Unearthing Kansas History
More than four decades ago, the burnt remains of Pawnee Indian earth lodges were uncovered. In June archaeologists - both amateur and professional - returned to north central Kansas and the site of a historic Pawnee Indian village.
21 June 2008
at 3:34 a.m.
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TopJayhawk (Anonymous) says…
No freeway going in there I assume. Seriously, this is very interesting.
22 June 2008
at 8:11 a.m.
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Rickyonealku (Anonymous) says…
Now you might want to change this title to read “Unearthing Native American History the Pawnee Tribe.”
22 June 2008
at 8:37 a.m.
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Taxpayer (Anonymous) says…
Does anyone reading this remember a Native American cemetery, near I-70, possibly by Salina, that was uncovered and the skeletons were on display in the ground? [I hope that makes sense!] While on the way to Colorado in the late 1970's, signboards advertising an “Indian Cemetery” were posted along I-70. Once admission was paid, I entered a large covered area that had about two dozen skeletons, in their original burial positions, uncovered in the ground. The skeletons appeared to have a shellac or some kind of preservative on them. Does anyone remember where that was and what happened to that burial ground?
23 June 2008
at 10:34 a.m.
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countrygirl (Anonymous) says…
This looks like the site that is north of US36 near Belleville. My family has stopped at that one and it's very interesting!
23 June 2008
at 11:51 a.m.
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RadarC (Anonymous) says…
The display of Native American Indians were near Abeline, KS. The bodies were returned for reburial. I do not remember the details.
23 June 2008
at 12:05 p.m.
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max1 (Anonymous) says…
I'm not sure, but this might have been the last Republican Pawnee village to be located on what would become Kansas soil. That village was raided and burnt by the immigrant Delaware Indians (1832-33), just two years after Delawares were brought here. The Republican Pawnee population had already been decimated by a smallpox epidemic shortly before the massacre, and those who survived the smallpox epidemic were incapable of defending their village. The few Republican Pawnees who survived the massacre joined the Grand Pawnee band on the Platte River, and they never returned.
The Republican Pawnee band was not an entirely independent group, and they had intermittently consolidated with the Grand Pawnees previously.
“Does anyone remember where that was and what happened to that burial ground?” -Taxpayer
That “burial pit” was an educational tourist attraction from 1936-1989, but I believe the bones and artifacts were later “repatriated”.
You can read about it here:
http://www.kshs.org/resource/ks_prese…
23 June 2008
at 12:14 p.m.
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RedwoodCoast (Anonymous) says…
Right on! Kansas needs some greater interest in its archaeology. I've been trying for several years now to garner more interest in the southeast part of the state. I've come to the conclusion that I'm going to be the person who has to do it, since everyone seems to be stuck on the Plains Villagers like the Pawnee and Wichita. Essentially, you can quarter Kansas east-to-west and north-to-south down through Wichita. The majority of the archaeology done in Kansas to date has been done in the northwest quarter. Some has been done in the northeast quarter, but other than Wichita tribe stuff along the Arkansas River, very little has been done on the southern half of the state. Compared to the states surrounding Kansas, the state has seen a pathetically small amount of interest in its human prehistory. I encourage everyone to support these endeavors, since ultimately, it is largely the public who funds the organizations conducting research. People were here for 12,000 years before Europeans arrived, and the only way the stories of those people over that vast period of time will be told is to have more projects like this one. Good job LJWorld for covering it.
23 June 2008
at 12:32 p.m.
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droper (Anonymous) says…
Yes, this is the site north of US 36 near Belleville. I'm the one who was directing the excavation this month and I can tell you it really has been a fantastic project and too much to say in a short comment.
As for the so-called Indian Burial Pit, or Salina Burial Pit, near Salina, it is a cemetery from about the A.D. 1200s. It contains the remains of about 151 individuals. It was excavated during the period 1936 to 1937 and was indeed a tourist attraction from shortly after the excavation began until it was closed at the end of 1989 when the state purchased the land. The remains were reburied in 1990. This too is a long story. I wrote up the history of the place and conducted a detailed analysis of the archaeology (using records and photographs) for the state historical society, finishing it a couple of years ago. Fascinating story.
23 June 2008
at 12:37 p.m.
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RedwoodCoast (Anonymous) says…
Donna!
23 June 2008
at 1:54 p.m.
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max1 (Anonymous) says…
“I've been trying for several years now to garner more interest in the southeast part of the state. I've come to the conclusion that I'm going to be the person who has to do it, since everyone seems to be stuck on the Plains Villagers like the Pawnee and Wichita.” -RedwoodCoast
What time period are you interested in researching? Post-Caddo?
Southeast Kansas was primarily dominated by the Osage Tribe for more than a century (if not more), but that region was just a small part of their extensive hunting ground that extended all the way to the Rockies, and they actually lived in present day Missouri until 1820 or so (I'm typing without references). Osage Villages began cropping up on the Neosho River in present day Neosho County Kansas prior to 1815, but the tribal leadership remained in Missouri until 1820, when Young Pawhuska “White Hair” assumed leadership of the Great Osage Village near present day Shaw, Kansas. The Little Osage established themselves a short distance upstream from there (present day Chanute).
The Osage and Kaw tribes were heavily intermarried, and were nearly indistinguishable by many of our early Indian agents. When George Sibley (the Factor at Ft. Osage) visited the Kaws near present day Manhattan Kansas, he found them living in Osage-style semi-cylindrical skin lodges, rather than in the earthen lodges with which they are normally associated. Sibley wrote “The [Kaw] town contains one hundred and twenty-eight houses or lodges; which are generally about 60 feet long and 25 feet wide, constructed of stout poles and saplings arranged in form of an arbour and covered with skins, bark and mats … The Konsees are undoubtedly a branch of the Osage (Wasbash) stock, their language is so nearly the same, . . In their manners and customs they differ from the Osages only in some trifling local peculiarities… Within the last three or four years they have formed such extensive connections with the Osages by intermarriages that it is scarcely probable that any serious differences will ever again occur between them.”
Cherokee County, Kansas, in southeastern Kansas, was obviously named after the Cherokee tribe, but they didn't arrive in that general vicinity (present northeastern Oklahoma and parts of Texas) until around 1816-18, at which time tribal warfare erupted between the Osage and Cherokee tribes.
23 June 2008
at 1:55 p.m.
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droper (Anonymous) says…
Actually, its almost the ONLY Republican, or Kitkahahki, Pawnee site to be located on what is now Kansas (there's a small one in the Milford area - and if there are others, they have not been found) . There is a significant question, however, as to whether it was still being occupied in the early 1830s. Our preliminary reading of about three lines of evidence - and I stress this is still preliminary, but it is based on the three lines of evidence - is that the particular lodge we have just been excavating, dates to later decades of the 1700s. Other lodges may have different dates. Few historic details can be attributed to any specific site and site/event correlations are inferences, with varying degrees of confidence. There is a lot of confidence in the inference that Kitkahahki site Pike visited in 1806 really is the one in Webster County, Nebraska. I have a fair amont of confidence in placing Pedro Vial in this site in Kansas in 1793, and the emerging evidence suggests the village probably was occupied at that time. Some think Jedediah Smith was here in 1826, which certainly would be a good late date, but I don't have a lot of confidence in that attribution - in fact, I think the documentary evidence I have seen for that is ambiguous at best (yes, he was at a Kitkahahki village, what I mean is that which one he was at is not certain). We have yet to have dates from archaeology that suggest this village was still occupied this late. As the phrase goes, research continues.
23 June 2008
at 2:36 p.m.
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autie (Anonymous) says…
max1, your time frame may be off just a bit. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 got the ball rolling..the movement of the five civilized tribes from the deep south to Oklahoma. The Cherokees didn't come to the region until 1838. There was one Osage site gone through in Montgomery county at the site of present Elk City Lake. The Osages moved freely up and down the Neosho and Veridigris basins and were frequent vistors to early settlement groups all over SEK. Osages are even mentioned in “Little House on the Prarie”.
My grandfather collected boxes and boxes of Osage artifacts, poking around the lake site years before it was built. The old timers knew where the old campsites were along the river.
23 June 2008
at 2:41 p.m.
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max1 (Anonymous) says…
“Some think Jedediah Smith was here in 1826, which certainly would be a good late date, but I don't have a lot of confidence in that attribution - in fact, I think the documentary evidence I have seen for that is ambiguous at best (yes, he was at a Kitkahahki village, what I mean is that which one he was at is not certain).” -droper
Jedediah Smith, James Beckwourth, Moses Harris and Robert Campbell (as well as others) stayed in the Republican Pawnee Chief's lodge during the winter of 1825-26, and although the name of the Pawnee Chief was the same as one of the chiefs that Pike visited, it might have been a different chief with the same name.
Campbell said that village was on the Republican River, but that isn't much help in pinpointing the location. They had been at the Kaw village at present day Manhattan earlier, and they joined Ashley's men on their way to the Rockies in the spring of 1826. Since Ashley's men were traveling up the Platte, I'm assuming the Republican Pawnee Village at which Smith stayed was nearby. Just a guess.
Do you recall the Pawnees that raided Dr. Say's contingent in 1819? They were supposedly Republican Pawnees according to the “Account of an expedition from Pittsburgh”.
Major Long visited some Pawnee villages the following year, and it seems like he might have visited the culprits who had attacked Say's party. I would have to check my references to know for sure. I know he met with the culprits, but I don't know if he actually visited their village. He actually retrieved some of the articles that were stolen from Dr. Say.
23 June 2008
at 3:03 p.m.
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max1 (Anonymous) says…
“The Cherokees didn't come to the region until 1838.” -autie
Actually, there was a western band of Cherokees in Texas and Oklahoma as early as 1816, long before the “trail of tears”. As a matter of fact, the Osage Chief, Glahmo (also known as Clermont) , was killed by a confederacy of Cherokees, Delawares and Shawnees at Claremore Mound in 1817. At least 80 Osage Indians were killed in the massacre, and more than 100 were captured. Some ran to the Verdigris river and drowned. Clermont's warriors were away on a hunt, and the only people at the village were old men, women, and children. The attacking party was composed primarily by Cherokees. Claremore Mound is in Rogers County, Oklahoma (northeast of Tulsa).
Chief Clermont and Black Dog were members of the Chenier band of Osage, and they established villages on the Verdigris as early as 1802. Jean Pierre Chouteau was instrumental in establishing them there, as he had lost his trading license with all the tribes living on the Missouri River and its tributaries to Manuel Lisa. He gathered the best hunters from the Big and Little Osage bands and established them on tributaries of the Arkansas, which was outside of Manuel Lisa's control.
23 June 2008
at 3:40 p.m.
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droper (Anonymous) says…
Yeah, saying the village was on the Republican River is not a lot of help and that's why I think its ambiguous as to where Smith was. The sources (primary and secondary) that I have read have Ashley's men, including Smith, in the winter of 1825-6 not going up the Platte from its mouth (as Ashley had done earlier), but diagonally from somewhere on the Kansas, across the Republican, and striking the Platte in the Grand Island area. There was a major north-south Pawnee trail that ran south from Grand Island, through the Hastings area, and on through the Superior, Guide Rock area, to Waconda Spring, etc, and this places it near the Webster County, NE site. That's not evidence, per se, of course, but it would seem likely that Smith et al intersected it at some point. I was working on this part of it when it came time to actually get the excavation going and then do it, and I just got home last evening, but I am going to resume as soon as I can.
The name both Pike and Smith gave is the same name, and Cruzat probably had also given that name in 1777 (spelled it different but it would pronounce about the same). Its not impossible that its the same person, but its also not impossible that its actually a title, or that names were passed along.
23 June 2008
at 4:28 p.m.
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max1 (Anonymous) says…
“The sources (primary and secondary) that I have read have Ashley's men, including Smith, in the winter of 1825-6 not going up the Platte from its mouth (as Ashley had done earlier), but diagonally from somewhere on the Kansas, across the Republican, and striking the Platte in the Grand Island area.” -droper
In the spring of 1826, Smith, Beckwourth, Harris, and Campbell joined a group of Ashley's men who did travel from the mouth of the Platte.
Jedediah Smith's 1825 trek up the Kaw River to the Kaw Village (at the mouth of the Blue Earth River) and then on to the Platte was actually Ashley's second attempt at blazing an overland route. In 1824, Moses Harris and Jim Beckwourth, who were both scouts for the Ashley & Henry fur company, were dispatched from the Kaw Village to “a” Pawnee Village, and upon reaching the Pawnee village they found it abandoned (probably temporarily due to a hunt). That 1824 trek is even more sketchy than the one in 1825, but we do know that Harris and Beckwourh traveled overland on their return east, and as I recall, they ended up working for Francois Chouteau at Kawsmouth for the remainder of that winter.
The 1824 & 1825 treks were both started in the dead of winter. I've always assumed Harris and Beckwourth took the Kaw trail up the east side of the Blue Earth and crossed it near Alcove Spring. That was the same route attempted by Dr. Say in 1819, but Say only got about 7 miles from the mouth of the Blue before his party attacked by Pawnees.
That is also the same route (along the east side of the Blue Earth) that William Sublette and Moses Harris took in 1827 on their return to St. Louis, and I suspect Sublette chose Harris to lead the way because Sublette had no knowledge of that route, whereas Harris had made the trek twice.
23 June 2008
at 5:05 p.m.
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max1 (Anonymous) says…
“The name both Pike and Smith gave is the same name” -droper
Yes, the name is spelled variously: Iskatappe, Ish-Ka-ta-pa and Esh-ca-tar-pa. The name was spelled “Esh-ca-tar-pa” on the 1825 Pawnee Treaty.
I believe Iskatappe was actually his name and not a title. It means “wicked chief” or “bad chief”.
“The chief of the Republican Pawnees was Ish-Ka-ta-pa. Mr. [Jedediah] Smith and myself staid in his lodge… The Kaw village was then at the junction of the Blue and Kaw rivers.” -Colonel Robert Campbell's narrative of “experiences in the rocky mountain fur trade from 1825 to 1835”
24 June 2008
at 12:08 p.m.
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max1 (Anonymous) says…
Campbell's narrative was recorded several decades after 1825, and some of the places that are mentioned in it didn't really exist at that time (Fort Riley, for instance), but for what it's worth, here are some clues as to where the Republican Pawnee village at which Jedediah Smith stayed was located. It looks like it might have been about 50 miles south of Grand Island. The note in brackets is mine.
http://mtmen.org/mtman/html/camp_nar….
The following narrative by the late Col. Robert Campbell, contains a sketch of his life and remarkable experiences while engaged in the Rocky Mountain Fur trade, during a period of ten years - from 1825 to 1835.
It was dictated to me in the year 1870” -William Fayel
A Narrative Of Colonel Robert Campbell's Experiences In The Rocky Mountain Fur Trade From 1825 to 1835
… The Republican Pawnees had a mud village on the Republican Fork, on the South side fifty miles north [south?] of Grand Island… The Republican Pawnees, three years after we were there, joined on the Platte with the Grand Pawnees, who were then on the Loupe Fork… The chief of the Republican Pawnees was Ish-Ka-ta-pa. Mr. Smith and myself staid in his lodge… We followed up the Republican Fork from the Pawnee village to the Platte.
We suffered great privations until joined by General Ashley from St. Louis.
He overtook us at Grand Island on the Platte about the first of April with supplies.
[another note: some reminiscences that were written long after the fact have the names of the rivers confused, and some river names were even confused at the time the events were happening. For instance, the Republican River was often confused with the Blue Earth River, which was the combined Big and Little Blue Rivers]
–––––
Incidentally, I just checked some of my notes and found a statement I copied from “Account of An Expedition From Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, Performed in the Years 1819 and 1820”, that indicates there were no Pawnees living on the Republican River in 1820, but as I stated earlier, the Republican band had intermittently consolidated with the Grand Pawnees on the Platte, so it appears that 1820 was one of those years.
The passage I'm referring to is extracted from a story about Major Long's interpreter Dorian's earlier experiences with the Pawnees: “Dorian, a Mestizo, on a trading expedition, had accumulated a considerable quantity of peltry, at the Pawnee republican village, when it was situated on the Republican fork of the Konza river.”
13 July 2008
at 9:47 a.m.
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InspectorJo (Anonymous) says…
Wish I were there. It is always a wonderful feeling when you unearth objects from yesteryears. Max1 you are very informative. Thank you for the history. I do believe that our family will be visiting Republic County this summer. Kansans should be very proud of these findings.
22 July 2008
at 7:45 a.m.
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traks (Anonymous) says…
I am looking for information on what village would be near or on the site of McPherson Kansas. I am also interested in 1850's if any native americans were still living in this area. Were all reloctated or did some remain?