The first leg of their return trip was hellish. Reentering the Ouachita Mountains, Long soon found himself in a “wilderness country” of broken hills and numerous streams swollen by heavy winter rains. Each stream crossing presented the men with a perilous choice between wading and swimming or expending the time and energy to build a raft. Every forest opening presented another tough slog through head-high canebrakes. They spent over half a month covering a straight-line distance of about 100 miles, and finally fetched up at a large cluster of hot springs on the Ouachita River at dusk on New Year’s Eve. It was one day past Long’s thirty-third birthday, and he was grateful to have gotten himself and his escort through the mountains alive. On New Year’s Day they rested and examined the springs, taking the temperature of the waters, which ranged from 64 to 151 degrees Fahrenheit.3
The remainder of their overland journey through present-day Arkansas was relatively easy. There were many farmsteads. A census the previous summer had counted nearly 2,000 white inhabitants, but Long met with so many new immigrants that he reckoned the population closer to 3,000. He thought the “rich & luxuriant soil” would be good for growing cotton, and the many small creeks well suited for watermills. Long’s line of march took him past the White and St. Francis rivers to the Mississippi. Striking the Mississippi at the hamlet known as Herculaneum, he ascended the great river back to St. Louis.4
In his report of this, his third expedition, Long gave most of his attention to US Indian policy and the Osages. Long was already familiar with the Osages by reputation, for they were the most powerful Indian nation in the region and they held a dominant position in the fur trade south of the Missouri River. At the time of the Louisiana Purchase, the Osages numbered perhaps 5,000 and their territory covered a large part of the present states of Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. They had long been allied with the French and Spanish in the fur trade, and they had plentiful hunting grounds on the edge of the Great Plains. But in the years after the Louisiana Purchase the tribe had become beleaguered by enemies on all sides. The Americans pressed on the Osage territory from the east, while the Pawnees and other enemy tribes, armed with guns by the Spanish, encroached on their hunting grounds from the west. Most troublesome of all, waves of Cherokee emigrants, having acquiesced to American demands to leave their homes in the East and resettle on the Arkansas River, pushed into Osage territory in the Ozark Hills north of the Arkansas River. Warring between the Osages and the western Cherokees became incessant. In 1816, US Indian agent William Lovely brought the chiefs of the Osages and Cherokees together in council and offered to settle all US claims for Osage depredations in return for a cession of their territory that would serve as a buffer between the two tribes. But in spite of the so-called Lovely Purchase, the Osages continued to raid Cherokee farms. The western Cherokee chiefs decided to take matters into their own hands and mount a war of extermination against their Osage enemies. Raising an army of about 600 men, composed mainly of Cherokees, Shawnees, Delawares, and Quapaws, and including eleven white settlers, the Cherokee-led force advanced up the Arkansas and Grand rivers to attack the largest of the Osage villages. Accounts varied as to what happened next. Some accounts stated that the Osage men of warrior age were away hunting while the women, children, and old men were left in the village; others stated that the warriors fled to the hills and the women, children, and old men hid in a cave. The accounts agreed that the Cherokees and their allies slaughtered the defenseless Osages whom they found there and then burned the village. Reports of the conflict reached General Smith at Fort Belle Fontaine about the time that Long returned from his expedition to the upper Mississippi.5
The Osages were divided into three bands known as the Big Osages, the Little Osages, and an offshoot known as Clermont’s band. The latter group had formed around the leader Clermont and had come to outnumber the other two divisions, and it was this group that bore the brunt of the conflict with the Cherokees. Long was aware of the internal divisions within the tribe, but in his view the United States had to treat with all the Osages as one people and he regarded Clermont as the tribe’s principal chief.6
Long found that the Osages’ grievances against the United States revolved around the Lovely Purchase. The agreement purportedly included more land than the tribe had intended to sell. Although Clermont had signed the agreement, he felt he had been deceived by the interpreter. Moreover, Lovely had acted on his own initiative without instructions from the US government. The tribe, so far as Long could discern, was unaware that the Lovely Purchase had no legal standing unless it was ratified by Congress.7
William Lovely had died the previous February, so it was necessary for Long to piece together information about the purchase from his parley with the Osages and interviews with white settlers. He definitely relied more on the latter, for his account of the Osage tribe’s attitude toward local whites reflected the settlers’ bias. He stated that the Osages had invited the Americans to settle on their lands, become their neighbors, and teach the tribesmen how to cultivate the ground and the women how to spin and weave. The Osages frequently expressed a desire “to change their mode of life,” Long reported, and showed a “high regard for the attainments of Americans.” They had observed how the Cherokees kept farms in imitation of the whites, and wanted to obtain those same advantages for themselves. Supposedly they saw the necessity of adopting the white people’s ways so that they could survive when their hunting grounds were depleted. No other Indian nation in the Mississippi valley, Long reported, showed such a strong inclination to advance from savagery to civilization. No other Indians with whom he was acquainted were more deserving of the US government’s “humane exertions” to help them assimilate. Unfortunately, it seemed that William Lovely had led the Osages to believe that the purchase would be opened exclusively to white settlers, not Cherokees. The Osages were upset to find that the Americans were allowing Cherokees to move in and hunt in the purchase area.8
Long’s analysis of the triangular relationship between the Osages, the Cherokees, and the Americans was fairly accurate, but he revealed his bias in favor of the white settlers. The white population squatting on Indian lands on the upper Arkansas and upper White rivers at this time were hardly the culture bearers and teachers that Long imagined them to be. Although the white homesteaders might run a few head of livestock and raise a small amount of corn, their main object was to hunt and trap animals for their hides and furs. Some had tanneries in which they prepared buffalo hides for market, transporting the hides and tallow to New Orleans. One contemporary traveler said that these inhabitants were living off the country much like Indians; another claimed that a significant portion of them were renegades from justice. William Lovely, the former Indian agent, described the white population in 1813 in the most disparaging terms: “All the white folks, a few excepted, have made their escape to this country guilty of the most horrid crimes and are now depredating on the Osages and other tribes, taking off 30 horses at a time.”9 Long took a more charitable view of them, saying that they had not yet had time to put in crops. These people’s reliance on hunting and trading was only temporary, as they wanted to “raise an honest livelihood from the cultivation of the soil.”10
Long stated that the United States had three military objectives in the area. First, it must prevent further strife between the Osages and the Cherokees. Second, it needed to prevent whites from trespassing on the hunting grounds of the Indians. Third, it had to protect the white settlements from depredations by the Indians. He thought that the future Fort Smith would be adequate to keep peace on the upper Arkansas, but the remote hill country north of the Arkansas would require a chain of forts linked by a military road. Further, the United States should make another land cession treaty with the Osages in order to legitimize the Lovely Purchase. With these actions, white settlers would come into the area and develop an agriculture-based economy. By moving the frontier of settlement westward in this region, the United States would secure its control of the Missi
ssippi River valley all the way from New Orleans to St. Louis.11
In Long’s view, what was good for the United States was good for the Osages. As white farmers moved into their neighborhood, the Osages would adopt the whites’ way of life and become civilized. As the new agricultural economy replaced the tribe’s dependence on the hunt, the fur trade would quickly fade into insignificance.
When Long looked northward to the tribes on the upper Mississippi and upper Missouri, his outlook was less sanguine. The agricultural frontier would advance more slowly in the colder climate found at that higher latitude, denying tribes like the Sioux the opportunity to learn farming the way the Cherokees and Osages were doing. For those Northwest tribes, the fur trade would have to form some kind of a bridge as Indians negotiated the difficult road from savagery to civilization.
III TANNER
8
Westward Migration
When Stephen Long thought about the westward expansion of the American nation, he focused on the westward movement of whites, not Indians. But he knew full well, as did a good many of his contemporaries, that white settlers were following on the heels of a westward migration of Indian tribes. The western Cherokees in Arkansas were just one example among many of Indians going west. Indian peoples went in search of new lands remote from white settlement. In doing so, they invaded the hunting grounds of other tribes. More often than not, tribes positioned nearer to the Atlantic seaboard were better armed with guns than tribes located farther west, giving the invaders an upper hand in warfare. This domino effect began virtually with the advent of European colonization. It accelerated as soon as the American colonies gained independence and white settlers began to pour over the Appalachian Mountains. Stephen Long was aware of this great Indian migration intellectually. John Tanner, on the other hand, experienced it personally.
In the spring of 1794, Tanner’s new Ottawa mother, Net-no-kwa, decided to take her family to the prairies west of Lake Superior. Such was her influence among the Ottawas that a considerable number joined in the migration, including a principal chief of the village of L’Arbre Croche and six canoes of his followers, as well as others from Net-no-kwa’s village of Cheboygan. Whether all of these emigrants traveled together is not known, but at least a portion of them did, for when they reached Sault Ste. Marie they loaded their baggage on board the North West Company’s sloop as it was about to set sail for Grand Portage. They then continued in their canoes around the north shore of Lake Superior, making excellent time with their lightened loads. That the North West Company provided them this baggage service is significant, because it shows that the fur traders wanted to assist the Ottawas’ migration. The traders were motivated to help the Indians emigrate, since they wanted additional hunters working in the more plentiful beaver grounds lying to the west.1
The Ottawas’ migration formed part of a larger movement of Indian peoples from the Great Lakes region to the northern prairie country. The migration of Ottawas and Ojibwas took place around the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries. For many, the movement began as an extended hunting trip and ended with their relocating permanently in a new homeland. Many fur traders maintained that the westward movement of Indians was prompted by the depletion of beaver stocks in eastern areas and the promise of relatively untouched trapping grounds lying to the west. Some Hudson’s Bay men believed that whole bands of Ojibwas accompanied the North West traders as they moved west. The Nor’ Westers may have fostered that idea, since it implied Ojibwa attachment to their company.2
Although beaver populations were indeed nearly wiped out in some eastern areas, those conditions were hardly universal. Similarly, big game populations were knocked down in some areas more than others. Reading the fur traders’ accounts of declining returns, historians used to accept the traders’ view that Indians overhunted when they turned to hunting for the international market. More recently, historians have challenged that assumption. Discerning that declines in fur trade returns often stemmed from factors other than wildlife depletion, such as competition from rival traders or waning interest on the part of Indian fur hunters, historians now question whether overhunting of beaver was so ubiquitous after all.3 Moreover, Tanner’s own experience notwithstanding, historical records simply do not support the notion that fur traders aided and abetted Indian migrations on a significant scale. Although fur traders did encourage Indians to migrate westward, their influence was only peripheral.4
Studies of emigration refer to push factors and pull factors that motivate people to emigrate. Net-no-kwa’s motivations for moving westward were a mix of both. Her declared purpose, as later recorded by Tanner, was to take advantage of the greater abundance of beaver and other fur bearers in the Red River country. This was a pull factor rather similar to the economic opportunities motivating migrant workers in recent times. Net-no-kwa and her family were also keen to reunite with relatives. Some of Taw-ga-we-ninne’s relatives had already gone to the Red River and sent word of it back home. That was another pull factor. Emigration by people of literate cultures often would beget more emigration as early colonists or pioneers sent letters or published reports about their new circumstances back home. Emigration by people of oral cultures often followed the same pattern as information filtered back by word of mouth.
Health concerns may have contributed to Net-no-kwa’s family’s decision to emigrate, too, constituting a push factor. In the previous fall Net-no-kwa’s people had suffered an outbreak of measles. The older among them remembered the devastating smallpox epidemic that had struck the tribe a dozen years before. Nothing was so terrifying for Indians in the eighteenth century as an epidemic. Though they did not know how diseases were spread, they had a general understanding about their relative susceptibility to European-borne diseases. To shield her family from the sickness that appeared in the previous fall, Net-no-kwa took the family farther up the Cheboygan River, well away from the rest of the band. Even so, everyone in the family except Tanner and her became ill. While all survived, it was a brush with disaster. Perhaps she thought that moving west would improve their chances of avoiding another epidemic.5
Though the westward migration could have been managed without serious mishap, Net-no-kwa’s family had terrible luck. While they were camped with other Ottawas at Mackinac Island awaiting a favorable wind, the men obtained some liquor and got drunk. Taw-ga-we-ninne, the husband of Net-no-kwa, got into an altercation with some other young men. Walking beside two fellows, he stumbled and grabbed one of their sleeves, accidentally tearing the man’s shirt as he fell down. The person took offense and threw a rock at Taw-ga-we-ninne as he lay on the ground, hitting him in the forehead and knocking him out cold. When Taw-ga-we-ninne came around, he was certain he was going to die. While he had been lying unconscious after receiving the blow he experienced his spirit leaving his body. “I am killed,” he said to Tanner when the young boy saw him that night with the wound in his head. And to the whole family he said, “I have to leave you. I am sorry that I must leave you so poor.” According to Ojibwa religion, a person’s soul comprised two spirits, one that left the body and traveled about in the person’s dream state and another that stayed with the body and piloted it until death. When a person died, the traveling spirit departed first, the bodily spirit following after a while. Taw-ga-we-ninne must have seen things when he was unconscious that convinced him his end had come.6
Taw-ga-we-ninne rallied and managed to accompany the expedition as far as Grand Portage, where he soon relapsed into a feverish state and announced a second time that he was dying. Once more expressing regret to his family that he was leaving them so poor, he took his gun and stepped out of their lodge, saying that he must go kill the man who had hit him with a rock, as that man must die with him. However, Net-no-kwa’s eldest son stopped Taw-ga-we-ninne right outside their lodge, reminding him that the fellow had many friends in the place where they were going to live, and to kill this man now would only bring revenge upon their fa
mily at a later time. Taw-ga-we-ninne saw the truth in his son’s words. He came back into the lodge and laid aside the gun, saying that he loved his son too much to refuse his request. He died later that evening. Net-no-kwa went to the Grand Portage traders for a coffin and the use of a wagon to transport the body, and the family buried him in the traders’ burial ground near the trading house. The young man who had caused Taw-ga-we-ninne’s death attended the burial ceremony as a token of reconciliation.7
The family’s misfortunes were not over. When the North West Company’s schooner arrived from Sault Ste. Marie and dropped anchor offshore, Tanner’s two brothers, Ke-wa-tin and Wa-me-gon-a-biew, went out in a canoe to retrieve the family’s possessions. Jumping into the ship’s hold, Ke-wa-tin fell and struck his knee on a knot of rope tied around a bundle of goods, busting his kneecap. The family waited eight days for him to recover, but the swelling on the knee only got worse. So they put him on a litter and carried him on their shoulders across the Grand Portage, a distance of ten miles. Given the difficulty of carrying Ke-wa-tin, they left their canoes at the trader’s house and stopped on the other side of the portage to make new ones. By now the season was advancing and most of the Ottawas who had set out with Net-no-kwa had gone ahead of them. Ke-wa-tin informed his mother that he could go no farther but must die there.8
At this point, Net-no-kwa’s daughter and son-in-law and one of Taw-ga-we-ninne’s young wives, anxious over the approach of winter and the safety of their small children, decided to continue on with the main group. All who remained were Net-no-kwa, her three sons, and Taw-ga-we-ninne’s other young wife: two women and three boys with no capable hunter in the group. Their situation was precarious but not desperate, and Net-no-kwa clung to the hope that Ke-wa-tin’s condition would improve and allow them to complete their journey before winter was upon them. As they were camped by a lake with fish and there were berries to eat, they stayed in that place for about six weeks. But as the nights turned cold and the lake began to freeze, Ke-wa-tin’s knee injury still refused to heal. Anxious that they might become snowbound there, Net-no-kwa decided they must beat a retreat back over the Grand Portage and encamp near the trader’s house. Ke-wa-tin lived for a few more months and died in the depths of winter. They buried him next to his father, placing Net-no-kwa’s prized Union Jack over the two graves.9
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