Shawnee County KS Archives History - Books .....Chapter I  1905
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Book Title: History Of Shawnee County, Kansas

History of Shawnee County
CHAPTER I.

The Shawnee Indians in Kansas—Various Treaties with the Tribe—Indian* Villages
in the County—Kaw and Pottawatomie Reservations—The-Kaw Half-Breeds and Their
Descendants—Scenes and Incidents of the-Early Settlements.

    The Shawnee Indians, whose name was appropriately given to one of the
counties of Kansas, comprised one of the tribes with which William Penn made his
celebrated treaty in the year 1682. Penn described them at that time as being
generally tall, straight, well-built, and of splendid proportions. They were
graceful in their movements, walking erect and strong, and with a lofty chin.
Their eyes were small and black, and their skins swarthy from exposure to sun
and weather.   In all respects they were typical Indians.

    Before the treaty of 1682 it is believed that the Shawnees, whose language
is almost identical with that of the Sac and Fox tribes, occupied the country
southwest of the Missouri, from Green Bay and the Fox River, to-the Mississippi,
and hunted over the land between the Wisconsin and the upper branches of the
Illinois. In April, 1701, a further treaty was formed, the Shawnees, one of the
signatory tribes, being represented by Wa-pa-tha, king of the Shawnees. In 1706
a band of Shawnee Indians was encountered by traders at Conestoga, near the
Susquehanna. At a council held in Philadelphia, June 14, 1715, one of the
participants was Opes-sah, another Shawnee king.

    The basin of the Cumberland River, in Kentucky, is marked by the earliest
geographers as being the habitat of the Shawnees. A portion afterward lived near
Winchester, Virginia. From Kentucky their principal band removed to the
head-waters of one of the great rivers of South Carolina. From South Carolina
many of them removed to Pennsylvania and settled on the Susquehanna, where they
were soon followed by others of the tribe. Of the Indian fighting men in
Pennsylvania in 1732 more than half were Shawnees from the South, and they were
said to be the most restless of all the Indians. The small Virginia band was
traced in 1745 from Winchester to the Allegheny, near Fort Duquesne, where
Pittsburg now stands. In 1755 the same band, with other tribes, joined the
French forces in the war between France and England, and later a number of the
Indian warriors were imprisoned in North Carolina.

    A council fire was held at Huron, on the Detroit River, in December, 1786,
at which an address to the Congress of the United States was adopted, signed by
the Five Nations, and the Hurons, Shawnees, Ottawas, Chippewas, Pottawatomies,
Twitchwees, Cherokees, and Wabash Indians. The subject of the address related to
methods for establishing a lasting reconciliation with the 13 States.

BEGINNING OF THE SHAWNEE NATION.

    The first treaty of record between the United States and the Shawnees, in
which the latter acted as a separate nation, was held January 31, 1786, at the
mouth of the Great Miami, on the northwest bank of the Ohio. This treaty gave
the Shawnees certain lands in the territory then occupied by them "to live and
hunt on," but the grant was contested by the Wyandottes, who claimed priority.
Trouble followed, not only between the government and the Shawnees, but between
the Shawnees and the Wyandottes, resulting in the removal of many of the
Shawnees to New Orleans in 1792, from whence they were sent into the Creek
Nation of what was then known as New Spain. These Indians declared that they had
been deceived, driven from their homes, and otherwise imposed upon, and that
they would be at war with America as long as any of them should live.

    This was preliminary to a somewhat general uprising of the Indians in 1793,
in which a number of the Northern tribes participated, the Indians claiming that
the Americans had mistreated them and disregarded the treaties of their own
nation. For this demonstration the Shawnees had gathered from various sources
their greatest warriors,—Black Wolf, Blue Jacket and Ke-hia-pe-la-thy
(Toma-Hawk). On the 13th of August, 1794, Gen. Anthony Wayne sent a letter to
the hostile tribes asking for a peace conference and promising protection to
all. The Indians rejected the offer and gave battle to the Americans, sustaining
a bad defeat and losing much of their property.

    About this time a Spanish Nobleman, Baron De Carondelet, donated to the
Shawnees and Delawares a tract of land, 25 miles square, between the river St.
Comb and Cape Girardeau, bounded on the east by the Mississippi River, and on
the west by the Whitewater River. The Delawares abandoned the tract in 1815,
leaving the entire right to the Shawnees. They remained here in peace as long as
the territory remained under Spanish rule. In the year 1825, the lands of the
Carondelet grant were exchanged with Governor Clark for a larger tract on the
Kansas River, the Indians accepting $14,000 for their improvements. The treaty
provided that this tract of 50 miles square should belong to the Shawnees of
Missouri, and to those of the same tribe in Ohio, who might wish to emigrate to
that country.

OTHER SHAWNEE TREATIES.

    The Shawnees were parties to other treaties between the government and the
Indians relating to valuable lands in Ohio, Indiana and the country west of
those States. They joined the Delawares and other tribes in a treaty at St.
Louis in 1815, the government being represented by William Clark, Ninean Edwards
and Augustus Choteau. The first clear title to land received by the Shawnees was
the result of a treaty in 1817 at the foot of the rapids of the Miami of Lake
Erie. Lewis Cass and Duncan McArthur were the commissioners on the part of the
United States. Blackhoof, Pi-ach-ta, Way-we-lea-py and Qua-ta-wapee were the
principal Shawnee chiefs. The treaty gave the Indians a large tract of land at
Wa-paugh-konn-et-ta (Ohio) and an annuity of $2,000, one of the considerations
being "the faithful services of the Shawnees in the late war with England."
Wapakoneta (shortened from the Indian name) is the present county-seat of
Auglaize County, Ohio.

    In the year 1831, after the death of Blackhoof, the Indians in the vicinity
of Wa-paugh-konn-et-ta were led to believe that the State of Ohio would soon
pass laws which would compel them to pay taxes for the benefit of the white
people, and that other obligations would be imposed upon them, unless they would
consent to sell their lands and take up new homes in the distant West. They were
offered 100,000 acres of land adjoining the tract of 50 miles square which had
already been ceded to the Carondelet band on the Kansas River, a proposition to
which the Shawnees reluctantly agreed. The terms of the agreement were very
unfair to the Indians in respect to the matter of providing funds for the
payment of their debts and to reimburse them for improvements made upon their
lands, and the money unjustly withheld from the tribe was subsequently refunded
by congress.

    The Shawnees were the first of the Eastern tribes to be located in Kansas.
In the various treaties they acquired 1,600,000 acres of land, which was
subsequently exchanged by law and treaty negotiations for land in the Indian
Territory proper.

    Although the Shawnee Indians gave their name to Shawnee County, they were
not so closely identified with its history as some of the other tribes. The
Pottawatomies had a reservation of about three townships in the northwest corner
of the county, and the Kaws owned an extensive tract of land in the northeastern
part of the county. Many evidences remain of these early Indian settlements, and
some of the descendants of the Pottawatomies and Kaws still reside in the county.

KANSAS INDIAN VILLAGES.

    In the year 1830 the Kaws established three villages at the mouth of Mission
Creek, 16 miles west of Topeka. Fool Chief's village was north of the river near
Silver Lake, and contained about 800 persons. Hard Chief's village was located
on the bluffs south of the river, with about 600 inhabitants. American Chief's
village, two miles up Mission Creek, numbered about 100 persons. The ground
where Hard Chief's village stood being unbroken prairie, the lodge sites may
still be seen. In 1880 Secretary F. G. Adams, of the Kansas State Historical
Society, visited this locality and counted 85 lodge sites. In 1901 the place was
visited by J. V. Brower, of St. Paul, Minnesota, who found 70 or more of the old
earthen huts. They are now rapidly going into decay or being obliterated by the
plow. At the time the treaty of 1825 was made with the Indians, these lands were
said to be worth seven cents an acre; later they wrere estimated to be worth
$1.25 per acre, and afterwards the Indians were permitted to dispose of them at
$3 per acre. An average of $100 an acre would not be too much for the same lands
to-day.

    In a recent contribution to the collections of the Kansas State Historical
Society, Miss Fannie E. Cole gives an account of the Kansas Indians in Shawnee
County arfter 1855. The Cole family settled in the county in May of that year,
locating on a farm near the little town of Indianola, a trading post, five miles
northwest from Topeka.   Miss Cole says:

THE TRIBE IN SHAWNEE COUNTY.

    "We took possession of our new home June 6, 1855. It was situated on what
was known as the 'Delaware Trust Land.' I suppose that when Kansas formed part
of the Indian Territory this tract was a portion of the Delaware reserve, which,
upon the organization of Kansas into a Territory, was relinquished by them to
the United States government, to be sold to settlers for their benefit. Our farm
lay just north of the third mile of the Kaw half-breed reserve. The Kaws, being,
a Western tribe of Indians, I think that they once claimed all the area of
Kansas, and perhaps more, as their hunting grounds, and when the government made
a treaty with them, for the purpose of removing various tribes of Indians from
the East to these lands—the Kaws having 23 half-breeds in their tribe—reserved
23 tracts, each containing one square mile, all lying contiguous to each other
on the north bank of the river, extending from the east line of the Pottawatomie
reserve, about three or four miles west of Topeka, down to the vicinity of
Lecompton. As these tracts followed the course of the river, as a natural
consequence some of the miles extended further north than others, and when the
government surveys were made there were many fractional "quarters," as they were
called, between the northern lines of the tracts and the sectional lines.

    "Our farm consisted of one of these fractional quarters, containing
something over 90 acres, and 46 acres of the regular quarter section, the
remainder of which formed part of the Indianola town site. The tract of
half-breed land just south of us was occupied by Moses Bellemere, a Canadian
Frenchman, whose wife was Adele La Sert, one of the original half-breeds. She
was a daughter of Clement La Sert, a Canadian Frenchman, whom I had supposed was
a trader among the Kaws. While he lived among them he married a blanketed squaw,
and they had two or three children. When he left the Kaws he abandoned the
squaw, but took the surviving children, a boy and a girl, with him. Clement La
Sert took for his second wife a woman of the Osage tribe. She was nearly white,
having but very little Indian blood in her veins, and she trained his Indian
daughter (Mrs. Bellemere) in the ways of the white people.

    "The Indian relatives and friends of the Kaw half-breeds came every summer
from their own reservation, at Council Grove, in Morris County, and encamped in
the dooryards and around the premises of the Bellemeres, the Papans, the
DeAubries, and others. Among them was the chief, La Soupe. He was the tallest
Indian I ever saw, and must have been six and a half feet tall. Mrs. Bellemere
lived on her allotment for many years. When her Indian mother died, Mrs.
Bellemere refused to allow any Indian ceremonies, but had her attired in neat
burial clothes, and buried like white people. Mrs. Bellemere herself died about
1870, and is buried in Rochester cemetery. Her husband and three children
survived her. The latter were Joseph, aged about 16, Julia, 14, and Leonard, 7.
After Mrs. Bellemere's death, Mr. Bellemere married a white woman named Hetty
Garmire, whose sister, Margaret, married Garland Cummins, an old Indianola
saloon-keeper and ex-Kickapoo ranger.

    "On some of the farms just north of Menoken could be seen, within recent
years, and, perhaps, are still visible, large circles in the soil. Many years
ago a large village of Kaws was established there.  It was probably the village
of a chief called Fool Chief, and, judging from the little I have heard of him,
I imagine that he was well named. Some years ago I taught the Menoken School. In
the early springtime these circles showed very plainly all over the level,
freshly-plowed fields."

THE KAW INDIANS.

    The exact beginning of the Kaw Indian settlements in Kansas has never been
determined. It is certain that they were here as early as 1673, for in that year
they were found by Father Jacques Marquette on his expedition to discover the
Upper Mississippi. They were then known as the Canzas Indians, occupying a wide
area of country on both sides of the Kansas River, from the Missouri to the
eastern base of the Rocky Mountains. The first treaty made with them by the
United States government was that of October 28, 1815. By a second treaty, June
3, 1825, the Indians ceded a tract United States all the lands to which they had
title or claim, except a tract "to begin twenty leagues up the Kansas River, and
to include their village on that river; extending west thirty miles in width
through the land ceded." It was also provided that 23 sections should be located
and set apart on the north side of the river for certain half-breeds.

    For the remainder of their domain, embracing upwards of 10,000,000 acres,
the tribe was to receive an annuity of $3,500 per annum for 20 consecutive
years. By a treaty concluded January 14, 1846, the same tribe ceded to the
United States 2,000,000 acres of its land on the east part of their country, the
United States agreeing to pay the Indians $202,000, of which $200,000 was to be
funded at five per cent., the interest to be paid for 30 years, and thereafter
to be diminished and paid pro rata, should their numbers decrease, but not
otherwise.

    The same treaty provided that there should be set apart for the use of the
Kansas Indians a suitable country near the western boundary of the 2,000,000
acres ceded to the government. This reservation contained 255,854 acres, which,
together with the $200,000 held in trust, and upon which they received $10,000
per annum as interest, made them a wealthy people. They lived on this
reservation for many years, and until the changed conditions brought about the
treaty of 1859, by which the reservation was divided into two parts, known as
the "Trust Lands" and "Diminished Reserve;" and these were subsequently disposed
of under a treaty ratified in 1863. Much litigation resulted, but in all the
transactions the Indians were compelled to accept whatever was offered them and
to yield before the onward march of civilization.

THE KAW HALF-BREEDS.

    The principal part of the special reservation of one mile square for each of
23 Kaw half-breeds was located in Shawnee County. The first seven half-breeds to
receive allotments in this reservation were Adele and Clement, children of
Clement La Sert; Josette, Julia, Pelagie and Victoire, children of Louis Gonvil;
and Marie, daughter of Baptiste Golvin. An interesting account of these families
appears in Cone's "Historical Sketch of Shawnee County," printed in 1877. The
father of the first two children named was a Frenchman, an interpreter and
trader among the Kaws. He died at the old Kaw village near Silver Lake in 1835.
The daughter, Adele, married a Frenchman, Moses Bellemere, previously referred
to in Miss Cole's article. Louis Gonvil, the father of the four half-breed girls
above referred to, was also a trader for many years among the Kaws. At an early
age Josette Gonvil went to live with the family of Frank G. Choteau, an Indian
interpreter at Kansas City, Missouri. She was married there in 1839 to Joseph
Papan. Julia Gonvil was married soon after tc Ahcan Papan. In 1840 the two
families moved on to their Shawnee County farms, living near each other for a
number of years. A Frenchman named Franceur de Aubrie married Pelagie Gonvil, in
1842, and in 1843 Louis Papan married Julia Gonvil. The name Papan appears
frequently in the public records of the State and county.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

HISTORY OF SHAWNEE COUNTY, KANSAS
AND
REPRESENTATIVE CITIZENS

EDITED AND COMPILED BY
JAMES L. KING
TOPEKA, KANSAS 

"History is Philosophy Teaching by Examples"

PUBLISHED BY
RICHMOND & ARNOLD,
GEORGE RICHMOND; C. R. ARNOLD.
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS,
1905.


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