Jefferson called their warriors "gigantic" – averaging well over 6 feet in height. Some Europeans compared Osage warriors to conquering Roman legions or medieval knights. Some 1,200-1,500 Osage warrior-hunters defeated neighboring tribes to protect their huge and valuable hunting territory of 100,000 square miles. The supply of flintlock muskets and sharp tomahawks and knives made the Osage the leading military power in Missouri. Because they were the "best fur producers" south of Canada, the Osage received European metal weapons, wool blankets, and glass beads, tobacco from Virginia or Brazil, and Chinese vermilion (mercury sulphide face-paint). They sold horses, buffalo meat and hides, and captured Indians from Spanish territories in the West to colonists in Illinois and traded a great variety of furs to French Canadians. Located midway between the Mississippi River and the Great Plains and between Canada and New Orleans, the Osage became Missouri's greatest Indian traders since the Cahokian Civilization some 500 years before. All the Osage people, young and old, collected water lily roots, persimmons, nuts, and berries to supplement their meat and vegetable diet. Women and girls tanned the furs and planted fields of maize, beans, and squash (the "sacred triad" preferred by many Indians). Men and boys hunted a wide variety of abundant animals – deer from the forests, beaver from the streams, buffalo from the plains, and black bears from the Ozark Mountains. In 1700 some 8,000 Osage lived in several permanent villages of thatched longhouses. One of their village sites can be seen today in Van Meter State Park near Miami, MO. The "Little" or Petit bands preferred to live along the banks of the Missouri River. Their large and well-protected capital was at Marais des Cygnes ("Marsh of Swans") near Pleasanton, KS. The "Big" or Grand Osage built hilltop villages along the headwaters of the Osage River near the Kansas-Missouri border. In Missouri, the Osage were divided into two branches. Long before French explorers found them in 1673, the Osage had moved onto the central prairie-plains with those other tribes from an old homeland in the Ohio Valley. ![]() They spoke a Dhegihan ("Ta-gee-han") Central-Sioux language, along with the related, neighboring tribes of Kansa, Omaha, Ponca, and Quapaw. The Osage called themselves Ni-U-Kon-Ska ("Children of the Middle Waters"), but were known as "Wah Sha She" by most whites. President Thomas Jefferson wanted to meet members of this valuable and helpful tribe because he knew they were "the great nation South of the Missouri." When the Corps of Discovery passed by the Osage River, Lewis and Clark did not meet with the Osage chiefs who were traveling on an official visit to Washington, D.C. The Osage leaders met Lewis and Clark long before the Expedition began and gave valuable information about Missouri River tribes. Louis was founded in 1764, the Osage were the original "Gateway to the West," using their talents and knowledge to make the fur trade profitable and western exploration possible. Lewis and Clark had little to fear from the Osage, however, because they were the most important fur-trading tribe in Missouri for forty years prior to the Louisiana Purchase. ![]() ![]() Seeing the "best land he had ever seen," a member of the Corps of Discovery wrote in his journal that "the Osage nation of Indians live about two hundred miles up this River" and "are of a large size and well proportioned, and a very warlike people." On Friday, 1 June 1804, the Lewis and Clark Expedition arrived at the mouth of the Osage River, a dozen days after leaving St.
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