Key ThemesMulticultural HeritageAmerican Indian and European cultures clash in Oklahoma.

Conflict and CooperationSpain and France, using American Indian allies, attempt to dominate Oklahoma.

ObjecTives• Compare the reasons for

Spanish and French exploration of Oklahoma

• Contrast the relationships of the French and the Spanish with the Indians

• Identify the reasons why the Wichitas moved to the Red River area

Key Terms• runestone

• Seven Cities of Cíbola

• New Spain

• pueblos

• Quivira

• Louisiana

• coureurs de bois

• middens

• Deer Creek village

• ethnohistorian

• Twin Villages

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OverviewExplorers and traders try to extend Spanish and French control over Oklahoma from the 1500s through the 1700s. Europeans make allies of some tribes, enemies of others, and permanently alter Oklahoma’s natural environment and Native peoples.

To say that Columbus discovered America in 1492 is hardly accurate. Indian peoples had discovered it long before and had lived there in sophisticated societies for

centuries. Also, Vikings from Norway knew of North America as early as the eleventh century. Local historians say that some of those Norsemen traveled to Oklahoma and left their puzzling markings, called runes, on a runestone near Heavener in Le Flore County.

Still, it is true that after the voyages of Christopher Columbus, sponsored by Spain at the end of the fifteenth century, Europe’s Old World focused its attention on the New World. The region that is now Oklahoma never played a central role in any European power’s imperial plans. But for those Indian villages that traded with the Spanish and French for horses, guns, and other manu-factured goods, the European presence brought dramatic, long-lasting change, not always for the better.

Key People and Events

1541 Coronado crosses western Oklahoma

1719 La Harpe explores eastern Oklahoma and claims it for France

1740s Wichitas occupy Deer Creek village

1750s Wichitas occupy the Twin Villages

1763 Oklahoma becomes part of the Spanish Empire

1800 Oklahoma is returned to France

1803 United States buys Louisiana and Oklahoma

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Spain in OklahomaFor Spain, the American continent was both an oppor-tunity and an obstacle. It was also a barrier to reaching China, the source of spices that Columbus had sought. But it promised treasures of gold to those who looked long enough. Adventuresome Spaniards rushed to the New World. They explored every mile of coastline between Florida and Yucatán. In 1521, a Spanish army led by Hernán Cortés invaded Mexico and conquered the Aztec Empire. Mexico yielded dazzling treasures for the Spaniards. So too did the Inca kingdom of Peru. Those riches rein-

forced rumors about the Seven Cities of Cíbola, where houses had walls of solid gold and doors of turquoise. Spain sent many expeditions to Mexico’s northern fron-tier in search of this fabled kingdom. The expedition led by Francisco Vásquez de Coronado was of special impor-tance to Oklahoma.

Coronado’s StoryCoronado was governor of New Galicia, a province of New Spain (present-day Mexico). At only 27 years of age, he was already a wealthy man who was known as a capa-ble administrator and military leader. He saw the royal permission to search for the Seven Cities of Cíbola as an honor. It also happened to be an opportunity to enrich himself further. In 1540, Coronado gathered his forces on the west coast of what is now Mexico. He set out for Cíbola with 240 mounted men, 60 foot soldiers, more than 800 Indians, a long baggage train, at least 1,000 horses, and large herds of cattle, sheep, and hogs (none of which were native to the American Southwest). For several months his men traveled through Arizona and New Mexico, looking for the fabled cities. All they found were humble villages built of mud, not gold. The Spanish called these towns pueblos. During those months, Coronado and his men showed little respect for the lives and rights of the Native peo-ple. He took chiefs as hostages, stole food from villag-ers, insisted that local men act as porters for his army, and demanded that women serve as companions for his soldiers. Increasingly frustrated by his failure to find Cíbola, he was absolutely ruthless in battles against the Pueblo Indians. On the Rio Grande in New Mexico, Coronado’s luck changed. A captive Pawnee told him that to the east was a land of incredible wealth, known as Quivira, where even common folk ate off silver plates and drank from golden bowls. The Pawnee, who was called “the Turk” because “he looked like one,” offered to guide the Spaniards to it. There were good reasons to be suspicious, but Coronado ignored them. In 1541, he and his men followed the Turk eastward onto the High Plains of Texas, where they eventually turned north and east across Oklahoma into Kansas. There on the Arkansas River near present-day Wichita, Coronado found Quivira. It was far from what he had expected. No golden bells hung in the shade trees. Indeed, there were not many trees at all. But there were a lot of yapping dogs and dome-shaped grass houses occupied by people who were covered

Viewing History in Centuries

Dates are to history what dribbling is to basketball—you have to have them. Dates are the mileposts of story. Without them, it is easy to confuse a sequence of events that explains cause and effect. When that happens, the story does not make sense, and truth, the goal of history, is distorted. You don’t have to memorize dates, the way you would memo-rize irregular verbs, but history students must understand when one event comes before another. Sometimes it is easier to under-stand a sequence of events if you place them in broad categories. For example, Oklahoma’s path from Native American community to statehood is best understood in terms of centuries, rather than years or decades. See the table below.

15th century Wichitas dominate Oklahoma

Voyages of Columbus (1492)

16th century Spanish explorations in Oklahoma

17th century No Europeans in Oklahoma

18th century Osages dominate Oklahoma

French authority (1719–1763)

Spanish authority (1763–1800)

American Revolution, 1776–1783

19th century Oklahoma becomes part of the United States after the Louisiana Purchase (1803)

Indian settlement zone is established in Oklahoma (1825)

Oklahoma is organized as a territory (1890)

20th century Oklahoma joins the Union (1907)

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with tattoos. Quivira was not a city of great wealth. It was merely a village of the Wichitas, Oklahoma’s First People (lost for the moment in Kansas). Coronado was bitterly disappointed. He demanded an explanation from the Turk, who admitted that his description of Quivira was just a trick to get the Spanish out of the Rio Grande settlements. Coronado was not amused. His soldiers were outraged, and one of them put a rope around the Turk’s neck and choked him to

death. The governor then assembled the Wichita chiefs and insisted that they swear an oath of allegiance to the king of Spain. They did so—maybe even knowing what they were doing. With that accomplished, Coronado and his weary army went back to the Rio Grande pueblos, following a route that took them through the Oklahoma Panhandle.

Do Campo’s StoryTwo main goals motivated Spain in America: gold and God. Coronado symbolized the first goal. Friar Juan de Padilla, a chaplain in Coronado’s expedition, repre-sented the other. Padilla was impressed with the Wichita people. He returned to the Wichitas with two Mexican Indian converts to Christianity and a Portuguese-born soldier named Andrés do Campo, to establish a Catholic mission. After a few months, the four men decided to move on to more promising areas farther east. Somewhere in south-central Kansas, members of the Kaw tribe ambushed the party. Padilla died, and Do Campo and the two lay brothers were held captive for almost a year. When they escaped, they traveled across central Oklahoma into Texas, and on to the Gulf Coast of New Spain. It took the Do Campo party five years to reach the Gulf Coast. What slowed it was a heavy wooden cross that the two lay brothers took turns carrying on their backs to mourn the death of their teacher, Padilla. This act of

When Coronado began his march to Quivira in 1541, he hoped to find gold for Spain and souls for God. (Center portion of mural entitled Arrival of Coronado by Ira Diamond Gerald Cassidy, Federal Building, Santa Fe, New Mexico)

0 50 100 miles

0 80 160 kilometers

Deer Creek

Wichita village

Twin villages

OñateLa Harpe

Area crossed by Coronado

Beaver Creek

North Fork of Canadian River

Cimarron River

Arkansas River

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Washita River

Red River

North Fork of Red River K

iamichi River

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European explorers in Oklahoma, 1541–1741

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piety has not since been matched very often in Oklahoma. But the trail that the men marked between Quivira and the Spanish settlements was much more direct than the one Coronado followed. After that, Mexico City officials recommended the Do Campo route as the preferred link to Spain’s newest northern province. Today Interstate 35 largely follows this “trail of the cross.”

Oñate’s StoryFriar Padilla was not the only one who saw the north-ern frontier as a fertile ground for Christian missions. So did other chaplains on the Coronado expedition. It took almost 60 years, but in 1598 they and later church lead-ers persuaded Spain to establish a mission and settlement on the Rio Grande in what is now New Mexico. Juan de Oñate, rich from owning Mexican silver mines, was appointed as governor of the new colony. The settlement he established near present-day Santa Fe took root and survived—before the colonies of Jamestown and Quebec were established. The day-to-day tasks of a regional administrator soon bored Oñate. He left them to others and turned to his real interest—completing Coronado’s quest for Quivira. One of Oñate’s trips in 1601 took him eastward to the headwaters of the Canadian River and down the river to the Antelope Hills on Oklahoma’s western border. Then he went north and east through the villages of the Plains Apaches to the Arkansas River in present-day Kansas. There Oñate found what Coronado had found: the villages of several thousand Wichitas. Because the Wichitas remembered that earlier visit, they gave the Spaniards free access to their villages and willingly told them about their land. But they soon tired of all the questions. Their irritation, perceived as hostility, caused Oñate and his men to leave Quivira and return the way they had come.

The Spanish-Oklahoma ConnectionGiven their limited goals, both Coronado and Oñate judged their expeditions as failures. They found no gold and concluded that the extensive areas they had passed through were useless. Nor did they make any friends for the Spanish king. Yet both expeditions were very impor-tant to Oklahoma. The written reports of Coronado’s and Oñate’s expedi-tions provide the first glimpses of what life was like in Oklahoma five centuries ago. For the first time, Native peoples are described as individuals, with precise person-alities. This is true not only for the Wichitas but also for

the Plains Apaches, whom both explorers encountered on their way to and from Quivira. The reports also tell some-thing about the land. The Spaniards saw “humped backed cows” on the plains, for example, and they rode through grass so tall that they had to be on horses to see over it. Quivira itself was “fat and black, and . . . well watered by rivulets and springs and rivers.” Coronado’s council with the Wichita chiefs had politi-cal significance for Oklahoma. Because of it, Spain could claim rule over the western side of the Mississippi River valley. Probably that did not mean a lot to the chiefs, although they surely sensed that something was different. Sixty years later they received Oñate as a friend, and even-tually they sent a delegation to Santa Fe to ask for Spanish help in subduing their Apache enemies. Among the kings of Europe, Coronado’s claim had substantial meaning. During the sixteenth century, the European rulers were all engaged in a worldwide contest for empire. Because of Coronado, Spain had won the prize of a vast domain that included Oklahoma. Revised maps of North America now showed Quivira as the northern province of New Spain. Did the designation of Oklahoma as a province mean anything to Spain, or was it just a chip in the great poker game of empire? Coronado was interested in short-term profits for private enterprise, so he probably thought that the region was not important. “There is not any gold nor any other metal—nothing but villages,” he wrote. To him, Oklahoma’s First People were curiosities with little human potential. With such publicity, is it any wonder that in the next 250 years only two official Spanish expeditions visited Oklahoma? Clearly, Spain had no real interest in the state or its people.

france in OklahomaThe Spaniards placed Oklahoma on its maps, but the French made a place for it in their hearts. In the early 1600s, France launched its bid for a share of the New World, with settlements in Canada. In 1682, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, canoed down the Mississippi River, claiming it and the western lands it drained for the king of France. Naming the prize “Louisiana,” La Salle saw it as the center of a new commercial empire based on trading for furs with local tribes, among them the Quapaws of Arkansas. He planned to focus the trade in settlements and military posts along the Mississippi River and its tributaries. La Salle died trying to estab-

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lish one of these posts, but others succeeded, founding Mobile, New Orleans, Arkansas Post, Natchitoches, and other settlements. Neither La Salle nor his successors expected the local tribespeople to be Louisiana’s only trading partners. They also hoped to begin commerce with the Spanish settle-ments on the Rio Grande. Those communities, such as Santa Fe, presumably hungered for trade goods that Louisiana could easily supply. To tap those markets, the French needed only to follow the great western rivers that emptied into the Mississippi. Significantly, the rivers that linked the Mississippi most directly with Santa Fe all went through Oklahoma—the Red, the Arkansas, and the Canadian. Much of the success or failure of Louisiana as a trad-ing center depended upon circumstances in present-day Oklahoma. Would the Wichitas and the Osages be open to trading? Would the rivers be suitable channels of com-merce to Santa Fe? Would the Native peoples living along those rivers grant safe passage to traders? To find answers to those questions, France sent four major expeditions to the area in the early eighteenth century.

Du Tisné’s StoryClaude-Charles du Tisné, who had been in New France for only eight years, led the first French expedition. He had settled first at Quebec in Canada. Like so many young

Frenchmen of his generation, he soon headed into the wil-derness to make his fame and fortune in the fur trade. That occupation led him to Louisiana, where he became well known throughout the Mississippi River basin. The governor of Louisiana hired Du Tisné to negoti-ate alliances with western tribes that would trade with the French and would grant them safe passage to Santa Fe. In 1719, Du Tisné traveled to the Osages in south-western Missouri. The Osages were interested in French trade goods but did not want their Wichita neighbors to have them, especially guns. With difficulty, Du Tisné per-suaded the Osages to let him pass on to Oklahoma’s First People. A four-day trip brought Du Tisné to two Wichita vil-lages near the Verdigris River in either present-day Kansas or Oklahoma. Having been told that he was a slave trader, the villagers received him with suspicion. Du Tisné calmed their fears and persuaded them to enter into an alliance with France. The Wichitas had only six guns between the two villages and were ready to do almost anything to get more. From there the Frenchman intended to go on to the Plains Apaches, but the Wichitas would not hear of it. Their western enemy already had Spanish horses; they did not need French guns. When Du Tisné could not persuade them otherwise, he returned to the Osage villages and then headed east to the Mississippi River.

Spanish and French Expeditions in Oklahoma

All of the Spanish explorations that affected Oklahoma took place in the sixteenth century, following the voyages of Columbus. All French explorations took place in the eighteenth century. Although the Spanish and French explorations occurred in two distinct blocks of time, they have a common purpose: to discover the economic value of Oklahoma’s land and people. Below are some details about those expeditions.

NATION YEAR LEADER AREA

Spain 1541 Francisco Vásquez de Coronado Northwest and Panhandle 1542–1547 Andrés do Campo Cross Timbers 1601 Juan de Oñate Antelope Hills and northwardFrance 1719 Bernard de la Harpe Kiamichi and Arkansas rivers 1719 Claude-Charles du Tisné Verdigris River (Kansas) 1740 Pierre and Paul Mallet Canadian River 1741 Fabry de la Bruyère Canadian River

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La Harpe’s StoryJean-Baptiste Bénard, Sieur de La Harpe, organized a second expedition. Having made and lost one fortune in South America, he hoped to recoup some of his losses in Louisiana. French officials had authorized him to explore Louisiana, trade with the Native peoples, and establish a commercial link with the distant settlements of New Mexico. In early 1719, La Harpe built a small post on the Red River near present-day Texarkana, Texas. From there, he began to explore the region, to find trading partners among the local tribes, and to evaluate pros-pects for trade with the Spaniards. In August, La Harpe led a party northward through the heart of eastern Oklahoma. Included in his group were his lieutenant, Gaston du Rivage, three soldiers, two black men, and three American Indian guides. Historians have disputed the route of La Harpe’s expedition through Oklahoma. A careful reading of his journal indicates that he went north across present-day McCurtain, Choctaw, Pushmataha, Latimer, and Pittsburg counties. He then crossed the Canadian River near present-day Eufaula and headed north through

McIntosh, western Muskogee, and western Wagoner counties to southern Tulsa County. On a bluff overlook-ing the Arkansas River just northwest of Bixby, in Tulsa County, La Harpe came across nine villages of about 6,000 Wichitas. Unknown to him, at that very moment Du Tisné was less than 100 miles north in two other Wichita villages. La Harpe was impressed with the country he passed through. Mountains encircled beautiful prairies. Rivers were filled with fish and with mussels that contained pearls. The climate was mild, and the land was fertile and rich in minerals. He saw coal and rocks with grains that looked like gold. There were large buffalo herds, abundant deer, and great numbers of wolves (which were “little and not all bad”). La Harpe even killed a “very large bear.” The land was also home to partridges, woodcocks, plover, and geese. The Wichitas greeted the Frenchmen enthusiastically. At least 1,000 tribespeople from distant villages joined their 6,000 kinsmen to get a look at the strangers. Chief Touacara, leader of the main village, and other chiefs made clear they would welcome a trading partnership

In this painting, Oklahoma artist Charles Banks Wilson shows a typical Quapaw warrior of 1700. That was when Europeans first visited the Quapaw villages along the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers. Notice the body painting, the feathered pipes, and the scalp lock (a long lock of hair left on a shaven head).

We-ta-ra-sha-ro, sketched by George Catlin in 1834, was prob-ably a direct descendant of the Wichitas who greeted La Harpe in 1719. He was, Catlin wrote, an “extraordinary man, whose figure was light, seemed to be all bone and muscle, and exhibited immense power, by the curve of the bones in his legs and arms.”

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with the French. Such a relationship would bring them guns for defending their villages from enemies, as well as other manufactured goods. They were willing to give safe passage to French convoys going up the Arkansas and Canadian rivers to trade with Spanish settlements. The formalities of an alliance were quickly concluded. A wooden post, on which Du Rivage had carved a sym-bol of the king of France, was erected to commemorate the event. La Harpe had intended to leave three of his men among the Wichitas to establish a permanent trading facility on the Arkansas River. But when he learned that the Wichitas left their villages for six months each winter to hunt buf-falo, he changed his mind. Others would have to work out the details of commerce between the French and the Wichitas. La Harpe and his men returned to his fort on the Red River, and he soon left there for New Orleans. La Harpe remained important in Louisiana affairs for several years, but he never returned to Oklahoma.

French-Wichita CommerceLa Harpe’s expedition confirmed Oklahoma’s economic potential to Louisiana officials. So too did subsequent expeditions along the Canadian River by Pierre and Paul Mallet and by André Fabry de la Bruyère. To the French, Oklahoma was not a trackless wasteland or part of any Great American Desert. Within it lay a promising but dangerous route to Santa Fe. Most important, its Native people were potential partners in commercial ventures that would help determine France’s success or failure in North America. The French soon involved the Oklahoma Indians in these ventures. To the Wichitas and the Osages, the French took guns, ammunition, knives, hatchets, axes, hoes, cloth, blankets, beads, mirrors, and paint. Most tribespeople instantly saw the value of such items. They willingly exchanged the hides of buffalo and deer and the skins of beaver, otter, mink, and muskrat. They also offered—and the French gladly accepted—horses (even stolen ones) and Indian captives who could be sold as slaves. The Wichitas and the Osages quickly became dependent on the trade goods. This change had tragic consequences for the tribes, altering their fundamental economic and social habits. They once had hunted only for food and clothes, and they had made war only for revenge. With the onset of the fur trade, they hunted for hides and skins and fought for horses and captives. They became not only

commercial hunters but commercial warriors as well. Who were the Frenchmen who carried on the trade? They were the famous coureurs de bois (literally, “run-ners of the woods”), generally nameless young men who enjoyed the freedom and challenges of life in the woods. They were a loose and happy group who lived with the Indians, learned Indian ways and languages, and took Indian women as their wives. In the mid-eighteenth cen-tury, probably 100 or so coureurs de bois were active in Oklahoma Indian villages.

Deer Creek VillageArchaeologists are helping us learn more about the relationship between coureurs de bois and American Indians. They have done considerable work on the site of a Wichita village located where Deer Creek enters the Arkansas River just east of Newkirk in Kay County. There they have found at least 25 circular mounds from 15 to 20 inches high. These are middens (trash heaps)

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Tal-lee (Tally), drawn by George Catlin in 1834, was one of the main chiefs of the Arkansas Osages in the early nineteenth century.

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composed mainly of buffalo bones but also containing many hide scrapers made from chipped stone. In add-ition, there are ditches that appear to be man-made. Researchers have identified at the site such French-manufactured items as gun parts, metal tools, kettles, ornaments, and glass beads. Deer Creek village has not been systematically exca-vated yet. But careful study of the materials that have been randomly collected and of known historical sources enables scholars to draw some rather definitive conclu-sions. It is clear, for example, that the Wichitas occu-pied the site as a village from as early as 1720 (if not before) until the late 1750s. It is also clear that the center of the village was fortified with something that resem-bled a dry moat. The residents obviously felt the need to protect themselves from enemy attacks, probably by the Osages. No doubt, French trade goods came to the village regularly. Since only small amounts of these goods have been found, scholars think that Deer Creek was not a per-manent French trading post (called Fernandina), as some authorities had assumed. The presence of many animal bones suggests that the main activities in the village were processing buffalo hides, rendering tallow and oil, and smoking, drying, and salting meat. So what was Deer Creek? The evidence suggests that it was a typical Wichita village that also became the head-quarters of 30 to 40 French professional hunters who supplied Louisiana with meat. The villagers worked for these men as hunt-ers themselves and as meat processors, being paid in European goods. Contrary to legend, there was no thriving commerce at Deer Creek in which the Wichitas served as craf ty brokers between the coureurs de bois and the Plains tribes. The evidence collected from the trash mounds may not be romantic, but it is persuasive. Deer Creek

was an early stockyard and meat-processing plant, where the Wichitas worked as laborers.

Wichita-Osage ConflictOperations at Deer Creek continued into the mid-1750s, when the villagers joined with other Wichitas to move their communities to sites along the Red River. This departure took about 20 years to complete. The move was largely due to the full-fledged war that had broken out between the Wichitas and the Osages. The better-armed Osages made raid after raid against Oklahoma’s First People, seeking to terrorize them into leaving their homeland and thus opening it up to Osage hunting parties and permanent villages. To defend themselves, the Wichitas tried different strat-egies. They consolidated and then fortified their villages. They obtained guns from the French, but they never had enough, nor were they proficient in using the ones they had. In 1747 or 1748, the Wichitas also negotiated an alliance with the Comanches, a remarkable union that produced some important victories. But such successes were few. While the Osages pushed, other factors pulled the Wichitas to the Red River. One was the desire to be nearer the stable supplies of French trade goods that came up the Red River through Natchitoches. The south- ern location also put them closer to herds of Spanish

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In this 1845 romantic painting titled Osage Scalp Dance, artist John Mix Stanley captures the confidence, pride, and bravado that made the Osages feared as enemies and desirable as allies. Stanley placed the woman and child at the center of the painting for dramatic effect rather than for historical reality.

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In 1926, Joseph B. Thoburn of the Oklahoma Historical Society learned of a map with the name “Fernandina” printed in the general region of the Deer Creek archaeological site east of Newkirk. An examination of the map revealed that it had been published in London, England, in the 1860s by “Lloyd’s,” presumably the famous insurance company. Impressed by the age of the map and its publica-tion in Europe, Thoburn determined that the Fernandina of the 1860s and the Deer Creek site of the 1750s were one and the same. After that, Thoburn and other historians made extravagant claims for Fernandina. Some said it was the first white settlement in Oklahoma, known to early mapmakers in England and Scotland. Others claimed it was a French fort where Frenchmen lived and traded with the Wichitas. Thoburn concluded that settlement was named after King Ferdinand of Spain, who reigned from 1746 to 1759, and that the proper spelling for the French fort should be “Ferdinandina.” (He never explained why the French would name a post after a Spanish king.) For two generations, Oklahoma histori-ans and geographers accepted these ideas uncritically and included them in their texts and atlases. Not until the late 1970s did anyone bother to examine the documents that presumably confirmed the existence of “Ferdinandina.” Then Mildred Mott Wedel, an ethno-

historian (a person who studies the development of cul-tures), learned that the map Thoburn had used no longer existed. All that remained was a photocopy of part of the map. Using that small clue, Wedel figured out that the original map was a copy of “Lloyd’s Topographical Railway Map of North America, or the United States Continent,” published in 1868 by J. T. Lloyd of New York

and London. Wedel established that “Fernandina” does appear on this map as a site in northern Indian Territory, but not at the location of the Deer Creek village. Wedel searched international archives to find other maps or documents that might list Fernandina. She found no reference to the name on any source mate-rial from the 1740s and 1750s, when Deer Creek was an active hunting and meat processing site. Indeed, she discovered that the place-name “Fernandina” is not used in manuscripts or printed sources until the 1850s, a full century after the time a fort of that name was supposed to have existed. She found three maps of the 1850s that used the designation, but all three place it differently. One put Fernandina in Kansas near the Santa Fe Trail. Wedel concluded that “Fernandina” as a geographical place-name dates only from the 1850s and was never used during the 1740s to designate the Deer Creek site. Moreover, Deer Creek was not a French fort and thus was not the first white settlement in Oklahoma. Instead it was a hunting and meat-processing operation that supplied meat for French Louisiana. To use the term “Fernandina” or “Ferdinandina” to identify the Wichita village at Deer Creek is to perpetuate a historical myth.

Correcting History: The Case of Fernandina

Published in 1868, a copy of “Lloyd’s Topographical Railway Map of North America, or the United States Continent” launched the myth of Fernandina.

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horses, which they could trade for or steal. They were also nearer to the Plains Apaches, old enemies with few guns who made good captives. Also, French officials, anxious to erect an Indian barrier to possible Spanish expansion from Texas, may have invited the Wichitas to move southward.

Twin VillagesThe Wichitas established several villages along the Red River. Most famous were the so-called Twin Villages on either side of the river. One was in today’s Jefferson County, Oklahoma; the other was in Montague County, Texas. The village on the north bank was fortified with a log stockade and a moat, which enclosed a horse corral. Centered in the villages was a remarkable commerce in which the Wichitas did act as shrewd brokers between the Southern Plains tribes and French traders. Horses, hides, meat, and Apache and Spanish captives were exchanged for guns, ammunition, pots, blankets, and other manu-factured items. From the Twin Villages, the Wichitas and their Comanche allies launched joint raids against Apache vil-lages in Texas. The Apaches gathered near the San Saba mission near San Antonio for protection. But in 1758, about 2,000 Wichitas and Comanches swooped down on the mission, drove off the defenders, looted and then burned its buildings, and forced the Apaches to flee. The next year, Colonel Diego Ortiz Parrilla set out with an army of 500 men and two cannons to punish the so-called Nations of the North. He should have stayed in the south. The colonel found the Twin Villages, but their forti-fications were much stronger than he had expected. Eleven cannon shots did so little damage that the villagers laughed. Moreover, a daring Wichita chief led his comrades out of the fort and attacked the Spanish time after time. That night the Wichitas held a great firelight celebration inside the fort, which scared the Spanish army. Before dawn, Parrilla ordered a retreat.

France Loses OklahomaThe Twin Villages battle was a Spanish effort to curtail France’s influence in the Red River valley. But the effort was needless. Farther east, France had been defeated by England in what is called the French and Indian War. In the Treaty of Paris in 1763, France withdrew from North America and gave all of its claims west of the Mississippi River to Spain. The treaty, which was translated for the Wichitas and the Comanches, meant that the French flag no longer flew in Oklahoma.

The French-Oklahoma ConnectionFor nearly 150 years, the French controlled the destiny of Oklahoma. Unlike the Spanish before them, the French promoted it as a land of promise and opportunity. They recognized its abundant natural resources, its fertile soil, and its beauty. Above all, they treated Native people as equals, seeing them as necessary allies in France’s plans for Louisiana. Over the years, thousands of Frenchmen came to Oklahoma. Place-names in the state bear witness to them: Poteau, Illinois, Sallisaw, Verdigris, San Bois, Fourche Maline, Kiamichi, Chouteau, and Salina. The French leg-acy is also seen in the surnames of many Oklahoma Indian families, whose members often have leadership roles in tribal affairs. In other states where French influence was strong, such as Louisiana and Missouri, buildings reflect that influ-ence. That is not true for Oklahoma, however, largely because the French did not come to the area to settle. They came instead to exploit the natural resources and the people through the fur trade. Their agenda was to take, not to give. Rather than architectural monuments, the French left behind Native peoples who had lost many of their traditional skills, who had slaughtered their own food supply for profit, and who now made vicious war on each other.

Spanish louisianaBetween 1763 and 1800, Oklahoma was a province of Spanish Louisiana. During that time, the English colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America declared indepen-dence, fought a revolution, founded the United States, and adopted a constitutional form of government. With those big events going on outside Louisiana, it is no wonder that Oklahoma was never a priority for Spanish officials at New Orleans. Still, two problems for the Spanish simply would not go away: the Wichitas and the Osages. In time, Spain was able to humble the Twin Villages Wichitas by limiting their access to guns and outlawing their trade in horses and slaves. Under these policies, Oklahoma’s First People were defenseless and living in poverty. On the other hand, not even Spain could control the Osages. The Osages had recently driven the Wichitas from the Verdigris River valley in today’s Rogers County, and a large Osage band, led by Clermont, settled there permanently. From there, they launched raids that extended their control over Oklahoma and took them deep into Texas. Trading the horses and captives taken

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in these attacks to the English made the Osages wealthy and bold.

france Regains OklahomaAfter pressure from French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, Spain returned Louisiana to French control in the Treaty of San Ildefonso, signed in 1800. Napoleon envisioned the

province as the breadbasket of a restored French empire in North America. Problems elsewhere caused him to abandon that plan, making Louisiana surplus property. Always short of cash, Napoleon offered the whole prov-ince to the young United States for a mere $15 million. The new republic bought the territory in 1803. With that transaction, the flag of the United States rose over Oklahoma.

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the europeans encounter oklahoma 71

OKLAHOMA

Western Mississippi River Drainage BasinAdams-Onís Treaty Boundary, 1819

Louisiana

Purchase

1803

Louisiana Purchase and Adams-Onís Treaty

Left: Catlin’s rendering of Clermont’s child and wife suggests that the fam-ily unit was important in Osage society.

Right: Clermont II, sketched in 1834 by George Catlin, was the leading Osage chief in the Verdigris River area after 1800. President Thomas Jefferson presented to Clermont the peace medal that hangs around his neck.