Biographie Bourassa Jude

Maple Hill, Kansas: Its History, People, Legends and Photographs

April 13, 2014 ·

We often forget that there were Native American settlers in what we today know as Wabaunsee County, Kansas long before other European immigrants ventured across the Atlantic.

Below are photographs of three individuals who were among the Potawatomi who were removed from their homelands in Michigan and Indiana during the 1830s and 1840s. Although the American government "tidied" it all up by making treaties, paying the tribes a pittance for their land and providing new reservations in the Midwest, these people had no choice. Had they not agreed to all of the stipulations of the American government, they would have been forced off the land by military invasion of their homeland.

The Potawatomi were forced to mostly walk from Indiana to their new lands in what became Kansas, between September 4 and November 4, 1838. A total of 859 men, women and children began the journey from northern Indiana. Although the American government hired one of its heros, John Tipton of Indiana, to make certain they were provided for and watched over, Tipton provided little. The Native Americans walked, they were provided inadequate food and shelter, their medical care was laughable and as a result, 69 people, (there are various numbers reported, larger and smaller) mostly the elderly and children, died. The journey is now commonly referred to as "The Trail of Death."

If you want to learn more about the history of this tragic journey, you may read "The Potawatomi Trail of Death" written after 30 years of research by two good friends, Shirley Willard and Susan Campbell. http://www.potawatomi-tda.org/ptodassn.htm

There is a shorter article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potawatomi_Trail_of_Death

The real reasons for the removal were many, but primarily their lands in Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana were needed for the settlement of American and European farmers. The Native Americans were not farmers, they were hunters and gatherers. They were considered to be "subhuman" and therefore needed to be controlled and kept on reservations. In addition, the railroads were building towards the West Coast. Most Americans believed that it was ordained by God that they occupy all of the United States from the east coast to the west coast. The railroads hastened that settlement and made Midwestern and mountain lands accessible. To finance the building of the railroads, the American government needed the land of the Indians. The U. S. Congress took the Indian lands and turned their lands into grants to the railroads. The railroads could then sell Indian land to White settlers and keep the money to be used in constructing their railroads.

That is exactly what happened to the Potawatomi, who were settled on a 3,000,000 acre reserve north of Topeka, Kansas. This reserve contained most of what of what became northern Wabaunsee County, including land between the Kansas River and the Mill Creek Valley. A new treaty was negotiated in 1869, which removed all the Potawatomi from what is today Wabaunsee County, Kansas as well as most of the reserve north of Topeka. Their land was reduced from 3,000,000 acres to 30,000 acres, which remains mostly intact today.

Many of the Potawatomi had been educated at Indian Schools operated by various denominations of religious organizations, most prominently Roman Catholic, Methodist and Baptist. There were Mission Schools in Kansas near Kansas City, Topeka and at St. Marys. There were also Mission School in Michigan and Wisconsin. The three individuals pictured below are Joseph Napoleon Bourassa, his brother Jude Bourassa and Jude Bourassa's wife, Catherine Charet or Sharrai. They were all highly educated and attended several Indian Mission School in various states during the 1820s and 1830s. Joseph and Jude both spoke English and became important translators and officials for the Potawatomi people in Kansas.

Joseph and Jude both established homes at Uniontown, Shawnee County, Kansas. They lived there, traded with settlers heading west on the Oregon Trail, and maintained both trading posts and inns. Uniontown no longer exists, but it was located very near the little village now known as Willard, Kansas. There was a terrible epidemic of small pox in 1849 and 1850 which killed hundreds of Native and White inhabitants. More than 20 were buried in the Uniontown Cemetery, including many of the Bourassa family.

Jude Bourassa and his wife Catherine (Sharrai) Bourassa, survived the epidemic because they had removed from Uniontown and moved three miles west to Mill Creek in what is now Maple Hill Township, Wabaunsee County, Kansas. They removed to become the grain millers for the Potawatomi people. A stone dame and mill were built on Mill Creek on what is now commonly known as the Brethour Ranch. Remnants of the mill are still visible.

The Bourassa Family was of French Canadian and Native American descent. The Bourassa Family were important in the fur trade era in southern Canada, Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana. They intermarried with Native American women who lived in the villages where they traded.

I have much more to write about the Bourassa Family. They played an important and early role in the development of Maple Hill Township between 1848 and 1878. You will be amazed at the connections between the Bourassas and the families they married with in the early history of Maple Hill.

I am sorry to have to use such a broad brush approach to the articles I will write about the Bourassas. The importance of their family cannot be underemphasized.

Jude Bourassa History

Contributed By

L
LauraMorleyJensen1

Jude was educated at Hamilton, New York at the Baptist Theological Institute, now known as Colgate University. When Jesuit school started in Kansas, he taught the English language. Jude lived at Potawatomi Creek near the Baptist Mission, at Sugar Creek, KS near a Catholic Mission. Later at the Kansas River Reservation he operated a water-powered mill near the mouth of Mill Creek. Jude was a descendant of Jacques Bourasseau and Francoise Fauchard (b. 1605 and 1610 in France).

In 1826, Jude and his brother Joseph Napoleon accompanied Rev. Isaac McCoy from Niles, Michigan to Hamilton, New York where they attended the Baptist Theological Institution (now Colgate University). In 1831-32 they attended Choctaw Academy at White Sulphur Springs, Kentucky. There they took part in the debating society and the Lycergus Court, and they learned to handle conflict according to white man's law. This served them well as leaders of the Potawatomi when they lived in Kansas.

Jude came west in the removal of August 17, 1840 on the Trail of Death. Jude was an innkeeper, became wealthy and had the first piano in the Kansas territory, according to letters of William H. Hutter, first Governor of Kansas Territory in 1854. Hutter was impressed with Jude's comfortable house, fine furniture and delicious food.

Jude was about 1/8 Indian**. Jude had been a landowner in Indiana because of land he received as parts of other treaties. He sold that land. He then petitioned the goverment to let him stay in Indiana as a landowner, claiming he had been swindled out of his land. The courts did not agree, as Jude was a well-educated man. Jude had a falling out with the Jesuits at Sugar Creek, Kansas and returned to Potawatomie Creek with the Baptists. After the move to the Kansas River, he operated the Potawatomie's water-power mill near the mouth of Mill Creek and was a successful and respected resident of the area. He was also paid by the government to make hishome available to certain travelers along the Oregon Trail which ran through the Potawatomie reserve. Descriptions of his home and family were published by two of those travelers and are very complimentary. One wrote that "while Mr. Bourassa is very attentive to his guests and liberal in his charges, he will furnish no whiskey under any circumstances."

It is said Jude caught smallpox and died after giving hospitality to a family of immigrants. This would have been somewhere between 1856 and 1859. After his death, his widow married Basil Greemore on November 21, 1859.

Scenes In (And En Route To) Kansas Territory, Autumn, 1854: Five Letters by William H. Hutter Edited by Louise Barry Autumn, 1969 (Vol. 35, No. 3), pages 312 to 336; NOTE: The numbers in brackets refer to endnotes for thistext.

I. Introduction Aboard the Missouri steamer Polar Star, Andrew H. Reeder, an Easton, Pa., lawyer and politician, arrived at Fort Leavenworth October 7, 1854, to assume his duties as Kansas' first territorial governor. On October 24 the editor of the Easton (Pa.) Argus set out on a journey to Kansas. He was William H. Hutter, aged 29, a relative (nephew?) by marriage of Governor Reeder (whose wife was Amalia Hutter). Arriving at the new town of Leavenworth on the Edinburg, November 4, he remained in the territory at least till the end of the month; and during that time traveled west, by way of Kansas river valley roads, as far as Fort Riley.

Five letters describing his journey to, and experiences in Kansas, which were published in Hutter's newspaper are reprinted here. [1] The first two (dated at St. Louis, October 27, and Leavenworth, November 7) appeared under the heading, "Letter from the Editor." The succeeding three (Soldier Creek, November 14; Fort Riley, November 18; and Leavenworth, November 29) were headed "Scenes in Kansas."

On our return trip we tarried several days at the house of Jude Bourassa, a French half breed, about one mile and a half from the Pottawatomie payment post [Union Town]. [13] We found a comfortable double Indian House, of logs of course, one end of which, in all of them, serves the purpose of a better bed room, and also of a parlor to entertain guests. That end was given us with two good beds, a blazing fire in the chimney, and imported carpet on the floor and a handsome modern Piano in the room. We had a capital supper and in the evening prevailed on Mr. Bourassa to bring his daughter Isabella in to play for us. She played Russian march -- Washington march and some other beginner's tunes -- the only merit of the music being that it came from an Indian girl. She is a modest, good-looking girl, dressed with neatness and taste -- not near so handsome, however, as the Spotted Fawn. Her Father has a brother residing in this immediate vicinity, named Joseph Bourassa. Both were educated, with others, among whom was the well known Jose [i.e., William] Walker of the Wyandots, at Hamilton, in the State of New York. They both speak English, with a French accent, but Joseph is the more intellectual man, whilst Jude is much the more wealthy.

I saw at Jude's house a most interesting object, giving strong confirmation to the theory broached more than 30 years ago that the Red men of the North are the ten lost tribes of Israel. He has four slips of parchment covered with Hebrew manuscript, which he has sent to Washington and had translated and which prove to be extracts from the 13th chapter of Exodus and 6th chapter of Deuteronomy, and relate principally to the Passover. These he procured from an old chief, just before his death, a year or two ago, who had kept them secretly nearly all his life, and to whom they had come from his ancestors. -- Mr. B. says there is very good evidence of the tribe having had them for 200 or 250 years, and the tradition accompanying them is that the Red men brought them along with them into this Island, as they call the Continent, and that some day they were to be called for. They are rolled in small flat rolls, and inserted in a stiff, hard box about 2 inches each way, the outsides of which are made of repeated thicknesses of parchment, closely and solidly compressed together and blacked outside with considerable polish. On each end is an ornament consisting of three or four long stalks, each having a bulb at the end, which may represent fruit or flower. -- This box has four compartments one for each of the rolls. Around the open top of the box a square rim projects of about half-inch, and the same piece of parchment (double) which makes this rim, folds over and makes a cover, and this was closely and solidly sewed down, and the outside finished like the body of the box -- so that it was impervious to air or water. Mr. B. had it cut open. The tradition is that the tribe had two of these boxes and that one of them was lost by the upsetting of a Canoe in one of their migrations, but all recollection of the time and place is lost. It is impossible they could have got these things from the Missionaries, for at 200 or 250 years ago none were among them, and if they were they would have no reason for giving these remembrances of the Passover to the Indians. -- Besides the earliest Missionaries they did meet were Catholics, and it is a well known fact that all their amulets are in Latin, and of a different character from that of these extracts. Again Mr. B. tells me that this particular kind of box for the preservation of texts of Scripture, has been, and is in use among the Jews, and that a Jew who saw it in his possession recognized it at once as a Jewish box.

We had as pleasant and comfortable quarters at Bourassa's as in any other part of the Territory. Joseph B. is a single man. The housekeeper is an old lady, a cousin of his (Mrs. Nadeau,) a French half breed also, but with more of the French than the Indian in her manners and one of the kindest women of the face of the earth. The rest of the family consists of her two sons, Alexander and Ely, and her two daughters, Rosanna and Catharine, both grown up -- and Elizabeth, a sister of Bourassa, about 19 years old. Joseph Bourassa himself is a man of education and intelligence and it is pleasant to sit and talk with him of his people. He is writing for publication a History of the manners and customs of the Red man, which will make an interesting book. The house is a double Indian house with kitchen attached and lofts overhead. Every thing is neat and clean and a great many little items of comfort gathered in it. The table is fit for a Prince -- fine hot biscuit, first-rate coffee, rich milk with all the cream in -- prairie chicken &endash; salmon -- apple dumplings -- pan cakes -- butter cakes -- good butter -- peaches and cream, etc., etc. The two daughters of Mrs. Nadeau are very interesting girls for Indians. Catharine is quite good looking -- Rosa is handsome. They have not a great deal of the Indian in their appearance&emdash;Rosanna scarcely any. They all speak Indian, French, and English fluently. Their domestic language is French. The girls play cards and chess very well. They have all been educated at the Missions, and dress in excellent taste.

There was a very wild looking Indian boy staying here with a hideous looking grandmother. The latter having a claim for her furniture etc., destroyed on the occasion of some former removal, has 40 copper kettles included in her inventory, so that she goes among us by the soubriquet of "the 40 kettle woman." Her boy is about 11 or 12 years old, with the most tremendous head of long black hair I ever saw -- so thick and long that a great deal of it is put up in a long thick plait. His face is good and he is a bright boy -- can't understand a word of English. He has a bow and arrow with which I have seen him shoot prairie chickens and hawks. His name is Wahbantis (Little White Shoulder).

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