
Joseph James is the name of two
Kansa-
Osage The Osage Nation, a Native American tribe in the United States, is the source of most other terms containing the word "osage".
Osage can also refer to:
* Osage language, a Dhaegin language traditionally spoken by the Osage Nation
* Osage (Unicode ...
-
French interpreters on the
Kansas
Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to ...
and
Indian Territory
The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans who held aboriginal title to their land as a sovereign ...
frontier in the 19th century. Both were usually called "Joe Jim" or "Jojim".
Joe Jim
Joe Jim Sr. was probably born in the 1790s at the
Osage The Osage Nation, a Native American tribe in the United States, is the source of most other terms containing the word "osage".
Osage can also refer to:
* Osage language, a Dhaegin language traditionally spoken by the Osage Nation
* Osage (Unicode ...
town in
Vernon County, Missouri
Vernon County is located in the western region of the U.S. state of Missouri, on the border with Kansas. As of the 2010 census, the population was 21,159. Its county seat is Nevada. The county was organized on February 27, 1855, considerably l ...
. He was probably the son of a
French trader and an Osage woman. By about 1815, Joe Jim was living among the
Kaw tribe along the
Kansas River
The Kansas River, also known as the Kaw, is a river in northeastern Kansas in the United States. It is the southwesternmost part of the Missouri River drainage, which is in turn the northwesternmost portion of the extensive Mississippi River dr ...
in what would become the state of
Kansas
Kansas () is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its capital is Topeka, and its largest city is Wichita. Kansas is a landlocked state bordered by Nebraska to the north; Missouri to the east; Oklahoma to the south; and Colorado to ...
. Joe Jim married Wyhesee (b. 1802), a daughter of Kaw chieftain
White Plume
White Plume (ca. 1765—1838), also known as Nom-pa-wa-rah, Manshenscaw, and Monchousia, was a chief of the Kaw (Kansa, Kanza) Indigenous American tribe. He signed a treaty in 1825 ceding millions of acres of Kaw land to the United States. Most ...
, and thereafter became an important member of the tribe. Joe Jim was a signatory to an 1825 treaty ceding Kaw land to the United States government under the name of Ky-he-ga-shin-ga (Little Chief).
Fluent in English,
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with France ...
, Kaw (
Kanza), and Osage (nearly identical with Kaw); he became an interpreter for the U.S. government about 1829. In 1830, he served as a guide for a surveying expedition to western Kansas by missionary
Isaac McCoy
Isaac McCoy (June 13, 1784 – June 21, 1846) was a Baptist missionary among the Native Americans in what is now Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, and Kansas. He was an advocate of Indian removal from the eastern United States, proposing an Indian ...
. McCoy, critical of most of his associates, was laudatory of Joe Jim. The last record of Joe Jim
is 1837, when he was still employed by the U.S. government as an interpreter.
Joseph James is listed in the 1843 census of the Kaw, but whether this refers to Joe Jim Sr. or Joe Jim Jr. is unclear.
Joe Jim Jr.
Joe Jim Jr. was born about 1820 and his place of birth was given as "Big Bottom", a place along the Kansas River. (Joe Jim Jr.'s birth date on his tombstone is given as 1814, but that date is inconsistent with other statements concerning his age.) He was apparently illiterate. In 1846 and 1847, during the
Mexican–American War
The Mexican–American War, also known in the United States as the Mexican War and in Mexico as the (''United States intervention in Mexico''), was an armed conflict between the United States and Second Federal Republic of Mexico, Mexico f ...
, Peter Revard, a mixed blood Osage, and he drove a herd of cattle from Kansas to New Mexico to feed American soldiers. He worked as a teamster during a military campaign against the
Navajos
The Navajo (; British English: Navaho; nv, Diné or ') are a Native American people of the Southwestern United States.
With more than 399,494 enrolled tribal members , the Navajo Nation is the largest federally recognized tribe in the United ...
. While returning to Kansas in a wagon train, he survived a
Comanche attack that resulted in the death of two American soldiers.
In the 1850s, Joe Jim had an arm amputated due to "poisoning", which ended his active life. He became an interpreter for the U.S. government in 1858, and thereafter was a principal point of contact between Whites and the Kaw tribe, living in both worlds and not accepted fully in either. One of the Indian agents for whom Joe Jim worked was
Hiram Warner Farnsworth
Hiram Warner Farnsworth (born October 13, 1816, in Brattleboro, VT and died 26 July 1899 in Topeka, KS) was an abolitionist, Kansas pioneer, educator, Indian agent and community leader.
Early life
Hiram Warner Farnsworth (H. W.)''H.W.'' is u ...
. In 1859, he was an informant for pioneering ethnologist
Lewis Henry Morgan
Lewis Henry Morgan (November 21, 1818 – December 17, 1881) was a pioneering American anthropologist and social theorist who worked as a railroad lawyer. He is best known for his work on kinship and social structure, his theories of social evo ...
. Morgan said of him, Joe Jim’s wife was Margaret Curley, a full-blooded
Potawatomi
The Potawatomi , also spelled Pottawatomi and Pottawatomie (among many variations), are a Native American people of the western Great Lakes region, upper Mississippi River and Great Plains. They traditionally speak the Potawatomi language, a m ...
Indian. The Potawatomi had been forced by the U.S. to move to Kansas from the
Ohio River valley in the 1830s.
Joe Jim has been credited with naming
Topeka, Kansas
Topeka ( ; Kansa: ; iow, Dópikˀe, script=Latn or ) is the capital city
A capital city or capital is the municipality holding primary status in a country, state, province, department, or other subnational entity, usually as its seat ...
. Asked by White settlers what the name of the place was, he answered, "Topeka", stating that it meant "a good place to grow potatoes", probably meaning the
prairie turnip
''Psoralea esculenta'', common name prairie turnip or timpsula, is an herbaceous perennial plant native to prairies and dry woodlands of central North America, which bears a starchy tuberous root edible as a root vegetable. The plant is als ...
rather than the common
potato
The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae.
Wild potato species can be found from the southern Un ...
. In 1867, Joe Jim accompanied a Kaw delegation headed by Chief Al-le-ga-wa-ho to Washington. The Kaw were disappearing rapidly as a tribe, their lands being occupied by White settlers. They sought a new reservation free of white squatters in the
Indian Territory
The Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the United States Government for the relocation of Native Americans who held aboriginal title to their land as a sovereign ...
(later
Oklahoma).
Joe Jim was involved in one of the most colorful and public Indian battles in the West. On June 1, 1868, about 100
Cheyenne
The Cheyenne ( ) are an Indigenous people of the Great Plains. Their Cheyenne language belongs to the Algonquian languages, Algonquian language family. Today, the Cheyenne people are split into two federally recognized tribe, federally recognize ...
warriors descended upon the Kaw reservation near
Council Grove, Kansas
Council Grove is a city and county seat in Morris County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 2,140. It was named after an agreement between American settlers and the Osage Nation allowing settlers' wa ...
. The Kaw men sallied forth to meet them, and for four hours, the tribes staged a military pageant described as a "battle royal". The Cheyenne then retired from the field, taking with them a few stolen horses and a peace offering of coffee and sugar donated by the merchants of Council Grove. Nobody was seriously hurt on either side. During the battle, Joe Jim galloped 60 miles (97 km) on horseback to Topeka to inform the governor that the Cheyenne were attacking and to request assistance. With him on the ride to Topeka was an eight-year-old nephew called "Indian Charley". This was
Charles Curtis
Charles Curtis (January 25, 1860 – February 8, 1936) was an American attorney and Republican politician from Kansas who served as the 31st vice president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 under Herbert Hoover. He had served as the Senat ...
, who later became Vice President of the United States.
On June 4, 1873, the Kaws, by this time diminished by disease, alcoholism, and warfare, to only 500 people from their earlier population of 1,500, packed their possessions and left for a new reservation in what became
Kay County, Oklahoma
Kay County is a county located in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. As of the 2020 census, its population was 43,700. Its county seat is Newkirk, and the largest city is Ponca City.
Kay County comprises the Ponca City micropolitan statistical ar ...
. Their numbers continued to decline, reaching a low of about 200 in 1890.
[Unrau, 104; Kaw Census, National Archives] Joe Jim and his wife Margaret established a homestead on the east bank of the
Arkansas River
The Arkansas River is a major tributary of the Mississippi River. It generally flows to the east and southeast as it traverses the U.S. states of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. The river's source basin lies in the western United S ...
just south of the border with Kansas. He died September 21, 1898, the oldest of the Kaw Indians. He was buried in the
Washunga cemetery now located in
Newkirk, Oklahoma
Newkirk is a city and county seat of Kay County, Oklahoma, United States. The population was 2,172 at the 2020 census.
History
Newkirk is on land known as the Cherokee Outlet (popularly called the "Cherokee Strip"), which belonged to the Cher ...
.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:James, Joseph And Joseph James Jr.
Native American leaders
Kaw people
Osage people
American frontier
People of the American Old West