History of Atchison County, Kansas. Sheffield Ingalls

at the attempted Spanish invasion. Establishing friendly relations with the Indians of this region in order to have their assistance in repelling any further Spanish advance was the object of the Bourgmont expedition to the Kansa and Padouca Indians in 1724. Bourgmont’s party, consisting of himself, M. Bellerive, Sieur Renaudiere, two soldiers and five other Frenchmen, besides 177 Missouri and Osage Indians in charge of their own chiefs, marched overland from Fort Orleans, on the lower Missouri, and arrived at the “Grand village des Cansez” on July 7, 1724. Here they held a celebration of two weeks, consisting of pow-wows, councils, trading horses or merchandise, and making presents to the Indians, several boat loads of the latter, in charge of Lieutenant Saint Ange, having arrived by river route. On July 24 they “put themselves in battle array on the village height, the drum began to beat, and they marched away” on their journey to the Padoucas. The incidents of their march across what is now Atchison county, and other facts pertaining to this expedition will be found in the chapter on early explorations in this volume.

      According to a tradition handed down from prehistoric times the Kansa, Osage, Omaha, Ponca and Kwapa were originally one people and lived along the Wabash and Ohio rivers. In their migrations they arrived at the mouth of the Ohio where there was a separation. Those who went down the Mississippi became known as the Kwapa, or “down stream people,” while those going up were called Omaha, or “up stream people.” At the mouth of the Missouri another division took place, the Omaha and Ponka proceeding far up that stream. The Osage located on the stream which bears their name, and the Kansa at the mouth of what is now the Kansas river. Later they moved on up the Missouri and established several villages, the most northern of which was at Independence Creek. At about the close of the Revolutionary war they were driven away from the Missouri by the Iowa and Sauk tribes, and they took up a permanent residence on the Kansas river, where Major Long’s expedition visited them in 1810. They continued to make predatory visits to the Missouri, however. They committed many depredations on traders and explorers passing up the river and even fired on the United States troops encamped at Cow Island. It was to prevent the recurrence of such outrages that Major O’Fallon arranged a council with the Kansa Nation. This council was held on Cow Island August 24, 1819, under an arbor built for the occasion. Major O’Fallon made a speech in which he set forth the cause of complaint which the Kansa had given by their repeated insults and depredations, giving them notice of the approach of a military force sufficient to chastise their insolence, and advising them to seize the present opportunity of averting the vengeance they deserved, by proper concessions, and by their future good behavior to conciliate those whose friendship they would have so much occasion to desire. The replies of the chiefs were simple and short, expressive of their conviction of the justice of the complaints against them, and of their acquiescence in the terms of the reconciliation proposed by the agent.

      There were present at this council 161 Kansa Indians, including chiefs and warriors, and thirteen Osages. It was afterwards learned that the delegation would have been larger but for a quarrel that arose among the chiefs after they had started, in regard to precedence in rank, in consequence of which ten or twelve returned to the village on the Kansas river. Among those at the council were Na-he-da-ba, or Long Neck, one of the principal chiefs of the Kansas; Ka-he-ga-wa-to-ning-ga, or Little Chief, second in rank; Shen-ga-ne-ga, an ex-principal chief; Wa-ha-che-ra, or Big Knife, a war chief, and Wam-pa-wa-ra, or White Plume, afterwards a noted chief. Major O’Fallon had with him the officers of the garrison of Cow Island, or Cantonment Martin, and a few of those connected with Major Long’s exploring party. “The ceremonies,” says one account, “were enlivened by a military display, such as the firing of cannon, hoisting of flags, and an exhibition of rockets and shells, the latter evidently making a deeper impression on the Indians than the eloquence of Major O’Fallon.” A description of Major Long’s steamboat, built to impress the Indians on this occasion, will be found in the following chapter on early explorations.

      From the Kansa Indians our State derived its name. For more than 300 years they dwelt upon our soil. At their very advent in this region what is now Atchison county became a part of their heritage and for generations it was a part of their imperial home.

      By the treaty of Castor Hill, Mo., October 24, 1832, the Kickapoo Indians were assigned to a reservation in northeastern Kansas, which included most of what is now Atchison county. They settled on their new lands shortly after the treaty was made. Their principal settlement at that time was at the present site of Kickapoo, in Leavenworth county, where a Methodist mission was established among them by Rev. Jerome C. Berryman, in 1833. There is said to have been a mission station among the Kickapoos where Oak Mills, in Atchison county, now stands, at an early day, but nothing definite is known regarding its history, except that we have it from early settlers that an Indian known as Jim Corn seemed to be the head man of the band of Kickapoos that lived there, and that the white pioneers frequently attended services in the old mission house which stood in the hollow a short distance southwest of the present site of Oak Mills.

      Wards of the State of Kansas, State Orphans’ Home, Atchison, Kan.

      During the time that the Kickapoos owned and occupied what is now Atchison county, they were ruled over by two very distinguished chieftains—Keannakuk, the Prophet, and Masheena, or the Elk Horns. Both of these Indians were noted in Illinois long before they migrated westward and were prominently mentioned by Washington Irving, George Catlin, Charles Augustus Murray and other distinguished travelers and authors. Catlin painted their pictures in 1831, and these are included in the famous Catlin gallery in Washington. Keannakuk was both a noted chief and prophet of the tribe. He was a professed preacher of an order which he claimed to have originated at a very early day and his influence was very great among his people. He died at Kickapoo in 1852 and was buried there. Masheena was a really noted Indian. He led a band of Kickapoos at the battle of Tippecanoe. He died and was buried in Atchison county, near the old town of Kennekuk, in 1857. He was born in Illinois about 1770.

      Important seats of Kickapoo occupancy in Atchison county in the early days were Kapioma, Muscotah and Kennekuk. Kapioma was named for a chief of that name who lived there. The present township of Kapioma gets its name from this source. Father John Baptiste Duerinck, a Jesuit, was a missionary among the Kickapoos at Kapioma in 1855–57. Muscotah was for a long time the seat of the Kickapoo agency. It is a Kickapoo name meaning “Beautiful Prairie,” or “Prairie of Fire.” Kennekuk was named for John Kennekuk, a Kickapoo chief, and son of Keannakuk, the Prophet.

      By treaty of 1854 the Kickapoo reservation was diminished and the tribe was assigned to lands along the Grasshopper or Delaware river. Still later it was again diminished and they were given their present territory within the confines of Brown county.

      The Kickapoos are a tribe of the central Algonquian group, forming a division with the Sauk and Foxes, with whom they have close ethnic and linguistic connection. The first definite appearance of this tribe in history was about 1667–70, when they were found by Allouez near the portage between Fox and Wisconsin rivers, in Wisconsin. About 1765 they moved down into the Illinois country, and later to Missouri and Kansas.

CHAPTER IV.

       EARLY EXPLORATIONS.

       Table of Contents

      CORONADO IN 1541—THE BOURGMONT EXPEDITION IN 1724—PERIN DU LAC—LEWIS AND CLARK—FIRST FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION—MAJOR STEPHEN H. LONG—CANTONMENT MARTIN—ISLE AU VACHE—OTHER EXPLORERS—PASCHAL PENSONEAU—THE OLD MILITARY ROAD—THE MORMONS.

      Some historians (notably General Simpson) in their studies of the famous march of Coronado in search of the land of Quivira, in 1541, have brought the great Spanish explorer to the Missouri river, in northeastern Kansas. The more recent researches of Hodge, Bandalier and Brower, however, have proven beyond question that Coronado’s line of march through Kansas was north from Clark county to the Great Bend of the Arkansas river, and thence to the region northeastward from McPherson to the Kansas river, between the junction of its two main forks and Deep creek, in Riley county, where the long lost province of Quivira was located. Hence, it is no longer even probable