Ingalls Family
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Kansas Settlers on the Osage Diminished Reserve: a Study Of
KANSAS SETTLERS ON THE OSAGE DIMINISHED RESERVE 168 KANSAS HISTORY A Study of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie by Penny T. Linsenmayer aura Ingalls Wilder’s widely acclaimed “Little the Sturges Treaty in the context of public land policy. Each House” series of children’s novels traces her life side committed acts of violence and property destruction with her parents and sisters from the late 1860s against the other, but historical evidence supports the until her marriage to Almanzo Wilder in 1885. proposition that the majority of both Osages and settlers LThe primary focus of Wilder’s third novel, Little House on favored and actively promoted peaceful relations. Howev- the Prairie, was the interaction between the pioneer settlers er, the overall relationship between the parties was marked of Kansas and the Osage Indians. Wilder’s family settled in by an unavoidable degree of tension. The settlers who pro- Montgomery County, Kansas, in 1869–1870, approximate- moted peaceful relations desired that the land be opened ly one year before the final removal of the Osages to Indi- up to them for settlement, and even the Osages who fa- an Territory. The novel depicts some of the pivotal events vored a speedy removal to Indian Territory merely tolerat- in the relations between the Osages and the intruding set- ed the intruders. tlers during that time period.1 The Ingalls family arrived in Kansas with a large tide The Osages ceded much of their Great Plains territory of other squatters in the summer and fall of 1869, a point at to the United States in the first half of the nineteenth cen- which relations between settlers and Osages were most tury and finally were left in 1865 with one remaining tract strained. -
Little House on the Illinois Prairie BELOVED AMERICAN AUTHOR LAURA INGALLS WILDER’S CONNECTION to NORTHERN ILLINOIS
QUINTESSENTIALAMERICA BY PATTY DOWD SCHMITZ PHOTO: PATTY DOWD SCHMITZ PHOTO: PATTY A modern-day photo shows rolling hills and prairie grasses that are features of the Ingalls’ land along Corron Road in Plato Township, Kane County, Ill. Little House on the Illinois Prairie BELOVED AMERICAN AUTHOR LAURA INGALLS WILDER’S CONNECTION TO NORTHERN ILLINOIS N HER SERIES of nine “Little House” books then a part of the “civilized” East. (and later, through the TV series of the same Unbeknownst to most followers and fans of Iname), famed author Laura Ingalls Wilder the Little House books, Laura’s father, Charles chronicled the real-life westward journey of her “Pa” Ingalls, had a real-life connection to north- pioneer family across the Kansas and South Da- ern Illinois, where he lived for several years dur- kota prairies in the 1870s. She brought to life, ing his adolescence. Two of Charles’ uncles were for generations of young boys and girls, the tall, among the very first settlers of Kane County in waving grasses, hot prairie winds, and punishing the late 1830s, and Charles’ father, Lansford (the blizzards that were the hallmark of this harsh, yet “Grandpa” character in the Little House books), beautiful landscape. brought a young 9-year-old Charles and his sib- DOWD SCHMITZ PHOTO: PATTY Eliza Ann Ingalls’ grave is in a small family cemetery that But before Laura and her family took their lings to join them shortly after, in about 1844. was on the Ingalls property along Corron Road and it covered wagon out West, it was the lush and col- They lived just a few miles west of Elgin, between stille remains today. -