be lived at the Upper settlement, and that all the short or small people lived in the Lower settlement. There came to be told among the white people in pioneer times the story that the tribe had made an arrangement whereby all the tall people should be in one band and live in one town, while all the short men should dwell together in another town. Intelligent travelers never did mention that there was any difference in the stature of the Great and Little Osages. The terms may not have originated as McCoy says. They may have grown out of the relative size of their two towns in early times. Or in some other way not now remembered by the Osages themselves.
The origin of the Arkansas Band is known. About 1796 Manuel Lisa secured from the then government of Louisiana a monopoly to trade with all the Indians on the waters of the Missouri River. This, of course, included the Osages. Previous to that time the trade went to traders in competition, among these the Chouteaus. The monopoly of Lisa cast out the Chouteaus. Pierre Chouteau had at one time enjoyed a monopoly of the Osage trade. When he was superseded as agent of the tribe by Lisa, he sought some means of continuing his profitable business relations with the tribe. He determined to divide it, and to settle a part of it beyond the jurisdiction of Lisa. He induced the best hunters of the tribe to go with him to the Lower Verdigris. This stream is a branch of the Arkansas River, none of the waters of which were included in the grant to Lisa. Chouteau took only young men and their families, and they were from both the Great and Little Osages. They built towns near the mouth of the Verdigris River. Later they went to the Arkansas and had towns both above and below the mouth of the Verdigris. By the French they were known as Osage des Chenes (Osage of the Oaks). Des Chenes was corrupted into a number of terms, of which Chancers was one. The date of the formation of this band and its migration to the Verdigris is given as about 1803 by Lewis and Clark, Dr. Sibley and Mr. Dunbar, in their report published in 1806. They say nearly one-half the Osage nation followed Chouteau. Also, that The Little Osage formerly resided on the S. W. side of the Missouri, near the mouth of the Grand River; but being reduced by continual warfare with their neighbors, were compelled to seek the protection of the Great Osage, near whom they now reside. Their village was set up, on their return, where Pike found it when he ascended the Osage on his way to the Pawnee country.
Fort Osage, afterwards Fort Clark, where Sibley, Missouri, now is, was established in
October, 1808, as a protection to the Osage Indians, as cited in the preamble of the treaty of November 10, 1808, with the tribe. But the Government dealt unfairly in that matter. The fort and trading post had been promised in 1804 and in 1806. In less than a month after it was built, Pierre Chouteau appeared at the fort with the treaty of the 10th of November already written out. It had been prepared without any consultation with a single Osage. Chouteau had the treaty read and explained to the assembled chiefs and warriors. Then he announced that those who signed it would be considered friends of the United States and treated accordingly, and those who refused to sign would be regarded as enemies. The chief, White Hair, protested, but acknowledged the helplessness of the Indians. He signed the treaty, and fear of being counted enemies of the United States caused all present to sign. This treaty exacted a large tract of land as the price of building Fort Osage. The land was thus described in the treaty:
Beginning at Fort Clark (Fort Osage) on the Missouri, five miles above Fire Prairie, and running thence a due south course to the river Arkansaw and down the same to the Mississippi.
All the land east of that line was ceded to the United States. There was much dissatisfaction on the part of the Osages, and they never did understand why the concession was enacted.
The Osages began to move to the westward from their homes in what is now Vernon Count