Difference between revisions of "Osage Nation" - New World Encyclopedia

From New World Encyclopedia
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==Notable Osage==
 
==Notable Osage==
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[[Image:The Village of White Hair mural 2006-07-03.jpg|thumb|250 px|A reproduction of E. Marie Horner's “The Village of White Hair”. It depicts the relationship between John Mathews, a white fur trader and blacksmith who lived on the summit, and the Osage, led by Chief White Hair, who dwelled east of the bluff near Horseshoe Lake, circa 1841.]]
 
[[White Hair]] (not White Feather), is the English name for the Osage Chief [[Pawhuska]] for whom the town of Pawhuska, Oklahoma is named.
 
[[White Hair]] (not White Feather), is the English name for the Osage Chief [[Pawhuska]] for whom the town of Pawhuska, Oklahoma is named.
  

Revision as of 18:35, 28 October 2008


Osage
Total population
16,000 [4]
Regions with significant populations
United States (Oklahoma)
Languages
English, Osage
Religions
Christianity, other
Related ethnic groups
other Siouan peoples

The Osage Nation is a tribe in the United States, which is mainly based in Osage County, Oklahoma, but can be found throughout America.

The Osage were originally known by Ni-U-Kon-Ska, which means meaning "Children of the Middle Waters." Today they call themselves Wah-Zhá-Zhi, which was translated by French explorers as Ouazhigi, which later became the English name Osage.[1] Early settlers have said that the Osages were the largest Native people in North America, with the Osage men averaging over 6 feet tall. In war, they were feared by neighboring tribes.

The Osage language belongs to the Dhegihan branch of the Siouan stock of Native American languages, now spoken in Nebraska and Oklahoma. They originally lived among the Kansa, the Ponca, the Omaha, and the Quapaw in the Ohio Valley.

History

Many of the Osage had migrated to the Osage River in western Missouri by 1673, living near the Missouri River. Alongside the Kiowa, Comanche, and Apache, they dominated western Oklahoma. They also lived with the Quapaw and Caddo in Arkansas.

The Osage held high rank among the old hunting tribes of the Great Plains. From their traditional homes in the woodlands of present-day Missouri and Arkansas, the Osage would make semi-annual buffalo hunting forays out into the Great Plains to the west as well as hunt deer, rabbit, and other wild game in the central and eastern parts of their domain. They grew corn, squash, and other vegetables near their villages, and they harvested nuts and wild berries. So, in this sense, the Osage's lifestyle did not conform to either a strictly woodland Native American tribe nor a Great Plains people.

European encounters

The French encountered the tribe in Missouri during the late 17th century. As experienced warriors, the Osage allied with the French against the Illiniwek during the early 18th century.

Friendly relations with the Osage enabled French fur trader René Auguste Chouteau to extend his business, and he monopolized trade with the tribe from 1794 to 1802.

Chief of the Little Osages; bust-length, profile showing hair style. Artwork by Charles B.J. de Saint-Memin, ca. 1807.

Lewis and Clark reported that in 1802, the tribe comprised the Great Osage on the Osage River, the Little Osage upstream, and the Arkansas band on the Vermillion River, a tributary of the Arkansas River. The tribe then numbered some 5,500.

Wealthy fur trader Jean Pierre Chouteau, a half-brother of René Auguste Chouteau, became the United States agent for the tribe in 1804. He founded the Saint Louis Missouri Fur Company in 1809 with a family member, Auguste Pierre Chouteau. The Spanish imprisoned Auguste in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1817 but released him after several months. He actively traded with the Osage and made his home at Salina, Oklahoma.

Christian missionaries tried largely in vain to win converts among the tribe (Rollings 2004).

Osage Indian wars

Osage warrior of the Wha-sha-she band (a subdivision of Hunkah). Painted by George Catlin in 1834.

The Osage prohibited the Kickapoo from entering onto their Missouri reservation, keeping them in ceded lands in Illinois. Choctaw chief Pushmataha had a notable career as a warrior against the Osage tribe. The Five Civilized Tribes removed to the Indian Territory clashed briefly with the Osage after arriving on the Trail of Tears.

War on the plains. Comanche (right) trying to lance Osage warrior. Painting by George Catlin 1834.

In 1833, the Osage clashed with the Kiowa near the Wichita Mountains in modern day south central Oklahoma in an incident known as the Cutthroat Gap Massacre. The Osage cut off the heads of their victims and arranged them in rows of brass cooking buckets. Not a single Osage died in this attack. Later, Kiowa warriors, allied with the Comanche, raided the Osage and others.

In 1867, because of their scouting expertise, excellent terrain knowledge, and military prowess, Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer employed Osage scouts in his campaign against Chief Black Kettle and his band of Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians in western Oklahoma near the Washita River. Chief Black Kettle and his band were taken by surprise in the early morning by Custer and his soldiers, believed to have been led there by Osage scouts. Chief Black Kettle was killed, along with others from both sides. This incident became known as the Battle of Washita River.

Treaties and Relocation

Shonka Sabe (Black Dog). Chief of the Hunkah division of the Osage tribe. Painted in 1834 by George Catlin.

The Osage began treaty-making with the United States in 1808 with the first secession of lands in Missouri (Osage Treaty).

The Osage in exchange for access to the trading post above the Missouri River in 1808 in the Treaty of Fort Clark ceded all of their lands east of the fort in Louisiana Territory effectively leaving them with a small band of territory on the extreme western border of Missouri.

Lewis and Clark noted the spot on June 1804 noting it:[2]

high commanding position, more than 70 feet above high-water mark, and overlooking the river, which is here but of little depth

Also, in 1804 Pierre Chouteau of the Chouteau fur trading family and an agent for the Osage took Osage chiefs to meet President Thomas Jefferson who promised to build them a trading post.

In 1808 Chouteau negotiated a deal for the fort to be built for the protection of the Osage. The specific terms of the deal noted:[3]

The United States being anxious to promote peace, friendship and intercourse with the Osage tribes, to afford them every assistance in their power, and to protect them from the insults and injuries of other tribes of Indians, situated near the settlements of the white people, have thought proper to build a fort on the right bank of the Missouri, a few miles above the Fire Prairie, and do agree to garrison the same with as many regular troops as the President of the United States may, from time to time, deem necessary for the protection of all orderly, friendly and well disposed Indians of the Great and Little Osage nations, who reside at this place, and who do strictly conform to, and pursue the counsels or admonitions of the President of the United States through his subordinate officers.

In order to get the protection, the Osage ceded all of Missouri east of the fort. The Great Osage were to receive $1,000 and the Little Osage were to get $500.


The Osage moved from their homelands on the Osage River in 1808 and moved to western Missouri. The major part of the tribe had moved to the Three-forks region of what would become Oklahoma soon after the arrival of Lewis and Clark. Since this part of the tribe did not participate in the negotiations for the treaty of 1808, their assent was obtained in 1809.

Between that first treaty conducted in the wake of the Louisiana Purchase and 1825, the Osages ceded their traditional lands across Missouri, Arkansas, and Oklahoma. They were first moved onto a southeast Kansas reservation in the Cherokee Strip, on which the city of Independence, Kansas now sits. Subsequent treaties and laws through the 1860s further reduced the lands of the Osage.

An act of Congress on July 15, 1870 provided that the remainder of the Osage land in Kansas be sold and the tribe relocated to Indian Territory in the Cherokee Outlet, becoming the only American Indian nation to buy their own reservation. The reservation is conterminous with present day Osage County, Oklahoma in the north-central portion of the state between Tulsa, Oklahoma and Ponca City, Oklahoma.

It was many years before the Osage recovered from the hardship suffered during their last years in Kansas, and their enforced removal to their new home. Many adjustments to their new way of life had to be made. During this time, Indian Office reports show nearly a 50 percent decline in the Osage population. This was due to inadequate medical supplies and scarcity of food and clothing.

For agricultural purposes, their new land was the poorest in the Indian Territory. They existed by small farming, and later with stock raising. The growth of the cattle raising industry and the fact that their new lands were covered with the rich Bluestem grass, proved to be the best grazing in the entire country.

File:1924 Indian Citizenship Act.jpg
U.S. President Calvin Coolidge with four Osage Indians after Coolidge signed the bill granting Indians full citizenship.

The Osages had experience with the government and, through the efforts of Principle Chief James Bigheart, negotiated in 1907 to maintain mineral rights to their new reservation lands, which was later found to have great amounts of crude oil. They were unyielding and held up statehood for Oklahoma before signing an Allotment Act.

Natural resources and headrights

Unlike most other tribes, the Osage unexpectedly stumbled upon a valuable natural resource on their reservation lands that allowed them to financially prosper. In 1894 large quantities of oil was discovered to lie deep beneath the vast prairie the tribe owned. Because of his recent discoveries of oil in southern Kansas, Henry Foster, a petroleum developer, approached the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) to request that they allow him exclusive privileges to explore the Osage reservation for oil and natural gas. The BIA granted his request in 1896, with the stipulation Foster was to pay the Osage tribe at that time a 10% royalty on all sales of petroleum produced on the reservation. The rise in production over the next 10 years prompted Congress to pass the Osage Allotment Act on June 28, 1906. This act states all persons listed on tribal rolls prior to January 1, 1906 or born before July 1907 would be allocated a share of the reservation's subsurface natural resources, regardless of blood quantum.

[John] Joseph Mathews, Osage council member, author, historian, and Rhodes scholar, seated at home in front of his fireplace, Oklahoma. Photographed by Andrew T. Kelley, December 16, 1937.

After mineral leases were auctioned by the tribe and explored, the oil business on the Osage reservation boomed. Overnight, Osage share holders became in the words of many the "richest people in the world"[4]. When royalties peaked in 1925, annual headright earnings were $13,000. A family of 4 who were all on the allotment role would earn $52,800, comparable to approximately $600,000 in today's economy.[5] Although the Osage Allotment Act protected the tribe's petroleum interests, the surface land was sold freely by any adult of a sound mind. In the time between 1907 and 1923, thousands of acres of land that was formerly restricted was sold or leased to non-Indian persons. Many Osage at this time did not understand the intricacies or value of these contracts and were promptly swindled by greedy businessmen.

Another trick used by non-Indian Americans to cash in on the new found Osage wealth was to marry in to a family that had headrights. This tactic took a shocking and heinous turn in 1921 when a white man Ernest Burkhart married into an Alottee family and with the help of his uncle and brother plotted to murder those that would inherit the headrights. This became known as the Osage Indian Murders and went so far as to receive attention from Federal law enforcement. This violence finally caused Congress to pass legislation limiting inheritance of headrights to only those with Osage Indian blood and required those with no degree of Osage Indian blood to sell their shares to the tribe. Today, headrights have become split up among the Osage descendants of those who originally possessed them, although it is estimated that 25% of headrights are owned by non Osage people.[6] The social consequences of the oil boom for the Osage Nation have been depicted in John Joseph Mathews' semi-autobiographical novel Sundown (1934).

Contemporary Osage

Today, the Osage Nation claims more than 10,000 members. The Osage Tribal Museum in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, the oldest tribally-owned museum in the country, documents their history.

Notable Osage

A reproduction of E. Marie Horner's “The Village of White Hair”. It depicts the relationship between John Mathews, a white fur trader and blacksmith who lived on the summit, and the Osage, led by Chief White Hair, who dwelled east of the bluff near Horseshoe Lake, circa 1841.

White Hair (not White Feather), is the English name for the Osage Chief Pawhuska for whom the town of Pawhuska, Oklahoma is named.

Ballerina Maria Tallchief, an Osage born in 1925 in Fairfax, Oklahoma, contributed greatly to the success of ballet dance in America. From 1942 to 1947 she danced with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, but she is best known for her time with the New York City Ballet. Choreographer George Balanchine, to whom she was married (1946 to 1952) wrote several of his most famous works for her. She was the first prima ballerina of the New York City Ballet from 1947 to 1960, where Balanchine was the principal choreographer. Her performance of Balanchine's The Firebird in 1949 and their earlier collaboration at the Paris Opera elevated Maria Tallchief onto the world stage. She also originated the role of the Sugarplum Fairy in Balanchine's version of The Nutcracker.

Her younger sister, Marjorie Tallchief, also performed as a dancer. She was the first Native American to be "première danseuse étoile" of the Paris Opera Ballet.

John Joseph Mathews (c. 1894-1979) was a World War I veteran who became one of the Osage Nation's most important spokespeople and writers. He studied at the University of Oklahoma and Oxford and served as a flight instructor during World War I.

Notes

  1. [1], Osage Culture
  2. Fort Osage - National Park Service
  3. Treaty of Fort Clark
  4. The New York Times, June 25, 1921, page 3
  5. [2], Tom's inflation calculator
  6. [3], Osage Mineral Estate FAQ

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Waldman, Carl. 2006. Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes. New York, NY: Checkmark Books. ISBN 978-0816062744
  • Rollings, Willard Hughes. 2004. Unaffected by the Gospel: Osage Resistance to the Christian Invasion, 1673-1906: A Cultural Victory. Alburqueque, NM: University of New Mexico Press. ISBN 978-0826335586
  • Hogan, Laurence J. 1998. The Osage Indian Murders: The True Story of a 21-Murder Plot to Inherit the Headrights of Wealthy Osage Tribe Members. Amlex. ISBN 096591741X

External links


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