home as he had accepted to take charge of the trading post among the Poncas in Running Water, 976 . Ibid., 160. 977 . Ibid., 161-162. 978 . Ibid., 277-279. 979 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 935. 980 . Pfaller, “Charles Larpenteur,” I: 307; Larpenteur, ed. Coues, 298n10. 168 near the confluence of the Missouri and the Niobrara rivers.981 In the spring of 1853 he was back at his farm when his wife, an Assiniboine, was killed by the Omaha Indians who mistook her for a Sioux. From then on until 1859, he remained in the Rockies until he “was thrown out of employment by the consolidation of Clark, Primeau and Company for whom he was working at the time.” 982 He returned to St. Louis, taking a road to St. Paul which “no one of us had traveled” in order to avoid the Sioux. 983 He arrived there at the end of July 1860 and returned to the upper country by the same route. In June of 1862 he went to St. Louis on the Emilie with a load of buffalo robes, reaching that city in early July. Larpenteur wrote in his narrative, “early in July we reached St. Louis, where, after final settlement, I found myself with $1,400, from our dividends. This was my all, after two years of hard work, trouble, and exposure.” 984 Having finished his transactions, he headed back to his farm to discover it had been totally destroyed. He recorded what he found upon his arrival there: I found my family all well, but living in a very poor log house, which was standing about 40 steps from my main buildings, and had escaped fire. All I could see of my improvements, which had cost me upward of $3,000, was a pile of ashes; and I had no insurance. I went the rounds at once, settled all my debts, big and small, and eight days afterwards was again under way for the upper country.985 He built Fort Galpin, “a handsome, good little fort” about ten miles from the Milk River, among the Assiniboines, hoping to have “a pleasant time.” However conditions turned desperate, as he stated: In consequence of the very mild winter we had no buffalo, and the Indians, who were starving as well as ourselves, became very unruly. At one time they threatened to pillage my stores, and for a while our case looked rather dark. . . Two hundred Sioux warriors attacked the fort, which housed only four white men and six Assiboines. Larpenteur wrote: Toward spring [1863] we were in a starving condition, game of all kinds extremely scarce, and men afraid to go out for a hunt. For about six weeks I lived on nothing but jerked elk meat, having some salt but being entirely out of other groceries...I became so weak that I could scarcely get up the river bank with a bucket of water.986 He came down to St. Louis in 1863 and did not return to the mountains until March 26, 1864 when he boarded the steamer Benton.987 He wrote: In the spring of 1864 I made arrangements with Mr. Charles Chouteau to take charge of Fort Union. . . .I started ahead of him on the steamer 981 . Ibid., 301. 982 . Ibid., 309. 983 . Ibid., 310-311. 984 . Ibid., 342. 985 . Ibid., 342. 986 . Ibid., 343-345. 987 . Ibid., 355. 169 Benton, in charge of 50 tons of commissary freight, having been appointed as commissary by General Alfred Sully of the U. S. Army. I was to be relieved on the arrival of his fleet which was to be up during the summer. The main reason of my appointment was that we had 17 barrels of whiskey on the freight. 988 In July of the same year, he took charge of Fort Union during the last year before the American Fur Company sold it. After his discharge he went to St. Louis to settle his affairs with Mr. Chouteau. Upon completion of his business, he returned to pass the winter at his farm. 989 On the 29th of April, 1866, Governor Edmond appointed him as interpreter for the Peace Commissioners, who were sent by the United States government to purchase land from the Assiniboines. 990 He had been hired as the interpreter for the tribe as Pierre Garreau “could not speak good English and Larpenteur was to interpret from his French into English. 991 In the spring of 1867 he went to St. Louis to make arrangements with the firm of Durfee and Peck to take charge of Fort Union which had been sold by Charles Chouteau to them.992 Larpenteur left the fort shortly after an encounter between the Crow and the Assiniboine Indians during which four of the latter were killed. On May 18, 1868, he returned to the States, where he “got up an outfit for Indian trade and sutler business” and was back at Buford on August 18th with $8000 worth of goods and equipment. Having done well, on June 3d, 1869 he went down again and brought back more goods. He was finally “on [his] own hook” and doing well in his “splendid establishment”, when he broke his thigh and was ruined by the bill passed by Congress, which expelled all but army sutlers from military reservations. Larpenteur wrote: Being born for misfortune, I was ruined by the army bill. On the 14th of May, 1871 I left Buford, bag and baggage, for the States, and that was the last of the Indian country for me.993 He bought a new farm in Iowa where he died on November 15, 1872. He was buried near his home, two miles northeast of Little Sioux, Iowa.994 An intelligent and educated man, sober and decent, he “contrasted sharply with the coarse speech and bibulous habits which marked most of the “engagés” of the fur companies.” 995 From his initial overland voyage through northeast Kansas and during his forty years trading in the Rocky 988 . Ibid., 355. 989 . Ibid., 378. 990 . Ibid., 379. 991 . Ibid., 383. It has not been ascertained if Pierre Garreau was a half-blood or a full-blood Arickaree. He may have been the son of the “Garrow” mentioned in the Journal of the Lewis and Clark expedition, or his stepson. Dr. Matthews who knew him wrote: “When you see his portrait you will recognize Gallic features in it, though he was dark as any Indian. . . . I once attended a council in which he was interpreter and the speech of the visiting Indians passed through four languages to reach us: Arickaree, French, English. He was courteous in his manners, very intelligent, and was highly esteemed by all his associates, white and Indian.” Ibid., 125n11. 992 . Ibid., 388; Pfaller, “Charles Larpenteur,” 1:310. 993 . Larpenteur, ed. Coues, 393-394. 994 . Pfaller, “ Charles Larpenteur,” in Hafen, Mountain Men, 1: 311. 995 . Pfaller, “Charles Larpenteur,” in Hafen, French Fur Traders, 159. 170 Mountains, when he paddled or boarded steamers up and down the Missouri, Larpenteur became familiar with Kansas. During the second half of the eighteenth century, the Missouri River was still the highway mainly used to reach the western regions but its lower portion was so well known that chroniclers seldom described it in their journals. THE ROBIDOUX BROTHERS 996 While Joseph Robidoux operated a trading post in the Blacksnake Hills and near the Great Nemaha Sub Agency in Doniphan County, his brothers François, Antoine, Isadore, Louis and Michel were actively crossing Kansas to trade in New Mexico and the Rocky Mountains. To reach their destinations in western Nebraska and Wyoming, they took the St. Joseph Road, which ran through Doniphan, Brown, Nemaha, and Marshall counties in northeast Kansas, then, by following the highlands along the left bank of the Little Blue River in Washington County, reached the Platte River road. It is difficult to determine the identity of the brothers with accuracy in the travelers’ and emigrants’ journals as their last name is often misspelled and their given names are omitted. On September 30, 1824, James Kennerly in his Diary noted that a Roubidoux party started on that date for St. Afee [Santa Fe] 997 and on November 12, 1825, George C. Sibley mentioned that Mr. Robidoux and others had arrived recently in Taos, New Mexico. 998 In 1846, the Aram train was guided by “Roubedeau the Frenchman” who thwarted a robbery by the Pawnees. 999 In 1847, Elijah P. Howell found a Robidoux at Scott Bluffs on the Platte River in charge of the trading post there.1000 In 1849, Augustus Ripley Burbank visited the “Rubadoue” post in western Nebraska, which consisted of a cedar log house divided into living quarters and a smith shop, and met at Green River another “Rubadoue of St. Joseph” who “profaned our Lord’s name continually.” 1001 The same year, Joseph H. Johnson met a “Roubedous outfit” of six ox wagons with 3,000” Buffalow skins.” 1002 In 1851, James M. Arrington encountered a “Robidoux” fur caravan.1003 The following year, John Clark of Virginia observed a Robidoux train, coming from Scotts Bluffs with “eighteen creaking wagons piled high with buffalo robes, this black and greasy crowd panicked the emigrant oxen.” 1004 François, born on September 25, 1788, was associated with his older brother when Joseph and Francis (François) were granted a license to trade for one year with the Great and 996 . Their name was written in numerous ways: Robiodux, Rubedeau, Reaubeu, Rubedoux,Rubadoe, Roubadoo, Rubidness, Roubeaudeau, Rubidue, Rouberdeau, and in many additional spellings. 997 . “Dairy of James Kennerly”, ed.. Wesley, Missouri Historical Collections, 6:75. 998 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 125. 999 . Mattes, Great Platte River Road, 450; Mattes, Platte River Road Narratives, 73. 1000 . Ibid., 172. 1001 . Ibid., 137. 1002 . Ibid., 176. 1003 . Ibid., 318. 1004 . Ibid., 348. 171 Little Osages on October 2, 1817.1005 He may also have helped his older brother in operating the confectionery shop and bakery in St. Louis after Joseph sold his trading post at the Council Bluffs. However he probably did not remain there long as he was reported on the trail in September 1824 when he headed a Robidoux fur party of twelve from the Council Bluffs to New Mexico.1006 He or his brother Louis may have conducted the return trip, as a “Robideaus party from “Tous” (Taos) was reported arriving at the Council Bluffs on August 30, 1825. 1007 A “F. Roubedou” set out from Santa Fe on October 7, 1846 with one wagon. With him, were Captain William S. Murphy of the Missouri volunteers and two other Americans, headed for St. Louis “to get specie funds for the troops” They traveled the Cimarron Road in southwest Kansas, then the Santa Fe Trail and having encountered a snow storm were delayed for four days before arriving in Westport, Missouri on November 3rd.1008 François may be the “F. Robidoux” who left the American Fur Company’s trading post at Fort Laramie on March 24, and Fort Childs (new Fort Kearny) on, or about, April 18, 1849 to reach St. Joseph, Missouri, on the 28th with a large amount of mail, 1009 as Capt. Ruff at Fort Kearny stated that François, “a brother of Old Man Robidoux,” was among “a party of mountain men en route from Fort Laramie to St. Joe.”1010 In 1851, his older brother Joseph listed him as an assistant trader at his post at Scotts Bluffs in western Nebraska. 1011 It is believed that François died on the Nebraska plains, near Deer Creek on May 30, 1857.1012 Isadore, the third brother, was born November 6. 1791. On June 29, 1825, Isadore and Michel received a passport, issued in St. Louis and signed by William Clark to permit them to travel to New Mexico. He may have been with his brother, Antoine who left the Council Bluffs with a fur party on September 14, 1825 for New Mexico and arrived in Taos in November.1013 In 1830 his name appears in the census of St. Louis; however it is surmised that he lived most of the time in Santa Fe where he was associated with his brother Antoine, but must have traveled back to his brother Joseph’s trading post freighting furs and goods, as his name is found often on the list of passports of foreigners entering New Mexico and also appears on September 7, 1837 on a claim against the Mexican government.1014 In 1849, Isadore was encountered by Elijah P. Howell at Plum Creek on the Platte Road on his way to Joseph’s trading post with “4 wagons with furs from the mountains.” 1015 1005 . Territorial Papers of the U.S., Volume 15, 378; Barry, Beginning of the West, 78. 1006 . Ibid., 118. 1007 . Wallace, Robidoux, 10, 52; Dale I. Morgan, West of William Ashley, 155; Missouri Historical Society Collections, 6:75; Barry, Beginning of the West, 118. 1008 . Ibid., 654. 1009 . Wallace, Robidoux, 832. 1010 . Mattes, Road, 450. 1011 . Ibid., 450. 1012 . Luttig, Journal Fur-Trading, 147. Emigrant Thomas Bullock wrote: “A little boy of Robidouse rode into camp to trade moccasins. His father died last fall at Deer Creek.” Mattes, Narratives, 485. 1013 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 125. 1014 . Lewis, Robidoux History, 188. 1015 . Mattes, Narratives, 172. 172 He must have lived part of the time in western Nebraska to help run the trading post Joseph had established at Scott Bluffs, a license having been issued in 1851 listing him as “assistant trader” there along with his brother Michel. 1016 On May 30, 1852, Isadore Robidoux died of cholera, near the “Big Blue River,” probably in Marshall County at the age of 60. A notice published in both St. Joseph newspapers noted that the deceased was a brother of the town founder, Joseph Robidoux and that he had been a mountain trader from early life. In the eulogy he was remembered as “a noble specimen of his class” and it noted that “those who knew him well long remember his many virtues – he was brave, hospitable, honest and generous to a fault, no human being, either white or red, ever entered his cabin on the frontier, or his camp in the mountains, and went away hungry.” 1017 Antoine, the fourth brother, born on September 24, 1794, was sent to the West to trade for beaver pelts as early as 1822 when the supply in Kansas had dwindled considerably. He is supposed to have been the first fur trader out of Taos. 1018 On February 19, 1824, Antoine Robidoux received authorization to cross through Indian Territory to go to New Mexico. After trapping as far northwest as the Green River, he was back in St. Louis by the 10th of June.1019 On September 14 of 1825, Antoine Robidoux and possibly his brother Isadore left the Council Bluffs area with a Robidoux fur trade party for New Mexico, arriving in Taos in November. 1020 Antoine lived part of the time in Santa Fe, thus being often referred as being “from the Spanish Country.” He applied for Mexican citizenship in July, 1829, shortly after his marriage to Guadalupe Garcia, a Mexican girl. In the 1830s, he operated a tannery in Santa Fe. Although he participated actively in the community affairs and was elected to the town council there, Antoine extended the Robidoux trade over the Divide, employing many trappers and hunters and building Fort Uncompahgre on the Gunnison River, near Delta. As he traveled to Utah, he carved an inscription on a sandstone wall overlooking Westwater Creek, near the Colorado-Utah border. It reads: Antoine Robidoux Passe ici le 13 Novembre, 1837 Pour établir maison Traitte ā la Rv. vert ou wiyte 1021 He may have been on his way to establish a second trading post, having purchased the Reed Trading post located in the Uinta Basin in the fall of 1831 or the spring of 1832 to trade mostly with the Utes. The fort was named Fort Robidoux or Fort Uintah on some early maps. 1022 Antoine was also one of the earliest gold miners in New Mexico and invested 8,000 dollars in gold mining ventures. 1016 . Mattes, Road, 450. 1017 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 1100. 1018 . Robidoux, Memorial to Robidoux Brothers, 180 1019. Morgan, West of William H. Ashley, 154; Barry, Beginning of the West, 115. 1020 . Ibid., 125. 1021 . “Antoine Robidoux passed here 13 November 1837 to establish a trading post on the Green Rv[River] or Wiyte.” “Wiyte must be a phonetic transcription of the English word “White” 1022 . Robidoux, Memorial to Robidoux Brothers, 204. 173 Antoine lectured in Weston, Missouri in early 1841 on the advantages of emigration to California and inspired John Bidwell to organize the first emigrant wagon train to set out for the Pacific. 1023 Through the years, he crossed the plains to deliver the furs he collected and to restock the inventory of his forts. On one of these occasions, during the month of November 1841, his party was caught in a blizzard in the vicinity of Cottonwood Crossing on the Santa Fe Trail. One or two men were lost; over one hundred mules and horses froze to death, as they “could not cut down cotton-woods for food to save the animals.”1024 His brother, Joseph, heading a relief party, came from Blacksnake Hills to his rescue. In August, 1844, the Utes attacked and burned down his two forts, accusing him of capturing women and children for prostitution and of selling alcohol and guns to the Indians. For two decades, Antoine had been influential in hunting, trapping, and trading enterprises in the Colorado and Utah Rockies, sending employees up the White, Green, Uinta, and Gunnison valleys. After the loss of his forts, around June 26, 1845, he decided to move back to his brother’s trading post and help him in his various activities. On June 29, 1845, Antoine was met on the trail by Colonel Kearny and the First Dragoons, and by an emigrant company. Jacob R. Snyder, one of its members wrote:” He was obliged to come through this way [from Utah] on account of the Indians, 8 of his men having been killed.” Antoine arrived safely in St. Joseph some days prior to August 15. 1025 In June 1846 Antoine accepted an appointment as interpreter in the Army of the West of Col. Stephen W. Kearny.1026 He may have been selected on account of his familiarity with the route to California. 1027 Henry Smith Turner, a member of the expedition kept a journal, which indicates the route they took across Kansas. They left Fort Leavenworth on June 30, reaching Stranger Creek on the same day. After crossing the “Kanga” [Kansas] River, they waited for three days for their baggage wagon and for a company, which had taken the wrong road. They continued their march, stopping at Elm Grove, crossing the 110-mile Creek (a branch of the Marais des Cygnes River), camping at Council Grove, then Diamond Springs, crossing Middle Turkey Creek, the Little Arkansas, Big Crow, Crow, and Walnut creeks. After they reached Pawnee Rock on July 15, they continued across Ash Creek and Pawnee Fork. Later they followed the Arkansas River to Bent’s Fort in Colorado. In all, they had traveled twenty-six days in Kansas from June 30th to July 26th when they entered Colorado. While they were in California, Antoine was severely wounded by a lance during the battles of San Pasqual on December 6-7, 1846. He was discharged in Monterey in April or May, 1846 and started receiving a small pension in 1860. 1023 . Mattes, Road, 111. 1024 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 439. 1025 . Ibid., 559-560. 1026. Ibid., 620-621. Antoine Clément was hired as a hunter. 1027 . John Bidwell who led the first emigrant train to California stated that in 1840 he had met “a Frenchman named Roubideaus” who had been to California and described it as “in the superlative degree favorable.” The Bidwell expedition of 1841 was inspired by a Frenchman named Roubideaux whose aid he had to California.” Mattes, Road, 450. 174 Although Antoine was by then an invalid, “a veteran of the Mexican War,” he was seen in 1849 by emigrant A. J. McCall at the Iowa missions guiding a train of 130 wagons headed west.1028 In 1849, Charles B. Darwin camped at the blacksmith shop of squawman, Antoine Robidoux who “regaled him with Indian lore.”1029 Having received a good education in St. Louis, he retained his thirst for knowledge, as in 1849 Dr. Charles E. Boyle noticed a Webster dictionary “and other books to match” in the trading post. 1030 In 1850 emigrant Ezechiel W. Headley confirmed that “Antoine, one of the Robidoux brothers of St. Joe” was operating a blacksmith shop at Robidoux Canyon. 1031 In 1851, John. L. Johnson reported a “Roubydouse” train west of Fort Kearny, which included an “old man intirely blind” who had “wintered at Scott’s Bluffs.”1032 He must have been referring to Antoine who died blind on August 29, 1860 in St. Joseph.1033 Louis, the fifth brother, born on July 7, 1796, went to Mexico in 1822 and was associated in business for a time in Santa Fe and Taos with his brothers, Antoine and Isadore. It was reported that Louis Robidoux, Paul Baillio, Gervais Nolan and American associates, in a party of some twenty traders, left Taos, New Mexico on April 7, 1827 and, after crossing Kansas by way of the Santa Fe Trail, arrived in Franklin, Missouri in mid-July with “$30,000 in species, and several hundred mules,” having completed a “very profitable” trip.1034 In the fall of 1827, a party of thirty-two, including Louis Robidoux, Michel S. Cerré, Paul Baillio and François Guérin were allowed “to pass through the Indian country to the Province of Mexico” They again followed the Santa Fe Trail across Kansas. 1035 In 1842, Louis came to visit his brother, Joseph to tell him about his intention to move to California. At the time he met Lieutenant Fremont and accepted to accompany him up to Santa Fe and serve as guide and interpreter to the expedition. He remained there until 1844 when he finally was able to convince his wife to leave for California. By then the fur business was in decline and he had encountered difficulty dealing with Charles Bent. Louis settled in the vicinity of Riverside where he acquired large land holdings and was active in local politics. In 1846 he built the first grist mill, a large winery and a perfumery. He was one of the wealthiest men in the area until he experienced great loss during the flood of 1863 and sold his ranch. He was a member of the first board of San Bernardino Court and justice of the peace. He died in 1868. Mount Robidoux in southern California is named after him as well the small town of Robidoux, which was annexed to Riverside in 1952. 1036 1028 . Mattes, Narratives, 185. 1029 . Ibid., 147. 1030 . Ibid., 134. 1031 . Ibid., 263. 1032 . Mattes, Road, 452; Mattes, Narratives, 328. 1033 . Robidoux, Memorial to Robidoux Brothers, 196. 1034 . Hafen, Mountain Men, I :183; Barry, Beginning of the West, 144-145. 1035 . Ibid., 146; Morgan and Harris, Journals of William Marshall Anderson, 281; Clelland, Reckless Breed of Men, 202. 1036 . Robidoux, Memorial to Robidoux Brothers, 200-202, 217-217. 175 Michel, the youngest brother, born on August 8, 1798, received a passport, issued in St. Louis on October 8, 1825 and signed by William Clark, to trade at the mouth of the Kansas River. 1037 In 1830, he was a member of the expedition led by Lucien Fontenelle to the mountains.1038 In 1841, on one of his journeys to the mountains, he carved “M. Robidoux Trapper 1841” on a limestone rock 1039 near a ford on the west branch of the Black Vermillion in Marshall County, some ninety miles from the Robidoux trading post.1040 The ford, used by hunters and trappers in the 1830s and 1840s, was known as the lower Robidoux crossing. The stream was called in early days “Robidoux Creek” but, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the creek was labeled on maps as the “West Branch of the Black Vermillion.” The name of “Robidoux Creek” was officially restored in 1957 by the U. S. Board on Geographic Names. It flows through Marshall County. Its source is in Richland Township and it empties into Tuttle Creek Reservoir near Frankfurt. Emigrant Henry Page encountered Michel on the trail in 1851 as he was “on his way to meet his train of pack mules carrying furs,” and described him as “younger brother of the founder, gray-haired but still handsome.”1041 The Phelp’s train met him 125 miles east of Fort Laramie. 1042 In 1852, Joseph T. Terrell saw him and probably his nephew, Joseph, on the Little Blue River on their way to St. Joseph with a caravan of buffalo robes. 1043 His brother, Joseph, listed him as one of his employees, working as assistant trader at the Scotts Bluffs trading post in western Nebraska. 1044 By the 1840s, a new generation of Robidoux became involved in the family fur trade business, along with the older Robidoux. On September 3, 1844, two Robidoux, Joseph, the son of Joseph, and Sellico, François’ son, along with trader David Adams and his small outfit, left Hickory Grove on the Shawnee reserve (presently Johnson County) for Fort Laramie. They camped on the Wakarusa River (in Douglas County) on the 5th; at the “springs” [Big Springs] on the 6th, being delayed there three days to search for lost horses, they arrived at Joseph Pappan’s in Topeka on the 13th. They remained at this place several days, unable to cross the river, the flood having recently damaged the Papan’s ferry. They were joined on the 17th by two Frenchmen and a Spaniard. On the 19th, one of the Frenchmen, Michel Dubray died and was buried there.1045 On the 21st, the party of eleven or more men departed, proceeding up the south bank of the Kansas River to Frederick Chouteau’s trading post. Using the trader’s pirogue, the travelers were able to cross the river at that point. The party stopped at Cross Creek on the 22nd; camped 1037 . 19th Congress, 1st Session, House Document 118 (Serial 136); 19the Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Document (Serial 146); Barry, Beginning of the West, 125. 1038 . Ibid., 169. 1039 . The rock is located on the SW ¼ of Section 6, Township 3 South, Range 9 East. 1040 . Barry, “The Renaming of Robidoux Creek,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 18:159-163. 1041 . Mattes, Road, 450; Mattes, Narratives, 196. 1042 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 987. 1043 . Mattes, Narratives, 391. 1044 . Mattes, Road, 450. 1045 . “It would seem likely that this is the first white funeral in Topeka.” Barry, Beginning of the West, 526. 176 at the Little Vermillion on the 24th and at the Big Vermillion on the 26th. They crossed the Big Blue on the 27th; finally reaching the Platte River on October 5. 1046 Louis Robidoux, son of François and Louis Robidoux, son of Isadore went often on freighting trips to Santa Fe and Taos to deliver merchandise to their uncles Antoine and Louis before moving to California with their uncle Louis. 1047 In 1851, old Joseph Roubidoux employed his oldest son, Joseph E. as a clerk at the Scott’s Bluffs trading post in western Nebraska where he lived with a Sioux wife. Around 1857, Joseph E. retired from trading with the Indians, moved to the Iowa Reservation, near White Cloud in Doniphan County where he married a well-educated Otoe woman. 1048 Some of his descendants are to be found among the Sioux Nation and other tribes. 1049 The Robiidoux family operated a trading post and a blacksmith shop at Robidoux Pass, near Scotts Bluffs in western Nebraska. There may have been several members there at a time as Jno Bailhche wrote in 1850 that he met “Messrs. Roubadoux of St. Joseph” at Scotts Buffs in 1850; A. H. Thomasson noted “6 or 8 Frenchmen with squaws.”1050 However Dr. Edward A. Tompkins only mentioned one trader, “Thibbadoux”, a desperado with three squaws. 1051 According to Samuel Murray Stover, the trading post and blacksmith shop had been opened for 12 or 13 years prior to 1849 1052 while John Wood claimed that they had been standing there for 17 years in 1850. There are not many details about the buildings and emigrants gave sketchy descriptions of the premises. They were variously depicted as a log cabin with sign reading “Tinware, A. Rubidue;” “a rude makeshift of a habitation;” “a miniature store, house of entertainment, and blacksmith shop,” a “little cabin;” “a blacksmith shop covered with buffalo skins;” and “several log buildings connected together.”1053 Madison B. Moorman reported that: The French blacksmith at Scotts Bluffs [was] swamped with demand for his services 1054 as emigrants stopped to camp, rent the forge “for a scandalous sum” 1055 or at “California prices,” 1056 wait in line to get their horses shod at a rate of 8 dollars per horse, or have an ox shoe made for one dollar 1046 . Ibid.,526-527. 1047 . Robidoux, Memorial Robidoux Brothers, 228. 1048 . Ibid., 226-227. 1049 . Mary Bailey, traveling through Scott’s Bluffs trading post wrote “Passed a Frenchman’s blacksmith shop. His wife, a squaw of the Sioux tribe, sat in the door of their hut rolled in a scarlet blanket.” Mattes, Road, 452. In the 1860 list of Nemaha half-breeds who received allotments are the names of twenty-four Robidoux, with various spellings. 1050 . Mattes, Narratives, 234; 305. 1051 . Ibid., 307. 1052 . Ibid., 214. 1053 . Ibid., 158, 179, 198, 414. 1054 . Ibid., 282. 1055 . Ibid., 162. 1056 . Ibid., 261. 177 apiece,1057 buy grocery, nails for 5 cents and whiskey, 1058 swap lame cattle for fresh ones 1059 before starting on the road again. Often the emigrants left mail with the Robidoux, trusting that on their next voyage they would carry it to Joseph’s trading posts for delivery in the East.1060 The Robidoux establishment, located on the Oregon Trail was a hub of activities during the first years of the gold rush and western emigration in 1849 and 1850, but it was abandoned in 1851 as emigrants stopped using the Robidoux Pass, preferring to travel through the Mitchell Pass. The Robidoux built a smaller trading post in Carter Canyon in the Wildcat Hills, southeast of the Robidoux Pass. In 1852, they established another trading post on Horse Creek, near the Wyoming-Nebraska line and in 1860, a third one east of Scotts Bluffs. 1061 In 1856, J. Robert Brown noted the ruins of the original trading post that “once belonged to Roubideaux” and Joseph P. Hamelin wrote that he secured firewood from the “Robidoux’s old trading house and blacksmith shop.” 1062 Preferring the frontier ways to life in St. Louis, the Robidoux brothers formed an important network of trappers, hunters, freighters, and traders who crisscrossed Kansas for decades to link the various points of their operations in New Mexico, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Wyoming, and California to the family headquarters in eastern Kansas. They were mentioned in countless diaries of emigrants although not always identified specifically enough to be able to distinguish them from each other. 1057 . Ibid., 249, 259, 345. 1058 . Ibid., 171, 345. 1059 . Ibid. ,270, 323. 1060 . Ibid., 293. 1061 . Ibid., 392-393. 1062 . Ibid., 458, 462. 178 CHAPTER 8 AFTER 1821 GUIDES AND HUNTERS Shortly after the purchase of Louisiana, by an act of Congress on March 26, 1804, Kansas became part of the District of Louisiana and was placed under the jurisdiction of the Territory of Indiana.1063 The next year, in March 1805, the District of Louisiana was changed to the Territory of Louisiana, which on June 4, 1812, became the Territory of Missouri.1064 It was limited on the east by the Mississippi, on the south by the 33rd parallel, on the north by the 41st parallel and on the west by the Spanish Territory whose borders were not well drawn. On February 22, 1819, the treaty signed between Spain and the United States established the border between the two countries. On August 10, 1821, Missouri was admitted into the Union by proclamation of President Monroe. 1065 Thereafter the status of Kansas was not clearly defined and the land west of the new state of Missouri was left without actual government until June 30, 1834 when it was named “Indian Territory” and put under the jurisdiction of the State of Missouri. 1066 These changes of administration and the arrival into Missouri of emigrants from the eastern states affected the commerce between Indians and white men. American-born citizens started entering the fur trade, although the French families from St. Louis, who had played a major role in its development, were still active and second and third generations of Chouteaus, Sarpys, Ménards, Labbadies, Cabannés, Cerrés, and others continued to be involved. There was also in the St. Louis area a large number of French coureurs des bois and voyageurs being hired as boatmen, trappers, guides and interpreters. The French influence was diminishing as the French barons were associating with American partners to conduct expeditions to the West. Hunting licenses were still being issued for Kansas but the population of bears, beavers and other animals was dwindling and hunters were heading farther west to the Rocky Mountains, seeking more abundant supplies. Fur companies were establishing trading posts west of the new state of Missouri, in the upper regions of the Missouri River, and in the Rockies to respond to Indian demands for goods, to supply hunters with equipment, and to collect pelts. LOUIS CAILLOU European travelers who came to the United States to explore the New World often engaged French guides as they were experienced travelers in the wilderness and knew how to solve the problems that might arise during their journey. Paul Wilhem , Prince (later Duke) of Württemberg 1067 employed Louis Caillou to be “his traveling companion,” stating that the reasons for his choice were 1063 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 48; Wilder, Annals of Kansas, 18. 1064 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 69; Wilder, Annals of Kansas, 21-22. 1065 . Wilder, Annals of Kansas, 24. 1066 . Ibid., 30.; Zornov, Kansas, 42. 1067 . He was the nephew of King Frederick of Württemberg. After landing in New Orleans in December 1822, he ascended the Mississippi, Ohio, and Missouri rivers up to South Dakota. In the account of his travels which he published upon his return to Europe, he wrote in the foreword:”The 179 that “ Caillou was well acquainted with the country, an excellent boatman, familiar with all the hazardous places on the Missouri and at the same time a very good marksman, qualifications especially important to me. “1068 They left St. Charles, Missouri in May 1823. When the boat became entangled among tree trunks, none of the members of the party had the courage to jump into the river. The Prince however recounted that “Caillou, the boldest and most skillful of them all, finally plunged into the surging Missouri, and after courageously defying the hazards . . . pulled the boat out of its dangerous position.” 1069 Caillou’s expert knowledge was shown anew when he averted the boat from striking a pile of driftwood.1070 Shortly before they arrived at the mouth of the Kansas River, traveling by boat had become so slow and difficult that the Prince and Caillou decided to buy some horses and continue on foot and horseback, planning to rejoin the boat at a later date. They remained for a while in the area around the confluence of the Missouri and Kansas rivers. They stayed at the cabin of “Grand Louis” Bertholet,1071 who was living on the Missouri River, about three miles below the mouth of the Kansas River. The site was probably on Section 18, Township 50, and Range 32 in Clay County, Missouri.1072 On the 21st of June, they visited a settlement of Creoles and half- breeds, located less than a mile above the mouth of the Kansas River.1073 After borrowing a large pirogue, the Prince, Caillou, an old French Canadian named Roudeau, and Bertholet worked their way eight miles up the Kansas River. They spent their first night without food on a sandbar. On the 22nd, the Prince wrote: The warm air brought such countless number of insects that I cannot recall having ever, earlier or later, seen so many of them. At the edge purpose of the journey was... to acquire knowledge of the country, its inhabitants and products.” Württemberg. Travels in North America. 1068 . Ibid., 204. Caillou claimed to have killed more than forty bears in one hunting season. Ibid., 225. 1069 . Ibid., 220. 1070 . Ibid., 253. 1071 . According to Hoffhaus, “Grand Louis” Bertholet was a “rather familiar figure in the early-day French Kansas City. He may have arrived in the area as a trapper around the years 1798-1799. When François Gesseau Chouteau was intending to move from St. Louis to Kansas City with his wife, Bérénice, he sent “Grand Louis” and five engagés of the American Fur Company to build a cabin in anticipation to his arrival.” Hoffhaus, Chez les Canses, 163-164. In 1832, Bertholet entered a land claim within Kansas City and in 1840 he was listed among the parishioners of the mission- church of St. Francis Regis, formerly known as Chouteau’s Church. Barry, Beginning of the West, 149,181. 1072 . Ibid., 102, 149. 1073 . Ibid., 99: “It was in what is now Wyandotte Co., and probably within Kansas City, Kansas.” The Prince identified some of the inhabitants. He mentioned having met Marie Louise (Chauvin) Woods, wife of Andrew Woods who operated a trading post and was a daughter of François and Marie (Tayou) Chauvin with whom the Prince had spent a night in St. Louis. He also found there Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, sixteen-year old son of Sacajawea and the French trader, Toussaint Charbonneau who was to serve the Prince later in the capacity of interpreter. Jean Baptiste went to Europe with the Prince and stayed five years in Germany with him. 180 of the water I had only a foretaste of the tormenting guests that descended on us in the woods. Barely penetrating a hundred paces into the thicket, we were swarmed upon and covered with mosquitoes to such an extent that we could scarcely see and recognize each other at a distance of twenty paces.1074 Later Caillou was attacked by a huge bear which he killed instantly. Soon after, two more bears appeared “which were not as bold as the first one.” Bertholet managed to kill one of them. At noon, turtle eggs which they found in the holes along the river and the bears afforded to the travelers “a delicious meal, all the more desired since [they] had not eaten for twenty-four hours.”1075 Through the night, having been attacked again “by our strongest and mightiest foes, the mosquitoes,” they gave up their plans of going farther up the Kansas River. On the 24th, they set out down the Kansas and Missouri rivers on their craft, made up of two small canoes tied together with a seat built across. After reaching Fort Osage, they boarded a fur company keelboat to continue their trip up the Missouri. On July 4th, they stopped again at Bertholet’s cabin. The Kansa chief Wa- kanze-re [American Chief] and his band that were camping across the river invited them to join them. The next day, the Indians came to Bertholet’s cabin and an exchange of gifts took place. On July 6th, the boat started up the Missouri and they proceeded along the Kansas shore of the river, noticing, as previous traders had, the second village of the Kansa Indians, “Village of the Twelve,” the Isle ā la Vache [Cow Island], and then the first village of the Kansas, “Village of the Twenty-four.” On the 18th, they passed the mouth of Wolf River in Doniphan County and shortly after left Kansas. 1076 For some days, Caillou had been suffering from a painful and inflamed wound on his right hand. Fearful that gangrene would set in, the Prince convinced his companion to return to St. Louis on a boat that was coming down the river from the Arikaras. “With tears in his eyes, he left me,” wrote the Prince. His account relates vividly the harrowing experiences encountered when dealing with treacherous rivers and threatening insects and animals. Caillou had been of great help to the Prince. The same cannot be said of the two other Frenchmen: Baptiste de Rouain, a timid and “rather old but still useful” man who had been left almost dead by the Iowas in earlier years,1077 and Dutremble, a “faint- hearted man,” whom the Prince had chosen as the boat master but was incapable of controlling his crew. 1078 The Prince wrote: After the last incident of insubordination, the spirit of insolence and disobedience against the boatmaster had increased to such an extent 1074 . Württemberg, Travels in North America, 272. 1075 . Ibid., 272. 1076 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 110-113. 1077 . One wonders how useful he may have been as the Prince noted that he was nearly ninety years old. Ibid., 218, 250-251. 1078 . Ibid., 240. 181 that the navigation of the boat depended more on the will of the crew than that of Dutremble.1079 PAUL BAILLIO By the Treaty of August 31, 1822,1080 the United States discontinued the operation of the subfactory on the “M. De Cigue” 1081 among the Great and Little Osages. After supervising its closing, 1082 its factor, Paul Baillio, 1083 in partnership with George C. Sibley and Lilburn W. Boggs, purchased the Indian goods of the post and operated it as a private business for a while.1084 Baillio later engaged in trading with New Mexico. 1085 On March 3, 1825, Sibley was appointed as one of the three commissioners to “cause to be marked out a road” from the western border of Missouri to the New Mexico boundary. 1086 When he approached the frontier of New Mexico, he sought Baillio’s assistance to help him and his crew cross the mountains. On October 19 he noted in his diary: “I wrote to Mr. Baillio of St. Fernandez (sic) desiring him to send me over 10 Packing Mules, Saddles, etc. & a sufficient number of Packers and a Person to Pilot the Waggons over the Mountains.” 1087 On October 24, Baillio arrived with the mules, pilot and packers. The pilot assured them that he could conduct them through a pass farther south. 1088 Sibley wrote: “Baillio kindly volunteered to go round with me [Sibley], and serve as Interpreter. The Guide speaks Spanish very well, but no English.” 1089 They arrived in the village of San Fernando in the valley of Taos on October 30. On November 26, Sibley sold to “Mr. P. Baillio goods in the Am[oun]t of $66.371/2 to purchase from 4 to 500 Bus[he]ls of Corn & Wheat for the Horses.” 1090 On February 16, 1826, Sibley arranged to sell one of his wagons to Baillio for later resale in Missouri. He also entered into a “copartnership” with him to “carry on the Wool Trade.”1091 Sibley wrote: “Mr. Baillio and I Signed a Memo [randum] cont[ainin]g the terms of 1079 . Ibid., 243-244. 1080 . Kappler, Indian Treaties, 201-202. 1081 . Marais des Cygnes. 1082 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 107. 1083 . He was present at the time of the signing, with C. De la Croix, the missionary among the Osages, probably another Frenchman. Kappler, Indian Treaties, 202 1084 . ”The Journal and Diaries of George Champlin Sibley” in Road to Santa Fe, ed. Kate L. Gregg. 1085 . At one time, Sibley recommended Baillio as consul in Santa Fe. Ibid., 256. 1086, Ibid., 5-7. 1087 . Ibid., 126. 1088 . Ibid., 128. 1089 . Ibid. 108. 1090 . Ibid., 112. The Commissioners’ report states that Sibley sold “the greater part of the surplus Indian Goods and clothing … for $666 37/100.” This is probably a typographical error and the amount in the diary is probably correct. The commissioners’ report also noted: “Mr. Baillio has undertaken to furnish me the Wheat and Corn that I want; & as it is in his power to furnish those things quicker and on better terms than any one in this part of the country, I consider the Sale and arrangement to be a very fortunate one.” Ibid., 115. 1091 . Ibid., 149. 182 the New Copartnership, which is to be Styled “Sibley & Baillio.” 1092 On the same day Baillio left for Fort Osage to “procure the necessary goods.” He traveled with about twenty persons, six of them being members of the road survey crew. A few miles out of town, Sibley had to forward to Baillio a “Vial of Laudanum that he forgot & which he may suffer much for the want of.” 1093 They crossed Kansas in March and arrived at Fort Osage on May 22,1094 after being robbed at one point on the trail by a band of two hundred Pawnees. 1095 Baillio returned to the Spanish territory in late May with a party of between eighty and one hundred traders. The Missouri Intelligence wrote on June 9, 1826 that there were “wagons and carriages of almost every description,” and the “amount of merchandise taken . . . [was] very considerable.” 1096 On April 7, 1827, he was reported as coming from Taos in company of about twenty others by the way of the Santa Fe Trail. The Missouri Intelligence wrote on July 19, 1827 that they arrived in mid-July with “about $30,000 in specie, and several hundred mules,” concluding a “very profitable” trip.1097 On July 23, 1827, William Clark of St. Louis issued a passport allowing traders, among whom were Michel Sylvestre Cerré, Paul Baillio, Louis Robidoux, and François Guérin, “to pass through the Indian country to the Province of Mexico.” They probably crossed Kansas in October, the passport being presented in Santa Fe November 12.1098 It is surmised that after 1827 Baillio remained in New Mexico. A. P. CHOUTEAU AND TONISH In the fall of 1832, a multinational party left Independence, Missouri for Fort Gibson in Oklahoma. Charles Joseph Latrobe, one of the members of the expedition listed the various participants: Our cavalcade consisted of the Colonel (Auguste Pierre Chouteau) and his two servants, viz. a black boy William, and a little thin lack-a- daisical Frenchman named Prévôt, who generally took charge of our two wagons while on the march; then the Commissioner (Henry L. Ellsworth), the Doctor (Thomas O’Dwyer)1099, Washington Irving, Count Pourtales,1100 and your humble servant, and lastly our scape- 1092 . Ibid., 149. 1093 . Ibid., 149. 1094 . Ibid., 176 1095 . Barry inaccurately put the arrival “around April 1.” Beginning of the West, 131. 1096 . Ibid., `132.. 1097 . Ibid. 144-145. The passport is reproduced in Cleland, Reckless Breed of Men, facing p. 202 1098 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 146. 1099 . Latrobe describes him as “an unnecessary appendage. Latrobe, Rambler in North America, I : 146. 1100 . A Swiss count. 183 grace Tonish, 1101, together with another half-breed, whose services were principally required to care for a number of lead horses. 1102 Besides Latrobe, two other travelers kept journals of the journey. Washington Irving wrote A Tour of the Prairies.1103 Pourtales’ journal and letters were translated and edited under the title, On the Western Tour with Washington Irving.1104 Irving described the French-speaking count: He was a young Swiss Count, scarcely twenty-one years of age, full of talent and spirit, but galliard in the extreme, and prone to every kind of wild adventure.1105 After traveling from St. Louis to Independence where they had agreed to rendezvous, they decided that “each should travel as it best suited his convenience and fancy.” Chouteau went overland with his servants; Ellswroth and O’Dwyer took a steamboat up the river; Irving, Pourtales, and Latrobe left St. Louis on September 15, after purchasing horses and a wagon for the trip.1106 Tonish joined them at Florissant where he “made his appearance, fully equipped, and gave us the first specimen of that dexterous effrontery with which we became at a later period extremely familiar.” 1107 Tonish assumed the responsibilities for the wagon and the horses while the three travelers “were left at perfect liberty to saunter, halt, hunt, and do what they would.” 1108 After arriving in Independence, Ellsworth and Latrobe went first to visit Isaac McCoy “at his home” (a mile east of the Missouri line), then crossed into Kansas where they slept at the Shawnee Agency in Johnson County. The caravan, led by Chouteau, the U. S. Indian agent for the Osages, was to travel three hundred miles from Independence to the Chouteau’s trading post on the Verdigris River, near the confluence of that river with the Neosho and Arkansas rivers, a place known as the Three Forks, near Salina in Oklahoma. On the 1st of October, they set out in a southwesterly direction, entering Kansas in Bourbon County the following day. On the 2nd, they camped on the bank of “Pawnee Creek – branch of Osage.” 1109 On the 3rd, they “encamp[ed] about 11 at clear brook.” 1110 1101 . Antoine Deshetres, also written Dehetres, De Hetre, Dehatre, de Hatre, de Hertz (?), de Hoit (?) was born in Florissant, Missouri, October 19, 1791, the son of Hyacinthe Deshetres and Françoise Normandeau, dit, Deslauriers. He was not a half-breed as Latrobe suggested it but a Frenchman who came from Louisiana. Mc.Dermott, Western Journals of Washington Irving, 1944. 1102 . Latrobe, Rambler in North America, I :145. 1103 . Irving, A Tour of the Prairies. 1104 . On the Western Tour with Washington Irving – The Journal and Letters of Count de Pourtales, ed Spaulding, trans. Seymour Feiler. 1105 . Ibid., 5. 1106 . Ibid., 16. 1107 . Ibid., 17. 1108 . Latrobe, Rambler, I :119-120. 1109 . Pawnee Creek flows north to join the South Fork of Marmaton River, about one mile above the junction with the Marmaton. They were southwest of Fort Scott in Bourbon County. 1110 . Probably Walnut Creek which enters the Neosho River below St. Paul. 184 By then they were in Neosho County. They then rode to spend the night at Boudinot Mission, home of Reverend Nathaniel B. Dodge, on the east bank of the Neosho River, near the mouth of Fourmile Creek.1111 On the 4th, Chouteau and Pourtales who had gone to visit Paul Liguest Chouteau, Auguste Pierre’s younger brother, at the Osage Agency,1112 rejoined them and they continued their journey. They crossed the Neosho River, proceeded through Labette County 1113 and camped on the bank of Labette Creek 1114 before entering Oklahoma and reaching Fort Gibson.1115 In the account of his travel Latrobe made a series of portraits of the members of the expedition. He began with A. P. Chouteau, writing: The Colonel, whom we considered for the time being the head of the party, generally led the van; a fine, good-humoured, shrewd man, of French descent, with claims both to fortune and family in Missouri. As our conductor, we were all beholden to his courteous manners, and extensive information on every subject connected with the country and its red inhabitants, for much of our comfort and entertainment. In the pursuit of his profession of Indian trader, he had often dared captivity and death. Among the Osages, whose principal trader and organ with [the] government he had long been, he was supposed, and I believe justly, to possess the greatest influence. In fact, he had been brought up from his early boyhood, more or less in their camps; had hunted, feasted, fought with and for them, and was considered by them as a chief and brother. From him we were glad to take our first lessons in hunting, camping, and backwoodman’s craft, and enjoy our first peep at that kind of life, which, judging from his fine vigorous person and the health shining on his sun-burnt features, was, with all its hardships, congenial to health and good humour.1116 De Pourtales wrote more succinctly about A. P. Chouteau, describing him as “charming and obliging to all of us.” 1117 Latrobe gave sympathetic portraits of Chouteau’s two servants: 1111. The Boudinot Mission was located on the SW ¼ of Section10, Township 29, Range 20E, about two and a half miles west and north of St. Paul in Neosho County. Barry, Beginning of the West, 170. 1112 . The Agency was located six miles west of the Boudinot Mission. 1113 . Irving explained the origin of the name of the county: “About 3’clock arrived at a grove on the banks of stream and encamp – place called La Bête . . . or the Beast, because the Indians saw a great & terrible animal, the like of which they never saw before and since.” A Tour of the Prairie, 220-221. 1114 . Labette Creek rises in the southwest part of Neosho County and flows south-southeast to enter the Neosho River from the west in the southeast corner of Labette County, near the Kansas- Oklahoma line. 1115 . Ibid., 220-221. 1116 . Latrobe, Rambler, I :145-146. 1117 . Spaulding, On Western Tour, 39. 185 The black boy and Prévôt, “the lack-a-daisical Frenchman. . . who generally took charge of our two waggons.” The black boy was only distinguished by his good-nature, and by his sleeping like a raccoon, while he held the reins and pretended to drive. . The Colonel’s little French retainer, Prévôt, was the scape-goat of the party. He had certainly been born under some very unfortunate aspect of the heavenly signs, and seemed unable to shake off their malignant influence. Nothing could be more diverting to others than the composed melancholy which seemed to reign in his features and sentences, as his weak nasal voice was heard in the brake, or at the camp-fire, deploring his unhappy lot. Did a horse kick – Prévôt’s shin- bones or fingers bore testimony to the fact. Did it happen that the passage of a rivelet was difficult for the wagon, – look but back, and you might be sure that the legs and skirts disappearing in the brushwood, as the possessor tipped back from the inclined seat, were the appurtenance of little Prévôt: and so to the very end of the journey, when we left him on the Neosho with a terrible catarrh.1118 Tonish or Toniche were the nicknames used by the members of the expedition for Antoine Deshetres. He had just returned from guiding Major H. C. Brisk and a party of emigrant Senecas on a trip to their lands above Fort Gibson when he was hired in St. Louis for this expedition. Previously he had been with A. P. Chouteau in the Arkansas country in 1822, and in 1827 was at Paul Liguest Chouteau’s trading post among the Osages on the Neosho.1119 He came “upon the recommendations from impartial people, who knew his super-excellent qualities and testified to his being an undaunted buffalo hunter.” Latrobe wrote: We had secured the services of a French Creole, accustomed to the country and the mode of traveling, who was to serve us in several capacities of guide, groom, driver, valet, cook, interpreter, hunter, and jack of all trades.1120 De Pourtales referred to him as “our male Antigone, our pioneer, factotum, and guide, Antoine, little, old, wrinkled, who looked somewhat like an Osage, but dressed like a Creek.” 1121 Tonish may have seemed “old and wrinkled” to the twenty-one-year-old Swiss man, but he excited and inspired him with his stories of “Indian braves, and Indian beauties, of hunting buffaloes and catching wild horses” which “set him all agog for a dash into savage life.” 1122 Irving wrote: 1118 . Latrobe, Rambler, I : 146-147. 1119 . McDermott, Journals of Washington Irving, 49n89. 1120 . Ibid., 117, 119. 1121 . “The reference to Antigone implies that just as she guided her blind father, Oedipus so Toniche guided the four travelers who were “blind in the wilderness.” Spaulding, On Western Tour, 25n7. 1122 . Irving, A Tour of the Prairies, 15. 186 It was still more amusing to listen to the gasconadings of little Tonish, who volunteered to be his (Pourtales’) squire in all his perilous undertakings; to teach him how to catch the wild horse, bring down the buffalo, and win the smiles of Indian princesses; - “And if we can only sight of a prairie on fire!” said the young Count – “By Gar, I’ll set one on fire myself!” cried the little Frenchman. 1123 As for Latrobe, as soon as he met Tonish, he noticed his “dexterous effrontery with which we became at a later period extremely familiar.” However he judged him less severely than Irving, noting that Tonish will not soon “sink into oblivion.” He described him as follows: Light, active, in the prime of life, no horse could take him by surprise; no inclined plane could throw him off his balance. He was a man of no mean qualifications. Full of make-shifts, and unspeakably useful in the woods, they were his home. A house was an abomination to him, and he was at a loss what to do with himself when he got within one. He possessed, however, a wife and family in Florissant, to whom his visits would seem to have been ‘few and far between’. He was garrulous to excess, in spite of an impediment in his speech, in the form of a barrier, which it was necessary to breakdown by an effort, after which the words composing the meditated sentence, came tumbling out headlong. He was a weaver of interminable stories, all about himself and his hunting exploits. We soon found out that he was a most determined and audacious braggart; but it was sometime before we all came to the unanimous conclusion that, for lying effrontery, none of us had seen his equal. In fact, such was the ingenious and whimsical way in which he could bring a host of little lies to cover a big one, that it became a matter of amusement with us to watch his manoeuvres.1124 Latrobe was annoyed by Tonish’s “egostical rapsodies” and his habit of spreading “the tidings of his own going forth to the chase throughout the camp, with huge predictions of extraordinary success, which were very rarely fulfilled.” 1125 In all, Latrobe had mixed feelings toward Tonish, calling him at times a “scoundrel and a braggart-in-chief,” but at other times, finding him “sharp witted” and “indispensable.” 1126 Irving was less lenient in his judgment of Tonish. Although he acknowledged his “all-pervading and prevalent importance, - the squire, the groom, the cook, the tent-man, in a word, the factotum.” He noted that he was: 1123 . Ibid., 7. 1124 . Latrobe, Rambler, I :147-148 1125 . Ibid.,I :178. 1126 . Ibid., I : 57,119-20, 175, 177, 187 the universal meddler and marplot of our party. This was a little, swarthy, meager, French Creole, named Antoine, but familiarly dubbed Tonish, - a kind of Gil Blas of the frontiers, who had passed a scrambling life, sometimes in the employ of traders, missionaries, and Indian agents; sometimes mingling with the Osage hunters. We picked him up at St. Louis, near which he has a small farm, an Indian wife, and a brood of half-blood children. According to his own account, however, he had a wife in every tribe; in fact, if all this little vagabond said of himself were to be believed, he was without morals, without caste, without creed, without country, and even without language; for he spoke a jargon of mingled French, English, and Osage. He was, withal, a notorious braggart, and a liar of the first water. It was amusing to hear him vapor and gasconade about his terrible exploits and hair-breath escapes in war and hunting. In the midst of his volubility he was prone to be seized by a spasmodic gasping, as if the springs of his jaws were suddenly unhinged; but I am apt to think it was caused by some falsehood that stuck in his throat, for I generally remarked that immediately afterwards there bolted forth a lie of the first magnitude.1127 Irving continued: Our little Frenchman, Tonish, by his incessant boasting and chattering, and gasconading, in his balderdashed dialect, had drawn upon himself the ridicule of many of the wags of the troop, who amused themselves at his expense in a kind of raillery by no means remarkable for its delicacy; but the little varlet was so completely fortified by vanity and self-conceit, that he was invulnerable to every joke.1128 Irving found him hard to handle as “it was impossible any longer to keep the little Frenchman in check, being half crazy to prove his skill and prowess in hunting the buffalo.” 1129 Tonish sought any available occasion to demonstrate his hunting ability. Irving wrote: “No one, however, was more unmanageable than Tonish. Having an intense conceit of his skill as a hunter, and an irresistible passion for display, he was continually sallying forth, like an ill-broken hound, whenever any game was started.” However, Irving appreciated Tonish’s cooking expertise as he prepared “a sumptuous repast” of wild turkey hashed, together with bacon and lumps of dough, 1127 . Irving, Tour of the Prairies, 5-6. 1128 . Ibid., 70. 1129 . Ibid., 130-131. 188 ample supply of fritters and ribs of fat buck. Irving remarked “never have I tasted venison so delicious”.1130 On another occasion, Tonish, “ tucking his sleeves to the elbows set to work to make a display of his culinary skill, on which he prided himself almost as much as upon his hunting, his riding, and his warlike prowess” and served half a deer with a couple of wild turkeys.1131 Tonish saw to it that the camp kettles were always filled with meat and the basins with plenty of honey.1132 Commissioner Ellsworth did not appear to have been so disturbed by Tonish’s personality. Although he mentioned him at least a dozen times, not once did he make a disparaging remark about him. He thought the Frenchman to be “a good cook – a fine hunter- a stranger to fear, and as fleet as a deer.” 1133 Ellsworth wrote to his wife: Whenever we came to swift water courses, whose depth was uncertain, either Billet or Tonish would plunge in, with horse or on foot, and many, very many short fords were secured by their daring intrepidity. After the expedition led by A.P. Chouteau, Tonish must have resumed his trapping and hunting activities in the mountains as Edmund Flagg reported that: “the old worthy himself was, as usual, in the regions of the Rocky Mountains; when last seen he could still tell the stoutest lie with the steadiest muscles of any men in the village, while he and his hopeful son could cover each other’s trail so nicely that a lynx-eye would fail to detect them.” 1134 Evert A. Duyckinck wrote a letter, dated July 12, 1837, after visiting Tonish in Florissant where he had retired. He found him “a thin [?] sized rather oldish man” who told his guest that he liked Latrobe and Pourtales but there was no pleasing Irving, adding : “Let me meet Irving on one of the prairies and one or other of us shall lose his scalp.” 1135 Among the many French trappers, hunters, and traders who crossed Kansas, none has been observed by so many writers from so many points of views. 1130 . Ibid., 55. 1131 . Ibid., 44-45. 1132 . McDermott who edited the Journals of Washington Irwing contrasted the entries made in the Journals concerning Tonish with the depiction of the Frenchman in A Tour on the Prairies and suggested that “there is almost nothing in the Journals to justify the portrait [of Tonish]. As a “maker”, Irving may be successful, but as an historian and a travel reporter his method is questionable.” McDermott, 49. He added: “This sort of characterization might be acceptable in fiction, even though we would still be inclined to dismiss Tonish as a pale and trite imitation of a not very satisfactory literary tradition.” Ibid., 54. 1133 , Ellsworth, Washington Irving on the Prairies. 1134 . Flagg, Far West, I: 262. 1135 . McDermott, Journals Washington Irving, 61. 189 ANTOINE CLEMENT, JOE POIRIER AND JEAN BAPTISTE CHARBONNEAU 1136 In the spring of 1837, Captain William Drummond Stewart, 1137 a Scotsman on his third voyage to the mountains joined the American Fur Company expedition led by Morris “Black” Harris and Etienne Provost, which was headed for the 13th annual rendezvous of the trappers in the Rocky Mountains. The caravan counted at least one hundred and twenty men. Among the Captain’s retinue was Antoine Clément, a half-breed Cree. 1138 Clément was described as “a handsome man by white standards of median height, with no perceptible trace in his appearance that ever hinted of his Cree heritage.” 1139 He was hired as Stewart’s personal “hunter and purveyor” and “headman” of at least three of the other engagés, named Louis, 1140 Auguste, and Pierre. 1141During the expedition, the captain appreciated greatly Clément’s services, finding him to be “a good and wonderful hunter” who provided him faithfully with buffaloes, big horns, and antelopes.1142 The Scotsman admired Antoine’s skill as he killed one hundred and twenty buffaloes on the way up to the mountains. 1143 Stewart also enjoyed his good humor and his singing in French while riding along. 1144 Antoine was great help in communicating with the Indians, using sign language. He even assisted the painter Alfred Jacob Miller 1145 by procuring him animals in order to be able to sketch them at close range with more accuracy. Miller wrote: For this purpose he would wound the animal in the flank, bringing him to a standstill. This was our opportunity. Going as near him as was prudent, holding the sketch book in one hand and the pencil in the other, it often happened that while absorbed in drawing a ludicrous 1136 . There were other Frenchmen in Stewart’s expedition. Nothing is known about them although they were listed as members of the expedition by Kennerly, himself a member of the expedition. Kennerly, Persimmon Hill, 258. He identified P. Ferlong from St. Charles, Largines (probably Jo Lajeunesse), and Cypriote from Florissant as hunters; and A. Tessont, F. Tessont, J. Elimont, and Ayott as servants. 1137 . He was the second son of Sir George Stewart, of Grandtully, Scotland and Lady Catherine and a veteran of the Battle of Waterloo. 1138 . Antoine Clément may have been one of the men who left the Hudson Bay Company at the urging of John Gardner in 1825 and joined the American Fur Company in the Kawsmouth area. Irma R. Miller, French-Indian Families, 16. 1139 . Porter and Davenport, Scotsman in Buckskin, 54. 1140 . Louis was pictured by Alfred Jacob Miller as a “Rocky Mountain trapper” standing, his knee on a dead buffalo. Reproduced in DeVoto, Across the Wide Missouri, between pages 316 and 317 (Plate LXXII). 1141 . Ibid., 310. 1142 . Ibid., 318, 358. 1143 . Ibid., 315. 1144 . Two of his songs were: Mam’selle Marie, qui est bonne comme elle (Mad’moiselle Marie, who is as good as she is?) and “Dans mon pays je serais content” (I would be happy in my country). 1145 . Miller made two portraits of Antoine Clément. One with Captain Stewart (plate LXXVI), the other one by himself (plate LXXVII). Both are reproduced in DeVoto, Across Wide Missouri, between pages 316 and 317. 190 scene would ensure. The brute would make a charge. Of course, sketch and pencil would be thrown down, the bridle seized and a retreat made at double-quick time. This would convulse our Indian fidus achates with merriment, in which state he could not have aided us if he had wished.1146 Clément is not mentioned among the members of Captain Stewart’s party when on his fourth trip of April 1838 the latter traveled with Andrew Drips’ caravan to the Rockies. However he must have gone along with the Scotsman as the records stated that Stewart’s retinue comprised five persons but only four are identified. Clément must have been the fifth one; Stewart, by that time, being very attached to him. They left Westport, Missouri on April 22nd, then followed the Santa Fe Trail through Johnson, Douglas and Shawnee counties and camped at a location in the vicinity of Topeka. On Sunday 29, they crossed the river on the American Fur Company’s flatboat that had transported their supplies up the Kansas River. They spent the night on the north side of the river and continued on the route Stewart had taken on his previous voyage in 1837. By that time, Drips’ caravan was made up of the American Fur Company’s forty five employees with seventeen carts and some two hundred horses and mules; there were also nine missionaries going to the Oregon country with twenty five horses and mules, twelve horned cattle and one wagon, in addition to Captain Stewart ‘s five-man retinue. As they made their way through northeast Kansas, the train stretched for nearly half a mile.1147 After returning from the mountains, upon his arrival in St. Louis, William Drummond Stewart heard that his older brother, Sir John Archibald Stewart had died in Paris on May 20, 1838. 1148 He decided to go back to Scotland to settle his inheritance. Clément helped him ship all they had collected during their travels: plants, seeds, birds, two buffaloes, and one bear and in May of 1839 Steward sailed from New Orleans with Clément and two Indians. He had given Antoine money to buy conventional clothes for the Indian members of the party but the Indians refused them and kept their buckskin shirts, leggings, moccasins, and Hudson Bay blankets. 1149 When the painter, Alfred Jacob Miller visited Stewart at Murthly Castle in 1840, he found Clément, the half- breed “metamorphosed into a Scottish valet and waiting on the table in full suit of black and this is everything he does.” 1150 The red head Antoine adapted well in his new Scottish surroundings: 1146 . Ibid., 412. 1147 . There is no record of Stewart’s travel but the missionaries in the caravan kept detailed accounts of the route they took to the rendezvous in the Rockies. 1148 . Ibid., 358. According to Barry, Beginning of the West, 355, he died in Scotland. 1149 . Porter and Davenport, Scotsman in Buckskin, 184. 1150 . DeVoto, Across the Wide Missouri, 360. Stewart may have taken Antoine to Constantinople and Egypt. Ibid., 361. 191 The French blood of his father, which clearly predominated in his appearance, was no less an influence in this thinking and actions. He thrived in cities as well as in the mountains.1151 One time he wore a full Highland costume to attend a ball at Murthly Castle where he was “a hit;” at another time he appeared in the full regalia of an Indian chief. 1152 In the fall of 1842, having sold some of his properties in Scotland, Stewart, accompanied by Antoine, returned to the United States, “the land of the free, the friendly, and the brave”, arriving in New York on September 7. Now being wealthy, Sir William Drummond Stewart 1153 embarked on his fifth voyage to the Rockies.1154 This time it was a pleasure trip made in the company of friends who came from Europe and several American cities. With him was the faithful Clément. The party ascended the Missouri from St. Louis to the Chouteau’s Landing and set up camp for two weeks one mile west of the Missouri line; then they proceeded in a northwesterly direction toward the Platte River. 1155 In spite of his years among the civilized society in Scotland and Europe, Clément had not forgotten the ways of the wilderness with all the challenges it offered. His courage amazed William Clark Kennerly, one of the members of the party who wrote: Antoine Clément . . . was the most noted hunter on the plains and the most fearless man I ever saw – the only one who would walk straight up to a grizzly bear. That animal would never rise on his hind legs until he is ready to rush in to the death, and Antoine would await that moment to fire, having absolute confidence in his marksmanship, which never failed him. 1156 That may have been Clément’s last trip to the mountains as a guide and hunter. On July 18, 1846, Clément arrived at Fort Leavenworth to serve under Captain Richard H. Weightman in the Batallion of light artillery, Battery A of the Missouri Volunteers to fight in the Mexican War with the Army of the West under the command of Colonel Stephen W. Kearny. 1157 Even as a soldier, his services as a hunter were recognized. Kennerly wrote in his recollections: 1151 . Porter and Davenport, Scotsman in Buckskin, 127. 1152 Ibid., 193, 198. 1153 . He was now Sir William Drummond Stewart, nineteenth of Grandtully and seventh baronet. 1154 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 474-475. 1155 . See chapter “Travelers” for details of the expedition. 1156 . Kennerly, Persimmon Hill, 148. 1157 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 594, 620-21. 192 One of the great drawing cards in recruiting for Battery A was the old hunter, Antoine Clément, who had been with us on the William Stewart buffalo hunt; and, as everyone knew of his great prowess with grizzly bears and Indians all thought he would be valuable in helping us massacre the Mexicans. He is also to be useful in providing meat for our mess. This seemed a sound enough deduction, for when the battery ran into a herd of three thousand buffalo and the hunters were sent after them, Antoine killed and butchered a young cow, and the others two bulls. When the meat was divided, however, and the tough portion fell to Battery A, Antoine became very angry and said he would kill no more except for his own comrades.1158 Stewart also hired Joe Poirier 1159 as a hunter and he is often mentioned in the journals of the expedition. He was born in St. Charles, Missouri, the son of early French settlers. 1160 He had been a boatman and a hunter since 1806 and his name had appeared on many ledgers and contracts of the Chouteaus. When still young, he had been a member of General William H. Ashley. According to Matthew Field, a member of the expedition who wrote for the New Orleans Daily Picayune, he was “one of the smartest hunters” 1161 and he was considered “a professional hunter whose reputation was second only to Antoine’s [Clément].” 1162 During the expedition, the two hunters tried to outdo each other.1163 When the supply of meat was low, Poirier turned to God for his help in finding buffaloes or bears, which he faced “maintaining his grave and piercing look.”1164 Field described him in church as he was imploring God: It was Sunday, and at mass that morning, kneeing in front of the tent of old Father De Vos, Joe Pourier audibly mingled in his prayers an earnest longing to see buffalo once more. It was a quaint and curious spectacle to see the old hunter and mountaineer piously passing the bead rosary through his fingers, and with his eyes wandering around the prairie, praying aloud in broken English to see buffalo! Forget us some sin, O, mon Dieu – let us see some fat cow this to-day, we have not no bacon more – even old bull was better than no meat at all – thank heaven for everything – Amen! 1165 Poirier was always ready to tell about his past encounters and Field remarked how he delighted his companions with his stories. The journalist wrote: 1158 . Kennerly, Persimmon Hill, 185. 1159 . Also written Pouirier and Pories. Ibid., 258. 1160 . Gregg and McDermott, Prairie and Mountain Sketches, 102. 1161 . Ibid., 102. 1162 . Porter and Davenport, Scotsman in Buckskin, 30. 1163 . Gregg and McDermott, Prairie and Mountain Sketches, 116. 1164 . Ibid., 98. 1165 . Ibid., 49. 193 He is remarkable for a free and easy volubility, and chats most amusingly in broken English. He was full of anecdote and reminiscence about the mountains, and one of his stories we made him repeat to us often, on account of a natural and graphic vigor of manner he had in making the relation, which gave wonderful interest to what he said. We cannot present the reader with his bold, forcible and facetious style. . . . It is only necessary to imagine a crowd of eager listeners cross-legged around a camp-fire, with the mercurial mountaineer suiting the action to the word in remarkably fashion as he talked, to obtain a faire idea of the hero and the scene.1166 Poirier’s reminiscences may have been embellished by the whiskey he kept in his rifle.1167 All through his reporting, Field took a relish in transcribing all of Poirier’s conversations phonetically emphasizing his inability to pronounce the English letters th.1168 Besides being a good hunter and enlivening the long evenings in the mountains, Poirier’s good nature was not affected by the many years spent in the wilderness for “he was a kind and gentle-hearted man.” 1169 Also in Stewart’s retinue was Jean Baptiste Charbonneau, 1170 born February 11, 1805 at Fort Mandan, the son the French interpreter, Toussaint Charbonneau and his wife Sacagawea who had traveled with Lewis and Clark. 1171 He was nicknamed “Pomp”, short for “Pompey”, meaning “a leader” or “head man,” a title often given to the first born of a Shoshone woman. His mother had carried him on her back from the Mandan villages to the “Great Lake,” as she called the Pacific Ocean. Before returning to St. Louis, Clark wanted to take back with him this “butifull (sic) and promising child” who was then nineteen months old, 1172 but hearing the objections of his parents, the explorer consented to wait until he had been weaned. He thought that “in one year the boy 1166 . Ibid., 102. 1167 . “Crocket says Jo Pourier’s rifle has a bore made large enough to smuggle a pint of whiskey! Capt. Stewart’s pistols were made to smuggle a quart!” Ibid., 200. 1168 . “has been mentioned before that Joe was of French descent, and spoke always very funnily in broken English.” Ibid., 115. In writing broken French always give the article the as, ze, instead of de, as is most common.” Ibid., 203. An example of Field’s transcription of Poirier’s discourse:” Wat zey say w’en I tell zem in St. Charles.” 1169 . Ibid., 100. 1170 . Also written Carbonneau, Charbineaux, Chanonard, Charbonau, Chapineau, Charbonnet, Charbono, Charbonie, Sharbonot, Cabeneau, Charbonneaux, Charboneuau, Charbonie and Shabenare. Clarke, Lewis and Clark Expedition, 148-149; Ann W. Hafen, “Jean Baptiste Charbonneau,” in Hafen, Mountain men, I : 205-224; Hebard, Sacajawae, 93n38. 1171 . His mother’s labor was eased by Meriwether Lewis giving her crushed rattlesnake rattles in a little water on the recommendation of the French trader, René Jusseaume. According to DeVoto in Across the Wide Missouri: “Clark dandled and tickled and spoiled him all the way across the continent and back.” 115. 1172 . Clark wrote a long letter to Toussaint Charbonneau, dated August 20, 1806, making him several proposals to entice him to come back to St. Louis, with the intent to raise the small child. Hebard, Sacajawae, 83. 194 would be sufficiently old to leave his mother.” 1173 Later Jean Baptiste joined the Clarks’ household in St. Louis and entries in Clark’s abstract of expenditures show that he paid for the child’s education and upkeep. 1174 With various tutors, he “learned French and English, ciphering and Roman history.” About 1821 he entered the service of the Missouri Fur Company. In October of 1823, Prince Paul Wilhem, Duke of Württemberg met Jean Baptiste when he was on his way down from the mountains and had stopped upstream from the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers. 1175 He wrote in his account: Here I also found a youth of sixteen, whose mother, a member of the tribe of Sho-sho-ne, or Snake Indians, had accompanied the Messrs. Lewis and Clarke, as an interpreter, to the Pacific Ocean in 1804 to 1806. The Indian woman married the French interpreter of the expedition, Toussaint Charbonneau, who later served me in the capacity of interpreter. Baptiste, his son . . . joined me on my return, followed me to Europe, and since has been with me.1176 The entry in the Prince’s diary for October 9, 1823 reads: “On the ninth I reached the boat The Kansas, when I stopped for several hours and took on the son of Toussaint Charbonneau who was to accompany me to Europe.” On December 3, 1823, the prince and Jean Baptiste left St. Louis for New Orleans on the steamboat, Cincinnati and on the 24th embarked on the brig, Smyrne for Europe.1177 After a harrowing crossing, they arrived in Le Havre, France on February 24, 1824. Jean Baptiste went with the Prince to Germany where he spent five years, living in the Prince’s castle about thirty miles from Stuttgart while perfecting his education. 1178 He was also his companion on all his travels through Europe and North Africa until 1829 when the duke was back in America, unattended except by “a hardy hunter and master of woodcraft.” 1179 After his return, Charbonneau served as the prince’s guide and interpreter as he could converse in English, French, German, Spanish, and several Indian languages. With a passport delivered by William Clark, they left St. Louis on December 23, 1829. to visit Indian agencies. 1180 Although Jean Baptiste left no account of his travels, his name appears frequently in the diaries and journals of travelers and in government and fur 1173 Moulton, Journals Lewis and Clark, 5 : 344-345. 1174 . Hebard, Sacajawea, 114-115, 221-222. 1175 . Württemberg, Travels in North America, 270n42. 1176 . Ibid., 271. 1177 . Ibid., 121. 1178 . Ibid., 271n 43. However according to DeVoto, he “stayed for six years, a member of the royal household, and received a classical education and a princely training in the etiquette of courts.” Across the Missouri River, 116. 1179 . Hebard, Sacajawea, 122. 1180 . The records indicate that the Prince was “accompanied by two servants, a clerk, and two hired men of the American Fur Company.” Jean Baptiste must have been one of the two servants. Ann W. Hafen, “Jean Baptiste Charbonneau,” in Hafen, Mountain Men, 1: 211. 195 companies’ files prior to his 1843 trip with Stewart. In 1829 he accompanied a party of hunters for the American Fur Company. In the spring of 1830, he went with Drips and Fontenelle to the mountains. In the fall of the same year, he joined the fur brigade of Robidoux and trapped in the Idaho-Utah country. In 1831 he was with Joseph L. Meek and in August of 1832 with Jim Bridger. Nathaniel T. Wyeth mentioned him several times in his journal after the travelers left Independence, Missouri on May 12, 1832. They took the Santa Fe Trail for three days, then on May 15 they turned northwest toward the Kansas River, crossed it probably on the 16th near the Kansas Agency, above Lawrence. The party then followed the left bank of the Kansas River, passed Fool Chief‘s village of Kansa Indians, west of Topeka about May 18, and headed in a northwest direction. They camped on the Big Blue River and proceeded along the Little Blue River to its source in Nebraska.1181 In 1833 he attended the fur trade rendezvous at Green River and in 1839, Thomas J. Farnham reported having met an educated Indian at Fort Pueblo, five miles from Bent’s Fort in Colorado. According to Ferris,1182 Farnham’s Indian was Jean Baptiste Charbonneau. From E. William Smith’s Journal,1183 it is possible to follow Charbonneau’s travels during the years 1839-1840, when he was hired by Louis Vasquez and Andrew W. Sublette as the hunter for the party that left Independence, Missouri on May 6, 1839. They followed the Santa Fe Trail, arrived at Council Grove in Morris County, Kansas on August 15 and reached the Kansas- Colorado line on August 30.1184 In June 1840 Jean Baptiste was boating down the Platte River with seven men and a load of pelts, reaching St. Louis on July 3rd, 1840. He spent the year of 1842 in the service of Bent and St. Vrain Company and became stranded on a small island in the Platte, guarding a stack of peltries, which he could not transport down the river on account of the low water. Lieutenant John C. Fremont who saw him there wrote: Mr. C[harbonneau] received us hospitably. One of the people was sent to gather mint, with the aid of which he concocted very good julep; and some boiled buffalo tongue, and coffee with the luxury of sugar, were soon set before us.1185 Rufus B. Sage who also encountered him there recorded the impression Charbonneau made on him in these words: The camp was under the direction of a half-breed gentleman of superior information. He had acquired a classic education and could converse quite fluently in German, Spanish, French, and English, as 1181 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 213-214. 1182 . Ferris, Life in the Rocky Mountains, 67. 1183 . Smith refers to Charbonneau as the “son of Clarke” and called him “Shabenare” in L. R. and A. W. Hafen, To the Rockies and Oregon, 155-156. 1184 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 378. 1185 . Fremont, Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Washington, D. C., 1845, 30-31. 196 well as several Indian languages. His mind, also, was well stored with choice reading, and enriched by extensive travel and observation. Having visited most of the important places, both in England, France, and Germany, he knew how to turn his experience to good advantage. There was a quaint humor 1186 and shrewdness in his conversation, so garbed with intelligence and perspicacity, that he at once insinuated himself into the good graces of listeners, and commanded their admiration and respect.1187 Shortly after delivering his load of furs to St. Louis, Charbonneau was hired by Sir William D. Stewart as a “driver” for the expedition, which left St. Louis for the Rockies in early May of 1843. They traveled up the Missouri and debarked at Chouteau’s Landing in Kansas City, Missouri. On May 10, they set up camp, a mile west of the Missouri line, near the home of Joseph Parks, the Shawnee chief, in Johnson County. They stayed there two weeks. On May 30th William L. Sublette wrote in his Journal: Went down the [Kansas] river to meet Sir William Drummond Stewarts party who had left the United States [Missouri] some 4 or 5 days before I did but had followed the Cansas up over a bad Road for muddy Creeks. Met Sir W. D. Stewart on the Banks of the Soldier [Creek] 1188 and assisted them in Crossing here. I took charge of the party of Some 60 man.1189 Sir William had 10 carts & a small 2 mule yankee waggon. . . . One half or rather more was hired men Belonging to Sir William, which he had employed in the trip.1190 On the 2nd of June, they crossed a branch of the “big Virmillion.”1191 On the 3rd, they had probably entered Nebraska, having spent over twenty days in northeast Kansas.1192 After Stewart’s expediton, Jean Baptiste must have been living at Fort Bent in Colorado during the years of 1844 and 1845 as Lieutenant J. W. Abert reported that a “Mr. Chabonard” was serving as a guide there and Mr. Fitzpatrick expressed his satisfaction “with the usefulness of the guide, Mr. Chabonard.”1193 1186 . He compared his being stranded for a long time on the island to Napoleon’s exile in St. Helena. 1187 . R. B. Sage, His Letters and Papers, etc., eds. L. R. and A. W. Hafen. 2: 52-54. 1188 . West of Topeka, Kansas. 1189 . There were about 100 men, 108n39. “A Fragmentary Journal of William L. Sublette”, ed. Harrison C. Dale, Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 6: 99-110. 1190 . Ibid., 108. 1191 . The Black Vermillion empties into the Big Blue River near Frankfort in Marshall County, Kansas. 1192 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 473-475. 1193 . Hebard, Sacajawea, 144. 197 He also was employed as a hunter at the fort.1194 In 1846, he joined General Kearny’s column as a guide to Santa Fe.1195 During the years 1846-1847, Charbonneau accompanied Lieutenant-Colonel Philip St. George Cooke who was leading the Mormon Battalion to San Diego, California. Hebard wrote: In his journal from November 16, 1846 to January 21, 1847, General Cooke mentions the services rendered the expedition by Charbonneau not less than twenty-nine times. He speaks of his skill in the selection of routes, trapping beaver, finding water, establishing camps, discovering passes, scouting, estimating distances, locating smoke signals, hunting bears, fighting Indians, and many other such valuables services. . . A great deal of credit for the success of the expedition, it would seem, should be given to Charbonneau, who thus guided Cooke’s expedition, as his mother had guided that of Lewis and Clark, and now looked again upon the waters of the Pacific which he had seen as an infant at the mouth of the Columbia in the year 1805.1196 After completing his assignment with the Mormon Battalion, Charbonneau was appointed alcade of the mission of San Luis Rey, north of San Diego, California, which was the Indian subagency for the southern district. A year later, on July 24, 1848, he resigned from that function. S. D. Stevenson, Colonel Commanding the South Military District wrote to Governor Mason: Enclosed the resignation of J. B. Charbonneau as Alcade for San Rey, and [he] says that he has done his duty to the best of his ability but being a half-breed Indian of the U. S is regarded by the people as favoring the Indians more than he should do, and hence there is much complaint against him.1197 Later he was reported as mining gold on the Middle Fork of the American River in Placer County, California. The 1860 U. S. Census of Placer County lists a J. B. Charbonneau . . . male . . . age 57. . . born in Missouri . . . P. O. Secret Ravine. In the Directory of Placer County, 1861, on page 79, is listed a John B. Charbonneau, Clerk, Orleans Hotel . . . Auburn There is much controversy about when and where Charbonneau died. According to Grace Hebard, he lived among the Shoshone Indians with his mother, Sacajawea, on or near Fort Bridger, in southwest Wyoming. He was described as 1194 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 378; Grinnelle, “Bent’s Old Fort,” Kansas Historical Collections, 15: 64. 1195 . Ibid., 64. 1196 . Hebard, Sacajawea, 146. 1197 . Ann W. Hafen, Mountain Men, I, 220. 198 a man of little force or importance in the tribe, about five feet six inches of height, quite dark in complexion, stocky built, weight about two hundred pounds, thick lips and his mouth drawn well down at the corners. He was rather pleasant and sociable in manner, liked ease and enjoyed it. He had a wife and several children. 1198 Another man recalled him as “a treacherous man, because he liked his firewater and used it often.” Ann Hafen relied on obituaries that appeared in California newspapers. The Placer Herald, Auburn, California, dated July 7, 1866, published a detailed obituary of J. B. Charbonneau. It stated that he had lived in the county since 1852 and on his way to the Montana Territory with two companions had died on the Owyhee River in southeastern Oregon after a short illness. The obituary ended with these words: Mr. Charbonneau was of pleasant manners, intelligent, well read in the topics of the day, and was generally esteemed in the community in which he lived, as a good meaning and inoffensive man.1199 His obituary also appeared in the Owyhee Avalanche of Ruby City, Idaho, on June 2, 1866. It reported: Died. At Inskip's Ranch, Cow Creek, in Jordan Valley, J. B. Charbonneau, aged sixty-three - of pneumonia.- Was born at St. Louis, MO.; 1200 one of the oldest trappers and pioneers; he piloted the Mormon Brigade through from Lower Mexico in '46; came to California in '49, and has resided since that time mostly in Placer County; was en route to Montana.1201 A marker indicates the place of his burial between Jordan Valley and Danner, Oregon. The town of Pompeys Pillar in Montana is named after him and he appears as a child in the U.S. Sacagawea silver dollar. PIERRE DIDIER PAPIN Pierre Didier Papin, brother of Pierre Melicourt Papin who operated a trading post of the Neosho River, was born in St. Louis on March 7, 1798, the son of Joseph Marie Papin and Marie Louise Chouteau, sister of Pierre Chouteau, Sr. Pierre married Catherine Cerré, granddaughter of Jean Gabriel Cerré, and sister of Michel Sylvestre Cerré. He entered the fur trade as early as the middle 1820’s, becoming the senior partner in the French Fur Company before 1830.1202 On March 26, 1832, he was 1198 . Hebard, Sacajawea, 179. 1199 . Ibid., 223. 1200 . His birth may have been registered in St. Louis but he was born at the Mandan village. 1201. Ibid., 223. 1202 . Parkman, The Oregon Trail, 489. 199 one of the traders on board of the Yellowstone when on her second voyage she ascended the Missouri to Fort Union. He was on the St. Peters in the spring of 1837, traveling to the upper Missouri when, before arrival at Fort Leavenworth, a member of the crew contracted smallpox which spread among the passengers and later the Indians causing hundreds of death. On March 26, 1842, Papin left the Sibille & Adams’ post on the Laramie River traveling with two light wagons and a small party which included Henri Chatillon, Charles Lajeunesse, and “Decoto.” Shortly after descending the Platte River, they were on the Little Blue on April 17 and probably reached the Big Blue River about the 21st. 1203 In August of 1842, he was reported on his way to Fort Laramie where he had succeeded Joseph Picotte as bourgeois, or “boss” for the American Fur Company’s post.1204 In June of 1846 he left the fort with thirty-six of his employees and was met on the trail by [George L. Curry] who wrote to the St. Louis Reveille in June 12, 1846: The party from the Fort, numbering thirteen mackinaw boats, are under the charge of Mr. [P. D.] Papin, who has long been the popular and efficient superintendent of affairs at the Fort. We saw eleven of the boats yesterday morning, on the western side of the river with whom… is Mr. P. The Platte is now so low and difficult of navigation that the party despair of reaching the mouth. Wagons will probably be sent to them from Council Bluffs, to which place, as I understand, an express had already been sent.1205 Francis Parkman also reported Papin’s vicissitudes: On my return, found the boats lashed to the bank waiting- flat- bottomed- with 110 packs each-one month from Laramie-aground every day, for the Platte is now low, and is very shallow and swift at best. The crew were a wild-looking set - the oarsmen were Spanish - with them were traders, Fr[ench] and American, some attired in buckskin, fancifully slashed and garnished, and with hair glued up in Ind[ian] fashion. Papin a rough looking fellow, reclining on the leather covering that was thrown over the packs. 1206 Papin must have abandoned 3 boats soon after as Bryant wrote: We saw from our encampment this morning eight small boats, loaded, as we ascertained by the aid of a glass, with bales of furs. The boats were constructed of light plank, and were what are called “Mackinaw 1203 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 447. 1204 . Ibid., 457; Parkman, Oregon Trail, 489. 1205 . Dale Morgan, ed., Overland in 1846, 2: 544. 1206 . Parkman, Letters, 2: 432-434. 200 boats.” The water of the river is so shallow that the men navigating this fleet were frequently obliged to jump into the stream, and with their strength force the boats over the bars or push them into deeper water. We watched from sunrise until 8 o’clock in the morning, and in that time they did not advance down stream more than a mile. 1207 The Missouri Republican of St. Louis on July 7, 1846 gave an account of Papin’s tribulations: Eight Mackinaw boats, laden with buffalo robes, etc., with a company of thirty-six men, under the charge of Mr. P. D. Papin, arrived at Fort Leavenworth on the 2d from Fort John (Fort Laramie), at the junction of the Laramie and Big Platte rivers. . . The cargo consists of 1100 packs buffalo robes,1208 10 packs of beaver, and 8 packs of bear and wolf skins, and was consigned to P. Chouteau, Jr. and Co. We learn from Mr. Papin that he has had great difficulty in descending the Platte on account of the low water, and was obliged to transfer the cargoes from three of the boats and leave them behind. Two boats which left the Fort behind him, he thinks, will be unable to get down, not having men enough to haul them over the shoals.1209 The Missouri Reporter of St. Louis reported that on July 7, 1846 “a timely rain, on Sunday week [June 21], facilitated their getting out into the Missouri; otherwise they would have been detained from lowness of water.” 1210 While descending the Platte, Papin accepted to deliver in St. Louis mail which emigrants on their way west had entrusted to him.1211 Finally they arrived in Fort Leavenworth on July 2 where they transferred to the steamboat Tributary, reaching St. Louis July 6. 1212 On April 20, 1847, Papin left Fort Laramie to deliver his furs in three wagons carrying about “1,100 packs of buffalo robes, etc.” With him were Charles Beaumont and seven other traders, this time they traveled by land at night to avoid Indian attacks on the Oregon Trail. They encountered “the advance of Mormon emigrants” on the Platte on May 4 and the first Oregon-California emigrants “scattered all along the Wakarusa,”1213 in trains of thirty to forty wagons; in all between four hundred and five hundred wagons. Six of the traders reached St. Louis on May 24. 1214 Papin must have returned west shortly after as he was listed 1207 . Bryant, What I saw in California. 81 1208 . The average pack of robes contained 10 skins and weighted 80 pounds. 1209 . Morgan, Overland in 1846, 2: 587. The Missouri Reporter of St. Louis published similar information on July 7, 1846. 1210 . Ibid., 2 : 589. 1211. Ibid., 2: 552. Letter of Nathan J. Putnam to his father. Parkman, Oregon Trail, 75: “I had among our baggage a letter which I wished to commit to his hands.” 1212 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 622. 1213 . In Douglas County. 1214 Ibid. , 684. 201 as one of the passengers on the steamboat Martha, ascending the Missouri as it passed the mouth of the Kansas River on July 7. 1215 On September 8, 1847, Papin and six men after joining on the Oregon Trail a party bound for Fort Laramie reached the Platte on September 26, and arrived at the fort on October 16, without having encountered any hostility from the Indians.1216 The Saint Louis Union of July 20, 1848 stated that Mr. [Pierre Didier] Papin arrived “yesterday” with seventy men connected with the American Fur Company.1217 Nothing has been recorded of his activities after that date. Pierre Didier Papin died in 1858 after a long life spent in the fur business, traveling from St. Louis to Fort Laramie to supply the post and returning with the annual collection of furs. JEAN SIBILLE David Adams and Jean Sibille, a Pawnee half-breed of French descent 1218 were issued a license in St. Louis on July 31, 1841 to trade on the Laramie’s Fork, the Cheyenne and Wind rivers in Wyoming. On their first trip to the mountains, they followed the Oregon Trail across eastern Kansas.1219 In 1842 the two traders formed a parternship and purchased Fort Platte, located on the North Platte, not far from the mouth of the Laramie River, and a mile from the American Fur Company’s post.1220 On August 15 (?) 1842, as he was headed west with two wagons and seven men, Sibille was stopped by 2d Lt. John W. T. Gardner, of the First dragoons and twenty men, stationed at Fort Leavenworth. At a point “five miles from the Kansas villages,” they confiscated his wagons and other property and destroyed eleven barrels of contraband alcohol (the equivalent of fifty-five barrels of whiskey) from the traders. Sibille and his men were then taken to the fort, and later to Platte City, Missouri for confinement, but the local magistrate set them free. With his men, wagons, oxen, goods, and several remaining barrels of alcohol, Sibille resumed his travel and crossed the Kansas River in the area of Topeka on the 27th. He continued with [P.D.?] Papin, the bourgeois of Fort Laramie who was also going to Wyoming. 1221 On June 6,1843 Sibille, traveling with other traders, was seen on the Big Blue by William L. Sublette (of Sir William Drummond Stewart’s expedition) coming back from the mountains by the way of the Oregon Trail, with “some cows & 6 Buffalo Calves & one young Elk also 5 or 6 One [horse] Waggons Loaded with Robes.” 1222 1215 . Ibid., 700. 1216 . Ibid., 714. 1217 . Ibid., 766. 1218 . Also written John Sibille, Sybille, Sebille, Sibylee, Sabille, Sybille and Cepille. 1219 . Ibid., 437. 1220 . Ibid., 415. 1221 . Ibid., 457. 1222 . Ibid., 486. 202 The Sibille & Adams Company was short lived, unable to compete with nearby Fort Laramie. It was acquired by Pratte, Cabanne and Company which on July 27, 1843 was issued a license to trade with twenty-six men in the area.1223 In May of 1846 Jean Sibille, in company of Joseph Bissonnette and three employees, were recorded as being headed west, transporting merchandise for trade. They traveled by the way of the Oregon Trail across Kansas until they reached the Platte River, near the head of Grand Island where they were robbed by a band of Pawnees. 1224 On July 20, 1846, the Weekly Reveille of St. Louis reported the attack: The Pawnees have also committed several daring robberies this spring. A war party fell in with Messrs. Sabille and [Joseph] Bissonette, who were accompanied by three men in their employ, on a trading expedition from St. Louis to Laramie, whom they robbed of a considerable amount of goods, and would, no doubt, have taken all they had, had they not been deterred by being told that a large party of Americans were close behind them, and they would kill the whole of them. 1225 Sibille was on the list of passengers arriving in St. Louis on July 21, 1847 on the steamboat Haydee, having joined other traders at Fort Pierre in South Dakota. Although there is no record of his activities between 1847and 1853, he must have remained active in the fur business for in July of 1853 he reported on a battle between the Cheyennes, Arapahoes, Comanches, and a few Sioux and Pawnees, which took place about sixty miles southwest of Fort Kearny (on the Platte River) or “50 miles beyond the Caw (Kansas) River.” 1226 Jean Sibille claimed to have been one of the original builders of Fort Vasquez in Colorado.1227 HENRY CHATILLON AND ANTOINE DELORIER Henry Chatillon was probably the last of the great guides and hunters who were engaged by European and American adventurers and scholars wanting to explore what was still the Wild West. He was born in Carondelet, a French settlement south of St. Louis, which his grandfather, Clement Delor de Treget had founded in 1767. 1228 Little is known of his early years. 1229 He is first recorded as a boatman on the Yellowstone in 1832 and as a member of the small party of Pierre 1223 . Ibid., 486. 1224 . Ibid., 582. 1225 . Morgan, Overland in 1846, 2: 592. 1226 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 1171-73. 1227 . Parkman, Oregon Trail, 644. 1228 . The surname of Chatillon’s father was Maurice; however he was known as Jean Baptiste Chatillon, which probably was taken after his place of origin in France. Irma Miller, French-Indian Families, 33. 1229 . Francis Parkman referred to Chatillon as having been at the “Yellow Stone” as an earlier time. Parkman, Journals, 2: 437. 203 Didier Papin 1230 when they returned from the Rocky Mountains.1231 Also in the group were two other Frenchmen, Charles LaJeunesse1232 and Decoto. They first followed the Platte River, then crossed the Little Blue in late April 1842 and probably reached the Big Blue River about April 21st.1233 Upon the recommendation of Pierre Chouteau, Jr., Chatillon was recruited as guide and hunter by Francis Parkman and his cousin, Quincy A. Shaw, who planned on spending the summer of 1846, touring the prairies and the eastern Rocky Mountains to “study the manners and character of Indians in their primitive state.” Parkman recounted his first encounter with Chatillon in the office of the American Fur Company in St. Louis: We found there a tall and exceedingly well-dressed man, with a face so open and frank that it attracted our notice at once. We were surprised at being told that it was he who wished to guide us to the mountains. He was born in a little French town near St. Louis, and from the age of fifteen years had been constantly in the neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains, employed for the most part by the company, to supply their forts with buffalo meat. . . He had arrived at St. Louis the day before, from the mountains, where he had remained for four years. . . . His age was about thirty; he was six feet high, and very powerfully and gracefully molded. The prairies had been his school; he could neither read nor write, but had a natural refinement and delicacy of mind, such as is very rarely found even in women. His manly face was a perfect mirror of uprightness, simplicity, and kindness of heart; he had, moreover, a keen perception of character, and a tact that would preserve him from flagrant error in any society. Henry had not the restless energy of an Anglo-American. He was content to take things as he found them; and his chief fault arose from an excess of easy generosity, impelling him to give away too profusely ever to thrive in the world. Yet it was commonly remarked of him that, whatever he might choose to do with what belonged to himself, the property of others was always safe in his hands. His bravery was as much celebrated in the mountains as his skill in hunting; but it is characteristic of him that, in a country where the rifle is the chide arbiter between man and man, he was very seldom involved in quarrels. Once or twice, indeed, his quiet good-nature had been mistaken and presumed upon, but the consequences of the error were such that no one was ever known to repeat it. No better 1230 . Pierre Didier Papin was in charge of Fort Laramie in 1845. 1231 . Chatillon is listed among the engagés hired by Captain Joseph La Barge for the 1832 voyage of the steamboat Yellow Stone. 1232 . Chatillon found Charles Lajeunesse, also known as “Simoneau,” in Fort Laramie when he arrived there in 1846 as guide of the Parkman expedition. Francis Parkman wrote:” This Simoneau was Henry’s fast friend, and the only man in the country who could rival him in hunting.” Parkman, Journals, 2: 102. 1233 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 447. 204 evidence that the common report that he had killed more than thirty grizzly bears. He was a proof of what unaided natured will sometimes do. 1234 Parkman described Chatillon vividly as they set out on their journey: A fine athletic figure, mounted on a hardy gray Wyandot pony. He wore a white blanket-coat, a broad hat of felt, moccasins and trousers of deer-skin, ornamented along the seams with rows of long fringes. His knife was stuck in his belt; his bullet pooch and powder- horn hung on his side, and his rifle lay before him, resting against the high pommel of his saddle, which, like all his equipments, had seen hard service, and was much the worse for wear.1235 Parkman also left a description of Antoine Delorier 1236 whom he had hired as a muleteer: Our muleteer, Delorier, brought up the rear with his cart, wading ankle- deep in the mud, alternately puffing at his pipe, and ejaculating in his prairie patois: “Sacré enfant de garce!” 1237 as one of the mules seem to recoil before some abyss of unusual profundity. The car was of the kind one may see by scores around the marketplace in Montreal, and had a white covering to protect the articles within. They were our provisions, a tent, blankets, and presents for the Indians.1238 His duties as muleteer and cart-driver involved building rafts when necessary to cross a river, load them with the goods of the expedition, and swim pushing it to the opposite bank of the stream. 1239 Once, as he came upon a deep and muddy stream, Delorier “jerked his pipe from his mouth, lashed his mules, and poured forth 1234 . Parkman, Oregon Trail, 14-15. 1235 . Ibid., 10-11, 15-16. Frederic Remington made a drawing of Delorier, reproduced in Ibid., 15 and one of Chatillon on his horse, reproduced in Ibid., 11. On January 7, 1892, Parkman wrote to Remington: “If I were asked to name the most striking combination of strength and symmetry I [had] ever seen, I should say Henry Chatillon. Parkman, Letters, 2: 252. Parkman was pleased with Remington’s pictures of Delorier and Chatillon. He wrote to Remington on February 23, 1892: “The pictures are admirable. You have rendered the “Mountain Man” type perfectly. The expression of the worthy Deslauriers is hit off with wonderful truth. H. Chatillon, if he were alive, would have every reason to be pleased with his image.” Ibid., 2 :256. 1236 . Also written de Laurier, Deslauriers, and Deslaurier. Antoine Delorier had been living in Westport among the French settlement, known as Kawsmouth, residing in lot # 5, according to Father Point’s 1840 map. Barry, Beginning of the West, 419, 581. 1237 . Delorier did not know English well and often reverted to French. “Deslauriers was still sufficiently a Missouri skinner to call a slow stubborn mule a “Holy son of a bitch” – a surprisingly strong epithet even in untranslated French.” Parkman, Oregon Trail, 444. As Parkman spoke French, he often reported textually Delorier’s French words in The Oregon Trail. 1238 . Ibid., 17. 1239 . Ibid., 54. 205 a volley of Canadian ejaculations. In plunged the cart, but midway it stuck fast. He leaped out knee-deep in water, and by dint of sacrés and a vigorous application of the whip urged the mules out of the slough.”1240 Delorier was to be a capable and loyal member of the party and “was extremely anxious to conform in all respects to the opinions and wishes of his bourgeois.” 1241 He was also a cheerful companion: Neither fatigue, exposure, nor hard labor could ever impair his cheerfulness and gayety, or his obsequious politeness to the bourgeois; and when night came, he would sit down by the fire, smoke his pipe, and tell stories with the utmost contentment. In fact the prairie was his congenial element.1242 Delorier was the cook of the expedition, having sometimes little to offer to his companions: Delorier was arranging upon the ground our service of tin cups and plates, as no other viands were to be had, he set before us a repast of biscuit and bacon, and a large pot of coffee. 1243 While standing his guard duty with the muleteer Parkmam, reported that one day “combining his culinary functions with his duties as sentinel [Delorier] employed himself in boiling a head of an antelope” for the party’s breakfast.1244 At night, the cook “thrust his brown face and old felt into the opening [of the tent] to announce that supper was ready” and the travelers found “the tin cups and the iron spoons arranged in order on the grass, and the coffee-pot predominant in the midst,” anxious for the meal Delorier had prepared. 1245 Sometimes, he would even “spread a well-whitened buffalo-hide upon the grass [and] place in the middle the juicy hump of a fat cow.” 1246 Bad weather did not deter him and he never failed to feed his men. On a rainy day, Parkman wrote: “With his broad felt hat hanging about his ears, and his shoulders glistening with rain, Delorier shouted:” Voulez- vous du souper, tout de suite? 1247 I can make fire, sous la charette 1248 – I believe so – I try.” It is difficult to determine with accuracy the route followed by the Parkman party as there are topographical indications in The Oregon Trail, which sometimes appear to conflict with those in his Journals. The chronology also presents 1240 . Ibid. 30. 1241 . Ibid., 43. Name given to the head of an expedition or of a post. 1242 . Ibid., 18. 1243 . Parkman, Journals, 2: 19. 1244 . Parkman, Oregon Trail, 60. 1245 . Ibid., 42. 1246 . Ibid., 388-389. 1247 . “Do you want supper right away?” 1248 . “under the cart.” 206 variances with the dates in the two sources for the expedition. The travelers left Westport, Missouri on May 9, 1846, accompanied by a British party who had hired two Frenchmen, by the name of Sorel and Boisvert (Boisverd) as hunters and trappers. 1249 On the first day they “forded the creek,”1250 then saw “the log-church and schoolhouses belonging to the Methodist Shawnee Mission.” 1251 They camped not far from the banks of the Kansas River at the “Lower Delaware crossing.” 1252 The next day, they ferried across the river. Parkman wrote: “We crossed it on the following day, rafting over our horses and equipage with much difficulty, and unloading our cart in order to make our way up the steep ascent on the farther bank.” 1253 Then they took the military road across the Delaware land. 1254 On the 11th, they were in sight of the “white barracks of Leavenworth.” 1255 On the 12th, taking a short side trip, they noticed “a little swift stream”1256 as they headed for the Kickapoo village 1257 where they were served lunch by the trader’s wife “who must have been, a year or two before, a very rich specimen of creole beauty.”1258 They visited Fort Leavenworth to call on Colonel Kearney who offered them “the last Madeira, the last fruits” they were to “enjoy for a long time.” Parkman remarked: “For the last time we tasted the luxuries of civilization, and drank adieus to it in wine good enough to make us regret the leave-taking.”1259 Before departing, Parkman wrote from the fort to his mother of May 12, 1846: 1249 . Sorel did not make a good impression on Parkman as he referred to him as a “strong, sullen–looking Canadian, who, for having spent his life among the wildest and most remote of the Indian tribes, had imbibed much of their dark vindictive spirit, looked ferociously up, as if he longed to leap upon his bourgeois and throttle him.” Parkman, Oregon Trail, 471. However the captain of the English party “expressed the utmost amazement at the feats of Sorel, who went leaping ravines, and dashing at full speed up and down the sides of precipitous hills, lashing his horse with the recklessness of a Rocky Mountain rider.” Ibid., 74. Both Sorel and Boisvert were helpful in constructing a raft and transporting the goods of the expedition across the Blue River. Parkman wrote:”The raft was at length complete. We piled our goods upon it. . . Sorel, Boisverd, Wright, and Deslauriers took their stations at the four corners, to hold it together, and swim across with it; and in a moment more all our earthly possessions were floating on the turbid waters of the Big Blue.” Ibid., 54. Boisvert had previously trapped in the Blackfoot country. Ibid., 60. 1250 . Ibid., 17, 449. Probably a tributary of Turkey Creek, a quarter mile west of the Missouri State line in Johnson County. 1251 . Ibid., 18, 450. The Mission is located in Johnson County, 6 miles south of the Kansas River and half mile west of the Missouri State line. Parkman and his party by then had traveled 3 or 4 miles. 1252 . Ibid.,18, 450. The crossing was known as the Military, or Grinter Crossing and was located west of Grinter in Johnson County. 1253 . Ibid., 20. 1254 . Ibid., 20. Jefferson County, Kansas. 1255 . Ibid., 23. 1256 . Ibid., 456. Probably Plum Creek, 2 miles south of Kickapoo in Leavenworth County. 1257 . Ibid., 25. The Kickapoo village was “five or six miles beyond” the fort. 1258 . Ibid., 27. In his Journals, Parkman wrote: “The trader showed us into a neat, dark, and cool parlor, where he gave us iced claret and an excellent lunch – a most welcome refreshment. His mistress, a yellow woman, brimful of merriment, entertained us with her conversation.” 2 :422. 1259 . Parkman, Oregon Trail, 28. 207 Our own Henry Chatillon and Delorier are as good as can be found anywhere on the frontier. Chatillon, in particular, is everything that could be wished.” 1260 On the 13th 1261 they resumed travel, “bading a long adieu to bed and board, “as Deloriers cried to his mule:”Avance donc! Get up.” That night they camped near a “lazy stream.” 1262 On the 15th, they “came to what [they] thought was Clough Creek.” 1263 The next morning they came to a “stream, wide, deep, and of an appearance particularly muddy and treacherous, where [they] had great trouble with the wagons.” 1264 Six or seven miles farther, they “nooned near a brook.” 1265 The following day they stopped to rest at noon, close at hand was a “little dribbling brook.”1266 Later they “rode to the bank of a stream” 1267 and encountered some dragoons who had deserted from Fort Leavenworth who told them that they had “missed the track entirely, and wandered, not toward the Platte, but to the village of the Iowa Indians.” 1268 They were advised to “keep to the northward until they struck the Oregon Trail. On the afternoon of the 16th, they reached the St. Joseph Road. On the 17th, they came upon a pool of clear water. They tested it; it was four feet deep. They lifted a specimen; it was “reasonably transparent.” Therefore they decided “that the time had arrived for action.” However their ablutions “were suddenly interrupted by ten thousand punctures, like poisoned needles, and the humming of myriads of overgrown mosquitoes, rising in all directions from their native mud and swarming to the feast.”1269 On the 19th they reached “a beautifully 1260 . Parkman, Letters, 1 : 39. 1261 . “By sunrise on the twenty-third of May,” Parkman, Oregon Trail, 29. It should have read “May 13.” Parkman, Journals, 2: 422 .“At this point the Oregon Trail and Parkman’s notebooks show his utter confusion about the route he and his companions were following, so that topographical details in both book and journals are either contradictory or completely wrong.” Ibid., 2: 459. Probably the Journals provide more accurate information. 1262 . Parkman, Oregon Trail, 30, 459. Probably Owl Creek, fifteen miles northwest of Fort Leavenworth in Atchison County. 1263 . Parkman, Journals, 2: 423.The author has been unable to determine the location of Clough Creek. 1264 . Parkman, Oregon Trail, 31, 459. Probably Walnut Creek, four or five miles southwest of Atchison in Atchison County. 1265 . Ibid., 33, 459. Probably Deer Creek about 3 miles northwest of Atchison in Atchison County. 1266 . Ibid., 36, 462. Probably Independence Creek or one of its tributaries, about 10 or 12 miles northwest of Atchison in Doniphan County. 1267 . Ibid., 39, 462. Probably the North Branch of Independence Creek, about 5 miles southwest of Bendena in Doniphan County. 1268 . Ibid., 40, 463.The dragoons were referring to the Great Nemaha Subagency for the Iowa, Sauk, and Fox and Missouri Indians, located near Highland in Doniphan County. Parkman wrote in his Journals that “we passed the place where we should have diverged a day and a half ago, that our present road led to the Iowa village, and then to the emigrants’ road of St. Joseph. So we determined to go on.” Parkman, Journals, 2: 423. 1269 . Parkman, Oregon Trail, 45, 467; Parkman, Journals, 2: 424. Probably Plum Creek or Grasshopper Creek, a few miles west of Powhattan in Brown County. 208 wooded stream, which [they] supposed to be the Little Nemaha.” 1270 They were then about half way between St. Joseph and Marysville. They continued in a westerly direction and on the 22nd; they “camped by a beautiful stream, unknown, but supposed to be the Little Vermillion.” 1271 On the 23rd, they “came to a belt of woods, and the long-looked-for Big Blue. It was so high with the late rains – though subsiding rapidly – that [they] had to raft across.”1272 On the 24th they “struck upon the old Oregon Trail, just beyond the Big Blue, about seven days from the Platte” 1273 and advanced to the upper reaches of Horseshoe Creek about twelve miles northwest of Marysville. 1274 They were about to leave Kansas. They reached the Platte on May 30th. 1275 As they were approaching Fort Laramie, Parkman wrote again to his mother on June 12, 1846: Our hunter, Chatillon, of whom I have spoken, is probably the best man whom we could have got in all this region – he is to be implicitly relied on – intelligent, experienced and knocks over buffalo whenever he chooses. . . . For a man of no education – (he cannot read or write) he is by far the most complete gentleman I ever saw. 1276 When Parkman arrived at Fort Laramie, he handed to the bourgeois a letter of introduction, dated April 25, 1846, which the Chouteau Company had provided him. It stated that any person in their employ in the Indian Country was to give the travelers any “services, supplies, or assistance they might require.” 1277 Parkman and his companions started on their way back to the “settlements” 1278 on August 27th, 1846. 1279 They again crossed Kansas this time entering it from the southwest and following the Arkansas River. Parkman did not identify the various locations where they camped along their route, moving cautiously, watching the horizon, in fear of a Pawnee attack as they had heard that the Indians had killed a traveler two or three weeks earlier. They stopped for four days in buffalo country. 1280 Chatillon explained to the men the two techniques used in buffalo hunting: 1270. Ibid., 2: 424. Probably the South Fork of the Nemaha River in Brown County near the town of Seneca a few miles west of Powhattan in Brown County. Parkman, Oregon Trail, 467-468. 1271 . Parkman, Journals, 2: 427. Name often given to the Black Vermillion in Nemaha County. 1272 . Ibid., 427-429. Near the town of Marysville in Marshall County. “On the twenty-third of May we encamped near its junction (the St. Joseph Road) with the old legitimate trail of the Oregon emigrants.” Parkman, Oregon Trail, 55. 1273 . Ibid., 475. They were on either Raemer Creek or Mountain Creek, 4 or 5 miles northwest of Marysville. 1274 . Ibid., 477; Barry, Beginning of the West, 581-582; Parkman, Journals, 2: 430. 1275 . Ibid., 2: 431. Parkman, Oregon Trail, 65, 481. 1276. Parkman, Letters, I : 41. 1277 . DeVoto, Year of Decision 1846, 104, 143. 1278 . The white settlements in Kansas City, Missouri. 1279 . Parkman, Oregon Trail, 45; Barry, Beginning of the West, 646-647. 1280 . They were probably between Ingalls and Cimarron in Gray County. Parkman, Oregon Trail, 679. 209 “running” the buffalo or “approaching it.” Parkman remarked: “Kit Carson, I believe, stands pre-eminent in running buffalo; in approaching, no man living can bear way the palm from Henry Chatillon.”1281 He added: Henry Chatillon was a man of extraordinary strength and hardihood; but I have seen him return to camp quite exhausted with his efforts, his limbs scratched and wounded, and his buckskin dress stuck full of thorns of the prickly-pear, among which he had been crawling. Sometimes he would lie flat upon his face, and drag himself along in this position for many rods together. 1282 Among the buffaloes, Chatillon was in his element: Henry knew all their) peculiarities; he had studied them as a scholar studies his books, and he derived quite as much pleasure from the occupation. The buffalo were companions to him, and, as he said, he never felt alone when they were about him. He took great pride in his skill in hunting. He was one of the most modest of men; yet in the simplicity and frankness of his character, it was clear that he looked upon his pre- eminence in this respect as a thing too palpable and well established to be disputed. But whatever may have been his estimate of his own skill, it was rather below than above that which others placed upon it. 1283 After Parkman and Chatillon brought back their kill, Delorier would cut up the meat and dry it for later use. Parkman wrote: Delorier seated himself on the grass before the pile of meat, and worked industriously for some time to cut it into thin broad sheets for drying. This is no easy matter, but Delorier had all the skill of an Indian squaw. Long before night, cords of raw hide were stretched around the camp, and the meat was hung upon them to dry in the sunshine and pure air of the prairie. 1284 They stopped long enough to prepare provision for their journey, which Parkman surmised might last about a month. They waited for the meat to dry enough for transportation. 1285 On September 8, 1846, they were fifty miles west of Pawnee Fork. 1286 On the 9th they reached the Caches, “a place of dangerous 1281 . Ibid., 359. 1282 . Ibid., 373. 1283 . Ibid, 376. They saw their last buffalo at the Little Arkansas River. Ibid., 406. 1284 . Ibid., 370. 1285 . Ibid., 370. “Had the distance been twice as great and the party ten times as large, the rifle of Chatillon would have supplied meat enough fore the whole within two days.” Ibid., 370 1286 . Parkman, Journals, 2 : 478. 210 appearance.” 1287 They met some traders who warned them not to follow the main trail along the Arkansas River “unless you want to have your throats cut!” 1288 They left it and took the “Ridge Road,” which was a short cut on the Santa Fe Trail across a bend of the river. 1289 In the evening they camped near a “small stream.” 1290 It is not clear where they met the Mormon Battalion on the 10th.1291 On the 11th they advanced to a creek three miles from Pawnee Fork. 1292 On the 12th they “crossed Pawnee Fork – a stream running in a deep channel – plenty of trees – prickly-pear fruit” 1293 and traveled toward Walnut Creek.1294 They had lunch on Walnut Creek on the 13th and on that night camped on the Big Bend of the Arkansas. 1295 On the 14th, they “moved across Cow Creek,” 1296 where they found “the welcomed novelty of ripe grapes and plums, who grew there in great abundance.” 1297 On the 15th, they “nooned” on Owl Creek. ” 1298 At the Little Arkansas they saw “the last buffalo, a miserable old bull, roaming over the prairie melancholy and alone.”1299 They camped along the banks of the river and spent the following night on one of the Turkey creeks. 1300 On the 17th, they reached the Cotton Wood Creek, “a pretty and well timbered stream.” 1301 On the 18th, they were at Lost Springs where they “enjoyed the novelty of good water.” 1302 They “nooned at the beautiful Diamond Spring” 1303 on the 19th and camped at Rock Creek. 1304 On the 20th, they arrived at Council Grove, “beautiful meadows and woods,” and after “passing through the luxuriant woods . . . nooned two miles farther on an excellent spring called Big John.” 1305 They went on to spend the night on one of the Beaver creeks.1306 On the 1287 . Parkman, Oregon Trail, 395, 692. Four or five miles west of Dodge City in Ford County. 1288 . Ibid., 399. Pawnee River, seven miles west of Larned in Pawnee County. 1289 . Ibid. 694. The Ridge Road ran directly from a point one or two miles east of Dodge City to the Pawnee River, seven miles west of Larned in Pawnee County. 1290 . Ibid., 400, 694. Probably on upper Coon Creek, a few miles southwest of Windhorst in Ford County. Parkman, Journals, 2: 479. 1291 . It was probably on one of the tributaries of Coon Creek, at a point four or five miles north or northeast of Kinsley in Edwards County. Parkman, Oregon Trail, 695. 1292 . Parkman, Journals, 2 :479. 1293 . Ibid., 2 : 479-480. Parkman, Oregon Trail, 403, 700. 1294 . North northwest of Great Bend in Barton County. 1295 . Ibid., 480. Near Great Bend. 1296 . Ibid., 406, 700; Parkman, Journals, 2: 480. Probably five or six miles west of Lyons in Rice County. 1297 . Ibid., 2 : 480. Parkman, Oregon Trail, 406. 1298 . A tributary of Cow Creek, east of Lyons. 1299. Ibid., 406. 1300 . East of the town of McPherson in McPherson County. 1301 . Parkman, Journals, 2: 481. In Marion County. 1302 . In Marion County. 1303 . Diamond Springs, some four miles north of Diamond Springs in Morris County. 1304 . Parkman, Oregon Trail, 407; Parkmam, Journals, 2: 481. South of Council Grove 1305 . East of Council Grove. Named after “Big John” Walker, a Sac Indian who led one of the surveying expeditions. 1306 . It has been impossible to locate the Beaver creeks. 211 21st, they camped on Dragoon Creek. 1307 The following day, they “nooned” at the Hundred and Ten Creek 1308 and slept on Rock Creek. 1309 On the 24th they evaluated that they were thirty miles from Westport. On the 25th they stopped at noon at Elm Grove 1310 and on the 26th they reached Westport after traveling for almost one month through Kansas. 1311 Parkman wrote to his father from Westport on September, 26, 1846: I cannot say too much in favor of our hunter, Henry Chatillon, and our driver, Delorier; they have both served us as faithfully and skillfully as one desires. Chatillon has the reputation of being the best hunter in the Mountains, and he is certainly one of the best men.1312 The next day after their arrival, Delorier appeared in the morning, “strangely transformed by a hat, a coat and a razor,” coming from this little log-house among the woods. Parkman wrote: He [Delorier] had meditated giving a ball on the occasion of his return, and had consulted Henry Chatillon, as to whether it would do to invite his bourgeois (Parkman). Henry expressed his entire conviction that we would not take it amiss, and the invitation was now proffered accordingly, Delorier adding as a special inducement that Antoine Lajeunesse was to play the fiddle.1313 Unfortunately, before the evening arrived, a steamboat came down from Fort Leavenworth, which Parkman and Chatillon boarded for St. Louis. Delorier was on the rock at the landing. As they left, he cried out: “Adieu! Mes bourgeois, adieu! When you go another time to de (sic) Rocky Montagnes I will go with you; yes, I will go!” 1314 Parkman wrote: “Although for five months we had been traveling with an insufficient force through a country where we were at any moment liable for depredation, not a single animal had been stolen from us. Our only loss had been one old mule bitten to death by a rattlesnake. ” 1315 1307 . Southeast of Eskridge in Wabaunsee County. Ibid., 2 :482. 1308 . Five miles east of Burlingame in Osage County. 1309 . Six miles from Overbrook on the Osage-Douglas County line. 1310 . In Johnson County. A camping ground between 1822 and 1872. Also known as Lone Elm Camp on the Santa Fe Trail. A marker erected in 1906 in the northwest corner of the northwest quarter of Section 23 Township 14S Range 23E indicates its location. “The Santa Fe Trail in Johnson County,” Kansas Historical Collection, 11 : 457. 1311 . Parkman, Journals, 2 : 476-483; Parkman, Oregon Trail, 349-409 1312. Parkman, Letters, 1: 48. 1313. Parkman, Oregon Trail, 410. 1314 . Ibid., 410. On February 7, 1864, Antoine De Lorier, aged some 55 years, was buried by Father Paul M. Ponziglione. Burns, Osage Missions, 400. 1315 . Parkman, Oregon Trail, 407 212 In spite of all the difficulties they encountered, the success of the journey was greatly due to the experience and character of Henri Chatillon. Parkman wrote the following postscript for The Oregon Trail: I cannot take leave of the reader without adding a word of the guide who has served us throughout with such zeal and fidelity. Indeed his services had far surpassed the terms of his engagement. Yet whoever had been his employers, or to whoever closeness of intercourse they might have thought fit to admit him, he would never have changed the bearing of quiet respect which he considered due to his bourgeois. If sincerity and honor, a boundless generosity of spirit, a delicate regard to the feeling of others, and a nice perception of what was due to them, are the essentials characteristics of a gentleman, then Henry Chatillon deserves the title. He could not write his own name, and he had spent his life among the Indians. In him sprang up spontaneously those qualities which all the refinements of life and intercourse with the highest and best of the better part of mankind fail to awaken in the brutish nature of some men. In spite of his bloody calling, Henry was always humane and merciful; he was gentle as a woman, though braver than a lion. He acted aright from the free impulse of his large and generous nature. . . His easy good-nature almost amounted to weakness yet while it unfitted him for any position of command, it secured the esteem and good-will of all those who were not jealous of his skills and reputation. 1316 In an unsigned review of The California and Oregon Trail in the Literary World, Herman Melville wrote: He [the reader of The California and Oregon Trail] will make the acquaintance of Henry Chatillon, Esq., as gallant a gentleman, and hunter, and trapper, as ever shot buffalo. For this Henry Chatillon we feel a fresh and unbounded love. He belongs to a class of man, of whom Kit Carson is the model; a class, unique, and not to be transcended in interest by any personage introduced to us by Scott. Long live and hunt Henry Chatillon! 1317 In the fall of 1847 Chatillon left St. Louis on the Martha for the Upper Missouri and stayed at Fort Union for one month where he was hired by the Indian agent Gideon C. Matlock as interpreter for the Sioux. He later spent several months on the North Platte. He was back in St. Louis in October of 1848 when he married his first cousin, Odile Delore Lux, a woman of substance. They built a 1316 . Ibid., 341-342. 1317 . Herman Melville, Literary World, 4:113 (March 31, 1849), 292. 213 house overlooking the Mississippi in Carondelet. It is now known as the Chatillon- Dumesnil Mansion. 1318 With the help of a scribe, Chatillon wrote Parkman on February 17, 1853 that he was “agoing to the mountains this April if you would like to come I would be glad if you both (Parkman and his cousin) can come.” Parkman regretted to have to decline the invitation an account of his health.1319 Answering the call of the wilderness, Henry Chatillon joined as a guide Sir George Gore’s party who, in June 1854, left Westport, Missouri on a hunting expedition to the Rocky Mountains.1320 A correspondent of the Ohio State Journal described the encampment that attracted his attention. He wrote: It turned out to be a grand hunting company for the plains. Sir George Gore, an English baronet, has taken into his head that it will be fine sport to hunt buffalo, etc. on our great western plains; so he packed up his trunks, etc., and started for a regular summer campaign. He brought the most magnificent pack of dogs that were ever seen in this country. Between forty and fifty dogs, mostly greyhounds and staghounds, of the most beautiful breeds, composed this part of the expedition. He had a large carriage, and probably a dozen large wagons to transport provisions, etc. These require five yokes of oxen to each wagon. These, with the horses, men, etc. made quite an imposing company.1321 The party included a retinue of forty servants and assistants, a companion or two with scientific experience, one hundred and twelve horses, and a small arsenal of ammunition and firearms.1322 Chatillon’s brother was also employed as guide. After crossing Kansas, the two Chatillon brothers left the expedition at Fort Laramie, having had a disagreement with the Irish nobleman. Henry Chatillon spent his last years near St. Louis. After visiting him in 1867, Parkman commented: “The manly simplicity of his character was unchanged,” but added that he was “much broken down and by no means so rich as reported.” 1323 In the preface of the fourth edition of The Oregon Trail, Parkman wrote: Two years ago I made a visit to our guide, the brave and true-hearted Henry Chatillon, at the town of Carondelet, near St. Louis. It was more than twenty years since we had met. Time hung heavy on his hands, 1318 . Irma Miller, French-Indian Families, 35. His first wife was Bear Robe, daughter of the Sioux Chief Mahta Tatanha. She died about June 25, 1846 when Chatillon was on the Parkman expedition. 1319. Parkman, Letters, 1:40n6. 1320 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 1220. 1321 . From the New York Daily Tribune, New York, June 23, 1854. Reprinted in Kansas Historical Quarterly, 6: 316. 1322 . Alter, James Bridger, 264; Contributions to the Historical Society of Montana, 1: 144. 1323 . Parkman, Letters, 2: 16. 214 as usual with old mountain-men married and established; his hair was touched with gray, and his face and figure showed tokens of early hardship; but the manly simplicity of his character was unchanged.1324 The Harvard graduate had not forgotten his association with his illiterate guide whom he considered a friend and wrote: “I have never, in the city or in the wilderness, met a better man than my noble and true hearted friend, Henry Chatillon.” 1325 Henry Chatillon died in St. Louis on August 8, 1873. 1326 The Missouri Republican wrote: “He was a native of this city and a faithful employee of the American Fur Company.” He was buried in Mount Olive Catholic Cemetery in St. Louis. 1324 . Parkman, Oregon Trail, xiii. 1325 . Ibid. 16. 1326 . His age was given as 75 at the time of his death. 215 CHAPTER 9 FRENCHMEN AND HALF-BREEDS AMONG THE INDIANS - PART I AMONG THE OSAGES Since the days when Claude Charles du Tisné visited the Osages in 1719 and thereafter when the Chouteaus enjoyed the monopoly of the trade with them from 1794 to 1800, the French entertained friendly relations with the Osages. Even after Pierre Chouteau, Sr. lost his exclusive trading rights in 1802, various members of the Chouteau family continued to deal with them. Pierre Sr. was appointed agent to the Great and Little Osages from 1807 to 1818 1327 and his sons, François Gesseau and Paul Liguest were granted trading licenses on August 17, 1816.1328 Pierre was quoted as having said: “My acquaintance with the Osages 1329 has been since 1775 to this day [September 3, 1825], in the capacity of trader, agent, or otherwise.” 1330 John J. Mathews remarked about the good relationship that existed between the French and the Osages: “It was the effervescence and the sense of humor, the Gallic verve and adjustability and sincere spirit of fraternization that inspired friendly relations with the Little Ones (Osages) and made them allies for over a century.”1331 French agents, traders and trappers intermarried for years with native women. When the Osages ceded their lands in Missouri under the treaty of June 2, 1825 and were relocated along the Neosho River in southeast Kansas, the half- breed Noël Mongrain received a section of land as well as his ten children: Baptiste, Noël, Francis, Joseph, Mongrain, Louis, Victoria, Sophia, Julia, Juliet, 1332 and his four grandchildren: Charles, Francis, Louisson, and Wash. Also receiving one section were the following half-breeds: Céleste, Joseph and Pélagie Antaya; Thomas L. Balio; Francis Chardon; James G. and Alexander Chouteau; Susan Larine; Thérèse Louise; Joseph Perra; Baptiste,Jr., Francis, Louis and Victoria St. Mitchelle; Marguerite Reneau, and Françis Tayon. The witnesses at the signing of the treaty were Paul Liguest Chouteau, subagent, and two interpreters Antoine LeClaire and Paul Louise, Thérèse’s father. 1333 At an earlier date, Noël Mongrain, Sr. had been appointed by the Secretary of War as interpreter in the Upper Louisiana and it was thought to be “a good choice.” 1334 In 1808 he was an interpreter for the government and in 1815 was assigned to the Osage Indians.1335 On August 20, 1828, William Clark advised 1327 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 58. 1328 . Ibid., 76. 1329 . Ibid., 76. 1330 . Ibid., 114. 1331 . Matthews, Osages, 117. 1332 . Some of the names of Noël Mongrain’s ten children in article 5 of the 1825 treaty do not correspond with those in the St. Louis Cathedral records of his nine children baptized in about 1820. Garraghan, Jesuits, 2: 493. 1333 . Kappler, Indian Treaties, 217-222. 1334 . Hagan, Sacs and Fox Indians, 27, 34. 1335 . “Official Kansas Roster,” Kansas Historical Collections,16: 722, 747. 216 Isaac McCoy, the Baptist missionary who was ready to start on his survey of the Indian Territory, to “take Noël Mongrain, a half-breed Osage, who is acquainted with the country, the routes of the Indians, & speaks the Osage and Kansas languages.” 1336 However by then, Mongrain was old and of no great help as McCoy wrote in his journal on September 3, 1828: I saw Noel Mograin (sic), an old man of 65 - a half Osage. Speaks French – but English imperfectly. He agreed to go with me as interpreter & guide . . . He said he had not expected to take the rout[e] I was taking - that he was not well acquainted with the country. . . I inquired where his horse was, when Mograin pointed to the old man’s legs and said there was his horse, one he had used for many years. 1337 Reverend McCoy found Mongrain to be “a good natured, simple old man, of no manner of use to us than to add one to our number, and to be our interpreter should we come in contact with Osage or Kanzas.” 1338 The missionary was annoyed by him for being “tedious and tiresome,” as he chatted with every Indian they met. On September 25, Mongrain chose to go home and McCoy felt that he had “no further need of his services.” Mongrain was paid $42.00 “as interpreter to Osage & Kanzas, and for use of horse from September 3d. to Sep. 30th inclusive, being twenty eight days at $1.50 pr. day.”1339 Mongrain must have performed his duties fairly satisfactorily in spite of his old age as he was again hired as an interpreter for the second exploratory trip McCoy conducted between November 8 and early December 1828.1340 The French traveler, Victor Tixier reported that both of Mongrain’s children, Baptiste and Joseph, spoke French “with perfect fluency.” 1341 The other interpreter hired by McCoy may also have been part French, according to his last name which the missionary spelled “Shadenoy,” on page 229, then “Chandonois” in the rest of his Journal. 1342 Although the missionary praised his services on September 10, noting that the “half-Putawatomie” performed “his 1336 . Barnes, ed., “The Journal of Isaac McCoy Exploration of 1828,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 5:240. 1337 . Ibid., 244-245. 1338 . Ibid., 253. 1339 . Ibid., 245, 253, 260, 275. 1340 . McDermott, ed., “Isaac McCoy’s Second Exploring Trip in 1828,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 13: 407n 23; 410. 1341 . Graves, History of Neosho County, I : 102. 1342. McCoy did not give his first name. Chandonois may have been the “J. Bts. Chandonnai “who witnessed the signing of several treaties on May 22, 1814 in Greenville, Ohio (Kappler, Indian Treaties, 105-107); on July 18, 1815 at Portage du Sioux (Ibid., 111-112; on September 8. 1815 at Spring Wells near Detroit, Michigan (Ibid., 117-119), and on October 27, 182 on the Tippecanoe River in Indiana (Ibid., 375) or the “Jean B. Chandonai “ who was granted two sections of land on the St. Joseph River under the treaty of August 29, 1821 in Chicago (Ibid. 199) or the “John Bt. Chandonai” who received $1,000 in lieu of a reservation at the time of the signing of the treaty of Chicago on September 27, 1833 (Ibid., 412). 217 part well” and was his “main dependence,” at earlier times Chandonois had caused McCoy “much trouble” on account of his being “much inclined to drink.” His behavior must not have changed as three days before the end of the expedition, on October 8, McCoy wrote: I am glad that our Indians are likely to go without Chandonois. He is a murderous fellow, and in a frolic on the road might kill some of them. His horse has a severe wound on the head made no doubt with a tomahawk in an attempt of Chandonais to kill him. 1343 From the records of the baptisms and marriage performed by Catholic priests, it appears that there were many French persons and half-breeds of French descent living among the Osages in southeast Kansas. Long before the Osage Catholic Mission was established in 1847 on the Neosho River, priests came to baptize and marry French people and Osage half-breeds. Father Charles Felix Van Quickenborne wrote in 1827: From there (Harmony Mission) 1344 I set off for the great village situated on the banks of the Neosho, two days’ journey from Harmony. About a hundred Indians came out to meet the agent whose company I was. We put up at Mr. Chouteau’s place. On the Feast of St. Louis, August 25, I had the happiness of saying the first mass ever said in this country. I remained with them two weeks and baptized seventeen people. 1345 Although performed on August 27, 1827 “ā Niosho (fluvius in Territorio Indies),” 1346 in the home of Paul Liguest Chouteau, the baptisms were entered in the records of the St. Ferdinand Church in Florissant, Missouri. 1347 Among the names of those baptized were: Alexandre Ligeste 1348; John Francis, Louis Alexandre and Pélagie Chouteau, children of P[aul] L[iguest] Chouteau; Christophe, François, Julie and Pierre, children of Baptiste Mongrain; Joseph, son of François Mongrain; Henry, Julie and Pélagie, children of Noël Mongrain; Angélique Quenville, daughter of François Quenville; Antoine and Basile Vasseur, children of Basile Vasseur. Godfathers were: P[aul] L[igueste] Chouteau, Tonish de Hêtre, P. L. Mongrain, P[ierre] M[elicourt] Papin, Louis Peltier, Alexis Pantoche and Christophe Sanguinet. 1349 1343 . Barnes, “Journal Isaac McCoy,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 5: 266. 1344 . Located in western Missouri, about a mile and a half northwest of Papinville, Missouri, a short distance east of what was Indian Territory. 1345. Garraghan, Jesuits, 1:190-191; Matthews, Osages, 538. 1346 . “at Niosho chez Mr. Ligueste Chouteau.” The home of the subagent Paul Liguest Chouteau was located between Canville and Flat Rock creeks in Neosho County. 1347 . Burns, Osage Missions, 140. 1348 . Son of Paul Liguest Chouteau and an Osage woman 1349 . Garraghan, Jesuits, 1:179, 191n37; Barry, Beginning of the West, 145; Burns, Osage Missions, 140-141; Graves, History Osage County, 1:85-86. Christophe Sanguinet was probably a 218 The registration book of the Manual Labor School of the Osage Mission lists the names of the boys who enrolled on the first day of the opening of the school on May 10, 1847. Among them were: William Biet (Beyett), Peter Blond, Stephen Blond, Louis Brugier (Brugière), Louis and Peter Chouteau. Joseph Baptiste Mongrey (Mongrain) enrolled later. 1350 Between 1841 and 1854, before the Indian Territory was opened for settlement, the following names of parents and godparents appeared in the Baptism Register of the Osage Mission: Charles, Joseph, Mary, Michel and Sarah Antoya (Entoya); Margarit Arneau (Reneau); François Barnabe; Thomas Beliot ( Belio , Bailio, Belieu, Belier); Joseph Bertrand; Alex and William Biet (Beyett); Antoine, John, Jonathan and Marguerite Bienvenu; Elisa Braconnière; Etienne, Elizabeth, Marie, and Peter Brond; Louis and Marie Brogier (Brugier, Bragier, Brugière); Auguste, Andrew, and Bernard Canville; Joseph and Rosalie Captin (Capitaine); Martin Carrier; Françoise Cardinal; Baptiste, Edouard, and Mary Chorette (Charret); Sophie Cathelet; Alexandre, Augustine, Edouard, Elizabeth, Little August, Louisa (Marie Louise), Louis, and Marguerite Masnet (Marnet, Moninet); Pélagie, Pierre, and Sophy (Sophie or Sophia) Chouteau; Jacob and Mary Ann Gilbert (Guilbert); Michel Giraud; Auguste, Baptiste, Charete, and Thomas Jaco; Auguste Mellicoure, Rosalie, 1351and Susanna Lambert; Jean Baptiste, John and Frank Michel (St. Michel); Baptiste, Charles, François, Joseph, Julie, Louis, Marie Jane , Michel, Noël, Pélagie, Sophie, and Victoria Mongrain; Louis and Victoria Mouillard (Mulliore, Mulliare); Alexandre LaForce; Julia, Mary Ann, Pélagie, and P[ierre] M[elicourt] Papin; Margaret Prineu; Julia and Louis Peltier (Peltielle); Louis Periel; Pierre Pecotte; Louis Poissant; Ursuline Revard; 1352 Elisa Roi; Joseph, Julie, and Phebe Suisse; Louisa Terentien (Terrien). 1353 Baptisms and marriage were also recorded among the Osage Indians living in Bourbon County. On June 30, 1830, at the house of François d’Aybeau, near the banks of the Marmiton River 1354 (now Marmaton River) three marriages were performed: Francis d’Aybeau, alias Brugière, a Frenchman to Mary, an Osage woman; John Brown, alias Equesne, a Frenchman, son of Stephen Brown and relative of Charles Sanguinet, one of the five partners who were granted the trade with the Great and Little Osages for five years in 1802. Barry, Beginning of the West, 46. 1350 . Garraghan, Jesuits, 2: 522-523. 1351 . Rosalie Lambert, an Osage woman born in 1819, daughter of a French-Osage man and an Osage woman was the common-law wife of Auguste Pierre “A. P.” Chouteau, and the mother of Auguste James Chouteau and Henry Chouteau. 1352 . She may have been the widow of the Joseph Rivar mentioned in Article 5 of the treaty of June 2, 1825 . Kappler, Indian Treaties, 217-222.A widow Rivard was a parishioner at St. Francis Regis Church in 1840. Barry, Beginning of the West, 419 1353 . Garraghan, Jesuits, 2: 586; Burns, Osage Missions, 34-294. 1354 . “The Marmaton had its name from the old French voyageurs or trappers who came here long before the settlers or even the traders came across the plains. Along the stream they first found prairie dogs, which they called Marmots, supposing them to be the little animal common in Europe. To which the prairie dog is related. The name Marmaton which they gave the stream. . . In old documents it is found written and printed Marmiton, Marmoton, Marmaton, Marmitaw, Marmotaw, and perhaps in other ways… ”Cory, “Place Names of Bourbon County, Kansas,” quoted by Root in “Ferries in Kansas, Part XI – Marmaton River,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 6:14. 219 Acile Giguière to Josette d’Aybeu, daughter of Françis d’Aybeu and a metis girl of the Osage Nation; and Basile Vasseur, son of Basil who was a half-breed of the Osage Nation to Mary, an Osage woman. The witnesses were Christophe Sanguinet and Louis Petier (Peltier). 1355 On July 5, 1841, ten baptisms were performed “near the Marmiton River:” Louis Mongrain, son of Joseph Mongrain and an Indian woman, godfather: Louis Mongrain; Michel Duval, son of Henri Duval and an Indian woman, godfather Edouard Chouteau; Pierre Melicour Brun, son of Etienne Brun and Marie Brusieu, godfather: Joseh Swiss; Louis Brusieu, son of Louison Brusier and Catherine Swiss, godfather: Joseph Swiss; Louis Farramond Chouteau, son of Edouard Chouteau and Rosalie Capitaine, godfather, Auguste Capitaine; Joseph Swiss, son of Joseph Swiss and Julie Mongrain, godfather, Etienne Brun; Etienne Moïse Brun, son of Etienne Brun and Marie Brusieu, godfather; François Bernabe (Barnaby) ; Elizabeth Brun, daughter of Etienne Brun and Marie Brusieu; Julie Phibe Swiss, daughter of Joseph Swiss and Julie Mongrain, godfather: Edouard Chouteau; and Marie Louisa Chouteau, daughter of Edouard Chouteau and Rosalie Capitaine, godparents: Alexander and Pélagie Chouteau. 1356 Baptisms and marriages were also performed at the trading post of Michel Giraud in Linn County. On February 21, 1840, John Baptiste Chaurette and Elise Braconier were married, and their son, Jean Baptiste was baptized on the same day, with Michel Giraud as the sponsor. On May 22, 1840, Edward Papin, son of Pierre Melicourt Papin and his half- breed wife Sophie Mongrain was baptized, with Michel Giraud as the sponsor. On August 10, 1840, Jean Baptiste St. Michel and Elizabeth Quenville (Canville) were married. Among the witnesses were Michel Giraud, Marguerite Renaud, Charles Cardinal, Louis Peltier, Thomas Mongeon (Mongrain), Martin Belhumeur, François St. Cicel (Michel), Joseph Marie, Solomon Bienville, and François Quenneville. On October 26, 1840 , Thomas Mongeon (half Osage) and Hélène De’haitre, a widow were married with John Basile, Michel Giraud, Louis Peltier, J. Arquoite, Joseph Michel, J..Petre, J. Michel, Solomon Bienville, J. Queneville, and B. L’Habitant as witnesses. On April 10, 1842, Pierre Droyard was baptized and married to Thérèse Rosekuese, an Indian woman. Mother Duchesne was the witness. AMONG THE KANSA INDIANS Under the treaty of June 3, 1825, between the government and the Kansa Nation twenty half-breed children were allotted twenty-three one-mile square tracts of land on the north bank of the Kansas River, extending east from Soldier Creek in Topeka to a point west of the mouth of the Delaware River. 1357 Seven of these sections were located in Soldier Township in Shawnee County. They were assigned to Adel (Adeline/Adelle) Lessert and her brother 1355 . Burns, Osage Missions, 145. 1356 . Ibid., 143-144; Garraghan, Jesuits, 2: 494n1. 1357 . Kappler, Indian Treaties, 223; Barry, Beginning of the West, 121. 220 Clément, children of Clément Lessert, the interpreter for the Kansa Indians and Me- ho-yah, a Kansas woman; and to Josette, Julie, Pélagie and Victoire Gonville, the four daughters of the trader Louis Gonville. The seventh section was awarded to Marie Gonville, daughter of Baptiste Gonville, Louis’ brother. 1358 Although she had an Indian mother, Adel Lessert was raised by her father‘s second wife, Julia Roy. Fannie Cole, a white settler who was Julia’s neighbor wrote: “She [Julia] was nearly white, having but very little Indian blood in her veins and she trained his Indian daughter in the ways of the white people.” 1359 Adel completely adopted the white man’s ways and his religion. On January 7, 1841 she was married to Moyse Bellemare, “a considerably older Frenchman” 1360 by Rev. Nicholas Point, S. J. in the “church of Westport.”1361 For a short while they made their home among the French community at Kawsmouth 1362 where Moyse was a respected trader. In a letter to Commissioner Manypenny, Governor Andrew H. Reeder wrote: “Belmard is a Frenchman who speaks French and English; is an intelligent man, fully competent to all the ordinary business life, and with not the slightest mixture of Indian blood, or any of the language.” 1363 In the 1840s, Adel and Moyse moved and settled on her allotment, which was tract No. 1 and on her brother Clément, Jr.’s section, which was tract No. 2, as she had inherited it after his death. She is listed as “Addell “in the 1843 Indian Census under No. 242. Fannie Cole recalled that” Adele became a fine cook, and an exceedingly neat housekeeper.” She also reported that Adel treated her Indian mother “with kindness and respect and made her children do likewise.” When her mother died, she “refused to allow any Indian ceremonies but had her attired in neat burial clothes, and buried like white people.” 1364 Adel exerted a great influence on the Kansa Indians and was admired by Governor Reeder who wrote: Adele is a half-breed daughter of Clément Lasette (sic), a French trader; has all the manners and habits of a white, is acute and intelligent, and converses well in probably two more languages than yourself. Indeed, if I were allowed to venture an opinion, I should say 1358 . A map of Shawnee County shows the location of the seven tracts of land. Ibid., 167. 1359 . Cole, “The Kansas Indians in Shawnee County after 1855,” Kansas Historical Collections, 8: 482. 1360 . Also written Bellemere, Bellemore, Belmard, Bellemare, and Bellmar. He was baptized on May 9, 1812 in Yamachiche, Quebec. He was a member of the French mission church in Westport in the 1840s. Barry, Beginning of the West, 419; Cole, “Kansas Indians,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 8: 482. Their three children each received a forty-acre tract from the Kansa reservation under the treaty of August 5, 1859. In that assignement she is listed as “Adel Bellmard.” Kappler, Indian Treaties, 802. 1361 . Copy of the record of their marriage is in Garraghan, Catholic Beginnings between pages 108 and 109; Barry, Beginning of the West, 422 1362 . Hoffhaus, Chez les Canses, 164. 1363 . Letter of Governor Reeder to Commissioner Manpenny, Kansas Historical Collections, 5: 226. 1364 . Cole, “Kansa Indians,” Kansas Historical Collections, 8: 482-483. 221 that Mr. and Mrs. Belmard are quite as competent to superintend your bargains as you and your agent are to superintendent theirs. 1365 Moyse Belmard’s name appears on the account book of St. Mary’s Pottawatomie Mission as the builder of the chapel of the Sacred Heart at Soldier Creek 1366 and he is recorded in the Kansas Territorial Census of 1855. The Kansas Census of 1865 reads: “Moses, 52; Adell, 42; Joseph, 17 (born in Missouri?); Julia, 12 (born in Kansas); Leonard, 4 (born in Kansas).”Adel died about 1870 and is buried in the Rochester Cemetery in Topeka.1367 Tract No. 3 was awarded to Josette Gonville,1368 daughter of Louis Gonville, a French trader among the Kansa Indians since 1807 and his first wife, Hunt Jimmy, daughter of the Kansa chief, White Plume On October 25, 1837, Josette was married to Joseph Pappan at “Chouteau’s Church” in Kansas City, Missouri by Rev. Felix J. Verreydt, Jr. 1369 She had previously been baptized at the same church on April 19, 1835 by Father Benedict , the sponsors being François G. Chouteau and his wife Bérénice who had raised her. 1370 In the spring of 1840 or even earlier, the couple moved on her allotment that was located in North Topeka.1371 Joseph and Josette must have built a cabin shortly after their arrival as in December of 1841, Isaac McCoy reported that some improvements had been made on the land when he visited the area at the request of the government which wanted to acquire the half-breed reserves. Writing in the Picayune of New Orleans, Matthew C. Field described the Pappan’s cabin as he found it in mid-October, 1843: Two bedsteads and a crib – a dozen loose planks laid over the rough cross-beams formed the second story in which we could see deposited an old saddle tree, a rusty gun barrel, a dusty umbrella skeleton in rags, etc, etc. – 5 tin cups ornamented the venerable remains of a common sideboard – 5 three legged stools were de- ranged around the apartment, and 5 juvenillians, of as many colors, romped over and under and around everything to the infinite merriment and heart’s delight of their tender, copper colored mamas. Around the walls hung, on wooden pegs and old nails, a little red framed looking glass, with a picture of a red frame house that seemed to be of fire, painted on an upper panel of the glass. There is something by the side of the house resembling Vesuvius in eruption, though the painter may have meant it for a tree, preferring red to the common color of green. Under this hung a common glass liquor flask, 1365 . Governor A. H. Reeder’s Administration, Kansas Historical Collections, 5: 226. 1366 . Garraghan, Catholic Beginnings, 120. 1367 . Cole, “Kansa Indians,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 8: 483. 1368 . Also called Marie Josephine, and Josephine. She was born in 1817. 1369 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 335; Shawnee County Historical Society Bulletin, 47:110. 1370 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 258. 1371 . They may have moved before 1840 as Father Point does not include them in his 1840 list of residents at Kawsmouth. Ibid., 409. 222 with some sort of dirty oil in it, and next to the flask a vial, containing something altogether unguessable. Then there was a white coon skin (killed on the Mohawk), a woman’s sunbonnet, a string of praying beads, with a little brass crucifix, several soiled engravings of the Archangel’s slaying the serpent, the Holy Ghost descending &C. & C., pinned to a towel and the towel nailed to the wall, a rifle (Hawkins’ best), a shot bag, powder horn, strings of onions, a dried pumpkin, a polished tin pan and a white hat. A wood ladle, a pewter teapot and a very handsome cracked china bowl ornamented a shelf above the fire place – everything clean, and the rough boards carefully swept, 2 iron dogs in the fireplace sustained a pile of no less than 7 blazing logs.1372 Matthew C. Field was invited to share his host’s supper: When about to get us supper, the lady of the house pulled up a couple of planks from the floor, and jumped down, threw a pile of potatoes out which were forthwith peeled and washed and put on the fire. Boiled pumpkin, cold & insipid, wild turkey, warmed in hot water, potatoes, nearly cooked, strong coffee, without sugar and unsettled, and flour biscuits, homemade, heavy and cold, were laid before us; and we fancied it something like home, inasmuch as we sat on raised seats at a four legged platform.1373 Matthew C. Field wrote in the New Orleans Daily Picayune, January 6, 1844: Some of these [good farms] are owned and occupied by intelligent half-breeds, or by French traders who have gained the land through Government provision, by marrying women of the Kansas nation. Some of these females are made interesting and attractive by education at the missionary schools on the outskirts of Missouri, and we saw one who spoke French and English well, besides the native language of her tribe. She looked, also, sedate and modest while moving about in the performance of her household affairs, and took care of her children in a matronly way, but we are sorry to say, she couldn’t cook potatoes at all and her “Corn dodgers” were heavy and not half-baked. As a few of us made her our hostess for a couple of days, we had a fair chance of finding out that the Kaw woman was no cook. 1374 1372 . Gregg, and McDermott, eds., Prairie and Mountain Sketches, 211. 1373 . Ibid., 212. 1374 . Ibid., 34-35. 223 Apparently Josette Pappan was not as good a cook as Adel (Lessert) Bellemare. Josette was listed under the name of “Josaphine, number 160” in the 1843 Kansa Indian Census.1375 Her husband ran the ferry in Topeka. 1376 Josette’s half sister, Julie, received tract No. 4, also in North Topeka. Her parents were Louis Gonville and his wife, Wyhesee,1377 daughter of White Plume. In about 1839 she married Louis Pappan, Joseph’s brother and partner in the operation of the ferry. 1378 She was listed under the name of “July. Number 161” in the Kansa Indians Census of 1843. Her daughter, Ellen Pappan was to be Vice- President Charles Curtis’ mother. He lived on Tract No. 4 with his French-speaking grandmother Julie Pappan after the death of his mother. 1379 Tract 5 was awarded to Pélagie Gonville, daughter of Louis Gonville and Hunt Gimmy. She was a full sister of Josette and a half-sister of Julie and Victoire. Pélagie 1380 married a Frenchman, named Francoeur (also François) d’Aubry in 1842. His name, listed under “Mab Frankier” in the 1843 Indian Census, number 163 is recorded rather than his wife’s name. In other documents, he is named “Amable Francoeur de Aubri” and “Fronkier.” He is listed as Mab Frankiers among the employees of the Fort Leavenworth Agency when he was hired as assistant blacksmith for the Kansas Indians from 1841 to1855. 1381 Governor Reeder wrote to George M. Manypenny concerning Josette and Pélagie’s husbands: Louis Pappin is a white man – a shrewd and intelligent Frenchman, who speaks the French and English well, is quite at home in all the ordinary transactions of life, and so far from being an Indian that he has not the slightest admixture of Indian blood, and cannot speak the language. Aubrey is precisely the same, and no more of an Indian that yourself. Their wives are the daughters of Louis Gondil, a French trader, and his Indian wife – quite as intelligent, as their parentage 1375 . Barry, “Scenes in Kansas Territory,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 39: 487. 1376 . Their four children received each a forty-acre tract out of the Kansas reservation under the treaty of October 5, 1859. Kappler, Indian Treaties, 802. 1377 . Also called “Waisijasi.” She was born about 1798. 1378 . William E. Unrau wrote: “Sometime before 1829, apparently in her early adolescent years, Julie [Gonville] had lived with Louis Roy. The union had not lasted, and on June 13, 1829, in a civil ceremony conducted by Justice of the Peace Andrew P. Patterson, she had married Clément Lessert.” On page 36, he added: “Julia left Lessert and married Joseph’s [Papan] brother Louis.” It appears that William E. Unrau confused Julie Gonville with Julia Roy, fourteen-year old daughter of Louis Roy who married Clément Lessert on June 13, 1829, according to the records of marriages of Jackson County, Missouri. Unrau, Mixed-Bloods , 35 1379 . Curtis, “born to a mother who valued her Franco-Indian heritage taught her son the French and Kansa languages.” Ibid., 64. Julie is listed as Julia Gonville in the treaty of October 5, 1859, which granted a forty-acre tract out of the Kansas reservation to her eight children. Her husband, named as “Lewis Pappan” was also awarded a forty-acre tract. Kappler, Indian Treaties, 802. 1380 . Pélagie is listed as “Pelagia Obrey” in the treaty of October 5, 1859 by which her four children each received a forty-acre tract of land out of the Kansa reservation. Ibid., 802. 1381 . Ibid., 441,165, 502, 533. 224 and station would indicate, and with whom the French is their daily and domestic language.1382 Tract No. 6 went to Victoire Gonville (also called Margaret), 1383daughter of Louis Gonville and Wyhesee. She married Ahcan Pappan 1384 (also called Eugene and Etienne), brother of Joseph and Louis Pappan. 1385 Matthew C. Field, who stopped at the Pappan’s cabin on October 15, 1843, wrote in his diary: sisters – really beautiful – educated at the Mission near Westport – talk French, English, Kaw & Iowa – 4 married to Frenchmen – one to an intelligent half-breed Delaware – a sixth now growing to make some other shrewd fellow happy – for these men get a certain quantity of land right of the Kaw woman.1386 The last lot in Shawnee County, No. 7 was awarded to Marie Gonville, daughter of Baptiste Gonville, brother of Louis Gonville. 1387 The daughters of three Frenchmen, Clément Lessert, Louis and Baptiste Gonville, and their French husbands, Moyse Bellemare, Joseph Pappan, Louis Pappan, Francoeur d’Aubry, and Ahcan Pappan were probably the first settlers in Shawnee County. In what is now Jefferson County, allotment No. 8, was awarded to Laflèche Gonville, son of Baptiste Gonville. It was contiguous to his sister Marie’s land, located in Shawnee County. The next allotment, No. 9 went to Louis Laventure, son of François Laventure and a Kansa woman.1388 Tract 10 was given to Pierre and Elizabeth Carboneau, children of Pierre Brisa and Ahsingah, a full-blood Kansa woman. Brisa was an independent French trader, sometimes known as Rivalette. The children took the name of Carboneau as they were reared in the home of Pierre Carboneau who owned lot No. 4 in Westport, Missouri.1389 Pierre died young 1390 and his sister, Elizabeth became heir to her brother’s property. On November 28, 1838, William Bowers officiated at the marriage of Elizabeth Carboneau and Joseph Vertefeuille,1391 a French trader 1382 . Governor A. H. Reeder’s Administration, Kansas Historical Collections, 5: 226. 1383 . Victoire Gonville was born about 1819. In the treaty of October 5, 1849 where she is named “Victoria Pappan,” her two children received a forty-acre tract of land out of the Kansa reservation. Kappler, Indian Treaties, 802. 1384 . Ahcan Pappan was born in January 1838 and died June 24, 1923. He is listed as “Acaw Pappan” in the treaty of October 5, 1859 by which his child received a tract of land, unless it refers to his son. Ibid., 802. 1385 . In some documents she is called Victoria Gonville Smith. 1386 . Gregg-McDermott, Prairie and Mountain Sketches, 210-211. 1387 . By the treaty of October 5, 1859, a “Baptest Gonville” was awarded a forty-acre tract of land. Kappler, Indian Treaties, 802. 1388 . Also called Lavonture. Louis died in 1847 or 1848. Barry, “Fort Aubrey,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 39: 484. 1389 . The plan of Westport made by Father Nicholas Point is reproduced in Wilderness Kingdom, 29. 1390 . Pierre is listed under the name of Perish in the 1843 Indian Census, and being over 40 years old. Kansas Historical Quarterly, 39: 484. 1391 . Also written Vertafault, Strikefire, Vertify, Vertifee. Jackson County Early Marriage Records, Independence, Missouri. He was a resident at Kawsmouth in the early 1840s. Barry, Beginning of 225 employed by the American Fur Company at Kawsmouth.1392 Vertefeuille is listed in the 1840 Census of Jackson County as Joseph Vertify, living with him were a female, aged less than 20, and a child, less than 5. They were at the time residing in Westport on lot No. 7.1393 In the 1850 Federal Census, he is recorded as being 30 years old; Elizabeth, 28; Peleshie (Pélagie), 10; Louise, 8 and Victoria, 6. 1394 Elizabeth (Carboneau) Vertefeuille died on July 27, 1851. 1395 It is not known when they moved to the half-breed tract on the Kansas River. A deposition made by Moyse Bellemard alleged that he moved Joseph Vertifee to the half-breed land where he stayed for a short while before going up to “J. Pappin’s” in Shawnee County. 1396 Lots 12, 13 and 14 were awarded to Louis, Basil and James Joncas. Their last names suggest that their father may have been French but there is no information about them. Lot 15 was given to Elizabeth Datcherute. Her father was Baptiste Datcherute, a free Negro from St. Louis who was the son of a French merchant who lived with a black woman in St. Genevieve, Missouri prior to the founding of St. Louis.1397 Baptiste had been an interpreter at the time of the signing of the treaty of June 3, 1825 as he spoke the Kansa language well, having married a Kansa woman and lived among her tribe for many years. He died in 1846 at the Chouteau’s trading post on Mission Creek. 1398 Elizabeth married John Boudon, a mixed-blood, born of a French father and a black woman. John was well educated, a fine violinist who gave dancing lessons to the children of the best families. It is not known if Elizabeth lived on her section at any time.1399 Section 16 was allotted to Joseph Butler and section 18 to William Rodgers, probably both children of American citizens. Lot 18 went to Joseph Coté and lots 19, 20, 21, 22 were given to the sons of Cicili Comparé. 1400 From their last names the West, 419. General Hardy who married Victoria Vertefeuille, Joseph and Elizabeth’s daughter in 1860 wrote that he was well acquainted with Joe Vertafault [sic] and his family, for they were both employed by the American Fur Company, and that Elizabeth Vertefault was the wife of Joe Vertafault. Unrau, Mixed-Bloods, 130. 1392 . Ibid., 129-130. 1393 . See above note on Point’s map of Westport. 1394 . Victoria Vertefeuille married Louis Catalan (Catalon), a Frenchman, nephew of the Pappan brothers and owner of a farm in Soldier Township in Shawnee County where he had arrived in 1848. Shawnee County Historical Society Bulletin, 1:8. In 1860 she may have married General Hardy who wrote that he was well acquainted with “Joe Vertafault “and his family, for they were employed by the American Fur Company. Quoted by Unrau in Mixed-Bloods,130. 1395 . Vital Historical Records, Jackson County, Missouri, 1826-1876, 267. By the treaty of October 5, 1859. Elizabeth Carboneau’s two children received each a forty-acre tract of land out of the Kansa reservation. Ibid., 802. 1396 . Testimony taken at the request of W. H. Coombs – Special Commissioner Report. 1397 . Houck, History of Missouri, 2: 2n7. 1398 . “Remiscences of Frederick Chouteau,” Kansas Historical Collections, 8:426. 1399 . Ibid., 426. 1400 . One of the sons of Cicili Comparé may be the Francis Comparret who was a witness at the time of the signing of the treaty of October 27, 1832 on the Tippecanoe River in Indiana or the F. Comparet who acted as interpreter on October 29, 1834 at the Forks of the Wabash when a treaty was signed between the Miami Indians and the government. Kappler, Indian Treaties, 375, 428. 226 one could assume that the last five lots were awarded to sons of Frenchmen and their Kansa wives. Nothing is known about Coté 1401 and Comparé. The last track was awarded to Joseph James, son of Hunt Jimmy, daughter of chief White Plume and her second husband. On November 18, 1854, as he was traveling through what is now Shawnee County, William H. Hunter, editor of the Easton (Pennsylvania) Argus wrote: “ I find quite a number of Frenchmen here, who have become large land holders in Kansas. . . and the Indian girls, owing to some strange and unaccountable fancy, seem to prefer them to our own countrymen.” 1402 Louis Gonville 1403 may have been the earliest French settler in Kansas as he is recorded as residing among the Kansa Nation as early as 1807 when, with the help of François G. Chouteau, he received a one-year hunting license on the Kansas River on September 12, 1807. 1404 Prior to that date he must have been in the Upper Missouri region where he was considered “one of the most expert among the pilots of the Missouri.”1405 When he was in the employ of the Chouteaus, Frederick Chouteau stated: “ Louis Gonville was a trapping Before I came to Kansas he got his outfit from my Brother Francis Such as trap Rifle powder & lead he would Start in the fall and Return in the Spring he would make successful hunt he followed that for several years.”1406 After a period of unemployment during the War of 1812, Gonville was jailed in the St. Charles prison in Missouri as an insolvent debtor.1407 Upon release from prison, he returned to Kansas where Thomas Say, the zoologist who accompanied Major Stephen H. Long’s expedition in 1819, reported that “Mr. Gunville”, a French trader furnished him two pack horses and a saddle as the state of his health did not permit to continue his journey on foot. He also guided him to return to Cantonnerment Martin. 1408 Later his presence at the Kansas Agency 1409 was 1401 . Joseph Coté may have been the Joseph Coté who was the widower of a Chippewa woman, named Ingwaysuh who was deceased at the time of the treaty of August 5, 1821 signed at “Fond du Lac of Lake Superior.” Kappler, Indian Treaties, 272. He may have later remarried a Kansa woman, whose son was awarded lot 18. 1402 . Barry, ed. “Letters of William H. Hunter, Kansas Historical Quarterly, 35 : 326. 1403 . Also written Gunville, Goniville, Gonoville, and Gouveville. William E. Unrau wrote:” Michilimackinac baptismal records indicate that on 3 July 1752 a Jesuit missionary baptized the thirteen or fourteen-year old son of “a Mr. La Platte and of a Savage of Cammanettigouia [or Potawatomi]. The godmother was recorded as ”a M. Bourassa,” and the godfather as “a Mr. de Gonneville.” The boy was named Louis, and he took the surname of Gonville. In view of a known migration of Gonvilles from Canada to the St. Louis area not long thereafter, this individual may have been the father of the Louis Gonville whose marriage to a daughter of White Plume was legitimated by Father Lutz in 1828.” Mixed-Bloods, 14. 1404 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 9; Unrau, Mixed-Bloods, 15. 1405 . Tabeau’s Narrative of the Loisel’s Expedition, 60. 1406 . Letter of Frederick Chouteau to W. W. Cone, dated May 10, 1880. Chouteau Papers, Missouri State Historical Society; Unrau, Mixed-Bloods, 15. 1407 . Ibid., 15. Missouri Gazette and Louisiana Advertiser, (St. Louis), May 20, 1815. 1408 . Cantonnement Martin was located on Ile ā la Vache or Cow Island on the Kansas bank of the Missouri’s channel between Atchison and Leavenworth. 1409 . It was established in Jefferson County, four miles below the mouth of Grasshopper River (now Delaware River). 227 acknowledged by several travelers. In 1827 he was living near his father-in-law, White Plume. On September 19, 1829, on his tour of exploration to “acquire a more definite knowledge of a part of the Indian Territory”, Reverend Isaac McCoy added to his company “Plume’s son-in-law [Louis] Gunville, a Frenchman, who, though he could speak very little English, “was our only interpreter.” 1410 William Marshall Anderson who kept a journal in 1834 during his travel to the Rocky Mountains with William L. Sublette told how, when camping across the Kansas Agency, he met a wrinkled white-haired man who called himself “Vieil (Old) and spoke a little French 1411 Anderson probably was referring to Louis Gonville who occupied a very important position in the tribe on account of his relationship with the head chief. He died in 1852. 1412 He had married successively two of White Plume’s daughters; first, Hunt Jimmy from whom he had two daughters, Josette (Mary Josephine) 1413 and Pélagie; then in late 1817 or early 1818, he married Wyhesee, Hunt Jimmy’s younger sister. From the latter marriage were born six children: Victoire, Rosalie, Louis, America, Baptiste, and Julie.1414 Baptiste Gonville, Louis’ brother, was also a trader among the Kansa Indians and may have married a Kansa woman as his two children, Marie and Laflèche received allotments on the Kansas River under the treaty of June 3, 1825. Two Frenchmen, Antoine Tacier in 1847 and Joseph LaFrame in 1850 settled in what was the Pottawatomie reservation, west of Topeka. AMONG THE MIAMI, PEORIA, WEA AND PIANKESKHAW INDIANS After relinquishing their lands in Indiana and Illinois in 1846, the Miami, Peoria, Wea and Piankeshaw Indians moved to what is now Miami County and with them came French traders who, according to Reverend Thomas H. Kinsella, were probably the first white residents in the county. 1415 The Miami village was located ten miles southeast of Paola. Paola itself was the site of a Peoria village while the Wea Indians were settled a mile east of Paola. In 1847 the Miamis requested the government to advance money out of their annuities for the construction of a manual labor school under the direction of the Catholic Church 1416 as they had had contact with the Jesuits in Chicago and on the St. Joseph River in southern Michigan. They also had visited the neighboring Pottawatomie Mission on Sugar Creek and had been “deeply impressed by the great importance of educating [their] people.” 1417 The Jesuits constructed a mission among them and administered the sacraments of baptism and marriage to the French persons, half-breeds, and 1410 . McCoy, History Baptist Indian Missions, 393-394. 1411 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 265. 1412 . Testimony of Frederick Chouteau:”I employ Louis as a laboring hand he remained with me until his death in 1852 he was a very good man that you could depend upon.” Unrau, Mixed-Bloods, 15. 1413 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 335. 1414 . Rosalie married Charles Fish, son of a Shawnee-Delaware mixed-blood. Louis, America, and Baptiste died young. 1415 . Kinsella, History of Our Cradle, 57. 1416 . Garraghan, Jesuits, 2 : 219, 221. 1417 . Ibid., 2 : 231. 228 Indians belonging to the nations of the areas, even after the mission was no longer in existence. The Register of Baptisms records the baptisms between 1848 and 1854: Moisis and Michael, twin sons of Charles Gibeau and Adeline Prayon; Clémens Bourdon, son of Joseph Bourdon and Sophie Gibeau; Adeline Esther, daughter of Joseph and Matilda Tebeau; Joseph Paul, son of Peter David Gibeau; Francis, son of Joseph and Sophia Gibeau; Mary Attiline, daughter of John Boure and Rosalie Gibeau; Marcus, son of Luther Pascal; Margaret Mary Louisa, daughter of James (Jaco) and Margarite Robbedeau (Robidoux); Louis, son of Joseph Tebeau and Matilde Reoume; Anne Polen, daughter of Moses Polen. Among the godparents of the above children are found the names of: Joseph Bourdon, Mary Bourdon, Sophia (Sophy) Bourdon (Bourdeau), Jon Bourg, Lucier Dagenette, Fonsaint Cartissere, Charles Gibeau, Eliah (Ely) Gibeau, Joseph Gibeau, Mary Gibeu (Jebeu), Mathilda Gibeu (Jubeau), Rosalie Gibeau, Felicita Guiro (Giraud), Louis LaFountain, Mary LaFountian, 1418 Felice Revard, Michael Richardville, 1419 Mary Louise Richardville, James (Jaco) Robbedeau, John Robideau, Mary Tebeau. In the Register of Marriages 1420are listed the following unions: Joseph Bourdon, son of François Bourdon and Lisette Péret to Sophie Gibeau, daughter of Louis Gibeu and Marie Louise Robidou; Charles Gibeau, son of Louis Gibeau and Marie Louise Robidoux to Adeline Prayon, daughter of Etienne Prayon and Aloïse Prébert ; Joseph Gibeau, son of Louis Gibeu and Marie Louise to Mathilde Prayon, daughter of Etienne Prayon and Aloïse Prebert; Joseph Bourch to an Indian woman; Hamilton Bertrand to Eliza Parson; G. B. Bourre to Rose Anne Gibeau, witness: Pierre David Gibeau; and Stephen Cott, a Canadian to Mary Vajeret. AMONG THE SHAWNEE INDIANS Although Mackinaw Beauchemie 1421 lived among the Shawnee Indians in Kansas, he was considered a Pottawatomie. The son of a Frenchman and a Chippewa woman, he was born in Mackinaw, Michigan, therefore his given name. It is surmised that his father was a colonel in the French army who was about to be shipped back to France after General Wolfe defeated the French forces. When he was arranging to have his two sons placed on board a ship transporting troops back to their native land, their mother, Maune, the daughter of a Chippewa chief managed to flee with her children, finally finding refuge among the Pottawatomies among whom Mackinaw was raised. 1418 . They were probably the descendants of Chief Francis La Fontaine who had married the daughter of John B. Richardville 1419 . Michael D. Richardville obtained a license to trade with the Miamis between 1849 and 1854. Barry, Beginning of the West, 879,1059, 1138,1190. He was probably a descendant of Chief John B. Richardville, son of Joseph de Richardville, a French trader and member of the French nobility who married Tacumwah, sister of the Miami chief Little Turtle. 1420 . Kinsella., History of our Cradle, 240-241; Barry, Beginning of the West, 728-729. 1421 . Also written Beauchemin, Beauchmie, Boachman, Bocheman, Bushman, Bashman. Spencer, “Rev. Mackinaw Boachman, the Indian Divine,” Kansas Historical Collections, 10 : 401- 402; Lutz, “Methodist Missions,” Kansas Historical Collections, 9: 212n82 229 Mackinaw Beauchemie married Mary (Polly, Betsy) Rogers, daughter of Henry Rogers 1422 and his wife, the daughter of Blackfish, chief of the Shawnees. 1423 After his marriage he settled among the Shawnees and worked for the American Fur Company, hunting and trapping beaver and otter in the Rocky Mountains. When back from the mountains, he began attending the religious services at the Shawnee Methodist Mission and converted to Christianity. Being fluent in the Pottawatomie language, he was sent to the Pottawatomie Methodist Mission located on Pottawatomie Creek, not far from the Miami-Franklin county line where Reverend Thomas Johnson employed him as a “native exhorter. . . who speaks the language to labor among them [the Pottawatomies] the winter [1837-1838] and to act as interpreter for the missionary when he arrives.” 1424 He may have stayed there until May 1843 when he was reported in charge of the mission. 1425 In 1842, his name appears as class leader in the journal of the Shawnee Mission. 1426 In the fall of 1845 he was admitted as a preacher on trial at the Indian Mission conference and in 1846 was officially licensed. On June 17, 1846 Beauchemie witnessed the treaty between the government and the Pottawatomie Nation where his name appears as “Bossman.” 1427 In the fall of 1847 he received all the privileges of membership in the Methodist Conference, was ordained deacon, and was sent as a missionary to the Wea, Chippewa and Sac Mission from 1845 to 1847. 1428. He died May 12, 1848 at the old Pottawatomie Methodist Mission on Pottawatomie Creek. 1429 Bishop James O. Andrew who visited several Indian Missions in 1848 wrote: “During the past year one who was probably the greatest and best of the Pottawatomies was removed from earth, the Rev, Mackinaw Boachman, a man of rare gifts and ardent and consistent piety.” AT THE INDIAN AGENCIES Several Frenchmen and half–breeds were employed in various capacities by the government to work at the agencies established within the Indian reservations. Paul Liguest Chouteau, who had been subagent since 1813 when the Osages were still living in Missouri moved to Kansas before 1815, 1430 was named subagent in 1827 at the Neosho Agency, which was located between Flat Rock Creed and the Neosho River in Mission Township, at the site of St. Paul, Neosho County. He was 1422 . Henry Rogers, a white boy from Virginia had been kidnapped by the Shawnees and raised in Chief Blackfish’s family. 1423 . It is neither known when Beauchemie arrived in Kansas nor when he married. Their first child was born in 1834 at the old Shawnee Methodist Mission which had been built in 1830, three- fourths of a mile southeast of Turner in Wyandotte County. Barry, Beginning of the West, 179, 260. Their daughter, Julia Ann married Colonel Thomas N. Stinson. 1424 Ibid, 355, 356. 1425 . Ibid., 472. 1426 . Ibid., 472, 749. 1427 . Kappler, Indian Treaties, 560. 1428 . Lutz, “Methodist Missions”, Kansas Historical Collections, 9: 228. 1429 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 749. 1430 . Graves, History of Neosho County, 1: 512. 230 promoted to agent in 1830. On July 2, 1834, Elbert Herring, Commissioner for Indian Affairs informed him that the agency for the Osages had been reduced to a subagency and proposed to him to remain there as subagent. He accepted the offer and served in that capacity until his resignation in 1838. 1431 The Subagency moved in 1837 to the former Wea Mission building on Wea Creek near Paola in Miami County.1432 Baptiste Mongrain, son of Noël Mongrain was hired as interpreter for the Osage Nation in 1827 and served in that function until 1838. At the Osage Agency also were Joseph Trumbee,1433 working as blacksmith from October 1831 to October 1833; Gabriel Philibert, having come from the Kansa Agency, was a gunsmith and blacksmith in 1835 and 1836.1434 Louis Peletrie (Peltier) was a striker in 1831-1832 and in 1833 for six months.1435 Etienne Brant was an assistant blacksmith in 1836 and a blacksmith in 1837. 1436 Louison Bréquier was assistant blacksmith in 1837. François L. Vallier, who had been paid $8.00 for his services as interpreter during the removal of several hundred Pottawatomie Indians from southeast Iowa to Kansas in 1835, was appointed interpreter among the Osages in 1837. 1437 Charles Mongrain, Noël Mongrain’s grandson, was interpreter for the Osage Nation from 1841 to 1856. In 1845 he sold his home and farm to the United State government for $500, to be used as the Osage Subagency. It was located “on [Flat] Rock Creek on high ground & in the Centre of the Osage Nation”, on the main road leading from the “white settlements to the Villages.” It consisted of two rooms, measuring fifty by sixteen feet, connected by a covered way, with two chimneys, plank floors and glass windows; two smoke houses, a barn, and three corncribs. 1438 Elias N. Beardon was hired as a blacksmith in 1842 and 1843.1439 François Mitchell (his name had been changed from St. Mitchelle) was assistant blacksmith from 1844 to 1856.1440 Joseph Captain was assistant blacksmith from 1844 to July of 1850; then was appointed assistant miller in July 1850 and again blacksmith in 1851.1441 Louis 1431 . Paul Liguest Chouteau served as interpreter for the Osage Indians between 1869 and 1871, “Official Kansas Roster,” Kansas Historical Collections, 16: 737. 1432 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 272; “Official Kansas Roster,” Kansas Historical Collections, 16: 726. 1433 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 221, 245. Probably the “Tremble” who is indicated as occupying lot # 6 in Father Point’s map of Westport, Missouri in 1840. Ibid., 419. 1434 . Also written Phillibert. Ibid., 221, 300; “Official Kansas Roster,” Kansas Historical Collections, 16 : 725, 726. 1435 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 221, 245. He had been in the area at least since 1827 as he served as sponsor and witness of a baptism in 1827. Ibid., 145. On November 23rd, 1841, he was married to Angélique Osinga, near the Marmaton River. Ibid., 439. 1436 . Ibid., 318, 340. 1437 . Ibid., 313, 340. 1438 . Ibid., 422, 441, 465, 502, 533, 661, 730, 792, 896, 971, 1137, 1190. 1439 . Ibid., 465, 502. 1440 . Ibid., 533, 569, 661, 730, 792, 896, 977, 1058, 1190., On November 17, 1841 he married Mary Jane Prior (Pryor) near the Marmaton River. Ibid., 439. 1441 . Ibid., 533, 569, 661, 730, 792, 896, 977, 1058. 231 Gotte was assistant blacksmith from January to April of 1844.1442 Joseph Swiss or La Suisse was interpreter in 1844, 1845 and 1847.1443 L. Brenizier and Samuel Benevue were assistant millers in 1847 after the first grist and saw mills were completed.1444 Augustus Captain 1445 was assistant miller in 1848 and miller in 1849 and 1850 until July 11. 1446 Peter Chouteau was assistant miller from 1849 to 1851, 1447 William Biet (Beyett) was a blacksmith in 1851 1448 and Joseph Mitchell was assistant blacksmith in 1855-1856. 1449 The ledger books of Balackston & Warfied who traded with the Osages show that John Mishell (St. Michel) “commenced as interpreter January 12th 1852 at $15.00 per month.” It also indicates that Misho (Michel) Bevewaw (Bienvenue), Lafose (Laforce) Papin, and John Bazziel (Bazile) had accounts with the company.1450 Pierre Cadue, 1451 a Frenchman, was the first white man to reside in what is now Doniphan County. He arrived there with the Kickapoo Indians after they relinquished their land on the Osage River in Missouri and received a reserve in northeast Kansas by the treaty of October 24, 1832, which Cadue witnessed as an interpreter in Castor Hill, county of St. Louis, Missouri.1452 He continued to serve as interpreter for the Kickapoo Nation at the Great Nemaha Subagency, located just above the mouth of Wolf River. On November 12, 1833, he was a witness at the Indian peace council held in Fort Leavenworth 1453 and was listed in the February 26, 1835 report of the Indian Department as interpreter for the Kickapoos. 1454 He also acted as interpreter in Fort Leavenworth during the signing of the treaty between the Ioway tribe and the band of the Sacs and Foxes of Missouri and the United States government on September 17, 1836.1455 He was reappointed as interpreter for the Sacs and Foxes in the year 1841 and for the Kickapoo Nation in 1442 . Ibid., 533. 1443 . Ibid.,533, 569; “Official Kansas Roster.” Kansas Historical Collections, 16: 730. In September of 1839 he had accompanied a small mounted party from Bent’s Fort in Colorado down the Arkansas River and the Santa Fe Trail to Missouri. Barry, Beginning of the West, 381. 1444 . Ibid., 602, 730. 1445 . Augustus Captain (Capitaine) was born of a French father and an Osage mother. He lived three miles west of the mission on a creek, which was called after him but presently bears the name of Ogeese, the adulterated spelling and pronunciation of his given name. Graves, Annals of the Osage Mission, 390. 1446 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 792, 896, 977; Garraghan, Jesuits, 2: 504n16. 1447 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 896, 977, 1058. 1448 . Ibid., 1058. 1449 . “Official Kansas Roster,” Kansas Historical Collections, 16:732. 1450 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 1057. 1451 . His name was also written Cadjoe, Cutjoe, Cadjo, Cudjo, and Cadeho. Horton, Kansas Headlight, February 27, 1908. 1452 . Kappler, Indian Treaties, 365-367 1453 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 251. 1454 . Ibid., 283-284; “Official Kansas Roster,” Kansas Historical Collections, 16 : 725. 1455 . Kappler, Indian Treaties, 468-470; Barry, Beginning of the West, 314-315. 232 1851, 1852, and 1853 at the Great Nemaha Subagency.1456 He was chosen on December 27, 1853 as a delegate to the “Nebraska Convention” that met on January 9, 1854 in St. Joseph, Missouri.1457 On May 18, 1854, in Washington, D. C., he witnessed and signed with an X the treaty by which the Kickapoo Indians ceded their land in northeast Kansas and moved a short distance west into a diminished reserve. 1458 There was a special provision in the treaty, which read: Article 6 – It is the desire of the Kickapooo Indians that their faithful friend and interpreter, Peter Cadue, should have a home provided for him and his family. It is therefore agreed that there shall be assigned to him a tract of land equal to one section, to be taken from the legal subdivisions of the surveyed land, and to include his present residence and improvement on Cadue’s Creek . 1459 On the same day, he served as interpreter at the time of the signing of the treaty between the “Sauk and Foxes of Missouri” and the United States government. 1460 After living on Cadue’s Creek (now Peter’s Creek), 1461 on the site of the town of Wathena, he moved in 1847 to a section located between Palermo and Geary City, also in Doniphan County. In 1885 he attempted to convert his allotment into a town, which he named Petersburgh 1462 but the venture failed. He then settled on the diminished reserve. Cadue married successively three daughters of Wathena, the Kickapoo chief. One of them was named Keesh-pe. All three died of consumption. Cadue had one son called Paul, an intelligent man who became influential in his tribe. Peter Cadue enjoyed a good reputation and was greatly respected. He probably died on the reservation after been thrown from a pony on his way home from Kennekuk in Atchison Country near the Brown County line.1463 Pascal Pensineau, born in Cahokia, Illinois on April 17, 1796, must have helped his brother, Laurent in the operation of the trading post among the Kickapoos above Fort Leavenworth. At the early age of thirteen, he had traveled with his father, an important employee of the American Fur Company. His responsibility was to deliver merchandise from Mackinaw to the Kickapoo, 1456 . Ibid., 441, 1058, 1137, 1190; “Official Roster of Kansas,” Kansas Historical Collections, 16 : 731-732. 1457 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 1189. 1458 . Ibid., 1215; “ Official Roster of Kansas,” Kansas Historical Collections, 16 :764. . Barry, Beginning of the West, 1215; “Official Kansas Roster,” Kansas Historical Collections,16: 764; Kappler, Indian Treaties, 634-636. 1459. Ibid., 635. 1460 . Ibid., 631-633. 1461 . The source of Peter’s Creek is located near Troy in Center Township; it flows eastward to Wathena, then southward before emptying into the Missouri River. It is still named after him. Atchison Daily Globe, April 10, 1907. 1462 . “Extinct Geographical Locations,” Kansas Historical Collections, 12: 485. It was located between Palermo and Geary City. Gray, Gray’s Doniphan County History, 23 1463 . Atchison Daily Globe, April 17, 1907. 233 Pottawatomie and Miami tribes. In his frequent contacts with the Indians, Pascal acquired their languages and customs, finally becoming a stranger among his own family and the French colony around St. Louis. He was never able to write, having spent only six months in a French school in Cahokia. However he spoke English, which he learned in his dealings with English traders in St. Louis.1464 After he left his family, he first operated a trading post near Terre Haute, Indiana and worked as a gunsmith. When the Kickapoo Indians ceded their lands in Illinois by the treaty of July 30, 1819, young Pensineau followed them, first to Kaskaskia where he stayed several years and served as interpreter under appointment by Superintendent William Clark; then on the Pomme de Terre River, a branch of the Osage River in Missouri. Later he lived for five years among the Sac and Fox Indians at Yellow Bank on the Mississippi in what is now Warren County, Iowa and helped the trader employed by the American Fur Company. He enlisted in the army on May 20, 1832 and fought in the Black Hawk War, serving as private in Captain Butler’s company. He was reported sick and discharged on September 4, 1832. At the conclusion of the war, he received an eighty-acre land warrant, which he traded for two horses.1465 When, by the treaty of October 24, 1832, the Kickapoo Indians relinquished their lands in Missouri, he followed them to their new reservation in northeast Kansas. The Reverend Benedict Roux, a Jesuit missionary from the St. Louis diocese, met him at the Kickapoo settlement, above Fort Leavenworth on November 22, 1833.1466 At that time he was also the interpreter for the Delaware, Shawnee, Pottawatomie, and Kickapoo Indians. While living at the trading post on the Missouri River, he had two daughters. Brigitte Aimable, born on July 23, 1836. Her mother was Catharinette, probably a Kickapoo woman, referred to as Vulgo Greenwood. Brigitte was baptized on January 4, 1837 at “Kickapoo Town” by the Rev. C. F. Van Quickenborne, S. J. 1467 On June 25 (?), 1838, a second daughter, Maria was born. Her mother was a Kickapoo (?) woman, named “Dutchi.” Maria was baptized on October 30, 1838 by the Rev. Anthony Eysvogels.1468 Before 1844, Pascal Pensineau moved away from the trading post location and settled in Atchison County. Pascal Pensineau was the first white man to farm in Atchison County when he moved in 1844 to Mount Pleasant Township. He settled on the southeast quarter of S. 14, T. 7, R. 20, near Stranger Creek, on a ridge above a spring, halfway between Potter and Mount Pleasant. 1469 His living quarters consisted of two dwellings, one 16 by 20 feet; the other, 20 x 30 feet, and one or two outbuildings. 1470 He was the only man in Atchison County who enlisted to serve in the Mexican 1464 . Atchison Daily Globe, April 10, 1907; April 26, 1907; June 8, 1907; August 16, 1909. 1465 . bid., June 8, 190 7; Potter Kansan, January 24, 1909. 1466 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 253. 1467 . Ibid., 312. 1468 . Ibid., 358. 1469 . See chapter 10 “Trading Posts.” 1470 . Letter from Josephine Witt to G. L. Remsburg, dated June 4, 1908. KSHS archives. 234 War. On June 28, 1847, he married Katakeukve, probably a Pottawatomie woman at the Sugar Creek reservation. 1471 Their son, Joseph, was baptized on November 10, 1850 when he was nine months old at “Kansas River” at the St. Mary’s Mission Pottawatomie County. In 1851 and 1852, Pascal was employed by the Indian Department as interpreter for the Sacs and Foxes of Missouri at the Great Nemaha Agency, which was located near Hyland in Doniphan County. In November 1854, Pascal’s home, being on the Fort Leavenworth-Oregon Road, was selected as the voting place for the 15th District. 1472 After the treaty of 1854 when the Kickapoos ceded their lands and moved to a diminished reserve, he followed them and settled on the west bank of Grasshopper Creek, three miles and a half west of Muscotah in Atchison County. He left Kansas in 1856 with his family and went to the Indian Territory in Oklahoma where he resided seven miles southeast of Shawnee on the North Fork of the Canadian River. 1473 He stayed there until the Civil War at which time he returned to Kansas to enlist in the Union forces. He fought with two or three hundred Seminole and Kickapoo Indians at the battle of Pea Ridge against the Creek Indians.1474 After the war, he went back to the diminished reserve in northeast Kansas and signed the treaty of June 28, 1862 at the Kickapoo Agency as interpreter for the United States government. 1475 Pensineau may also have had a son, named So-pak-kee-mah. Records revealed that when the trader was sixty-one years old, he was married on July 13, 1871 to Ma-Ma-Ka-Wah a forty-seven years old Kickapoo woman. The ceremony was officiated by John D. Miles, the Indian agent. At that time he was living on Stranger Creek, near Potter in Atchison County.1476 Pensineau also had an older son, Stephen who was either adopted or born from a white woman. The teachers at St. Benedict College in Atchison were impressed when Pensineau “dressed in a very serious black broadcloth and wearing a top hat” came to enroll him. Stephen studied there in 1864 and 1865 for three sessions. He later became a Kickapoo chief and took the Indian name of Kennekuk. As chief, he signed the treaty of June 28, 1862. 1477 Pensineau’s brothers and sisters, still living in Illinois, looked upon his alliance with Indian women as an “intolerable disgrace” and had no contact with him while he was in Kansas. 1478 One of his nephews, Louis Pensineau, was surprised when, meeting Pascal, he saw “a striking figure of stately patriarchal appearance and an intelligent, dignified and courteous gentleman . . . well dressed and perfectly at ease, with nothing in speech or manners to indicate his long association with Indians.” 1479 Among Indians, Pascal adopted Indian customs but never forgot his 1471 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 695. 1472 . Executive Minutes of the Administration of Governor Andrew H. Reeder, Kansas Historical Collections, 3: 226. 1473 . Atchison Daily Globe, June 12, 1860. 1474 . Ibid., April 10, 1907. 1475 . Kappler, Indian Treaties, 839. 1476 . Atchison Daily Globe, May 7, 1927. 1477 . Atchison Daily Globe, April 10, 1907; Kappler, Indian Treaties, 839. 1478 . Atchison Daily Globe, April 26, 1907. 1479 . Potter Kansan, June 245, 1909. 235 upbringing. His contemporaries thought he resembled General Grant, with the same shape of face and head, his beard clipped in the same manner and, like Grant, smoking constantly. An early settler remembered him as “a man of medium stature and swarthy complexion with a bright piercing eye, which, together with his conversation, showed him to be a man of considerable intelligence.”1480 Joseph Utt, of White Cloud, who knew him in 1846, wrote: “He was pleasant in manners, obliging and polite which always characterizes Frenchmen. He was not addicted to drinking intoxicating liquor, nor did he have any other boisterous habits.” 1481 After questioning many early settlers, George J. Remsburg who had known Pensineau, wrote: “Pensineau seemed to have been held in high esteem by those who knew him well. He came from a highly respected family in Illinois.” 1482 Judge H. Miles Moore of Leavenworth is quoted as having said: “He (Pensineau) was a quiet, peaceful French Canadian trader, highly spoken by those who knew him best, as an honest and upright man and a fair dealer with the Indians and others.” 1483 In 1874 or 1875, Pensineau returned to Shawnee where he joined seventy or eighty Kickapoo families who, after living for fifty years in Mexico, had come to reside in Oklahoma. In the late 1880, he was still living there and probably died in that locality.1484 Pensineau was a good man who served his new country well, in time of peace and in time of war. John (Joseph) Utt, an independent French trader was also an Indian agent for the Kickapoos. He lived in Doniphan (an extinct town) in Wayne Township and later moved to White Cloud.1485 Clément Lessert, 1486 a Frenchman, may have arrived in the Kansas City, Missouri area in the early 1820s and was probably employed by the Chouteaus as, in a letter written in May of 1828 from Rivière des Kanzas, he requested Pierre Chouteau to pay 20 piastres out of his account and later on July 7 of the same year, he ordered some goods (25 lbs of coffee, 50 lbs of sugar, and a sack of lead) to be sent to him by the first of Chouteau’s boat. These articles were probably for the Kansa Indians for whom he was appointed interpreter at the Kansa Agency from 1827 to 1835. 1487 The sketch of John McCoy, drawn in 1827 shows the location of the homes of Louis Gonville, the French trader; Gabriel Philibert, the blacksmith; 1480 . Atchison Daily Globe, July 10, 1905. 1481 . Ibid., April 10, 1907. 1482 . Ibid., April 10, 1907 1483 . Ibid., April 10, 1907. 1484 . Topeka Daily Capital, July 11, 1883; Hiawatha World, July 19, 1883; Commonwealth, July 12, 1883. 1485. Fitzgerald, Ghosts Towns of Kansas, 17; Atchison Daily Globe, December, 11, 1949. Utt may have been buried on the roadside near Iowa Point, December 27, 1904 (death date ?). White Cloud Area Cemetery and Other Information, Northwest Missouri Genealogical Society, c.d., 22. 1486 . Also written La Sert and Lassette. He was born about 1796 in Canada and died July 20, 1854 in “Kansas Town, Jackson County, Missouri, aged 58” Barry, Beginning of the West, 258, Irma Miller, French-Indian Families, 27. 1487 . The Subagency was located in the southern part of Jefferson County, seven miles upstream from Lawrence. Barry, Beginning of the West, 138, 221, 244. 236 and the interpreter (Lessert) at the Kansa Agency. 1488 McCoy recollected that, on August 15, 1830, when he visited the agency, he saw “Clément Lessert, interpreter, family, half-breeds and Gabriel Philibert, government blacksmith and family (whites).” 1489 It is not known when Lessert married Me-ho-nah, 1490 a Kansa woman by whom he had the two above-mentioned children, Clément, Jr.1491 and Adèle. He later married the fourten-year old, Julia Roy in a civil ceremony on June 13, 1829. 1492 On November 12, 1833, as a representative of the Kansa Nation, he witnessed the peace council held in Fort Leavenworth, which had been called by Commissioner Henry Ellsworth. 1493 At the close of the Kansa Agency, on August 15, 1834, he received $250.00 for his services as an interpreter. 1494 On February 23, 1834, his two daughters, Mary and Martha, born respectively on July 11, 1830 and September 5, 1832, from his marriage to Julia Roy, were baptized by Father Roux at the “mouth of the Kansas”, and on July 15, 1835, his son, Louis was baptized by Reverend Van Quickenborne at the Chouteau’s Church. 1495 From 1837 to 1847,1496 he continued as interpreter for the Kansa Indians and reported to the Fort Leavenworth Agency. 1497 He served in that capacity from 1837 to 1847.1498 On January 14, 1846, Lessert was the official interpreter for the Kansa Indians at the signing of the treaty at the Kansas Methodist Mission near the mouth of Mission Creek. 1499 In 1847, he accompanied Agent Richard W. Cummings who had been instructed to select a new reservation for the Kansa Indians after they relinquished their reserve of 2,000,000 acres in eastern Kansas.1500 In 1848, he was transferred to the Osage River agency, still serving as interpreter. In 1852 and 1853, he reported to the Pottawatomie Agency where the affairs of the Kansa tribe were administered. 1501 Lessert was recorded as having 1488. Reproduced in Kansas Historical Collections, 9:195. The Kansa Agency was located on the north bank of the Kansas River, four miles below the mouth of the Delaware River. 1489 . Lutz, “Methodist Missions,” Kansas Historical Collections, 9:194n53 1490 . Also known as Mehatonga. 1491 . Clément, Jr. died young. 1492 . J. P. Andrew Patterson performed the civil ceremony on June 13, 1829 at the agency. On July 18, 1836, Clément “Liserte” (Lessert) and Julia renewed their vows in a religious ceremony officiated by Father Charles F. Van Quickenborne in Chouteau’s Church at Kawsmouth . Ibid., 312; Garraghan, Jesuits, 1:259. They had twelve children, born between 1830 and 1850. Julia was the daughter of Louis Roy who had been a resident at Kawsmouth prior to 1830. Irma Miller, “French- Indian Families,”123-124. 1493 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 251. 1494 . Ibid., 276. 1495 . Ibid., 292; Garraghan, Catholic Beginnings, 121; Irma Miller, French-Indian Families, 123. 1496 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 340, 362, 388, 422, 441, 465, 502, 533, 569, 661.729. 1497 . It was located at the old Shawnee Agency in Johnson County, Kansas. Ibid., 320. 1498 . Ibid., 340, 4362, 388, 441, 465, 502, 569, 660, 729. 1499 . Ibid., 570. 1500 . Ibid., 569, 689. , 340, 362, 388, 422, 441, 465, 502, 533, 569, 661,729. 1501 . Ibid., 1137, 1189. 237 been interpreter for the Kansa tribe for over twenty-two years and his letters indicate that he was an educated man as his handwriting and French were good. Gabriel Philibert 1502 was probably hired as early as mid-1826 as blacksmith at the Kansa Agency as the records show that on July 11, 1826 tools were purchased for him. 1503 When Isaac McCoy visited the agency in 1830, he noted the “comfortable hewed log buildings” of the blacksmith. 1504 He is recorded as having made a claim in 1831 at the Franklin, Missouri office for land in the Kansas City area. Philibert remained at the Kansa Agency until 1832, at which date he was transferred to the Osage Agency. He is recorded as having purchased a lot at Kawsmouth on April 30, 1846, where he died on May 1, 1853 at the age of 52. 1505 Mab Frankier, husband of Pélagie Gonville, was employed from 1841 to 1844 as assistant blacksmith for the Kansa Indians. 1506 Frenchmen and half-breeds were at the three locations the Pottawatomies occupied successively, first on Pottawatomie Creek in Franklin County, then on Sugar Creek in Linn County, finally on the Kansas River. The most famous, Joseph Napoléon Bourassa, 1507 born of a French father, Daniel Bourassa and an Indian woman, 1508was first educated at the Carey Baptist Mission on the St. Joseph River in Michigan under the superintendence of Isaac McCoy and Dr. Johnson Lykins. From the mission school, he went to Hamilton College in New York State, then to a Kentucky institute to study law at the government expense. He was listed under the name of “Joseph Bourisa.” He and his brothers, Jude and Mark were granted one quarter section of land under the treaty of October 16, 1826. 1509 He received $200.00, as did his brothers Mark and Jude, in lieu of a reservation under the treaty of September 26, 1833. 1510 After he moved to the Pottawatomie Creek in Franklin County, Father Hoecken officiated at his marriage to Memetokosikwe, a Kansa woman on December 10, 1838, “Father Petit being one of the witnesses. 1511 Joseph Bourassa is also listed as godfather of seven children out of the ten baptized by Father Hoecken in October 1838 “near the river commonly called Putawatomie Creek.” In 1838 he was appointed clerk at the Osage Subagency 1512 and in January of 1839, with one hundred other Pottawatomies, he signed a petition relating to the annuity 1502 . Also written Phillibert. His sister Marie Constance Philibert married Daniel Boone at the Kansas Agency on January 19, 1832. Daniel Boone was the son of the agriculturist at the agency and the grandson of the famous Daniel Boone. Ibid., 210. 1503 . Ibid., 132. 1504 . Ibid,, 139. 1505 . Ibid., 575, 1147. 1506 . Ibid., 441, 465, 502, 533. 1507 . Bourassa, “The Life of Wah-bahn-see: The Warrior Chief of the Pottawatamies,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 38: 132. 1508 . She was half Chippewa and half Osage and was named Théogie Pisange 1509 . Kappler, Indian Treaties, 277. 1510 . Ibid., 405. 1511 . Garraghan, Jesuits, 2: 193n35; Morehouse, “ History of the Kansa,” Kansas Historical Collections,10 : 348. 1512 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 362. 238 funds withheld by the government from the Pottawatomies of Pottawatomie Creek at the Osage River Subagency. 1513 In March of the same year, he moved to Sugar Creek in Linn County. He participated in the negotiations held in October 31 and November 2 of 1840 to discuss the reunification of the Pottawatomies on a reservation on the Kansas River. 1514 He was employed as an interpreter in 1844 and in 1845 until the month of April at the Osage River Subagency. 1515 He was also a teacher at the Mission where he taught English to the Indian boys. He signed the treaty of June 17, 1846 by which the Pottawatomies ceded their lands on the Marais des Cygnes (previously called the Osage River) for a thirty-mile square tract on the Kansas River. 1516 He was appointed as issuing agent when some 640 Pottawatomie were removed from eastern Wisconsin to settle on the Kansas River reservation in September 1851. 1517 William H. Hutter who visited him on November, 29 1854 wrote: Joseph B. is a single man. 1518 The housekeeper is an old woman, a cousin of his (Mrs. Nadeau,) a French half breed, but with more of the French than the Indian in her manners and one of the kindest women on the face of the earth. The rest of the family consists of her sons, Alexander and Ely, and her two daughters, Rosanna and Catharine, both grown up. . . Bourassa himself is a man of education and intelligence and it is pleasant to sit and talk to him of his people. He is writing for publication a History of the manners and customs of the Red man, which will make an interesting book. The house is a double Indian house with kitchen attached and lofts overhead. Everything is neat and clean and a great many little items of comfort gathered in it. The table is fit for a Prince – fine hot biscuit, first-rate coffee, rich milk with all the cream in – prairie chicken - salmon – apple dumplings – pancakes – butter cake – good butter – peaches and cream, etc., etc. The two daughters of Mrs. Nadeau are very interesting girls for Indians. Catharine is quite good-looking – Rosa is handsome. They have not a great deal of the Indian in their appearance – Rosanna scarcely any. Their domestic language is French. The girls play cards and chess very well. They have all been educated at the Missions, and dress in excellent taste.1519 1513 . Ibid., 364. 1514 . Ibid., 418-419. 1515 . Ibid., 533, 567. 1516 . Ibid., 592; Kappler, Indian Treaties, 557-60. 1517 . Barry, Beginning of the West ; Kappler, Indian Treaties, 557-60. 1518 . His wife must have been dead by that time. 1519. Barry, ed., “Scenes In (And En Route To) Kansas Territory, Autumn, 1854: Five Letters by William H. Hutter, “Kansas Historical Quarterly, 35: 333 239 His brother, Jude W. Bourassa 1520 was appointed miller on April 1, 1845 for the Pottawatomies living on Pottawayomie Creek in Franklin County. 1521 He was one of the interpreters at the time of the ratification of the treaty on June 17, 1846 between the Pottawatomies and the U.S. government at the Osage Subagency on Pottawatomie Creek. 1522 He was reappointed miller in 1847.1523 He then moved to the Kansas River reservation where he was hired as “grist miller” in 1853. The Whitman & Searl 1856 map shows the “Bursaw’s Mills,” located four miles west of Union Town on the south side of the Kansas River, and about three miles from the Pottawatomie ferry. The site was within a few miles of the mouth of Mill Creek, in what is now Maple Hill Township in Wabaunsee County. 1524 Following Governor John W. Geary‘s travel through the Pottawatomie reserve on November 5, 1856, his executive minutes read: “Stopped at Jude Bourassa’s, an enterprising Indian, having a good mill, and cultivating a rich farm.” 1525 In 1869, he was reported as having entered in partnership with Joseph Saville to operate a ferry. 1526 William H. Hutter who visited Jude Bourassa in 1854 wrote: We tarried several days at the house of Jude Bourassa, a French half breed, about one mile and a half from the Pottawatomie payment post [Union Town]. We found a comfortable double Indian house, of logs of course, one end of which, in all of them, serves the purpose of a better bed room, and also of a parlor to entertain guests. That end was given us with two good beds, a blazing fire in the chimney, and imported carpet on the floor and a handsome Piano in the room. We had a capital supper and in the evening prevailed on Mr. Bourassa to bring his daughter Isabella in to play for us. She played Russian march – Washington march and some other beginner’s tunes – the only merit of the music being that it came from an Indian girl... Her Father has a brother residing in this immediate vicinity, named Joseph Bourassa. Both were educated at Hamilton in the state of New York . . . They both speak English, with a French accent, but Joseph is the more intellectual man, whilst Jude is much the more wealthy.1527 Charles Burrill Lines met Jude Bourassa from Waubonsa [Wabaunsee] on April 26, 1856 and wrote: The government have [sic] a mill for grinding corn for the Indians. It is kept by a half breed Indian by the name of Jude W. Boussa [sic], a 1520 . He was born April 18, 1814. Sherard, People of the Place of the Fire, n.p, n.d. 1521 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 569; Kappler, Indian Treaties, 560. 1522 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 592; 1523 . Ibid., 730. 1524 . Ibid., 963. 1525 . Ibid., 963. 1526 . Ibid., 592, 661, 730, 963, 1127, 1189. 1527 . Barry, Kansas Historical Quarterly, 35: 333. 240 very intelligent man of good character. He is employed by the government on a salary, and his home is available to travelers a stopping place, and is the best we have seen in the Territory. It has been my good fortunes to be “entertained” by him on three different occasions. His wife, a French Canadian, is evidently a good housekeeper. He has eight children, among them two young ladies, highly educated, decidedly pretty in appearance and prepossessing in their manner. The only piano we have seen in the Territory is at this place. While Mr. Boussa [sic] is very attentive to his guests and liberal in his charges, he will furnish no whiskey under any circumstances. He complains that the policy of the government toward the Indians tribes is very bad, calculated to prevent any progress among them, and to promote only indolence, pauperism and crime.1528 Pierre Perillard was employed as miller from January 1833 until March 31, 1844 at Pottawatomie Creek. He then moved to Sugar Creek on August 6, 1845.1529 Chief Joseph LaFromboise, a Pottawatomie with some French blood, was a descendant of one of the LaFromboises who voted on August 7, 1826 in the first election held in Chicago. 1530 At the time of the signing of the treaty of October, 1832 at Camp Tippecanoe in Indiana he was allowed a claim of four hundred and forty-one dollars. 1531 He signed the treaty of June 17, 1846 by which the Pottawatomies received the reservation on the Kansas River. Superintendent Thomas H. Harvey remarked that Joseph Lafromboise was one of the three chiefs who “manifested the greatest zeal in inducing their people (the Pottawatomies) to emigrate from the Bluffs [Council Bluffs]. He moved to Kansas around November 10, 1847. W. H. Mitchelle who occupied the old Kansas Methodist Mission gave two rooms to LaFrombois and his family to “winter in.” 1532 He was appointed interpreter from June 19, 1848 to 1850 and on October 21, 1854 was granted a life annuity of $200.00.1533 Being the principal chief of the Prairie Pottawatomies, he signed the treaty of November 15, 1861. William H. Mackey, Sr., who stopped at his home while he was living in Shawnee County, wrote: We struck it rich at old Chief Le Fromboise (sic) at Silver Lake. We remained there several days and feasted. The old buck had two 1528 Pantle, ed. “The Connecticut Kansas Colony - Letters of Charles B. Lines to the New Haven (Conn.) Daily Palladium,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 22: 28. 1529 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 502, 533, 569. 1530 . Garraghan, Jesuits, 1: 446n40. 1531 . Kappler, Indian Treaties, 356. 1532 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 725. 1533 . Ibid., 792, 895, 977,1192.; “Official Kansas Roster, ” Kansas Historical Collections, 16: 731 241 wives and a big family all at home. But he certainly was a good provider.1534 Joseph LaFromboise is buried in the Silver Lake Cemetery. John LaFromboise served as assistant blacksmith in 1848 and Henry LaFrombroise was assistant blacksmith in 1855-1856.1535 Two members of the Bertrand family were employed by the government. Joseph Bertand was blacksmith in 1833 at the Kansa Agency and Samuel Bertrand was assistant blacksmith from 1844 to 1847 at the Osage River [Marais des Cygnes] Subagency. 1536 Baptiste Peoria was an influential man in the Miami tribe. Born in 1800 near Kaskaskia, Illinois, he was the son of a French trader and the daughter of a Peoria chief. He married Mary Ann Isaacs, an Indian woman of French extraction who was a member of the Brothertown tribe and the widow of Christian Dagnett, an Indian agent, who was himself of French and Indian ancestry. As Baptiste spoke English, French, and several Indian languages, he was employed by the government as interpreter for the Miamis, Weas, and Piankeskaws at the Delaware-Shawnee Agency in 1832 and 1833. He served as interpreter at the Peace Council in Fort Leavenworth on November 20, 1833, 1537 after which he accompanied Commissioner Henry Ellsworth from there to Fort Gibson in Oklahoma.1538 On October 21, 1836, he was the interpreter when the Delawares, Shawnees, Piankeskaws, Weas, Peorias and Kaskaskias agreed to permit the construction of a road through their lands. 1539 From 1848 to 1854, he served as interpreter for the United Tribes at the Osage River Agency Agency. 1540 He traveled to Washington, D. C. and on May 30, 1854 put his mark on the treaty by which the Kaskaskia, Peorias, etc. ceded their lands in eastern Kansas, except for 70,000 acres. Under the treaty he received 1,280 acres, which were excluded from the cession. 1541 He remained in Miami County until the Miami Nation moved to Indian Territory in 1867-1868. He died there in 1874. Before leaving Kansas, Baptiste Peoria and his wife conveyed 403 ½ acres to the Paola Town Company for a consideration of $5,000. The first Catholic Church in Paola was built on land donated by them in 1859. 1542 1534 . Mackey, Sr., “Looking Backwards,” Kansas Historical Collections, 10: 644. LaFromboise had eighteen children. 1535 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 792; “Official Kansas Roster,” Kansas Historical Collections, 16: 732. 1536 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 245, 533, 569, 661, 730. 1537 . Ibid., 221, 245. 1538 . Ibid., 254. 1539 . Ibid., 316. 1540 . Ibid., 792, 896, 927, 1058, 1137, 1190. 1541 . Kappler, Indian Treaties, 639, 640. 1542 . Winger, Last Miamis, 12; Barry, Beginning of the West, 221, 245, 250-251, 316, 792, 896, 1058, 1137, 1190, 1218, 1220; Garraghan, Jesuits, 2: 222n78. 242 Luther Paschal (Pascal) was assistant blacksmith for the Miamis in 1850, 1851, and 1852. In 1853, he was appointed assistant smith and miller. 1543 Timothy Flint wrote in 1826: “I have already hinted at the facility with which the French and Indians intermix. There seems to be as natural affinity of the former people, as there is repulsion in between the Anglo-Americans and them. . . . The French settle among them, learn their language, intermarry, and soon get smoked to the same copper complexion [and] a race of half-breeds spring up in their cabins. ”1544 Frenchmen and half-breeds were so well integrated among the Indian Nations that it is often difficult to identify them as such, especially when they adopted Indian names. Frank A. Root, a newspaper man who was part owner of the Atchison Daily Free Press, met at a powwow in July 1867 “an old gray-bearded man – Mo-she-no – whose make-up appeared to be three-quarters French and one-quarter Pottawatomie.” 1545 There were probably many such half-breeds, unidentified descendants of the early French trappers and traders living in Kansas in the pre- statehood period. 1543 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 977, 1058, 1137, 1190. 1544 . Quoted in Unrau, Mixed-Bloods, 34. 1545 . Root, “Kichapoo-Pottawatomie Grand Indian Jubilee,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 10: 20. Mo-she-no (also written Mo-she-nah) or Elk Horns fought in Tecumseh’s Confederation and took part in the Battle of Tippecanoe before moving to Kansas with the Kickapoos. He lived among them for twenty years. 243 CHAPTER 10 FRENCHMEN AND HALF-BREEDS LIVING AMONG THE INDIANS – PART II TRADING POSTS Several members of the Chouteau family of St. Louis played an important role in the fur business with which they became associated in various capacities. Pierre Chouteau, Jr. 1546 was connected in the course of his life with different fur companies operating out of St. Louis. In 1813 he worked with Bartholomew Berthold and later was a partner in Bertrand Pratte and Co., which became the French Fur company. In late 1826, John Jacob Astor bought the company, which was then renamed the Western Department of the American Fur Company, with Chouteau as its head. When John J. Astor retired, on January 1st, 1834, the company was purchased by the Pratte, Chouteau and Company and in 1837 was called the Pierre Chouteau, Jr. Company when it passed under the sole control of Pierre Jr.1547 From his headquarters in St. Louis he supervised the activities of his relatives scattered through the West. Even before Missouri became a state in 1821, St. Louis families involved in the fur trade started sending their younger members west to establish permanent trading posts west of what was to be the Missouri line, in what was then Indian Territory. François Gesseau Chouteau,1548 Pierre’s half-brother went to the Kansas City area in the 1810s to establish a warehouse and several trading posts. His correspondence from Rivière du Kansas to his business associates in St. Louis and 1546 . Pierre Chouteau, Jr., born in St. Louis on January 19, 1789, was also known as “Cadet” as he was the second son of (Jean) Pierre Chouteau, Sr. and his first wife, Pélagie Kiersereau. His father was the half-brother of (René) Auguste Chouteau who assisted Pierre de Laclede in founding St. Louis. Pierre, Jr. died in St. Louis in 1865. 1547 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 102, 275; New Encyclopedia of the American West, 211-212. Although the company was still often referred to as the American Fur Company. 1548 . François Gesseau Chouteau, also known as Francis, was born in St. Louis on February 7, 1797, the fourth son of (Jean) Pierre Chouteau and the first by his second wife, Brigitte Saucier. François’ wife, (Thérèse) Bérénice Ménard, was the daughter of Pierre Ménard, the first Lieutenant Governor of the Illinois Territory. She was educated in Kaskaskia, then in St. Louis where she learned how to read and write French. In later life, she learned English. She joined François in Kansas City probably in 1822 with their two sons, Edmond François, born in 1821 and Pierre Ménard, born in 1822. According to Garraghan, Catholic Beginnings, 52, she was probably “the first white woman to set foot on the site of Kansas City.” Chancy Rufus Barns wrote on page 749 of Commonwealth of Missouri – A Centennial Record, “Five years before a white settler had advanced westward of Fort Osage (1821), Mrs. Chouteau had established her permanent residence in this point [Kansas City]. Very appropriately, therefore, may she be styled file-leader of the vanguard of the civilization that had since, like a tidal wave, swept across more than half of our continent.” The Chouteaus spent most of their lives in Kansas City, Missouri, except for periods when they moved to their trading posts in Kansas. Chouteau’s first warehouse was on the north bank of the Missouri at Randolph Bluffs in Clay County, Missouri. It was destroyed by the flood of 1826. He established a new depot on the south bank of the river at the foot of Olive Street. After the flood of 1826 destroyed their house, they took refuge for a while at the “Four Houses” in Johnson County, Kansas. In 1833 they were reported as living at the Horseshoe Lake trading post in Douglas County, Kansas. François Chouteau died in Kansas City, Missouri on April 8, 1838. Bérénice died also in Kansas City, on November 19, 1888 at the advanced age of 87 years. Chouteau Bridge across the Missouri in Kansas City, Missouri is named after François Chouteau. 244 the company records indicate that his depot became an active collection post for the furs he received from his agents and the Indians residing in Kansas. In 1824 the tabulation of the furs shipped indicated the following: “ 26,732 shaved deer skins (at 40 cents each), 1,218 deer skins (37 and a half cents each), 501 blue deer skins, 132 inferior deer skins (15 cents each), 120 inferior bear skins (75 cents), 26 cub skins (50 cents), and 57 inferior cub skins at three for a dollar . . . . pelts of these 29,666 animals [were valued by the Chouteaus] at $11, 735.71. ”1549 On January 12, 1829, François Gesseau Chouteau reported having “about 400 lbs of beaver, 200 otter and 1000 raccoons produced by the Kansa” 1550 and on March 31, 1829, he wrote to Pierre Ménard, Sr., his father-in-law, listing the composition of the load of pelts, which went down when the keelboat Beaver hit a rock and sank in three minutes. On board were: 15 thousand deerskins 400 pounds of beaver 1500 muskrat 400 otter 2 thousand raccoons 45 bear skins.1551 The next year, on February 15, he wrote: I have not written to you for some time because of my absence from home. I have returned from among the Kansa only a few days ago I have almost always remained at the post because I saw that there we would bring in more pelts. I was not mistaken in my calculation I have put up here150 packs of handsome deerskins, 20 bundles of good raccoons, 3 bundles of beaver, and 350 otter of the first quality. The Shawnee: 50 packs of deerskin, 5 of raccoons, 100 beaver, and 150 of otter.1552 1549 . Marra, Cher Oncle, Cher Papa 1550 . Ibid., 48. 1551 . Ibid., 55. Frederick Chouteau reported in April 1880 that he was able to salvage most of the furs. Adams, Reminiscences of Frederick Chouteau,” Kansas Historical Collections, 8: 424-425. Frederick’s list differs from François’ list: It reads as follows: Beaver skins…………………………...65 Otter skins ……………………………100 Deer skins (20 buck and 20 doe)… 40 Raccoon skins ……………………….120 Muskrat skins ……………………… 500 Wolf skins …………………………….100 Badger skins …………………………100 Buffalo-robes ………………………… 10 1552 . Marra, Cher Oncle, 78. 245 On April 22, 1830, he announced to his “uncle” that he was shipping “236 bundles of deer skins, the weight of which will be roughly 25,000 lbs; 50 packs of raccoons containing 100 skins to a pack; about 500 beaver skins, 800 otter, 500 [musk]rats, and 2 bundles of bear skins.” He added: “And really these skins are superb.” He mentioned that “some very nice beaver skins [came] from the Loups.” 1553 On September 18 of the same year, he remarked: “I have about 20 bundles of deerskins and some old skins that I would like to send upon the first occasion.” 1554 On March 20, 1831, François wrote: “Right now we are in the middle of loading the barge for its departure to St. Louis. It will carry 250 packs. We were unable to send all the fur pelts on the boat.”1555 On April 16, 1831, he announced: “Since the departure of the barge we have prepared 30 bundles of furs and skins of roe deer.”1556 The Kansa Indians did not furnish their normal number of furs as they “lost a part of spring by going to war with the Pawnees.” 1557 The production of pelts was furthermore decreased as “57 bundles, beaver, otter and raccoons … all first quality” were lost in the accident of the steamboat Missouri. 1558 On September 7, 1832, he stated: “We have made 40 packs of deerskins since my trip to St. Louis.”1559 Having visited St. Louis, his correspondence is limited during that year and it does not reveal the extent of the shipments that were made during that year. On February 12, 1833, François wrote: All the Indians have just come out from the hunt. I thought we would have 300 bundles but will have but 280. . . We would have made them and maybe more if the Kansa Indians had been hunting this spring. But their horses were so thin when they came back from the fall hunt, that . . . all the villages of the Kansa went to Missouri to fatten their horses in the prairie. The Kansa have made more skins than the Loups, the Shawnee, the Piankeshaw, Peorias and Weas all together.1560 On May 20, 1833, François reported: “We have sent 316 packs . . . Here we have 15 packs of 120 otters, 50 lbs. beavers.” He also mentioned that the post of Meyers (among the Piankeskaw, Peorias, etc.) produced fifty to sixty bundles; while that of Frederick [Chouteau, among the Kansa] produced between one hundred and fifty to one hundred and sixty. He added that he had sent three hundred and fifty packs and have fifteen packs of one hundred and twenty otters and fifty lbs. of beaver. On November 25, 1834, he counted “six bundles of fine beaver, two 1553 . Ibid., 80. 1554 . September 18, 1830. Ibid., 88. 1555 . Ibid., 91. 1556 . Ibid., 93. 1557 . Ibid., 92-93. 1558 . Letter dated, June 3, 1831. Ibid., 94. 1559 . Ibid., 103. 1560 . Ibid., 109-110. 246 hundred of otter, 15 packs of raccoon, and 50-60 of deerskins and a little muskrat.” 1561 On May 1, 1835, Frederick announced to his brother: “You will receive by this boat 190 packs, I counted them during the night with the captain. He found 190 and I 185. It is possible that I made a mistake. . . It is principally all the packs from our post down below, which are deerskins, raccoons, and [musk]rats. The otter and beaver are still at the post. . . I believe there will be 10 packs of beaver and much otter.” 1562 Chouteau also shipped pelts he purchased from other traders. On May 5, 1835, François wrote: “We have around 450 bundles, 350 that we made at the trading post and 100 I purchased from one place or another. Of that quantity ten are of beaver, ten of otter, fifty to sixty of raccoons, rats and the remaining, deerskin. . . I put on board the steamboat St. Charles, three days ago, 250 packs. There remains to us 200 from the Kansa that haven’t arrived. ”1563 On May 14 of the same year, he announced: “Our barge has at last arrived from among the Kansa with the remainder of the bundles of raccoons that Frederick left at the post.” 1564 On July 6, he had “approximately 50 packs to send at the first opportunity.” 1565 On August 30, he wrote that he planned to forward by the steamboat Diana, “which will pass by in eight or ten days . . . sixty packs of different kinds of furs.” 1566 On September 25, he told Pierre Chouteau, Jr.: “You will receive by the steamboat Hancock 29 rolls of skin of deer, 15 packs of raccoons and 10 chests of furs.” 1567 On April 8, 1836, François Gesseau Chouteau stated: “We put our packs on board the steamboat St. Charles – 240 and in good order. I presumed they arrived in good condition. We still have our Spring treaty to complete and I presume that I will be able to buy some pelts in our area from the merchants and others. ” 1568 On June 6, 1836, he reported: “ By the steamboat St. Charles I sent 30 packs of which there are ten of good mountain beaver and the others otters, raccoons, and deerskins. We still have pelts at the Kansa, Wea, and I believe I can buy a few of them here.” 1569 On July 10 of the same year, he sent by the Diana “15 packs, in which there are four of beaver.” 1570 On July 18, he confirmed his shipment by the Diana of four packs of beaver, some of otter and deerskins. On September 15, he announced: “This year we will make 20 bundles of beaver here, the greatest part already in St. Louis, and I believe that we still have three bundles 1561 . Ibid., 130. 1562 . Ibid., 133. 1563 . Ibid., 135. 1564. Ibid., 137. 1565 . Ibid., 141. 1566 . Ibid., 144. 1567 . Ibid., 146. 1568 . Ibid., 153. 1569 . Ibid., 156. 1570 . Ibid., 157. 247 here, money and the balance of the pelts in a pirogue as I have done before and I am sure that is more safe than in the steamboat.” 1571 In his letter, dated March 24, 1837, Chouteau noted that he also received pelts from the Kickapoo trading post managed by Laurent Pensineau as he wrote that he was awaiting the arrival of the steamboat Boonville that was going to take the packs of “Pinsonneau and ours that number 200, deerskins and other fur pelts.”1572 François Gesseau Chouteau was not only responsible for the warehouse in Kansas City where he gathered the pelts from the various trading posts and tribes. In addition he supervised their proper shipment to St. Louis. He stocked merchandise to be sold to the Indians: traps, rifles, guns, and powder for their hunts. 1573 He maintained friendly contact with the neighboring tribes (the Kansa, Shawnee, Wea, Piankeskaw, and Kickapoo Indians) to insure a continuous supply of furs. In his correspondence, he made several references to his visits among the Indians. On November 12, 1828, Father Lutz visited him while he was living among the Indians.1574 On December 22, 1828, Chouteau wrote: “For some time I have been back from my trip to the Kansa.” 1575 On March 3, 1829, he mentioned that he proposed to leave shortly to get the packs that we have among the Kansa” 1576 and on March 31, of the same year, he reported that he just came back from a trip from the Kansa village and hoped to return there in a few days. 1577 On February 15, 1830, he stated: “I have not written to you because of my absence from home. I have returned from among the Kansa only a few days ago.” 1578 In 1833, Father Roux reported being his guest at the post among the Shawnees.1579 François G. Chouteau ‘s duty was also to supervise the establishment of trading posts in Kansas, west of his Kansas City depot. On January 17, 1832, he wrote: “I am going to build a fine trading post for Meyers and for Frederick. The location had been established but a short time ago.” 1580 On December 12, 1832, he announced: “We have presently a good trading post built among the Kansa, between the two villages, very well stocked with merchandise and provisions for the winter. We also have among the Weas a fine trading post, built and arranged for what is necessary for trade.” 1581 On September 9, 1833, he noted: “I made the necessary arrangements at his [Pensineau’s] arrival 1571 . Ibid., 159. 1572 . Ibid., 161. 1573 . Ibid., 105,141. 1574 . Garraghan, Catholic Beginnings, 32. 1575 . Marra, Cher Oncle, 42. 1576 . Ibid., 52. 1577 . Ibid., 54-55. 1578 . Ibid., 78. 1579 . Garraghan, Catholic Beginnings, 47-48. 1580 . Marra, Cher Oncle, 99. Meyers’ trading post was among the Wea, Piankeskias, Peoria Indians; Frederick Chouteau’s being among the Kansa Indians. 1581 . Ibid., 105. 248 here to go immediately to construct his trading post among the Kickapoos.” 1582 On November 25, 1833, he reported: “The Kickapoo post is now established.” 1583 After the posts were built, he helped the American Fur Company’s agents manage their posts and replenish their stock.1584 François Gesseau Chouteau played a vital role in the organization of a network of trading posts for the American Fur Company in eastern Kansas and for over twenty years until his death in Kansas City on April 18, 1838, he arranged for uninterrupted commercial exchanges between the St. Louis merchants and the Indian tribes residing in the area. THE FOUR HOUSES TRADING POST On August 17, 1816, François Gesseau Chouteau and his cousin, Gabriel Sylvestre Chouteau,1585 were granted a license to trade with the Osages, Kansas and Pawnees.1586 Evidence of their trading with the Little Osages is established by a letter written on November 5, 1818 by George C. Sibley, factor at Fort Osage to William Clark in which he wrote: “A drove of pack horses passed this way a few days ago on their way up the Kansas River from where I am told they are to carry goods to the Little Osages. They are owned [or controlled] by Sara Chotou [sic] I am informed. ”1587 On September 4, 1817, a license was issued allowing François to trade with the Kansas and the Osages. Major Thomas Biddle, a contemporary of the Chouteaus wrote on October 29, 1819: “Séres and Francis Chouteau trade with the Kanzas and Osage nations. They have a trading-house not far from the mouth of the river Kanzas and their capital is about $4,000. ”1588 The trading post was known as the “Four Houses” for the fact that it consisted of four log houses so arranged as to enclose a square in size of the width of one of the houses. In other words, a square was marked off and the houses built so that one end of each house should be on one line of the square, the corners touching. This form of construction presented in each direction a defensible front equal to the length of two houses and the width of another.1589 The enclosed space provided a sheltered area should the Indians attack the post. The exact time of its construction has been widely debated, dating it as far 1582 . Ibid., 119. 1583 . Ibid., 122. 1584 . Ibid., 72. 1585 . Also known as Seré, Ceré, Cerré, Séres, and Sara Chouteau, after his mother’s maiden name. He was the son of Auguste Chouteau and his wife Anne Thérèse Cerré. He was born in St. Louis on December 31, 1794 and died in 1887. 1586 . Territorial Papers of the United States 15:191. 1587 . U. S. Superintendency of Indian Affairs, St. Louis, 1813-1825, 2:138. Kansas State Historical Society. 1588 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 87. 1589 . W. H. Miller, History of Kansas City, 9-10. 249 back as 1812 to as late as 1822.1590 The precise location of the trading post has not been determined exactly either, but the majority of the studies placed it about twenty miles up from the mouth of the Kansas River in the vicinity of Bonner Springs. In an article, entitled “Tales of an Old Timer,” published in the Kansas City (Mo.) Journal on January 2, 1879, John C. McCoy wrote: “In 1822, Col. Francis G. Chouteau established a trading post on the north bank of the river one mile above the mouth of Cedar Creek, near the P[acific] station of Lenape. It was called Four Houses.” However, on a map drawn by John McCoy 1591 after he surveyed the area in October of 1830, “4 houses” is noted on the south bank of the river at the mouth of a small creek, identified as Cedar Creek, which empties two and half miles east of De Soto in Johnson County, Kansas. In a letter, dated July 19, 1822 and written to Gabriel Cerré Chouteau, Pierre, Jr. implied that, business not being good at the Four Houses, some changes in management had to be made. He informed him that “Gesseau [François Chouteau] wanted to take the merchandise for his account, because he alleges, with reason, that the profits are so limited that it is not worth to increase the number of partners in a small operation.” 1592 In the same letter, Pierre, Jr. offered to Gabriel to “come up in one of our barges to spend the winter with the Otos or the Mahas, or whatever place you think it most advantageous for our interests.” 1593 He continued: “We rely on your usual zeal for putting in the necessary order our business at the post you are occupying at present, and turning it all over to Cyprien [Chouteau].” 1594 The reason put forth by Pierre Jr. for excluding Gabriel from the operation of the Four Houses does not appear plausible in view that François brought in his brother Cyprien 1595 who was eighteen years old and later in 1825 a second brother, Frederick,1596 who was then only fifteen years old. It appears that the siblings wanted to keep the business among themselves and exclude their cousin, Gabriel. 1597 The part played by Cyprien and Frederick in the management of the Four Houses” is not known, neither is how long the trading post was in operation. However it has been recorded that on August 17, 1826, François G. and Cyprien obtained a license to trade for one year at the “mouth of the Kansas River, and at the Dirt Village of the Kanza” and on September 3, 1827, Pierre Chouteau, 1590 . Perl. W. Morgan, in his History of Wyandotte County, sets the date of the construction between 1812 and 1821; John McCoy in an article in the Kansas City (Missouri) Journal, dated January 2, 1879, puts it as of 1822; Barry surmised that it was in 1819. Barry, Beginning of the West, 394. 1591 . Son of Rev. Isaac McCoy, early surveyor of Kansas. 1592 . Marra, Cher Oncle, 205. 1593 . Ibid., 205. 1594 . Ibid., 205. 1595 . Cyprien Chouteau, son of Pierre Chouteau, Sr. and his second wife, Brigitte Saucier, was born in St. Louis in 1802 and died in Kansas City, Missouri in 1879. 1596 . Frederick Chouteau, youngest son of Pierre Chouteau, Sr. and Brigitte Saucier, was born in St. Louis in 1809. He spent his last years in Westport, Missouri where he died in 1891. 1597 . The exclusion of Cerré does not seem justifiable as in 1825 François‘operation brought the company a total of 29,666 skins of various animals, mostly deer, valued at $11, 735.71. Christian, Before Lewis and Clark, 346. 250 Jr., agent for the American Fur Company, received a license to trade with the Kansa Nation at the mouth of the Kansas River, a license covering the trade operation of his brothers, François and Cyprien for the year 1827-1828.1598 The McCoy map suggests that the Four Houses were opened for business until after 1830. TRADING POST ON THE NEOSHO RIVER Pierre Mélicourt Papin, 1599 born in St. Louis on April 28, 1793, was employed for many years by the American Fur Company as a trader in Missouri, at a location later named Papinville.1600 After the treaty of June 2, 1825, when the Osages relinquished their lands in Missouri and moved to Kansas to their reservation along the Neosho River in Neosho County, Papin followed them and established a trading post in the middle of the Osage village, which later Louis Cortambert and Victor Tixier identified as the village of “Marinhabotso,” meaning “He who Reaches the Sky.” It was located in the vicinity of Shaw on Canville Creek and was also known as “Nantze or Papin’s town.”1601 Papin was married to Sophie Mongrain, 1602 an Osage half-breed, sister of Baptiste Mongrain, “chief” of the village. Victor Tixier, the French traveler who visited the Osages in 1840, left a description of Papin’s house: Inside the house there was a mixture of furniture of civilized countries and things used by the redskins. Two beds, a few mats, three or four chairs, wooden plates, spoons or “mikouens,” two tables, leather bags, a painted lithograph representing the Osages in Paris, weapons, etc. composed the furniture of the kitchen and bedroom.1603 Papin collected pelts from the Osage Indians and forwarded them to the Chouteaus’ headquarters in St. Louis. In 1831 he reported that he had the best year in his sixteen years among the Osages and that he had sent twenty-three horses and three wagons loaded with skins to the mouth of the Marais des Cygnes 1598 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 134. 1599 . Also known as Melicour, Millicout, and Millicourt. He was the son of Joseph Marie Papin, a French Canadian and his wife, Marie Louise Chouteau who was the daughter of Pierre Laclede Liguest and his wife Marie Thérèse (Bourgeois) Chouteau. Therefore Papin’s wife was the cousin of Pierre, Jr., François, Cyprien, and Frederick Chouteau. 1600 . Now an extinct town. 1601 . Graves, Neosho County, 1:122; Garraghan, Catholic Beginnings, 23n21; Garraghan, Jesuits, 2: 502. 1602 . Sophie Mongrain was the daughter of Noël Mongrain and Ouichingheb, an Osage beauty who had been brought to St. Louis by her French Canadian husband. At his death, Ouichingheb came back to her tribe and married an Osage, Chabe-Chinka (Little Beaver). At the time of Tixier’s visit, she was living with her daughter and son-in-law, Pierre Mélicourt Papin. McDermott, ed., Tixier’s Travels, on the Osage Prairies, 118-119. Tixier’s portrait of Ouichingheb is reproduced between pp. 128 and 129. 1603 . Ibid. 117-118. 251 River where pirogues were built to carry them to Jefferson City, Missouri to be transferred to a steamboat headed for St. Louis. 1604 Papin’s name appears in several records of the Osage reservation. He was a sponsor at the baptisms of seventeen half-breeds, which took place at the home of the Osage subagent, Paul Liguest Chouteau 1605 on the Neosho River on August 27 and September 2, 1827.1606 He was also a witness at a marriage, near the Marmaton River on November 27, 1841.1607 He is mentioned in the journals of two French travelers who visited the Osages, Cortambert in 1835 and Tixier in 1840.1608 Tixier reflected upon the lives of those isolated Frenchmen living among the Indians: Trading with the savages is much easier now than it was twenty years ago. . . . The traders live in very good terms with their customers, whose language and customs they usually adopt. . . . Today the frontier traders live happily among the savages, and most of them do not regret having left civilization. They find a calm, quiet life, and enjoy complete freedom of habits and clothes, good appetite and health, and absence of the troublesome laws of etiquette. . . . The traders console themselves by marrying, in the style of the savages, very pretty half- breeds or native girls, who spend their lives trying to make them happy. The women are delighted to marry a white man, for, although the traders live almost in the same manner as the Indians, they always keep enough of the nature of the white man to show their wives more marks of affection than they would find among red husbands. The traders declare themselves happy. . . . They do not long for the cities and often remain for many years without returning to their families.1609 Papin was also host for one day, on April 16, 1844, to Reverend. N. Sayre who was touring the Indian Territory for the domestic mission board of the Protestant Episcopal Church. 1610 Besides being a place where Indians and traders exchanged their goods, and where trappers and traders could purchase their needed supplies, the trading houses were a welcome and safe heaven for those who found themselves far from any settlement of white people. 1604 . Christian, Before Lewis and Clark, 318. 1605 . Paul Liguest Chouteau, born in 1792 was the son of Pierre Chouteau, Sr. and Pélagie Kierseneau. He spent his childhood with his father among the Osages at Fort Carondelet. He died in 1824. He was a brother of Auguste Pierre, Pierre, Jr. and a half brother of François Gesseau, Cyprien, and Frederick. 1606 . Barry, Beginning of the West,145. 1607 . Ibid., 439. 1608 . See chapter 13 on Cortambert and Tixier. 1609 . McDermott, Tixier, 120-121, 123. 1610 . Ibid. 504-505. 252 After Paul Liguest Chouteau 1611 resigned as subagent of the Osages in 1838, his successor Robert A. Calloway reported that Pierre Mélicourt Papin was an “excellent man, well qualified” who had been serving the Indians for thirty years. He had lived all that time among the Osages in Missouri and Kansas, except for the summer months when he was in St. Louis visiting relatives and friends. He died in St. Louis on July 20, 1849, of the “prevailing epidemic”, probably of cholera. He was fifty-six years old 1612 and for twenty-five years had operated a trading post among the Osage Indians on the Neosho River in southeast Kansas. While he lived there, he had a son, Edward Papin, born on July 12, 1838 and baptized near the Marais des Cygnes in Linn County. The sponsor of the baptism was Michel Giraud, the American Fur Company trader at the Marais des Cygnes trading post. CYPRIEN CHOUTEAU’S TRADING POST After visiting the new trading post in Kansas, François Gesseau Chouteau wrote to his father-in-law, Pierre Ménard, on December 2, 1828: Now I have three good houses made.1613 My situation is not very comfortable but I believe that for the business that I could not choose a better location. I am exactly across from the Shawnee village [a] distance of about six or seven miles, near the Kansas River. It is a very elevated point. Water has to rise more than 40 feet to endanger us.1614 There is a good port and a good place for the barge.1615 According to Daniel Morgan Boone, the trading post was established in 1827 as he wrote: “Fred Chouteau’s brother established his trading post across the river from my father’s residence, the same fall we moved to the agency in the year 1827.”1616 The existence and location of what was to be called “Cyprien’s trading post” among the Shawnees was confirmed by many early travelers who visited it. Father Lutz mentioned it in a letter he wrote to Bishop Rosati of St. Louis on November 12, 1828: 1611 . Paul Liguest Chouteau, born in 1792, was the son of Pierre Chouteau, Sr. and Pélagie Kerseneau. He was the brother of Auguste Pierre and Pierre, Jr. and also a half-brother of François Gesseau, Cyprien, and Frederick. He spent most of his life among the Osages. He died in 1851. 1612 . Billon, Annals Territorial Days, 184; Barry, Beginning of the West, 881. 1613 . He was referring to his warehouse in Kansas City, the Four Houses, and the new one among the Shawnee Indians, which was managed by Cyprien. 1614 . François selected an elevated location, remembering the flood of 1826, which had destroyed his warehouse. 1615 . Marra, Cher Oncle, 39. 1616 . Adams, “Reminiscences,” Kansas Historical Collections, 8: 433. Boone was an “agriculturist” at the Kansa agency. 253 “Messrs Francis, Cyprian, and Frederick have begun to erect at the Kanzas River a large building which will soon be located upon a sort of emporium for the sale and exchange of goods among the Shawnee and Kanzas Indians.”1617 The date of the construction has been questioned,1618 but, from the statements of Boone and Father Lutz, it must have been in existence in 1828. Later letters and journals confirm that assumption. Paul Wilhelm, Duke of Wüerttemberg and his party were there in 1830 when they forded the Kansas River near the post on their way to “Cantonment Leavenworth.” 1619 In the Kansas City (Missouri) Journal of September 3, 1878, John C. McCoy stated: When I crossed the western line of Missouri, on the 15th of August 1830, there were five and only five points within the limits of Kansas where white people lived…. One was the trading post of the American Fur Company, situated on the south bank of the Kansas River, seven miles above its mouth and in charge of Cyprian Chouteau.1620 When McCoy read the report of his survey of the Kansas Indian lands at the meeting of the Kansas Historical Society on January 15, 1889, he stated: “We passed up the Chouteau’s trading-house on the south side of the Kansas River, about seven miles above its mouth.” That visit took place in August of 1830. 1621 Father Roux 1622 who was a guest at the post wrote to Bishop Rosati on November 24, 1833: I am at present at the trading house of Messrs. Chouteau where I find myself quite comfortable. Board, fire, lodging, everything is prepared for me with the greatest care. I cannot in this connection speak too highly in praise of Mr. Gesseau Chouteau and of his wife and brother. They show me the highest regard. But I do not expect to remain long with them, as they are right in the Indian country and too far from the Catholics for me to carry on my ministry with convenience.1623 1617 . Garraghan, Catholic Beginnings, 32. 1618 . The date is set as 1825 in “Explanation of Map,”Kansas Historical Collections, 9: 574; as 1825 (or 182 7?) in Garraghan, Catholic Beginnings, 47; as 1827 in “Survey of Historic Sites and Structures in Kansas,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 33: 179. 1619 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 154, 167-168. 1620 . Adams, “Kansas Reminiscences,” Kansas Historical Collections, 1: 111. 1621 . “Sixth Biennial Report,” Kansas Historical Collections, 4: 302. 1622 . Father Benedict Roux, a Jesuit came from France in 1831 and arrived at Kawsmouth on November 14, 1833. In 1834 he purchased land in Kansas City, Missouri where a church known as “Chouteau’s Church” was built. After a disagreement with the parishioners, he returned to St. Louis in 1835. 1623 . Garraghan, Catholic Beginnings, 47-48. 254 Father Roux was back at the trading house when he sent a letter to Bishop Rosati “from the Kansas River” on January 20, 1834, writing : “The winter holds me pitilessly confined in Mr. Chouteau’s trading house, about ten miles from the majority of the French families.” 1624 He must have stayed at the post or have returned at a later date, as on March 11, of the same year, he wrote: My place of residence is with Mr. Chouteau in Indian Territory.”1625 Cyprien‘s trading house was the most western point where travelers heading west could purchase their last supplies. John Clark Fremont wrote in his Journal: From the Landing (in Kansas City, Missouri), I went ten miles up the Kansas River to the trading post of Mr. Cyprian Chouteau, where we were already in Indian ground. This was one of the friendly contributions of the St. Louis Chouteaus, which were to come in aid in this and future journeys. We were delayed here some twenty days in fitting men and animals, arms and equipment, into place and good order…. Bad weather, which interfered with astronomical observations, delayed us several days in the early part of June (1842) at the post, which is on the right bank of the Kansas River, about ten miles above its mouth and six beyond the western boundary of Missouri…. Gradually everything – the materiel of the camp men, horses, and even mules – settled into its place, and by the 10th we were ready to depart. 1626 The location of the trading post as described by Fremont was confirmed by other reports. An 1830 trading license stated that its site was “on the Kansas river about twelve miles from its mouth.” 1627 In 1831, it was said to be “opposite the old half-breed establishment (?) on the Kanzas, about twelve miles from its mouth.” 1628 More precisely, it was located on the south side of the river about one mile from the old Methodist Mission and about seven miles from Westport, Missouri, on Section 13, Township 11, Range 24 E in Wyandotte County, Kansas.1629 The map drawn by T. H. Jefferson shows its position on the south bank of the river and in relationship with Westport. 1630 It was near and opposite the Indian village of Secondine, now known as Muncie, and one mile directly north of Turner. Cyprien’s trading post functioned until the mid-1850s for more than twenty-five years.1631 1624 . Ibid., 55. 1625 . Ibid., 60. 1626 . Fremont, Narrative of Exploration,158. 1627 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 154. 1628 . Ibid. 154. 1629 . “Explanation of Map,” Kansas Historical Collections, 9: 575; Garraghan, Catholic Beginnings, 47n41; Barry, Beginning of the West, 153-154; 248. However Frederick Chouteau was quoted as having said in 1880 that the trading post was on the north side of the river. He was either misquoted or after more than fifty years his memory had failed him. 1630 . The map is reproduced in Barry, Beginning of the West, 613. 1631 . “Historic Sites and Structures…” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 23:179. 255 The post located on the Shawnee reserve to serve the Delaware and Shawnee Indians was a welcome resting place for the Catholic Fathers and the travelers, as the Chouteaus were hospitable and helpful traders. Father Lutz appreciated their hospitality in a letter dated November 12, 1828, which he wrote to Bishop: “Mr. Francis Chouteau treated me always with very great courtesy and more than once had pledged to do his utmost to help me along.” 1632 Fremont also acknowledged Cyprien’s thoughtfulness, writing: “Mr. Cyprian Chouteau, to whose kindness during our stay at his house we were indebted, accompanied us several miles on our way, until we met an Indian whom he had engaged to conduct us on the first thirty or forty miles.” 1633 Nancy Francis, Cyprien’s wife must have contributed greatly to the warm reception the visitors received as she was remembered as “estimable, long and favorably known in early Kansas City circles.” 1634 Born in 1821 in Wapakoneta, Auglaize County, Ohio, she was the daughter of John Francis, the Shawnee hereditary chief. After she was orphaned at the age of seven, she lived and was educated at the Quaker school, in Merriam, Kansas.1635 Later she joined the Methodist church but after her marriage in 1830, she became a Catholic. She died after 1908.1636 Some of Cyprien and Nancy’s descendants still live in the Kansas City area. THE HORSESHOE LAKE 1637 TRADING POST In the fall of 1829, Frederick Chouteau, who was only twenty years old at the time, opened a trading post near Horseshoe Lake in Douglas County, northwest of Lawrence, on the south side of the Kansas River and about one mile from the Kansa agency.1638 The American Fur Company, which employed Frederick Chouteau, was issued a license on October 10, 1831, allowing it to trade with the Kansas, stipulating however that the trade had to be conducted “at a point between the two upper villages of the Kanzas, on the Kansas River.” 1639 On December 20, 1831, Frederick was still near Horseshoe Lake, having resisted moving up the river near the Kansas villages as, at his present location, he 1632 . Garraghan, Catholic Beginnings, 32. 1633 . Fremont, Narrative of Exploration, 89. 1634 . Garraghan, Catholic Beginnings, 119. 1635 . Marra, Cher Oncle, 174; Hobbs, “The Friends’ Establishment in Kansas Territory,” Kansas Historical Collections, 8: 250-271. 1636 . Her death is erroneously listed as of 1846 in Barry, Beginning of the West, 166. She gave an interview recorded by Spencer, “Shawnee Indians,” Kansas Historical Collections, 10: 392-393n7. 1637 . Now known as Lake View Lake. 1638 . Shawnee County Historical Bulletin December 1946; Barry, Beginning of the West, 165- 166. 1639 . By that time, the Kansa Indians lived in three separate villages in Shawnee County. Fool Chief’s village was located north of the Kansas River, about seven miles northwest of Topeka on Soldier Creek. American Chief’s village was about one mile and a half south of the river on Mission Creek in Section 28, Township 11, Range 14E in Dover Township. Hard Chief’s village was about seven miles west of Fool Chief’s village on the south bank of the river in Section 28, Township 11, Range 14E in Dover Township. The license stipulated that the trading post was to be located at a point between the two upper villages of the Kanzas, which was between the villages of Hard Chief and American Chief. 256 benefited from the trade with both the whites and the Indians. On that day, his brother François Gesseau petitioned to the Kansa subagent, Marston G. Clark to allow Frederick to stay at the Horseshoe Lake location. The next day, Clark answered: You have been vending goods at your old stand for some days (disregarding the license) both to the Indians and to the whites, thereby bringing down on this agency large bodies of Indians to the great annoyance of the few whites at this place by killing their stock, crowding their houses and begging for provisions. . . . You had, I conceive, full time to have reached the point designated in the license and to have made your cabins.1640 MISSION CREEK TRADING POST After spending two years on Horseshoe Lake, in early spring of 1832 1641, Frederick Chouteau decided to conform to the subagent’s instructions and moved between the villages of the American Chief and Hard Chief, near the mouth of Mission Creek. 1642 That site was not far from Valencia, in Dover Township, Shawnee County, precisely at Section 27, Township 11S, Range 14E.1643 In his “Remiscences,” 1644 Frederick Chouteau gave us insight into his business relationship with the Kansa Indians. In August, navigating by boat up the Kansas River, he brought goods, which he sold to the Indians on credit. He usually received his supplies from his brother François’ warehouse, near the mouth of the Kansas River. By September the Indians left for their annual hunt returning around Christmas. At that time they repaid him with pelts - otter and beaver skins and buffalo robes. In the spring when the weather turned warm, Frederick went down the Kansas River with his load of hides to his brother’s warehouse. From there, the pelts were shipped to St. Louis by keelboat or steamboat. Chouteau also explained how they used keel-boats to transport their merchandise down the Kansas River: The keel-boat which my brothers had in 1828, I think, was the first which navigated the Kaw river. After I came, the keel-boat was used altogether on the Kaw river… The keel-boats were made in St. Louis. They were rib-made boats, shaped like the hull of a steamboat, and 1640 Ibid., 166. 1641 . Confusion has arisen about the precise date when Chouteau left Horseshoe Lake. In the notes taken by Franklin G. Adams during an interview conducted with Frederick Chouteau on April 24, 1880 and published in Kansas Historical Collections, 8: 245, Chouteau is supposed to have said:” In 1830, June 3, I made my house on the American Chief [Mission] Creek.” However in his correspondence, dated May 6 and May 10 of the same year, he stated that he built his post near American Creek in 1832. As Barry surmised in Beginning of the West, 212, the date of 1830 must be a misprint or a misquotation. During the same interview, Chouteau said that he stayed two years on Horseshoe Lake. 1642 . The creek did not receive this name until the Pottawatomie Indians moved there in 1847. At the time it was known as American Chief’s Creek. 1643 . Ibid., 167. 1644 . Adams, “Reminiscences, Kansas Historical Collections, 8: 423-433. 257 decked over. They were about eight or ten feet across the deck and five feet deep below deck. They were rigged with one mast and had a rudder, though we generally took the rudder off and used a long oar for steering. There were four rowlocks on each side. Going up the Kaw River we pulled all the way, about fifteen miles a day. Going down it sometimes took a good many days, as it did going up, on account of the loss of water. I have taken a month to go down from my trading-house at American Chief (Mission) creek, many times lightening the boat with skiffs; other times going down in a day. I never went with the boat above my trading-house at the American Chief village. No other traders except myself and brothers ran keel- boats on the Kaw. We pulled up sometimes by the willows which lined the banks of the river.1645 Joseph S. Chick wrote in 1906 that when he was nine years old, in April 1838, while visiting his sister at the Kansas Methodist Mission, he saw a “periogue” brought by the Chouteaus to the mouth of Mission Creek. He reported that everybody living near there, whites and Indians went to see it. In an interview, two years later he said that “Chouteau’s pirogue was cordelled up the Kansas River. It had a plank deck. The goods were all down in the hold. There was no awning over the boat.”1646 The boats, which were kept at the trading post during the fall and winter, were also used by travelers to cross the Kansas River or carry their belongings. Matthew C. Field wrote in his diary on October 16, 1842 that his party loaded “everything over in a 40-foot pirogue of Charles Choteau.” 1647 On September 21, 1844, Frederick loaned his pirogues in order for travelers to transport their “plund[e]r to the north bank.1648 Frederick and Charles were the only white men at that location among the Kansa Indians until 1836 when the Methodist Mission was established at the American Chief village, two miles from his trading post.1649 While he was still living at Horseshoe Lake, Frederick had married Nancy Logan, a part-Shawnee Indian woman. They had four children “all natives of Kansas”, probably born at the trading post on Mission Creek. They were baptized in Kansas City, Missouri on June 23, 1842 by the Catholic Bishop, their baptisms being recorded in the Westport baptismal records: William, at the time was nine years old; Benjamin, seven years old; Amanda, five years old, and Francis, three years old. Nancy (Logan) Chouteau died in 1846.1650 1645. Ibid., 428. 1646 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 347; Barry added: “Chick and Chouteau seem to describe the same type of craft, but Chick called them pirogues, and Chouteau called them keelboats.” 1647 . Ibid., 499. Charles B. Chouteau was born in St. Louis in 1808, the son of Pierre Chouteau and his second wife, Brigitte Saucier and a brother of François Gesseau, Cyprien, and Frederick Chouteau. In 1827 he was working in Pierre Menard’s store in Kaskaskia. He joined his brother Frederick at the trading post in 1843 and the two thereafter operated it together. He died in 1884. 1648 . Ibid., 527. 1649 . Ibid., 301; Adams,”Reminiscences,” Kansas Historical Collections, 8: 426. 1650 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 453. 258 When the Kansa Indians were moved to their reservation in Council Grove, Morris County, Frederick and his brother Charles followed them. Charles was a witness at the signature of the treaty of January 14, 1846 at the Methodist Mission on Mill Creek, by which the Kansa Indians ceded their lands on the Kansas River and received a diminished reservation near Council Grove. He signed the treaty as “Chs.Choteau.” 1651 The Chouteau brothers had a long association with the Kansa Indians as can be judged from the succession of trading licenses granted to them between1833 and 1853: October 25, 1833 – license awarded to Frederick Chouteau October 2, 1846 – license awarded to Cyprien; Frederick and Charles being listed as “clerks and salesmen” September 1848 – license awarded to C(harles) and F(rederick) July 1849 – license awarded to C(yprien) and F(rederick) June 1850 – license awarded to C(yprien) and F(rederick) July 1851 – license awarded to C(yprien) and F(rederick) May 1853 – license awarded to Cyprien and Frederick 1652 Frederick and Cyprien were also granted licenses to trade with the Delaware Indians on May 1852 and with the Miami Indians in February 1853.1653 GIRAUD’S TRADING POST A map drawn circa 1825 and published in 1827 by the Belgian cartographer, Philippe Marie Van der Maelen stands as evidence of the existence at that time of a trading post in Linn County, Kansas, near the town known today as Trading Post. It is shown as “Etablissement Chouteau.”1654 There is no record as to the name of its first agent or when it was built. Little information is available about Michel Giraud, the first known manager of the post of the American Fur Company. Born in Lyon, France, he signed his name as “Michel Giraud,” although he has been referred to as Michael Gero, Gireau, Giareau, Giroux, Girou, Jarieu, and Jeru.1655 Before settling on the south bank of the Marais des Cygnes River, near the mouth of Sugar Creek, he had been an employee of the American Fur Company among the Osages at Collen Ford in Missouri. He followed the Indians when they were relocated in Kansas after the treaty of June 2, 1825.1656 The exact date of his move has not been recorded. For a few years, Giraud profited from the advantageous location of the trading post. The Pottawatomie reservation on Sugar Creek was only fifteen miles west. The new 1651 . Kappler, Indian Treaties, 554. 1652 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 48, 648, 770, 879, 1016, 1138. 1653 . Ibid., 1059, 1190. 1654 . In Atlas Universel de Géographie Physique, Statistique et Minéalogique 4 : 49. The original atlas is in the Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas, Lawrence. Widner,” Map Accuracy defended,” Linn County News, March 7, 1985. 1655 . Giraud could have been the “ Mr. Jearreau” whom Zebulon M. Pike had met at Prairie du Chien on April 18, 1806. Pike, Expeditions of the Sources of the Mississippi, Appendix to Part I, 25. 1656 . Connelley, “Early Indian Occupancy, “Kansas Historical Collections, 14: 467; La Cygne Weekly Journal, May 17, 1895. 259 military road from St. Joseph, Missouri to Fort Gibson (Oklahoma) and Fort Smith (Arkansas) by the way of Fort Leavenworth ran straight through the post 1657 and the government had built nearby a “substantial log fort” to station a full company of dragoons. From Missouri, Giraud had brought with him some of his French helpers and also a slave, named Gabe. One of the Frenchmen by the name of Mosier lived with his wife and daughter on the east bank of the river. Another one, named Murier and his wife built a house on the opposite bank According to a neighbor, “their houses were very neat, and gay with the red blankets and trinkets from Jarieu’s stock of Indian finery.” 1658 Manuscripts deposited in the Missouri Historical Society in the P. Chouteau Maffitt Collection give insight into the operation of the Giraud trading post. Invoices dated June 1, 1832 and February 26,1833 and a packaging account, dated June 1, 1832, provide a list of goods received by the trader. They included food items (rice, biscuit, pepper, vinegar, sugar, coffee, salt lard, flour and whiskey), clothing (coats, vests, pants, pantaloons, hats, stockings, handkerchiefs, suspenders, gloves and mittens), tools (axes, corn hoes, sickles, vices, saws, hatchets, nails), needlework supplies (yarn, thread needles, thimbles, spun cotton, fabrics of all sorts, ribbon, beads of many colors, buttons), household goods (soap, cord, string, combs, blankets in various sizes and colors, candlewicks, caldrons, kettles, chinaware, glassware) and other items (guns, rifles, knives, lead, flint, clay pipes, tobacco, saddles, brass finger rings, bells, playing cards, etc.). Also in the P. Chouteau Maffitt Collection is a list of pelts sent by Giraud to Pierre, Chouteau Jr. in St. Louis on May 14, 1835. Louis Peltier was in charge of delivering the goods. The list reads: “78 packs of cats (9360 hides), 4 packs of foxes (480), 7 packs of wolves (575), 1 pack of muskrats (448), 7 ½ packs of otter (555), 2 ½ packs of beavers (180), 38 packs of deer hides, shorn, 1 pack of robes (11), 15 packs of cow hides, and 2 packs of bull hides.” The paragraph at the bottom of the invoice reads: “I have received the bear pelts too late to be able to count them and arrange them into packages. I am sending them as I have received them. ”1659 In a letter addressed to Mr. P [ierre, Jr.]. Chouteau on November 20, 1834, Giraud expressed his desire to retire. He assured Chouteau that he was in no way dissatisfied with the treatment he had received but believed that the trading post could only bring about losses and trouble in the future. A day later, he wrote to J. P. Sarpy of St. Louis stating that he had never seen business look so bad as this year. I see great troubles from which we will not be able to extricate ourselves honorably this year. The increase in prices, as well as the delay in our merchandise and the cholera do you considerable harm this year. Among the Osages there are about 250 or 300 dead…. 1657 . Mitchell, “Historic Linn,” Kansas Historical Collections,16: 641-642; St. Paul Journal, Neosho Co., May 7, 1942; Barry, Beginning of the West, 376. 1658 . Mitchell, “Historic Linn,” Kansas Historical Collections, 16: 641. 1659 . It has been claimed “the value of the fur collected annually for many years at this and other posts in the region amounted to $300,000.” Andreas, History State of Kansas, 1101. 260 After our engagement is over, Mellicours (sic) and I want to leave trading with the Osages. It is difficult for us to give ourselves such labors every year. We do not wish to lose money for the Company, and our wages do not justify the pains and troubles that we have year after year. So it is better for us to finish once for all and try to do something else. We have nothing but praise for Mr. Cadet (Pierre Chouteau, Jr.). 1660 Giraud witnessed the treaty signed by the United States Government and the Great and Little Osage Indians on July 11, 1839, which was concluded at Fort Gibson, “west of Arkansas.” 1661 He must not have left the area as through the year of 1840 he is mentioned several times as being a witness or sponsor at baptisms and marriages performed at the trading post or in its vicinity. In later years, travelers recorded the warm hospitality they received during their stop at Giraud’s trading post. In July of 1841, he invited four nuns from the Society of the Sacred Heart who were on their way to the Sugar Creek Pottawatomie Mission to open a school for Indian girls.1662 Bishop Robert R. Robert who was touring the Methodist Indian missions was there on April 13, 1842. Reverend E. R. Ames, who accompanied him, wrote: “Both ourselves and horses fared exceedingly well” during their stay at the trading post.1663 Two missionaries Learner B. Stateler and William H. Goode stopped at “Jeru’s” on July 1, 1843.1664 In 1845 a “remarkable” event was recorded. A steamboat arrived at Giraud’s establishment. With great excitement, one hundred and fifty people assembled along the banks of the river to see “the little flat-bottomed sternwheel affair.” However as soon as they heard that the captain was sick with small pox, they all left, afraid to contract the disease. The steamboat stayed several days1665 Giraud may not have been at the trading post much after 1845 as on June 28, 1847 he is recorded as living west of Erie in Neosho County. An incident which happened at that time was reported by Reverend Paul M. Ponziglione of the nearby Osage Catholic Mission. A twenty-year old French girl, Lucille St. Pierre from New Orleans, had been sent by her father, acting agent in Louisiana for the botanist, Benoit DeBonald, to “supply the Paris Botanical Gardens with a special collection of complete North American flora.” Upon arriving at the Osage Mission, she met a young French speaking Osage girl, named Angelica Mit-ce-ke who was to be her guide. They left on a skiff which had been raised by Giraud. Subsequently during one of their stops, their boat floated away and they were unable to find their way 1660 . Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis. P. Chouteau Maffitt Collection. 1661 .Kappler, Indian Treaties, 527. 1662 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 433. In her Journal, Lucille Mathevon, one of the nuns at the Sugar Creek Mission, wrote:” This good M. Girou (sic) received us well. He gave us his room and we spent a very enjoyable evening.” 1663 . Ibid. 446. 1664 . Ibid., 490 1665 . Mitchell, “Historic Linn,” Kansas Historical Collections, 16:199, 640-641. 261 back. A search party was organized. Giraud and a part-Osage, named Isaac Swiss were reported to have found them. 1666 It is not clear when Michel Giraud left the trading post on the Marais des Cygnes (then known as the Osage River) or the area in Neosho County. It has been recorded that he sold his Marais des Cygnes post to Philippe Chouteau around 1848.1667 A document from the Osage River Agency, dated July 18, 1848 indicates that P. Chouteau Jr. & Co. sold one third of the Osage River Agency trading establishment to Isaac G. Baker.1668 William P. Tomlinson who visited “Chotteau’s Trading Post” (sic) in 1858 wrote: “It is an old place, having been established as a frontier place to trade with the Indians long before Kansas was organized as a Territory. The buildings are chiefly log, long, low, and ruinous.” 1669 In his later years, Giraud must have moved to St. Louis as the funeral of Pierre Mélicourt Papin, the former American Fur Company agent on the Neosho River, took place on July 20, 1849 “at 6 o’clock from the residence of Michael (Michel) Giraud, Esp.”1670 The location of the trading post, first known as “Etablissement de Chouteau”, later as “Giraud’s Trading Post’, is now the site of the town of Trading Post in Linn County. TRADING POST AMONG THE WEA, PIANKESHAW AND PEORIA INDIANS Foreseeing the relocation of the Weas, Piankeshaws and Peorias in Kansas, Pierre Ménard, Sr. planned to open a trading post among them. He wrote to François Gesseau Chouteau, his son-in-law, on September 30, 1829: “iam Meyers1671 is the person that I appoint to trade with the Piankeshaws, Weas, and Peorias. I directed him to go take his appointment from you at your place. Give him what you judge necessary for the post that he will operate.”1672 Chouteau willingly accepted Ménard’s choice as Meyers had previously traded with those Indians in central Missouri and spoke the Wea language. On the same day, Ménard wrote to Meyers: Sir, you will proceed without delay to the establishment of M. Fr [ançois]. Chouteau and the Kansas River and there you will receive an assortment of goods suitable for the Piankeshaw, Wea, and Peoria with whom you are to trade this coming winter. I have written to Capt. Vashon in order to obtain a license. You will inform me immediately of the place selected by the agent as the trading place for those Indians. You will conform yourself to the rules and regulations of trade in that 1666 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 696; Saint Paul Journal, Neosho County, May 7, 1942. 1667 . Mitchell, “Historic Linn, “Kansas Historical Collections, 16: 198, 641. 1668 . Barry, Beginniong of the West, 770. 1669 . Ibid., 376. 1670 . Ibid., 881. 1671 . Meyers’ name is sometimes written as “Mairs.” Marra, 51. 1672 . Ibid., 207. 262 section of the country and by no means violate the laws regulating trade and intercourse with the Indians.1673 By November 4, 1829, Chouteau had not yet obtained a license to begin trading with the Indians as he reported to his brother, Pierre Chouteau, Jr.: “I have not been able to obtain a license for the Marais des Cygnes, that is, for trading with the Weas, Piankeshaws, and Peorias. Captain Vashon tells me that he cannot do it because these Indians will not take possession of their land.”1674 The Indians must have moved to Kansas in 1831 as Chouteau wrote on February 24, 1832: “Meyers made a treaty with the Weas, Piankeshaww, and Peorias.” However it is only in October 25, 1832 that the Chouteaus received the license to establish a trading post for the Weas, Peorias, Piankeshaws, Kickapoos (of Western Missouri), the Weas and Peorias. It was located on a branch of the Marais des Cygnes River, one mile from the Wea villages near Paola in Miami County.1675 The trading post was built shortly after as François Gesseau Chouteau wrote on December 12, 1832: “ We also have among the Weas a fine trading post, built and arranged for what is necessary for trade.” 1676 The trading post did not operate for long, Meyers refusing to remain among the Indians, although Ménard had “offered to increase his salary by 100 a year.” It may have been that Meyers realized that he had “become unpopular with the Indians. And the natives let it be seen.” 1677 The fact that his wife had left the “wilderness”1678 must also have contributed to his decision to abandon the trading post. It is corroborated by the statement made by François Gesseau Chouteau when he wrote to his father–in–law: “Meyers told me that with regard to his family he would prefer to leave the Indian trade.”1679 Surprisingly, given his relationship with the Indians and his desire to join his wife in St. Genevieve, Missouri, he announced that he would be willing to trade among the Kickapoos if they paid him 1,000 dollars and gave him a clerk to assist him. There was no follow-up to Meyers’ offer and the trading post among the Kickapoos was awarded to Pensineau. As late as March 1833, Ménard resented Meyers having abandoned the trading post, as he wrote: “I will see Meyers tomorrow at Ste. Genevieve and will communicate that he was wrong in leaving his post so quickly.” 1680 On November 25, 1833, François Gesseau Chouteau wrote that a trader by the name of André, probably a half-breed, was operating the trading post among the Weas but there is no mention of any establishment there in the following correspondence. 1673 . Ibid., 51. 1674 . Ibid., 73-74. 1675 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 221-222, 248. 1676 . Marra, 105. 1677 . Letter of François Chouteau to Pierre Ménard, Sr., dated May 20, 1833. Ibid., 114. 1678 . Letter of François Chouteau to Pierre Ménard, Sr., dated August 12, 1832. Ibid., 102. 1679 . Ibid., 117. 1680 . Ibid., 211-212. 263 LAURENT PENSINEAU’S TRADING POST Under the supervision of François Gesseau Chouteau, Laurent Pensineau1681 operated a trading post for the American Fur Company in northeast Kansas among the Kickapoo Indians.1682 Born in 1805, he was the son of Louison Pensineau and Lizette Le Compt, early settlers in the Illinois Territory, who were highly respected in their community. Louison’s ancestors had come from Normandy, France to settle in Fort La Prairie, across from Montreal, Canada. His mother, a native of Cahokia, was the daughter of a Frenchman and a half-breed woman (half French, half Pottawatomie). He must have been living among the Kickapoos in Missouri prior to the treaty of Castor Hill of February 13, 1833 and their arrival in Kansas, as he had a son, Louis, born in 1828, whose mother was probably a Kickapoo woman, named Nina 1683. On October 25, 1833, he was granted a license to trade with the Kickapoos.1684 On September 9, 1833, François Gesseau Chouteau wrote to Pierre Ménard, about the arrangements he was making for the opening of the trading post: Pinnsonneaux is here. . . . I made the necessary arrangements at his arrival here to go immediately to construct his trading post among the Kickapoo. But first of all, I went to advise the agent [Cummins] who told me he had to see the place to designate and make his report to Gen. [William] Clark. He promised me he would go to see the place in 2 or 3 days. But he fell very ill and he is not yet over it so you see how all these formalities slow us down.1685 On November 25, 1833, Chouteau wrote: The Kickapoo post is now established. As soon as I was able to obtain a location and a license for the agent, I took the measures in such a way that the post could be built in a short time. It is four miles from the fort, in a beautiful location, that is to say, above the garrison and in the sight of the Missouri.1686 His post was located at the mouth of Pensineau’s Creek, also known as Pensineau’s landing on the Missouri River. 1687 The pen and ink sketch of the Kickapoo Mission, drawn by Father Peter Verhaegen, S.J., shows the Maison du marchand (Merchant’s house), on the right bank of the Missouri River near the Kickapoo Mission, It was a two-story building with a road leading from it to the 1681 . Also known as Lawrence Pinsonneau, Pinsonneu, Painsonneau, Pensineaux, Pencenaux. 1682 . “The Indian Agent (Laurent Pinsineau) is a French Creole… General Clark took him under his protection and Messrs. Chouteau & Co. will procure him all the advantages and comforts which his new situation will require.” Graves-Garraghan-Towle, History of the Kickapoo Mission, 11. General William Clark was the governor of the Territory of Missouri from 1813 to 1820 and was afterwards Indian Affairs Superintendent. 1683 . Ibid., 257. 1684 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 248. 1685 . Marra, 119. 1686 . Ibid., 122. 1687 . Ibid., 253, 310, 408. 264 mission.1688 Pensineau was closely associated with the Catholic Church. His name appears frequently on the baptismal records.1689 In November 1833, when Father Benedict Roux1690 visited the Kickapoo reservation and celebrated mass in Pensineau’s home, the trader translated into French the message sent by Chief Kennekuk. Laurent was instrumental in the establishment of the mission for the Kickapoos. Father Roux wrote to Bishop Rosati on March 11, 1834: “Mr. Pinsonneau tells me these good Indians are eager to have me go and baptize their children; they desire most eagerly to hear the counsels of the Black-robes and to embrace his religion.” 1691 On June 1, 1836, Reverend Charles F. Van Quickenborne, S.J. and three lay brothers came to open the Catholic Mission near the Kickapoo reservation. Pensineau put his home at their disposal until the construction of the mission was completed in the following month of October.1692 Father Van Quickenborne recorded his impressions of his lodging: “Our accommodations are rather better than I had anticipated. Mr.Painsonneau [Pensineau, the one who keeps a store for the nation, has had the kindness to let us occupy one of his old cabins. It is 16 feet square made of rough logs and daubed with clay. Here we have our chapel, dormitory, refectory, etc. We had to sleep on the floor.”1693 It is not known how long Pensineau managed the American Fur Company trading post but he was still there in the summer of 1837 as Count Francesco Arese, an Italian nobleman from Milan who was ascending the Missouri River on the steamboat St. Peters, wrote in his Journal that a few hours after leaving Fort Leavenworth, “at a post of the American Fur Company [they] landed the boss of the trading post.” The “boss” was probably Laurent Pensineau. On July 14, 1837 François Gesseau ordered the unloading of packs of furs in “Pensineau’s shed” to be picked at a later date by the steamboat St. Peters. Probably Pensineau had left by 1842 as there was a new trader among the Kickapoos. Pascal Pensineau must have assisted his brother in the management of the trading post as his presence is noted between the years 1833 and 1838. The baptisms of two of his daughters were recorded in the Kickapoo Register of Baptisms,1694 Brigitte Amable on January 4, 1837 and Maria on October 30, 1838. Both of the girls’ mothers were Kickapoo women. Pascal must have later moved to the Pottawatomi Sugar Creek reservation as his marriage to a Pottawatomi woman was registered there on June 28, 1847, as well as the baptism of his three year old 1688 . Reproduced in Garraghan, Jesuits, between pp. 402 and 403, from the Archives of the Missouri Province, S.J., St. Louis. 1689 . Garraghan, Catholic Beginnings, 35-54; Jesuits, 1:388; Graves-Garraghan-Towle, History of the Kickapoo Mission, 3n3. 1690 . On March 3, 1834 Father Roux baptized Pensineau’s eight year old son, Louis at the “mouth of the Kansas” in a rented “chapel where Father Roux officiated until April 1835. 1691 . Garraghan, Catholic Beginnings, 3. See chapter 15. 1692 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 309-310. 1693 . Letter of Van Quickerborne to Father McSherry, dated June 29, 1836. Graves-Garraghan,- Towle, History of Kickapoo Mission, 12; Garraghan, Jesuits, 1: 396. 1694 . Microfilm in the Kansas State Historical Library. 265 daughter, Rosalie. 1695 Laurent Pensineau may have returned to Illinois where he was born as he married Elizabeth Hays there and later died at Point-ā la Pierre in Illinois on July 18, 1848. THE ROBIDOUX TRADING POST Although not as renowned as the Chouteaus, members of the Robidoux 1696 family played an important part in the fur trade for more than half a century. Joseph Robidoux, born in 1750 in Montreal, left Canada to escape the British domination after the Treaty of Paris of 1763 when France ceded Canada to England. He arrived in St. Louis in 1770 with his father who died a year later. A well educated man, Joseph was prominently identified with the fur trade in that city as well as in the social and civic activities there. In May 1794, he received 1/12 of the Great Osages trade and was one of the organizers of La Compagnie de Commerce pour la Découverte du haut du Missouri, commonly known as the Missouri Company. He was a member of the Board of Trade and one of the signers of the petition for incorporation of St. Louis in 1809. He died on March 17 1809, at the age of 60.1697 On December 17, 1812, the first General Assembly of the Territory of Missouri was held in his home, by then occupied by his oldest son, Joseph. Joseph, Jr., 1698 born on August 10, 1783, made his first trapping expedition up the Missouri in 1799 with Captain Ashley. When his father became blind in 1802, he took over the family business and was sent to his father’s trading post at Fort Dearborn, where the city of Chicago now stands. Shortly after his arrival, he was robbed of his goods and pelts by a mob of Indians1699 and decided to return to St. Louis. Not discouraged by the attack, he accepted to work for the American Fur Company, which sent him to trade on the Missouri. It is reasonable to suppose that it is what he was doing when Captain William Clark reported seeing him on September 16, 1806 and wrote: At 11 A.M. we met young Mr. Bobidoux with a large boat of six ores and 2 Cannoes, the licenses of this young man was to trade with the Pania Mahars and ottoes reather an extraordinary license for [so] young a man and without the Seal of the territory annexed.1700 The same encounter was related in the Journal of John Ordway, a member of the Corps of Discovery: “About noon we met a keel Boat and 2 canoes. The keel Boat belonged to Mr. Reubado of St. Louis loaded with marchandize and bound for 1695 . Between 1851 and 1853 he was employed as the interpreter for the Iowas, “Missouri” Sacs and Foxes, and the Kickapoos at the Great Nemaha Agency. Barry, Beginning of the West, 1058, 1137, 1172. 1696. “The name Robidoux is usually written with an x, due no doubt to the fact that both Joseph and François frequently gave a flourish to the final u which somewhat resembled an x.” Luttig, Journal of Fur-Trading Expedition, 148. 1697 . Robidoux, Memorial to the Robidoux Brothers, 60. 1698 . Thereafter referred as Joseph Robidoux. 1699 . Ibid. 93; History of Buchanan County, 393. 1700 . Moulton, Journals Lewis and Clark Expedition, 8: 362. 266 the Kanzas Nation of Indians. This boat was under the charge of Mr. Reubado Son. 1701 The two Canoes were going up trapping and hunting. We delayed about an hour. Their was about 20 frenchmen in Company.” As early as 1809, Joseph abandoned the life of a traveling trader to establish a permanent post in Bellevue, near Council Bluffs, Nebraska for the American Fur Company. On September 23, 1817. Joseph Robidoux & Co is recorded as having received a license to trade with the Indians on the Missouri and its waters for one year 1702 and in the same year, on October 6, Joseph and François, his brother, were granted a license to trade for one year with the Great and Little Osages. 1703. On August 16, 1826, he obtained a license in his own name to trade near Bellevue in the Omaha and Pawnee villages, and at the mouths of the Papillon and Niabara rivers. On the 14th of the same year, he was issued a license to trade at the Blacksnake Hills, near the Iowa Sub Agency where four years later, in December of 1833, Isaac McCoy, while surveying the Kickapoo reservation with his son John C., camped “opposite [Joseph] Robardeaux’s trading house.” 1704 As early as 1826 he also operated a flatboat ferry across the Missouri “for the convenience of his employees as well as for the Indians who wished to visit his trading house to swap pelts and robes for various commodities kept by the trader.”1705 In successive years, in 1826, 1827, and 1828, Robidoux and Roy, another Frenchman, were issued licenses to trade at Roy’s Branch near the Iowa Sub Agency in the Blacksnake Hills. In late 1830 or 1831, Joseph accepted the offer of the American Fur Company to buy his goods of his trading post for $3,500; in addition the company agreed to pay him $1,000 per year, under the condition that he would not build another post in the area for three years. After the transaction, he returned to St. Louis and opened a bakery and a confectioner shop. Lured by life in the West, Joseph returned to the Blacksnake Hills to manage the American Company’s post at a salary of $1,800 per year. At about the same time, he sent one of his brothers, probably François, to open a trading post in western Nebraska. 1706 Four years later, he became an independent trader, employing as many as twenty Frenchmen and supplying his brothers with merchandise to be sold in New Mexico and in the Rocky Mountains. In July 30, 1834, Joseph obtained a license to trade with the Iowas, Sacs and Foxes. Joseph became so influential in Indian affairs that William Clark, Superintendent of Indian affairs in St. Louis, selected him to negotiate the treaty between the American government and the Iowas and the band of the Sacs and Foxes of Missouri. Subsequently he witnessed the signing of the treaty on September 17, 1836 at Fort Leavenworth when they ceded their land in Missouri 1701 . He was probably referring to the oldest son, Joseph, born in 1783. Ibid., 9:363. 1702 . Territorial Papers of the U.S., XV, 378; Barry, Beginning of the West, 78. 1703 . Territorial Papers of the U S., XV, 378; Barry, Beginning of the West, 78. 1704 . Ibid., 255. 1705. Root, “Ferries in Kansas,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 2: 122. 1706 . See chapter 7 on “Mountain men”. 267 and moved to Kansas.1707 On July 17, 1839, Joshua Pilcher, superintendant of Indian Affairs in S. Louis issued a license to Joseph Robidoux to trade at Robidoux’s trading house “five miles west of Blacksnake Hills, Mo.; and, on the south [Kansas] with the Iowas, Kickapoos, and Sacs & Foxes. 1708 On May 9, 1839, his son, Julius C. was authorized to maintain a ferry across the Missouri from Rattlesnake Hill near St. Joseph to a road which led to his new trading post. The license “cost 8 dollars, one-half being for state purposes and the balance for the county. The county court fixed the ferriage charges as follows: For each fourwheeled carriage dawn by four horses, oxen or other animals, $1.50. For each two-wheeled carriage drawn by two horses, oxen or other animals, $1. For each man and horse, or mule, 25 cents. For each footman, 121/2 cents. For each led horse, mule, or ass, 121/2 cents. For each head of cattle, 10 cents. For each head of hogs or sheep, 3 cents.” 1709 There is a record of Joseph’s license being reissued on December, 1841 by Superintendent D. D. Mitchell in St. Louis. It specified that Joseph was allowed to trade with the Iowas, Sacs and Foxes of the Missouri at Robidoux’s establishment on the Great Nemaha Sub Agency, located in Doniphan County. Ten men were employed at that post.1710 In the license, which he obtained on July 15, 1842, the post is noted as being in Kansas at a point opposite Blacksnake Hills and at the Iowa and Sac villages where he traded also with the Kickapoos. At that time Joseph employed nine men. 1711 On July 17, 1843, Superintendent D. D. Mitchell granted Jos. Robidoux a license to trade at the villages of the Sacs of Missouri, Iowas, and Kickapoos, and at a point in the Kickapoo country on the Missouri River opposite Blacksnake Hills. These were located in Doniphan and Leavenworth counties, Kansas.1712 The central Superintendency in St. Louis renewed his license in April of 1853 for the same tribes.1713 Joshua Pilcher, superintendent of Indians affairs in St. Louis issued a license to Joseph Robidoux allowing him to trade with the Iowas, Kickapoos, and Sacs and Foxes at Robidoux’s trading house, located “five miles west of Blackhills”, Mo.; and on the south [Kansas] side of the Missouri.1714 In 1843 Joseph founded the town of St. Joseph and named it after his patron saint. 1715 He was an enterprising business man who stored and shipped to St. 1707 . Kappler, Indian Treaties, 468-470. His name is listed as “H. Robedou, jr.” 1708 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 375. 1709 . Root, “Ferries in Kansas,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 2: 124-125. 1710 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 440. 1711 . Ibid., 440. 1712 . Ibid., 490. 1713 . Ibid., 1138. 1714 . Ibid., 375. 1715 . Ibid., 497-498;”Naming of Robidoux Creek,”Kansas Historical Quarterly, 18: 159. 268 Louis the hides he received from his brothers, also outfitting and financing their expeditions to New Mexico and the Rockies. Joseph died May 27, 1868 in St. Joseph, Missouri. THE CANVILLE TRADING POST André Bernard Canville 1716 was an independent trader who opened a post among the Osages on the Neosho River. Born in France about 1801, he came to Canada and then settled at “Kawsmouth” where he arrived prior to 1840.1717 On November 1, 1840, his name appeared among the parishioners of St. Francis Regis Church, previously known as “Chouteau’s Church”, which served the French community of the area. On January 2, 1842, he married Marie Louise Terrien, daughter of Ignatius Terrien and his wife Louise Vallé.1718 Marie Louise and their children were on the Osage tribal rolls as she was three fourths French and one- fourth Osage Indian.1719 Canville was listed in the Federal Census of 1850 as living in Jackson County, Missouri with his wife and two children. Birth and death certificates of other children who were born in the 1840s and died before 1850 are recorded in the Catholic baptismal and burial registers of Kansas City. Canville became a wealthy storekeeper and owner of several real estate properties in Kansas City. 1720 One was later occupied by the City Hotel; another by the store of W. J. Jarboe. Some of his buildings were located at the foot of Main Street.1721 There is no record of the exact date when he moved to Neosho County in Kansas. It may have been after the sale of some of his buildings in 1851 and 1852.1722 Canville1723established a trading post on his wife’s land in Erie township about a quarter of a mile southeast of Shaw, three miles above the mouth of what is known today as Canville Creek, near a ford used by Indians and travelers. The exact location has been identified as NE1/4 of S. 22, T. 28S, R. 19E. It is thought to have been “the first permanent settlement by whites in Neosho County.”1724 It was described as follows: Three log houses about 25x40 were erected. The construction of these houses differ from that of an ordinary house in this, that there are no chinks between the logs of these houses, but the logs were laid in cement one upon the other. The walls were thick, solid, and 1716 . Also known as Andrew Campville. 1717 . Ibid., 442. 1718 . Ibid., 442. 1719 . Their children born on the Neosho River were: Louisa Monica, born May 4, 1854; Elizabeth, born February 1, 1855; Constantia, born March 22, 1856; Pascal Florante, born November 7, 1857; Marie Louisa, born January 22, 1860 and Francis Nicolas, born August 7, 1865. Burns, op. cit., 286, 294, 306, 346, 418. 1720 . The property he had sold for a few hundred dollars was valued in 1858 as being worth between $60,000 and $80,000. Barry, Beginning of the West, 442. 1721 . Kansas City Times, November 4, 1948. 1722 . There are records of his transfer of properties in Jackson County. 1723 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 1127; Graves, Neosho County, 1:126. 1724 Morrison, “The Osage Treaty of 1865,” Kansas Historical Collections, 17: 693. 269 strong and were capable of resisting any ordinary attack that any known enemy might make upon it. In one building was the store and trading post. The others were used by the family and for the accommodation of travelers and traders.1725 The trading post was a one-story house, consisting of three square rooms, 20 by 20 feet, each with one door and two windows.1726 The Osages held a trial there in 1857 1727 and the treaty of September 29, 1865, referred to as the Canville Treaty, between the Osage Nation and the United States government by which the Osages ceded part of their lands in Kansas, was signed at the trading post. Canville operated as an independent trader for more than twenty years until 1871, traveling once a year to Kawsmouth to replenish his supplies. A post office bearing his name was established on June 13, 1866 and it operated until January 10, 1872, Canville being appointed as its third postmaster on September 23, 1867 and serving in that capacity until May 16, 1870.1728 Around 1871, he moved with the Osages to the Indian Territory, to what is now Elgin in Comanche County, Oklahoma. He died there in July 1878. His wife died after 1890 and prior to 1906.1729 A marker on US 59 on the Christian Church grounds at Shaw, Neosho County reads: 1844 A.B. Canville established a trading post a little SE of this mark. Canville is still remembered in the names of Canville Creek and Canville Township in Neosho County. 1725 . Graves, Neosho County, 125-126 and in Duncan, History of Neosho and Wilson Counties,108. 1726 . Morrison, “Osage Treaty,” Kansas Historical Collections, 17: 693. 1727 . Ibid., 701-702. 1728 . .Graves, Neosho County, 1: 127. 1729 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 1128. 270 CHAPTER 11 FRENCHMEN AND HALF-BREEDS LIVING AMONG THE INDIANS: PART III ENTREPRENEURS With the removal of Indian tribes from their former territories to Kansas, Frenchmen and half-breeds, who had been living among them, followed the Indians and established businesses to respond to the Indian needs and later to the increasing demands of emigrants on their way west. Rivers and creeks often not being fordable, their banks being too high or the current too strong, they anticipated how to solve the problems that emigrants and forty-niners were to encounter. Up to the legislature of 1855, there being no restrictions on starting a ferry or any other enterprise, businesses sprang up all along the routes followed by the travelers. 1730The emigrants mentioned the ferries and bridges they used in their journals, diaries, letters, and newspaper articles; however often without many details given about the owners of the ferries, their exact locations, and how long they were in existence. THE CHOUTEAU FERRY The Chouteau brothers, François and Cyprien ran a ferry on the lower Kansas River at a site near and opposite the town of Muncie in Johnson County, probably near their trading post, called “The Four Houses.” It is not known when it started operating, nor when it ceased nor where it was located exactly. However, its existence is confirmed by many travelers who used it. Reverend Isaac McCoy wrote: “We passed up to the Chouteau’s trading house on the south side of the Kansas River and, crossing there, passed on to Fort Leavenworth.” Charles Carpenter, an old resident of Wyandotte County, reported that in 1857 his parents’ boat grounded at Chouteau’s ferry. THE PENSINEAU FERRY Beside his trading post near the Kickapoo reservation, Laurent Pensineau ran a ferry across the Missouri River at a point about the two miles south of the town of Weston in Missouri to a place above Fort Leavenworth, which was known as Pensano’s Landing. He probably started operating it around 1833 but there is no record for how long it was in service. 1731 THE ROY FERRY Jean Baptiste LeRoy,1732 born of French Canadian parents, first lived in Illinois.1733 He was an interpreter and trader among the Iowas, Sacs and Foxes, and may have moved to Kansas with them in 1837 to their reservation in Brown and 1730 . George A. Root, “Ferries in Kansas – Part 1,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 2: 4. 1731 . Ibid., 124-126. 1732 . Also written Le Roy and Roy. 1733 . The town of LeRoy in Illinois is named after him. 271 Doniphan counties.1734 He married an Iowa woman and settled near the mouth of a creek that bears his name. 1735 He built a trading post on a hill overlooking both the creek and the Big Nemaha River and also operated the first ferry on the river, close to the Nebraska line. Many roads led to its location and during the territorial period additional ones were established. 1736 Roy is also listed as an interpreter at the Great Nemaha Subagency and Agency in 1849, 1851, and 1853. 1737 THE PAPPAN FERRY In 1840, three French brothers, Joseph, 1738 Louis and Ahcan Pappan 1739 came to settle in what is now Soldier Township in Shawnee County. Another brother Euberie1740 arrived the following year. Nothing is known with certainty about their origin. According to some historians, they were from St. Louis, sons of Louis Pappan, a fur trader who had worked among the Kansa and Osage Indians. 1741 However they may have been the children of Gilles Papin and his second wife.1742 Their marriages to half-breeds, owners of land along the Kansas River, gave them a distinct advantage and in 1842, the Pappan brothers started operating a ferry located on the south side of the Kansas River at the foot of Tyler Street, about one- half mile west of Kansas Avenue in Topeka. Its site was confirmed when a roadway leading to the landing was discovered while excavating for a large storm sewer that empties into the river at that point.1743 The Pappans’ boats were described by several travelers. Matthew C. Field wrote on May 27, 1843: We crossed the Kansas upon a pirogue, a species of water craft understood here as a raft constructed of two canoes. . . Our vehicles and their contents were floated over where the stream was about two hundred yards wide, with a rapid, turbid and deep current.1744 In May, 1843, an emigrant on his way to Oregon noted: We came to the edge of the Caw river. The river was considerably swollen on account of 1734 . Before coming to Kansas, he may have lived among the Indians near St. Joseph, Missouri, as a stream coming out of the Blacksnake Hills south of that city is known as Roy’s Branch. 1735 . Roys Creek runs through Irwin Township in Brown County. 1736 . Root, “Ferries in Kansas – The Arkansas River,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 5: 378-380. 1737 . “Official Roster of Kansas – 1854-1925”, Kansas Historical Collections, 16: 731-732. 1738 . Joseph Pappan could have been the J. Papin who was as early as 1833 a trader with the American Fur Company or the Joseph “Papair” who saved the life of the missionary William Gray when he was threatened by the Sioux in the summer of 1837. James Beckworth also mentioned a Joseph “Pappen.” Barry, Beginning of the West, 335; Unrau, Mixed-Bloods, 36. 1739 . Also written Papan, Pappe, Papin. The spelling “Pappan” has been retained as Cyrus K. Holliday, one of the founders of Topeka adopted it, as well as Vice-President Curtis when he referred to his grandfather, Louis Pappan. 1740 . Cone, “Shawnee County Townships - Soldier Township,” Shawnee County Historical Society Bulletin, 1: 109. 1741 . Unrau, Kansas Indians, 34. 1742 . “The second family could well be the origin of the Papins who operated the ferry across the Kaw.” Goff, “Pierre Didier Papin,” 30 n10. 1743 . Root, “Ferries in Kansas – Kansas River,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 2: 363. 1744 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 476; Haines, Historic Sites Along the Oregon Trail, 40. 272 recent rains. There were no boats and of course no bridges then, but a Frenchman in the neighborhood had three dugouts made of logs. These my father secured the next morning and with them made a platform, fastening the dugouts about four feet apart, and on this very primitive craft the wagons were one by one ferried across. The better part of two days was spent in crossing the river. We rested a day at the Caw river because the rains were so heavy, and about Friday we started on again .. . . . There were one hundred and twenty-seven wagons in our company and something over four hundred and fifty souls.1745 Also in May of 1843, Overton Johnson and William H. Winter wrote about their crossing of the Kansas River: “The Kanzas River is generally full in the Spring, but emigrants will probably hereafter be accommodated by a Frenchman [Joseph Pappan] who resides at the crossing place, with a ferry-boat.” 1746 William L. Sublette traveling with two carts and several men rafted the river on May 30 in Joseph Pappan’s boat.1747 The crossing was dangerous when the water was high. Peter H. Burnett wrote to James G. Bennett on May 18, 1843: “Pappa’s (sic) platform sank & several men, women, & children came near being drowned.” Probably the same incident was reported by another emigrant who noted: “The bote (sic) sunck (sic) with one family, tho all was saved.” 1748 After the flood came the drought and in the summer of 1843, it became difficult to navigate across the river on account of the sand bars. The condition persisted during the following winter when it continued to be hard to cross the river. On June 14, 1844, Agent R. W. Cummins reported having paid “J. Pappe [Joseph Pappan] to ferry his horses across the river.” 1749 The flood of 1844, when the Kansas River covered the valley from bluff to bluff, destroyed the Pappan’s boats and equipment. For a while the house withstood the rushing waters until they reached the eaves, then it floated away. When the waters subsided, the site of the house had become Felitz Island.1750 Everything they owned having been washed away, the Pappans left Topeka and moved to Kansas City. They returned to Topeka in 1846 to rebuild their ferry operation and their home.1751 From that time the business flourished as the number of travelers increased in the following years. They not only served the emigrants on their way to New Mexico, Utah, Oregon, and California, but also the soldiers coming from and going to Fort Leavenworth, and prospectors headed for the Colorado and California mines. Joseph H. Ware advertised the ferry in the Emigrant’s Guide to California, 1745 . Root, “Ferries in Kansas – Kansas River,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 2:364. 1746 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 480. 1747 . Ibid., 474. 1748 . Gregg-McDermott, Prairie and Mountain Sketches, 35n10; Oregon Historical Quarterly, 9: 221. 1749 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 516. 1750 . In 1877 it became again part of the mainland and is now crossed by the tracks of the Rock Island Railway. Cone, “Felitz Island,” Shawnee County Historical Society Bulletin, 13: 12-15. 1751 . Root, “Chronology of Shawnee County,” Shawnee County Historical Society Bulletin, 1: 7. 273 published in 1849. It read: “At the Kansas crossing, distance 100 miles, you will find a ferry owned by two Indians (French Kaws). The charge for crossing one dollar for a wagon; horses or loose stock you can swim across. 1752 Crossing the river was a perilous venture as Rebecca Ketcham told in her journal of 1853: This is done by means of a strong rope fastened on each side of the river. They have a boat something like those they have on the canal, called scows. This is fastened to the rope across the river by means of another rope and pulleys. One of the ox teams went on the boat first, then two saddle horses then the ladies and the children . . . . The current is swift. The banks on one side are high, and it was difficult to get the teams on the boat, but everything came over safely. 1753 Many obstacles had to be surmounted: poor roads or trails leading to the river, high banks to maneuver, sand bars, and then the long waiting lines of wagons. Diaries of many travelers recounted their tribulations. On May 3rd, 1849, William G. Johnston wrote: About eight o’clock the operation of ferrying the Kansas began. By means of a rope, one end of which was coiled about a tree, the wagons were let down the steep banks of the river, and placed in the boat. Two wagons and twelve mules were taken over at a time, the boat being propelled by poles. A Frenchman and his two sons, who are half-breed Kaws, own and work the ferry. Double teams were required to haul the wagons up the northern bank, and through the deep sand extending a quarter of a mile back from the river. 1754 On May 8, 1849, Jasper M. Hixson recorded: We reached the Kansas late on the evening of the 8th, and crossed just at dark, by ferrying our wagons and swimming our mules. The Ferry is owned by a Frenchman, who had been living with the Indians 14 years.1755 On May 13, 1849, Bennett C. Clark noted: Just after passing the bluff I had reached the lower Kansas ferry early, but other wagons ahead caused a delay of some 4 hours we had to cross a sand beach of some width before getting to the boat, through which the wagons dragged very heavy. . . . We rolled [the wagons] 1752 . Root, “Ferries in Kansas – Kansas River,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 2: 365. 1753 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 1157. 1754 . Ibid., 842. 1755 . Ibid., 842. 274 into the boat by hand. Finally we got all our wagons over and then forded the animals. . . The lower Kansas crossing is from all I could learn much the best and the road to and from it far superior to the upper [Uniontown] one.1756 On May 13 1843, Isaac J. Wistar wrote: Rolled out early [from a Shunganunga creek 1757 camp] to reach the [Kansas] crossing, if possible, in advance of the [two heavy ox-] trains near us. As we passed these, some were burying a man just dead of cholera. . . .The five or six miles of road leading to the crossing was bad, and we stalled and had to double teams several times, but reached the place by 8 A. M. to find still other trains ahead, all squabbling for precedence . . . naturally every one wanted to be the first. We worked hard most of the day, in crossing our five wagons and stores . . . and in making our initial mule crossing. The mule ford was narrow and crooked, with swimming depth in the middle, and a rapid current.1758 On May 26, 1849, David J. Staples entered the following in his diary: At the lower crossing here [Kansas River] we had to be ferried over in flat boats owned by half-breeds the wind blew and we could not persuade them to take us till tomorrow . . . Sunday 27th 49 This morning we got ferried across . . . we got all over at noon.1759 John E. Rastall who used the ferry in 1856 found the crossing an interesting and pleasant experience: The crossing of the Kaw (Kansas) river was infinitely quicker, safer, and more pleasant than that of the Missouri. The foresight of the citizens had provided a long and strong wire cable which was stretched across, its south end fastened near what is now the foot of Polk Street in Topeka. Attached to this wire was a flatboat, sufficiently large to carry a wagon and two yokes of oxen. . . By an ingenious contrivance, the boat, though without wheels, oars, or motive power within itself, was self propelling. Upon the cable were two wheels, or pulleys, through which were passed lines fastened to the boat. The line bow, connecting it with the wheel on the cable, was somewhat shorter than on the stern, so that the craft lay at an angle of forty-five degrees with the rapid current of the stream. This current striking the 1756 . Ibid., 842. 1757 . In Shawnee County. 1758 . Ibid., 842. 1759 . Ibid., 843. 275 side diagonally and passing around the stern, gave a forward motion to the boat, and the wheels upon the cable acting freely, we soon slipped across to our destination, Topeka, what there was of it.1760 Mrs. S. R. Remington, in her “Reminiscences of Early Days in Topeka,” recalled her crossing the Kansas River as they arrived in Topeka on May 6, 1859: “Reached the “Kaw” – just before noon, May 6. It was very windy. Mr. Pappan said would have to remove the cover of our wagon. He could not ferry us with it on.” 1761 It is impossible to establish exactly how much the Pappan brothers charged for the use of their ferry as the amounts reported vary without any relationship to the year, season, or weather. Richard W. Cummings reported in 1844 that he paid two dollars and fifty cents to have his horses and baggage ferried across the river.1762 Five years later, William G. Johnston wrote on May 3, 1849 that the “charge was two dollars for each wagon, twenty-five cents for a mule, and ten cents for each man.” 1763 On the same month of the same year, David J. Staples reported that he “got ferried across at a cost of 10 cents a head for the animals and $1.00 for our wagons.” 1764 Maybe the traffic was lower on Sundays and the rate cheaper. Later, in 1859, the family of S. R. Remington was only asked 50 cents to ferry their wagon on a windy day. 1765 The Pappan brothers ran a busy and efficient operation as judged by those who utilized their facilities. An officer, probably 2nd Lt. William Whipple of Major Steen’s Santa-Fe bound command, wrote in a letter dated August 26, 1852: The [Kansas] river is crossed by the main traveled route from Fort Leavenworth to the Council Grove and by the Emigrant road from Independence to Oregon, etc, at the same point. Here we met hundreds of emigrants for California and Oregon, whose trains, and herds of cattle and sheep, lined the banks on either side. . . . I was surprised to find at the Kansas river Ferry a young Canadian Frenchman, apparently proprietor of the ferry, who, with note-book in hand, was all day long busily occupied in taking down the number of wagons, horses, mules, sheep, etc., crossed over in his boats. Between the emigrant trains [crossing to the north side] and those 1760 . Root, “Ferries in Kansas – Kansas River,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 2: 366. 1761 . Remington, “Some Reminiscences of Early Days in Topeka,” Shawnee County Historical Society Bulletin, 27: 12. 1762 . Unrau, Mixed-Bloods, 41. 1763 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 842. 1764 . Ibid., 843. 1765 . Remington, “Some Reminiscences of Early Days in Topeka,” Shawnee County Historical Society Bulletin, 27:12. 276 belonging to our command [ferrying to the south bank] you may be sure he had a task to attend to.1766 The existence of the ferry brought a great amount of activity to Topeka and contributed to its growth. The Pappan operation was so important that, on January 1 and 2, 1855, when the settlers assembled to adopt a name for their new town, “Pappan’s Ferry” was one of the four names suggested. It was rejected in favor of “Topeka.” 1767 From all the reports available from the travelers, it is difficult to ascertain how many ferries the Pappan brothers operated and their exact locations. It may have been that, depending on the condition of the channel of the river, they changed the site of their landings. Some of the crossings appear to have taken place several miles from the original place mentioned. An article in the Topeka State Journal of August 29, 1929 suggested that possibility as it reads: “The ferry was not always in one place. Year by year, as the river changed, it would move up or down; whenever the banks made the best landing they would move their boat, but always within a few rods of their homes [Joseph and Louis’ homes].” Max Greene wrote in his Kansas Region, published in 1856: “The Great Crossing is then reached, where there are three ferries.”1768 The fact that they employed people outside of their own family may suggest that they operated simultaneously several ferries at different locations. Clément Shattio, 1769 a Frenchman born in St. Louis in 1800, who had been employed earlier by the American Fur Company, came first to Uniontown on June 5, 1848 and moved from there on November 15, 1852 unto a piece of land owned by Alexander Bushman, a Shawnee half-breed. It is recorded that Shattio operated a Pappan 1766 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 1094; New York Daily Tribune, 18 November 1852. 1767 . Cone, Historical Sketch of Shawnee County, Kansas, 45. 1768 . Root, “Ferries in Kansas – Kansas River,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 2: 366. It is not specified if it refers to ferries in Topeka proper or in its area. 1769 . Also written Shatteo. However his correct surname was Chattilon. His wife, Ann Davis, a black woman, born in Palestine, Crawford County, Illinois about 1817, was the daughter of parents who had been freed. At the age of ten, she was stolen from her parents and taken to Missouri. After being sold several times, she paid $250.00 in Bates County, Missouri as part of $400.00 she was to pay for her freedom. At the time of the transaction, she chose Edward Chouteau as her guardian and he witnessed the signing of the agreement on August 16, 1844. She followed her employer first to the Sugar Creek reservation in Linn County, then to Uniontown in 1848 where she bought her freedom in 1849, and married Shattio the same year. “Aunt Ann Story,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 35: 89; Cone, Shawnee County Historical Society Bulletin, 1: 39-40; McLellan, “The Story of the Land,” Shawnee County Historical Bulletin, 22: 54; Kansas Daily Commonwealth, May 12, 875. 277 ferry for a year or more starting in 1852. 1770 He was the first known settler in the Topeka Township of Shawnee County in the north half of Section 25 Township 11, Range 15. 1771 In 1853 a ferry was located about one mile below the Kansa village of Fool Chief, on the southeast quarter of Section 16, Township 11, Range 15 east, a little over four miles west of the mouth of Soldier Creek.1772 Another one was mentioned as being located on the Anthony Ward farm, at about the foot of Western Avenue, that site being a little over one and a half miles south of the Indianola crossing of Soldier Creek on the Fort Leavenworth military road. “On April 4, 1856, the Pappans launch a new ferry boat.” 1773A ferry was still in operation on May 24, 1859 when Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune crossed the Kansas River on his way west after making a speech in Topeka. Thousands of gold seekers bound for the Pike’s Peak mines also used the ferry. 1774 As early as 1858, the Pappan brothers employed Captain Orren A. Curtis shortly after he settled in Topeka. With Louis Pappan, Curtis built three houses, each costing $100. The first was near the southwest corner of Railroad and Jackson streets; the second on the southwest corner of Curtis Street and Kansas Avenue; the third one on the southeast corner of Harrison and Curtis streets. From the marriage of Louis Pappan and Julie Gonville 1775 was born a daughter, Ellen who married the young Curtis, a native of Indiana. Mrs. S. R. Remington was present at the ceremony and recalled the event: The first Sabbath we were in Topeka, which was in the month of May, 1859 as we were ferried across the river, in company of others, to attend the wedding of Captain O. A. Curtis, familiarly known as “Jack” Curtis to Miss Pappan. The bride was very becomingly dressed in white, and withal, they made a fine looking couple, as they stood to be united. There were the parents of our popular U. S. Senator, Charles Curtis who became Vice President of the United States. 1776 Through their wives Josette Gonville Pappan and Julie Gonville Pappan, Joseph and Louis Pappan claimed title to the north bank of the Kansas River in the Topeka area and thus were assured of exclusive rights to run ferries, although attempts were made by white settlers to compete with them Downstream from them, Charles Fish, a Delaware Indian had married Rosalie Gonville, half-sister of 1770 . Ibid., Kansas Historical Quarterly, 2: 366-367. 1771 . On August 15, 1854, Shattio bought out a Shawnee Indian’s claim and moved to the northeast quarter of Section 14, Township 12, Range 15. He died in the summer of 1882. Andreas- Cutler, History of the State of Kansas, 533. 1772 . Adams, “Frederick Chouteau,” Kansas Historical Collections, 8: 425. 1773 . Root, “Chronology of Shawnee County,” Shawnee County Historical Bulletin, 1: 29. 1774 . Root, “Ferries in Kansas – Kansas River,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 2: 368. 1775 . She was the granddaughter of the French trader, Louis Gonville and the great-granddaughter of the Kansa Chief, White Plume. 1776 . 278 Josette and Pélagie, and sister of Julie, and Victoire Gonville.1777 Charles Fish operated a ferry on the Kansas River at the mouth of the Wakarusa, east of Lawrence, in the southwest quarter of Section 12, in the Eudora Township,1778 as evidenced by the testimony of Private Jacob S. Robinson, of the Doniphan’s Regiment who referred to the Fish ferry when he wrote on June 25, 1846: The keeper of the boat said he had made four hundred dollars this season, by the crossing [at the upriver Topeka Oregon trail crossing] of emigrants. On May 15, 1846, Virgil Pringle also mentioned the Fish ferry: “The remainder of the company crossed in the ferry, which consisted of 2 flat boats owned by a Shawnee Indian whose name was Fish.1779 In 1851, the Pappan brothers extended their operation by constructing the first toll bridge across the Shunganunga Creek. It was located three-fourths of a mile east of downtown Topeka. The exact description of the site was Section 3, Township 11S, Range 16E. 1780 Louis Rivard, a Frenchman was the first person employed to collect tolls there. The bridge collapsed in May 1854. 1781 Louis Pappan and a few settlers built a pontoon bridge in the spring of 1858 across the Kansas River near where the Melan Bridge was later constructed. It was carried away by the high waters of the summer of 1858, although it had been anchored to trees growing on an island located in the channel of the river. The Pappan brothers were enterprising men who profited from their marriages to half-breed Kansa women. Their relationship with members of the family of Chief White Plume helped them secure lucrative businesses during Topeka’s early days as they controlled without hardly any competition, ferries, bridges and even a mercantile house where they furnished supplies to soldiers, surveyors, explorers, settlers, prospectors, and all the travelers who crossed the Kansas River in the Topeka area. THE OGEE FERRY AND MILL Louis L. Ogee 1782 was involved in the operation of several ferries across the Kansas River. He was the son of a Frenchman named Joseph Ogee and his wife, 1777 . Hunt Jimmy, a daughter of White Plume who had married Louis Gonville, was the mother of Josette and Pélagie. Wyhesee, also daughter of White Plume and second wife of Louis Gonville, was the mother of Julie, Victoire and Rosalie. 1778 . Albert R. Greene, Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society, 9: 331n22. 1779 . Haines, 40. According to the Indian agent George Vashon who visited the Shawnee Indians in July of 1830 in their settlement “adjoining the line of the state of Missouri,” Charles Fish was a white man “who had lived among the “Shawonoes from a small boy and was in all respects identified with them and had become a principal which had lived many years in the state of Missouri.” Lutz, 166-167. William Hobbs who lived among the Shawnees from November 1850 to November 1842 wrote that “The Fishes [Paschal and John, Charles’sons] were scarcely half-bloods, the white predominating.” They were in fact three-quarter white since their mother, Rosalie Gonville was a half-breed and their father was a white man. 1780 . Topeka State Journal, December 3, 1895. 1781 . Cone, Bulletin of the Shawnee County Historical Society, I, No. 2 (March 1947), 41. 1782 . Also written Lewis Ogee and Ogie. 279 Madeline, a Pottawatomie woman. His father had been an interpreter for the Pottawatomie tribe at the time of the signing of the Treaty of August 25, 1828 in Greenville Bay, Michigan 1783 and a witness in Prairie du Chien, Michigan when the treaty of July 29, 1829 was ratified. 1784 Under the treaty of September 26, 1833 signed in Chicago, he was paid $200 in cash. 1785 Louis must have moved from the Chicago area to the Kickapoo reservation in Leavenworth County as he was appointed blacksmith at the Leavenworth Agency in 1848. Shortly after he moved to the Pottawatomie reservation on the Kansas River where he served as blacksmith at the agency in 1849, 1850, and 1851. 1786 He first operated a ferry with Charles Beaubien, referred to as the “upper ferry” which competed with the Pappan ferry. It was located near Uniontown and was established in 1849 at the official trading post for the Pottawatomie west of Topeka. Later, he set up a mill in Indianola and in 1853, in cooperation with Hiram Wells, established a ferry that was “the first and undoubtedly the only deck ferry ever on the Kaw River. . . This ferry was located only a short distance from the Smith’s ferry.” 1787 The ferry measured ten by sixty feet and was capable of carrying a sizeable load. 1788 The same year, he and his brother Joseph started another ferry within a quarter of a mile. 1789 On January 1, 1854 at Uniontown, Louis signed a contract with the Indian agent J. W. Whitfield “to keep and attend two Ferrys for the use and benefit of the Pottawatomies Indians . . . on the Kansas river.” – one to be located “at or near Smith’s Ferry near the Baptist Mission;” the other “at or near L. R. Darling place – near Union Town.” 1790 The ferries were to be run every day, including Sundays, from sunrise to sunset, for which Ogee was paid a salary of $580 per year.1791 On November 13, 1854, George W. Clarke, agent of the Pottawatomie Agency, discharged Ogee of his function as ferryman 1792 but in 1855-56, he is listed as ferryman at Cross Creek in the records of the Pottawatomie Agency. A Jackson County, Missouri resident was probably referring to the ferry at Uniontown when he wrote: 1783 . Kappler, Treaties, 294. 1784 . Ibid. 300. His name was recorded as “Sogee.” 1785 . Ibid., 407. His name was written “Ogie.” 1786 . Ibid., 896, 1058, 1137. 1787 . W. W. Cone, Historical Sketch of Shawnee County, Kansas, Topeka, 1877, 12; Andreas- Cutler, History of the State of Kansas, 587. 1788 . Root, “Ferries in Kansas,” Kansas Historical Quarterly, 1:16. 1789 . Andreas-Cutler, History of the State of Kansas, 587. 1790 Lucius R. Darling who operated the ferry until January, 1854 was married to Elizabeth (Ouilmette) Welch, a widow who was the daughter of Antoine Ouilmette, a Frenchman married to a half-breed of French and Pottawatomi ancestry. Ouilmette is supposed to have been the first white resident in Chicago. His name has been perpetuated in Wilmette, a Chicago suburb. The land office plat shows that the Darling ferry crossing was in Section 15, Township 11S, Range 13E, near the Shawnee-Wabaunsee county line. Garraghan, Jesuits, 2: 629. Barry, Beginning of the West, 942. Darling operated the ferry until Ogee was awarded the contract. 1791 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 1191. 1792 . Ibid., 1191. 280 Here the odorous but canny Potawatomi had a toll bridge and a horse powered sawmill; making a fast buck was one of the white man’s accomplishments they imitated quickly. 1793 In May 1856 Louis Ogee erected a saw mill in Indianola with his brother, John. 1794 Business was good; they sawed cottonwood, walnut, oak, and other kinds of native trees and sold them to settlers at $30.00 a thousand. He later added burrs. Indians also came every Saturday with bags of corn on the back of their ponies to be ground into meal.1795 Louis moved into the first stone house built in Shawnee County, which had been constructed by Angus L. Langham when he surveyed the Kansa lands in 1826-1827.1796 Louis Ogee was also active in the affairs of the tribe. He signed the Treaty of November 15, 1861 at the Pottawatomie Agency on the Kansas River 1797 and was a member of the delegation which went to Washington, D. C., on April 2, 1862 to ratify it.1798 On February 27, 1867, he was sent to Washington, D. C. to put his seal on the treaty that was concluded there.1799 THE BEAUBIEN STORES AND FERRY Madore R. Beaubien, 1800 born at Thompson Creek on Grand River in Michigan on July 15, 1809, was the son of Jean Baptiste Beaubien, famous French trader 1801 and Man-na-ben-a-qua, an Ottawa woman. 1802 When his father was in the employ of the American Fur Company, Madore accompanied him to Mackinaw and Milwaukee and continued in the fur trade with him for several years. By the Treaty of Chicago of August 29, 1821, 1803 being the son of an Ottawa woman, he received one half of a section near the village of Ke-wi-go-Shkeem on the 1793 . Mattes, The Great Platte River Road, 140. 1794 . George A. Root, “Chronology of Shawnee County,” Bulletin of the Shawnee Historical Society, 2: No.1, 32. 1795 . Topeka Mail and Breeze, Historical Edition, May 22, 1896, 115. 1796 . Root, “Chronology of Shawnee County,” Bulletin of the Shawnee County Historical Society, 2: No. 1, 32. Ogee received a patent for it from the government in 1865 and built a frame addition to the back of the house that was used as a pioneer community center where dances and meetings were held. The house is still standing in excellent condition on Highway 24, east of Silver Lake. It was on the former Fort Leavenworth-Fort Riley military road. 1797 . Kappler, Treaties, 828. 1798 . Garraghan, Jesuits, 3:26n 46. 1799 . Kappler, Treaties, 970, 974. 1800 . Also written Medare Beaubien, Medard B. Bobeaux, Medart Beaubien, Meadore B. Beaubien, and Medore Baubian. Andreas-Cutler, History of the State of Kansas, 587. 1801 . He was one of the witnesses of the Treaty of Greenville of August 3, 1795 under the name of “Jn. Beau Bien” and at the time of the signing of the Treaty of October 20, 1832 at Camp Tipppecanoe under the name of J. B. Beaubien. Kappler, Treaties, 45, 355. He was one of the founders of the city of Chicago and a wealthy landowner in that city. Joseph Tassé, Les Canadiens de l’Ouest, I: 84-96. 1802 . She was later known as Josette Beaubien. Kappler, Treaties, 353. 1803 . Ibid., 201. 281 Washtenaw River. 1804 Along with his father, he signed the Treaty of October 20, 1832 at Camp Tippecanoe under the name of “Meadore B. Beaubien” and was paid a claim of $550 being listed then as Medad B. Bobeaux while his father received $3,000 as “John Bt. Bobea.” 1805 On September 26, 1833, by the treaty signed in Chicago, “Medare B.” and his brother “Charles H. Beaubien” were each awarded $300 in lieu of a reservation and M. B. Beaubien received an additional $440 in payment on claims.1806 After Madore Beaubien removed with the Pottawatomies to Council Bluffs around 1840, he became active and influential in the negotiations between the tribe and the government. In November of 1845, he served as interpreter for the delegation that went to Washington, D. C. to meet with the President to negotiate a land cession. At that time, only a protocol was signed, not a final treaty.1807 On June 5 and 17 1846, he was the interpreter at the signing of the treaty at the Pottawatomie Agency on the Missouri River near Council Bluffs and “at Pottawatomie Creek near the Osage River, south and west of the State of Missouri, between the Prairie Band of the Pottawatomies and the government.” 1808 After the Pottawatomies received land on the Kansas River 1809 in November of 1847, 1810 Beaubien moved first to Soldier Creek at Uniontown, west of Topeka where he settled on 100 acres and opened a store. On September 6, 1852, he guided a party led by Lt. Woodruff and Capt. Buckner who surveyed the new road between St. Mary’s Mission and Rock Creek. 1811 In 1854 he moved to Silver Lake in Shawnee County. In association with Sloan, he opened a store in a log cabin on the bank of the lake. It was one of the places where emigrants made their last purchases before entering the prairies. He was one of the signers of the Treaty of November 15, 1861 at the Pottawatomie Agency on the Kansas River, by which he received one-half section in Silver Lake; his wife being awarded eighty acres adjoining his three hundred and twenty acres. Being a leading man of the Pottawatomie Nation, Madore was present on February 27, 1867 when a treaty was concluded in Washington, D. C. 1812 At that time he was granted one-half section and in 1870 he built a residence in Silver Lake at a cost of $600. 1813 Madore Beaubien founded the town of Silver Lake and was involved in its affairs serving as mayor in 1870, between 1873 and 1875, and between 1877 and 1879. He was party to a lawsuit in which he claimed a large section of land in downtown Chicago and gave testimony in favor of his father’s ownership of that 1804 . Ibid., 199. 1805 . Ibid., 355. 1806 . Ibid., 405, 407. 1807 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 566, 1808 . Ibid., 592; Kappler, Treaties, 559; Tassé, Canadiens de l’Ouest, 1:96. 1809 . Andreas-Cutler, History of the State of Kansas, 587. 1810 . Ibid., 587. 1811 . Ibid., 587. 1812 . Ibid., 974. 1813 . The house, measuring 46 feet by 20, was a two-story building of eight rooms, with an adjoining barn 16 by 22 feet. It was surrounded by a two-acre orchard planted with 80 fruit-bearing trees. Andreas-Cutler, History of the State of Kansas, 1:587. 282 land.1814 On June 2, 1854, at the Pottawatomie Baptist Mission, he married Thérèse LaFromboise,1815daughter of Joseph LaFromboise, a Pottawatomie chief.1816 They had three children: Philip, H., John H., and George.1817 Madore died in the late 1800s and is buried in the Silver Lake Cemetery. Beaubien Creek is named after him.1818 Charles H. Beaubien, Madore’s brother, born in Chicago on August 9, 1837 was often mentioned in the treaties signed between the Pottawatomie Indians and the government. As the son of an Ottawa woman, he received one-half section near the village of Ke-wi-go-shkeen on the Washtenaw River under the Treaty of Chicago of September 29, 1821. 1819 By the Treaty of Chicago of September 26, 1833, he was paid $300. 1820 In 1849 in partnership with Louis Ogee, Charles Beaubien established a ferry, located near the mouth of Cross Creek, west of Willard in Shawnee County on the north bank of the Kansas River and landing to a point directly opposite in Maple Hill Township in Wabaunsee County. 1821 They ran the pole ferry for three or four years. Beaubien was probably the half-breed to whom James A. Pritchard referred in his diary on May 7, 1849 when he wrote: There are several white familyes liveing (sic) there [at Union Town] & some 4 or 5 stores blacksmith shop, etc. A number of the Indians are living in the villages. . . . There are 2 ferry boats, one Kept by a half breed Indian (Michegan) & the other by a white man.1822 Other emigrants may have alluded to Ogee in the notes of their travels. An unidentified traveler stated in May 1849: The Kansas River was crossed at two trips, in a ferry-boat kept by a venerable but stalwart Indian, a knowing and most entertaining old fellow, who charged five dollars for the transit. 1823 George Mifflin Harker also reported on May 18, 1849: 1814 . Garraghan, Jesuits, 3 : 697-698. 1815 . Thérèse had previously been married to Thomas Watkins in Chicago. Barry, Beginning of the West., 496; Topeka Capital Journal, November 5, 1978. 1816 . According to Barry, Ibid., 496), he married a daughter of Chief Joseph LaFromboise who was the divorced wife of Thomas Watkins. Topeka Capital-Journal, November 5, 1978. 1817 . Andreas-Cutler, History of the State of Kansas, 587. 1818 . John Rydjord, Kansas Place-Names, 121. 1819. Kappler, Treaties, 559. 1820 . Ibid., 405. 1821 . Root, Kansas Historical Quarterly, 3: 20; Haines, Historical Sites along the Oregon Trail, 41. 1822 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 795. The second ferry being the Pappan ferry, as Pappan was the only white man operating a ferry, all the other ferrymen were half-breeds. 1823 . Ibid., 795. 283 To-day we journeyed through a beautiful country – arrived at this place, sometimes called Uniontown, a trading post for the American Fur Company, and several individual fur companies, among the Pottawatomie Indians; about three o’clock, passed on to the ferry, a half mile distant, just before night. . . . The ferryman here informed me that he had crossed about seven hundred teams already this season. He, or rather the company has two small boats propelled by poles, and is very successful in passing over teams safely.1824 A Jackson County, Missouri resident, probably referring to the Pappan ferry and the ferry at Uniontown, wrote on May 26, 1849 that there were two ferries at the crossing of Kansas each about 15 miles apart and two boats at each ferry; each ferry was said to cross from 60 to 70 wagons per day, cost of ferriage $1 per wagon. 1825 Charles H. Beaubien sold his ferry to L. K. Darling as the latter is listed in 1853 in the U.S. Official Register as the ferryman on Cross Creek, located at about the site of the town of Rossville in Shawnee County. At that time, the ferry was described as being situated four or five miles above Silver Lake and approximately one and one-half miles above Uniontown. Charles H. Beaubien died in 1858, leaving six children, twenty-eight grandchildren and four great grandchildren. 1826 His wife was a white woman. One of his sons, John Beaubien resided in Silver Lake where he was a farmer, owning one hundred and eighty acres of land on Section 27, Township 11, Range 22 and eighty acres in Wabaunsee County in Section 17 Township 12, Range11. 1827 In 1857, he married Eliza Alcott at his father’s residence. They had two children, Benjamin M. and Eliza S. Beaubien.1828 THE PIERRE BOURBONNAIS BRIDGE AND MILL Pierre Bourbonnais 1829 was a son of the French trader, François Bourbonnai, who was mentioned in the treaty signed near Council Bluffs, Iowa on June 5, 1846 1830 between the U.S. government and the Pottawatomie Nation. His Pottawatomi wife, Calish (also called Catish) who received a section of land under the Treaty of Camp Tippecanoe signed on October 20, 1832 was also mentioned.1831 It has not been determined when Pierre and his brother, François 1824 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 795-796. 1825 . Ibid., 795.; Unruh, Mixed-Bloods, 257. 1826 . Andreas-Cutler, History of the State of Kansas, 587. 1827 . Ibid., 587. 1828 . Ibid., 587. 1829 . Also written Bourbonnai, Burbonnais, Bourbonnet, Bourbonnois, and Bulbona. 1830 . Kappler, Treaties, 559. “François Burbonnais Snrs” children received $400 in lieu of a reservation under the Treaty of Chicago of September 26, 1833 and he was awarded $500 on a claim, Ibid., 405, 407. 1831 Ibid., 353. 284 Bourbonnais, Jr. 1832 arrived in Kansas but their presence was noted by early travelers along what is now known as Bourbonais Creek, located two miles east of St. Marys in Pottawatomie County. Pierre operated a sawmill and a toll bridge across the creek. On May 8, 1849, after passing Cross Creek early in the morning, James A. Pritchard noted: We crossed a number of creeks & mud holes, with steep banks. We passed an Indian village about 9 A. M. where their (sic) was a saw mill, and a temporary bridge thrown across a bad muddy creek by an old Indian who charged us 25 cts apiece for our wagons. In about 10 m[iles] from where we started this morning we came to a Catholic mission, surrounded with a number of [Pottawatomie] Indian Wigwams.1833 The distances noted indicate that he was referring to the bridge over Bourbonais Creek. On May 10 of the same year, Jasper M. Hixson wrote in a letter: We encamped on Mill Creek, [after] traveling 20 miles. Here there is a Circular Saw Mill, owned by a half Indian – this was quite a novel scene, after traveling 5 days in an Indian country, to come to a large farm and an excellent saw mill.1834 In his diary, the same Hixson stated: Peter Bullbony (Bourbonais), a half-breed, Indian and French resided here. He owned, or at least claimed and exercised authority over thirty miles square [?[ of as fine land as a crow ever flew over. He had a number of comfortable hewn-log cabins, a circular sawmill, etc.1835 1832 . François Bourbonnais, later known as Frank, was granted a section of land under the Treaty of Prairie du Chien of July 29, 1829 as François Bourbonné, Jr. Ibid., 298. On October 20, 1832 under the treaty signed at Camp Tippecanoe he was awarded $1,000 under the name of “Francis Bulbona, Jr.” Ibid., 356. “Francis Burbonnais’ Jnr. children” received $300 under the Treaty of Chicago of September 26, 1833 and he was awarded $200 on a claim. Ibid.,405, 407. Francois was a witness at the signing of the Treaty of June 5, 1846 in Council Bluffs, as “François Bourbonnai.” Ibid., 559. He may have been the François Bourbonais, Jr. whose name appears on the Baptism Register of the Kickapoo Catholic Mission on January 29, 1837, as a sponsor of the baptism of Suzanne, daughter of Claude La Fromboise and his Pottawatomie wife. Garraghan, Jesuits, 2: 427- 428. After he settled in Kansas, he farmed on Bourbonais Creek. On the grounds of the Pottawatomie pay station in St. Marys there is a tombstone which bears the inscription: “François Bourbonnais died December 26, 1869 aged 36 y 6 m.” It probably marks the grave of his son who put his x mark on the Treaty of November 15, 1861 at the Kansas River Pottawatomie Agency. Ibid., 828. 1833 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 801. 1834 . Ibid., 801. 1835 . Ibid., 801. 285 Bourbonnais charged the Hixson’s party fifty cents for each of their wagons while Joseph C. Buffum and his party on May 13 paid only “1 dime per wagon.” 1836 Many other forty-niners mentioned the bridge and the “horse power S[aw] mill” in their diaries. 1837 William Darnell who settled on Rock Creek in Pottawatomie County in the spring of 1855 reminisced about Pierre Bourbonnais: Bourbonnais, a prominent Pottawatomie Indian, was alive when I came to Rock creek. He died some six or more years later. An Indian graveyard was located on the farm of Frank Bourbonnais, Bourbonnais creek, about two miles east of St. Marys. Old Bourbonnais was buried there. He was a big man in the councils of the Pottawatomies, but was not a chief. I recollect when he died. He was buried on top of the ground, with a kettle of food placed at the foot of the grave to sustain him while on his journey to the happy hunting ground. At the time I examined the grave the body was badly decomposed, and the stench was simply awful. The grave was just a short distance south of the Union Pacific railroad, and a few rods west of the farm of J. Nadeau.1838 Pierre Bourbonnais died around 1861. The name of the creek went through several name changes. It was called “Boubien Cr. on the State Board of Agriculture maps of 1878 and 1882. An atlas of Shawnee County of 1898 shows it as “Bourbon Creek” as does a 1913 atlas.1839 The Delorme Kansas Atlas and Gazetteer, published in 1997, labeled it as Bourbonais Creek. THE VIEUX TOLL BRIDGE Louis Amable Vieux, 1840 born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on November 30, 1809 was one of twelve children of Jacques Vieux, a Frenchman who operated a string of fur trading posts during the late 1790s and early 1800s along the shores of 1836 . Ibid., 801-802, 1837 . William G. Johnston wrote on May 5, 1849: “A sawmill was passed which had probably been erected for sawing the lumber used in the mission houses.” Ibid., 802. 1838 . George A. Root, “Reminiscences of William Darnell,” Kansas Historical Quar, XVII, 499. 1839 . Barry, op. cit., 802. 1840 . Also written Vieau, deView, View, and Veau. 286 Lake Michigan from Green Bay to Milwaukee.1841 His mother, Angelique Le Roy1842 was born of a French father, Joseph Le Roy1843 and Mahteenose [Marguerite/Madeline] Oskinanonotome.1844 Louis is mentioned in the Treaty of September 26, 1833 by which the Chippewa, Ottawa, and Pottawatomie Indians ceded their lands on the western shore of Lake Michigan. At that time he received $100 in lieu of a reservation. 1845 He moved with the Pottawatomie Nation to Council Bluffs in 1832, then to Kansas in 1846. Louis first settled in Indianola, northwest of Topeka on land he sold in November 1854 to the developers of Indianola.1846 In 1847 or 1848, he moved to an allotment of land he received on the bank of the Vermillion River in what is now Pottawatomie County 1847 and built a toll bridge about 15 miles northwest of St. Marys at a point where the Oregon Trail crossed the river. It was located in Section 24, Township 9 South, Range 10 East. The Fort Leavenworth-Fort Riley road also 1841 . Jacques Vieux was born May 5, 1757 at Cour de Neige, a suburb of Montreal, Canada. He died on July 7, 1852 in Green Bay, Wisconsin and was buried in the Allouez French Catholic Cemetery in Shantytown near Green Bay. Early in his life he worked as a coureur des bois, traveling the Canadian rivers and lakes. According to his obituary, he left Canada after the Revolutionary War in 1781and was employed by the Northwest Fur Company, working several years in the Lake Superior region near the Wabash, then in the Milwaukee area around 1790. He left the fur company and started operating his own trading posts; the first one on the Menominee River about two miles from where it crossed the Green Bay Trail. On July 15, 1816, he was issued a license as a foreigner, which read: “Jacques Vieau is authorized and Licensed to Barter, Trade & Exchange all goods, wares & merchandise . . . in the waters of Lake Michigan, Milwaukee with any Indian or Tribe of Indians.” He received $2,000 under the treaty of September 26, 1833 (Kappler, Treaties, 409). His obituary in the July 8, 1852 of the Green Bay Advocate stated that he was “the first white man who settled in Milwaukee.” A plaque which reads “Jacques Vieau in 1795” indicates the site of his cabin in Mitchell Park in Milwaukee. 1842 . Angelique Le Roy was born February 2, 1756 in Machilimackinac, Michigan. She died in Lawrence, Brown County, Wisconsin, on January 7, 1862 and is buried in the Allouez French Catholic Cemetery in Shantytown near Green Bay. Her obituary in the Green Bay Advocate of March 24, 1864 gave her age as 99 years. 1843 . Joseph Le Roy was born on September 30, 1754 in Montreal, Canada and died after 1836 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. He was one of the first seven settlers in Green Bay. Priscilla Mullin Sherard, People of the Place of the Fire, n.p., n d., 101. His home, known as the Roi/Tank Cottage is still to be seen at Heritage Hill Park in Green Bay. 1844 . She was the granddaughter of Menominee chief, Ahkenepoweh, meaning Earth Standing, who made his marks on the treaties of February 8 and 19, 1831( Kappler, Treaties. 323-324) and the niece of the Pottawatomie chief, Puch-wa-she-gun. She died in Green Bay, Wisconsin on December 12, 1835. The above information was furnished to me mostly by Catherine Vieux Clinton and Susan Campbell, descendants of Jacques Vieux. 1845 . Kappler, Treaties, 405. 1846 . Indianola was located at the crossing of Soldier Creek, one and a half miles from the Pappan ferry. The town was laid out shortly after the sale. “Some of the lost towns of Kansas,”Kansas Historical Collections, 12:427-429; “Letters of Samuel James Reader, 1861-1863,”KQ, IX, 26, note 2. 1847 . William E. Smith, “The Oregon Trail through Pottawatomie County,” Kansas Historical Collections, 17: 454-456. 287 crossed the river there. He operated the bridge through the 1850s and 1860s and became wealthy charging a $1.00 fare. The marker erected by the Pottawatomie County Highway Department near the site of his bridge indicated that “he earned as much as $300 per day during the peak season of wagon travel.” He also had a stable, furnishing horses, hay and grain to the travelers. He bought from the emigrants the belongings they did not want to carry west and sold them in St. Louis. In the summer of 1855 he erected a log hotel in Indianola. 1848 Mrs. James S. Merritt and Mrs. Rachel Thurber, daughters of Louis Vieux remembered “the long caravans of covered wagons on her father’s farm. Sometimes there were as many as six pairs of oxen to the wagon. Some of the wagons had painted across them “Pike’s Peak or Bust.” 1849 Vieux was influential in the affairs of the Pottawatomie Nation. He served as an interpreter, business agent, and chief. He worked at the Indian pay station in St. Marys where the Pottawatomies received their government payments. He made several trips to Washington, D. C. to represent his people and supposedly consulted with President Lincoln. The only photograph of him in existence was taken in Washington and shows him wearing a high hat, a frock coat and starched white shirt and collar, standing very erect with his hands in his waistcoat’s pockets.1850 He signed the treaty of November 15, 1861 with a cross and his name appears as Lewis View. 1851 William H. Hunter remembered visiting the Vieux’s home and wrote a letter on November 14, 1854 which reads: We stopped for breakfast at the home of one of these [French] families where we found a beautiful black-eyed Indian lady of 19 summers – a half-breed Pottawatomie. Her father was John DeView [Louis Vieux]) and the daughter’s name was Angelina. She presided over the household with a grace and dignity that would reflect credit on the most refined young lady in the States. She was educated at the St. Mary’s Catholic Mission. Maj. Klotz, with commendable taste and gallantry, has just named a Lake in the neighborhood, and which seems to have no name, “Angelina Lake [i.e., Silver lake?]”, and as the young lady who had thus been honored, and to whom I am indebted for the pen, paper, and ink with which I have hastily scribbled 1848 . Fitzgerald, Ghosts Towns in Kansas, 88. 1849 . Smith, Kansas Historical Collections. 12:453-454. 1850 . The photograph is reproduced in Kansas Historical Collections, 17:455. 1851 . Kappler,Treaties, 828. 288 this letter, announces “breakfast ready,” I will for the present bid you an affectionate farewell.1852 Louis Vieux died May 3, 1872 at the age of 62. At his death, he left a 200- page will listing his holdings, which included half the town of Louisville, most of the town of Belvue, farm land, and shares in two grist mills. His obituary in the Kansas Reporter issue of May 9, 1872 refers to him as “one of the oldest, most respected, and useful citizens.” He is buried in the Vieux Cemetery, located on the country road, east of the bridge, on the bluff overlooking the trail, one hundred yards north of where his cabin stood. Also buried there are two of his wives, and other members of his family. Nearby is another cemetery of the fifty emigrants who died around the area, having been stricken by Asiatic cholera in May of 1849 as they were attempting to cross the Vermillion River. William E. Smith wrote: Just and kind with them in his dealings, he won their confidence, which he never betrayed; and their affection, which he never despised. A man of strict integrity, he never forgot his word; of great benevolence, he never turned the hungry away; public spirited, he gave largely to promote improvement. He died loved and mourned by a wide circle of friends.1853 The towns of Louisville and Belvue and Belvue Township are named after Louis Vieux. THE BLANTON BRIDGE Napoleon Bonaparte Blanton 1854 was born in about 1830. Although a Missourian, he sympathized with the abolitionist cause and acted as a spy for the free-state leaders.1855 He settled in Douglas County in the month of October, 1854 and by March of 1855, “had a good, comfortable, hewed-log house finished with stone chimneys on the outside in regular southern style. . . As everything about this house, except the floor, was hewed out with the broadaxe, it involved a good deal 1852 . Kansas Historical Quarterly, 35:326. 1853 . Smith, Kansas Historical Quarterly, 17: 456. 1854 . Napoleon Bonaparte Blanton, known as “Bony,” was born in Missouri about 1830 of a French father and probably an Indian mother. Charles Howard Dickson wrote:” His genealogy is not known to the writer; but from his personal appearance and many of his characteristics together with his name, I think he must have been of French and Indian extraction. In many ways he was radically different from the people of that time either from the north or the south.” Charles Howard Dickson, “The True History of the Branson Rescue,” Kansas Historical Collections, 13:280. In a letter to Mr. Dickson, Blanton explained the circumstances of his given names: “I was first named James by my grandfather on my mother’s side. My father was of French descent and was a friend of Napoleon, but my grandfather hated him. After my father and grandfather had quarreled about Napoleon my father changed my name to that of the great general.” Ibid., 282n2. 1855 . Ibid., 282. 289 of labor and expense.” 1856 By early in the summer of 1856, he had completed a bridge, known as Blanton’s bridge, across the Wakarusa, four miles south of Lawrence. Being the only bridge across the Wakarusa, it attracted many travelers. Blanton built a small log store where he sold groceries. He supplied the “free- staters” who used his bridge with provisions, evidenced by a bill he submitted on May 15, 1856 for a total of $191.26, which also included toll fees. To help their cause, he announced: “I have thrown my bridge open free for the Free State party from 15th of May to the 20th of September.” At times, his home was used as a hotel. The bridge was also chosen by Quantrill and his raiders as an escape route after the raid of Lawrence. In addition Blanton established a semi-weekly line of hacks between Lawrence and Kansas City. 1857 He was reported to be “a very quiet- appearing, soft-spoken, conservative kind of a fellow never seeming to be in a hurry about anything.” He left the area in 1858 to pursue other interests. 1858 OTHER BRIDGES Louis Tremble was a Frenchman who had been expelled from the Rocky Mountains hunting grounds in accordance with an order of General Harney, which did not allow foreigners to operate there. He was married to a Sioux woman and moved to northeast Kansas where he operated a toll bridge on the Vermillion at the Independence Crossing of the Oregon Trail, also known as “The Old Mormon,” ”Hollenberg,” or “California Crossing” in Marshall County. It is not known how much he charged the “Western pilgrims” for crossing the river.1859 A nearby Frenchman, named Changreau who was also married to a Sioux woman, grew vegetables on his fifteen-acre farm and sold them to the Oregon Trail travelers. After his sister was captured by a band of mounted Kansa Indians, he pursued them to Council Grove in Morris County. There he witnessed her being tied to a tree and whipped to death while the “demoniacal group” feasted and danced around her. Afraid of further attacks, he moved away from the farm to a safer location. 1860 François Bergeron and Antoine Tacier, two Frenchmen who had settled near Silver Lake in 1847, 1861 constructed a toll bridge over Cross Creek on the Fort Leavenworth-Fort Riley road near Rossville.1862 Seeing the opportunities opened by the long trains of emigrants crossing Kansas in the 1840s and 1850s, Frenchmen often married to Indian women and half breeds offered services to the travelers on their way west. They operated ferries, built bridges across creeks and rivers, provided assistance at the fording 1856 . Ibid., 282. 1857 . Andreas-Cutler, History of the State of Kanss, 318. 1858 . David E. Ballard, “The First State Legislature, 1861,”Kansas Historical Collections,10: 244. 1859 . Andreas-Cutler, History of the State of Kansas, 914-915. 1860 . Ibid., 915, 927. 1861 . Also written Tasier, Tescier. 1862 . Rossville Centennial History; Dorothy N. Hoobler, The Oregon Trail, the Jesuit Mission, and the Town of St. Marys, St Marys, Kansas, 1917, 105; Andreas-Cutler, History of the State of Kansas,589. 290 places, established grist mills, opened stores to supply food, goods, and horses, and provided lodging, thus being the first entrepreneurs in Kansas. 291 CHAPTER 12 STEAMBOAT OPERATORS From the earliest days of the exploration of the West, the Missouri River was the thoroughfare used to reach the central plains and the mountains; therefore much activity was recorded along the river in northeast Kansas from the mouth of the Kansas River to the Kansas-Nebraska line. On its banks, fur companies established posts where they kept their supplies of goods to be traded with the Indians living in the proximity and where they stored the pelts collected until they were ready to be shipped to St. Louis. Canoes, pirogues, bateaux, bullboats, Mackinaw boats, and keelboats were used for many years. Steamboats were introduced in 1819 and Frenchmen from St. Louis figured prominently in the steamboat business. The first steamboat, the Independence, only reached Chariton, Missouri. Between 1819 and 1831, the traffic was confined to serving the needs of the towns along the lower Missouri and to delivering troops and supplies to Cantonment Martin 1863 and Cantonment Leavenworth.1864 There were only five boats in operation as the river was deemed too dangerous for the early models. The design of the hull needed to be modified to increase its speed and capacity in order to be able to reach the forts and trading posts of the Upper Missouri. In 1831, the American Fur Company received delivery of the Yellowstone, the first steamboat to be used in the mountain trade. It had been constructed during the winter of 1830-1831 under orders of Pierre Chouteau, Jr.1865 who pioneered the use of steamboats on the Missouri. In 1830 John J. Astor sold the Western Department of the American Fur Company to Pratte, Chouteau, and Company. It was headed by Pierre Chouteau, Jr. 1866 who operated it until 1837 when it was reorganized as Pierre Chouteau, Jr. and Company.1867 From that date on, the Chouteau family, with their relatives and associates, dominated the steamboat business until the 1860s. The Yellowstone was 137 feet long, 19 feet in the beam and had a hold 6 feet deep. It was a single engine vessel with 2 smokestacks and 2 side wheels. She had an elevated pilothouse and could be loaded with 75 tons of freight.1868 She 1863 . It was the first U.S. military port in Kansas and was “established in October, 1818, on the upper end of Isle ā la Vache (Cow Island) on the Kansas side of the Missouri channel at that time, about equidistant from Atchison and Leavenworth of today.” Barry, Beginning of the West, 79. 1864 . Fort Leavenworth was known as Cantonment Leavenworth until February 8, 1832. 1865 . Pierre Chouteau, Jr. (January 19, 1789- October 6, 1865), also known as Pierre Cadet Chouteau was the son of (Jean) Pierre Chouteau, Sr. who was himself the natural son of Pierre de Laclade Liguest, founder of St. Louis and his mother, Marie Thérèse Chouteau. Pierre Chouteau, Jr. was a successful businessman involved in other enterprises, such as banking, mining, and real estate. “The Chouteaus of St. Louis were considered in their day among the ablest business men of the country, and there was no other name so intimately connected with the growth and development of the metropolis of the Mississippi valley.” Chittenden, Fur Trade, 1: 381. 1866 . “Pierre Chouteau, Jr. made the Chouteau name perhaps the most famous in the Far West in the antebellum period.” Howard R. Lamar, ed. The New Encyclopedia of the American West, 212. 1867 . It continued to be often referred to as the American Fur Company. 1868 . Chappell, 280; Chittenden, Steamboat Navigation, 1:112. George Catlin painted the Yellowstone before she left St. Louis on her second voyage in 1832 and Charles Bodner, a Swiss artist, made a painting of 292 left St. Louis on April 16, 1831 1869 and arrived at Cantonment Leavenworth on May 1st with Pierre Chouteau, Jr. on board. 1870 He was making the trip “for the double purpose of judging of the merits of the steamboat experiment, and of studying the situation of the trade of the various posts.” Being unable to proceed above the Niobrara River in Nebraska, Chouteau sent to Fort Tecumseh for flat-bottomed Mackinaws 1871 to relieve her of part of her cargo. After the arrival of three boats, on June 19, she was able to reach Fort Tecumseh, the company post at the mouth of Bad River, across from the town of Pierre in South Dakota. She delivered the Indian trade merchandise and then descended the river with a load of buffalo robes, furs, and 1,000 pounds of buffalo tongues. 1872 She was back in St. Louis on July 15, 1873 thus being the first boat to ascend the river above Council Bluffs. 1874A new era of steam travel had been inaugurated. The following year, the Yellowstone left St. Louis on March 26, 1832. Chouteau established the roster of the men aboard. It may have been inflated as it was prepared to be presented to General Clark, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, in order to obtain “passports” for the passengers and allow the transportation of liquor according to the number of men on board. 1875 Among those listed were the pilot, Charles La Barge, 1876 4 traders of whom 2 had French surnames; 15 clerks, 11 of whom had French surnames; and 98 engagés, 71 of whom had French surnames.1877 As late as 1832, the majority of the men recruited for the expeditions her during her third trip in 1833. The latter is reproduced in Barry, Beginning of the West, 400. Catlin reported that she had on board a 12-pound cannon and three or four swivels to be delivered to Fort Union. William E. Lass, A History of Steam Boating on the Upper Missouri River, 9-10. 1869 . Chittenden, Fur Trade, 1: 339; Chappell, 280. 1870 . The town of Pierre and Choteau River in South Dakota were named after him, as are Chouteau County and the town of Choteau in Montana. 1871 . The Mackinaw boat was a cheaply built boat, constructed in what the French called a chantier (boat yard) of a trading post. It was intended for a single voyage on the river. It was made of 50 to 60 feet long cottonwood planks about 2 inches thick with a 12 feet beam and a flat bottom. Its hold was about 4 feet deep in the middle of the boat and about 5 feet on the bow and stern. It also had a cargo box in the center to store bales of fur, which were covered with buffalo skins. It could carry 10 to15 tons of cargo. A crew of only 5 men (1 steersman and 4 oarsmen) was necessary to steer the Mackinaw as the boat floated down the river. Chappell, 273-274; Chittenden, Steamboat Navigation, 1: 94-96. 1872 . Ibid., 1: 338. 1873 . Chappell, 280. 1874 . Chittenden, Fur Trade, 1: 339. 1875 . The Yellowstone was transporting 1,500 gallons of liquor. 1876 . Joseph La Barge’s brother. He had been the American Fur Company’s top patron as early as 1824. He was killed in the explosion of the steamboat Saluda on April 9, 1852 as he was piloting the vessel. The boat was crowded with emigrants, mostly Mormons. More than one hundred persons died. It was the most fatalities that ever occurred on the Missouri River. Chappell, 298, 300. 1877 . The traders were: Lucien Fontenelle and Daniel Lamont. The clerks were: L. Bissonet, Joseph Brazeau, Duchouquette Brazeau, Pascal Cerré, F. A. Chardon, Fréderick Labone, M. P. Laferrière, P.D. Papin, Henry Picotte, E. Primeau, and Thomas Sarpy. The interpreters were: L. Chapelle, Charles Degre, Baptiste Dorion (His grandfather had been with the Lewis and Clark expedition and his brother had been killed in 1813 as one of the Astorians along the Columbia River), B. Dufond and Pierre Primeau. The steersmen were: P. Larrivière and Alexis Thibeau. The boatmen were: Chas. Albert, N. Alliquier, T. Barra, Honoré Barada, P. Bergerand, Basile Bisonet (He participated in Fremont’s second expedition), Auguste Bourbonnais, M. Chaput, Henry Chatillon (He was to be the guide and hunter for Francis Parkman in 1846), Pierre Chatillon, Pierre Chapo, 293 to the Upper Missouri region were of French descent, but had acquired U. S. citizenship as only American nationals were allowed to enter Indian Territory. Also aboard were Pierre Chouteau, Jr., the artist George Catlin, and the Mandan agent, John F. A. Sanford who had married Chouteau’s daughter, Emilie. The Yellowstone stopped at Chouteau’s Landing to pick up ten cords of wood that François Gesseau Chouteau had gathered for her.1878 After a slow voyage, she reached Fort Tecumseh 1879 on May 31st. She left Fort Tecumseh on June 5 and proceeded to Fort Union where she arrived about June 17. She started downriver on June 25th and was back in St. Louis by July 7. 1880 The voyage was highly successful, the Yellowstone, being the first boat to have ascended the Missouri to the mouth of the Yellowstone. She had traveled 1,800 miles at a rate of 100 miles per day.1881 As Chittenden wrote: “It added seventeen hundred miles to the internal navigable waters of the United States.” 1882 John J. Astor, who was in Europe at that time, reported that the newspapers there had praised the accomplishment. The representative of the American Fur Company in New York stated in a letter to the Western Department in St. Louis: I congratulate you most cordially on your perseverance and ultimate success in reaching the Yellowstone by steam, and the future historian of the Missouri will preserve for you the honorable and enviable distinction of having accomplished an object of immense importance, by exhibiting the practicability of conquering the obstructions of the Missouri, considered till almost the present day insurmountable to steamboats, even among those best acquainted with their capabilities. 1883 Louis Clermont, John B. Coté, A. Croteau, F. Croteau, F. Daigneau, M. Daigneau, B. Degueire, F. Delille, Louis Demary, Baptiste Derosier, E. Dionne, A. Dubruille, Peter Ferland, F. Fecteau, Simon Flures, Geo. Furse, A. Gerlaman, P. Germain, Fred. Girard, Justin Grosclode, Alexis Guinard, Louis Guinard, Vincent Guinard, Michel Hébert, Baptiste Jannot, Mich. Labuche, Louis Labusier, Ant. Laderoute, Antoine LaFleur, Jos. La Liberté , Mathew Lalier, Geo. Lambert, Joseph Lemoire, Beralle Lerou, John B. Lesage, P. Levaigne, Ralph Licarre, J.B. Marchand, M. Marley, Michel. Martin, H. Ménard, F. Montaigne, P. Monttruelle, Antoine Morin (a member of Fremont’s 3rd and 4th expeditions), Jean Baptiste Morrin, Jr., Henry Morrin, Louis Obuchon, Louis Palmier, Jos. Parision, P. Poidrier, H. Perryeau, Jos. Poirier, Baptiste Presse, B. Primo, F.L. Robidoux, M. Suprenant, Alfred Traverse, Chas. Vachard, Absolom Valentine, and Dennis Valentine. Jackson, 167-169. “The engagés and voyageurs were almost exclusively French Canadians and Creoles from Louisiana. They were a hard-working class, obedient and cheerful, satisfied with their lot, and presented a phase of pioneer life on the Missouri which has long since become wholly extinct. Feats of strength and endurance were their common characteristics. Civilization rode forward on their brawny backs and arms. They have been forgotten; even their names are lost. But scores of them occupy the unmarked graves that line the banks of the Upper Missouri.” Drago, The Steamboaters: From the Steamboaters. 1878 . Marra, Cher Oncle, Cher Papa. 101 1879 . It was renamed Fort Pierre after Pierre Chouteau, Jr. Chittenden, Fur Trade, 1: 340. 1880 . Chappell, 280. 1881 . Chittenden, Steamboat Navigation, 1: 137. 1882 . Ibid., 1:138. 1883 . Ibid., 1:138-139. 294 On her next voyage, the Yellowstone left St. Louis on April 10 and passed the mouth of the Kansas River on April 21, 1833. Among her passengers were Maximilian, Prince of Wied-Neudwied on a scientific exploration with his servant; the young Swiss artist, Charles Bodner; John F. A. Sanford, and the French trader Fontenelle. On the 22nd, the vessel was searched for contraband liquor by the authorities in Fort Leavenworth. About seven barrels of “shruk”, one of rum, one of wine, and two of whisky, were confiscated. On the 23rd, she passed by Isle ā la Vache and the mouth of Independence Creek in Doniphan County, where Maximilian noted “the naked grassy eminences, where a village of Konzas formerly stood . . . [and the] Spaniards had a post of a few soldiers.” 1884 The Yellowstone reached Fort Pierre on May 30 and was back in St. Louis on June 21 “with a rich cargo of skins.” On her following trip, as she approached Kansas City, there was an outbreak of Asiatic cholera on board. Joseph La Barge, 1885 who at the time was only a seventeen-year old lad employed as a company clerk, buried eight cholera victims in one grave, among them the pilot, the engineer, and all the firemen who had died within twenty-four hours. The captain left La Barge in charge of the vessel while he returned to St. Louis to hire additional crew. As Jackson County residents threatened to burn the boat, La Barge fired up the boilers, moved the vessel out of Missouri jurisdiction and anchored it on the right bank of the river above the mouth of the Kansas River in Wyandotte County, Kansas. La Barge signaled for assistance to the Assiniboine, also an American Fur Company’s boat which was going by, but the captain refused to stop. La Barge wrote in his journal: It was pretty hard. . . . I never refused to answer a distress signal, even if the boat was engaged in the strongest opposition; but our two boats were in the same trade, bound to assist each other, and yet we were left alone in the severest straits, with no idea when we should be relieved.1886 1884 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 229. Maximilian’s remark was erroneous as he had observed the remains of Fort Cavagnial, the French fort built in 1724 and abandoned in 1744. 1885 . Ledger R of the American Fur Company shows that he earned $60.00 for his services between July 9 and October 3 of 1833. Jackson, 100. Joseph La Barge, born about 1815, was one of three brothers who were involved in the steamboat business. Their father, Joseph La Barge, Sr. had left Quebec in a canoe at the age of 21 and settled in St. Louis where he was hired as a trapper and trader. Their mother was a Creole of French and Spanish ancestry. Joseph attended the school organized in St. Louis by Jean Baptiste Truteau, the first teacher in that town, who was later engaged by the Missouri Company to command the expedition to the Mandans in 1794. After an early education in French, he attended establishments where the instruction was given in English. Chittenden who knew him well wrote: “He never forgot the almost insurmountable obstacle he found in the English “th.” He used his native language in common intercourse down to nearly 1850, and retained a fluent command of it to his death.” His first assignment had been as second clerk on the Yellowstone in 1831 when she went down the Mississippi on sugar trade. During the voyage he was often called upon as an interpreter on account of his fluency in both French and English. Chittenden, Steamboat Navigation, 1; 17- 18, 22. The town of La Barge is Wyoming is named after him. 1886 . Ibid., 1:35. 295 La Barge walked to Chouteau’s Landing to obtain instructions on how to handle the Chouteau’s supplies which were on board and were consigned to Cyprien Chouteau’s trading post, located about ten miles up the Kansas River. A guard who had been posted about one mile from the post on account of the epidemic relayed his inquiry while La Barge waited for a reply. Edouard Liguest Chouteau, one of his former school friends in St. Louis, who was visiting the post at the time, brought La Barge food and a buffalo robe to sleep on. After the return of the captain, the Yellowstone resumed her journey and arrived in Council Bluffs in August.1887 On her way back to St. Louis, she stopped at Chouteau’s Landing to pick up some pelts. 1888 The Assiniboine, the next steamboat to be built, was a stern-wheeler with a single engine boiler. She left in early spring of 1833 with Bernard Pratte, Jr. as her master. 1889 She was larger and had a lighter draft than the Yellowstone. She went as far as Fort Union and on June 26 returned with a full load of skins to arrive in St. Louis on July 11. She had passed the Yellowstone at the mouth of the Kansas River without stopping on account of the cholera. On her second voyage in the spring of 1834, she reached Fort Clark in North Dakota on June 18 and Fort Union on the 26th. Being caught with low water, she wintered there and on her way down was burnt on June 1, 1835, a little below Heart River near Bismarck in North Dakota. Her cargo of 1,100 packs of peltries, valued between sixty and eighty thousand dollars was destroyed, as well as a large part of Maximilian’s natural history collection. It was a great loss for the company as the boat was uninsured.1890 The American Fur Company’s Diana was greeted at Cantonment Leavenworth on May 15, 1829 with a fifteen-gun salute when she arrived from Jefferson Barracks with Brevet Major Bennet Riley, four companies of the Sixth Infantry, and the wives and children of the soldiers. She had made the trip in a record time of ten days. On May 17, she returned to Jefferson Barracks with three companies of the Third Infantry and arrived there on May 20. 1891 On May 20, 1835, she left St. Louis for Fort Union but did not reach her destination as the captain 1887 . Chappell, 282; Barry, Beginning of the West, 237-238; Jackson, Voyage of the Steamboat Yellow Stone, 98-103. On July 13, 1833, Isaac McCoy wrote in his journal: “A boat had, a few days ago, been compelled by Cholera to stop on her way up. Some eight or ten had died. She stopped and is still lying about five miles from our house [Westport, Missouri]. Our neighborhood is considerably uneasy.” Barry, Beginning of the West, 238. 1888 . Marra, Cher Oncle, Cher Papa, 118. 1889 . Bernard Pratte, Jr. who belonged to an old French family in St. Louis had supervised the construction of the Assiniboine. He later entered politics, won a seat in the Missouri Assembly in 1838, and in the mid- forties was elected mayor of St. Louis. His father, Bernard Pratte, Sr. had been a partner in the French Fur Company which also included Berthold and Chouteau and which became the Western Department of the American Fur Company. On August 21, 1822, the company was granted a license to trade with the Sac, Fox, Iowa, Kansa, Ponca, and Otoe Indians on the Missouri. On July 5, 1825, Bernard Pratte, Sr. obtained a license to trade for one year at the mouth of the Kansas River. Barry, Beginning of the West, 102, 125. 1890 . Ibid., 265; St. Louis Daily Missouri Republican, June 29, 1858; Chappell, 298. Bérénice and François Chouteau had planned to board her for a visit to St. Louis. Marra, Cher Oncle, Cher Papa, 127. 1891 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 159; “William Clark’s Diary,” ed. L.Barry, Kansas Historical Quarterly, 16:287. 296 refused to continue beyond Fort Pierre. Kenneth McKenzie wrote: “There was no person on board to direct the self-willed captain & no one at Ft. Pierre to enforce his proceeding to this place.” During her return trip to St. Louis in early September, two out of thirty persons were stricken by cholera and died. 1892 She stopped at Chouteau’s Landing as François Gesseau Chouteau wrote to Pierre Ménard on August 30, 1835 that he planned to forward the Kansa annuities as well as sixty packs of different kinds of furs by the Diana, “which will pass by in eight or ten days.” 1893 In 1836, the Diana left St. Louis in March and ran into a snag below Lexington, Missouri. She sank in shallow water, whereupon she was delayed for repair and to dry her cargo. François Gesseau Chouteau wrote on April 8, 1836 that the Diana stopped at “River of Kansas” on the 3rd of April and deposited ”sugar, salt, coffee, and some lead, but no merchandise.” 1894 On her return she left from Bellevue, Nebraska on April 15 and stopped in Fort Leavenworth on April 17 en route for St. Louis.1895 In 1836, during her second voyage of the year, she passed Liberty Landing in Missouri on May 1st. When she came down in mid-September, she stopped in Fort Leavenworth where she welcomed aboard William Clark who was returning to St. Louis after signing the treaty between the Iowas and Fox Indians of the Missouri and the U.S. government. His son, George Rogers Hancock Clark was accompanying him, having served as his secretary during the signing. 1896 Shortly after she sank on October 10 at Diana Bend above Rochefort, Missouri, 127 miles west of St. Louis while she was transporting a valuable cargo of furs. 1897 In early May of 1837, the St. Peters, which had been built in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania for Pierre Chouteau, Jr. and Jean B. Sarpy, 1898 left St. Louis with Pierre Chouteau, Jr. as master and Bernard Pratte, Jr. as captain. 1899 She was a one hundred-ton side-wheeler, thirty-nine feet long. During her stop at Chouteau’s Landing, she delivered a “little mulatress” 1900 and mail to François Gesseau 1892 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 288. 1893 . Marra, Cher Oncle, Cher Papa, 144. 1894 . Ibid., 153. 1895 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 303. 1896 . Ibid. , 313-314. 1897 . Chappell, 301. 1898 . Jean B. Sarpy (January 12, 1798 - April 1, 1857), son of Grégoire Bernald Sarpy, was a partner of Pierre Chouteau, Jr,. He was related to the Chouteaus as his grandmother was the sister of (Jean) Pierre Chouteau Sr. Fort Sarpy, the last Crow post of the American Fur Company, was named after him. It was built after 1843 on the right bank of the Yellowstone, twenty-five miles below the mouth of the Bighorn and abandoned between September 1859 and September 1860. It was one hundred feet square with pickets fifteen feet high. Chittenden, Fur Trade, 2:965. A second fort, Fort John was also named after him. It is not known when it was built but it was described as being rectangular in shape, eighty feet by one hundred feet, surrounded by a palisade of cottonwood pickets fifteen feet high, with flanking towers on three sides and a very strong gate. Ibid., 1: 390. Sarpy County in Nebraska was named after his son, Peter A. Sarpy who operated for several years the trading post of the American Fur Company in Bellevue, Nebraska. 1899 . DeVoto, Across the Wide Missouri, , 280. 1900 . She was a slave by the name of Nancy who was to be the companion and caretaker of the Chouteaus’ daughter, Mary Brigitte. Marra, Cher Oncle, Cher Papa, 280. 297 Chouteau. She also disembarked hunters, employees, and equipment destined for the thirteenth annual rendezvous of the Rocky Mountains. Among them were the French trader Etienne Provost, British Captain William Drummond Steward and his “hunter and purveyor,” Antoine Clément who continued overland to their destination. 1901 François Gesseau Chouteau wrote on May 12, 1837: Recently we are having a lot of worries with the expeditions that the Company is sending into the mountains. They arrived here badly disorganized and they need a lot of food, and other arrangements are necessary before they can continue their trip. However, we are almost finished with our business with them for this time.1902 The St. Peters resumed the ascent of the Missouri, passing along the eastern shore of Kansas in the later part of the month when a company employee became ill at or near Fort Leavenworth. Before arriving at Bellevue where the St. Peters was depositing annuity goods for the Council Bluffs agency, smallpox had been transmitted to several passengers and an epidemic swept through the Mandan village, killing about ninety per cent of the population. She continued up to deliver supplies at Fort Union, arriving there on June 24, 1837. 1903 On the following voyage, she left St. Louis in late July with Bernard Pratte, Jr. as captain. Count Francesco Arese, a thirty-two year old Italian from Milan, was the only passenger not connected with the fur trade. The St. Peters stopped in Fort Leavenworth where the Count wrote: Fort Leavenworth is the last American post. It has a regiment of dragoons and artillery to keep the savages respectful. Some wretched barracks and a second-rate blockhouse is all there is to what is called the military establishment.1904 He also noted that several chiefs of different tribes were there in their finest costumes, on their way to Washington to see the President. A few hours later, the St. Peters stopped to deposit the “boss at the Kickapoo trading post.” 1905 The Italian traveler recounted: The boat was instantly flooded with savages, to whom tobacco and brandy were given. They greeted the boss . . . affectionately, wringing his hand and calling him ‘Papa, Papa.’ They played cards with great enthusiasm and even passion, and remained on board very late that 1901 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 23. 1902 . Ibid., 162. 1903 . Chittenden, Fur Trade, 2: 621; Sunder, The Fur Trade in the Upper Missouri, 20. 1904 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 30. 1905 . Probably the French trader, Laurent Pensineau. 298 night; and three young Indian women remained on board all night . . . with the consent of the Kickapoo chief. 1906 The St. Peters reached Council Bluffs eleven days after leaving St. Louis. On October 6, on the way down river, she arrived at Chouteau’s Landing with a party of one hundred and seventy Roche de Boeuf and Wolf Rapids Ottawas. They were headed to their reservation in Franklin County in eastern Kansas to join eighty Ottawas who had migrated in 1832. 1907 In December of the same year, seventy Munsee Indians arrived on the St. Peters at the mouth of the Kansas River. They were moving to the Delaware reservation, some eight miles above the mouth of the Kansas River and north of that river.1908 After having been chartered by the government for the removal of Indians, the St. Peters returned to the fur trade in 1837. Advertisements appeared in Missouri newspapers that “the fast running” St. Peters would leave for Fort Leavenworth “as soon as the navigation will permit” and “run as a regular packet in the Missouri trade.” 1909 On October 11, the Missouri Republican reported that she returned to St. Louis on October 9 or 10. In April 1839, she was at Chouteau’s Landing where she brought Dr. Frederick A. Wislizenus from St. Louis. 1910 In August, she was still plying the river but on October 5 she was seen aground at Pinkney bar in Missouri. 1911 The John Hancock, a single engine side-wheeler of the American Fur Company started operating on the Missouri in 1834. On September 25, 1835, François Gesseau Chouteau wrote to his brother from Rivière du Kansas that he was shipping him twenty-nine rolls of deer skins, fifteen packs of raccoons, and ten chests of furs on the John Hancock. 1912 A year later, on November 26, when she was carrying a heavy load of furs, she hit a snag at Bellefontaine, near St. Louis and sank in ten feet of water. 1913 The Boonville, a single engine side-wheeler, also belonged to the American Fur Company. She left St. Louis on August 30, 1836, with William Clark and his son, George on board. They were headed for Fort Leavenworth to negotiate a treaty with the Iowas and the band of Sacs and Foxes of the Missouri.1914 On May 12, 1837, François Gesseau Chouteau wrote from Chouteau’s Landing that he had loaded packs of furs and gifts for his family in St. Louis on the Boonville.1915 A few months later, she sank above the mouth of the Kansas River on November 19, 1906 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 330. 1907 . Ibid., 334. 1908 . Ibid., 338. 1909 . Ibid., 342-343. 1910 . Ibid., 368. 1911 . Ibid., 378. 1912 . Marra, Cher Oncle, Cher Papa, 146. 1913 Barry, Beginning of the West, 308. 1914 . Ibid., 313-314. 1915 . Marra, Cher Oncle, Cher Papa, 163. 299 1837 on her way to Leavenworth, loaded with corn for the U.S. government.1916 It was a total loss. The Antelope, the American Fur Company’s new steamboat, left St. Louis in late March 1838 for the Upper Missouri trading posts and came down in mid-July with a cargo of one thousand packs of furs, mainly buffalo robes. 1917 On April 4, 1939, she departed from St. Louis with Edmond François Chouteau,1918 as her master. Aboard were Joseph N. Nicollet, the French scientist, Lt. John C. Fremont of the U.S. Topographical Engineers, the French trader, Etienne Provost, members of the mapmaking expedition, twelve clerks, and one hundred and twenty engagés en route to Fort Pierre from where Nicollet was to travel overland as far as Devil’s Lake in North Dakota to collect data for the hydrographic map he had been contracted to prepare for the U.S. government. 1919 The next spring, the Antelope left St. Louis on April 1st en route to the annual voyage to the Upper Missouri trading posts.1920 The Elk, a single engine side-wheeler built for the American Fur Company, was in service for a short time in 1838-39 before she sank at Massie’s wood-yard below Hermann, Missouri in 1838. 1921 Sunder wrote: Pierre Chouteau’s steamboats and mackinaws carried most of the Upper Missouri River traffic by 1840 and supplied the American Fur Company a sturdy, although floating, foundation for the greater Upper Missouri trade in the forties and fifties.1922 At the end of his three-year contract with the American Fur Company, 1923Joseph La Barge started operating as an independent pilot. In 1835, he was assistant pilot on the St. Charles, a lower river packet that plied the lower Missouri River. She burned opposite Lexington, Missouri on July 2, 1836. In 1836 La Barge was hired as pilot on the Kansas (No. 1), a side-wheeler boat built in 1836 that ran on the lower Missouri. 1924 A newspaper advertisement appeared on May 21, 1836 stating that she would leave St. Louis soon to travel up the Missouri and on June 25 announced the scheduled departures. In April 1837 it 1916 . Ibid., 163-164; Chappell, 299; Barry, Beginning of the West, 338; Chittenden, Steamboat Navigation, 1: 55. 1917 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 343. By 1839, buffalo robes “were the new staple of western trade, bringing 3 to 6 dollars each. According to the Jesuit missionary, Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, Chouteau brought 45, 000 robes to St. Louis in 1839 and approximately 67,000 the following year. The rapidly expanding St. Louis market averaged 90,000 per year during the 1840’s and 100,000 during the fifties.” Sunder, 7. 1918 . Born in 1821, he was the son of François and Bérénice Chouteau and often used the name of Gesseau or Gesso, his father’s middle name. 1919 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 365-366. 1920 . Ibid. 390. 1921 Chappell, 301. 1922 . Sunder, 23. 1923 . His salary for the whole contract was seven hundred dollars. 1924 . Ibid., 305. 300 was reported that she “engaged in the commerce of the Missouri.” 1925 The Kansas reached Fort Leavenworth on June 6, with sixty-two dragoons units. 1926 In July and August of 1837, she transported emigrant bands of United Pottawatomie, Chippewa, and Otoe Indians who had been residing since 1835 and 1836 across from Fort Leavenworth in the Platte Purchase and removed them to their Council Bluffs reservation in southwestern Iowa. 1927 On January 20, 1839 on her way up river, she stopped in Jefferson City, Missouri to the surprise of the inhabitants 1928 and in late February she was again in Jefferson City on her way to Independence, Missouri. The Jefferson Republican reported that the Missouri was “higher than in many months.” 1929 The Shawnee plied the middle river in July 1839, in the spring of 1840, and in April of 1841. 1930 After working independently for five years, La Barge resumed service with the American Fur Company but it was short-lived as he refused assignment on the new Trapper and terminated his contract. The Oceana, 1931 a new steamboat belonging to the American Fur Company was reporting plying the Missouri in the spring and summer season of 1841, 1842 and 1843. In late April of 1841 she transported to Westport Father Nicholas Point who resided there for a while and Father Pierre-Jean Smet who was headed for the Flathead Indians country. On May 4th she left Westport to return to St. Louis. 1932 The first voyage of the Trapper, under Joseph A. Sire as master, took place in 1841. Born in La Rochelle, département of Charente-Maritime in France on February 19, 1799, Sire had emigrated with his parents at the age of fifteen. Before coming to St. Louis, he piloted wheelers on the Mississippi. After his marriage to Victoire Labadie, a cousin of both Pierre Chouteau, Jr. and John B. Sarpy, he became a partner in the Chouteau Company. The Trapper, the “largest, most heavily manned and most elaborately furnished” boat of the American Fur Company left St. Louis on April 7, passed along the Kansas shore in April with trader Charles L. Larpenteur aboard, 1933 and reached Fort Union on June 27th after an eighty-day trip from St. Louis. She was back in St. Louis on July 14. 1934 In 1842, she set out from St. Louis on April 11th with 150 traders and trappers on board. Joseph A. Sire was the captain. The river being low, the Trapper had to wait until late June to be unloaded.1935 Sire headed down the river after putting on board the Assiniboine robes collected among the Crow and Blackfoot Indians. She 1925 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 307, 320. 1926 . Ibid., 326. 1927. Ibid., 329. The United Pottawatomies were also called the “Prairie Band of Pottawatomies.” In 1847 they moved to the Kansas River reservation provided by the treaty of June 5, 1846. 1928 . Ibid., 363. 1929 . March 2, 1839. Ibid., 364. 1930 . Ibid,, 377, 390. 1931 . Chappell, 308. 1932 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 425, 446, 454, 470. 1933 . Larpenteur wrote: “On the 31st of March I was on the steamer Trapper and after a long tedious trip we reached Union on the 27th of June.” Ibid., 425. 1934 . Sunder, 41; Barry, Beginning of the West, 424. 1935 . Sunder, 43. 301 stopped at Fort Clark (North Dakota) to take additional furs but the vessel was grounded at Fort Pierre as the Missouri River was too shallow. The cargo was transferred to small boats and the Trapper spent the winter of 1842-43 at Fort Pierre. She left for St. Louis on June 12, 1843. When she arrived at Council Bluffs, she took on board Indian agent Daniel Miller’s family to Blacksnake Hills (St. Joseph, Missouri), as their lives were threatened by the Sioux and Otoe Indians. She passed Fort Leavenworth around the 18th and was back in St. Louis on June 21st with some twelve hundred packs of buffalo robes.1936 The Emilie, built by Pierre Chouteau, Jr. in 1840, was named after Pierre Chouteau, Jr‘s wife. Joseph La Barge was hired to pilot her to Fort Union in the spring of 1840. By that time he had received his Master’s license. The Emilie sank at Emilie Bend above Washington, Missouri in 1842. 1937 The Otter ran up to Fort Union at the mouth of the Yellowstone River from 1841 to 1843. 1938 In 1843, Chouteau sent the Huntsville, “little more than a wreck,” to the Upper Missouri to replenish the inventories of the river posts. She returned to St. Louis on October 30 “with a few furs and skins.” 1939 The Omega left St. Louis on April 25, 1843 with Sire 1940 as her master and La Barge as her pilot. On board were John J. Audubon and his party (a taxidermist, an artist, a secretary, and a bird specialist), 101 trappers, mostly French Canadians or Creoles, and some Iowas Indians. In his log which was written in French,1941 Sire noted: “A stop was made on May 2 at Madame Chouteau’s where I found everything abandoned.” 1942 He added that after sunset on that day they “passed the bad place of the mouth of the Kansas River. Fort Leavenworth was reached on May 3, 1843.” Audubon went ashore. During the two-hour stop, the boat was inspected by the military authorities to check the alcohol cargo. Edward Harris, a passenger who was also a bird specialist wrote: “Passed at Fort Leavenworth to take some cargo. Saw abundance of Parrokeets.” 1943 After setting out from Fort Leavenworth on May 3, Sire wrote in his log: At 4 P. M. we reached the little island below Village 24. 1944 In order to avoid a bad chute on the right we took the left hand channel [Kansas channel] and had the misfortune to run aground. We got ourselves 1936 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 488. 1937 . Chittenden, Steamboat Navigation,1: 56; Chappell, 301. 1938 . Ibid., 308. 1939 . Sunder, 46-47. 1940 . Audubon wrote: “Mr. Sire, the gentleman who will command the steamer we go in, is one of the finest looking men I have seen for many a day, and the accounts I hear of him correspond to his noble face and general appearance.” Maria R. Audubon, Audubon and His Journals, 1:452. 1941 . Translated in Chittenden, Fur Trade, 2: 956-973. 1942 . Bérénice Ménard Chouteau, widow of François Gesseau Chouteau. Chouteau’s Landing was abandoned on account of the flood. Barry, Beginning of the West, 472. Audubon wrote: “The water had been two feet deep in her home, but the river had now suddenly fallen about six feet.” Audubon, 1:487. 1943 . The Journals of Edward Harris, ed. John Francis McDermott, 56. Harris wrote Sire’s name as “Sears.” Ibid., 48. 1944 . In Doniphan County. 302 clear once, but had the misfortune to get fast crosswise the channel. It rained and blew in a frightful manner. We were compelled to stay where we were for the night in the hope of extricating ourselves in the morning. May 4. Monday. We get clear, by a false maneuver of the pilot we get aground again. Broke our large cable. Finally succeeded in getting off by shoving the stern around. The wind blows with incredible force, and we have to pass a place very dangerous on account of the snags. We remain at the bank until 6 P.M., and finally camp at the wood yard above Village 24. May 5. Set out at day-break. Took 9 cords of wood 400 yards farther on. 1945 On May 5, the Omega stopped at Joseph Robidoux’s Black Hills (St. Joseph, Missouri) and on the 6th deposited the Indians at the Iowa village in Doniphan County. She continued on to Fort Pierre, which she reached on May 31 and then onto Fort Union on June 12, having completed the 1,760-mile trip in 49 days. 1946 She left Fort Union on June 14, stopped at “Robidoux,” then at Fort Leavenworth, and later at Madame Chouteau’s at Kawsmouth. On June 29, Sire wrote: “Reached St. Louis in time for breakfast.” 1947 She had made the return voyage in fifteen days. This was to be the Omega’s only trip to the Upper Missouri. On October of the same year, she brought back to St. Louis the splinter party of Sir William Drummond Stewart who had boarded the vessel at Kawsmouth. 1948 She was reported plying the lower Missouri during the summer of 1844.1949 In the winter of 1843-44, a new boat, the Nimrod, was built for the American Fur Company of the “staunchest material . . . in [a] neat, substantial and workmanlike manner.” She was propelled by engine and boilers taken from the Trapper.1950 The Nimrod left St. Louis on April 30, 1844, with Sire as her master and Joseph La Barge as her pilot. Among the passengers were 120 hunters and 2 Frenchmen of note: Count d’Otrante son to Joseph Fouché, Napoléon Bonaparte’s Minister of Justice and Count de Peindry. Count D’Otrante, who was traveling for pleasure with a large retinue of servants, was very much liked by the crew. On the contrary, de Peindry, a noted duelist, who had been compelled to leave France for unknown reasons, was severely criticized by Sire for his conduct. In 1845, he traveled to California where he was reported to have been assassinated a few years later. 1951 The steamboat finally reached Fort Union on June 22 after several delays. She encountered difficulties at the Omaha village on account of the low channel. She had to submit to a search as she was suspected of carrying illicit alcohol. Later La Barge was held captive for a while by the Pawnee Indians.1952 1945 . Chittenden, Fur Trade, 2: 986-987. 1946 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 472-473. Harris wrote Sire’s name as “Sears.” Harris, 48. Chittenden, Steamboat Navigation, 1:141-153. 1947 . Chittenden, Fur Trade, 2: 973; Barry, Beginning of the West, 488. 1948 . Ibid., 498-499. 1949 . Ibid., 514. 1950 . Sunder, 73-74. 1951 . Chittenden, Steamboat Navigation, 1:150-156. 1952 . Sunder, 74-75. 303 She started down on the 24th and docked in St. Louis on July 9 with 220 packs of buffalo robes, about 20 bales of furs, and quantity of buffalo tongues and meat.1953 Also aboard were six buffaloes, one to three beavers, an elk, and a grizzly bear, “all alive and apparently in excellent condition” for Chouteau’s animal collection.1954 The round trip had taken seventy-one days. In August she made a journey to Council Bluffs. 1955 On May 22, 1845, the American Fur Company steamboat General Brooke left St. Louis with Sire as her master and Joseph La Barge as her pilot. She was loaded with a large supply of powder and lead and about one hundred trappers and traders. Count d’Oronte was again a passenger. She passed along the Kansas shore before the end of May and reached Fort Union on July 2. Two days later, she started downstream, arrived in St. Joseph on the 15th and in St. Louis on the 18th, with about five hundred packs of buffalo robes. She had made the round trip in a record time of fifty-seven days. 1956 The General Brooke left St. Louis on August 25, 1845 with only ninety pounds of cargo as the waters of the Missouri were very low. She spent three days on a sand bar in Lexington, Missouri and was “obliged to divide the load and leave one half.” She finally arrived in Council Bluffs fifteen days later. She returned from the mountains in mid-September with no cargo.1957 The General Brooke pulled away from the dock in St. Louis on May 23rd, 1846 for the Upper Missouri trading posts of the American Fur Company. She arrived in St. Joseph on the 29th and reached Fort Union on July 5. With Honoré Picotte 1958 on board; she was back in St. Louis on August 6. Her voyage had been difficult on account of the shallow water. She brought in 450 packs of buffalo robes, 20 packs of assorted furs, 1,400 buffalo tongues, in addition to the stuffed skin of an enormous grizzly bear, weighing 200 pounds, and an assortment of live animals – a buffalo calf, an elk, and a young grizzly bear. 1959 In October of the same year, she was “hauled over” at the mouth of the Osage River. 1960 In the fall of 1847, Joseph La Barge and his brother John bought the General Brooke for $12,000.00 but did not keep it long as they sold it at the end of the season. 1953 . There was a flourishing market for dried tongues in St. Louis and in the East as they were considered a delicacy. Ibid., 75; Barry, Beginning of the West, 507. 1954 . Sunder, 75. 1955 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 514. 1956 . Ibid., 79; Chittenden, Steamboat Navigation, 1: 177; Barry, Beginning of the West, 549. 1957 . Ibid., 561. 1958 . Honoré D. Picotte, son of Jean Baptiste Picotte and Hélène Desjardins, was baptized in 1796 in Rivière-du-Loup, Canada and married Thérèse Duchouquette. After coming to St. Louis in 1820, he engaged in trapping and trading and in 1825 moved to the Sioux country where he married first Wambdiantapiwi or Eagle Woman Who All Look At, a Yankton Sioux woman who was the sister of Chief Stuck-by the Ree, and later several other Sioux women. He was a member of the French Fur Company when it was purchased by the American Fur Company in 1830 for $21,000. The American Fur Company retained Picotte at a salary of $1,000 per year to be in charge of the Upper Missouri headquarters at Fort Pierre. 1959 . Ibid, 635; Sunder, 865. 1960 . Sunder, 86-87; Barry, Beginning of the West, 650. 304 Joseph La Barge oversaw the building of a 180-ton side-wheeler, a “fine new boat,” which he named the Martha after his daughter. “The hull was built in Cincinnati; the cabin and machinery in St. Louis. Her dimensions were: keel, 150 feet; on deck, 170 feet; beam 26 feet; hold, 5 feet. She had 2 engines. Her draught was a scant 2 feet.” 1961 She left St. Louis on May 15, 1847. Traveling under charter to Pierre Chouteau, Jr. and Company, she was loaded with hunters, trade merchandise, and Indian annuities. The Martha was seen passing St. Joseph, Missouri on May 22nd. 1962 She arrived safely at Fort Union. La Barge’s wife, Pélagie made the trip and is reputed as having been the first white woman in the Upper Missouri country. 1963 On her return, the Martha was reported at the mouth of the Kansas River on July 7 and docked in St. Louis on July 8, having made her downriver journey in less than thirteen days and the round trip in fifty-seven days. She unloaded “1,300-1,500 packs of buffalo robes, 280 packs of furs, 96 sacks of buffalo tongues and 237 beef hides. She also hauled fawns, mountain dogs, birds, bear cubs, and a herd of buffalo calves.” 1964 On board were Jean B. Sarpy, Honoré D. Picotte, the French trader Pierre Didier Papin, and Father Nicholas Point, S.J. who disembarked at the mouth of the Kansas River.1965 Lieutenant Colonel John C. Fremont, who had been placed under arrest by Brigadier General Stephen W. Kearny in Fort Leavenworth, was on board the Martha, with his wife and twenty-three persons of his suite when she docked in St. Louis on August 28, 1847. On September 1, Fremont was on his way to Washington, D.C. 1966 On March 22, 1848, the Martha departed from St. Louis, passed St. Joseph, reached Fort Kearney on the Platte River on April 28, started downriver prior to March 31 and was in St. Louis on May 2. 1967 On her next trip, having been chartered by the American Fur Company, the Martha pulled from her dockings in St. Louis on May 9 with Joseph La Barge as pilot and John B Sarpy’ Honoré Picotte, and Etienne Provost, as passengers; the latter on his last voyage to the mountains. At the mouth of Crow Creek, she was attacked by Yankton Sioux but was able to reach Fort Union safely. She left Fort Union on June 29, making the round trip in sixty-five days, docking in St. Louis on July 14 with “1,722 packs of buffalo robes, 262 bales of furs, and 5,000 buffalo tongues.” 1968 On October 3rd of the same year, the Martha left St. Louis, transporting to Kansas City, John C. Fremont and thirty-five young and athletic men of his fourth exploring party. 1969 Between March 23rd and 30th of 1849, she was listed in St. Joseph among the steamboats which were crowded with “large freights for our 1961 . Ibid, 672; Sunder, 95, 97-100; Chittenden, Steamboat Navigation, 1: 184. 1962 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 685. 1963 . Ibid., 685. 1964 . Sunder, 98. The animals were placed in private collections or sold to circuses. 1965 . Ibid., 97-98; Barry, Beginning of the West, 700. 1966 . Ibid., 712. 1967 . Ibid., 739, 743. 1968 . Ibid, 766; Sunder, 106-108. 1969 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 783. 305 merchants and large numbers of emigrants bound for California.” 1970 During the following year, she continued transporting emigrants and their belongings as the St. Joseph Gazette reported on April 13 that the boat was “crowded, as usual with emigrants and . . . large numbers of oxen, mules, wagons.” Mid-May 1848, Joseph Picotte brought down on Mackinaw boats “upwards of 800 bales of buffalo robes,” which were transferred on to the Amelia at Weston, Missouri to arrive in St. Louis on May 20. After serving for two years as master on the American Fur Company’s boats, La Barge left their employ and bought the Martha for $12,000.00. While still loaded with a full cargo, she burned in St. Louis on May 17, 1849. The total value of the boat and cargo had been insured for $40,000.00. La Barge had sold her back to Chouteau before the fire. 1971 The Amelia left St. Louis on June 9, 1849, under charter to the Pierre Chouteau, Jr. and Company. In July, on the way down from the upper Missouri, the river being very low, her cargo of 1,200 bales of buffalo robes and furs, along with a number of company’s employees had to be transferred onto the packets, St. Croix and Mustang in Council Bluffs. In mid-July she continued up the river to St. Pierre. She waited for the water to rise to come down, stopped in Fort Leavenworth, arrived in Kansas City on, or before August 21st and docked in St. Louis on September 14. During the voyage nine men died of cholera and thirty mountaineers deserted. 1972 On March 27, 1849, arrangements were made for the Dacotah, “a fine steamer owned by Messrs. Chouteau & Co. of St. Louis,” valued at $20,000.00 and insured for $15,000.00, to transport two officers and sixty-one men from Jefferson Barracks to Fort Leavenworth. In 1851, while she was carrying a large number of Mormon emigrants, around twenty tons of their baggage, wagons and provisions, and in addition sixty head of mules, she struck a snag twenty-five miles below Old Fort Kearney on Table Creek in Nebraska and sank in twenty feet of water. Neither lives nor goods were lost. 1973 After experiencing the loss of several of their steamboats, caused by natural hazards, boiler explosions or fires, the American Fur Company realized that it was cheaper and safer to charter boats rather than to build and operate their own vessels. La Barge ordered the construction of a new boat, which he named the St. Ange after Louis St. Ange de Bellerive.1974 She was a fine vessel, built in St. Louis, 1970 . Ibid., 801. 1971 . Chappell, 306. 1972 Barry, Beginning of the West, 876, 881, 883, 888. In December 11, 1849 she struck a snag about Glasgow, Missouri and sank. Ibid., 894. Sunder, 117-118. 1973 . St. Joseph Gazette, May 4, 1849; St. Louis The Daily Reveille, May 5, 1849; St. Louis Daily New Era, May 4, June 16, 1849; Chapell, 300; Barry, Beginning of the West, 799, 827-829. She was wrecked at Peru, Nebraska in 1852. Chapell, 300. 1974 . He was the French officer who accompanied Etienne de Bourgmont to central Kansas in 1724. He later was the first military governor of Upper Louisiana and in 1765 surrendered St. Charles to the British. He then moved to St. Louis where he died in the home of Madame Chouteau on December 27, 1774 at the age of seventy-three. Atchison Globe, January 11, 1907; Chappell, 309-310. 306 with a keel of 177 feet, a deck of 180 feet, 2 boilers, and 32 staterooms. La Barge contracted with the Quartermaster Department of the Army to transport a large number of emigrants on their way to California and was reported in St. Joseph in early April of 1849.1975 Later in the spring, having been hired by the American Fur Company, La Barge arrived in St. Louis from St. Joseph on June 3rd, with 1,098 packs of buffalo robes, bear skins, and other peltries. They had been brought earlier to St. Joseph from Fort Union on four Mackinaw boats belonging to the company. 1976 The St. Ange was seen in Weston, Missouri on February 24, 1850 1977 and on May 4 in St. Joseph. 1978 On June 13, having been leased by the Union Fur Company with La Barge as master, she left St. Louis for the Upper Missouri; on board were seventy traders and trappers and about one hundred and fifty tons of cargo. She stopped four hours in Fort Leavenworth to discharge some freight and arrived at the mouth of the Yellowstone River on July 8. She headed down the next day, carrying about 800 packs of buffalo robes and other skins. She reached St. Louis on July 19, only ten days after leaving Fort Union at the mouth of the Yellowstone. She had made the round trip in thirty-six days. 1979 The St. Louis Republic wrote on July 20, 1850 that it was “the quickest voyage ever made going or returning, and the entire trip in nearly 20 days less time than it was ever performed before.” 1980 For a while she ran the middle river. On August 13, the Army contracted with La Barge to transport seven officers and two hundred and fifty men of the Seventh U.S. Infantry upriver to Fort Leavenworth. 1981 In October, the St. Ange was delayed on account of broken machinery after going aground in Howard Bend, finally arriving in St. Louis on October 25, 1850. 1982 On March 13, 1851 she was reported arriving in St. Joseph and leaving the next day. She was back in St. Joseph on March 28 and left on the 29th. 1983 On April 19 she arrived in St. Joseph and headed for Council Bluffs on the 14th with some two hundred Mormons on board. 1984 On June 7th, the St. Ange, under charter to the American Fur Company, left St. Louis for the Upper Missouri with about eighty or more passengers, mostly employees of the company. 1985 La Barge’s wife and family were also on board. During the voyage, several were struck with cholera and fourteen died before they reached the Upper Missouri. 1975 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 803; Chittenden, Steamboat Navigation, 1; 184-185. On March 19, 1849, at about the time of the launching of the St. Ange, an editorial appeared in the Missouri Republican, which read: “There is no captain on the Western waters more highly esteemed than Captain La Barge.” 1976 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 871. 1977 . Ibid., 901. 1978 . Ibid., 921. 1979 . Ibid., 948; Sunder, 124. It had been “by nearly one-third the quickest trip ever made.” 1980 . Chappell, 309. 1981 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 960. 1982 . Ibid., 970. 1983 . Ibid., 984. 1984 . Ibid., 987. 1985 . Chittenden, Steamboat Navigation, 1; 189. 307 On that occasion the St. Ange navigated forty to fifty miles above Fort Union to the mouth of Poplar River in Montana, the highest point ever reached by any steamboat. After delivering freight to the Blackfoot Indians, La Barge turned around in July to arrive in St. Joseph on the 27th and in St. Louis on the 30th with a large cargo of robes and furs, having made the round trip “in fifty-three days, or seventeen days longer than she performed the same voyage last season”. 1986 In May 13, 1852, the St. Ange arrived in St. Louis, bringing from Kansas City, Missouri some $20,000 in Mexican dollars and two boxes containing about 4,000 U. S. dollars. 1987 La Barge sold the St. Ange and contemplated retiring from the shipping business but in the spring of 1852, he bought the Sonora for $30,000.00. 1988 It was a fine three-decked vessel, one hundred and sixty feet in length with side wheels and double boilers. La Barge contracted with the American Fur Company to take their men and supplies to Fort Union and was seen ascending the Missouri, at “Independence Prairie” near Kansas City, Missouri on April 11, 1852. He was reported in Fort Leavenworth on May 11 and was back in St. Louis on May 13th, bringing down about $125,000 in specie. 1989 La Barge sold the Sonoma in the fall of 1852. 1990 In 1853, La Barge purchased a new vessel, the Highland Mary which ran the lower river and ferried emigrants across the Missouri at Council Bluffs during the early part of the season, charging twenty-five cents per head of cattle and two dollars per wagon.1991 He was back in St. Louis by June 9, 1853 and sold her in the fall. In 1854, the American Fur Company chartered the Sonora and hired La Barge to carry the annual supplies to its trading posts. On May 4, on his way upriver he stopped in Fort Leavenworth and deposited one officer and one hundred men whom he had taken aboard at Jefferson Barracks. 1992 On June 3, the Sonora, with Captain La Barge as master, was chartered to the Pierre Chouteau, Jr. and Company to transport the goods and supplies of the American Fur Company to the mouth of the Yellowstone. On her way back she passed St. Joseph about July 14 and arrived in St. Louis on July 17 with three hundred packs of furs and fourteen hundred and ninety-six bales of buffalo robes. 1993 Joseph La Barge continued working on the Missouri until he was about seventy years old. He never lost or seriously damaged any steamboat, which was a distinction in the early days of navigation on the Missouri. He died in St. Louis in 1897 at the age of eighty-four. Rex Bundy and Edith Thompson Hall wrote: 1986 . Sunder, 137, 141; Barry, Beginning of the West, 1009. 1987 . Ibid., The money had been carried from Santa Fe by Francis X. Aubry “the celebrated Santa Fe courier.” 1988 . Chittenden, Steamboat Navigation, 1:199. 1989 . Barry, beginning of the West, 12086, 1093, 1148. 1990 . She sank near Portland, Missouri on February 26, 1856. 1991 . Ibid., 1145. 1992 Ibid., 1204. 1993 . Sunder, 162-163; Barry, 1225. The Sonora sank near Portland, Missouri on February 26, 1856, 308 During the decades between 1839 and 1859, one man rose head and shoulders above all others in the operation and construction of the prerunners of the shallow- draft mountain boats. That man was Captain Joseph La Barge. He is credited with many of the innovations that improved the steamboats for use on the upper Missouri. Each year he would devise some new method of overcoming certain problems and would then incorporate it into steamboats he had built for himself. He also became the foremost Missouri River pilot of the time and trained his brothers, Charles and John, although neither one reached his pinnacle of fame. 1994 The American Fur Company continued the charter policy it had adopted earlier as: The hazardous Missouri River [had] taught Chouteau a lesson: it would be cheaper and safer for the American Fur Company to charter boats for the upper- river trade than to build and operate its own steamers. 1995 It chartered the El Paso at a cost of $1,200 per month to carry its 1850 expedition to the Upper Missouri. She left St. Louis on May 11th, transporting about one hundred employees and two tons of freight, among them was the French trader, Charles Larpenteur. 1996 The log stated: “On the 18th of May, when near the mouth of Wolfe [Wolf] River (in Doniphan County), we ran afoul of a snag, which crashed our blacksmith shop, carrying overboard our bellows, etc.” About six passengers died of cholera before June 20 when she reached the mouth of Milk River in Montana, a point 350 miles above the mouth of the Yellowstone, higher than any other steamboat. 1997 After unloading, turning around, and traveling downriver, she docked in St. Louis on July 6 with a cargo of robes, furs, and elk horns, making the round trip in fifty-six days.1998 The Kate Swinney, a “splendid side-wheeled boat,” measuring two hundred by thirty feet, made her first voyage with P. Chouteau as master. She arrived in St. Joseph, Missouri on March 31, 1852, transporting emigrants headed west. On November 30, 1853, she was reported in Weston, Missouri and was back in St. Louis on December 16.1999 The Honduras, a two hundred ninety-six- ton steamboat, left Council Bluffs on June 20, 1852 with one thousand twenty-four bales of buffalo robes and fifty-four 1994 . Donald Duke, ed., Water Trails West, “The Missouri and the Yellowstone,” 120. 1995 . Sunder, 21. 1996 . Larpenteur, 2: 289. He was the company’s agent at Fort Vermilion. 1997 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 935; Chappell, 301. 1998 . Ibid., 301; Sunder, 126-127. She sank below Boonville, Missouri on April 10 1855. 1999 . Ibid., 305; Barry, Beginning of the West, 1072, 1188. The Kate Swinney sank in Kate Swinney Bend near the mouth of the Vermilion River in South Dakota. 309 packs of deer skins consigned to Pierre Chouteau. Jr., and Company and arrived in St. Louis on June 25.2000 About June 10th, 1852, the Banner State, chartered by the American Fur Company left St. Louis for Fort Union, with John B. Sarpy in charge of the expedition. On the way back, she stopped in Fort Leavenworth on April 1st, carrying fourteen hundred bales of buffalo robes, furs and skins for Pierre Chouteau, Jr. and Company and arrived in St. Louis on July 31st. 2001 On July 6th, the Isabel loaded in Weston seventy-two bales of buffalo robes and skins and docked in St. Louis on July 29th. The St. Paul 2002 arrived in St. Louis on July 31st with one hundred and fifty-two packs of robes and on August 3rd, the Clara loaded in St. Joseph two hundred and fifty-two bales of loose buffalo robes and one hundred and fifty-four bales of furs for the Pierre Chouteau, Jr. and Company in St. Louis.2003 The Robert Campbell, which had been leased by the American Fur Company at $30.00 per day, left St. Louis on May 21st. On May 29th, she was reported as having “landed on the opposite side of the river in Nebraska [i.e., in Kansas], with a flag flying from the mast, and floating beautifully in the breeze, with the name of P. Cho[u]teau on it, in large letters.” Carrying about 170 passengers and more than 300 pounds of cargo, she reached a point about 150 miles beyond the mouth of the Yellowstone. She came down in July, passed St. Joseph on the 22nd and arrived in St. Louis on the 25th with “better than 3,000 packs of robes and furs.” 2004 In 1854, Pierre Ménard Chouteau, another member of the Chouteau family, entered the steamboat business. He contracted with the U.S. Army to transport eight officers and 170 men on the Isabel from Alton, Illinois to Fort Leavenworth. He is recorded as having arrived there on May 8, 1854. 2005 Members of other French families in St. Louis were connected with the steamboat business. In 1837 Pierre Sarpy was a partner with Pierre Chouteau, Jr. in the construction of the St. Peters, a single engine boat and held $80,000 in stock in the company. The St. Peters left for the mountains in the spring but before she arrived in St. Joseph smallpox had broken out on board and spread to the Indian tribes of the Upper Missouri.2006 Jean B. Sarpy was listed among the passengers of the Martha when she passed the mouth of the Kansas River on July 7, 1847.2007 In 2000 . Sunder, 146; Barry, Beginning of the West, 1102-1103. The Honduras sank in 1853 near Doniphan, Kansas. Chappell, 303. 2001 . Barry, Beginning of the West, The Banner State sank at Brick House Band, below St. Charles Missouri on April 11, 1855, Chappell, 298. 2002 . The St. Paul sank at Wayne City, the landing for Independence, Missouri in 1852. Ibid., 310.. 2003 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 1110. 2004 . Ibid., 1161; Sunder, 150-155. 2005 Barry, Beginning of the West, 1204. Pierre Ménard Chouteau , born in 1822 was the second son of François Gesseau Chouteau and Bérénice (Ménard). Also known as “Mack,” he was one of the writers of the charter of “the town of Kansas” in 1850. In 1853 he was elected treasurer of the “town” and served in that function in the 1870s. He died in Kansas City, Missouri in 1885. Marra, Cher Oncle, Cher Papa, 232. 2006 . Chappell, 310; Sunder, 5. 2007 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 700. 310 October of the same year, Sarpy was reported as having boarded the St. Peters below Fort Leavenworth after conducting business in the area. The steamboat, originating from Fort Pierre, was carrying 5,245 buffalo robes, etc., which had been transferred from three Mackinaw boats belonging to the American Fur Company. The St. Peters reached St. Louis on October 21st. 2008 About June 10, 1852, Sarpy was in charge of an expedition, which left St. Louis on the Banner State, bound for Fort Union. On the way back she passed the Kansa River, reaching St. Louis on July 31. 2009 In May of 1853, a fire broke out when Sarpy was a passenger on the Robert Campbell, which was under charter to the American Fur Company to go beyond the Yellowstone. The passengers, fearing an explosion, were ready to abandon ship. “Fortunately, Sarpy kept cool, doused the flames and restored order aboard the steamer.”2010 Members of the Picotte family traveled up and down the Missouri on fur trade business and delivering annuities to the Indians. Honoré Picotte was a member of the French Fur Company until it was sold to the American Fur Company in 1830. He then entered the service of the Upper Missouri Outfit, became one of its partners and was associated with the company for some twenty years, having become influential in its management.2011 He was listed as passenger on the General Brooke in 1846 and on the Martha on July 7, 1847. Joseph Picotte, a nephew of Honoré Picotte, was a member of the company known as the “Harvey, Primeau and Company” and later “The St. Louis Fur Company.”2012 The company operated in competition with the American Fur Company. Their boats restocked their posts and brought down the furs that had been collected. On July 6, 1845, The St. Louis Fur Company obtained a license to employ eighteen men at two trading posts: Fort Bouis,2013 near Bad River, close to Fort Pierre to trade with the Sioux, and Fort Campbell, about forty miles from the mouth of the Marias River, to handle the Blackfoot trade. In June of 1847, “Capt. Jacob Picott[e]” 2014 brought down a load of furs on Mackinaws from the mouth of Medicine Creek. It was transferred onto the Tributary at a place below the mouth of the Kansas River. In May of 1848, Picotte came down in charge of three Mackinaws boats, which carried upward of “800 bales of buffalo robes, consigned to Harvey, Primeau, and Company.” One of the boats carrying one hundred packs of furs “snagged” and sank above Council Bluffs; the rest of the cargo was transferred to the Amelia in Weston and arrived in St. Louis on May 20. 2015 The company chartered the Clermont No. 2 which left St. Louis on July 7, 1846 with ninety-five 2008 . Ibid. 721. 2009 . Ibid., 1111. 2010 . Sunder, 154. 2011 . Chittenden, Fur Trade, 1:388-389. 2012 . Its members were Alexander Harvey, Charles Primeau, Joseph Picotte and Anthony Bouis. Sunder, 87. Barry, Beginning of the West, 627. 2013 . It was also called Fort Defiance. Built in 1846, it was located on the right bank of the Missouri, six miles above the upper end of Great Bend, near the mouth of Medicine Creek in South Dakota. Ibid., 643. 2014 . Probably Joseph Picotte. 2015 . Ibid., 751. 311 passengers, among them forty-five employees and $50,000.00 of goods, principally for the Sioux and Blackfoot trade. She made the trip to Fort Union in 37 days. She was back in St. Louis on September 20 after spending two weeks at Antelope Island where she was grounded on account of the low stage of the river.2016 On April 6, 1847, Charles Primeau, another member of the company, came down the Missouri on a skiff from the mouth of Medicine Creek, a tributary of the Marias River, as far as Fort Leavenworth where he boarded the Archer and arrived in St. Louis toward the end of April. 2017 In May 1848, the St. Louis Fur Company purchased the Bertrand for $8,000.00. She left St. Louis on June 1 and reached a point about 50 miles above the mouth of the Yellowstone – higher than any other steamboat - where passengers and freight were delivered. She returned to St. Louis on July 14 with “1,700 robes, 260 packs of skins and peltries, thousands of salted buffalo tongues, having made the round trip in 53 days – the shortest yet accomplished.”2018 The Tamerlane, a light-draft steamboat, one of the” very strongest and best secured” double-engine boats was chartered by Harvey, Primeau and Company to carry supplies and some one hundred men (traders, passengers, and crew) to their trading posts. She left St. Louis on June 16, 1849 and reached the mouth of the Yellowstone on July 21, ascended the river a little farther up and set out downstream about July 23rd, docking in St. Louis on August 8.2019 On May 11, 1850, the company chartered the Saranak (No. 2). She brought back to St. Louis some thirty mountain men and six hundred packs of buffalo robes. The men had come down the river in Mackinaw boats as far as Council Bluffs where they had been taken aboard the steamer.2020 The following year on July 2, the Robert Campbell, on partial charter to Harvey, Primeau and Company, left St. Louis with some one hundred and thirty men and about two hundred tons of cargo. She arrived at the mouth of the Yellowstone at the end of July and returned to St. Louis on August 2, making the round trip within a few hours of forty-eight days. 2021 During the month of June, the fur returns of the company for the year 1852 were first loaded on three Mackinaws and then transferred to the El Paso.2022 On July 7, 1853, Primeau left St. Louis on the St. Ange with some fifty men headed for the Yellowstone River region. She came down on August 8, reached Council Bluffs on the 22nd and was back in St. Louis on August, 27; the round trip having lasted fifty-one days and six hours. 2023 2016 . Sunder, 94-95.; Barry, Beginning of the West, 627,643. 2017 . Ibid., 674. 2018 . Ibid., 768-769. 2019 . Ibid., 875; Sunder, 119.The Tamerlane sank at Wakenda, near Carrollton, Missouri in 1848. 2020 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 933. Chappell, 310. The Saranak (No. 2) burned in St. Louis in 1855. 2021 . Barry, Beginning of the West, 1026-1027. 2022 . Ibid., 1102; Sunder, 146. 2023 . Ibid., 1176. 312 From 1830 until Kansas Territorial days, members of the old French families in St. Louis, the Chouteaus, Cabannés,2024 Prattes, Sarpys, Picottes, La Barges, Sires and Primeaus traveled along the shores of eastern Kansas and were influential in the development of the steamboat navigation which contributed greatly to the economy of the towns built on the Missouri. Countless of often nameless boatmen, who were hired by the steamboat companies in St. Louis, were veteran oarsmen who had plied up and down the river in earlier vessels. The steamboat masters depended on the trappers and hunters on board to supplement the fare of the travelers as they navigated on the river. From the various diaries of the voyages it appears that communication between masters, pilots and crew were often conducted in French. Many of the logs were also kept in that language. The government called upon Pierre Chouteau, Jr. and his associates who spoke Indian languages and had maintained close relationships with the natives for many years. It also “relied heavily on his [Chouteau’s] steamers for the delivery of Indian annuities.” 2025 The employees of the various companies were familiar with the Kansas shore of the Missouri River as steamers had to stop in order to cut down trees and gather driftwood on the sand bars as steamboats needed about twenty-five to thirty cords to feed the boilers every twenty-four hours. One of the regular stops was at the Pensineau’s trading post and at the Kickapoo agency located in Doniphan County where priests, government employees, traders, and visitors embarked and disembarked to deliver annuities and to exchange furs and merchandise. Another one was at Westport to deposit the emigrants continuing on the Santa Fe and Oregon trails and to supply the Chouteau trading posts among the Indians in Kansas. Fort Leavenworth,2026 which was established on September 19, 1827, following an order of the Army, dated March 7, 1827, benefited from the traffic on the Missouri and played an important role in the protection and control of the fur trade. Steamboats brought military personnel whose duty was to insure the security of the frontier. By the act of July 9, 1832, Congress decreed, “no ardent spirits shall be hereafter introduced under any pretense into the Indian Country,”2027 although vessels were allowed to transport alcohol to be consumed exclusively by the crew, other employees, and non-Indian passengers during their stay in Indian land. The limit was set at one gill per day per person. Fort Leavenworth, being designated as the checkpoint on the river, military personnel stationed there had the duty to inspect the cargo of the vessels, which were required to stop for the examination of their licenses and freight. Several incidents were recorded which point to the fact that the captains often attempted to smuggle liquor, hiding it in flour barrels, bales of merchandise or dark corners of the haul and even elude the authorities. It is 2024 . Jean Pierre Cabanné, born in Pau in France on October 18, 1773, had been an early partner of Pierre Chouteau and Bernard Pratte, Sr. His passage in Fort Leavenworth was recorded on October 26, 1835. He died in St. Louis on June 27, 1841. Larpenteur, 161n 1; Barry, Beginning of the West, 297. 2025 . Lass, 11. 2026 . It was known as Cantonment Leavenworth until February 8, 1832. 2027 . U. S. Statutes at Large, 4: 564; Unrau, White Man’s Wicked Water Indian Country, 37. 313 recorded that sometimes the vessels managed to leave the wharf before the required inspection.2028 Steamboats also stopped at Fort Leavenworth as it was a good landing place. 2029 They could be repaired, have the river mud cleared out of their boilers, and take on water, wood, and supplies. Emigrants, among them many Mormons, disembarked in Leavenworth to secure military escorts before proceeding on overland routes. Indian tribes in the course of their relocation in their new reservations in Kansas also passed through Leavenworth. Although the fur trade started to lose some of its vitality around the year 1840, the steamboat business increased steadily, reaching its peak between the years 1855 and 1860. It had diverted most of its activities toward the transport of troops and the thousands of emigrants headed to settle along the Missouri River. Fort Leavenworth was also one of the jumping points where the newcomers disembarked before pursuing toward the new western settlements. 2028 . A suit was filed against Sire, master of the Nimrod in 1844 for carrying “several hundred gallons of alcohol into Indian Territory.” Sunder, 91; Chittenden, Fur Trade, 2:678-683. 2029 . Andreas-Cutler, 418. 314 CHAPTER 13 TRAVELERS 1835-1843 From 1750, when Jean Jacques Rousseau in his Discours sur les Sciences et les Arts2030 expressed his belief that civilization had corrupted man, the French had been fascinated by the American Indians. In 1791 François René de Chateaubriand visited the United States and ten years later published a novel, entitled Atala ou les Amours de deux sauvages dans le désert. 2031 It told the story of the love of two virtuous and noble American Indians, Atala and Chactas, living in the midst of a magnificent country, filled with a flora and fauna unknown to the French. In his Voyage en Amérique (1826), he recalled the unique emotions he experienced while traveling the United States and evoked the grandiose aspect of its landscape. Alexis de Tocqueville, another French traveler, was more interested in depicting the political and social institutions of the United States when he wrote De la Démocratie en Amérique 2032 (1835-1840). During the first decades of the eighteenth century, the French public had become intrigued by the land and native people of the New World. The myth of the pure primitive man having endured for almost a century, wealthy men from England and Europe came to discover the mores of the American Indians. LOUIS RICHARD CORTAMBERT Louis Richard Cortambert, son of a French physician, arrived in the United States in 1835 and traveled through the eastern states with a young Parisian by the name of Laurent. Upon his return to Paris in 1837, he published a journal, entitled Voyage au pays des Osages giving, as he wrote, only a bird’s eye view of America while traveling “at the speed of an arrow.” However the account of his visit to the Osage villages afforded detailed information about the location and the practices of the Osage Indians in southeastern Kansas. In his book, The Osages, John J. Mathews stated: “He (Cortambert) came as a traveler, and his opportunity to study the Little Ones were better than Irving’s, and as a matter of fact, he was more interested in them.” 2033 Cortambert arrived in Independence, Missouri by steamboat around mid- year. He wanted to buy some land there but he was annoyed by all the questioning of the sellers who wanted to assure themselves that he was not a Mormon. After purchasing a wagon and hiring a driver, he crossed the “Rivière des Kans” at “Ferrytown, petit village d’Indians,” probably at the Delaware Crossing or Grinter ferry, in a boat piloted by an Indian. Although he was advised by government agents of the dangers of proceeding into Indian Territory, he went on to visit the Delaware Indians. However he did not remain long in the Delaware village, as he did not find any men there. He surmised that they had gone hunting. He was 2030 . “Discourse on Sciences and Arts.” 2031 . “Atlanta of the Loves of Two Savages in the Desert.” 2032 . “Democracy in America.” 2033 . Mathews, op. cit., 592. 315 especially disappointed as he learned that “the men generally speak French.” The women, their faces smeared with vermilion, were not very hospitable and “answered only by laughing in our faces,” wrote Cortambert. On his way south, he camped on the banks of the Marmaton River, probably in Bourbon County where he built a shelter and remained for about three weeks. Near the end of August, both Cortambert and Laurent fell in of “fever and ague,” and went to Harmony, Missouri to recuperate at the Frenchman’s Inn. 2034 In December of 1835, feeling better, he left Missouri for the Osage reservation on the Neosho River in southeastern Kansas. On his way, he must have stopped at Giraud’s trading post as the trader reported on September 6, 1836 that Cortambert had repaid him the $170.00 he had borrowed from him. Mathews wrote: “He was the first among the Europeans and Americans to note that the Little Ones were really divided into five physical divisions and lived in separate villages.” 2035 He identified the various settlements. The village of Marinhabatso, which he translated as the village of Touche-au-ciel (Touch-the-Sky) and located on the right bank of the Niocho (Neosho). The village depended from the village of Cheveux Blancs (White Hair), also situated on the right bank of the Neosho, two leagues below Manrinhabatso’s village. The village of Coeur Tranquille (Peaceful Heart) and the village of the Petits Osages (Little Osages) were located up the Neosho River from the two preceding settlements. To the south, Cortambert found two other villages on the Verdigris River. Those were in Oklahoma near the town of Claremore. They were Grosse Côte (Big Hill) and the Chenière (of the Oaks), the latter being the village of an independent chief, named Creman, also known as Clermont or Claremore. Cortambert arrived at the Manrinhabasto village the day the Osages were celebrating what Mathews identified as the “Feather Dance.” Mathews praised Cortambert’s description of the event in these words: The average traders, hunters, trappers, or even more or less civilized travelers of two or three decades previous, might have asked about casually, and have gone to look with satisfying feeling of superiority, Cortambert described the”Feather Dance” rather accurately…. His attempt to describe it was the first time it had been noticed with such interest…. This is a most accurate description of the Dance of the Feathers. 2036 However the French traveler did not understand that it was a scalp dance, executed as a greeting to returning warriors. Because of the precision of its details, his description remains a reliable document of the rites of the Osage Indians. He noted movements and clothing of both girls and men participating in the dance. The girls, chosen among the oldest unmarried ones, were weighted down with heavy jewelry. Cortambert wrote: 2034 . Barry, op. cit., 292-293. 2035 . Mathews, op. cit., 592. 2036 . Ibid., 594. 316 brightly printed calico dresses, their hair disheveled, their eyes lowered, with a bunch of feathers in their hands, they moved forward in rhythm by small leaps. The men, wearing only a piece of cloth around the middle of their bodies, their hair carefully plucked around their faces, their heads shaved except for a top knot ending in back in a pony tail, danced to the sound of a drum, moving away from the girls while uttering jerky sounds Cortambert confessed that he was in a state of wild exaltation in presence of “these people [who] believe in music and dancing.” He also heard the lamentations of an Osage addressing the “hymn of sorrow” to Ouacanda, the Master of Life. He reported that, when a man was mourning, he let his hair grow, smeared his face and body with mud, and did not eat as long as the sun was above the horizon. In the account of his journey, Cortambert also explained the political organization of the nation. The title of Great Chief was hereditary and passed from male to male in order of primogeniture. There were other chiefs. The Osages had a powerful aristocracy composed of partisans. Having distinguished themselves on the battlefield, they were chosen to lead war parties. He noted while the Osages were then at peace with the Panis (Pawnees), their most dreaded rivals, the whim of a partisan could rekindle war at any moment. When preparing for an encounter, the partisans went into mourning, fasted, and wept, thus calling all their braves to war. Cortambert referred to the marmiton as an important dignitary in each village. Dressed in an old French coat trimmed with braid, he circulated among the lodges, announcing in a loud voice the names of those who had contributed with their presents to some celebration and inviting everyone to participate in the festivities. Since the marmiton knew everything that happened, he was the official “gazette” of the village. According the French traveler, the Osages were good warriors, hospitable but also thieves and drunkards as the Americans had acquainted them with whiskey that was brought into the villages in spite of the law prohibiting it. He blamed the French for contaminating them with a disease just as deadly. He noticed that polygamy was not rare among them and that women were not very respected. He defined the responsibilities of men and women in the tribe. Men wagged war, hunted, held meetings, and smoked. Women followed them during their hunting expeditions, carried the loads, cut wood, harvested a few ears of corn, and handled the hardest tasks of their communal lives. He told about the custom of the women who, after delivering a child, plunged into cold water with the newborn and, if the water was frozen, dug a hole in the ice. He noted that the women who married white men were more industrious and neater but less submissive to their husbands than those who married men of their race. Frenchmen were more inclined to enter into a union with Osage women while Englishmen showed contempt for such a marriage. The author of the Journal wrote that the Osages detested the Americans whom they called Manhitangs (Big Knives) on account of their long swords but liked the French to whom they gave the name of Ichitarin (Hair on the Eyes), as they let their eyebrows grow. He deplored the consequences of the Indians’ contact with the 317 Whites and held them responsible for the disease they introduced, for the vices which the Osages acquired, for the loss of their best lands, and for the extinction of half of their nation which only numbered at the time seven or eight thousand members. He held the white man responsible for the disappearance of the buffalo which, thirty years before, could be found in the vicinity of St. Louis but by then had to be hunted two or three hundred leagues to the west of that city. He also noted the scarcity of beavers and bears. The only animals still in abundance were otter, deer, and wild cats (raccoons). He remarked that in the past the Osages hunted only to satisfy their needs but by then were willing to hunt those animals to earn money to buy rifles, tomahawks, ammunition, blankets, printed calico, earrings, vermilion and trinkets. Cortambert gave some indications on the natural products the Osages found around their villages. They gathered “delicious” honey which was plentiful in the woods and collected maple sugar and hickory nuts. He learned about the annuities the Osages were receiving and the presence at the government agency of a gunsmith and a blacksmith who, he thought, was there to induce them to turn to agriculture. He believed that sooner or later the Osages would have to do so or die of hunger. According to him, the Presbyterian missionaries from Boston had no influence on the Indians. He felt that the Indians needed contact with others than missionaries, hunters, and merchants and deplored the depravity of “our old corrupt societies.” He attempted to explain some of the characteristics of the Osages from the study of their skulls. He found them “extremely well developed in the lower part where the organs of instincts which we share with the animals appear to be”. He explained that the narrowness of the skull in the back indicated “an inferiority in metaphysical faculties.” The pronounced temporal protuberances were, for him, the sign of musical aptitude. The cerebellum, the organ of animal courage, was very developed. He noticed that the upper part of the occiput, which, according to him signified a love of children, was very depressed. He attributed it to the fact that babies were put on boards to produce that deformity which was regarded as a mark of beauty in their culture. Cortambert derived all those notions of phrenology from reading the Anatomie of Sabatier. While living among the Osages on the Neosho River, he met two Osages who had gone to Paris about ten years earlier. He heard their complaints on how they had been poorly treated by the French. Sarcastically, he added:” Such is the hospitality which some Indians received from the most civilized of all people.” He felt a great kinship with the Osages, which he expressed in these words: I am an Indian. When I hear the war song of the Osage, I break the little bands by which civilization envelops me like a mummy, and I range the prairie on a wild horse. After leaving the Osage villages, Cortambert went to visit the Cheroquis (Cherokees), established on land southwest of the Osages in Oklahoma. He returned to France but came back to America and married Suzanne Chouteau (1815-1879), daughter of Colonel Auguste Pierre Chouteau. He served as French 318 vice-consul in St. Louis but resigned in 1851 in protest against the coup d’état of Napoleon III. From 1854 to about 1858, he edited a French weekly, La Revue de l’Ouest and was active in abolitionist and liberal causes. He tried to duplicate Thoreau’s Walden experience but failed on account of malaria. From 1864 to 1881, he lived in New York where he published a French daily newspaper, Le Messager Franco-Américan and wrote several books dealing with history, Catholicism, and modern progress. Victor Hugo praised his Religion du Progrès which was published in New York in 1884. He lectured in French through New York State and Canada. He died in Bloomfield, New Jersey on March 28, 1881. His nephew, Dr. Alexander N. DuMenil described him as: tall, solemn, dignified and, generally dressed in black. He always seemed to be in a meditative mood, even while in the streets. He was a handsome man, but his solemnity repelled in spite of his courteousness. Cortambert was an idealist who sympathized with the fate of the Osages. His concern for them led him into poetic digressions and philosophical considerations, which detract from his perceptive and informative observations. VICTOR TIXIER Victor Tixier stayed in Kansas two months and a half in 1840 when he was the guest of the Osage Nation in Neosho County. After he returned to France, he wrote Voyage aux prairies osages, Louisiane et Missouri – 1839-1840, which “has remained one of the rarest pieces of western Americana.” 2037 John F. McDermott, the editor of his work added: Few travelers in the Mississippi Valley a century ago left as detailed and valuable an account of western adventures as that of Victor Tixier. . . . Tixier’s account of that tribe (the Osages) in 1840 must remain one of the most important sources for the historians to draw upon.2038 Tixier was born in Clermont-Ferrand2039, France, on March 24, 1815. He studied medicine in Paris and was about to start his internship in surgery at the Saint-Louis hospital there when he had to suspend his work because of a hand injury. He decided to travel to the United States, probably encouraged by his medical school friend, James de Berty Trudeau who was visiting Paris at the time. Having sailed from Le Havre on November 21, 1839, the two arrived in New Orleans on January 27, 1840 and remained in the States for almost a year. James D. Trudeau, born in Louisiana on September 14, 1817, was the grandson of Zénon Trudeau, lieutenant governor of the Illinois country between 1792 and 1799. 2037 . Tixier’s Travels, IX. 2038 . Ibid., 5. 2039 Ibid., 7-8; Mathews, op. cit., 596. 319 Educated in Paris and Switzerland, he completed his medical studies at the University of Pennsylvania where he had received his degree in March 1837. Tixier and Trudeau stayed in New Orleans until May when they traveled up the Mississippi. On board they met Paul Liguest Chouteau who urged them to visit the Osage Indians. In St. Louis, they were introduced to some Osages and also to Edward C. Chouteau, son of Paul Liguest who lived among the Osage Nation. Tixier was also accompanied by Alexandre Guérin, a native of Bordeaux, France, They arrived in Kansas on May 25 and remained among the Osages until August 8, 1840. Tixier was a keen observer of the lives of the Osages. As he wrote, he was “unashamed to look with interest at those new things for which [he] had traveled so far.”2040 He was determined to immerse himself in the activities of his hosts, writing:” I was going to live among the redskins in the manner of the redskins… To live like a nomadic savage.”2041 He was welcomed by the Osages who had been in contact with Frenchmen for over a century, from the time of Du Tisné’s visit in 1719 to their more recent association with Cortambert and various members of the Chouteau family. When the Frenchmen were in St. Louis, they met Nika-Ouassa-Tanga, also called “Big Soldier” who had been a member of an Osage delegation to France and proudly wore a bronze medal presented to him by Lafayette. In addition, Trudeau’s grandfather had known Old White Hair, an Osage Chief. While in the reservation, Tixier lived with Pierre Melicourt Papin who had already resided among the Osages in Missouri and Kansas for twenty- five years and was married to Sophie Mongrain, a half-breed (part French, part Osage). 2042 Both Papin and his wife served as his interpreters, as well as her brother Baptiste Mongrain, 2043 chief of one of the Osage villages. Voyage aux prairies Osages…provides great insight into the organization of the nation, the location of the various villages, the customs of the Osages, and a day-by-day account of a summer hunt in which the Frenchmen participated with the Indians. Tixier reported that there were about 3,000 members of the tribe and that they could raise about 1,000 warriors. He explained how the Clermos (Clermont) band had separated from the other Osages and were living in two villages, named La Chenière and Grosse Côte2044. The remainder of the nation was divided into two main groups: The Great Osages and the Little Osages, the Little Osages’ chief, Big Chief, being subordinate to the Great Osages’ chief, Marinhabotso. 2045 Tixier listed the five villages he visited.2046 First, the four villages of the Great Osages: 1. Niou-Chou, also called Manrinhabotso (Village-Which-Scrapes-the-Sky) was the location of Papin’s trading post and his home as agent of the American 2040 . Tixier, op. cit., 200. 2041 . Ibid. 14-15. 2042 . Tixier described her as a “rather pretty half-breed [who] helped our host to endure his life.” 2043 . Tixier wrote:” The Mongrain brothers, the sons of a Canadian and an Osage beauty, are the interpreters of the Fur Company; both spoke French and the Osage language with perfect fluency. The elder Baptiste is fifty years old.” Graves, History of Neosho County, op. cit., I, 102. 2044 . In 1835, Cortambert had made a similar finding. 2045 . Tixier, op. cit., 126. 2046 . Ibid., 126-129. 320 Fur Company. It was also the residence of its chief, Baptiste Mongrain. It included about thirty lodges.2047 2. Naniompa (Village of the Pipe), called so because of the black stone found in its vicinity, which was used to make calumets. Old White Hair, uncle of the Head Chief, was chief of the village which comprised between forty and fifty lodges. 3. Maisons Cailles (Quail Houses) where the Head Chief, Majakita lived. 4. Coeurs Tranquilles (Quiet Hearts), with Man-Chap-Che-Mani (The One who- Crawls-on-the-Ground) as its chief, was inhabited by young warriors who called themselves Bande des Chiens [Band of Dogs]. 5. The village under the command of Ouachinka-Lagri (Bel Oiseau or Beautiful Bird) was independent from the other villages.2048 Tixier described the two different kinds of dwellings inhabited by the Osages at the Niou-Chou village. The large ones were from forty to fifty feet long, from fifteen to eighteen high and about twenty feet wide. On top was: a semi-cylindrical roof with two openings, one at each end, corresponding to the location of the fires inside. These lodges were entered through two doors on the southern parts of the two sides, which always faced east and west.2049 The smaller ones of which there were fewer were built: in the shape of a cone and their tops have a narrow opening to release the smoke. The single opening, closed by a buffalo hide or a reed mat, lowered during the night, looks out toward the east.. Both large and small [dwellings] are built of the same material. Coarse planks and wide pieces of bark make up the walls as high as five or six feet; mats of reed and buffalo hides cover the roof and overlap the walls to keep out the rain. Tixier and his party were invited to a feast by Frappeur de Chefs (Striker of Chiefs) which gave them the opportunity to see the interior of a chief’s home. He wrote: The walls are covered inside with reed mats and are hung here and there with arms and implements of husbandry. Both ends are piled up with luggage and harness; there they keep bundles containing provisions of dried meat and those precious caskets of hardened bison-skin in which they keep with equal care, but separately, the ornaments of the warriors and the garments worn by the Osage beauties, with the cakes of red and verdigris so necessary for the adornment of the savages. Also at the end of the hut are hung the 2047 . Ibid., 142. 2048. Mathews, op. cit., 597; Barry, op. cit., 411. . 2049 . Tixier, op. cit.117. 321 shield, the quiver, and the favorite bow, the famous war mat of the brave, the trophy which contains the titles of glory. In front of the luggage, bison-skins still covered with hair are laid out on the ground. . . . Two holes for fires are dug out in the ground which correspond to the holes in the roof. . . . Finally, in the space between the two fires, mats rolled during the day are laid out for the night and when the warriors eat their meals.2050 Tixier was surprised by the hospitality and generosity of the Osages. He reported: Suppose a stranger comes and lives for a year in a lodge. The head of the lodge will give him the best cuts of venison and let him sleep on his best buffalo-skin; when the stranger leaves, the savage will refuse presents and thanks and will thank the traveler for choosing to live under his roof instead of another’s.2051 He admired the manner in which the Indians conducted their deliberations and showed great respect for each other: There are in the brilliant society of the most civilized cities in Europe, in the most learned societies, in the most eminent diplomatic bodies, many men, who, like me, might be given a lesson at this Osage Council on how to discuss matters. The chiefs spoke in turn after taking the time for reflection; they paused as often and as long as they wished, sure that no voice would be raised before they had concluded their speech with “I have spoken” or its equivalent. They knew how to listen without showing impatience at the objections presented to them; later I realized that they took trouble of pondering over them before answering or presenting any themselves. I have never heard two speakers at the same time around the warrior’s fire. A discussion between two men was never interrupted under any pretext by a third before he had been invited to speak. The half-breeds, whose manners are partly those of the savages, do not know how to listen and discuss as they do; their white blood is speaking.2052 Tixier was also impressed by their wisdom after White Hair narrated to him how his cousin, Majakita, son of the sister of the last chief had been chosen as Head Chief over him. The election took place while White Hair had been away from the reservation. Tixier wrote: White Hair remained a mere chief as before and did not try to secure the rank which ought to have been his. He did not arise a party of 2050 . Ibid., 134. 2051 . Ibid., 136. 2052 . Ibid., 142-143. 322 opposition and did not disturb the peace of a nation through the politics of personal ambition. One seldom sees such examples of wisdom among white rulers.2053 The French traveler deplored the consequences of the treaty of 1838, which the Osages had recently signed with the United States government: Such deals make the redskins well off and favor their in-born laziness. As soon as the annuities are paid in full, being no longer able to satisfy the new needs which they have acquired, the Osages will accept new propositions and will go deeper into the hinterland. It is not a natural feature of the redskins to figure out money matters and to economize. The savages have no idea of the relative value of money; in a deal they will ask an enormous sum for the thing one wants to buy from them, and then will let it go for a piece of scarlet material or a necklace worth a hundred times less. If they happen to make money, they cannot keep it; they spend it like children. They never think of the next day. When an Osage has a full stomach, tobacco, and auspicious dreams, he goes to sleep without worry or any thought of any kind. In spite of their natural carelessness and the advantages provided them by the cash annuities they receive, the Osage are aware that they are cheated on the value of their lands, and, therefore, have conceived a great hatred for the Americans, whom they call Manheh- Tangas (Long Knives), a nickname, which they owe to the swords of the border dragoons.2054 In his account, Tixier gave great details on the physical appearance, clothing, behavior, and particular ways of the Osage men: I admired the fine figure and handsome bearing of the Osages. . . . The men are tall and perfectly proportioned. They have at the same time all the physical qualities which denote skill and strength combined with graceful movements. Their limbs are slender, lean, and wiry, without much display of muscles; their chests are expansive, their waists narrow, their necks short, their shoulders high and broad, their arms rather long, their legs lean and slender, their knees, hands, and feet small.2055 As a physician, Tixier examined with interest the particular practices of the Osages and the resulting shapes of their heads: 2053 . Ibid., 144. 2054 . Ibid., 130-131. 2055 . Ibid., 136. 323 Their heads are small, the occiputs are flat. Such is the kind of beauty they are anxious to show, and, in order to obtain it, they press the heads of the newly-born children against the boards which serve them as cradles; they think the heads of the French are too long and quite ugly. The foreheads of the Osage are high and narrow, their temples wide, their eyes small, black, and deeply set but quite bright, their cheek bones prominent. Their noses are aquiline, with a slight curve, and wide, open nostrils. Their upper lips are flat; the lower large and protruding; their mouths are wide, their teeth small, closely set but worn down early in their lives from chewing dried meat. They have cleft chins. Their ears, slit by knives, grow to be enormous, and they hang low under the weight of the ornaments with which they are laden. There is a complete lack of beard and eyebrows on their faces, for they carefully pull out the little hair which happens to grow there. Their calm, dignified faces show great shrewdness; there is something soldierly and serious about the expression. Their hair is black and thick. The Osages shave their heads, except for the top, from which two strands of hair branch off and grow straight back to the occiput, where they form a tuft which falls to the lower part of the neck; between these strands grow two braids, the beauty of which consists in their length.2056 Tixier studied their clothing with a similar care in all its details: They wear a loin cloth of scarlet or blue, held by a wooden belt adorned with beads, where they keep their knives in sheaths of painted skins, their pipe holders, tobacco pouches, bag for red paint, mirrors, and the steel springs which they use to pluck the little beard and eyebrows with which Nature adorned them. Leggings and moccasins made of deerskin cover their legs and feet. The Osages never tie the strings of their moccasins around their feet. This detail enables them to recognize the tracks of the Pawnees who pass their strings under their feet. Their garters, as well as their belts, are decorated with rassades, which are big white or blue beads. For cloaks they use wool blankets of white, blue, or green color, although red ones are preferred. The traders order them from France. They are known under the name of mackinaws. The Osages nowadays seldom wear a buffalo-robe; it is more convenient and less tiring to pay for a blanket than to prepare, and embroider a bison-skin.2057 When Tixier was ready to leave the reservation, he was offered a calumet in exchange for one of his horses and he described it in these words: 2056 . Ibid., 136-137. 2057 . Ibid. 137-138. 324 This beautiful pipe somewhat resembled an oriental Chibouk. It had a bowl of red clay circled with lead. The stem, three inches wide, and three feet long, was embellished with ornaments made of porcupine quills and birds’ beaks painted green. Underneath hung a magnificent fan of feathers from the bald eagle, the calumet bird, and two tufts of yellow wool suspended by a thread. These were the symbols of peace. The feathers of the war calumet are painted red.2058 To complete the description of their looks, Tixier turned to the ornaments with which the Osages decorated themselves: The ornaments of their attire are composed of earrings, necklaces of porcelain, and bracelets of various shapes made of brass, iron, and even silver. Beads, backbones, snake-skins, tufted birds, and feathers are also used as finery. The use of eagle feathers is limited to those who have stolen at least a horse from the enemy. Those warriors who have killed a man are the only ones entitled to wear little bells and the war hatchet.2059 Tixier described how they painted their faces and bodies: The redskins seldom go out without painting themselves; the colors they use are, first, vermilion, then verdigris, and finally yellow, which they buy from the trader. Lacking these, they use ochre, chalk, or even mud. When their faces are covered with mud, it is sign they are fasting or mourning. The Osage always paint part of their heads around their hair, their eye-sockets, and their ears; these are the national colors, the war-time paint. The other colors, indifferently put on the other parts of the bodies, depend upon the individual fancy.2060 Women did not fare as well as the men. Tixier did not have many kind words for the appearance of the Osage women: The women are not as well favored by nature as the men. The ugliness of the female Osage is proverbial. They are short but stout and well built. The old women wear a sort of tunic which is passed under one shoulder and is attached on the other. The young ones are clad with a sort of man’s shirt made of bright-colored material. All of them, whether young or old, wear skirts of blue or scarlet cloth; their mitas (leggins) are red when the skirt is blue and vice-versa. They also wear skin moccasins. Nearly all the female Osage have their bodies tattooed with blue lines which intersect and form irregular 2058 . Ibid. 261. 2059 . Ibid. 138. 2060 . Ibid 137. 325 designs. It is generally during puberty that the young girls are tattooed. Their necks, chests, back, arms, the back of their hands, their stomach down to the hips, the lower part of their thighs, and their legs are marked with indelible blue lines, which are drawn with a red hot iron and charcoal. One often notices white scars caused by serious burns. They wear their hair long and flowing. The young girls and the half-breeds braid it and tie it at the back of their heads, or tie it in two curls in front of their ears with a red ribbon adorned with silver rings. Some had the parts of their hair and the area around their ears painted red; but this painting of the women does not mean anything among the Osages, and many of the nation who do not use any color are nevertheless “painted women.”2061 Tixier felt great sympathy for the fate of the women who were given little consideration and respect by the Osage men. He investigated the marriage practices and wrote: Marriage is concluded for material interests. A young warrior does not want a woman so much for her beauty as for her family, her interest in her work, and her physical strength. He wants a woman capable of doing any sort of work, the only exception being the kind which it is his privilege to attend to. He will take a number of wives according to his fortune or the importance of his lodge, but not necessarily his rank. The Osage civil code is quite remarkable in the article, “Marriage.” Any man may marry as many wives as he can take care of. A couple may divorce by mutual consent, in which case the husband takes back what he had given to this father-in-law. A man gives to the father of the bride-to-be the number of horses, buffalo robes, or blankets equal in value to the woman who will work for him; therefore, he pays for her. Any man who marries the eldest of several sisters is by right the husband of the younger ones. A husband has the right to kill an unfaithful wife, and the seducer must pay the parents the value of the woman. The first wife is the favored one. She is the mistress of the lodge; her work consisting in distributing the work to the others, who obey without protesting. The little harem can live peacefully together only when the wives of the warriors are related to one another; otherwise there are constant discussions among them. The husband is supposed to share his favors among all his wives and prove to the first one that he prefers her to the others, even if she is old and toothless. The marriage ceremony is quite simple. The bridegroom-to-be comes to pay the price of the girl, takes her to his lodge along with her male relations, and gives a feast for them. 2061 . Ibid., 138-139, 166. 326 Osage women are no more faithful than their pale-face sisters; the young girls are not particularly virtuous.2062 Pregnant women are not shown special treatment, even if they deliver during a hunting expedition: The Indian women engage in the hardest work until the last stage of their pregnancy. When sharp, frequent pains announce that delivery is near, the matrons, if the tribe is on its way, hastily build a round hut in which the woman in childbirth is placed on skins. In the delivery, nature is generally allowed to take its course, and generally labor is terminated without accident. If difficulties arise which cannot be resolved by the rather light knowledge of the red midwives, the patient dies with her child. When the birth is over, the mother remounts the horse, after having washed the child, which she puts to bed and ties firmly to the board which is to be its cradle.2063 It is during the two yearly hunts, however, that the women are expected to work the hardest. Tixier listed all their responsibilities: All Indians consider women inferior beings, and yet they have some regard for them, because they are indispensable to them and give birth to the warriors. The squaw builds the lodge, watches the luggage, receives from the hands of the brave his horse still saddled and laden, takes off the harness before letting the Kanga (children) take away the horse to care for him. She brings up the children, cultivates the corn, and engages in the same kinds of work a white man would.2064 Building a lodge on the trail was hard work. It entailed cutting the stakes, and log branches measuring about twelve feet, planting them in the ground in two rows, forming six arches joined to one another by long branches tied at right angles, stretching buffalo skins on the roof and the bottom to cover the luggage. After the lodge was erected, the women dug holes to build a fire, brought dry wood, found water, and then started cooking.2065 When the men left to hunt or to fight, the women were in charge of the temporary camp, and had to defend it, if needed. They sometimes were victims of the enemy as “the fair sex is never spared, for the Indians do not turn their noses at women’s scalps, although men’s are more valuable.”2066 Other times, they would drive off the attackers and inflict casualties 2062 . Ibid., 182-183. 2063 . Ibid., 255. 2064 . Ibid., 170-171. 2065 . Ibid., 159 2066 . Ibid., 219. 327 even scalping those whom they had killed.2067 While men punished harshly unfaithful wives, they offered them to the French travelers for just a few coins. The children appeared to suffer from their diet as they had prominent abdomens, but Tixier noticed that their fathers and mothers showed an extraordinary kindness and even weakness in regard to their children. If there are spoiled children in the world, they are those of the Osages. The little warriors and the girls give orders and are waited on according to their wishes.2068 In their play, the children imitated their parents. The girls unloaded “luggage” from a friend walking on all fours, built miniature lodges with twigs and blankets; the boys constructed a sort of horse with pegs and attempted to climb on its back. 2069 Finding food was always a major preoccupation for the Osages. They had an excess amount of buffalo meat during the hunts; yet, at other times, their supplies were depleted. Therefore Tixier mentioned any time something special and out of the ordinary was suddenly available to break the monotony of dried meat. The Indians sat on mats when they ate; food was served in wooden bowls. In turn they used a horn spoon to eat bouillon; they had knives to cut their meat but no forks; they took their food with their fingers. When they were in the village, their diet lacked variety; it was mostly dried meat from the previous season, boiled in water, sometimes a roast, or a sausage accompanied with cornmeal dough fried in fat, which the Frenchmen seemed to have enjoyed.2070 Being tired of eating buffalo meat, Tixier tried to go hunting for fowl. There were some turkeys in the vicinity of Niou-Chou but clouds of mosquitoes prevented him from pursuing his search.2071 Once the Indians killed ten turkeys; on another occasion Guérin brought him four ducks, which the Frenchmen plucked, roasted and ate alone as the Osages did not want to share their feast, explaining that they did not eat birds, small quadrupeds, or fish. When asked why they did not, the Osage answered that “it was annoying to have small bones in [their] mouth.” Later during the hunt, Tixier caught two turkeys which he intended to take back to France. Ouichinghek, the cook, even built a cage for them but he had to let them free, as he had nothing to feed them.2072 They fished carps in the Verdigris River, and in the Arkansas River, great many catfish which they found excellent.2073 Deer were abundant, especially as they reach the Arkansas River and later in the Saline River region. When they killed a deer, the Indians showed their inherent generosity by the manner in which they disposed of the animal. Tixier wrote: 2067 . Ibid. 219. 2068 . Ibid., 235-236. 2069 . Ibid., 235. 2070 . Ibid., 134-135. 2071 . Ibid. 139. 2072 . Ibid., 252-253. 2073 . Ibid., 160; 187-188. 328 Often the one who killed the animal receives the least desirable part. When an Osage meets another Osage carrying a deer or an antelope on his back, if he wants venison, he will stop the hunter without ceremony and point to the animal without saying anything, the hunter will throw his burden on the ground and let the other man take half of the animal, if the latter wants it. 2074 The Osages consumed few vegetables. The only ones mentioned by Tixier were green corn and pomme blanche, a white root they ate raw. When they were invited by the Kansa Indians, they were served dried pumpkin mixed with beans.2075 The only fruit reported by Tixier were excellent plums which they picked on the banks of the Arkansas River and mulberries four hundred miles beyond. The Frenchman noticed how they ate them voraciously when they found some. 2076 Tixier was most interested by the process they followed to divide a buffalo and dry its meat. Short ribs, loin, and humps were roasted on spits and consumed after the kill. The hump was especially praised, however the Frenchmen found it too greasy. They preferred the ribs and the sausages made with the meat. The Indians collected the fat, blanched it with water, and kept it in sown up doe-skins. Short ribs were flattened and sown with pieces of bark. Tixier described the rest of the preparation: The flesh of the other cuts is cut in long strips which are hung over a stick supported by two stakes. This meat dries in the sun for a certain time; the strips are then intertwined, from thirty to forty at a time; next they are placed on the hurdles between the sun and fires, folded several times together with the short-ribs, and, when they are quite dry, put into a skin. The women often open the bundles, lay the meat in the sun, and soak it with fat to prevent it from drying. They succeed in this manner in making it as tough as tarred rope; it can be kept for two or three years without spoiling.2077 Tixier did not appreciate this dried meat but was only glad to have it when nothing else was served. He wrote about his impression about that food: It is hard to imagine how bad this awful meat can be. Being extremely tough, it has a pronounced rancid taste. I had made up my mind not to be repelled by anything, and my appetite, sharpened by a long walk in the open, greatly helped my resolution. . . . One can get used to anything; later, I was able to eat this tough meat with pleasure, when nothing else was available.2078 2074 . Ibid. 169-170. 2075 . Ibid., 188, 201. 2076 . Ibid., 209. 2077 . Ibid., 196. 2078 . Ibid., 161. 329 Tixier found also difficult to adjust to what the Indians drank as a substitute for coffee, which the Osage called manka-sabeh, meaning black medicine.2079 The drink, when served by the Kansa Indians, was better as it was sweetened with maple syrup. The Osages liked the tobacco which Tixier offered them, saying “your tobacco is good, mine is bad”. Not wanting his supply to be depleted, the Frenchman offered them cigarettes, “hoping they would not know how to smoke them,” but they unrolled them, took the tobacco, filled their pipes, and lighted them with the paper. Tixier was explained the ritual of smoking: Our savages would not have lighted their pipes from another pipe or a cigar; they claim that such procedure brings bad luck. They want a flame or live coal which has not been already used. I saw them muttering a few words when they brought a light to their tobacco; it was the “prayer of the pipe” which they address to Oua-Kondah exclusively in such circumstances. As an Osage brings a light to his pipe, he asks a favor of the Great Spirit. It may be for a home, a scalp, or a mistress. He begins to smoke only when he has finished his prayer. The Osage formerly smoked the papouah, the second bark of a species of sumac tree common on the prairie. The smoke of the papouah is quite pleasant. The Osage do not chew tobacco.2080 Tixier was interested in the Osage language, attempted to analyze it and learned “a great number of words of frequent use” to be able to converse with the Indians when his interpreters were not available. The Osage vocabulary included “many substantives, and a few adjectives, but few verbs.” With some verbs, such as “eat, sleep, drink, etc.,” he could manage by acting out the different actions but he had difficulty with other verbs expressing more complex actions. He also made some comparisons between French words and the pronunciation of certain words and sounds in the Osage language which he found more harmonious when used by men than when women spoke it, for he said their voices are rather shrill.2081 Tixier found the Osage arithmetic very primitive and their calendar different from the western calendar. He wrote: Two years in the Osage system do not quite correspond to one of ours, for each one of theirs is strictly composed of six moons; we calculate time in days, they count it in nights. Hours are indicated by the height of the sun. They know a few stars – Venus, the Great Bear, the Polar Star.2082 2079 . Ibid. 135, 161, 201. 2080 . Ibid., 132-133 2081 . Ibid., 147-149. 2082 . Ibid., 149. 330 They divided the western year into two different years, one starting in October and ending in March; the second starting in April and ending in September, corresponding to their two hunts. In the “winter year”, they killed buffalo for their meat and hides which they prepare to sell to the traders in the spring. In the “summer year”, they left their villages to avoid the mosquitoes, which were a plague along the rivers where their villages were located.2083 Having no watch to register time, the Osages depended entirely on the sun to regulate their lives and were sometimes confused when it was dark or stormy. They thought that the “French people [had] a medicine to know the time.”2084 Before leaving their villages for their hunts, the Osage secured them in case of an enemy attack since only old and sick people were left behind. They stored their guns in Papin’s house after removing the plates to render them unusable. They buried their valuables in holes dug in secret places. Then they planned their route. Each village traveled separately and met on the Verdigris River from where they proceeded toward the northwest until they reached buffalo country and encountered the Kansa Indians. From there, they went to the Great Saline to trade with the Patokas (Plains Apaches) and gather salt before returning to their villages for the corn harvest in August.2085 Tixier and his party joined the Osages when they departed on June 4, 1840 for their summer hunt. There were fifteen hundred men, the same number of dogs, and three thousand horses. He did not mention how many women and children came along. The Frenchmen slept with Papin, his wife Sophie, their son Edward who was less than two years old, Ouichinghen, Papin’s mother-in-law who was the cook, and five other Osages. He wrote: “Thirteen slept every night in a place fifteen feet long.” 2086 This crowded condition, along with sleeping on buffalo hides and eating unpalatable food, were not the only hardship experienced during the expedition. The Osages and their French guests ran into violent storms. Tixier wrote: “Terrifying flashes of lightning followed upon one another without interval; a downpour accompanied with thick hail, forced us to seek shelter.” Another time, he described the storm: The storm approached rapidly and finally burst over us. It was dreadful. Rain soon drowned our fires; the flashes of lightening blinded us. Thunder roared relentlessly with a deafening noise. The frightened horses became restless and threatened to stampede. It was necessary to stroke them. With such a rain our blankets were soon useless. . . . No one in France can realize what such a storm is like. Shortly after crossing the Arkansas River, they ran into another storm: 2083 . Ibid., 14 2084 . Ibid., 154. 2085 . Ibid., 154, 157. 2086 . Ibid., 162. 331 In the evening, while we were getting ready to move to our other camp, a storm burst; the flashes of lighting and claps of thunder blinded and almost deafened us. Rain poured so I had to empty my boots several times of the water which filled them.. . . . The prairie was completely flooded, but we had to resign ourselves to sleeping on this soaked turf. Traveling is not a bed of roses.2087. During the hunting expedition, there was always the possibility of encountering dangerous animals. War parties of fifty men were gathered to kill black and grizzly bears whenever they were found along the rivers. The event was welcomed for the victorious hunter was allowed to wear a necklace made of the bear’s claws, an ornament highly valued by the Indians.2088 Cougars were also feared animals as they were extremely ferocious. And there were the omnipresent coyotes which Tixier called “Osage dogs.” He reported: They prowl in the camp and make a prey of everything that can be chewed. They attack the lodges in the back, at the places where the dried meat is stocked; they raise the skins if they are not tied fast; otherwise, they dig underground, pull the bundles out, tear them open, and devour the contents. If they do not succeed in deceiving the watchful savages, they take moccasins, bridles, saddles, and leave nothing but the iron and wooden parts. Later, during the expedition, after gorging themselves with fresh meat, they become very audacious and bite people day and night. . . . During the night they attack everybody, but especially those who do not wear the costume of the savages, who are protected against bites by their long blankets. Therefore the best way of protecting oneself is to have a blanket when going out and to crouch as soon as one hears them howl. This is, however, far from being infallible, and I have known of many unfortunate persons whose legs were cruelly beaten.2089 Besides coyotes, swarms of grasshoppers kept them from sleeping as they made a continuous deafening noise at night. Insects and flies were attracted by dead horses, the buffalo hides, and the meat drying around the camp. The Indians often had to move on account of the stench escaping from the dead bodies and the dung of horses and dogs.2090 Horseflies were also the scourges of the prairies. As Tixier wrote: During the day we had to face those dreadful flies which attack men as well as horses. There was in particular a certain gray species, quite large in size, called frappe d’abord (strike first), for as soon as it 2087 . Ibid., 175. 2088 . Ibid., 248. 2089 . Ibid. 163-164. 2090 . Ibid., 248, 237. 332 has alighted on the skin it bites immediately. These flies swarm in incredible numbers. When they attack a horse, they cover its neck, its buttocks, its belly; they take turns and bleed it white. The animal, tortured by pain, goes mad and runs until it falls dead. 2091 In addition to the threat of animals and insects, there was the real danger of rattlesnakes. Tixier identified two species: the crotalus durissus, between three and five feet long, and the crotalus miliaris, eighteen inches long, but “more dangerous than the former because of its small size and the feeble noise of its rattle.” 2092.Tixier noted: “The savages are quite intrigued by the rattles, with which they make an ornament to add to the eagle feathers they place on the scalp locks.”2093 Being a physician, Tixier volunteered to attend a young girl who had been bit by a crotalius miliaris. In great details, he described her symptoms, her condition during several days, and finally her recovery. After a long account of the whole ordeal, Tixier added: The Osage doctors and sorcerers at first did not approve until they saw the results I had obtained. They promised themselves to follow my example and to grant less importance to tears which they consider so important against rattlesnakes bites. The cure brought me the title of Ouakantaku-chinka or “Little Medicine Man.” 2094 This was not the only time the Osages depended on Tixier’s expertise, however his help was not always welcomed. When Majakita fell from his horse and broke his collar bone, he refused to keep the dressing on and to follow the treatment prescribed by the doctor. Another time, a mother would not keep in place the apparatus placed around the lower part of her child’s broken arm. Therefore the child grew up with a deformed limb. Tixier found out that: The redskins do not react in this manner for fear of physical pain, as they submit to very painful operations without winking an eye, but these children of nature are afraid of a prolonged constraint.2095 In another instance, the Great Chief sent for Tixier when he had a small wound on his leg. On the same occasion he treated the shoulder of Majakita’s wife with white poppy flowers.2096 The doctor found no small pox among the Osages as they had been vaccinated many years before his arrival. Nevertheless he observed many other ailments with afflicted them: eye diseases, film on the cornea and even blindness, inflammation of various respiratory organs, typhoid fever, syphilis, etc. . . 2091 . Ibid., 257. 2092 . Ibid., 155-156, 204. 2093 . Ibid., 208. 2094 . Ibid., 207-208. 2095 . Ibid., 246-247. 2096 . Ibid., 233-234. 333 . There was no medical treatment available to them; they depended entirely on the ouakantakus, the sorcerers who usually did not intervene and let nature take its course. Whenever the Osages went on a hunting or war expedition, the organization of the tribe was modified. Normally the Head Chief was the chief of the nation and each village had its own chief who owed obedience to the Head Chief, but in those circumstances, the chiefs relinquished their powers to the partisans who became the leaders of the hunting or war parties for the duration of the expeditions. Their authority could be revoked by the council of old men and warriors or by the Head Chief if they did not approve of the decisions or actions of the partisans. The partisans had to raise their own warriors. Tixier witnessed the rituals followed by Pichek (The Mean One) who aspired to being selected as a “partisan”. With long and unkempt hair, his face covered with mud, he went from lodge to lodge singing a lugubrious song accompanied with tears. In his case he made a vow to kill some Pawnees in honor of his wife who had died the year before.2097 Tixier explained: the motives which have them undertake a war. Most of the time it is some religious objective or at least they cover their ambition or their thirst for military glory under a religious purpose. Sometimes they want to sacrifice Pawnees to honor some dead relative; sometimes the Master of Life had given them during a dream the order to offer him a few scalps. Another time, Oua-Kondah has warned them in the same way that an expedition was being prepared against the Osages, or that the Pawnee had taken salt from the nation’s salt mines, or that the Great Spirit would like to see the Osages burn a Mahu village. The partisan always finds the ears of the braves open to his speeches; he excites them to remind them of the glory of their fathers; he promises horses and scalps to the young men, and the warriors promise to follow him.2098 The partisan fasted while he was campaigning to form his own war party. At night, he washed off his mud as it would be a sacrilege to eat with clay on his face. The partisan had to be brave, prudent, crafty and wealthy.2099 The last qualification was essential as he was required to compensate for any losses sustained during an expedition: He must hold himself responsible for the lives and fortunes of these men [the warriors]. If braves are killed, if they lose their horses, the partisan will replace the horses, will pay for the men, or be killed by the relations of the dead. . . . If some brave has lost his life, the partisan remains alone outside the village and enters either to be killed or to give his fortune in return for the life of the warriors. In case 2097 . Ibid., 144-145. 2098 . Ibid. 145. 2099 . Ibid. 174. 334 of the latter, eventually, he must wait for the inhabitants to come out and bring him the permission to do so.2100 When a warrior wanted to participate in an expedition, he had to “strike the post”, that is, with his tomahawk, he had to strike a red post, which had been set on the ground. He also was asked to enumerate his past acts of courage and his reasons for hating the Pawnees. Then he circled the camp on horseback and stopped before the lodge of the partisan he selected as his leader. The partisan could accept or reject him. If he was accepted, the warrior went to the war lodge, dressed in his “most handsome equipment” and covered himself with a mixture of fat and charcoal, which he obtained from the chaudière de guerre, or war caldron. This was called “putting on the charcoal.” 2101 Then the danse du charbon began. Tixier watched the warriors as they made maniacal contortions, jumping and capering like madmen. .. They were making such faces that they seemed to be on the point of dislocating their jaws, rolling their eyes wildly and twisting their limbs about, mumbling indistinct words, and uttering the war- cry in a low voice, beating drums or blowing tsu-tsehs (red flutes); some took up a warlike song, which they accompanied by striking their fans on some pieces of wood. Such is the first part of the danse du charbon.2102 Tixier, also an artist, drew a sketch of the warriors dancing with animation, wearing an assortment of costumes, and brandishing diverse objects. 2103 He described them as follows: The costumes of the dancers were very picturesque. Some wore deer tails placed on their heads like the crests of ancient helmets; others had their foreheads crowned with a band of crows’ beads painted in green. They held now a spear, now a calumet, now a stick, sometimes a tomahawk, a fan, or the old-fashioned hatchet. Tufts of swan’s down, eagle feathers, buffalo tails, small calabashes filled with pebbles, skins of white wolf and of panther were also parts of their attire, with the wings of calumet bird [the bald eagle] which they used as a fan. The bravest warriors carried the corbeau, the Head Chief alone held in his hand the well-known bâton croche. 2104 With precision, Tixier explained the different parts of the corbeau2105: 2100 . Ibid. , 174, 229. 2101. Ibid., 211-212. 2102 . Ibid. 212. 2103 . The sketch is reproduced between pages 240 and 241 in Tixier’s Travels., op. cit. 2104 . Ibid., 213. 2105 . Meaning “crow.” 335 The corbeau is an ornament made of the feathers of the crow; it is tied to an embroidered sash on the back of the warrior. The head and tail of the animal are the two ends of a waving mass of black feathers, attached to a cushion from which project four curved branches provided with porcupine quills and ending in a cluster of little bells. The side of the cushion which touches the body of the dancer is convex, so that when he jerks the branches violently, the feathers wave and the bells tinkle. The brave who has killed or scalped a man in the midst of his companions is the only one entitled to wear a corbeau during the war dances. This ornament is carefully kept in a case of hardened buffalo skin; it is never worn on an expedition. 2106 Tixier also described the bâton croche and explained its importance: The bâton croche is a stick bent to a semicircular shape ornamented with swan down; little bells and eagle feathers hang to the convex part of its curve. It is the ensign of the red warriors, the flag which has to be brought back in perfect condition. The council of braves alone can designate the one who will carry the bâton croche during the war expedition, and the one who obtains this distinction is for this reason acknowledged the bravest among the braves. He must be the first to rush to the enemy and show the road to victory to the Osages. When the expedition has been completed, the bâton croche is thrown into the fire and a new one is made when it is needed.2107 Whenever the warriors danced, the musicians never stood between the warriors and the sun, for it was the spirit which protected them. When the dancing stopped, there were served food but the partisans did not eat. Each warrior in turn related his individual exploits to which the partisans reacted by saying Tanheb nika- ouassa (well done, my brave) if the exploit was believed to be true. The partisans remained silent if they doubted its veracity. After each warrior had a chance to boast of his accomplishments, the dancing resumed; the warriors mimicking in turn the different moments of an encounter with an eventual enemy.2108Such danse au charbon was repeated for four days. Then the partisans washed off their mud, shaved off their hair; the warriors took off the charcoal, and put on their war paint. The partisans, breaking their fast, joined the warriors to eat “the medicine pot”, a dish of beans cooked in water. The wife of the warrior was the keeper of the war mat. When she dismounted on the trail, she had the responsibility to hang it on a stake until the lodge was built, being careful that it never touched the ground. If the warrior died in 2106 Ibid. 213. 2107 . Ibid. 213-214. 2108 . Ibid. 214-215. 336 the village, it was buried with him. It was never taken to battle for fear of being taken by the enemy. 2109 If the warriors defeated the enemy, they sent heralds to the village to tell the story of their exploits, carrying as proof of their victory, a fragment of each scalp framed in a small circle of swan down.” 2110 Then they “earned the rights to the esteem of their brothers; but the glory attached to the expedition, the scalps, the wild horses, and the prisoners belonged to the partisan. 2111 As soon as the warriors returned, the women began performing the “scalp dance.” Tixier described it: Then the women and the girls, wearing the costumes of the warriors and carrying their weapons, perform the dance of the scalps. They are naked down to the waist, and the space between the lines of tattoo which cover their bodies is painted in red or yellow. Armed with tomahawks and making contortions and faces, they dance around the red pole to which the scalps are hanging. . . . Scalps are so valuable to the savages that, if they are in a hurry, they rather scalp a man than kill him. I have seen an Osage from whom a Pawnee had taken part of his scalp lock. Yet he had no other wound to show. The scalps and the horses are the property of the partisan but he can show generosity and leave the scalps and horses to those who had taken them. By doing so, at any time his expedition is not successful, the warriors are apt to be more lenient toward him.2112 The partisan was also responsible for the success of the hunt. According to Tixier: He decides upon the direction of its course, presides over the council, which he assembles when he finds it necessary; he looks out for the safety of the lodges, has the heralds announce to the people whatever alarming or reassuring news he wants to communicate. He determines the location of the camps, the length of the journeys, where to ford the rivers, how to distribute the buffalo, giving the hunters equal portions, and decides when to return to the village.2113 Tixier watched a hunt from a hill and explained the technique used by the Osages to kill buffalo. Riding bareback, they attempted to reach the animals and then each hunter chose the beast he wanted to run down as 2109 . Ibid. 217-218. 2110 . Ibid., 227. 2111 . Ibid., 174. 2112 . Ibid., 228-229. 2113 . Ibid. 174. 337 no one else may follow the beast another is running until he gives up. . . . The bowmen and the men armed with rifles run at the right of the beast; those who are armed with pistols or spears choose the left.2114 When the buffalo is exhausted after a long pursuit, he is killed by a bullet lodged between his ribs or in the neck, or by an arrow thrown into his chest behind the last rib. “An arrow kills more efficiently than a bullet,” remarked Tixier. 2115 While hunting, the Indians ran the danger of being killed by a bullet shot by one of the hunters or they could fall from their horses and be trampled to death by either the buffalo or their own horses. There was also the possibility of getting lost at the end of a long chase and having to spend the night, isolated in the middle of the prairie. During the hunt, there was a report that the Pawnees were in the vicinity of their camp. Preparation was made for a possible encounter. The alert was in vain as the Osages found only one Pawnee who, refusing to forsake his attachment to his tribe, asked for his death, was tied to a post where he died like a brave man.2116 Having recovered from the scare of a Pawnee attack, the Osages continued their journey toward the Great Saline. By then they were three hundred miles from Niou- chou. They finally arrived at the place where they were to trade with the Patokas (Plains Apaches} but they were not there. After waiting for several days, the Patokas having not appeared, the Osages set out for the Great Saline to collect salt. They filled their bags with a mixture of salt and sand, spent a day processing it, boiling it in large basins full of water, dissolving the salt, washing away the sand and by evaporation obtaining pure salt at the bottom of the boilers.2117 Having learned that a battle had taken place between some Patokas and a party of Osages when many warriors had died but had not been buried, Tixier became “quite anxious to visit the battlefield to collect skulls of both nations,”but he gave up his plan, when he found out that the battleground was located thirty miles from the camp.2118 During their return from the hunt, Tixier observed how the Osages spent their free time. They engaged in arrow and gun shooting contests. Developing accuracy in throwing and shooting was of great importance to them, thus from an early age, young children practiced those skills and amused themselves throwing gun barrels, knives, and arrows.2119 Riding bareback, the Indians, holding a bow and two arrows, aimed at a piece of meat, six inches long, held from a curved branch stuck in the ground. Tixier found the game “fascinating to watch,” as the Osages were “very skillful archers,” although “they shoot apparently through inspiration, looking at the aim without worrying about the arrow.” On the contrary, when gun shooting, they took long aim. The Frenchman described their weapons with detail and 2114 . Ibid. 191-192. 2115 . Ibid., 192. 2116 . Ibid., 224. 2117 . Ibid., 251. 2118 . Ibid. 252. 2119 . Ibid., 186-187. 338 accuracy.2120 He also mentioned other forms of entertainment that the Osages enjoyed. They were fond of card games, which they played from morning to night, “staking beads of porcelain, then their clothes, their horse, their houses, all their property.” 2121 While they were fascinated with the chess game the French played, they were unable to understand It. 2122 The women played au plat, which was a sort of dice game.2123 The Osages loved swimming, especially when the weather was hot. Tixier noticed that they swan “with their legs out-stretched and that their swimming was not as “graceful as ours, but there is no doubt that they swim faster and longer than the Europeans.” 2124 Swimming was also a favorite activity as it was along the rivers that young women and men would meet.2125 Moreover it was for them a necessary skill as they often had to cross rivers when they were too deep for them to ride their horses.2126 Horses were the Osages ’most valuable possessions. Tixier reported: The red nations are well aware of the value of these animals. They are well-kept and well-groomed, and watched with extreme care. The loss of a horse is lamented as much as that of a friend. The more horses that are owned by a savage, the more hunters he may send to the buffalo hunt, the more meat with which to feed his wives who work for him, build his lodges, cook, and tan the hides. When hunting, as well as when he fights, the Osage cannot do without a horse; the horse carries his lodge, his stakes, his children, his wives, and himself. At the hunt, while the hunter is dismembering a buffalo he has shot down, his horse is beside him and warns his master by his frightened attitude at the approach of danger.2127. Young Osage boys learned to ride at a very early age. Tixier described their precocious aptitudes: I gazed with admiration at the naked, bold little Kangas. These hardy children could be no more than five or six years old, and yet they were riding bare-back on yearlings, guiding them with a rope passing through their mouths. The small horses kicked, moved nervously about, pranced; the little horsemen prodded with their heels and clung to their mounts. Nothing could be more amusing than the skill and 2120 . Ibid. 253-254. 2121 . Ibid., 181. 2122 . Ibid., 185. 2123 . Ibid., 324. The game is explained in note 2, pp. 234-235. 2124 Ibid., 182. 2125 . Ibid., 181-182. 2126 . Ibid. 255. 2127 . Ibid., 184. 339 coolness of these little rascals who always succeeded in mastering their colts after several falls.2128 The Osages’ expertise impressed the Frenchman who saw them galloping bareback without holding on to their bridles, shooting their arrows, regardless of their position on the horses. His admiration for the Indian horsemen is expressed in these words: An Indian on horseback is indeed a fine sight. The steed, with each movement of his head or tail, waves the eagle feathers, which are the marks of his merits, and shakes his thousand little bells. The horseman seems to be one with his mount; his scalp lock, adorned with a real mane of flowers of tchera-ouas stands out above the white or red blanket. On his back swing the shield, whether in its case of painted skin or its paintings and its long crane feathers, and the kit of cougar skin adorned with the tail of an animal. At his belt hang the dreadful scalping knife and the tomahawk.2129 While in their camps, the Osages built fences between the lodges to prevent the horses from escaping during the night. 2130 Nevertheless there was always the danger of a surprise enemy attack when the frightened horses would break loose and run away.2131 Increasing their herds of horses was always the concern of the Indians. Therefore it was greatly appreciated when they found wild horses in the prairies. Depending on their fastest horses, they pursued them until they were able to catch them by slipping a lariat around their necks. To tame them, they blindfolded them and bled them for a week, after which they were able to handle them without fear. Another way to add to their herd was to steal them from their enemies.2132 Stealing a horse was regarded as a highly respected feat as the robber was usually pursued by the enemy for a long distance after the coup. As a reward, the warrior was permitted to wear an eagle feather in his scalp locks. Tixier investigated their religious beliefs and practices although their “religion is shrouded in great darkness; few white men have known its true spirit.” 2133 The Osages worshipped a god whom they called Oua-Kondah (The Great Spirit). They were grateful to him for their successes and happiness and accepted their misfortunes saying “The Master of Life has allowed this.”2134 They prayed to the Great Spirit to ask for favors, especially before a hunting expedition and going to war. They also prayed to the Evil Spirit to try to appease him. They fasted, they wailed, they cried, believing that in so doing, they would be spared any 2128 . Ibid., 167. 2129 . Ibid., 169. 2130 . Ibid., 238. 2131 . Ibid., 169. 2132 . Ibid., 177, 246. 2133 . Ibid., 229-230. 2134 . Ibid., 230. 340 hardship.2135 Tears and wails were very important and always accompanied their religious songs. Tixier wrote: The savages do not succeed immediately in wailing perfectly. It takes much practice and training to become a good wailer. Young children begin very early; one can often see little girls getting together to improve in this respect. They concentrate all their faculties, excite their imagination, and reach a feverish exaltation which appears like the ecstasy of religious fanatics. It is a sort of frenzy which comes to them and leaves them at will.2136 Tixier gave a description of the “song of tears: This song of tears, if I may call it that, has its fixed rules; the men begin their loud praying before daylight, but the women are allowed to sing only when the men have finished. They wail at any time during the day especially in the morning in the lodges. During the day they sing while riding horseback or in camp at some distance from the huts. . . . They usually cry several days in succession when they have made such a vow, but there are tearful songs which are heard only after an accident.2137 Unlike Cortambert, Tixier did not appreciate their musical instruments: One Osage owned the body of a clarinet, to which he added a mouth piece and a reed of his own make and began to blow on this primitive instrument. By dint of patient studies, he succeeded in uttering three notes; but these three notes recurred constantly. . . . Instrumental music had not reached an advanced stage of progress among the Osages. They accompany their singing with a fan with which they beat time on a stick; they also have the tsu-tsehs, or whistles of reed, tambourines with two skins, and on great occasions they stretch a damp skin on a caldron; this is art in its infancy.2138 In the past, the Osages offered human sacrifices to Oua-Kondah, using either prisoners or poor people in their nation. With the influence of the missionaries and the traders, they abandoned that practice, although they sometimes tortured or killed a prisoner. During his journey to the Great Saline, Tixier witnessed the death of a young Osage: 2135 . Ibid., 133, 140, 181, 164. 2136 . Ibid., 164. 2137 . Ibid., 165. 2138 . Ibid., 238-239. 341 As soon as he had breathed his last, his widow began to weep and to wail; she went to each lodge clapping her hands three times and uttering three cries. When she had visited each lodge in the camp she returned to her own. The dead man was then placed in a sitting position, wrapped in a blanket, in full war paint, with his weapons around him; in this position he was lowered into a grave dug in advance. A small mound was soon raised over this tomb. The heralds then gave the signal for the departure and the widow remained alone with the body of her husband.2139 The Osages encountered several burial grounds during their journey west. Tixier watched their behavior as they stopped to give respect to their dead: The tombs were under a small mound in the shape of an altar. No decoration was to be seen – not one green or dry bough. They seemed abandoned. And yet the savages gave me many a proof of their respect for burial places. I have often seen a warrior or a woman in tears leave the ranks of the procession and, uttering heart-rending cries, walk to an unknown mound sheltering the bones of a dear friend or relative and place on their grave a cut of deer to satisfy the dead’s hunger, a necklace to make him a new ornament, or weapons with which he will hunt in the land of the ghosts. I have often seen an old woman on horseback, while scrutinizing the horizon, suddenly assume a pensive expression when she recognized at a distance a mound which we were not even able to see, I have seen her dismount and, taking her offering in her hands, begin to sing and cry. She let the others go on their way and went alone, risking her life, to the grave she was looking for. Then I was told this woman had lost her daughter during the last hunting expedition. The poor mother came back the next day; she had spent the night on the child’s grave and she had heard the bones move under the ground, as if to thank her.2140 Tixier referred to the Osages’ Indian neighbors. While in the past the Osages and Kansa Indians had fought bloody wars, the two nations were now at peace. 2141 During the hunting expedition, they met in the middle of the prairies; however they did not build their camps close to each other as they always feared that some incident might bring a hostile reaction. 2142 The Kansas invited the Osages and the Frenchmen to a feast. Tixier remarked: 2139 . Ibid., 256. 2140 . Ibid. 157-158. 2141 . Ibid., 125-126. 2142 . Ibid., 200. 342 Yielding to my nature and unashamed to look with interest at those new things for which I traveled so far, I noticed how different the Kansa lodges were from ours.” He thereafter described them: Each frame was covered with skins decorated with red, yellow, blue, and black designs which, through their primitive simplicity, recall the ancient Egyptian paintings. These lodges, the lower part of which were very much like ours, were covered with semi cylindrical roofs, raised in the middle in the shape of a tent. Several warriors had real tents made of painted skins.2143 The Frenchman had the opportunity to meet the Head Chief of the Kansas, White Feather, and described him as follows: White Feather, the Chief of the Kansa Indians, was a short, wiry man with an aquiline nose and piercing eyes. His costume was like that of the Osages. Like Majahita, he had nothing to distinguish him from the other warriors. He wore . . . a colored shirt on which hung a necklace of porcelain beads. He had two wives, one of whom had an air of distinction very seldom found among the Kansa women. I obtained the permission to draw a portrait of her.2144 Tixier found the Kansa women prettier than the Osage ones and not very shy. After traveling and hunting together for six days, the two tribes went their separate ways. Later on the Osages’ return from Rock Saline, they met again and hunted buffalo and wild horses together.2145 In the past, the Osages had feared the Patokas because of the size of their nation and their fierceness. They had avoided meeting them on their hunting expeditions. However in the two preceding years, the Patokas, having been unable to obtain goods from the white traders in Texas, were anxious to establish friendly relations with the Osages who could procure for them red paint, utensils, blankets, cloth, etc.. In exchange the Osages received in n horses which the Patokas bred and mules which they stole from the Texans. They usually scheduled a yearly meeting in July on the day of the full moon, 2146 but on the year of Tixier’s visit, they failed to trade and even engaged in skirmishes. Tixier also gathered information about the Pawnee-Maha Indians who lived on the banks of the Platte River in Nebraska and were the greatest enemies of the Osages. He was especially interested in their warfare practices. Their main purpose was to augment their herd of horses. They endured any hardship; they drew on any trick to obtain them. Their determination and craftiness were remarkable. Tixier wrote: 2143 . Ibid. 200-201. 2144 . Ibid. 201. Her portrait is found between pages 128 and 129. 2145 . Ibid. 201, 204, 244. 2146 . Ibid., 151. 343 The Mahas do not lose courage; their warlike virtues are so great that one brave is often seen setting out by himself to go five or six hundred miles away to steal horses at the hazard of his life.2147 The Pawnees operated with caution, erasing their tracks when they traveled. They wore animal skins when penetrating into enemy camp, imitated wild animals to confuse the warriors and frighten the horses who escaped and then became an easy pray. If they found the enemy asleep, they entered their lodges, killed and scalped the warriors. However during the summer hunting expedition of 1839, the Osages were able to scalp eleven Pawnees.2148 When Tixier went to visit the Osages, he was determined to share all their experiences, as he wrote: “Living with the Osage, I wanted to live like them. On the prairie, I wanted to be an Osage.”2149 He was interested in all the facets of their lives. He observed them with great curiosity. As a well educated, intelligent, and sensitive man, he was able to appreciate their many activities. Comparing Tixier’s Voyage aux prairies osages… with other accounts of explorers and travelers who preceded him, John J. McDermott wrote:” He presents an account of life of this tribe not to be equaled by any other of the many travel-writers of the Southwest.” 2150 With deep sympathy, Tixier accepted the Osages’ ways and beliefs, understood their values, appreciated their qualities, and admired them, as he wrote: They do not believe the life of the white man can be happy. On the other hand, a great many whites do not understand the happiness of the redskins. Who can judge? Careless, forgetful, they sleep among dangers; but their senses, when it is necessary, warn them in time. Their skill, their tricks, made them triumphant. Their tastes are such as to suit their nature; their needs are limited. In times of abundance they show a brutal avidity, but when food is lacking they are satisfied with roots and never complain. In time of peace, they are exceedingly lazy; in war they are unfatigable. They will travel a hundred miles without eating, without stopping; happy, they are quiet; unhappy, they show greatness. Everybody knows how to die; suicide is unheard of in their nation. If you disregard the extraordinary features of their customs, you will find that the redskins are great philosophers, who know how to control their needs and their most violent emotions. In the course of his travel, Tixier felt that the Osages knew how to differentiate between the different white men they dealt with. He wrote: They [the Osages] were fond of the Iskta-je [French and Creoles] with whom they are in good terms. They knew very well how to distinguish 2147 . Ibid., 223. 2148 . Ibid., 223. 2149 . Ibid., 189. 2150 . Ibid., 5. 344 the French from the Americans, and the Creoles from the French from France from the other side of the big water. 2151 Tixier made a significant contribution to the history of Kansas, leaving “a wealth of details concerning subjects of which other travelers wrote little.” 2152 His Voyage aux prairies osages constitutes a complete and reliable document of the world of the Osages in 1840 as he participated actively in the various aspects of their lives. Mathews, himself an Osage Indian, wrote:” He asked very intelligent questions and was quite observant, and did very well spelling Osage names and terms phonetically.” 2153 After leaving the United States, Victor Tixier returned to France to practice medicine in the little town of Saint-Pont in central France. He also participated in excavating the Gallo-Roman tombs of the region and wrote scholarly articles about the dialects of that part of France. He died July 6, 1885. 2154 His companion, James de Berty Trudeau became a physician in New York City where in 1847 he was one of the founders of the New York Academy of Medicine. In 1860 he returned to the South, later served in the Confederate Army and was wounded at Shiloh. After the war, he moved to New Orleans where he resumed his medical practice and died on May 25, 1887.2155 LOUIS CYPRIEN MENARD AND EDMOND FRANCOIS (GUESSO) CHOUTEAU In early May 1843, on his fifth expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Sir William D. Stewart invited about twenty guests who came from Europe and several American cities to join him, on what Field called “a frolic trip.” Among them were Cyprien Ménard from Kaskaskia, Illinois and Edmond François (Gesso) Chouteau from Chouteau’s Landing in Kansas City, Missouri. Louis Cyprien Ménard 2156 was born March 2, 1819, the son of Pierre Ménard, a wealthy merchant influential in business and Indian affairs in Kaskaskia and St. Louis.. During his younger years, Cyprien had visited New Orleans, Havana, and Matanza, Cuba on account of his poor heath. He never participated actively in his family’s fur enterprises.2157 Edmond François Chouteau, the eldest son of François Guesseau Chouteau and his wife, Bérénice Ménard, was born in St. Louis on January 6, 1821. He came to the Chouteau’s Landing when he was only a few months old. At age sixteen, he started working as a clerk at the American Fur Company store in St. Louis. After the death of his father in 1838, he accompanied several expeditions to the 2151 . Graves, History of Neosho County, 104. 2152 . Ibid., 2-3. 2153 . Mathews, op. cit., 596. 2154 . Ibid., 8. 2155 . Ibid., 10-12. 2156 . He was the half brother of Bérénice Ménard Chouteau and related to Edmond Chouteau through his mother, Angélique Saucier. 2157 . Louis Cyprien Ménard died in St. Louis in 1870 345 mountains.2158 In 1843, when he was only twenty-two years old, Field referred to him as “an old mountain traveler, though still with the roundness of youth upon his cheek.” 2159 Stewart had made all the general arrangements for the pleasure trip whose purpose was to explore and hunt in the Wind River area in Wyoming. Yet each participant was responsible for his own equipment which, according to Kennerly, consisted of flannel shirts, corduroy trousers, and, of course, heavy boots and spurs. Our firearms were rifles and holster pistols. We also carried hunting knives and a curious implement used by the American Fur Company, a sort of steel tomahawk and pipe combined, which, when not in use as a weapon or for chopping wood and bone, could be utilized for a quiet, peaceful smoke. Small clay pipes were carried in the bands of our soft felt hats. Each of the invited members supplied his own horse and man servant. In addition, to each six men were allotted one two-wheeled cart, or charette, the covers of which I remember, were painted red. Each cart was drawn by two mules driven in tandem.2160 The party ascended the Missouri on the steamboat Weston, disembarking at the Chouteau’s Landing on May 6 or 7 where they were all handsomely treated, in hunter fashion, by Edmond F. Chouteau, whom we were lucky enough to find residing at this place. He gave us some game of his own killing, and initiated some of the new ones into the mysteries of a merry hunter’s breakfast.2161 On May 10 they set up “Camp William” 2162 about one mile west of the Missouri line in Johnson County near the Shawnee chief Joseph Parks’ home and spent two weeks there making preparation for the journey, meanwhile enjoying themselves performing The Taming of the Shrew and some scenes of Romeo and Juliet.2163 The party set out for the mountains on May 22 and encamped on the “Wahka-roosi, or Big Elk” [Wakarusa] probably on May 25th, having traveled “some sixty miles beyond Westport.” Their evenings were spent as many others would be during the rest of the expedition. They “whiled away with pipes and chat, now and 2158 . Marra-Pal-Boutros, op. cit., 227. 2159 . Gregg-McDermott, op. cit., 15. 2160 . Kennerly, op. cit., 144. 2161 . Gregg-McDermott, op. cit., 8. 2162 . Field wrote to his wife: “I have, myself, christened the delightful spot . . . Camp William, in compliment to Sir Wm Stewart from whom I am receiving every courtesy and politeness.” Ibid., xxvii. 2163 . Ibid., xxviii, 17 346 then a song and sometimes a yarn, either fanciful or true, from some of the rude characters around us.” 2164 Kennerly related their sleeping arrangements: At night we would make a corral of the carts driving them in a circle and placing guards between. The horses and mules, our most precious possessions, were allowed to graze for a while and then picketed safely inside. Sir William had his tent pitched every night, but most of us spread our blankets under the wagons and with saddles for our pillows slept the sweet dreamless sleep that comes of riding all day. 2165 They traveled along the south bank of the Kansas River, avoiding the “emigrant-crowded Oregon Trail “ 2166 and on May 27 the men crossed the Kansas River upon a pirogue operated by the Papin (Pappan) brothers. Kennerly recounted the difficulty they encountered: Our vehicles and their contents were floated over where the stream was about two hundred yards wide with a turpid and deep current, and then the animals were made to swim across. This operation cost us considerable trouble, the mules and horses turning again and again, when out in the middle of the stream, and making their way to the shore where we had driven them. This formed an exciting scene, and was attended with no little danger, for some mounted to swim their horses over were compelled to abandon the undertaking when half-way across, and get out the way of the animals by their own exertions. The poor beasts, too, were wearied and harassed by repeated efforts to stem the current, and their desperate struggles to mount the steep and slippery bank when they returned to it. One fine mule was carried by the rushing ride under a huge branch of a tree that projected from the bank close over the surface of the water, and was within an ace of drowning, when a swimmer got near the spot and pushed the animal’s neck from under the log. After some more difficulty, we found ourselves upon the opposite side, however, without any serious disaster having occurred.” 2167 Following the north bank of the Kansas River, they arrived at Soldier Creek, west of Topeka after having encountered “a bad Road for muddy Creeks.” On about June 1st, they camped on Muddy Creek, 2168 northeast of Topeka where they were joined by other travelers. They followed the Oregon Trail, reaching the Platte River on June 14. 2164 . Ibid., 30. 2165 . Kennerly, op. cit., 145. 2166 . Barry, op. cit., 474. 2167 . Kennerly, op. cit., 35-36. 2168 . Muddy Creek empties into the Kansas River near Grantville in Jefferson County, 347 Recalling his journey along the Kansas River, Field wrote for the New Orleans Daily Picayune on January 6, 1844. By far the most promising region, in an agricultural point of view, that we passed over in our whole route, as that along the banks and in the vicinity of the Kansas River. We saw no other land as good during our further progress West. . . The Kansas is belted by a noble growth of timber, and a number of good farms ensconced within the shelter of the forest. 2169 Field listed the names of the trees they saw: The prevailing timber upon the Kansas and other streams we found to be sycamore, elm, bur oak, black walnut, box elder, the linden tree, coffee- bean, honey locust, white and red ash, cottonwood and sumach, besides of groves of the American plum which appeared here and there. The river banks were garnished with grape vines, and upon bluffs which were not barren we noticed groves of black-jack and thickest of dwarf chestnut oak. 2170 On the 17th of August, the party started back from the mountains and on October 1 camped near the Platte’s South Fork. Ménard and Chouteau, displeased with Stewart’s autocratic manners and impatient with his slow moving, separated from the party with a few others. They followed the Oregon Trail, crossed the Kansas River at the Pappan ferry in Topeka, then the Wakaroo-si (Wakarusa) on October 18, later boarding the Omega in Kansas City to arrive in St. Louis on October 23. 2171 Edmond François. “Guesso” Chouteau joined the Missouri Volunteers of the Army of the West during the War with Mexico on June 30, 1846, serving as lieutenant in battery A under the command of Captain R. H. Weightman. The unit departed from Fort Leavenworth and reached the Kansas River on July 1, encamping on the north bank. By July 3, they arrived at Fish’s Ferry 2172 at the mouth of the Wakarusa River and on the 4th they started on the Santa Fe Trail. On the 8th, they were at Diamond Spring and on the 14th camped about 6 miles from Walnut Creek. On the 15th they arrived at the Pawnee Fork which they had difficulty crossing and where they experienced great loss of animals as the area was flooded. 2nd Lieutenant G. R. Gibson wrote: “The whole country from the Little Arkansas is like a slaughter pen, covered with bones, skulls, and carcasses of animals in every state of decay.” On the 20th they passed “The Caches” and camped on the Arkansas crossing. On the 20th they went by “Pawnee Fort, an old 2169 . Gregg-McDermott, op. cit., 34. 2170 . Ibid., 36. 2171 . Ibid., 212. 2172. Fish was a Shawnee chief. 348 decayed stockade” and continued up the Arkansas to Fort Bent in Colorado which they reached on July 28. 2173 Chouteau was wounded in one arm during the war.2174 Chouteau must have returned to the mountains after his service in the army as he was reported on his way back to the States from Fort Laramie after the Treaty of September 17, 1851, which he had witnessed. 2175 He was accompanied by Father Pierre Jean de Smet and a Washington bound delegation of Indians. They took the Oregon-California trail to the Kansas River, reaching “St. Marys, among the Pottawatomies” where they were received with “great cordiality and kindness by the Catholic Father of the Mission.” Thereafter it took them three days to reach Wesport and board the Clara for their return trip to St. Louis. 2176 Edmond F. “Guesso” Chouteau died on February 6, 1853 in Kansas City, Missouri. 2173 . Barry, op. cit., 620-21. 2174 . Marra-Pal-Boutros, op. cit., 17=87. 2175 . Kappler, op.cit., 594-06. 2176 . Barry, op. cit., 1044-45. 349 CHAPTER 14 SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITIONS 1839-1847 JOSEPH NICOLAS NICOLLET Joseph Nicolas Nicollet was born on July 24, 1786 in the little town of Cluses in the Haute-Savoie Department in France. 2177 He already had a distinguished career before his arrival in the United States in 1832. At an early age, he attracted attention by his intelligence and his knowledge of the sciences. He taught mathematics first in Chambéry in the French Alps, then at the prestigious Collège Louis-le-Grand in Paris. In 1817 he was appointed secretary and librarian at the Paris Observatory, and shortly after was astronomical assistant to the Bureau de Longitude. He delivered several presentations to the Academy of Sciences of Paris about the orbits of comets and in 1821 published articles in professional journals in France, England, and Belgium. He was elected member of the French Academy of Science and became much respected by the scientific community. Allan Nevis wrote: Europe had no scientist who knew more about means of making mathematics, astronomy, and meteorology useful to the mariner, explorer, and civil engineer.2178 Shortly after the failed Revolution of 1830 and the restoration of the French monarchy, he left France for New Orleans, and then went to St. Louis where he befriended the Chouteau family who helped him materialize his plans of exploration of the Upper Mississippi and Upper Missouri regions. On August 16, 1835, he boarded the Diana, a steamboat of the American Company, which plied only the lower Missouri River. Nothing is known of that trip, except that he was reported about September 9, 1835 at the mouth of the Kansas River, descending the Missouri River toward St. Louis. He had contracted malaria and accomplished little scientific work. 2179 In 1836, without government assistance, he traveled up the Mississippi to Fort Snelling where he arrived on July 2. There he worked on a map of the Minnesota region and wrote on the customs of the Chippewa Indians. His work attracted the attention of Joel R. Poinsett, Secretary of War, who invited him to Washington to discuss a major survey to be undertaken of the land between the Upper Mississippi and the Upper Missouri. His assignment was to explore the triangle between Fort Pierce in southeast Stanley County, South Dakota, Devil’s Lake in Ramsey County, North Dakota, seventy miles south of the Canadian border, and the Renville trading post at Lac qui Parle on the waters of the Minnesota River in Lac qui Parle County, Minnesota. His mission accomplished, he was to establish a map of the “Hydrographical Basin of the Upper Mississippi” from 2177 . Martha Coleman Bray, Joseph Nicollet and his Map, Philadelphia, 1980, 1 2178 . John Charles Fremont, Narratives, 10, 36-66. 2179 . Barry, op. cit., 285. 350 the data he had collected. No better man could have been selected for the enterprise as Nevins stated: Not only had he been trained in science, but he was habitually schooled to the social observances which make daily intercourse attractive, and become invaluable where hardships are to be mutually borne and difficulties overcome and hazards met.2180 His party, assembled in St. Louis, included nineteen men; among them were Lieutenant John C. Fremont of the U. S. Topographical Engineers, 2181 Captain Jean Baptiste Belligny, an officer of the French Army who wanted to visit the Indian country, 2182 and five hired hands, all old French seasoned voyageurs. They were: Etienne Provost,2183Jean Baptiste Dorion,2184 whom Nicollet had hired as his interpreter, François Latulippe, 2185 who later served with Fremont in 1842, Joseph Chartrain,2186 who had been an employee of the B. Pratte & Company in 1826, and Jacques Fournaise, also known as “Old Pino.” The expedition started from St. Louis on April 4, 1839 where they boarded the American Fur Company steamboat, Antelope, with Edouard Chouteau as master and Joseph La Barge as pilot. Although Nicollet did not keep a journal until he reached Nebraska on April 21, he left a Meteorological Notebook in which he listed the stops the boat made until they reached the Little Nemaha River. On April 13, he was a little below Fort Leavenworth. He spent four days between April 14 and April 18, eighteen miles above Fort Leavenworth. On April 18, he was near Wolf Creek in Doniphan County,2187 traveling along the shore of northeast Kansas. He remarked that ascending the Missouri presented many dangers as the snags were “like a forest of monsters armed with pikes and pitchforks rising ten and fifteen feet above the water.”2188 Fremont wrote to his mother: I like Mr. Nicollet very much though he is inclined to spare neither himself nor us as regards labor; he yet takes every means to make us feel comfortable. 2180 . Narratives, op. cit., 37. 2181 . Fremont served his apprenticeship on this expedition. 2182 . Ibid., 49. 2183 . Provost was paid $778.00 for his tour of duty, more than seven times the normal wage. 2184 . Jean Baptiste’s grandfather, Pierre Dorion had served as interpreter during the Lewis and Clark expedition. 2185 . Also written Latulippe and Latulipe Monbleau. 2186 . Also written Chartrand. 2187 . Joseph N. Nicollet on the Plains and Prairies, trans.and eds. by Edmund C. Bray and Martha Coleman Bray, Minnesota Historical Society Press, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1976, 136, note 2. Hereafter referred to as Bray and Bray. 2188 . Fremont recorded that they had to struggle against the current and high water, Narratives, op. cit., 46. 351 He is a real Frenchman.2189 After the expedition of 1838, Fremont wrote a letter to Joel R. Poinsett on September 5, 1838 in which he praised Nicolet’s handling of the voyage: I could not dwell too much upon the super management of the expedition - not an article lost or broken throughout our long journey, not a horse injured or stolen, the whole party cheerful & contented & all conducted w[ith] the strictest record of economy, superintending in person the most trifling details of duty – giving himself the Reveille at 4 in the morning, traveling all day pencil in hand sketching & noting everything – physical and descriptive Geography, Geology, Meteorology, terrestrial magnetism, study of resources of the country in relation to its future political condition – nothing but the most extraordinary devotion to the cause of science could have supported him under such unremitted labor. 2190 In his Memoirs, Fremont remarked that “It was a great pleasure to me to be assigned to this [Nicollet’s expedition] duty.” 2191 On June 8, 1839, he wrote to Joel R. Poinsett: I can scarcely tell you how delighted I am in having been placed under him [Nicollet] in the Expedition. Every day – almost every hour I feel myself sensibly advancing in professional knowledge & the confused ideas of Science & Philosophy [with] wh[ich] my mind had been occupied are momentarily arranging themselves into order & clearness. I admire Mr. Nicollet very much, not only for his extraordinary & highly cultivated capacity, but for his delightful manner – his delicacy & his almost extravagant enthusiasm in the object of his present enterprise wh[ich] he seems to think the sole object of his existence. . . . Mr. Nicollet’s good management & his intimate acquaintance with the character of the people have overcome all difficulties & I have found new occasion to admire him for the rigid economy at which these arrangements have been made. 2192 William Brandon commented: Nicollet was his [Fremont’s] master in exploration, an example of the finest type of savant on horseback, enormously learned, thoroughgoing and painstaking far beyond the common practice of his day, one of the ablest scientists ever to concern himself with unveiling the magnificent geography of western America. Fremont learned from 2189 . Bray and Bray, op. cit., 14. 2190 . Bray and Bray, op. cit., 25. 2191 . John Charles Fremont, Memoirs of My Life, intr. Charles M. Robinson III, New York, 2001, I, 31. Hereafter cited as Memoirs. 2192 . Ibid., 14-15. 352 him to see with the varied eyes of geology, mapmaking, astronomy, and botany, and to amalgamate these lines of vision into an accurate and revealing view of country, before known only from the often contradictory hearsay of trappers and Indian traders. From Nicollet, too . . . Fremont caught a wildfire enthusiasm, something of a sense of dedication, a habit of ardent application to the work in hand.2193 Nicollet had not only been a teacher to Fremont, he had developed a warm affection for the younger man, enjoying speaking French with him. After the scientist sent him on special survey, he wrote to Fremont: “I shall wait for you with open arms to embrace you and congratulate you.” 2194 In later life, he treated him almost like a son and called Fremont and his wife “mes enfants. “2195 Described as “urbane, forbearing, rounding off obstructions in intercourse; polished and persuasive and careful of the feelings of others,” Nicollet gave credit to his engagés whom he found to be “most faithful, cautious and courageous in the midst of danger.” He wrote that these were men as necessary and efficient on the burning prairies of the west as the Canadian voyageurs are for the rugged and frozen regions of the north and northwest. These two haughty and indomitable races . . . are half civilized and half savages; rebellious and submissive, possessed of great physical courage and power of physical endurance. . never despairing, and always cheerful, they are intelligent, honest, devoted, and gifted with the warmest feelings.2196 One of them, Jacques Fournaise,2197 was born in Trois-Rivières near Montreal, Canada, and came to the United States after the American Revolution to escape British rule. He worked on a flatboat down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and stayed in New Orleans for a while. When the British attacked the city, “being skilled in the use of his rifle, he was one of the first to offer his services” to defend it. Nevertheless he was rejected on account of his age; he was then approximately sixty years old. 2198 He went up the Mississippi to St. Louis around 1815 and was 2193 . William Brandon, The Men and the Mountain – Fremont’s Fourth Expedition, New York, 1955, 13. 2194 . Ibid., 14, 36 note 14. 2195 . “my children.” Memoirs, op. cit., 69. 2196 . Bray, op. cit., 147. 2197 . Also written Famnais and Fournoise. He told Father Donnelly: “I was born in Montreal, Canada, shortly after the great war. I came to Duquesne [Pittsburgh] where I worked around until the following spring”. Hoffhaus, op. cit., 156. Fournaise witnessed the fall of Quebec [Montreal?] at age twelve. 2198 . He may have been a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, although he was not recorded as being in their party. Hoffhaus, Chez les Canses, op. cit., 157. 353 engaged by Pierre Chouteau, Jr. to deliver merchandise up the Missouri to a camp near the mouth of the Kansas River where he built a cabin.2199 Nothing is known of his activities for the next seven or eight years but he must have gone hunting into the Black Hills as there is a record of his having been gored by a buffalo he had failed to kill. His right leg was broken below the knee and his back was “a mass of wounds and bruises.” For twenty-two days he crawled slowly back to his camp, located twenty miles away. He was left crippled for the rest of his life. He trapped in the Southwest with Etienne Provost’s party and spent the fall and winter of 1823 in the Rockies. In 1824 when he was hunting in the area of Utah Lake, he was attacked by a band of Bannock Indians but escaped across the Wasatch Mountains.2200 He was also with Provost when they spent the spring and summer of 1825 in Utah and Wyoming. Fournaise returned to St. Louis and was thereafter employed by various fur companies whic sent him back to the mountains where he experienced harrowing encounters with the Indians.2201 Upon his return he joined the Nicollet expedition. When the survey work was completed, he returned to St. Louis and the next year, he was back in the Rocky Mountains working for various representatives of the American Fur Company and as United States agent for the Upper Missouri tribes between 1842 and 1845. When he was nearing the old age of one hundred, he retired to his old cabin in Kansas, living alone, cultivating “his little garden with choice vegetables, berry bushes, beautiful flowers and a few tobacco plants,” and sleeping on a buffalo robe bed. 2202 Father Donnelly who knew him well wrote that he was a very old looking man of singular appearance. His hair was copious and of silvery whiteness on his head, eyebrows and throat. His face was of a pale whiteness, jaws rather heavy and blue lugubrious eyes, shoulders somewhat bent apparently by age; but that which attracted my notice in particular was his curious manner of locomotion. His two knees seemed to be always at variance with each other. . . . For a long time I was under the impression that Pino’s deformity of legs was natural to him, and only after a quarter of a century’s acquaintance did I discover that it had been caused by one of the most fearful accidents that I ever heard of.2203 Father Connelly added: “Jacques Fournaise died in July, 1871, at age 124 – the oldest man in our era…. Was a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition, although he was not recorded in their journals.” Voelker wrote: 2199 . The site of the cabin was a little over a mile southwest of the mouth of the Kansas River. Voelker, in Hafen, Mountain Men, VIII, op. cit., 177, note 13. 2200 . Ibid., 177-178. Provost was with him at the time of the attack. Hafen, op. cit., VI, 372-373. 2201 . Voelker, op. cit., 179-181. 2202 . Ibid., 182. 2203 . Hoffhaus, Chez les Canses, op. cit., 155. 354 One hundred and twenty-four at his death, Pino was a phenomenon of the Western fur trade. Tough, resourceful, determined, intelligent, affectionate and indestructible, with a prodigious memory, he typified the working Mountain Man at its best.2204 In 1843, Nicollet submitted The Map of the Hydrographical Basin of the Upper Mississippi River, which was published by the Senate in 1843 and by the House in 1845. To accompany the map, he sent a report entitled, Report Intended to Illustrate a Map of the Hydrographical Basin of the Upper Mississippi. 2205 The methods he used to establish it were in advance of previously employed ones and “he was the first explorer to make careful use of the barometer in calculating interior altitudes in America”.2206 One of his collaborators, the German botanist, Charles Andres Geyer, who accompanied him on two expeditions, expressed his admiration for Nicollet, writing that he was an extraordinary man. In his person he resembled Michelangelo to a remarkable degree. He was capable of any undertaking; he fondled his friends like a grandfather, and had an uncommon knowledge of the human heart, ever kind, never losing sight of his dignity and dangerous when touched in the heart, like every Parisian gentleman. According to Chittenden, Nicollet was one of the most industrious, indefatigable, earnest and accurate of the American explorers, and the map which embodied the results of his labors was, in the opinion of General G. K. Warren, “one of the greatest contributions ever made to American Geography.” 2207 The dust jacket of Martha Coleman Bray’s book reads: The Report which accompanied the map reveals Nicollet’s breadth of Knowledge which brought him into the liveliest scientific circles of the United States. He died in Washington in 1843, exhausted by the difficulties under which he had labored and beloved by many friends including the clergy and missionaries, Indians, mountain men and 2204 . Voelker, op. cit., 183. Voelker wrote: “There can be little doubt about Pino’s age” and quoted several testimonies of persons who had known him for many years. 2205 . Published in 26th Congress, 2nd Session, Senate Documents 237 – serial 380, Washington, 42. 2206 . Narratives, op. cit., 10. 2207 . Chittenden, Fur Trade, op. cit., II, 639; Narratives, op. cit.,39. Governor Kemble, Memoir to Accompany the Map of the Territory of the United States from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, 36th Congress, 2nd Session, unnumbered Senate Document II (Washington, 1885-1860), 24. John L. Allen wrote:” He introduced to western cartographers not only his own map but, especially through his training of Fremont, a measure of scientific precision that had been heretofore lacking.” “Patterns of Promise: Mapping the Plains and Prairies,” in Luebke, op. cit., 51. 355 traders, as well as the American savants whose liberal and disinterested attitudes he so much admired. His work was not only a necessary link in the westward expansion of a nation but was a part of the achievement of the explorers and topographers of the nineteenth century in describing our great northwestern lands. Nicollet died September 11, 1843 in Washington, D.C. in a hotel room, alone, his health having been gradually deteriorating. Fremont wrote: It was the ending of a good and useful and pleasant life. I deeply regretted him, and missed long his friendly and considerate presence.2208 He added: It would have been a fitter end to have died under the open sky, and be buried, rolled up in a blanket, by the side of some stream in the mountains.2209 Nicollet Island, next to Anthony Falls, in Nicollet County in southern Minnesota has been named after him, as well as a visitor center and observation tower in Sisseton, South Dakota. THE FREMONT EXPEDITIONS In his Memoirs of My Life,2210 John Charles Fremont omitted referring to his parents for he was an illegitimate child. His mother, Ann Beverly Whiting was married at the time of his birth to Major John Pryor of Richmond, Virginia. Childless and unhappy, “she eloped in July of 1811 with a French fresco painter, named Charles Fremon2211 who had taught art first at William and Mary College, then in a Richmond academy.” 2212The union became permanent and three children were born from it. John Charles, the oldest was born in Savannah, Georgia on January 21, 1813. Later the family moved to Nashville and Norfolk. After Charles Fremon’s death in about 1818, they lived in Charleston, North Carolina. At age sixteen, John Charles was confirmed in St. Philip’s Church, his mother hoping he would become an Episcopalian minister. In 1827 he attended a preparatory school and made such 2208 . Bray and Bray, op. cit, 25. 2209 . Ibid., 25. 2210 . Memoirs, op. cit., 18-26. 2211 . John Charles Fremont added a “t” to his father’s name. 2212 . Charles Fremon claimed that he was born in Lyon, France and that, as a Royalist, he left the country during the French Revolution. On his way to the West Indies, his ship having been captured by the British, he was imprisoned in an island until his escape to the United States. Actually, Charles Fremon was Louis -René Fremont, born in Quebec City. A failed politician, he left for Santo Domingo to live with his aunt. Yet the story of his capture and imprisonment may have been accurate. David Roberts, A New World – Kit Carson, John Fremont and the Claiming of the American West, New York, 2000, 110-112. 356 rapid progress in Latin, Greek, and mathematics that in 1829 he was admitted as a junior to Charleston College. He left school in 1831 without completing his course of study and went on a naval cruise to South America. Upon his return, he helped survey railroad routes in the Carolina and Tennessee mountains, and went on a military reconnaissance of the Cherokee country in Georgia with the U. S. Topographical Corps of Engineers to which he had been appointed. He gained much beneficial experience when, in 1838, he was named assistant to the French scientist, Jean N. Nicollet who had been asked by the Secretary of War to conduct a survey in the Upper Mississippi and Upper Missouri regions. Nevins wrote: It was a marvelous training for a scientific explorer, at once precise and broad; far better than that which West Point at this time gave young officers of the Topographical Corps. 2213 Lieutenant Fremont embarked on his first expedition in 1842. His report to Colonel J. J. Abert,2214 Chief of the Corps of Topographical Engineers, dated Washington, March 1, 1843 reads:2215 I had collected in the neighborhood of St. Louis twenty-one men, principally Creole and Canadian voyageurs, who had become familiar with prairie life in the service of the fur companies in the Indian country. The persons engaged in St. Louis were: Clément Lambert, 2216 J. B. Lefèvre,2217 J. B. Lespérance, Benjamin Potra,2218 Louis Gouin, 2219 J. B. Dumes, 2220 Basil Lajeunesse, 2221 François Tessier, 2222 Benjamin Cadotte, 2223Joseph Clément, Daniel 2213 . Narratives, op. cit., 14. 2214 . John James Abert, born in Marseille, France, was the son of Jean Abert, a French officer who had fought under the command of Count Rochambeau during the American Revolution. 2215 . John Charles Fremont, Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountainsin the Year 1842, and to Oregon and North California in the Year 1843-44, Ann Arbor, University Microfilms, 1966, 9. Hereafter cited as Report. 2216 . Lambert had been selected as the camp conductor, probably as he could read and write. He was paid more than any other engagé and received $1.85 per day. 2217 . Jean Baptiste Lefèvre received $.81 per day. 2218. Also written Poitras. He received $.66 per day. 2219 . He received $.87 ½ per day. 2220 . He was the cook of the expedition and received $.75 per day. 2221 . Fremont referred to Basil Lajeunesse as “my favorite man.” Report, op. cit., 47. He received $.75 per day. He was born in St. Louis on June 25, 1814 and was the nephew of Jean Baptiste Lajeunesse, a member of the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804-1805. 2222 . He received $.62 ½ per day. 2223 . Also written Cadot. 357 Simonds, Léonard Benoît, Michel Morly, 2224 Baptiste Bernier,2225 Honoré Amyot, François Latulippe, 2226 François Badeau, Louis Ménard, Joseph Ruelle, Moïse Chardonnais, Auguste Janisse, Raphaël Proue.2227 After ascending the Missouri from St. Louis on the steamboat Rowena, Fremont’s party debarked on June 4, 1842 at Chouteau’s Landing, ”which is on the right bank of the Kansas river, about ten miles above the mouth,” 2228and proceeded west. Fremont wrote: We were all well armed and mounted, with the exception of eight men, who conducted as many carts, in which we packed our stores, with the baggage and instruments, and which were drawn by two mules. A few loose horses, and four oxen, which had been added to our stock of provisions, completed the train.2229 They went twelve miles up the Kansas River to the trading post of Cyprien Chouteau’s trading post where they stayed for six days on account of the bad weather and to complete their final arrangements for the expedition. 2230 On June 10th, Chouteau accompanied them for several miles, after which an Indian engaged by the trader conducted them on the next thirty or forty miles. They reached the Santa Fe Trail and camped on a small creek, “called Mishmagwi by the Indians.” On the 14th they arrived at the ford of the Kansas River.2231 Crossing the river was extremely difficult, as it had been swollen by rain. Fremont told about the difficulties they encountered: Several mounted men led the way into the stream to swim across. The animals were driven in after them, and in a few minutes all had reached the opposite bank in safety, with the exception of the oxen, which swam some distance down the river, and returning to the right bank were not got over until the morning. In the mean time, the carts had been unloaded and dismantled, and an Indian-rubber boat, which I had brought with me for the survey of the Platte river, placed in the water. The boat was twenty feet long and five broad, and on it were placed the body and wheels of a cart, with the load belonging to it, and three men with paddles. 2224 . Also written Morley. 2225 . Fremont wrote: “In charge of the camp, I left Bernier, one of the most trustworthy men who possessed the most determined courage.” Report, op. cit., 61. 2226 . Also written Latulipe. He had been a member of Nicollet’s party. 2227 . Also written Proulx. He received $.75 per day. 2228 . Report, op. cit., 9. 2229 . Ibid., 10.There was a total of eight carts. Ferol Egan, Fremont, Explorer of a Restless Nation, Garden City, New York, 1977, 62. 2230 . In Wyandotte County. Barry, op. cit., 451. 2231 . The ford was one hundred miles from the mouth of the Kansas River, according to Fremont. 358 The velocity of the current, and the inconvenient freight, rendering it difficult to be managed, Basil Lajeunesse, one of our best swimmers, took in his teeth a line attached to the boat, and swam ahead in order to reach a footing as soon as possible, and assist in the drawing her over. In this manner, six passages had been successfully made, and as many carts with their contents, and a greater portion of the party, deposited on the left bank; but night was drawing near, and, in our anxiety to have all over before the darkness closed in, I put upon the boat the remaining two carts, with their accompanying load. The man at the helm was timid on water, and, in his alarm, capsized the boat. Carts, barrels, boxes, and bales, were in a moment floating down the current; but all the men who were on the shore jumped into the water, without stopping to think if they could swim, and almost everything – even heavy articles, such as guns and lead – were recovered. Two of the men, who could not swim, came nigh being drowned.2232 While they camped on the north bank of the river, a number of Kansa Indians visited them and brought goods to be bartered: vegetables, pumpkins, onions, beans, lettuce, and butter. Fremont even exchanged a “fine” cow and calf for a yoke of oxen. He also had the “good fortune” to buy some twenty or thirty pounds of coffee from “Louis Pepin” (one of the Pappan brothers) to replace the bag of coffee they had lost during the fording of the Kansas River and which represented nearly all their provision.2233 Fremont wrote: Going up to one of the groups who were scattered among the trees, I found one [Kansa Indian] sitting on the ground, among some of the men, gravely and fluently speaking French, with as much facility and as little embarrassment as any of our own party, who were nearly all of French origin.2234 On the 16th the party traveled seven miles and camped for two days on a “handsome, open prairie” and “the men kept busy drying the provisions, and otherwise completing our equipage.” 2235 On the 18th they left their camp and 2232 . Report, op. cit.11; Narratives, op. cit., 91. Charles Preuss, the German cartographer of the expedition, gave his own version of the event: “At two o’clock we reached the Kansas, and while I am writing this, our baggage is being ferried across in the rubber boat. This boat, which is inflated and used for the first time, performs quite well. Horses and men swam across quickly, but the oxen struggled hard. So far only one has consented to go across. The river is between three hundred and four hundred feet wide, but only at a distance of forty to fifty feet is it deep enough to swim. Just now I hear shouting from the opposite shore, and I see that a box has slid off the boat and fallen in the water. Luckily, my things are already on this side, and so are all the instruments. . . I can see that several Indians have already been hired as divers. I wonder what will be lost.” Charles Preuss, Exploring with Fremont, trans. and ed. by Edwin G. and Elizabeth K. Gudde, Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1958, 6-7. 2233 . “A sack with 150 pounds of coffee has not been recovered.” Preuss, op. cit., 7 2234 . Report, op. cit., 11; Narratives, op. cit., 92. 2235 . Report, op. cit., 11. 359 journeyed along the foot of the hills, which border the Kansas valley, “generally about three miles wide, and extremely rich;” then for thirteen miles on the bank of a little tributary of the Kansas River. During the day, near the mouth of the Vermillion, not far from Belvue in Pottawatomie County, they came upon a large deserted Kansa village which had been attacked and burned by the Pawnees in early spring and forded the [Red] Vermillion. On the 19th, leaving the river bottom, they traveled on the uplands, generally in view of the Kansas River. Fremont noted “many large boulders … of various shades of red, some of them four or five tons in weight . . . scattered along the hills; and many beautiful plants in flower…” 2236 On the 20th they crossed the “Big Vermillion” [the Black Vermillion] and after a day’s march of twenty-four miles, they reached the Big Blue and encamped on the uplands, near a small creek where there was a large spring of very cold water. The next day, after progressing for twenty-two miles, they halted on a stream, which earlier had been the encampment of Oregon emigrants. On the 22nd they bivouacked near the Little Blue River, twenty-four miles from the camp of the preceding night. On the 23d, after a day’s march of twenty miles, they stopped on the Little Blue and the next day probably entered what is now Nebraska.2237 For his return trip to St. Louis, Fremont followed a different route. After traveling along the Platte River to its mouth, on the 1st of October, he arrived in Bellevue on the Missouri. There he enjoyed the hospitality of Mr. Sarpy’s residence and “in the security and comfort of his hospitable mansion, felt the pleasure of being again with the pale civilization.” He found his boat ready on the stocks.2238 After selling at public auction his entire equipage: horses, carts, and materiel of the camp, they embarked on the 4th of October and traveled down the Missouri along the Kansas shore. Fremont wrote: The strength of my party enabled me to man the boat with ten oars, and we descended rapidly, On the morning of the 10th, we halted to make some astronomical observations at the mouth of the Kansas, exactly four months since we had left the trading post of Mr. Cyprian Chouteau, on the same river, ten miles above. On our descent to this place, we had employed ourselves in surveying and sketching the Missouri, making astronomical observations regularly at night and at midday, whenever the weather permitted.2239 They reached St. Louis on October 17, 1842 In the report of his second expedition, sent to Colonel J. J. Abert and written in Washington City, March 1, 1845, Lieutenant Fremont wrote: 2236 , They were in Pottawatomie County. 2237 . Report, 12-13. 2238 . “ Five or six days previously, I had sent forward C. Lambert, with two men, to Bellevue, with directions to ask from Mr. P. Sarpy, the gentleman in charge of the American Company’s establishment at that place, the aid of his carpenters in constructing a boat, in which I proposed to descend the Missouri.” Ibid., 78. 2239 Ibid., 79. 360 My party consisted principally of Creole and Canadian French, and Americans, amounting in all to 39 men; among whom you will recognize several of those who were with me in my first expedition, and who have been favorably brought to your notice in a former report. 2240 Among the veteran Frenchmen of the first expedition, he retained Baptiste Bernier, François Badeau, Louis Ménard, Raphaël Proue, François Tessier, 2241 and Basil Lajeunesse, as they were “old associations rendered agreeable to me.” To those five, he added thirteen other Frenchmen: Alexis Amyot, Olivier Beaulieu, Philibert Courteau,2242 Michel Crélis, 2243 Clinton Deforest,2244 Jean Baptiste Derosier, 2245 François Lajeunesse, 2246 Louis Montreuil, Alexis Péra,2247 François Péras, Oscar Sarpy, 2248 Jean Baptiste Tabeau,2249 Charles Taplin, Baptiste Tesson, and Joseph Verrot.2250 Lieutenant Fremont and his party arrived “at the little town of Kansas” on May 17, 1843, having traveled down the Missouri from St. Louis by steamer. They were detained nearly two weeks there to complete the necessary preparation for their journey overland. The caravan comprised twelve carts, drawn each by two mules, a light covered wagon, mounted on good springs to provide for the safer carriage of the instruments which included one refracting telescope, one reflecting circle, two sextants, one pocket chronometer, one chronometer, one siphon barometer, one cistern barometer, six thermometers, and a number of small compasses; a 12-pounder brass howitzer and a band of loose horses and mules.2251 2240 . Ibid., 105. 2241 . He received $.62 ½ per day. 2242 . Courteau was the cook of the expedition. Beaulieu and Courteau were dismissed in California for stealing sugar. Egan, op. cit., 230. 2243 . Also written Creely. 2244 . Also written Charles De Forrest. 2245 . Also written Desrosiers. He had been listed as a boatman on the Yellowstone on March 24, 1832 on his way to Fort Union. 2246 . He has worked as a hunter for William Drummond Stewart in 1837. By 1846 he was living in Taos, New Mexico. 2247 . Also written Péras. 2248 . Also written Sarpi. He was released in St. Vrain’s Fort as he did not think he could endure the crossing of the Rocky Mountains. Egan, op. cit., 136-137. 2249 . Tabeau was killed by the Indians in May of 1844 in the San Joaquin valley in California. Fremont wrote:” Narratives, op. cit., 412. 2250 . Also written Verreau. He requested to be discharged in California. Egan, op. cit., 231; Report, 105. 2251 . Ibid., 106. In Johnson County. Preuss made an entry in his Journal which reads:” This morning we started our monotonous journey through the prairie. We camped four miles from Westport, where the prairie begins. We bought our last necessities. No doubt we shall live better than last year; the provisions are better and more complete. Yet the monotony is the same, especially since for the first thousand miles we shall probably follow the same route as last year.” On 361 They started on May 28 and spent two nights near “the [Shawnee] Methodist Mission Home. Fremont wrote: From this encampment, our route until the 3d of June was nearly the same as that described to you in 1842. Trains of wagons were almost constantly in sight; giving the road a populous and animated appearance, the greater portion of the emigrants were collected at the crossing, or already on their march beyond the Kansas river.2252 While Fremont did not leave any indication about the route followed during the first three days, except for writing that they traveled “a very winding road along the Lower Kansas river,” Theodore Talbot who traveled with him recorded the various stops they made during that time. He stated that they camped at Elm Grove 2253 on the 30th and on the 31st on the “Wahkaloosa” (Wakarusa) and placed “a signal as agreed” on Blue Mound, five miles southeast of Lawrence in Douglas County.2254 By June 2nd, they had traveled one hundred miles from their starting point in “the little town of Kansas.” They camped near the Shunganunga Creek in Shawnee County. On the 3d, instead of crossing the Kansas River as they had done on their preceding expedition and continuing on the Oregon Trail, they followed the south bank of the river. According to Talbot, they “nooned” near the village of the Kansa chief, Little Turtle. Fremont wrote that [they ]found the country much more broken than on the northern side of the river, and where our progress was much delayed by the numerous small streams, which obliged us to make frequent bridges. On the morning of the 4th, [they] crossed a handsome stream, called by the Indians Otter creek.2255 The next day, they met a small party of Delaware Indians returning from a hunting and trapping expedition on the upper waters of the river. In his Table of latitudes and longitudes, Fremont noted that they were on Buck Creek on the 4th.2256 On the 5th, they camped on Elk Creek 2257 and on the afternoon of June 6th, while crossing a wooded stream, about due south of Manhattan, they saw a the next day, he wrote:” Last night we camped at Elm Grove.” Preuss, op. cit., 81. The next entry was dated, June 28. 2252 . Report, op. cit., 107. In his “Table of latitudes and longitudes,” Fremont noted that on the 4th, they were at Buck Creek, a tributary of the Kansas River. Ibid., 322. 2253 . In Johnson County, Kansas. Haines, op. cit., 32-33. Theodore Talbot, The Journal of Theodore Talbot, ed. Charles H. Carey, Portland, 1961.Talbot wrote:” Only two elm trees remain of what was once a beautiful grove.” 2254 . Haines, op. cit., 36-37. 2255 . Report, op. cit., 107. Talbot recorded it as “Beaver Creek.” It is presently called Mill Creek in Wabaunsee County. 2256 . Ibid., 322. It is now called Deep Creek in Riley County. 2257 . Ibid., 322. 362 mounted war party of Osages charging into their camp in pursuit of Lucien Maxwell, one of their hunters. The Indians drove off a number of their best horses, but after a hard chase of seven or eight miles Fremont’s men succeeded in recovering them all.2258 On the 7th, they probably made their bivouac on McDowell Creek in Riley County. Fremont wrote: We arrived on the 8th at the mouth of the Smoky Hill fork, which is the principal southern branch of the Kansas, forming here, by its junction with the Republican, or northern branch, the main Kansas river. Neither stream was fordable, and the necessity of making a raft, together with bad weather, detained us until the morning of the 11th.2259 On the 9th they built a raft which they used along with an Indian rubber boat to cross the Smoky River, then proceeded for about a mile and camped between the two rivers.2260 On the morning of the 11th, they resumed their journey along the right bank of the Republican Fork. Fremont stated: For several days we continued to travel along the Republican, through a country beautifully watered with numerous streams, handsomely timbered; and rarely an incident occurred to vary the general resemblance which one day on the prairies here bears to another and which scarcely requires a particular description. . . . They journeyed on the line usually followed by the trapping and hunting parties of the Kansas and Delaware Indians. . . On the evening of the 14th, when we encamped on a little creek in the valley of the Republican, 265 miles by our traveling road from the mouth of the Kansas, we were at an elevation of 1,520 feet.2261 After traveling some eighty-two miles, on June 14 they camped at Big Timber Creek.2262 Fremont remarked: Hitherto our route had been laborious and extremely slow, the unusually wet spring and constant rain having so saturated the whole country that it was necessary to bridge every watercourse, and for days together, our march averaged only five or six miles.2263 2258 . Ibid., 107. 2259 . Ibid., 107. They encamped half a mile from the junction of the Smoky Hill Fork and the Republican Fork, near the site of Fort Riley. 2260 . In the vicinity of Junction City in the Fort Riley area. Barry, op. cit., 482. 2261 . Report, op. cit., 107-108. 2262 . Probably Buffalo Creek in Cloud County. Barry, op. cit., 482. 2263 Report, op. cit., 108. 363 Having been delayed by the bad weather, Fremont decided to divide his party and proceeded with fifteen men, taking with him only the light wagon containing the instruments, while leaving Fitzpatrick to travel at a slower pace with twenty-five men in charge of the provisions. On the 16th, they separated. Fremont marched westward toward the “Solomon’s Fork of the Smoky-Hill River,” continuing along its north bank. On the 19th, in the afternoon, they crossed the Pawnee trail to the Arkansas River. On the 21st, they followed up a branch of the creek on which they had encamped “in a broken country, where, however, the dividing ridges always afforded a good road.” In the afternoon, they crossed to a tributary of the Republican and encamped on a fork. “flowing with a swift current over a sandy bed.” 2264 At noon, on the 23d, they descended into the valley of a principal fork of the Republican, a beautiful stream with a dense border of wood. During the afternoon they continued their route along the river and encamped on its banks. Fremont wrote:” We gave to this stream the name of Prairie Dog River.” 2265 On the 25th, they camped on a little creek, within a few miles of the main Republican River. On the 26th, they entered the valley of a large stream, afterwards known to be the Republican Fork of the Kansas.” Shortly after, they were in Nebraska in the vicinity of Benkelman.2266 On September 22, 1843, when the party was at Fort Hall in Idaho, Fremont wrote: The early approach of the winter, and the difficulty of supporting a large party determined me to send back a number of men who had become satisfied that they were not fitted for the laborious service and frequent privations to which they were necessarily exposed, and which there was reason to believe would become more severe in the further extension of the voyage. I accordingly called them together, and, informing them of my intention to continue our journey during the ensuing winter, in the course of which they would probably be exposed to considerable hardship, succeeded in prevailing upon a number of them to return voluntarily.2267 Among them were the Frenchmen: Alexis Péras, Baptiste Tesson, Michel Crélis, François and Basil Lajeunesse. Fremont added: 2264 . Ibid., 109. 2265 . A stream named Prairie Dog Creek flows through the northwest counties of Decatur, Norton, and Phillips. 2266 . Fremont’s party had spent twenty-six days in Kansas. 2267 . Narratives, op. cit., 162. 364 Among them. I regretted very much to lose Basil Lajeunesse, one of the best men in my party, who was obliged, by the condition of his family, to be at home in the coming winter. 2268 While Fremont and his party were in the Sacramento area, on the Mokelumne River in California, Baptiste Derosier died on March 22, 1844. Fremont wrote: While we remained at this place, Derosier, one of our best men, whose steady good conduct had won my regard, wandered off from the camp, and never returned to it again, nor has he since been heard.2269 As they were camping on the Virgin River in northern Arizona, in early May of 1844, Tabeau went “to a neighboring hollow where the horses might pasture during the day. “ Having not returned in time, Carson and several men were sent searching for him. They returned without tidings of the missing Tabeau. The next day, after going several miles, they discovered Tabeau’s mule mortally wounded in the side by an arrow. As they were hunting for Tabeau’s tracks, they saw a dark pool of blood on the ground. The following day, on May 10th, they returned to the spot and found evidence that he had struggled for his life. He had probably been shot through his lungs with an arrow. Fremont continued: Tabeau had been one of our best men, and his unhappy death spread a gloom over our party. Men who have gone through such dangers and sufferings as we had seen became like brothers, and feel each other’s loss. To defend and avenge each other is the deep feeling of all. We wished to avenge his death; but the condition of our horses, languishing for grass and repose, forbade an expedition into unknown mountains.2270 When the party was on Sevier River in Utah, on May 23, Fremont lost a third French companion. Fremont noted: 2268 . Ibid., 162. They were discharged at Fort Hall on September 20 and probably crossed Kansas on their way back. They reached St. Louis aboard the General Brooke, December 3. Barry, op. cit., 501. 2269 . Report, op, cit., 248. 2270 . Ibid., 269. Preuss wrote in his Journal:” Yesterday afternoon we lost one of our best men in a miserable manner. One can say that he lost his young life because of the horseshoes of a mule. In order to save these, he rode back where he thought he could find the animal. Only a mile from camp he was killed with arrows by hidden Indians and thrown into rapid water. Nothing was found but a lot of blood and the cut-up tail straps of his horse. Last night, when he did not return, Kit [Carson] and Alex [Godey] rode back and brought back the first animal for which he had searched, wounded by an arrow; they were unable to discover anything of Tabeau. This morning Fremont rode to the place with five men and brought back the sad news.” Preuss, op. cit., 130. Tabeau had been ambushed and killed by the Paiutes on the Virgin River, near Littlefield, Arizona. Egan, op. cit., 247-249. 365 We had here the misfortune to lose one of our people, François Badeau, who had been with me in both expeditions; during which he had always been one of my most faithful and efficient men. He was killed in drawing towards him a gun by the muzzle; the hammer, being caught, discharged the gun, driving the ball through his head. We buried him on the banks of the river.2271 On their return, after leaving the Rocky Mountains, Fremont spent several days at Bent’s Fort in southeastern Colorado; and then, on July 5, 1844, resumed his journey down the Arkansas River, probably to the vicinity of Las Animas, Colorado. As he had been “required to complete, as far as practicable [his] examination of the Kansas [River], the party took a northeasterly direction across the elevated dividing grounds which separate that river from the waters of the Platte.” They probably entered Kansas in Wallace County.2272 On the 7th, they crossed a large stream, about forty yards wide, which Fremont “was inclined to consider as a branch of the Smoky Hill River or the Pawnee Fork of the Arkansas.” 2273 On the 8th, they encamped “in a cottonwood grove on the bank of a sandy stream bed.” Fremont noted: Here several hollows, or dry creeks with sandy beds, met together, forming the head of a stream which afterwards proved to be the Smoky Hill fork of the Kansas river.2274 As they traveled down the bank of the river, it became wider and wider, gradually enlarging to become a river eighty yards in breath. On the 10th, they entered buffalo country and halted for a day among numerous herds, in order to make provision of meat sufficient to carry us to the frontier.” On the 12th, they made a detour to the north to get out of the Comanches’ way.2275 On the 13th, although they were on a “high river prairie” by “a stream less than a hundred years broad,” a cloudburst flooded their camp. Fremont gave a detailed description of the occurence: During the night we had a succession of thunder storms, with heavy and morning the water suddenly burst over the banks, flooding the bottoms, and becoming a large river, five or six hundred yards in breath. The darkness of the night and incessant rain had concealed from the guard the rise of the water, and all our perishable collection 2271 . Ibid., 272. Preuss wrote:” Badeau shot and killed himself through carelessness.” Preuss, op. cit., 133. He was buried beside the Sevier River. Egan, op. cit., 251. 2272 . Barry, op. cit., 521. 2273 . Report, op. cit., 288. It probably was Ladder Creek, a tributary of the Smoky Hill River. 2274 . Ibid., 288. 2275 . Preuss, op. cit., 138. 366 almost entirely ruined, and the hard work of many months destroyed in a moment. 2276 Preuss wrote on the 14th: “To dry the herbarium and everything else we are having a day of rest.” On the 15th, after traveling ten miles, they came to a “deep branch” of the Smoky Hill, which they could not cross with the pack animals, the water being too high. 2277 Hence they were forced to stay and wait until morning. On the 16th they traveled for twenty-three miles and the next day after marching for seventeen miles camped at the mouth of “a handsomely wooded stream on the right bank of the river” where they came upon a large Pawnee village. 2278 Fremont recorded his impressions: We were received by them with the unfriendly rudeness and characteristic insolence which they never fail to display whenever they find an occasion for doing so with impunity. 2279 Fremont distributed among the Indians “the little that remained of their goods but it proved entirely insufficient to satisfy their greedy rapacity.” After some delay and considerable difficulty, the travelers succeeded in extracting themselves from the village, and encamped on the river fifteen miles below. According to Fremont, by that time, they had traveled two hundred and sixty miles since leaving the Arkansas River. As they advanced, the country steadily improved, being watered by innumerable little streams, which, nevertheless, impeded and checked their way, obliging them to ascend them for several miles. Fremont noted the unfortunate accident, which happened to one of his men. He wrote: One of the people [Alexis Amyot] was shot through the leg by the accidental discharge of a rifle – a mortifying and painful mischance, to be crippled for life by accident, after having nearly accomplished in safety a long and eventful journey. He was a young man of remarkably good and cheerful temper, and had been among the most useful and efficient men of the party.2280 After they had traveled two hundred and ninety miles along the Smoky Hill River, Fremont noted that they left the river, when it bore suddenly off in a “northwesterly direction “[i.e., northeasterly direction] toward its junction with the 2276 . Report, op. cit., 289. According to Barry, they were in southeast Gove County. 2277 . They probably were at the confluence of the Smoky Hill River and Hackberry Creek in southwestern Trego County. 2278 . Ibid., 289. It was probably Big Timber Creek, which enters the Smoky Hill near the Ellis-Rush county line. Barry, op. cit., 522. 2279 . Report, op. cit., 289. Later Fremont learned that the Pawnee Loups had intervened to prevent the Grand Pawnees from massacring his party. “The Expedition of Major Clifton Wharton in 1844,” KC, XVI, 296-299. 2280 . Ibid., 290. 367 Republican Fork of the Kansas, distant about sixty miles.2281 They continued in an easterly course and after about twenty miles entered the Santa Fe Trail which they followed and on the last day of July, camped at the “little town of Kansas.”2282 Fremont remarked: During our protracted absence of fourteen months in the course of which we had necessarily been exposed to great varieties of weather and climate, not one case of sickness had ever occurred to us. Here ended our land journey and the day following our arrival, we found ourselves on board a steamer rapidly gliding down the broad Missouri.2283 Fremont and his party reached St. Louis on August 6, 1843. Fremont did not write a report for the government of the events of his third expedition but kept notes, which he incorporated in his Memoirs.2284 He explained the purpose of the expedition: It is getting late in the year. The principal object of the expedition lay in and beyond the Rocky Mountains, and for these reasons, no time could be given to examinations of the prairie region. The line of travel was directed chiefly to pass over such country as it would afford good camping grounds; where the water and grass, and wood and abundant game, would best contribute to maintain the health of the men and the strength of the animals. Along the route we met the usual prairie incidents of Indians and large game, which furnished always wholesome excitement. In those days these broke pleasantly upon the silence and uniformity of the prairie and made a good school for the men.2285 In St. Louis, Fremont assembled a party of seventy-four men, among them were twelve Delaware Indians. Talbot, who was a member of the expedition, wrote that many of the men were from very respectable families, more than two-thirds being American and the remainder French. 2286 Fremont again called upon his seasoned French mountaineers. Among them were Antoine Morin, “a whiskered engagé grown old in the service of caravans and trading posts,” 2287 Basil 2281 . They left the Smoky Hill River in McPherson County. Barry, op. cit., 522. 2282 . Kansas City. 2283 . Report, op. cit., 290. 2284 . Memoirs, I, 441ff. 2285 . Narratives, op. cit., 437. 2286 . More and more Americans were participating in the exploration of the West while the number of Frenchmen was diminishing. 2287. Brandon, op. cit., 19. 368 Lajeunesse, Raphaël Proue, 2288Auguste Archambaud,2289 and Alexis Godey.2290 Archambaud was a Canadian, tall, and fine-looking, very cheerful, and with all the gaiety of the voyageur before hard work and a rough life had driven it out. He had that light, elastic French temperament that makes a cheerful companion in traveling, which in my experience brings out all there is of good and bad in man.”2291 Fremont also described him as “an excellent voyageur and hunter belonging to the class of Carson and Godey.”2292 As for Godey, 2293 Fremont listed him, along with Lajeunesse, as one of the best men of the expedition. Fremont left a portrait of his physical appearance, writing: He was a Creole Frenchman of St. Louis, of medium height with black eyes and silky black hair which was his pride. In all situations he had that care of his person which good looks encourage.2294 At the time he was hired during the second expedition while living at Fort St. Vrain where he was a hunter, Fremont remarked: Alexander Godey, a young man about 25 years of age, had been in this country six or seven years, all of which time had been actively employed in hunting for the support of the posts, or in solitary trading expeditions among the Indians. In courage and professional skill he was a formidable rival to Carson, and constantly afterwards was among the best and most efficient of the party and in difficult situations was of incalculable value.2295 . Once Fremont, having sent him with Carson on a special mission, Godey came back to the camp after an encounter with Indians, yelling a war whoop, such 2288 . Lajeunesse and Proue had participated in the two preceding expeditions. 2289 . Also written Archambeault and Archambeau,. Fremont wrote that he was “a hunter in the class of Carson and Godey.” Thelma S. Guild and Harvey L. Carter, Kit Carson, A Pattern of Heroes, Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1984, 135.135. 2290 . Also known as Alexander and Antoine. According to the records of the St. Louis Cathedral, he was born on December 2, 1818. However he declared his birth as January 28, 1818 on his pension application. Harvey L. Carter, “The Divergent Paths of Fremont’s ‘Three Marshalls,’ New Mexico Historical Review, LXVIII, 21. 2291 . Narratives, op. cit., 490. 2292 . Report, op. cit., 279. 2293 . Also written Godar and Goda. He participated in Captain Bonneville’s expedition of 1832. His portrait is reproduced in Guild-Carter, op. cit., between pages 146 and 147 2294 . Nevins, op. cit., 490. 2295 . Ibid., 200. 369 as Indians make when they return from a victorious enterprise. Two Indian scalps were hanging from his gun. Fremont noted: The time, place, and object, and numbers considered, this expedition of Carson and Godey may be considered among the boldest and most disinterested which the annals of western adventure, so full of daring deeds, can present. Two men, in a savage desert, pursue day and night an unknown body of Indians in the defiles of an unknown mountain – attack them on sight, without counting numbers – and defeat them in an instant. . . I repeat it: Carson and Godey who did this – the former an American, born in the Bonnslick [sic] County of Missouri; the latter a Frenchman, born in St. Louis – and both trained to western enterprise from early life.2296 All through his Report and Memoirs, Fremont spoke of Godey in the most laudatory term, writing: “He was the most thoroughly insensible to danger of all the brave men I have ever known” 2297 At the end of the third expedition, he noted: Godey had proved himself during the preceding journey, which had brought out his distinguishing qualities of resolute and aggressive courage. Quick in deciding and prompt in acting he had also the French élan and their gayety of courage. 2298 He even suggested that if Godey had served under Napoleon, he might have become a Marshal, as he was “insensible to danger, of perfect coolness and stubborn resolution.” 2299 With such seasoned and courageous men, Fremont boarded the steamboat Henry Bry in St. Louis on their way to their third expedition. They started their overland journey from “Little port of Kansas” where they arrived on June 9, 1845. They remained two weeks at “Boone’s Fork” in Johnson County on account of the heavy rain and to organize their train. It included a little Yankee wagon on springs with square black top and buttoned down curtains to carry the instruments; four heavier mule-drawn carts; three ox-drawn wagons, loaded with supplies; about two hundred horses, and a number of cattle. On the 26th, they camped at Lone Elm, the site where they had stopped during the preceding expedition. 2300 There Fremont explained to his men the “martial laws” which were to regulate the journey; about ten men left upon hearing them. The party proceeded along the Santa Fe Trail, moving slowly on account of the bad condition of the road. On June 23, they marched for six miles and then spent three nights on a little plateau near a creek. On the 4th of July, they camped on a stream, which Fremont called Independence 2296 . Ibid., 404-405. Godey had joined Nathaniel J8. 2297 . Nevins, op. cit., 500. 2298 . Memoirs, I, 427. 2299 . Ibid., 427. 2300 . The place had been known as Round Grove and Elm Grove until about 1844. Haines, op. cit., 32; Barry, op. cit., 551. 370 Creek2301 and where they celebrated the occasion. Fremont had “procured about a dozen rifles, the best that could be found and had issued a “small quantity of fire- water” to his men. At daybreak there was a “discharge of fire arms” and later in the day a rifle-shoot when brandy and clothing were given as prizes. They crossed Pawnee Fork about July 17, left the Santa Fe Trail and “struck off in a direction north of west,” up the right bank of Pawnee Fork. From there they “struck over to the Smoky Hill Fork of the Kansas River.” The slow pace of the wagons delayed them all along their journey. From that point, they followed the route they had taken on their return from the 1844 expedition. On August 1st, they reached the Arkansas River at a point twenty-five miles east of Bent’s Fort. 2302 On his return trip from California, Lieutenant-Colonel Fremont left Sacramento under the command of General Kearny, traveled along the California- Oregon Trail, and arrived in Fort Leavenworth on August 22, 1847 with a party of twenty-eight men. More than two years and two months had elapsed since leaving “Little port of Kansas.” While in California, he had found himself in the midst of a dispute between the Army and the Navy over the administration of the newly acquired territory. Having sided with Commandant Robert F. Stockton who had named him governor of California, Fremont refused to recognize General Kearny’s authority. Regular army officers thought he was an “irregular upstart.” Being accused of insubordination, he was ordered by General Kearny to follow him to Fort Leavenworth where he was put under arrest shortly after his arrival and ordered to report immediately to Washington. Fremont arrived at the fort on August 3rd where he, his wife who had come from the East, and his party boarded the Martha for St. Louis. They were in St. Louis on August 28 and in Washington on October 1st. 2303 After a court-martial hearing which lasted eight-nine days, the panel of officers handed down their verdict on January 31st, 1848. Fremont was sentenced to be dismissed from the Army. President Polk upheld the court’s decision but canceled his dismissal from the Army. Fremont’s fourth expedition was privately equipped, as Congress had refused to finance it; he therefore traveled this time as a civilian. The purpose of the expedition was to find a way across the mountains that would be practicable in all seasons for a railroad. His party comprised thirty-five “young and athletic men,” among them were also his old faithful companions: Alexis Godey, Raphaël Proue, Antoine Morin,2304 and three new Frenchmen: Vincent Tabeau,2305 Longo and Julien Ducatel. 2306 On October 4, 1848, the Daily Reveille of St. Louis stated: 2301 . It is presently named Soldier Creek, a tributary of Dragoon Creek near the Osage- Wabaunsee county line. 2302 . Narratives, op. cit., 438. 2303 . Barry, op. cit., 711-712. 2304 . Also written Moran, Moreau, I. Morel, Joseph Moran and Mosel. He had participated in the third expedition and served in Companies A and B in the California Battalion. “He was an old man, full of experience and know-how, and much respected by all the others.” Brandon, op. cit., ix-x, 81. 2305 . Also known as Sorel and Sorrel. 2306 . Julien Ducatel was the son of a French Baltimore physician who had treated Nicollet when he was sick. Memoirs, I, 69. 371 The gallant Col. Fremont with his party left the city yesterday, on his way to the Pacific. The lady of Col. F., distinguished alike for her devotion and her fine accomplishments, accompanies her husband to the borders of the wilderness. They traveled on the Martha from St. Louis to “Little Kansas.” Two days up the Missouri, Fremont’s son, Benton,2307 less than three months old, died. They blamed his death on the ordeal of the court-martial. After arriving in Kansas City on October 8, Fremont stayed at the nearby Indian Agency while the men spent eleven days establishing a campsite at Boone’s Creek, three miles west of Westport in Johnson County. They gathered supplies, equipment, and animals for the expedition. On October 20, they got under way with more than one hundred pack mules, as they were judged more reliable in the mountains than horses, especially as they were traveling in the winter. On the first day they marched for five miles and camped on Mission Creek near the Shawnee Methodist Mission. On the 21st, after pushing on for fourteen miles, they reached Mill Creek. 2308 It was on that day that Bishop James O. Andrew, who was inspecting the Shawnee Methodist Mission,2309 saw “a company of men singularly equipped, passing just below the mill.” Shortly after, Morin who had been wounded by a mule was attended by Dr. Benjamin J. Kern.2310 Richard H. Kern wrote:” One of our best men, Moran [Morin] received a severe kick in the face from a wild mule. It was a bad omen for the old veteran. On the 22nd, after marching for twenty-two miles, with “the rain pouring in torrents,” they camped “near Wakerloos.” 2311the Wakarusa Creek in Douglas County. They were joined by several Delawares who guided them until they reached the Smoky Hills, a few days distant.2312 On the 23rd, they passed “a small trading town of the Pottawatomie Nation, built in a small hollow.” For the next twenty-four miles, they were in the midst of a prairie fire “blazing in all directions, around them. “ Brandon wrote: In the morning the rain stopped, and in place of it the prairie was on fire around them. Doc. Kern was given the job of helping Tom Martin drive a mule loaded with a keg of powder; they picked their way across the burned ground and dodged the blazing areas, and got in burning high grass and escaped the fire by four feet.2313 2307 . He was named after his maternal grandfather, Senator Thomas Hart Benton. 2308 . Barry, op. cit., 783. 2309 . Brandon, op. cit., 96. 2310 Richard H. Kern was an artist who made sketches of the countryside and kept a journal during the expedition. With him were his two brothers, Benjamin J. Kern, a physician and Edward M, also an artist. Blanche C. Grant, When Old Trails Were New, New York, 1934, “The Diary of Richard H. Kern,” 119-141. 2311 . The Wakarusa Creek in Douglas County. 2312 . Brandon, op. cit., 96. 2313 . Ibid., 96. 372 On the 24th, after a march of twenty-eight miles, they camped at the “old Pota[wattomie] Mission composed of three or four log houses occupied by a Mr. Monday [Isaac Mundy], blacksmith to the nation about 1 ½ miles from here is their trading post.”2314 On the 27th, Kern wrote: Our route lay through a very singular country consisting principally of hills, high and steep. Near the apex of each was a ledge or shelf of soft friable calcareous stones laying horizontally (some 3 or 4 feet long) ; and presenting at a distance the appearance of dilapidated and extensive fortalices, built by a Titan but moldering away like their builders.2315 On the 28th, Kern noted in his diary: The Country lost that castellated hilly appearance and became more rolling, flattening out in broad plains. We saw for the first time one of the Smoky Hills, (from which this branch derives its name) its blue heads looming up blue and far off, the only elevated land for miles Near our camp – Buttes in the direction of Council Grove. Smoky Hill lies far to the right and near the Camp “one of the Smoky Hills.”2316 They were in Morris County. On October 29th, Fremont’s party saw buffalo for the first time and crossed the Smoky Hill Fork, near Salina. Kerr wrote: It was about 60 feet wide and where we forded it 3 feet deep. The whole character of the country changed. An immense plain extending for miles & miles level as a board, and covered with grass. Smoky Hill Buttes rose up far off and solitary, the only ones of their kind. Towards the evening the country became more hilly and rugged, with little timber to be seen and that small and scarce.2317 On the 30th, Kern observed rock formations that were Singular in shape. Sometimes appearing like cottage doors – then like forts and men in broad brimmed hats sitting in large chairs . . . 2314. In early March of 1848, the Indian agents W.W. Cummins and A.J. Vaughan had chosen a location for the “smith & traders for the Pottawatomies”. Vaugh wrote on March 7:” I have accordingly stuck my stake and christened it union town.” Cummins reported on March 12:” The point selected by us is on the south side of the Kansas . . . on high ground, near the river . . .& very nearly in the center of the country.” Barry, op. cit. 737-78. It was located in western Shawnee County. 2315 . Grant, op. cit., 120 2316 . Ibid., 120. 2317 . Ibid., 120-121. 373 After passing these hills we came upon a fine Table land, and encamped on a small creek.2318 On the 31st, they were probably in Russell County, at which time, eleven days out, the Delaware Indians left them to return home. 2319 On November 1st, they continued up the right bank of the Smoky Hill and on the 2nd, entered Ellis County. They crossed the river, “near a very bald high and perpendicular bluff,” where nearby the Pawnees “made their meat during the summer. There [were] a great many shanties, built of bent branches and covered with leaves.”2320 As they set out in a southwesterly direction, the nights grew colder, the wind blew, and a snowstorm swept down on them. The temperature reached sixteen degrees at sunrise. Regardless of the weather, they went on hunting and marching. Most of days they made twenty-five or twenty-eight miles; one day they even marched for forty miles. On the 4th, they “camped near a rapid stream, probably a tributary of Pawnee Fork.” On the 5th, they followed the general course of the creek through hilly country and tableland. On the 7th, they came in sight of the Arkansas River, having made forty miles. They were probably in the vicinity of Garden City in Finney County. On November 8, Kern wrote:” Our object today was to reach Choteaux Island supposed to be about 25 miles off.” 2321 When they discovered that it was not a good camping ground, they continued marching and traveled a total of fifty-two miles in eleven hours on that day, fording a river “amid rushing ice.” They finally camped under some cottonwoods. Kern remarked:” It was a hard day on the animals and two were left behind.” The next day they crossed the Kansas-Colorado line. About November 12 they encountered some six thousand Indians (Apaches, Comanches, Kiowas, and Arapahoes) headed for the councils held by Agent Thomas Fitzpatrick at Big Timbers 2322 where the explorer may have remained three days. While at Bent’s Fort, Fremont wrote on November 17, 1848 to Colonel Benton: We have met with very reasonable success and some good results in this first long step upon our journey. In order to avoid the chance of snowstorms upon the more exposed Arkansas road, I followed up the line of the southern Kansas, (the true Kansas River) [i.e. the Smoky Hill] and so far added something to geography. For a distance of 400 miles our route led through a country affording abundant timber, granite, and excellent grass. We find that the Valley of the Kansas affords by far the most eligible approach to the Mountains. The whole valley soil is of a very superior quality, well timbered, abundant grasses, and the route very direct. This line would afford continuous 2318 . Ibid., 121. 2319 . Ibid., 123. 2320 . Ibid., 123. 2321 . Chouteau’s Island is where Auguste P. Chouteau had taken refuge when he was attacked by the Pawnees on his return from Colorado in May, 1816. 2322 . Brandon, op. cit., 108; Barry, op. cit., 784. Big Timbers was near La Junta in Colorado. 374 and good settlements certainly for 400 miles, and is therefore worthy of consideration in any plan of approach to the Mountains. 2323 Things changed when they reached the mountains. They ran out of food. Micajah McGehee, one of the members of the expedition, remembered: We began eating the rawhide tugropes and farfleches [leather pouches], cutting it in strips and boiling it to a sort of glue, or burning it on the coals until it was soft enough to bite.2324 The old men could not keep up. Raphaël Proue, his faithful companion of the three preceding expeditions laid down in the trail and froze to death. In a sunshiny day, and having with him means to make a fire, he threw his blankets down in the trail and laid there till he froze to death. 2325 McGhee recalled seeing Proue’s corpse beside the trail: We passed and repassed his lifeless body, not daring to stop in this intense cold to perform the useless rites of burial.2326 McGehee noted also the death of two other companions: He [Vincent “Sorel”Tabeau] traveled as long as his strength would allow, and then, telling us we would have to leave him, that he could go no farther, blind with the snow, he lay down on the river bank to die.2327 On January 28, Godey found “the bodies of the old Frenchmen, Morin and Tabeau, called Sorel.” Edward Kern wrote that he found one lying by the side of a little fire; the other sitting against the bank as he had been looking at his friend.2328 2323 . John Bigelow, Memoir of the Life and Public Services of John Charles Fremont, New York, 1856, 359. Fremont’s objective for the expedition was to find a practicable way for a railroad across the Rockies. 2324 . David Roberts, A New World – Kit Carson, John C. Fremont, and the Claiming of the American West, New York, 2000, 226. 2325 . Bigelow, op. cit., 369. Proue died on January 9th. Alpheous H. Favour, Old Bill Williams: Mountain Man, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1936, 168. 2326 . Roberts, op. cit., 226. 2327 . Ibid. 237; Brandon, op. cit., 260. Vincent (Sorel) Tabeau died on January 22. Favour, op. cit., 168. 2328 . 375 Godey survived the hardship. As brave as ever, he ventured in the mountains to bring supplies to the party which was stranded. He arrived in time to save two-thirds of the party, finding the other third dead upon the road, scattered at intervals as each had sunk exhausted and frozen, or half burned in the fire which had been kindled for them to die by. They were brought in by Godey, some crippled with frozen feet, Edward Kern wrote to his sister: To the perseverance of Godey must be credited the salvation of those of us that remain and he was the only man capable of performing such exploit. 2329 The fourth expedition had been disastrous. Eleven of Fremont’s men had died from starvation or freezing in the Rockies.2330 Fremont only partially fulfilled his mission. He recommended following the valley of the Kansas River as the best route to the mountains and put an end to the myth of the Great Desert but failed to find a pass for a railroad through the Rocky Mountains. In spite of it, Fremont himself thought that the expedition had been a success as he declared: The result was entirely satisfactory. It convinced me that neither the snow of winter nor the mountain ranges were obstacles in the way of the road, and furnished me with a far better line [for a railway] than any I had previously known. 2331 Fremont crossed Kansas for the last time during his fifth expedition. As for the fourth expedition, he traveled without financial backing from the government, although, in early 1852, Congress had appropriated $150,000.00 to conduct five surveys for a railroad to the Pacific. Solomon N. Carvalho, who was the photographer of the expedition, wrote in his Journal: The objective of the expedition was to find a practicable route for a railroad to San Francisco from this place [St. Louis] during the winter, and also, to find the relative depth of snow and important objects in favor of a central route to the Pacific Ocean.2332 2329 . Roberts, op. cit., 239. “The expedition had one genuine hero. That man was Alexis Godey.” Ibid., 229. 2330 . Letter written by Fremont to his wife from Taos on February 7, 1849. Ibid., 373. Letter to Col. Benton form Socorro, Rio del Norte, dated February 24, 1849. Ibid., 377. 2331 . Allan Nevins, Fremont, Pathmarker of the West, Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 1992, 370-371. 2332 . Solomon Nunes Carvalho, Incidents of Travel and Adventures in the Far West, ed. Bertram Wallace Korn, Philadelphia, 1954, 82. 376 The first element of the expedition left St. Louis on the steamer Polar Star on September 6, 1853. Fremont’s departure was delayed until September 6, as he had to wait for Carvalho’s arrival.2333 On September 13, Fremont arrived in Kansas City. 2334 Between September 14th and 19th, he spent his time purchasing wagons, mules, and supplies, hiring hands and attending to other business connected with the expedition.2335 The party comprised twenty-one men. 2336 On September 19th, “a trial start was made and the cavalcade started in excellent order and spirits.”2337 The first night, they camped at the Baptist Mission where the party stayed on the 20th while Fremont returned to Westport to “telegraph on business connected with the expedition.” On the 21st, they camped at the Shawnee Methodist Mission in Johnson County. 2338 On the 22nd, Fremont, being sick, was compelled to return to Westport for medical advice. He told the rest of the party to proceed up to “Smith’s old mission, near Union Town,”2339 where they were to wait his coming for further orders. On that night they camped on Kill Creek. 2340 On the 23rd, they traveled “in the midst of a well-wooded and fertile country and destined to become sought by those who will add more to its improvement by settling and cultivating it.” 2341 On the 24th, they made a short drive and camped on a creek called “Chunge Nunge.”2342 On the 25th, they met the Delaware Indians who accompanied them to their camp in Big Springs.2343 On the 27th, they received a message from Fremont telling them to proceed as far as the buffalo country as he had to seek medical treatment in St. Louis for a bout of inflammation ofhis sciatic nerve.2344 On the 29th, they made a start in the direction of the Smoky Hill Fork and camped on Stony Creek, above the Pottawatomie village 2333 . James F. Milligan, a member of the expedition, kept a diary. Mark Joseph Stegmaier and David H. Miller, eds. James F. Milligan, His Journal of Fremont’s Fifth Expedition, 1853-1854, Glendale, California, 1988. Hereafter cited as Milligan. 2334 . The town had been platted in 1838. 2335 . Carvalho, op. cit., 83; Milligan, op. cit., 102-103. 2336 . Egan listed Godey as a member of the expedition. However this is doubtful as neither Carvalho nor Mulligan acknowledged his presence. 2337 . Carvalho, op. cit., 88. 2338 . Milligan, op. cit., 106. 2339 . Smith was not at the Pottawatomie Mission, located on the grounds of the Kansas Museum of History in Topeka. He operated a ferry across the Kansas River near the mission, which explains why Mulligan associated Smith’s name with the mission. 2340 . Ibid., 108. Kill Creek empties into the Kansas River, east of De Soto in Johnson County. 2341. Ibid., 109. 2342 . The Shunganunga Creek that enters the Kansas River, northwest of Tecumseh, in eastern Shawnee County. The Stinsons who lived at that time on the Shunganunga , near Burnett’s Mound in Topeka, recalled the passage of the Fremont party. Barry, op. cit., 1182; MS, Stinson, Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka. 2343 . Big Springs is in western Douglas County. Milligan, op. cit.,110. It was located on a fork of the Oregon Trail, one branch leading up the Kansas River to the Uniontown ferry. Carvalho placed the meeting of the Delawares on the 27th. He wrote:” A more noble set of Indians I never saw, most of them six feet high, all mounted and armed cap-a-pie, under command of Captain Wolff, a “big Indian”, as he called himself. Most of them spoke English, and understood it.” Carvalho, op. cit., 91. 2344 . Milligan, op. cit., 79. Fremont boarded the steamboat Clara out of Kansas City. 377 2345 where they stayed until October 1. 2346 They continued, traveling by the confluence of Humbold and Clark creeks, from where they could hear the drum of Fort Riley. On October 2, Milligan wrote: Passed Fort Riley on [the] right. Found it situated at the junction of Solomon’s2347 and Republican fork of Kansas river. The buildings are of limestone and there is a fine saw mill above it on the Republican. Camped at an old Camp on Crow creek.2348 On October 3rd, they crossed the Solomon’s Fork with great difficulty. “Several of the mules mired after unpacking and larieting them . . . Wet some provisions.” 2349 They camped the rest of the month on the Saline Fork of the Kansas River, waiting for Colonel Fremont. Being in buffalo country, they concentrated on hunting, cutting up and drying meat “for [the] journey through the mountains at places [in] which game may be scarce.” During that time, all men more or less came down with dysentery, their food consisting mainly of meat. Their supplies became so low that they had to send men twice to Fort Riley to procure provisions. They also had to contend with the Indians’ dissatisfaction, the white men’s boredom, the stampedes of the mules, fire which came near burning everything up, and wolves, which destroyed the “better half of the meat they were drying.” They were forced to move to a more desirable location, their camp having become “unpleasant for the smell of spoiled meat.” As the days went by, the weather turned colder, “water froze ½ inch in [their] buckets;” the thermometer was only fifteen degrees at daylight; the wind blew their tents down; it hailed very hard and snowed on the 26th. Meanwhile on his way back from St. Louis, Fremont reached Westport on the 22nd and Union Town on the 25th. He wrote in his Memoirs: Went to Uniontown and nooned. This is a street of log-cabins. Nothing to be had there. Some corn for our animals and a piece of cheese for ourselves. Lots of Jon Barley corn which the men about were consuming. Uniontown is called a hundred miles from Kansas [City]. About two o’clock reached the pretty little Catholic Mission of St. Mary’s. The well-built whitewashed houses, with the cross on the spire showing out above them, was a very grateful sight. On the broad 2345 . Probably on Mill Creek which enters the Kansas River about three miles west of Willard in western Shawnee County. Carvalho described the village as “Two or three stores with no assortment of goods, and about thirty shanties make up the town.” Carvalho, op. cit. 91. 2346 . Milligan, op. cit., 112-113. The confluence is about three miles southeast of Fort Riley. 2347 . Solomon’s Fork enters the Smoky Hill River south of Solomon, east of the Saline-Dickinson county line. 2348 . Ibid., 113. Crow Creek is presently named Lyon Creek and enters the Smoky Hill River about one mile north of Wreford in Geary County. 2349 . Ibid., 163. 378 bottoms immediately below are the fields and houses of the Pottawatomie Indians.2350 Fremont spent the night at the Mission and left on the 27th. He noted: Bowls of good coffee and excellent bread make a good breakfast. We already began to appreciate food. Prepared our luggage, threw into the wagons the provisions obtained here and at ten o’clock took leave of the hospitable priests and set out.2351 After crossing the Kansas River and taking the military road, he reached his party on October 31st. They were especially relieved to see him as “the prairies [had been] on fire for several days, in the direction through which he had to pass to reach them. . . As far as the eye could reach a belt of fire was visible.” However their camp was secure as it was between the Kansas River on one side, the Solomon’s Fork on another and Salt Creek on the third, and a large belt of woods about four miles on the fourth.2352 After raising camp on November 1st, the party was compelled to ride through the fire at full speed. Carvalho wrote: Our only escape was through the blazing grass; we dashed into it, Col. Fremont at the head, his officers following, while the rest of the party was driving up the baggage animals. The distance we rode through the fire, would not have been more than one hundred feet, the grass which quickly ignites, as quickly consumes, leaving only black ashes in the rear. We passed through the fiery ordeal unscathed; made that day over fifteen miles, and camped for the night on the dry bed of a creek, beyond the reach of the devouring element.2353 On the 3rd, they camped on the Smoky Hill Fork after making twenty miles. On the 4th, they crossed the”Caw” [Kansas] River and traveled in a southwesterly direction through broken country. They made twenty miles. On the 5th, they camped on Walnut Creek2354 after making twenty-five miles. On the 6th, they passed through the divide between Cow and Walnut creeks. On November 7th, they crossed Pawnee River,2355 traveled up stream and camped on that river after making twenty miles during the day. The weather had turned cold, with drizzling rain and sleet. On the 8th, they crossed the Pawnee River and continued traveling up the river for thirty miles. They camped near the Pawnee River. On the 9th, they 2350 . Memoirs, II, 27-28. 2351 . Ibid., 28. The records of the mission indicate that he paid $25.00 in cash for his “provisions” of corn, flour, sugar and beef. 2352 . Carvalho, op. cit., 116-117. 2353 . Ibid., 121-122. 2354 . It flows through Lane, Ness, Rush, and Barton counties before entering the Arkansas River from the north east of Great Bend in Barton County. 2355 . It enters the Arkansas River a few miles west of Larned in Pawnee County. 379 crossed again the Pawnee River and camped on it. On the 11th, they arrived at the Arkansas River near Pawnee Fort.2356 There they met a war party of Cheyennes who showed them five scalps, probably from Pawnees. On the 12th, they traveled for a while with seventeen Cheyennes who left them shortly after. During the following days, they continued slowly up the Arkansas as the feet of the mules were so worn out and the animals so exhausted for want of food that they had to abandon some along the way. The men did not fare much better; their feet being “blistered from heel to toe,” having no animal to ride. By November 18th, they had arrived close to a large village of Chayannes & Arrapahoes.”2357 Fremont valued the assistance given by the indomitable Frenchmen who accompanied him during his first four expeditions. They taught him everything he needed to survive in the wild open spaces, bringing with them their skills acquired through many years in the West. They knew how to recognize paths through the plains and the mountains. They followed tracks of Indians and animals. Being experienced trappers and hunters, they brought in animals and birds and supplied the party with the meat they needed. They found bird nests, berries and honeybee hives. They caught fish with their hands. They set out and raised camp. They bridled horses and mules and rescued them when they ran away or were stolen by the Indians. They forded rivers and swam down to rescue men and supplies carried downstream. They were tough, enduring cold and hot weather, rain, sleet and snow. They lived with danger and did not fear the Indians’ arrows. Fremont appreciated their cheerfulness and high spirits. He enjoyed their company, sitting around the campfire, listening to their songs and stories, speaking French with them and rekindling his ties with his French heritage. He felt closer to their light-hearted élan than to the more sober manner of his guide, Carson. 2358. In his Narratives and Memoirs, Fremont often credited the engagés for their resourcefulness and dependability and felt indebted to them for their faithful support. Many lost their lives during those perilous adventures. They are now forgotten, although Fremont would not have been so successful in his endeavors without their contributions. As for Fremont, there are counties named after him in Colorado, Idaho, Iowa and Wyoming; streets and towns in California, Nebraska and Ohio; Fremont Peak in Wyoming; Fremont Springs in Nebraska; Fremont Pass in Colorado; Fremont Needle in Arizona; Fremont River in Utah; Fremont Glacier in Washington state, and Fremont National Forest in Oregon. Littell’s Living Age “perhaps caught the symbolic Fremont best – an American self-image at mid-century: 2356 . It had been built by the Pawnee Indians and when Matt Field saw it in 1839, it was enclosed on three sides by rude walls, made out of trunks and fallen limbs of old rotten trees. It was located on the Arkansas River in Gray County, about five miles upstream from Ingalls. Milligan, op. cit., 132, note 56. 2357 . Ibid., 134, note 34. . Milligan is referring to Bent’s trading houses, located on the north bank of the Arkansas, about thirty-seven miles down the river from Bent’s Old Fort and about a mile upstream of Bent’s New Fort. They were located opposite the town of Prowers in Bent County, about forty miles west of the Kansas-Colorado line. 2358 . Guild-Carter, op. cit., 146. 380 His name is identified forever with some of the proudest and most grateful passages in American history. His 20,000 miles of explorations in the midst of the inclemencies of nature, and the ferocities of jealous and merciless tribes; his powers of endurance in a slender form; his intrepid coolness in the most appalling dangers; his magnetic sway over enlightened and savage men; his vast contributions to science; his controlling energy in the extension of the empire; his lofty and unsullied ambition; his magnanimity; humanity, genius, sufferings and heroism, make all lovers of progress, learning, and virtue, rejoice. 2359 Counties in Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, and Wyoming bear Fremont’s name, as well as the General Fremont Grove of Trees in the Santa Cruz Mountains of California, Fremont Peak in Wyoming, Fremont Needle in Arizona, Fremont Pass in Colorado, and Fremont Glacier in the Cascades Mountains in Washington State. In Kansas, a township in Lyons County is named after him. JOHN JAMES AUDUBON In 1830, Jean Jacques Audubon, known in the United States as John James Audubon, wrote an autobiography for his sons in which he told of his father marrying his mother, a lady of Spanish descent, “as beautiful as she was wealthy.” He also described the home in which he was born on a plantation near New Orleans, on the banks of the Mississippi. The true story of John James Audubon’s ancestry and birth is far different from the one he told in his autobiography. His father, Jean Audubon, a Frenchman who joined the French merchant marine as a cabin boy saw battles against the English Navy and served with the French fleet at the battle of Yorktown. After being imprisoned twice by the British, he became later a successful merchant, trading coffee, sugar and slaves between Santo Domingo, the United States and France and married a wealthy French woman who remained at their home in Nantes, France during his years abroad. Jean Jacques’ biological mother was a French woman, by the name of Jeanne Rabin who, according to one source, was the daughter of French colonials in Santo Domingo. According to another source, she came to Santo Domingo as a chambermaid to work for a wealthy family, and then moved in with Jean Audubon. The record of the doctor who delivered John James Audubon shows the date of his birth as April 26, 1785 when he was registered under the name of Jean Rabin. His biological mother died in November of the same year. On the brink of the revolt in Santa Domingo in 1991, Jean Audubon sent his son to France where he was formally adopted by his biological father and his wife, using henceforth the name of Jean Jacques Audubon.2360 His new mother spoiled him during her husband’s absences and let him run through the countryside rather than pursue an academic course of study. 2359 . “John Charles Fremont,” Littell’s Living Age, Vol. XXVI, 1850, 208 2360 . Mary Durant and Michael Harwood, On the Road with John James Audubon, New York, 1980, 267-277. 381 The family left France to escape the conscription of young Audubon into Napoleon’s army. They arrived in New York in the fall of 1803 and settled in a farm at Mill Grove near Philadelphia, which Jean Audubon had purchased previously. When he came to the United States, Young Audubon spoke very little English, which did not improve much through the years. His accent was always French. 2361 There were many anecdotes about his fractured English. Mary Durant and Michael Harwood wrote: It’s reflected in the spelling of his unedited letters and journals,: “as”, for “has,”hearned” for “earned,”Geay” for “Jay,” “compagnon” for “companion, “sheep” for “ship,”and so forth.2362 On July 3, 1812, at the age of twenty-seven, Audubon applied for American citizenship in Philadelphia, identifying himself as “John Audubon, a free white person . . . born at Aux Cayes in the island of Santo Domingo.” Audubon arrived in St. Louis shortly after April 25,1843 when he boarded the American Fur Company’s steamboat Omega, with “ a hundred and one trappers of all descriptions and nearly a dozen nationalities, though the greater number were French Canadians or Creoles of this state [Missouri] and some Indians. “ 2363 Etienne Provost was in charge of them. 2364 The boat was commanded by Captain John A. Sire with John La Barge as pilot.2365 They arrived on May 2nd in Independence, Missouri, and then stopped at Madame Chouteau’s 2366 where they found “everything abandoned as there had been water two feet deep in her house.” Late in the day, they passed the “bad place at the mouth of the Kansas River.” The weather being fine they decided to travel all night and on May 3rd reached Fort Leavenworth at 6 a.m. During the stop Audubon remarked: “The situation of the fort is elevated and fine, and one has a view of the river up and down for some distance.” He also mentioned that he saw a great number of “parakeets” and wild turkeys on the ground and in the trees. Audubon wrote that, after leaving Fort Leavenworth, they entered Indian country on the west side of the river [Kansas] and saw a good number of Indians in the woods and on the banks, gazing as 2361 . Shirley Streshinsky, Audubon, Life and Art in the Wilderness, New York, 1993, 27, 48. 2362 . Durant and Harwood, op. cit., 88. “Audubon himself rarely bothered to mention in which tongue he spoke to this individual or that, except in the case of Indians. For example, the hunting party of Shawnee with whom he went on the swan hunt: . . “[M]any of them spoke French passably, I easily joined . . . their ‘talks’ and their avocations.” Ibid., 88. 2363 . Audubon, op. cit., 455. 2364 . Streskinsky, op. cit., 347. 2365. Besides Audubon’s Journals, there is another narrative of the expedition written by Edward Harris, a gentleman farmer and also a bird specialist: The Journal of Edward Harris, ed. John Francis McDermott, Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1951; and the log of the Omega, written in French and translated in Chittenden, Fur Trade. 2366 . Bérénice (Ménard) Chouteau, widow of François Gesseau Chouteau. 382 [they] passed; these are, however, partly civilized, and are miserable enough.2367 Shortly after they ran into trouble as the river was at flood stage and the wind blew so strong that they had difficulty steering the boat. Audubon reported: After attempting to pass over a shallow, but a short cut, we grounded on a bar at five o’clock; got off, tried again, and again grounded broadside; and now that it is past six o’clock all hands are busily engaged in trying to get the boat off, but with what success I cannot say. To me the situation is a bad one, as I conceive that as we remain here, the washings of the muddy sand as they float down a powerful current will augment the bar on the weather side of the boat. . . About past seven we fortunately removed our boat into somewhat deeper water, by straightening her bow against the stream, and this was effected by fastening our very long cable to a snag above us, about 200 yards; and now, if we can go backwards and reach the deep waters long the shore a few hundred yards below, we shall be able to make fast therefore the night. Unfortunately it is now raining hard, lightening is vivid, and the appearance of night forbidding. 2368 The log of the Omega reads: At 4 P.M. we reached a little island below village 24 [of the Kansa Indians]. In order to avoid a bad chute on the right we took the left [Kansas side] channel and had the misfortune to run aground. We got ourselves clear once; but had the misfortune to get fast crosswise the channel. It rained and blew in a frightful manner. We were compelled to stay where we were for the night in hope of extracting ourselves in the morning. 2369 Audubon continued: We had constant rain, lighting and thunder last night. This morning [on the 4th] at the dawn of day, the captain and all hands were at work, and succeeded in removing the boat several hundred yards below where she was struck but unfortunately we got fast again before we could reach deep water; all the exertions to get off were renewed and at this moment, almost nine, we have a line fastened to the shore and expect to be afloat in a short time. But I fear that we shall lose most of the day before we leave the shallow, intricate, and dangerous channel. 2367 . Audubon, op. cit., I, 468-469. 2368 . Ibid., 469-470. 2369 . Chittenden, Fur Trade, op. cit., II, 986-987. 383 At ten o’clock we found ourselves in deep water, near the shore on the west [Kansas] side. We once had the men at work cutting wood, which was principally of ash-trees of moderate size, which wood was brought on board in great quantities and lengths. . . We left shore with a strong gale of wind, and after having returned to our proper channel, and rounded the island below our troublesome situation of last night, we were forded to come to under the main shore. . . we are now for the night at a wooding- place.2370 Audubon must have been ashore for a long time as he reported that he and his men shot thirty-three birds and observed thirty different species of birds, which he listed by name. The log of the boat reads: We get clear, but by a false maneuver of the pilot we get aground again. Broke our large cable. Finally succeeded in getting off by shoving the stern around. The wind blows with incredible force, and we have to pass a place very dangerous on account of the snags. We remain at the banks until 6 P.M., and finally camp at the wood yard above village 24. 2371 On May 5th, Audubon noted: At half-past twelve we reached the Black Snake Hills settlement. . . The general aspect of the river is materially altered for the worse; it has become more crooked or tortuous, in some places very wide with sand-banks naked and dried, so that the wind blows the sand quite high. In one place we came to a narrow and swift chute, four miles above the Black Snake Hills, that in time of extreme high water must be very difficult to ascend. During these high winds it is very hard to steer the boat, and also to land her. 2372 For the same day, the log reads: Took 9 cords of wood 400 yards farther on. The strong wind annoys us. Arrived at Robidoux [Black Hills or St. Joseph] at 1 P.M and remained there one hour. . . The wind increases. We enter the Nadowa chute. We have hard work to overcome the wind at Nadowa Island.2373 By the 6th, they crossed over to the Kansas side, as Audubon wrote: 2370 . Audubon, op. cit., I, 470-471. 2371 . Chittenden, Fur Trade, op.cit., II, 987. 2372 . Audubon, op. cit., 471-473. By then they were near St. Joseph, Missouri. 2373 . Chittenden, Fur Trade, p. cit., II, 987. 384 High wind all night and cold this morning, with the wind blowing so hard that at half-past seven we stopped on the western shore, under a range of high hills . . . 2374 We have cut some green wood, and a considerable quantity of hickory for axe-handles. 2375 Later in the day, they stopped again to “put out our Iowa Indians” at the Iowa village in Doniphan County. 2376 By the 7th, they passed the Grand Nemaha River and were by then in Nebraska.2377 After spending four months at Fort Union and up the Yellowstone River, Audubon and his party started descending the Missouri in a Mackinaw boat. On August 12, they left Fort Union and on October 7th, they camped at the mouth of the Nishnebottana in Iowa, about fifty miles above the Nebraska-Kansas line. By the 9th, they reached Kansas and Audubon reported that they were at “a good camp on the Indian [Kansas] side” and on the 10th they arrived at Fort Leavenworth where they received a most kindly treatment and reception from Major Morton who gave them melons, chicken, bread, and butter on the 11th to take along on their voyage. On the same day, they stopped at Madame Chouteau’s as they had done on their way up. They reached St. Louis without any trouble on the 19th. 2378 Audubon did not give a list of the engagés he hired before departing but most of the time referred to them only as “French Canadians” in his Journals.2379 However, he named a few and described the specific duties that were assigned to them. The most frequently mentioned is Etienne Provost, the old mountaineer. During the entire length of the voyage, he was by Audubon’s side, helping him in all his undertakings. He advised him on the living habits of the animals and birds they found. He trapped, hunted, and skinned the animals, boiled brine to preserve them and for the subsistence of the men in the party. After procuring birds for the naturalist, he helped measure them and keep them intact for the artist to draw them at a later date. He did everything to facilitate the work of the naturalist. Audubon acknowledged that Provost was “the skilful old one” while recognizing that he was “an ignorant pupil” in comparison to his ability as a hunter. 2380 Although Provost’s behavior had been without reproach all through the expedition and he was considered “a most temperate man who only carried a bottle of whiskey to mix with the brackish water found in the Mauvaises Terres”, he was “extremely drunk” when they disembarked in St. Charles at the end of the expedition. He received $241.00 at the rate of $50.00 per month for his services from June 13 to October 19, 1843.2381 2374 . Probably Lookout Mountain (1,195 feet high) in Doniphan County. 2375 . Audubon, op. cit., I, 473. 2376 . Barry, op. cit., 473. 2377 . Chittenden, Fur Trade, op. cit., II, 987. 2378 . Audubon, op. cit., II, 173. 2379 . Ibid., I, 469 2380 . Ibid, II, 99. Provost devised a whistle to imitate the sound made by the fawns, which was used to great advantage to decoy the female deer by the various members of the party. Ibid., II, 131, 412; McDermott, Journals of Edward Harris, op. cit., 114. 2381 . Ibid., 137, 175. 385 It is surmised that Jean Baptiste Moncrevier 2382 was hired at Fort Union for the return trip as he was paid upon arrival in St. Louis on October 19, 1843. 2383 Born in Bordeaux, France in about 1797, he enlisted in the Army in Philadelphia on March 1820 shortly after his arrival in the United States. He served for five years and attained the rank of sergeant at the expiration of his term in March of 1825. He reenlisted at Fort Snelling and was discharged on December 31st, 1839 from the 5th U.S. Infantry. During the ten years he spent on the Minnesota frontier, he became acquainted with the Indian fur trade. It is known that in 1833 he was a clerk for the American Fur Company at Fort Clark. 2384 Audubon remarked that he was ”one of the most skillful hunters;” nevertheless Larpenteur wrote that while he was at Fort Union “he was a little too fond of whiskey, and much too fond of squaws to do this work or any other as it should be done.” 2385 He even called him a “good for nothing.” He was fired in 1844 one year after the Audubon’s expedition “for getting drunk on a trip to the Blackfeet and for giving twenty gallons of liquor to the men.”2386 Other Frenchmen and half-breeds of French descent were mentioned in the journals of the expedition but it is not known at which time they joined, whether it was in St. Louis at the beginning of the expedition or in Fort Union for the return trip. 2387 Audubon is remembered in Colorado where a mountain is named after him. AUGUSTE ADOLPHE LUCIEN TRECUL Auguste Adolphe Lucien Trécul came to Kansas on a mission from the French government. He was sent to North America in 1847 by the Musée National d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris and was also commissioned by the French Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce to study esculent plants used by the Indians.2388 He was born in Mondoubleau near Vendôme in the département of Loir et Cher, southwest of Paris on January 18, 1818. He studied pharmacy in Paris and in 1841, after having been employed as an assistant in Paris hospitals, began doing botanical research. In 1843 he wrote an article which brought him to the attention of the 2382 . Also written Moncravier, Moncravie and Moncrevie. Charles E. Hanson, Jr., “J. B. Moncravie,” in Hafen, Mountain Men, op. cit., IX, 288-298.a 2383 . Streskinsky, op. cit., 347. 2384 . McDermott, Journals of Edward Harris, op. cit., 154, note 30. 2385 . Larpenteur, op. cit., 72,74. 2386 . McDermott, Journals of Edward Harris, op. cit., 154, note 30. Moncrevier had been a musician before his arrival to the United States and Audubon enjoyed his company. He wrote:” We had a sort of show by Moncrevier, which was funny, and well performed. He had much versatility, great powers of mimicry, and is far better actor that many who had made names for themselves in that line.” Audubon, op. cit., Ii, 138. Moncrevier was also an amateur painter. Audubon wrote:” They are two large outside gates to the fort [Fort Union], one each in the middle of the front and rear, and upon the top of the front one is a painting of a treaty of peace between the Indians and Whites executed by J.B. Moncrevier, Esq.” Ibid., II, 185. 2387 . Barry, op. cit. 499. Among the names mentioned were: Alexis Bombarde, “an excellent driver; ” Bonaventure, “a good hunter and first shot;” Michel Carrière, François A. Chardon, Bernard Le Brun, Charles Primeau, “a good shot,” and Basil [no last name], an oarsman. 2388 . Barry, op. cit., 769. 386 director of the Musée National d’Histoire Naturelle who hired him to help establish its herbarium, while he continued publishing articles on botany. In the United States, Trécul traveled for nearly three years collecting plants through the region between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. Unfortunately part of his collection made during his first year was lost in the wreck of the ship on which it was sent back to France. The Musée National d’Histoire Naturelle has his undated notebook of about two hundred pages containing the notations he made during his journey. A photostat is located in the Library Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University. 2389 The manuscript inscribed Plantes de l’Amérique Septentrionale lists 1,525 entries, of which 418 refer to observations made while he was traveling in Kansas. The entries in his notebook suggest that he came up the Missouri from St. Louis to Kansas City, then turned south “between Westport and West point,” on the western border of the state of Missouri in July 1848 and remained in Kansas until October 1848. Nothing indicates where he was between October 1848 and February 1849, however McKelvey wrote: “Very likely he spent these months in Kansas, perhaps in Fort Scott, for nothing suggests that he left the state during that period; but of course he may have returned for the winter to St. Louis.” 2390 His entries resumed in February of 1849 and continued until March of the same year. In July 1848, Trécul noted that he was on the “prairies to the west of the state of Missouri, close to the Santa Fe Trail.” The Kansas notations originate from the Marais des Cygnes (entries Nos. 14, 17-21, 48-106. etc.), the region west of the Missouri (31, 32, etc.) and the Osage River (Nos. 128-129, 134-138, etc.). In August he gathered botanical specimens on “Sugar Creek au Neosho,” (146, 147, 149, 150, 152), from the “village Osage de Neosho,” (148, 151), from the “Mission de Sugar Creek, chez les Potowatomie,” (162, 174), and from around Fort Scott (156, 254-256). The geographical references indicate that his research concentrated in Miami, Linn, and Bourbon counties. The subsequent notations made in September and October of 1848 refer to the Arkansas, the “Petit Arkansas,” and the region west of them (284-349, 353-372, etc.). He also collected a few specimens along the Grand Saline in Oklahoma. It is not known how far west he went; he might have gone “perhaps to the center of the state, but he did not reach the Rocky Mountains.” 2391 The Kansas records stop in 1848 with specimen 382, entered in October and did not resume until February 1849 when they began again with “Près du Neosho.” 2392 He later mentioned the “Petit Pawnie” (407-408) and the “Grand Pawnie” (409), referring to the Little Pawnee and the Pawnee creeks south of Fort Scott in Bourbon County (284-349, 353-372, etc.). Several other entries were from the vicinity of Fort Scott (411-417). He subsequently traveled toward Missouri, as his last listing, 2389 . Susan D. McKelvey, Botanical Explorations of the Trans-Mississippi West – 1790-1850, The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, Jamaica Plains, Massachusetts, 1955, 1048. 2390 . Ibid. 1051. 2391 . Ibid. 1051. 2392 . ”Near the Neosho.” 387 bearing the number 418, reads: “Prairies du Neosho ā la frontière de l’état du Missouri” 2393 and is dated March 1849. Trécul continued his research in Illinois, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Louisiana. He spent the winter of 1849 in Texas and northern Mexico before returning to France with species of cacti from those areas. Later he published and lectured at the Institut National Agronomique in Versailles, France. His research provides a report of significant importance on the flora of Kansas at that time. 2393 . Prairies of the Neosho to the border of the state of Missouri”. 388 CHAPTER 15 MISSIONARIES - PART I THE KICKAPOO MISSION Father Benedict Roux was sent from France by the Lyons Association of the Propagation of the Faith in 1831 to become the first resident pastor of the French community at Kawsmouth, in what is now part of Kansas City, Missouri. On November 18, 1833, he visited the Kickapoo reservation, near Fort Leavenworth at the confluence of the Missouri and Salt Creek as the Indians were “constantly praying for the Black-Robes to come to their assistance and show them the way to Heaven.”2394 He was received as “an angel sent from heaven.” 2395 During his stay, he met and addressed the Kickapoo chiefs at the trading post of Laurent Pensineau, agent of the American Fur Company. Kennekuk, the Kickapoo Prophet, who was not there at the time, sent a message “somewhat in the nature of a profession of faith.” 2396 It was translated from the Pottawatomie language into Kickapoo, and then into French by Laurent Pensineau in the presence of Indian chiefs and Laurent’s brother, Pascal.2397 Father Roux remained for a week on the reservation before returning to Kawsmouth. On November 24, 1833, he reported to Bishop Rosati of the Kickapoos’ state of mind: It is enough to say to you that they are truly Catholics in desire and such Catholics in desire that their life gives you a perfect image of that of the Christians of the primitive church. . . . They pray every day, morning, night and before meals; they sanctify Sunday as we do and spend it entirely in prayer. They do not swear or wage war nor lie nor have more than one wife; they believe in Heaven, Purgatory and Hell, honor the Blessed Virgin and Saints, etc.. I should never finish were I to tell all the edifying things I saw among them.2398 Father Roux also wrote to the Bishop that Kennekuk had “two very docile sons, who, like their father, show themselves favorably inclined towards the Catholic religion.” Encouraged by his declarations, Father Roux revisited the reservation on January 1, 1834. During his visit to Kansas City to have his eight- year old son, Louis, baptized by Father Roux, Laurent Pensineau told him on March 3, 1834 that the Kickapoos were eagerly desiring the priest to come and baptize their children. On July 2, Father Van Quichenborne baptized in “Kickapoo Torwn” 2394 . Garraghan, Catholic Beginnings, op. cit., 253. 2395 . George A. Schultz, “Kennekuk, the Kichapoo Prophet,” Kansas History, III, No 1 (Spring 1980), 42; Garraghan, Catholic Beginnings, op, cit., 49. 2396 . Ibid., 54; Schultz, op. cit., 42. 2397 . Rapport des propres paroles du Kenekoek, ou Prophète, des Kokopooks donné en Poos [Potawatomi] par Thithoe, rendu en langue Kokokapook per Mechouet, et interprété en français par Laurent Pinsoneau ā Mr. B. Roux prêtre, en presence de Penave, Nochetcomo, Pechoassi, Pekouak et Paschal Pinsoneau, le 22 9 bre (Novembre), 1833. Garraghan, The Jesuits, I, 387, note 22. 2398 . Garraghan, Catholic Beginnings, 50. 389 the ten-month old daughter of Pierre Caillou and Margarite, a Pottawatomi woman that being the earliest recorded baptism in that area. 2399 Also in the Kickapoo Baptism Register are recorded fourteen other baptisms among them the baptism of Susanna, the daughter of Claude LaFromboise and a Pottawatomi woman, the sponsors being Toussaint Chevalier, François Bourbonnet [Bourbonnais], and Michel Arcoite. 2400 He also performed the marriage ceremony between “a Frenchman, named Poncenaux [Pensineau] and a Catholic woman.” 2401 In the summer of 1835, Father Van Quickenborne went to meet with various Indian tribes to determine which one would be willing to accept Catholic missionaries. He was especially asked to verify the enthusiastic report of Father Roux about the Kickapoos. He arrived at the Kickapoo village on July 4 and after saying Mass at Pensineau’s home, 2402 had a long exchange of ideas with Kennekuk, the Kickapoo Prophet, after which the chief said:” I know that my religion is not a good one; if my people wish to embrace yours, I will do as they do.” On the following Monday, he met with the other chiefs who “expressed a desire to have a Catholic priest among them.” After Kennekuk returned from hunting, Father Van Quickenborne called upon him to ask him if he shared the other chiefs’ viewpoints. The Prophet promised to decide upon the matter after discussing it with his council. Shortly after, he sent his answer to the ecclesiastical authorities by a trader who reported that the Prophet had said:” I desire, as all the principal men in my nation, to have a Black-robe come and reside among us in order to instruct us.” 2403 With the assurance that the Jesuits would be welcomed, Father Van Quickenborne was sent to Washington in September to consult with the Federal and Catholic authorities. He wrote to Lewis Cass, Secretary of the War, telling him that he had three missionaries, including a teacher, ready to establish a mission among the Kickapoo Nation and that Kennekuk said that he had always hoped that a Black-robe would be sent by the Great Spirit to help instruct this people and teach them the truths he did not know. A few days after submitting a request for funds, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs Elbert Herring informed him that the Treaty of 1832 provided for an appropriation of five hundred dollars per year for the term of ten years for the support of a school and that the Secretary of War had directed him 2399 . Ibid., 5 2400 . Garraghan, Jesuits, op. cit., I, 428. 2401 . Garraghan, Catholic Beginnings, op. cit., 78. 2402 . “The exercises were held in the only place available, Mr. Pinsoneau’s log-cabin, the door of which could not be closed both on account of the sweltering heat and in deference to Indian etiquette. The Indians were now treated to a novel spectacle. They would enter the cabin, sit down opposite to one of the missionaries, as he was engaged in prayer, with their glaze riveted up on him, and without, so much as a syllable falling from their lips, and then, when the novelty sight had worn off, they would rise and leave.” Graves, Garraghan, and Towle, op. cit., 15. “The log-cabin placed at the disposal of the Jesuits by the trader, Mr. Pinsonneau, was fitted without delay as a chapel and in this improvised temple the Holy Sacrifice was offered up on the Feast of Corpus Christi in the presence of the wondering Kickapoo. They crowded into the cabin, eager with the savage’s ingrained curiosity to know the meaning of the crucifix, the pictures and the priestly vestments.” Ibid., 14. 2403 . Ibid., 4-5; Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, Lyon, France, IX, 100-101. 390 that the sum be paid to the authorized agent of the Catholic Missionary Society of Missouri upon receiving a certificate of the agent of the tribe that a building had been erected, that a teacher was ready to assume his duties, and that there was reason to believe that the school would be well attended by Indian children. The Catholic Missionary Society of Missouri also provided a sum of one thousand dollars for the operation of the mission during the first year. Father Van Quickenborne wrote to the Superior that Pashishi, the Chief of the Prairie Band Kickapoos was “quite proud of the circumstances of our coming at his particular invitation and for that reason wished me to build near his town; on the other hand the Prophet expressed a desire that we should do as much for his band as for the others. “2404 To avoid any problem between the bands of Kennekuk and Pashiski, a site as selected “between the two villages on a spot nearly equally distant from both.” On June 1, 1836, Father Van Quickenborne arrived with three assistants and met with Kennekuk and Pashiski, the Prairie Kickapoo chief. Everything seemed in place for the success of the mission, as Father Verhaegen wrote on June 1, 1836: The Indian agent [Laurent Pinsoneau] is a French Creole and much attached to him [Father Van Quickenborme]. General Clark took him under his protection and Messrs. Chouteau and Co will procure him all the advantages and comforts which his new situation will require.2405 After a two-month delay due to the lack of cooperation of Major Cummins, Indian agent among the Kickapoos, the mission, dedicated to St. Francis Xavier, was finally opened in October 1837 through the original efforts of Father Roux and the persistence of Father Van Quickenborne.2406 By the end of the year it had thirty students.2407 Beside the priest, there were three teachers who taught English, music and penmanship, a cook, and a farmer. A description of the school is contained in the certificate written by Major Richard Cummins who examined the building on January 5, 1837. It reads: School house 16 ft. long and 15 ft. wide, wall of hewn logs, one story high, cabin roof, one 12 x 12 (tight) glass window and one battered 2404 . Graves-Garraghan-Towle, op. cit., 15; Joseph B. Herring, Kenekuk, the Kickapoo Prophet, Lawrence, University of Kansas, 1988, 105-107; Garraghan, Jesuits, op. cit., I,400. A sketch of the Kickapoo Mission, drawn by Father Peter Verhaegean, S. J. in 1837, is reproduced in Ibid., I, between pages 402 and 403. 2405 . Ibid., I, 395. 2406 . An enlarged segment of the Hutuwa map of Platte County, reproduced in Barry, op. cit., 408 shows the location of the Kickapoo Catholic Mission as “Cathc. Ch. [and] Missionary Estbt”. In the church was performed the first known church marriage in Kansas, between a Frenchman named Poncenaux (Pensineau) and a Catholic woman. George Towle, “Historical Sketch of the Kickapoo Parish” in The Missionaries at Kickapoo, edited by W. W. Graves, St. Paul, Kansas, 1938, 79. 2407 . Graves-Garraghan-Towle, op. cit., 21. 391 door, the house pointed with mortar made of lime and sand, the under floor of puncheon and the upper floor of plank.2408 A dwelling for the community was also erected, which was described in these words: I may not be amiss to say that the Rev. Mr. Van Quickenborne has a dwelling on hand 49 ft. by 18 ft, the wall of which is two-story high and covered with shingles, which, when finished, is sufficiently large to accommodate a great many persons.2409 On February 17, 1837, Father Van Quickenborne wrote to Bishop Rosati: “We hope to say Mass in our log house of 48 by 20 feet in a few weeks.”2410 It did not flourish mainly on account of Kennekuk’s opposition as he developed his own religion, based on a mixture of Methodist, Catholic and Kickapoo beliefs. There was also resistance from the Prairie Kickapoos whose chief Pashishi opposed the missionary’s teachings by saying that if the priest attempts to “change the old customs of forefathers, I will quiet him and listen to him no more.” The chief added that his people were saying: We want no prayer; our forefathers got along very well without it and we are not going to feel its loss.”2411 In 1837, Father Verhaeger, the superintendent of the Missouri Catholic Society, wrote to the federal authorities that, if the attitude of the Kickapoos toward the Jesuits persisted, they “might be compelled to abandon the buildings and the land (15 acres) which would amount to a loss to the society of at least $3,000.” 2412 Still hopeful to be able to continue the services, Father Van Quickenborne2413 wrote to his superiors: “With the help of God and with patience, we can go far. It is well known fact that the Indians are predisposed in favor of the Catholic Black-robes.” In the spring of 1839, the Jesuits threatened to close the mission, as the attendance was poor at church functions and at school. Pashishi insisted that they stay another year, saying: It is I who invited you to come here. I send my children to your school. You have done more good here in a year than others have done in five or six. You have cured our children of small pox, you have befriended us in our needs, and you have been kind enough to the 2408 . Ibid., 19, note 25. 2409 . Ibid., 19, note 25. 2410 Ibid., 20. 2411 . Ibid., 25 2412 . Herring, op. cit., 108. 2413 . He died August 17, 1837. 392 wicked. The storm which makes the thunder roar above your heads will not last forever. The Kickapoo village will change their conduct. Wait at least for another year and then I shall tell you what I think.2414 The visit of Father Pierre Jean De Smet boosted the spirit of the missionaries as he encouraged them to go on with their work, assuring them that Pashishi was “a man of good wit and good sense, who needs only a little courage to become an excellent Christian.” However, the missionaries lost most of their supporters when some twenty families of the Prairie Kickapoos moved about twenty miles away on account of the vexations their chief Pashiski had been subjected by Kennekuk. Father Nicholas Point came to the mission in December of 1840 and wrote: Here had our missionaries been laboring for five years in their midst, and yet on Sunday during Mass you could scarcely see more than one of them in attendance at the chapel.” Father Point put the blame on Kennekuk: By his cool effrontery and persevering industry, this man who is a genius in his way, succeeded in forming a congregation of three hundred souls, whom he used to assemble in a church which the United States Government had built for him, and palsied all the exertions of four missionaries of the Society.2415 On September 19, 1840, decision was made to terminate the operation of the mission. The last service was held in late December.2416 On May 1, 1841, Father Point closed its door; he wept “for the mission which had been plunged into the deepest abyss of moral degradation by the scandalous conduct of a people who pretend to civilization.”2417 FATHER NICHOLAS POINT Father Nicholas Point was a French priest from Rocroi in the département of Ardennes, in the diocese of Rheims. Born on April 10, 1799, he arrived in New York on December 15, 1835. He was assigned to the Jesuit Mission in Kentucky, and then was sent to Louisiana where he taught in several schools. After doing some missionary work in Jackson County, Missouri, he left St. Louis on October 24, 1840 and arrived in Westport in November to be the pastor of the St. François Regis 2414 . Garraghan, Jesuits, op. cit., I, 418. J. C. Berryman, a Methodist minister had vaccinated the Kickapoos. 2415 . Ibid., I, 418-420. 2416 . Garraghan, Chapters in Frontier History, op. cit., 138-139. 2417 . Garraghan, Jesuits, op. cit., I, 420. “The old Mission was built of immense native walnut logs, hewn square, notched at the ends and fastened together with wooden pegs. The walnut still is considered valuable for it is in a perfect state of preservation and so thorough was the workmanship of the builders that the building was in a good state of repair up to the time the workman recently began to raze it. After its days of usefulness as an Indian Mission had passed, the old building was used as a hotel in 1854 . . . In “border war” days it was headquarters for the famous organization “The Kickapoo Rangers, and in 1857 a United States Land Office was opened under its roof . . . . It stood on the farm of C. A. Spencer, by whom it was occupied as a residence until 1920 when it was demolished. “Graves-Garraghan-Towle, op. cit., 39, note 52. 393 Church. It was during that assignment that he was delegated to close the Kickapoo mission. While there, he lodged with an “Indian called Wolf, a great friend of the French, who claimed ability to speak the French language.”2418 After a year spent as pastor of the St. Regis, Father Point 2419 left to be a missionary in the Rocky Mountains. He traveled with Father De Smet who was bound for the Flathead country in the Bitter Root Valley in Montana. On their way, while traveling across northeast Kansas, Father Point wrote: On May 10 [1841]], we left Westport, taking with us all the supplies for our dear mission in five two-wheeled carts driven by two Canadians who were excellent wagoners, and three of our brothers, still novices at that difficult art. The three priests rode horse back.2420 After passing through the territory of the Shawnee and Delaware Indians along the banks of the Kansas River, the party was joined on about May 16 by two members at the Kansas River crossing at or near Topeka where they had taken a loaded pirogue up the river. Two relatives of the Kansa chief also met them there. One of them aided the packed animals in crossing the river by swimming ahead of them; the other announced [their] arrival to the first of the tribes awaiting [them] on the other side. 2421 In a letter to the Father Provincial, De Smet wrote: Our baggage, wagons and men crossed in a pirogue, or hollowed tree trunk, which, at a distance, looked like one of those gondolas which glide through the streets of Venice. As soon as the Kansas understood that we were going to encamp on the banks of the Soldier’s river,2422 which is only six miles from the village, they galloped rapidly away from our caravan, disappearing in a cloud of dust, so that we had scarcely pitched our tents when the great chief [Fool Chief of the Kansa Indians] presented himself with six of his bravest warriors to bid us welcome.2423 They remained three days at that location where the missionaries were joined by about sixty emigrants, including five women, and perhaps ten children, 2418 . The Journals & Paintings of Nicolas Point, S. J., op. cit., 23.. 2419 . Before leaving Westport, Father Point drew up a “Plan de Westport (Missouri) where he indicated the location of the homes and farms of the twenty-six French families who lived in the area. Ibid., 29. 2420 . Ibid., 24. 2421 . Ibid., 26. 2422 . Northwest of Topeka. 2423 . Hiram M. Chittenden and Alfred T. Richardson, eds., Life, Letters and Travels of Father Pierre Jean De Smet, S. J., 1801-1879, New York, 1905, 4 vols., I, 280. 394 with mules and horse drawn wagons, five larger wagons drawn by seventeen oxen, and riding animals. It was the first emigrant wagon train headed for the Pacific.2424 The caravan set out on the 19th. Father Point wrote, “While the rest of the party continued toward the West, Father De Smet and Father Point bore off to the left to visit the first village of the Kansa.” Father De Smet smoked “the pipe of peace” while Father Point sketched the Indian settlement, which included about twenty wigwams looking like stacks of wheat, each one about one hundred and twenty feet in circumference and large enough to shelter thirty to forty persons.2425 After an hour, the Fathers took leave of their “hospitable hosts,” who gave them two warriors to escort them for one day. The Kansa Indians would have remained longer with them but they feared the reprisal of the Pawnees for the massacre they had committed some months earlier. The Fathers rejoined the caravan and two days later met the Pawnees who were “in quest of the Kansas.” Father Point told about the frightening experience: After two or three days we observed two Indians to our left. One was draped in an American flag and the other had a scalp attached to his horse’s bridle. What we beheld boded nothing good for the fate of our [recent] hosts. But when the captain [of the caravan] inquired about the results of their expedition, they informed us that they had not seen the Kansas and that they were very hungry. We gave them something to eat and to smoke. They ate, but they did not smoke and, contrary to the custom of other Indians, who, after a meal, wait for another [smoke], they took their leave with an air which seemed to indicate that they were not satisfied. The abruptness of their departure, the rejected calumet, the poor success of their expedition, the proximity of their tribe, their well- known inclination for easy pillage, all combined to convince us that these Indians might attempt something, if not against our persons, then at least against our supplies. But, thanks be to God, our fears were groundless. After departure, not one returned. 2426 Father Point continued, reporting that during the first days of June, they found themselves on the banks of the Platte River, thus they were by then in Nebraska. After serving for a few months among the Flatheads, Father Point was sent to open a mission among the Coeur d’Alene Indians on the St. Joe River. He later negotiated a truce between the Blackfeet and the Flathead Indians, making possible the immigration to the Oregon country. He stayed for six years in the West. On July 7, 1847, on his way back from the Rocky Mountains, he disembarked at the mouth of the Kansas River and spent three (?) weeks in Westport, Missouri, visiting 2424 . Ibid., I, 428-429. 2425 . The sketch is reproduced in Barry, op. cit., 397. See Appendix 8 for the full account of the visit. 2426 . The Journals and Paintings of Nicolas Point, S., J., op. cit., 30. Father De Smet also gave his version of the incident. Chittenden-Richardson, op. cit., I, 9. 395 his former parish.2427 He was transferred to Canada where he continued his missionary work. He died in Quebec City on July 4, 1868 and was buried in the crypt of the cathedral.2428 FATHER BENJAMIN MARIE PETIT AND THE REMOVAL OF THE POTTAWATOMIES In 1833, Colonel Abel C. Pepper, Indian subagent for the Pottawatomie Indians was appointed superintendent in charge of their removal to the Indian Territory, in what is now Kansas. Dealing band by band, the government had been able to receive the consent from the majority of them to cede their lands in Indiana. Father Louis Deseille 2429 who was ministering to the Pottawatomies of the Yellow River was accused of interfering with the negotiations and of inciting the Indians to resist the move. Hence he was forced to depart after being threatened of prosecution by Col. Pepper. Father Benjamin Marie Petit was sent to replace him. Born in Rennes, France on April 8, 1811, he graduated from the Law School of the University of Rennes in 1832. After practicing law for three years, he abandoned his profession to enter the Seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris. While he was there, Bishop Simon William Gabriel Bruté de Rémur, first bishop of Vincennes in Indiana, visited the school to secure priests and money for his newly organized diocese. Having heard the call of the bishop, the young seminarian wrote to his mother on April 1836, expressing his intent to follow Bishop Bruté. Although his brother Paul and his mother objected to his departure on account of his delicate health, he left on June 1, 1836 with Bishop Bruté. They arrived in New York on July 21, and went directly to Vincennes. On December 16, he received his minor orders. Shortly after, he was made deacon and on September 23, 1837, he accompanied the bishop along his journey through Indiana and visited Logansport, South Bend, Fort Wayne, and the Miami reservation, traveling six hundred miles across the state.2430 On October 14, 1837, he became a priest and a few days later wrote to his mother: “You know how often I said I was born lucky - well - I can still say it, and God has treated me on my first mission like a spoiled child! I had always longed for a mission among the savages ... and it is I whom the Potawatomies will call their “Father Black-robe.”2431 On October 20, he left Vincennes. His Journal relates his travel between Vincennes and South Bend, passing through Terre Haute, Covington, Lafayette, and Logansport. His duty was to attend to the services in St. Mary’s of the Lake, South Bend in Indiana, and in Pokagon’s Village, Bertrand, Michigan City, and the other Indian villages in Southern Michigan. 2427 . Barry, op. cit., 700. 2428 . The Journals and Paintings of Nicolas Point, S. J. op. cit., 9. 2429 . Father Deseille had come to the United States from Holland in 1832. He died shortly after on September 26, 1834 at St. Mary’s Lake, Johnson County, Indiana. 2430 . Annales de la Propagation de la Foi, Paris, 1839, 379-408; Trail of Death - Letters of Benjamin Marie Petit, ed. Irving McKee, Indianapolis, Indiana Historical Society, 1941, XIV, No 1, 17-23. Hereafter cited as Trail of Death. 2431 . Ibid., 32-33. 396 It did not take long for Father Petit to evaluate the situation and send a letter to Bishop Bruté on November 27, 1837, reporting his appraisal of the treatment the Indians were receiving. He wrote: The Indians, Monseigneur, are preparing to leave for Washington to protest against the unworthy manner with which they are treated. The treaty (of August 5, 1836) is indeed a thing as illegal as possible and in no way applicable to our people, who have sold nothing. Menominee, the great chief, another Indian, an interpreter, and a lawyer are preparing to leave. It seems to me that if the government has not decided to be completely unjust, they will be listened to.... One’s heart bleeds at such an injustice... If the Indians cannot find a way to go themselves, could I not go myself, with a power of attorney from them? I think I am capable of doing it, although it is a trial of a sort due to my natural timidity and repugnance which I feel for this kind of thing.... I could make the trip at my own expense.2432 With his legal training, his empathy for the Indians, and his newly acquired fluency in the Pottawatomie language,2433 Father Petit could have become a capable defender of the Indian cause. However he did not find much support from the ecclesiastical authorities as Bishop Bruté answered in a letter dated November 29, 1837:” The people will not be successful in having the law repealed... we should... refrain from meddling in what is not in the line of our duties.” 2434 To defend his actions, Father Petit responded, writing on December 9: As to the savages, Monseigneur, I have never said a word to them tending in the least to influence them to disobey in case they should not obtain justice and should be forced to depart. This would be contrary to their interest and my duty.2435 In the same letter, he went on to explain what he had done. He had prepared a “memorial” for Menominee, chief of the Yellow River band, who was to deliver it “as if it were his own.” He explained: It was a simple, general, and logical exposé of the facts, tending to prove that they did not sign, or that they signed without knowing what they were doing, or that some of the signatures appearing on the treaty are of people not properly settled on the reserve. The whole is based simply on the general facts, without direct or personal accusations against anyone. It is true that agents in general are 2432 . Ibid., 38. 2433 . “I am very surprised that I am able to express my ideas in this language.” Ibid., 71. 2434 . Ibid., 45, note 34. 2435 . Ibid., 40. 397 somewhat blackened by it, but is it necessary to sacrifice the innocent to the guilty in keeping silent? In his letter, he fluctuated between the submissive attitude expected from a priest writing to his superior and the spontaneous reactions of a young lawyer seeing his client wrongly treated: I do not think I was wrong in all this, judge me, Monseigneur, and I shall submit very quickly, very quickly. If however, the Indians depart [for Washington] before I have learned your decision regarding this and ask me for the promised letter, I shall give it to them, for it is merely as if they were asking me to write a letter for them because they do not know how to write, and this is a service which can hardly with charity be refused to them. All things considered, however, I should refuse it to them until I got your permission. But in case of refusal I shall ask your authority to communicate what I have done to someone who can do as much for them in my place or adopt my memorial in his name. I am ashamed of myself, Monseigneur, and I fear you find me still too much a lawyer. I should have cast that spirit far from me, and yet it was at a time when the weak oppressed had no defense against the oppressor other than the priest’s voice. Months passed with no action taken. “In Washington people are trying to frighten them [the Pottawatomies] and preventing them from seeing the President,” wrote Petit to de la Hailandière, Vicar-General of the diocese of Vincennes, on March 25, 1838. He felt deeply the plight of the Indians being forced to abandon their lands.2436 In turn they treated him as one of them. An old woman expressed their attachment to him by saying:” You are already a Potawatomi and soon will be nothing but a Potawatomi.”2437 By June 28, the agent for the emigration started rounding up the Indians for removal. Near Plymouth, already four hundred and fifty were assembled. Wanting to be certain that Father Petit would not disrupt the operation, the agent came to the chapel and a lively exchange took place, as reported in Father Petit’s letter to Bishop Bruté, dated June 20, 1883: The agent: Sir, am I to consider you an enemy of the government, in interfering with the carrying out of its policy? Father Petit: It is true, Sir, that I have studied and practiced law, but today I am a priest and occupied solely with my ministry; such are the orders I have received from my Bishop, and I conform to them. As for emigration, I have never said any- thing; I leave such things alone. As for acting as a lawyer, I gave that up a long time ago; I shall not be 2436 . Ibid., 80. Letter of Father Petit to his family, dated July 9, 1838. 2437 . Ibid., 71. Letter to Bishop Bruté, dated May 26, 1838. 398 one again except in case I am personally attacked or my rights are challenged. The agent: Sir, I have accusations against you. Father Petit: I know that, Sir. The agent: We have no intention of embarrassing you in the exercise of your ministry. We do not think of depriving the Indians of it as long as they remain here. Father Petit: Sir, that is a right which the Constitution of the United States guarantees me. The agent: Are you an alien or a citizen? Father Petit: I am a Frenchman. The agent: Well, then, it is true, not being subject to the law, you cannot be punished, but you can be ejected from Indian Territory. Father Petit: Only if it were proved against me that I am at fault, and one accusation is not enough. The agent: This is correct, Sir. I do not know, Sir, why the Indians always believe we are lying. Father Petit: That is very simple, Sir. During the last few years ten or twelve men have come who have so grossly lied to the Indians and who have posed as agents that today the Indians naturally believe that an agent is a man paid to deceive them.2438 On July 26, Father Petit reported to Bishop Bruté what had happened during the Indians’ visit in Washington. The President had refused to discuss the treaty with them. The Secretary of State claimed that the names of the delegates were properly on the treaty. After the Indians retorted “everything was fraud”, the Secretary said: “We did not need your signatures. The great chiefs were entitled to sell your reserves.” Completely distraught, Father Petit added: “The land is lost and without recourse, I believe ... they are carrying the emigration forward, and with a perseverance and tenacity to which a large number of Indians will yield.”2439 As he wrote in his journal on August 5, all means were used to assure the removal. “The emigration agents harass, accuse, flatter me; threaten the Indians.”2440 On the same day, Col. Pepper gathered the Pottawatomies in Menominee’s village to persuade them to move. The chief replied to the agent’s demand: The President does not know the truth. He, like me, has been imposed upon. He does not know that you made my young chiefs drunk and got their consent and pretended to get mine. He does not 2438 . Ibid., 76-78. 2439 . Ibid., 81. 2440 . Ibid., 128. 399 know that I refused to sell my lands and still refuse. He would not by force drive me from my home, the graves of my tribe, and my children who have gone to the Great Spirit, nor allow you to tell me that your braves will take me tied like a dog, if he knew the truth. My brothers, the President is just, but he listens to the words of young chiefs who have lied. When he knows the truth, he will leave me to my own. I have not sold my lands. I will not sell them. I have not signed any treaty and will not want to hear any more about it.2441 An assistant agent accused Father Petit of being responsible for the Indians’ resistance to which the missionary answered that there was “untruth and impropriety” in the agent’s letter. Commissioner of Indian Affairs, Carey A. Harris also claimed that Father Deseille and Petit “dissuaded the Indians from removing”.2442 In early August, the situation grew tense, as Indians and settlers’ homes were damaged and even burned. Chiefs Menominee, Black Wolf, and Peepenawah were still refusing to emigrate. Col. Pepper asked David Wallace, governor of Indiana to allow him to intervene with force. Volunteers came forward to enroll in the government forces.2443 On September 2, Col. Pepper wrote personally to Father Petit to ask him to facilitate the Indians’ departure: It is in your power to satisfy the dissenters, and harmonize the whole matter so that these Indians will go off quietly and peacefully this week, provided you wish to do so. On September 4, Father Petit celebrated the last Mass for the Indians in Indiana. He recounted the event in a letter to his family: My dear church was stripped of all its ornaments. I called all my children together. I spoke to them once more time. I wept; my listeners sobbed. It was heartrending.... We sang.... The voice which I intoned was stifled by sobs, and only few were able to finish.2444 Menominee was still resisting arrest: He stood at bay with a dagger in hand. But the soldiers threw a lasso over his head and bound him hand and foot. He was thrown in a wagon and hauled off from his home. He went with his people into captivity. What became of him, we do not know.2445 2441 . Otto Winger, The Potawatomi Indians, Elgin, Illinois, 1939, 47. 2442 . Trail of Death, op. cit., 85, note 18. 2443 . Ibid. 88, note 21;Letter of John Tipton to Benjamin Petit, dated September 2, 1838 in The John Tipton Papers, eds Nellie A. Robertson and Dorothy Riker, Indiana Historical Bureau, III, 1942, 686. 2444 . Trail of Death, op. cit., 90-91. 2445 . Winger, op. cit., Potawatomi, op. cit., 49. 400 On the pretense of having a council, General Tipton 2446 gathered eight hundred and fifty-nine Pottawatomies.2447 Father Petit could not accompany them, Bishop Bruté not having given him permission to go “to avoid all suspicion of the ecclesiastical connivance with the civil power’s rigorous measures.” 2448 The government regretted the bishop’s decision as they knew that Father Petit’s presence would have facilitated their endeavors. The missionary wrote to Gen. Tipton on September, 3rd: Was I at liberty to go or not to go, though I had no personal objection, in the case the Indians would be willing to go, it would be repugnant and hard for me to associate in any way in the unaccountable measures taken lately for the removal of the Indians. You had the right perhaps, if duly authorized, to take possession of the land, but to make slaves out of free men, no man can take upon himself to do so in this free country. Those who wish to move must be moved, those who want to remain must be left to themselves... Of course it is against men under the protection of the law to act in such a dictatorial manner; it is impossible for me, and for many to conceive how such events may take place in this country of liberty. I have consecrated my whole life, my whole powers to the good of my neighbors, but as to associate to any violence against them, even if it were at my own disposal, I cannot find in me enough strength to do so.2449 On September 4, before departing, “the soldiers set fire to all the huts and cabins.”2450 Sixty wagons were assembled to transport women, children, the old and the infirm. Most of the men went on foot. The march started with the rebellious chiefs “immured” in a sort of cage that followed the flag.2451Finally on September 8, Father Petit received the bishop’s permission to join the Indians for their removal.2452 Pottawatomies and agents welcomed the news. The Logansport Telegraph wrote on September 8, 1838: The Rev. Mr. Petit, who has been with them (the Pottawatomies) for some time past and who had already succeeded in teaching them 2446 . He was a member of the United States Senate from Indiana from 1832 to 1839. Previously he had served as agent to the Miami and Pottawatomie Indians in Fort Wayne and Logansport. 2447 . Letter from Abel C. Pepper to Governor Carey A. Harris, September 6, 1838, in Trail of Death, op. cit., 89, note 23. “Nearly 900 Indians were rounded by soldiers and marched at gun point for 61 days.” Inscription on panel in the St. Philippine Duchesne Memorial Park in Centerville Township, Linn County. 2448 . Trail of Death, op. cit., 91. 2449 . Ibid., 89. 2450 . Winger, Potawatomi, op. cit., 49. 2451 . Logansport Telegraph, October 25, 1838. 2452 . General Tipton was pleased with the decision. He said:” This man (Father Petit) has more power here than I”. Later he wrote to Governor David Wallace that Father Petit had “produced a very favorable change in the moral and industry of the Indians.” Trail of Death, op. cit., 92, note 29. 401 some of the arts of civilization by which their condition had been much improved, will accompany them. This gentleman, who has deservedly gained their esteem, and whose remaining was one of the principal obstacles to their removing, has, by consenting to go, given them additional proofs of his regard for their welfare, and he has also rendered himself worthy of the notice of the government. There is already visible change in the feelings of the Indians, and many who were adverse to going west now express a willingness to go. Because of illness and commitment to other duties, Father Petit was unable to join them immediately. He caught up with them as the Indians were leaving Indiana near Perrysville on September 16. Gen. Tipton wrote to Governor David Wallace: I am happy to inform you that he (Father Petit) has joined us two days ago, and is going west with the Indians. It is but justice to him that I should say that he has, both by precept and example, produced a very favorable change in the morale and Industry of the Indians, that his un- tiring zeal in the cause of civilization has been and will continue to be eminently beneficial to these unfortunate Pottawatomies when they reach their new abode. All are now satisfied and appear anxious to proceed on their journey to their new homes, where they anticipate peace, security, and happiness.2453 The very day he met the Indians, he wrote in his report: On Sunday Set. 16 I came in sight of my poor Christians, marching a line, and guarded on both sides by soldiers who hastened their steps. Almost all the babies, exhausted by the heat, were dead or dying. I baptized several newly born, happy little ones, whose first step was from the land of exile to heaven. Through his efforts the three chiefs were freed from their jail wagon. In his last report to Bishop Bruté, he described the order of the march: The United flag, carried by a dragoon; then one of the principal officers; next the staff baggage carts, then the carriage which during the whole trip was kept for the use of the Indian chiefs; then one or two chiefs on horseback led a line of 250 or 300 horses ridden by men, women, children in single file, after the manner of savages. On the flanks of the line at equal distance from each other were the dragoons and volunteers, hastening the stragglers, often with severe gestures and bitter words. After the cavalry came a file of forty baggage wagons filled with luggage and Indians. The sick were lying 2453 . The John Tilton Papers, op. cit., 714. 402 in them rudely jolted, under a canvas which, far from protecting them from the dust and heat, only deprived them of air, for they were as if buried under the burning canopy - several died thus. At another time, he wrote: I saw my poor Christians, under a burning noonday sun, amidst clouds of dust, marching in a line, surrounded by soldiers who were hurrying their steps. Next came the baggage wagons, in which numerous invalids, children, and women, too weak to walk, were crammed.2454 Both Father Petit and the government report recorded the hardship sustained by the Indians during the removal. They had to deal with “exceedingly sultry days” and “roads choked with dust” which rendered their march more distressing. Water was also a serious problem. Its scarcity retarded the progress of the emigration. Often the streams were so “unhealthy and filthy looking” that the horses refused to drink the water. 2455 The Indians also suffered on account of the scarcity of forage for their animals and food for themselves. They had to hunt along the way to supplement the government’s rations. Under those harsh conditions, sickness was prevalent. On September 9, only five days after their departure, as they were near Logansport, three hundred had to be treated and a “kind of hospital” had to be set up to attend to the sick. The camp was “a scene of desolation, with sick and dying people on all sides. Nearly all the children weakened by the heat, had fallen into a state of complete languor and depression.2456 In his last report of the march, Father Petit stated: We soon found ourselves on the grand prairies of Illinois, under a burning sun and without shade from one camp to another. They are as vast as the ocean, and the eye seeks in vain for a tree. Not a drop of water can be found there - it was a veritable torture for our poor sick, some of whom died each day from weakness and fatigue.2457 Father Petit described the sorrowful evenings spent on the prairies: Often, through the entire night, around a blazing fire, before a tent in which a solitary candle burned, fifteen or twenty Indians would sing hymns and tell their beads. One of their friends who had died was laid out in the tent; they performed the last religious rites for him in this way. The next morning the grave was dug; the family, sad but 2454 . Trail of Death, op. cit., 98. 2455 . Indiana Magazine of History, XXI, 130, 317, 2456 . Trail of Death, op. cit., 98-99. 2457 . Ibid., 100. 403 tearless, stayed after the general departure; the priest, attired in his stole, recited prayers, blessed the grave, and cast the first shovel full of earth on the rude coffin; the pit was filled and a little cross placed there. 2458 On November 2, the Pottawatomies crossed the Kansas state line, just south of Kansas City, at Oak Grove on the north fork of the Blue River and arrived in Indian Territory. On November 3, they reached the settlements of the Wea Indians and camped on Bull Creek by Bulltown (?), near Paola in Miami County. On the 4th at 2:00 P.M., many of their friends met them on the Marais des Cygnes River and at 3:30 P.M., they reached a location five miles from the mouth of Pottawatomie Creek, their final destination, southwest of Osawatomie, near the Miami-Franklin county line. According to the government records, forty-three had died during the removal, some had deserted, and others had to stop on the way on account of illness. Father Petit had not been spared from sickness during the ordeal. All through his Journal and letters, he had mentioned his fever attacks which forced him to leave the march to recuperate, then having to rejoin it at a later date. At his arrival in Kansas he was extremely sick. He was suffering from an eye inflammation probably provoked by the dust, sun, and wind; his body was covered with boils.2459 He was however relieved to have completed his mission and been able to entrust his Indians to the care of Father Hoecken of the Society of Jesus.2460 On November 26, he wrote to General Tilton: I am happy to inform you, General that I met a Father Jesuit sent by the society, who is especially entrusted with the care of these Indian missions; he will make his residence amongst the Indians; the society had the intention to put up a school, and to spare nothing for the improvement of these good Indians; for any person who is a little acquainted with the Jesuits, it is no doubt that they will be successful in their mission here, as well as anywhere else; their preceding success in anything of that kind are a sure guarantee for the future. It is in their hands that I will commit, with confidence, these Christians of whom God called me to be the pastor for a while.2461 Father Petit had fulfilled his mission, having respected the government’s instructions as Gen. Tilton wrote, refuting earlier accusations made against the missionary: 2458 . Ibid., 100. 2459 . Trail of Death, op. cit., 109. 2460 . Father Petit wrote:” He (Father Hoecken) speaks Potawatoni and Kickapoo. He announced his intention of leaving Kickapoo country, where he has resided, to establish himself among my Christians.” Ibid., 105. 2461 . Ibid., 107. 404 I know not what grounds there may have been to Justify the opinion to your Dept. in 1836 that he Mr. P[etit] oppose the removal of the Indians from Ia [Indiana]. I am hap (sic) to inform you that his conduct at the time and since I was ingaged (sic)) in the Emigration has been such as to convince every one that he entered heartily into the removal and was very useful in reconcileing (sic) the Indians and in administering to the sick & afflicted on thier (sic) Journey west.2462 Bishop Bruté had given Father Petit orders to return to Indiana after the completion of his assignment, which was to accompany the Pottawatomies to their new reservation in Kansas. However a new fever attack prevented him from leaving. Completely exhausted he had to prolong his stay for two months longer than he had anticipated. For nineteen days he lived in the home of Joseph Napoleon Bourassa.2463 When feeling some better, he departed, rode horseback for one hundred and fifty miles, and then found it impossible to continue his journey, his condition having worsened day by day. After a one-day stop in Jefferson, Missouri, he wrote: An open wagon, ostensibly a stage, carried us (him and an Indian) through rain and over frightful roads to St. Louis. The good Lord permitted me to make this journey with an open sore on the seat, another on the thigh, and a third on the leg - the remainder of the numerous sores which covered my whole body during my illness at the Osage River (in “Kansas”).2464 This was his last letter. He arrived in St. Louis on January 15, 1839. For three weeks he received treatment at the Jesuit Seminary of the St. Louis University. of St. Louis. Benjamin Marie Petit died there on February 10, 1839. He was twenty-seven years old. In 1856 Father Edward Sorin, founder of Notre Dame University, took his body back to the site of the university where his remains lie under the log chapel.2465 A young Frenchman devoted his short life to alleviate the suffering of the Indians. He used his knowledge of the law to defend their cause and, with compassion, gave them support during the six hundred and eighteen mile “trail of death” which brought the Pottawatomies to their new reservation in Kansas. He had sacrificed himself to fulfill what had been his deepest wish. 2466 THE SUGAR CREEK MISSION 2462 . Letter to T. Hartley Crawford, dated December 29, 1838. The John Tilton Papers, op. cit., III, 788. 2463 . See chapter IX. Some of his descendants write their names “Boursaw”. 2464 . Trail of Death, op. cit., 111. 2465 . Ibid., 116. 2466 . He wrote to his mother on October 15, 1837: “I had always longed for a mission among the Indians.” Ibid., 13. 405 Even before the arrival of the Pottawatomies in Indian Territory, the Jesuits had been negotiating with the government to be allowed to establish a mission among the Indians who were arriving from the Great Lake region. Father Charles Felix Van Quickenborne first met the United Nation of the Chippewas, Ottawas, and Pottawatomies in 1835 while they were inspecting the lands in Kansas where the government was planning to resettle them in exchange for their reservations in Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana.2467 In September 1835, he traveled to Washington and petitioned Lewis Cass, Secretary of War, permission to open a mission on the land that was to be assigned to the United Nation, stating that “a number of Chippewas, Ottawas, and Pottawatomies were converted by French Catholic missionaries to the Catholic faith to which they continue to be strongly attached.” 2468 The petition was referred to Elbert Herring, Commissioner of Indian Affairs who postponed the decision, as “the emigration will not probably be completed within two years.” 2469 Father Van Quickenborne died before the government allowed the establishment of the Pottawatomie mission in Kansas. Reverend Peter Joseph Verhaegen, Superior of the Missouri Mission, renewed the Jesuits’ efforts and wrote to the Secretary of War on August 5, 1837 that Father Van Quickenborne might have been premature in his request but that time had come to reconsider the question as the Pottawatomie chiefs were anxious to have a Catholic mission among them and the Catholic authorities were ready to send two missionaries and a teacher. Shortly after, on September 12, 1837, the Pottawatomies forwarded a petition to the Secretary of War requesting “the introduction of the domestic arts and education among them, and that a school be established for their children with the least possible delay.” They added that “they desired that this school be conducted by missionaries sent to them by the Catholic Mission Society of Missouri, because many of the nation have embraced the Catholic religion and will by this arrangement be enabled to enjoy the comforts of their religion.” Moreover they stated that “the common feeling of the Nation is in favor of the Catholic clergy who, speaking the English and French languages, can fully second the execution of the plan which the Government proposes for the amelioration of their nation.” The petition was signed by Wa Bon Su, Pierish Le Claire,2470 and ten others. Father Verhaegen sent the 2467 . Garraghan, Jesuits, op. cit., I, 425. 2468 . Van Quickenborne to Cass, Washington, September 17, 1835. 2469 . Herring to Van Quickenborne, September 22, 1835 in Garraghan, Jesuits, op. cit., I, 427. 2470 . Chief Pierish Le Claire (also Pierre LeClair, Le Clerc), a half –breed of French descent, was present at the Fort Dearborn massacre of 1812 in Chicago and served as an interpreter when the terms of the surrender were arranged. Under the treaty of Chicago of August 29, 1821 he received a section of land on the Elkhart River. Under the Treaty of St. Joseph on September 20, 1825, he was granted a section of land; under the Treaty signed upon the St. Joseph River on September 20, 1828, he received a section; under the treaty of Prairie du Chien on July 29, 1829, he was awarded a section at Paw-paw Grove. On September 12, 1839 at Fountain Blue on the east side of the Missouri, near Council Bluffs, Iowa, he signed a petition requesting the establishment of a Catholic Mission. He spoke fluently both English and French. He was chosen as delegate to go to Washington in 1845 to represent the Indians in their cession of the Iowa lands. There he became the principal spokesman for the Indians, recalling the former treaties and the promises the government had not kept. He expressed his longing for the land around Chicago, which had been ceded for a 406 petition to the Secretary of War but months went by without response from the government. In the spring of 1838, he decided to go to Washington with his friend, Senator Benton.2471 The Secretary of War being ill, Senator Benton arranged for them to see President Van Buren who chatted with them for half an hour without result. Their efforts to meet with the Secretary of War failing again on account of his continued sickness, they were referred to Crawford, Commissioner of Indian Affairs who, the following day, granted their petition. A Christian chief, named Nesfwawke had not waited for the government’s authorization to invite Father Christian Hoecken,2472 Superior of the Kickapoo Mission, to visit the Indiana Pottawatomies who were already settled on Pottawatomie Creek. In January 1838, the Father came from his mission to stay two weeks with the overjoyed Indians and to celebrate Mass in their midst. He took advantage of his visit to perform the marriage of two daughters of Nesfwawke, those being the two earliest marriages recorded in Linn County.2473 Later in May 1839, he came back to Pottawatomie Creek with Father Verhaegen. They were welcomed by chief Nesfwawke and Joseph Napoleon Bourassa who spoke both English and French and was a devout Catholic. The fathers promised them that, within one year, they would have a church and a school. Father Verhaegen left the next day for St. Louis to confer with the Jesuit authorities and on September 6, 1838, a decision was made to open a mission among the Pottawatomies in what is now Linn County. Father Hoecken, chosen to become the supervisor of the new establishment, moved from the Kickapoo Mission to his new assignment on October 2, 1838. Father Petit and the Pottawatomies from Indiana arrived shortly after on November 4, 1838. On March 10, 1838, the Catholic Indians moved from Pottawatomie Creek to Sugar Creek, fifteen miles to the south, both creeks being tributaries of the Osage River [the Marais des Cygnes River]. The new mission was located fifteen miles west of the point where the military road between Fort Leavenworth and Fort Scott crossed the Osage River. It was about twenty-five miles northwest of Fort Scott, near Centerville and Mound City. In the spring of 1839, Father Hoecken, being sick, Father Verhaegen sent Father Herman Aelen to help him. Father Aelen was at the time serving as treasurer of St. Louis University. He arrived at the Sugar Creek Mission on April 26, 1839. By July 1839, Father Hoecken was recalled to retire to the novitiate in Florissant, Missouri, but after several months of rest, he returned to serve among the Indians, first in the St. Joseph Mission in Council trifle although the Indians had lived there for two hundred and eighty years, country where he said “frogs in the marshes sang more sweetly than birds in other parts.” However he persuaded the Indians to move from Council Bluffs to Kansas. Pierish LeClair died on the Kansas River reservation, March 28, 1849. Kappler, op. cit., 199, 295, 298; Garraghan, Jesuits, op. cit., I, 429, 430, note 18; II, 194; KQ, XX, 518. 2471 . Thomas Hart Benton was the United States senator from Missouri between 1821 and 1851. 2472 . Father Hoecken, born February 28, 1808 in Tilburg, Holland, died June 21, 1858 near Council Bluffs, Iowa. He learned to speak the Kickapoo and Pottawatomie languages “with almost ease of nature.” 2473 . Diary of Father Hoeken in Kinsella, op. cit., ; Garraghan, Jesuits,op. cit., II, 190-91. 407 Bluffs, Iowa in the summer of 1840 where he remained until August 1841 before journeying back to the Sugar Creek Mission.2474 The school for Indian boys opened at the Sugar Creek Mission on July 7, 1840, being the third boys’ school opened west of the Mississippi River. Although there was never any French priest there, some of the teaching was conducted in French as many of the Pottawatomies had previously received their instruction in that language when they were living in Illinois, Michigan, and Indiana. Some of the missionaries, being born in Belgium of Walloon parents, instructed the boys in their native French language. Seven large wooden crosses erected at the site of the Mission, now called “The St. Philippine Duchesne Memorial Park,” bear the names of the over six hundred baptized Pottawatomies who died there. The Burial Register of the mission 2475 lists the half-breeds who were buried at that location. Among them are eleven Bourassas (Josephus (Eloy’s son), John (Daniel’s son), Daniel’s wife, Daniel, David, Joseph (Gabriel’s son), Lazarus, Abraham (Lazarus’son), Etienne, Gabriel, and Eloy’s wife; five Bertrands (Joseph, Ignatius (Louis’ son), Samuel (Laurence’s son), Joseph, Laurent, forty years old, and Laurent, thirty-six years old; two Nadaus/Nadeaus (Angelique and Pierre). Others are: Antoine Leport, Marie Tatis (daughter of J. B. Tatis), Josephus Morlin, Francis Clermont, Louis Penesau (son of Aloysius Penesau/Pinsoneau?), Catherine Lajoux, Angélique Lisette, Gassolin (daughter of Andrea Gassolin), Jountri (?) Fremuntaine, Marie Chaumi (daughter of Pierre Chaumi), Catherine Ambie, Angélique (wife of L. Louison), and Thérèse Rose (wife of Pierre Droyand). 2474 . Garraghan, Jesuits, op. cit., II, 443-4, 446. 2475 . Jesuit Community Province Residence, St. Louis., Missouri 408 CHAPTER 16 MISSIONARIES - PART II NUNS AT THE SUGAR CREEK MISSION In Louisiana and Missouri, the Jesuits had often cooperated with the Society of the Sacred Heart in their educational enterprise. In 1841, members of the Society living in St. Louis were touched by the reports of the plight of the Indians being moved from Indiana to Kansas; they also heard from Father Hoecken, who was recuperating in Florissant, of the work being done by the Jesuits at the Sugar Creek Mission. The nuns sought and were granted permission to establish a school for Indian girls at the Sugar Creek Mission. They were helped by Rev. De Smet who took upon himself to raise money for their new venture and was able to collect five hundred dollars in New Orleans. Three nuns were selected to leave without delay. Mother Lucille Mathevon who, at the time directed the St. Charles convent near St. Louis, was appointed as the supervisor of the school. Mother Mary Ann O’Connor, an apprentice in the training of Indian children in Florissant, Missouri, was to help as well as the lay sister, Louise Amyot, 2476 of French-Canadian descent. A fourth nun was finally permitted to go. It had been the wish of Mother Rose Philippine Duchesne ever since her young age to evangelize the Indians. She was seventy- two years old at that time. Her health was poor as she was afflicted with many circulatory problems. Father Verhaegen, impressed by her eagerness to go, finally relented, saying that “If she cannot work, she will forward the success of the mission by her prayers.” The Society sent with the nuns a black man, Edmond, who was to facilitate their work greatly as he was most devoted and resourceful. The supervisor of the girls’ school, Lucille Mathevon was born near Lyon, France on June 6, 1793. She belonged to a devout Catholic family and had never forgotten the hardship and persecutions experienced by the French clergy during the French Revolution. She remembered how defrocked bishops and priests met in her parents’ home to celebrate Mass in hiding. When religious schools were reopened, she was able to start her formal education. Sensitive to the suffering of others, with her friends she delivered food to the prisoners and sick people in the jails and their homes or hospitals. Having heard about the newly organized Society of the Sacred Heart, 2477 she joined the order where she met Mother Duchesne. She started her novitiate on July 14, 1813 and pronounced her vows on April 2, 1815. After Mother Duchesne left for the United States, Mother Mathevon’s only wish was to join her there. Mother General Barat allowed her to leave and on February 1, 1822, she arrived in New Orleans. She waited in the convent of the Ursulines for the ice to melt on the Mississippi River to be able to continue her travel. She set out at the beginning of March but the trip was delayed as the wheel of the flat boat had broken. The voyage up the Mississippi lasted 12 days and she 2476 . Also written Amiot, Amiotte, Amiote. She served for twenty years among the Indians and during that time acquired a command of the Pottawatomie language. She died February 26, 1857 and is buried in the Mount Calvary Cemetery, north of St. Marys in Pottawatomie County. Augustin C. Wand, S.J., The Jesuits in Territorial Kansas, 1827-1861, St. Marys, Kansas, 1962, 27. 2477 . An order devoted to the education of women, which had been founded in 1800 by Madeleine Barat who was canonized in 1925. 409 arrived in Florissant on April 1 8, 1822. She remained there until 1825, educating Indian girls who were boarders there. In 1828, she was named Mother Superior at the St. Charles convent, succeeding Mother Duchesne. She stayed for 13 years until she was selected to become supervisor of the Sugar Creek Mission School. Her Journal and correspondence furnish invaluable details on her life during the six years she spent at the mission. Through her writings, one discovers her true managerial ability, her sense of humor, her devotion to her students, her gentleness, and her great piety.2478 The four nuns, Fathers Verhaegen and Smedts, lay priest Renaud from the St. Louis Cathedral, and Edmond left St. Charles on the Emilie, June 29, 1841. They had received the blessing of Bishop Van Devolde, Bishop of Natchez. Many benefactors from the diocese of St. Louis accompanied them to the dock, bringing welcomed additional supplies and money for the mission. Mother Mathevon had already gathered pots, oven, frying pan, coffee pot, garden tools, building material, and food: coffee, rice, molasses, crackers, flour, etc., everything needed for a place where there would be nothing to buy. Mother Mathevon reported that the nuns enjoyed the trip up the Missouri River as everyone was kind to them, including the captain of the steamboat, and his wife. Traveling that route for the first time, they were surprised to see how populated the banks of the river were. They counted more than fifteen cities, some of them inhabited by six or seven thousand people. They were impressed by the quality of the construction and the attractiveness of the buildings but they deplored the absence of churches and schools. They went through Jefferson (City) and Bonne Ville (Boonville) where the inhabitants wanted to keep them, as there was no one to teach their children. As they traveled along, the priests baptized several children. They were still on the Missouri River on the 4th of July. Mother Mathevon left an amusing account of the celebration of Independence Day on board ship. Father Verhaeren delivered a sermon while men, at least fifty of them, sat in great silence. At the end, everybody applauded, clapping their hand and stamping their feet, “as Americans do.” Tables were set, covered with bottles of white wine and other liquor. All drank to the health of the Good Father and to Washington. The priests enjoyed themselves “like children.” Twenty soldiers, who were also on board headed for a fort, had a drum and a clarinet and “played as if they were performing for dancing bears. They amused us all evening,” wrote Mother Mathevon. After landing,2479 the party went to Madame Chouteau’s home2480. She welcomed them and treated them kindly. As it was Sunday, first they heard Mass, 2478 . Photocopies of her handwritten journal and letters, written in French, are found in the Linn County Historical Society Library, Centerville, Linn County, Kansas. Translated by the author. 2479 . According to Garraghan, Jesuits, op. cit., II, 209, they landed at Westport Landing. There is no identification of the landing in the journal and letters of Mother Mathevon, except that she wrote that they landed five miles from Westport. They probably landed at Chouteau Landing, which was located just below the Chouteau home. 2480 . Madame Bérénice Chouteau was already a widow, as her husband, François Gesseau Chouteau had died April 18, 1838 at the age of forty-one. Her home was located on the right bank of the Missouri River, two or three miles below the mouth of the Kansas River. A most generous lady, she attended to the living and the dying; invited girls of mixed blood into her home and saw that they received a Christian education. She became the patroness of St. Regis Church, which was 410 and then ate lunch. Subsequently they left, loaded with food Madame Chouteau had prepared for them. They transferred their belongings on two wagons that had arrived from Westport, one for the priests, one for the nuns. They reached Westport at 2.00 p.m., after crossing “immense prairies”. They stopped along the way at the home of a family who served them a good meal. While they were eating, the local baker baked fifty loaves of bread which he gave them to take along on their journey. Since they did not get on their way until 4.00 p.m., they were unable to reach any housing before dark. Therefore they had to camp on the bank of a river. They built a fire, prepared coffee, cooked ham and ate on the ground under trees. Showing her great ability to adapt and her good disposition, Mother Mathevon wrote: “Our evening was one of the most enjoyable I have ever had and I never laughed so much in all my life.” The priests tried to sleep on the ground on blankets but it was a sleepless night as Father Verheagen talked all night long. It must have been quite an experience for these French women used to the comforts of wealthy families. Their tribulations were not over as their drivers who had slept soundly discovered upon awakening that their horses had escaped; the drivers had failed to tie them up. They had to spend the whole morning looking for them, thus forcing a change of plans, which meant sleeping two more nights on the prairie. Because of the delay, Mother Mathevon wrote that they had to “cook like Indians, eat our meat with our fingers, without plates, and drink after each other out of the same cup.” Again with the same positive outlook on her misfortunes, she recounted that “it was all fun. I never had such an enjoyable trip.” The right person had been chosen to face the difficulties, which were to be hers as supervisor of the Sugar Mission for girls. Twenty miles before reaching the mission, the nuns arrived at the trading post of Mr. Girou (sic)2481, located on the Osage River. Fathers Verhaegen and Smeds and Renaud who had gone fishing with some Indians brought back their catch for a good dinner. Late in the evening around 9 o’clock, two Pottawatomies came from the mission to inquire about the time they would arrive at the mission. The travelers recuperated well at the trading post as Mr. Giraud had graciously offered his room to the nuns. The next day, on July 10, two Indians, riding beautiful horses, were posted every two miles to welcome them and show them the way. Mother Mathevon was impressed when she saw the Indians each time dismount, fall to their knees, and ask for the priests’ blessings. One mile before arriving at the mission, they were met by Father Aelen and his assistant Father Eysvogel on horseback, along with several chiefs. Two choir boys were carrying banners; one decorated with a red cross and stars; the other one being all red. About one hundred and fifty Indians escorted them, riding beautifully harnessed horses and wearing their best clothing and feathers. They were followed by about three commonly known as “Chouteau Church.” She even baptized seventy-five Indian children during an epidemic. The leader of the social life of the French colony, she opened her home for the celebration of French holidays. Until her death, she remained the “grande dame of Kansas City, Missouri”, and seemed to be” the soul of the French colony”, wrote Rev. August M.A. Blanchet on May 1, 1847. Barry, op. cit., 575, 721; Hoffhaus, op. cit., 170-75. 2481 . Michel Giraud, born in Lyons, France, operated a trading post at the location now known as Trading Post in Linn County. Louis Baunard, Histoire de Madame Duchesne, Paris, 1878, 492. 411 hundred men carrying muskets. Then on foot came young girls and boys, and women saying their rosaries. When they reached Father Aelen’s house, two Indians held the horses’ bridles tightly while there was a volley of guns. Then the cavalry moved to each side of the wagons, the horses standing in perfect alignment, their hooves in a straight line. “Bonaparte’s army had not been better commanded,” remarked Mother Mathevon in a letter she wrote to Mother Galitzine. The four nuns and the five priests then sat on benches with Indians standing on each side of them. The chief stood up and welcomed the newly arrived, thanking them for leaving the comforts of their lives for the Indians’ “temporal and spiritual happiness.” 2482 Joseph Napoleon Bourassa translated the speech. The chief’s wife in turn expressed similar feelings, adding that the girls wanted to shake hands with them. First two girls presented two images to Mother Duchesne, one of Jesus Christ, the other of the Virgin Mary, and then the nuns had to shake seven hundred hands! It was Fathetr Verhaegen’s turrn to speak. He introduced Mother Duchesne, saying “Here is a lady who for 35 years has been asking God to let her come to you and her wishes have now been granted.” Later they all went to the church where a Te Deum was sung. To complete the event, they were invited for dinner at the home of Joseph Bertrand 2483 whose wife was an American woman from Michigan. They 2482 . A mural painted by the Ursuline nuns of Paola in Miami County depicts the arrival of the nuns at the mission and the Indian welcoming party. It is located on the right side of the altar in the Shrine of St. Philippine Duchesne in Mound City, Linn County. 2483 . According to the records of St. Anne Church in Detroit, Joseph Laurent Bertrand was born April 19, 1806 in Bertrand, Michigan, town named after his father, Joseph Bertrand, Sr., a French trader who was the agent for the American Fur Company there. The trader’s wife was a Pottawatomie woman baptized under the name of Madeline. Some historians have claimed that she was the daughter of Topenebee, Chief of all Pottawatomies. However in the treaties signed between the government and the tribe, she was always identified as the wife of Joseph Bertrand and her affiliation with Topenebee was never mentioned. Their son, Benjamin Hamilton Bertrand, in his biographical sketch in the United States Biographical Dictionary of 1879 wrote that his mother was Madeline Bourassa, of French and Indian descent. The History of Trinity Church in Niles, Michigan states that Joseph Bertrand Sr.’s wife was a half-breed. Joseph Bertrand, Jr. was a student at the McCoy Baptist School in the early 1828s. Baptized in Detroit, July 3, 1822, he was married to Mary Doan in about 1827; the marriage being ratified by Father Baden in Bertrand, Michigan .on July 25, 1830. On the same day, his wife Mary was baptized along with their son, Joseph Hamilton Bertrand, his age being given as two years. Mary Doan died in 1835 or 1836. Joseph Bertrand, Jr. remarried in Fort Wayne, Indiana on May 26, 1836. His second wife was Elizabeth Ann Jackson, an American woman born in Annapolis, Maryland on December 27, 1810. He served as an interpreter for the Pottawatomie delegation, which set out from Westport, Missouri to Council Bluffs, Iowa in November 1840 with Commissioner Alexis Coquillard and Isaac McCoy, their secretary George Crawford, and Dr. Barry Johnston. On February 16, 1843, while at the Sugar Creek Mission, he witnessed the wedding of Abraham Burnett and his German wife, Marie Knoffloch. On June 17, 1846 at the Osage River sub-agency, he was present at the signature of the treaty by which the Pottawatomies relinquished their land on the Marais des Cygnes River. In June 1848, he went with Father Verreydt to select the site for the new mission on the new reservation on the Kansas River. He returned to the area on November 6, 1848 to accompany Father Gailland and the French nuns after the Sugar Creek Mission closed. According to the burial records of the Sugar Creek Mission, he died November 8, 1848. His wife Elizabeth Ann, the woman who entertained the French nuns upon their arrival at the Sugar Creek Mission died in Wamego, Pottawatomie County on September 10, 1888 and was buried in Mount Calvary Cemetery, north of St. Marys, Pottawatomie County. The main 412 both spoke English and French, and, according to Mother Mathevon, she was “the kindest woman I have ever met.” She wrote in her Journal:” It was the first time I ate meat on Friday, but Father Verhaegen, acting for the Bishop, granted me permission to do it.” As their house had not yet been built, the nuns retired to the cabin of an Indian who had kindly offered his home while he went to live in a tent in the woods. The temporary home was very primitive. It consisted of only one small room, fifteen feet by twelve feet, with two wooden beds. Mother Mathevon was adjusting well to the rough accommodations as she wrote: “We sleep better than we would in a king’s palace,” 2484such was her happiness to finally be among the Indians. Without delay, the nuns organized the activities of the mission during the first months. Mother Duchesne wrote to her brother Hippolyte in September 1841: This is the order of day established for the mission: morning prayers in the church when the bell rings, then holy mass, during which they sing hymns in the Indian language; this is followed by catechism for the children. The principal meal, at ten or eleven o’clock, consists principally of corn and meat. Many of the Indians own cows and horses. In the evening there are prayers again in common in the church.. . The older Indians do not grow weary even during the longest ceremonies. Their good example continually draws other adults and these ask for baptism. Once they receive this sacrament they give up quarreling, drunkenness, stealing, and dancing. Nothing could be more peaceful than this village. One would think the very horses’ hooves were cushioned like cat’s paws. 2485. On the 11th of July, St. Madeleine’s feast was remembered by the saying of three Masses. On the eve, Father Aelen had confessed the Indians until 11 o’clock at night, a confession being a lengthy process as the Indians chatted endlessly, discussing all kinds of matters. On July 18, 1841, the school for Indian girls was finally opened.2486 It was held outside when the weather was good. An arbor built in front of the cabin protected teachers and students from the sun. Yet there was an inconvenience to this arrangement. At night chickens and turkeys perched on the branches and every morning the benches had to be scrubbed. When it rained, school was moved inside. Without losing any time, the nuns started “working their double task of teaching the first elements of Catholicism and also the first principles of civilization,” street in St. Marys, Bertrand Avenue, is named after him. Barry, op. cit., 420, 467, 592; Pottawatomie Burial Records of Sugar Creek Mission, Kansas Historical Society Archives; Gladys L. Moeller, His Ancestors - Joseph Bertrand Sr. - His Descendants, 1985, n.p., 11,12, 18, 26, 28-29. Garraghan, Jesuits, II., op. cit.,601. 2484 . Baunard, op. cit., 496. 2485 . Catherine M. Mooney, Philippine Duchesne: A Woman of the Poor, Duchesne, New York, 1990, 231. 2486 . This is the date Mother Mathevon wrote in a letter addressed to Mother Galitzine in August 1841. Garraghan, Jesuits, II, 207, sets the date as of July 15, 1841. 413 while the Indian women taught the sisters the Pottawatomi language Mother Mathevon wrote:” After two weeks we were able to sing hymns in that language; but we did not know it well enough to speak it.” 2487 The first day, twelve girls came; the second day, forty-two, and the third, there were fifty students. At first, attendance was a problem as girls would escape and hide in the woods for hours. Once, in spite of the rain, three young girls left through a window. Rain changed to sleet making walking very difficult. Two were found twenty miles away, the third one thirty miles from the mission. They returned three days later. Their parents brought them back and asked the nuns to punish the wandering girls. All through her Journal and letters, Mother Mathevon praised the parents as they always supported the nuns, approving any decision they took. On the whole the girls were docile, always showing regret if they misbehaved, and asking for forgiveness. At first the teachers had to entice the students to keep them in school by making them presents, their favorite one being red calico dresses. After the 25th of August 1841, on St. Louis day, patron of the diocese, the Indians started building the permanent home for the nuns. They were sent in the woods to cut trees. Edmond, the black servant was of great help and directed the construction. Tree trunks were placed one upon the other, with a mixture of mud and stones between them. The interior of the house was covered with cotton cloth “which bulged like the sails of a ship when the wind blew.” The ceiling was made of planks put over the beams. The room was an all-purpose room. In a corner were the kitchen and pantry; in another, the classroom; on the opposite side, the refectory and the sleeping quarters; in the fourth corner, the parlor and the cell of the Mother Superior. In spite of the rudimentary conditions of their lodging, the nuns were happy. The new house was an improvement over the Indian’s cabin. They were no longer awakened at 4 in the morning by a “good alarm clock.” The house was finished on the 29th of October. To celebrate, dinner was served to the Indian workers to thank them for their services. It consisted of cornbread, squash, and beans cooked in lard. Edmond had enjoyed the teamwork with the Indians as he was shown much respect for having supervised the construction. He was also glad to be among people of his color, the Indians being very dark, almost black. When the building was completed, women and girls swept the floor and the nuns moved in. The chimney having not yet been finished, the nuns still had to cook outdoors and battle the problem of the dogs, lifting the lids of the pots and stealing the meat and bread while they were in church. The new house did not afford complete protection from the bad weather as Mother Mathevon told how they had to brush off the snow from their beds in the morning. In March 1842, thirty Indians added a second floor to the building to be used as sleeping quarters, thus allowing more space on the first floor for teaching and living purposes. The supervisor complained about her “incommodious” arrangement as the small stairway leading to the attic was a “death trap.” One had to be careful not to hit the head when going up. The flooring was made of rough boards set so far apart that one was afraid of falling down to the room below. In this small house, every inch was used to accommodate four nuns, and up to sixty 2487 . Baunard, op. cit., 496 414 girls sometimes. At the beginning, supplies were stored under the flooring of the main floor. Before long living conditions improved as two small buildings were added, thanks to a gift of two hundred piastres 2488 made by Mother Duchesne. One was used as a storage facility; the other one, a small shed as a laundry room. Priests and Indians contributed to the nuns’ subsistence. When they arrived, Father Aelen offered them whatever vegetables they needed from his garden. He also gave them two cows, one horse, and two steers. 2489 The Indians regularly fetched their water and wood and also brought fresh meat, corn, squashes, cucumbers, and eggs. Later the nuns had their own garden. They made butter and white cheese, raised pigs, had a flock of chickens, and even calves. Their herd grew to ten cows. The Indians supplied them with a variety of fish and game from their hunt: deer, rabbits, squirrels, and small birds were those mentioned by Mother Mathevon. However the winter having been very hard, they had to drive ten miles to get a cart load of squashes which were their only food during the whole season. 2490 The school was a source of great satisfaction for the nuns, as attendance was good and the girls were attentive and making considerable progress. The number of students grew up to eighty; however it dropped to fifteen or twenty during the hunting season when the families went west. Enrolled in the school were also girls of mixed blood who spoke French, children of American government employees, and even adult Indian women. The nuns also kept boarders when parents moved away. At one time there were fifteen of them. The aim of the missionaries was to prepare the Indian girls to be good Christian wives, mothers, and citizens. They were instructed in reading and writing in English, arithmetic, and most of the domestic arts: house keeping, weaving, washing clothes, ironing, cooking, baking bread, making butter, cheese, and candles. They did all kinds of handwork and were expert at carding, spinning, knitting, sewing, and embroidering.2491 They were taught to cut and make every sort of clothing for men and women. They made long shirts for the men to wear in church. 2492 They also worked outdoors, taking care of the animals and cultivating the vegetable garden. Colonel David D. Mitchell, superintendent of Indian Affairs in St. Louis visited the mission twice and was impressed by the work being done there. On November1, 1842, a young student presented him with a pair of stockings she had made, spinning the wool and knitting it. He was so pleased that he gave her a piastre, and promised to show it to Congress when asking for a subsidy of three hundred piastres for the girls’ school. On the second visit, on June 1, 1843, there were forty students in the classroom on that day. They read for him, sang in English and Latin, and recited verses. Then they offered him an embroidered pair 2488 . Mother Mathevon referred to a dollar as a piastre. 2489 . Baunard, op. cit., 496. 2490 . Ibid., 501. 2491 . In his report, dated September 1843-1844, Father Verryedt gave a list of the work done by the girls. It included twelve embroidered pieces, thirty-two stockings, one hundred and thirty-nine hemmed handkerchiefs, one hundred and sixty dresses, four coats, three pantaloons, sixty shirts, ninety-four aprons, and three samplers. 2492 . Baunard, op. cit., 497. 415 of shoes “Indian style,” ribbon suspenders also “Indian style”, and artificial flowers they had made. They showed him some of their sewing: two embroidered surplices, three men’s shirts, stockings, wool pants, etc.The superintendent asked Mother Mathevon to put everything in a box as he intended to forward it to Washington as evidence of the good work being done in the school. He asked for the name of each girl who had contributed an item to be able to send them some present. He remarked that the school was as good as any school for white girls. At that time he promised to obtain five hundred piastres” for their establishment. Up to then, the school had subsisted on donations from the Sacred Heart Society and other Catholic institutions in St. Louis and in France. In May 1844, Father Verryedt wrote in his report to the government: These ladies have now been three years in the Indian country, devoting their whole attention to the instruction of Indian children, and have never received any aid from the general government. Their expenses cannot be less than $700 to $800 annually. This is a great expense, and I really think that the department should take their case into consideration and allow them something annually to defray it. 2493 Major Thomas H. Harvey, new Superintendent of Indian Affairs in St. Louis wrote in his report, dated October 8, 1844: The female school is conducted by five ladies of the society of the “Sacred Heart”; they have under instruction between sixty and seventy girls. The progress of the girls is exceedingly flattering; they are taught the useful branches of female education; at the same time fashionable accomplishments are not neglected. A number of girls are brought up in the family of the ladies. The school is supported entirely by the ladies and their friends. It is regretted that they have not the means to enable them to enlarge their operation ... Too much praise cannot be given to those accomplished ladies, for the sacrifices they have made in alienating themselves from society to ameliorate the condition of the Indians.2494 Major Harvey kept pleading for support for the school: I examined a considerable quantity of their needlework both fancy and for practical purposes, all of which would have been creditable to girls of their age in any society.... Their recitations were highly creditable, their singing was very fine, nearly the whole school joining. Their singing was in four languages, the native, English, French, and Latin. It is much to be regretted that these ladies cannot carry on their works on a more extended scale. It is only necessary to see them and their 2493 . Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1844 2494 416 school to be convinced of their zeal and the happy effect which they are producing among the Indians at Sugar Creek. The single fact of teaching the girls to make the common articles of clothing will do much n civilizing the Indians. Induce the Indians to throw off the blanket, the leggings and breechcloth and his civilization is half effected.... Can the Government give them no aid? Major Harvey’s effort bore fruit. In June 1845, Mother Mathevon was notified that an annual subsidy of $500.00 per year would be paid for the maintenance of the school, starting July 1st. The first allowance was paid January 11, 1846, four and a half years after the school started operating, and only after the protest of Major Harvey who wrote to Medill, Commissioner of Indian Affairs on November 17, 1845: It is presumed from the allotment received under cover of your letter of the 3rd inst. that it (the payment) had been overlooked. I presume it is only necessary to call your attention to the fact, but I would take occasion to remark that this school has been kept for a number of years at the entire expense of the religious society under whose immediate management it is, “The Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.” Five ladies 2495 who would be creditable to a school in any country devote their entire lives to the education of the females of this vicinity, boarding a number and teaching them all the useful arts of housewifery; their school numbers about 60 and occasionally upwards. The happy moral influence which they have exerted among the Indians cannot be mistaken by the most casual observer (I speak from frequent personal observation). The Society, as I understand from those who know, cannot longer bear the entire expense of the school. I would view the removal or discontinuance of the school as a calamity to the Potawatomi in the Osage River sub-agency.2496 Being isolated from any source of manufactured goods, Mother Mathevon lacked many items to continue the activities of the school. In her letters to her superiors, she repeatedly asked for writing paper, pens, books, slates, left-over wool and silk, cotton fabrics, old thimbles, ribbons, beads, etc.. She also requested articles for the church: religious images, candleholders, church manuals, religious statues, and even a mold to make religious wafers, as she had been using a flat iron to make them. Finding ways to finance their establishment was only one of the many difficulties which the nuns had to surmount. They had to combat weather and illness. In the spring of 1844, they were isolated for two months by a flood. A visiting Provincial was unable to leave the mission for weeks as it was surrounded by rain-swollen streams. Cold winters brought sickness. During the 1845-46 winter, 2495 . By then, Mother Duchesne had returned to St. Charles on July 24, 1842 and on July 13, 1843, two nuns were added to the staff of the mission: Mother Thiefry, a French nun and Mother Xavier Cavenaugh. 2496 . Letter of Major Harvey to Medill, dated November 17, 1845. 417 forty adults died of pleurisy and more than one hundred children of whooping cough. Life under these primitive conditions was harsh for the nuns, yet they never complained. The main concern of the missionaries was to provide needed religious services to the Catholic Pottawatomies and also to convert new ones to their faith. Upon arrival at the mission, the nuns were astonished to witness such piety among the Indians and their eagerness to follow the practices of their religion. Showing great zeal, the girls learned and recited by heart pages of catechism, prayed, sang hymns, and participated in the ceremonies conducted in celebration of various feasts and when dignitaries visited the mission. 2497 Mother Mathevon described in vivid details one procession through the settlement and the neighboring woods, which they held on a special occasion. It took several weeks to prepare for it. The missionaries, in spite of their meager resources, had tried to have a procession as impressive as “those in Europe.” The Indians “erected beautiful outdoors altars”. Religious images were nailed to trees along the route. The monstrance consisted of a small box with glass on one side. On the inside painted in yellow, a halo cut out of tin was decorated with two blue beads. The cross also made out of tin was adorned with a green bead. Mother Mathevon remarked: “from a distance it did not look too bad, however it hurt to see our Lord exposed in such a manner.” The nuns tried to do their best with the few supplies they had. The ceremony lasted three hours. Everything went well and in perfect order. The procession was made up of four hundred men with muskets, two hundred Indians riding perfectly matched white horses, girls carrying flower baskets, and boys holding censers or torches. The horsemen escorted the Holy Sacrament while four Indians carried the canopy. Silk banners and flags decorated with religious images floated amidst the procession. An “excellent choir” furnished the music. “I have never heard better music even for a High Mass; it was good enough to enchant the angels,” wrote Mother Mathevon.2498 Baptisms, confirmations, regular services of Mass and evening worship on Sundays, prayers during school sessions, holy feasts celebrated with great pomp, daily contacts with priests and nuns in great harmony, all these had a noticeable impact on the Pottawatomies, as Major Harvey wrote to Crawford, Commissioner of Indian Affairs in February 1835: “The mission is a most valuable institution and is no doubt calculated to exercise a most beneficial influence upon the Indian character.” It received repeated praise from the governmental agencies. The subagent A. L. Davis wrote in September 1842:” The settlement on Sugar Creek is notorious for sobriety and industry.”2499 In 1845, the report of the agent read: It is pleasing to observe the general good conduct of the Indians; - they are industrious and moral... Too much praise cannot be awarded 2497 . Mother Galitzin, Visitatrix to the American homes of the Sacred Heart Society and Bishop Peter R. Kendrick from St. Louis were at the Sugar Creek Mission in March 1842. He was the first Catholic bishop to administrate the sacrament of confirmation within Kansas. Barry, op. cit., 531. Bishop Rosati came in June 1842 and Bishop Edward Barron visited for Christmas in 1845. 2498 . Letters dated June 29,1846. 2499 . Barry, op. cit., 449-50. 418 to the zealous fathers of this persuasion (Roman Catholic Church) for the good they have wrought among this people... The female one (school) under the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, deserves particular commendation.2500 Alfred J. Vaughn, Indian subagent wrote in his report of September 1846: The Roman Catholic mission on Sugar Creek among the Pottawatomies pursued in a quiet unostentatious way its wonted path in the continuance of good works. The Reverend Fathers by their untiring zeal and the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, on whom the female school depends, are entitled to the respect of all persons acquainted with their exertions.2501 By 1847, as contact with the white settlers increased, it undermined the work of the missionaries; drinking became a problem. Priests and nuns encouraged the removal of the Pottawatomies to the new reservation on the Kansas River, which they had received by the treaty of July 17, 1846. After seven years at the Sugar Creek Mission, Mother Superior Barat granted permission to the nuns to accompany the tribe and they left on August 16, 1848. MOTHER DUCHESNE The work of the French nuns at the Sugar Creek mission would have fallen into oblivion was it not for the presence among them of Rose 2502 Philippine Duchesne who was canonized on July 3, 1988 by Pope John Paul II, thus becoming the fourth saint from the United States. Although she arrived in Kansas when she was already seventy-two years old and in bad health, her spirit sustained the effort of the missionaries at Sugar Creek. Her superiors knew that her precarious condition would not permit her to participate in the various tasks at the mission. Yet ever since she arrived in the States, she had set her mind on working among the Indians and nothing would dissuade her. Philippine Duchesne 2503 was born in Grenoble in the French Alps on August 29, 1769. Her parents belonged to wealthy and influential families; her father was a successful lawyer and her mother’s father was a prosperous merchant. Therefore, growing up she enjoyed a world of comfort. Nevertheless since early age, her aim had been to dedicate her life to help the poor. She surmounted all the obstacles set in front of her to achieve her goal. When she expressed the desire to become a 2500 . Annual Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1845. 2501 . Annual Report of the Commissioner for Indian Affairs, 1846; Richard Joseph Bollig, History of Catholic Education in Kansas 1836-1932, The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., 1933., 14. 2502 . She was named Rose after St. Rose of Lima, the first woman to be canonized in the Americas. 2503 . Sister Louise Callan, Philippine Duchesne, Frontier Missionary of the Sacred Heart, Westminster, Maryland, 1957; Mooney, op. cit. 419 nun, her father removed her from the religious school she was attending and had her tutored at home. Later she refused to attend social functions and marry. When on September 10, 1788 she became a novice, her parents did not attend the ceremony to express their disapproval of her decision. The persecutions against the church during the French Revolution, the closing of the convents, and the prohibition of public worship did not deter her. Forced by her parents to return home, she followed an ascetic life style. She took many risks, defying the government authorities by assisting priests who were imprisoned or in hiding; by teaching catechism to children, and by arranging for last rites for the dying. Shortly after Napoleon I ended the persecution of the Catholic Church, she received an inheritance from her mother. She used it to lease and repair her old convent, which had been turned into a barracks and then a prison during the Revolution. When she joined the Order of the Sacred Heart in Paris, she heard from Bishop Louis William Dubourg, Bishop of Louisiana and Florida of the work that was been done among the Indians. She immediately felt it was her calling. Mother Duchesne wrote: My first enthusiasm for the mission life was aroused by the stories of a good Jesuit father who had been in the missions in Louisiana and who told us stories about the Indians. From then on, the words “Propagation of the Faith” and foreign missions” made my heart thrill.2504 Having finally overcome the opposition of the Mother Superior, she was allowed to go to the United States. She sailed from Bordeaux on the Rebecca on February 13, 1818 and after a ninety-five-day voyage, interrupted by pirates and delayed by high sea, she arrived in New Orleans on May 29, 1818. She stayed at the Ursuline convent for seven weeks and left on July 12, 1818 for Saint Louis on the steamboat Franklin. She arrived there on August 21. 1818 and soon after was asked to start a school in Saint Charles, Missouri, about twenty miles from Saint Louis. Within less than a month, she opened the first school west of the Mississippi. For lack of financial support, the school closed within a year. Without assistance from the religious authorities but with the help of local merchants, she established a new school in Florissant. In all, she founded six schools, three in Missouri and three in Louisiana. During all that time she endured hardships and frustrations. She suffered from the cold and the shortage of food. She was frustrated from not being able to speak English. She also had to deal with the lack of cooperation from the Jesuit fathers who often harassed her.2505 When her family in France received news of her difficulties, her brother offered to send her money for her passage back home, she answered: “Use the money to pay the passage of two more nuns.” She was determined to find a way to go west to the Indian country. After she met Father de Smet, she wrote to Mother Galitzin, the Visitatrix of the Sacred Heart houses in the United States: 2504 . I. J. Strecker, The Church in Kansas, 1850-1905, n.d., 156. 2505 . Father Van Quickenborne refused to give her the Sacraments and denied her the customary annual renewal of vows. Beverly Boyd, The Song of Mound City, New York, 1991, 118. 420 A visit of Father De Smet, who has just come back from the Rocky Mountains, roused my ardor once more, and that to such extent that I experienced a sort of physical resurrection as a result of the hope. I feel that I may be among those chosen for a mission that is now offered to us under very favorable auspices.2506 When she heard of Father Petit accompanying the Pottawatomies in their removal to eastern Kansas, she appealed to Bishop Rosati of Saint Louis to intercede in her favor with Mother General Barat to permit her to go there and establish a school for the Indian girls.2507 Although she was old and weakened by her infirmities, the ecclesiastical authorities relented, moved by her indomitable desire. She finally had seen the realization of her deepest wish and was happy to serve among the Indians in the hope of changing their practices. She had heard horrible stories of savage behavior among some tribes. She wrote her family how two girls had been burned to collect their fat to be used on the corn crop. She had witnessed a woman strangling her baby while saying” I don’t want my child to be as unhappy as I am.” 2508 During the years in Saint Louis, she had been frustrated by the limitations imposed by her physical and mental and condition. She had suffered from not being able to speak English.2509 Now among the Indians, she was unable to learn their language.2510 Mother Mathevon wrote to Mother Galitzin in 1841: She (Mother Duchesne) is here just to suffer, for she has aged much in this short time and is sometimes like a little child. She no longer had the fine mind of other days. She is feeble; her limbs are swollen,; her digestion is poor. I fear she will have a stroke…. It is a great anxiety for us to have to care for her without being able to give her what she needs, for one has to send twenty miles for things. 2511 Mother Duchesne’s effectiveness as a teacher was limited. Her activities were curtailed to nursing the sick and teaching the girls how to knit. And she prayed. Her piety amazed the Indians who did not believe that she could kneel for hours without moving. So one day they scattered kernels of corn on the back folds of her robe to ascertain how long she remained absorbed in worship. They were impressed when they found her, hours later, immobile in front of the Tabernacle. To show their veneration, they would often come to the church and kiss the skirt of her habit. As it 2506 . Mooney, op. cit. 226; Kinsella, op. cit., 23; Garraghan, Jesuits, II, 203-04. 2507 . Ibid., II, 203; Mooney, op. cit., 227-228. 2508 . Baunard, op. cit., 495. 2509 . “To read English and understand what one reads is not difficult, but the pronunciation staggers me... I simply despair of ever speaking it. What good am I without a fluent use of English.” 2510 . She wrote to her brother: “It [the Pottawatomi language] is difficult and completely barbarian. Endless word of eight to ten syllables, as yet no dictionary, nor any grammar book, no other book. I don’t think I will ever be able to learn such a language.” Translated by author. Baunard, op. cit., 500. 2511 . Mooney, op. cit., 236. 421 was usual for the Indians to name people according to their dominant trait, they referred to her as “The Woman who Always Prays” or in Pottawatomie language, “Kwa-Kah-Kum-A.”2512 Mother Duchesne wrote her family of her great satisfaction in seeing the benefits of religion on the Indians: Half the people here are Catholics and live in a separate village from the heathens, who are being gradually converted. Once baptized, they leave off stealing and drinking; all the houses are left open, but nothing is ever stolen... The Christian faith transforms not only the souls but even the features of these savages. They lose the wild, fierce look of the pagans.”2513 Seeing her efforts rewarded, she claimed on February 4, 1842 that her physical condition had ameliorated as she wrote to her sister, Madame Jouve:2514 My health has improved very much in this part of the country. I have gained some strength; my eyesight is better; and I retain the use of my faculties, though I am in my seventy-third year. 2515 And also when she reported to Mother General Barat: They say that in the Rockies people live to be a hundred years old. As my health has improved and I am only seventy-three [sic] I think that I shall have at least ten more years to work. 2516 On the same month, Mother Mathevon assessed her health differently, writing: Mother Duchesne is aging more and more. She is often sick. The life here is much too hard for a person her age. 2517 Mother Duchesne’s condition having worsened, she left with a heavy heart for St. Charles on March 19, 1842, less than a year after her arrival at the Sugar Creek Mission.2518 On October 1842, she wrote to Father de la Croix: For thirty-eight years my great desire was to work among the savages. I even hoped to go to Father de Smet’s mission in the Rockies. Then after one year of uselessness at the Indian mission, I 2512 . Newsweek, June 22, 1987; Mooney, op. cit., 235. 2513 . Kinsella, op. cit., 21; Baunard, op. cit., 495. 2514 . Ibid., 499. 2515 . Mooney, op. cit., 236. 2516 . Ibid., 237. 2517 . Ibid., 236. 2518 . She wrote after her departure:”It seems to me that in leaving the Indians, I have left my element, and that henceforth I can do nothing for the heavenly country from which, happily, there will be no more departure.” Linn County News, April 12, 1979. 422 came back here by order of my Superior General without having accomplished anything and without hope of ever accomplishing anything. She spent the last ten years of her life in solitude and prayer in a small room, near the chapel of the Sacred Heart Academy in St. Charles. She died November 18, 1852 and was buried in the church of the academy.2519 Mother Duchesne spent thirty-four years educating girls as she insisted upon their being as prepared for life as boys. Steadily “she pushed the limits of what women were allowed to do in her time”.2520 Through the efforts of Beverly Boyd, English Professor at the University of Kansas, on April 19, 1984, Mother Duchesne was named “Outstanding Pioneer Woman” by the Kansas University Commission on the Status of Women for her “historic contribution to humanity.” In Kansas she had seen the culmination of her dreams, spreading the Christian faith among the Indians. Through the years after her death, panels of cardinals in the Vatican examined depositions made about her character and her work. She was declared “Venerable” in 1908. On May 12, 1940, she was beatified by Pious XII, received the title of “Blessed,” and was assigned a feast day on November 17. On July 3, 1988, she was canonized by John Paul II. According to Louis Padberg, archivist of the United States Province of the Society of the Sacred Heart of Saint Louis, three miracles worked through her intercession had been accepted as authentic.2521 The Sacred Heart Church in Mound City is a shrine dedicated to Mother Duchesne. Its stained glass windows celebrate the different phases of her life: her departure from France, her arrival in New Orleans when she kissed the American soil, her first school in Saint Charles, her taking care of the sick, her teaching the Indian girls, her praying at the Sugar Creek Mission, and her welcome by a Kansas farmer. Stones from the original church at the Sugar Creek Mission were incorporated in the foundation of the church in Mound City. The site of the mission has been preserved as the Saint Philippine Duchesne Memorial Park, twelve miles northwest of Mound City. It contains few remains of the mission, among them stones from the foundations of the log cabin built by Edmond to be used as school on the main floor and sleeping quarters for the nuns in the loft. An altar and a large cross indicate the location of the original church of the mission. A marble statue of Mother Duchesne, holding a Bible and embracing two girls, one Indian, the other one white, has been placed on the grounds of the Catholic University in Washington, D.C. ST. MARYS MISSION The situation at Sugar Creek having deteriorated on account of the proximity of the white settlers, the government and the Catholic authorities favored the 2519 . Ibid., 238. 2520. Lawrence Journal-World, February 14, 1988. 2521 423 removal of the Pottawatomies. Richard S. Elliott, Indian subagent at Council Bluffs, wrote in his report of 1845: The Pottawatomies will soon be exposed to a frontier of whites on the east, which in all probability, like that of Missouri to the South, will contain many individuals who will devote themselves, by illicit traffic, to the destruction of the red race; while their acts of cruel fraud, meanness and plunder, will disgrace our own. This state of things will constitute another strong reason for the removal of these Indians to a better home, where the beneficial policy of the government may be carried out towards them, without so many circumstances to thwart and frustrate it.2522 Father Gailland 2523 corroborated what the agent had written: As weeds will spring in the best cultivated garden, so will vice sometimes make its appearance in places where virtue seems to reign supreme. This is the case at Sugar Creek especially during the last years. Among the Christians of the mission were a band of drunkards who, not satisfied with causing a great deal of trouble to the missionaries, determined to take a bolder and more menacing stand. Drunken- ness, it must be said, is the fatal means of corruption among the Indians, and there is no virtue sufficient left in them to withstand the temptation of the fire-water.... There were no more means left and but little hope of opposing this torrent of wickedness.2524 The Pottawatomies of Sugar Creek first objected moving to a reservation on the Kansas River. Finally they agreed after Father Verreydt 2525 pointed out to them the advantages of the new location, saying: I think that the treaty offered to you is good, and I believe that it will be to your advantage to accept it. These are my reasons: 1st. Sugar Creek is an unhealthy country - in the space of seven years, seven 2522 . Annual Report of the Indian Affairs, 1845. Quoted in Garraghan , Jesuits, II, 594. 2523 . His name is written as “Guerillain” in article 6 of the Treaty with the Pottawatomie of November 5, 1861. Father Maurice Gailland, a native of the French canton of Valais in Switzerland, was born on October 27, 1815. He entered the Society of Jesus on October 27, 1834 and studied at the monastery of Brieg in the diocese of Sion , Switzerland. On April 11, 1846 he received the orders for the priesthood. In the spring of 1848 when the Swiss government exiled the Jesuit Order, Father Gailland traveled to the United States. After a short stay in St. Charles, Missouri, he was sent to the St. Mary’s Mission. His reaction tells of his zeal to serve the Indians: “My heart leaped with joy to these glad tidings and I longed with impatience for the hour of departure.” He died August 12, 1877. KQ, XX, 502., Kappler, op. cit., 827. 2524 . Letter of Gailland to De Smet. Catholic Mirror of Baltimore, November 9, 1850. 2525 . Felix L. Verryedt was born in Diest, Belgium. Ordained to the priesthood in the Jesuit Order, he started his missionary work in the United States in 1837. He first served at the Kickapoo Mission, and then was assigned to the Pottawatomies. 424 hundred have died.... 2nd. The ground is not very fertile; you work a great deal and the reward of your labour is small - the soil is so full of rocks and so near to the surface, that you cannot dig graves deep enough to receive your dead. 3d. You are here too near the whites - their neighborhood is becoming daily more dangerous to you. 4th. The annuities which you have been receiving are almost at an end. 5th. It is absolutely necessary that you should have saws and planks, mills to grind your corn and wheat, forges to mend your guns and wagons, and how can you obtain all these with your scanty means, unless you agree to the treaty. You say that you wish to see your children grow up under the eyes of the Blackgown that they may learn how to read, to write, to work and to pray; the Blackgown wish the same, but they are as poor as you and cannot feed and dress your children. 2526 The treaties with the Pottawatomie bands were signed on June 5 and June 17, 1846.2527 The land assigned was a thirty mile-square, the largest part on the north bank of the Kansas River with a portion of about half a mile on the south bank of the river. Its east line ran two miles west of what was to be Topeka, and its west line passed through Wamego in Pottawatomie County. The tract contained 576,000 acres, which included rolling prairies, flat farming land, creek and river bottoms. All kind of timber was found along the streams; in all, it was better land than around the Sugar Creek Mission. The first report from Father Hoecken who had gone to inspect the land was discouraging. He had only surveyed the part south of the river and found it hilly and lacking in timber. He told Father Verreydt that “the country was not fit even for dogs to live in.” Chief Wiewasay (Wewesa) confirmed Father Hoecken’s opinion, and a Frenchman, after seeing the land, told the Ladies of the Sacred Heart: “Mes Dames, ce pays est l’enfer même.2528 ” To verify these findings, Father Verreydt, accompanied by a number of Pottawatomies, traveled through the new reservation. As had been told them, the section south of the river was unattractive and the Indians refused to cross the river. Therefore the Father went alone to survey the land north of the river. After he reached an elevated point and could see the country, his fears disappeared. He wrote:” I was satisfied that I had not been deceived by the Agent and that, as he had said, it was a fine country.” After officiating for the last time on November 11, 1847 and burning down the buildings at Sugar Creek, Father Hoecken and the majority of the Pottawatomies moved and settled first on the banks of Mission Creek, south of St. Marys where they built a church and living quarters. Some others moved to a location at the junction of the East, Middle, and West branches of the Wakurasa River, near the town of Auburn where, according to Father Paul Ponsiglione, an Osage missionary, they put up “some little shanties.” Both sites were south of the Kansas River. Father Verreydt started his search for a definite location for the mission. On May 29, 1848, he crossed to the north bank of the Kansas River with an Indian escort and then 2526 . Garraghan, Jesuits, II, 597-98. 2527 . Kappler, op. cit., 557-60. 2528 . “This country is hell itself.” 425 from the 2nd to the 6th of June, traveled with Michel Nadeau 2529 through the whole area. Some days later, accompanied by Joseph Bertrand, he reported to Major Cummins, the Indian agent that he had found a suitable site for the mission. On July 16, he left for St. Louis to seek approval from the religious authorities. On August 16, 1848, Father Verreydt, supervisor of the new mission, Father Gailland, Brother George Miles, Charlot, an Indian boy, and the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, Mother Mathevon, Sister Mary Ann O’Connor, and Sister Mary (probably Layton) 2530 left the Sugar Creek mission with Joseph Bertrand as their guide. Father Gaillard kept a diary of the travel: I journeyed as before in a wagon, but this time to live “ā l’indienne”. 2531 Towards evening we halted near a wood, made a fire and prepared a simple supper. When this was over we fixed our tents and stretched buffalo robes for beds, but before lying down we had the precaution to add fuel to our fire to prevent the coming of or to drive away the mosquitoes. Next morning, we were on foot at break of day and started across the prairies, without knowing in what direction we were going, unless by what little we could guess by the position of the sun in the horizon. These plains present a strange and wild, but at the same time, a grand and beautiful appearance. Stretching out and away in the distance, they seem, like the ocean, to have naught but the blue sky for limit, where the eye loses itself in their immensity. Everything about them reminds you of the sea, their silent deathlike stillness, their dull monotony and wild solitary air.... The Ottawas country was the first which we passed, and we stopped in one of their villages to visit a Catholic family, in whose lodge our Fathers said Mass when they came to preach the gospel to this nation. We entered next the country of the Sacks (Sauk) a brave and warlike people.... Having made a short stay in the country of the Shewanous (Shawnee), we finally arrived at the Waggerousse (Wakarusa), a little river, on whose banks Rev. F(ather) Hoecken had built a temporary dwelling. We entered a wood where we saw several Indian wigwams. The people had no sooner recognized the Father Superior and the Ladies of the Sacred Heart when they all pressed forward to them and gave them a most hearty welcome in their own simple way.... We continued penetrating the wood and soon found ourselves in a village containing over one hundred lodges. 2532 The diary of Father Gailland tells about the last lap of their voyage:2533 2529 . Michel Nadeau (Nadau)’s first wife, Angelique Bertrand had died at the Sugar Creek reservation on February 6, 1844. 2530 . Sister Louise Amyot joined them on September 1. 2531 . “the Indian way.” 2532 . Baltimore Catholic Mirror, November 16, 1850; Garraghan, Jesuits, II, 602-604 2533. . James M. Burke, “Early Years at the St. Mary’s Pottawatomie Mission” - From the Diary of Father Maurice Gailland, S.J. KQ, XX, 506. 426 We begin the journey to the new mission September 7, 1848. . . . High water keeps us detained a whole day at a trading post. Next day, the water having fallen, we forded the river at a place called, Uniontown, some on horseback, others in wagons. At noon we stop for dinner at a creek. 2534 Continuing our way we arrived at our new home at four o’clock in the afternoon of September 9, 1848. We were accompanied the whole way by the Ladies of the Sacred Heart and Mr. Joseph Bertrand. Two log houses were prepared for us on the prairie; but they were only half finished, without windows or doors or floors or any conveniences. We began to work at them to provide a shelter against the night air and the winds. 2535 The notes of one of the Ladies 2536 reported the reaction from the Indians as they approached their new home. Discouraged at the sight of the immense work to be done to open the virgin soil, they refused to cross the river and wanted to return to their wandering ways of life. Mother Mathevon, “showing heroic courage, crossed the river, entered the desert, and started cutting the grass, which was more than 6 feet high. The Indians watched her, stunned with surprise. Zeal following surprise, they decided to start working.” Upon their arrival, the missionaries experienced great anxieties and privations. Father Gailland wrote in his diary on September 17, 1848: We live in anxiety about the success of the new mission; for our Indians continued [to stay] in their settlements on the other side of the river. This anxiety is increased by the rumors of a war that is imminent between the Pottawatomies and the Pawnees. For not so long ago, 2537 the Kansas Indians, while out hunting with the Pottawatomies, met the Pawnees and fired upon them. The Pottawatomies, seeing themselves involved in a common danger, rushed into battle for their own safety and killed many Pawnee warriors and ponies. Burning with revenge for this, the Pawnees have foresworn their old friendship for the Pottawatomies. They are raiding on the ponies, and threatening a war of extermination of the Pottawatomies. This rumor had so frightened our Indians, who had camped in remote parts of the reserve near the Pawnees, that in one day they all pulled their tents and fled panic-stricken. Consequently we are placed in the front, exposed to the fury of the Pawnees. And there is not an Indian who is willing or dares to share our danger. 2538 2534 . Cross Creek, site of Rossville. 2535 . Garraghan, Jesuits, II, 605. 2536 . Photocopies of manuscript notes in French. Linn County Historical Society Archives. 2537 . In July 1848, during an encounter between the Pottawatomies and the Pawnees, six Pawnees were killed, their scalps being carried away by the Pottawatomies. In revenge, the Pawnees took forty horses from the Pottawatomie settlements. Barry, op. cit., 763. 2538 . KQ, XX, p. 507. 427 The life of the missionaries was harsh. During the first winter, men and women worked at clearing the land while living in half-finished log cabins, one for the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, the other for the Jesuits. “No doors were hung, no windows were in place, and the chinks between logs were not caulked.” 2539 The nuns’ cabin was open to rain, hail, and snow. The only food available was salt meat and beans, supplied by the government. All the animals brought from the Sugar Creek Mission had died, except for one cow. Seeing it about to expire, Mother Mathevon gave it her last ear of corn and let her free. To the nun’s great joy and surprise, the cow returned with a “charming little calf.”2540 By the spring of 1848, the nuns were occupying a two-story log cabin, sixty- one by twenty-one feet, later enlarged with a frame annex measuring forty by twenty-one feet, the whole being used as an assembly hall, a school and a residence for the nuns and their boarders. 2541 Mother Mathevon did not restrict her efforts to teaching. She saw to the needs of all the Indians and supported the work of the Jesuits. One of the Ladies wrote: Often she would get up in the middle of the night to satisfy their demands, one asking for food; the other wanting some light; another one demanding milk to quiet down the children. She always anticipated their needs. She considered herself as the servant of the Indians, doing everything possible to convert them. Nothing was too hard for her to bring them the sacraments, helping with all her might the zeal of the Jesuits who found in her a powerful helper. Each week the priests had to spend Friday and Saturday, hearing the confessions and on holidays three priests were hardly enough to give the Holy Communion. On the eve of holidays, Indians living far from St. Mary’s came to prepare themselves to receive the sacraments. They built their tents around the nuns’ house. Mother Lucille at the height of her happiness would visit them and bring them food, then prepare them for Communion by singing hymns.2542 The winter of 1848-49 was exceedingly hard. All through the months of December, January, and February, except for some rare days, Father Gailland mentioned the bitter condition of the weather. On December 5. he wrote:” The ice on the Kansas River is so thick that horses with a wagon loaded with supplies may safely cross it, just as if it were a paved road,” and on January 8, he noted: “An Indian, while trying to cross the river on the ice, lost his horse which broke through the ice and drowned.” It was not until February 24 that “the ice that held the river in check was broken.” Father Gailland remarked that his “ink freezes in the pen while writing.” The priests were unable to celebrate the midnight Mass on Christmas Eve 2539 . Dorothy N. Hoobler, The Oregon Trail, the Jesuit Mission, and the Town of St. Marys, St. Marys,.Kansas, 1993, 60 2540 . Notes from one of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart. Linn County Historical Society Archives. 2541 . Garraghan, Jesuits, II, 609 2542 . Notes from a Lady of the Sacred Heart. Linn County Historical Society Archives. Translated by the author. 428 on account of the severity of the weather. On December 27, he recorded: “During the last few days it was so cold that some of the skinnier dogs and horses perished.” The missionaries were called to the side of numerous sick Indians and many died. 2543 Attendance at the girls’ school, which had opened in the fall of 1848, progressed slowly on account of the intensity of the cold and due also to the fact that the Pottawatomies were scattered all over the reservation, at great distances from the school. By Christmas of 1848, only five students were enrolled.2544 Girls being boarded there often became homesick and ran away to rejoin their families. Shortly after the weather improved, the missionaries were faced with an epidemic of Asiatic cholera. It was first mentioned by Father Gailland on February 6th, 1849. He wrote: “The report has circulated that an extremely virulent form of cholera is nearing our place.” It was introduced by the emigrants on their way West as they stopped at the mission for food or repair. It struck the Pottawatomies in Uniontown where their trading post was located, a few miles below St. Mary’s Mission, on the right bank of the Kansas River. On June 2nd, Father Gailland reported the deaths of four Indians who had contracted the disease there. It soon spread through the whole reservation. Days after days, the Father registered new victims. 2545 Many Indians fled their homes in fear of contagion. The schools had to be closed as the disease was striking more and more Indians. From Father Gailland’s diary, it appears that the cholera outbreak subsided by the 23rd of June, as no more deaths were reported after that date. In the spring of 1849, a church was built. Father Gailland wrote that it was a log cabin, which “although not elegant in form of mean material, had however the honor of being the first church in the wide region between the Mississippi and California.”2546 The Indians had contributed $1,700.00 out of their annuities and the French Society of the Propagation of the Faith had made a gift of $600.00. Within a year the enrollment at the school increased to between thirty and forty students. The first official report on its activities was sent by Father Verreydt to Major Cummins on September 5, 1849. It reads: A beautiful site for a settlement and a location for our mission have been selected one mile north of the Kansas river...; the two dwelling- houses for the boys and girls stand at a suitable distance from one another, so to separate the male from the female scholars, which is so requisite and proper. Said buildings are substantial log-houses, two stories high, 22 by 58 feet in front. The rooms are well arranged for ventilation, having windows so situated as to admit the air on all sides..... The number of boarders, both male and female, already registered, is 57; in addition to which there are ten day scholars, They are all well 2543 . KQ, XX, 509-13. 2544 . Hoobler, op. cit., 63. 2545 . KQ, XX, 520-21.; Barry, op. cit., 864. 2546 . Wand, op. cit., 16 429 supplied with wholesome food, and are suitably clothed; order and cheer-fullness are apparent throughout the establishments.2547 During the winter of 1851-52, an epidemic of smallpox spread among the Pottawatomies. Father Gailland included this account in his report to the French Association of the Propagation of the Faith in Lyons. He wrote: At length, about the middle of December, the disease broke out in the village of St. Mary, precisely at the time when the cold is most severe. For two months it raged with the greatest virulence; five persons in one house were sometimes all attacked at once; scarcely a day passed without a funeral, often three and four. The dead and the sick were so numerous that we had difficulty in finding persons to dig the graves. Death has carried off the elite of the village. The nuns surmounted all the difficulties, continuing untiringly their duties. In the same report, Father Gailland continued: I ought, also, Gentlemen, to speak to you of our schools.... The Ladies of the Sacred Heart excite the admiration of all; it is of the greatest service to the mission. The girls brought up therein are models of piety; when they return to their homes, the majority of them are equal to the white women in point of intelligence, and the management of domestic affairs.2548 By 1853, the St. Mary’s mission was progressing so well that Father Duerinck wrote to John W. Whitfield, agent for the Pottawatomies: “The Catholic Mission is said to be the most lovely spot in the Indian country... “, adding:” Some people think that if Nebraska be organized as a Territory, St. Marys ought to be the capital.”2549 That did not happen, but the work of the mission continued after the Territory of Kansas was created in 1854. Enrollment increased each year. In October 1855, there were seventy boys attending school and as many girls.2550 Father Duerinck wrote to G.W. Clark, new head of the Pottawatomie Agency, on October 1: May Heaven bless the Pottawatomie boys and girls; their gentle manners, their cheerful countenances and contented looks have won them our approbation; we no longer observe in them the un- couth behavior, that haughty temper, that fondness for the Indian ways which used to mortify us and cut us to the quick; they are now content to stay at school and withal willing to please us. The girls especially 2547 . War Department Congressional Documents, 550, 1091. 2548 . Garraghan, Jesuits, II, 634-35; Barry, op. cit., 1057. 2549 . KC, XIV, 500; KQ, XX, 695, note 153. 2550 . Father Duerinck’s Diary. Garaghan, Jesuits, II, 667, note 114. 430 are remarkable for their industry and personal cleanliness. Distinguished visitors who have on several occasions been shown through the establishment never fail to admire that part of the house and pay the ladies in charge a compliment to that effect. There is also a marked improvement on the score of going and coming, leaving and returning to the school. At present the parents bring their children to the school, and leave them to their studies, without paying them those incessant visits that used to cause us a great deal of annoyance and expense.2551 In his own report, G.W. Clark wrote on October 17, 1855: I cannot speak in terms too highly of the condition of these establishments (the boys’ school and the girls’ school). Besides the ordinary literary course, the girls are taught sewing, knitting, embroidery, and the other branches of housekeeping....I have no hesitancy in expressing my conviction that this institution is of great service to the Indians.2552 In his report for the year of 1856, Father Duerinck continued to be especially pleased with the behavior and learning of the girls: This branch of our manual labor school has more attraction than any other institution of similar character in the country; the premises have an air of neatness and comfort that strikes the beholder with surprise. If you enter the house during the work hours, you will find the inmates all at work with order and regularity, detailed in small parties under a mistress - some sew or knit, some spin, some cook and eat, others wash, clean up the rooms, milk the cows in the yard, or work in the garden, &. If you meet them all in one of the rooms, you wonder at their number, as frequently eighty of them will rise at once to greet you. If you happen amongst them during their playtime, you will see them all merry and happy, full of innocent sport and mischief, which on account of their sweet humor is never taken amiss. These girls are of a tame and modest turn while at school; but when they grow up and return to their people, the young men find them very sociable, talkative, fond of dress, and yet of a stern character when they foolishly presume to take undue liberties with them. We train these good children and these young maids to do all sorts of housework, because, whilst we do our own work, we show them every day how work is to be done . At the end of the year there is an examination and a distribution of premiums both for the boys and for the girls, when perhaps some twenty- five of them receive each a new book for their 2551 . Ibid., 663. 2552 . Annual Report of the Commission of Indian Affairs, 1855, no. 38.; Garraghan, Jesuits, II, 673. 431 distinguished merit and unwearied applications. It would do you manifest in that occasion. It is considered a favor to be allowed admission, but could not immediately be received for want of room.2553 On September 25, 1856, G.W. Clark wrote his own report, which read in part: The labors of the reverend gentlemen and the ladies conducting it (the institution) are not only improving the rising generation and preparing them for civilized society, but the influence of their example and counsel is manifestly to the advantage of the adults.2554 William E. Murphy, the Pottawatomie agent shared G.W. Clark‘s evaluation of the work being done by the nuns at the St. Mary’s Mission when he wrote on September 15, 1857: The neatness and cleanliness of the schoolyard and buildings at St. Mary’s give it an air of comfort that is the admiration of the passers by. The female department of this school is under the management of nine Sisters of the Sacred Heart, with Madame Lucille as superior, and is frequently visited by distinguished strangers, who, after seeing the amiable manners, cleanly appearance, and cheerful looks of the Pottawatomie girls, and the fine order, system, and regularity with which the school is conducted, not only express their approbation, but won- der at seeing so fine an institution of learning within any Indian reservation.2555 Attendance at the two schools continued to increase as W. E. Murphy reported in 1857 that the boys’ school numbered one hundred and three pupils and the girls’ one hundred and ten students2556 In his 1861 report, he wrote: St. Marys Mission school seemed to be in a prosperous condition, popular with the Indians, and doing much good. The female depart- ment deserves particular mention for its efficiency in teaching the different branches of education. The exhibit of plain and fancy needle work and embroidery, executed by the pupils, creditably attests the care and attention bestowed by the sisters upon these children of the forest. It was plain to me that their hearts are in the work... Much of 2553 . Annual Report of the Commission of Indian Affairs, 1856. 2554 . Annual Report of the Commission of Indian Affairs, 1856, No. 34. 2555 . Annual Report of the Commission of Indian Affairs, 1837. Garraghan, Jesuits, II, 673-674 2556 . KC, XIV, 511. 432 the improvement in the mode of life observable among the Pottawatomies is attributable to the schools.2557 Travelers, hunters, and emigrants on their way West stopped at the St. Mary’s Mission for a night’s rest or for supplies. Hearing French commonly spoken there, they referred to it as a “French settlement.” One of the earliest mentions was made by William Kelly, an Englishman who was there in 1849 and wrote: There is a French Catholic Mission at the extremity of the vale - the most advanced post of Christianity on the prairie, where the worthy minister2558 has established a school in the little log chapel and as I entered I found him in the midst of his half-tamed scholars, laboring to impart the blessings of education with a fervid zeal emanating from the purest sources of philanthropy without any worldly incentive to feed it or any reward but the consolation of a happy conscience.2559 In December 1855, William H. Mackey, Sr. and his wife, traveling by ox-team from Fort Riley to Leavenworth County wrote: We struck the Pottawatomie reservation, and to put up at one of those old French stopping-places was a treat. We lingered all through the reserve, although it was a little expensive... We struck it rich at old chief Le Framboise, at Silver Lake. We remained there several days and feasted. The old buck had two wives and a big family all at home. But he certainly was a good provider.2560 In the summer of 1859, Grantley F. Berkeley, another Englishman wrote about “the French Indian settlement on the prairie, Pottawattami” where he stayed for one night on his return from a buffalo shoot, as he had heard “from the officers’ ladies at Fort Riley that there was a very nice, clean and attentive female at Pottowadomy (sic), who kept a lodging-house on the hill”.2561 While there, he called upon Father Schultz, the new superintendent of the mission.2562 From all the reports, it appeared that the use of French was prevalent all through the reservation. Much of the instruction in both schools was directed in French. Father Gailland preached in that language at the evening services on 2557 . Ibid., 513-14. 2558 . He was probably referring to Fathers Verryedt or Gailland, who, although respectively of Belgian and Swiss nationalities, was conversant in French. 2559 . William Kelley, An excursion to California over the Prairie, Rocky Mountains and Great Sierra Nevada with a stroll through the diggings and ranches of the country, London, 1851, I, 62; Garraghan, Jesuits, II, 693. 2560 , William H. Mackey, Sr., “Looking Backward,” KC, X, 644. 2561 . Grantley F.Berkeley, The English Sportsman in the Western Prairies, London, 1861, 321, 374 ; Garraghan, Jesuits, II, 695. 2562 . Father John Schultz was a native of France. See below. 433 Sundays.2563 The Belgian and Swiss Fathers were all fluent in French as they came from the French-speaking areas of their countries. 2564 Instruction in French continued, many Pottawatomies and half-breeds speaking French, as had their ancestors in Illinois and Michigan. Father Peter Karleskind, a French native, born in Nancy, July 10, 1803 who had began his career in the St. Joseph Parish in St. Louis, was for fourteen years prefect and teacher of the Indian boys, watching them day and night. Father Gailland wrote: From the classroom he accompanied them to the playground, then to the refectory, then on their walk. Next he followed them to the dormitory. His bedroom was a little closet set in between the two children’s dormitories and so narrow that he could scarcely move about it . . . … His sleep was frequently interrupted by the cries of sick children, to whom he promptly went to bestow on then all the cares of a tender mother. He combed them, washed them, tidied their beds, rendered them services the most repugnant to nature. . . .He had to teach them English and that to lads who for the most part desired nothing less than to learn. How many humiliating remarks made by ours as well as strangers on the bad pronunciation of the lads did he not have to swallow?2565 And yet the good Brother suffered it with patience. . . . Recollected, modest, mild, affable to all, the good Brother gained the esteem and affection of all who knew him.2566 His superior praised his adaptability as he” did everything well”, whether he was employed as gardener, baker, refectorian, sacristan, or teacher. He died in St. Mary’s, September 3, 1862 and is buried in Mount Calvary Cemetery in St. Marys.2567 After Father Duerinck drowned on his way to St. Louis, Father Schultz assumed the functions of Superior of the St. Mary’s Mission in December of 1858 2563 . KQ, XX, 508-510, 512-15, 522, 524-25, 528-29. Father Gailland who wrote a Pottawatomie dictionary remained at the mission until it closed in 1869. He died in St. Mary’s August 12, 1877. 2564 . Father John B. Duerinck who succeeded Father Verreydt as superior of the mission was born in Belgium. He drowned in the Missouri River between Kansas City and Liberty, Missouri when his flatboat hit a snag and was upset in June 1847. Father Francis Xavier De Coen was born in Nivone, Belgium, December 19, 1811. He died in St. Mary’s, July 16, 1864. Father John De Vriendt was born in Ghent, Belgium, February 24, 1820 and died in St. Mary’s, April 8, 1883. Father John Diels, born in Turnhout, Belgium, October 10, 1821, followed Father Schultz as superior of the mission. He died in Milwaukee, December 17, 1878. Father Aloysius Laigniel was born in Belgium in 1835. In about 1839, he withdrew from the Society of Jesus. Father Sebastian Schlienger, born in Aargau, Switzerland, January 23, 1802, served in the French Army before coming to the United States. He died in St. Mary’s, August 8, 1866. 2565 . “Br. Peter Karleskind is an excellent man and religious, but he cannot give what he has not himself – an accurate pronunciation.” Letter of Schultz to Druyts, January 4, 1858, quoted by Garraghan, Jesuits, II, 684, note 136. 2566 . Ibid., II, 694. Letter of Gailland to De Smet, February 20, 2863. 2567 . Ibid., II, 683. 434 although he had expressed on December 21, 1857, his inadequacy for fulfilling the responsibility of directing the work at the mission: I feel entirely unqualified for the task – unknown to me are money and farm matters – I am too much a foreigner to write to the Gentlemen of Washington as Superintendent of an American school – my accent is too french or german to please native ears.2568 Father John Schultz was born in Niedermorschwiller in the département of Haut- Rhin, France on February 2, 1816. He entered the Society of Jesus, October 17, 1837 and, along with Bishop Miège, was on the passenger list of the Providence, dated June 1, 1848. Shortly after his arrival in the United States, he was assigned to the Cahokia parish In St.Clair County, Illinois.2569 When he was sent to the St. Mary’s Mission, he made great efforts to communicate with the Pottawatomie Indians in their own language, being encouraged by Bishop Miège who wrote: It looks also as though my brave Father Schultz is discouraged before the difficulties of the Potawatomie language; and verily if I were not obliged to put on a good face and inspire in him a courage which sometimes forsakes myself, I should long ago have cast to the winds any hope of learning that hopeless Potawatomie. This is altogether an occupation for the winter when we can do but little. Most of the time it is impossible to go out on account of the icy wind, which is almost constantly blowing across our prairies; moreover, the Indians for the most part are gone away, scattered in all directions on the hunt. So the rest of us during this time study, read a bit of everything, try our hands at all trades, mason, teacher of penmanship, arithmetic, plain- chant; each has his share and sometimes the whole business together.2570 Father Schultz finally mastered it and even compiled a grammar of it. He visited the Pottawatomie settlements south of the Kansas River every two weeks and helped with the instruction of the Indian boys.2571 In his 1859 report, he stated: The boys learn to read, write, cipher, history, geography, grammar and arithmetic. They cut wood, assist the cooks, garden, and care for the livestock.2572 As superintendent of the mission, Father Schultz performed his duties with efficiency and success. W. E. Murphy, Pottawatomie agent reported in 1859: 2568 . Ibid., II, 678, note 127. 2569 . Ibid., II, 42. 2570 . Ibid., II, 678, note 127. 2571 . Peter Beckman, The Catholic Church on the Kansas Frontier, 1827-1861, St. Marys, Kansas, 1962, 15. 2572 . Hoobler, op. cit., 65. 435 At no former period since my connection with this Agency has St. Mary’s Mission given more favorable indications of growing prosperity and future usefulness to the Indians than the present. The Superintendent, Rev. Mr. Schultz, has been connected with the mission for the last eight years; he is a gentleman possessed of energy and business habits, united with a great devotion to the interests of the Indians, and is unremitting in his exertions to advance their spiritual and temporal welfare.2573 On July 16, 1861, Father Schultz was appointed rector of St. Xavier College in Cincinnati.2574 He died in St. Louis, August 25, 1887.2575 Mother Mathevon was recalled to St. Charles in 1868. She was back at the mission in 1871 after Indians and whites raised such an outcry over her departure. By then she was the only French nun as Louise Amyot had died in 1857. Mother Mathevon continued her good work until 1876 when she died Gilbert J. Garraghan wrote: No account of the mission-schools at St. Mary’s is adequate which does not leave the reader with an impression of the important share of the Religious of the Sacred Heart in making them a success. In their hands ever since the days of Mother Duchesne at Sugar Creek was the education of the Pottawatomi girls; that they acquitted themselves with distinction of this phase of the missionary program of St. Mary’s is a fact written large in the story of the mission. Even more that the boys’ department, the girls’ department of the Pottawatomie Manual Labor School elicited repeated and almost fulsome commendation from the Indian agents and other federal officials. The self-effacement of the nuns was complete. The names of scarcely any of their number found their way into contemporary records. It was enough for them that they gave themselves unreservedly to the task at hand, that they spared neither time nor energy nor available means of whatever kind to compass a perfect work of metamorphosis of an Indian child into a self-respecting and well-trained Christian woman. One regrets that the absence of published data from their own community historical sources concerning the happy experiment in Indian which they worked out through some three decades on the Kansas prairies. Garraghan continued: Mother Lucille Mathevon had been one of the pioneer nuns that came up the Mississippi with Mother Duchesne in to the first house of the 2573 . Murphy to Robinson, September 10, 1859, quoted by Garraghan, Jesuits, II, 682. 2574 . Garraghan, Jesuits, II, 89; III, 20. 2575 . Ibid., II, 678, note 127. 436 Religious of the Sacred Heart in the New World, and she had gone out with the same venerable mother to Sugar Creek in 1842 to make the venture of a school for the little women of the Pottawatomi. Both at Sugar Creek and at St. Mary’s she discharged the duties of superior; that the nuns’ school met with such a measure of success was largely due to her intelligent sympathy and administrative skill.2576 The only reminder of Mother Mathevon’s thirty-five years of service to the Pottawatomi girls is an inscription on a headstone in Mount Calvary Cemetery in St. Marys, which she shares with her co-workers, Mary O’Connor and Louise Amyot.2577 For forty years, the French presence was felt in the missions established by the Catholic Church where instruction in the schools and sermons in the churches were regularly conducted in French.2578 2576 . Ibid.., III, 54-55. 2577 . Her name is written “Amiotte” on the headstone. 2578 . Even in the Baptist Mission School, which was directed by American missionaries, some of the instruction was in French as it was the language learned by the Indians before their removal to Kansas. Miss McCoy, a niece of Isaac McCoy, who taught at the school, asked in 1849 for half-a dozen French Bibles. She wrote:” If the Board, or other benevolent person will not bear the expense, tell Mr. Dryer to take that much out of my salary. There are a number of half-French and Indian Catholics who read French and have expressed a wish; indeed they appeared anxious to have Bibles.” Garraghan, Jesuits, 623. 437 CHAPTER 17 FRANCOIS XAVIER AUBRY François Xavier Aubry, 2579 a hero of the pre-territorial days in Kansas was the son of Joseph Aubry and Magdeleine Lupien. He was born near Maskinonge in the province of Quebec on December 3, 1824. His family traced back its origin to Toul in Lorraine, France. His father, after losing his farm, moved to Saint-Maurice, near Trois-Rivières, Quebec. François worked in various stores as a clerk before deciding to seek his fortune in the United States. On May 1st, 1843, he left Canada for St. Louis. He wrote: “I must leave, not because I am forced by my misconduct, but to earn more in the hope of helping my parents.” 2580 A slender eighteen- year old, he was determined to succeed in whatever he undertook. In May, 1843, he was hired as a clerk in the general store of Moise Lamoureux and Elzeau Blanchard, Canadian compatriots established in St. Louis. He proved himself a dependable and energetic employee and, sensing his desire to follow the Santa Fe traders he had met in the store, his employers loaned him money and in 1846 to set out on his first New Mexico venture. His was among the wagon trains which left Independence, Missouri on May 9, 1846 2581 and, crossing Kansas, reached Santa Fe forty-five days later on June 23rd, without having encountered any problem. His return trip, started on July 16, was made with two wagons and a “very small party of men.” After traveling the Cimarron route through southwest Kansas, he arrived in Independence on August 17, 1846. He continued his trip aboard the Balloon and reached St. Louis on August 22. It was reported that “Messrs. Knight and Aubrey . . . brought in . . . 50 to 60,000 dollars in specie.” 2582 According to Aubry’s journal, the profits from his and his companion’s round trip amounted to $100,000. 2583 After such a successful beginning, Aubry was launched on a career that was going to evolve from being a simple trader to becoming a trustworthy courier, a trail breaker, a record setter, and a daring explorer before being tragically killed before reaching age thirty. On April 17, 1847, he advertised in the Daily Missouri Republican that he was planning to leave for Santa Fe and would carry letters and papers to that city if they were left at the Republican office on or before April 20, 1847.2584 With the mail he had collected, he headed for the ” town of Kansas” (Kansas City, Missouri) which he left on April 30, three days after sending his merchandise ahead by 2579 . Also written Felix, Francis, Frank, L. X. Aubrey. Tassé, op. cit., II, 179-227; Donald Chaput, François X. Aubry, Trader, Trail Maker and Voyageur in the Southwest – 1846-1854, Glendale, California, 1975; Frank J. Dobie, “Saga of the Saddle,” Southwest Review, XII (January, 1921), 127- 142’ Walter D. Wyman, “F.X. Aubry, Santa Fe Freighter, Pathfinder, and Explorer,” New Mexico Review, VII, 1-31 (It includes Aubry’s 1853 and 1854 journals). 2580 . Henry A. Bundschu, “Francis Xavier Aubry,” The Pacific Historian, V (August, 1961), 116-123; James Josiah Webb, Adventures in the Santa Fe Trade – 1844-1847, ed. Ralph Bieber, Glendale, California, 1931, 287; Tassé, op. cit., II, 181; Chaput, op. cit. 22, 39. 2581 . Barry, op. cit., 580; Bundschu, op. cit., 111. 2582 . Barry, op. cit., 638; Chaput, op. cit.,36. 2583 . Ibid., 36; Bundschu, op. cit., 111 2584 . Ibid., 112. At that time there was no regular mail service. There was only an infrequent army express service from Fort Leavenworth. 438 another trader. The voyage turned to tragedy as one of his men was scalped and killed a few yards from the party.2585 At Fort Mann (six miles west of Dodge City), he rescued two men who had been surrounded by Indians for nearly two days. 2586 After this eventful trip, he reached Santa Fe in early July, delivered his mail, sold his goods, and was again on the trail on July 28, bringing back mail to the States.2587 On August 8, his passage at the Little Arkansas was noted by Col. John Ralls who was commanding two companies of the Missouri cavalry.2588 About August 31, he arrived in Independence ahead of the rest of his large party. He had been on the road for thirty-four days and during the last four days had covered three hundred miles, averaging seventy-five miles per day.2589 He continued his voyage, arriving in St. Louis on September 6. Aubry advertised his departure in the Republican of September 9: For Santa Fe – Mr. Aubry, who returned from Santa Fe two or three days since, will leave for the same destination on Friday evening next. He will take charge of any letters for persons in that quarter, if left at this office by 12 o’clock on Friday. Without delay, Aubrey organized his second trip of the year and left Independence on September 25, with other traders and fifteen wagons, loaded with merchandise worth about $40,000. Near the border of New Mexico, they confronted some Indians but arrived safely in Santa Fe on October 29. On November 13, an advertisement appeared in the Santa Fe Republican that read “Gin, Brandy and Port Wine, for sale by F. X. Aubrey.” In the Spanish section of the paper, he announced that he also had groceries, sugar and beans. Aubrey did not have a store in Santa Fe and probably sold from his wagons parked on the Plaza. In spite of the approaching winter, he planned a return trip to Missouri, advertising in the Santa Fe Republican that he would accept letters and papers to be delivered in the States. He also stated that he could complete the return trip in eighteen days. The paper supported his claim, writing: We may recommend him to all who have business in the U. S. as an attentive and active gentleman who will do all he proposes. . . . We have no doubt that he will accomplish [it], as he is one of nature’s most persevering children. 2590 On December 22, 1847, he left Santa Fe for Independence. On January 5, 1848, he arrived alone after a fourteen-day journey, several days ahead of an 2585 . Webb, op. cit., 287-288. 2586 . Chaput, op. cit., 40; Barry, op. cit., 675. 2587 . Ibid., 713; Chaput, op. cit., 45. 2588 . Barry, op. cit., 698. 2589 . Bundschu, op. cit., 112. 2590 . El Republicano, November 27, 1847, the Spanish edition of the Santa Fe Republican, quoted in Chaput, op. cit., 50. 439 express party which had departed three days before him.2591 The journey had not been easy. He had to leave behind four men who could not maintain his pace. “At Cottonwood” Creek, sixty miles west of Council Grove, his servant, a free black man named Pompey, was unable to continue with him. It was also reported that he had lost ten mules stolen by Mexican robbers, was delayed by Indians for half a day and by a snowstorm for another half a day. The correspondent in Independence for the Daily Reveille of St. Louis reported that he had killed three mules by hard riding, encountered four days of “severe cold weather,” and traveled three hundred and six miles during the last three days. Within one year, he had crossed Kansas four times, each time reducing considerably his travel time and establishing a new record for travel between Independence and Santa Fe, beating the other traders by ten and one-half days. 2592 By then, Aubry had achieved national notoriety. On January 29, 1848, on page one, the New York Weekly Tribune reported his exploit, writing: Mr. Aubrey is just in from the prairies, having performed the trip from Santa Fe . . . in fourteen days. The last three days of his trip he averaged upward of one hundred miles a day. 2593 On March 11, 1848, The Western Expositor of Independence announced that he was planning to leave for Santa Fe ahead of the other freighters: This is much earlier than usual to leave for the plains, but we have every confidence in the dauntless zeal and indomitable enterprise of Mr. Aubry to overcome every obstacle. He will start with corn enough to feed the animals as far as Fort Mann by which time the grass will be sufficient to subsist them. Such energy and perseverance deserve, as we hope it will meet with the most consummate success.2594 He left Independence on March 16 with fifteen wagons. On April 21, he arrived in Santa Fe without any difficulty and was able to sell his merchandise before the arrival of his competitors. He then announced that he intended to make the return trip within ten days. On May 19, 1848, he departed from Santa Fe with six men. His companions abandoned him, exhausted after three hundred miles, which he had traveled at a gallop. Three days and twenty-hours later, he passed Fort Mann. He rode into Independence on May 18, an hour before sunrise, having traveled seven hundred and eighty miles “in the incredible short time of eight days and ten hours!!!” in five and one-half days less than his previous record, averaging about one hundred miles per day during the whole voyage. On June 3, the St. Louis Daily Missouri Republican wrote that he had lost more than a day, having been 2591 . Barry, op. cit., 730. 2592 . Bundschu, op. cit., 113. 2593 . January 29, 1848. Quoted by Chaput, op. cit., 52. 2594 . Ibid., 113. 440 detained by Comanches (near Pawnee Fork), and had been robbed of his baggage, provisions, and packages of letters. It added that he had really made the distance in seven days, had killed three horses and two mules by hard riding, walked forty miles to Fort Mann where he got a new horse, was three days without provisions, and slept only four or five hours on the route.2595It is no surprise that the Daily Missouri Republican wrote:” Such traveling is unexampled,” 2596 that the Independence Western Expositor published an extra edition on May 29 to celebrate this remarkable feat, and that the national press reported his deed. 2597 After buying new merchandise, Aubry left St. Louis with thirty wagons in late July. Second Lieutenant George D. Brewerton reported that he met him westbound for Santa Fe at the Arkansas Crossing. By then, the trader was leading a merchant caravan of “some sixty-odd mule wagons” which were for the most part owned by Aubry himself.2598 Aubry arrived in Santa Fe on August 5, in advance of his wagons. The Santa Fe Republican wrote: “This gentleman travels with a rapidity almost supernatural.” 2599 Driven by his desire to surpass himself, he made a wager of $1,000 that he could ride back the eight hundred miles between Santa Fe and Independence in less than six days. The event aroused the interest of the people of Santa Fe to such a point that the Santa Fe Republican published an extra edition on September 12, stating: We wish him a safe trip and a safe return as we would be happy to see the country settled by just such men as Mr. Aubry, - energy and perseverance is what we know is wanted in a new country. We would not be surprised to hear that M. Aubry had made the quickest trip this time that ever was made, as his anxiety for his business will induce him to travel at the utmost speed.2600 Aubry was given a copy of the paper to carry to the States, along with some letters. Before dawn on September 12, he departed from Santa Fe with a few companions and “a small but carefully selected caballada.” They rode hard but the leader outstripped his men and by the time Aubry had reached the crossing of the Arkansas, which is generally considered about the halfway, he found himself, with his last horse giving out, alone, and on foot. Nothing daunting him however, he pushed on and reached Mann Fort. There he procured a remount, and then, without wanting to rest, or scarcely to break his fast, he departed and once more took the trail.” 2601 On the 14th or the 15th, eastbound travelers saw the swift-riding Aubry between Fort Mann and Pawnee Fork. Near Pawnee Fork, he was pursued 2595 . Barry, op. cit., 753-754; Bundschu, 113. 2596 . Ibid., 113. 2597 . Barry, op. cit., 754; New York Herald, June 13, 1848; New York Weekly Tribune, June 17, 1848. 2598 . George D. Brewerton, Overland with Kit Carson, New York, 1930, 252. 2599 . Bundschu, op. cit., 113. 2600 . Ibid. , 114. 2601 . Brewerton, op. cit., 258. 441 by, and had a narrow escape from a party of Indians. 2602 On the 16th, he was at Council Grove,2603 galloping at an incredible speed, through driving rain for twenty- four consecutive hours, along nearly six hundred miles of muddy trail. “He broke down six horses, walked twenty miles, slept only two and a half hours and ate but six meals. He swam most streams which were swollen by heavy rains and on September 17th, 1848, his foaming horse half ran, half staggered into Independence.”2604 It had taken him five days and sixteen hours to cover the distance, eight hours less than what he had wagered and two days and eighteen hours less than his previous record of May 19, 1848. He had averaged one hundred and forty miles per day. The last two days he had himself strapped to the saddle and “it is said that, upon being assisted from the saddle, it was found to be stained with his blood.” 2605 Several years later, Col. Alexander Majors, in the February 10, 1890 issue of the Kansas City Globe, gave his own account of the ride: When you speak of F. X. Aubry, you call to my mind one of the most remarkable characters I ever knew. . . . When I first met Aubry, he was a young man of 25, the perfect picture of health and strength, short, rather heavy set, weighing about 165 pounds. He had an open countenance and was one of the rising men of the plains. I was on the way to Santa Fe with a train of 15 wagons filled with merchandise and knew nothing of Aubry’s design. When we were at Rabbit Ear, about a hundred miles from the old Spanish City, we saw a man approaching in a sweeping gallop, mounted on a yellow mare and leading another. As he came nearer, mistaking us for Indians, he whirled and retreated fifty or sixty yards, then turned to take another look. Our wagons coming around the hill proved we were friends, and putting spurs to his steed, he dashed past, merely nodding his head as the dust flew into our faces. It was a great surprise to me for Aubry to treat a friend in that style, but when we reached Santa Fe, I understood it. Every moment was precious. It was the supreme effort of his life. Night and day he rushed on. It was not money he was after, but fame. He had laid a wager that the trip would be made in six days. At the end of five days and 13 hours, exhausted and fainting he was taken from a horse which was trembling from head to foot and covered with sweat and foam. Aubry was a man of marvelous endurance or he could never have recovered from the strain of that ride upon his system. There was no stage running to Santa Fe at the time of Aubry’s ride and it was unanimously pronounced by Western 2602 . Ibid., 258. 2603 . Barry, op. cit., 774. 2604 . Bundschu, op. cit., 114. 2605 . Brewerton, op. cit., 258. 442 men as the greatest exhibition of nerve and strength ever shown on the plains.2606 The Kansas City Globe wrote: Indeed it is doubtful whether the history of the world can present a parallel to that great ride of 800 miles, through a country over-run with hostile Indians, a large portion of the distance being through sandy deserts and leading across rivers, mountains and prairies, with only the sky for a covering and the earth as a resting place.2607 In his memoirs, Alexander Majors wrote: This ride, in my opinion, in one respect was the most remarkable one ever made by any man. The entire distance was ridden without stopping to rest, and having a change of horses only once in every hundred or two hundred miles. He kept a lead horse by his side most of the time, so that when the one he was riding gave out entirely, he changed the saddle to the extra horse, left the horse he had been riding and went on again at full speed. At the time he made his ride, in much of the territory he passed through he was liable to meet hostile Indians, so that his adventure was daring in more ways than one. . . . There is perhaps not one man in a million who could have lived up to finish such a journey.2608 He well earned his nickname of “Skimmer of the Plains,” 2609 having established a record, never equated or excelled, that would stand in a preeminent place in the annals of the West. If he had not encountered obstacles, he could have made the journey in even less time, as the Daily Missouri Republican stated: On his way he had to swim every stream, was delayed by the transaction of business at Fort Mann, with his own teams which passed that way, and with the various parties of troops; and beside breaking down six horses and walking 20 miles on foot, he made the trip, traveling time only counted, in about four days and a half! During this time, he slept two and a half hours and ate only six meals. It rained upon him 24 consecutive hours, and nearly 600 miles of the distance was performed in the mud, and yet, what is strange, the rain did not reach Council Grove. . . . We learn from Mr. A[ubry] that he made some portion of the trip between Santa Fe and Independence at 2606 . Bundschu, op. cit., 115. 2607 . Quoted by Bundschu, op. cit., 115. 2608 . Alexander Majors, Seventy Years on the Frontier, Minneapolis, 1965, 185-186; Kansas City Globe, February 10, 1890. Alexander Majors was one of the founders of the Pony Express which adopted Aubry’s practice to have fresh mounts along his route. 2609 . Barry, op. cit., 775. 443 the rate of 190 miles to 24 hours. He had no one to accompany him.2610 Chaput wrote: This has remained the world’s most remarkable long distance ride: 780 miles in five days and sixteen hours, or as Aubry phrased it, 190 miles to the twenty-four hours. . . . Never again would Aubry attempt such a ride, but there was no need to do so. To this day no one has come close to breaking the distance-speed record.2611 Frank Dobie remarked:” The legends of the Tartars and the Scythians do not recall its equal.” 2612 In Independence, Aubry boarded the Bertrand for St. Louis where on his arrival he handed to the editor of the Daily Reveille a letter from the editor of the Santa Fe Republican which read; “Allow me to introduce to you the man to whom the telegram is a fool.”2613 On October 8, 1848, for the third time in the year, he headed from Independence to Santa Fe with a large load of goods. When he arrived at Crow Creek in Rice County on October 21, he learned that the Jicarilla Apaches had attacked travelers on October 13, near Las Vegas, New Mexico and had stolen two- hundred-and-forty government animals, and forty-six of his mules. On about October 27, an eastbound party reported that they had met Aubry at the Lower Cimarron Springs going on well but later seven of his men deserted; one hundred and fifty mules were lost, some on account of the severe weather, the rest being stolen by Indians; a great amount of his merchandise was also lost or destroyed before he finally arrived in Santa Fe. 2614 Lieutenant Edward Fitzgerald Beale who was traveling from Fort Leavenworth to California at the same time reported that the snow was twenty feet deep in certain places. Because of the severe weather, Aubry lost one hundred and sixty mules from cold and his favorite saddle mule was frozen to death in a tent with two blankets on it.2615 About that time, Aubry turned his attention to Texas and Mexico, hoping to find new markets there. He set out on December 1, 1848 and his presence was reported in San Antonio, Texas on January 12, 1849. By early June he was back in Santa Fe as he suspected that the hostility of the Indians in the region might not make the venture successful.2616 On July 21, 1849, Aubry left Santa Fe. The party included thirteen Americans, seven Mexicans, a number of wagons and one hundred and twenty mules. At Ash Creek, Pawnee Indians attacked them at night for two hours, “firing 2610 . Ibid., 775. 2611 . Chaput, op. cit., 67-68. 2612 . Dobie, op. cit., 135. 2613 . Chaput, op. cit., 69. 2614 . Barry, op. cit., 780. 2615 . St. Francisco Daily Alta California, March 29, 1849, quoted by Chaput, 73-74. 2616 . Bundschu, op. cit., 115-116; Chaput, op. cit., 77-90. 444 at intervals for about two hours, wounding two mules, and riddling several wagons and wagon covers.” They arrived in Independence on August 23.2617 After purchasing goods, he left for Santa Fe on September 15. During that trip,”he lost twenty mules - frozen to death in a severe early storm and had to hide two wagons of stock.” 2618 He reached Santa Fe on October 30. Aubry waited there for a shipment of merchandise from Missouri, then left for Texas and Chihuahua on December 1, 1849, with twenty wagons and two-hundred- and-fifty mules in a second attempt to develop markets there. After selling his freight, by early June, he was back in Santa Fe.2619 On June 12, 1850, he left for Independence with a train that included forty men, ten wagons, and two hundred mules. He arrived July 3rd, four or five days ahead of his company. He had ridden alone from Cottonwood Crossing [about one hundred and eighty-five miles out] and “traveled 125 miles of the distance in 20 hours and a half on the same yellow mare that did him such service . . . On that occasion, the animal traveled 200 miles in 26 hours.” In the course of the journey, he met four hundred westbound traders’ wagons and many friendly Indians near the Arkansas Crossing but also had to repulse an Osage raid on June 29 at Plum Buttes.2620 The St. Louis Daily Missouri Republican wrote:” Mr. Aubry moves with almost electric speed.” 2621 After re-stocking in St. Louis, he was on his way back to Santa Fe by mid- July. He was seen westbound at Big Bend on the Arkansas River, then at Lower Cimarron Springs, before arriving in Santa Fe sometime in mid-August. It was reported that the roundtrip was made “in 77 days, being 21 days less than any previous trip.”2622 He left again for Texas and was reported in San Antonio on November 32, 1850. This was his last trip there as he was confirmed in his belief that trading south would not be profitable.2623 Nothing has been recorded about his return trip to Missouri during the winter of 1851. On March 10, 1851, he set out from Independence with a large caravan. A week later, he was seen at Lost Spring and on April 5 at Whetstone Branch. 2624 He arrived in Santa Fe in mid-April. After selling his goods on the Plaza, on April 23, he departed from Santa Fe, with three inches of snow on the ground. On April 29, two miles before Cold Spring, in Cimarron County in the Oklahoma Panhandle, Aubry decided to try a new route that would shorten his journey to the Arkansas River. It was an unwise decision. The next day, they traveled thirty-five miles without finding any water, wood or grass. The men had only a gallon of water with them. Upon their arrival, the Daily Missouri Republican reported: 2617 . Chaput, op. cit., 82. 2618 . Barry, op. cit., 885. 2619 . Chaput, op. cit., 87-90. 2620 . Barry, op. cit., 950-951; Chaput, op. cit., 90-91. 2621 . July 8, 1850; Chaput, op. cit., 90-91. 2622 . Barry, op. cit., 956. 2623 . Chaput, op. cit., 92-94 2624 . Ibid., 98; Barry, op. cit., 985. 445 On the 2nd [May] they [Aubry’s party] arrived at the [Arkansas] river, the animals having been two days without water. The last day the party had no water to drink, and they traveled through sand and a hot sun, and had to drink the blood of the Antelope.2625 This first attempt to find a better and shorter route was completely unsuccessful. When he reached the Arkansas River, he followed it to above “New Post on the Arkansas River” and saw thirty lodges of Cheyenne Indians on their way to Fort Mackay (west of Dodge City). On May 5, at the new army post, he witnessed the Comanches, Cheyennes, Arapahoes, Kiowas, and Apaches of the Plains, assembled with Bvt. Lt. Col. William Hoffman shortly after they had smoked the peace pipe, noting lodges for about fifteen miles on both sides of the river.2626 He arrived in Independence on May 12, 1851, ahead of his train, after traveling for nineteen days. He had ridden approximately two hundred miles from Cottonwood Crossing (Chase County) in two days and one hour.2627 After a few days of rest in Independence, he boarded the steamer Kansas for St. Louis where he arrived on May 14.2628 By late June, 1851, he was back on the trail, leaving for his second trip of the year across Kansas. This was an ill-fated journey as the party was struck with cholera. However, when he arrived at Council Grove (about one hundred and twenty miles west of Independence, Missouri), Aubry and his hands who had been sick had recovered. On August 8, by the time they arrived at the Arkansas Crossing, the cholera had completely subsided, however they had “suffered a great deal.” There had been ten cases of it between Pawnee Fork and the Arkansas Crossing, but only one death. He arrived in Santa Fe around August 30.2629 Aubry left Santa Fe about September 25, and was reported in Las Vegas, New Mexico, on September 19 where he assembled a train of sixty-two men wagons, and three hundred mules. About September 25, he decided to leave the Santa Fe Trail near Cold Spring and travel “10 to 40 degrees east of North” to the Arkansas River, thus shortening his route, avoiding the Jornada del Muerto (Road of the Dead Man) and the Cimarron Desert in the hope of finding a better route supplied with water and grass.2630 The route, later known as “Aubry Trail,” left Cold Spring in a northeasterly direction, crossed the Cimarron River and Bear Creek, then arrived at the Arkansas River twelve miles west of Chouteau’s Island (west of Lakin), crossed it near the line between Kearny and Hamilton counties. Up to that date, there had been two routes between Independence and Santa Fe: one about one hundred miles longer, by way of the mountains, across Raton Pass; the other one known as the Cimarron route or the Jornada del Muerto, a cut-off between the 2625 . Ibid., 999;Chaput, op. cit., 100; Daily Missouri Republican, May 19, 1851. 2626 . Ibid., 997; Chaput, op. cit., 99-100. 2627 . Barry, op. cit., 999. 2628 . Chaput, op. cit., 101. 2629 . Ibid, 101, 102-103. 2630 . Barry, op. cit., 1042-1043. 446 Cimarron and Arkansas rivers, was through seventy miles of sandy hills, with no water and little grass. On the new Aubry Trail, the greatest distance without water was thirty miles and it was thought to be fifty miles shorter. Some travelers began using it. The Occidental Messenger of Independence wrote that “it found it a most excellent [route] for summer and winter” and added “Aubry deserves praise for marking it out so successfully, and in spite of all opinion and danger, opening up a way so useful to all who cross the plains.” 2631 A letter from Santa Fe was printed in the Daily Missouri Republican of February 2, 1852, which read . . . He deserves great credit for his untiring effort to explore new paths, which shall facilitate the communication with New Mexico, and add to the comfort and safety of the traveler on the desert route which leads to it.2632 However, the Aubry cut-off never superseded the Cimarron Route of the Santa Fe Trail. Aubry arrived in Independence on October 11, ahead of his train. He had covered the route between Cottonwood Crossing and Westport, Missouri in a little over two days at a rate of “a little over 100 miles per day on his favorite yellow mare Dolly.”2633 On October 22, he was ready to start on his third trip of the year. His journey progressed without difficulty as he met other parties traveling eastward. At the end of October, he was ten miles west of Cottonwood Fork; later he was seen four miles above Chouteau’s Island. A Santa Fe correspondent wrote on December 31st that “Aubry came through with heavy teams and without loss of animal.” 2634 He had successfully followed his new trail which had only two miles of sandy road. Taking no time to rest, by December 31st he was on his way back to Missouri in spite of the threat of snow and ice. He was carrying “a large amount of specie” as Aubry was trusted with most of the shipments of money from Santa Fe to Missouri. After camping one night on Chouteau’s Island in the Arkansas River, the party attempted to “cut through two feet of ice without finding water. In several places they had to go through snow eighteen inches deep.” To men who were complaining about the bitter weather, Aubry “good-naturedly told them that he had been over the trail forty times, and that particular trip was the most pleasant he had ever made.” 2635 A telegraphic dispatch of the Santa Fe mail from Independence announced: “Aubry with 12 wagons is on his way to the States and expects to be here by Feb. 5.” 2636 As predicted, he arrived on that date. An Independence man wrote: 2631 . Ibid., 1121. 2632 . Quoted in Chaput, op. cit., 105. 2633 . Barry, op. cit., 1042. 2634 . Ibid., 1046, 1056. 2635 . Baskerville Memoir, Western History Department, Denver Public. Library, quoted in Chaput, op. cit., 108. 2636 . Barry, op. cit., 1062. 447 His wagons, twelve in number, he brought with him, a thing rather unprecedented in prairie travel, during the winter, and although he had much severity of weather, he did not lose a single mule, either in going out or returning. 2637 He continued, reaching St. Louis on February 14 where the Daily Missouri Republican reported: In this trip he took a new route, ever varying from the one adopted on his last visit to the States. Very intense cold was experienced on the route, the thermometer on several occasions [particularly January 18 and 19] was 20 degrees below zero. In 1852, Aubry was probably the first trader of the year to leave for Santa Fe, as he departed from Independence on March 1st when the weather was still cold. He had attracted national attention by his exploits. Capitalizing on his feats, in several issues, the Daily Missouri Republican began to advertise Kansas City, Missouri as the best starting point for emigrants desiring to go west. The last paragraph of the notice read: Finally, they [the citizens of Kansas, Missouri] would say that all the largest and more celebrated jobbers in conducting trains across the Plains, universally start from Kansas [City] as the best and most convenient starting point, from which to make their trips, speedily, comfortably and safely. Aubry, Messervy, Huston, Kit Carson, and all the celebrated voyageurs invariably select Kansas [City] as their starting point. 2638 This time, Aubry made a detour through Fort Leavenworth where several government trains joined him. They arrived in Santa Fe in early April. On the 11th of the same month, he left for Missouri. He took his cut-off, from Cold Spring in Oklahoma to the Arkansas River, by the way of the Cimarron River and Bear Creek, leaving along the way left markers to guide prospective travelers. 2639 About May 8, he reached the Missouri with his second wagon train of the year, then boarded the Saint-Ange in Kansas City, bringing to St. Louis ten boxes containing some 20,000 Mexican dollars, and two boxes containing about 4,000 U. S. dollars. The Occidental Messenger of Independence, Missouri declared on May 8: “As a traveller . . . Aubry has no equal in the Union.” 2640 One of his companions, probably William S. Allen, a Santa Fe trader who had recently been appointed New Mexico Territorial Secretary, sent some “notes” to the Missouri Republican stating that Aubry, instead of taking the “Arkansas Route,” had followed a new trail north of the 2637 . Ibid., 1064. 2638 . Ibid., 1076. 2639 . Chaput, op. cit., 111. 2640 . Barry, op. cit., 1089. 448 Arkansas River, down Walnut Creek, thus shortening the travel by fifty-two miles. 2641 At the end of May, Aubry left on his second trip of 1852. He was met on the trail by other parties on June 12 (?), near Plum Buttes. Cholera had again struck members of his party; some seventeen cases breaking out at one time. However, “by careful attention to his men”, he lost only one. 2642 He arrived in Santa Fe in late July, 2643 sold his merchandise and started his return trip on July 31, with a party of some fifty men, twelve wagons, two carriages, and over two hundred and fifty mules. Many reported seeing him: William Stone on the Arkansas River, Preston Beck at Diamond Spring, and the October eastbound mail party at Aubry’s Crossing on the Arkansas River.2644 He was transporting $25,000 in specie and $30,000 in drafts.2645 He arrived in Independence on August 15. Early September 1852, Aubrey left Missouri for Santa Fe on his last journey. He was carrying some government stores among them twenty-nine bales of clothing [at $12.50 per 100 pounds] from Westport to Fort Union, New Mexico.2646 Aubry was a much sought-after conductor of caravans crossing Kansas on their way from Missouri to Santa Fe and back, leading travelers who trusted him implicitly. He was not only known for his endurance and courage but also for his kindness and generosity. Marian Russell in her memoirs recalled how in the spring of 1852, she went as a 17-year old girl with her widowed mother and her young brother from Leavenworth to New Mexico in one of Aubry’s trains.2647 The trader helped her mother drive stakes in the ground during the stops on the trail, comforted her and her brother when they were tired and sick, and opened his own covered wagon to those who needed solace and care.2648 Not only did he aid the members of his party, his assistance extended to all those who encountered difficulties. If Indians stole their mules or if their animals were killed or lost, he gave them some of his in order for them to continue their travel. If their supplies were exhausted, he replaced them. If their wagons were damaged, he repaired them. Aubry was a respected and popular guide. He was also a man of integrity and honor. The Santa Fe Republican wrote on May 3, 1848:” His word is as good as the State Bank of Missouri.” The freighter probably grew tired of running the route between Missouri and Santa Fe through Kansas and became anxious to explore new lands. William Carr Lane, Territorial Governor of New Mexico, wrote to his wife on November 2, 1852: He is a French Canadian, & quite well bred. . . He appears to be restless, when stationary & only contented, when making these 2641 . Ibid., 1090. 2642 . Ibid., 1097. 2643 . Chaput, op. cit., 111-112. 2644 . Barry, op. cit., 1118. 2645 . Ibid., 1123. 2646 . Ibid., 1125; Chaput, op. cit., 114. 2647 . Mrs. Hall Russell, “Memoirs of Marian Russell”, Colorado Magazine, XX, No. 3, 81-95. 2648 . Chaput, op. cit., 109. 449 appalling journeys. A thousand miles seems no more for him than 100 for me.2649 On November 16, he left on his first trip to California, driving ten wagons, one hundred horses, and one hundred mules, traveling through unknown and unsafe territory. He arrived mid-March in Los Angeles and late April in San Francisco. In his Journal,2650 Aubry recounted the hardships he had to surmount to complete his return trip from California to New Mexico. He arrived in Albuquerque on September 10, 1853. His party, which included twelve Americans and six Mexicans, traveled with thirty mules and horses but no wagon. They were attacked several times by Indians using arrows, guns, rocks, and clubs. Thirteen members of his party were wounded, Aubrey himself receiving eight wounds. Many of their animals were killed. His favorite mare, Dolly died as a result of the wounds she received. Aubry was saddened by her loss as he wrote “By her speed [she had] saved me from death at the hands of Indians.” They experienced thirst and hunger and had to eat the flesh of his “precious Dolly.” In the course of the encounters, they killed many Indians. The journey was, however, fruitful as Aubry had registered the topography of the land and the availability of wood and water that would be needed for the construction of a railroad from “the Eastern United States to the Pacific.” He also reported the presence of copper and gold along the way and wrote that the Indians were using gold bullets in their guns, which he brought back as evidence. More importantly, comparing the two routes he took, going to California and coming back, he concluded that the southern route of the 35th parallel would be preferable to the Gila route of the 32nd parallel and provided arguments supporting his recommendation.2651 On his second trip to California, he left Santa Fe on October 10, 1853, and drove four thousand head of sheep, reaching Los Angeles on January 10, 1854. After several months spent in California, he started his return journey from San Jose on July 6 with sixty men. The Indians attacked them but did not inflict any loss. In his Journal,2652 he noted that he concentrated his efforts on examining the terrain to determine a suitable location “to trace a wagon road between this valley [San Jose, California] and Albuquerque on the northern bank of the Gila.” When he was back in Santa Fe, James Collins, editor of the Santa Fe Gazette, wrote to him: I congratulate you on your safe arrival in New Mexico, after a long and dangerous journey through a region of country hitherto unexplored, but at this time regarded by the public with intense interest, on account of the supposed existence through it of a comparatively faultless route for a railroad to connect the valley of the Mississippi with the Pacific Ocean. May I ask you to gratify my curiosity, and that of the public, by allowing me to inspect your journals, and to publish 2649 . “Letters of William Carr Lane,” New Mexico Historical Review, III, 190. 2650 . Tassé, op. cit., II, 387-397. 2651 . Ralph P. Bieber, ed., Exploring Southwestern Trails, 1846-1854, Glendale, California, 1938. 2652 . Tassé, op. cit., II, 387-397; Bundschu, op. cit., 117-119; Chaput, op. cit., 115. 450 such parts of it as may serve to give a full and correct idea of the country? Aubry complied with the request and on September 24, Collins wrote the following editorial: To those who know Mr. Aubry it would be superfluous for us to say a word in behalf of his veracity and good judgment. His friends all know him to be a man absolutely without parallel in physical qualities, and unsurpassed in all the traits of human character.2653 Aubry’s contribution was valuable to the opening of the West as “the routes he pioneered are followed in a general way by the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Bakersfield, California.” 2654 Having returned to Santa Fe on August 18, 1854, tired from his long journey, he went to the store of his friends, Joseph and Henry Mercure. He asked for a glass of water and a toddy. Upon hearing that he was back after a six-month absence, many came to join him. Among them was Major Richard M. Weightman, a graduate of West Point, veteran of the Mexican War, lawyer and publisher. An argument arose between them. Aubry asked Weightman if he was still publishing his newspaper. Weightman answered that it had died a natural death. The trader answered:” The lie it told on me killed it.” Aubry was referring to the fact that articles had cast doubts on the veracity of his having found gold nuggets and on his claim of having discovered new routes to California. Upon which Weightman threw his tumbler of brandy and water in the trader’s face. Aubry drew his pistol. Weightman, believing his life was in danger, stabbed him to death. 2655 Before dying, Aubry is supposed to have said “Let me bleed,” then began to fall and expired a few minutes later on the floor of the Mercure store. According to Dr. David C. DeLeon who examined him, he died from a two-inch knife wound above the pelvis. After his funeral services in the Cathedral in Santa Fe, he was followed to his grave by a large number of friends. 2656 As one who knew him, William R. Bernard said:” He was an honest, simple-minded man, true to friends, but ever ready to resent any imputation against his honor.”2657 After the trial held on September 21st, in which the jury found Weightman not guilty as having acted in self-defense, he left Santa Fe and moved to Independence, Missouri where he practiced law. He became attorney general of Missouri. Later he was living in Atchison, Kansas and on September 1860, six years after the murder, was elected one of the directors that helped organize the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad. It was reported that he was always haunted by Aubry’s death. Weightman must have been an impetuous man as he 2653 . Chaput, op. cit., 133. 2654 . Ibid., 121. 2655 . Ibid., 121-123. 2656 . Ibid., 122. 2657 . William R. Bernard, “Westport and the Santa Fe Trade,” KC, IX, 561. 451 was later involved in several duels. After the Civil War began, he joined General Price’s Army and was killed in the Battle of Wilson’s Creek.2658 The death of François Xavier Aubry when he had not yet reached the age of thirty was a tragic end for a man who had been “the fastest rider the frontier ever produced” and who was known in his days as the “Prairie Telegraph,” the “Lightening Traveler,” the “Great Plain Courier,” and the “ Intrepid Aubrey.” 2659 Wyman wrote: It is rather melancholy that his death should have come while defending one of his exploits... His soul was restless and adventurous, craving only the approbation of his fellowmen. He typifies the frontier spirit in his boundless energy, his faith in himself, and his belief in the power of man to conquer nature.2660 A man of great courage, a pathfinder, and explorer who had made headlines in newspapers from New York City to Mexico, a man who had sparked the admiration of so many of his contemporaries, and had set records crossing the Kansas plains on horseback before it became a state, is now almost forgotten. For a short while, his name was remembered as, by Special Order No. 20 by Bvt. Maj. Gen. W. L. Elliott, Camp Wynkopp was renamed “ Fort Aubry.” It was located close to the Aubry cut-off, twenty miles east of the Kansas-Colorado line, three hundred yards from the Arkansas River on the north side, on a site four miles east of Syracuse in Hamilton County in section 23, township 24 south, range 40 west. It had been established to protect travelers from the Indians along the route between Dodge City and Fort Lyon. Two companies of infantry and one of cavalry were garrisoned there. Several small engagements with Indians occurred near the fort but none serious.2661 By General Order No. 45, Fort Aubrey was abandoned on April 15, 1866. A post office bearing his name was established at Fort Aubrey and remained in operation from January 24, 1866 to October 3, 1866. A stage and watering station carrying his name was located four miles east of where Syracuse now stands in Hamilton County, some six to seven miles from the old fort, on section 25, township 24, range 39 west, less than half a mile from where it was established in 1879 by travelers from the East. Its name was first changed to Zamora, probably for the fact that the Zamora Cattle Company had large holdings along the Arkansas River, east of Aubrey station. Later in 1885, it became Kendall, probably named for the Kendall brothers who were local merchants. 2662 A hill in Kearny County where a wagon train had fought off an Apache and Arapahoe raid was called Mount Aubrey but it is now an extinct geographical location.2663 South of 2658 . Chaput, op. cit., 122-123. 2659 . Ralph P. Bieber, ed. Adventures in the Santa Fe Trade, 1844-1847, Glendale, California, 1931, 287. 2660 . Wyman, op. cit., 10-11. 2661 . Louise Barry, “Fort Aubrey,” KQ, XXXIX, 188-189. 2662 . “Some lost towns in Kansas,” KC, XII, 457; John Rydjord, Kansas Place-Names, Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1972, 122. 2663 . KC, XII, 483; Rydjork, op. cit., 122. 452 Kansas City in Johnson County, Kansas, a town was named Aubry. The settlers who gave it its name thought that he was a famous Mexican traveler! 2664 The town had a short and tragic history. It was raided by the Confederates on March 7, 1862 and later merged with a neighboring community, losing its identity as the town is known now as “Sitwell”.2665 A steamboat bearing Aubry’s name plied the lower Missouri from 1853 to 1860, between St. Louis and St. Joseph. She was “proudly bearing at the head of its flagstaff the gilt figure of a horseman riding at full speed.” 2666 Today, from this man who had been known as the “Prairie Telegraph”, the “Lightening Traveler”, the “Great Plain Courier”, and the “Intrepid Aubrey”, nothing reminds us of his heroic exploits. In the West, along the 35th parallel, two landmarks bear his name: Aubrey Valley and Aubrey Cliffs. The former town of Aubrey in Mohave County in Arizona is now covered by the waters of Lake Havasu. General William Tecumseh Sherman who knew him in Missouri and California stated that he was “one of the best examples of that bold race of men who had grown up on the Plains.” 2667 As Henry A. Bundschu wrote:” The man who spent the last eight years of his young life in exploration and development of the Western part of the United States rightfully deserves the honor and respect only afforded to national heroes. . . . The Santa Fe Railroad and the people of New Mexico and California should do something heroic in honor of his memory.” 2668 And Kansas should also honor him in some way. 2664 . KC, XII, 483. 2665 . Rydjork, op. cit., 123. 2666 . J. Evarts Greene, The Santa Fe Trade: Its Route and Character, Worcester, Massachusetts, 1893, 18; Chittenden, Steamboat Navigation, I, 114. 2667 . Memoirs of General William T. Sherman, New York, 1875, I, 89-90. 2668 . Bundschu, op. cit., 123. 453 EPILOGUE What remains of the French presence in the state of Kansas today? Most enduring are the geographical designations given to the rivers and creeks by often unidentified explorers, coureurs des bois, trappers, or hunters. First of all is the name of the state (with a final s added), which appeared initially in Marquette and Jolliet’s manuscript map. The names of only two streams have kept their original forms; the spellings of all others have been adulterated; the spellings of all others have been adulterated or have been translated into English except for one that survived for a while before being completely renamed. In spite of its long, difficult and foreign spelling and pronunciation, the Marais des Cygnes River outlived many changes. Through the years, writers were puzzled by its name and gave it a series of interpretative spellings. Among them, Isaac McCoy wrote it “Miry Desein;” Governor Geary opted for “Mary de Zene,” and John Brown chose “Meridesene.” It took an action of the Kansas Legislature to establish officially its original and correct form. However, the incorrect form (feminine instead of masculine article) was attached to the town of La Cygne. The Saline River was commonly the name given to rivers whose waters the French found unpalatable Roy’s Creek in Brown County bear the name of an early trader, as does Canville Creek and Ogeese Creek, both in Neosho County, and Bourbonais Creek in Shawnee County. It is thought that the Solomon River was named after Salmon, Intendant of French Louisiana to whom the Mallet brothers gave a report of their travels across northwest Kansas. The Verdigris River is an adulteration of the French word vert-de-gris, meaning gray green, which was itself an approximate translation of the Indian name of the river, “grey-green-bark-waters.” The towns of Verdigris in Montgomery County and Verdigris Falls in Greenwood County no longer exist. The Marmaton River which flows through Allen and Bourbon counties is thought to be derived from the word marmiton, which designates in French a “cook’s helper.” Cortambert, the French traveler who visited the Osage Indians, used the word to refer to the village’s crier who traveled among the lodges, beating on an iron pot to announce his arrival. The name was also given in Bourbon County to a township and a small town. Several stories explain the naming of Labette Creek, county and town. Some historians claim that it came from the French word bête, meaning “beast,” as a strange animal was seen in the vicinity. Others associate it with a hunter, guide, 454 and trader by the name of Pierre Le Bête or La Bête who came to Kansas before 1840 and married an Osage woman. La Rivière du Loup in Doniphan County was translated to the Wolf River. The French name of the Rivière Vermillon was anglicized to Vermillion River, as well as the town and township of Vermillion in Marshall County. La Fourche des Républiques, which is drawn and named on the map of 1802 of Perrin du Lac was named by the French after the band of Pawnee Indians who had moved into Kansas from Nebraska. The name was shortened when translated to the “Republican River.” The Smoky Hill River was originally called the Fourche de la Côte Bucanicus, meaning the Fork of the Coast of the Buccaneers, a reference to the pirates who smoked their meat. The French name was still used in Zebulon M. Pike‘s map of 1807. It was named Branche de la Montagne ā la Fumée on Brue’s map of 1833. The Big Blue River was the translation of Rivière de l’Eau Bleue, which appeared under its French appellation on Zebulon Pike’s map. The river, which flows through Jefferson County and empties into the Kansas River, was named by the French Sauterelle. It was adulterated by English speakers to “Soutrelle” and “Sotroel,” before it was finally translated as “Grasshopper River.” After the invasion of the locusts in 1874, the towns along the river asked the Kansas Legislature to change the name to the Delaware River. Grasshopper Falls became Valley Falls in 1875. However, the neighboring counties of Atkinson and Brown have retained the name of “Grasshopper River” to the upper parts of the stream. L’Isle ā la Vache, an often mentioned island in the early reports, became Cow Island, located in the channel of the Missouri River. While there are some geographical names that retain some connection with their original French appellations, few of the French who entered Kansas left their marks on the state. There is nothing to remember du Tisné, the first recorded white man to set foot in southeast Kansas, or Bourgmont, the first to cross northeast Kansas to reach the center of the state, or the Mallet Brothers who were the first known to travel through northwest Kansas on their way to New Mexico. A monument near Fort Leavenworth indicates the probable location of Fort de Cavagnial which was for twenty years, from 1764 to 1784, the first permanent settlement of non-natives in Kansas. Few names of the French associated with the development of the state are remembered. The dealings of the Chouteau family for over a century have been forgotten. The town where they operated one of their trading posts is presently 455 called Trading Post in Linn County, not mentioning their name. A small island in the channel of the Arkansas River indicates the location where A. P. Chouteau and his relative Jules de Mun took refuge when they were threatened by the Indians on their return from New Mexico. However De Mun’s Creek in Edwards County has been renamed Coon Creek. A few creeks through Kansas bear the names of early traders. Robidoux Creek flows into the Black Vermillion as the only reminder of the family of traders who lived in northeast Kansas. The town and township of Louisville in Pottawatomie County were named after Louis Vieux who assisted the emigrants across the Vermillion River. Pensineau Station on the Fort Leavenworth-Oregon Trail which was named after the early trader in Doniphan County is now extinct and Petersburg, named after Peter Cadue who lived among the Kickapoo Indians, was vacated in 1864. Tombstones in a cemetery north of St. Marys, deteriorating buildings of the St. Marys Mission, and a few stones where once was the location of the Sugar Creek Mission are the vestiges of the missionaries who came to alleviate the hardship suffered by the Indians and to introduce them to the ways of the whites. The more lasting memorial of their work is the Sacred Heart church in Mound City, Linn County, built as a shrine to St. Philippine Duchesne who dedicated her life to the welfare of the Indians. Lingering in the Indian Tribal rolls are the French surnames of the descendants of the French traders who were removed to Kansas from the shores of Lake Michigan. François Xavier Aubry, the man who made the front page of the papers across the county, whose exploits were followed avidly, who helped find a railroad route across the Rockies, is still remembered in the names of a town and township in Johnson County. Gone are all the other landmarks which bore his name: Aubrey Springs, Fort Aubrey, Aubrey’s Trail, and Aubrey’s Crossing in Hamilton County. In all, little is left of almost two centuries of French presence in Kansas. 456 APPENDIX 1 ROUTE TO BE FOLLOWED TO ASCEND THE MISSOURI RIVER 2669 Friday, May 11. To the southwest, three quarters of a league2670. To the west, half a league. During the half league, a line of bluffs on the west bank. To the west- northwest, a quarter of a league. Then one comes to the Canze (Kansas) River that enters from the south, about a quarter of a league. Inland to the east of the river, one sees bluffs of red earth, and, a quarter of a league inside [the channel], one sees a large island. Saturday, 12. To the north-northwest, half a quarter of a league. To the northwest, half a quarter of a league. To the west-northwest, half a quarter of a league. To the west, three quarters of a league. To the west-northwest, half a league. On the east side, bluffs extending for the same distance. To the north, half a league. To the west-northwest, a quarter of a league. On the east side, bluffs extending for the same distance. At the end, a river with very clear water comes from the west.2671 Sunday, 13. To the west-southwest, three quarters of a league. To the west, three quarters of a league. At the end, an island half a quarter of a league long. To the northwest, two leagues. About a third of the two leagues down, an island a quarter of a league [long], on the east side. Some mountains during these two leagues. Monday, 14. To the northwest, three quarters of a league. Mountains extending the same distance with an island half a league long, covered with willows, in the middle of the river. To the northwest, a quarter of a league. To the north-northeast, three quarters of a league. Across, on the west side, one can see barren mountains inland. To the north-northeast, half a league. To the northwest, half a league. On the east side mountains extending for the same distance. To the west, three quarters of a league, with some kind of a prairie. To the north-northwest, half a league. Rocky banks on the west side. Tuesday, 15. To the north, three quarters of a mile. On the west side, an island of the same length. To the north-northwest, a quarter of a league. To the west, three quarters of a league. To the west-northwest, a quarter of a league. To the west side, mountains extending the same distance. To the northwest, a quarter of a 2669 . Partial translation, covering the section between the mouth of the Kansas River and the Platte River in Nebraska. The section of the report between the mouth of the Missouri and the Kansas Rive, from March 28 to April 10, 1714, has been omitted. 2670 . “The leagues of Bourgmont are greatly variable and should be interpreted sometimes as ordinary leagues, sometimes as double leagues, and occasionally as half-leagues.” Giraud, “Etienne de Bourgmont”. op. cit., 5, note 10. 2671 . Villiers du Terrage, op. cit., 55, note 1 reads: “This river must be the Little Platte, eastern tributary, but it is difficult to be precise, the mouth of the river having changed more than three leagues since that time.” The river could, not be the Little Platte River since Bourgmont states that the river comes from the west and the Little Platte enters the Missouri from the east. It could be either the Eddy or Marshall creeks, tributaries of the Missouri coming from the west 457 league. To the west, a quarter of a league with willows bordering a low prairie on the west side where one sees large prairies on high ground on the same side. To the north, half a league. To the northwest, half a league. Wednesday, 16. To the northeast, a quarter of a league. To the northwest half a league. 2672 Thursday, 17. To the northeast, one league. Halfway down the league, one finds a little low ground with a river.2673 Then prairies. To the east-northeast, a quarter of a league. Bluffs extending for the same distance. Friday, 18. Stayed [at the Kansa village]. Saturday, 19. To the north-northwest, one league. Bluffs extending for the same distance on the west side. Prairie on the east side for a quarter of a league. To the southwest, a quarter of a league. To the southeast, a quarter of a league. To the east, a quarter of a league. To the northeast, half a quarter of a league. To the north-northwest, a quarter of a league. To the east-northeast, three quarters of a league. On the west side, an island half a league long. To the northwest, half a league. To the north, a quarter of a league. To the northwest, three quarters of a league. To the east, a quarter of a league. Sunday, 20. To the east, half a league. To the northwest, a quarter of a league. To the north, a quarter of a league. Monday, 21. To the north-northeast, three quarters of a league. On the east side, bluffs extending for half a league. Large prairies behind. On the east side, an island half a league long. To the northeast, half a league. To the north, three quarters of a league. To the west, three quarters of a league. On the east side, rocky bluffs extending for half a league. At the end, a river with very clear water 2674 Tuesday, 22. To the south for a quarter of a league. From Wednesday to the following Tuesday. Stopped. Wednesday, 30. To the west-southwest, half a league. To the west-northwest, three quarters of a league. To the northwest, three quarters of a league. Then one finds an island, which we named “The Cache Island.”2675 To the southwest, three quarters of a league. To the west-northwest, half a league. To the north-northwest, half a league. Thursday, 31. To the north-northwest, a quarter of a league. To the west- northwest, one league. At the end, on the west side, half a quarter of a league of eroded hillsides, extending for half a league. To the north-northeast, one league 2672 . They must have halted on the bank of the river. 2673 . This could be Independence Creek. 2674 . This river could be the Nodaway River. 2675 . Many islands of the Missouri have disappeared since 1714 but this island, already named by the trappers, seems to be named Solomon Island today. 458 with a prairie. To the west, three quarters of a league. On the east side, an island, half a league long. To the west-northwest, one league with eroded bluffs for half a league. Friday, 1st of June. To the north-northwest, half a league. To the east-northeast, a quarter of a league. To the east, three quarters of a league. To the east- northeast, three quarters of a league with an island which follows the curve. To the northwest, half a league. To the west-northwest, a quarter of a league. To the west, three quarters of a league. To the northwest, half a league, with eroded bluffs on the west side. To the northwest, half a league. To the north, a quarter of a league. Saturday, 2. To the northwest, three quarters of a league, with a round island. To the northwest, half a league. On the west side, bluffs extending for three quarters of a league. To the west-northwest, one league and a half to [Little Tarkio Creek]. To the west-southwest, half a league. On the east side, a little river. To the west, three quarters of a league. Sunday, 3. Stopped. Monday, 4. To the west-northwest, two leagues. At the end, a little river which we call the little river of the Canze (Kansas).2676 In front of the river there is an island with willows and a large prairie that forms a loop. Tuesday, 5. To the north, three quarters of a league. To the north-northeast, three quarters of a league. Wednesday 6 and Thursday 7. Stopped. Friday, 8. To the north, three quarters of a league. Along the three quarters of the league, one sees a large prairie on the east side. To the northwest, one half league, with on the west side, bluffs a quarter of a league long. To the north- northeast, a quarter of a league. To the north, three quarters of a league, with an island a quarter of a league long. To the northwest, half a league, with bluffs extending for the same distance on the west side. To the east-northeast, one league. To the northeast, three quarters of a league where one sees large prairies on the east side. Saturday, 9 and Sunday, 10. Stopped. Monday, 11. To the west-northwest, half a league. To the west, half a league, following the eastern channel. An island three quarters of a league. To the west of the island, going through the large channel, one sees a large prairie that makes a 2676 . Probably the Big Nemaha River. The notation “In front of the river” may suggest that they stopped on the bank of the river, as they did not travel a long distance on that day. 459 large curve. To the north-northwest, one league and a half. To the west, a quarter of a league, with bluffs of red earth. Tuesday, 12. To the northeast, three quarters of a league. To the north, half a league with an island of 10 acres. On the east side, across from the island, a prairie a quarter of a league long. Wednesday, 13. To the west, half a league. On the west side, bluffs extending for the same distance, with two little streams three acres apart.2677 Farther on, prairies appear with an island at the end of the same side. The island is covered with willows and is about six acres. To the north, three quarters of a league. To the northwest, half a league. Bluffs extending for the same distance. To the northeast, one league, with a prairie a quarter of league long on the east side. To the northeast, three quarters of a league. Thursday, 14. To the north, two and a half leagues. About the middle, on the east side, an island, half a league long. At the end, a barren peninsula. A little farther, two islands in the middle of the river. To the north-northwest, a quarter of a league. To the west, a small river on the east side with an island of six acres. Farther up, to the east, an island a quarter of a league long. Friday, 15. To the north, one league and a half, with bluffs extending for the same distance and covered with hardwood trees. Saturday, 16. To the north, one league. At the start, a prairie half a league long [Tobacco I.]. To the west, a prairie, one league long, at the end of which is found the river of the Panis [Platte River]. Its mouth is wider that the Missouri at that point. Within about thirty leagues up the river, one finds ten villages of Indians, called “Panis”.2678 2677 . Villiers identified these streams as Spring and Weeping creeks, op. cit., 58. 2678 . Villiers, op. cit., 54-59. 460 APPENDIX 2 Letter of Du Tisné to M. de Bienville 2679 Kancakias (sic), November 22, 1729 Sir, I do myself the honor to write the present letter to you to beg you that I continue to receive your protection. You know that I had to turn back from the Missouris, as they did not permit me to go to the Paniousas. That made me take the decision, upon my return to the Illinois, to offer my services to M. de Boisbrant 2680 to go back, this time taking an overland route. He granted me permission to attempt it. That was not without hardship, as my people fell ill on the way. As for me, I kept well. I am including a short account of that voyage. I went to the Osages where I was very welcomed upon my arrival. I explained to them your intentions and they responded satisfactorily in what concerned them. But when I spoke of my going to the Panis, they all opposed it, whatever reasons I put forth for going. Knowing that they did not want me take along my belongings to the Panis, I proposed that they let me go, provided that I carry only three guns for me and my interpreter. After telling them repeatedly that I would go without their approval and that their refusal would anger you, they allowed me to leave. Knowing the character of the Indians, I did not delay my departure and four days later, I arrived at the Panis where I was badly received, the Osages having implied to them that our intent was to take them as slaves. Twice they raised their tomahawks above my head. As I told them how devious the Osages were, and because, defiantly and boldly, I dared them to cut my head open, brutal as those savages are, they consented to make an alliance with us and treated me well. I traded three guns, powder, pickaxes, and a few knives for two horses and a mule branded with a Spanish mark I proposed that they let me pass through to go to the Padoucas. They opposed it strongly as there were their mortal enemies. Seeing that I could not succeed, I questioned them about the Spaniards. They told me that, in the past, they had gone to their villages.2681 They traded a very old silver cup and told me that going there (to the Spanish colony) would take more than a month. It seemed to me that one could succeed in having those two nations at peace, and, in so doing, being able to gain entrance to the Spanish territory. We would have to return their slaves and give them presents. I told them that you wanted them to be our allies. One could attempt to reach the Spanish villages by going up the Missouri and bringing presents to the Panianahas (Skid Pawnees). I offered to M. de 2679 . Bienville had been governor of Louisiana since 1717. Margry, op. cit., VI, 313-315. 2680 . Dugué de Boisbriant, Commandant of Upper Louisiana. 2681 . The French text lends itself to different interpretations depending on to whom “they” and “their” refer. Nasatir wrote:” The Spaniards visited the Panis villages, nevertheless the Padoucas barred the Spaniards’ way.” Op. cit., I, 19. Wedel read it as meaning that the Panis had previously gone to the Spanish territory. Op. cit., 126, note 12. De la Harpe’s Journal clarifies that sentence as he wrote: “I questioned tem (the Panis) about the Spaniards and they (the Panis) told me that they had previously been in their villages but that the Padoukas barred their way.” 461 Boisbriant to go there. If it is your intention, I am still ready to do it in order to deserve the honor of your protection. The Osages, having refused to give me a guide to return to the Illinois, I had to rely on my compass and travel with fourteen horses and my mule. I was unfortunate to loose six horses and a colt, causing me a loss of more than 900 livres. I refer you to M. de Boisbriant to tell you about all the hardship I experienced. I hope, Sir, that, being one of the oldest lieutenants in the country, you will grant me the privilege of commanding a company. I shall try to be worthy of it by my diligence to your service. 462 APPENDIX 3 JOURNAL OF BENARD DE LA HARPE 2682 There are forty leagues from the Osages to the Panis, traveling in a southwesterly direction the whole way, crossing prairies and small hills abounding in buffaloes. The land is beautiful and heavily wooded. From the Osages to the Panis, four rivers have been crossed. The most important is the Atcansas [Arkansas River] that flows from the northwest one quarter south. Sieur du Tisné crossed it. There he found three feet deep rapids. The other rivers are of no consequence and empty into the Osage River. The river of the Atcansas is located 123 leagues to the east of the Panis village. It is on the banks of a creek, on high ground, surrounded with high prairies. To the southwest, there is a wooded area that is very useful to them. The village comprises one hundred and thirty lodges and two hundred warriors. One league to the northwest, there is another village, just as important as the first one.2683 September 27, 1719. Between those two villages, they have three hundred horses, which they value highly, and from which they do not want to part. That nation is very fierce. However it would be easy to mellow them by making gifts of guns which they prize greatly as they only have six among themselves at present. There are several other Panis villages toward the west-northwest, but they are not known. According to what the Panis reported, it takes fifteen days to reach the large village of the Padoucas. They meet them often after a six-day journey. They wage a very cruel war, to the point of eating each other. When they go to war, they harness their horses with an armor made of tanned leather. They are very skillful in handling their bows and arrows. They use a lance made of the point of a sword set in a wooden handle. At two days travel from their villages, to the wet, one quarter southwest, they have a saline of very beautiful and pure salt rock. Whenever they give food to strangers, the chiefs cut the meat into pieces and put them into their guests’ mouths. Sieur du Tisné planted the white flag 2684 in the middle of their village on September 27, 1719. 2685 They were pleased to receive it. 2682 . Partial translation of Du Tisné’s voyage across Kansas from the Osage village to the Panis in south central Kansas. Margry, op. cit., VI, 311-312. 2683 . Barry gave the total for the two villages as “at least 250 lodges, and 500 warriors.” Op., cit, 14. 2684 . Houk stated in History of Missouri, op. cit., I, 256 that Du Tisné “erected a column emblazoned with the arms of France.” In the village. 2685 . This is the only date given in the report to indicate when the expedition took place. We can assume that Du Tisné left Kaskaskia during the summer of 1719. 463 APPENDIX 4 JOURNAL OF THE VOYAGE OF SIEUR DE BOURGMONT, KNIGHT OF THE MILITARY ORDER OF SAINT-LOUIS, COMMANDER OF THE MISSOURI RIVER [which is] ABOVE THE ARKANSAS RIVER AND OF THE MISSOURI [country] TO THE PADOUCAS 2686 Departure from Fort d’Orléans Sunday, June 25, 1724. – At noon, a detachment departed down the river, headed for the Canzes 2687 and from there to the Padoucas. It was commanded by M. de Saint-Ange, ensign stationed at Fort d’Orléans, with Sergeant Dubois, corporals Rotisseur and Gentil, and eleven soldiers, namely La Jeunesse, Bonneau, Saint-Lazare, Ferret, Derbert, Avignon, Sans-Chagrin, Poupard, Gaspard, Chalons, and Brasseur; five Canadians: Mercier, Quesnel, Rivet, Rolet, and Lespine, and two men engagés of Sieur Renaudière, Toulouse, and Antoine. On Monday, July 3, M. de Bourgmont left by land, accompanied by M. Renaudière and troop cadet Bellerive, soldiers Estienne Roulot and Derbet, a drummer, the Canadian Hammelin, Gaillard, Sieur Renaudière’s engagé, and Simon, M. de Bourgmont’s servant. With them were one hundred Missouri Indians, commanded by eight war chiefs and the Great Chief of their nation, and sixty-four Osages, commanded by four war chiefs of their nation. We crossed two small rivers and arrived at our camp at four in the afternoon. As we estimated, we traveled six leagues. Hot weather. Tuesday 4. - We left at four in the morning. We marched until ten o’clock; stopped until three o’clock; then continued until six. According to our estimate, we traveled six leagues. Heat, good breeze in the hills. Between yesterday and today, our Indians killed about twenty doe and deer, and several turkeys. We crossed three small rivers; great trails, large prairies, hills, many trees loaded with hazelnuts along the streams and in the small valleys; herds of deer. Wednesday 5. - We left at four in the morning and marched until ten o’clock. Everybody rested. We departed at two o’clock. According to our estimate, we traveled six leagues, crossing a few creeks. Groves of trees on the right and left since we started. We are following the compass reading of west by a quarter west- northwest. Thursday 6. - We left at four o’clock. At five we crossed a small river. At eight we entered a wooded area; at about ten o’clock we crossed a beautiful river and stopped on its banks. We left at two. We met two Kansa Indians who had been sent by their chief and reported to M. de Bourgmont that the chiefs of their 2686 . Margry, op. cit., VI, 398-449. Trans. by author. 2687 . French spelling at that time for the Kansa Indians. The English spelling will be used in the rest of the translation. 464 nation were waiting for him on the high ground of the prairie. We walked until four in the afternoon when we met the Great Chief with six war chiefs and several other Indians who were waiting for M. de Bourgmont. They welcomed him and the Frenchmen who were with him, with calumet held high and great rejoicing. After having the Frenchmen smoke, they spread out the war mat and served a feast served with meat they had prepared. They also invited the Osage and the Missouri Indians. We camped there on the high prairie. They all danced and fired a few muskets. We had walked all day traveling toward the west, covering three leagues. Northerly wind, cool. Friday 7. - We left at four o’clock, walked for an hour across the prairie, and then entered a wooded area, encountering many steep climbs and slopes. The trail was bad for the horses. We walked all day in the direction of the west. At four in the afternoon, we reached the bank of the Missouri River, across from the Kansas village where we camped. We had traveled seven leagues during the day. Hot weather. Saturday 8 - At about eight in the morning, we crossed the Missouri River in a pirogue; the horses swam; the Indians used rafts. We landed about a gun shot distance from the Kansa village and camped. The Indians came in groups to welcome M. de Bourgmont, bringing with them large and valuable calumets; then the chiefs began their harangues and brought two horses as presents: My father, we came to see you and bring you our word. You see seven chiefs here. Our nation obeys us. We say to you, and assure you, on our behalf and on the behalf of all our young people, that we all want to go with you to the Padoucas,2688 and only desire what you desire. Therefore you can deliberate with us. We are only leaving in our village the old men, our women, and small children. We saw you among us in past years. You have never deceived us. You have crossed the Great Lake.2689 You promised us that you would come back. You kept your word with us. Therefore, we love you; we listen to you, and will follow you wherever you want; we have no other desire than yours. The first one who spoke expressed himself in those words. All the other chiefs made similar harangue, and invited M. de Bourgmont and all the Frenchmen who were with him to smoke with them in order to confirm what they had just said. Then they spread out a large buffalo robe, placed M. de Bourgmont on it, and carried him into the lodge of the first Chief. Then, they repeated the same harangue, and presented him with some peltries and food. Afterwards they carried him into the lodges of the other chiefs where they repeated their harangues and 2688 . Plains Apaches. 2689 . The Atlantic Ocean. 465 began stroking him as well as those who accompanied him, that is Sieur Renaudière and Sieur de Bellerive. They gave M. de Bourgmont all kinds of expression of friendship. Afterwards, they invited us to feast and took us to several lodges to feast again. From there, they went to our camp to fetch the other Frenchmen and take them to have their turn feasting. At five in the afternoon, a Frenchman arrived on foot with an Indian. He was sent by M. de Saint-Ange who commands the convoy traveling up the river. He reported that several Frenchmen were ill with fever and unable to go on. M. de Saint-Ange was requesting that M. de Bourgmont send him five Frenchmen and food supplies. M. de Bourgmont forwarded to him what he had requested in order to hasten their departure to the Padoucas. He also remarked that he had one hundred and sixty Indians to feed, and that everyday he had to trade to provide for their subsistence. Sunday 9. - At eight in the morning, M. de Bourgmont dispatched the five Frenchmen in a pirogue with food, and nine Indians; some to row, some to hunt. At the same time, he sent five Missouri Indians to the Otoes to notify them that he had arrived at the Kansa village. The Indians continue coming to invite us to feast in their lodges. They also invite the Missouris and the Osages, in groups of twenty- five or thirty at a time. Monday 10. - Everybody was very quiet in our camp. Our hunters came back around three, loaded with deer. At seven in the evening, four Missouris whom M. de Bourgmont had sent to the Otoes arrived, saying that they had met with a band of that nation who had gone hunting, expressly for M. de Bourgmont, and that while waiting for him, they would go on hunting and drying meat to give to his warriors when they arrive. They also said that their chief would be leaving shortly to meet M. de Bourgmont and speak to him Tuesday 11. - At six in the morning, one of the two female Padouca slaves, whom M. de Bourgmont was returning to their nation, died. M. de Bourgmont has suffered two fever attacks since he left Fort d’Orléans. He has taken medication and purged himself. Very high heat. Wednesday 12. - At eight in the morning, the Kansa chiefs came to fetch M. de Bourgmont and the Frenchmen who accompanied him. They took them to the chiefs’ lodges to feast, and then they had about thirty Padouca slaves brought in to dance before M. de Bourgmont. Very high heat and cool nights. Thursday 13 - Our Indians are becoming annoyed, as the pirogues are not arriving fast enough. M. de Bourgmont is very concerned. Since he arrived, the Mississippy [sic] has dropped about four feet which makes us hope that our pirogues will arrive in the early morning as the strong currents have diminished greatly. 466 Friday 14. - Several of our Indians have fallen sick with fever. M. de Bourgmont bled five today. 2690 The Kansas continue feasting us and furnishing us necessary food for ourselves and our Indians. Saturday 15. - Our hunters came back around four in the afternoon, loaded with deer. M. de Bourgmont prepared medication for the sick Indians. The Kansa Indians brought us quantity of grapes and we made wine which we drink everyday. We find it very good. They also came to fetch us in our camp to feast with them in their lodges Sunday 16. - The medication that M. de Bourgmont provided worked and the Indians are very pleased. Sieur de Bellerive left this morning to meet the pirogues as an Indian who had arrived at ten o’clock said that he had left them only two river bends away from here. M. de Saint-Ange arrived with the convoy at two in the afternoon with some of his people ill with fever. Their sickness had prevented them from arriving earlier. The Kansas came to invite the newly arrived men to take them to their lodges to feast them. Monday 17 - We began unloading our pirogues at four in the morning. At eight o’clock, M. de Bourgmont divided the merchandise into lots corresponding to the presents the Kansa Indians had given him. He asked for a lot to be set apart for the presents which he had promised them last winter when he gave them a flag on behalf of the King.2691 When the merchandise was separated into lots, each one in its proper place, he sent for the Kansa chiefs and immediately asked them to be seated. He then spoke to them in these words: My dear friends, I sent for you to express to you the joy I felt upon my arrival, seeing that you had kept the flag I gave you when you came to see me. When I arrived, I saw it and I see it now, still as white as when I gave it to you. Therefore I exhort you to keep it forever. I announce and declare that I came from the other side of the Great Lake, which, you know, I have crossed. I came back on behalf of the Great Chief 2692 of all nations to assure all of you that he wished and expected, without any refusal, to establish peace among all of you, and to have all nations obey him. Those who do not execute his orders, he will have defeated completely. I am going to leave in three or four days to go to the Padoucas to make peace with them, and [I am doing] all of that, because I love you, and I want you to be at peace – you, your women and your children. You can see that I am taking along with me the Missouri and Osage nations in order for them to conclude an alliance with them and for them to be witness to the treaty we will make with that nation. When I arrived, you promised me 2690 . Bourgmont’s father was a surgeon. He must have learned some rudimentary medical practices at his side. 2691 . The Kansas Indians must have visited him previously at Fort d’Orléans. 2692 . The king of France. 467 that you would come with me to the Padoucas, that would please me. Above all, I recommend to you to live in good terms with one another, as, if you quarrel with the other nations, you will forever also be quarrelling with me. I told you and I repeat to you once more that I came here to see you again, and on behalf of the Great Chief to give you his word. He has given me order and full power to make peace with the Padoucas, and, if any nation would oppose it, to destroy it completely. On the opposite, he will defend and protect against their enemies all those who will respect his will. Then, speaking directly to the Great Chief, he said: As for me, I announce to you that, when you and your people come to visit the French, you will be able to trade with them and they will furnish you the merchandise you need for your nation. For that, you will have to bring quantity of peltries. You will have to speak to all those currently your village and tell your people – men , women and even children – to come to trade their peltries with the French who are with me as they have been told that I have promised to trade with you. Bring the horses you have, I will trade them and pay you well for I need them for my journey to the Padoucas. Tuesday, 18 - Several Kansa Indians came to our camp at six in the morning to bring horses to be traded. M. de Bourgmont displayed the merchandise he was willing to give them in exchange for each horse. After looking over the merchandise, they told M. de Bourgmont that there was not enough. M. de Bourgmont answered them that he had never given so much. After discussing it for a while, M. de Bourgmont added two measures of powder, thirty balls, six double strings of beads, and four knives for each horse traded. The Indians remained for about half an hour longer, considering the merchandise, and then told M. de Bourgmont that there was not enough. M. de Bourgmont told them there was more than enough for a horse. Upon which they replied that last year, some Frenchmen had given them twice that amount and that a party of Illinois Indians who came to trade for their horses and their slaves had offered them twice the amount of merchandise M. de Bourgmont was offering them, and that they had not wanted to trade with them, knowing that M. de Bourgmont would need them for his voyage to the Padoucas. They had traded with them about fifteen slaves for whom they paid twice the normal price. After they had talked back and forth, a Kansa Indian who had brought a horse to be traded, mounted it and galloped off toward his village. M. de Bourgmont came right away out of his tent, seeming angry, and went to walk along the river. About two hours later, he forbade all Frenchmen to trade anything. Seeing that, the Kansa Indians thought that M. de Bourgmont was upset with them, and they were not mistaken, for he had already told the Great Chief of the Missouris to take any necessary measure for his journey to the Padoucas At that time, all the Kansas assembled in council from noon until about four in the afternoon. Then twelve chiefs came with the principal chiefs of the nation, 468 accompanied with more than one hundred warriors, bringing with them their long valuable Calumet. They offered them to M. de Bourgmont and to the Frenchmen in his retinue. They began to cry at his feet, stroking him, and asking him if he was angry. M. de Bourgmont replied that he was not and remarked that everyone was master of his own merchandise. They were satisfied with the reply, spread a large buffalo robe on the ground, carried him into the lodge of the Great Chief, and addressed him in these words: My Father, we thought that you were angry with us and wanted to abandon us. We beg you once more to employ us on your journey to the Padoucas. We learned that you wish to leave tomorrow by water with your pirogues, along with the Missouris and the Osages to go to to the Othos, Ayoois [Iowas] and the Panimahas to take them with you to the Padoucas. We beg you to employ us. We are at least five hundred warriors, all ready to walk with you, carrying the provisions and the merchandise that you have brought for our needs. We promise not to abandon you, whether you make peace or war; we will not leave you. You can count on us, as much as you can count on the Frenchmen you have with you. Here are five slaves whom we give you along with two horses and several bundles of peltries. We beg you to accept them on behalf of the whole nation, and believe that we are your children. M. de Bourgmont was very pleased with that address and responded that he accepted their services and that they will have reason to be pleased. However, he warned them not to leave him when he was fifty or sixty leagues onto the prairie on his way to the Padoucas, as, if that happened, he would make them regret it. They replied that they would follow him unto death, and never abandon him. M. de Bourgmont replied: Go and speak in your village. Bring your horses and your slaves tomorrow and whatever you have to trade in order to hasten our voyage as much as possible, for I wish to leave without delay. Wednesday 19. - The Kansas came at six in the morning, bringing the horses and the slaves to be traded. They traded their five remaining horses with M. de Bourgmont. They also traded six slaves and some food. The Missouris built a number of rafts on the river and brought many sick people whom they had. At two in the afternoon, the other Padouca woman, whom M. de Bourgmont was returning to her nation, died. The Osages are afraid to catch the disease and tell our soldiers that they want to leave as they have great fear of dying. Thursday 20. - The Kansas came at five o’clock in the morning with food and peltries they traded with the Frenchmen in our camp. The Osages all left this morning because of the sickness and returned to their village. Only about twenty 469 Missouris and their Great Chief are left from the Indians we brought with us. He told M. de Bourgmont that he will stay to death. We prepared our saddles, our provisions, and other utensils for our departure. The Kansas are still full of good will. With great ceremony, they presented to M. de Bourgmont the Great Chief’s daughter, a girl thirteen or fourteen years old. They wanted him to marry her, and so doing become his son-in-law and protector of their nation. M. de Bourgmont replied that he would accept with pleasure if he were not married but that Frenchmen were not permitted to have two wives. They answered: “You can do it as you are the chief.” He replied that he could not, as he would set an example for the other Frenchmen. Having heard M. de Bourgmont, the Indians told him: Since you may not marry our daughter, we give her to your son for him to marry her, and he will be our Great Chief, and therefore you will be our true Father. We beg you to give us your word. M. de Bourgmont replied that his son was still too young to marry, that he was only about ten years old, but that ,when he was grown up, if his son so desired, he himself would be happy The chief responded that he was satisfied and that he would keep her for a few years until he knew of his wishes. We retired to our camp. Around four in the afternoon, a strong storm came up, with loud thunder and lightning. We had our pirogues and the dwellings in our camp covered to protect everything from the rain and the approaching storm. At five, the rain came down with strong wind. It rained and blew with force until the storm stopped at six o’clock. It rained a little until seven when the weather began to clear. Friday 21. - All the Frenchmen are busy getting the harnesses ready and packing the supplies and utensils for our voyage to the Padoucas. The Kansas are also getting ready to depart with us. Today M. de Bourgmont sent three Indians, one Missouri and two Kansas, to ask the Otoes to come and join them on the way to go with him to the Padoucas, as they had promised him. We think that we will leave tomorrow. Very hot during the whole day. Saturday 22. - We started loading our pirogues at eight in the morning. After we did, it rained heavily until four in the afternoon, which delayed the departure of our pirogues. The Kansas came to fetch M. de Bourgmont to feast with him along with three Frenchmen. Sunday 23. - Our pirogues left at eight in the morning to return to Fort d’Orléans with our sick people, slaves, and the peltries the Frenchmen had traded. We would also have left for the Padoucas but a horse was lost and we are looking for it. At six in the evening, four Kansa chiefs came along with several old men who brought two dogs on a leash. They began crying and stroking M. de Bourgmont. Then they started speaking: 470 My Father, here are two dogs which we are bringing to you to feast on, you and your warriors. We also want to tell you that we know who took the horse you lost. An Iowa did it, taking at the same time one of our women. He left last night. Three of our young people whom we sent after him will pursue him up to his village. If they catch him, they will bring you his scalp. We beg you not to be angry with us. It is not our fault and we want to return to you the merchandise you gave us for the horse. M. de Bourgmont answered him: I am willing to believe it was not your fault but you should have informed me earlier because I shall miss that horse to carry my utensils and my supplies. The chief answered: You know very well what we promised you. We have enough people to carry your supplies, and even if you had six times more. Monday 24. - We began loading our horses at four in the morning. The Kansa chiefs came to our camp and had their young men pick up the bundles that still had to be loaded and the soldiers’ knapsacks. We left at six in the morning with the drum beating, the flag flying, and all our firearms and baggage. We established our marching order on the high ground above the village, then the drum began to beat to a marching tune, and we set. The Great Chief gave orders to his camp master, and began walking with us. We marched for about a league and a half along the river that comes from the southwest, and then we halted. The Great Chief ordered his camp master to mark the location of the French camp on the right, the Missouris’ next, then their nation’s on two rows, with the front of our camp facing west and the back facing east. The Kansas told M. de Bourgmont: Do not be surprised that we traveled for such a short day. This is our assembly area. With your permission, we are bringing along with us our women and some of our children. We have decided to bring them along for five or six days to a place where there is quantity of buffaloes. We will kill some; our women will dry the meat, and later return to our village. That will help them subsist until we come back and we will continue our journey with you as far as the Padoucas, as we promised you. This morning we had a fine drizzle from seven o’clock until noon. The rest of the day, the weather was fine at our camp. At four in the morning, M. de Bourgmont dispatched Sieur Quesnel, the Canadian with two Kansas to the Otoes to tell their Great Chiefpf that nation to come with some of his warriors to join him to go to the Padoucas with him; departure from the Kansas on July 24, 1724. 471 M. de Bourgmont, commander; M. de Saint-Ange, officer; Sieur Renaudière, mining engineer; Sieur Dubois, sergeant ; Sieur Bellerive, cadet; Rotisseur, corporal; Ferret, Bonneau, Chalons, Avignon, Brasseur, Boulet, Derbert, Saint-Lazare, Poupart, soldiers; Hervy, drummer; Hamelin, Canadian, Gaillard, Sieur Renaudière’s engagé, and Simon, M. de Bourgmont’s servant. The Canadian, Sieur Mercier and Corporal Gentil left on July, 24th with an Indian at eight o’clock to deliver a pirogue filled with provisions to the Otoes as M. de Bourgmont plans to go to the Otoes upon his return from the Padoucas. Tuesday 25. - We left at five o’clock in the morning. We marched for about 2 and a half leagues when the sky became overcast. Our Indians set up camp to take cover from the storm. It began raining hard and a strong wind lasted from one to three o’clock, which prevented the Kansas from joining us on account of their women and children. I can’t tell their number as they have not all joined us. We passed three streams and a little river, walking in the direction of the west. At three o’clock in the afternoon, two of our Kansa Indians arrived. They had seen a herd of deer on a hill. They threw down their loads of meat and came to our camp to report that they had seen a party of Padoucas who were coming to attack them. M. de Bourgmont warned the soldiers to keep a good watch although he did not believe that it was true. Wednesday 26. - M. de Saint-Ange left at daybreak with eight Frenchmen and one hundred and fifty Indians to make a reconnaissance. They went about a league from our camp; they did not see a thing and reported that it was a false alarm. At eight o’clock, we left our camp, marched a good league, and then stopped for dinner. Around two o’clock in the afternoon, the sky became overcast and it began thundering and lightning. We camped there. It started raining at five with high wind which lasted until eight. We are following a compass reading to the west. Along our way, we find low ground where there is water; beautiful prairie, hills, and from time to time, small valleys with wooded areas to the right and left. Thursday 27. - We left at four o’clock in the morning. We walked for about a league and a half when we stopped for dinner and to wait for those who are coming very slowly on account of the heat and the heavy loads that the Indians are carrying. We left at two o’clock; we had walked for one league and a half when we came upon a small river which we passed. We camped at a rifle shot distance from said river on the high prairie. Sieur Renaudière stationed himself on the trail as they all passed by. He counted three hundred warriors with two Great Chiefs of their nations, fourteen war chiefs, about three hundred women, five hundred children, and at least three hundred dogs pulling part of the equipment. They work it this way. They cover the back of the dog with a hide, the hair against the skin and girth it, put a breast strap on the dog, take two poles, the thickness of one’s arm and about twelve feet long, tie them together about half a foot from the ends, lash the poles to the dog’s saddle, attach a circle to the two poles behind the dog and then put their loads onto the circle. A single dog pulls the hides necessary to build a tipi 472 large enough to lodge ten to twelve persons, their dishes, caldrons, and other utensils, weighing about three hundred pounds. The women carry loads, which astonish the Frenchmen who have never visited that nation. They carry as much as a dog pulls. Eight to ten year old girls carry at least one hundred pounds. It is true that they only travel about 2 or 3 leagues with that load. As soon as they arrive at their campsite, they have to build tipis to provide lodging and prepare food for their husbands and children. The warriors go hunting. Presently they kill enough deer to feed everyone in our camp. The Indians also carry our soldiers’ knapsacks, prepare their food, fix their shoes and make new ones.2693 They also fetch their drinking water. We are still following the compass reading toward the west. High heat; beautiful prairie, clumps of trees from time to time, woods along the creeks and rivers, hills, prairie, now and then. Friday 28. - We departed at four o’clock in the morning. We had walked about 12 good leagues when we came upon a small river that we crossed. We stopped at a gunshot distance from it and camped there the remainder of the day to wait for the rest of the Indians and their children who had difficulty walking on account of the heavy loads they are carrying. High heat. At present we are traveling toward the west-southwest; large prairies, hills, groves of trees to the right and left. Saturday 29. - We departed at four o’clock in the morning. We walked until nine o’clock when we stopped until four in the afternoon to avoid the heat. Later we marched until seven in the evening. We traveled 5 leagues and camped on the bank of a small river; beautiful prairies, hills. The grass is very short on the high ground of the prairie but quite high in the small valleys and along the creeks and rivers. We are following a compass reading to the west-southwest. Sunday 30. - M. De Bourgmont was very ill last night. He had everybody with him all night long. At five in the morning, he took medication which upset him all day long and left him feeling very weak with terrible back pain. Very hot all day. At six in the evening, it began thundering and lightning; the sky was very overcast. It started raining at seven and lasted until ten. Monday 31. - M. de Bourgmont was very ill. He could not stay on a horse. Since he had already been dragging for a long time, fearing complications, he decided to stop and ordered a stretcher be made for the Indians to carry him. We are waiting for him to be able to resume [his travel]. He sent ahead a Padouca woman who had been a slave at the Kansas’ and a sixteen or seventeen year old lad, the woman being about twenty-two years old, whom he had traded with the Kansas for the expressly to return them to their nation. They were to inform their people that they were coming to make peace and to notify them, that being ill, he had to stop, but as soon as he recovered, he would 2693 . There is a misprint or a transcriber’s error in the text. It reads “noeuds’ but should read “neufs”, meaning “new” and not “knots”. Note of the author. Margry, op. cit, 415. 473 resume his journey to the Padoucas, so that none of their enemies could destroy them. M. de Bourgmont dispatched Sieur Renaudière’s engagé named Gaillard, who had offered to take them to their nation. He recommended to the Kansa Indians, who were on their summer hunt and still had to travel three or four more days to reach the area where there is a large number of buffaloes and where they planned to hunt, not to insult them. The Kansa Indians promised to take good care of them, to keep them until they finished their summer hunt and when they were ready to leave, they would detach some of their young men to lead them for a day on their way back to their nation. To each of the those going to the Padoucas, M. de Bourgmont gave a red Limbourg blanket; to Gaillard, two shirts; to each of the two the slaves, a little package of vermillion, beads, a caldron, an az, awls, and a few knives; to Gaillard, about three pounds of powder and balls in corresponding number. Gaillard also took the rifle that Sieur Renaudière had given him. M. de Bourgmont entrusted with him one of the letters he had prepared for the Spaniards, and, in case he should encounter them, a passport written in Spanish, signed and sealed by M. de Bourgmont, with a letter written in Latin for the Spanish chaplain. M. de Bourgmont spoke to Gaillard and the two slaves, asking them to tell the Padoucas of his intentions. He recommended to him to attempt to bring back the Padouca chiefs with him, but, if they did not want to come, to stay and wait for him in their village. He also told him to advise the Padoucas not to be surprised when he arrives and that they were coming to make peace. Gaillard promised to do everything that was recommended to him. We were at the camp where we stopped, 3 leagues inland from the Kansas River and ten days from the nearest Padouca village. The Indians explained to me, through an interpreter, that it is twice the distance that there is between the Kansas to the Missouris, which means 60 leagues At six in the evening, the Great Chief of the Otoes arrived at our camp with four of his warriors. He came to find out where we were and told M. de Bourgmont that he had a party of his warriors waiting for him on their way to the Padoucas to proceed with him. He had come to take his orders. He was disappointed to see M. de Bourgmont ill and in no condition to continue his voyage. Tuesday, August 1. - We left at five in the morning with M. de Bourgmont, carried on a stretcher by Indians who took turn resting. Three Kansa chiefs, the Great Chief of the Otoes and four warriors came back with M. De Bourgmont. We traveled 5 leagues. Wednesday 2. - We left at four o’clock in the morning. We traveled 6 leagues. Thursday 3. - We left at four o’clock in the morning. We arrived at the Kansa village at eleven o’clock. Overcast sky. As we were building a raft to take M. de Bourgmont to Fort d’Orléans, the pirogue, which M. de Bourgmont had sent to the Otoes arrived at three o’clock in the afternoon; the pirogue had been delayed by an accident; it either yawed or capsized, according to the reports of those who 474 returned with the said pirogue. Part of the merchandise it was carrying had been lost. Friday 4. -We left the Kansas at eight o’clock in the morning, M. de Bourgmont in a pirogue, accompanied by Sieur de Bellerive, cadet, Sieur Renaudière, a soldier, and the Great Chief of the Missouris with one of his warriors. We arrived Saturday 5, at two o’clock in the afternoon. M. de Bourgmont had left all the merchandise in the lodge of the Great Chief of the Kansas, with a sergeant and a soldier guarding it until he returned. He recommended to the sergeant whom he left to be sure to give him news from the Frenchman he had sent to the Padoucas, and to write him everything he would find out from the Indians. [No entry in the Journal from August 6 to September 6] We learned today, September 6, by a letter written by Sergeant Dubois, addressed to M. De Bourgmont at Fort d’Orléans, that the Frenchman who had accompanied the Padouca slaves had arrived at the Padouca village on the 25th of August. Having met Padouca hunters half a day travel from their village, the two slaves began making the signal of their nation, which consist in throwing their robes three times in the air. The Frenchman saluted them three times with his flag. They drew nearer and then conversed. A Kansa war chief and one of his warriors who accompanied the Frenchman were greatly frightened when they came close, seeing themselves among a nation with which they had been at war for so long. But the slaves, whom M. de Bourgmont ransomed and sent back, well supplied to their homeland with the Frenchman, spoke and told what they had seen. The hunters took to their village the two slaves, two Kansa Indians, and the Frenchman, and introduced them to the Great Chief. They began speaking, telling in public what M. de Bourgmont had asked them to say. They spoke at length, praising the French, and reporting to their chief that the Frenchman who came with them was bringing a flag on behalf of his chief who was coming to make peace and bring quantity of merchandise. They also said that, on his way to their village, ten days’ travel away, he had fallen ill, and had to stop to receive medical attention. They added that, as soon as he had, he would resume his journey and was sending them to explain what was happening. They also reported that the Frenchman whom the chief had sent with them was bringing a flag as a token of his word and a sign of the good alliance he wished to make with them. As soon as the speech was finished, the chiefs took hold of the Frenchman, and began stroking and caressing him, showing him great signs of friendship. They took him into all the chiefs’ lodges where they welcomed him in their own courteous manner. They began looking at his rifle, wanting to fire it but they did not know how to do it. The Frenchman showed them how to load and fire it. The Great Chief asked for it, and the Frenchman gave it to him. The Great Chief gave him a horse and a buffalo robe. Then twenty Padouca Indians went with the Frenchman and the two Kansas to join the Kansa Indians who were still on their summer hunt and were coming to their village. At first, the Kansas became panic stricken, but joined them 475 as soon as they saw the Frenchman. The Kansas welcomed and feasted them for three days. The fourth day, they left to return to their people; fifty Kansa men and three women went with them to the Padouca village where, in turn, they were well received. First, upon arrival, the Kansas gave their rifles and their robes to the Padoucas who welcomed them with great ceremony and rejoicing. At the same time, the Padoucas gave them with twelve horses and quantity of buffalo robes decorated with other little hides and porcupine quills. From there, they took the Kansas to their lodges to feast them. The Kansas stayed two days and then the Frenchman told them to return to their village to bring to M. de Bourgmont the news of what had happened and how they had been received. He also told them to tell him that the Padouca chiefs were keeping him to take him to other villages of their nation, wanting to introduce him and explain to them that the Frenchman had come on the behalf of the Great Chief to give his word, as, on his way to their village to make peace, he had fallen ill and would resume his journey as soon as he felt better. The fifty Kansas departed for their village with five Padoucas whom the Frenchman was sending to bring back M. de Bourgmont He advised them not to offend them in anyway. They had taken them to a point about three days’ travel from their village when, in the evening, several members of the Kansa nation arrived at their camp, bearing the news of the death of a highly respected woman in their village. They all began screaming, uttering dreadful sounds, and pulling their hair. The Padoucas became frightened, seeing the Kansas beheaving in that manner. Since the Indians often betray each other, and the Padoucas having been betrayed several times by the Kansas, they believed that they were getting ready to slit their throats. The five Padoucas fled during the night. The Kansas brought the news to the two Frenchmen whom M. de Bourgmont had left at the village to guard the merchandise and to transmit to him whatever they learned. He [Sergeant Dubois] did not fail writing M. de Bourgmont] everything he had learned. As soon as M. de Bourgmont heard about the news in Fort d’Orléans, he ordered M. de Saint-Ange, the officer and three soldiers to ride hurriedly to the Kansa village and gave him his instructions. He [Saint–Ange] left Fort d’Orléans on the first of September and arrived at the Kansa village on the 8th. As soon as he learned all that was happening, he did not fail reporting it to M. de Bourgmont. Having received the news, M. de Bourgmont began preparing to resume his journey to the Padoucas, although he had not yet completely recovered from his illness. M. de Bourgmont left Fort d’Orléans by water on the 20th of September and arrived at the Kansa village, accompanied by Renaudière, the surgeon major, his young son, and nine soldiers. The same day, M. de Bourgmont sent a courier to the Otoes to ask their Great Chief to join him with a party of his warriors to accompany him to the Padoucas. The Frenchman named Gaillard, whom M. de Bourgmont had sent to the Padoucas, arrived at our camp at the Kansa village on October 2nd, with three Padouca chiefs and three of their warriors. M. de Bourgmont received them, his flag flying, went toward them, and welcomed them. He placed his troops under arms and ordered them to fire their muskets. The Padouca chiefs appeared to be satisfied with the reception, and a little surprised. M. de Bourgmont asked them to sit down in his tent and offered them blankets of red Limbourg cloth and several other useful merchandise. When they arrived, the Kansas took away 476 their bows, arrows, and the buffalo robes which covered them but the Padoucas were not surprised as such is the Indian custom, especially when they are on a diplomatic mission. The Frenchman named Gaillard who brought along the five Padoucas reported that he had come with about six hundred warriors and their families. They were from eight villages and many more were expected to join him. We could already see their fires. When they left, Gaillard said that they were at four days’ travel from their village and that they were approaching to the Kansa village to hear news about the French chief. They had sent ahead the Frenchman along with five men of their nation to come to the Kansas to inquire whether M. de Bourgmont had resumed his journey. They arrived seven days after they had left their people. The Great Chief of the Padoucas had asked the Frenchman and the Padoucas whom he was sending to the Kansas to advise him as soon as they received news concerning the French chief. He told them to return to announce his arrival in order for him to make preparations to welcome him. He allowed seven days for them to reach our camp and four days for them to stay here, ordering them to bring him news from the French with all possible dispatch. Sieur Quesnel, the Canadian, arrived from the Otoes on October 4. M. de Bourgmont had sent him to ask the Great Chief to come to join him at the Kansa village. He brought with him seven war chiefs of that nation, whom M. de Bourgmont welcomed warmly. They arrived with large and valuable calumets. On October 5, at six o’clock in the morning, six Iowa chiefs arrived, waving large calumets above their heads. M. de Bourgmont welcomed them, and then ordered a large fire to be built in a beautiful square in front of his tent, at the front of the camp. He assembled the chiefs that I list below. He sat at the door of his tent, facing the fire. He placed the Padouca chief to his right; then the Great Chief of the Missouris and the chiefs of the Otoes, then next the chiefs of the Iowas and the chiefs of the Kansas, all around the fire with several warriors of all those nations. He put M. de Saint-Ange and Sieur Renaudière at his left. After everyone had been seated, M. de Bourgmont rose and began addressing all the nations in these words: My friends, I am pleased to see you all assembled here so that I may express my thoughts to you. I came here on behalf of the Great Chief of all the nations, who is on the other side of the Great Lake, and on behalf of the Great Chief who lives on the sea shore2694 to bring you their messages, and express his sentiments. He has given me full power to make peace with the Padoucas, and since they are among us, I want all of us to conclude an alliance with them, and I desire you to live in good terms with them and treat one another as you do with us and with the Otoes, Osages, Iowas, Kansas, Panimahas, Missouris, and Illinois. All the chiefs rose and began answering in a loud voice: 2694 . The governor of Louisiana. 477 “We wish the same. We already have promised it to you, and therefore we have no other desire than yours.” All the chiefs of all those nations began smoking, passing among themselves their valuable calumets and exchanging niceties in their own particular way. They all seemed pleased. Then the Padouca chief began speaking and said: It is good, my dear friends, for us to make peace and I believe that you do not wish to deceive us. Here is the Great French Chief who comes to our villages to visit our nation. I invite you to come with him. We have many horses and blue stones2695.We will give some to all of you. They answered: The French chief will decide. After that, food that had been prepared earlier was served. At six in the evening, the Padoucas danced and sang for an hour and a half in the presence of the chiefs of the Missouris, Otoes, Iowas, and Kansas and offered them to smoke one after the other. They all seemed pleased. Today, October 6, 1724, M. de Bourgmont had the merchandise displayed and divided into three lots, one for the Otoes, one for the Iowas, and one for the Panimahas. In each lot, he put powder, ball, vermillion, large and small knives, beads, axes, pickaxes, awls, hooks, gunflint, and other merchandise useful to them. M. de Bourgmont sent for the chiefs of those three nations to come and he spoke in these words: My friends, I called for you to tell you that I wished to take you with me to the Padoucas in order for you to be witness to the peace which I am to conclude with them. I am pleased that you came so that you and I can make an alliance with the Padoucas. Here are five of them, three chiefs and two warriors.You are certainly pleased with that. They replied in a loud voice: Yes, my Father, we have no other desire than yours. All the chiefs exchanged smoke, passing large and valuable calumets among themselves, talking to each other and demonstrating signs of friendship. 2695 . Probably turquoises. 478 The Great Chief of the Panimahas spoke last and began addressing M. de Bourgmont: My Father, it is good for us to make peace with the Padoucas for many reasons: first, for our tranquillity; second, in order to be able hunt without fear, and third, to be able to have horses which will help us carry our equipment when we go to our winter quarters because on our way back, our women and children die under their loads. M. de Bourgmont told them: This is good, friends. Tomorrow I am going to make all arrangements for us to leave the day after tomorrow. On the 7th of October, the Kansa chief sent for M. de Bourgmont, M. de Saint-Ange, M. de Bourgmont’s son, and Sieur Renaudière to come to his lodge to feast. He also called for the five Padoucas, the Iowas, the Otoes, the Missouris, and the Panimahas. After everybody was seated on mats, around the fire burning in the middle of the lodge, the Great Chief of the Kansas spoke and addressing M. de Bourgmont said: My Father, I sent for you and the Frenchmen who are with you to feast. Here is the food that has been prepared. I thought that you would be pleased that I also invited the chiefs of all the nations you see here. M. de Bourgmont answered him: You did the right thing. That pleases me. The Great Chief of the Kansas continued, addressing M. de Bourgmont: My Father, as you are leaving tomorrow, you have only to decide how many warriors you want to take along to accompany you to the Padoucas. M. de Bourgmont answered: Take five or six. That will be enough as I want to travel with haste onaccount of the season. Then he said to the other nations that were present: You may return home. I only ask for two chiefs from each nation. They answered: 479 You are our master. You decide for us, and those who must go with you will get ready. M. de Bourgmont explained why he was not taking more people with him and told them: You see here the five Padoucas who came here to bring their word to all the nations. You concluded here an alliance with them. You all smoked together, and danced, and drank, and have already eaten several times in my presence and beside you gave me your word and I believe you will keep it. All the chiefs of the nations began saying: Yes, my Father, we will keep our word and we have no other will than yours. Our only regret is to see us so far from the French, as we are often in need of merchandises, especially of powder and balls. M. de Bourgmont told them: I shall send Frenchmen to visit you in your villages and they will bring you some. They responded: That is good as we have quantity of peltries, especially beaver. We will trade with them. They will be pleased, and so will we. We retired to our camp to prepare to leave the next day. We had a light rain from eleven to five o’clock in the afternoon... On October 8, M. de Bourgmont, M. de Saint-Ange, M. de Bourgmont’s son, Sieur Renaudière, a sergeant, and seven soldiers, the Frenchman named Gaillard who had returned from the Padoucas, Sieur Quesnel, the surgeon-major, the Canadian, named Pichard and one of Sieur Renaudière’s engagé departed at 9 o’clock in the morning from the Kansa village for the Padouca village, flag unfurled, with ten horses that were carrying the baggage. We are taking with us the five Padoucas who came to the Kansa village, seven Missouris, the Great Chief of the Kansas and four war chiefs from his nation, four Otoe chiefs, and three Iowa chiefs. We walked about half a league. We passed a small river. We are following a compass reading west by a quarter southwest. We traveled 5 leagues. After noon, we passed two creeks. It was cloudy all day. Prairie, hills, clusters of trees in several places. Found woods along the creeks. October 9. - We left our camp at five o’clock in the morning. We marched until four o’clock in the afternoon. It rained lightly from noon until five o’clock in the 480 afternoon. We passed a small river and three creeks. According to our estimate, we traveled seven leagues. . . . . The compass reading indicating a west-southwest direction. Frost last night. This morning, an hour before daybreak, Gaillard and Sieur Quesnel left with two Padoucas to inform the Padoucas of our departure and our advance toward their village. October 10 - We left at five in the morning. We marched until five in the afternoon. We crossed two small rivers and three creeks. We traveled eight leagues, with a compass reading of west-southwest. Large prairie, small woods to the right and left of our trail, several hills with rocks on the surface. Along the creeks, we also find slate fragments and in the prairie reddish marbled stones, protruding one, two, or three feet out of the ground; some are more than six feet in diameter. Today we saw quantity of deer. Frost. October 11. - We left at five in the morning. We crossed two creeks at eight; at ten, a small river and at eleven, a creek. Then we arrived at the Great River of the Kansas which we forded. There were only three feet of water, and some quicksand. We unloaded our horses; they were sinking. We crossed the river from north to south. From there we continued in a west-southwesterly direction. There was a small river to the right of our trail and small hills to our left; then another river and large hills. The compass reading for the river was straight west. It enters the Missouri River about twenty leagues from the place where we crossed it. When the water is high, the river seems in some places as wide as the Missouri. According to the Indians, it is a very long river. Along it, there are woods on both sides, quantity of deer, turkeys, ducks, and buffaloes, bulls and cows in innumerable number. Our hunters killed two during our crossing. We camped along a small river. According to our estimate, we traveled 8 leagues. Large prairie, hills with rocks protruding from the ground, and very short grass, clusters of trees on the right and left. October 12. - We left at five in the morning. We walked until eleven thirty o’clock. We stopped to eat dinner. We marched until six in the evening and made 8 leagues, according to our estimate. All day long, we skirted large bluffs to our left; large flat prairie, hills, small valleys with quantity of rocks, large and small. We are seeing quantity of buffaloes, bulls and cows; herds of deer, stags and does, more than two hundred together; turkeys all along the creeks and rivers; clusters of trees to the right and left; many hills which from a distance resemble castles or fortifications. The grass is very short on the upland. We marched all day long. October 13. - We departed at five o’clock in the morning and walked until ten when we stopped to rest ourselves and the horses. We traveled 3 good leagues. For about a mile, we followed a small river on our left, and from there we went onto the highlands where many creeks originate. Today we saw on all sides more than thirty herds of buffaloes, bulls and cows. They are in such large number that it is impossible to count them. Each herd appeared to have four or five hundred head at least. We also saw herds of deer of about the same size. Our hunters kill as many as they wish, and only eat the fattest, taking the tongues from the others. 481 Continuous prairie, clusters of trees along the creeks and in the small valleys. We are following a compass reading to the southwest. Beautiful weather. October 14. - We set off at five in the morning and walked until ten o’clock when we halted to let the rain pass. It stopped raining at eleven. We left at noon and marched on the upland until six in the evening. We found a large quantity of springs of beautiful clear water, which form several creeks and small rivers that in turn empty into the Kansas River. Large prairie as far as one can see with no trees for about 3 leagues. Clusters of trees along some creeks and small rivers; herds of buffaloes in large number, as far as we can see. We found many rocks on the ground and walls of exposed stones, resembling old tumbledown hovels from a distance. Today M. de Bourgmont killed a buffalo with his pistol while he was riding his horse. The compass reading was to the west, quarter southwest all day long. We traveled 8 leagues during the day. Beautiful weather. At each meal, we eat as many buffalo tongues as we want. October 15. - We departed from our camp at five o’clock in the morning. We stopped for a halt. We left at one thirty. We passed several creeks and two small rivers. Sometimes we marched for 2 leagues without finding a single tree, except for those along the rivers and the creeks. In some places, large prairie, small hills, rocks on the surface of the ground. As usual we find herds of buffaloes. We followed a compass reading to the west-southwest. We traveled 7 leagues today. We had a frost last night. The sun is hot during the day. October 16. - We departed at five this morning. We marched until eleven when we halted. We left at one and marched until five. We crossed two small rivers and several dry creeks. On small hills, we are finding gray and black stones. There are some large ones that protrude out of the ground; others roll down and are very light. Our guide had misled us and after noon has taken us too far south. Today we traveled six leagues. October 17. - We left the camp at four in the morning. We traveled about 2 leagues in the direction west-northwest in order to return to our route. Then we traveled in a westerly direction and stopped at noon. We left at one thirty and walked all day in a westerly direction. We camped at six o’clock along a small river where we found a Padouca encampment about four hundred feet from our camp. They had abandoned it about eight days ago. We were very glad to have found it as we judged that we would soon locate them by following their trail. We marched 6 leagues. We set fire to the prairie to send signals in order to be answered by them without delay. The two Frenchmen who had gone ahead answered us by setting fire to the prairie. Thus we learned of the two Frenchmen’s arrival to the Padouca camp. October 18. - We departed at five o’clock in the morning and marched until nine o’clock when we found a small river of brackish water. On the bank of the river, we found a Padouca campsite that had been abandoned four days ago. We 482 marched about half a league along the river when we halted to eat. As soon as we unloaded our horses, we saw a large cloud of smoke towards the wet. It was our two Frenchmen who were coming to meet us with eighty Padoucas and the Great Chief of their nation. We answered their signal immediately and set fire to the prairie. Half an hour later, we saw the Padoucas with our two Frenchmen, galloping toward us, carrying the flag the Frenchmen had brought them. M. de Bourgmont called the Frenchmen to arms, with the flag unfurled. First, when they arrived, we saluted them three times with our flag; then the Indians who were with us saluted them three times, by throwing their robes three times over their heads. The Padoucas also saluted us and shook hands with everybody. Afterwards, M. de Bourgmont asked them to sit and smoke their large and valuable calumets, with great rejoicing on both sides. Later they mounted all our Frenchmen on their horses, some riding their own horses; others riding double. They also gave mounts to the Indians who were with us. They took us to their camp, which was 3 leagues away from the place where we met them. M. de Bourgmont called for a halt at a pistol shot distance away from their encampment, ordered his tent to be put up , and had his Frenchmen stack their rifles, with a sentry in front of them, at the entrance of his tent. The Great Chief of the Padoucas began immediately within our view to make arrangements for his camp. A great number of warriors arrived. They spread a buffalo robe on the ground and placed M. de Bourgmont on it, along with his son, M. de Saint-Ange and Sieur Renaudière. Fifteen men carried them to the lodge of the Great Chief of the Padoucas. Afterwards they offered us a feast with great rejoicing. When night came, we retired to our camp. We traveled 6 leagues today, always marching in the direction of the west. October 19. - At six o’clock in the morning, M. de Bourgmont ordered the merchandise to be unloaded and divided into lots, according to each kind: one lot of rifles, one of sabers, one of pickaxes, one of axes, one of powder, one of balls, one of red Limbourg blankets, one of blue Limbourg blankets, one of mirrors, one of Flemish knives, two of other kinds of knives, one of shirts, one of scissors, one of combs, one of flint stones, one of wad hooks, six of vermilion, one of awls, one of needles ,one of caldrons, one of large hawk bells, one of small and large beads, one of small ones, one of brass wire, one of thick brass wire to make necklaces, one of rings, and one of vermilion boxes. After all that merchandise was displayed, M. de Bourgmont called for all the Padouca chiefs, along with the most influential persons in their village and their nation, who then all assembled in our camp. After they had all gathered, a total of about two hundred, M. de Bourgmont stood with a large flag in his hand, in the midst of all these people and where the merchandise was. He began haranguing the Padoucas in presence of the Frenchmen and the Indians who were with him: My friends, I ask you to listen to the reasons for my coming to see you. It is to bring you the word of the King, my master, who is the Great Chief of all the nations whom we know are our allies: the Missouris, Osages, Kansas, Otoes, Panimahas. You see them with 483 me, and they are witness to this, so that hereafter you may live in concord and good terms, and that you may visit each other, trade with each other where you will be welcomed. Whenever you come to visit the French, they will welcome you and give food and tobacco, as they give every day to other nations who are our allies. I declare and warn you also that I want and expect that, without an objection you will welcome all the nations I have just mentioned when they come to see you. I also want you to trade with them without causing any difficulty or being avaricious. I also inform you and warn you that, when Frenchmen come to trade with you or wish to travel to the land of the Spaniards, you are not to cause any trouble, or put an obstacle in their way. On the contrary, I want you to allow them pass through and return, to let hem come and go, and to be their guides when needed. We will pay for your services. I also promise that if any of our allied nation wage war against you, you need only to inform the French and they will defend you and see that proper justice is done to you. Then M. de Bourgmont presented the flag to the Great Chief of the Padoucas, telling him: Here is the flag I give you on behalf of the King, my master who is the chief of all the nations. I want you and command you to keep it always as white as I am giving it to you, so that when the French hereafter come to visit you, they may see it immaculate. I wish to say, my friends, speaking to all of you here assembled, that you must not quarrel with any of our allied nations. After which, Mr. De Bourgmont added: My friends, the merchandise that you see displayed here is for all of you. You only have to take it. The King, our master gives it to you and has sent me expressly to bring you his message and present the flag to the Great Chief of the Padoucas. The chief took the flag that M. de Bourgmont had given him and began to speak: My Father, I accept the flag you present to me in behalf of the King and on your own behalf and I assure you that it is with great pleasure that I receive it. We listened to your words and we all wish to obey you. For a long time we have desired to make peace with the French. Henceforth we will visit the French; we will bring horses to trade with them and want to make peace with all the nations you just mentioned. We are very pleased and, as they are witnesses, I am glad that they are hearing and seeing it. Thus they may come to see us; we will go to their villages with calumets, and that will be good. We will all hunt in 484 peace. We have wished it for a long time. Thus, my Father, we all promise you, in the name of our entire nation, that we have listened to your words, and that is good. We are all pleased and promise you not to wage war against any of the nations you just mentioned. They may come to our place and we will receive them as true brothers and allies. They may come whenever they wish; they will be welcomed. As for you, my Father, we all promise you that we will keep our word, and when the French come to see us, we will receive them well and, if they desire to go to the Spaniards we will guide them there. They are only at a twelve days’ distance from our village They come every spring to see us and bring us horses and a few knives, awls and axes but they are not like you, who give us quantity of merchandise, such as we have never seen before. And we cannot reciprocate for such great gifts. M. de Bourgmont said to them: Take all this merchandise. The King gives it to you. For myself, I amasking nothing of you in return. The Great Chief of the Padoucas talked to his people who were present and told them: Let us go, my children. Here is the merchandise the Great French Chief is giving to all of us. Let each take some. The Great Chief began taking his share, followed by the other chiefs and the most respected men; then the entire nation looked at the Frenchmen, asking them permission to take some, but they did not dare to do so. They were all stunned to be given free merchandise. After they had taken the merchandise given to them, the Great Chief began speaking in the middle of his village. About an hour later, seven horses were presented to M. de Bourgmont as a gift. The Great Chief came to see M. de Bourgmont, along with twelve chiefs of his nation and several warriors. Immediately he shook hands with M. de Bourgmont and began to embrace him. First, M. de Bourgmont asked him to sit at his right, and the others next to him. Immediately, M. de Bourgmont invited them to smoke from his large and valuable calumet. After they had all smoked, the Great Chief of the Padoucas rose and began speaking in the following words: My Father, I am coming to inform you on behalf of our nation that we are very pleased to see you today in our village with the Frenchmen who are with you. Is it true that you are really men? The man and the woman whom you ransomed from our enemies’ hands and whom you sent back to us, have spoken well of you and told us at length about the Frenchmen, but I would never have believed all that I see today if 485 you had not come yourself. My Father, here is the food which the women of our village bring for you and your warriors. M. de Bourgmont offered him the peace pipe and, about an hour later, the Padoucas returned to their lodges and we to our camp. October 20. - As soon as it was daylight, the Great Chief of the Padoucas, accompanied by tenor twelve of his war chiefs, came to see M. de Bourgmont. who asked them to sit down and offered them his peace pipe. The chief of the Padoucas said to M. de Bourgmont: My Father, I am coming to invite you to my lodge to feast alongwith your most prominent Frenchmen. M. de Bourgmont went to the Great Chief’s lodge, accompanied by M. de Saint- Ange and Sieur Renaudière where we ate the prepared meat. There was buffalo cooked in a pot; sun-dried meat prepared with plums crushed with their pits and cooked in a pot. There were other types of sun dried food. After the feast was over, the Great Chief accompanied M. de Bourgmont to his camp where he assembled more than two hundred Padoucas and a large number of women and children. The Great Chief of the Padoucas stood in the midst of the people and spoke in these words: You see here the Frenchmen whom the Great Spirit sent to our village to make peace with us. It has been made. He gave his word and large quantity of merchandise without asking for anything in return. Thus, we believe him and we see very well that he does not want to deceive us. Go, all of you, men and women, and get food for the Frenchmen, our friends. Here is the Great French Chief who has established peace between us and our greatest enemies. We will now go hunting in peace; we will visit those who up to now made war on us, and they will come to our village. They will return our women and children whom they took from us and who are slaves in their village in exchange for horses. The Great French Chief has promised it to us and we saw him bring us two loads of merchandise without asking for any payment. He returned two [slaves] who were sick. Therefore, my children, we are now at peace. Let us take to our lodges all the men, our friends, whom the Great Chief brought with him and let them feast. They invited all the Indians M. de Bourgmont had brought with him. Some of them slept in their lodges. During our stay at their village, our soldiers took turns being feasted. They were covered with thousands of caresses and the Indians offered them their daughters. At two in the afternoon, the Great Chief of the Padoucas with three war chiefs and several warriors came to our camp to see M. de Bourgmont. As soon as 486 he arrived at M. de Bourgmont’s tent, he shook hands with him, invited him and his most important men to sit and smoke. About half an hour later, a large number of Padoucas with several women and children gathered at our camp. The Great Chief of the Padoucas arose in the middle of all those people and began speaking in the presence of the Frenchmen and the people of his nation. He called for the interpreters to ask them to explain to M. de Bourgmont what he was going to say. First, he started by telling our interpreter that he would give two of his fingers to be able to be understood directly by M. de Bourgmont. Then he began speaking: My Father, you see here a great number of warriors but you only see one fourth of those who are under my command. I have notified them of your arrival and you see here some people of the twelve villages who are under my authority. I have spoken to all of them and explained to them the reasons of your visit that you came to make peace with us. They have listened to me; they also have listened to you. Henceforth, they will obey you and so will I. They have no other desire than yours, but they beg, as I especially do, you to send Frenchmen to our villages; we will give them horses. In three or four moons we will have more than we do now as a large number of our warriors are leaving soon for the Spanish country to trade with them. We will take a large number of buffalo robes to them; they will give us one horse for every three robes; but they are not like you who gave us lots of merchandise. They give us nothing. They trade only a few knives and some bad axes; they are not like you who give us rifles, powder and balls, caldrons, axes, knives, blankets, awls, which are very useful to make our shoes, and other good merchandise. Thus you can rely on us, for we will all obey you. I am telling you and promise that if you should ever need two thousand warriors, you only have to ask. Whenever you wish, I will notify them and they will all follow me to serve you. I repeat: “You can count on us.” M. de Bourgmont responded to his offer with these words: My friend, I am much obliged to you for your offer. We are at peace with all the nations of this country. But, if any nation should quarrel, I will not refuse assisting you. To which, the Head Chief replied: My Father, you gave me great pleasure. You must let me know if you need me and my warriors. I am always very ready to obey you. M. de Bourgmont asked some of his men to offer them a smoke from time to time. After smoking for a quarter of an hour, the Great Chief of the Padoucas who was sitting next to M. de Bourgmont arose and began to speak again to the three hundred people of his nation and all the Frenchmen who accompanied M. de 487 Bourgmont. Looking at the Indians whom M. de Bourgmont had brought with him, he began speaking. Ah! my friends, how lucky you are, you other Indians to be near the French as they furnish you merchandise which you need, whereas we have nothing. It is true that we go to the Spanish country but they only trade with us horses, a few knives, and some bad axes. They do not trade rifles, lead, powder, caldrons, blankets, nor any of the goods the Great French Chief gave us. Thus the French are our true friends. Then he took a handful of earth and said in a loud voice: Now, I consider the Spaniards as I do this dirt and addressing. M. de Bourgmont, he said: As for you, I regard you as the sun. Pointing to him, he added: You are our true Father. Therefore we will obey you whenever you think it right; you can depend on us. Our whole nation is pleased. What I am telling you is true, as they listen to me and I make them obey me in all the villages of our nation. I am the Emperor of all the Padoucas. They never go to war or to the Spaniards without my permission. My Father, I am like you; I make my people obey me. Whenever I need a party of warriors to go to war, to hunt, or to the country of the Spaniards, I only have to speak in my village, and inform the others. All my war chiefs assemble immediately in my lodge; we hold a council and, as soon as I have discussed what I wish to be undertaken, I order one or two of the war chiefs, if I judge it right, to march at the head of the warriors whom I selected for such an expedition, and who, upon their return, do not fail to report to me everything they did during their absence. When he finished his speech, he sat next to M. de Bourgmont who gave him a smoke and the chief took into his hands a brass tobacco box belonging to M. de Bourgmont. It was fashioned in the Dutch style and opened by means of some small secret springs. The chief tried to open it but could not succeed. M. de Bourgmont showed him how to open it. He fell immediately in love with it and M. de Bourgmont gave it to him as a present. Then the chief asked to trade a blue coat, lined in red, and adorned with a double row of brass buttons that M. de Bourgmont was wearing and one of his horse pistols. M. de Bourgmont gave him his coat and a pistol. The Padouca chief returned to his lodge very happy. Shortly after we 488 heard him speaking in his village, praising the Frenchmen. He later sent a horse to M. de Bourgmont. About half an hour later, he came to our camp with a large number of women and girls who were walking one behind the other, each carrying a plate of meat, some cooked, some sun dried, other pounded, others with plums cooked with their pits, or sun dried. They brought us two plates of cooked maize, which was all they had in the village. It would be difficult to believe how they caressed us while we were in their village. In the morning, they took M. de Bourgmont’s son into their lodges and kept him all day, arguing as to whom would have him in his lodge. They brought him back at night to his father in his camp. The Great Chief‘s son gave him about a dozen of blue stones strung like a rosary. October 21. - It started raining after midnight and lasted until noon. At one in the afternoon, it began to sleet. The Great Chief came to our camp this morning to see M. de Bourgmont and ask him when he intended to leave. M. de Bourgmont told him “tomorrow morning”. The Great Chief answered: Very well, my Father, I am going to speak to my village to ask them to bring food for you and your warriors. At two in the afternoon, the Great Chief of the Padoucas came to our camp and told M. de Bourgmont: Well, my Father, you are leaving tomorrow. Thus I pray that you remember me and all my nation; do not fail to send us Frenchmen as early as you can, and be sure that they bring us merchandise; we will trade horses with them. We will have more than we do now, as we will go to secure some from the Spaniards during your absence. In case the Frenchmen want to go to the Spaniards’, I will see that they are taken up to their village. October 22. - We left at ten in the morning. We marched until five o’clock and traveled 5 leagues. The compass reading was east-northeast. WAY OF LIFE OF THIS NATION The villages of this nation that are located far from the Spaniards’ live exclusively from hunting, winter as well as summer. However, they are not completely nomadic, as they have large villages composed of large lodges. They hunt in bands of fifty to eighty and sometimes the band comprises the occupants of up to one hundred lodges. After they return to their village, those who stayed, leave at once. Those who come back bring supplies of dried meat, although they can find buffaloes and deer close to their village, about five or six days away. They find herds of buffalo bulls and cows in great number and kill as many as they want. HUNTING PRACTICES OF THIS NATION 489 The Great Chief speaks in his village the day before he wants to send his warriors hunting and they get ready to leave the next day. About fifty or sixty warriors mount their horses with their bows and arrows; they go about two or three leagues from their camp where they find buffalo bulls and cows in herds of three to four hundred heads. They start by breaking off their horns and making them run as fast as their horses until their tongues hang out a foot. Then, they shoot their arrows that penetrate a foot deep into the bellies of the animals. Then, they choose the cows that seem the fattest. They kill in this manner as many as they want. Consequently they ride many horses to death and they never have any colts as the mares all abort during the hunts. This nation sows very little corn. Nevertheless they sow a small amount of it and a few pumpkins. They do not grow tobacco; however, they all smoke when they have any. The Spaniards bring them some when they come to trade with them; they also bring them horses and the Padoucas trade with them buffalo hides, both shaved or with the wool, which they use as blankets. This nation is very large; their territory extends over two hundred leagues. They know what silver is and, according to what they say, the Spaniards exploit silver mines near the villages of their nation, as they showed us how the Spaniards work in their mines. The villages located far from the Spaniards use knives and flint stones to cut down middle size trees. They also use them to cut off the horns of the buffaloes they kill. This nation is not at all fierce; they are very friendly, which explains why they have been dealing with the Spaniards for a long time. During our short stay with them, they became very friendly with our Frenchmen and they wanted M. de Bourgmont to leave a few with them, saying that they would take good care of them. In the village where we made peace, there were about one hundred and fifty lodges, therefore eight hundred warriors, more than fifteen hundred women, and about two thousand children. Some Indians have up to four wives. They also have many dogs which pull their equipment when they are short of horses. The men cover their bodies entirely; most wear trousers of dressed skins with the bottoms fashioned in the Spanish style. The women cover their bodies with dresses made of dressed skins. The tops and the skirts have fringes made of the same material all around the bottom. The nation is completely deprived of European merchandise and knows little about it. When we handled our firearms in front of them, they lowered their heads in fear. They were afraid of them. When they go to war, they always ride their horses and they have buffalo hides purposely dressed for them to wear and to wrap around their horses to protect them from the arrows. October 23. - We left our camp at five o’clock and traveled 10 leagues during the day, following a compass reading to the east-northeast. Beautiful weather. 490 October 24. - We left at five o’clock and made 10 leagues. We encountered many herds of buffalo bulls and cows. October 25. - We left at five 0’clock and traveled 10 leagues today; the compass reading is to the east. Beautiful weather. October 26. - We left at five. We traveled 10 leagues today. The compass reading is to the east. Good weather, frost. October 27. - We left at five o’clock. We reached the Kansas River at three in the afternoon and crossed it. Upon arriving, we camped on the bank of said river. We traveled 6 leagues; the compass reading is to the east. October 28. - We left at five o’clock and made 8 leagues today; the compass reading is to the east. Good weather. October 29. - We left at five o’clock and traveled 6 leagues. On our way, we found many packs of wolves. The compass reading is to the east. October 30. - We left at five o’clock. We traveled 6 leagues today. The compass reading is to the east. It rained half of the day. October 31. - We left at five o’clock and arrived half a league from the Kansa village. We camped to let the rain pass. We made 4 leagues today. November 1st. - We left at five o’clock. We arrived on the bank of the Missouri River at three o’clock and stopped. At noon, we had the horses swim across the river. M. de Bourgmont ordered canoes be constructed out of hides to load part of the people and the Missouri Indians to take them down to Fort d’Orléans. November, 2. - M. de Bourgmont embarked on a canoe with six Frenchmen. The Indians and four Frenchmen were in canoes made out of hides. M. de Saint- Ange was ordered to travel by land with the remainder of the Frenchmen and take the horses back to Fort d’Orléans. M. de Bourgmont arrived at Fort d’Orléans on the 5th of November at noon where M. de Saint-Ange’s father had been left in command of the camp in his absence. He had cannons and muskets fired upon his arrival, having previously flown the flag over the fort. Afterwards, a Te Deum was sung in gratitude for the peace with the Padoucas. We, the undersigned, having accompanied M. de Bourgmont since and during the first and second expeditions to the village of the Padoucas in order to conclude an alliance between that nation and the French and to make peace between them and our allied nations who used to be at war with said Padoucas, certify that the present report of the first and second expeditions is true in all its points and articles, having seen and heard everything that constitutes the subject, contents, and tenor of said 491 report. In faith of which, we signed the present certificate at Fort d’Orléans in Missouri Country, on the fifteenth day of the month of November of the year 1724. Signed: SAINT-ANGE, acting as Major; RENAUDIERE, Mining engineer; DUBOIS, sergeant; DELACHENAIE, JEANTY, FERET DE FORGE, DARBES, J. BONNEAU, HENRY, + mark of CHATEAUNEUF, QUESNEL, and + mark of PICHARD. 492 APPENDIX 5 Pierre Mallet’s goods as listed by Bernardo de Miera y Pacheco2696 2 black beaver hats with gold braid 4 pairs of men’s Lyons stockings, damaged 12 others pairs of women’s in god-awful (para fe males colores) colors 2 pieces of ribbon embroidered in pink and green 1 other of solid yellow [ribbon] 47 varas 2697 of simple black taffeta 40 more varas of yellow [taffeta], damaged 6 papers of buttons, artificial gold, 24 doz. ea, and 3 papers of 4 doz. 6 more trips of buttons of false silver, very small 1 piece of heavy nankin, 2698 damaged, 35 varas 4 loose mesh sheets of striped Cambric, 40 varas ½ vara of striped gauze, damaged 2 sheer stockings of Cambric 2699 with 22 Varas both ½ of another sheet of silk of combined colors without embroidery, 12 varas ½ of another sheet of Cambric without embroidery, 8 varas 37 bales of Brittany, 2700 narrow width, 194 3/8 varas 38½ varas of same, damaged 6 double platters, damaged, very ordinary 20 other simple ones, damaged 2696 . Blakeslee, op. cit., 249. 2697 . A unit of measurement in South America which varies between 32 and 43 inches. 2698 . Cotton fabric. 2699 . Fabric. 2700 . Fabric. 493 3 measures of thread 156 sewing needles, worn 400 pieces of fusil shot 2 pounds of ordinary powder 27 varas of damaged cambric 1 old cloth hood 1 scarf old and worn 2 old shirt fronts with silver buttons 3 women’s blouses of pure Silesian linen, damaged 1 petticoat of old chintz, damaged 1 coat of the same 1 old striped smock 1 women’s dressing gown of he same material, old 1 other smock of the same material 1 other robe of the same, slightly worn 1 other of white chintz some very badly worn overcoats 494 APPENDIX 6 AGREEMENT BETWEEN VAUDREUIL AND DERUISSEAU ARTICLE I That he accepts the obligation of building and furnishing the fort which he began at the Kansas on the Missouri River, at the place designated by Mr. Legantois, 2701 following the plans which Mr. Bertet, commander of the Illinois, has communicated on the eighteenth of December, 1743, i.e., “a fort of eighty feet on each side, surrounded by good posts, made of the best wood found in the place where the fort is located, with two bastions on the front side, and on the back side, according to the plan which has been made, twice as many stakes, and storied bastions. There shall be in the said fort a house for the officer designated as commander; it shall be thirty feet long and twenty feet wide, with rooms distributed according to the plan, already made, with wooden separation walls, and upper and lower floors. It shall be built of posts covered with bark, with a kitchen contiguous to the building, built as a shed, covered also with bark, with a chimney as on the boussilage (mud). . . Also a guard house, twenty in length according to the plan already made, built of posts covered with boussillage the whole structure covered with bark, and a chimney in said building made of boussillage with a high and low floor of split stakes, the upper being well coated with mud on its side. A square powder room, ten on each side, from post to post, covered with a high and a low floor of split stakes. Also a house to lodge the fermiers of the post, the size of which shall be determined at their convenience. Also another house for their men, the size of which will suit them. ARTICLE II The said Deruisseau and his associate will be required to pay the commander of the post, for each year of the lease, a contribution of one hundred pistoles2702, in furs, priced according to their sale at the Illinois, beginning from the first year of their lease, at the first of January, 1745. ARTICLE III Moreover, they will be required to carry his (other) supplies and belonging from the Illinois to the Kans, evaluated from twelve to fifteen hundred Kgs. for each year of said lease, as a compensation for his food, which his fermiers will not be required to provide, as had been previously decided, their only obligation being to furnish his table with venison available in each particular season. 2701 . Alson written La Gautrais. Lieutenant Pierre René Legantois was an experienced military engineer who, after working on the fortifications in Louisiana, had surveyed the Missouri River from its mouth to the Platte River and prepared a relief map of its banks. 2702 . A pistole was worth ten livres. 495 ARTICLE IV The fermiers will be required also to feed the garrison of the post at their own expense, depending upon the circumstances, with the food available, i.e., one half of a barrel of corn each month per man, and one half pound of venison per day, or if such meat be lacking, bear oil or fat mixed in the right proportions. 2703 ARTICLE V The fermiers shall also have the duty of providing the soldiers of the garrison with transportation for their dry goods and their clothing. ARTICLE VI As for the presents to the savages, the fermiers will be required to give them presents whenever among these nations agitation arises, which the commander of the post considers necessary to appease in order to maintain calm and concord among them, being careful however, to only give presents for essential reasons, for fear of abuses. ARTICLE VII When the savages (?)shall come to see the Commander the fermiers will be required to give them presents only once for each first visit of the different nations, and in the case that they come later bringing the Commander a message pertaining to the interests of the colony, the Commander will give them some small presents in powder or vermillion, at the expense of the King, with moderations, however, and only on important occasions. ARTICLE VIII When a conference with the nations shall be considered the fermiers will have to provide the Commander with an interpreter understanding the Kans language; they may choose the interpreter form among their own men, but shall allow the Commander to choose and make use of the man in which he has most faith. ARTICLE IX They will be required to make reports to the Commanding officer in the post on the discoveries which they or others make performing to minerals, and also 2703 . After killing a Bear, Bossu ate bear grease which the soldiers had rendered. He found it very good and noted that in Louisiana it was used in the preparation of salad, fried foods, and sauces, and considered better than lard. Jean François Bossu, Travels in the Interior of North America, translated and edited by Seymour Feiler, Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1962, 118, note 4. 496 other discoveries taking place within the range of their activities during their years of exploitation. ARTICLE X The traders shall also be required to return, at the expirations of their leave, and in good condition, not only all the buildings mentioned above, but also all the little forts which they might build in the different villages of those nations for the safety and facility of their trade. ARTICLE XI They will not be permitted to give or to sell to these nations any drinks such as wine, brandy or other intoxicating liquors, directly, or with their men as intermediaries, or through traders carrying their permission, under any circumstances: he who disobeys will be subject to corporal punishment. ARTICLE XII The fermiers may appeal to the Commander of the Post if they are in need of soldiers from the garrison, whether it be to maintain peace among the French and safety in the posts, or to pursue fugitives… in the latter case they will have to pay the soldiers, in addition to the ordinary food ration, 10 francs a day per man, in local money. ARTICLE XIII No traveler will be allowed to hunt in the whole Missouri region except to the Tanerie; offenders are subject to confiscation of their belongings and goods which they might have for the benefit of said fermiers and to punishment, unless they have permission from the fermiers. ARTICLE XIV They will also appeal to the Commander of the post in case of dissension among the French or among the savage nations on the entire Missouri territory, or in case of dissolute behavior of their men towards the women, and bad talks which the travelers might give the savages. (?) ARTICLE XV The Commander of the Post will do justice to them with regard to their men who do not live up to the condition of their engagements. ARTICLE XVI They shall be maintained in all the territory covered by their trade by the Commander of the Post, to whom they may appeal in case of usurpation of their 497 right by travelers who might go beyond the conditions fixed with them by the fermiers; the fermiers in this case shall support the costs of the troops granted to them for the purpose, since the King must not have anything to do with it. ARTICLE XVII They will be permitted to take to Canada the furs enumerated here after, i.e., beavers, martens, peckans, and other furs which will not be a threat to its commerce, and to bring back to this country the product of the sale, in goods fit for trade on this Missouri River. Said fermiers will be required to bring down to New Orleans all the other hides such as deer, roe-buck, cow, all of those, in short, which would be profitable to commerce in this province. ARTICLE XVIII These tenants shall receive, if possible, from the warehouses of the King at the Illinois, by paying, some goods which they might need; the price will be fixed each year by the commissaire ordonnateur of the colony. ARTICLE XIX And if the garrison is to move, the fermiers will be required to pay for the trip from the Kans to the Illinois, and from the Illinois to the to the Kans, their only obligation, however, being to feed the soldiers of that garrison on the supplies found at the place, and on the same basis as their own men. ARTICLE XX Finally, the fermiers will retain their exclusive trade for the whole duration of their lease, beginning today, without any one having power to hinder them on the entire territory covered by their trade on the Missouri and tributary rivers. We hereby instruct Mr. Bertet, major commanding for the King at the Illinois, and also the officer commanding this Missouri post, to see to the execution of the present agreement made and in duplicate at New Orleans this eighth of August, one thousand seven hundred and forty-four. Signed Vaudreuil 2704 2704 . A.N. Colonies, C13A, vol. XXVII, folios 224-232. 498 APPENDIX 7 Taken from the Account Book, kept by Manuel Lisa himself, the original of which is in the Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka, Kansas. La Compagny des Fourrures du Missouri dans une Aventure Conduit par Manuel Lisa dans Deux Barge Partits l’Une le 2 May et l’Autre le 6, 1812.2705 Reuben Lewis John Kenton John C. Luttig Juan Baptist Lachapel Louis Lorimier Antoine Ciloteur Charles Sanguinet Antoine Mercier Michel E. Immel Ustache Carier Juan Baptist Mayet Ant. & Abraham Leroux [or Ledoux] Alexy Jollet Chevalier, Cadet Francois Roy Charles Latour Francois Laprise William Brawn [Broan] Pierre Lamonde John Dokerty [Dougherty] Pierre Desseve Caleb Greenwood Louis Lajoie Brice Arnold Joseph Lagasse, déserté William Weir Josef Lem Blan, Grand [A Pety [Petit] Blan was in the employ of the Company about this time] Baptiste Pointsable Louis Manègre, déserté Andre St. Germain Baptiste Provosts Pedro Antonio Etienne Cadron, dit St. Pierre Josef Leclair John Polly Pierre Lange Antoine Peltier Antoine Labonte Antoine Canga Pierre Larivier Louis McCraken Guiomme Tardit Edouard Rose Francois Lecompt Pierre Marasse Hipolite Papin Michel Rousseau Francois Guenville Pierre Detalier Bte. Latoulipe Josef Garrot [Garreau] Augte. Bourbonnois Josef Bourrain John Anderson Josef Elie Bte Alar Baptiste Antoine, dit Machecou Gabriel Agot Louis Archambeau L.T. Dejardin Isaac Fouche Daniel Larrison Pierre Chaine Paul Pereau Francois Oulle Philip Fontaine Toussaint Charboneau Nicolas Glineau James H. Audrin [Audrain] 2705 . The Missouri Fur Company expedition led by Manuel Lisa, conducted in two barges, which left, one on May 2 and the other on May 6, 1812. 499 Josef Bissonet Louis Delibac Louis Bissomet, dit Bijou Morice Leduc Josef Joyal Louis Chatelreau Rene Jussome [Jusseaume] Alexander Toulouse Pierre Primeau Louis Norman Gueniche St. Pierre George, nègre. 500 APPENDIX 8 THE JOURNAL OF NICOLAS POINT First of all, we had to sit on a mat which he (Fool Chief) spread out on the grass and then, drawing forth a large portfolio with great solemnity, he handed Father De Smet a document, signed by the President of the United States which recommended his tribe to the good will of the white people. The calumet was not forgotten, nor, on our part, a present for the occasion, which earned for us the honor of being placed at our disposal the two warriors who had visited us at Westport. These two braves, one armed with a lance and shield, the other with bow and sword, stood watch before our door during the three days we had to spend waiting for the stragglers. On May, 19 while the rest of the party continued toward the West, Father De Smet and Father Point turned left to visit the first village of the Kansa. Seen from a short distance, the dwellings bore a striking resemblance to the large mounds which cover our fields after the harvest. There were only about twenty dwellings irregularly placed, each one covering a circular area about 120 feet in circumference. They were spaced enough and sheltered easily thirty to forty persons. According to these figures the total population of the village should have been from seven hundred to eight hundred persons, an approximation justified by the total population of the tribe, which was fifteen hundred for the two villages. These dwellings, which were of an altogether unique kind, combined utility and comfort with solidity. From a circular wall, which rose perpendicularly to about the height of a man, were poles terminating at a central opening that served both as window and chimney. The door opened on the side was sheltered from the wind. The fireplace was located within the four columns supporting the rotunda and the beds were ranged in a circle about the wall. In the space between the beds and the fireplace stood some of the persons living in the dwelling. Others were seated or reclined on animal skins or rush mats. It seemed that these mats were considered the most presentable; at any rate, a carpet of this sort was given to us as we entered the dwellings. It would be difficult to give an account of all the singular things we saw during the half hour we passed in the midst of these strange figures. A Flemish painter would have found a treasure there. What struck me most were the strong character written on the faces of some of those about me, the artlessness, the attitudes, the facility of gesture, the vivacity of expression, the singularity of their dress, and, most of all, the great variety of occupations. Only the women were working, and in order not to be distracted from their tasks, those who had children still unable to walk had placed them, strapped to a kind of board, large enough to prevent injury to their limbs, either in a corner or at their feet. Some of the men were preparing to eat, which was their principal occupation when they were not fighting or hunting. Others were smoking, sleeping, talking, laughing, or were occupied with plucking the hair from their faces, including the eyelashes and eyebrows. Still others were attending to their hair, an occupation they seemed to find most pleasing. Contrary to the habit of other Indians who preferred to wear their hair long, these shaved their 501 heads, leaving only a stiffly frizzled tuft on top. With this decoration, they thought they had the most beautiful adornment the human head could have. Their favorite ornament was the feather of an eagle; if it was at all possible to procure one, because this was the symbol of courage. Sometimes the feather stood above the head like a plume, sometimes it laid along the nape of the neck and sometimes it fluttered about the temples like a weathercock. While the head man of the lodge smoked the pipe of peace with Father De Smet, I could not take my attention away from the dandy who kept looking at himself [in a small mirror] in order to give his plume the proper graceful twist but was having difficulty to attain the degree of perfection he appeared to seek. Soon I became aware that I, myself, was becoming the object of attention, almost the occasion for hilarity on the part of the Indian children. For some days I had given no attention to the matter of shaving. In their estimation, the acme of beauty was the complete absence of hair in the chin, the eyelashes, the eyebrows, and the head. This was only a minor part of their grooming, but the trouble they took to achieve the ultimate perfection of this detail of their appearance is only a small indication of their vanity. If you wish a picture of the supremely self-satisfied Kansa in all his glory, you must imagine an Indian with vermilion circles about his eyes; blue, black, or red streaks on his face; pendants of crockery, glass, or mother-of-pearl hanging from his ears; about his neck a fancy necklace, making a semicircle on his breast, with a large medal of silver or copper in the middle of it. On his arms and wrists he would have many bracelets of brass, iron, or tin. About his middle would be a girdle, a belt of garish colors from which hung a tobacco pouch decorated with beads, and cutlass or scabbard stripped in various colors. On top of all this would be a blue, green, or red blanket, draped in folds about the body according to the caprice or need of the wearer. This, then, would be the finery one would see on the most envied of the Kansa tribe. In matters of dress, manner of speech, acting, praying, and waging war, the Kansas very closely resemble the Osages, neighbors with whom they maintained friendly relations. The Kansa were quite tall and very well shaped. Their physiognomy, as I have already remarked, was quite virile. Their abrupt, guttural language was remarkable for its long and sharp accentuation of inflection. But this did not prevent their singing from being most monotonous. To their strength, shrewdness, and courage, they added good common sense, something lacking in most Indians. They used the rifle in their wars and hunting, just as the white man did. This, of course, gave them a marked advantage over their enemies. Among their chiefs were some men of true distinction. The best-known of them – because Captain Bonneville’s purported memoirs mention him at length – was White Feather. The author of The Conquest of Granada 2706 presents White Feather in a most flattering light. It is said that this man was endowed with an unusual intelligence, sincerity, and courage. He had been well acquainted with M. Lecroix2707, one of the very first Catholic missionaries to visit this part of the West. 2706 . Irving in Captain Bonneville, chapter II. 2707 Father Charles de la Croix, born in Flanders in 1792, was sent by Bishoo Dubourg to visit the Osages in 1822. 502 White Feather had a high regard for the missionary and for all whom the Indians called the Blackrobes . . . . The Kansas, and their neighbors, the Pawnees, had recently waged a war of extermination. The winter before, eighty Pawnee women and children had been massacred. Although the Kansa were vindictive and cruel toward their enemies, they were not strangers to the most tender sentiments of friendship and compassion. At the loss of someone close to them they were sometimes utterly disconsolate. And what would they not do to express their grief! 2708 Wilderness Kingdom – Indian Life in the Rocky Mountains: 1840- 1847 The Journals & Paintings of Nicolas Points, S. J., Trans. and intr. by Joseph P. Donnelly, S. J., New York 1967, 26-28 2708 . Father de Smet gave an account of the visit. Chittenden and Richardson op. cit., I, 280-286. 503 INDEX Abert, J J XIV, 8, 11 Alar, Baptiste, known as Machecou VI, 12 Albert, Charles XII, 3 Alliquier, N XII, 3 Ambie, Catherine XV, 20 Amyot, Alexis XIV, 12, 17 (Fremont 1842) Amyot, Honore XIV, 8 Amyot, Louise XVI, 1,29 Andreville, Andres IV, 8 Antaya, Celeste IX, 1 Antaya, Joseph IX, 1, 3 Antaya, Pelagie IX, 1 Antoine, Baptiste VI Antoya, Mary IX, 3 Antoya, Michel IX, 3 Antoya, Sarah IX, 3 Antoya/Entoya , Charles IX, 3 Anville, Jean Baptiste d’, dit Petit-Jean I, 23,24 Archambaud, August XIV, 19 Archambeau, Louis VI, 14 Arche, L. IV, 3 Arcoite, Michel XV, 2 Arese, Count Francesco X, 22 - XII, 7 Arlait IV, 4 Arneau/ Reneau, Margarit IX, 3 Arquoite, J IX, 5 Aubry, Charles Auguste, IV, 2 Aubuchon , James J III,6 - VII, 6 - Audubon, John J XII, 10 - XIV, 30-35 Avion II, 8 B. Pratte Co XIV, 2 Badeau, François XIV, 9, 12, 16 (Fremont) Bailio, Thomas L IX, 1 Baillou, Paul VII, 16, 27, VIII, 4, 15 Barada, Honore XII, 3 Barnabe/ Barnaby, Francois, IX, 3 Barra, T XII, 3 Barre, Augustin-Antoine de , Seigneur de Jardin III Barre, Esteban (Monsieur) IV, 4, 5 Barre, Marie de la III, 6 Barsalou, IV, 3 Bartelemy, Juan IV, 7 Barter, Joseph La Liberte V 4, 12 Bazile/Bazziel, John IX, 5, 16 504 Beardon, Elias N IX, 15 Beaubien, Charles H - brother of Madore - XI, 10, 13 Beaubien, Jean Baptiste - father of Madore XI, 11 Beaubien, Madore R XI, 11, 12 , 14 also Bobea, Medare, Medad Bobeaux Beauchemie/Beauchemin/Boachman/Bashman/Bocheman, Mackinaw IX, 13, 14 Beaudoin, Juan IV, 8 Beaulieu, Olivier XIV, 12 Beaumont, Charles VIII, 23 Beaurain, de – chevalier I, 13, 15 Beauvilliers , Sieur de I, 23 Becquet IV, 3 Beguet, Joseph IV, 3 Beleduc IV, 4 Belhumeur, Martin IX, 5 Beliot/Belio/Bailio/ Belier/Belieu, Thomas IX, 3 Belleau/Bellot/ Velo III, 1 Bellecourt, Joseph, II, 20, 23 Bellerice, II, 11 Belligny Jean Baptiste XIV, 2 Bellin, Jacques Nicholas I, 24, 25 Bellmard/Bellemare/Bellmar/Bellemere/Bellemore, Moyse IX, 5, 6 Belmard, Joseph IX, 6 Belmard, Julia, IX, 6 Belmard, Leonard IX, 6 Belmont, Abbe I, 1 Benevue, Samuel IX, 16 Benewaw, Michel / see Bienvenue Benoit, Francois VI, 1 Benoit, Leonard XIV, 8, 11 Berar, Antoine IV, 3 Bergerand, P XII, 3 Bergeron, Francois XI, 20 Bergier, Father I, 14 Bernier, Baptiste XIV, 8, 12 Berthold, Bartholomew VII, 4 - X, 1 Bertholet, Grand Louis VIII, 2, 3 Bertrand, Hamilton IX, 13 Bertrand, Ignatius, XV, 20 Bertrand, Joseph IX, 3, 25 – XV, 20 – XVI, 4 (long) 18-19 Bertrand, Laurence XV, 20 Bertrand, Louis XV, 20 Bertrand, Samuel IX, 25 – XV, 20 (blacksmith) Beslot/Beleau, Michel, II, 20, 23 Betile III, 8 Beyett/Biet , William IX, 3, 4, 16 Bienvenu, Antoine IX, 4 505 Bienvenu, John IX, 4 Bienvenu, Jonathan IX, 4 Bienvenu, Marguerite IX, 4 Bienvenue/Benewaw, Misho/Michel IX, 16 Bienville, Jean Baptiste LeMoyne, Sieur de, governor , I, 15, 17, II, 3, 6, 9, 8, 10,20 Bienville, Solomon IX, 5 Biet /Beyett, Alex IX, 4 Bijeau see Bissonnette, Joseph Bisonet, Basile XII, 3 Bissonet, Antoine VI, 3 Bissonet, Louis VI, 12 – XII, 2 Bissonnette, Joseph V, 24, 25 27, 28 - VI, 12, 16 long VIII, 25 Blanton, Napoleon Bonaparte XI, 19 Blond, Peter IX, 3 Blond, Stephen IX, 3 Blondeau VII, 18 Boilvin, Nicolas (1761-1827) V, 3 Boisbriant, Dugue de (1675-1736), cdt Illinois 1718, II, 3, 9,10, 11 Boisvert -- VIII, 29 Bolcher , Louis (Boucher) IV, 4, 5 Boldu, Luis / Bolduc (Beleduc)IV, 4, 5 Bompar, Louis VI, 12, 16 long -VII, 1 Bonfort, Louis VII, 16 Bonneville, Benjamin 1796-1878 VII, 7, 10-22, 27 Boone, Daniel m. Marie Constance Philibert, daughter Gabriel, IX, 21 Bordeaux/ Bodeau, James V, 29 Bouche, Francois VI, 3 Bouche, Jean Baptiste VI, 3 Boucher, IV, 4 Boudon, John m. Elizabeth Datcherute IX, 10 Bourassa, Daniel IX, 21, XV, 20 Bourassa, David XV, 20 Bourassa, Eloy XV, 20 Bourassa, Etienne XV, 20 Bourassa, Gabriel, XV, 20 Bourassa, Isabella IX, daughter of Jude, IX, 23 Bourassa, John XV, 20 Bourassa, Josephus, XV, 20 Bourassa, Jude IX, 23, 24 Bourassa, Lazarus XV, 20 Bourassa, Mark IX, 22 Bourassa,/Bourisa, Joseph Napoleon IX, 21 (long)- 23 – XV, 19 – XVI, 4 Bourbonnais, Auguste (father of Pierre ) VII, 18 (Larpenteur)- XI, 15 - XII, 3 Bourbonnais, Francois XI, 15 – XV, 2 Bourbonnais, Francois, Jr XI, 15 506 Bourbonnais, Jacques Auguste VII, 18 Bourbonnais, Pierre XI, 15, 16 Bourch, Joseph IX, 13 Bourdaloue, B VII 9 Bourdon, Mary IX, 13 Bourdon, Clemens, son of Joseph IX, 13 Bourdon, Francois, married Lisette Peret – father of Joseph IX, 13 Bourdon, John, married Elizabeth Datcherute IX, 10, 11 Bourdon, Joseph - son of Francois - married Sophie Gibeau IX, 13 Bourdon/Bourdeau , Sophia/Sophy IX, 13 Boure, John - married Rosalie Gibeau IX, 13 Boure, Mary Attiline, daughter of John IX, 13 Bourg, Jon, IX, 13 Bourgeois, Marie Therese X, 8 married to Liguest, Pierre Laclede Bourgmont, Charles Veniard de, I, 18 Bourgmont, Etienne Veniard de, (1679-1734) I, 18, 25 II, 7-19, 24 Bourguignon d’Anville, Jean Baptiste I, 2,3,24 Bourre G B married. Rose Anne Gibeau IX, 13 Braconier,/ Braconniere, Elise/Elisa – married John Baptiste Chaurette IX, 4, 5 Brant, Etienne VI, 2, IX, 15 Brazeau, Duchouquette, XII, 2 Brazeau, Joseph VI, 3 – XII, 2 Brenizier, L IX, 16 Brequier, Louison, IX, 15 Brisa, Pierre, known as Rivalette IX, 10 Brond, Elizabeth IX, 4 Brond, Etienne, IX, 4 Brond, Marie IX, 4 Brond, Peter IX, 4 Brown, John - alias Equesne – married Josette d’Aybeu IX, 4 Brugier/ Brugiere, Louis IX, 3 Brugier/ Brugiere/ Bragier, Marie IX, 4 Brugiere, Jacques VII, 18 Brun, Etienne - Married Marie Brusieu IX, 4 Brun, Etienne Moise, son of Etienne Brun IX, 4 Brun, Pierre Melicour IX, 4 son of Etienne Brun Brusieu, Louis – son of Louison IX, 4 Brusieu, Louison married Catherine Swiss IX, 4 Brusieu, Marie - married Etienne Brun IX, 4 Buade, Louis de, Count of Frontenac, governor of New France I, 2, 4, 7, 8 Buissiere, Alphonse de la , Commandant Illinois III, 7 Bushamn, Alexander XI, 7 Bustamente y Tagle, Bernardo de, lieutenant general III Cabanne VII, 4 Cabanne, Jean. Pierre. – 1773-1841 IV, 17-18 long - Cadillac, See Laumet, I, 19 507 Cadotte, Benjamin XIV, 8 Cadue, Pierre IX. 16, 17 Caillieu, Pierre XV, 2 Caillou, Louis VIII, 1, 2, Calve III, 8 Canville, Andre Bernard X, 27, 28 married Marie Louise Terrien Canville, Andrew, IX, 4 (bapt) Canville, Auguste IX, 4 (bapt) Canville, Bernard IX, 4 (bapt) Capitaine / Captain , Joseph IX, 15 Capitaine, Auguste IX, 4 Capitaine, Rosalie – married Edouard Chouteau IX, 4 Capitaine/ Captain/ Captin, Joseph IX, 4 Captain, Augustus, IX, 16 Carboneau, Elizabeth, daughter Pierre Brisa IX, 10 Carboneau, Pierre, son Pierre Brisa IX, 10 Cardinal, Charles IX, 5 Cardinal, Francoise IX, 4 Carier, Eustache, also known as Langevin VI, 11 long Carriere Carondelet, Francois Louis Hector , Baron de, gov gen Louis I, 27 - IV, 10, 14 Carpantier, Enrique IV, 4 Carrier, Martin IX, 4 Carriere, Michel VI, 16 Cartissere, Fonsaint IX, 13 Catalan/Catalon – nephew Pappan – m. Victoria Vertefeuille IX, 10 Cathelet, Sophie IX, 4 Caugee, Charles V, 5, 8 Cavagnial last gov New France 1755-60 Cavagnial (Fort) I, 25 III Cavagnial, Francois Pierre Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil baron de II, 23, III, 4-5 Cavalier, Jean, Father I, 11 Celoron de Blanville III Cerre, ( Jean ) Gabriel – 1734-1805 IV, 21 (long)- VI, 14 – VII, 16 (Papin Co) Cerre, Catherine I, 27 Cerre, Marie Therese 1769-1842 -married Auguste Chouteau X, 6 Cerre, Michel Sylvestre VII 9,12-13, 17 (Bonneville) – VIII, 5 (1827)- Santa Fe) Cerre, Pascal XII, 2 (trader – 1832) Chaine, Pierre VI, 14 Chalvet Jose IV, 16, 17 See Gervais/Jarvet Champlain, Jean Baptiste VI, 3, 5 long Champlain, Samuel I, 2 Chandonois, Jean ( ?) IX, 2 Changreau XI, 20 Chapel, Jean Baptiste, see Lachapelle VI, 10 Chapelle L XII, 2 Chapo, Pierre XII, 3 508 Chapuis, Jean/Juan III, 17-19 Chaput, XII, 3 Charbonneau, Jean Baptiste VIII, 3, 17-21 Charbonneau, Toussaint V, 13, 21, 22 - VI, 14 Chardon, Francis IX, 1 (Osage section 1825) – XII, 2 (trader 1831) Chardonnais, Moise XIV, 9 Charlevoix, Pierre Francois Xavier V, 1 Charron, Noel IV, 22 Chartrian, Joseph XIV, 2 Chatillon, Henry VIII, 22, 25-27, 30-32, 34-37 – XII, 3 Chatillon, Pierre, XII, 3 Chaumi, Pierre XV, 20 Chaurette, John Baptiste - married Elise Braconier IX, 5 Chauvin, Jacques IV, 18 (long) Chene , Pierre VII, 18 Chenette I, 18 Chevalier, Cadet, mulatto VI, 5, 11 Chevalier, Joseph XV, 2 Chevalier, Toussaint XV, 2 Chorette / Charrett, Edouard IX, 4 Chorette, Joseph IV, 1, 22 Chorette/ Charrett , Mary IX, 4 Chorette/Charrett, Baptiste IX, 4 Chouteau (Bourgeois) Marie Therese (1733-1814 ) IV, 3 Chouteau and Company XII, 14 Chouteau Louis Pharamond, Edouard Liguest-+Rosalie Capitaine bapt IX, 4 Chouteau, (Jean ) Pierre, Sr – 1758-1849 - IV, 7(long), 9, 28 - IX, 1 -X, 1, 8, 9 Chouteau, Alexander IX, 1 (Osage section 1825), 4 (godfather 1841) Chouteau, Antonio – mestizo – license 1792 IV, 8 Chouteau, Auguste Aristide 1792- 1833 - Auguste +Marie Therese Cerre Chouteau, Auguste Pierre(A.P)(1786-1838)IV,7,20-V, 22 -VI, 3, 5,10,15-23-VIII, 5- 8, 12 Chouteau, Auguste, 1749-1829 - III, 16 - IV, 3, (long), 6 -7, 9, 21 –V, 3 - X, 6 Chouteau, Augustine - 1811-1847 – Auguste Pierre+ Sophie Labbadie IV, 8 Chouteau, Berenice -wife Francois Gesseau- IX, 6 - X,1 - XII, 8, XIII, 31 – XVI, 3(long) Chouteau, Charles B (1808-1884) Pierre Sr + Brigitte Saucier VII, 21-22-, X 16 Chouteau, Cyprien(Pierre Sr-Saucier)1812-1879 X, 8, 10-13,16-17- XI,1 – XII, 5 - XIV 9 Chouteau, Edmond Francois (Gesso) 1821-1853–Francois+ Berenice VIII 31-35 – XII, 8 Chouteau, Edouard Liguest (1813-1853)Paul + Mongrain- m. Rosalie C - XII,5 – XIV, 2 Chouteau, Emilie(Gratiot) wife of Chouteau Piere Jr XII, 10 Chouteau, Francois Gesseau 1797-1838 IX, 1 – 11 - X, 1, 3, 5-8, 10-12, 20-22 - XI, 1, 509 Chouteau, Frederick 1809-1891 - IX, 11 - X, 2, 4, 8, 11, 14-17 Chouteau, Gabriel Sylvestre, 1894-1887(Sere) Auguste+Cerre - X, 6- 8 Chouteau, James G IX, 1 (Osage section 1825) Chouteau, John Francis IX, 3 son Paul L Chouteau, Louis Alexandre IX, 3 son of Paul Liguest (bapt 1827) Chouteau, Louis Pharaond – son Edouared and Rosalie – IX, 4 (bapt 18241 Chouteau, Marie Louisa – daughter of Edouard and Rosalie (bapt 1841) IX, 4 Chouteau, Marie Louise - daughter Laclede and Marie Therese Bourgeois X, 8 Chouteau, Paul Liguest – 1792-1851- VI, 5 - VIII, 7- IX, 1, 3, 15 – X, 9-10 Chouteau, PelagieIX, 3, 4 daughter Paul Liguest –bapt1827 – wit 1841 Chouteau, Peter assist miller IX, 16 Chouteau, Philippe X, 20 Chouteau, Pierre IX, 4 (bapt) Chouteau, Pierre Jr ( Cadet) 1789-1865- IV,7,14-IX, 2 -X,1, 4, 8, 18, 21-XII,1,2-XIV, 4 Chouteau, Pierre Menard - 1822-1885 - son Francois Gesseau and Berenice XII, 17 Chouteau, Pierre Sr (1758-1849) IV, 6,9 - V, 3-4, 9, 11 - IX, 1 Chouteau, Sophy/Sophie/Sophia IX, 4 Citoleur, Antoine VI, 11 also Langevin Citoleur/Citolou/Citoleux Clamorgan IV, 21, 27 Clark, Primeau & Co VII, 20 Clement, Antoine VII, 5 – VIII, 12-15 – XII, 6 Clément, Joseph XIV, 8 Clermont, Francis XV, 20 Clermont, Louis XII, 3 Colas, Francois, Sans Quartier VI, 3 also Sansquartier Colbert, Jean Baptiste, seigneur de Seignelay I , 2, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14 Collin, Joseph V, 5, 8 Collot, Victor IV, 25 Compare, Cicil IX, 11 Comparet, Francis IX, 11 Conaud /Conand, Joseph (Monsieur) IV, 4, 6 Conde, A. IV, 3 Contois, Baptiste VII, 18 Coronado, Francisco Vasquez I, 1 Cortambert, Louis X, 8 – XIII, 1-5 Costi, IV, 3 Cote, Joseph IX, 11 Cott, Stephen IX, 13, Coulon, Francois see Villiers Coulon Nicholas Antonin see Villiers Coureurs des bois I Courteau, Philibert XIV, 12 Courtin V, 7 Cousin VI, 3 510 Crélis, Michel XIV, 12, 15 Croteau, F XII, 3 Cruzat, Francisco Lt gov IV, 6 Cruzatte, Pierre V, 9, 10-12 Curtis, Charles son of Ellen Pappan IX, 8 – XI, 9 Curtis, Orren XI, 8, 9 D’Abbadie, Jean Jacques Blaise dir. Gen. Louisiana III, 15, 16 IV, 2 D’Aubry, Pelagie IX, 8 - See Pelagie Gonville D’Aubry,/ Francoeur/ de Aubri/ Obrey, Francois/ Amable, IV, 8, 9 D’Aybeu / D’Aubreau, Francis, alias Brugiere IX, 4 D’Aybeu, Josette – daughter of Francis IX, 4 D’Otrante XII, 11, 12 Dablon, Father I Dagenette, Lucier IX, 13 Daigneau, M XII, 3 Datcherute, Baptiste (negro) IX, 10 Datcherute, Elizabeth - daughter of Baptiste - married John Boudon IX, 10 Dauphin, Louis VII, 18 Davis, Ann - married Clement Shattio - XI, 7 De Coen, Francis Xavier (Belgian) XVI, 26 De Peintry XII, 11 De Remonville I, 14 De Smet VII, 1 De Vriend (Belgian) XVI, 26 De’Haitre, Helene IX, 5 Debreuil, Louis IV, 1, 3 Deforest, Clinton XIV, 12 Degie, Philippe V, 7 Degueire, B XII, 3 Delaurier VII, 16 Delille, F XII, 4 Delisle, Claude I, 16 Delisle, Guillaume I, 13, 14, 16, 20, 22, 23, 24, 27 Delisle, Nicholas I, 16 Delorie, Luis IV, 5 Delorier, Antoine VIII, 28-30, 32, 34 Demarais, Aimable VI, 10 Demary, Louis XII, 3 Derbanne - - I, 17 Derchette, VI, 2 also Derosier, Baptiste XII, 3 Derouen, Francois also Francis Dorion/ Derouin - IV, 10 - VI, 1 Deruisseau, Joseph Trottier Lefebvre d’Ingelbert III, 3, 5, 8, 13, 14 Deschamps, Charles VII, 18 Deschamps, Jean Baptiste V, 5, 8, 9 Deschenes, IV, 3 511 Deseve, Pierre VI, 3 Deshetres/ Dehetre, Antoine “ Tonish “ VIII, 5-6 (long), 9-12 – IX, 3 Diels, John (Belgian) XVI, 26 Dionne, E XII, 3 Diron Dartaguiette I, 17 Dollier I, 7 Dorion, Baptiste XII, 2 – XIV, 2 Dorion, Pierre XIV, 2 Dorion, Pierre, Jr son of Pierre VI, 3 note, 18 VI, 6 Douay, Anastasius, Father I, 11 Drouillard, George V, 9,10, 12-15 - VI, 2 Droyand, Pierre XV, 20 check Droyard, Pierre IX, 5 Du Tisne, Charles ,I, 24 – II, 3, 4, 6, 7, 24 Dubois ,II, 17-19 Dubreuil, Antoine VI, 3 Dubreuil, Louis IV, 4 Dubreuil, Michel VII, 28 Dubruille, A XII, 3 Ducatel, Julien XIV, 21 Ducharme III, 18 Duchesne, Philippine, XV1, 2, 3, 5, 11-16 Duchouquet, Pedro IV, 8 Duerinck, John B (Belgian) XVI, 26 Dufond, B XII, 3 Dugre, Charles XII, 2 Dugue de Boisbriant, Pierre (1675-1736), cdt Illinois 1718, II, 3, 9,10, 11 Dumes, Jean Baptiste XIV, 8 Dumont de Montigny I, 2 Dupre, Louis (Monsieur) II, 1, 10 Durocher, Auguste VI, 14 Durocher, Laurent/ Lorenzo IV, 9, 16, 20 Dutremble VIII, 4 Duval, Henri, IX, 4 Duval, Michel - son of Henri IX, 4 Eglise, Jacques d’, IV, 19, 20 Elie. Joseph VI, 14 Europe, Jean David d’, II, 20, 23 Fabre, Louis III, 1, 2, 19 Fabry de la Bruyere, II, 23 Fago, Daniel IV, 4 Fago, M. IV, 4 Fagot de la Garniciere VI, 13 Fecteau, F XII, 3 Ferland, Peter, XII, 3 Feuilli, Louis/Luis III, 17-19 512 Fierro, Luis de III, 1, 2, 19 see Louis Fabre Fish, Charles married Rosalie Gonville XI, 8, 9 Fish, John, XI, 9 Fish, Paschal XI, 9 Floyd, Charles III Flures,, Simon XII, 3 Fontenelle & Drips VII, 2 Fontenelle, Lucien 1800 ?-1840 - VII, 1, 2 – XII, 3., 5 Forten, Diego IV, 4 Fotman IV, 19 Fouche, Isaac VI, 14 Fournaise, Jacques (Old Pino) VII, 4 – XIV, 2, 4-5 Francoeur, See Francois d’Aubry IX, 9 Frankier, Mab, see Francois D’Aubry Franquelin, Jean-Baptiste Louis I, 11-13 Fregon III, 6 Frémon, Charles XIV, 7 Fremont, John Charles(1813-1890) VII, 27 – VIII, 19 – X, 13 – XII, 8, 13-XIV 2-4. 7- 30 Fremontaine XV, 20 French Fur Company XII, 18 Fronkier see Francois d’Aubry IX, 9 Frontenac – see Buade I, 2, 4, 7, 8 Furse, Simon XII, 3 Gailland, Maurice (Swis) XVI, 16 (long), 19, 21, 22, 26 Gaillard, II, 11, 12, 17-19 Gallien, Manuel, II, 20, 23 Gallinee, abbot I, 7 Garreau, Pierre VII, 22 Garrot, Joseph IV, 18, 19 - VI, 12, 13 (long) Garreau Gassolin, Andrea XV, 20 Gerlaman, A XII, 3 Germain, P XII, 3 Gervais, Joseph IV, 16-17 - VI, 1 also Gervaes/ Chalvet Geyer, Charles Andres Gibeau Moisis, son Charles IX, 13 Gibeau, Charles - married Adeline Prayon IX, 13 Gibeau, Charles, son of Louis - IX, 13 Gibeau, Eliah/Ely IX, 13 Gibeau, Francois - son of Joseph IX, 13 Gibeau, Joseph IX, 13 Gibeau, Joseph Paul – son of Peter David IX, 13 Gibeau, Joseph, father of Francois IX, 13 Gibeau, Joseph, son Louis IX, 13 Gibeau, Louis, father of Charles - married Marie Louise Robidoux IX, 13 Gibeau, Michael - son of Charles IX, 13 513 Gibeau, Peter David, father of Joseph Paul IX, 13 Gibeau, Rosalie – married John Boure IX, 13 Gibeau, Rose Ann - married G B Bourre IX, 13 Gibeau, Sophia/ Sophie, married Joseph Bourdon IX, 13 Gibeu, Louis, son of Joseph IX, 13 Gibeu, Louis, father of Sophie Gibeau - married Marie Louise Robidoux IX, 13 Gibeu/Jebeu / Gibey, Mary IX, 13 Gibeu/Jubeau, Mathilda IX, 13 Giguiere, Acile - married Stephen Brown IX, 4 Gilberet/Guilbert, Jacob IX, 4 Gilbert, Mary Ann IX, 4 Girard, Fred XII, 3 Giraud, Michel, IX, 4 - X, 10, 17, 18, 19, 20 – XVI, 3 Giraud/ Guiro , Felicita IX, 13 Glineau ,Nicolas VI, 12 long Godey, Alexis VII, 9 - XIV, 16, 19, 21, 25 Goneville (de Mun) VI, 20 Gonville (Gonveville), Louis married Hunt Jimmy and Wyhesee VI, 2 - XI, 8 Gonville Victoire /Margaret - daughter of Louis married Ahcan Pappan IX, 5, 9 , 12 Gonville, Josette (Marie Josephine ) - 1817 ?0-1845 - married Joseph Pappan XI, 8 Gonville, America IX, 12 died young Gonville, Baptiste father Marie and Lafleche - brother of Louis IX, 5, 12 Gonville, Baptiste, Jr IX, 12 died young Gonville, Francois VI Gonville, Josette /Josephine/Marie Josephine-daughter of Louis - married Joseph Pappan Gonville, Josette , IX, 5,7, 8 , 12 Gonville, Julie /July , daughter Louis – m. Louis Pappan, IX, 5, 8, 12 – XI, 8 Gonville, Lafleche, son Baptiste IX, 9, 12 Gonville, Louis – brother of Baptiste – father of Lafleche and Marie IX, 5, 8, 11, 12, 20 Gonville, Louis Jr IX, 12 died young Gonville, Marie - daughter of Baptiste IX, 9 Gonville, Pelagie daughter Louis - married Francois d’Aubry IX, 5, 8 , 12 Gonville, Rosalie IX, 12 daughter Louis married Charles Fish - IX, 12 - XI, 8, 9 Gonville, Victoire/Margaret – daughter of Louis – married Ahcan Pappan IX, 9 Gouin, Louis XIV, 8 Gouveville (Gonville), Baptiste VI, 2 Gratiot VI, 4 Gravelines, Joseph V, 5, 7- VI, 7 Gravier I, 4 Grimaldi III, 16 Grosclode, Justin XII, 3 Guardepee VI, 7 Guenville, Francois VI, 10 see Queneville 514 Guerin, Alexandre XIII, 6, 14 Guerin, Francois VII, 27 - VIII, 5 Guinard, Alexis XII, 3 Guinard, Louis XII, 3 Guinard, Vincent XII, 3 Guion, Denis VII, 16 Guitard IV, 5 Gunville, see Gonville, Louis IX, 12 Gutierrez de Humana, Antonio I, 1 Guyon, Amable/ Guion IV, 3 Harpin de Legantois, Pierre Rene III, 4 Harvey, Primeau and Company XII, 18, 19 Hebert, Charles V 5, 6, 8 Hebert, Vincent XII, 3 Hebert/Hubert, Joseph I, 3, 6 – IV, 3, 6, 8 Hege/Huge, Jean IV, 5 Hubert, Antoine IV, 6, 10 Hubert, Marc Antoine, commisaire general de la Louisiane, II, 1, 2 Hunt, Jimmy XI, 6 Iberville, Pierre LeMoyne, sieur d’, I, 15 Jaco, Auguste IX, 4 Jaco, Baptiste IX, 4 Jaco, Charete, IX, 4 Jaco, Thomas, IX, 4 James, Dr.Edwin III, 12 – V, 25 Janisse, Antoine VII, 9 note 54, 18 (Johnesse) Janisse, Auguste XIV, 9 Jannot, Baptiste XII, 3 Jardinier, M. IV, 4 Jarvet, IV, 16, 17 - see Chalvet Gervais Jeandron II, 18 Jefferson I, 26 Jolliet, Louis I, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 Joncas, Basil IX, 10 Joncas, James IX, 10 Joncas, Louis, IX, 10 Joncquart – -, IV, 19 Jountri XV, 20 Joutel, Henri I, 11 Joyal, Joseph VI, 12 Juchereau de Saint Denis, Charles I, 18 Julien, Stephen V, 24, 28 - VI Jusseaume, Rene V, 11 - VI, 7, 12 (long) note 39 called St. Pierre Karleskind, Peter XVI, 26 Kerlerec, Louis Billouart de, governor Louisana III, 6 Kiersereau, Rene IV, 3 515 L’Habitant, J. IX, 5 La Arche, IV, 3 La Barge, Charles XII, 2 La Barge, John XII, 12 La Barge, Joseph VII, 6 – XII, 2-4, 9-16 – XIV, 2, 32 La Barge, Pelagie, wife Joseph XII, 13 La Barre, Auguste Antoine de, Seigneur de Jardin I, 12 La Barre, Marie de, III, 6 La Bruyere, Fabry de II, 23 Lachapelle, Jean Baptiste VI, 10 La Fromboise, Claude XV, 2 La Fromboise, Joseph XI, 13 La Fromboise, Susanne XV, 2 La Harpe, Benard de, I II, 5, 6, 11, La Haute IV, 3 La Jonquiere cdt Illinois III, 6 La Liberte, Jo XII, 3 La Salle, Nicholas de, I, 10, 15, 19 La Salle, Rene Robert Cavalier, Sieur de I, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12 - II, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12 Labadie, Victoire XII, 9 Labbadie, Sylvester VI, 4 (long) 21 Labiche, Francois V, 9, 10-12 Labone, Frederick XII, 3 Labrouin IV, 3 Labuche, Michel XII, 3 Labusier, Louis XII, 3 Laclede (Liguest) 1729-1778 - IV, 3 (long) X, 8 Lacroix, Dionese IV, 16 Lacroix, Jean Baptiste IV, 24 Lacroix, Luis IV, 6, 10 Laderoute IV, 22 (1794) Laderoute, Joseph, known as Casse 1807) – VI, 3, 14, 15 Laderoute, Ant XII, 3 Lafargue, Jean VI, 3, 5 Laferriere M P XII, 2 Lafferies VII, 18 LaFleur, Antoine XII, 3 LaForce, Alexandre, IX, 4 LaFountain, Louis IX, 13 LaFountain, Mary IX, 13 LaFrame, Joseph IX, 12 LaFromboise, Henry IX, 25 LaFromboise, John IX, 25 LaFromboise, Joseph IX, 24 Lagasse, Joseph VI, 10 Laigniel, Aloysius (Belgian) XVI, 26 516 Lajeunesse, Basil XIV, 8, 9, 12, 15, 19 Lajeunesse, Charles (nephew J B – Fremont) VIII, 22 Lajeunesse, François XIV, 12, 15 Lajeunesse, Jean Baptiste V, 5, 6, 8, 9 – XIV, 8 Lajoie, Louis VI, 9 Lajoux, Catherine XV, 20 Lalande, Jean Baptiste IV, 16 – VI, 1 Lalier, Mathew XII, 3 Lambert, Auguste Mellicoure IX, 4 Lambert, Clement VII, 6 – XIV, 8, 11 Lambert, Geo XII, 3 Lambert, Rosalie, IX, 4 (bpt) Lambert, Susanna, IX, 4 Lamont, Daniel XII, 2 Lamotte, Antoine Laumet de – sieur de Lamothe-Cadillac I, 18 - II, 1 Lamparter, Charles VII, 17-19 Lange, Pierre VI, 10 long Langevin, Erustache, see Carier VI, 11 Langlois, Raphael, VI, 2 Lapambois / La Framboise ( ?) Larpenteur 1833 VII, 18 Larine, Susan IX, 1 Larison, Daniel VI, 12 long Larpenteur, Charles XII, 9, 16 Larriviere, P XII, 3 Lassus, Charles du Haut de, IV, 11, 15 (long), 17 Latour, Charles VI, 10, 11, 16 (long) Latrobe, Charles Joseph VIII, 6-8, 10 Latulipe , François XIV, 2, 8, ii Latulipe, Baptiste VI, 10 Laumet, Antoine – sieur de Lamothe-Cadillac - commandand of Detroit I, 18 Laventure, Francois IX, 9 Laventure/Lavonture, Louis IX, 9 Laxroy IV, 4, 6, 10 see Lacroix Le Claire, Pierish XV, 18, 19 Le Maire, Jesuit missionary I, 17, 21 Le Page du Pratz I, 25-26, 28-29 - II, 10, 13-15 - V, 1, 3 Le Roy VII, 9 Le Roy, Angelique mother of Louis Vieux XI, 17 Le Roy, Joseph - grandfather of Louis Vieux XI, 17 Le Sueur, Pierre Charles I, 13, 14, 16 Lebeech (Labouiche) VI, 1 LeBrun, Louis VII, 18 LeClaire, Antoine IX, 1 Lecompte, Francois VI, 3 , 9 long Lacompte/ Leconte Lecuyer IV, 22, 23 Ledoux, Abraham V, 24-28 - VI, 11 517 Ledoux, Antoine VI, 11 Lefevre, Jean Baptiste XIV, 8 Lem, Joseph VI, 6 Lemoire, Joseph XII, 3 Le page IX, 3 Lerou, Beralle XII, 3 LeRoy, Angelique XI, 17 LeRoy, Joseph, XI, 17 Lesage, John B XII, 3 Levaigne, P XII, 3 Lesperance, Jean Baptiste XIV, 8 Lessert, Adele IX, 5, 6, 8 , 20 married Moyse Bellemere Lessert, Clement, Jr IX, 5, 6, 20 Lessert, La Sert/Lassette/Liserte, Clement Sr - married Julia Roy - IX, 5, 6, 20, 21 Lessert, Louis - son of Clement - IX, 21 - Lessert, Martha - daughter of Clement - IX, 21 Lessert, Mary – daughter of Clement - IX, 21 Lewis & Clark I, 2 – III, 16 – IV, 16, 22 Lewis, Meriwether - I, 26 - IV, 6, 15 – V, 2, 4,7, 10, 14,29 - VI, 11 Leyra y Bonilla, Francisco de, I, 1 Licarre, Ralph X, II,3 Liebaux I, 4 Ligueste, Alexandre IX, 3 Lisa , Manuel 1772-1820 V, 15 Lisette, Angelique XV, 20 Loisel , Francois Regis 1773 ?-1804 -IV, 23 – V, 15 Long, Stephen H IX, 12 Longo XIV, 21 Lorimier, Louis VI, 9 long Louis XIV, king of France I Louise, Paul IX, 1 Louise, Therese IX, 1 Louison, L XV, 20 Lubro/LeClerc VII, 4 Lusignan, Jean Baptiste VI, 3 Lutz, Father Joseph Antoine, X, 5, 11 Macarty, Major III, 7-9, 13, 15 Mallet / Malee, Pierre, II, 19, 20, 23, 24 – III, 1, 2, 19 Mallet, Paul, II, 19, 20, 23 Mandeville, de I , 16 Manegre, Louis VI, 10 Manegle/Manaigle Marboeuf, Etienne V, 5-9 Marchand J B XII, 3 Marcu, Antoine IV, 6 Marest, Father Gabriel, I, 17, 19 Marie, IV, 9 518 Marie, Joseph IX, 5 Marley M XII, 3 Marmillon, Francisco IV, 6 Marquette, Jacques I, 2, 6-9 Martigny, Francois IV, 3 Martin, Michel, XII, 3 Martinez, Enrico I, 1 Masnet, Augustine, IX, 4 Masnet, Edouard, IX, 4 Masnet, Elizabeth, IX, 4 Masnet, Little August, IX, 4 Masnet, Louis IX, 4 Masnet, Louisa/ Marie Louise IX, 4 Masnet, Marguerite, IX, 4 Masnet/Marnet/Moninet, Alexandre IX, 4 Mathevon, Lucille XVI, 1, 2, 3, 6-10, 18, 20, 28, 29 Matthieu VII, 6 Maurepas Mayet/ Majet/Mayette Jean Baptiste VI, 3, 9 long Mc Coy, John IX, 20 - X, 7, 12 McCoy, Isaac IX, 2, 7, 12 - X, 25 – XI, 1, 11 Membre, Zenobius I, 8, 9 Menan, M. IV, 4 Menard Jean H XII, 3 Menard, Berenice Therese (1801-1888) m. Francois G. Chouteau – see Chouteau X. 1 Menard, Francois - IV, 22 (1794) Ménard, Louis XIV, 9, 12 (Fremont 1842-3) Menard, Louis Cyprien (1819-1870) - son of Pierre Menard - XIII, 31-35 Menard, Pierre, Sr.(1766-1844)VI, 4 (long), - X, 2, 10, 20, 22 – XII, 5 – XIII, 31 Mercier, Claude IV, 6 Mercier, Antoine VI, 11 Metoyer, Jeannot VI, 1 Meunier, Juan IV, 8 Michel, Francois See St Michelle IX, 15 Michel, Honore III, 10-11 Mishell/ St/ Michel IX, 16 Mitchell / St Mitchelle IX, 15, 16 Moncharvaux, Jean Baptiste III Moncharvaux, Jean Francois de III, 9-13 Moncravie /Moncrevie, Jean Baptiste VII, 18 Moncrevier, Jean Baptiste XIV, 35 Mongrain, Francis - grandson of Noel Sr IX, 1 Mongrain, Francis, son of Noel , Sr IX, 1 Mongrain, Louisson, grandson of Noel Sr IX, 1 Mongrain, Victoria, daughter of Noel Sr IX, 1 519 Mongrain, Baptiste – son of Noel Sr - IV, 8 - IX, 1, 2 , 3, 4, 15 – X, 9 Mongrain, Charles, grandson Noel Sr - IX, 1, 4, 15 Mongrain, Christophe IX, 3 son of Baptiste Mongrain, Francois IX, 3 son of Baptiste Mongrain, Francois, IX, 4 Mongrain, Henry IX, son of Noel Jr IX, 3 Mongrain, Joseph - son of Francois - IX, 3, 4 Mongrain, Joseph, - son of Noel, Sr - IX, 1, 2, 4 Mongrain, Julia daughter of Noel, Sr - IX, 1, 3 - married Joseph Suisse IX, 4 Mongrain, Julie daughter of Baptiste IX, 3 Mongrain, Julie – married Joseph Suisse IX, 4 Mongrain, Julie, - daughter of Noel - IX, 3, 4 Mongrain, Juliet - daughter of Noel Sr - IX, 1 Mongrain, Louis - son of Noel Sr - IX, 1, 4 Mongrain, Marie Jane, IX, 4 Mongrain, Michel IX, 4 Mongrain, Mongrain - son of Noel Sr - IX, 1 Mongrain, Noel , Sr IX, 1, 2, 4 – X. 9 Mongrain, Noel, son of Noel Sr - IX, 1, 4 Mongrain, P. L. IX, 3 Mongrain, Pelagie daughter of Noel (Jr ?) IX, 3, 4 Mongrain, Pierre - son of Baptiste IX, 3 - Mongrain, Sophie – wife of Papin, Pierre Melicourt -IX, 1,4 – X, 9 -XIII, 6, 17 Mongrain, Victoria - daughter of Noel Sr – IX, 1, 4 Mongrain/ Mongeon, Thomas IX, 5 Montaigne F XII, 3 Montardy, Calliste/Calice 1798 ?-1847 VI, 3 Montardy, Pierre/Pedro IV, 8 (long – license 1792) VI, 2 (license 1807) Montreuil, Louis XIV, 12 Monttruelle, P XII, 3 Morin, Antoine XII, 3 - XIV, 18, 21, 25 Morin, Louis II, 20, 22 Morly, Michel XIV, 8 Morrin, Henry XII, 3 Morris, Jr, Jean Baptiste XII, 3 Mouillard, Victoria, IX, 4 Mun, de, IV, 8 – V, 22 Murez, Jean VI, 3 Nadau, Angelique XV, 20 Nadau, Pierre XV, 20 Nadeau , Mrs. , IX, 22 Nadeau, Alexander IX, 22 Nadeau, Catharine, IX, 22, 23 Nadeau, Ely IX, 22 Nadeau, Michel XVI, 18 Nadeau, Rosanna IX, 22, 23 520 Nicollet, Joseph N - VII, 6 - XII, 8 – XIV, 1-6 Nitar, Pedro IV Nolan, Gervais VII, 27 Obrey, Pelagie/ see D’ Aubry Pelagie (Gonville), IX, 8 Obuchon, Louis XII, 3 Ogee, Joseph XI, 10 Ogee, Louis L XI, 10-11, 13 Onate, Juan de I, 1 Orleans, Duchess, II Spain Orleans, Duke, Regent, II, 1, 10, 17, 19 Ouilmette, Antoine XI, 10 Oulle, Francois VI, 14 Padilla , Juan de I, 1 Paillan, IV, 3 Palmier, Louis XII, 3 Pantoche, Alexis IX, 9 Papin Pierre Didier(1798-1853) VII, 16 - VIII, 22-24, 26 - XII, 2, 13 Papin, Edward, son of Paul Melicourt IX, 5 – XIII, 17 Papin, Gilles XI, 2 Papin, Hipolyte VI, 9 long Papin, Jean IV, 20 Papin, Joseph Marie X, 10 Papin, Julia, XI, 4, IX, 16 Papin, Lafose/Laforce Papin, Louis seee Pappan Louis Papin, Mary Ann, IX, 4 Papin, Pelagie, IX, 4 Papin, Pierre Melicourt (1793-1849) m. Sophie Mongrain X, 8 - XIII, 6, 17 Pappan , Josette (Gonville), see Josette Gonville Pappan ,Euberie XI, 2 Pappan, Ahcan - married Victoire/Margaret Gonville IX, 5, 9, 12 - X page - XI, 2 Pappan, Ellen daughter of Julie Gonville & Louis Pappan, mother of Charles Curtis IX, 8 Pappan, Euberie XI, 2 Pappan, Joseph, married Josette Gonville IX, 5, 7, 8, 12 – XI, 1-9 Pappan, Louis – married Julie/July Gonville - IX, 5, 8, 12 – XI, 1, 2, 8, 9 Pappan, Pelagie (Gonville) – married Francois D’Aubry see Gonville Parision, Jos XII, 3 Parson, Eliza IX, 13 Pascal, Marcus, son Luther Paschal/ Pascal, Luther IX, 25 blacksmih Patoulet, sir I, 17 Paul Wilhem, duke of Wurttemberg see Wurttemberg Pecotte, Pierre IX, 4 Pedras, Francois XIV, 112 521 Peletrie, Louis see Peltier Peltier/Peltielle, Julia IX, 4 Peltier/Petier/Peletrie, Louis IX, 4, 5, 15 - X, 18 Penesau, Aloysius, XV, 20 Penesau, Louis XV, 20 Penicaut, I, 13, 14 Pensineau, Brigitte Aimable IX, 18 - X, 24 Pensineau, Laurent IX, 17 – X, 5, 22-24 Pensineau, Maria IX, 18 – X , 24 Pensineau, Pascal IX, 17-20 – X, 22, 23 - XV, 1, 2 Peoria, Baptiste IX, 25 Pepin , Louis See Pappan XIV, 10 Pera, Alexis XIV, 12, 15 Peret, Lisette – married Francois Bourdon IX, 13 Periel, Louis IX, 4 Perra, Joseph IX, 1 Perrault, Louis (Luis) (Monsieur) IV, 4, 6 Perrin du Lac, Francois Marie I, 28 Perryeau, P XII, 3 Poirier, Jos XII, 2 Pertie, Juan IV, 5 Petit, Benjamin Marie XV, 8-17 Petre. J IX, 5 Phelipeaux, Jean Frederic, see Maurepas Philibert, Joseph VI, 15, 16 3 Philibert, Gabriel IX, 15, 20, 21 Picar la Royer, IV, 3 Picart IV, 3 Piche/Picheau/Pichou VII, 18 Pichon V, 2 Picote de Beletre, IV, , 10 Picotte, Henry XII, 2 Picotte, Honore VII, 16 - XII, 12, (long)13, Picotte, Joseph - nephew of Honore XII, 18 Pin, Alexander IV, 4 Pinaut, Pierre, son of Joseph Pineau V 6 Pino – See Fournaise Pirogue IV, 23 Pitot, Pierre I, 18 Poidrier, P XII, 3 Poinsett, Joel R. XIV, 3 Point, Nicholas IX, 5 - XII, 9, 13 XV, 5-7 Pointsable VI, 10 Poirier, Joe VIII, 15-16 Poissant, Louis IX, 4 Pomet, Pedro IV, 5 522 Pore, Eugenio IV, 6 long note Porteau VI, 5 Portneuf, Louis Robineau de III, 7-9, 13-15 Potra, Benjamin XIV, 8 Pourtales, Count Albert Auguste de VIII, 6-9 Pratte, Bernard Jr VII, 4 - XII, 5 (long), 7 Pratte, Chouteau and Co X, 1 - XII, 1 Prayon , Etienne, father Adeline, husband Aloise Prebert IX, 13 Prayon, Adeline daughter Etienne - wife Charles Gibeau IX, 13 Prayon, Mathilde, daughter Etienne m. Joseph Gibeau IX, 13 Prebert, Aloise, married Etienne Prayon IX, 13 Presse, Baptiste XII, 3 Prevot, --- VIII, 8 Primeau E XII, 3 Primeau, Charles XII, 19 Primeau, Paul V, 5, 6, 8, 9 Primeau, Pierre XII, 3 Primo, B XII, 3 Prineu, Margaret IX, 4 Proue, Raphael XIV, 9 11, 19, 21, 25 Provost, Baptiste, son of Jean Baptiste Prevost VI, 11 Provost, Etienne VII, 3-6 - VIII, 12 – XII, 6,13 – XIV, 2, 4-5, 32, 34-5 Quebec, IV, 22 Quenel, Pedro IV, 9 Quenneville Francois IX, 5 Quenville, Angelique IX, 3 daughter Francois Quenville/ Canville IX, 5 Quenville/Canville, Elizabeth – married Jean Baptiste St Michel IX, 5 Quenville/Quenneville, VI, 10 see Guenville Redon de Rassac III, 15 Reinal, Antonio IV, 6 also Reynal Renard, Joseph VI, 1 Renaud, Marguerite IX, 5 Renaudiere, II, 11, 17-19 Reneau, Marguerite IX, 1 Renonville, de Seignelay – See Colbert I, 14 Revard, Felice, IX, 13 Revard, Ursuline IX, 4 Revoir, Joseph VI, 12 Riballo, Joseph Michel III, 1 Richardville, Mary Louise IX, 13 Richardville, Michael IX, 13 Rigaud, Francois-Pierre, Baron de Cavagnal de, III, 23 see Cavagnial Rigaud, Philippe de, Marquis de Vaudreuil – see Vaudreuil III, 23 Rioudeau VIII, 3 Riquar , Trompe IV, 4 Rivalette, known as Brisa IX, 10 523 Rivar, Joseph IX, 4 Rivard, Louis XI, 9 Rivet, Francois V, 5-8 Robideau, John IX, 13 Robidoux / Robbedeau, James/Jaco IX, 13 Robidoux, Francois I – IV, 19 Robidoux Francois II - VII, 23-24 – X, 25-26 Robidoux, Antoine VII, 23-27 Robidoux, Isadore VII, 23, 24 Robidoux, Joseph II- 1783-1868 VII, , 26, 28, 29 Robidoux, Joseph, III - son of Joseph II - VII, 28 Robidoux, Julius X, 26 Robidoux, Louis - VII 16, 27 Robidoux, Louis, son of Francois VII, 28 Robidoux, Louis, son of Isadore VII, 28 Robidoux, Marie Louise, wife Louis Gibeu IX, 13 Robidoux, Michel VII, 1, 27, 28 Robidoux, Sellico, son of Francois VII, 28 Robidoux/ Robbedeau Jaco/James, father of Margaret Mary Louisa IX, 13 Robidoux/Robbedeau , Margaret Mary Louisa, daughter of James/Jaco IX, 13 Robitaille, Philippe, II Rocheblave IV, 4 Roi, Elisa, IX, 4 Roi, Pierre V, 5, 8 Rouain, Baptiste VIII, 4 Rouillard, known as St. Cyr IV, 21 Rouille, Antoine Louis (1689-1761) sec, navy I, 24 III, 6, 10 Rouin Quenache de, IV, 10 Rouin, Benoit de IV, 10 Rouin, Estevan IV, 8 Roux, Father Benedict X, 12, 23 long XV, 1 Roy III, 18 Roy X, 25 Roy, Antoine/Antonio IV, 9, 21 Roy, Jean Baptiste, XI, 1, 2 Roy, Julia - daughter of Louis Roy married Clement Lessert - IX, 8, 20 Roy, Louis IX, 20 father of Julia Roy Ruelle, Joseph XIV, 9 Saint Ange et de Bellerive, Louis Gaston de, II, 11, 18-19 – III, 5 – IV, 2 Saint Clair, M. de III, 6 Saint Cyr, Jacinto/Rouillard IV, 21 Salmon, Edme Gastien, intendant of Louisiana, II, 20 Sandoval, Felipe de III, 2 Saugrain, Antoine Francois (1761-1827) V, 3 Sanguinet, Alexis Pantoche, IX, 3 (bap) Sanguinet, Charles IX, 3 (bap) 524 Sanguinet, Charles –VI, 1, 5, 9, 10 (partner Lisa) long Sanguinet, Charles Jr. - VI , 9, 11 Sarpy brothers IV, 7 Sarpy, Jean (John)1798-1857) son of Berald –VII, 18 - XII, 6(long,) 9, 13, 17, 18 Sarpy, Gregoire (Bernald) 1764-1824 IV, 7 , 9, 17, 21 – VI, 1-VII, 18 Sarpy, Jean Baptiste ( died 1799) IV, 7 (long) Sarpy, Oscar XIV, 12 (Fremont) Sarpy, P XIV, 11 (Bellevue) Sarpy, Peter A. , son of J. B. XII, 6 Satren, Pierre/Sastre Pedro III, 1, 2 Saucier, Brigitte X, 8 Savoie IV, 22, 26 Schlienger, Sebastian (Swiss – served in French army) XVI, 26 Schultz, John (French) XVI, 26, 27, 28 Segon, Joseph IV, 4, 6 Segont, Pablo IV, 4 Serra, Tomas de III, 19 Shattio/ Chatillon, Clement XI, 7 Sibille, Jean VIII, 24-25 Simonds, Daniel XIV, 8 Sire, John XIV, 32 Sire, Joseph A. XII, 9, 10, 11, 12, Sorel--- VIII, 29 Sorel, see Baptiste Tabeau Soulard, Antoine !, 27, 29 - V, 2, 3 St Cicel, Michel / Francois IX, 5 St Michel/Mishel Jean Baptiste – married Elizabeth Quenville /Canville IX, 4, 5 St. Michel, Frank, IX, 4, 5 St. Michel, John IX, 4, 5, 16 St. Michelle, Louis IX, 1 St. Mitchelle, Victoria IX, 1 St. Mitchelle, Francis IX, 1 St. Mitchelle, Baptiste Jr IX, 1 St. Pierre - see Labiche V , 9, 10-12 Suisse, Joseph, IX, 4 – married Julie Mongrain Suisse, Julie IX, 4 Suisse, Phebe IX, 4 Suprenant, M XII, 3 Swiss, Catherine - married Louison Brusier IX, 4 Swiss, Joseph - married Julie Mongrain IX, 4 Swiss, Joseph, son of Joseph , IX, 4 Swiss, Julie Phibe, daughter of Joseph IX, 4 Swiss/La Suisse, Joseph IX, 15 Tabeau Pierre Antoine IV, 24 ( long) – V, 5 Tabeau, Jean Baptiste XIV, 12, 15, 16 Tabeau, Vincent XIV, 21, 25 525 Tacier, Antoine IX, 12 - X, 20 Talon, Jean – intendant of Canada I, 2, 7 Taplin, Charles, XIV, 12 Tatis, J B XV, 20 Tayon, Francois IX, 1 Tebau, Matilda, wife Joseph IX, 13 Tebeau, Adeline Esther, daughter Joseph IX, 13 Tebeau, Louis, son of Joseph IX, 13 Tebeau, Joseph, IX, 13 Terrien, Andre IV, 16, 20, 24 Terrien, Marie Louise married Andre Canville X, 27 Terrien/Terentien , Louisa IX, 4 Tessier, François XIV, 8, 12 Tesson, Jean Baptiste XIV, 12, 15 Thevenot, Melchisede I, 4 Thibeau, Alexis XII, 3 Tichenet, Mme I, 18 Tixier, Victor IX, 2 – X, 8 – XIII, 5-31 Toledo, Juan Jose III Tonty/Tonti, Henry de I, 8, 9, 11 Traverse, Alfred XII, 3 Trecul, Auguste Adolphe XIV, 36--37 Tremble, Joseph IX, 15 Tremble, Louis XI, 20 Tronson, Abbe I, 10 Trudeau, James D – grandson of Zenon XIII, 6 Trudeau, Lorenzo III Trudeau, Marie Therese III Trudeau, Pedro III, 18 Trudeau, Zenon IV, 9-14, 19, 22 – XIII, 6 Trumbee - see Tremble , Trumbee - see Tremble , Truteau, Jean Baptiste I, 17 – IV, 21- 22 (long) - V, 3, 9 Utt, John/Joseph IX, 20 Vachard, Chas XII, 3 Vajeret, Mary IX, 13 Valdeverde, Antonio, governor of New Mexico, II, 7 Valentine, Absolom XII, 3 Valentine, Dennis XII, 3 Vallett, J – VI, 2 Vallett, B. - VI, 2 Valle, Francois/Francisco – 1716-1783 - IV, 4, (long), 5 Valle, Francois, Jr – 1779-1841 – IV, 5(long) – V, 15 Vallee, Louison VII, 18 Vallier, Francois L - IX, 15 Vashon , George X, 21 – XI, 9 526 Vasquez, Benito (Baronet) 1783-1828 IV, 3, 9, 21 Vasseur, Antoine - son of Basile - XI, 3 , Vasseur, Basile IX, 3, 4 Vasseur, Basile – son of Basile - IX, 3, 4 Vasseur, Basilio IV , 7, 8 Vaudreuil ,Marquis de, Philippe de Rigaud , Gov Canada (1705-25), III, 4 Vaugondy, Gilbert Robert de, I, 24 Velez, Tomas Cachupin, governor at Santa Fe II III Velo, Santiago / Belleau/Belot III, 1 Vermale I, 22 Verrot, Joseph – XIV, 12 Vertefeuille, Joseph /Vertafault/Strikefire/Vertify/Vertife m. Elizabeth Carboneau IX, 10 Vertefeuille, Louise IX, 10 Vertefeuille, Peleshe/Pelagie IX, 10 Vertefeuille, Victoria m. Louis Catalan/Catalon IX, 10 Vial, Pierre/Pedro III, 1 IV, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 Vieux, Jacques, XI, 17 Vieux, Louis Amable XI, 17-19 Vilemont III, 16 Villasur, Pedro de, II, 7 Villiers, Francois Coulon, chevalier de III, 5, 6 Villiers, Nicholas Antonin Coulon de, (father) III, 5 Volsay, Pierre Francois de, IV, 3, 7 Voyageurs, II, 2, 8 Wied-Neuwied, Maximilian Alexandre Philip, prince of- II, 6–V, 22 - VII, 2, XII, 4-5 Wurttemberg , Paul Wilhem, duke of 1797-1832 - VIII, 2 (long), 3, 4 – X, 11- XIV, 32 Zarape de Salmeron, Geronimo I, 1 527 BIBLIOGRAPHY Abel, Annie H., ed. Tabeau’s Narrative of Loisel’s Expedition to the Upper Missouri. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1939. IV, 24 Adams, Frederick G., ed. “Reminiscences of Frederick Chouteau.” Transactions of the Kansas Historical Society, 8 (1903-1904): 423-434. IX, 10 Allen, John L. Passage through the Garden: Lewis and Clark and the Image of the American Northwest. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975. I, 26 Alter, J. Cecil. James Bridget, Trapper, Frontiersman, Scout, and Guide. Salt Lake City: Shepard Book, 1925. VII, 3 Alvord, Clarence W. The Illinois Country, 1673-1818. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1965. II, 6 Atlas Universel de Geographie Physique, Statistique et Minealogique. Bruxelles: Ode & Vodon, 1827. X, 17 Ambrose, Stephen E. Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and The Opening of the West. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996. V, 9 Andreas, A. T., and W. G. Coulter. History of the State of Kansas. Chicago: A. T Andreas, Chicago, 1883. II, 11 Audubon, Maria R. Edited by Ellliott Coues. Audubon and His Journals. Edited by Ellliott Coues. New York: Scribner, 1897. XII, 10 Baldwin, Leland. The Keelboat Age on Western Waters. Pittsburg: University of Pittsburg Press, 1941. IV, 4 Ballard, David E. “The First State Legislature.” Transactions of the Kansas State 528 Historical Society 10 (1907-1908): 232-234. XI, 20 Barns, Chancy R., ed. The Commonwealth of Missouri: A Centennial Record. X, 1 St. Louis, MO: Bryan, Brant, 1877. Barnes, Lela. “Journal of Isaac McCoy for the Exploring Expedition of 1828.” Kansas Historical Quarterly 5 (August 1936): 227-277. IX, 2 Barry, Louise. The Beginning of the West: Annals of the Gateway to the American West, 1540-1854. Topeka: Kansas State Historical Society, 1972. I,1 —————. “Fort Aubrey.” Kansas Historical Quarterly 39 (Summer 1973), 188-199. XVII, 15 –––––––––– . “The Renaming of Robidoux Creek, Marshall County.” Kansas Historical Quarterly 18 (May, 1950): 159-163. VII, 27 —————, ed. “Scenes in (and en route to) Kansas Territory, Autumn 1854: Five Letters by William H. Hunter.” Kansas Historical Quarterly 35 (Autumn 1965): 312-336. IX, 11 ————––“William Clark’s Diary.” Part Three. Kansas Historical Quarterly 16 (1948) 274-305. XII, 5 Baunard, Louis. Histoire de Madame Duchesne. Paris: Cerf, 1878. XVI, 3 Beauregard, H. T., trans. Journal of Jean Baptiste Trudeau [Truteau] among the Arikaras Indians in 1795. Missouri Historical Society Collections 4 (1912) IV, 9-48. Beckman, Peter. The Catholic Church on the Kansas Frontier 1850-1877. St. Marys, Kansas, 1962. XVI, 27 529 Benson Guy M. Lewis and Clark: The Maps of Exploration, 1507-1814. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Library, 2002. I, 23 Berkeley, Grantley F. The English Sportsman in the Western Prairies. London: XVI, 26 Hurst and Blackett, 1861. Biddle, Nicholas, ed. The Journals of the Expedition under the Command of Capts. Lewis and Clark. 2 vols. New York: Heritage Press, 1962. V, 1 Bieber, Ralph P., ed. Exploring Southwestern Trails, 1846-1854. Glendale: Arthur H. Clark, 1938. XVII, 13 ————. ed. Adventures in the Santa Fe Trade, 1844-1877. Glendale: Arthur H. Clark, 1931. XVII, 14 Bigelow, John. Memoir of the Life and Public Services of John Charles Fremont: Including an Account of his Explorations, Discoveries and Adventures on Five Successive Expeditions across the North American Continent. 2 vols. New York: Derby and Jackson, 1856. XIV, 24 Billon, Frederic L. Annals of St. Louis in its Early Days under the French and Spanish Dominations, 1764-1804. 2 vols. St. Louis: Nixon-Jones Printing, 1886. IV, 2 ——— .Annals of St. Louis in its Territorial Days from 1804 to 1821. St. Louis: Nixon-Jones Printing, 1888. I, 27 Blakeslee, Donald J. Along Ancient Trails: The Mallet Expedition of 1739. Niwot: University of Colorado Press, 1995. II, 19 Bloom, Lansing. “The Death of Jacques d’Eglise.” New Mexico Historical Review 2 no. 4 (October 1927): 369-379. IV, 17 Bollig, Richard J. History of Catholic Education in Kansas 1886-1932. Catholic 530 University of America. Washington D.C., 1933. XVI, 11 Bolton, Herbert E. “French intrusions into New Mexico, 1749-1752.” In The Pacific Ocean in History. Edited by H. Morse Stephens and Herbert E. Bolton. New York: Macmillan, 1917. II, 6 Bonneville’s Adventures.” In Works of Washington Irving 10. New York, 1860. VII, 8 Bossu’s Travels in the Interior of North America, 1751-1762. Translated and edited by Seymour Feiler. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962. III, 6 Bourassa, J. N. “The Life of Wa-bahn-se: The Warrior Chief of the Pottawatamies.” Kansas Historical Quarterly 38 (Summer 1972): 132-143. IX, 21 Boyd, Beverly. The Song of Mound City. New York: Vintage Press, 1990. XVI, 13 Bradbury Travels in the Interior of America in the years 1809-1811. In Early Western Travels, 1748-1846. Edited by Reuben G. Thwaites. Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark, 1904. VI, 6 Brandon, William. The Men and the Mountain: Fremont’s Fourth Expedition. New York: William Morrow, 1955. XIV, 4 Bray, Martha. Joseph N. Nicollet and his Map. Philadelphia: American Philosophy Society, 1980. XIV, 1 Bray, Edmund C. and Martha C. Coleman, eds. Joseph Nicollet on the Plains and Prairies: the Expeditions of 1838-1839 with Journals, Letters, and Notes on the Dakota Indians. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1993. XIV, 2 Brewerton, George D. Overland with Kit Carson: A Narrative of the Old Spanish Trail in ’48. New York: Coward-McCann, 1930. XVIII, 4 Bright, John D. Kansas: The First Century. 4 vols. New York: Lewis Historical 531 Publishing, 1956. II, 6. Bryant, Edward. What I Saw in California. New York: D. Appleton, 1848. VIII, 23 Bundschu, Henry A. “Francis Xavier Aubry.” The Pacific Historian 5 no. 3 (August 1961) 116-123. XVII, 1 Burns, Louis F. Osage Missions: Baptisms, Marriages, and Interments, 1820-1886. Fallbrook, CA: Ciga Press, 1986. VIII 34. Caldwell, Norman W. The French in the Mississippi Valley 1740-1750. Chapter Callan, Louise. Philippine Duchesne: Frontier Missionary of the Sacred Heart. XVI, 12 Westminster, MD: Newman Press, 1957. Carter, Harvey L. “The Divergent Paths of Fremont’s “Three Marshalls.” New Mexico Historical Review 68 (January 1973)5-25. XIV, 19 Caruso John A. The Mississippi Valley Frontier: The Age of French Exploration and Settlement. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1966. Chapter Carvalho, Solomon Nunes. Incidents of Travel and Adventure in the Far West. Edited by Bertram W. Kom. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1954. XIV, 26 Chappell, Phil. E. “A History of the Missouri River.” Transaction of the Kansas State Historical Society 9 (1905-1906): 236-316. II, 5 Chaput, Donald. Francis X. Aubry: Trader, Trailmaker, and Voyageur in the Southwest, 1846- 1854. Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark, 1975. XVII, 1 532 Chateaubriand, Francois-Rene de, Atala ou les Amours de deux sauvages dans le desert. Paris: Nilsson, n.d. XVII, 1 Chittenden, Hiram M. The American Fur Trade of the Far West: A History of the Pioneer Trading Posts & Early Fur Companies of the Missouri Valley & Rocky Mountains, & of the Overland Commerce with Santa Fe. 2 vols. Academic Reprints, 1954. IV, 2. ———————–– . History of Early Steamboat Navigation on the Missouri River: Life and Adventures of Joseph La Barge. 2 vols. Minneapolis: Ross and Haines, 1962. VI, 2 Chittenden, Hiram M. and Alfred Richardson, eds. Life, Letters and Travels of Father Pierre-Jean De Smet, S. J. 1801-1873. 4 vols. New York: Harper, 1905. XV, 6 Christian, Shirley. Before Lewis and Clark: The Story of the Chouteaus, the French Dynasty That Ruled the American’s Frontier. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004. X, 8 Clarke, Charles G. The Men of the Lewis and Clark Expedition: A biographical roster of the fifty-one members and a complete diary of their activities from all known sources. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1970. V, 4 Clelland, Charlotte. “The Story of the Land.” Bulletin of the Shawnee County Historical Society 22 (December, 1954) 53-54. XI, 8 Clelland, Robert G. This Reckless Breed of Men: The Trappers and Traders of the Southwest. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1950 VII, 27 Cole, Fannie E. “The Kansas Indians in Shawnee County after 1855.”Kansas Historical Quarterly 8 (1903-1904) 481-483. IX, 5 533 Collot, Georger Henri Victor. A Journey in North America., 1796, 2 vols. Reprint Firenze, Italy: O. Lange, 1924. IV, 25 Cone, William W. “Feliz Island.” Bulletin of the Shawnee County Historical Society XI, 4 13 (March, 1951) 12-15 ———————. Historical Sketch of Shawnee County, Kansas. Topeka: Kansas Farmer House, 1877. XI, 10 ———————. “Shawnee County Townships: Soldier Township.” Bulletin of the Shawnee County Historical Society 1 no. 4 (September-December, 1947) 109- 112. XI, 2 Connelley, William E. “Notes on the Early Indian Occupancy of the Great Plains.” Collections of the Kansas State Historical Society 14 (1915-1918), 438-470. II, 15 ———— . A Standard History of Kansas and Kansans. 5 vols. Chicago: Lewis Publishing, 1918. II, 4 Cortambert Louis. Voyage au pays des Osages. Paris, Arthur Bertrand, 1837. XIII, ---- Cortambert, Louis. “Journey to the Lands of the Osages, 1835-136.” Translated by Mrs. Max W. Myer and edited by Carl H. Chapman. Bulletin of the Missouri Historical Society 19, no. 3 (April, 1963), 199-229. XIII, ----- Coues, Elliott, ed. Forty Years a Fur Trader on the Upper Missouri: The Personal Notes of Charles Larpenteur, 1833-1872. 2 vols. Minneapolis: Ross and Haines, 1962. VII, 7 ————— . The History of the Expedition under the Command of Lewis and Clark. 3 vols. New York: Dover, 1965. III, 16 —————— ed. The Expeditions of Zebulon Montgomery Pike to the Headwaters of the Mississippi, through Louisiana Territory, and in New Spain during the 534 Years 1805- 6- 7. Minneapolis: Ross & Haines, 1965. VI, 1 Coyner, Davis H. The Lost Trappers. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1970. VI, 12 Cutright, Paul R. A History of the Lewis and Clark Journals. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976. V, 14 Dale, Harrison C. “A Fragmentary Journal of William L. Sublette.” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 6 (1919) 99-110. VIII, 19 ————————. The exploration of William Ashley and Jeremiah Smith V, 13 1828-1829. Revised edition. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1991. Dalton, Marie L. “Notes on the Genealogy of the Vallee Family.” Missouri Historical Society Collections 2 (1900) 54-82. IV, 4 Deglangez, Jean. “Franquelin, Mapmaker.” Mid-America 14 (January 1942): 29-74 I, 11 Delorme, David. Kansas Atlas and Gazetteer. Fremont ME, 1997. II, 13 De Mun, Marquis. “Brief Account of the de Mun Family in France.” Missouri Historical Society Collections 5 ---- 209-215. VI, 16 DeVoto, Bernard. Across the Wide Missouri. Boston: Houghton Mifflin 1947. VII, 2 DeVoto, Bernard, Mark DeVoto, and Stephen E. Ambrose. The Year of Decision 1846. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2000. VII, 1 Dickson, Charles Howard. “The True History of the Branson Rescue.” Collections of the Kansas State Historical Society 13 (1913-1914) 280-298 XI, 19 Diller, Aubrey. “A New Map of the Missouri River Drawn in 1795.” Imago Mundi 535 12 (1955) 175-180. I, 27 Din, Gilbert C. and Abraham P. Nasatir. The Imperial Osages: Spanish-Indian Diplomacy in the Mississippi Valley. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1983. II, 7 Dobie, Frank J., “Saga of the Saddle.” Southwest Review 12 (January, 1921) XVII, 1 127-142 Donnelly, Joseph P., ed. Wilderness Kingdom, Indian Life in the Rocky Mountains, 1840-1847: The Journals & Paintings of Nicholas Paul. New York: Holt, Rinehart IX, 9 and Winston, 1967. Douglas, Walter B. “Manuel Lisa,” Missouri Historical Society Collections 3 no. 3 (1911): 233-268. IV, 2 Drago, Henry S. The Steamboaters: From the Early Side-Steamers to the Big Packets. New York: Dodd, Meade, 1967. XII, 3 Drumm, Stella M. ed. Luttig’s Journal of a Fur-Trading Exploration on the Upper Missouri, 1812-1813. New York: Argosy Antiquarian, 1964 IV, 21 Duke, Donald, ed. Water Trails West. Garden City NY: Doubleday Publishing, 1978 XII, 16 Dunbar, John B. “The White Man’s Foot in Kansas.” Transactions of the Kansas Historical Society 10 (1907-1908) 54-98. I, 1 Duncan, L. Wallace, History of Neosho and Wilson Counties, Kansas. Fort Scott, X, 28 KS: Monitor Printing, 1902. Durant, Mary and Michael Harwood, On the Road with John James Audubon. XIV, 30 New York: Dodd, Meade, 1980. Ehrenberg Ralph E. “Exploratory Mapping of the Great Plains before 1800.” In I, 25 536 Mapping the North American Plains. Edited by Frederick C. Luebke, Frances W. Kaye, and Gary Moulton. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987. ————————. “Mapping the North American Plains.” In Mapping the North American Plains. Edited by Frederick C. Luebke, Frances W. Kaye, and Gary E. Moulton. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987. I, 4 Ellsworth, Henry L. Washington Irving on the Prairie; or, A Narrative of a Tour in the Southwest in the Year 1822. Edited by Stanley T. Williams and Barbara D. Simison. New York: American Book, 1937. VIII, 11 Favour, Alpheus H. Old Bill Williams, Mountain Man. Chapel Hill: North Carolina University Press, 1936. XIV, 25 Bossu’s Travels in the Interior of North America, 1751-1752. Translated and edited by Seymour Feiler. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962. CHAPTER Ferol, Egan. Fremont: Explorer of a Restless Nation. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1977 XIV, 9 Ferris, Warren A. Life in the Rocky Mountains, 1830-1835. Salt Lake City: VII, 2 Rocky Mountain Book Shop, 1940. Fitzgerald, Daniel. Ghosts Towns of Kansas, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1988. IX, 20 Flagg, Edmund. The Far West or a Tour beyond the Mountains, 2 vols. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1838. VIII, 12 Foley, William E. A History of Missouri, 1673-1820. 2 vols. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1971. IV, 1 Folmer, Henri. “Contreband Trade between Louisiana and New Mexico in the Eighteenth Century.” New Mexico Historical Review 16 no. 3 (July 1941) 249-274. III, 1 537 —————. “Etienne Veniard de Bourgmont in the Missouri Country,” Missouri Historical Review 36 no. 3 (April 1942) 279-298. II, 10 —————. Franco-Spanish Rivalry in North America, 1524-1763. Glendale: Arthur H. Clark, 1953. chapter —————. “The Mallet Expedition of 1739 through Nebraska, Kansas, and Colorado to Santa Fe.” The Colorado Magazine 16 (September, 1939), 1-13. II, 20 Foreman, Grant. Pioneer Days ion the Early Southwest, Cleveland: Arthur R. Clark, 1926. VI, 20 Frégault, Guy. Le Grand Marquis: Pierre de Rigaud de Vaudreuil et la Louisiane III, 3 Montreal, Canada: Fides, 1952. Fremont, John C. Memoirs of my Life. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2001. XIV, 3 ——————– .Narratives of Exploration and Adventure. Edited by Allan Nevins, X, 12 New York: Longmans, Green, 1956. ——————– . Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains in the Year1842, and to Oregon and North California in the Years 1843-’44. Washington, DC. Gales and Seaton, Printers, 1845. VIII, 19 Fuller, Harlin M. and LeRoy R Hafen, eds. The Journal of Captain John R Bell: Official Journalist of the Stephen H. Long’s Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, 1820. Glendale: Arthur H. Clark, 1973. V, 24 Garraghan, Gilbert J. Catholic Beginnings in Kansas City, Missouri: A Historical Sketch. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1920. IX, 5 ———————––. Chapters in Frontier History. Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1934. I, 15 538 ————————. “Fort d’Orleans of the Missoury.” Missouri Historical Society Review 35 no. 3 (April 1941) 373-384. II, 10 —————————.The Jesuits of the Middle United States, 3 vols. New IX, 1 York: America Press, 1938. Giraud, Marcel, ed. “Etienne de Veniard de Bourgmont’s Exact Description of Louisiana.” Translated by Mrs. Max W. Meyer. Missouri Historical Society Bulletin, 15 no.1 (October 1958), 3-19. I, 21 ——————. A History of the French Louisiana. 3 vols. Baton Rouge: University of Louisiana State Press, 1974-1987. 1, 17 Goetzman, William H. Exploration and Empire: The Explorer and the Scientist in the Winning of the West. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966. V, 15 Goff, William A. “Pierre Didier Papin.” In Mountain Men. Edited by LeRoy R. Hafen 9 (----) 305-320. XI, 2 Grant, Blanche C. When Old Trails Were New: The Story of Taos. New York: Press of the Pioneers, 1934. XIV, 21 Graves, William W. Annals of the Osage Missions. St. Paul, KS: Journal Press, 1935. IX, 15 ———————–. History of Neosho County. 2 vols. St. Paul, KS: Journal Press, 1949. CHAPTER Graves, William W., Gilbert J.Garraghan, and George Towle. History of the Kickapoo Mission and Parish: The First Catholic Church in Kansas. St. Paul, X, 22 KS: Journal Press, 1938. Gray, Paul L. Gray’s Doniphan County History. Bendena, KS: Roycroft Press, 1958. IX, 17 Gregg, Josiah. Commerce of the Prairie. Edited by Max L. Morehead. Norman: 539 University of Oklahoma Press, 1954. VI, 10 Gregg, Kate L., ed. The Road to Santa Fe: The Journal and Diaries of George Champlin Sibley. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1952. VIII, 4 ––—————– . “The Missouri Reader, Explorers in the Valley.” Part I. Missouri Historical Review 39 no. 4 (July 1945): 505-544. II, 3 Gregg, Kate L. and John F. McDermott, eds. Prairie and Mountain Sketches by Matthew C. Field. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1957. IX, 7 Greene, J. Evarts. The Santa Fe Trade: Its Routes and Character. Worcester, MA: C. Hamilton, 1893. XVII, 15 Greene, Albert R, “The Kansas River: Its Navigation.” Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society 9 (1905-1906) 317-358. chapter Guild, Thelma S. and Harvey L Carter. Kit Carson: A Pattern for Heroes. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984 XIV, 18 Gunnerson, James H. “An Introduction to Plains Apaches Archeology: The Dismal Ruiver Aspect.” Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 173, 1960. II, 5 Hafen, Ann W. “Jean Baptiste Charbonneau.” In Mountain Men. Edited by LeRoy R. Hafen (1965):205-224. VIII, 17 Hafen, LeRoy R. “Bissonet, dit Bijou.” In Mountain Men 9 (1972): 27-32. VI, 12 ——————– . “Etienne Provost.” In Mountain Men (1968) 371-385. VII, 3 ——————–. “Eustache Carrière.” In Mountain Men (1972) 41-42. VI, 11 540 –––————––, ed. French Fur Traders and Voyageurs in the American West: Twenty-five Sketches. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1997. IV, 21 ——————, ed. The Mountain Men and the Fur Traders of the Far West: Eighteen Biographical Sketches. 10 vols. Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark, IV, 19 1965-1972. ——————. French Fur Traders and Voyageurs in the American West. Spokane, WA: Arthur H. Clark, 1995. IV, 3 ———————. “Toussaint Charbonneau.” In Mountain Men 9 (1971) 53-62. V, 22 Hafen, LeRoy R., and Ann W. Hafen, eds. Rufus B. Sage, His Letters and Papers, 1836-1847. Glendale: Arthur H. Clark, 1956. VIII, 19 ———————————————. To the Rockies and Oregon, 1839-1842. Glendale: Arthur H. Clark, 1960. VIII, 18 Hafen, LeRoy R. and Carl C. Rister. Western America: The Exploration and Development of the Region beyond the Mississippi. Englewood Cliff, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1941. II, 22 Hagan, William T. The Sacs & Fox Indians. Norman: University of Oklah1oma Press, 1958. IX, 1 Haines, Aubrey L. Historical Sites along the Oregon Trail. St. Louis: Patrice Press, 1881. XI, 3 Hamilton, Raphael N. “The Early Cartography of the Missouri Valley.” American Historical Review, 39 no. 4 (July, 1934): 645-662. I, 4 Hanson, Charles E., Jr. “J. B Moncravie.” In Mountain Men 9----- 288-298 XIV, 36 541 ————————––. “Michel S. Cerré.” In Mountain Men 8, ----- 61-67 VII, 16 Hebard, Grace R. Sagajawea. Glendale: Arthur H. Clark, 1933. VIII, 17 Herring, Joseph B. Kenekuh, the Kickapoo Divine, Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1988. XV, 3 History of Buchanan County, Missouri. St. Joseph MO: Union Historical, 1881. X, 24 Hobbs, Wilson. “The Friends’ Establishment in Kansas Territory.” Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society 8 (1903-1904), 250-271. X, 13 Hoffhaus, Charles E. Chez les Cansas: Three Centuries at Kawsmouth: The French Foundations of Metropolitan Kansas City, Missouri. Kansas City: Lowell Press, 1984. II, 11 ——————— .“Fort de Cavagnial: Imperial France in Kansas, 1744- 1764.” Kansas Historical Quarterly 30 no. 4 (1964): 425-454. III, 3 Holland, Dorothy G. “St. Louis Families in the French West Indies.” In The French in the Mississippi Valley. Edited by John F. McDermott. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1965. VI, 16 Hoobler, Dorothy N. The Oregon Trail, the Jesuit Mission and the Town of St. Marys. St. Marys, KS ------ 1917. XI, 20 Houck, Louis. A History of Missouri from the Earliest Explorations and Explorations II, 4 and Settlements until the Admission of the State of Missouri into the Union. 3 vols. Chicago; R. R. Donnelly and Sons Co., 1908. —————, ed. The Spanish Regime in Missouri. 2 vols. Chicago: R. R. Donnelly, 1909. IV, 3 Hyde George E. Indians of the High Plains. Norman. University of Oklahoma Press 542 1959. II, 16 ——————. The Pawnee Indians from the Prehistoric Period to the Coming of the Europeans. Denver: University of Denver Press, 1951. IV, 2 Irving, Washington. A Tour of the Prairies. New York: American Book, 1937. VIII, 6 ———————–. The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U.S.A., in the Rocky Mountains and the Far West. Edited by Edgeley W. Todd. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961. VII, 7 Jackson Donald D., ed. Letters of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, with Related Documents 1783-1854. 2 vols.New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1985.. V, 1 ———————. Voyages of the Steamboat Yellow Stone. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987. VII, 2 Jacobs, Wilbur R., ed. Letters of Francis Parkman. 2 vols. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1960. VIII, 2 James, Thomas. Three Years among the Indians and Mexicans. Edited by Milo M. Quaife. Chicago: R. R. Donnelly, 1953. IV, 5 ----------“John Charles Fremont.” Littrell’s Living Age, 26 (1850). XIV, 13 Johnson, Allen, ed. Dictionary of American Biography. 20 vols. New York: Scribners, 1964. VI, 22 Jones, John P. “Discoverer of Kansas.” Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society 4 (1886-1890): 276-280. II, 4, Journal of Jean Baptiste Trudeau [Truteau] among the Arikara Indians in 1795. Translated by H. T. Beauregard. Missouri Historical Society Collections 4 (1914) IV, 3 543 Kappler, Charles J., ed., Indian Treaties, 1778-1833, New York: Interland Publishing, 1972. VI, 22 Kelly, William. An Excursion to California over the Prairies, Rocky Mountains and Great Sierra Nevada with a Stroll through the Diggings and Ranches of the Country. 2 vols. London: Chapman and Hall, 1851. XVI, 25 Kellog, Louise P. Early Narratives of the Northwest, 1634-1699. New York: Scribners, 1917. I, 3 Kellogg, Lyman B. “The Founding of the State Normal School.” Collections of the Kansas State Historical Society 12 (1911-1912) 88-98. II, 4 Kennerly, William C. and Elizabeth Russell. Persimmon Hill: A Narrative of Old St. Louis and the Far West. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1948. VIII, 12 Kinsella, Thomas. The History of Our Cradle: Catholic Indian Missions and Missionaries of Kansas. Kansas City, KS: Casey Printing, 1921. IX, 12 Lamar, Howard R., ed. The New Encyclopedia of the American West, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. XI, 1 Langsdorf, Edgar. “A Review of Early Navigation on the Kansas River.” Kansas I, 23 Historical Quarterly 18 (1950) 140-158. Larpenteur, Charles. Forty Years a Fur Trader on the Upper Missouri 1833-1872. Edited by Elliott Coues. 2 vols. Minneapolis: Ross and Haines, 1962. VII, 18 Lass, William E. A History of Steam Boating on the Upper Missouri River. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1962. XII, 2 Latrobe, Charles J. The Rambler in North America, 1832-1833. 2 vols. New York : 544 Harper Brothers, 1970. VIII, 6 Lauvrière, Emile. Histoire de la Louisiane Francaise, 1673-1939. Romance Language Series no. 3. Louisiana State University, 1940. I, 22 Lecompte, Janet. Antoine Janis. In Mountain Men 8, ----- 193-201 VII, 9 ——————–. “Auguste Pierre Chouteau.” In Mountain Men and the Fur Trade of the Far West 9 (1965): 63-90. VI, 11 ——————. “Don Benito Vazquez in Early St. Louis.” Missouri Historical Society Bulletin 25 Pt 1 IV, 4 ——————. “Benito Vazquez. “ In French Fur Traders Edited by LeRoy R. Hafen IV, 4 —————–. “Jules and Isabelle de Mun.” Bulletin of the Missouri State Historical Society 26 (July, 1970) 24-31. VI, 16 Le Page du Patz. The History of Louisiana, or the Western Parts of Virginia and Carolina. 2 vols. London: T. Beckett and P. A. Hondt, 1763. II, 11 Lewis Anna. Along the Arkansas. Dallas: The Southwest Press, 1932. VII, 24 ————––. “Du Tisne’s Expedition into Oklahoma, 1718-1719.” Chronicles of II, 5 3 (December 1925): 312-322. Lewis Hugh M. Robidoux History. Rock Springs WY ----------- 1998 not in A VII, 24 Not in Goggle Loomis Noel M. and A. P. Nasatir. Pedro Vial and the Roads to Santa Fe. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1967. III, 1 545 Luebke, Frederick C., Frances W. Kaye, and Gary E. Moulton. Mapping the North American Plains: Essays in the History of Cartography. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987. I, 4 Lutttig, John C. Journal of a Fur-Trading Expedition on the Upper Missouri, 1812-1813. Edited by Stella M. Drumm, New York: Argosy Antiquarian, 1964. IV, 22 Lutz, J. J. “The Methodist Missions among the Indian Tribes in Kansas.” IX, 14 Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society 9 (1905-1906) 160-235. McCoy, Isaac. History of Baptist Indian Missions. Washington, DC.: William M. Morrison, 1840 IX, 10 McDermott, John F., ed. The Western Journals of Washington Irving. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1944. VIII, 6 ———————. “Isaac McCoy’s Second Exploring Trip in 1828.” Kansas Historical Society Quarterly 13 (August, 1945); 400-462. IX, 12 ————————. The Journals of Edward Morris. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1951. CHAPTER ————————. The Early Histories of St. Louis. St. Louis: Historical Documents Foundation, 1952. III, 16 ————————, ed. The Spanish in the Mississippi Valley 1762-1804. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1974. IV, 15 —————— ., ed. The Western Journal of Washington Irving. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1944. VIII, 6 ————————. Up the Missouri with Audubon: The Journal of Edward Harris. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1951. XII, 10 ——————. The French in the Mississippi Valley. Urbana: University of Illinois, VI, 16 546 1965. MacKee, Irving, ed. Trail of Death: Letters of Benjamin Marie Petit 14, no. 1. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 1941. XV, 8 McKelvey, Susan D. Botanical Explorations of the Trans-Mississippi West XIV, 35 1790-1850. Jamaica Plan, MA: Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University, 1955. Mackey, William H. Sr. “Looking Backwards.” Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society 10 (1907-1908), 642-654. IX, 24 Majors, Alexander. Seventy Years on the Frontier. Minneapolis: Ross and Haines, 1965 XVII, 6 McLelland, Charlotte. “The Story of the Land.” Bulletin of the Shawnee County Historical Society, 22 (December 1954), XI, 8 Margry, Pierre. Mémoires et documents pour servir ā l’histoire des origines françaises I, 1 des pays d’outre-mer :Découvertes et établissements français dans l’ouest et le sud de l’Amérique septentrionale 1614-1754. 6 vols. Paris : Imprimerie Jouaust, 1876- 1888. Marra, Dorothy Brandt, Cher Oncle, Cher Papa: The Letters of Francois and Berenice Chouteau Translated by Marie-Laure Dionne Pal and edited by David Boutros. Kansas City MO: Western Historical Manuscript Collection: University of Missouri and the State Historical Society of Missouri, 2001. X, 2 Marshall, Thomas M., ed. “The Journals of Jules DeMun.” Translated by Mrs. Nettie Beauregard. Missouri Historical Society Collections 5, nos. 2 and 3 (1928) 311- 326. VI, 16 ————————. The Life and Papers of Frederick Bates. 2 vols. St. Louis: Missouri Historical Society, 1936. IV, 8 1926. 547 Mathews, John Joseph. The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961. II, 6 Mattes, Merrill J. The Great Platte River Road. Lincoln: Nebraska State Historical Society, 1969. VII, 23 ——————–. Platte River Road Narratives. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988 VII, 23 Meade, James R. “The Little Arkansas.” Transactions of the Kansas Historical Society 10 (1907-1908) 7-14. I, 26 Melville, Herman. Literary World 4 ( March 31, 1849). VIII, 35 Miller, Irma R. French-Indian Families in America’s West. Victoria, Canada , 2005. VIII, 35 Miller, William H. The History of Kansas City: Together with a Sketch of the Commercial Resources if the Country with which it is Surrounded. Kansas City: Birdsall and Miller, 1881. X, 6 Mitchell, William A. “Historic Linn: Sketch of Notable Events in its First Settlement.” Collections of the Kansas State Historical Society 16 (1923-1925) 607-657. X, 17 Moeller, Gladys L. His Ancestors, Joseph Bertrand Sr., His Descendants. n.p. : G. XV, 5 L. Moeller, 1985. . Philippine Duchesne: A Woman with the Poor. New York: Paulist Press, 1990. XV, 5 Morehouse, George P. “History of the Kansa or Kaw Indians.” Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society 10 (1907-1908) 326-368. I, 1 Morgan, Dale L. Jeremiah Smith and the Opening of the West. Lincoln: University VII, 3 of Nebraska Press, 1953. ——————, ed. Overland in 1846: Diaries and Letters of the Oregon Trail. 2 vols. 548 Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993 VIII, 22 ——————. Ed. The West of William Ashley 1822-1838. Denver: Old West Publishing, 1964. VII, 25? Morgan, Dale L. and Eleanor T. Harris, eds. The Rocky Mountain Journals of William Marshall Anderson: The West in 1834. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987. VII, 27 Morgan, Perl W., ed. History of Wyandotte County, Kansas, and its People. Chicago: Lewis Publishing, 1911. X, 7 Morrison, T. F. “The Osage Treaty of 1865.” Collections of the Kansas State Historical Society 17 (1926-1928) 692-708. X, 28 Moulton, Gary E. ed. The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, August 30, 1803-August 24, 1804. 10 vols. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press., 1986. V, 1 Mun, Marquis de. “Brief Account of the de Mun Family in France.” Missouri Historical Society Collections 5, no. 2 (February, 1928), 209-215. VI, 16 Munnick, Harriet D. “Francois Rivet.” In Mountain Men 7 ------ 237-243. V,6 Nasatir, Abraham P., ed. Before Lewis and Clark: Documents Illustrating the History of Missouri 1785-1804. 2 vols. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990. I, 15 ————————. “Anglo-Spanish Rivalry in the Upper Missouri.” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 16 no. 3 (1929) 359-382 CHAPTER ————————. “ Jacques d’Eglise on the Upper Missouri 1791- 1795.” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 14 no. 1 (June, 1927), 47-56. IV, 20 549 ————————. “Jean Baptiste Truteau” In Mountain Men 381-1387. IV, 21 ————————. “More on Pedro Vial in Upper Louisiana.” In McDermott. The Spanish in the Mississippi Valley 1762-1804. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1974. CHAPTER Nevins, Allan. Fremont, Pathmarker of the West. 2 vols. Lincoln: University of XIV, 25 New Encyclopedia of the American West. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998. X, 1 Nebraska Press, 1992. Norall, Frank. Bourgmont, Explorer of the Missouri, 1698-1725. Lincoln: I, 18 University of Nebraska Press, 1988. Noyes, Stanley. Los Comanches: The Horse People, 1751-1845. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994. II, 23 Oglesby, Richard E. Manuel Lisa and the Opening of the Missouri Fur Trade. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963. VI, 10 Osgood. Ernest S., ed. The Field Notes of Captain William Clark, 1803-1805. V, 4 New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964. Pantle, Alberta, ed. “The Connecticut Kansas Colony:Letters of Charles B. Lines to the New Haven (Conn) Daily Palladium.” Kansas Historical Quarterly 22 IX, 22 (Spring 1956):138-183. Parker, Samuel. Journal of an Exploring Tour beyond the Rocky Mountains in the Years 1835,’36 and ’37. Ithaca, NY: Ross and Haines, 1838. V, 7 Parkman, Francis. The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky Mountains Life. Edited by E. N. Feltskog. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969. VIII, 22 550 Paul Wilhelm, duke of Württemberg. Travels in North America, 1822-1824. VIII, 2 Translated by W. Robert Nitske and edited by Savoie L. Lottinville. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1973. Pease, Calvin T. and Ernestine Jenison, eds. “Illinois on the Eve of the Seven Years’ Wars 1747-1755.” Springfield: Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library 29, French Series, Volume 3 (1940) ------- III,5 Perrin du Lac, Francois Marie. Voyages dans les Deux Louisianes et Parmi les Nations Sauvages dy Missouri. 2 vols. Paris : Capelle and Renand, 1805. I, 28 Pfaller, Louis. “ Charles Larpenteur.” In Mountain Men 1: 295-311. VII, 20 Phillips, Paul C. The Fur Trade. 2 vols. Norman: University of Oklahoma, 1961. III, 19 Pike, Zebulon M. An Account of Expeditions to the Sources of the Mississippi. Ann Arbor: University Microfilms, Inc. X, 17 Porter, Mae R. and Odessa Davenport. Scotsman in Buckskin: Sir William Drummond Stewart and the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade. New York: Hastings House, 1963. VIII, 13 Preuss, Charles. Exploring with Fremont. Translated and edited by Edwin G. and Elizabeth K. Gudde. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1958. XIV, 9 Primm, James N. Lion of the Valley, St. Louis Missouri. Boulder, CO: Pruett Publishing, 1981 IV, 3 Primm, Wilson, “History of Saint-Louis.” Missouri Historical Society Collections IV 6 2 (1900) ----- Reichart, Milton. “Bourgmont’ s Route to Central Kansas: A Reexamination.” Kansas History 2 (Summer 1979) 96-120 II, 13 551 Remington, Mrs. S. R. “Some Reminiscences of Early Days in Topeka.” Bulletin of the Shawnee County Historical Society 22 (December 1954)12- 30 IX, 6 Remsburg, George J. “Isle au Vache.” Kansas State Historical Collections 8 (1903-1904) 436-443. V, 17 Richmond , Robert W. Kansas: A Land of Contrasts. St. Louis: Forum Press, 1974. III. 17 Roberts, David. A Newer World – Kit Carson, John Fremont and the Claiming of the American West. New York : Simon and Schuster, 2001. XIV, 7 Robertson, Nellie A. and Dorothy Riker, eds. The John Tipton Papers 1834-1839, vol. 3 Indiana Historical Collections 25 ------- XV, 12 Robidoux, Orral M. Memorial to the Robidoux Brothers. Kansas City: Smith- Grieves, 1924. VII, 25 Ross, M. C. The West of Alfred Miller. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1951. VII, 5 Root, Frank A. “Kickapoo-Pottawatomie Grand Indian Jubilee.” Kansas Historical Quarterly 5 (1936) 15-21. VIII, 24 Root, George A. “Chronology of Shawnee County.” Bulletin of Shawnee County Historical Society, 1 no. 2 (March, 1947) 46-64. XI, 4 ——————. “Ferries in Kansas, Pt 1 – Missouri River.” Kansas Historical Quarterly 2 (1933): 3-28, 115-138. X, 25 —————— . “Ferries in Kansas, Pt 3 - Kansas River – continued.” Kansas Historical Quarterly 2 (1933) 343-346. XI, 2 —————— . “Ferries in Kansas: Pt 9 – Arkansas River.” Kansas Historical 552 Quarterly 5 (1936) 22-32, 180-190. I, 26 —————— . “Ferries in Kansas: Pt. 13 – Marmaton River .” Kansas Historical Quarterly 6 (1937) 14-16. IX, 4 ——————. Reminiscences of William Darnell.” Kansas State Historical Collections 17 (1926-1928), 477-513. XI, 17 Russell, Mrs. Hall, “Memoirs of Marian Russell.” Colorado Magazine 21 no. 1 XVII, 12 (January, 1944) 81-95. Rydjord, John. Kansas Place-names. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1972. XI, 13 ——————. “The French Frontier and the Indian Tribes.” In John Bright, ed. Kansas, the First Century. 4 vol. New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1956. II, 6 Sandoz, Mari. The Beaver Men: Spearheads of Empire. New York: Hastings House, 1964. IV, 25 Satterfield, Archie. The Lewis and Clark Trail. New York: American Publishing Co., IV, 25 1964 Schultz, George A. “Kennekuk, the Kickapoo Prophet.” Kansas History 3 no.1: 38- 46. XV, 1 Schwartz, Seymour I. The Mismapping of America, Rochester NY: University of Rochester Press, 2003. I, 19 —————————— . The Land is Your Land: The Geographic Evolution of the United States. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc. 2000. CHAPTER Severance, Frank H. An Old Frontier of France: The Niagara Region and Adjacent Lakes under French Control. New York: Dood Mead, 1917. III, 6 553 Shea, John G. Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley: with the Original Narratives of Marquette, Allouez, Membré, Hennepin, and Anastase Douay. Albany NY: Redfield, 1852. I, 3 Sherard, Priscilla Mullin. People of the Place of the Fire. n.p., n.d. XI, 17 Shortridge James K. Kaw Valley Landscapes. Lawrence: University of Kansas II, 14 Press, 1988. Skarsten, M. O. George Drouillard., Hunter and Interpreter for Lewis and Clark, 1807-1809. Glendale CA: Arthur H. Clark, 1964. V, 12 Smith, William E. “The Oregon Trail through Pottawatomie County.” Kansas Historical Society Collections 17 (1926-1928) 435-464. XI, 17 Socolofsky, Homer E. and Hubert Self. Historical Atlas of Kansas. Norman: II, 23 University of Oklahoma Press, 1972. Spaulding, George F., ed. On the Western Tour with Washington Irving: The Journa and Letters of Count de Pourtales. Translated by Seymour Feiler. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968. VIII, 6 Spencer, Joab. “The Shawnee Indians, their Customs, Traditions, and Folklore.” Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society 9 (1907-1908) 382-402. IX, 12 Steck, Francis B. Marquette Legends. New York: Pageant Press, 1960. I, 5 Strecker, I. J. The Church in Kansas, 1850-1905: A Family Story. 1990. n.p. CHAPTER Stegmier , Mark J. and David H. Miller, eds. Milligan James F: His Journal of Fremont’s Fifth Expedition 1853-54. Glendale: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1988. XIV, 26 554 Stephens, H. Morse and Herbert E. Bolton, eds. The Pacific Ocean in History. New York: McMillan, 1915. II, 6 Stephenson, N. W. and W. H. Dunn, George Washington. 2 vols. London, England: Oxford University Press, 1940. CHAPTER Stephens, H. Morse and Herbert E. Bolton, eds. The Pacific Ocean in History. New York: McMillan, 1915/1917 II, 6 Streeter Floyd B. The Kaw: The Heart of a Nation. New York: Farrar and Rhinehart, 1941. II, 19 Streshinsky, Shirley. Audubon:Life and Art in the Wilderness. New York: Vuillard, 1993. XIV, 31 Sunder, John E. The Fur Trade on the Upper Missouri, 1840-1865. XII, 7 Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1965. Talbot, Theodore. The Journals of Theodore Talbot. Edited by Charles H. Carey. Portland, OR: Metropolitan Press, 1931. XIV, 13 Tassé, Joseph. Les Canadiens de l’Ouest. 2 vols. Montreal : Imprimerie Canadienne, 1878. XI, 11 Thwaites, Reuben G., ed. Early Western Travels, 1748-1846. 32 vols. Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark Co., 1904-1907. III, 16 ———————— . ed. Original Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, IV, 23 1804-1806. 8 vols. New York: Antiquarian Press, 1959. ——————— . ed. The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents: Travels and Exploration of the Jesuit Missionaries in New France 1610-1791. 73 vols. Cleveland: Burrows Brothers, 1896-1901. I, 3 555 Tixier’s Travels on the Osage Prairies. Edited by John F. McDermott. Norman University of Oklahoma Press, 1940. X, 9 Todd, Edgeley W. “Benjamin E. Bonneville.” In Mountain Men 5 :45-63 VII, 7 Towle, George, “Historical Sketch of the Kickapoo Parish.” In Graves --------------- chapter Trottman, Alan C. “Lucien Fontenelle.” In Mountain Men 5: 81-89. VII, 1, “Trudeau’s Journal.” South Dakota Historical Collection 7 (1914) 379----- IV, 21 “Journal of Jean Truteau among the Arikara Indians in 1795.” Translated by Mrs. H. T. Beauregard. Missouri Historical Society Collections 4 no. 1 (1912) 9-48 IV, 3 “Journal of Jean Baptiste Truteau on the Missouri River.” In Nasatir. Before Lewis and Clark 1 IV, 21 Tucker, Sarah J. Indian Villages of the Illinois Country. Pt 1. Atlas. Scientific Papers. Sprinfield: Illinois State Museum, 1942. I, 4 Turner Frederick J. The Frontier in American History. Huntington NY: Robert E. Kreizer Publishing, 1976. IV 25 Unrau, Willliam E. The Kansa Indians: A History of the Wind People, 1673-1873. I, 23 Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971. ———————. White Man’s Wicket Water: The Alcohol Trade and the Prohibition in Indian Country. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1996. XII 20 ______________. Mixed-Bloods and Tribal Dissolution: Charles Curtis and the Quest for Indian Identity. Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1989. IX, 8 556 Villiers du Terrage, Marc de. La Découverte du Missouri et l’Histoire du Fort d’Orléans 1673-1728. Paris : Imprimerie Honoré Champion, 1925. I, 3 Voelker. Frederick E. “Ezechiel Williams.” In Mountain Men 9 (---) 393-409. VI,12 –——————— . “Jacques (Old Pinto) Fournaise.” In Mountain Men 8 (---) 175-183. VII, 4 Wade, Mason, The Journals of Francis Parkman, 2 vols., New York: Harper and Brothers, 1947. VIII, 26 Wallace, William S. Antoine Robidoux 1794-1860, A Biography of a Western Venture. Los Angeles: Castle Press, 1953 VII, 24 Webb, Josiah. Adventures in the Santa Fe Trade, 1844-1847. Edited by Ralph P. Bieber. Glendale CA: Arthur H. Clark, 1931. XVII, 1 Weber, David J. The Taos Trappers: The Fur Trade in the Far Southwest, 1540-1846. Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1971. VII, 3 Wedel, Mildred M. “Claude-Charles Dutisné; A Review of His 1719 Journey.” Great Plains Journal 12 no. 1(Fall 1972) Pt I: 5-25; no. 2 (Spring 1973): 147-173. II, 3 Wedel, Waldo R. An Introduction to Kansas Archeology. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 174. Washington, Government Printing Office, 1959. II, 6 Wesley, Edgar B. “Diary of James Kennerly, 1823-1826.” Missouri Historical Collections 6 No. 1 (October, 1928) 41-97. VII, 23 Wheat, Carl I. Mapping the Transmississippi West 1540-1861. 5 vols. San Francisco: Institute for Historical Geography, 1957-1963. V, 15 557 Wilder, D. W. The Annals of Kansas. Topeka: T. Thacher Publishing Company, 1886. VIII, 1 Williamson, T. S. “Le Sueur, the Explorer of the Minnesota River.” Collections of the I, 13 Minnesota Historical Society 1 (1855) 319-333. Winger, Otto, The Potawatomi Indian, Elgin, Illinois: Elgin Press, 1939. XV, 12 Winger, Otto. The Last Miamis – Little Turtle. n.p, n.d.. IX, 25 Witty, Thomas A. Jr., and James O Marshall. Archeological Survey of the Lower Salt and Plum Valley. Leavenworth County, Kansas. Topeka: Kansas State Historical Society, 1968. III, 17 Wood, W. Raymond. “Mapping the Missouri River through the Great Plains, 1673- 1895. In Luebke------ I, 23 Wyman, Walter D., “F. X. Aubry: Santa Fe Freighter, Pathfinder and Explorer.” New Mexico Historical Review 7 no. 1 (January, 1932) 1-31. XVII, 1 Zornov, William F. Kansas: A History of the Jayhawk State. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1957. VIII, 1