Things are heating up as pro-slavers raid Lawrence, Kansas, killing one man. This initial raid on Lawrence occurred on May 21, 1856, even before the Civil War started, when pro-slavery activists attacked and ransacked the town of Lawrence, Kansas, which had been founded by anti-slavery settlers to help ensure that Kansas would become a “free state”. The incident only made worse the guerrilla war in Kansas Territory that became known as Bleeding Kansas.
Pro-slavery Douglas County Sheriff Samuel J. Jones, instigator of the Lawrence raid
Lawrence. Jones belonged to the pro-slavery faction and was using the law to try and drive out the free-state settlers to control the voting that was to determine whether Kansas would become a slave state or a free state. After wounding Sheriff Jones, the residents drove him out of town. Three weeks later, on May 11, Federal Marshal J. B. Donaldson made the decision their act had interfered with the execution of a legal judicial process against the extra-legal Free-State legislature, which had been set up in opposition to the official pro-slavery territorial government. Based on this proclamation, as well the finding by a grand jury that Lawrence’s Free State Hotel was actually built to use as a fort, Sheriff Jones assembled a posse of about 800 southern settlers to enter Lawrence, disarm the citizens, destroy the anti-slavery presses, and dismantle the Free State Hotel.
In what is a remarkable, if not strange, twist of fate, a tornado tears up the small town of Codell, Kansas on the same day, three years in a row.
A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. They are often referred to as twisters or cyclones, although the word cyclone is used in meteorology, in a wider sense, to name any closed low pressure circulation. Tornadoes come in many shapes and sizes, but they are typically in the form of a visible condensation funnel, whose narrow end touches the earth and is often encircled by a cloud of debris and dust. Most tornadoes have wind speeds less than 110 miles per hour (180 km/h), are about 250 feet (80 m) across, and travel a few miles (several kilometers) before dissipating.
The most extreme tornadoes can attain wind speeds of more than 300 miles per hour (480 km/h), stretch more than two miles (3 km) across, and stay on the ground for dozens of miles (more than 100 km). Tornado speeds are measured by the Fujita Scale, where an F-0 tornado is capable of reaching wind speeds of up to 78 miles an hour in a 3 second gust, and an F-5 tornado is capable of reaching wind speeds of up to 317 miles an hour in a 3 second gust.
These first two photos are of an F-0 tornado. Impressive, but little damage caused.
F-0 tornadoes, impressive to look at, but little real damage caused.
These next two images are of F-1 tornadoes. Also impressive, but costly.
The tornado galleries of Eric NguyenThe tornado galleries of Eric Nguyen
Now we are getting a little more serious. These next two images are of two different F-2 tornadoes, date and location unknown.
F-2 Tornado, date and location unknownF-2 Tornado, date and location unknown
It’s getting more serious now, these next two images are of reported F-3 tornadoes. Head for cover!
F-3 Tornado, date and location unknownF-3 Tornado, date and location unknown
Now we move on toe the real killers! Here are two F-4 killer tornadoes. You DON’T want to be around them!!
F-4 Tornado, date and location unknownF-4 Tornado, date and location unknown
And finally, the baddest of the bad tornadoes, the dreaded F-5. As in the movie. “Twist”, the ‘finger of God. You DON’T want to have one of these come for a visit!
Category F5 tornado (upgraded from initial estimate of F4) viewed from the southeast as it approached Elie, Manitoba on Friday, June 22nd, 2007.
Cynthia Ann Parker is kidnapped, at the age of about ten (possibly as young as 8 or already over 11 (her age was never verified), by Caddo,
Cynthia Ann Parker, kidnapped, at a young age, she lived among the Comanche and is the mother of Quanah Parker, the last Comanche Chief
Comanche and Kiowa Indians on a raid in Parker’s Fort, a community situated just 40 miles east of present day Waco, Texas. In the custom of the Indian culture the period, She was adopted by the Comanche and lived with them for 24 years, She was given the Comanche name of Na’ura (also variously spelled “Nadua” and “Nauta”), which means ‘the found one’.
In time she married a Comanche chieftain, Peta Nocona, and had three children with him. Cynthia was finally recaptured by the Texas Rangers when she was about 34, but having been acculturated to her new life, she was unable to adapt to living among the white culture any longer. She spent the re-maining ten years of her life refusing to adjust to life in white society. At least once, she escaped and tried to return to her Comanche family and children, but was again brought back to Texas. The Texans of that day could not comprehend that she preferred to be among the ‘savages’, and they kept bringing her back. Cynthia never fully understood her iconic meaning to the nation, which saw her as having been rescued from the Comanches, while she saw her place as being among them. .Heartbroken over the loss of her family, she stopped eating and died of influenza in 1871.
Two of Cynthia’s three children disappeared from history, as they were just part of the tribe, but one them made quite a name for himself
Quanah Parker, the son of Cynthia Ann Parker, who was kidnapped by the Comanche as a young girl. He was the last great Chief of the Comanche Indians.
later in life. His name was Quanah, and became one of the last Comanche chiefs. The U.S. appointed Quanah principal chief of the entire nation once the people had gathered on the reservation and later introduced general elections. He had a long and accomplished career, always watching out for his people.
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Kiowa war chief Satanta leads an attack on a wagon train at Salt Creek, Texas, killing seven of the party.
Also known as White Bear, he was the last last, of the Kiowa War Chiefs and well known for both his prowess as a warrior, and soaring oratorical powers.
In October 1867, federal officials had held a summit with Kiowa and Comanche leaders in Barber County, Kansas, resulting in the Medicine Lodge Treaty. For a number of reasons, the treaty was a failure, as were most of the treaties between the whites and the Native Americans. As usual, many Indian bands did not recognize it as valid. Similarly, the federal government was lax about enforcing the treaty once it was signed, allowing white outlaws to prey upon reservation Indians.
The primary reason most of the treaties failed is that neither side fully understood the other’s form of governmental structure, and both expected the other to operate as they did. In the Native American culture, the chief was an elected position, but no one was obligated to do what he said if they disagreed. He did not represent the entire tribe. For the white culture, they expected the chief to represent the whole tribe or the entire collection of tribes. The Native Americans didn’t understand the concept of ownership of the land, so they couldn’t understand the settlers cutting it up to farm. This mutual misunderstanding could only lead to disaster for both sides, but mostly for the Native Americans, as the different tribes seldom fought together, the major exceptions being a little dustup in June of 1876 out in western Montana.
The late 1860s was a time of danger and conflict for everyone, Texan or Indian, as the frontier remained unsafe and unpredictable. The forts were undermanned, making it very difficult to police the serious violations being committed by both sides on the other. For both groups, the situation appeared no different to any significant degree from the way things were long before the war. Unfortunately, for the Indians, things were changing and not in a good way for the Indians. General William T. Sherman, commander of the U.S. Army, and the commander
US General, William Tecumseh Sherman, scourge of Georgia
of U.S. troops in Texas, General Philip H. Sheridan, who were both hardened veterans of some of the worst fighting of the Civil War. Sherman and Sheridan had learned
US General Philip Sheridan, originator of the line, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.”
not only to wage war on the battlefield but to break the enemy’s will to resist. To this end, they began a policy of encouraging the slaughter of the southern buffalo herd.
In January, 1869, General Sheridan held a conference with 50 Indian chiefs at Fort Cobb in the so-called Indian Territory (later part of Oklahoma). At that time, Sheridan, who had gained recognition as a Union officer in the Civil War, was in charge of the Dept. of the Missouri. One of his duties was to oversee the Indian Territory, making sure the Indians remained on their reservations and did not har-ass the white settlers. When Comanche chief Toch-a-way was introduced to Sheridan at the conference, the Indian said, “Me Toch-a-way, me good Indian.” Sheridan reportedly smirked and replied, “The only good Indians I ever saw were dead.” Later on, the remark became “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” This attitude, along with Sherman’s concept of total war, did not bode well for the Indians.
In early May, 1871, a party of more than one hundred Kiowas, Comanches, and others left Fort Sill and crossed into Texas. Led by Satank, Satanta, and Big Tree, they took up positions on the Salt Creek Prairie. A group of heavily armed white soldiers was allowed to pass unmolested; unknown to the Indians, the military escort was for General Sherman, who was conducting an inspection tour of Texas. The next group of whites to pass was a wagon train belonging to a freighting company. The Indians swept down upon the wagons and attacked. They killed the wagon master and seven teamsters and looted the wagons, then returned immediately to the reservation.
When General Sherman heard the news from a teamster who escaped the slaughter, he ordered ruthless reprisals and reversed an earlier prohibition soldiers from Indians on to the reservations. Sherman quickly traveled to Fort Sill, where he personally arrested Satank, Satanta, and Big Tree and ordered them transported back to Texas to be tried for murder. Satank was killed during an escape attempt, but Satanta and Big Tree were put on trial. By early July both had been sentenced to hang.
As a result, hundreds of Indians began leaving the reservation to join their relatives on the Staked Plains. In an effort to avoid mass reprisals and carnage, Governor Edmund J. Davis commuted the sentences to life in prison. The Indians were eventually paroled, but it would be Satanta’s fate to commit suicide in 1878 while serving another prison term at Huntsville prison. The character of Blue Duck in Larry McMurtry’s classic novel Lonesome Dove was partially based on his life. Big Tree was more fortunate. When the Indian Wars came to a close, he counseled his people to accept peace. Big Tree converted to the Baptist faith and lived to age eighty.
The Salt Creek Massacre, also known as the Warren Wagon Train Raid, would have far-reaching consequences for Texas Indians. Because of the raid, General Sherman developed a policy of all-out offensive against the Plains Indians. The next few years would be bloody indeed.
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It is the beginning of an epic failure, as Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and 12 companies of the 7th Cavalry ride out of Ft. Abraham Lincoln. Traveling with him is his brother Tom Custer, winner of two Medals Of Honor during the War, and his brother-in-law, LT. James ‘Jimmi’ Calhoun. Also tagging along for the fun was Custer’s nephew Boston Custer, serving as a teamster.
Gen. George Armstrong Custer, hero in the Civil War and failure in the Indian Wars
under the command of Gen. Alfred Terry, with the intent of dealing with Indian resistance in western Montana along the Yellowstone Territory.
Major General Alfred H. Terry. He gave Custer the widest latitude in following his orders.
This story needs little explanation to true students of the West. It is a well documented tale of glory hunting, egotistical over-confidence, failure to take due caution and supreme under-estimation of one’s enemy.
Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer was a hero during the Civil War, and the favorite of General Sheridan. He could always be counted on for taking charge of a situation, and he was always at the front of that charge.
US General Phiip “LIttle Phil’ Sheridan. He was Custer’s biggest supporter.
Custer was the head of the cavalry group that fought at Yellow Tavern, and brought down Confederate Cavalry General and hero James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart.
James Ewell Brown “Jeb” Stuart, CSA General
Custer didn’t lack for courage, although some called it foolhardiness, and some called it “Custer Luck” that he always came out ahead.
He had been a shining star for the Union during the Civil War, but fighting Indians out on the Plains was a different matter. They didn’t fight like he was used to, they would run off in different directions and wouldn’t fight unless the odds were in their favor. They didn’t wear uniforms and they didn’t fight out in the open. Custer was a bear for discipline, unless it applied to him. He was used to the men under his command following him without serious complaint, but he forgot – or didn’t recognize – that in the war, they were mostly volunteers fighting for a common cause. Out of the plains, they were not volunteers and they did not see the need for such rigorous discipline. And many of them would run off to go gold mining whenever the opportunity arose. This was a much different war, and different soldier, than the one he had just served in and with.
Despite all these problems, and he had several – a much debated fight on the Washita River, leaving a small party of troopers led by Major Joel Elliott behind to be killed by the Sioux,
Major Joel Elliot, 7th Cavalry. He was left behind by Custer.
abandoning his post to ride one hundred miles to be with his wife, Libby – among others, and even a suspension of his rank and duties, but he always seemed to land on his feet. At least, he did until this campaign.
Elizabeth Bacon Custer, she loved him and made his name a legend, then protected it for the rest of her life.
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Francis Parkman starts on the Oregon Trail and heads west. The Oregon Trail is a legendary large-wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail that ran 2,170 miles from the Missouri River across the country to the green valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail crossed the future state of Kansas, and nearly all of what is now the states of Nebraska and Wyoming. The western half of the trail spanned most of what is now the states of Idaho and Oregon.
The Oregon Trail was a route that was created by the fur trappers and traders who traveled from about 1811 to 1840, and as such it was only passable on foot or by horseback. By 1836 however, when the first migrant wagon train left from Independence, Missouri, a wagon trail had been cleared to Fort Hall, Idaho. Additional wagon trails were added as explorers and westward moving pioneers mad e their way west, and eventually the ended in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. The main route that was used came to be known as the Oregon Trail was complete. The trip gradually made faster and safer as various bridges, cutoffs, ferries, and roads were constructed. Every state along the Mississippi had their own starting points, but they all joined together into one route along the lower Platte River Valley near Fort Kearny, Nebraska Territory and led to rich farmlands west of the Rocky Mountains.
During the years 1830 to 1869, about 400,000 settlers, farmers, miners, ranchers, and businessmen and their families walked and rode the Oregon Trail on their way west to Oregon in search of a better life. As the first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, the walking trail became less necessary and fell into disuse. Today, Interstate 80 and Interstate 84 follow parts of the same course westward and pass through towns originally established to serve those using the Oregon Trail. Wagon ruts can still be seen as a reminder of their history.
Francis Parkman Jr., author and agriculturist, he promoted the Oregon Trail
As an American historian, Parkman is best known as author of The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life and monumental seven-volume France and England in North America. These works are still valued as historical sources and as literature. He was also a lead-ing horticulturist, briefly a professor of Horticulture at Harvard University and author of several books on the topic.
In 1846, Parkman traveled west on a hunting expedition, where he spent a number of weeks living with the Sioux tribe during their intro-duction to the perils of contact with the ‘white eyes’. Which included such dangers as epidemic disease and alcoholism – often intentionally inflicted. This exposure to their struggles influenced Parkman to view Native Americans with a much more critical eye which was reflected in his writing about them. Parkman believed that progress required the conquest and displacement of American Indians, what he called a triumph of “civilization” over “savagery”, He was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1855.
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Arizona authorities try to extradite a man named John Henry from Denver to question him about a shooting he took part in just eight months ago. The shooting happened just before the end of October, and it was the culmination of a long standing feud between the town marshal, Walter, and his two brothers, Stapp and Seth, both serving as special policemen. The man Arizona authorities wanted to question was the fourth member of this group. On the other side of the feud was Johnny Behan, the sheriff of Chochise County, who was a good
Johnny Behan, Sheriff of Cochise County, the outlaw’s best friend
friend to, and in the pocket of shady ranchers (and local outlaws) Ike Clanton and Billy Clanton, Billy Claiborne, Frank and Tom McLaury, and all of these men had a long history of criminal activities ranging from rustling, robbery and murder.
Isaac “Ike” Clanton, outlaw, “Cowboy” and alcoholic, braggart and coward
There were some who thought John had even instigated the fight by his arrogance and challenging words before the fight. John did have a long standing history of alcoholism, gambling and violence. He was known to be a very difficult man to get along with when he was sober, and even harder to get along with when he was drinking, which was most of the time.
Because John’s friend didn’t want him getting into any more trouble, John’s friend Stapp called on his friend, William, who was currently serving as chief of police in Trinidad, Colorado, for help. William quickly filed bunco charges against John, which put a hold on Arizona’s efforts to take him back. With an extradition hearing set for May 30, William reached out for help in getting an appoint-ment with Colorado Governor Frederick Walker Pitkin. He contacted E.D. Cowen, capital reporter for the Denver Tribune, who held consider- able political power in Trinidad. Cowen was to write some time later, “He submitted proof of the criminal design upon John’s life. Late as the hour was, I called on Pitkin.” His legal reasoning was that the extradition papers contained faulty legal language, and that there was already a Colorado warrant out for him, including the bunco charge that William had creatively manufactured on demand. Pitkin was persuaded by the evidence presented by William and refused to honor Arizona’s extradition request.
William took John to Pueblo, where he was subsequently released on bond two weeks after his arrest. John and Stapp met briefly during June 1882 for what would be the last time, in Gunnison shortly after John’s release.
Today sees the beginning of a historic adventure that will change course of the history of a fledgling country. This adventure will last two years, four months and ten days. The two men who will lead the expedition are handpicked by the President Thomas Jefferson. The idea for
Thomas Jefferson, 2nd US President
this trip came to him in 1803, after he had concluded a major land deal known as the Louisiana Purchase. He decided he wanted to know just what he had bought for his money so he had asked for some volunteers to check it out for him. Their long and arduous trip lasted from May 1804 to September 1806. Their main goal was to explore and the area and make maps showing what they found, so others could follow their trail west across the continent and plant their flag, so to speak, in case other countries decided to claim it. These two men had volunteered to do the job, and they took a few others with them. But these two men, and their followers, had a second goal that was actually just as important as the first. They were to document all the area’s plants, animal life, and geography, and also to establish a trading relationship with the local Native American tribes.
In the winter of 1804–05, the party built Fort Mandan, near the present-day city of Washburn, North Dakota. As a safety precaution, before they moved on, in order to protect what they had achieved so far, the expedition sent the keelboat back to Saint Louis with a sample of specimens on 7 April 1805, some of which never seen before anywhere east of the Mississippi. The Americans quickly continued westward (upriver), and camped for the winter in the Mandan nation’s territory. Here they met a French-Canadian fur trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau, and his young Shoshone wife Sacagawea. Her place in American history is probably more established than his. Charbonneau at this time began to serve as the expedition’s translator. Peace was established between the expedition and the Mandan chiefs with the sharing of a Mandan ceremonial pipe.
The Corps of Discovery, as this expedition was known, eventually met their objective of reaching the Pacific, mapping and establishing their presence for a legal claim to the land. They also established trade relations with at least two dozen nation of the various Indian cultures. Although they didn’t find a continuous waterway to the Pacific Ocean, they did manage to locate trail used by the Indians to travel from the upper end of the Missouri River to the Columbia River which ran to the Pacific Ocean. They also gained valuable and previously unknown information about the natural habitat, the animals and the various plants and grasses, bringing back a multitude of seed, plant, and mineral specimens. They mapped the landscape, showing the location of rivers, streams and mountains, and of course, the various Indian tribes and their territories as they passed through the previously unexplored land. They also learned and recorded much about the language and customs of the American Indian tribes they encountered, and brought back many of their artifacts, including bows, clothing and ceremonial robes. They were therefore, in essence, the first souvenir collectors in America. The expedition helped establish the U.S. presence in the newly acquired territory and beyond and opened the door to further exploration, trade and scientific discoveries. Who were these two intrepid explorer? Why, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, of course.
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, head of the Corps of Discovery
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Today is the day that Henry McCarty was to have been hanged. Judge Warren Bristol had passed the death sentence sentence for the murder of the County Sheriff. This was the result of a long standing war between the powerful ring. led by Lawrence G. Murphy, that
controlled the local ranching empires, and the lone resistor, a transplant businessman from England, by the name of John Tunstall. As a
John Tunstall, rancher and businessman
result of his murder, Sheriff Brady was gunned down by Henry in the street a short time later. This led to killings on both sides of the battle, and eventually resulted in Tunstall’s attorney, Alexander McSween, also being killed while his home was being burned down around his head.
Alexander McSween (circa 1875) lawyer for John Tunstall, victim of Lincoln County War in 1881
McSween’s wife was allowed to leave, but McSween was gunned down while trying to surrender. He was unarmed. Henry and several of his friends (Henry Brown, Jim French, Josiah “Doc” Scurlock, Tom O’Folliard, Jose Chavez y Chavez, George Coe, and a dozen Mexican vaqueros) were in the house at the time, and one of them, Charlie Bowdrie, was killed as well in the fight. The fight was known as the Lincoln
Charlie Bowdrie, pal and friend to Billy the Kid, died while defending Alexander McSween
County war, the Sheriff was William Brady, and Henry McCarty was also known as William Bonney, or Billy the Kid.
Henry H. Antrim. also known as William H. Bonney, or even more well known as Billy the Kid
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Legendary mountain man, Jim Felix Bridger, becomes the first white to lay eyes on the Great Salt Lake in Utah Territory. But when he goes back to his fellow mountain men, he tells them he has been all the way to the west coast because he thought it was a straight channel to the ocean.
Jim Felix Bridger, a legendary Mountain Man, explorer, trapper, trader and peacemaker.
Jim was of English ancestry, and his family had been living in North America since the early colonial period. He would come to know many of the major American explorers of the early west, including Kit Carson, George Armstrong Custer, Hugh Glass (a recent movie, “The Revenant”
Gen. George Armstrong Custer, hero in the Civil War and failure in the Indian Wars
Jim Bridger was one of the most famous and successful of the mountain men, trappers, scouts and guides who explored and trapped throughout the western United States during the time of the mountain man and discovery of the fullness of the land west of the Mississippi between 1820–1850. Jim also served as an interpreter and peacemaker between the native tribes and the encroaching whites. It was often said by many that no one knew as much or had covered as many miles as Jim.
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Photo courtesy of wikipedia.com
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