Complicated the relationship between the newcomers, indians and how they created what hyde called blended families. The kansas city hub library event. This hourlong so my plan is to talk about wrote this book and how i went about doing it. Then im going tell you three three families to kind of illustrate my larger point and that will be the long part with the pretty pictures. Then i will talk about what im and why i think all of this matters. Ive been an historian of the American West my whole life. I was born in st. Louis. Reno, nevada and i tv hooked in fourth grade all the cannibals, all of that appealing. I studied the history of the American West in new england and in colorado for two decades. About like i know a lot what makers westerners tick. Were protective because of our landscaping because it is isolated and challenging in some ways. Here is a standard map that we these kinds of things. It is a Louisiana Purchase map. What we talk about with students and it leaves us with the idea that we simply purchase the west and we settled it. It was very simple. Different from other ofions because it plays this a mythical place. People could remake themselves. The classic image of daniel boone. Time right there. The east is where the sunlight west is scary part with broken trees. There. See the challenge o ofl boone is this sort westerner. Fromis a familiar image 19th anderson. What is missing here . Beings, et cetera. This is the west as a blank slate waiting for the action of european settlers to fill it in geography and those types of thing. Is going on and we need a better story to fill up emphasize the to regions distinctive history. When the university asked me to theirn a volume of comprehensive section of the midwest. Reluctantly. This is a sixvolume series and this was the second volume. A funny story. By the time they asked me to do it, they filled up the other slots and it happened to be with western historians but they were all men. A female historian 18001860. Out think about that for a minute, trade, mexican war, gold rush. Pretty much everything happened in that period. That really did scare a lot of people off and it was kind of male kinds of topics. Historian century even i was taken aback by this. To families save medicine. So as a structure and by a different story about very compelling people. Trackingarted families, i found this was people, not this empty west that lives over here. A couple ofwith sort of mysterious population facts. So in the 1830s, native people could havenow kansas numbered as the 1830s, the most powerful man in kansas or colorado were either native men or white men married to native women. By the 1930s, theres a change again. Indians were not permitted to vote. Notans and whites could marry each other. In 1830s in california, angloamericans were the foreigners and they had to work with mexico and california to do business. This kind of marriage was rare and sometimes illegal. In mexican california, it turned to the foreigners. This huge shift required some explaining. The crosshatch part, the part that looks great, this is indian land. This just gives you an idea of the amount of land that actually has to be seated or taken or one by good old americans to turn what is Indian Country and maybe a little bit of english and russian and french into what becomes the United States. This is quite a bit raw checked to make the United States quite a bit project to make the United States. I will tell you three stories that i think help explain this change, and they really do give us a view of a different kind of west. This is a map that was made in 1833. This map has some familiar borders, but there are some odd innings about it. There is something missing here, kind of like space here. Kind of blank space here. This is where i live in colorado, so it is called hostile ground. [laughter] we see all these native nations named on this map because that is what matters to an army officer in 1833, so again, it makes a point about it. Its very important for us to know that this large swath of land did not yet you want to the United States through most of the first half of the 19th century. This map gives you a sense again of the sort of diplomatic messiness of all of this. This white area is nominally new spain. This area could be british claims. Theres very little that is very clearly belonging to the United States. For People Living here, it is not Crystal Clear this was going to become the United States in the first half of the 19th century. Again, i think that is important to remember. We have to remember that the real significance of new spain and also the power of these native nations. In this shifting, unstable place, we have to look at the way people make families and do business in a region where nobody really knows who can win, and families help keep the story on a much more intimate scale. Native people, women, and children are essential to this story. This is one of my favorite images. Here we have the white trapper guy, and im guessing this is his spouse. She could be his wife. We dont know exactly. She is looking very concerned with all these children about to come into the water, so she is not having a very relaxing commute. This is what the American West looks like in the early 19th century. These people native, euroamerican, california, new mexican, etc. Were all part of this world that was just laid by the first trade. The first trade is the biggest business in the early 19thcentury u. S. If i trace these connections between all of these people by mapping their names, seeing how they traversed the continent, the analogy becomes ready obvious. There is a web. These three stories about these western parents and children really aaron straight illustrate how this webbuilding works. To be fair to this, they end a little tragically. Kind of suicide and murder, just so you are prepared. But here are our families. We have margaret and Benjamin Davis wilson and ramona, and i will explain the connections later. They are from st. Louis, santa fe, and los angeles. There background is angloamerican, mexican, and californio. Our second family are the mclachlans from california. I will talk a little bit about why the women have such long names in just a minute. They are from Lake Superior and or vancouver. This is our cast of characters. Lets start with here we have Margaret Harrison wilson and baby maggie, who was her youngest child in a portrait that was actually done in st. Louis when she left california to visit her mother in a while. That was a portrait made in st. Louis but carried back to Southern California. Like all of these people, margaret is important because of who she marries and the children she bears. She gives us the story of the first trade, the santa fe trade and gold rush california. This should be a familiar image of the first trade, and this shows us a native and french story, which is often the way we think about the first trade. Margaret sale Hereford Wilsons story illustrates how an angloamerican family negotiated the business of the first trade using these kinds of arsenal relationships. People living and trading here could not count on armies and governments really to protect their interests, so they built this world of much more intimate linkages of Business Practices and safety nets. Angloamericans like native americans or the french creole pictured here, recognized the utility of the systematic, dated to it. Said they had the relationship marriage, adoption, bondage, apprenticeship, friendship provide the glue that holds the world together. When the widow margaret sale Hereford Wilson agreed to marry Benjamin Davis wilson, she joined together to families with deep connections to the world of trade, for, and commerce. Her story actually starts about 50 years earlier in 1817 when phyllis and isabella sublet does that ring a bell . They took their eight children from kentucky to st. Louis. Five of the brothers go into the Missouri River, rocky mountain, and santa fe trade in the first half of the 19th century, and they really stand out over the whole west and form this incredible network. Here we have the oldest brother. This is william. He is wearing a fur trade costume designed for him by a scottish lord. This is not actually what he would have worn, but this is, like, his fake dressup for trading guy outfit. This is his business over here, which is a spa, brickworks, and trading post in 18 forties street louis. These brothers william, the oldest, then wilton, pinckney, solomon, and andrew there were quite a few of them all operate at all levels of the first trade the fur trade. They all died or retired with serious injuries. Three of them, when they died, had a running lawsuit with my st. Louis relative, who was a doctor named bernard. He also treated people with names like tag lake smith, which educated like peg leg smith, which indicated he was not very good at fixing the injuries. All of the relatives were suing my relative when they died. The way, Young Margaret sale from alabama appeared in st. Louis, and she is a sublett cousin, and while she is living at her cousin williams house, she meets a young doctor who is also from alabama. His name is Thomas Hereford, someone william has hired to be his fulltime physician after firing my ancestor. They got married in 1842, but his boss, William Sublett dies in 1845, so dr. Hereford goes to work as a merchant right down the road, but the store fails. This is an unfortunately typical western story. That boom and bust frontier economy is a really hard place for people. So thomas failed at his store, and then he heads to santa fe. In 1848 with margaret and their fouryearold son eddie. Margaret reports on all of this to her mother in a series of very sharp toned letters. I really enjoyed the letters because she did not hesitate to let loose about things she was unhappy about. Margaret and thomas are accompanied by solomon sublett, one of the other brothers, who has just married his brothers know, who is also Thomas Herefords sister his brothers widow. You cannot possibly figure this out, but anyway, they are all related in some way. People do not do anything alone. They do things in these family groups because it reduces risk to have your family around you. The family stays in santa fe for about a year, but even with santa fe booming after the war, thomas could not make a living. She felt that he was going to make another attempt at playing at doctoring. Here is a map that shows their travels. They start in st. Louis and end up here where westport would be. They are going down to chihuahua, and eventually, theyre going to go up the coast to california. You could see why margaret might be a little crabby about all of this. Predictably, given thomas track record, chihuahua does not seem to need more doctors, and like all over the world, the herefords decide to try their luck in california where, of course, they have more family connections. Margaret is clearly drought grouchy over thomas constant moving, so she tells her mother that thomas is determined to go to california and she is going with him and there is no alternative. She is thrilled, as you can tell. Thomas sells his equipment and invests in meals. Though no one mentions the gold rush in any of these that is, surely, this is a lower lure in 1850. Margaret and eddie take a ship up to your book when a, which is now San Francisco. Thomas followed on foot hoping to sell mules and goods to eager minors in california. Margaret and eddie are met by andrew sublett, another of margarets cousins and a fur trapper, but the sheriff of San Francisco how these guys just end up on their feet is amazing. It takes thomas six more months to get there. His trip, like so many others when you hope to get rich quick, does not go smoothly at all. Mules get sick. The weather is bad. The cousins who accompanied him left. Thomas finally arrived but, never one to settle for very long, decides to move the family to los angeles. This is los angeles in 1850 seven. Again, he relied on the family network. Now he is running a trading business along with margarets little brother, also named thomas. He goes into business with an excellent local business partner, whose name is Benjamin Davis wilson, who owned property and businesses all over los angeles, and wilson had been one of the first angloamericans in los angeles. Unfortunately, thomas poor health only catches up with him, and he died in 1852 at the home of his new business partner, Benjamin Davis wilson. Like margaret and Thomas Hereford, wilson was also a well educated southerner. This is a picture of Benjamin Davis wilson, and margaret as much older people. Wilson was born in tennessee in 1811, and he began his Business Life as a traitor with the choctaw chickasaw, and like a lot of traders, he gradually moved west and found himself working as a fur trapper. He arrives in california in 1841. First, he sets himself up as a mule trader. Then he opens a store in los angeles and then becomes a cattle rancher. He could only buy a ranch by marrying ramona yorba because he could not buy the land himself. So he marries the 14yearold daughter of a very wealthy man, and the marriage gave him right to land, the right to participate in politics. Just as Thomas Herefords marriage had given him access to this family network, Benjamin Davis marriage had allowed him to become one of the most powerful men in los angeles. Wilson became a californio. He was part of the group of mexicans and anglos who thought of themselves as californians rather than specifically mexicans or americans. He raises have cattle and sheep. Now part of this yorba family, he has power and economic clout in los angeles and has gained the respect of his neighbor. Their children, maria jesus and juanito, spoke spanish and attended convent schools. In 1840 six, wilson tried to protect his family by being american. This is pretty easy for someone who spoke english and had who was immediately made a captain in the United States army, but even with his new status, wilson remained very close to his californio friends and family. Unfortunately, his wife, ramona yorba, died in 1849, and hes left with two little kids, a ranch whose ownership is contested, and deep ties to the mexican community. It is right at this confusing moment when the recent widower meets the dying Thomas Hereford and his wife margaret. At this point, he becomes b. D. Wilson, and who knows how much the widow Margaret Hereford had to do with it, but he went pretty far down the path of claiming his identity as american. Margaret and benjamin went into their marriage with shared experiences. This is one of their wedding photos. This is the brides side of the family. Here we have margaret and b. D. And this is little eddie. I love pictures of children from 1850 because they are always blurred. You have to stand so long for exposure that no pictures of little kids are always clear because they move too much, and this is a great example of that. This is margarets younger brother thomas, so this is the brides side of the family. Both of them had traveled widely. They both valued family connections enormously. Margaret moved into the world of the yorba within. She quickly learn spanish. B. D. Made a new will. He adopted eddie hereford. All the children go to Northern California boarding schools after a long argument about this. Did california actually offer enough educational cultural opportunities for them . B. D. Thought yes. Margaret did not think so. In california, he hoped anybody would recognize their upbringing, family connections, and language as an advantage, whereas outside, they might be seen as mexicans. However, even with these powerful connections, wealth, and power, b. D. And margaret could not protect their blended family from these new ideas about race, land ownership, and that is. They have really pitiful, pitiful letters from homesick young eddie, mocked by the other boys at his center claridge clara with boarding school. He was teased for his poor spanish, and equally pitiful letters from juanito, who was being teased for his equally pitiful english. These are letters from Maria De Jesus wilson, who renamed herself sue when she went to boarding school. Sue, who looked quite mexican unlike her stepfamily, but who spoke and wrote excellent english really did fine. Even though she was pressured to become a protestant by margaret, heard her stepmother, with the support of her yorba relatives, she remained a practicing catholic. She married a gold rush immigrant to california, and they had 11 children. His fathers status and her husbands Financial Success allowed sue and her children to move very easily into the upperclass world of wealthy Southern Californians but also to retain her ties to the california yorba family. Juan bernardo wilson, juanito, really never found a place for himself. It was much harder for boys. Refusing to go to school at various points because he was teased about his image, he was taught at home. As a young man, he ran up debts and really lost his familys trust. New classifications about race made him an mexican and really affected the way people saw him in 1860s california, so he moved back to Southern California where he lived with his yorba cousins and uncles, maybe feeling more at home in that world. In 1870, while b. D. Was in washington serving as a senator, johnny killed himself at a hotel in downtown los angeles. The building was once owned by his father. John was buried in the yorba Family Cemetery with his mother and grandfather, bernardo, for whom he was named. Benjamin wilson wrote in a letter to margaret, poor boy. I love him with all his faults. He really grieved all his life over his inability to save johnny. This ethnically blended family that enabled Southern California to boom in the 1840s and 1850s had now become a burden. My second story involved the mclachlans of Fort Vancouver. John and his wife marguerite faced similar problems with their family, complex like the one b. D. And margaret created. The only thing you are supposed to notice from this map is all these little red dots over a hudson bay facility. The point is there were a lot of them. The one we are talking about his way down here in this area, kind of on the edge of the Hudson Bay Company world. This is one of the Biggest Multinational Companies of the 18th and 19th century, and staffed by a huge range of people. Brits, scots, frenchcanadians, really every possible idiot nation, and they all marry each other. Really every possible indian nation. It and they all marry each other. Here we have john and marguerite. This is an image of them as much older people, and we dont have images of them as young people. So we have to imagine what they look like 50 years earlier. Mcloughlin had married marguerite and about 18 18 near Lake Superior, and they took their blended family of seven children to Fort Vancouver on the columbia river. Im going to do a little demographics check here. Who has heard of the brady bunch . [laughter] ok, ok. This would be my era. This is the way to explains serial marriage. The widowed husband marries the widowed wife, and they bring their families together. These first trade families these fur trade families were filled with families like this. We think of the blended family as something invented in the 1970s, but it was really common in this period. Marguerite, who was half cree and half french spoke no english, but she speaks french and several native languages. Here is a map of the husband sort of mcloughlin family west. Here is fort william where they initially get married, and i will talk about some of these places as we go along. This heritage of this very powerful fur trade family, their parents expected a lot of these children. Both girls and boys are sent to boarding schools in montreal, one in paris. Sons received degrees in engineering, and medicine. Doctors received convent educations in preparation for life in Western North america. Here, i want to trace the path of his son john junior, who is almost always referred to as young john. This story really looks at the long history of the fur trade, arguments over borders, how race and culture operate in various settings. John is the fifth child in john senior and marguerites blended family. Young john went off to boarding school in montreal at the age of eight when his family left for Fort Vancouver. John bounced from school to school, expelled for transgressions like boiling his breeches and corrupting the morals of other boys and beating them with canes, according to letters from his distraught headmaster to his father. After being kicked out of a lot of schools, young john gets sent to paris to live with his uncle david, who was a successful medical doctor, and john came to be much better away from canada, and he began training for the medical profession. Then, in 1834 at the age of 22, john did something so serious that his uncle david sent him immediately back to canada with no explanation. The entire family expresses their frustration at not knowing what it is. It is always capitalized in John Mcloughlin seniors letters. Young john tried to apologize, but as mcloughlin senior says, you write an apology for his conduct but does not write what it is. Whatever it was, it occurred right after david got married. Maybe young john propositioned his uncles new wife or young male cousin. We do not know. That can canada, young john found himself under a considerable clout. He first attempted to enroll in university to finish his medical studies, and his angry uncle david would not send any of his records back. He applied to join the Hudson Bay Company, but they refused to hire him. Young john, now 23 and not really so young anymore, drifted around, ran up debts, and aggravated his relatives. Mcloughlin senior, who was also known as white headed eagle [laughter] was quite famous for his temper. He also really looks like my favorite muppet, sam, the eagle. You have to look at those eyebrows, but you do not want to make either of them angry at you. Mcloughlin insisted that john needed to cut off he told his son, i am convinced you are depraved beyond any hope of reform here co he advised him to, retire to some distant country that you may never more be heard of. Pretty harsh, right . John took him at his word and joined up with another angry young fur trade son named james dixon, who had form something called the indian liberation army. This army was made up of young men who are mixed blood. Neti means mixed blood in the same way that mestizo is used in the south. James dixon, who renamed himself montezuma ii, intended to gather up this Grunfeld Indian and mixed blood people from everywhere including texas, new mexico, and california gather up this grunfeld gather up disgruntled indian and mixed blood people from everywhere and make a new nation. A lot of them, like young John Mcloughlin, had been refused employment in the Hudson Bay Company, and they felt increasingly unwelcome in the fur trade world, so they became captains and majors in general dixons army. Young john became a major and sent his last check he had gotten from his father on a handmade uniform. In july 1836, an army of 60 headed to the great lakes to recruit their, and they end up on a spit of land that divides lakes huron and superior. At this point, governor simpson, who was the head of the Hudson Bay Company and mcloughlin seniors boss is beginning to Pay Attention to the indian liver ration army. He sees the potential of these wild, thoughtless young men, halfbreed sons its the first time he uses that word halfbreed sons of the gentleman in the fur trade have gone too far. When the army arrived, simpson broken up by offering them jobs. He offered young John Mcloughlin a clerkship in the hudsons bay company. Johns family urged him to take the job to desist from these foolish expectations. He desisted, took the job, and ended up at Fort Vancouver. He had a fiveyear term as clerk and surgeon. We do not know whether this felt like a failure or victory to young john maclachlan, but after 12 years, he was back home with his family and seemed finally to have a career path. When john arrived home at Fort Vancouver in 1837, he really stepped into this that very complex family web his parents had built in Fort Vancouver, and he was in a place that accepted and celebrated his mixed race credentials, but unfortunately, young john would fall through the safety net is family built for him. In 1832 in 1842, he was sent to the trading post to the northernmost post of the vancouver district, so his father sent him to head up this trading post, and this is a place that had long been troubled. The workers drank too much. They had violent confrontations. John, in his role as the head of the trading post for bad sex and alcohol, was murdered by his own employees. Unfortunately, this is kind of a second it. We do not know exactly what happened, though his father spent the rest of his career trying to exonerate young john. That is another sad story of sons. Story three, finally, we have the st. Louis, Southern California, and northern new mexico, the five bent children. They were born and raised on the Arkansas River. About 50 miles east of the Rocky Mountains along santa fe trail, kind of the anchor of the santa fe trail for a long time and the indian trade that develops around it. Then bents children were the issue of a great diplomatic marriage between the family of st. Louis and santa fe, and the greatest arrow people of the southern cheyenne, named white thunder. Here we have bents fort. Thats a watercolor done in the 1840s. Here is another image of cheyenne indians striking camp by george kaplan. William bent married in a traditional cheyenne ceremony. After she died in 1847, her sister stepped into the role of bents wife in the childrens mother, supporting this large kinship network. After 18 48, everything begins to change in this world as well, and bent and his cheyenne can find themselves in a rapidly changing situation. The gold rush of 1849 brings enormous waves of traffic over the santa fe trail as well as a terrible cholera epidemic. Bent decided to move further up the river and also decided to send his children east to the missouri border with its thriving towns and large mixedrace population. The regions early founders had been involved in the fur trade. They married native and mixedrace women. All of these men and women hoped, as we all do for our children now, the formal education offered a ticket to mainstream success. Local boarding schools in westport, mission schools, the Shawnee Mission in Catholic Colleges in st. Louis provided education for all these elite mixedrace and native children. Mary, george, and robert bent all attended school near kansas city, and then the boys went to st. Louis university. William bent tried really hard to provide his children with a material future. He left some land along the Arkansas River that was basically designated to mixed blood as part of the reparations after the sand creek massacre. This is a lovely image of william bent and his native family. This is bent sitting here. He is related to all of these men by marriage. This is the fathers of the Southern Plains negotiating together for their children, but unfortunately, even william bent, with all of his power and influence, really could not enable his children to benefit in the ways he had hoped. Money, access to education none of those things provided the ticket to mainstream success. Again, female children do better than boys, which i think is interesting. Julia bent, the youngest bent daughter, married a man named edward guerrier. He retired from being a warrior among the cheyenne and became a teacher at Indian Schools, and he and julia both worked as teachers in the Indian Schools in oklahoma. Mary bent, the oldest daughter, marys and anglo man named robinson more in 1860, and she brought him to southern colorado where they raised a family. Mary is identified as indian, but she never let her children visit the cheyenne camp, and she baptized them in the episcopal church. They really blended in to the Rural Community of southern colorado. Even with the bent family name, land, and army service, the boys do not do as well. George, after serving in the confederate army, married a cheyenne woman named magpie in 1868. She is the daughter of lack cattle, the leader of the cheyenne at sand creek he is the daughter of black kettle. George eventually sold his land to a white man who would build a huge Cattle Empire on land that william bent had intended for the cheyenne. He got access to the land originally because he is married to a native woman. Complicated world out there. All the cheyenne and arapahoe were driven out of colorado. George and magpie ended up on a small reserve in what is now oklahoma. The youngest bent, charles, became his familys angry young man. He lived through sand creek massacre and vowed never to settle on a reservation or see his wife father again, and he became a famous cheyenne dog soldier, rating settlements and military installations all over the planes in the 1860s rating raiding settlements and military installations all over the plains. He was described as the mongrel son of william bent and all the newspapers that described these wars. He became a frightening name in newspaper articles that described the violent chaos of those years. For cheyenne men, this is a very honorable choice, to become a dog soldier, but it was pretty dangerous, and charles was killed by scouts in 1867. Whether they spoke english, went to college, owned land, served in the army really did not matter. The bent children, especially boys, were labeled and recognized as indians, which meant they could not become settlers or pioneers. This is the same lesson the mcloughlin children learned in oregon. None of them were permitted to stay in colorado. Not every story of these mixedrace people is quite so tragic. But, really, this is kind of a flaw in my plan about all of this. Having faced their personal decisions about life, marriage, children, etc. , i really did love these people, and it broke my heart to write about the violence at the end of the story. The story is in the 1850s with a focus on what happens to everybodys multicultural children in the midst of this spiraling change. Again, the point of this map is there are a lot of wars. This is really before what we think of as the plains indian wars really begin. This is before that, so this is a really violent, chaotic period. The 1850s really are not a moment where we could look at something called a completed conquest. Maybe a better way to think about it is a violent whirlpool of change. Theres warfare absolutely everywhere, and there seems to be a particular fury against native people. In the 1850s, Southern California you can see some of this here is invaded by revolutionary mexicans, but anglo settlers attack indian communities rather than the rebels. The entire Pacific Northwest has this disastrous set of indian wars in which thousands of people are killed and driven from their home. Warfare breaks out on the Central Plains after the sand creek massacre, and that involves all of the mixedrace children of william bent. Finally, 38 sue men and women 38 sioux men and women swing from nooses in louisiana. Its often told as a civil war story, but i think it is a good example of the spiraling violence between these two groups. Ok, so leaving everyone dead and hanging is not the full story, either. People endured. They had children. They go on. I really needed to know what happened to my personal cast of characters, and i really needed a moores more sophisticated answer about what happened to this vast population of mixed race people. That is what i working on now. If they simply disappeared, how was that managed . If they did not, where did they go . Native people really faced hard choices. Sometimes they call this process and deceptively Something Like removal but really, you can see it as a plan of ethnic cleansing sometimes they call this process antiseptically. Even by 1850, something recognizable that you could label as Indian Country still exists, but it is under stress from all directions. For the mixed blood people in these stories, choices are very messy. We can look at John Mcloughlins family as an example. This is a photograph of a man born in 1784, and we have this image of him as a very old man. He is posed with his granddaughters who are both merited to mercantile elite families, and again, the daughters do pretty well. They are all founders of the Oregon Historical society, and that is a sign that you have entered the world of settlers, so they are quite successful. Sons, again, do not do as well. Here is an image of his grandson. This is donald mckay at the center. Sons and grandsons really had no choice except to become indian in this world. This grandson takes indian people who have been taken captive on display around the Pacific Northwest. John and marguerites youngest son, named after his uncle who got mad at young john in paris, so he is named ava, so here is david mcloughlin. A year before he dies at age 84, this is a man who was trained to be in the foreign legion, was educated at boarding schools in montreal and in paris. In the 1860s, he marries a woman named annie grizzly and moves to the reservation, and they have 11 children, all with the mcloughlin family name. In 1912, davids daughter, angelina, named after her father johns sister, who was a nun in montreal she comes to the family home when it was opened as a museum, and this grandchild of the founding father of oregon was denied entry because indians were not allowed. Why does any of this matter . The past, when we look carefully, offers both models and warnings. This look into the 19th century shows us a time and a place where race really operated differently, where it was actually an advantage to be a mixedrace person and where these relationships actually build communities. In forcing new rules about a race where you could not be a mixedrace person was actually bloody, bloody work. Theres evidence of a different west all over the place. This is a halfbreed track, and there are quite a few of these around the west. This is one thats right on the kansas and nebraska border, and there are thousands of mixed blood people who have claimed land and live around this area in the 1850s. They do not just disappear. We can find them in the past and traced them into the present, so this older world raises a lot of questions about the assumptions we make about the west. Our empty west, this image that we started with, is only empty because we have not been looking very carefully, and when we do look, it makes us uncomfortable. We have an opportunity to refocus. Families give us an opportunity to reenvision and reweave the story using this web of parents, children, and friends from the past. So thank you very much. [applause] would be happy to take your questions. If you would, come up to one of the microphones, please. Yay, ok. Theres a house on 55th street, right east of ward parkway that was built by one of the bents. I understand told and read someplace that he was married to an indian, and she lived in atp in the back of the house a story i heard and she would never live inside the house. Then that house later was owned by the ward family, for whom ward parkway was named. As i understand it, they were related to the same bent family. This is actually two stories that are mixed up. Its even better than you think. Ok. In 1850 when william bent decides to take his children to boarding school, he has lost his first wife. The second wife comes with them, and she is so worried about leaving them at this boarding school, she sets up camp at the boarding school in the front yard for several weeks, and she stays there. That is a true story. That is william bents second wife. The other story in the 1860s, that wife gets sick of william bent, so she leaves. This is the world of, you know, all this horrible stuff on the western plains. So she leaves william bent and goes back to her family, and he marries another mixed blood woman, whose name is adeline something, and he built a house for her, but she dumps him, too. They only stay in that house i dont know for a year or so. Then he goes back and dies at bent ford. Prince william bent and his various second and third wife who are there. The beginning of your book and this should play a major role their relationship with the osage indians who were based in our neighborhood and very important in the history of the world its a fascinating story to me, it seems, about how they used their native american wives, their native american families, and their ties in st. Louis to the rest of the world and how there is this liminal space between worlds. Can you talk about that . And also about the importance of the osage. They seem to me in some ways to be lost to American History, except in your book and others. They seem to be much more important as the kind of borderlands between the plains indians and the east and the fur trade. The importance of the fur trade, i guess. When they first show up in st. Louis, at the end of the 18th century, the osage rule everything. They are in charge. You want to do business in the region, you need to deal with the osage. The spanish and french figure this out pretty quickly. The second i dont know what generation to call it, but the first real generation of st. Louis she does figure this out, and i dont know whether to think about it as was it love, diplomacy, business, who knows . Several of the brothers, cousins as you all well know, it is very confusing to talk about them because they are all named august or 30 or or philipe or august philipe. They might have children, they might do various things, but they have french wives in st. Louis. Others really make the choice to live with native people, and theres some who end up around kansas city, and some who end up in what is now arkansas and oklahoma, so the business is all about the osage. They are the equivalent of the comanche later on in a slightly different area, so they are really important. The question in my mind is really about how they use the various relationships they are in washington, d. C. , a lot. They are living in native american style. They are in st. Louis, they are able to deal with the spanish, the french, the americans whoever shows up. They are really kind of extraordinary. They are the six flags over midamerica people. They are able to deal with everyone. It is a kind of extraordinary story of being able to comprehend all the different forces that are at work. I think they deliberately raised up their children to be able to do that. There is a wonderful series of letters from august to his father, and this is, like, 1802. It is some boarding school in montreal, and he is saying, please, please send me some moccasins and some arrows. I feel really homesick. Hes not comfortable without those pieces of his world. As you were doing your research and study, did you encounter any surprises or stereotypes or assumptions that you entered the study and research with that were kind of contradicted or give you an offtopic an aha moment . I did not expect to find all these mixed race people. I knew there were some families, but it turns out this is incredibly common. We know why crosbys dad probably had some indian blood. Really, there is mixing of everyone. I still think what we need to figure out next is what is the scale of this . What are the actual numbers . And i dont know how to do this, but we really need a better number for this. I was amazed by that. Once i started looking, i started seeing them everywhere. That was a big surprise. When you were doing your research, did you find more difficulty in researching the native sides of some of these families than the anglo sides of the families because of recordkeeping, or did it not make any difference since they were all intermarried, and you were tracing it using the family method . I do not have voices of these women, for the most part, who were native or mixed blood women who were married to white men. I have all kinds of descriptions of what they do, but how they felt about these things most of them were not literate. So that is hard to track. Attract all kinds of things through business records. So i know what william bent bought when he was in st. Louis. You can see Little Things for his wife and details of their life, but how they felt about these things . I would love to have more things like Margaret Herefords letters. That was just wonderful. You know, Something Like that is rare. Your focus has been so much on the fur trade and fur traders, but did you encounter similar stories with other people that went out west such as Army Officers who also married or formed alliances with the native groups . Fur traders become indian agents. The kind of first indian agents do tend to be for traders, so there is a weird continuation of that same group of people. I was doing some work a year or so ago at the newberry library, and i was under stuck about what to do. I thought i would just look at all the agents who were married to native women just as kind of a place to start. It was, like, all of them. [laughter] oh, ok. Army officers are harder. There are tons of them who do this, but because Army Officers move even more than fur traders there is a more love them and leave them thing going on, but not always. This was the question about surprise. There were fewer bad daddies than i think have been reputed out there. There are many, many many who even if they do not marry women, they take care of their children, educate them, leave money in their wills. Not every one. I was joking today. There is one fur trader i called the will chamberlain of the Missouri River because he kept records of how many native women he slept with. There are those guys, but they are the exception. We tend to think of sort of wild sex out in the boonies with the fur trade. I think that is maybe more the exception than the rule. Another question do you see a big difference an awful lot of the people you are talking about were catholic. In the southwest, but also in the northwest. In some way, was it easier for catholics to be in this liminal space . Is that a question that occurs to you or even an answerable question . Its interesting that so many of the kids end up going to st. Louis or a few of them to kansas city. A lot of them end up in montreal or paris. Two things are true. The jesuits have been out converting indians and encouraging this for a very long time, and they are much more interested in that. The other thing is the Catholic Church keeps better records. I dont know if im finding this just because records are better for catholics or if there is actually more of them than there are the protestant missions. More questions . Anne, i thank you very, very much for a wonderful presentation. [applause] you are watching American History tv 48 hours of rogue ramming on American History every weekend on cspan3. Follow us on twitter for information on our schedule, upcoming programs, and to keep up with the latest history news. To the british, he was a pirate. To the rebellious british subjects of america, he was their first and greatest naval bureau. Would there be a memorial for John Paul Jones in washingtons west potomac park had his revolutionary exploits been limited to during hitandrun attacks on rich merchant vessels question mark the answer is probably not. Jones, acottishborn placement history books was assured on a single day in september, 1779. Commanding the slow, under armed ship, named in tribute to his parisian patron, benjamin franklin, he triumphed over the new, technologically superior bridget risch frigate in a savage north sea encounter. At the height of the battle, jones delivered his celebrated rallying cry, i have not yet begun to fight at least recounted one of his officers. These words appear on the back a the memorial, along with picture of jones raising the new American Flag for the first time on a vessel in service to the United States. The kid dedicated in 1912, a 10 foot tall bronze statue of the admiral is flanked by sculptor dolphins whose mouth water a small pool. A marble column 15 feet in height serves as a backdrop. While his heroism and skill are beyond doubt, the fact is he almost certainly never said i have not yet begun to fight. The first printed reference to the electrifying phrase appeared the first printed reference appeared almost 50 years after the battle. Now you can keep in touch with Current Events from the Nations Capital using any phone anytime with cspan radio on audio now. 68888 to hear todays washington journal program. Listen to a recap of the days events on washington today. You can hear audio of the five Network Public affairs programs. Call