ARCHEOLOGICAL INVESTIGATIONS IN MISSOURI 11 



accompanied them, the remainder went to the Otteaus on tlie River 

 Piatt. . . ."* 



Difficulties with other tribes, stronger or better armed, are also sug- 

 gested by Lewis and Clark in explanation for the removal of the 

 Kansa from the Missouri (op. cit., p. 67). Thus, at Independence 

 Creek near the present Doniphan, Kans., where the tribe lived in 

 1724, before moving to the vicinity of Leavenworth, Clark observes 

 that "the nation must have been noumerous at the time they lived 

 here, the Cause of their moveing to the Kanzas River, I have never 

 heard, nor can I learn; war with their neighbors must have reduced 

 this nation and Compelled them to retire to a Situation in the plains 

 better Calculated for their defence, and one where they may make 

 use of their horses with good effect, in persueing their enemy. . ." 



Perhaps the prospect of better beaver hunting and retreat of the 

 bison herds to the west were contributing factors to this shift. 



After 1800 white men became increasingly active on the lower Mis- 

 souri and in the region centering at the present site of Kansas City 

 (Union Historical Co., History of Jackson County, Mo., 1881, pp. 376 

 seq.). In that year Pierre Chouteau established a trading post at 

 Randolph Bluffs, opposite and about 3 miles below the present Kansas 

 City. In 1808, Fort Osage (or Clark) was built on the south bank of 

 the river just below where Sibley now stands, to be abandoned in 

 1827 when Fort Leavenworth was founded as a LTnited States military 

 post. Chouteau's post in the bottoms, controlled by the American 

 Fur Co., was destroyed by flood in 1825, and the next year it was trans- 

 ferred to higher ground on the south side of the Missouri. It became 

 the nucleus for a small but thriving French settlement, still chiefly 

 interested in the fur and Indian trade. In 1831 the growing volume 

 of commerce over the Santa Fe Trail brought Independence into being, 

 and then Westport Landing at the mouth of the Kansas. The greater 

 convenience and better natural facilities of the latter in steamboat-to- 

 wagon transfer eventually made it the center of activity. As the 

 natural entrepot for the expanding trade beyond the Missouri, its 

 name was changed to "Kansas," then to "Town of Kansas," and finally 

 to Kansas City. 



Admitted to the Union in 1821, Missouri at that time had as its 

 western boundary "a meridian line passing through the middle of 

 the mouth of the Kansas river where the same empties into the Mis- 

 souri river." In the irregular triangle lying west of this line, between 

 it and the Missouri, the Iowa, Sac, Fox, and other tribes retained 



* The Missouri and Osage village sites referred to in these passages are located with rela- 

 tive exactness by the explorers. The recent discovery by University of Missouri archeolo- 

 gists of several post-European village sites in northern Saline County. Mo., at or very near 

 the location given by Lewis and Clark, is noteworthy because of the exceptional opportunity 

 they offer toward a definition of the protohistoric material culture of two important Siouan 

 tribes (see also Berry and Chapman, 1941 ) . 



