Memory's Storehouse Unlocked, True Stories: Pioneer Days In Wetmore and Northeast Kansas
John Locke · en
However, there are some incidents having Indian connections which might
make fairly readable matter. The Kickapoos were, I judge, just like
other Indians — pushed out of civilization to make room for the whites.
They had come here before the white settlement, of course. Where they
came from I do not know—Michigan, maybe.
The Kickapoos did not war with other tribes. Nor did they molest the
whites. Still, they were Indians, and it was hard for the early settlers
to believe that they would have a lasting record as such—since hostile
Indians roamed the country west of the Blue river. Back in the early
90’s when the Kickapoos took up the Sioux “Ghost Dance, or Messiah
Craze,” as it was called, and held all-night pow-wows for several weeks,
there was some nervousness among the whites.
In the early 70’s the Kickapoos came to Wetmore to do their trading.
They had Government money and were good customers of the two general
stores. Later they did their trading at Netawaka, and still later
at Horton. My father, a shoemaker, came to know some of them rather
intimately. I knew many of them too.
Masquequah was Chief then. Many are the times I have sold him white
sugar and red calico—the Indians would not buy brown sugar if they could
get white sugar. This was when I was a clerk in Than Morris’ store.
Associated with me then were Curt Shuemaker, George Cawood and “Chuck”
Cawood. In the good old days we often piled up a thousand dollar sales
of a Saturday.
I should, perhaps, amplify this assertion about the sugar. We sold at
that time about four times as much brown sugar which came in barrels
marked “C” sugar, as we did white sugar. One day the boss said, “The
town’s full of Indians; sell no white sugar to anyone until after the
Indians leave.” When I told the Chief we had no white sugar, he said,
“Ugh, Indian’s money good as white man’s money—maybe. Indians go
Netawaka buy white sugar.” And that is what they did. Sorry, I can’t
tell you why Morris did not want to sell the Indians white sugar that
day. It could hardly have been because it consumed more time-it was a
busy Saturday—to “tie-up” white sugar. We had no paper sacks then. The
system was to weigh-up the sugar, lay a piece of wrapping paper flat
down on the counter, empty the sugar onto it; then tie it up—if you
could. A green clerk like myself could waste a lot of time trying to
wrap up a dollar’s worth of granulated sugar. Brown sugar would pack
together, and wrap more easily.