Black Bob (Shawnee: Wa-wah-che-pa-e-hai or Wa-wah-che-pa-e-kar) [1] (died 1862 or 1864) was a Native American Shawnee Chief. His band was a part of the Hathawekela division of the Shawnee. [2] He was known for being one of the last Shawnee to resist leaving for the Indian Territory, and for keeping his band together until his death, holding their lands in common, as they moved between Missouri, Arkansas, and the Black Bob Reservation in Kansas.
Black Bob was half Miami and half Shawnee. His father was killed at age 72, in 1860. After Black Bob's death, his widow lived east of Olathe, Kansas. He had relatives "among the Blackfeather people." [3]
The Blackfeather Farm, in Overland Park, Kansas still exists as of 2013. "The original land patent [of the Blackfeather Farm] was awarded to To Wah Pea and her heirs on March 13, 1885. This site was part of the tract belonging to the Black Bob band. Joseph and Johnson Blackfeather were some of the heirs, hence the Blackfeather name associated with this land ... Settlers moved onto the land as soon as the war was over, and disputes over the land continued for 20 years." [4]
Black Bob and his Hathawekela band, the Cape Girardeau Shawnee, lived on land controlled by Spain "in eastern Missouri on land granted to them about 1793 by Baron Carondelet, near Cape Girardeau." In 1808, Chief Black Bob and his band "refused to remove with the rest of the tribe to Indian Territory." [2]
The Cape Girardeau band believed that government commissioners had misled them about the 1825 treaty and argued that they had never agreed to allow any Ohio Shawnees to settle on the western lands. As a result, a portion of the Shawnees under the leadership of Black Bob did not move to eastern Kansas and instead settled along the White River in Arkansas. Meanwhile, the Rogerstown and Fish bands traveled directly to eastern Kansas, where successive parties of Ohio Shawnees joined them over the next several years. A more complete reunion in 1833 occurred only through intimidation. Black Bob's band still had no desire to move to the Kansas River. [5] [6]
On Oct. 26, 1831, "General William Clark at Castor Hill in St. Louis County, Missouri, signed a treaty with representatives of the Delaware then in Kansas and the Cape Girardeau Shawnee (the Black Bob band) then in Arkansas, giving up all claim to the Cape Girardeau grant." [6]
The Black Bob band had written directly to President Andrew Jackson, noting that "For the last forty years we have resided in Upper Louisiana," (which was now called Missouri), "peaceably following our usual occupations for the support of our families", explaining that the Shawnee lands in Kansas had "climate colder than we have been accustomed to, or wish to live in," and they would be "surrounded by people strangers to us." However, in 1833, this petition was denied. [7]
Eventually, Black Bob's band "removed to the area of Kansas". In an 1854 treaty with Black Bob, "the United States gave them rights to land on the Shawnee Reservation in that state." [2] The reservation became home to "2,183 Shawnees [from a variety of different bands] ... between 1825 and 1834. This 1.6 million-acre reservation stretched from the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers west toward present-day Topeka. [8]
The Black Bob Reservation (or Black Bob Reserve) was located in the southeastern part of Johnson County, Kansas, "at the sources of the Blue and Tomahawk creeks, lying in Oxford, Spring Hill, Aubry and Olathe townships," [9] on 33,000 acres "in the Tomahawk Creek area near the current intersection of 119th and Black Bob [Road]." [10]
The Black Bob Band became known as Skipakákamithagî’ in the Shawnee language, "blue water Indians"; because they lived on the Big Blue River.
Black Bob’s band lived East of Olathe County ... He kept the band together until his death, but 1867 the speculators induced the Indians to get their land in severalty. 1857 there was 136 Black Bob Indians. [3]
During the years of the Civil War, Shawnees from the Absentee-Shawnee and other bands fled to the 33,000 acre Black Bob Reservation as refugees. [5]
A "record of land selections made by members of Black Bob's Band of Shawnee" can be found in the James Burnett Abbott Collection of the Kansas Historical Society. [11] [12]
The tribe held its lands in common until 1866, and "continued to live as had been their custom, making but little progress and spending most of their time in visiting other tribes and hunting, until the breaking out of the [Civil] war. Then, on account of the losses and sufferings to which they were subjected from bushwhackers on one hand, and Kansas thieves on the other, they left their homes and went to the Indian Territory in a body. There they remained until peace was proclaimed, when about one hundred returned to dispose of their lands." [9]
Tribal members petitioned the US Government in the 1870s to "keep their land intact," noting that since the war, the band had been "composed largely of women and children." They also said that it is not their choice to divide their land, but "is an alternative urged on them by speculators who care nothing for our people, only so far as they can use us for selfish purposes." [13] However, these petitions were not successful, the lands were sold to speculators. "The Black Bob Shawnee were expelled from their land ... and moved to Northeastern Oklahoma." [13] There they joined the Absentee-Shawnee, "and claimed acreage assigned the Potawatomi." [14]
Another account states:
The border troubles before and during the Civil War made it impossible for these Shawnees to remain on their land, and they went to the Indian Territory. Squatters took possession of the vacated lands. For a quarter of a century there was no settlement of the matter. Speculators and grafters flourished at the expense of the Indians. The matter was a standing scandal, settled finally by Congress and the Courts, and greatly to the disadvantage of the Black-Bob Shawnee. [15] [16]
A corroborating account which provides more specifics, states:
The Indians to whom the reservation belonged abandoned it near the beginning of the war. As it was most excellent land--fertile soil, well watered and timbered--settlers rushed in at the close of the war and soon every quarter-section of it was occupied by a claimant. This was in the years of 1865 and 1866. About the same time, certain other parties, not actual settlers on the lands, among whom were Gen. James G. Blunt, J. C. Irvin and Judge Pendery, conceived the design of buying up a portion of this land for the purposes of speculation. This was in October, 1867 ...
One author asserts that "Following his term as Indian Agent, Abbott teamed with land speculator H.L. Taylor to acquire some of the Black Bob land holdings. The two then illegally sold portions of their land to new settlers," and refers to a local school assignment titled, "Who Gets the Land?: Competing Visions of Abbott, Bluejacket and Black Bob." [17] [18] "They attempted to sell their lands, but were interfered with by white squatters who claimed the first right to purchase. Matters were tied up in this shape until this act [of Congress] of Mar. 3, 1879." [19]
The squatters on the Black Bob Reservation remained a topic of discussion as late as 1890 in The Indian Chieftain newspaper, published in Vinita, Oklahoma.
BLACK BOB SQUATTERS. A Bill Filed in the Circuit Court to Have Them Ejected. Topeka. Kan. Nov. 15. The United States District Attorney of Kansas, under Instructions from Attorney-General Miller, has just filed a bill in equity in the Circuit Court of the United States at Topeka, on behalf of the Black Bob band of Shawnee Indians sad ajrsinsfc the settlers who have squatted on the Black Bob reservation in Johnson County and the speculators who hold unapproved deeds from the Indians. The bill alleges that the deeds of the speculators were obtained by fraud and demands that they be canceled. The bill prays that the settlers be ejected and that they be held to account to the Indians for the rents and profits of the land for the last twenty years. This suit involves about 39,000 acres of the best land in Johnson County, which have been occupied by squatters ever since the Indians were driven off by Quantrell and his men in 1861.
The settlers have absolutely no title save the possession, which they have been well satisfied to enjoy without any liability to pay taxes. Great excitement prevails among the people on the reservation over the prospects cf being ejected, losing the improvements which they have placed there, and belay, mulcted for rents and profits besides. They have employed attorneys, and will make a bitter fight. The speculators who hold unapproved deeds have never been in possession, having been kept out by the squatters. Might has been right on the reservation for a long time, and for years it has furnished tho courts of Johnson County the largest proportion of their criminal business. The local attorney appointed by Attorney-General Miller to look after the interests of the Indians say: that every prayer of the bill will be insisted upon. [20]
The Black Bob Band became one of the predecessors to today's Shawnee Tribe. [21]
During the Civil War many of the Shawnee Tribe fought for the Union, which inspired the name, "Loyal Shawnee." Instead of receiving compensation or honors for their service, they returned to their Kansas lands, only to find much of it taken over by non-Indian homesteaders. Settlers were granted 130,000 acres (530 km2) of Shawnee land, while 70,000 acres (280 km2) remained to for the tribe, of which 20,000 acres (81 km2) were granted to the Absentee Shawnee. [22]
One researcher states that the "Loyal Shawnee" is a later name for the "Black Bob Band." [23] The Black Bob Band's records were kept by the Shawnee Agency. [24] [25] [26] [27] Members of the Black Bob Band joined with the Absentee Shawnees and the Cherokee. [28]
In 1861 Kansas became a state, and the non-Indian people of Kansas demanded that all Indian tribes must be removed from the state. [22] The Loyal Shawnee made an agreement with the Cherokee Nation in 1869, allowing 722 to gain citizenship within the Cherokee tribe and receive allotments of Cherokee land. They predominantly settled in what is now Craig and Rogers County, Oklahoma. They became known as the "Cherokee Shawnee," [22] primarily settling in the areas of Bird Creek (now known as Sperry); Hudson Creek (now known as Fairland); and White Oak. The Shawnee Reservation in Kansas was never legally dissolved and some Shawnee families still hold their allotment lands in Kansas. [29]
Black Bob Park, Black Bob Road, Black Bob Bay, and Black Bob Elementary School in Olathe, Kansas are named after Chief Black Bob. [30] [31]
Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States government for the relocation of Native Americans who held original Indian title to their land as an independent nation-state. The concept of an Indian territory was an outcome of the U.S. federal government's 18th- and 19th-century policy of Indian removal. After the American Civil War (1861–1865), the policy of the U.S. government was one of assimilation.
A land run or land rush was an event in which previously restricted land of the United States was opened to homestead on a first-arrival basis. Lands were opened and sold first-come or by bid, or won by lottery, or by means other than a run. The settlers, no matter how they acquired occupancy, purchased the land from the United States General Land Office. For former Indian lands, the Land Office distributed the sales funds to the various tribal entities, according to previously negotiated terms. The Oklahoma Land Rush of 1889 was the most prominent of the land runs while the Land Run of 1893 was the largest. The opening of the former Kickapoo area in 1895 was the last use of a land run in the present area of Oklahoma.
The Shawnee are a Native American people of the Northeastern Woodlands. Their language, Shawnee, is an Algonquian language.
The Cherokee Outlet, or Cherokee Strip, was located in what is now the state of Oklahoma in the United States. It was a 60-mile-wide (97 km) parcel of land south of the Oklahoma–Kansas border between 96 and 100°W. The Cherokee Outlet was created in 1836. The United States forced the Cherokee Nation of Indians to cede to the United States all lands east of the Mississippi River in exchange for a reservation and an "outlet" in Indian Territory. At the time of its creation, the Cherokee Outlet was about 225 miles (360 km) long. The cities of Enid, Woodward, Ponca City, and Perry were later founded within the boundaries of what had been the Cherokee Outlet.
The Unassigned Lands in Oklahoma were in the center of the lands ceded to the United States by the Creek (Muskogee) and Seminole Indians following the Civil War and on which no other tribes had been settled. By 1883, it was bounded by the Cherokee Outlet on the north, several relocated Indian reservations on the east, the Chickasaw lands on the south, and the Cheyenne-Arapaho reserve on the west. The area amounted to 1,887,796.47 acres.
Citizen Potawatomi Nation is a federally recognized tribe of Potawatomi people located in Oklahoma. The Potawatomi are traditionally an Algonquian-speaking Eastern Woodlands tribe. They have 29,155 enrolled tribal members, of whom 10,312 live in the state of Oklahoma.
The Shawnee Tribe is a federally recognized Native American tribe in Oklahoma. Formerly known as the Loyal Shawnee, they are one of three federally recognized Shawnee tribes. The others are the Absentee-Shawnee Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma and the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma.
The Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma is one of three federally recognized tribes of Shawnee people. Historically residing in what became organized as the upper part of the Eastern United States, the original Shawnee lived in the large territory now made up of Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and neighboring states. In total, they occupied and traveled through lands ranging from Canada to Florida, and from the Mississippi River to the eastern continental coast.
The Seneca–Cayuga Nation is one of three federally recognized tribes of Seneca people in the United States. It includes the Cayuga people and is based in Oklahoma, United States. The tribe had more than 5,000 people in 2011. They have a tribal jurisdictional area in the northeast corner of Oklahoma and are headquartered in Grove. They are descended from Iroquoian peoples who had relocated to Ohio from New York state in the mid-18th century.
The Land Run of 1891 was a set of horse races to settle land acquired by the federal government through the opening of several small Indian reservations in Oklahoma Territory. The race involved approximately 20,000 homesteaders, who gathered to stake their claims on 6,097 plots, of 160 acres (0.65 km2) each, of former reservation land.
Indian removals in Indiana followed a series of the land cession treaties made between 1795 and 1846 that led to the removal of most of the native tribes from Indiana. Some of the removals occurred prior to 1830, but most took place between 1830 and 1846. The Lenape (Delaware), Piankashaw, Kickapoo, Wea, and Shawnee were removed in the 1820s and 1830s, but the Potawatomi and Miami removals in the 1830s and 1840s were more gradual and incomplete, and not all of Indiana's Native Americans voluntarily left the state. The most well-known resistance effort in Indiana was the forced removal of Chief Menominee and his Yellow River band of Potawatomi in what became known as the Potawatomi Trail of Death in 1838, in which 859 Potawatomi were removed to Kansas and at least forty died on the journey west. The Miami were the last to be removed from Indiana, but tribal leaders delayed the process until 1846. Many of the Miami were permitted to remain on land allotments guaranteed to them under the Treaty of St. Mary's (1818) and subsequent treaties.
The Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma is one of three federally recognized Shawnee tribes. They are located in Oklahoma and Missouri.
The Mingo people are an Iroquoian group of Native Americans, primarily Seneca and Cayuga, who migrated west from New York to the Ohio Country in the mid-18th century, and their descendants. Some Susquehannock survivors also joined them, and assimilated. Anglo-Americans called these migrants mingos, a corruption of mingwe, an Eastern Algonquian name for Iroquoian-language groups in general. The Mingo have also been called "Ohio Iroquois" and "Ohio Seneca".
Cherokee history is the written and oral lore, traditions, and historical record maintained by the living Cherokee people and their ancestors. In the 21st century, leaders of the Cherokee people define themselves as those persons enrolled in one of the three federally recognized Cherokee tribes: The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, The Cherokee Nation, and The United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians.
The Cherokee Nation was a legal, autonomous, tribal government in North America recognized from 1794 to 1907. It was often referred to simply as "The Nation" by its inhabitants. The government was effectively disbanded in 1907, after its land rights had been extinguished, prior to the admission of Oklahoma as a state. During the late 20th century, the Cherokee people reorganized, instituting a government with sovereign jurisdiction known as the Cherokee Nation. On July 9, 2020, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the Muscogee (Creek) Nation had never been disestablished in the years before allotment and Oklahoma Statehood.
Oklahoma Tribal Statistical Area is a statistical entity identified and delineated by federally recognized American Indian tribes in Oklahoma as part of the U.S. Census Bureau's 2010 Census and ongoing American Community Survey. Many of these areas are also designated Tribal Jurisdictional Areas, areas within which tribes will provide government services and assert other forms of government authority. They differ from standard reservations, such as the Osage Nation of Oklahoma, in that allotment was broken up and as a consequence their residents are a mix of native and non-native people, with only tribal members subject to the tribal government. At least five of these areas, those of the so-called five civilized tribes of Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek and Seminole, which cover 43% of the area of the state, are recognized as reservations by federal treaty, and thus not subject to state law or jurisdiction for tribal members.
The Cherokee Commission, was a three-person bi-partisan body created by 23rd President Benjamin Harrison, to operate under the direction of the United States Secretary of the Interior, of the President's Cabinet, as empowered by Section 14 of the Indian Appropriations Act of March 2, 1889, passed by the United States Congress and signed by President Harrison. Section 15 of the same Act empowered the President of the United States to open land for settlement. The Commission's purpose was to legally acquire land already occupied by the Cherokee Nation and other tribes in the new Oklahoma Territory for non-indigenous homestead acreage.
On the eve of the American Civil War in 1861, a significant number of Indigenous peoples of the Americas had been relocated from the Southeastern United States to Indian Territory, west of the Mississippi. The inhabitants of the eastern part of the Indian Territory, the Five Civilized Tribes, were suzerain nations with established tribal governments, well established cultures, and legal systems that allowed for slavery. Before European Contact these tribes were generally matriarchial societies, with agriculture being the primary economic pursuit. The bulk of the tribes lived in towns with planned streets, residential and public areas. The people were ruled by complex hereditary chiefdoms of varying size and complexity with high levels of military organization.
Le Grand Village Sauvage, also called Chalacasa, was a Native American village located near Old Appleton in Perry County, Missouri, United States.
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