Unfortunately for newly arrived American hunters, they fell into an ongoing power struggle when they arrived in the Arkansas River Valley in the early 1800s.
According to historian Kathleen Duval, nations like the Osage and the Quapaw had long sought the best trading avenues for their people to obtain manufactured goods. However, trading networks and their connections were a part of a power struggle in the Arkansas River Valley between the Native Americans, then between the French, Spanish, and Indian Nations there, and later, the Americans. Expansion of trade and control over it meant growth in power, and Arkansas Native Americans understood that concept. When the Americans started arriving, they stepped into a competitive environment that had existed for hundreds of years. These Americans, along with the allied Indian nations of Cherokee and Quapaw, became part of a fight to defeat the Osage, pushing them from their lands and wrenching the centuries-old stranglehold they had on the best hunting grounds in Arkansas.[1]
When the first Cherokees arrived in Arkansas during the late 1700s, they allied with the Quapaw and other nations against the Osage. The Cherokee settled along the St. Francis River Valley and challenged the Osage for the hunting grounds west. Retaliatory raids occurred. In 1808, President Thomas Jefferson told eastern Cherokee that if they wanted to hunt instead of farm, they could move across the Mississippi River and join their brethren in the Arkansas River Valley. These two groups, the Cherokee-led alliance, and the Osage, raided each other’s settlements, killed each other’s hunters, and stole each other’s goods. The arrival of more Cherokee in 1808 exacerbated the problem between the groups. If white men conducted business with either side, they were subject to harsh treatment by the other. In addition, American hunters competed with all sides for game, and therefore, any Native American group may react to their activities negatively. However, other Osage bands usually did not bother them if hunters and traders of European descent allied with the Osage.[2]
[1] Duval, The Native Ground, 14, 15-17.
[2] Duval, The Native Ground, 196, 199.
Arkansas Wildlife History 