The Land - Unit 1, Lesson 1; Oklahoma Passage Telecourse of Oklahoma History #102

. . . . . . . .

. Welcome to the first program of Oklahoma Passage, a telecourse on Oklahoma history. I'm your host, Dean Lewis. The state capital here in Oklahoma City is a fitting departure point for our passage through time. Over the coming weeks we'll present Oklahoma history to you through a series of topical treatments ranging from the land itself to the future of education. To introduce each topic and to provide a sense of continuity we'll begin each lesson with select scenes of the award-winning OETA production Oklahoma Passage. Together we'll follow four generations of the Benton family as they experience the trail of tears, the civil war, the cattle drives, the land runs, the challenges and yes the opportunities of the 20th century. Following each dramatic episode historians and educators will lead us through the pages of history as they follow the various paths of geography, transportation, politics, the arts, leadership and other topics to provide

brief glimpses into the rich legacy of our shared past. So sit back, learn and join us in this Oklahoma Passage. As we mentioned earlier the Atlantis will actually carry the foundations for a small trail city that will be constructed on Mars. This first flight of the Atlantis will be commanded by Jeffrey Benton, great nephew of Hannah Benton, the famous Oklahoma pioneer Aviatrix and protégé of Wiley Post. Bob, where are you?

Bob, come quick. They're talking about Daddy and his handle, the radio. I'm coming, Tess. All in today's countdown. Commander Benton has been briefed on this most recent delay which we are told has to do with the inertial guidance system. They should not, however, interfere with the primary launch schedule. What does that mean? I don't know, I guess it's still broke. I hope it's fixed soon. For a more detailed look at the inertial guidance system of the Atlantis, let's go to our correspondent at the Marshal Space Flight Center. Activity here at the Marshal Space Flight Center is increasing for the upcoming Atlantis flight schedule like... We're through talking about Daddy for now. Miss Hannah, do you really think my daddy had a fly?

Yes, Bill, I did. And that'll find the bomb. It doesn't look like it's a fly. That's the one that old Jenny could fly the wings off of anything in the air. How about the Atlantis? Your daddy's ship? Well, I don't know about that. Maybe the Atlantis could go a little faster. Maybe it could go a little farther. Who's this, Miss Hannah? Let me see. Well, I can't say... Oh, it could be your Aunt Belinda from Arkansas. There are so many of us now. Are any of these people coming to the family reunion, Miss Hannah? They're coming to see Daddy fly in the space on television. As many as can. Some from Texas, some from Missouri. But Bo's right, they're all coming to see your daddy take off into space. Mars.

My word. What, Miss Hannah? I was just thinking. What a long journey this family has traveled. From Newer Chota to where your daddy is going tomorrow. Newer Chota? That was a town in Georgia where our family history began. At least the part that has written down. That's old. Yes, very. This belonged to your great, great, great grandfather. Abraham Benton. He began this diary when he was a young man. More than 150 years ago, before he came to Indian Territory, which later became Oklahoma. 150 years. That's a long time ago.

His hands touched these pages. His thoughts are here. Abraham Benton will always be with us. But he's dead. Yes, Bo. But as long as his thoughts are still alive, something of Abraham Benton will always be alive. You see, our ancestors were part Cherokee. We're an ancient family. But Abraham is the first one we know much about. He was a printer on the Cherokee newspaper there. It was called the Cherokee Phoenix, and people from as far away as London and Paris, sent for it and read it and were surprised.

Here was this newspaper printed in both English and in Cherokee, and the world around was astounded that Indians could produce such a paper. What did Abraham write about? Once, I kept a diary for about six months, but nothing ever happened, so I quit. Well, Abraham didn't have that problem. I think he started this journal because he was so upset about what was going on around him, things that he couldn't do anything about. But he wrote about what gave him joy, and what brought him sorrow and confusion and hurt. And just here, in this journal, it says, Newichota, July 1830. Recently, President Jackson urged Congress

to pass a law of forcing us to leave the Cherokee Nation. My father, along with Pathkiller and the whale, fought at Jackson's side during the Creek Wars. My father gave his life at Horseshoe Bend. Where is Jackson's loyalty? Why would he side with those who would drive us from our ancestral land? Why has he turned against us? The Choctaw have already signed the 3D of Dancing Rabbit Creek, but the Cherokee are standing fast. We will not give up our homes. Writing your thoughts again, Abraham? Samuel, he startled me. Uh, yes. Sometimes it helps me to sort things out to put them down on paper. What I cannot sort out, Samuel, is why Jackson is doing this to us. It's greed, Abraham. Gold and greed.

Now that the governments in Washington and Georgia know that there's gold to be found in the Cherokee Nation, they want the land to belong to your people. Must they blackmail our friends and to turning against us? To ask you, a man of faith, a man who has worked with us side by side, protect us. He worded the Georgia Legislature's latest abomination has reached you. The oath of allegiance. Either were four Georgia in every way right or wrong, or were guilty of treason. Not a pretty choice. What will you and the other missionaries do? Well, I can't speak for them, only for myself. I will pray. And look to the eloquence of Elias Boutnott. You know, the Phoenix is still red across the nation, around the world. Perhaps his editorials can yet turn public opinion. Well, Elias, we were speaking of you.

Samuel, hey Abraham, I have something we must work on. I've just learned that the Georgia Guard has been empowered to arrest anyone who will not sign the oath of allegiance to the state. Justice, we feared. Elias, my dear friend, continue to use your ability to right-to-fight this injustice right now more than you've ever heard. I have. I have. What do you think of this? It is an enormous evil and a deplorable breach of public faith. If the white friends of the Cherokee are required to take an oath of allegiance to the state of Georgia, the Cherokee will be isolated. Anyone who would stand beside us in our fight to keep our homes and rights from being pillaged by the duly elected thieves of the Georgia legislature will be imprisoned. Surely men of good sense can see the evil of compulsory removal and the disgraceful nature of the actions

which tend to legalize this deplorable injustice. Very strong words. How stronger than your sermons, my friend. Abraham? How soon can you start setting the type? You'll be heard, Elias. Thousands of people will meet those words. Thousands of good people. And there is still goodness in the world. I wonder. Miss Hannah, did the article do any good? Well, it's hard to tell. But they tried. Oh, how they tried. The Reverend Wooster, Elias Budenot and Abraham continued to print articles that were so logical and so powerful that it angered the Georgians even more and so more rights were taken away from the Cherokees and new laws stripped the Indians of their rights in the courts and threats were made.

The Georgia Guard intercepted the deliveries and the supplies to the newspaper. And then, of course, what they all feared happened. What are you doing? We're a Samuel Wooster. Why do you want him? I am Samuel Wooster. I have a paper here for you to sign. Now, if you will sign this, we will leave. If you do not, I have the authority to arrest you. Is this the allegiance paper? It is. I've already signed an allegiance. Not according to our records. Now, if you will sign... It is not your allegiance. It is a higher allegiance to my God. To sign yours would be betraying everything I believe. I cannot. Sir, you leave me no choice.

But to place you under arrest. May I see my family before I go? My wife, she's ill. I'm sorry. My orders are to bring you with me now. Samuel. Samuel. Is it quiet? They just came when it took Samuel away. How could they do that? I should have done something. I should have stopped him.

What could I do? I'm not a warrior. I'm just good with machinery. The white man is too strong. Abraham. White man is not only enemy of Cherokee. Cherokee is enemy of Cherokee. White man has built a wall between us. On one side, on the other side, on one side, our dreams beacuse, calling their dreams out to four wings. On the other side, our son catches, who, like spider-grant mother, would catch son in her web and bring it to earth. Son catches would rather act than dream.

And you, Sequoia, on what side of the wall do you stand? Do you fight the dream speakers or the son catches? I fight the wall! Dream speakers and son catchers? It's also confusing. Yes, Tessity is confusing, but you see there were two separate groups of Cherokees in Georgia. One group, the son catchers, were led by Chief John Ross, and he believed in staying and fighting for their land. But the other group, the dream speakers? Yes, the dream speakers. They were led by a man by the name of Major Ridge, and he believed that they should sell the land and start new in the West.

What side was Elias booting on? He was a dream speaker. Did grandfather Abraham? Well, he didn't take sides, but I know he remained loyal to his friends. What happened to Sequoia? Sequoia went to Indian Territory and lived on a small farm, telling tales and occasionally teaching, and he kept a journal. How I wish they could find that journal. It must have held so many wonderful mysteries, and both it is said that Sequoia could teach a child to read in less than a week. Wow, that's been two years already. And then what happened? Well, we see what Abraham says here. Never have I seen two groups in more total disagreement. The pressure from Washington and Georgia becomes more intense,

forcing our people to leave or be removed by the Georgia Guard. Today we had a meeting at the Phoenix. John Ross, principal chief of the Cherokee, was there. So we're butternut, and his brother stand waiting. At Major Ridge, the great Cherokee leader during the Creek Wars was there. Out of all, only John Ross opposed the sale of the land. I don't understand this. You would just sell your land. Either that or give it away. If we don't sell it, they'll take it. I don't see it. We have any choice. You would sell your heritage for four million dollars. I understand that's what you've been offered.

Look here, Ross. I hear you've been holding out for 20 million. You hear as a lie at any price, any price. It's a violation of our sacred tribal law. All of you sign the blood law. Do you forget so easily? You cannot sell your land to anyone outside the Cherokee Nation without permission of the council. If you do this, you'll be put to death. He's a civilized times, John. That's not talk of killing. It isn't killing. It's execution according to the law. What you're advocating here is treason. Elias. Elias, will you forget this nonsense?

If the Cherokee can't stand together now, we will remain apart for a thousand years. You believe a scar forever. I understand. But I am tired of fighting. Look, sooner or later, if we don't sign the Cherokee, the government will take away our land. So we might as well sign. Very well. Then I wash my hands of your fate. Elias was forced to resign from the Phoenix. John Ross turned to people against him. The land, a cause worth fighting for.

And as you'll see in successive scenes, a cause worth dying for. As proven in this first episode of Oklahoma Passage, the land has always been at the heart of our history. To Cherokee, such as John Ross, it was a sacred trust, a gift, to be shared by all members of the tribe. To American frontiersmen pushing into Georgia, it was the stuff of dreams, the promise of new opportunity, a resource to be exploited. Yet the land is important to our story for another reason. In many ways, the land and its outward appearances, climate, plant life, animal life, soil types have set the rules by which history unfolds. Since the first man and woman stepped on with a hard-packed clay of Oklahoma, it's been a struggle of man against nature, sometimes violent struggle of adaptation and survival. The land that is now the state of Oklahoma has provided a dramatic stage for that epic confrontation. The elevation of the state dips to only 325 feet

in the southeast, sores to more than 5,400 feet in the panhandle. Soil types run from gummy red clay to deep river long. Rainfall averages of wet 56 inches in McCurton County, a semi-arid 18 inches in Simmeron County. The contrasts are evident even in vegetation, cypress trees in the swamps of the Red River Valley, wind-stunted pinion of the buttes of the Black Mesa. For the past 11,000 years, the chain of human experience on the plains and the prairies and in the forest of Oklahoma has been forged within the limits of what the land would give. By understanding this rich ecological zone, the student of history can unlock many of the mysteries of our past. To explain some of the many ways the land has affected history, we go to Dr. Bob L. Blackburn, Deputy Director of the Oklahoma Historical Society. The land is an important factor in the history of Oklahoma

because it's influenced the people, its institutions, culture, the economy, and so forth. Walter Prescott Webb, eminent Western historian, wrote a book called The Great Plains, and in that book he talks about the importance of the land of shaping the history of the West because it was such a dominant factor that people had to adapt to the land. They had to find new institutions, new technologies, to conquer the limitations of what the land would give. You know, Oklahoma, the story has been the same from prehistory to the present day. We have a very dramatic landscape in Oklahoma. Imagine that the state could be tipped on its edge with a high point in the panhandle over 5,000 foot elevation, running downhill to McCurpton County, that's only about 400 foot elevation. Imagine that the whole state is a pinball machine going from the highest point on the northwest to the lowest point in the southeast.

This has this basic landform has influenced everything else that has occurred on the land, the rivers, for example. All run from the northwest to the southeast. The major rivers in the state, of course, have been the Arkansas, which runs from the Great Plains towards the southeast, the Simmeron, the Canadian rivers, the Waschital River, the Red River. All of this runs down the pinball machine from the northwest to the southeast. Now, as the rivers and the water flows downhill, it moves around landforms that would be like the bumpers of a pinball machine. These are the mountain ranges and the landforms that affected the landscape. The Ozark Plateau in the far northeastern part of the state. The Grand River runs around the Waschital Plateau. The Osage Hills, the Arkansas changes its course and runs around the Osage Hills before it empties into the Mississippi. The Gloss Mountains, the Antelope Hills,

the Wichita's, the Arbuckles, the Cooks and Hills, the Kaimichis. All of these landforms have been very important in our history because of the waterways and how people have adapted to the different landforms in the state. Now, on top of these basic natural features such as water, which would affect transportation, it would affect farming, it would affect the locations of cities later on, we have the weather patterns that are affected by this combination of elevation and landforms. The weather, the climate in Oklahoma is a continental climate with the major fronts moving in from the northwest, from the Rocky Mountain areas pushed down the continent by the jet stream. And these fronts interact with moist air coming up off of the Gulf and as the fronts coming in from the northwest meet, the moist air drops the rain when the conditions are right.

Now, because of this, because the human air is stronger on the east side of the state than it is as you get farther west, rainfall is greater in the southeast. Rainfall goes from over 50 inches in the southeast to less than 20 inches in the panhandle. And as you go from the southeast to the northwest again, you can mark about every 50 miles, two inches less rainfall per year. And this would affect our history because plant life that would grow in 50 inches of rain every year will not grow with 30 inches of rain that you get in the central part of the state. And then you go 28, 26 until you get to 20, which is about the limitation for agriculture with technology well into the 20th century. And so rainfall patterns affected by the landforms would greatly influence the history of Oklahoma. Now, with rainfall being different, soil types varying from the southeast to the northwest with the richest farmlands, the richest soils being in the west,

this would affect the plant life that could adapt in Oklahoma. And so you have the forest lands of the southeast. And of course, that would dominate the economy of southeast of Oklahoma for many years with a forestry industry. A little less rain, but good rainfall through this area meant that this would be a good area for cotton culture. And as you get out into the more arid plains, especially as you get less than 28, 26 inches of rainfall per year, about the only cash crop that would grow well before irrigation was dry land, wheat farming. And so the northwestern part of the state would become part of the wheat belt for the great American plains. And as you get farther west until the 20th century, we're really not adaptable to agriculture. And so it was a great ranch grazing lands for cattle and other livestock. And so all of these changes of the topography, the climate, the vegetation would affect animal life,

it would affect farming, and so forth throughout the years. Okay, these landforms, the combination of weather, rainfall, vegetation, and all, would affect our history in many other ways. For example, the location of cities. Most people don't think about why cities are located where they are today. It's not like the east coast or the west coast where there were natural harbors and natural place for commerce and settlement. In the west, it was more of adapting to what the land would give, and that's where a community would emerge on the plains. For example, as far back as prehistoric times, the first great city of prehistoric times would have been in the Spiro culture in eastern Oklahoma. And the reason the Spiro mounds were built in this area is because of the river course. The river course was important for trade because the Spiro people traded with people far away

as the Gulf area, the Great Lakes states, with Mesoamerica, and the river was very important. Also along the river, in the Arkansas River Valley, grew cane fields, which produced a fruit, a berry. That was very high in nutrition. It had about twice the nutritional value of the corn at the Spiro people were planting at the time. So between the combination of the growing conditions, the river valleys, and its location in a wooded area, a city of several thousand people emerged from 800 to 1200 AD. Later in history in the 18th century, the Wichita, who were the middleman between the French and the Spanish traders and the Comanches on the plains, wanted cities that would somehow find the niche between these two cultures, the Europeans and the nomadic warlike plains warriors. And so one of the largest villages of the Wichita was Ferdinandina,

on Deir Creek, which is in Northern Oklahoma, on Deir Creek, a water course, between the Great Plains and the Wooded Eastland. And so that was a major trading post, another Wichita trading post in the South, in Bryan County, again between the Wooded East and the Great Plains on the West. And so even in prehistoric times, in early historic times, the land, the water courses, the land forms all would affect these cities. Then you jump into the 19th century, with Oklahoma City and Guthrie, and some of the major cities in Central Oklahoma. These cities are located where they are because it was a combination of the course of the railroad built through in 1886, 1887, just beyond the cross timbers, close enough to the plains, where it would be easy, great, and where they crossed water courses. Of course, Oklahoma City is located at the junction of the Santa Fe Railroad, the North Canadian River. And you can look at every major city. It's pretty much where the railroad was,

which was affected by land forms, and the water courses. Even Tulsa is located where it is because that was a junction of the Frisco Railroad built in 1886. And the Arkansas River. And so even into the 20th century, our history, the location of towns, like Lotton, is located near the Wichita Mountains, which was withheld as an Indian reserve, later as a military reserve with Fort Seal. Lotton is located where it is because of the land formed of the Wichita Mountains. And so you go on and on, and whether you're talking about cities, the economy, institutions, the land has been a central element in our history. To the prehistoric indians of Oklahoma, the land and its environment ruled supreme over their primitive technology. When the rains did come and the land was fruitful, there was time for the arts, commerce,

and technological advances. When drought scattered the herds and withered the crops, communities were deserted, and advances were lost as people spread across the harsh landscape, seeking the most basic of needs for survival. It was during one of these harsh periods of drought that the first Europeans pierced the future boundaries of Oklahoma. First came Coronado from the southwest in 1541, followed by DeSoto's men from the southeast. They were looking for gold. When none was found, they laid claim to the land and the name of their ruler, King Carlos of Spain. For the next 250 years, the future state would be claimed by Europeans, an empirical spider's web weaving through the rapidly changing worlds of the Wichito, the Comanche, the Kayawa, and the Osage. Despite the differences in the players, each would share a common goal, the land. Dr. Odie B. Falk, author of more than 40 books on the history of the West,

describes that quest for empire. In the early days, Oklahoma, was a massive land through which Europeans wanted to pass. Coronado, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, in 1540, set out from Cuyacán, Mexico, into looking for the seven cities of Cibola, the seven cities of gold, got into Arizona, New Mexico, they found Pueblos, and there he was told about the Gran Quivera, a place somewhere to the east where the streets were paid with silver, where the people wore gold and silver amulets, where the king was lulled to sleep by the tinkling of golden bells and the trees. In 1541, they set out from New Mexico, trying to get to this land of gold and silver, another Mexico city, another Peru to be exploited. They came up through the Texas Panhandle, at the Paladero Canyon, over by a present day Amarillo,

they sent all, but he sent all, but 40 of his best, kept 40 of the best horsemen, the best horses, and they made this dash to the north and east, looking for the Gran Quivera. They came up across the Oklahoma Panhandle, and they arrived, finally, to Catoan, Indian Village, in Central Kansas, the Wichita Village, it was mud and grass and so forth. They didn't find the seven cities of gold. They passed through. When Coronado went back to New Mexico, one Franciscan priest and two labrothers and a soldier came back, Fre Padillo, came over with Anders Ducampo and two labrothers, to do missionary work among these Indians. The Padre was killed, and Ducampo, the soldier, and the two labrothers, set out walking to the south. It took them five years to reach Spanish settlements. They crossed Oklahoma. They were joined on this epic track by a dog that apparently preferred Spanish allegiance to Indian,

and it caught rabbits for them, and they made their way to Mexico. The Compo route, as it were, would have led people north across the Indian territory, across Oklahoma. At the same time that Coronado was making his track, there was another Spanish expedition coming up through Florida. This is the Hernández Soto expedition, which landed in Florida in 1539, up through Florida into Georgia, the Carolinas, back across Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi into Arkansas, crossing through the Choctaw Chickasaw country. And it proceeded out toward the west, perhaps not getting into Oklahoma. It's possible scouts from the Soto's expedition, penetrated Oklahoma. What they found was the trees thinning, smaller, as you approach the land of less rainfall, hitting the plains Indians tribes, who the marginal plains Indian tribe, very few out actually own the plains at this time.

And they were more ferocious. Food was scarce, so there the Soto expedition went back to the Mississippi, and after various heroics managed to float down the Mississippi River on crudely constructed rafts around the Gulf of Mexico, reaching Mexico in 1543. All of these expeditions, these early Spanish expeditions, found no gold, no silver, no pearls, no turquoise, nothing of value, just native Americans willing to fight for their supplies of food. And so, the Indian territory was left to Indian hegemony, to Indian control in the decades that followed. Not until the early 1700s, did Europeans, again, approach what we call Oklahoma. In 1699, 171, the French, settled on mobile, and mobile, and a galaxy, and they began penetrating inland. The French never came in large numbers. The French were what were called in their language,

couriers de bois, runners of the woods. They moved among the Indians trading various implements, you know, hatchets, knives, beads, axes, mirrors, ribbon, things of this sort, European items, not great value to Europeans, but, you know, on iron axes, so infinitely better than a stone axe that the Indians valued and they would trade first, things which were not of great value to Native Americans, but which were of high value in Europe. Young ladies and young men in Paris liked for coats, you know, so they would trade for first, you know, you have bundles of beaver, and musk wrap, and, uh, uh, otter, and so forth, coming down river, and, uh, these perogues, and canoes going up river with, uh, with, uh, knives, and axes, and hatchets, and so forth. The trader who brought this into Oklahoma, uh, really opened it up, and we, we know because he kept the diary was, was, uh, Bernard De La Harp. La Harp came up

into the Indian Territory, into Oklahoma in 1719. Uh, over on the Arkansas River in eastern Oklahoma, he, uh, uh, the present little village town of Haskell. He found a village of, uh, Wichita Indians, uh, some 6,000, and he recorded their ceremonials and talked about what they did, and he sent some of his, uh, lieutenants, do revage, and others, into the western part. And the, French then began crossing the Indian Territory, trading, uh, with the plains tribes, by this time, coming down the Apaches out in the west, and the Native Americans of Oklahoma became pawns of empire. The Spaniards wanted the loyalty of the Camachis and the Apaches, but the Spaniards wouldn't trade them guns. The French wanted the loyalty of the Camachis and the Apaches, and they would trade them guns. And so, the French moved out among these, uh, these people, and the Wichita,

the, the, the Ketoan people in Oklahoma became middlemen. The French would come up, trade their goods to the Wichita. The Wichita in turn would trade with the Camachis and the Apaches, and with, horses captured on the plains, and with French weapons, then the Camachis raided into Texas and into New Mexico and owned down into, to, uh, old Mexico, and they'd bring back cattle, horses, and people, to be sold in the slavery, ending up in the French colony, uh, as slaves. The, the French then were winning this battle, and they were the ones who moved into the Indian territory and, and would trade, and the, and the plains tribes loved it because they could get guns and ammunition from the French. The French eventually established two permanent trading posts in the Indian territory, Ferdinand Dina, which is over, and, uh, in New Kirk, and on the Arkansas River in eastern Oklahoma, and, uh, San Bernardo, which was, in present-day Jefferson County,

just, uh, Red River, think of it as just immediately north of Wichita Falls, or south of Lawton, however you prefer to think of that. Uh, and these two permanent trading posts then served the French until, well, in, uh, 1759, the Spaniards came up and tried to destroy the French trading post on the red, they failed. But it was the Osage, who moved in, and, uh, and destroyed, uh, the, uh, Ferdinand Dina. The Osage were being pressed out of Missouri and moving down into eastern Oklahoma, and they, in turn, pushed the Catoan people, they wichita, um, whom the French referred to as the Tio Vias, the Tio Vias. The French allies were being pressed by the Osage, and the Osage moved into eastern Oklahoma. And this, basically, was how the Indian territory stood in 1800. Still, uh, Louisiana had become Spanish in 1763,

but the French traders, who, whatever they're, you know, they were still French traders, but now they're subjects of Spain were moving through the Indian territory trading. Late in the Spanish period, in 1780s, there was a road open from Santa Fe to San Antonio, uh, up from San Antonio, to about wichita falls, and along the red out into New Mexico. So we have Oklahoma in this period, a pawn of empire. French versus Spaniards. In the late Spanish period, Oklahoma was simply a place to be crossed, and Indians to be kept from raiding. The Spaniards, uh, eventually bought peace from the Camachis, giving them, uh, what they wanted, and by 1786, they began this policy of an annual distribution of presents just to keep them peaceful. The Indian territory by 18183, when the United States, uh, made the Louisiana purchase, uh, had been crisscrossed many times,

but the only permanent European impact was too little trading posts, and the introduction of European goods, which the Native Americans wanted, and in return for which, they were fur gathering. In other words, they were being brought into the European economic system, somewhat. No longer, uh, were they relying on, on items they made, or for which they could trade with other Native Americans. They were trading with Europeans for, uh, manufactured items, which were of great value to them, in return for which they were following. I guess we, if we wanted to put it in modern terms, an extractive economy, they were taking fur and what, uh, this sort of thing, and trading them to the Europeans. In 182, lured by the bounty of the land, a French trader from St. Louis, named Auguste Pierre Shoto, established a trading post near the junction of the grand Arkansas and vertigree rivers, the historic three-forx region

near present-day Muscogee. For the next 20 years, Shoto would trade his guns and manufactured items to the osages for buffalo robes, horses, and pelts. To Shoto, to the osages, the land that would eventually become a war that was worth fighting for, and fight they did. In an almost constant state of war, the fierce osages pushed southward against the Wichita, westward against the Kyoas, and eastward against the Cherokee. At all times, fighting for the land at its bounty. But Indian wars and the efforts to bring peace to the land, that's another story. Until next time, I'm your host Dean Louis with Oklahoma Passage. You have a great day, but we will return to the city. You have a great day. I'm your host Dean Louis with Oklahoma Passage for the land that would eventually become a war that was worth fighting for. It was the most important. And so, please be happy. Thank you. Thank you,

thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.