Unintended Consequences: The Osage Nation in Spanish Louisiana, 1763-1803

 

By Stephen A. Martin

Each of the Spanish governors who ruled Louisiana between 1763 and 1803 sought to restrain the powerful and aggressive Osage nation.  Many indigenous nations from elsewhere in the former Spanish Empire have stories in their histories of subjugation at the hands of conquistadors, but things were different in Louisiana.  Officials tried everything from rewarding Osage leaders with promises of friendship and favorable trading conditions to threatening them with a Spanish-led war of extermination.  No measure was ever completely effective, however, and the unintended consequences of Spanish policy would have a far greater effect on the Osage than the intentions of colonial rulers.  Using historical and anthropological sources, this paper attempts to show how the unintended results of Spanish policy contributed to the eventual downfall of the mighty Osage.  First, this paper will consider the intentions of Spanish leaders and the results of their policies.  Second, while it may not be customary to think of the actions of Native American tribes as the reflection of coherent policy, this paper will demonstrate how the Osage had traditions and specific interests that ran counter to the will of Spanish rulers.  Third, this paper will show how trends that proved detrimental to the Osage in the years after the American purchase of Louisiana were rooted in actions taken during the Spanish period.

Reeling from their losses to Great Britain in the Seven Years War, the Spanish reluctantly agreed to accept Louisiana from France as compensation for having to give up East Florida to the British for the return of Hispaniola in 1763.  In other colonial possessions, the Spanish had used the mission-presidio system to dominate, Christianize, and acculturate the indigenous peoples.  Spanish authorities retained the French system of licensed traders in Louisiana, in part because of policy that discouraged expensive changes.[1] Colonial governors in Louisiana were charged with achieving conflicting goals.  On the one hand, the governors were expected to secure the colonys borders against foreign threats, such as those posed by Great Britain and the United States.  On the other hand, colonial governors were ordered to protect the Spanish treasury.  Guarding against unnecessary expenditures was considered every bit as important as guarding against foreign invaders.  Because the colony lacked the regular troops and resources necessary to conduct a military campaign against hostile Native American nations, and lacked a population of settlers sufficient to raise a militia adequate to the task, the Spanish were forced to turn to their native allies when conflict became inevitable.  Unfortunately for the Spanish, even nations with the longest history of cooperation with colonial authorities proved notoriously difficult to control.  When allied warriors did go into battle, they were often ineffective.  The allied nations also expected to be supplied with munitions and to be rewarded with presents for their service.  Thus, war remained an expensive proposition, even when conducted using Native American troops as proxies.

The Osage are linguistically and culturally related to the Quapaw, Kansas, Omaha, and Ponca tribes, all of which share the Dhegia Siouan language.  The Osage oral tradition tells of a migration from the Ohio River valley in prehistoric times.  Upon reaching the Mississippi River, the historic tribe known as the Quapaw turned south.[2] The Osage followed the Missouri River and eventually found their way to the tributary that bears their name.  The Kansas, Omaha, and Ponca all traveled further up the Missouri River before settling.[3] On the northern border of the Osage territory lived the Missouri, a tribe that spoke the Chiwere Siouan dialect, which they share with the Oto, Iowa, and Winnebago tribes.[4] The Osage and Missouri appear to have long been on friendly terms.[5]

The Osage, the Kansas, the Quapaw, and their Missouri allies formed a kind of wall that kept eastern tribes such as the Muskogian-speaking Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Creek from making significant incursions west of the Mississippi River while also resisting the encroachment of Caddoan-speaking Pawnees and Wichitas from out of the west.[6] Ethnohistorian John Joseph Mathews states that the Osage and the Caddoans were traditional enemies.  The oral tradition describes an Aztec-like sacrifice practiced by the Pawnees in which the still-beating hearts were torn from the bodies of Osage women.  Mathews speculates that enmity between the Osage and the Caddoans may be have began with early territorial struggles, during which the Dhegia Siouan tribes pushed the early Caddoans out of the eastern prairies.[7]

The Osage were divided into two autonomous bands by the time Spanish rule came to Louisiana.  The Grand Osage and Petite Osage lived in separate villages, the Grand Osage dwelling on the Osage River near present-day Nevada, Missouri, and the Petite Osage about one hundred miles to the north on the Missouri River.  Because of their location, astride two of the major water routes leading west, the tribe came into early contact with horses, guns and the fur trade.  While they adopted the horse and became bison hunters, they retained a lifestyle that included horticulture and ties to permanent villages.[8] An annual cycle of three major hunts began in April or May of each year, when the Osage planted corn, beans, and squash in plots near their permanent villages.  Tending of the crops was left to the very old and the infirm, while the rest left for semi-permanent hunting villages that were reoccupied each season.  The Osage hunted, dried meat and gathered wild plant foods until mid-August, when they returned to their permanent villages to harvest crops they had planted in the spring.  The harvest was dried and stored, then placed in caches left to the be cared for by the elderly and those unable to travel while the rest of the tribe returned to the hunting villages for a second hunt in September.  This hunt concluded in December, and tribal members remained until February or March, when a number of small parties departed to scattered parts of the woodlands surrounding the Osage villages to hunt bear, beaver, and other small animals.  The hunts covered an area from the Mississippi River to present-day Oklahoma.[9]

Contemporary writers of the period placed the combined military strength of the Osage at around 1,000 warriors.  French Governor Louis Billouart de Kerlrec reported the Grand Osage had 700 men capable of bearing arms and the Petite Osage had 250 such men at the start of the French and Indian War.[10] Nicolas de Finiels, in his 1798 travelogue, stated that the Grand and Petite Osage constitute a group of about 1,200 men.[11] Lieutenant Jos Mara Corts y de Olarte, writing in 1799, put Grand Osage strength at about 500 men and Petite Osage strength at between 250 to 300 men.[12] Historian Louis F.  Burns states that Europeans consistently underestimated Osage military strength.  He cites later records which show Osage population at between 8,000 and 10,000 people, then projects those figures back in time to estimate the tribe could field at least 2,000 prime-age warriors, with an additional force of probably another 1,000 men, either younger or older than the typical fighting age, yet still effective in combat.  The entire Spanish military presence in Louisiana consisted of fewer than one hundred regular troops in 1767, and a census taken in 1771 shows there were only 1,507 white men in the entire colony.[13] Thus, Osage military power was formidable.

Direct trade between Europeans and the Osage had begun sometime in the late 1690s, when unlicensed French merchants arrived to begin exchanging furs for European goods.[14] Horses likely preceded these European traders, having been documented among neighboring tribes as early as 1682.[15] Archeologists note even relatively old Osage sites contain a great deal of evidence of European trade.  The Osage traded for guns, powder, and lead.  Mathews states that while the Osage could have made gunflints from native deposits, those available from European traders were of higher quality and less likely to fail.  The Osage also traded for flannel, gingham, calico and Limbourg cloth, blankets, glass beads, and metal goods including knives, picks, hatchets, awls, wire, and kettles.[16] Carl H.  Chapman and Eleanor F.  Chapman state that Osage artisans made other items from brass kettles sold by merchants, including cylindrical beads, conical tinkers, arrow points, and buttons.[17] Goods crafted from metal, or mon-ce, became so important to the Osage, a religious ceremony was developed to celebrate its introduction to the tribe.[18]

In the Natchitoches district, Spanish officials obtained pledges of loyalty from the Native Americans such as the one referred to in the 27 October 1771 treaty with the Taouaazs and Great Caddo.

That all shall acknowledge themselves as subjects of His Catholic Majesty (may God preserve him), under whose mild rule this province of Louisiana has fallen, just as they were subjects of His Most Christian majesty.[19]

Neither the Grand Osage nor the Petite Osage ever took such a loyalty oath.  Burns writes that while Spanish authorities viewed the Osage as rebellious subjects, From the Osage viewpoint, they were the subjects of no one, and the Spanish intruders were only tolerated as a means to acquire trade goods.[20] Spanish officials were well aware of how dependent the tribes in their territory were on European goods, and viewed trade as a potential weapon that could be used to bring about compliance with their authority.  The tactic was never effective with the Osage, however, who were able to obtain goods from illegal traders or to simply plunder trade items from intended for other tribes.

Prior to the 1766 arrival of Antonio de Ulloa, the first Spanish governor, a company organized by two French merchants had established a fur trading post near the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.  The firm of Maxent, Laclde and Company had held an exclusive license for Upper Louisiana trade under French governance.  This post, called St.  Louis in honor of the French monarch, was to be the headquarters for the Missouri River fur trade.  Among those most heavily involved in this trade was Auguste Chouteau, still in his teens when he ascended the Mississippi River in 1764 to direct the establishment of St.  Louis for his stepfather, Maxent, Laclde and Company partner Pierre Laclde, Chouteaus early involvement in the fur trade and the relationships that he and his brother, Pierre Chouteau, developed with the Native American nations allowed the company to retain a large share of the regions commerce even after their monopoly was ended.

Ulloa prevented traders from going to the native villages in 1768, citing the expense and unrest among tribes he said the previous trade policy had caused.  He stated that only necessary traders would be permitted to venture to the villages, but did not define what he meant by the term.  Ulloa stated all traders would henceforth be required to obtain trade licenses directly from him, or from local commandants.  Representatives of several nations threatened violence if trade were not restored, and the chief Spanish official in St.  Louis wrote that denial of trade would have prompted the tribes to send warriors against the settlements.[21] The two Chouteau brothers had established a rapport with the Osage, learning the language and demonstrating to the tribe that their word could be trusted.  As the leading commercial family of the growing frontier post, they also held a great deal of sway.  The family literally owned the building where the Spanish lieutenant governor, Pedro Joseph Piernas, lived and worked.  Under the new system of licenses, the Chouteau brothers received the largest share of the Osage trade.[22] The 1770s were highly profitable years for fur traders in the Missouri River district.  Figures compiled by Burns show that all of the Missouri River nations traded a combined total of 48,700 pounds of furs in 1775 and 1776.  Of that, 22,200 pounds were traded by the Osage nation, with 15,000 pounds having been produced by the Grand Osage and 7,200 pounds produced by the Petite Osage.[23]

Spanish officials in New Orleans would wonder many times if the profitable Osage trade was worth the difficulties that it brought, and made serious preparations for war against the Osage on at least four separate occasions between 1770 and 1803.  No Spanish soldier was ever sent against the tribe, however, because some other consideration always took precedence over disciplining them.  The first such plans were approved 19 March 1773, when Governor Luis de Unzaga briefly gave the commandant at Natchitoches, Athanase de Mzires, permission to mount an expedition against the Osage.  Six months before, on 21 August 1772, Unzaga had penned a letter Piernas, expressing frustration about a continuing pattern of Osage theft and murder.

There is no other remedy than their extermination since the tolerance which we have had with them, instead of attracting them, has made them insolent.  It is clear that the time has arrived when this wrong demands this last sad remedy, but we are not in a position to apply it because [we] lack people and supplies, and lastly because of the expense.[24]

One of the tribes in Mzires district, the Caddo, had recently united with the Quapaw of the Arkansas district to fight the Osage.  Concerned about the limited effectiveness of native war parties, Mzires proposed a force that would be largely manned by Native American warriors but led and disciplined by Spaniards.  Before Mzires could issue a call to arms, however, Unzaga countermanded his order.  Spanish officials hoped that a more moderate course would yield results, and progress appeared to have been made when on 4 April 1773 a party of Grand Osage men and women brought to St.  Louis an Osage renegade responsible for depredations on the Arkansas River the year before.  Although the customary punishment would have been death, Piernas feared retaliation and kept the prisoner alive, but in irons.  He meanwhile wrote to Unzaga about what he considered to be a promising peace, reached without bloodshed or expense.[25]

Piernas was able to reach a formal agreement with the two Osage bands and the allied Missouri tribe recognizing Spanish authority in the punishment of capital crimes.

Whoever of their villages henceforth kills some vassal of His Catholic Majesty will be delivered up to the commandant of this post and punished by death without remission or compassion.[26]

The agreement also called for the return or replacement of stolen articles.  The agreement did not apply in the Natchitoches district, however, and the acting commandant, Balthazar de Villiers, reacted to an Osage offensive against the Spanish-allied Caddo and Kichais tribes by advocating either conclusion of a peace agreement similar to that reached by Piernas or leading an expedition like the one that had been advocated by Mzires less than a year before.[27] Unzaga, influenced by Mzires opinions about renegade traders in the Arkansas River valley, called upon the commandant at Arkansas Post to stem the illicit flow of munitions to the Osages that the governor believed was taking place.  By this time, however, the illegal presence of English traders was increasingly problematic.  The British had established a new post, Concordia, on the east bank of the Mississippi River almost directly opposite the Arkansas Post.  Reports to Unzaga in 1775 from Mzires, who resumed command at Natchitoches on 18 March 1774, described an Osage attack that had killed four European hunters.  He ridiculed the peace agreement with Piernas.  Such is the peace with which this most disloyal, most treacherous nation gives.[28] Resuming his call for a Spanish-led, native-manned attack on the Osages, Mzires told Unzaga he could muster a force of more than 1,000 Native American warriors.  The tribal chiefs had already unanimously agreed to warfare against the Osage, he said, and all that they lacked was the leadership and discipline that Spanish officers could provide.[29]

Letters from Piernas reported that all was quiet among the Osages.  Peace had also been reached with the Osage at Arkansas Post, where Villiers had taken charge sometime during the summer of 1776.  Bernardo de Glvez, who had replaced Unzaga as governor of Louisiana, continued to receive reports of Osage depredations in the Natchitoches district and was every bit as skeptical as Mzires about the chances for a sustained peace in Arkansas or anywhere else.  Glvez had other concerns at the time, however, such as the American rebellion then taking place.  In correspondence with Mzires dated 2 May 1777, the governor notes the presence of a British warship in New Orleans threatening destruction of the city.[30] The skepticism of Glvez would prove to be founded.  Villiers had sent a trader to the Osages, in violation of policy that continued to prohibit trade with the nation anywhere other than the St.  Louis district.  The traders in St.  Louis disliked Villiers action, because it undermined their monopoly.  Mzires also disliked the action, because he believed it made it that much easier for the Osage to raid the friendly tribes in his district.  Villiers himself would come to again call for stern action against the Osage, following the pillaging of a hunters camp and a subsequent battle between a band of Caddos and the Osage raiders.  Mzires again called for exterminating the Osages, believing this time that he could raise an army of some 1,300 native warriors to be placed under Spanish command.  Rather than use them against the Osages, however, Glvez told Mzires his troops were needed to fight the Apaches in Texas.[31]

Some of what Spanish officials considered depredations were really traditional forms of warning.  Traders were respected, as long as they did not also attempt to trade with the traditional enemies of the Osage.  Hunters were a different matter, however, and frequently lost their lives because of their ignorance of Osage customs.  By the mid-1870s, there were some 200 white trappers and hunters in the Arkansas River valley.  The Osage sought to discourage these unwanted intruders, who both trespassed on tribal hunting grounds and depleted the game, reducing the productiveness of hunts for both the intruders and the Osage.  Sometimes robbery and confiscation of goods were considered sufficient.  Sometimes it was not, and the Osage killed the intruders.[32] To reinforce the message, the Osage sometimes placed severed heads upon stakes.  As Burns writes, the message was intended to be unmistakable.  Indians usually had no difficulty in reading these graphic signs the evidence of violation and the results were both there plain as day.[33]

Tribal governance was undergoing a transition in the late eighteenth century from a decentralized, council-based form to a more centralized governmental structure as the result of European interference in Osage affairs.  In the earliest times, both political and religious authority rested in the Society of Little Old Men, or Non-hon-zhin-ga.  The society was made up of members of each clan who had been raised according to Osage traditions, lived their lives in the prescribed custom, and had completed the requisite war and peace rites for their clan.[34] Two co-equal leaders were vested to act with temporal authority on behalf of the Non-hon-zhin-ga.  One of the two leaders was selected from the sky division, or Tsi-zhu, and was granted authority over matters of peace.  The other, from the earth division, or Hon-ga, was granted authority over matters of war and hunting.  As traders and colonial officials tended to deal more frequently with the Tsi-zhu chiefs, over time their position grew in importance over that of either the Hon-ga chiefs or the Non-hon-zhin-ga.[35] The process was gradual, however, and actions of the Tsi-zhu chiefs continued to be constrained by tribal traditions that had been preserved for generations by the Non-hon-zhin-ga.  These traditions, it could be argued, made up a body of policies that governed the decisions of Osage leaders throughout the Spanish period in Louisiana.

One such policy was to permit settlement by Europeans who benefited the tribe, and to discourage those who did not.  Traders and some settlers were allowed, but only near the villages and in areas on the eastern fringes of Osage territory.  Traders and settlers on the southern and western fringes, where they might benefit traditional enemies, were strongly discouraged.  Evidence of this is found in a letter from an Arkansas Post commandant, Jacobo Dubreuil, to Governor Bernardo de Glvez.

They [the Osage enemies] promise good support to the Caddo immediately upon the withdrawal of the hunters of this district who are scattered on the branches of this river.[36]

The context of this statement reveals the hunters were most likely on the north side of the Arkansas River, in Osage territory.[37]

Another policy involved the adoption of technology.  Each new technology, such as the gun, was considered by tribal leaders.  New technologies and methods of production seen as a benefit were adopted quickly.  Others, such as the enclosure of land for agricultural purposes, were not seen as beneficial and were not adopted.  In the area of economic policy, Osage leaders adapted their traditional hunting cycle to the needs of the European market.[38] During the period of French rule in Louisiana, the Osage began selling captives taken in battle as slaves.  This trade ended when the Spanish forbade trade in Indian slaves, but at different times the Osage were involved in the beaver trade, deer hide trade, the buffalo robe trade, the buffalo hide trade, and trade in a number of other minor items.[39]

While the Spaniards frequently wrote of inciting the tribes to fight, native war parties rarely needed such coaxing.  On 29 March 1778, at a joint council of the Chickasaws of West Florida and the Quapaws, the two nations declared war on the Osage.  Prior to the council, the Quapaws and Osage had been at peace.  Sometime before the war council, however, a party of Chickasaws with the Quapaw partisan Agenjouis among them encountered a group of a dozen Osage warriors in Arkansas and killed one of them.[40] The joint war council is the first known instance of a tribe from east of the Mississippi River declaring war on the Osages, but it would not be the last.  From another direction, Tinhioen, chief of the Great Caddo, responded to Osage abuse in the Red River valley by leading a party of one hundred of his warriors against them.  tiene de Vaugine, by then commandant at Natchitoches, feared that a recent rash of Osage horse thefts would prevent the Caddo from hunting.  If the tribe could not hunt, they could not continue to purchase Spanish goods.  Tinhioen said his people would return to using arrows before going deeper into debt to buy guns and ammunition, and Vaugine advanced the chief merchandise worth 336 piastres from his own pocket rather than allow them to go without.[41]

The Spanish had never been terribly successful in populating Louisiana with settlers loyal to His Catholic Majesty.  Efforts were undertaken to encourage French, Irish, Flemish and German immigrants to settle in Louisiana, which would provide Spain with a population of Catholics used to living under a monarchy.  Funds were made available furnish transportation, food, and seeds to the immigrants.  Americans were invited to settle starting in 1788, but Spanish authorities generally considered them to be undesirable and a potentially subversive element.[42] Considerably more successful were efforts to populate Louisiana with friendly Native Americans from east of the Mississippi River.  St.  Louis traders welcomed tribes from both sides of the river.  Within two years of the citys founding, Lclede and Chouteau were trading with the Shawnee.  Some members of that tribe found refuge south of Ste.  Genevieve as early as 1779.[43] Peter Lorimier was hired by the Spanish as an Indian agent in 1787, and persuaded large numbers of Delaware and Shawnee immigrants to settle in present-day Missouri.[44] These immigrants were followed by a number of others from the eastern woodlands, including members of southeastern tribes such as the Choctaw, Creek, and Cherokee.  The Osage increasingly found themselves under attack by the new immigrants, and the Petite Osage were forced to abandon their village on the Missouri River sometime in the 1790s and withdraw to a new site nearer to the Osage River settlement occupied by their Grand Osage cousins.[45]

In January 1783, an Osage war party entered Texas and drove off a herd of 750 horses belonging to the various tribes there.  With so many tribes united against the Osage, Vaugine wrote Governor Esteban Mir, who had assumed the post 20 January 1782, that the interest of peace would best be served by striking the troublesome Osage.  Like Mzires before him, Vaugine appealed to the governor of Texas for assistance.  Meanwhile, after an Osage raid in which four white hunters were killed, the commandant at Ouachita joined the chorus of voices calling for extermination of the Osage.  The commandant at Natchitoches reported to Mir in April that an Osage war party had attacked white traders while they were in the Grand Caddo and Kichai villages, killed a number of friendly natives, and destroyed furs and skins that were to have been traded.  The Caddo chief Tinhioen, frustrated at the lack of Spanish help in dealing with the Osage, slapped the commandant at La Fourche across the face.  Mir, still attempting to hold the Osage to Piernas 1773 agreement, demanded a chief named Brucaigais and another Osage thought to be involved in the depredations be sent to New Orleans as hostages.  Meanwhile, the Caddo were granted permission to stop any traders doing illegal business with the Osage.[46]

The Osages saw the preparations for war and stayed away from the Arkansas Post.  The hostages never reached New Orleans.  Mir ordered new hostages sent, but they never came.  Mir issued a proclamation declaring the Osages to be enemies.

Such wicked and barbarous proceedings, contrary to all right and justice, in the midst of my having previously tried on my part all the means of reconciliation, require a vigorous demonstration, not only for the sake of the honor of the Spanish arms, but to give a warning once for all to a nation who are [which is] so recklessly breaking the most solemn promises and treaties.[47]

Osages were to be arrested, and Mir sent powder and shot to his lieutenant governor in St.  Louis, Francisco Cruzat.  Peace was to be secured only by the exchange of one Osage prisoner for every white killed by members of the tribe.  Mir had imposed an absolute ban on trade with the Osages in the summer of 1787, giving Cruzat no discretion, although the lieutenant governor never informed the Osage about the ban or the declaration in which Mir had branded them as enemies.[48] On 8 May 1789, the hunters and civilians of Arkansas Post drew up a petition demanding war against the Osage.[49]

In St.  Louis, a new lieutenant governor was beginning to comprehend the complicated nature of Osage affairs.  Cruzat turned his post over to Manuel Perez on 27 November 1787.  Before he did, however, he met with a delegation of Osages that had come seeking a resumption of trade.  Jean LaFon, an Osage chief, arrived with a group of tribal leaders in October and denied any wrongdoing.  He stated that another group, including some chiefs responsible for depredations, had left the nation to winter away from the established villages along the Arkansas River.[50]

I have not come to war with you.  [If] you refuse my hand, I have nothing more to say.  We Osages are dogs.  The chiefs are not obeyed as among you But we have not been masters of the fools [the rebellious Osages]; there are some everywhere.  The two chiefs who committed the [murders] left to go to the Arkansas.  It appears that you do not believe it; but in consequence you will see that what I am telling you is true.[51]

In fact, what LaFon said was true.  In February 1785, a delegation of Osages that included Brucaigais and Big Track had been presented with medals and Spanish flags by Dubreuil, who believed that he could obtain peace by promoting good relations with members of the tribe.  Big Track had already been presented with a small medal in 1783, when he rescued two hunters being held by a Grand Osage war party.  At that time, Arkansas Post commandant Jacobo Dubreuil had sent a trader to the Osages on the Arkansas River.[52] Prior to Cruzats being relieved as lieutenant governor, he sought a promise from LaFon to provide hostages, in accordance with the 1773 agreement with Piernas.  Perhaps not surprisingly, LaFon, who had objected to the awarding of medals to his rivals, and certainly did not want to take responsibility for their actions, did not consent.[53]

Like every other Natchitoches commandant who had preceded him, Louis De Blanc sought the governors blessing for war against the Osage.  In a 30 September 1789 letter to Mir, he stated that a force of 700 Comanche, Tawehash, Wichita, Yscan, and Tawakoni warriors had defeated a large Osage war party.  Meanwhile, in the vicinity of St.  Louis, the Petite Osage had recently conducted raids against friendly members of immigrant tribes from the east.  Perez ordered all trade with the Osage cut off, and sought out the rival Sac, Fox, and Iowa nations, who said they were planning a war against the Osage in the fall.  Francisco Luis Hector, Baron de Carondelet, assumed the post of governor on 30 December 1791.  By 29 June 1792, Carondelet was advocating an all-out war against the Osage from every quarter.  All appeared ready in September, when Zenon Trudeau, who had replaced Perez as lieutenant governor in St.  Louis in March, told a delegation of visiting Loups, Miamis, Ottawas, Potawatomis, Peorias, and Shawnees who had petitioned Spanish officials for action that Carondelet was planning a war against the Osage.[54] On 22 December 1792, Carondelet proclaimed that:

any subject of His Majesty or individual of the other nations, white or red, may overrun the Big and Little Osages, kill them and destroy their families, as they are disturbers of the prosperity of all nations.[55]

Trudeau was reluctant to publish the declaration in St.  Louis, where so many derived their income from trade with Native American nations, including the Osage.  Trudeau procrastinated, and wrote the governor seeking additional instructions.  On 23 June 1793, Trudeau finally published Carondelets order and instructed the commandant at Ste.  Genevive to raise the militia.  The commandant replied that it would be impossible to do so, however, because the harvest was beginning and the settlers were too busy.  [56]

An expedition that had been sent from Arkansas Post returned in July, forced back by disease and foul weather, without having made contact with the Osages.  The commandant then in charge, Ignacio Delin, wrote of his regret at having missed an opportunity to inflict exemplary punishment against the tribe, since this perfidious nation will be insolent while it is not well punished.[57] The complete embargo of trade had made a difference, however, and a delegation of 120 people from the Grand and Petite Osage villages arrived in St.  Louis in August.  They were met at the citys edge by the commander of the militia, and told that only part of the delegation would be permitted to meet with Trudeau.  As before, the Osage leaders denied involvement in depredations in the Arkansas River valley.  They left behind three horses, intended as a gift, but Trudeau refused to accept them.  The horses were sold at auction, with the proceeds put toward construction of a new church.  Trudeau recognized that he could not defeat the Osage, but he could contain them.  Denied trade by the Spanish, at war with every neighboring nation, and denied even the opportunity for trade with the English or Americans because doing so would have required contact with other Native American tribes with which they were at war, the Osages had no options left.[58]

It is impossible for that large tribe to subsist without our traders, accustomed as they are to our arms and munitions, although they have not abandoned bows and arrows.  However they use them only in war, as these to do not provide them with game as easily as do guns.[59]

As Trudeau reported to Carondelet on 28 September 1793, there were larger problems for Louisiana than the Osages.  Encouraged by a representative of the French Republic, the American frontier commander George Rogers Clark was plotting an invasion of Louisiana.  Trudeau alerted all his downriver posts and sought aid from the native tribes.  For once, the military strength of the Osages was an advantage for the Spanish.  Taking a lesson from the French before him, Carondelet ordered Trudeau to permit only one St.  Louis trading house to deal with the Osage.  The firm was to provide only enough arms and munitions to allow for hunting, and was also to be responsible for any harm done by the Osage.  Auguste Chouteau, who first began trading with the Osage under a French monopoly thirty years earlier, was given a new monopoly that he retained almost until the Spanish surrendered Louisiana to the French, who in turn sold it to the Americans.  Chouteau proposed a fort near the Grand Osage village, which was constructed and provided a temporary peace.  In time, however, the Osage began confronting a new challenge as hostile immigrants from the east sought to force them from their territory.  The Osage were still the strongest tribe in Louisiana, but by the time the colony became an American possession, time was growing short.  Cherokee and other eastern tribes would quickly come to occupy what is now Missouri and Arkansas.  By 1818, the Osage would be forced to leave their historic homeland and make way for new masters on the southern plains.

During the forty-year period of Spanish rule in Louisiana, its administrators failed to accomplish even one of their stated goals.  The colony was not populated with loyal Spanish subjects.  As a consequence, the borders could not be kept secure against incursions.  English traders were able to penetrate Louisiana nearly at will, and officials feared that far worse threats to Spanish security would follow.  Native American tribes were not kept at peace, and centuries-old hostilities continued to lead to violence no matter what Spanish authorities did.  In addition, new rivalries were created as immigrant tribes entered the lands west of the Mississippi River.  The colony remained a drain on the Spanish treasury, despite efforts to economize.  The Osage nation fared somewhat better in achieving its goals, remaining in control of a vast territory and retaining its traditional ways of life, although with some modifications, into the early nineteenth century.  But there were unintended consequences of Spanish policy that were detrimental to the Osage.  As the result of Spanish policy welcoming immigrant tribes and American policy encouraging eastern tribes to leave, new competitors fought for territory and the dwindling supply of game.  While the Osage remained the strongest tribe in Louisiana, they were becoming splintered, with European interference having encouraged the formation of an independent third band of Osage that would become complete in the American period.  Thus, the case can be made that conditions were set for the Osage nations eventual decline before the coming of American rule, with an ever-increasing number of Native American refugees and settlers depleting the game that provided meat and furs to sustain the tribes economy, and political conflicts, which also can be said to have had their roots in the Spanish period. Spanish policies splintered the tribe and left each faction vulnerable to later manipulation by American authorities and trading interests.

Notes:



[1] Gilbert C.  Din and A.P.  Nasatir, The Imperial Osages: Spanish-Indian Diplomacy in the Mississippi Valley (Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1983), 58.

[2] Garrick A.  Bailey, introduction to The Osage and the Invisible World: From the Works of Francis La Flesche, by Francis Le Flesche, Garrick A.  Bailey, ed, The Civilization of the American Indian Series (Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995), 27.

[3] Bailey (1995), 26-27.

[4] Carl H.  Chapman and Elanor F.  Chapman, Indians and Archaeology of Missouri, revised edition (Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press, 1983), 99.

[5] John Joseph Mathews, The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters (Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961),, 90.

[6] Matthews, 90-92.

[7] Matthews, 92-93.

[8] Garrick A.  Bailey, Changes in Osage Social Organization: 1673-1906, University of Oregon Anthropological Papers No.  5 (Eugene, Ore.: University of Oregon Press, 1973), 2.

[9] Bailey (1973), 42.

[10] Louis Billouart de Kerlrec report, New Orleans, 17 December 1754, Archives Nationales, Colonies, Paris, cited in Din and Nasatir, 49.

[11] Nicolas de Finiels, An Account of Upper Louisiana, Carl J.  Eckberg and William E.  Foley, eds.  (Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press, 1989), 89.

[12] Jos Mara Corts y de Olarte, Views from the Apache frontier report on the northern provinces of New Spain, ed.  Elizabeth Ann Harper John (Norman, Okla.  : University of Oklahoma Press, 1989), 96.

[13] Louis F.  Burns, A History of the Osage People (Tuscaloosa, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 2004), 119.

[14] Willard H.  Rollings, The Osage: An Ethnohistorical Study of Hegemony on the Prairie-Plains (Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press, 1992), 84.

[15] Mathews, 126-128.

[16] Mathews, 233-234.

[17] Chapman and Chapman, 103-104.

[18] Bailey (1973), 33.

[19] Lawrence Kinnaird, Spanish Treaties with Indian Tribes, Western Historical Quarterly 10, No.  1 (1979): 40.

[20] Burns (2004), 103.

[21] Din and Nasatir, 62-63.

[22] William E.  Foley and C.  David Rice, The First Chouteaus: River Barons of Early St.  Louis (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 16-21.

[23] Burns (2004), 105.

[24] Draft, [Unzaga] to Piernas, New Orleans, 21 August 1772, Archivo General de Indias, Seville, cited in Din and Nasatir, 82.

[25] Din and Nasatir, 83-86.

[26] Consejo formado por Pedro Piernas, Luis de San Ange, Pedro de Volsay, Luis de Beltre, Pedro Labadia, Antonio Hubert, Nicols Chauvin , St.  Louis, 21 August 1773, Archivo General de Indias, Seville, cited in Din and Nasatir, 91.

[27] Din and Nasatir, 91-93.

[28] De Mzires to [Unzaga], Natchitoches, 6 June 1775, Archivo General de Indias, Seville, cited in Din and Nasatir, 97.

[29] Din and Nasatir, 97.

[30] Din and Nasatir, 95-102.

[31] Din and Nasatir, 108-109.

[32] Bailey (1973), 50.

[33] Burns (2004), 89.

[34] Burns, Osage Indian Customs and Myths (Fallbrook, Calif.: Ciga Press, 1984), 6.

[35] Burns (2004), 17.

[36] Lawrence Kinnaird, ed.  Spain in the Mississippi Valley, 1763-1794, Annual Report of the American Historical Association for 1945, Pt.  II, Vol.  III, 187-188, cited in Burns (2004), 114.

[37] Burns (2004), 114-115.

[38] Burns (2004), 87-94.

[39] Bailey (1973), 2.

[40] Din and Nasatir, 114-115.

[41] Din and Nasatir, 139.

[42] Gilbert C.  Din, Spains Immigration Policy in Louisiana and the American Penetration, 1792-1803, Southwestern Historical Quarterly 76, No.  3 (1973): 255-256.

[43] George E.  Lankford, Shawnee Convergence: Immigrant Indians in the Ozarks, Arkansas Historical Quarterly 58, No.  4 (Winter 1999), 394-395.

[44] Bailey (1973), 49-50.

[45] Bailey (1973), 51.

[46] Din and Nasatir, 159-168.

[47] Proclamation of the Governor General, New Orleans, 13 May, 1787, Archivo General de Indias, Seville, cited in Din and Nasatir, 171.

[48] Din and Nasatir, 177-179.

[49] Din and Nasatir, 180-191.

[50] Din and Nasatir, 180-182.

[51] Council Held by the Big Osages on October 15, 1787, enclosure No.  1 in Cruzat to Mir, No.  120, St.  Louis, 12 November 1787, Archivo General de Indias, Seville, cited in Din and Nasatir, 181-182.

[52] Din and Nasatir, 149-154.

[53] Din and Nasatir, 182.

[54] Din and Nasatir, 227-233.

[55] Carondelet to Trudeau, New Orleans, 22 December 1792, Archivo General de Indias, Seville, cited in Din and Nasatir, 234.

[56] Din and Nasatir, 239-245.

[57] Delin to Carondelet, No.  137, 18 July 1793, Archivo General de Indias, Seville, cited in Din and Nasatir, 246.

[58] Din and Nasatir, 245-249.

[59] Trudeau to Carondelet, St.  Louis, 28 September 1793, Archivo General de Indias, Seville, cited in Din and Nasatir, 249.

Bibliography

 

Bailey, Garrick A. Changes in Osage Social Organization: 1673-1906. University of Oregon Anthropological Papers No.  5. Eugene, Ore.: University of Oregon Press, 1973

Bailey, Garrick A., ed. The Osage and the Invisible World: From the Works of Francis La Flesche, by Francis Le Flesche. The Civilization of the American Indian Series. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1995

Burns, Louis F. Osage Indian Customs and Myths. Fallbrook, Calif.: Ciga Press, 1984.

Burns, Louis F. A History of the Osage People. Tuscaloosa, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 2004.

Chapman, Carl H. and Elanor F.  Chapman. Indians and Archaeology of Missouri, revised edition. Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press, 1983.

Corts y de Olarte, Jos Mara. Views from the Apache frontier report on the northern provinces of New Spain. Elizabeth Ann Harper John, ed. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989.

De Finiels, Nicolas. An Account of Upper Louisiana. Carl J.  Eckberg and William E.  Foley, eds.  Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press, 1989.

Din, Gilbert C. and A.P.  Nasatir. The Imperial Osages: Spanish-Indian Diplomacy in the Mississippi Valley. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1983.

Din, Gilbert C. Spains Immigration Policy in Louisiana and the American Penetration, 1792-1803. Southwestern Historical Quarterly 76, No.  3 (1973): 255-276.

Foley, William E. and C.  David Rice. The First Chouteaus: River Barons of Early St.  Louis.Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 2000.

Kinnaird, Lawrence. Spanish Treaties with Indian Tribes. Western Historical Quarterly 10, No.  1 (1979): 39-48.

Lankford, George E. Shawnee Convergence: Immigrant Indians in the Ozarks. Arkansas Historical Quarterly 58, No.  4 (Winter 1999): 390-413.

Mathews, John Joseph. The Osages: Children of the Middle Waters. Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961.

Rollings, Willard H. The Osage: An Ethnohistorical Study of Hegemony on the Prairie-Plains. Columbia, Mo.: University of Missouri Press, 1992.