While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
On July 2, 1804, Lewis and Clark made the following entry:
Opposite our camp is a valley, in which was situated an
old village of the Kansas, between two high points of land, on the bank of
the river. About a mile in the rear of the village was a small fort, built
by the French on an elevation. There are now no traces of the village, but
the situation of the fort may be recognized by some remains of chimneys,
and the general outlines of the fortification, as well as by the fine
spring which supplied it with water. The party who were stationed here
were probably cut off by the Indians, as there are no accounts of them.
In an article on the “Kansa or Kaw
Indians,” Volume X, Kansas Historical Collections, George P.
Morehouse quotes Bougainville on French Forts, who said in 1757:
Kansas.—In ascending this stream [the Missouri
River] we meet the village of the Kansas. We have there a garrison with a
commandant, appointed, as in the case with Pimiteoui and Fort Chartres by
New Orleans. This post produces one hundred bundles of furs.
This old village found abandoned by Lewis and Clark
had no doubt grown up around the French fort. And this French post was
certainly the first settlement and trading-station ever set up in what is
now Kansas by the white people. It was established after the visit by
Bourgmont, in 1724, and was in a flourishing condition in 1757.
It has already been noted that the Kansas Indians
could not have been Escanjaques. At the period when the Spaniards came in
contact with the Escanjaques on the Arkansas, the Kansas were evidently
living in towns along the Missouri, principally above the mouth of the
Kansas River. They did not then own or claim much of the valley of the
Kansas—perhaps they did not claim west of what is now Wyandotte County.
Their country joined, on the south, that of the Osages, always a much more
numerous people than the Kansa.
The
Pawnees were the hereditary enemies of the Kansas.
There is every reason to believe that the Pawnee country extended to
within fifteen to twenty miles of the Missouri above the mouth of the
Kansas. Also, that in what is now Doniphan County, Kansas, the Pawnee
country reached the Missouri, extending along the west bank of the stream
well into Nebraska. The Kansas were never able to break through this
Pawnee wedge driven into the Siouan territory, and when the Pawnee
pressure on the west was lessened, the Kansas abandoned their northward
migration and ascended the Kansas River. Their greatest height on this
stream was the mouth of the Big Blue. There is no creditable evidence that
they ever had a village westward beyond the Blue. They hunted the buffalo
far to the west of that point, but fear of the Pawnees made them bear to
the south, throwing them to the Arkansas beyond the present Hutchinson.
They were not unmolested even there, for the Pawnees claimed all that
country and hunted over it.
The following is taken from Vial's Journal of his trip
from Santa Fe to St. Louis. While the Kansas Indians he was captured by
were hunting on the Upper Arkansas, they were out of their own country and
in that claimed by the Pawnees—in possession of the Pawnees. June 29, 1792. We left in the morning at day break
along the said river, which flowed northeast. We found some buffaloes
which the Indians had killed, and we believed that they were of the tribe
of the Guachaches, who were hunting through that region. We went to find
them, since I know they are well inclined to the government of the
Province of Louisiana. We found them about four in the afternoon in their
hunting camp on the said shore of the Napeste River. As they approached us
on the opposite side with river between us, we fired some shots into the
air, to get them to see us. They immediately set out and came to stop us
on the other side. Those who first met us grasped us cordially by the
hand. I asked them of what tribe they were, and they told me they were
Cances. They immediately took possession of our horses, and of all our
possessions and cut the clothes which we wore with their knives, thus
leaving us totally naked. They were of a mind to kill us, whereupon some
of them cried out to those who were about to do it, not to kill us with
guns or arrows because of the great risk that would be run of killing one
another as they had surrounded us; but that if they killed us it should be
by hatchet blows or by spears. One highly esteemed among them took up our
defense, begging all of them to leave us alive. Thereupon another highly
respected one came and taking me by the hand made me mount his own horse
with him. Then another one came up behind and hurled a spear at me, but
the one who had me on his horse restrained him by laying hold of him,
leaving me alone on the horse. A crowd of them even coming to kill me from
behind, his brother mounted behind me. Then one of them, who had been a
servant in the village of San Luis de Ylinneses and who talked excellent
French, came up to me, and recognized me. He began to cry out: “Do not
kill him. We shall ascertain whence he is coming, for I know him.” Taking
the reins of my horse, he took me to his tent and said to me: “Friend, now
your Grace must hurry if you wish to save your life, for among us it is
the custom and law that after having eaten no one is killed.” After having
eaten hastily as he charged me, they left me quiet, and the chiefs having
assembled after a moment came to me and asked me whence I was coming. I
told them I was coming to open a road from Santa Fe to Los Ylinneses,
having been sent by the Great Chief, their Spanish Father, and that I had
letters for the Spanish Chief at Los Ylinnese. Thereupon they left me in
quiet until the following day. My two companions did not fail to run the
same danger as myself, but they have also been saved by other Indians who
were well inclined. On the following day they joined me, both naked. But
the one called Vicente Villanueva had his horse cut and a dagger thrust in
the abdomen which would have proved fatal had he not shrunk away when the
blow was delivered. An Indian, who wished to save him received all the
force of the blow on his arm and was quite badly wounded. They kept us
naked among them in the said camp until the fifteenth of August.
