This linked 379 page dissertation, FORT GIBSON; TERMINAL ON THE TRAIL OF TEARS, tells of tribal rivalry along and south of the Arkansas River, and although it does not provide the the Indian perspective in regard to the Battle of Wolf Creek of 1838 as the KU Scholar-works piece does, it does mention the multi-tribal confederations involved.
shareok.org/bitstream/handle/11244/4159/7701809.PDFPage 9: The episode that stimulated the first significant movement of the Cherokees across the Mississippi occurred in 1794. An anti-white faction of the Cherokees led by Chief Bowles quarreled with a party of white immigrants on their way down the Tennessee River. A number of whites were killed, and Chief Bowles, in fear of reprisals, led his followers across the Mississippi to the St. Francis River valley, outside the jurisdiction of the United States.
Page 14: A St. Louis newspaper of August 23, I8I7, reported that a formidable coalition of tribes hostile to the Osages was assembling at the Cherokee villages on the Arkansas River.
In October, 1817, this multi-tribal force marched west. The Osages, who had been lulled into a feeling of security by Cherokee messages of friendship, had departed on their fall hunt little concerned for the safety of the women, children, and old men left behind. The six-hundred-man invading force stopped short of Clermont's village and sent forward a few messengers who invited the Osages to attend a peace council. In Clermont's absence an old man was designated to meet and negotiate with the Cherokees. He became their first victim. Now aware of the defenseless state of the Osage village, the invaders rushed forward to exact retribution for the wrongs their people had endured. The villagers offered little resistance as the Cherokees and their allies plundered and burned the settlement and killed or enslaved those not fortunate enough to escape. Some eighty Osages died in the attack and over one hundred were taken prisoner. Several of the attackers were wounded but only one, a Delaware, was killed.
Page 73: Peace broke down completely in the winter of 1825-26 when a party of Cherokees, Delawares, and perhaps some Shawnees attacked an Osage party on the Red River and killed five warriors. Although the Cherokees participated in the attack it appears to have been organized by the Delawares.
Page 212-213-214: Twelve days from Fort Gibson, General Leavenworth, Colonel Dodge, and a party of forty left the regiment under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Kearny and proceeded to Camp Washita at the mouth of the Washita River. . . Unencumbered by the slow-moving wagons, the advance party made rapid progress until the first sightings of buffalo. Leavenworth, Dodge, Catlin, and several other officers spurred their horses and galloped toward the lumbering animals. . . When the advance party reached Camp Washita, Leavenworth was informed that Wichita warriors had been observed in the area.
Pages 216-217: On July 14 (1834), the Dragoons broke camp at 8:30 A.M. and had marched half a mile when they sighted a band of about thirty Indians. After identifying them as Comanches, Dodge ordered a white flag advanced. . . One of the Indians, with a white buffalo skin on his lance, left the band and cautiously approached the waiting Dragoons. . . Upon seeing this, the other warriors galloped full speed toward the Dragoons and greeted them enthusiastically. . . The Comanches told Dodge that they were on a hunting excursion and offered to take him to their village located a few days' march to the west. . . In further discussions, Dodge learned that the Comanches were allied with the Kiowas and the Wichitas. The latter were reported to have a village several day's journey west of the Comanche camp.
Page 219: Their village of six to eight hundred skin lodges was located in a valley at the foot of a range of mountains which the Dragoons believed to be a spur of the Rockies.
Page 220: Since they were the first official representatives of the United States to meet the Comanches, the visitors were surprised to find an American flag flying over one of the lodges. They speculated that the Indians might have captured it from a Santa Fe caravan
Page 221: Later explorations would prove that they were not a spur of the Rocky Mountains but an isolated range of much greater geologic age eventually named the Wichitas after the tribe the Dragoons were trying to locate.
Page 227: Early on the morning of July 25, the chiefs of the three tribes visited the Dragoon camp and were presented with rifles and pistols.
Pages 293-294: An injured leg confined (Auguste Pierre “A.P.”) Chouteau to Camp Holmes, but he sent his nephew, E.L. Chouteau, and a military escort commanded by Lieutenant Northrop onto the Plains to try to persuade the other tribes to keep the peace and honor their treaty obligations. Northrop and the younger Chouteau learned that Cheyenne, Arapaho, and Pawnee warriors were raiding the camps of other tribes west of Camp Holmes. Although anxious for revenge, the Indians who had been attacked promised not to retaliate until they learned what the War Department planned to do to pacify the area.
