If you are like me, you love reading articles from Doug Houser and imagining who might have lived in your house or on your block 100 years ago. Have you ever wondered who lived there hundreds or thousands of years ago?
I have been trying to answer that question, and I wanted to share what I have found so far. First, though, let me wish you a happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day. What is Indigenous Peoples’ Day? It is a day to stop and ask exactly what this article asks. Who used to live here? What were they like? Where did they go? How did they interact with the land, climate, and natural environment, and how do we today? The City of St. Louis officially began celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day on the second Monday of October a couple of years ago. The Maplewood Sustainability Commission passed a resolution last week to recommend the same.
So who were the Indigenous people of Brentwood, Maplewood, and Richmond Heights? Check out https://native-land.ca for an interactive map showing the area inhabited and hunted by different tribes as well as the treaties through which their land was taken. Native Land shows this area as formerly inhabited by the Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo), Wazhazhe Maⁿzhaⁿ (Osage), Myaamia (Miami), and Očeti Šakówiŋ (Great Sioux Nation). The United States bought rights to the area (and much more) in 1808 for $5,000 under Cession Number 67.
Not too far away, in Illinois, you can visit Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site, which boasts a fantastic interpretive center teaching how we think the Mississippian people lived, not to mention the surviving gigantic mounds on and around which one of the largest cities in pre-Columbian America was built. The Mississippian civilization predates the aforementioned tribes by quite a bit, hence their lack of inclusion on the Native Land map.
I discovered that there are no longer any federally-recognized tribes in the entire state of Missouri, as most indigenous groups were removed during the Indian Removal Act of 1830. According to historian James Duncan’s 2016 presentation at the Maplewood Public Library, at one point in Missouri’s history it was actually “illegal to be an Indian.”
I was curious to see where the aforementioned Kickapoo, Osage, Miami, and Great Sioux Nation peoples went upon leaving Missouri. As best as I can tell, the Kickapoo now reside in Kansas (Kansas Kickapoo Tribe, 2007), the Osage live in Oklahoma (Osage Nation, 2014), the Miami live in Oklahoma, and the Great Sioux Nation has dispersed to various communities in the USA and Canada (University of Missouri, 2020).
If anybody has any more information to share, I would love to learn more. Here are some information sources I have found helpful:
Jonathan Spencer is a Master Naturalist, graduate biology student through the Missouri Botanical Garden, and the chair of the Maplewood Sustainability Commission.
Wow, great article. I just was looking at a map of all the mounds originally in St Louis, most of which were leveled by settlers to the area. Love your forward for more information on individual tribes. Really appreciate your work and sharing it with us.
Hey Mary, thanks for the kind words. I am glad you enjoyed the article. I did not realize there were mounds on this side of the river. Thanks to your tip, I found the following articles:
http://users.stlcc.edu/mfuller/indianhill.html
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/white-settlers-buried-truth-about-midwests-mysterious-mound-cities-180968246/
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/columns/joe-holleman/spotlight-last-indian-mound-in-st-louis-still-deteriorating/article_df84d76c-cee5-5dba-a332-117ce75a2b85.html
Do you have a link you can share?
I remember a house, off Broadway, that was built into the side of a mound. I’m not sure if its still there but I remember seeing it for sale about 7 or 8 years ago. It could be seen when you drove down Hwy 55 going North before you got to the turn off for Hwy 44. My problem is I look at so many things, I forget where it was if its not something I’m trying to research at the time. I will try to look for it.
I think I remember reading that an Indian tribe bought that house and the mound.
There are many maps on “shmo” – on this map there are still a few mounds in North St Louis, in 1837 but you can see the city is well developed by now and the mounds in their way are all gone. https://digital.shsmo.org/digital/collection/Maps/id/8/rec/7
Oh wow, that’s incredible! Thank you for sharing this. How did you come across it?
Many libraries have closed for research because of Covid, as a result the online research sites have become far more precious.
I love the SHSMO or State Historical Society of Missouri site, which has a lot of very old maps, and photos, also the Department of Natural Resources or DNR has a History portion which I have gleaned a lot of great information from. I have submitted claims for information from the National Archives, and Ancestry’s new newspaper site has been a delight. The site from Columbia University has loaded small old newspapers from rural area out side of St Louis ( this is great as you can run down small town information about natural areas outside of St Louis -like mining activity, Quarry pits, old Forts- ect.)
This has been so limiting, I can’t wait til I can get back to digging, I crave the golden moldy dusty files with years of neglect. That is where I find treasure. LOL
Thanks again for your article and insight.
Here’s a link, Jonathan https://bit.ly/3kwgXAn
Jonathon–really appreciate this information. Since you’re a Master Naturalist, wondering if you’ve done any documentation of the natural history of the area? I’m particularly interested in the trees and how long some of them have been here. Thanks for your insights!
Hey Tanya, that sounds like a great topic for a future article. I will see what I can dig up. In the meantime, check out the Maplewood Tree Survey and choose the option to display the “gold medal trees.” It does not report an age for each tree, but it gives some other interesting information. https://maplewoodmo.treekeepersoftware.com/
Neat application. Thanks for sharing
Dinosaurs.
Great information, and such a good reminder to think about who came before us and how they were/are treated.