Peter Cassidy Bigheart (USA)

Source: Shannon Shaw on Osage News from the Osage Nation Executive online site

Principal Chief Peter C. Bigheart, a full-blooded Osage and scout for the Union Army during the Civil War, rose in politics under the tutelage of his older brother Chief James Bigheart and Chief Ne-Kah-Wah-She-Tun-Kah during the devastating era of the Dawes Act.

Peter Cassidy Bigheart was born circa 1838 to a father named Bigheart and a mother named Hun-Ka-Me. It is reported in the 1856 Annuity records, that there was a man listed simply as Bigheart and he was reported to have three females, three males and four children, Annette Moncravie Gore, author of “The Osage: An Imperious Ancestry Volume II,” said. It is not known whether all listed were his children but in the mid-1800’s it is hard to tell how they listed Indian families, said Gore, due to the fact that the U.S. Government didn’t make Indians list the names of the heads of the families, wives or children until 1877.

According to those records James Bigheart could possibly have been a child of Bigheart and the older brother of Peter, she said in a phone interview from Denver.

It is listed in Osage baptismal records that Peter was baptized a Catholic in 1853 and James in 1860. James was known as an educated devout Catholic who never went back to the “blanket” or the “traditional” Osage ways. It is known that Peter was a “traditional” Osage and was a “blanket” Indian.

According to the same baptismal records, Peter had two sons and one daughter with his wife Ellen Basil, or Basel. Their names were Joseph Cassey Bigheart, Pelagie Cassey Bigheart and George Cassey Bigheart. It is unknown whether Ellen, was his first and only wife, but it is known that Peter had another daughter named Eliza Bigheart.

Eliza Bigheart would be the grandmother of famous Osage prima ballerinas, Maria and Marjorie Tall Chief. In an interview with Maria Tall Chief from her autobiography “America’s Prima Ballerina,” she talks about her grandmother’s relationship with her great grandfather Peter Bigheart.

“Grandma Tall Chief's father, my great-grandfather Chief Peter Bigheart, played an important role in the Osage saga. In 1886 Grandma traveled with him and his relative Chief James Bigheart to Washington. Both men spoke English and were on the council that worked out the provisions of the Osage Allotment Act.”

However, Peter and James were from different bands. Peter from the William Penn Band and James from the Black Beaver Osage band, according to the book “Chronicles of Oklahoma,” by Orpha B. Russell.

Peter, like James, was a leader for the full bloods within the tribe and their politics during the early 1900’s. It was also listed in the Fairfax Cemetery burial plot listings, and on his tombstone, that Peter was Chief of the Penn Band.

Before Peter Bigheart became chief, he fought the forced allotment of the Osage reservation alongside James and other full bloods.

“Although their reservation had remained intact while others in Indian Territory had been dispersed through allotment under the [1887] Dawes Act, the Osages knew they could not hold out forever. So when the terms of their own allotments were being negotiated in Washington, D.C., the Osages under the leadership of Chief James Bigheart and . . . Peter Bigheart, demanded communal ownership of all mineral rights lying under their lands,” according to the author of the book “Big Bluestem, Journey Into the Tall Grass,” Annick Smith.

In 1893 when the United States Congress amended the Dawes Act, ending the Osages exemption from allotment, it brought little surprise to the tribe. According to the book by Terry P. Wilson, “The Underground Reservation: Osage Oil,” a U.S. commission arrived at the Osage agency to discuss allotment with a five-man committee that had been appointed by the tribe’s National Council. On that committee were Julian Trumbly, James Bigheart, Brave, Claremore and Peter Bigheart.

“They were unanimously opposed to any severalty plan and indeed were prevented from making any concession, since article one of the Osage Constitution specifically forbade allotment except at the request of the National Council,” according to Wilson.

The committee agreed that the issue at hand was of such importance that they needed the input from the entire tribe to make a decision. Nearly all mixed-bloods and some of the full-bloods supported allotment, but nearly all full-bloods resisted, according to Wilson.

However, the Department of the Interior abolished the Osage government in 1900 and diminished their tribal sovereignty even further in hopes “to speed a successful assault on the tribe’s land base.” They did not count on the resistance from the full-bloods, led by Chief Ne-Kah-Wah-She-Tun-Kah, his Asst. Chief James Bigheart and Peter Bigheart, who was a councilman at the time. They would lead six years of struggle, leading up to the 1906 Allotment Act and that legislation’s final form, which was significantly different from similar plans forced on other tribes, according to Wilson.

Peter would keep leading the full-blood political movement until James’s death in 1908 at 70 years of age.

Peter Bigheart was elected Chief June 1, 1908. He defeated Matthews, 159 votes to 91. Newspaper reports at the time wrote:

“The election resulted in a complete victory for the full bloods with the exception of one councilmen, J.B. Trumbly. The following officer’s were elected: Principal Chief, Peter Bigheart, Assistant Chief, Fred Lookout; members of the Council, Pah-se-to-pah, Perry King, Edgar McCarthey, Roman Logan, Arthur Bonnicastle, J.B. Trumbly, Shun-kah-mo-loh, Bacon Rind,” according to The Pawhuska Capital. “This is said to be an excellent ticket and the officers elected will look after the interests of the tribe at all times and under all circumstances. Two of those elected are ex-soldiers Peter Bigheart the Chief, serving during the Civil War with the Ninth Cavalry of Kansas. Arthur Bonnicastle, one of the Councilmen, served during the Spanish-American war with the Ninth Infantry in the Philippines and China.”

Peter Bigheart died Oct. 5, 1915 at the age of 77. His obituary in The Pawhuska Capital read: “Peter Bigheart, one of the best educated and widely known Osages, died at his home west of Fairfax Tuesday, and was buried in the city cemetery Thursday. Peter Bigheart was a veteran of the Civil War, and acted as a government scout. He has been active in all of the movements for the betterment of the Osages and has acted as Chief of the council. His funeral was largely attended by both Osages and white people.”

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• Reference: RootsWeb's WorldConnect - SmartCopy: Feb 5 2016, 21:49:50 UTC