Those of us who live in and
around Ft. Smith, Arkansas, often find it difficult to believe how raw the fort
once was. Situated at the confluence of the Arkansas and Poteau rivers, the
location that would become a most important frontier fort, was first established
as an outpost in 1817 when Major William Bradford and his command of 64 men put
ashore on the rock landing below the bluff at Belle Point. One of Bradford's
duties was to prevent the Indian Tribes from continuing hostilities with each
other.
Due to the remote location, the
men were pretty much on their own. They were to erect a post on the Arkansas
near the point where the Osage boundary struck the river. The first few rude shelters built there by
Major Stephen Long of the Topographical Engineers, before Bradford's arrival,
were designated as Camp Smith in honor of General Thomas Smith, commander of
the 9th Military Dept. with headquarters at Belle Fontaine. On hearing that
Bradford was on his way, Long left his plans for the first fort along with a
small detail of men and went on his exploratory way.
What makes Bradford my
"hero" here goes back a ways, to 1808 when hostilities first began
between the native Osage tribe and the foreign Cherokees. A delegation of
Cherokee chiefs from east Tennessee had visited then President Thomas Jefferson
and asked that he allow members of their tribe to live as hunters and emigrate
to the lands west of the Mississippi River. At this time the Osage claimed all
the land west of the Mississippi between the Missouri and Arkansas Rivers. So
this move could cause a war between those tribes. Yet, on January 9, 1809
President Jefferson authorized the requested move. Within a few years a few
thousand Cherokees had settled on the Arkansas and White Rivers in Arkansas, a
good thirty years prior to the Trail of Tears that would herd thousands of
Cherokee out of their homelands and into Indian Territory to the west of
Arkansas.
An imaginary boundary, drawn by
United States Commissioners, did little to keep the warring Indians apart.
Constant friction caused killings, the stealing of horses and plenty of
aggressive behavior. The Treaty of Hiwassee of July 8, 1817 added more
friction. It would give the Cherokees as much land in Arkansas as they had
relinquished in the Appalachian region. By then around 2,000 Cherokees lived in
settlements on the Arkansas. By 1819, 3,500 to 6,000 lived there.
So then arrived Major Bradford
and his company of Rifles to establish Fort Smith at Belle Point. Bradford had
been ordered to do everything possible to keep peace between the hostile
tribes. Immediately he called a meeting of the leaders of the Shawnee,
Delaware, Chickasaw and the Choctaw bands that had sided with the Cherokees.
Bradford also counseled the Quapaws and the Cherokees to live in peace. But
these weren't all the hostiles Bradford was forced to deal with. Trouble-making
non-Indians came into the territory and added their violent behavior to the
mix. In addition frontier families squatted on Indian lands.
Faced with non-existent communication
with Washington---it took up to three months or more for a message to reach
Washington---decisions were all up to Bradford. As Indian wars flamed, he could
only rely on his small company of blue and gray-clad Rifles and two six-pound
cannons to handle the situations. Besides this, he had to keep a work detail to
plant corn and tend to a garrison vegetable garden. Because Congress had
decided to be more frugal in army spanding, most all of his supplies had to
come from the soil. Hunting details also brought in wild game killed near the
fort. To add to his problems were diseases known as the ague and bilious fever.
During the summer of 1819, 100 Cherokees succumbed.
While Bradford was away a few Osage
leaders, led by Bad Tempered Buffalo and some 400 braves threatened the fort.
Left in charge Lt. Scott threatened them with the two cannons and managed to
hold down the uprising. By the time Bradford returned it was rumored that over
1500 Osage warriors had amassed on the White River to take over the Cherokees'
land. Bradford sent word this would not be tolerated. Then in a bold move, he
warned the chiefs that if they shed one single drop of a white man's blood, he
would exterminate their nations. He said
he would not write Washington for advice, but would report that there was not a
Cherokee or Osage alive on his side of the Mississippi.
Bradford continued to work
tirelessly to maintain and uneasy peace between the two hostile tribes. He was
finally relieved of duty on February 26, 1822. At the end of his tour of duty
not one of his men had been killed by an Indian, and as far as was recorded not
one of his men had so much as fired a shot at an Indian.
A new era began at Fort Smith
with the arrival of Colonel Matthew Arbuckle who was convinced that the time
was ripe to bring the Cherokees and the Osages together and restore peace on
the Arkansas frontier. This could and did take a long while.
Information gathered from The
Fort Smith Story by Edwin P. Hicks available at the Fort Smith National
Historic Site.
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