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Historical Revie^w The State Historical Society of Missouri COLUMBIA, MISSOURI THE COVER: "The river being wonderfully crooked" is the title of the original watercolor painted by Thomas Hart Benton, Missouri's most famous twentieth-century artist. Painted for an edition of Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi, the watercolor, along with other Benton illustrations for Twain's Mississippi River classics, is now on display in the Society's Art Gallery. MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW Published Quarterly by THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI COLUMBIA, MISSOURI RICHARD S. BROWNLEE EDITOR DOROTHY CALDWELL ASSOCIATE EDITOR JAMES W. GOODRICH ASSOCIATE EDITOR The MISSOURI HISTORICAL REVIEW is owned by the State Historical Society of Missouri and is published quarterly at 201 South Eighth Street, Columbia, Missouri 65201. Send communi cations, business and editorial correspondence and change of address to The State Historical Society of Missouri, corner of Hitt and Lowry Streets, Columbia, Missouri 65201. Second class postage is paid at Columbia, Missouri. VOLUME LXIII The REVIEW is sent free to all members of The State Historical Society of Missouri. Membership dues in the Society are $2.00 a year or $40 for an individual life membership. The Society assumes NUMBER 3 no responsibility for statements made by contributors to the magazine. APRIL 1969 THE STATE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF MISSOURI The State Historical Society of Missouri, heretofore organized under the laws of this State, shall be the trustee of this State—Laws of Missouri, 1899, R.S. of Mo., 1959, Chapter 183. OFFICERS 1968-71 T. BALLARD WAITERS, Marshfield, President L. E. MEADOR, Springfield, First Vice President LEWIS E. ATHERTON, Columbia, Second Vice President RUSSELL V. DYE, Liberty, Third Vice President JACK STAPLETON, SR., Stanberry, Fourth Vice President JOHN A. WINKLER, Hannibal, Fifth Vice President REV. JOHN F. BANNON, S.J., St. Louis, Sixth Vice President ALBERT M. PRICE, Columbia, Treasurer FLOYD C. SHOEMAKER, Columbia, Secretary Emeritus and Consultant RICHARD S. BROWNLEE, Columbia, Director, Secretary, and Librarian TRUSTEES Permanent Trustees, Former Presidents of the Society E. L. DALE, Carthage LEO J. ROZIER, Perryville RUSH H. LIMBAUGH, Cape Girardeau E. E. SWAIN, Kirksville GEORGE A. ROZIER, Jefferson City ROY D. WILLIAMS, Boonville Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1969 GEORGE MCCUE, St. Louis RONALD L. SOMERVILLE, Chillicothe L. E. MEADOR, Springfield JACK STAPLETON, SR., Stanberry JOSEPH H. MOORE, Charleston HENRY C. THOMPSON, Bonne Terre W. WALLACE SMITH, Independence ROBERT M. WHITE, Mexico Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1970 WILLIAM AULL, III, Lexington GEORGE FULLER GREEN, Kansas City WILLIAM R. DENSLOW, Trenton GEORGE H. SCRUTON, Sedalia ELMER ELLIS, Columbia JAMES TODD, Moberly ALFRED O. FUERBRINGER, St. Louis T. BALLARD WAITERS, Marshfield Term Expires at Annual Meeting, 1971 LEWIS E. ATHERTON, Columbia R. I. COLBORN, Paris ROBERT A. BOWLING, Montgomery City RICHARD B. FOWLER, Kansas City FRANK P. BRIGGS, Macon VICTOR A. GIERKE, Louisiana HENRY A. BUNDSCHU, Independence ROBERT NAGEL JONES, St. Louis EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE The twenty-nine Trustees, the President and the Secretary of the Society, the Governor, Secretary of State, State Treasurer, and President of the Univer sity of Missouri constitute the Executive Committee. FINANCE COMMITTEE Four members of the Executive Committee appointed by the President, who by virtue of his office constitutes the fifth member, compose the Finance Committee. ELMER ELLIS, Columbia, Chairman WILLIAM R. DENSLOW, Trenton LEO J. ROZIER, Perryville GEORGE A. ROZIER, Jefferson City T. BALLARD WAITERS, Marshfield isiiHiigigisigisi^^ NEW SOCIETY MEMBERSHIPS 1 The State Historical Society of Missouri is always j| interested in obtaining new members. For more than seventy years thousands of Missourians who have be longed to the Society have been responsible primarily for building its great research collections and libraries. They have given it the support which makes it the largest organization of its type in the United States. | The quest for interested new members goes on | continually, and your help is solicited in obtaining §j them. In every family, and in every community, there I are individuals who are sincerely interested in the collection, preservation and dissemination of the his tory of Missouri. Why not nominate these people for membership? Annual dues are only $2.00, Life Memberships $40.00. m m m m Richard S. Rrownlee Director and Secretary m m State Historical Society U of Missouri EH H Hitt and Lowry Streets m ® m H Columbia, Missouri 65201 m m I ® ® w a H igii§iiai!iiiigisHsias!Siiiisiiisi^ CONTENTS JOHN DOUGHERTY AND THE PAWNEE RITE OF HUMAN SACRIFICE: April, 1827. By Dorothy V. Jones 293 WAS THE DRED SCOTT CASE VALID? By Walter Ehrlich 317 ROMULUS ESTEP CULVER: A SKETCH OF FRONTIER SELF-IMPROVEMENT AND TRAGEDY. By James W. Goodrich 329 THE COLONIZATION OF THE ST. LOUIS AND SAN FRANCISCO RAILWAY COMPANY, 1880-1882: A STUDY OF CORPORATE DIPLOMACY. By Craig Miner 345 MISSOURI'S NATIONAL HISTORIC LANDMARKS: WATKINS MILL. By Dorothy J. Caldwell 364 HISTORICAL NOTES AND COMMENTS Views from the Past: Missouri Spas 378 News in Brief 380 Local Historical Societies 382 Honors and Tributes 393 Gifts 394 Missouri History in Newspapers 398 Missouri History in Magazines 402 Erratum 403 In Memoriam 404 BOOK REVIEWS 405 BOOK NOTES 408 EDITORIAL POLICY 413 WINGS IN THE SKY 414 LAURA INGALLS WILDER Inside Back Cover iv John Dougherty John Dougherty and the Pawnee Rite of Human Sacrifice: April, 1827 BY DOROTHY V. JONES* When Missourians first encountered Pawnee Indians, the Pawnees were living on the Platte River in what is now east-central Nebraska. There were four divisions of the tribe but only the Skidi division had practiced human sacrifice. So far as is known they had practiced it for centuries. When conditions were right, when a dream had been dreamed and a prisoner had been taken *Dorothy V. Jones received an A.B. degree from Washburn University, Topeka, Kansas, and is currently a MA. candidate in history at the University of Missouri, Columbia. She is a recipient of the Eugene F. Saxton Memorial Fellowship, Harper & Row. The fellowship was given to Mrs. Jones to facilitate research for a study of the early nineteenth-century movement to form an American Indian state. 293 294 Missouri Historical Review according to custom, the sacrifice was made to Upirikutsu, the Morning Star.1 To the Pawnees the awesome ceremony was only one of a series that had to be performed to assure the continuance of the universe and their safety in it. To the whites it was a horrifying expression of savagery, and from the first they worked to eliminate it. In this attempt Missourians took a leading part. Pressure began with the first American contacts and continued until human sacrifice was no longer practiced. When a delegation of Pawnees traveled to St. Louis in 1811 to see William Clark, Su perintendent of Indian Affairs, he spoke strongly against the practice and made clear the government's disapproval. Since his exploring trip up the Missouri with Meriwether Lewis in 1804, his words carried a great deal of weight with the middle-Missouri-River tribes. So the Pawnees listened to him, and the seeds of opposition were sown.2 Manuel Lisa, famous St. Louis trader, visited their villages, and he, too, spoke against the custom. During the years he traded with the Pawnees he opposed human sacrifice and encouraged the opposition to it that was growing among the Skidis, themselves.3 Opposition centered in two Skidi leaders, the Knife Chief and his son, Petalesharo. By 1817 they had enough power and support to prevent the sacrifice of a Comanche woman prisoner. In the spring of that year Petalesharo cut the woman down from the i Gene Weltfish, The Lost Universe (New York, 1965), 4, 106; Ralph Linton, "The Sacrifice to the Morning Star by the Skidi Pawnee," Field Museum of Natural History Department of Anthropology Leaflet No. 6 (Chicago, 1922) , 2-3. 2 Weltfish, Universe, 115; George E. Hyde, Pawnee Indians (Denver, 1951) , 108. Clark was appointed Superintendent of Indian Affairs in 1807, shortly after his return from the exploring expedition and his subsequent resignation from the Army. He held the post of superintendent until his death in Sep tember, 1838. He had many concerns and interests, both public and private, during these post-expedition years, but the bulk of his time was spent handling Indian affairs. Allen Johnson & Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography (New York, 1930), IV, 141-144. 3 "Letterbook of John Dougherty, 1826-1829," State Historical Society of Missouri Manuscripts Collection, Columbia, especially Dougherty to the chiefs of the Pawnee Loup tribe, April 5, 1827, and Dougherty to William Clark, April 15, 1827; St. Louis Missouri Gazette, June 19, 1818. Lisa was born in New Or leans in 1772. Through trading and store keeping he earned enough money to enter the Missouri River fur trade. From 1807 to 1820, through many partner ships and companies, he worked out trading methods and routes used later by men who became far richer and better known than he. His last venture, the Missouri Fur Company, was his biggest and best financed, but Lisa did not live long enough to cash in on the fur trade boom that he had helped to develop. Richard E. Oglesby, "Manuel Lisa," in Leroy R. Hafen, ed., Mountain Men and the Fur Trade (Glendale, Calif., 1965-68), V, 179-201. John Dougherty 295 special scaffold where sacrificial victims were tied and killed, and sent her back to her own tribe. The next spring a ten-year-old Spanish boy was pledged for sacrifice. The Knife Chief and Petalesharo again intervened. With the help of Alexander Papin of the St. Louis Papin family, a trader living in the village, they ransomed the boy and sent him to Manuel Lisa.