Mary Ellen Rowe is a retired professor of history at the University of Central Missouri.

Articles Authored

French artist Louis-Leopold Boilly’s rendering of members of an Osage traveling party in Europe, including Big Soldier (at right). [Smithsonian Institution, National Portrait Gallery, object # S/NPG.2011.5]
Big Soldier (1773?–1844)

Big Soldier, a Little Osage war leader, was probably born in 1773 in a village near the…

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Benjamin Louis Eulalie de Bonneville. [Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Photographs and Prints Collection, N38643]
Benjamin Louis Eulalie de Bonneville (1796–1878)

Benjamin Louis Eulalie de Bonneville was born in Paris, France, in 1796. His father, a…

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Painting titled Cler-mónt, First Chief of the Tribe, by George Catlin, 1834. [Smithsonian American Art Museum, SAAM-1985.66.29_1]
Clermont II (?–1828)

Following the death of Clermont (Gra-Mon or “Arrow-Going-Home”) in 1796, his son, also…

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Josiah Gregg. [Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma, 4316.5964]
Josiah Gregg (1806–1850)

From his father, Wheelwright Harmon Gregg, Josiah Gregg inherited a roving spirit that…

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Samuel Hawken. [Missouri Historical Society, Prints and Photographs Division, N38641]
Jacob Hawken (1786–1849) and Samuel Hawken (1792–1884)

Christian Hawken, a respected gunsmith of Hagerstown, Maryland, taught his six sons and…

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