White Plume facts for kids
White Plume (born around 1765, died 1838) was an important leader of the Kaw (also known as Kansa or Kanza) Native American tribe. He was also known by other names like Nom-pa-wa-rah, Manshenscaw, and Monchousia. In 1825, he signed a treaty that gave millions of acres of Kaw land to the United States government. Most Kaw Nation members today can trace their family history back to him. He was also the great-great-grandfather of Charles Curtis, who became the 31st Vice President of the United States.
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Early Life and Family
White Plume was born around 1765. At that time, the Kaw tribe lived in areas that are now the states of Kansas and Missouri. There were about 1,500 Kaw people. White Plume married a daughter of Pawhuska, a chief of the Osage tribe. This marriage likely helped create good relationships between the Kaw and Osage, who were related tribes.
White Plume had five children. His three sons died when they were young men. His two daughters, Hunt Jimmy (born around 1800) and Wyhesee (born around 1802), married French traders named Louis Gonville and Joseph James. Before the United States bought the Louisiana Territory from France in 1803, the Kaw people mainly hunted buffalo. They also did a little farming. They relied on selling furs and buffalo hides to French traders, like the powerful Chouteau family, to get European goods such as guns. White Plume saw that the Kaw's traditional way of life was becoming harder to maintain. He tried to help his people by working with the U.S. government.
Working with the United States
White Plume first became known when he signed a treaty with the United States in 1815. Because his daughters had married French traders, American officials saw White Plume as more open to their ideas than other Kaw leaders.
In 1821, William Clark (from the famous Lewis and Clark journey) invited White Plume to visit Washington, D.C.. White Plume was part of a group of Native American leaders who met with President James Monroe and other U.S. officials. They also visited New York City, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. The group even performed war dances on the White House Lawn. The artist Charles Bird King painted a portrait of White Plume during this visit. The U.S. government gave White Plume two silver epaulettes (shoulder decorations) to show that they accepted him as the main Kaw chief. However, he never truly had full authority over all members of his tribe.
White Plume returned from Washington believing that the Kaw people's future, and his own, depended on cooperating with the United States. At this time, Native Americans from the eastern U.S. were being forced off their lands and were moving onto Kaw territory. The Missouri River was also becoming a busy route for fur trappers and traders heading to the Rocky Mountains. In 1822, the first wagons traveled through Kaw lands from Missouri to New Mexico on the Santa Fe Trail. Many white settlers and Americans, including a missionary named Isaac McCoy, thought that Kansas could be a place where all the displaced eastern Native American tribes could live together in an "Indian state."
The 1825 Treaty
In 1825, White Plume was the main Kaw chief who signed a treaty. This treaty gave about 18 million acres of Kaw land to the United States. In return, the Kaw received $3,500 per year for 20 years, along with livestock and help to become full-time farmers. The land left for the Kaw was a small strip, about thirty miles wide, stretching west from the Kansas River valley into the Great Plains. To get support for the treaty from people of mixed French and Kaw heritage, 23 mixed-blood children each received a section of land on the north bank of the Kansas River. This was known as the Half-Breed Tracts.
This huge land deal, along with a similar treaty signed with the Osage, opened up Kansas for eastern Native American tribes to move there. The U.S. government would continue to push the Kaw into smaller and smaller territories. It's important to remember that much of the land White Plume gave up was already being used by eastern Native Americans or white settlers. White Plume likely saw that the Kaw would have to learn to live on much less land and change from hunting and fur trading to farming. So, he chose to cooperate with the government.
Kaw Leadership and Challenges
In 1811, when George Sibley visited the Kaws, they lived in one successful village with 128 bark lodges, each housing two or three families. This village was located where Manhattan, Kansas is today. However, the U.S. government's favoritism towards White Plume and people of mixed heritage caused rivalries among Kaw leaders. In the 1820s, the Kaw tribe split into four groups. Three of these groups did not accept White Plume's leadership and continued to live in villages near Manhattan. White Plume and his supporters settled downstream near the Kaw Agency headquarters, which was set up near Williamstown, Kansas in 1827.
The Kaw people faced increasing problems, including smallpox epidemics. These diseases swept through the tribe in 1827-1828 and again in 1831-1832. Nearly 500 Kaw members died, including White Plume's wife and two of his sons.
In 1830, a Methodist missionary named William Johnson arrived at the Williamstown agency. He came to start a school for Kaw and mixed-blood children. The Kaw Agency showed how the U.S. government's efforts to make Native Americans like the Kaw into Christians and farmers were often not well thought out. Many Indian Agents, who were appointed by the government, were often dishonest or not good at their jobs. Most agents found reasons to be away from the agency for long periods. Also, as part of the treaty, white farmers, teachers, missionaries (both Catholic and Protestant), and a blacksmith lived near the agency. Their goal was to "civilize" the Kaw. For a time, the farmer was Daniel Morgan Boone, the son of the famous scout, Daniel Boone. His son, born there on August 22, 1828, was the second white child born in Kansas. The Chouteau family also set up a trading post across the river from the Agency. They traded goods with the Kaw for buffalo robes and furs. Unfortunately, an unauthorized trade of alcohol also grew there.
The U.S. government, grateful for White Plume's cooperation, built him a stone house near the agency. However, he chose to live in a traditional lodge. He said the house had "too many fleas." Many people of mixed heritage also lived near the agency, as did several French voyageurs (travelers) who were used to life on the frontier. The writer Washington Irving noted that "the old French houses engaged in the Indian trade had gathered round them a train of dependents, mongrel Indians, and mongrel Frenchmen, who had intermarried with Indians."
White Plume was a well-known person on the frontier in the 1830s, and travelers often visited him. The painter George Catlin described him as a "very polite and welcoming man of good, portly size, speaking some English, and making himself good company for all persons who travel through his country and have the good luck to shake his generous and welcoming hand." Catlin wished he had been able to paint White Plume's portrait.
In his final years, it seems White Plume might have become disappointed with the results of his cooperation policy. He reportedly "returned to the old Indian habits." A missionary reported in 1838 that White Plume died while on an autumn hunt.
