# History of Kansas (Holloway 1868)/Chapter 8

CHAPTER VIII.
ANTIQUITIES OF KANSAS.—1705-1854.
Kansas cannot boast of a remote antiquity. Her soil never became the scene of stirring events until of late years. Her level and far-reaching prairies afforded but little temptation to the early adventurer. No ideal gold mine or opulent Indian city were ever located within her boundary.
The name Kansas, signifying smoky, is derived from the chief river running from the east through the centre of the State; the name of the river having been derived from that of the tribe of Indians inhabiting its borders towards its mouth. It is variously spelled by early writers, Cansan, Kanson, Kanzas; but since the organization of the Territory it has been written Kansas. The Kansas Indians are sometimes called Kaws—a nick-name given them by the French.
In 1705 the French explored the Missouri River as far as the mouth of the Kansas. They were kindly received by the natives, and were soon engaged in a profitable trade with them, which they continued to carry on for more than a century afterwards. These were the first Europeans that beheld the soil and river of Kansas.
In 1719 M. Dutisne, a young French officer, was sent out with a party by Beinville, Governor of Louisiana, on an exploring expedition. He ascended the Mississippi as far as the Sabine river, and thence traveled westward over a rocky, broken and timbered country, about three hundred miles as near as he could judge, until he came to the principal village ​of the Osages. As he describes the village, it was then situated on a hill, five miles from the Osage River, and contained about one hundred cabins. These Indians spent but a small part of their time at the village, being engaged in the chase at a distance.
Traveling thence to the north-west one hundred and twenty miles, he visits the Panoucas. They lived on the prairie which abounded in buffaloes, in two villages of about one hundred and thirty cabins. They had three hundred fine horses which they prized very highly. Then he advanced westward four hundred and fifty miles to the Paonis, a very brave and warlike nation. Here he takes formal possession of the country in the name of his King by erecting a cross with the arms of France, Sept. 27th, 1719. He now turns back and directs his march to the Missouri River, three hundred and fifty yards from which he discovers the village of the Missouries. Thus so early the French have discovered and explored the Territory of Kansas, and had opened a lively traffic with the Indians, which was kept up for a century afterwards.
The Spaniards, who always repelled with alacrity every western advance of the French, having driven them from Texas, determined to have command of the Missouri River before their rivals had permanently established themselves upon its border. They had heard of M. Dutisne's tour through the territory and knew that success required celerity. They sought by possessing themselves of the Missouri River, to command its waters and enjoy its commerce by restricting the French on the Illinois side of the Mississippi. Their object was first to conquer the Missouries who lived upon the banks of that river, and who were friendly to the French, and establish there a colony. The Pawnees, who dwelt west of the aforesaid Indians, were at war with them, and the Spaniards hoped to enlist the former as allies in the undertaking.
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​Accordingly a numerous caravan set out from Santa Fe in 1720 to take possession of the country along the Missouri and establish upon its borders a colony. They first sought the Pawnee villages in their march, but losing their way, they unfortunately fell in with the Missouries whose destruction they had planned. Mistaking them for the Pawnees, they made known their designs, and solicited their co-operation. The Missouries manifesting not the least astonishment at this unexpected visit and startling communication, requested time to assemble their warriors. In forty-eight hours two thousand assembled in arms. They attacked the Spaniards in the night and killed the whole party except one priest who escaped on horseback and returned to Santa Fe, where the records of this account are preserved.
This battle occurred a little below Fort Leavenworth, on the banks of the Missouri.
The French apprised of this bold undertaking of the Spaniards in advancing almost one thousand miles from their possessions into this unexplored country, resolved to establish a fortification in that direction. Accordingly M. de Bourgmont was dispatched with a considerable force, who ascended the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers to an island in the latter above the mouth of the Osage River a short distance, and established on it Fort Orleans.
At this time the Padoucas, who lived north-west of the Missouries, were at war with the latter and their allies, the Kansas, Ottoes, Osages and Iowas. The above mentioned officer in 1724, made an extensive exploration from Fort Orleans to the north-west, accompanied by a few soldiers and some friendly Indians, for the purpose of establishing friendship among the native tribes and opening and strengthening trade with them. Setting out on the 3d of July, he returned on the 5th of November, having successfully accomplished his object.
Lewis and Cark in 1804 made an expedition up the Missouri ​and across to the Pacific under the direction of the Government. They encamped at the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers and spent two days. Here they found plenty of game. Somewhere near Atchison, they discovered the remains of an old French fort and village. A little farther up they found a house and a trading-post but met with no white people. A negro cook with them excited the curiosity of the Indians.
The first steamboat that passed Kansas on the waters of the Missouri was the Western Engineer in 1819, under the command of Major S. H. Long. He, with a corps of Topographical Engineers, went on a tour of observation up to the Yellow Stone. “The boat was a small one with a stern wheel and an escape pipe so contrived as to emit a torrent of smoke and steam through the head of a serpent with a red, forked tongue from the bow.” This was designed to imitate a powerful serpent, vomiting fire and smoke, and lashing the water into a foam with its tail, in order to strike terror among the Indians. Tradition says that they thought it was a “maniteau” which had come to destroy them.
The fur trade was early prosecuted along the Missouri River. In this extensive and lucrative traffic Kansas must have participated largely. During the fifteen years previous to 1804 the value of furs annually collected at St. Louis is estimated at $203,750. James Pursley was the first hunter and trapper to traverse the plains between the United States and New Mexico (1802), and consequently the first Anglo-American to behold the soil of Kansas. General William H. Ashley in 1823 fitted out his first trapping expedition to the mountains. He discovered the South Pass and thus opened the highway to Oregon and California. For forty vears the fur trade averaged from two to three hundred thousand dollars annually. The last named gentleman alone between the years 1824 and 1827 sent fur to St. Louis to the value of $180,000.
​In the spring of 1823 the great Santa Fe trade from Missouri originated at Franklin, now Booneville, in Howard County, where the first enterprise was planned and outfit procured. It being an experimental trip, the stocks conveyed were slender, comprising a cheap class of goods, which were carried on pack mules and in wagons. This expedition proving a success, and awakening bright prospects of wealth, it was repeated the following year on a more extensive scale. In 1825 the Government, having its attention directed to this new channel of commerce by Colonel Benton, employed Major Sibley to survey and establish a wagon road from the Missouri State line to Santa Fe, which has been a great thoroughfare of travel ever since. The trade increased slowly but gradually during the next twenty-two years, the value of its exports averaging from $50,000 to $100,000 per annum.
The Indian tribes through whose territory the trains had to pass soon became very troublesome. They would suddenly swoop down upon the unsuspecting encampment of the transporters, drive off their draft animals, rob the wagons and frequently destroy lives. As but few traders in those days started out with more than two or three wagons, considerations of safety suggested a general rendezvous, from which point they could all start together and afford each other mutual protection. A spot well timbered and watered was selected for this purpose, which has ever since been known as “Council Grove.” The caravans that thus collected here, numbered hundreds of wagons and thousands of mules, horses and oxen, and their departures over the Plains noted in the papers through the States.
The town of Independence, Missouri, was formed soon after the opening of this overland traffic and became the principal outfitting post. From 1832 to 1848 it held this commercial ascendancy and its merchants accumulated vast fortunes. In 1834 the first stock of goods was landed a little below Kansas City, at Francis Chouteau's log warehouse, ​destined for the New Mexico trade. From that time Kansas City and Westport continued to acquire more and more of this overland commerce, so that by 1850 they had secured its complete monopoly.
According to the record kept by Messrs. Hays & Co. at Council Grove, there were engaged in the New Mexico trade in 1860, 5,984 men; 2,170 wagons; 464 horses; 5,933 mules; 17,836 oxen. The wagons were loaded with fifty-five hundred pounds each on an average, making an aggregate of six thousand tons! The capital employed in carrying on this transportation for this season alone was not far from two million dollars!
To protect this trade and the western frontier from the depredations of the Indians the Government in 1827 posted a portion of the Third Regiment of United States troops, numbering about 200 men, where Fort Leavenworth now stands, under command of Major Baker. This post was named after the Colonel of this regiment, Henry H. Leavenworth. It was at first called a cantonment and the title of Fort was not applied until 1832. For several years after its establishment the troops were so greatly afflicted by disease that in 1829 it was temporarily reduced—the most of the troops being sent upon the prairies. In 1830 the Sixth Regiment of Infantry superseded the Third; and in 1835 it was commanded by the Third Division of Dragoons under Colonel Dodge, who, in 1845, made an expedition to Pike's Peak and back, in which he cultivated the friendship of the Prairie Indians. Fort Leavenworth attracted but little attention until the breaking out of the war with Mexico and the gold excitement in California when it became a great outfitting post for western travel and trade.
Soon after the admission of Missouri as a State into the Union, large cessions of land were secured to the United States from the natives west of that State. The Government then conceived the design and perfected a plan for the transfer ​of all eastern tribes of Indians to the west of the Mississippi. Tribe after tribe was thus led to migrate westward, so that by the middle of the Nineteenth Century not a tribe remained in the States. Thus up to the time of the organization of this Territory, the lands of Kansas were held and inhabited solely by Indians, white people being forbidden by the terms of the treaties to settle on them without the consent of the former. This was literally the Indian Territory, and it was the design of the General Government to make it the permanent home of the Red Man.
Fort Scott was made a military post in 1841 to hold the Indians in check. A few Government buildings were erected, which were sold in 1855 for two or three hundred dollars a piece. The American Fur Company formerly had a post there.
From 1843 to 1850 General Fremont made repeated tours through this Territory.
The first train that ever crossed the Plains, over the Rocky Mountains, to the Pacific coast, was conducted in 1844 by Mr. Neil Gillem. He set out from Buchanan County, Missouri, with fifty wagons and one hundred men, and went to Oregon. The following year the Mormons assembled near Atchison preparatory to crossing the Plains. They made this their place of rendezvous for all companies going to Salt Lake for several years thereafter. They erected a house here afterwards and opened a farm, which is to this day known as the Mormon farm.
In 1845 the Mexican war broke out and Fort Leavenworth became the gathering point for soldiers and the shipping point for military stores, destined for Mexico. It was across the prairies of Kansas that General Kearney made his celebrated march to Santa Fe. Immediately after the termination of this war gold was discovered in California, and the tide of fortune seekers rolled across this soil. Kansas City, Fort Leavenworth and St. Joseph were the principal points at which the emigrants united into vast caravans, miles in ​length, bound for the land of wealth. In 1849, thirty thousand, and in 1850 sixty thousand, persons crossed the Plains on their journey to the Golden Gate, the chief portion of whom crossed the prairies of Kansas.
As this kind of prairie travel and commerce is passing away, it is thought proper to insert an excellent description of it by one with whom it was perfectly familiar:
   “The wagons, after receiving their loads, severally return to the camping places, until all belonging to the train are assembled. At that ‘the order of march’ is given. A scene then ensues that baffles description. Carriages, wagons, men, horses and mules and oxen, appear in chaotic confusion. Men are cursing, distressing mulish outcries, bovine lowing, form an all but harmonious concert, above the desonances of which the commanding tone of the wagon master's voice only is heard. The teamsters make a merciless use of their whip, fists and feet. The horses rear, the mules kick, the oxen baulk. But gradually order is made to prevail and each of the conflicting elements to assume its proper place. The commander finally gives the sign of readiness by mounting his mule, and soon the caravan is pursuing its slow way along the road.
   “The trains reveal their approach at a great distance. Long before getting in sight, especially when the wind carries the sound in the right direction, the jarring and croaking of the wagons, the ‘gee-ho’ and ‘ho-haw’ of the drivers, and the reverberations of the whips, announce it in the most unmistakable manner. The traveler coming nearer, the train will by degrees rise into sight, just as ships at sea appear to emerge from below the horizon. The wagons being all in view, the train, when seen a few miles off, from the shining white of the covers, and the hull-like appearance of the bodies of the wagons, truly looks like a fleet sailing with canvass all spread, over a seeming sea. A further advance will bring one up with the train master, who always keeps a mile or so ahead, in order to learn the condition of the roads, leaving the immediate charge of the train to his assistant. On arriving up with the caravan itself, one will pass from twenty-five to seventy-five high-boxed, heavy-wheeled wagons, covered with double sheets of canvass, loaded with from fifty to sixty hundred pounds of freight, and drawn by from ​five to six yoke of oxen, or five spans of mules each. One driver for every wagon is attached to the train. From four to ten extra hands also accompany it, to fill possible vacancies. One or more mess wagons, under the superintendence of cooks likewise form a part of the cortege, the whole being under the supreme command of the wagon master and his assistant. As to cooks the crew of the prairie fleet, after having traveled on the Plains a week or two, outshine the deck hands of our steamboats altogether. When ‘under sail’ the prairie schooners usually keep about thirty yards from each other, and as each of them, with its animate propelling power, has a length of eighty or ninety feet, a large train requires an hour to pass a given point.”
* ↑ Peck's Annals of the West.
* ↑ American State Papers.