The Great Smoke: 10,000 Indians Demand a Just Peace

In 1851, over 10,000 Indian men, women, children and their chiefs representing thirteen nations arrived at Fort Laramie to negotiate a peace treaty with the U.S.  It was an astounding and dramatic statement of the Indians’ commitment to and desire for a just peace that would recognize the Plains Indian homeland and facilitate peaceful and orderly relations with the westward bound emigrants going through Indian territory. The growing flow of European Americans were competing for resources and precipitating conflict. Fort Laramie, Wyoming was the agreed upon site to negotiate the treaty. But the immense logistics of such a large gathering (food and supplies, forage for the thousands of horses, space for encampments) was too much for Fort Laramie so the site was moved 30 miles east to a spot near Horse Creek in what now is Nebraska. We visited this site which is marked by three explanatory plaques but otherwise is just a large field going down to the creek with a stand of trees near the highway. The Horse Creek Treaty was signed on September 17 and confirmed with the ceremonial peace pipe (hence the “great smoke”).  Indians believed the negotiations a success and celebrated at the site for two days. U.S. negotiators were also satisfied. But Congress changed the terms, and still did not keep its commitments, specifically to protect the traditional hunting grounds and resources from the growing flow of foreigners moving westward, and to make annual payments to the Indian Nations (only one payment was made). The flow of emigrants increased in the 1850s and Indian-U.S. relations deteriorated.  The situation would only get much worse in the 1860s, as we learned in our visits to Fort Laramie and other sites in Wyoming.

Horse Creek historical site

“Soon They Will Chase Us Over the Mountains and Into the Ocean”

Over a 40-year period in the 19^th century the Kaw Nation (also known as Kansa) was forced to give up and move from their ancestral lands four times, providing ample rationale for Chief Al-Le-Ga-Wa-Ho’s 1872 comment: “The white people treat the Kon-zey like a flock of turkeys: they chase us from one stream and then chase us to another stream, so that soon they will chase us over the mountains and into the ocean.”  We learned about this at the Kaw Mission State Historic Site in Council Grove, Kansas. From the 17^th century the Kaw Nation inhabited 20 million acres across what is today Kansas but a series of treaties forced on them by the U.S. and its imperialist tendencies in 1825, 1846, 1867 and finally 1873 progressively reduced their territory and eventually even forced them out of Kansas to a small reservation in Oklahoma (where they are based today). The land taken from the Kaws and others was used in part to provide tracts of land to settle the many tribes forcibly removed from their homes in the Midwest and Southeast.  This process of course also affected many other Indian Nations who under varying degrees of coercion also ceded land. In 1868 the Treaty of Fort Laramie forced the Crow to cede 38 million acres of their homeland in Montana and Wyoming; in 1874 and 1888 the Blackfeet relinquished 27 million acres in Montana. (We will be visiting both the Crow and Blackfeet reservation areas and sites later in our trip.) So all and all for many Indians, from the 1830s it was not a stretch to believe as Chief Al-Le-Ga-Wa-Ho did and to realize that diplomacy (treaties) was unsuccessful and armed resistance to the foreigners (Americans) or other strategies were necessary.

As a sequel to this story we learned that in 2015 the Kaw Nation officially returned to their ancestral land near Council Grove for the first time since their removal 142 years earlier. They purchased some land there and established the Allegawaho Memorial Heritage Park. They believe this will serve to reassert their spiritual and physical presence in Kansas.

Keeper of the Plains

The Keeper of the Plains 44 foot tall steel sculpture by Kiowa Comanche artist Blackbear Bosin and the associated heritage plaza in downtown Wichita are awe inspiring. In our minds the totality of what is there has a power and symbolism similar to the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial in D.C and the Civil Rights Memorial at the Southern Poverty Law Center. The sculpture depicts an Indian standing with arms extended, face raised to the sky, in supplication to the great spirit.  In Blackbear Bosin’s words: “All living creatures are Indians’ brothers. The Indian lives in complete accord with nature. Everything around him is holy. All Indians feel this. And the sculpture has a way of appealing to all people with that message.”  It stands on a huge pedestal facing due east to greet the sun, at the confluence of the Arkansas and Little Arkansas rivers, where Blackbear’s ancestors camped.  A bridge designed to resemble a native bow and arrow connects it to the two banks. The display in the Plaza beneath the sculpture depicts elements of Indian spirituality, including the Circle of Life, the importance of the four directions, the symbolic importance of the turtle and other elements related to Indian life, culture and spirituality.  One learns a lot and we are greatly moved by the totality of what is there.  Attached are pictures of the sculpture and a few of the plaques explaining Plains Indian culture that are beautifully presented in the Plaza.

Keeper of the Plains sculpture Wichita, Kansas







   

     
 

At the confluence of the Arkansas and Little Arkansas Rivers

Who Was the First Non-White Elected as US President or Vice-President?

It was not Barack Obama, but who was it? It was Charles Curtis (Kaw) who was Vice President of the U.S. from 1928-1932 with Hoover as President (they ran again in 1932 but lost to FDR). We learned much about Curtis on our visit to the Charles Curtis House Museum in Topeka. His mother was part Kaw Indian and his father was a white anti-slavery activist and descendent of English settlers. His mother died in Topeka when he was three and his grandparents raised him on the Kaw Reservation near Council Grove, Kansas. After the Kaw were attacked by a band of Cherokee, Charles went back to the Topeka area to live with his paternal grandparents. He attended High School there but left after one year because of the racism he experienced, and worked at a number of jobs including livery driver and in a law office. He studied law on his own, passed the Kansas Bar and became a lawyer at 21. At 24 he was elected County Prosecutor; at 32 he was elected to US House of Representatives, serving 16 years, and in 1907 at the age of 47 he was elected to the US Senate from Kansas and eventually chosen as Majority Leader. His opponents derisively called him “the Injun.” In Congress he was a supporter of women’s rights but, sadly, not always Indian rights (he believed in the importance of Indian assimilation, allotments, and supported business interests seeking profit from Indian land and minerals). He grew to question the allotment policy and even assimilation. He came to believe that the government should just let the Indians alone. In 1928 he ran for President, did not get the nomination, but was chosen as Hoover’s running mate and served 4 years as Vice-President of the United States (but did not get along with Hoover).

Charles Curtis house in Topeka

The Charles Curtis House Museum is a story in itself.  It was his Topeka home for many years but by the 1990s after numerous owners (Curtis died in 1937) it was decayed and close to being demolished. A working class couple who lived on a farm 20 miles out of Topeka (she worked for a printing company, he was a Union pipefitter for 50 years) stepped in, purchased the building and lovingly restored it. They acquired a huge trove of Curtis memorabilia over the next 20 years for display there.  Today it is gorgeous and Nova Cottrell is thrilled to tell the story of Curtis while showing the house to anyone who visits.  Topeka recently erected a monument honoring Curtis which we visited; we also viewed his burial plot.

A Kansa Native American with bow and arrow pointed at the North Star sits atop the State Capital Dome in Topeka.

Charles Curtis Monument in Downtown Topeka

Curtis Head Stone in Topeka Cemetery

The Incredible Lyda Conley

 The Incredible Lyda Conley and Her Sisters (Wyandot) – Protecting Sacred Ground

Visiting the Huron Indian Cemetery in Kansas City, Kansas we learned the incredible story of Elizabeth Burton “Lyda” Conley and her two sisters. They were Wyandots, a tribe that had been forced west like many others, from their home in Ohio to Kansas in the 1840s.  In Kansas they established a burial ground in what is today Kansas City. In the last quarter of the century, the Conley’s parents died and were buried there. The US government would not let the tribe alone and sought, beginning in the 1850s, to force them out of Kansas to Oklahoma.  The tribe split, and some (later called Wyandottes) left but others (Wyandots) stayed.  The Conleys had been among those to stay but were not allowed to rest easy. In 1906 Congress authorized the sale of the downtown Kansas City cemetery to developers (at the behest of the Oklahoma Wyandottes). But burial grounds are sacred turf to Indians and has happened many times before and after, they mobilized and took direct action to prevent the sale and destruction of this sacred land. Here is what the Conley sisters did.  They armed themselves with rifles, built a shack over their ancestors’ graves at the cemetery, put up no trespassing signs and for two years literally lived there and stood guard. Meanwhile they also mounted a legal defense, spearheaded by Lyda herself who had graduated from the Kansas Law School in 1902.  The case went to the Supreme Court with Lyda becoming the first American Indian to argue a case before the Court (she also was the first woman admitted to the Kansas Bar). The Court ruled against them but their fight was not over. They mobilized community support and then Congressional support, notably Senator Charles Curtis (himself a Kaw Indian – we will learn more about him later in our trip so stay tuned), and in 1916 Congress repealed the earlier bill thus preventing any sale and making it a federal park. The Conley sisters today are buried in the cemetery (now also called the Wyandot National Burial Ground) alongside their mother, father and grandmother.

You may wonder why the name ‘Conley,’ not a typical Indian name. The Wyandots had become increasingly multiracial primarily through intermarriage but also through adoption and this was reflected in the Conley family tree. At the entrance to the cemetery there are also 11 plaques that detail the history of the Wyandot Nation’s 500 year history.

Lyda Conley gravestone in the Huron Indian Cemetery

Cemetery in Kansas City, Kansas

On the road.....

Dear friends and family,

As many of you know we have embarked on a four state/five week trip with a focus on learning more about the Plains Indians, their history, culture, achievements and struggles past and present.  Our travels will take us through Kansas, Wyoming, Montana, and South Dakota. We will be sending out regular reports via e-mail (let us know at any time if you prefer not to be on this list) and will also be posting them to our blog.

Peace and love,

Carl and Carol