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Chapter 2 | Overview Mapping Indigenous Oklahoma

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Key Terms

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Fur Trade Chouteau family Three Forks Osage Trace Texas Road Spanish Louisiana Louisiana Purchase Doctrine of Discovery Sovereignty Lewis and Clark Expedition (also known as the Corps of Discovery) Discovery Rights Fort Gibson

Chapter Objectives

Learning Outcomes:

The learner will be able to…

  • Identify the characteristics and importance of the fur trade in early Oklahoma.
  • Summarize the role that river transportation and early roads played in the fur trade.
  • Compare and contrast how French, Spanish, and American interactions with Native nations led to cross-cultural exchange and conflict.
  • Explain the importance of the Louisiana Purchase in Oklahoma history.
  • Describe the various roles that Fort Gibson played in early Oklahoma history.
  • Define the Doctrine of Discovery and explain how it was used to justify control of lands by the French, Spanish, and US governments.

Compelling Question:

  • What is the relationship between trade and cultural exchange?

Chapter Overview

In the 1700s and early 1800s, Native nations built successful trade and political networks through kinship alliances. French families like the Chouteaus formed ties with Osage communities and participated in the global fur trade. Two decades after the Louisiana Purchase, the United States established Fort Gibson, which drew diverse groups of travelers and traders to the region.

<em>Frontier Trade, 1790–1830</em>
FIG. 2.1

Frontier Trade, 1790–1830

In the painting Frontier Trade, 1790–1830, Charles Banks Wilson shows a flurry of trade and commerce in the Indigenous fur trade. We see trading posts, salt exports, and forts along the Arkansas River.

Courtesy of the Capitol Art Collection, Oklahoma Arts Council.
FIG. 2.1

In the painting Frontier Trade, 1790–1830, Charles Banks Wilson shows a flurry of trade and commerce in the Indigenous fur trade. We see trading posts, salt exports, and forts along the Arkansas River.

Courtesy of the Capitol Art Collection, Oklahoma Arts Council.

Many people called the Arkansas River Valley home, including the Wichitas, Caddos, Pawnees, Quapaws, Osages, French, Africans, Shawnees, Illinois, Miamis, Omahas, and Poncas. Located in the center of the North American continent, the Arkansas River and its tributaries flow from southeastern Colorado, northeastern New Mexico, and the Texas Panhandle through Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri, and Arkansas. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, Native Americans, not Europeans, controlled the Arkansas River world. When Native nations lost ground, as the Tunicas did in the 1500s, Caddoan speakers did in the 1700s, and the Osages did in the early 1800s, they lost it to other Native nations. Only in the 1820s did white settlers begin to outnumber Native communities.