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The First Encounters with the Children of the Middle Waters
Scholars of the European-Native encounter have realized the problematic aspect of the traditional euro-centric understanding of Native Americans organization and concepts and its impact on the historical interpretation. The Osage social, political, economic, and religious organization cannot be understood apart from one another. Within the Osage tradition, men and women played complementary roles in maintaining the tribal unity and sustaining every aspect of their community. They understood that the survival of a people was a result of their collective ability to defend themselves. ―The elderly emphasized the long-term survival of the group and not the survival of individuals in their own right,‖ and anticipated that individuals and families who acted separately would eventually be destroyed.221 To achieve unity, Osage organized their tribe into twenty four patrilineal clans, which represented both religious and social units. Each clan had symbols that included animals, plants, celestial bodies and others. Nine clans were grouped as the Sky People and fifteen clans belong to the Earth People Moiety.222 To bind the tribe together, Osage children were product of unions between the Sky and Earth people.
Osage women and the Frenchmen engaged in intimate relations that sustained diplomatic and economic relations that benefited the two people. Women‘s diverse participation on the frontier placed her at the heart of a trans-Atlantic trade. Because of her sexuality, her work on the hides, and hospitality, the Osage woman played a crucial role in establishing and maintaining contact between the Osage and the French. The social and intimate relations developed between Frenchmen and Indian women were key to the French diplomatic success with the Indians and to the Osage woman‘s higher position within their tribes.
The Osage Women
Europeans believed the conduct of war, religion, and politics were part of men‘s sphere for North American Indians. Yet among the Osage, these three were closely related and Osage women took part in all three activities. During wartime, the Osage warrior raided, killed, and captured the enemy while the Osage woman sent him courage through prayers. The woman‘s duty began with the pre-battle ceremony and carried to the battle field through the Rite of Vigil and the Sending of Courage. As the warrior began his journey, usually at night, the woman was required to remember him. At sunrise the next morning, ―the woman painted the parting of her hair red and put a narrow blue line on the right cheek, one horizontally on your forehead, and one on your left cheek like that on the right.‖ This was the symbolic painting by which the Osage woman sent courage and strength to the warrior and prayed for his success.223 These rituals must have became part of the Osage woman‘s routine, as the Osage people were engaged in constant warfare against neighboring enemy tribes with whom they competed for political power and control over the region‘s resources.
Maps & Illustrations
Introduction
Part I: Liaisons & Alliances: French settlers and Quapaw Indians
Chapter 1: The Encounter: Cohabitation and Kinship at Arkansas Post
I. The Spanish and Quapaw Conquest of the Mississippi Valley
II. Intimacy, Kinship and Alliance at Arkansas Post
III. The Quapaw and French as Military Allies
IV. The French Needed the Quapaw
V. Brothers in Arms: The French and Quapaw Military Alliance
Chapter 2: Sexual & Marital Unions between the Quapaw Women & Frenchmen
I. Concubinage at Arkansas Post
II. French Policy on Intermarriage with Indians
III. Marriage at Arkansas Post
IV. Marriage a La Façon du Pays
Part II: Friends & Kin: French & Osage Indians in St. Louis Frontier
Chapter 3: The First Encounters with the Children of the Middle Waters
I. The Osage Women
II. Marriage among the Osage
III. Intimate Encounters with the Heavy Eyebrows
IV. An Indian-French Marriage in Paris
V. A New Era
Chapter 4: The Osage Indians in the Sho’ to To-Wo’n
I. The Chouteau Family
II. The Building of St. Louis
III. The Chouteaus as Consorts among the Osage
IV. Business in St. Louis
V. Manipulating the Spaniards
VI. Resisting the American Manifest Destiny
Part III. Choctaws and Africans in the Louisiana Intimate Frontiers
Chapter 5: Bondage: Slavery and the Intimate Encounter
I. The Choctaw Indians
II. The Choctaws‘ Encounter the Europeans
III. Africans in Louisiana
IV. Choctaw and African Resistance to Bondage
V. Choctaw-African Sexual Unions
Chapter 6: Bound: The Indian-African Struggle for Freedom
I. The Spanish Laws on African Slavery
II. Indian Slavery during the Spanish Era
III. Freedom in the Name of Indian Ancestry
IV. The Grifs‘ Lawsuits and the Intimate Frontier
Conclusion
Bibliography
