Jesse Chisholm
Jesse Chisholm (* 1805, † March 4, 1868 ) was an American businessman and leader. He traded with the Indians and worked as a guide for cattle drives in the Wild West. He has become famous mainly for the Chisholm Trail was named after him, which was used between Texas and Kansas for the cattle drive.
Life
Chisholm was probably born in 1805 or 1806 in the Hiwassee region of Tennessee. His father, Ignatius Chisholm, had Scottish ancestors and worked as a merchant and slave trader in the area of Knoxville in the 1790s. In 1800 he married a Cherokee in the area of Hiwassee, who bore him three sons, of whom Jesse was the oldest. A while later, Ignatius Chisholm separated from Jesse's mother and went to Arkansas. Jesse Chisholm was probably brought by his mother in 1810 to Arkansas. In the late 1820s he went to the Cherokee and settled near Fort Gibson in what is now eastern Oklahoma down. Chisholm was dealer and in 1836 he married Eliza Edwards, daughter of James Edwards, who led a trading post in what is now Hughes County, Oklahoma. Chisholm brought trade goods to the south and west into pure Indian country. He spoke fluent 14 dialects and built small trading post on. Soon he was in demand as a guide and interpreter. He gained confidence because of its fairness and impartiality and also mediated between hostile tribes. Finally, he also translated agreements in Texas, the Indian Territory, and Kansas.
Almost 20 years he was active in Texas. The President of the Republic of Texas, Sam Houston, the Chisholm probably met in Fort Gibson 1829-1833 and married Chisholm's aunt gave him the order to make contact with the Plains Indians in West Texas. Chisholm played a leading role as a translator and guide for various Native American groups at the Tehuacana Creek discussions which started in the spring of 1843, when he brought various tribes to participate in the negotiations near the trading post of the Torrey brothers, eight miles south from today's Waco.
Over the next year and a half, he offered his services to Houston on, and on October 7, 1844 brought Chisholm Comanches and other tribes to perceive the meeting in Tehuacana, where Houston said. In February 1846, when he visited the Torrey's Trading Post, Chisholm was hired, the Comanches for a consultation at the Comanche Peak (now Glen Rose) to lead. The meeting took place on May 12.
On December 10, 1850 Chisholm brought together representatives from seven strains to a meeting at the San Saba River. In some of these discussions and on his trading journeys he managed to rescue people from Indian captivity.
1858 Chisholm ended his travels in Texas and moved its activities to western Oklahoma. He left the Cherokee Nation and settled in the Creek Nation, near the mouth of the Little River in what is now Hughes County. At various times he operated a trading post at the end of the Great Plains, one of them near Lexington, now Cleveland County, another in Council Grove, near the present city of Oklahoma.
A big part of its trade was carried out with cars that went to the settlements of the Comanche and other tribes of the Great Plains. Several occasions he rescued trapped children and young people by the Comanches and Kiowas. Most of these prisoners were from Mexico. He adopted these children and took them into his family.
The end of 1861 he visited Kansas, where Wichita, Waco and other displaced tribes from Oklahoma living in camps. During the American Civil War, he served the Confederacy as a trader with the Indians, but in 1864 he was working as a translator for officers of the Union. During the war, Chisholm lived in the area of Wichita, Kansas. Chisholm Creek is named after him in the present area.
1865 organized Chisholm and James R. Mead a wagon train at Fort Leavenworth and established a trading post at Council Grove on the North Canadian River near the Lake Overholser in Oklahoma City today. Many of his friends from Wichita followed him and their route later became known as the " Chisholm Trail " that connected the ranches in Texas to markets in Kansas.
1865 Chisholm tried a council of Indian tribes in Little Arkansas to organize, but not all tribes participated. In 1867 he brought with the help of Black Beaver, the famous Delaware chief, the tribes of the Plaines to meet with government officials. The meeting developed the " Medicine Lodge Treaty". Chisholm died of food poisoning in Left Hand Spring, in what is now Geary, Oklahoma, on April 4.