- 2019 Individual Inductee –
Spotted Horse
In the early 19th Century the Loup River valley of central Nebraska south to the Republican River in Kansas was the home of the Pawnee Indian Nation. The Pawnee Nation was composed of four distinct bands: the Chaui, or “Grand,” the Kitkehahki, or “Republican,” the Pitahawirata, or “Tappage,” and the Skidi, or “Wolf.”
In the 1860s and early 1870s Spotted Horse was the head chief of the Skidi Band of the Pawnee Indians. Spotted Horse claimed that the Skidi had settled in that vicinity two hundred years before the other bands arrived. When the rest of the Pawnee came up from the south they conquered the Skidi and adopted the remnants of the band into the Pawnee Nation. For a hundred years Spotted Horse’s ancestors were chiefs in the Skidi Band.
Spotted Horse was very well thought of by both Indians and the white men with whom he became acquainted. He was in every sense of the term an Indian and adhered to their customs and ways with great tenacity. He was said to be both dignified and noble, and possessed good traits and qualities that his white friends greatly admired, and was known to be a firm and steadfast friend of the whites.
Spotted Horse led his people at a time when their Nebraska homeland was an Indian Agency, or reservation, under the authority of the government of the United States. For a number of years they were forced to yield more and more of their land for white settlement, until the entire Pawnee Nation finally realized that they would never be allowed to live there in peace. In 1874 the entire nation of some 2,700 people began making the trek from central Nebraska south through Kansas to a new home in the Indian Territory, today’s Oklahoma. They broke up into several groups for the journey, each being accompanied by government agents assigned to them both as guides and to help ease any problems along the way.
Spotted Horse led a large group of Skidi down the ancient Pawnee Trail into north-central Kansas. In November 1874 they made camp along Spring Creek in Center Township, Russell County, Kansas, some three miles northeast of the town of Bunker Hill. They did so because their beloved chief, Spotted Horse, had contracted “lung fever”, or pneumonia. His illness was swift and daily he grew visibly weaker. Spotted Horse then spoke with John Williamson and A. Alexander, the government agents accompanying this particular Skidi group on their journey to their new home. He told them he knew he was about to die, and asked to be buried in the white man’s burying ground, as he was always a friend of the white man. Spotted Horse died on the banks of Spring Creek in the last part of November 1874.
The two men approached the Bunker Hill townsfolk with Spotted Horse’s dying request, which was granted. The day after the chief died his remains were taken to Bunker Hill where a coffin was made by a carpenter. The remains were placed therein and escorted to the cemetery, where the local Methodist minister held a short service at the grave.
Such is the story that John Williamson told in a letter he immediately wrote to the Pawnee Indian Agency informing them of the chief’s death, and one that he told in greater detail when he later returned to central Nebraska.
In 1912 a letter sent to the editor of the Bunker Hill Advertiser newspaper asking if anyone knew of the whereabouts of Spotted Horse’s grave, for the Pawnee Nation, now numbering only 300 individuals, wanted to erect a monument over Spotted Horse’s remains. The grave was located in the Bunker Hill Cemetery by a banker who was a boy at the time of the chief’s death and had attended the funeral.
Over time a new version of Spotted Horse’s death began to circulate. In it Spotted Horse’s father, “the old chief”, went to the Bunker Hill people and asked that his son be buried in the white man’s burying ground, as many years before Spotted Horse had served as a U.S. Army scout during the Plains Indian wars and at that time had converted to the Christian faith. It was because of this that he was allowed to be buried in the Bunker Hill Cemetery.
This unsubstantiated version became the accepted tale of Spotted Horse. Is it the real story? Doubtful, as without documentation it remains one not based in fact. A later justification for why Spotted Horse, being non-Christian and an Indian, was allowed burial in the white man’s burying ground? Possibly.
Another story recounts how the Bunker Hill newspaper editor once prevailed upon the federal government to recognize Spotted Horse as a military veteran based on his history as an Army scout. The request was rejected, the reason given that the government had four Spotted Horses in its records, and there was no documentation to verify which Spotted Horse rested in the Bunker Hill Cemetery, if indeed he was any of the four at all.
In 1952 a local citizen died and left money to the cemetery, and it was decided use a portion of this to replace the small stone on Spotted Horse's grave with a new and proper marker. Etched on the marker are these words: This monument was erected in memory of Pawnee Indian Chief Spotted Horse who was buried here in November 1874 at his father's request that he be buried in the white man's burial ground. To this day his grave is decorated by the citizens of Bunker Hill every Memorial Day and he is remembered with reverence.
Spotted Horse was an important person in the history of his people, and he remains one of the most enduring symbols of Russell County’s earliest days. He is honored here with a place in the Russell County Kansas Hall of Fame.
SOURCES:
Bunker Hill Advertiser, Bunker Hill, Kansas, January 19, 1912
Columbus Era, Columbus, Nebraska, December 26, 1874
Columbus Journal, Columbus, Nebraska, December 30, 1874
Columbus Telegram, Columbus, Nebraska, February 16, 1912, Page 2
Russell County Record, Russell, Kansas, December 10, 1874, Page 3
Lange, Alma, “Heritage II”, n.p., 1985, ppgs. 9-10