Claremore Mound, an ancient earthen platform

mound A mound is a heaped pile of earth, gravel, sand, rocks, or debris. Most commonly, mounds are earthen formations such as hills and mountains, particularly if they appear artificial. A mound may be any rounded area of topographically higher el ...

in present-day

Rogers County, Oklahoma Rogers County is located in the northeastern part of the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of the 2020 census, the population was 95,240, making it the sixth-most populous county in Oklahoma. The county seat is Claremore. Rogers County is included in ...

. The mound is located north of Sageeyah near the south bank of the

Verdigris River The Verdigris River is a tributary of the Arkansas River in southeastern Kansas and northeastern Oklahoma in the United States. It is about long.U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, ...

. The earthwork mound, likely constructed before 1000 CE by the

Caddoan Mississippian culture The Caddoan Mississippian culture was a prehistoric Native American culture considered by archaeologists as a variant of the Mississippian culture. The Caddoan Mississippians covered a large territory, including what is now Eastern Oklahoma, Wes ...

, has an elevation of above sea level. The area on top of the mound, where the Osage built a village called Pasona about 1802, is about . Claremore Mound was the site of the Battle of Strawberry Moon (a.k.a.

Battle of Claremore Mound The Battle of Claremore Mound, also known as the Battle of the Strawberry Moon, or the Claremore Mound Massacre, was one of the chief battles of the war between the Osage and Cherokee Indians. It occurred in June 1817, when a band of Western Cherok ...

). In June 1817, a band of

Cherokee The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...

Indians and their allies, under Chief Spring Frog (''Too-an-tuh''), attacked Pasuga, an

Osage Indian The Osage Nation ( ) (Osage: 𐓁𐒻 𐓂𐒼𐒰𐓇𐒼𐒰͘ ('), "People of the Middle Waters") is a Midwestern Native American tribe of the Great Plains. The tribe developed in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys around 700 BC along ...

village at the foot of Claremore Mound, killing thirty-eight Osage, including their Chief Glahmo, and taking one hundred and four captives. In revenge, the Osage attacked the Cherokee for the next twenty years, led by ''Wah-tianka'', Glahmo's son. European-American settlers designated both the mound and the nearby town as Clermont ("clear mountain" in English) in honor of Chief Glahmo, who French traders had nicknamed Chief Clermont."Osage Cherokee Delaware - A Brief History of Claremore, Oklahoma"
, Native Quotes and Brilliance (blog)] When the town petitioned for a post office in 1874, a clerical error listed Clermont as Claremore; the error was never rectified and today both the mound and the town are named Claremore. Parts of the Cherokee reservation, established in the late 1830s in

Indian Territory The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United St ...

, lay about to the west. The modern city of

Claremore Claremore is a city and the county seat of Rogers County in Green Country or northeastern Oklahoma, United States. The population was 19,580 at the 2020 census, a 5.4 percent increase over the figure of 18,581 recorded in 2010.Battle of Claremore Mound The Battle of Claremore Mound, also known as the Battle of the Strawberry Moon, or the Claremore Mound Massacre, was one of the chief battles of the war between the Osage and Cherokee Indians. It occurred in June 1817, when a band of Western Cherok ...

References

External links

* Eaton, Rachel Caroline
"The Legend of the Battle of Claremore Mound"
, ''Chronicles of Oklahoma'' 8:4 (December 1930) 369-377 (accessed August 28, 2006). Hills of Oklahoma Pre-statehood history of Oklahoma Landforms of Rogers County, Oklahoma {{Oklahoma-struct-stub