Ferdinandina: Biography of a French-Indian Trading Community on the Southern Plains
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Ferdinandina: Biography of a French-Indian Trading Community on the Southern Plains o ,4- o Cl ,A. : :0 ~4':1/ ~ o a Q 71' <1 :. CI .. ".. FORT RING q 0 D Robert E. Bell University of Oklahoma Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History R.E. Bell Monographs in Anthropology: Number 3, Pages 1-246 2004 ROBERT E. BELL MONOGRAPHS IN ANTHROPOLOGY SAM NOBLE OKLAHOMA MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA, NORMAN, OKLAHOMA NUMBER 3. PAGES 1-246 1 JUNE 2004 FERDINANDINA: BIOGRAPHY OF A FRENCH-INDIAN TRADING COMMUNITY ON THE SOUTHERN PLAINS ROBERT E. BELL Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History and Departmellf ofAnthropology University of Oklahoma. Nonnan. Ok 73072 USA Corresponding author: Robert E. Bell phone: (405) 321-8099 EDITED BY DON G. WYCKOFF, SUSAN VEHIK, AND MICHELLE BARRY ©2004 Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History ISSN: 1530-7042 Cover design by Patrick Fisher and Don Wyckoff. Text design by Don Wyckoff and Michelle Barry. Formated with Adobe Page maker 6.5 in Times New Roman font. @2004 Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History. Preface With this third volume in the Robert E. Bell monograph the 1960s and 1970s led to a different opinion. Studies of series we are most pleased that it is a previously unpublished French and Spanish documents and archaeological excava contribution by the series' namesake. Compiled in the late tions at sites long both sides of the Red River caused archae 1970s, this volume contains 50 years of correspondence and ologists to conclude that French-Wichita relations did in other documents pertaining to very important archaeological vol ve French traders, but not the construction of formal trad sites located along the Arkansas River in Kay County, Okla ing posts. Instead, the records and archaeological findings homa. These two sites are known to archaeologists as Deer attest to Frenchmen visiting and living among the Wichita, Creek and Bryson-Paddock. Artifact collections from both who by the 1600s were building log palisade fortifications for sites are very similar. They include native pottery; chipped protection from horse-mounted Apache, Comanche, and Os stone tools, including numerous scrapers made from flint age raiders. obtained nearby; a variety of bone tools; and an array of glass beads, copper kettle parts, flintlock gun parts, and worn Dr. Bell's compilation of the correspondence, notes, and out iron axes and hoes. The native artifacts link the occu publicity about the Deer Creek and Bryson-Paddock sites pants of these sites to some of the Wichita people. The glass and the existence of Ferdinandina provides an interesting and metal artifacts are largely of French derivation and are of background for archaeological, anthropological, and histori forms known to have been made during the early 1700s. In cal research on the dynamics of acculturation and change essence, the Deer Creek and Bryson-Paddock sites are loca that occurred on the Southern Plains. These two sites are tions where Southern Plains natives engaged in significant still important sources of information. As this monograph trade with Frenchmen, probably traders coming up the Ar goes to press, the University of Oklahoma and Oklahoma kansas River from Arkansas Post in southeastern Arkansas, State University are working together on a combined archaeo if not from New Orleans. The many scrapers and bison bones logical field school for six weeks at the Bryson-Paddock site. at these two sites are believed to result from intensified bison Although damaged by farming and historic land use, this site hunting by these Wichita people, who were processing hides still has much to tell us about Wichita cultural heritage dur and meat as commodities to trade for desired tools (espe ing the tumultuous 1700s. Sadly, the Deer Creek site has yet cially guns) and trinkets. On this basis, the Deer Creek and to tell us much. It was purchased by the U.S. Army Corps of Bryson-Paddock sites comprise the first Southern Plains lo Engineers, Tulsa District, who then fenced the site to protect cations where Southern Plains natives began substantial re it from vandals. The Corps did fund brief non-destructive lations with the French. These relations began significant survey investigations of the site to help plan for informed changes in the lives and culture of the Wichita. archaeological excavations. These latter, however, never took place, even in spite of Wichita tribal interest in seeing the site Some controversy surrounds interpretations of the Deer developed as a center for their cultural heritage. Today, the Creek and Bryson-Paddock sites. In part, this controversy Deer Creek site is overgrown with trees and brush, and, while has its beginning with the 1926 archaeological investigations those involved with "cultural resource management" may at the Bryson-Paddock site. Organized and supervised by claim that the location is preserved, it is obvious to most historian Joseph Thoburn, the 1926 excavations were under scholars that the domestic and fortification contexts at the taken within the historical thinking ofthat time. The artifacts site are being badly damaged by roots, rodents, and attested to contact between French and Indians. However, pothunters. Hopefully, this monograph will serve to stimu subtle hints from other historians and a few documents led to late renewed interest and concern for this most significant the thinking that the French had established and maintained site of the very early historic period for Oklahoma and the a trading post in north central Oklahoma. Thoburn and his Southern Plains. field foreman, Otto Spring, observed surface clues that led them to believe there was a stockaded French trading post. Also, Thoburn and Spring learned of a mid-1800s English map that displayed the name "Ferdinandina" in the general Don G. Wyckoff, Associate Curator of Archaeology, area of north central Oklahoma. These observations subse SNOMNH, University of Oklahoma quently became common knowledge that a few Oklahoma Susan Vehik, Associate Professor of Anthropology, historians promoted to fact. University of Oklahoma Michelle Barry, Graduate Student. Anthropology, Meanwhile, archaeological work in Texas and Oklahoma in University of Oklahoma ii Ferdinandina: A Biography of a French-Indian Trading Community Table of Contents Page Preface .................................................................................................................................................................................... i Table of Contents .................................................................................................................................................................. iii Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................................................................. ii Introduction ........................................................................................................................................................................... 1 Initial Historical Interest in Kay County Archaeological Sites ............................................................................................... 5 The First Archaeological Excavations at the Purported Ferdinandina Locality ................................................................... 14 Documents Resulting from the 1926 Field Work in Kay County ......................................................................................... 67 Renewed Archaeological Interest in the Ferdinandina Locality ......................................................................................... 103 Newspaper Articles and Previously Unpublished Documents Relating to the 1950-1979 Research in the Ferdinandina Locality .......................................................................................................................... 'lJJ7 General Assessment of the Archaeological Situation at the Deer Creek Site and Recommendations for Continuing Research and Development .................................................................................... 230 iii Acknowledgments I would like to extend my thanks to numerous individuals who have helped enormously in gathering the materials contained herein -- especially to the following persons: Donald W. Reeves for his efforts and information concerned with whether or not Thoburn actually dug at the Deer Creek site; Martha Blaine, custodian of the American Indian Archives at the Oklahoma Historical Society, for her interest and gracious assistance in examining the Thoburn archives; and Lynne M. Keller, who was also working through the Thoburn manuscript materials for research on the Spiro mounds and who noted items of interest regarding Ferdinandina and brought them to my attention. Here on the main campus of the University of Oklahoma, Jack Haley and John Ezell were helpful in my examination of the Otto Spring records contained in the Western History Collections. Finally, I am grateful to Phyllis Taylor for typing, retyping. and helping with the organization of the records. Robert E. Bell February 1979 Important Notice The materials contained in this manuscript are derived from OHS - Indian Archives Division, Oklahoma Historical Soci original letters, manuscripts, or newspaper clippings contained ety, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. in the Indian Archives Division of the Oklahoma Historical Society or the persona] files of Robert E. Bell, Department of WHC - Western History Collections,