Black Bob (Shawnee chief)

Black Bob (Shawnee: Wa-wah-che-pa-e-hai or Wa-wah-che-pa-e-kar) (d. 1862 or 1864) was a Native American Shawnee Chief. His band was a part of the Hathawekela division of the Shawnee. He was known for being one of the last Shawnee to resist leaving for the Indian Territory, and for keeping his band together until his death, holding their lands in common, as they moved between Missouri, Arkansas, and the Black Bob Reservation in Kansas.

Black Bob was half Miami and half Shawnee. His father was killed at age 72, in 1860. After Black Bob's death, his widow lived east of Olathe, Kansas. He had relatives "among the Blackfeather people."

The Blackfeather Farm, in Overland Park, Kansas still exists as of 2013. "The original land patent [of the Blackfeather Farm] was awarded to To Wah Pea and her heirs on March 13, 1885. This site was part of the tract belonging to the Black Bob band. Joseph and Johnson Blackfeather were some of the heirs, hence the Blackfeather name associated with this land ... Settlers moved onto the land as soon as the war was over, and disputes over the land continued for 20 years."

Black Bob and his Hathawekela band, the Cape Girardeau Shawnee, lived on land controlled by Spain "in eastern Missouri on land granted to them about 1793 by Baron Carondelet, near Cape Girardeau." In 1808, Chief Black Bob and his band "refused to remove with the rest of the tribe to Indian Territory."

The Cape Girardeau band believed that government commissioners had misled them about the 1825 treaty and argued that they had never agreed to allow any Ohio Shawnees to settle on the western lands. As a result, a portion of the Shawnees under the leadership of Black Bob did not move to eastern Kansas and instead settled along the White River in Arkansas. Meanwhile, the Rogerstown and Fish bands traveled directly to eastern Kansas, where successive parties of Ohio Shawnees joined them over the next several years. A more complete reunion in 1833 occurred only through intimidation. Black Bob's band still had no desire to move to the Kansas River." On Oct. 26, 1831, "General William Clark at Castor Hill in St. Louis County, Missouri, signed a treaty with representatives of the Delaware then in Kansas and the Cape Girardeau Shawnee (the Black Bob band) then in Arkansas, giving up all claim to the Cape Girardeau grant."

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Wikipedia