Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1893 — HISTORY’S DAWN. [ARTICLE]

HISTORY’S DAWN.

Three Hundred and Fifty Years - { Ago in Kansas. John J. Ingalls, in Harper's Magazine. The dawn of modern history broke upon Kansas three and a half centuries ago, when Marcos de Naza, a Franciscan friar, returning from a missionary tour among the Pueblos, brought rumors of populous cities and mines richer than Golconda and Potosi in the undiscovered country beyond the Sierra Madre. In 1541, twenty years after the conquest of Mexico by Cortez, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, under the orders of Mendoza, Viceroy of India, with a little army of 300 Spaniards and 800 Mexicans, marched northward from Culiacan, then the limit of Spanish dominion, on an errand of discovery %nd spoilation. Crossing the mountains at the head of the Gila river, he reached the sources of the Del Norte, and continued northeasterly into the Mississippi valley, descending from the plains to the prairies, crossing the present area of Kansas diagonally nearly to the fortieth degree of longitude. . At the farthest point reached in his explorations he erected a high cross of wood, Avith the inscription, “Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, commander of an expedition,, reached this place.” He left some priests to establish missions among the Indians, but they were soon slain. In his report to Mendoza, at Mexico, Coronado Avrote: “The earth is the best possible for all kinds of productions of Spain. I found prunes, some of which Avere black, also excellent grapes and mulberries. I crossed mighty plains and sandy heaths, smooth and wearisome and bare of wood, and as full of crookedbacked oxen as the mountain Serena in Spain is of sheep.” Coronado was followed sixty years latter by Don Juan de Onate, the conqueror of New Mexico, and 1 in 1662 by Penalosa, then its governor, who marched from Santa Fe, and was profoundly impressed by the agricultural resources of the country Avhich he traversed. The desultory efforts of—the Spaniards to subdue the savages and acquire control ,of the territory continued for a century, Avhen the French became their competitors, under the leadership of Marquette, Joliet, Hennepin, Iberville, and La Salle, by whom formal possession of the Mississippi Valley was taken in 1682 for Louis XIV. By this monarch the Avhole-pi evince of Louisiana,' including Avhat ia now called Kansas, with a monopoly of traffic with the Indiana tribes, was granted in 1712 to Crozat, a wealthy merchant of Paris, who soon surrendered his patent, and 1 its privileges were transferred to the Mississippi Company. Under their auspices the city of New Orleans was founded in 1718 by Bienville, whd, in the following year, despatched an expedition, under the command 1 of Colonel du Tissonet, who visited the Osages at their former location in Kansas, and crossed the prairies 120 miles to tbq villages of the Pawnees at the mouth of the Republican River, where Fort Riley new stands. He continued^his march westward 200 miles, to the land of the Padoucahs, where he also set up a cross, with the arms of the French king, September 27,17J9. In 1724, De Bourgmont explored northern Kansas, starting from the “Grand Detour,” where the city of Atchison now stands. In 1762, Kansas, with the 1e ;t of the Louisiana territory, was ceded by France to Spain. In 1801 it was retroceded by Spain to France. On the 30th of April, 1803, it was sold by Napoleon, then First Consul, to the United States, Thomas Jefferson, President. This was the largest real-estate transaction which occurred that year, being 756,961,280 acres for $27,267,621, being at the rate of about 3£ cents per acre. The Anglo-Sax-on was at last in the ascendant. Attached in 1804 bv act of Congress to the “Indian Territory,” the following year to the “Territory of Missouri,” Kansas remained, after the admission of that State in 1820, detached, without local government or a name, until its permanent organization thirty-four years afterwards.