The Way West

Imagine the mouth of the Kansas River when it was first discovered by the early European explorers.

The discovery would come as the larger Missouri River was being explored. The French learned of the Missouri River flowing into the Mississippi in 1670. Three years later mention was made of a tribe of people referred to as the Missouri.

The Osage, Kansa, and Pawnee people were recognized as living further upstream (west).

Voyagers made their way up the Missouri to the river of the Canses (Kansas) and were rumored to have crossed the plains to Taos, N.M. in the 1690s. The Spaniards had sporadically ventured onto the plains from New Mexico for 150 years, beginning with Coronado’s visit to the land of Quivira in 1541.

As trade began to develop traders quickly learned that the tribes were all hostile toward one another.

Even so, each tribe was willing to trade, and for the most part, French traders were allowed to pass between them. As the fur trade was an important contributor to the French economy, the French government watched the trade closely.

In 1712 Etienne Veniard de Bourgmont, ex-commandant at the Great Lakes post of Detroit, joined a band of Missouri warriors who were returning home after helping the French fight against the Fox tribe. Bourgmont lived among the Missouri people (the tribe from which the future state drew its name) for several years. He is known to have made at least two trips up the Missouri River during that time. One ascending the Platte River and another up the Niobrara along the northern border of present-day Nebraska.

Bourgmont wrote, “Upstream (on the Missouri River) is a smaller river which flows into the Missouri, called the ‘Riviere d’Ecanze’ (Kansas) and a nation of the same name, ally and friend of the French; their trade is in furs. This is the finest country and the most beautiful land in the world; the prairies are like the seas, and filled with wild animals; especially oxen, cattle (buffalo), hind and stag, in such quantities as to surpass the imagination.”

The Padoucas lived west of the Kansas village on the headwaters of the Riviere d’Ecanze’ (in present-day central Kansas). They are recognized today as either Plains Apache or Comanche. Unlike the other tribes, their warring nature was a barrier even for the traders who wished to travel further west and southwest.

In 1724 Bourgmont organized an expedition to the Padouca. The Padouca chief was so agreeable that he even offered to aid any Frenchman that wanted to cross the plains to New Mexico. One year later Bourgmont escorted a delegation of representatives of the plains tribes to Paris, France, where they were presented to the court of King Louis XV.

In 1744 the French built a stockade trading post under military oversight near the traditional “Canses” (Kansas) village north of the Kansas River (vicinity of present-day Leavenworth). Fort de Cavagnial was generally manned by a commandant, seven or eight soldiers and “some traders.” Supervision of the fur trade was the primary activity.

In 1762 the French ceded Louisiana and their lands west of the Mississippi River to Spain through a secret treaty that was not made public until 1764. Even so Capt. Francisco Riu, the first Spanish governor of Louisiana, did not arrive in New Orleans until 1766. Meantime, St. Louis was founded by French settlers in 1764 while Fort de Cavagnial was abandoned the same year.

Various reports over the years described the fur trade and the tribes with which trade had taken place. In 1877 Francisco Cruzat, lieutenant governor of Upper Louisiana wrote that the “Cances” were hostile to all the other tribes causing a certain amount of disruption to trade although the Cances trade was very profitable.

When the French governor departed New Orleans in 1762, he left one map of the Mississippi River with no explanation of the land and its people “particularly on the west.” The transition of French to Spanish control was plagued with rebellion, involvement in the American Revolution, and new border tensions. Esteban Miro’, Acting Governor of Louisiana found it necessary to completely reconstruct a Spanish understanding of Louisiana for a report to the King recorded on Dec. 12, 1785.

Fortunately, French traders were not inclined to leave when their country ceded Louisiana to Spain. Miro’ referred to the French traders as “the masters of this province.” Their information had been gained through years of dangerous interchange with people of strange and often unpredictable customs and behaviors that allowed Miro’ to compile his summary of the tribes on the “immense prairie” that he could only imagine on The Way West.

“The Cowboy,” Jim Gray is author of the book Desperate Seed: Ellsworth Kansas on the Violent Frontier, Ellsworth, KS. Contact Kansas Cowboy, 220 21st Road, Geneseo, Kan. Phone: (785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans.com.