It is impossible for me ever to wish, or solicit, any patronage from the Government for myself, or any one connected with me, but when I see a brave, honest, honorable and faithful servant of that country, which I once claimed as my own, in poverty with spirit half broken by neglect, I must be permitted to ask something in his behalf! Could any just man know him as I do, who had power to offer reparation for what he has done for his country, what he has suffered, I am sure he would not be allowed to languish in circumstances hardly comfortable. I trust in God, that he will be no longer neglected, by his country. With high respect, I am your mo ob sert SAM HOUSTON. XI. HOUSTON TO PRESIDENT JACKSON. To Genl. Jackson: WIGWAM NEOSHO, 15 Dec. 1830 Sir, I have the honor to address you upon the subject of one of your old soldiers at the "Battle of Orleans." I allude to Capt. Nathaniel Pryor, who has for several years past resided with the Osages as a sub agent, by appointment of Gov. Clark but without any permanent appointment from the Government. A vacancy has lately occurred by the decease of Mr. Carr, sub agent for the Osages; and I do most earnestly solicit the appointment for him. When you were elected President of the U. States, I assured you that I would not annoy you with recommendations in favor of persons who might wish to obtain office, or patronage from you. But as I regard the claims of Capt. Pryor as peculiar and paramount to those of any man within my knowledge, I can not withhold a just tribute of regard. He was the first man who volunteered to accompany Lewis and Clark on their tour to the Pacific Ocean. He was then in the Army some four or five years, resigned, and at the commencement of the last war entered the Army again, and was a Captain in the 44th Regt., under you, at New Orleans; and a braver man never fought under the wings of your Eagles. He has done more to tame and pacificate the dispositions of the Osages to the whites, and surrounding Tribes of Indians than all other men, and has done more in promoting the authority of the U. States and compelling the Osages to comply with demands from Colonel Arbuckle than any person could have supposed. Capt. Pryor is a man of amiable character and disposition-of fine sense strict honor-perfectly temperate, in his habits and unremitting in his attention to business. The Secretary of War assured me when I was last at Washington, that his "claim should be considered of", yet another was appointed, and he was passed by. He is poor, having been twice robbed by Indians of Furs and merchandise, some ten years since. For better information, in relation to Capt. Pryor, I will beg leave to refer you to Gen. Campbell, Col. Benton, and Gov. Floyd of Va, who is his first cousin.17 17 Pryor's mother was a sister of Col. John Floyd (d. 1783) and of Capt. Charles Floyd. The first Governor Floyd of Virginia was a son of the former, With every wish for your Glory and Happiness, I have the honor to be your most obt servt [Endorsed:] Refer[r]ed to the Secretary of War SAM HOUSTON. A. J. XII. COL. MATHEW ARBUCKLE TO EATON. HEAD QRS 7TH INF'TRY CANTONMENT GIBSON 18 19th Dec'r, 1830. To the Honbl. John H. Eaton, Capt. Nathaniel Pryor, who has been acting as sub-agent to the Osage Nation of Indians for several years, was not a little disappointed, and mortified, when Mr. L. Choteau was appointed the agent to that Tribe, 19 in not receiving from the Government the appointment of subagent. That office is again vacant, and he is anxious of receiving it. In relation to the pretentions of Capt. Pryor, I believe I am justified in saying that he had done more than all the agents employed in the Indian Department in restoring peace between the Indians on this Frontier particularly in restraining Clermont's Band of the Osages20 from depredating on the neighboring Tribes, as well as on our citizens, which they had been in the Habit of doing for a number of years. Much of this service was rendered by Captain Pryor before he was authorized to act as sub-agent to that Band, and since he has been acting by authority, except in one or two cases, soon after his appointment, the conduct of the Osages under his particular charge has been as good as that of any Indians in this country. Yet if he was now removed from that Band I would not be surprised if they should commence their former Habits, and thereby disturb the peace of this Frontier. The high standing of Capt Pryor for Honesty and Worth together with the service he has rendered to the public, and the call (as I judge) there is for his continuance, I hope will insure to him the appointment he desires. I have the honor to be, Sir, With Highest Respect. Yr Obt Servt M. ARBUCKLE, Sergeant Charles Floyd, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, of the latter. N. J. Floyd, Biographical Genealogies of Virginia-Kentucky Floyd Families (Baltimore, 1912), p. 16. 18 Now Fort Gibson, Oklahoma. 19 Paul Ligueste Chouteau (1792-1851), son of Jean Pierre Chouteau of St. Louis, and younger brother of Auguste Pierre Chouteau who was a companion of Pryor on the voyage up the Missouri on the occasion of the unsuccessful attempt to return the Mandan chief to his home in 1807. 20 For Clermont, principal chief among the Osages, see Long, Expedition, II. 237-248, and J. B. Wilkinson in Coues's Pike, pp. 557-558. AM. HIST. REV., VOL. XXIV.--18. XIII. PAUL L. CHOUTEAU TO PRYOR.21 To Capt. N. Pryor, U. S. Sub Agt. Sir. This will be handed you by Major D. D. McNair, Sub Agent for the Osages, who visits your post by my directions in order to obtain information relative to the present State of existing difficulties between Clermonts Band of Osages and the Cherokees, and to make the necessary arrangements for contemplated meeting of those tribes at Cantonment Gibson on the 1st and 5th May next. . . Your Obt. Servt. Sign'd P. L. CHOUTEAU XIV. PRYOR TO CHOUTEAU. CANT. GIBSON, 6th Feb'y 1831 Dr. Sir I have been confined by sickness at this post for five or six weeks and am not yet sufficiently recovered to return home, until the weather moderates, which is uncommonly cold. . . . ... Dear Sir When I last wrote you I expected to return home before this time. . . This has been prevented by the continuance of my bad health. I am now some what recovered, hope soon to be restored to good health. I am sorry for the delay in sending the accompanying letters to you. ... [In a tabular statement of "Superintendents, Agents, Sub Agents, and Interpreters" (contained in a folder so marked), we find mention of 21 Nos. XIII., XIV., and XV. are in a folder marked “ 1831, Osage AgencyWm. Clark, P. L. Chouteau-Osage and Creek Hostilities ". 22 Union Mission was established in 1821 by the United Foreign Mission Society as its first station among the Osages. It was located on the Neosho River about twenty-five miles above its junction with the Arkansas. Carey and Lea, Historical Atlas (1822), note, map no. 35. Captain Pryor accompanied in 1820 the missionary who, going in advance to explore, selected this site. [Sarah Tuttlel, Letters on the Chickasaw and Osage Missions (Boston, 1831), pp. 37, 45. Nathaniel Pryor, appointed May 7, 1831, stationed at Cantonment Gibson, as sub-agent for the Osages of the Verdigris, and attached to the Osage agency under Chouteau; pay $500.] XVII. [On May 10, 1831, Captain Pryor, as witness, signed a treaty between. the Creeks and all bands of the Osage Nation, at Cantonment Gibson.] Sir. XVIII. CHOUTEAU TO CLARK.23 ST. LOUIS, 30th June, 1831. A few days since I informed you of the melancholy death of Mr. D. D. McNair,24 late Sub Agent for the Osage Nation. Since which I have been informed of the death of Captain N. Pryor, another Sub Agent for the Osages, which leaves the Nation without a Sub Agent, and as the business of the agency requires a Sub Agent to be appointed as soon as possible, and it being my wish that Captain Thomas Anthony should receive the appointment, having heretofore recommended him to your notice, and that of the Government of the United States. . . . I have the honor to remain 23 This document is in a folder marked " 1831, Osages (sub-agency)—Wm. Clark, P. L. Chouteau-Conditions". 24 D. D. McNair " was killed by lightning, June 2, 1831, while riding across the prairie in the night, not far from his post". Missouri Republican (St. Louis), June 28, 1831. REVIEWS OF BOOKS GENERAL BOOKS AND BOOKS OF ANCIENT HISTORY The Processes of History. By FREDERICK J. TEGGART, Associate Professor of History in the University of California. (New Haven: Yale University Press. London: Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press. 1918. Pp. vii, 162. $1.25.) ACCORDING to Professor Teggart, the problem which should properly concern historians, at least in so far as they wish to be classed with scientific scholars, is the question of "how man everywhere has come to be as he is". Many historians would at once exclaim that this is precisely what they have been doing-explaining how man has come to be as he is. But no, Professor Teggart would answer, what you have been doing is to relate, mainly in narrative form, selected particular events in the history of certain groups of people-Frenchmen, Germans, Italians, Chinese. This tells us what men have been and what they have done, but not how they have come to be as they are; it tells us the facts but not the processes of history. What we need to know are those events that are common to all peoples rather than those that are peculiar to certain peoples. Only by approaching the past in this way, by a comparative study of the history of all peoples, primitive as well as civilized, can we arrive at conclusions that will have a scientific validity. This is, of course, an old question, and one that cannot be discussed in a brief page or two. Personally, I have no quarrel with this method of approaching the study of history. The life of man may be studied in many ways—the more the better; and I have read with pleasure and profit the compact and well-written little volume in which Professor Teggart, surveying mankind from China to Peru, draws from his observations (with the aid, it must be said, of a good deal of a priori reasoning) certain conclusions, comprehensive and general enough certainly, the validity of which it would doubtless be hazardous to deny—as, for example, that among primitive people migration is due to the reduction of the food supply, that the direction of migration is conditioned by the geographical factors, that "political" organization arises as the result of the conflict of groups for the possession of distinct territories, that the influence of group ideas and traditions tends towards fixity and stagnation, that the conflict of two groups with different group ideas and traditions tends towards change and modification, and so on. All this is suggestive; and, although one feels that with a different selection. of facts it would be possible perhaps to reach different conclusions, the method, if persistently applied, is one which would doubtless lead to an |