History and civics of Oklahoma

Preface

While Oklahoma is the youngest of the states, yet it had a considerable population almost a generation earlier than any of the states west of those that border the Mississippi, Texas alone excepted. Here we find much the best example of a prolonged effort of the aborigines of the United States to develop their own civilization in their own way. The history of this effort should be of interest to every student of American institutions. How much of this civilization was due to white influence and how much can be credited to Indian initiative must be left to the judgment of the reader.

One of the chief benefits of historical study is the testing of authorities. No field offers a better opportunity for this than Oklahoma history. Almost all data relating to the Indian nations is so interwoven with myth and fiction that it is difficult, indeed, to separate authoritative facts from endless legends and weird tales of Indian life. So while this little book is presented in concise, and we trust simple, form, yet we have zealously sought to use in its preparation no source that will not bear most careful scrutiny. We have not hesitated, where possible, to incorporate the exact text of the source in order that the student will thus be brought in closer touch with the men and events that we seek to picture.

L. J. ABBOTT

Edmond, Oklahoma

Contents

Chapter Page

I. Discovery of Oklahoma . i

II. The French in Oklahoma 8

Chapter I

1. Francisco Vasquez de Coronado. In the early summer of the year 1541 Francisco Vasquez de Coronado crossed the entire length of what is now the state of Oklahoma. Thus it will be seen that Oklahoma was explored less than a half century after the landing of Columbus, and seventynine years before the Pilgrim F'athers saw Plymouth Rock.

2. The ** Seven Cities of Cibola/* Early in the year 1540 Coronado assembled an army at Culiacan on the Gulf of California (see map, p. 3), consisting of three hundred Spaniards and eight hundred Mexican Indians. He was bent on the conquest of the famous "seven cities of Cibola," rumors of which were frequent in New Spain. A priest named Marcos de Nizza accompanied him as guide. This priest had previously been sent to verify the story of Cabeza de Vaca.i He claimed to have seen these famous cities, and

1 De Vaca had gone to Florida with Narvaez in 152S. He and three companions were the only ones who escaped the perils that overtook that expedition. After wandering nine years on the plains of Texas, they finally made their way to the Spanish settlements in Mexico. De Vaca reported having seen great cities toward the north (see Fourteenth Ethnology Report, Washington, 1893). Translations are here given of most of the sources that have to do with Coronado's expedition. For five cents any one can obtain from the directors of the Old South Work, Boston, a portion of De Vaca's Relacion, Leaflet No. 39. Leaflet No. 20 is one of Coronado's letters to Mendoza, the governor of Mexico. Coronado's letter to Charles V can be had for ten cents from Parker P. Simmons, New York. It is American History Leaflet No. 13.

it was expected that he could lead the way directly to them. Marcos did not remain with the expedition long, however, for as they proceeded and it became evident that the facts were contrary to his report, the soldiers threatened to kill him. Coronado tells us in his letter to Mendoza that '' it grieved the whole company that a thing so highly commended, and whereof the Father (Marcos) had made so great brags, should be found so contrary, and it made them suspect that all the rest would fall out in like sort." ^ This is what did eventually happen. The famous cities of Cibola proved to be miserable New Mexican pueblos, probably the Zuni villages of to-day. But Coronado did not immediately relax his efforts to find other cities. He sent out expeditions in all directions. The Grand Canyon of the Colorado was visited ; a naval expedition that accompanied him discovered the mouth of the Colorado River ; and one of his captains went east to the Rio Grande.

3. Discovery of Oklahoma. The report from the River Tiguex (Rio Grande) seemed so encouraging that Coronado moved his entire army to the little villages scattered along this stream. Irrigation was here practiced to a considerable extent, and the Indians of this region were more nearly civilized than any previously met north of Mexico. There were also villages east of the Rio Grande, on the Pacos River, which were likewise subdued. The Indians resented the long stay and the rough treatment of the Spaniards, with the result that there was some hard fighting in which both natives and Spaniards received injuries. Finally, in April, 1541, Coronado was induced to proceed still further eastward in

1 Coronado's letter to Mendoza, Old South Leaflet No. 20, p. 2. This letter is a copy of the original translation by Richard Hakluyt.

the hope of finding the rich cities his imagination had so long pictured. "' So he started with the whole army and proceeded a hundred and fifty leagues " ^ toward the southeast from the village of Cicuique on the Pacos River. This must certainly have taken the Spaniards into northern Texas, probably

Coronado 1541 Coronado* s Ca Pike 1806 ...

Wilk Long 1320..

Uarcy 1852.

Coronado's Route, 1 540-1 541, and Routes of Others who explored Oklahoma

somewhere in the vicinity of the present city of Fort Worth, because a journey four hundred and fifty miles (one hundred and fifty leagues) from the settlement on the Pacos to the southeast could not but lead one into this vicinity. Moreover, Coronado at this time must have been somewhere in Texas, because the army visited a village where Cabeza de Vaca and Dorantes had stopped when they were wandering in this

1 American History Leaflet No. 13, p. 8.

region ; ^ and from De Vaca's account we are reasonably certain that the point where the hnes of travel of these two explorers crossed was in north-central Texas.

4. Quivira. On account of lack of food and the exhausted condition of both men and horses, Coronado ordered their return to the Rio Grande ; but he himself, with thirty of the best equipped men, struck out due north ^ in search of a

Grass Tepee of the Wichita Indians (Caddo County), similar to those described by Coronado in his Letter to the Emperor Charles V

province called Quivira, of which he had been told by the Indians. '' And with only the thirty horsemen whom I took for my escort," Coronado wrote in a letter to the emperor

1 Winship, George Park, The Journey of Coronado (New York, 1904), p. 68. Here is given Castarieda's report. He was historian of the expedition, and his account is much the most elaborate that we have.

2 " By the needle " is how it is expressed in the original, American History Leaflet No. 13, p. 8.

Charles V/ "I traveled for forty-two days after I left the force, living all this while solely on the flesh of the bulls and cows which we killed." Coronado complained that in Quivira, which evidently was somewhere in central Kansas, the houses were not of stone, as the guide had led him to believe, but of straw. This corresponds with present customs, since straw houses are even now made by the Wichita Indians in Oklahoma. Coronado described the Plains Indians accurately, explaining how they used tents made of skins of the cows (buffaloes), and how they employed dogs as beasts of burden to drag their tent poles.^ He considered the land of Quivira, which is in the vicinity of the Blue and Kansas rivers, the best he had '' ever seen for producing all the products of Spain, for besides the land itself being very fat and black and being very well watered by the rivulets and springs and rivers, I have found prunes like those of Spain, and nuts and very good sweet grapes and mulberries . . . and what I am sure of is that there is not any gold nor any other metal in all this country, and the other things of which they had told me are nothing but little villages and in many of these they do not plant anything and do not have any houses except of skins and sticks, and they wander about with the cows."'^ 5. Result of the Expedition. Coronado returned to Tiguex (that is, the Rio Grande) by a much shorter route, as may be seen by consulting the map (p. 3). The letter which he wrote to the emperor on October 20, 1 541, is most pathetic, for no one knew better than he that he would be blamed for not finding gold and rich cities where none were to be found.

1 American History Leaflet No. 13, p. 13.

2 Horses were not known in America until the Spanish brought them.

3 American History Leaflet No. 13, p. 14.

<-9

According to the one criterion of success at court, he had failed. And all Coronado's endurance in this, the greatest land journey ever made by a Spanish explorer, went for nothing because he had failed to uncover new supplies of the yellow metal. But this much Coronado's expedition did accomplish. It proved to the Spanish that the vast plain of central North America was merely an agricultural region, uninhabited save by a few wandering tribes of Indians. It

did not appeal to the Spanish, who chiefly sought regions where large ^ ^ quantities of silver

f / ^y^ I / and gold were to

CC^^^I^ ty^nCX^ IC^ be found. Coronado

did his work so thoroughly that no other Spaniard ever felt called, upon to venture into these vast solitudes. As General Simpson has well said of it, '' For extent of distance travelled, duration in time, and the multiplicity of its cooperating expeditions, it equalled, if it did not exceed, any land expedition that has been undertaken in modern times."

6. The *' Panhandle *' becomes Spanish Territory. However, in one particular the expedition did have a more lasting effect. The '" Panhandle " of Oklahoma became Spanish territory, and remained such up to the time of the Mexican revolution (1821). When Coronado finally gave up in despair and withdrew his army from the Rio Grande, priests

Francisco Vasquez de Coronado's Signature from a Tracing remained, both on the Pacos and Rio Grande, to convert the natives. Some of these were killed, but others came to join those who escaped harm, and from that time the Spaniards held this country, and with it the " Panhandle " of Oklahoma. It is only just to note that the Spanish, while probably moved to make this expedition chiefly for the sake of booty and gold, yet showed themselves to be intensely religious. There were always priests to remain and Christianize a region which the Spanish warriors had conquered.

Chapter II The French In Oklahoma

7. The French in Canada. The Spanish, as we have seen, came into Oklahoma by an almost direct route from the nearest white settlement in Mexico. The French reached Oklahoma by means of the far distant and apparently impossible route of the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes. However, a glance at a map of North America will convince one that when the French reached the mouth of the St. Lawrence, they had stumbled upon the most accessible and best roadway into the heart of North America. As early as 1 503 French fishermen began to frequent the banks of Newfoundland ; Verrazano was in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 1524, and ten years later Cartier ascended the river as far as Montreal.

8. The Mississippi Valley. The French were most energetic explorers. By 1673 Father Marquette had crossed over from the Great Lakes to the Wisconsin River, and had explored the upper reaches of the " Father of Waters." Seven years later La Salle went down the Mississippi to its mouth, and French dominion in the great river valley began to be established.

9. New Orleans Founded. The discovery of the mouth of the Mississippi soon brought the French into the Gulf of Mexico. The swamps and marshes at the river's mouth being unsuited for settlement, Iberville, a famous French Canadian, planted the first French Gulf colony at Biloxi in 1702. Later

THE FRENCH IN OKLAHOMA 9

this colony moved up Mobile Bay to the present site of Mobile. But it was not until Bienville, a brother of Iberville, had founded New Orleans, in 1717, that French dominion on the lower Mississippi seemed likely to become permanent. This city, admirably located at the most available point where river and ocean trade could meet, was easily the key to the situation.

10. French Trappers in Oklahoma. The French had a marvelous faculty for getting on with the Indians. If we except the Iroquois, we can say that they had practically no Indian enemies. This security permitted them to spread out, and, unlike the English, they were everywhere and nowhere in particular. In their birch-bark canoes they invaded almost every tributary of the Mississippi searching for furs. Being on good terms with the Indians, they needed no strong forts, and they were not compelled to wait for their numbers to increase before advancing into the continent. Consequently they have left us few evidences of their transitory occupation of the region ; but we have strong proof that they were in Oklahoma as early as the founding of New Orleans, and possibly earlier.

11. Proof that the French came into Oklahoma. Since the French used the rivers and creeks as their highways, they would naturally give them names. This they did, for in eastern Oklahoma we to-day find many streams bearing French names. ^

1 Let us enumerate a few of these which it is hardly possible could have been named by one not French. They are taken from a map of 1831 which shows Oklahoma as a part of Arkansas Territory. Arkansas (Arc, Kans) : Arc, French for " bow " or "bend"; Aaus, the tribe of Indians (Kaw or Kansas) that dwelt in this vicinity. Verdigris River. Grande: French for "large." Illinois: plains. Sallisaw (French, salaisou, "salt meat"): where some Frenchmen once stopped to salt some buffalo meat (see Nuttall, p. 231). Cavaniol Creek and Mountains. Fourche Melane Creek. Sans Bois Creek and Mountains. Ozarks (French, aiix arcs, "with bows") : Indians were seen here " with bows " when the French first came into the region. Poteau River: Yxq.x\q.\v, poteaji, "post."

lO HISTORY OF OKLAHOMA

Another evidence that the French had been famihar with the regions now comprised within the hmits of the present state of Oklahoma is that all the early American explorers of this section repeatedly refer to them. Moreover, Frenchmen and half-breed French were numerous in this region when Americans first came into the territory. So while there is no doubt that most of eastern Oklahoma was well known to many early French traders and hunters, they have left us almost no record of their sojourns in this region.

12. The Louisiana Purchase. France had been in possession of the Mississippi Valley hardly a half century, when she was forced to surrender all her American possessions except a few West Indian islands. England, under the brilliant leadership of William Pitt the Elder, completely blasted French colonial aspirations in America. Canada and all the region east of the Mississippi River were ceded to Great Britain at the close of the Seven Years' War (French and Indian War). Spain, inveigled into the war by Louis XV, was given Louisiana to compensate her for the loss of Florida, which England had also seized. So far as Oklahoma is concerned, these years of Spanish rule have in no way affected the state's history. There seems to be not one thing, other than the treaty itself, to show that Spain came into possession of this territory. In 1800 it went back to France again. The overshadowing influence of Napoleon Bonaparte had by this time made itself felt in Spain, as elsewhere in Europe, and by the treaty of San Ildefonso Louisiana was ceded back to France. Napoleon had visions of establishing a vast colonial empire. In 1 80 1 he sent his brother-in-law, Leclerc, to Santo Domingo with thirty thousand French soldiers to reduce the negro insurrection in that island and then to proceed to New Orleans,

THE FRENCH IN OKLAHOMA II

where Marshall Victor had already preceded him. But Napoleon reckoned without his host. Toussaint L'Ouverture, leader of the slave revolt in the French colony of Haiti, proved more than a match for the trained veterans of France. What Toussaint could not accomplish, fever did. Leclerc died, his regiments were decimated, and Napoleon had no army with which to take possession of Louisiana.

13. Napoleon not wanted for a Neighbor. Jefferson, at that time President of the United States, was greatly alarmed when he learned that the French were about to occupy New Orleans. He did not want Napoleon for a neighbor. " The day that France takes possession of New Orleans," he wrote, " fixes the sentence which is to restrain her forever within her low-water mark. From that moment we marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation." ^ As if to justify this change of front by the old friend of France, the Spanish Litendent (governor), still in charge at New Orleans, on October i6, 1802, withdrew from the Americans the " right of deposit," by which shippers from the upper regions of the Mississippi could store goods in New Orleans until they could be "transshipped." Nor were the Americans to be allowed any longer to receive cargoes from abroad, without first paying the Spanish duty.^ If the country was to pass into the hands of France and the Mississippi to be closed, it seemed essential to Jefferson that we should obtain the island of New Orleans, or West Florida, and with it Mobile. In 1803 James Monroe was sent to France to secure this cession. But the day after Monroe arrived in Paris, Robert Livingston, the resident minister to PYance,

1 Quoted in Hart, A. B., Formation of the Union (New York, 1907), p. 186. '^ It is to be observed that while France obtained Louisiana in 1800, the actual transfer of the colony from France to Spain never took place.

had closed a treaty, not for the island of New Orleans, or West Florida, but for the whole of Louisiana. Monroe was at first amazed at a purchase so different from Jefferson's idea, but he joined with Livingston in signing the treaty that made Louisiana, and therefore the greater part of Oklahoma, a part of the United States. The reverses experienced by the French soldiers in Haiti had dampened the colonial ardor of Napoleon. He saw the difficulty in holding Louisiana, and since his ambition was to win a European rather than an American empire, he lightly offered for eighty million francs that which had cost him so little.

14. Abstract of the United States* Title to Oklahoma. Thus runs the title to Oklahoma : to France by occupation in 1 71 7; France to Spain in 1763; Spain to France in 1800; France to the United States in 1803. The title to the Panhandle, however, runs in a different way : to Spain by exploration in 1541 and settlement (at Santa Fe) soon after; Spain to Mexico in 1821 ; Mexico to Texas in 1836 ; Texas to the United States in 1845.

Chapter III Exploration Of The Arkansas

15. Early Explorations. During the French and Spanish occupations of Louisiana various expeditions were doubtless made into the region now included within the present limits of Oklahoma. On one of Pike's maps we find the information that "at the mouth of the Canadian River the Ensigns Armoral of France were buried in a leaden box jit the foot of a great oak in 1742." St. Denis and La Harp may have been in Oklahoma, but if they were, their stay was so brief that nothing of permanence was left to bear witness to it.

16. Wilkinson explores the Arkansas. No sooner had Thomas Jefferson obtained possession of the vast reaches of Louisiana than he sent out expedition after expedition to see what it contained. The exploration of the Northwest by Lewis and Clark (1804) was, perhaps, the most famous of these expeditions, but that of Montgomery Pike was of scarcely less importance. Pike pushed up the Missouri to the Osage River. He followed this stream for a time, and then moved across Kansas up the Arkansas valley into Colorado, finally going into New Mexico, where he was taken prisoner by the Spanish. When Pike struck the Arkansas in central Kansas in the fall of 1806, his lieutenant, James Wilkinson, was in poor health, and he was allowed to return home by way of this river. Wilkinson began his trip, October 27, 1806.1

1 Coues, Elliott, The Expedition of Zebulon Montgomery Pike (3 vols., New York, 1895), Vol. II' P- 547- The diary of Wilkinson is here given in full.

17. Clermont and the Osages of the Oaks. After many hardships Wilkinson and his companions made their way down the Arkansas into Oklahoma. Christmas Day, 1806, he must have spent at the village of the Osages on the Verdigris. This tribe of '' Osages of the Oaks " had seceded from the Grand Osages of Missouri in 1801 or 1802, and, according to reliable evidence, under the leadership of Clermont, '' builder of cities," at that time constituted Oklahoma's only permanent residents.^ Lieutenant Wilkinson also mentions villages of Choctaws, Creeks, and Cherokees in the neighborhood of the Osage village, and notes that these three tribes were at war with the Osages (see sect. 98). Just below Webber Falls he met an Osage war party and received from them a man named M'Farlane, who had been trapping on the Poteau. But it was a week later, and not

1 Coues, Elliott, The Expedition of Zebulon Montgomery Pike, Vol. II, pp. 556-557. The entry in Wilkinson's diary is as follows: "I arrived on the 23d inst., in a storm of hail and snow, at the winter camp of Cas-he-seg~ra or Big Track (or Big Foot), chief of the Osages who reside on the Verdigris river. On the following day I gave him your talk and received his reply, which it is unnecessary to recount fully, as it was merely a description of his poverty and miserable situation. He however said that he had been informed the United States intended to erect factories (i.e. trading posts) on the Osage river, and that he was anxious to have one near his own village, and for that purpose he was willing to give the United States the tract of country lying between the Verdigris and Grand rivers. About fifty-eight or sixty miles up the Osage river is situated the Osage village. This band, some four or five years since, were led by the chief Cas-he-seg-ra (Big Foot) to the waters of the Arkansas, at the request of Pierre Chouteau, for the purpose of securing their trade, the exclusive trade of the Osage river having, at that time, been purchased from the Spanish governor by Manuel Lisa of St. Louis. . But though Cas-he-seg-ra be the nominal leader, Clermont, Builder of Towns, is the greatest warrior and most influential man, now more firmly attached to the interests of the Americans than any other chief of the nation. He is the lawful sovereign of the Grand Osages, but his hereditary right was usurped by Pahuska or White Hair (Cheveux Blancs), while Clermont was yet an infant."

EXPLORATION OF THE ARKANSAS 15

until Wilkinson was well into Arkansas, that he mentions meeting a white resident of the region. " On the evening of the 6th of January (1807) I reached the plantation of a Mr. Labomme, and was more inhospitably treated than by the savages themselves." ^

18. The Spanish interfere with Americans. The same year (1806) that Pike went west through Kansas, Major Richard Sparks was to explore Red River from its mouth westward ; and somewhere in the mountains he was to meet Pike, who expected to return with him by way of this river. But the Spanish learned of these proposed expeditions and at once intervened to stop them. One Captain Viana was dispatched from Nacogdoches to turn back Sparks, and Don Facundo Malgares was sent from Santa Fe to intercept Pike. The Spanish captain, Viana, met Sparks somewhere east of the Oklahoma line and compelled him to return. Malgares met with less success. After leaving Santa Fe he marched down Red River seven hundred miles, turned north, and crossed Oklahoma to the Arkansas River. Here he left about half of his five hundred men and marched north into north-central Kansas, to the Pawnee village on the Republican River. Among other presents, each Indian tribe was given Spanish flags and medals. These flags Pike found floating in the breeze at the tepee of the Pawnee chief when he arrived, and it took no little persuasion to induce the chief to remove them. Pike would also have been compelled to return, had not Malgares retired south into Oklahoma when the Americans crossed his trail. But Pike escaped this time only to fall prisoner later to the genial and kindly Malgares. He confused the sources of the Red

1 Expedition of Pike, Vol. II, p. 559.

River with those of the Rio Grande, got into Spanish territory, and was eventually taken prisoner ^ (sect. 25).

19. Expedition to the Salt Plains. The next expedition of which I can find any record is that of Colonel George C. Sibley, United States Indian agent at Fort Clark (formerly called Fort Osage). Bradbury, the scientist, in his *' Travels in the Interior of America," tells us that in June, i'8io, he met Mr. Sibley, who '' had returned a few days before from his tour to the Arkansas, to examine the vast bodies of salt in the neighborhood of that river. He very politely furnished us with extracts from his journal." ^ In this journal Sibley gives a vivid description of the great salt plains of the Cimarron, and also tells of the Osage village on the Verdigris. He met Clermont, head chief of the Osages of the Oaks, south of the Arkansas and had an interview with him. But, like Wilkinson, Sibley makes no mention of white men living in this country.

20. Fort Smith Founded. In reality there is no data to lead one to believe that white people had settled in Oklahoma prior to the founding of "Fort Smith in 18 17. The location for this army post was selected by Major S. H. Long in the fall of that year. He named the post Belle Point because of its beautiful location at the mouth of the Poteau, in a bend of the Arkansas River, just outside the boundary of Oklahoma. This fort was not established to protect white settlers, but to restrain the Osages and Cherokees in the persistent strife that had existed between them ever since the latter had begun to settle in Arkansas (sect. 98).

1 Coues, Expedition of Zebulon M. Pike, p. 413; also see index, under Malgares.

2 Bradbury, Travels in the Interior of America in the Years 1809, 1810, 181 1 (London, 1819) ; Thwaites, R. G., Early Western Travels (Cleveland, 1905), Vol. V, p. 191.

EXPLORATION OF THE ARKANSAS 17

21. Glenn^s Trading House. Certainly not later than the next year (18 18) a trading house was established at the mouth of the Verdigris. From the meager data at hand it cannot be determined just when or by whom this trading post was started. The earliest reference to it thus far met with is in Nuttall's "Jo^^i^^y-" ^ When Nuttall was in Cincinnati on his way west, he met Colonel Hugh Glenn and received a letter of introduction to Colonel Glenn's clerk and interpreter, Charles Bogy.^ In the fall of the next year (1820) Thomas Say, the zoologist, who led a party of Long's men down the Arkansas (sect. 25), spoke of stopping at the trading house of Colonel Hugh Glenn. Auguste Pierre Chouteau (p. 14, note), who had charge of the Arkansas branch of the Chouteaus fur business, was a prisoner in New Mexico in 18 17- 181 8, and this must have given Colonel Glenn his opportunity to engage in trade with the Osages. Chittenden, in his '' History of the American Fur Trade in the Far West " (New York, 1895), says that Colonel Glenn's establishment was a temporary post and was abandoned after the commencement of the Santa Fe expedition, in which Glenn joined Fowler (sect. 31). As soon as Colonel Chouteau was released by the Spanish he returned to the Verdigris and took possession of this post. Jacob Fowler gives us no reason why Colonel Glenn should have abandoned his establishment as he did in 1 82 1, but it was probably because of the return of Chouteau.^

1 Nuttall, Thomas, A Journey of Travel into Arkansas Territory during the Year 1819 (Philadelphia, 1821) ; represented in Thwaites, R. G., Early Western Travels, Vol. XIII, p. 260.

2 Nuttall spells it '' Bougie." Mr. Bogy was the grandfather of Louis V. Bogy, United States senator from Missouri (1873-1877). There was also at the trading house one Nathaniel Pryor, who had been with Lewis and Clark.

3 Coues, ElHott, The Journal of Jacob Fowler (New York, 1898), pp. 3-4. " We stopped at the trading house of Colonel Hugh Glenn, about a mile

22. Thomas NuttalPs Journey. Thomas Nuttall, a Harvard professor, has left us a most interesting account of his sojourn in Oklahoma in the spring of 1819. He arrived at Belle Point (Fort Smith) two years after its establishment. At first he was not allowed to proceed, for the government had just determined upon the policy of reserving the region west of Fort Smith exclusively for Indians. The treaty locating the western Cherokees on the White River in Arkansas had been made July 8, 1817.^ The Osages claimed all this region at that time, but apparently without treaty authority, for the federal government held that the Osage country was the region south of the Arkansas and west of the Kiamitia and Poteau. In this country whites were no longer to be allowed to trespass. '' This morning," writes Nuttall in his diary, under date of May 16, 18 19, ''I left Fort Smith with major Bradford ^ and a company of soldiers, in order to proceed across the wilderness, to the confluence of the Kiamesha [Kiamitia] with Red river. The object of the major was to execute the order of the government, by removing all the resident whites out of the territory of the Osages ; the Kiamesha river being now chosen as the line of demarcation." ^ We are then given a most interesting account of the first considerable white settlement