The trading interests among the Osage were principally in the hands of a few persons who represented large and influential companies at St. Louis. Pierre Choteau, Manuel De Liza, Pierre Menard, Hugh Glen and other early Indian traders acquired an ascendancy over this tribe and their affairs that proved detrimental, if not fatal, to the efforts of the Protestant missionaries and teachers who sought to induce them to forsake their wandering, savage life, and endeavor to procure a subsistence by the slow and unexciting methods of agriculture. Those of the traders who desired to enrich themselves by the barter in furs and peltries of course would desire to see the nation continue to follow the chase, and would discourage any intimation of improvement.

During the first year of the Civil War, the Osage Agency was moved to Fort Scott. One regiment of the Indian Brigade was composed of the Osage, and throughout the whole struggle the tribe were faithful allies of the Unionists.

On September 19, 1865, by the terms of the treaty made at Canville Trading Post, the Great and Little Osage Indians sold to the United States the following defined country:

"Beginning at the southeast corner of their present reservation, and running thence north, with the eastern boundary thereof, fifty miles, to the northeast corner; thence west with the northern line, thirty miles; thence south fifty miles, to the southern boundary to said reservation; and thence east with said boundary to the place of beginning; provided that the western boundary of said land herein ceded shall not extend farther westward than a line commencing at a point on the southern boundary of said Osage country, one mile east of the place where the Verdigris River crosses the southern boundary of the State of Kansas."

For this tract of country, afterward known as the "Osage Ceded Lands," the United States was to pay $300,000, "which sum should be placed to the credit of the nation in the Treasury of the United States, interest at 5 per cent thereon, to paid to the tribe semi-annually, in money or such articles or merchandise as the Secretary of Interior may direct," no pre-emption claim or homestead settlement to be allowed on the land so ceded. After reimbursing the United States, the purchase money ($300,000), and paying expense of survey and sale, the residue of proceeds to be placed in United States Treasury to credit of "Indian Civilization Fund."

The Osage, by the same treaty, also ceded "a tract of land twenty miles in width from north to south off the north side of the remainder of their present reservation, and extending its entire length from east to west;" which land was to be held in trust for said Indians, and to be surveyed and sold for their benefit, under the direction of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, at a price not less than $1.25 per acre. This cession was known as the "Osage Trust Lands."

The remaining strip, thirty miles in width, and lying west of the "Ceded Lands," was the "Osage Diminished Reserve." After the treaty of 1865, the tribe moved on to this reservation, a part settling on Pumpkin Creek, in the Verdigris Valley, and several bands at the junction of Fall River with the Verdigris. On February 14, 1877, the Osage, after trying in vain to obtain the payments due from the United States under the terms of the treaty of 1865, made a contract with Charles Ewing, an attorney at Washington, by the terms of which, as approved by Honorable Carl Schurz, Secretary of the Interior, Ewing was to obtain payment for all lands which had been sold or used contrary to the terms specified in the treaty; to procure certain payments for the Clermont band of Osage; to secure pensions to dependent families of Osage who were killed by Kansas militia in 1873, and patents for the lands owned by the Osage in the Indian Territory at the date of the contract. June 16, 1880, a law was enacted, directing, in effect, that the Osage should be paid an amount equivalent to the loss they had sustained by the non-observance of the treaty. They were accordingly credited with $1,028,785.15, paid in two settlements in August, 1880 and June, 1881.

At the time this contract was concluded in 1877, the tribe was divided into eight bands, and numbered about 4,000 people. At Big Hill, the largest town, were 100 lodges and about 950 people. White Hair's band was reduced to between 300-400 and the Little Osage, to 700. After the tribe obtained the payment of the sum due them by Government, their condition was materially altered for the better. By 1882, they numbered almost 2,000.

In 1907 the Osage, through the efforts of Principal Chief James Bigheart, negotiated to maintain mineral rights to their new reservation lands, which was later found to have great amounts of crude oil. They were unyielding and held up statehood for Oklahoma before signing an Allotment Act.

Today, they are the only tribe to retain a federally recognized reservation within the state of Oklahoma.
They have nearly 10,000 enrolled tribal members, with almost half of them living within the state of Oklahoma. The tribe is headquartered in Pawhuska, Oklahoma and have jurisdiction in Osage County. They issue their own vehicle tags, operate their own housing authority, and own several businesses including a truck stop, a gas station, 19 smoke shops, and seven casinos. The Osage Tribal Museum in Pawhuska is the oldest tribally-owned museum in the country.

Compiled by Kathy Weiser/Legends of Kansas, June, 2009