Dunlops and the Indians

 

 

 

TEACHER'S QUARTERLY REPORT OF DUNLAP DAY SCHOOL IN CHOCTAW NATION FOR THE QUARTER BEGINNING OCTOBER 1, 19O4 AND ENDING NOVEMBER 4, 1904.

 Female Choctaw Students: Name Age Rena Dunlap 12 Kitty Dunlap 10 Susie Dunlap 9

Male White Students: James Cogborn 16 Finis Brown 8 Mike Riley 18 Joe Wright 12 Ed Riley 8 Oscar Riley 14 Cale Back 12 Lum Gillespie 8 Ed Warford 22 Dawsie Dunlap 10 Claudie Dunlap 12 Elton Dunlap 14 B. Dunlap 16 Charlie Smith 17 James Riley 16 Willie Howerton 17

Female White Students: Verner Dunlap 7 Youdia Dunlap 6 Dora Smith 13 Gertie Smith 11 Mattie Dunn 17 Effie Dunn 12 Myrtle Brown 10 Ruby Handley 15 May Riley 12 Bessie Warford 6 Sally Cogborn 13

Teacher: Lillah P. Read, Bokoshe, I.T. Amount Teacher Paid: $39.67 No Local Trustee Listed

 

 

Our own Indian Chief

Daniel B. Wood, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor 1998

WARD VALLEY, CALIF. -- Hundreds of butte-desert miles from any sizable town, a pro-test is building. A lone-Indian chant is punctuated by scuffling feet and shaking rattles, while demonstrators lift hand-held signs: "Low-level dump/High-level hazard" and "We can't pick up and move like others can." The scene has played out in scores of settings across the West, ever since the United States government targeted Indian reservations in the late 1980s as favorable sites for nuclear and other waste disposal. But this protest, like many of the others, includes a new element that is tipping the balance in native Americans' favor: the spirit of collective empowerment nudged forward by modern technology. Here in isolated Ward Valley - where Nevada and Arizona meet California - more than 30 tribes from a dozen states are laying plans this week to stop test drilling by the US Interior Department. The department says the tests are needed to determine if Ward Valley is an appropriate site for a nuclear-waste dump.

"Throughout our histories we have not always seen eye to eye on everything with other tribes," says Gjrjle Dunlap, newly elected chairwoman of the Chemehuevi Indians (of the Shoshone), many of whom have come to protest at Ward Valley along with nearby tribes. "But we have seen that if we do not stand together for this issue, we all lose."

This article was adapted from the 1964 book Doctors on the Frontier, by Richard Dunlop, published by Doubleday & Company, Inc., 575 Madison Avenue, New York 22, New York.

John Dunlap was seized by Indians as a boy and raised by the tribal medicine man, who taught him how to collect herbs in the woods to cure the afflictions of the body.

Apply the leaf of a yellow flowered water lily to the skin and give the patient a large dose of an infusion made from its leaves and his fever will abate. Boil the bark of red oak and give it for disorders of the lung and intestines. To soothe a toothache, rub the inside bark of elm or prickly ash to the tooth and gums. Puffballs or prairie mushrooms will staunch the flow of blood from wounds. The boiled inside bark of pine or boiled roots of the wild plum will cure the flux.

The white boy sat in the wigwam of his tawny preceptor. He helped to collect the herbs in the forest, and sought for the juniper because he was taught its fruit and leaves could be boiled to stop a cough. When an Indian playmate suffered from the gas, he found mint for him to chew. In the winter camp he saw scurvy make its appearance. Following his teacher into the woods, he stripped the bark and needles from the hemlock to make tea which magically restored health. For tonic, he gave sassafras or ginseng.

John Dunlap learned well. When he was released by the Indians, he continued to practice on the white side of the frontier. Early settlers, venturing into southern Illinois around 1810, found four cabins surrounded by a stockade. One of the cabins belonged to Dr. John Dunlap. He was counted the first white doctor in Williamson County, and he maintained to his death that he had a perfect right to treat the sick because of his education in the medical arts given by Indians.

Attack on Dunlap's Station

The families, mostly of Scots-Irish descent (Dunlap, Horn, Wallace, McDonald, Barret, Barket, White) appealed to Fort Washington for troops to aid in their defense, since the Indians nearby were hostile and had been massing for several days in early January 1791. A lieutenant Kingsbury and eleven men were sent and occupied the Station, along with the families. The Soldiers were Taylor, Neef, O'Neil, O'Leary, Lincoln, Grant, Strong, Sowers, Murphy, Abel, McVicar, and Wiseman.

On the night of January 8, 1791, a surveying party of four men (Wallace, Hunt, Cunningham, and Sloan), were exploring some of the Miami bottoms opposite to the fort, and were only seventy yards from the fort when the Indians fired some volleys at them. Cunningham fell dead, Hunt’s horse threw him and he was taken prisoner, Sloan, although wounded, and Wallace made it back to the fort.  Read about the attack:  Attack on Dunlap's Station

 

Chronicles of Oklahoma
Volume 7, No. 2
June, 1929
ALVIN WOODS’ RETREAT FROM PRAIRIE GROVE

Alvin Woods was a fullblood Osage, wearing a blanket and with the habits of other fullbloods. But Alvin could speak good English and could sign his name without mark to his annuity checks, a feat he was very proud of. He had received a fair education in a mission school. Robert Dunlap, an old trader of frontier days, used to tell a joke on Alvin Woods, for the truth of which he vouched; it related to Alvin’s life as a soldier.

Alvin was a member of a contingent of over 100 Osage braves that was attached to the 9th Kansas Cavalry, during the Civil War. At the battle of Prairie Grove, Arkansas, December 7th, 1862, the 9th Kansas was ordered to make a certain flank movement on foot, and in executing this movement they fell into a masked battery down at the forks of two small streams where it was very brushy. When the masked battery opened up on them the command to fall back was most imperatively and vociferously ordered.

"Fall back, fall back and remount," called the Colonel. "Ah-rin-to! Ah-rin-to; cowah-esky-a-gerak-pin-to," called out Alvin Woods, corporal and interpreter for the Indian company. The order was beautifully executed on the part of Arvin Woods’ Indian comrades. Early one morning, about a week later, Robert Dunlap, who had a stockade trading post near the mouth of Walnut Creek, several miles east of Great Bend, Kansas, was startled to see what looked like quite a body of mounted Indians coming up the valley in a wild ride. Dunlap was alone with the exception of a horse tender and was in no condition to make a defense against any considerable body of Indians. His partner had gone to West Port Landing with a train of hide wagons taking all the men they had to drive the teams.

Dunlap did not fear the Indians of any tribe except the Cheyennes, and at that time, as he could speak their tongue, he had thought he could talk them into a pacific mind by getting them to await the arrival of new goods from the Missouri River. They seemed to be approaching in a war-like attitude, however, and his fear was that they would not give him a chance to even speak with them. But were they Cheyennes? They looked like bareheaded soldiers, or Indians clad in soldier’s uniforms. If it should prove to be Indians in military uniform, it would mean that there had been an outbreak, and if so, the capture and death of many soldiers, there would be no peace possible with them under such conditions. Just as Dunlap had ordered the gates closed and was about to get his rifle, one of the front riders called out, "How, Pah-hah-pe!" It was Avin Woods, who was personally known to the trader. Dunlap knew that Alvin Woods and his Indian troops should have been with Blunt, in Arkansas; he was puzzled to find them nearly 300 miles from what should have been their base.

"What are you doing here, Alvin?" he asked. photo

"Oh, we jis fall back," said Alvin.

"Fall back where?" asked Dunlap.

"Me don’ know. Colonel he say fall back, twice he say it, an’ nobody tell me to stop. We in big fight, me glad to get away," he continued.

"Great God, Alvin, you will be courtmartialled and shot!" exclaimed Dunlap. "Here you are 300 miles from the battle, with no excuse."

"Yes, me like that tree hundred miles. And me got it good excuse; Colonel he say ’fall back,’ everybody fall back, but me beat ’em all the way."

"Alvin," said Dunlap, "this is serious. I tell you they may order you shot. How did the battle end?" "O, I guess it stop when we fall back. I don’t see it any more battle."

"Alvin, I tell you this is serious and I want you to turn around now and go back to the army just as fast as you can go and don’t stop till you get there. Make the best excuse you can; but I have no idea what they’ll do to you. I wish I could leave here, I’d go back with you and help you but I can’t leave now," said Dunlap.

"How, Allright, me go back and see Colonel; fix it up good, he know he tell me ’fall back.’ But first you giv it boys heap coffee. We got plenty meat," said Alvin.

I remember when Dunlap told the story that I fully intended to have Alvin’s account of the event when he came in to trade again, but he never came in. The next I heard of him he was dead, sometime in the winter, or early spring of 1887.

Charles J. Phillips.

The Spring of 1762

 

read how Dunlap, an Irish Trader, sold Rum and water to an Indian group: Watered-down Rum

 

Rev. Samuel Dunlap (b. pre 1718-abt 1779) Early American Presbyterians

In 1738, George Clark, Lieutenant-Governor of the province of New York, granted a patent of 8000 acres of land, covering the site of the town of Cherry Valley, New York, to four proprietors, one of whom, John Lindesay, a Scotch gentleman, bought out his associates and went to settle upon it. While in New York, preparing for the removal of his family, he formed a friendship with Rev. Samuel Dunlap, a young Presbyterian minister of Irish birth, but educated at Edinburgh, who had traveled over the South, and was arranging for a tour through the North. He persuaded him to join in colonizing the land, and while he went with his family to make their home upon it, Mr. Dunlap went to Londonderry, New Hampshire, to persuade some of the Scotch-Irish, who in 1718 had immigrated there, to accompany him to it. In due time Mr. Dunlap and his party arrived, and distributing themselves about on the farms they selected, they became the fathers of the place. During the Revolutionary war, Cherry Valley was the site of a famous "massacre" in November of 1778. The venerable pastor of the church, with one of his daughters, was permitted to live, through the interposition of a Mohawk, but his wife was murdered, and her mangled arm, torn from her body, was tossed into an apple tree, which stood long after as the monument of the fiendish deed. His house was razed to the ground, and his library scattered, and himself carried away as a prisoner. Released in a few days, he made his way to New York, and about a year after sank under his sufferings, and laid down in the grave.

Chimney Rock in Lucerne Valley was the site of the last Indian fight in Southern California.

In 1866, J.W. Gillette, Ed Parrish and Nephi Bemis(3) started out to round up some stray cattle at the Dunlap Ranch. Gillette’s mule was worn out, so he was sent back to get Pratt Whiteside to take his place. Gillette then stayed with the herd that Whiteside had been guarding. A short while later, the horses of Parrish and Bemis came back without any riders. The Parrish horse had blood on the saddle. Gillette went back to the ranch house to inform a sick Mr. Dunlap of the discovery and to gather more men and weapons.  see Last Indian Battle in California

Mountain Meadows Massacre Sept 11, 1857

"There were two girls one sixteen and, one eighteen, they ran and hid in the oak brush. The Indian chief found the two girls and brought them to John D. Lee and said, that they are too pretty to kill. There names were Rachel, and Ruth Dunlap. It was reported that the girls pled for mercy and told Lee, that they would work for him, and love him all his life, and serve his needs as to whatever he wanted them to do, but the girls were both..... Sexually Abused ....and afterwards their throats cut from ear to ear" .... There was personal testimony at the 2ND trial of John D Lee from Jacob Hamblins 15 year old Indian boy, whom Hamblin had adopted, testified that he sat on the hill above where the girls were hiding, and wittinessed the sexual abuse and murder of the Dunlap girls, by John D.Lee.  Memorial   Listing

 

Camp Dunlap, Kansas

On June 14, 1864, Maj. T. I. McKenny, inspector-general and party, en route to Fort Larned, and escorting a mail stage, reached Walnut creek, after a forty mile journey from Smoky Hill crossing, where work on a blockhouse was under way. He camped at a point where the road intersects the old Santa Fe road, and where the Leavenworth and Kansas city mails are due at the same time, "found the ranch (Rath's) entirely deserted." McKenny saw the owner next day at Fort Larned. In his June 15, report written at Fort Larned, he stated that he intended to "build a block-house" at Walnut Creek on his return trip. At Walnut Creek, forty miles this side Larned, commenced stone fort, and left Captain Oscar F. Dunlap with forty five men, Fifteenth Kansas.

The small defense post at Walnut Creek, first called Camp Dunlap, was named Fort Zarah in July of 1864. Up to July 1868 it was under Fort Larned's control, from that time till abandoned in December 1869, it was an independent post.

Charles Rath no doubt returned to his trading post as soon as Camp Dunlap was established. He seems to have been there in July 1864. George Bent, at a later time stated, in July 1864, the Kiowas and Comanches attacked a train or two at Walnut creek. They killed several teamsters. Brother Charles was at Charley Rath's place on Walnut creek at the time. He told me about it when he came to the village on Solomon river.

 

Tetona Dunlap

Dunlap, who attended the conference for the first time, plans to pursue photography and was elected as a student reporter for the 2003 American Society of Newspaper Editors conference held in New Orleans. Dunlap, an Eastern Shoshone from the Wind River Reservation in Wyo., is currently a photographer for the Creighton student paper, The Creightonian, and will be attending the American Indian Journalism Institute (AIJI) in June at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion. She hopes for an internship at the end of the summer and plans to graduate in December 2004. see her article

Tetona, 4th from left, a Shoshone Dunlap!

 

The Native American Newspaper Career Conference held from April 22nd to the 24th proved to be a proponent of Native American journalism by awarding four college scholarships. Two of the four scholarships went to Creighton University juniors Tetona Dunlap and Nancy Kelsey.

Dunlap, a photographer,(3rd from right) received a scholarship in the name of the late Native American Lem Price. Kelsey, Little River Band of Ottawa in Michigan, received the Crazy Horse Memorial scholarship. The amounts totaled $3,000 for all scholarships.


 

 

 

 

There is a tribe of Indians in California called The Dunlap Band of Mono Indians

MONO, WESTERN (MONACHE)
The Western Mono Indians traditionally lived in the south-central Sierra Nevada foothills. Their language is of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Acorns made up the major part of their diet, and they also depended on other vegetable foods and game. Today these Indians live on the rancherias of Big Sandy, Cold Springs, and North Fork, as well as in the town of Dunlap, California.
 

 

Dunlap Band of Mono Indians

Office of Tribal Chairperson

Box 45

Dunlap, CA 93624

Tribal Affiliation: Mono

(559) 338-2545