native.BrokenClaw.net

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by Merrill J. Mattes
In my research I have found well over 300 references in emigrant journals to Robidoux Pass and the trading post there. More than half of these also tell of one or more “French-men” there as traders. Many of them refer to a “Robidoux” with a great variety of spellings, but only […]

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by Merrill J. Mattes
In 1833 Prince Maximilian of Wied, en route to Fort Union trading post on the steamer Yellowstone, observed this post. It was noted also by the Rev. Samuel Parker, en route from Liberty, Missouri to the mission at Belleview, Nebraska, where he started his marathon journey to Oregon. In 1853 also, […]

As best as I can tell, this article was originally published in the Overland Journal (6:3) 1988. I believe that this article is important to the understanding of Otoe-Missouria genealogy, so I am posting my reference copy of the article here, unless I hear otherwise from the publisher, the author or his agent. All links […]

Caleb Ancestry
The Caleb family are all descendants of a Christian Munsee Indian from the Ohio Territory named Caleb,1 who was baptized on 10 November 1790 by Rev. David Zeisberger at the Moravian mission of Petquotting in the valley of the Muskingum (now Tuscarawas) River. The Fliegel Index contains several references to Caleb, mostly reporting his […]

Allotment, or allotment in severalty, was the process of assigning specific plots of land on the reservation to specific individuals. Allotment, authorized by US Congress in the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887, was another means to assimilate Indians into white culture, but its main result was to provide a means to sell reservation land to […]

The following table shows my transcription of the Census of the Chippewa and Christian Indians, dated 30 June 1900, by the Indian agent, W. R. Honnell, of the Pottawatomie and Great Nemaha Agency in Kansas. The first column shows the Name exactly as it was written on the original document. The Description shows the gender, […]

Members of the combined Chippewa and Munsee tribes posed for this photograph in front of the Moravian Mission (white clapboard barely visible in the background) in Ottawa, Kansas, on 8 November 1900. It is the last record of their people as a group, coinciding with the final disbursement of federal funds.
The original version of this […]

After years of public pressure and internal conflict, the Chippewa and Munsee Indians finally voted in favor of the federal Indian Appropriation Act of 1897 that provided for the appraisal, distribution, and disposal of their tribal lands and funds in Franklin County, Kansas. The vote was taken on 26 July 1897 at the Moravian mission […]