The Kickapoos did not war with other tribes. Nor did they molest the whites. Still, they were Indians, and it was hard for the early settlers to believe that they would have a lasting record as such—since hostile Indians roamed the country west of the Blue river. Back in the early 90’s when the Kickapoos took up the Sioux “Ghost Dance, or Messiah Craze,” as it was called, and held all-night pow-wows for several weeks, there was some nervousness among the whites.
In the early 70’s the Kickapoos came to Wetmore to do their trading. They had Government money and were good customers of the two general stores. Later they did their trading at Netawaka, and still later at Horton. My father, a shoemaker, came to know some of them rather intimately. I knew many of them too.
Masquequah was Chief then. Many are the times I have sold him white sugar and red calico—the Indians would not buy brown sugar if they could get white sugar. This was when I was a clerk in Than Morris’ store. Associated with me then were Curt Shuemaker, George Cawood and “Chuck” Cawood. In the good old days we often piled up a thousand dollar sales of a Saturday.
I should, perhaps, amplify this assertion about the sugar. We sold at that time about four times as much brown sugar which came in barrels marked “C” sugar, as we did white sugar. One day the boss said, “The town’s full of Indians; sell no white sugar to anyone until after the Indians leave.” When I told the Chief we had no white sugar, he said, “Ugh, Indian’s money good as white man’s money—maybe. Indians go Netawaka buy white sugar.” And that is what they did. Sorry, I can’t tell you why Morris did not want to sell the Indians white sugar that day. It could hardly have been because it consumed more time-it was a busy Saturday—to “tie-up” white sugar. We had no paper sacks then. The system was to weigh-up the sugar, lay a piece of wrapping paper flat down on the counter, empty the sugar onto it; then tie it up—if you could. A green clerk like myself could waste a lot of time trying to wrap up a dollar’s worth of granulated sugar. Brown sugar would pack together, and wrap more easily.
The story got out that the Netawaka merchant would sell the Indian a bill of groceries, put it in a box, and a clerk would obligingly carry it to the Indian’s wagon—and then, while the Indian was loitering in the store, the clerk would slip out and rob the box, in the interest of the merchant. But, if this were true, the Indians seemed to like it. They followed the Netawaka merchant to Horton when that town got started in 1886. Also, it was said, a certain white farmer living near the southwest corner of the reservation, would sometimes ride out from Netawaka with one of his Indian friends, letting his hired hand follow up with his own rig. At opportune times, the white man would reach back and throw out packages for the hired hand to gather up. Methinks Sam would have had hard luck in fishing out a package of granulated sugar such as those tied-up by me.
The old, old Indians are, I believe, all dead now. Of the younger generations, I know little—except that they are the descendants of a once relatively large tribe, and that their once large domain has been reduced to thirty sections, and that much of the land within the boundaries of the reservation is now owned by white people.
H. A. Hogard, Educational Field Agent, and Grover Allen, Indian, were in Wetmore last Sunday practicing archery with George Grubb and Ollie Woodman. They told me the Indian population now numbers about 280. There are about fifty families.
For my first episode I shall tell you about a deer-hunt my father and I had with the Indians. In a former article I told you about an Indian with a party of deer-hunters we chanced to meet in the John Wolfley timber, whom my father named Eagle Eye. His Indian name was far from that, however.
It was Eagle Eye who had arranged this hunt. He brought along from the reservation, eight miles northeast of here, two extra ponies—one of normal size and not too large at that, and a little one for me to ride. While putting the saddle on the little pony my father asked the Indians if it were a gentle pony. Eagle Eye said, “Him heap gentle like lazy squaw.”
It had snowed during the night and was still snowing when the Indians arrived at day-break. Two deer-runs were to be covered and it would take a full day to do it. Then, too, our party wanted to, if possible, get onto the grounds ahead of other hunters. It was not very cold, and my father was pleased with the snow. Tracking would be good. A natural born hunter, snow always appealed to him. He had killed a great many deer in his native Tennessee.