The Old Santa Fe Trail: The Story of a Great Highway Part 36

FOOTNOTES.

[Footnote 1: The whole country watered by the Mississippi and Missouri was called Florida at that time.]

[Footnote 2: The celebrated Jesuit, author of _The History of New France_, _Journals of a Voyage to North America_, _Letters to the d.u.c.h.ess_, etc.]

[Footnote 3: Otoes.]

[Footnote 4: Iowas.]

[Footnote 5: Boulevard, Promenade.]

[Footnote 6: Notes of a Military Reconnoissance from Fort Leavenworth, in Missouri, to San Diego, in California, including parts of the Arkansas, Del Norte, and Gila Rivers. Brevet Major W. H. Emory, Corps of Topographical Engineers, United States Army, 1846.]

[Footnote 7: Hon. W. F. Arny, in his Centennial Celebration Address at Santa Fe, July 4, 1876.]

[Footnote 8: Edwards, _Conquest of New Mexico_.]

[Footnote 9: I think this is Bancroft's idea.]

[Footnote 10: _Historical Sketches of New Mexico_, L. Bradford Prince, late Chief Justice of New Mexico, 1883.]

[Footnote 11: D. H. Coyner, 1847.]

[Footnote 12: He was travelling parallel to the Old Santa Fe Trail all the time, but did not know it until he was overtaken by a band of Kaw Indians.]

[Footnote 13: McKnight was murdered south of the Arkansas by the Comanches in the winter of 1822.]

[Footnote 14: Chouteau's Island.]

[Footnote 15: _Hennepin's Journal_.]

[Footnote 16: The line between the United States and Mexico (or New Spain, as it was called) was defined by a treaty negotiated in 1819, between the Chevalier de Onis, then Spanish minister at Was.h.i.+ngton, and John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State. According to its provisions, the boundary between Mexico and Louisiana, which had been added to the Union, commenced with the river Sabine at its entrance into the Gulf of Mexico, at about the twenty-ninth degree of north lat.i.tude and the ninety-fourth degree of longitude, west from Greenwich, and followed it as far as its junction with the Red River of Natchitoches, which then served to mark the frontier up to the one hundredth degree of west longitude, where the line ran directly north to the Arkansas, which it followed to its source at the forty-second degree of north lat.i.tude, whence another straight line was drawn up the same parallel to the Pacific coast.]

[Footnote 17: This tribe kept up its reputation under the dreaded Satanta, until 1868--a period of forty years--when it was whipped into submission by the gallant Custer. Satanta was its war chief, one of the most cruel savages the great plains ever produced. He died a few years ago in the state prison of Texas.]

[Footnote 18: McNess Creek is on the old Cimarron Trail to Santa Fe, a little east of a line drawn south from Bent's Fort.]

[Footnote 19: Mr. Bryant, of Kansas, who died a few years ago, was one of the pioneers in the trade with Santa Fe. Previous to his decease he wrote for a Kansas newspaper a narrative of his first trip across the great plains; an interesting monograph of hards.h.i.+p and suffering. For the use of this doc.u.ment I am indebted to Hon. Sol. Miller, the editor of the journal in which it originally appeared. I have also used very extensively the notes of Mr. William Y. Hitt, one of the Bryant party, whose son kindly placed them at my disposal, and copied liberally from the official report of Major Bennett Riley--afterward the celebrated general of Mexican War fame, and for whom the Cavalry Depot in Kansas is named; as also from the journal of Captain Philip St. George Cooke, who accompanied Major Riley on his expedition.]

[Footnote 20: Chouteau's Island, at the mouth of Sand Creek.]

[Footnote 21: Valley of the Upper Arkansas.]

[Footnote 22: About three miles east of the town of Great Bend, Barton County, Kansas.]

[Footnote 23: The Old Santa Fe Trail crosses the creek some miles north of Hutchinson, and coincides with the track again at the mouth of Walnut Creek, three miles east of Great Bend.]

[Footnote 24: There are many conflicting accounts in regard to the sum Don Antonio carried with him on that unfortunate trip. Some authorities put it as high as sixty thousand; I have taken a mean of the various sums, and as this method will suffice in mathematics, perhaps we can approximate the truth in this instance.]

[Footnote 25: General Emory of the Union army during the Civil War. He made an official report of the country through which the Army of the West pa.s.sed, accompanied by maps, and his _Reconnoissance in New Mexico and California_, published by the government in 1848, is the first authentic record of the region, considered topographically and geologically.]

[Footnote 26: _Doniphan's Expedition, containing an account of the Conquest of New Mexico_, etc. John T. Hughes, A.B., of the First Regiment of Missouri Cavalry. 1850.]

[Footnote 27: Deep Gorge.]

[Footnote 28: Colonel Leavenworth, for whom Fort Leavenworth is named, and who built several army posts in the far West.]

[Footnote 29: Colonel A. G. Boone, a grandson of the immortal Daniel, was one of the grandest old mountaineers I ever knew. He was as loyal as anybody, but honest in his dealings with the Indians, and that was often a fault in the eyes of those at Was.h.i.+ngton who controlled these agents. Kit Carson was of the same honest cla.s.s as Boone, and he, too, was removed for the same cause.]

[Footnote 30: A narrow defile on the Trail, about ninety miles east of Fort Union. It is called the "canyon of the Canadian, or Red, River," and is situated between high walls of earth and rock. It was once a very dangerous spot on account of the ease and rapidity with which the savages could ambush themselves.]

[Footnote 31: Carson, Wooton, and all other expert mountaineers, when following a trail, could always tell just what time had elapsed since it was made. This may seem strange to the uninitiated, but it was part of their necessary education. They could tell what kind of a track it was, which way the person or animal had walked, and even the tribe to which the savage belonged, either by the shape of the moccasin or the arrows which were occasionally dropped.]

[Footnote 32: Lieutenant Bell belonged to the Second Dragoons. He was conspicuous in extraordinary marches and in action, and also an accomplished horseman and shot, once running and killing five buffalo in a quarter of a mile. He died early in 1861, and his death was a great loss to the service.]

[Footnote 33: Known to this day as "The Cheyenne Bottoms."]

[Footnote 34: Lone Wolf was really the head chief of the Kiowas.]

[Footnote 35: The battle lasted three days.]

[Footnote 36: Kicking Bird was ever afterward so regarded by the authorities of the Indian department.]

[Footnote 37: Lorenzo Thomas, adjutant-general of the United States army.]

[Footnote 38: Kendall's _Santa Fe Expedition_ may be found in all the large libraries.]

[Footnote 39: A summer-house, bower, or arbour.]

[Footnote 40: Frank Hall, Chicago, 1885.]

[Footnote 41: The greater portion of this chapter I originally wrote for _Harper's Weekly_. By the kind permission of the publishers, I am permitted to use it here.]

[Footnote 42: These statistics I have carefully gathered from the freight departments of the railroads, which kept a record of all the bones that were s.h.i.+pped, and from the purchasers of the carbon works, who paid out the money at various points. Some of the bones, however, may have been on the ground for a longer time, as decay is very slow in the dry air of the plains.]

[Footnote 43: La Jeunesse was one of the bravest of the old French Canadian trappers. He was a warm friend of Kit Carson and was killed by the Indians in the following manner. They were camping one night in the mountains; Kit, La Jeunesse, and others had wrapped themselves up in their blankets near the fire, and were sleeping soundly; Fremont sat up until after midnight reading letters he had received from the United States, after finis.h.i.+ng which, he, too, turned in and fell asleep.

Everything was quiet for a while, when Kit was awakened by a noise that sounded like the stroke of an axe. Rising cautiously, he discovered Indians in the camp; he gave the alarm at once, but two of his companions were dead. One of them was La Jeunesse, and the noise he had heard was the tomahawk as it buried itself in the brave fellow's head.]

[Footnote 44: This black is made from a species of plumbago found on the hills of the region.]

[Footnote 45: The p.a.w.nees and Cheyennes were hereditary enemies, and they frequently met in sanguinary conflict.]

[Footnote 46: A French term Anglicised, as were many other foreign words by the trappers in the mountains. Its literal meaning is, arrow fender, for from it the plains Indians construct their s.h.i.+elds; it is buffalo-hide prepared in a certain manner.]