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Accordingly a numerous caravan set out from Santa Fe in 1720 to take possession of the country along the Missouri and establish upon its borders a colony. They first sought the Pawnee villages in their. march, but losing their way, they unfortunately fell in with the Missourie s whose destruction they had planned. Mistaking them for the Pawnees, they made known their designs, and solicited their co-operation. The Missouries manifesting not the least astonishment at this unexpected visit and startling communication, requested time to assemble their warriors. In forty-eight hours two thousand assembled in arms. They attacked the Spaniards in the night and killed the whole party except one priest who escaped on horseback and returned to Santa Fe, where the records of this account are preserved.

This battle occurred a little below Fort Leavenworth, on the banks of the Missouri.

The French apprised of this bold undertaking of the Spaniards in advancing almost one thousand miles from their possessions into this unexplored country, resolved to establish a fortification in that direction. Accordingly M. de Bourgmont was dispatched with a considerable force, who ascended the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers to an island in the latter above the mouth, of the Osage River a short distance, and established on it Fort Orleans.

At this time the Padoucas, who lived north-west of the Missouries, were at war with the latter and their allies, the Kansas, Ottoes, Osages and Iowas. The above mentioned officer in 1724, made an extensive exploration from Fort Orleans to the north-west, accompanied by a few soldiers and some friendly Indians, for the purpose of establishing friendship among the native tribes and opening and strengthening trade with them. Setting out on the 3d of July, he returned on the 5th of November, having successfully accomplished his object.

Lewis and Cark in 1804 made an expedition up the Mis

souri and across to the Pacific under the direction of the Government. They encamped at the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers and spent two days. Here they found plenty of game. Somewhere near Atchison, they discovered the remains of an old French fort and village. A little farther up they found a house and a trading-post but met with no white people. A negro cook with them excited the curiosity of the Indians.

The first steamboat that passed Kansas on the waters of the Missouri was the Western Engineer in 1819, under the command of Major S. H. Long. He, with a corps of Topographical Engineers, went on a tour of observation up to the Yellow Stone. "The boat was a small one with a stern wheel and an escape pipe so contrived as to emit a torrent of smoke and steam through the head of a serpent with a red, forked tongue from the bow." a powerful serpent, vomiting fire and smoke, and lashing the water into a foam with its tail, in order to strike terror among the Indians. Tradition says that they thought it was a "maniteau" which had come to destroy them.

This was designed to imitate

The fur trade was early prosecuted along the Missouri River. In this extensive and lucrative traffic Kansas must have participated largely. During the fifteen years previous to 1804 the value of furs annually collected at St. Louis is estimated at $203,750. James Pursley was the first hunter and trapper to traverse the plains between the United States and New Mexico (1802), and consequently the first AngloAmerican to behold the soil of Kansas. General William H. Ashley in 1823 fitted out his first trapping expedition to the mountains. He discovered the South Pass and thus opened the highway to Oregon and California. For forty years the fur trade averaged from two to three hundred thousand dollars annually. The last named gentleman alone between the years 1824 and 1827 sent fur to St. Louis to the value of $180,000.*

Peck's Annals of the West.

In the spring of 1823 the great Santa Fe trade from Missouri originated at Franklin, now Booneville, in Howard County, where the first enterprise was planned and outfit procured. It being an experimental trip, the stocks conveyed were slender, comprising a cheap class of goods, which were carried on pack mules and in wagons. This expedition proving a success, and awakening bright prospects of wealth, it was repeated the following year on a more extensive scale. In 1825 the Government, having its attention directed to this new channel of commerce by Colonel Benton, employed Major Sibley to survey and establish a wagon road from the Missouri State line to Santa Fe, which has been a great thoroughfare of travel ever since. The trade increased slowly but gradually during the next twenty-two years, the value of its exports averaging from $50,000 to $100,000 per annum.

The Indian tribes through whose territory the trains had to pass soon became very troublesome. They would suddenly swoop down upon the unsuspecting encampment of the transporters, drive off their draft animals, rob the wagons and frequently destroy lives. As but few traders in those days started out with more than two or three wagons, considerations of safety suggested a general rendezvous, from which point they could all start together and afford each other mutual protection. A spot well timbered and watered was selected for this purpose, which has ever since been known as "Council Grove." The caravans that thus collected here, numbered hundreds of wagons and thousands of mules, horses and oxen, and their departures over the Plains noted in the papers through the States.

The town of Independence, Missouri, was formed soon after the opening of this overland traffic and became the principal outfitting post. From 1832 to 1848 it held this commercial ascendancy and its merchants accumulated vast fortunes. In 1834 the first stock of goods was landed a little below Kansas City, at Francis Chouteau's log warehouse,

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