Part 1: Barnsdall

  One of my favorite things to do is look for historical facts to corroborate a story. The search is almost as substantial as the find and when all the pieces come together to make a story, that's when it's most satisfying. Since January of this year I've been looking for an answer to a question that I've asked myself many times. How did the town of Barnsdall emerge from the land near Bird Creek? Anyone that has lived in Barnsdall long enough will know that it got it's name from T. N. Barnsdall but there's more to it than that. Land acquisitions, the search for gold, fur trade, cattle and oil all play a part in this story as well as foreign countries, Native Americans, railroad magnates and oil barons. Put them all together and it makes for some interesting reading.  In my quest to find the answer to my question, I started with the most simple of things. Who was living here before the Osages, fur traders and  wildcatters? My story starts out before recorded history about an area that would become Oklahoma, followed by the beginning of the Osage Nation moving into Indian Territory and ending with the town of Bigheart that was renamed to Barnsdall. To keep the stories from being prolonged, I've kept to only the information that was most relevant.


THE LAND BEFORE 1200 AD
  Between 1000 and 1600 AD, much of the eastern part of the US (including the eastern part of what is now Oklahoma) was part of dynamic cultural communities that are generally known as the Mississippian culture. The Caddoan Mississippian culture appears to have emerged from an earlier Mississippian Culture during the Woodland period (1,000 BC to 1,000 AD) from the western Louisiana area around 800 AD. Up until the year 1200 AD, tribes that inhabited the area were Caddo, Wichita, Pawnee and Kichai. All tribes were closely related since they spoke the Caddoan language.
   The Osage originated at Indian Knoll near the mouth of the Green River in Kentucky. Osage traditions state that the tribe originally called themselves Ni-U-Kon-Ska, which means Little Children (or People) of The Middle Waters. By 1200 AD the Osages were fighting the Iroquois who were invading the Osage land in Kentucky from the northeast. After years of fighting with the Iroquois, the Osage fragmented into three groups, Pahatsi or Great Osage, Utsehta or Little Osage, and Santsukhdhi or Arkansas band. These three bands stretched out into Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma after leaving their home of Kentucky. Over the following 500 years, the Osage would prosper but fight territorial wars to hold their land.


SPANISH AND FRENCH EXPLORATION
  In 1541, Francisco Vasques de Coronado and Hernando De Soto of Spain were documented for entering into Oklahoma. Coronado came from the west and De Soto from the east, both in search of gold. Though neither explorer enter into present day Osage land, Coronado claimed the territory that is now Oklahoma for Spain.
  The word Osage was evolved through mispronunciation and bad spelling on the part of the early French settlers, and equally erratic interpretation by the English of the true name of the tribe—"Wa-Shah-She." The French called them "Wa-Sa-gee," and using the letters Ou to give the sound of W they wrote it Ouasages, which the English and Americans pronounced "Osages."
  In 1682, Rene Robert Cavalier Sieur de LaSalle of France, traveled down the Illinois River to the Mississippi and continued all the way south to the Gulf of Mexico. La Salle claimed all of the Mississippi River Basin for France. That was an enormous amount of land because it included all the rivers and streams that feed into the Mississippi, and all of the land between. It includes much of the western part of North America. He named this area (La Louisiane) Louisiana in honor of King Louis XIV.
  In the spring of 1719 Claud Charles Du Tisne started on an expedition with the aim of visiting the Missouri, Osages, Pawnees and the Paducas. His starting place was Kaskaskia, in the Illinois country. He went up the Missouri to the mouth of the Osage, a distance of forty leagues, according to Du Tisne’s reckoning. From the mouth of the Osage, he went eighty leagues to the Osage villages. Eighty leagues from the mouth of the Osage River would place the Osage villages between the ninety-fifth and ninety-sixth meridians. French trappers and traders had made frequent visits to the Osages, but the first official visit to the Osages was that of Du Tisne. Du Tisne was well received by the Osages, but when he told them that he had planned to go on to the Pawnees they were opposed to the idea. Du Tisne, brought goods with him to acquaint the Indians with French merchandise. The Osage did not want Du Tisne to take his goods with him to the Pawnee so they kept the French merchandise and Du Tisne left for Pawnee country to the southwest. The expedition traveled forty leagues, crossing four rivers which put them in a Pawnee village near present day Chelsea, Oklahoma.
  During the entire period of the French occupation of the Mississippi there was a continuous conflict between the Spanish and the French. It was a frequent occurrence for inroads to be made into the Indian country, and this one was especially interesting and important to Oklahoma, because it was principally from such explorations that Oklahoma received so many French names of places. These expeditions, both private and official, continued as long as France controlled Louisiana.

- End Pt. 1-

 In relation to the story about the explorers. When I was a boy, I heard of a story of about a young man hunting along the banks of Birch Creek (where Birch Lake now presides). He was climbing up one of the steep banks when he noticed a piece of metal jutting out from the creek bank. He tried but failed to pull it free and finally had to dig it out. The young man had uncovered a morion (a metal helmet used by European foot soldiers). A story such as this gives some belief to the French and Spanish exploration of Oklahoma. It makes me wonder if it was lost or left behind by a soldier during an exploration or was an object which was traded with one of the Indian tribes that once lived or traveled through the area. 

A morion form the 16th and 17th century. Worn by European foot soldiers.