US Army in Oklahoma--A True Tale of Cowboys and Indians Part 3

Fort Gibson, 1870's Wikipedia, public domain

    

By Alanna Radle Rodriguez and Judge Rodriguez


Thank you for joining us this month in our discovery of the effects that the different branches of the U.S. military have had on the development of the state of Oklahoma. For the last two months, we have delved into the history of the US Army, up to the end of the War Between the States (WBtS).

This month, we cover the time period after the WBtS going to the land runs/ lotteries.

On the national level, the time period just after the WBtS is known as the reconstruction period. This period is a time of social change and military occupation, particularly in the south. In the Indian Territory, the tribes had split, one side for the United States, the other for the Confederate States.

In 1867, following numerous raids, the Department of the Interior, at the insistence of the newly formed states of Kansas and Nebraska, formed a series of treaties that created the Cheyenne-Arapaho and the Kiowa-Commanche reservations. This helped to frustrate the already closed-in feeling tribes. The plains tribes resisted the move to the reservations, and tensions increased. The army was tasked with being a peace keeping force in the territory. They protected not only the eastern tribes from the plains tribes, but also the white settlers that were moving through the area.

Tensions rose steadily, however, as not all tribes ascribed to the war-like ideals of the plains tribes. In 1874 war broke out in the conflict now known as the Red River War. In one of the first conflicts, Lieutenant Colonel Custer led a raid against Chief Black Kettle’s camp. Tragically, or rather ironically, Black Kettle was known as a “peace chief”.

The Red River War lasted through into 1875, ending in the “Sand Hill Fight” on April 6th 1875. In 1887, the Dawes Severalty Act ended the reservation system in the Indian Territory, and opened up the lands reserved for the tribes, thus leading to the Land Runs, which began in 1889.

There were 5 major land runs, and several smaller ones throughout the next 13 years. The 1st of the major land runs occurred on April 22nd 1889, where the “Unassigned Lands” were opened to settlement. This land run opened up what became Canadian, Cleveland, Kingfisher, Logan and Oklahoma counties. This is what is commonly referred to as the “Oklahoma Land Run”, however it was only the first in the series of them.

The 2nd major land run was in fact 3 smaller land runs occurring between September 22nd and 28th of 1891, and opened up the settlement of what eventually became Lincoln, Pottowatomie, and Seminole counties.

The 3rd was the Cheyenne-Arapaho reservation lands, occurring in April 19, 1892, and opened up the lands that would become Blaine, Custer, Dewey, Washita, and Roger Mills counties.

The 4th was the Cherokee Outlet on April 19th 1893--also mistakenly referred to as the Cherokee Strip Land Run--which opened the lands of the entire Cherokee Outlet. This area ranged from essentially lands east of current day Enid, all the way to current day Woodward, thus opening close to 1/8th of what would become the state of Oklahoma.

The 5th and final major land run on May 23rd of 1895, was the opening of the Kickapoo lands, which opened the remainder of current-day eastern Oklahoma and western Pottowatomie counties. After this land run, a critical change was made and, other than several considerably smaller land runs, was the end of the “Land Run Experiment”, and was considered to be an inefficient way to distribute the land.

While it is commonly held that after the Kickapoo land run, the land was distributed by lottery, and bids, there was actually one more minor land run, which allocated land in the current town of Arcadia, Oklahoma. That land run occurred on August 8th 1901.

During each of these land runs, and the settlement directly afterwards, the U.S. Army was tasked with keeping the peace, as well as preventing the “Sooners” from being able to claim jump the most choice lands, and to help keep down theft of the lands for the claimants. Unfortunately, corruption ran a bit rampant, and there are many stories of not only Sooners, but also of claimants being wiped out by claim jumpers.

It was during this time frame that the U.S. Cavalry, and by extension the Army, held ultimate authority of law in the land. There were several U.S. Marshals in the territory, such as Bass Reeves, and Frank Dalton. When the cards were on the table, however, each of these marshals had the authority to call in the cavalry, to put down any insurrections, etc. if it was deemed necessary. Each of the towns had their own marshal, as well as many (like Oklahoma City, Edmond, Guthrie, Stillwater, and Norman) had their own police force enforcing the edicts of the city ordinances.

Join us next month as we explore the history of the U.S. Army, and its effects on the history of this grand state, known as Oklahoma during its statehood, and afterward.

Born and raised in Edmond, Oklahoma, Alanna Radle Rodriguez is the great-great granddaughter of one of the first pioneers to settle in Indian Territory. Alanna loves the history of the state and relishes in volunteering at the 1889 Territorial Schoolhouse in Edmond. Her first published story, part of a collaborative novella titled Legacy Letters, came out September 2016. Alanna lives with her husband and parents in the Edmond area. She is currently working on a historical fiction series that takes place in pre-statehood Waterloo, Oklahoma. 
Facebook.com/authorAlannaRadleRodriguez
Pinterest.com/alannaradlerodr/ 

Cynthia Ann Parker

Susan Page Davis here. You can’t study Texas history without hearing the name Cynthia Ann Parker. Several of my books are set in the Lone Star State, and she is one of the first famous Texans I learned about.

    Cynthia was about eleven years old when she was captured by Comanches, and here is how it came about.

    She was born about 1825, in Illinois. Her parents moved to central Texas when she was nine or ten years old. Her father, John Parker, headed the move and took a large number of people from his extended family with them. They built a stockade, Fort Parker, on the headwaters of the Navasota River, in what is now Limestone County.

    The fort was built on a hill, giving the inhabitants a good view of anyone approaching. The settlers lived in log cabins inside the walls. Each day, they went outside the walls to farm. At night, they would drive their grazing animals inside the fort and bar the gate.

Source of this picture of Fort Parker unknown, public domain

    On May 19, 1836, several of the Parker men went out to tend their fields. They left the gate open. A short time later, a child looking out the gate saw about 150 mounted warriors (some accounts estimate up to 500) outside.

The Indians, mostly Comanche, claimed to be friendly at first. Benjamin Parker went out to talk to them. They asked for some beef and directions to the nearest water—and yet, the river ran nearby. Parker went inside the gate told the others he would go and talk to them some more. Still those inside did not close the gate, not wanting to shut out the men in the fields.

     The warriors killed Benjamin Parker and attacked the fort. They killed several of the settlers and captured five people, including Cynthia and her younger brother, John Parker. Then they chased the men who had been working outside the fort. Some were killed, and others managed to hide and escape.

Comanche chief Quanah Parker on horseback, late 1800s. Public Domain

      The other captives were released in a relatively short time, but not Cynthia Ann. She grew up among the Comanche people and became one of them. They gave her the name Nadua, and she darkened her hair to make her look more like her adopted people. She became the wife of Peta Nocona, a leader among the Comanche. They had two sons, Quanah and Pecos, and a daughter, Topsannah.

    Her brother, John, who had been ransomed, reportedly asked Cynthia to return to their family in the mid-1840s, but she refused. She told him she loved her husband and children too much to leave them. Another undocumented report tells of an Indian trader inviting her to return to the white settlements with him a few years later, again without success.

     Several federal officials and military officers reported seeing her over the years and attempting to ransom her and being refused by the Comanche elders, who said she was a member of the tribe.

Cynthia with her daughter, Topsannah

    In December, 1860, Cynthia Ann and her baby, Topsannah (“Prairie Flower”), were captured by a group of Texas Rangers during an attack on a Comanche hunting camp. The Rangers were surprised to find that one of their captives had blue eyes. They described her as a non-English-speaking white woman with an infant daughter. She was later identified by Col. Isaac Parker as his niece, Cynthia Ann.



    Cynthia at the time thought her husband was dead and cut her hair short, a Comanche tradition of mourning. She begged to be allowed to return with her daughter to the Comanche, but was refused. She agreed to accompany Col. Parker on the condition that her sons would be sent to her if they were found. This did not happen. She returned to the Parker family. She had lived with the Comanche for more than twenty-four years. By now, Cynthia Ann had disappeared. She considered herself Nadua, a Comanche woman.

Cynthia's son Quanah

    The Texas legislature voted her a grant of $100 a year for five years and a piece of land. Two of the Parker family men were appointed her guardians. Desperately unhappy and longing to be with her sons and her husband, Nadua tried several times to escape. She was placed under guard.

    When Topsannah died within three years of coming to the white community, Nadua grieved as a Comanche woman would, horrifying her relatives. She howled and slashed her arms and breasts with a knife. She refused to eat and died mourning at the home of one of her brothers, having never seen her Comanche family again. She was approximately forty-three years old.

    Her son Quanah became the most influential Comanche leader of the reservation era and took his mother’s last name, Parker. He moved her body in 1910 to the Post Oak Mission Cemetery near Cache, Oklahoma. Later, Cynthia Ann’s remains and Quanah Parker’s were reinterred at the Fort Sill Post Cemetery in Lawton, Oklahoma.

To enter a drawing for a copy of Susan Page Davis’s Captive Trail, a historical novel set in Texas, leave a comment and your contact information. The drawing will be held Oct. 28.

Susan Page Davis is the author of more than sixty published novels. She’s always interested in the unusual happenings of the past. She’s a two-time winner of the Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award, and also a winner of the Carol Award and the Will Rogers Medallion, and a finalist in the WILLA Awards and the More Than Magic Contest. Visit her website at: www.susanpagedavis.com .
All photos on this post are in the public domain.

Hannah Emerson Duston & Book Giveaway!

By Susan Page Davis

Among my husband’s more colorful ancestors is Hannah Emerson Duston, also known as the Hatchet Lady and the Haverhill Hero.

Hannah was born in Haverhill, a town in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1657. She married Thomas Duston (also spelled Dustan or Dustin) in 1677. Over the next nineteen years, she gave birth to twelve children, the last being Martha Duston, born
March 9, 1696/7. A relative of Hannah’s named Mary Neff, probably her aunt, was acting as her nurse in the days following the birth.

The French encouraged the Indians to raid English settlements during King William’s War (1689–97), and on March 15, 1697, band of Abenaki made such a raid on Haverhill. Twenty-seven women and children were killed in the raid.

Less than a week after giving birth, Hannah Duston was captured along with her infant daughter and Mary Neff. Hannah’s husband reportedly tried to persuade her to let him carry her to a safe place. Apparently she felt his energy would be better spent saving the other children and told him to save them. He rode his horse after the fleeing children, determined to save at least one, and fired on the Indians who tried to follow. He managed to escape with all seven to the nearest garrison. The Abenaki gave up the pursuit and turned back to raid the house. Mary Neff had stayed with Hannah.

Artist's portrayal of Thomas Duston saving his children.

The interlopers burst into the cabin and captured the two women. The baby was brutally killed, being dashed against a tree by one of the Abenaki soon after their march began. Hannah and Mary were taken northward by their captors. The thirteen captives from Haverhill were divided into smaller parties of Indians, who probably planned to take them to Canada. With Hannah's party was a boy, Samuel Lennerson or Leonardson, about 12 or 13 years old, who had been captured more than a year earlier in another raid.

This painting portrays Hannah and Samuel in action.

About two weeks after their capture, they had traveled about 100 miles from Haverhill, north of what is now Concord, New Hampshire. The party paused at an island (afterward known as Penacook Island, or Dustin Island) in the confluence of the Merrimack and Contoocook rivers on the evening of March 29. The two women were told that after a short journey to a further village they would be stripped and beaten.

During the night, Hannah and the boy Samuel secured hatchets and attacked their captors. Ten were killed, nine of them, most accounts say, by Hannah. The three captives then used a canoe to escape, but Hannah turned back and scalped the 10 corpses to have proof of the exploit. Scalps could be handed in for a bounty during the war.

Painting by artist Junius Brutus Stearns, depicting Hannah's escape,
 with an assist from Mary.

After facing many hardships, they reached Haverhill safely. They presented their story to the General Court in Boston on April 21, which awarded the sum of 25 English pounds to Hannah Duston and half that to each of her companions. Hannah Duston lived out the rest of her life quietly, moving to Ipswich after the death of her husband in 1732.

Mary, Samuel, and Hannah flee the island.

In his book The Haverhill Emersons, author Charles Henry Pope, a respected New England historian, said, Hannah’s deed “was one of the chief means of checking the cruelties of the Indians, showing them that ‘weak women’ would meet their atrocities in kind.” He also stated that Hannah “was at no other time in her life found lacking of the gentleness and peaceful character of woman; this deed was the product of maddening experience.” (Pope’s Emerson genealogy was published in Boston in 1913.)

Hannah has been memorialized in two statues of her wielding a hatchet, one in the town of Haverhill, Mass., and the other near the site of her escape in Boscawen, N.H.

The monument at Boscawen, N.H.

The monument in Haverhill, Mass.

    


Our family happened upon the monument on the island in Boscawen by chance while traveling in New Hampshire. I saw the sign and told my husband to stop. We were near a monument to his ancestor. We took the kids and walked down a shady path and along an old railroad track until we came upon the statue. It seemed an odd, isolated place for such a memorial, but this was the place where Hannah defended herself and made her escape.

The historical marker in Boscawen, N.H. Photo by Craig Michaud at en.wikipedia

You can read an article about Hannah published in Yankee Magazine in 1995 here:
http://www.yankeemagazine.com/article/history/hannah-duston-scalped-Indians

In recent years, a few people have protested the honor shown to Hannah and tried to cast her as a murderer and have the statues taken down. I have to agree with the people of Haverhill who refused to remove the monuments. Hannah is a heroine.

*** In Hannah's honor, I am giving away two copies of books from my White Mountain Brides series, either paperback or digital. Leave a comment below and enter the drawing for one of these New Hampshire colonial books centered on the Dover Massacre of 1689: Return to Love, A New Joy, or Abiding Peace. ***

Susan Page Davis is the author of more than fifty published novels. A history major, she’s always interested in the unusual happenings of the past. She’s a two-time winner of the Inspirational Readers’ Choice Award, and also a winner of the Carol Award and the Will Rogers Medallion, and a finalist in the WILLA Awards and the More Than Magic Contest. Visit her website at: www.susanpagedavis.com .

LESSER-KNOWN TRIBES OF TEXAS: THE KICKAPOOS

By Laurie Kingery

For my November blog piece I'd like to explore another one of the lesser-known Indian tribes of Texas, the Kickapoos. Be sure and read to the end to find out about my giveaway this month!

                                                              

The name always seemed like a made-up up, cartoonish name for a tribe to me, and was associated in my mind with the potent moonshine, "Kickapoo Joy Juice," of the Li'l Abner comic strip and the non-alcoholic soda pop by that name. But the real Kickapoos were a large Indian tribe in Texas, a rival to the Comanches and Lipan Apaches. They lived in wickiups, made of a rough frame covered by reed mats, grass or brushwood.

                                                         

The Kickapoo tribe is an Algonquinian tribe originally encountered by the LaSalle expedition around present-day Terre Haute, Indiana. The tribal name means "Stands here and there" or "Wanderer" which probably refers to the migratory pattern of the tribe. But as white settlers came to the area in the early 1800's, tensions rose between Indians and whites. The Kickapoos allied themselves with tribal leader Tecumseh and participated in the battle of Tippecanoe and in the War of 1812. Some of them accepted land in Kansas and left Indiana. Another division went to Oklahoma. Still others had gone earlier to Texas when it belonged to Mexico, and were given land by the Mexican government in the state of Coahuila. The Mexicans hoped to use them as a buffer against American expansion, allying themselves with the Mexican military and to keep the other Indian tribes in check. 

                                                              

During the Civil War, when most of the Texas men were away fighting Yankees, the Indian tribes took full advantage of their absence and spread terror among the settlers. The remaining Texas state troops did their best to contain them. When the Oklahoma Kickapoos decided to join their brothers in northern Mexico, they crossed Texas and ran into McCord's regiment, who mistook them for a Comanche-Kiowa band and attacked them where Dove Creek joins the Concho River in present-day Tom Greene County. The battle of Dove Creek was the largest battle against the Indians in the Civil War, and the Kickapoos won. Further Kickapoo attacks followed, with the Indians attacking southern Texas, then easily escaping across the Rio Grande.

                                                         

An interesting sidelight I found in my research on this topic was the fact that the Kickapoos have a secret language along with their regular one. It's a whistling speech mainly used in Texas and Mexico in courtship during the evenings as a cultural tradition. It's produced by cupping the hands to form a chamber. Sounds can be varied by lifting their fingers from the back of the chamber. The pitch and length of vowels and vowel clusters are represented while vowel qualities and consonants aren't. These sounds can be transmitted over long distances.

In the present, Kickapoos have a settlement near Piedras Negras near the International Bridge that leads to Eagle Pass, Texas, and have a 125-acre reservation in El Indio, Texas, where they are known as the Texas Band of the Oklahoma Kickapoos and operate the Lucky Eagle Casino.

                                                                

In researching this article I am indebted to the book CAMP VERDE—TEXAS FRONTIER DEFENSE, by Joseph Luther. The pictures used are in the public domain unless noted otherwise.

And last but not least, leave a comment to be eligible for my giveaway of my latest book in my "Brides of Simpson Creek" series for Love Inspired Historicals, HILL COUNTRY CATTLEMAN! As before, if you have already read this book, you can check my website for a book of mine that you haven't read, either in this series or one of my two earlier non-series LIH books.     

                        Blessings, Laurie Kingery

Tidbits About Micanopy

Tidbits from Micanopy, Fl.

I discovered Micanopy quite by accident. Not having grown up in Florida, I know precious little about the state history. However, as time goes on and my interest in historical places and settings grow, I find little hidden tidbits. Yes, James Taylor mentions Micanopy in a song; and Michael J. Fox filmed Doc Hollywood in Micanopy, but I hadn’t paid much attention to those tidbits. A few years back we were visiting Paynes Prairie State Park and stumbled upon a sign pointing to Historic Micanopy, so I followed the road and was surprised to find this cute little place.

Did you know that Micanopy was the first established town in the state of Florida after it became a part of the United States? It was settled in 1821 by Moses Elias Levy, and he named it after a Seminole Chief, Micanopy. The town is just barely over one square mile. So if the road didn’t end you could blink and miss it.

There’s a used bookstore in town and I’m afraid hubby and I spent a lot of time in there. I found original newspapers from Springfield, Mass put in a library binder. If I had extra I would have purchased one, but the extra wasn’t there right then. However, I do know where they are and if the extra becomes available…well, let’s just say they might find a home.

In Micanopy you drive less than 20 mph. There are quite cafes, antique stores, a museum, town hall, fire department, etc. Here are a few pictures to give you a feel for the place.





Historically, it was the home of a Methodist Seminary for both men and women from around the world. After the Civil War it became a Baptist Seminary. Below is a rather old photo of the Seminary.



There was also a large lake, and water travel permitted easy access to Micanopy that is no longer the case. It was also the location for the first of the Seminole Indian wars. A military post was established there in the 1830’s. Fort Defiance was erected in 1840. It was an intense fighting situation which—if you are familiar with the Seminole Wars in Florida—you are aware of how hard it was on both sides.

In 1854 a petition to the state was requested to form a “Plank Road” from Palatka to Micanopy. Palatka is on the St. John’s River and was a major stop for the steamboat industry. In fact, Palatka was… I’ll save that for next month’s post.

After the wars Micanopy settled into a quiet location with rich hammock filled lands and large plantations and orange groves (outside of the town). Today it is a quiet and great historical place to visit. If you’re traveling in Central Florida you might want to stop by. You’ll be glad you did.


If you like historical tidbits you might like to visit my blog 19th Century Historical Tidbits. You can also follow me on twitter @LynnColeman or you can friend me on Facebook. My next novel "Courting Holly" is scheduled to be released in Oct. 2013.

In His grip,
Lynn

The Florida Wars

Anyone who has taken American history in school or watched a western movie probably knows that the United States spent a lot of time, money, and manpower on “subduing the savages” during Westward Expansion. But long before some of the most infamous western battles like Custer’s Last Stand, the longest, costliest, and most deadly of Indian wars occurred in Florida.

Let me set the stage. It was the early 1800’s, and Spain still owned Florida, although their grip was weakening. Americans had settled on both sides of the Florida/Georgia border. Seminoles Indians inhabited the territory only a little further south. Some lawless Americans took forays into Seminole areas to steal cattle and horses from the Indians. In retaliation, the Seminoles crossed the border into Georgia to commit raids on settlers there. In addition, a good number of slaves, escaped from southern plantations, lived among the Seminoles, and slave catchers often ventured into Florida's wilds to pursue them. Pirates and British opportunists would also traverse the Florida peninsula, causing whatever trouble they could between Americans and Seminoles.

This was the exact recipe that created the tensions leading to the Seminole Wars, also known as the Florida Wars. The Seminole Wars consisted of three periods of fighting, the second one being the longest, costliest, and most deadly Indian war I alluded to above. But let’s look at them in order.

Andrew Jackson
State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory
http://floridamemory.com/items/show/128711

The First Seminole War erupted when American General Edmund Gaines took the Miccosukee chief Neamathla captive in 1817 in order to stop the Indians from offering safe haven to escaped slaves. To avenge his capture, the Miccosukee, Seminole, and Creek tribes banded together to attack a military transport traveling along the Apalachicola River. Thirty-five soldiers and six women died in the attack. President James Monroe tapped war hero Gen. Andrew Jackson to go in and subdue the Indian forces, and in eleven weeks in the Spring of 1818, Jackson and his 3500 men did just that. They destroyed many Indian settlements west of the Suwanee River and captured the only two Spanish settlements in West Florida—St. Marks and Pensacola. After all of this, the fighting began to calm. Spain saw the truth that they were no longer able to hold onto Florida and ceded the land to the United States through a treaty in 1821. The Indians were shuffled off to a reservation in Central Florida where conditions were less than ideal.

Andrew Jackson became President in 1829, and the next year, he signed the Indian Removal Act, which said that all Indians living east of the Mississippi must move to the new Indian Territory (current day Oklahoma). The Seminoles were later forced to sign the Treaty of Payne’s Landing in 1832, giving up their claim to their Florida homes, and taking up residence in Indian Territory. They were given three years to comply. When the American military returned to enforce the treaty in 1835, the Seminoles were ready to defend their homes.


Sorrow of the Seminoles--Banished from Florida
 State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory

 http://floridamemory.com/items/show/28652

In December of 1835, Seminole and black warriors burned sugar plantations along the St. Johns River. On December 28th, Seminole leader Osceola killed a government Indian agent and his associate outside of Ft. King (Ocala) at the same time a band of warriors massacred a column of 108 soldiers traveling between Ft. Brooke (Tampa) and Ft. King. The Second Seminole War had begun.

This war lasted from 1835 until 1842, and it pitted some 3000 Seminole and black warriors against four U.S. Generals and 30,000 troops. The Seminoles were masters of guerilla fighting and used the thick scrub and Florida swamps to their advantage. In addition, the heat, insects, and disease prevalent during Florida summers prolonged the fighting for years because the U.S. troops would pull out of the fight until weather conditions became more tolerable in the fall. But this pull-out each year gave the Seminoles time to recuperate and regroup, so when the forces returned, they were ready for more fighting. The war finally ground to an end when American forces began to employ captured black and Seminole warriors as guides to hidden Seminole encampments where they killed or captured many of the Indian forces. No treaty was ever signed, but peace was called in August 1842 when over 4000 Seminoles were forcibly removed to the Indian Territory. More than 1500 soldiers lost their lives, most to disease. Some 30,000 citizen soldiers also perished in the fighting. The final price tag for the war was $30 million. (To put that in perspective, the proposed budget for the federal government in 1836 was $25 million).

This hugely costly war wasn’t the last of the Seminole uprisings. Chief Billy Bowlegs led one more war starting in 1855. It was a two-and-a-half year conflict that pitted the remaining 350 Seminoles against the American settlers and military. But in the end, Billy Bowlegs realized he couldn’t stop the tide of settlers and accepted $8000 to move to Indian Territory with 165 of his people. At the last war’s end, less than 200 Seminoles remained in Florida.



Seminole Chickee
State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory
http://floridamemory.com/items/show/159015

Today, Florida is home to the descendants of those brave few who stayed behind, unwilling to give up their homeland. The Seminoles live as a sovereign nation on six reservations throughout the state. Depending on the reservations you visit, you might find upscale hotels and nightlife in the Seminole Hard Rock Tampa, or you might find more traditional Seminole attractions such as rodeos, powwows, and even the Billie Swamp Safari, where you can sleep in a traditional chickee, watch Alligator feedings, poisonous snake shows, and take airboat and eco-tour rides.

Let’s hear from you. Have you ever visited an Indian reservation? Which reservation? What was your experience like?

Jennifer Uhlarik discovered the western genre as a pre-teen, when she swiped the only “horse” book she found on her older brother’s bookshelf. A new love was born. Across the next ten years, she devoured Louis L’Amour westerns and fell in love with the genre. In college at the University of Tampa, she began penning her own story of the Old West. Armed with a B.A. in writing, she has won the 2012 CWOW Phoenix Rattler, 2012 ACFW First Impressions, and 2013 FCWC contests, all in the historical category. She is also the winner of the 2013 Central Florida ACFW chapter's "Prompt Response" contest. In addition to writing, she has been a schoolteacher of English, literature, and history, as well as a marketing director. Jennifer is active in American Christian Fiction Writers and lifetime member of the Florida Writers Association. She lives near Tampa, Florida, with her husband, teenaged son, and four fur children.

Steamboats and Indian Wars--by Jennifer Uhlarik

Hi, everyone! Thanks for stopping by. Can you believe that it’s already March? I blinked once, and January and February both disappeared.

March is typically a fun month for me, as that is the month that my husband requests his big vacation time for the upcoming year. We don’t always have the money to get away during his time off, but March tends to be the month of the year that I get to dream about packing my bags for the next adventure our family might take. In the nearly six years hubby and I have been married, we’ve gone on several fun trips, from a week cruising around the Hawaiian Islands (our honeymoon), to eight days learning our nation's history in Washington D.C., a few days investigating the rich histories of Savannah, GA and St. Augustine, FL, or relaxing amongst the beauty of the mountains of Georgia. All of them were wonderful trips in their own way!

This year as I consider possible vacations, I find myself daydreaming about taking a riverboat cruise along the Mississippi River. Not too many months ago, I discovered that the American Queen Steamboat Company does a variety of tours on old-fashioned rear-wheel steamboats like those of Mark Twain’s day. Trips range in length from six to fourteen days. I’ve got grand memories of a two-hour steamboat trip I took as a child during a family vacation, and would love to experience a longer trip with shore excursions to the towns along the Mississippi River. Southern plantations, local restaurants, historical sites, and museums. All of these sound fascinating to me. Such a trip is probably out of reach for now, but there’s no harm in daydreaming, right?

In addition to the fun of vacationing, I’d love to take one of these trips to aid in researching a story that’s percolating in my brain. I recently did some cursory research on steamboats in the Old West to see if a scene I’d dreamed up would work. I was aware that steamboats were prevalent along the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, but hadn’t realized they were able to navigate some of the smaller tributaries of the Missouri River. Come to find out, a common joke about steamboats was that they could sail on dew alone.



photo by Dave Gostisha

In the tiny bit of research I have done so far, I learned that the steamboat, the Far West, was actually an important part of the Battle of the Little Bighorn. It was commissioned to be a supply ship for the battle, carrying 200 tons of supplies from Fort Abraham Lincoln to the 7^th Cavalry’s camp along the Yellowstone River. In the Far West’s cabin, Generals Terry, Gibbons, and Custer planned their battle tactics. The boat ferried soldiers and horses from one side of the river to the other. And after the massacre, the steamboat carried the news of the battle, as well as the wounded back to Fort Abraham Lincoln. I’ve always tended to have a fairly romanticized view of steamboats, and learning these facts showed me a side of steamboat history I’d never known before. It certainly got my mind spinning with story ideas. More research is necessary before I’d feel confident to write a full novel centering around steamboats, but there’s plenty there, I’m sure, to carry a novel.

So let's hear from you...what is the best vacation you've ever taken, or what dream vacation do you hope to take some day? Make sure to answer one of my questions to be entered in the drawing for this beautiful vintage pin. Winner announced tomorrow morning!