Dominican Sisters of Peace

Heartland Farm | Rush County, KS

Land-history research for The Heartland Farm, 1049 CR 390, Pawnee Rock, KS  67567

“Simon-François Daumont de Saint-Lusson,” rendering by Charles W. Jefferys (1934)

The Doctrine of Discovery in Rush County

European Contact

Chalk drawing of Captain Meriwether Lewis by Charles Balthazar Julien Févret de Saint-Mémin (1802)

Protect.

“The United States being anxious to promote peace, friendship and intercourse with the Osage tribes . . . and to protect them from the insults and injuries of other tribes of Indians . . . have thought proper to build a fort on the right bank of the Missouri, a few miles above the Fire Prairie, and do agree to garrison the same with as many regular troops as the President of the United States may, from time to time, deem necessary for the protection of all orderly, friendly and well disposed Indians of the Great and Little Osage nations[.]

Meriwether Lewis, Louisiana Territorial Governor and Superintendent of Indian Affairs, Treaty with the Osage (Nov. 10, 1808)

Settler Colonialization

The Treaty Period

Lithograph of Jean Pierre Choteau, Sr., by Clarence Linden Hoblitzelle (1897)

Disclaim.

In exchange for U.S. protection, the Osage “disclaim[] all right to cede, sell or in any manner transfer their lands to any foreign power…”

Jean Pierre/Pedro/Peter Chouteau, Sr., Agent for the Osage, Treaty with the Osage (Nov. 10, 1808)

Thomas Loraine McKenney, Charles Loring Elliott (1856)

Undisturbed.

“[I]t is the policy of the Government to guarantee them lasting and undisturbed possession.”

Thomas L. McKenney, Report of the Superintendent of Indian Affairs to the Secretary of War (Nov. 30, 1825)

Photograph of unidentified Osage men, artist unknown (c. 1860)

Surplus.

“The tribe of the Great and Little Osage Indians, having now more lands than are necessary for their occupation, and all payments from the Government to them under former treaties having ceased, leaving them greatly impoverished, and being desirous of improving their condition by disposing of their surplus lands, do hereby grant and sell to the United States the lands contained within the following boundaries….”

1865 Treaty with the Osage, 14 Stat. 687 (Sept. 29, 1865)

Map of Treaty Cessions by Charles C. Royce, Bureau of American Ethnology (1899)

Primary Sources

& Markups

Current Law

Land Becomes Property

Primary Sources

& Markups

“Map Showing the Progress of the Public Surveys in Kansas and Nebraska,” by Surveyor General’s Office” (Aug. 25, 1866)

“Spirit of Kansas,” oil painting by Mary Pillsbury Weston (1891)

There’s more

Curated Resource List for the Dominican Sisters of Peace

For narrative nonfiction about the Osage Reign of Terror:

For a podcast exploring modern Osage identity:

For Indigenous perspectives on U.S. history:

Read Ned Blackhawk, The Rediscovery of America: Native Peoples and the Unmaking of U.S. History (Yale University Press, 2023)

Read Anton Treuer, Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians But Were Afraid to Ask: Revised and Expanded (Minnesota Historical Society Press, 2023)

Share Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States for Young People (Beacon Press, 2019)

To learn more about Traders’ kinship and economic role in treatymaking:

“Land Buyers Visit Satanta, Haskell County, Kansas” on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway by Francis Marion Steele (c. 1891)