Rural Missouri - June 2021 - 52

The Shawnee and Delaware already
knew what to expect of Americans,
whose advancement into the Northwest
Territory they had earlier fled. There
was no need to evict them by military
force. They began to leave their Southeast Missouri home on their own. By
the time the first of several treaties
with the Shawnees was inked in 1825,
most of the Shawnees in Southeast
Missouri had already migrated into the
southern Ozarks, Southwest Missouri,
and finally to reservations set aside in
Kansas.
In 1804, a small contingent of
Sauk-Fox chiefs signed a treaty in St.
Louis in which they gave up a huge
tract of land in north Missouri, Illinois
and Wisconsin. William Henry Harrison, the negotiator, allegedly got them
drunk and tricked them into signing a
document they didn't understand. Understand or not, they had just signed
Executive Director John Sellars welcomes visitors to the History Museum on the Square in
away all of their tribal lands to the
Springfield. The Native Crossroads at the Spring Gallery highlights the many tribes who once
Americans.
inhabited the area. Included are artifacts, a film and an audio performance of a U.S. Army officer's
This infamous act caused lasting
enmity among the Sauk-Fox, especially diary during December 1838 when Cherokees on the Trail of Tears passed through the area.
the war chief Black Hawk, who led a
homelands. Some 75,000 Native Americans set out on
large faction. During the War of 1812,
countless trails of tears to reservations in the West.
his warriors murdered several Missouri settlers. Still unde Clark's last treaty also completed the boundary of
feated by Americans at the war's end, Black Hawk and his
Missouri as we know it today. Prior to 1836, the state's
followers nurtured their bitterness. Finally, in 1832, the
northwestern boundary was a line that extended north
Black Hawk War erupted but was short-lived. Large numfrom the mouth of the Kansas River. It excluded an area
bers of Black Hawk's followers - men, women and chilthat became known as the Platte Purchase, consisting of
dren alike - were slaughtered at the Battle of Bad Axe in
present-day Platte, Buchanan, Holt, Andrew, Nodaway and
Wisconsin. The defeated survivors, including Black Hawk,
Atchison counties.
spent their last days on reservations.
By the mid-1830s large numbers of Ioway and Sauk-Fox
In 1808, William Clark, with Meriwether Lewis, executed
had been relocated there by previous treaties. The rich soil
a treaty with the once-mighty Osage to cede all of their
of this region caught the attention of Americans eager to
lands between the Arkansas and Missouri rivers, a huge
spread the Missouri settlement frontier. As in every previtract for a paltry sum of money. A later treaty in 1825 led
ous instance of land-hungry whites coveting Native Amerito the transfer of an additional 30,000 square miles in
can land, the tribes had to give way. So in 1836, Clark
exchange for a small reservation in what is now Kansas.
drafted what would become his final treaty. This time the
As the 1820s gave way to the 1830s and the age of Antrail of tears was a short one for the Sauk-Fox and the
drew Jackson, America's policy toward Native Americans
Ioway - just across the Missouri River to reservations in
shifted from voluntary to compulsory relocation. The InKansas and Nebraska.
dian Removal Act of 1830 set this new policy into motion.
Two years after this treaty, Clark died. Gone too were
During this period of Native American removal, one man
the many tribes that had once inhabited Missouri - the
in Missouri presided over the entire process as it played
Osage, Shawnees, Delaware, Kickapoos, Sauk-Fox and
out in the West: William Clark. Following his famous exIoways.
pedition with Lewis, Clark settled in St. Louis and, under
Thanks to Clark, this tragic process of uprooting, disdifferent titles, managed western Native American affairs
possession and relocation was, in main, accomplished with
until his death in 1838. In his long career of public service,
treaties rather than violence or ethnic cleansing. Amerihe served under every president from George Washington
cans of that day were more than capable of those options.
to Martin Van Buren.
Whatever else can be said about the complex character
Clark shared Jefferson's view that Native Americans
and actions of William Clark, the numerous trails of tears
should be protected, not exterminated, as many frontiershe helped create were much less stained by bloodshed and
men would desire. This approach cost him election as Misextermination than they might have been had a lesser man
souri's first governor; he was considered too soft on Native
been at the helm.
Americans because the treaty, not the gun, was his main
weapon. Over his career, he conducted 37 treaties. Native
Denny is a freelance writer from Lupus.
Americans surrendered over 100,000 acres of ancestral

RURAL MISSOURI | JUNE 2021

Rural Missouri - June 2021

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Rural Missouri - June 2021