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| Field name | Value |
|---|---|
| Title | The story of the trip of John V. Farwell, Jr. (aged 11 years) to Kansas, in August 1870, with his father and John D. Lang and Vincent Colyer, of the Board of Indian Commissioners, ordered by President Grant: typescript, 1936 |
| Author | Farwell, John Villiers (b.1858) |
| Date | View date in the chronology |
| Document Type | Travel Journal; Treaty; Official Record |
| Description | From the Newberry Library Catalogue: Account, written by John V. Farwell, Jr. in Chicago in 1936, of a journey to western Kansas in Aug. of 1870 with his father and two other Indian Commissioners, John Lang and Vincent Colyer, to persuade the Osage Indians to sign a treaty. They travel to Topeka by rail, and continue on in "prairie schooners" to the Osage Council Ground at Drum Creek, Montgomery, Kansas. As they await the arrival of other tribes who will be participating in the Great Council, where the treaty will be introduced, the author comments on how the Osage dress, construct their teepees, prepare dried beef jerky, and play games, and includes an account of his victorious race with an Indian boy. He describes the conference around a campfire of the commissioners and the Indians, led by the chief Joseph Paw-ne-no-pashe (Paw-no-pas-ke), or "Chief Joseph," who wore a headdress made entirely of the heads of red-headed woodpeckers. The Indians finally agreed to sell the U.S. government 8,000,000 acres of Indian land for $1.25 per acre, in exchange for a large tract of land in what was then Indian Territory, land which made the Osage Indians very rich when oil was discovered there in 1916. Farwell also transcribes an "appendix" of related documents, including the report of the Board of Indian Commissioners of 1870, the text of the treaty signed in Sept. 1870 by Chief Joseph and his tribe, and texts of council speeches given by Chief Joseph and Vincent Colyer. |
| Names | Colyer, Vincent (1825-1888); Lang, John D.; Paw-ne-no-pashe, Governor of the Osage Nation, Joseph (fl.1869-1870) |
| Places | Drum Creek, Montgomery, Osage Reserve, Kansas, Chicago, Illinois, United States |
| Keywords | travelogue, travel, expedition, land tenure, land cession, sale of land, treaty, commissioner, government, government relations, Congress of the United States, chief |
| Theme | American Indians and the US Government |
| Tribe / Nation | Go to Tribes and Nations page |
| Culture Area | Great Plains |
| Additional Information | Accompanied by a signed, typed cover letter of March 31, 1936, from Farwell to George B. Utley at the Newberry Library, who initially suggested that Farwell add his travel account to the Ayer Collection. |
| Library | The Newberry Library |
| Copyright | The Newberry Library |
| Collection | The Edward E. Ayer Collection |
| Reference | Ayer MS 280 |
| Catalogue Link | The Newberry Library Catalogue |