[Why our area has its unique political and religious attitudes.]

Road trip, some of our favorite words. Ehh, we have to navigate Memorial Drive to reach the backroads.

The first villages of Old Settler Cherokee had moved from Tennessee to the New Madrid area, west of the Mississippi River the year before the great earthquakes, which caused the river to flow backwards, trees to crack, and houses to collapse. The foul (sulfur) stench, mysterious flashes of light, liquified sand blows, topographic uplifts, rising warm water, and fault scarps added to the local drama. Major tremors and shocks lasted for two months.

What would be the reaction of anyone to such a catastrophe? Image the impression on the migrants from the Appalachian Mountains. The Anidawehi (religious leaders) informed them that Unqua (Great Spirit) wanted them to leave this place. They were not alone. What few Spanish that were in New Madrid and French that were fifty-miles north in Cape Girardeau were equally disturbed.

The earthquakes, felt even in Cherokee Nation of Tennessee and in New Hampshire, sparked a religious revival which some called the Ghost Dance. We see the consequence with missionary activity invited into the Chickamauga area and at Illinois Bayou.

Because of the earthquakes, in 1812, Duwali moved his people from New Madrid to Petit Jean Creek, while Tahlontuskee moved his village to neighboring Illinois Bayou along the Arkansas River Valley, near present Russellville, Arkansas. Cherokee villages and settlements scattered along the Arkansas as far as the mouth of the Poteau River at the now Oklahoma-Arkansas border on the west edge of Fort Smith, south of US 64 Highway.

While Pathkiller was the last of the hereditary chiefs in the Chickamauga area (1811-1827), a series of headmen lead the Old Settlers. Duwali (Bowles) appears to be the first Principal Chief of the Western Cherokee. According to letters from 1805, Takatoka visited the St. Frances settlement to fight in forays against the Osage. He then moved to the New Madrid region with the other villages about 1810.

When Duwali retired about 1813, it appears Takatoka (Degadoga) became the headman. After his retirement, in 1817, Tahlontuskee became the Principal Chief in Arkansas Territory until his demise in 1819.

During this tenure of these three 60-something year-old friends, three major events were influencing the future of Indian Territory.

First, the Cherokee leaders had a blood-feud with the Osage who had been in Missouri. As early as 1796, the Osage moved south into Arkansas and Three-Forks area of now Oklahoma at the encouragement of the prominent French fur-trader Pierre Chouteau. His partner and half-brother, Auguste Chouteau founded St. Louis and their Osage partnership provided over half the Indian trade goods. This was serious business to the Osage.

The Osage regarded the Cherokee as invaders and the Cherokee regarded the Osage as usurpers, since the Federal government had promised the Arkansas River Valley to the Cherokee as inducement to give up their homes in the Carolinas, Georgia, and Tennessee.

By 1805, Takatoka, with the Cherokee, was making forays against the Osage. In 1817, the Western Cherokee had grown to about 3,000. The old warriors with Coushattas, Tonkawas, Caddos, Delaware, Shawnee, and white combatants assembled a battle brigade of seven hundred at Illinois Bayou.

They made the journey up the Arkansas then Verdigris River to the village of Chief Claremore at Claremore Mound, near Sageeyah, in northwest Rogers County, Oklahoma. The jaunt of over 200 miles took a couple of weeks. When they arrived at Claremore Mound, the Osage warriors were out west on the plains pursuing the nearly 100 million bison.

Only the elderly, women, and children were home. An old former Osage chief tried to negotiate with the Cherokee, but said with Chief Claremore away he could not form a council. Nevertheless, the hyped-up Cherokee were looking for blood and found it by killing the old former chief, with sixty-nine women and children and a dozen old men. An additional 100 children were taken captive and the village burned. Only one of the raiders died. He must have tripped, since there were limited defenders.

This was not the last battle for Duwali. Within ten-years, an almost duplicate fate would befall Chief Duwali (Bowles) from the murderous troops of President Lamar of Texas.

Did the Claremore atrocity end the feud or dissuade the Osage? No. A huge fortune in fur-trade was at stake. Follow the money.

Fort Smith came in 1817, Fort Gibson in 1824, and in 1825 the Osage ceded the land by Treaty. Nevertheless, they continued to dwell around Three- Forks until 1839, when they were forcibly evicted to a Kansas reservation at the same time the remaining Cherokee in the east were forcibly evicted to the home of the Osage. Does this government policy make sense?

During this interlude, Union Mission, school and town was built for the Osage in 1819, by the inestimable Rev. Epaphras Chapman, who remains there to this day.

But we said there were three seminal events which came from the three chiefs along the Arkansas River Valley near Petit Jean Creek and Illinois Bayou.

These are different stories, but we will let you in on the secret. The second major event was the movement of Chief Duwali to Miller County, then Dallas, and finally east Texas. The third major event was the invitation by Chief Tahlontuskee for Christian missionaries to come educate the native people at Dwight Mission, Arkansas. Union Mission near Three Forks, OK, and Brainerd Mission near Chickamauga, TN, played a major role in his awareness and desire for teaching.

Think about how natural events, such as the New Madrid earthquake, had historical significance to Indian territory 200 years later. The interplay of seemingly diverse circumstances plays-out in history, often not in our time or the time of the players. Could it be that all events are related?

Excerpts from our book:

Where Indians, Outlaws & Oilmen Were Real, ISBN: 9781658834643.