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BLACK DOG (ca. 1780–1848). The Osage chief Black Dog was born circa 1780 near St. Louis, Missouri. His village, Pasuga (or Big Cedar), was located at present Claremore, Oklahoma. His original name, Zhin-gawa-ca (or Shinka-Wah-Sa), meant Dark Eagle or Sacred Little One. He possibly earned the designation Manka-Chonka, or Black Dog, against the ...
The Black Dog Trail was a 200-mile, road-like passage that was cleared by the Black Dog Band of the Osage Indians under the direction of the "older" Black Dog. (there were two). Although the route was traveled in the 1600s, the road-like artery was built in the early 1800s along the ancient, often used 1600s Osage Indian hunting and mourning route.
Black Dog (Osage, Sho-nka Sa-bey, ca. 1780–1848) was a chief of the Hunkah band of the Osage Indians that lived in an area around present Baxter Springs, Kansas. In the fall of 1803, the band moved to the village of Pasuga (Big Cedar), present day Claremore, Oklahoma.
Jan 15, 2010 · One of the largest Osage bands in Oklahoma before 1800 was the Black Dog band. The Black Dog Trail from Baxter Springs, Kansas, to beyond the 100th Meridian was the first improved road in both Oklahoma and Kansas. With ramped ford approaches and cleared of all trees, brush, and large rocks, it could accommodate eight horsemen riding abreast.
- Overview
- A connection to the land
Their ancestors were forced onto the Trail of Tears in 1838. Now the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians is piecing back together their sacred sites.
The Cherokee town of Chota once stood on this site in eastern Tennessee, seen in September, until American troops destroyed it in 1780 during the Revolutionary War. By 1813, only a single Cherokee household remained.
Amy Walker, 79, gets emotional each time she drives from her home in Cherokee, North Carolina, to Kituwah, a sacred site just seven miles outside of town, to tend to her four-acre garden. There, in the place where her ancestors settled thousands of years ago, she plants heirloom beans and corn, the same crops they once grew.
An elder of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI), Walker says the garden keeps her connected to her identity as an indigenous woman. “Down where there are 1,000 graves on the land,” she says. “Our ancestors’ spirits are there.”
Kituwah, known as “the Mother Town,” is considered the place of origin for the Cherokee people. It is one of 25 known mounds in western North Carolina and Tennessee that once stood at the heart of every village and contained sacred fire before the Cherokee were forcibly removed from their homelands in 1838 and ordered to walk 1,000 miles to Oklahoma. The land they left behind was colonized and redistributed to white settlers. More than 150 years would pass before the EBCI would have the opportunity to reclaim ownership of land that was once theirs.
In the 1840s William Holland Thomas, the white adopted son of Cherokee Chief Drowning Bear, purchased an estimated 50,000 acres, known today as the Qualla Boundary, for those who escaped the Trail of Tears. (At the time, the Cherokee were not considered citizens and could not buy land.)
In 1996, former EBCI Principal Chief Joyce Dugan received an unexpected phone call. It was about Kituwah, then known as Ferguson fields. The owners of the 300-acre plot of farmland wanted to know if the tribe, bolstered by the rise of Indian gaming, might be interested in purchasing it. Dugan worried that the Tribal Council and the community might think there were better uses for gaming revenue, such as road infrastructure or housing. But she knew this was too important an opportunity for her people to pass up.
“When the owner asked me, I knew it was something that our tribe needed,” says Dugan, “I felt in my heart it was the right thing to do.”
After purchasing the land, the EBCI commissioned a large archaeological survey, which uncovered mass burial sites of Cherokees who had lived there a century before. Two years later, the EBCI came together with two other tribes, the United Ketoowah Band and the Cherokee Nation, to formally rededicate the land. In keeping with an old, pre-removal tradition, tribal children brought dirt from their own homes to help rebuild the mound, which had greatly reduced in size due to farming. It was an emotional moment for many Cherokees who had grown up hearing stories about the Mother Town passed down over generations.
Present-day Tatham Gap Road, which connects Robbinsville and Andrews, runs alongside the first wagon route North Carolina troops built in 1838 to forcibly remove the Cherokees. An estimated 16,000 people were made to leave their homelands and walk nearly 1,000 miles to Oklahoma.
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Oct 18, 2023 · Storied history of the Blackfeet Tribe [CONDENSED] History. October 18, 2023. Home History. As one of the most feared tribes of the northern Great Plains, the history of the Blackfeet tribe is a storied tale. In their early days, around the 11th century, they lived just north of present-day Maine. After migrating west and adopting the nomadic ...
Oct 1, 2019 · Hereditary Head Chiefs. ‘Aisance’ Little Shell I (b. ca.1756 – d. 1813) Term of Leadership from about 1776 to 1813. Killed in battle at Devil’s Lake. Served as ‘regent’ from 1813 until 1815, until Weesh-e-damo (Little Shell II) came of age. Assumed leadership of the band from 1815 until his death in 1872.
