Holy Ground, Healing Water: Cultural Landscapes at Waconda Lake, Kansas

4. The Pawnee Trail in Regional History

The far-reaching influence that native trails have exerted on the course of the history of the continent has gone largely unrecognized. The truth is that European settlers entered a landscape that had been modified for millennia by Native Americans. That landscape affected much of their behavior from the time that Pilgrims in Massachusetts planted their crops in old native fields1 until well into the nineteenth century. Native trails largely determined where people went and where important events occurred. From the first explorers following native guides to long-distance traders hunting for customers, Europeans first moved along native trails, then adapted them for their own use as emigrant roads, railbeds, and cattle trails. Military expeditions moved along them, battles were fought beside them, and military posts were erected on them. Later came trading posts, towns, and ranch headquarters, all of which took advantage of the already existing routes of travel and their associated resources. The Pawnee Trail was as important to its region as any other was. It saw its share of explorers, traders, merchants, and vagabonds. Fort Kearney was built near its northern terminus, with Fort Zarah at the southern end. William Allison also had a trading post at the latter point, where the Pawnee Trail crossed the Santa Fe Trail. The following are some of the important early travelers who used it—Euro-Americans whose behavior was influenced by the native landscape. —PedrodeVillasur,1720 In 1719, Spain became aware of a threat to her New Mexico frontier. An expedition led by Antonio de Valverde, governor of New Mexico, learned from El Cuartelejo Apaches of French intrusions into Spanish territories.2 The 4.ThePawneeTrailinRegionalHistory 52 chapter 4 expedition was told of two French and Pawnee or Jumano (Wichita) forts on a large river. To investigate the threat, Spain sent another expedition from Santa Fe, headed by Pedro de Villasur, lieutenant governor of New Mexico. It included forty Spanish soldiers, some colonials, and seventy Apache allies. Documentation of the route of the expedition is extremely scanty. We do know that Villasur stopped at the place called El Cuartelejo, an Apache ranchería on Ladder Creek in Scott County, Kansas. To get there, Villasur may have retraced the route of Governor Valverde’s expedition of the previous year, which reached eastern Colorado, or he may have used the route taken by Juan de Ulibarrí in 1706 directly to El Cuartelejo. Villasur picked up his Apache allies and, one assumes, Apache guides who led him along the swiftest route to the Pawnee villages in central Nebraska . To get there from El Cuartelejo, all they had to do was to go east to the Smoky Hill River, then down that stream to where Wilson Lake now lies, then north along the Pawnee Trail (Figure 4.1). As it happens, the only Figure 4.1 Projected route of the Villasur expedition. For the first part of the trip, he would have followed the route Valverde took the previous year. This would have taken him nearly to El Cuartelejo, an Apache settlement. From there, he would have followed the Smoky Hill Trail to its junction with the Pawnee Trail. The surviving page of the expedition journal has him on the Pawnee Trail at the Platte River crossing (map by author). The Pawnee Trail in Regional History 53 surviving page of the diary of the expedition picks up the story at the Platte River crossing of the Pawnee Trail.3 From there the Spaniards went north and east to the Loup River and then down its north bank, only to retreat to the junction of the two rivers. Here the diary ends, for on the morning of August 12, 1720, a combined Pawnee and Oto force surprised the Spanish camp and overwhelmed it, killing all but a handful of the Spaniards. The terror-stricken survivors, with the help of their Apache allies, made their painful way back, first to El Cuartelejo and then to Santa Fe. This devastating defeat was one of the pivotal historic events in Plains history; it broke Spanish power for decades and allowed French penetration of the Plains to continue. In a serendipitous accident of preservation, a painting of the attack, made by a native artist in New Mexico, happened to survive (Figure 4.2). Today it is in the Museum of New Mexico in Santa Fe.4 The story may not end there, however. While examining the collection from...