16 Facts About Joseph LaFlesche

Joseph LaFlesche was of Ponca and French Canadian ancestry; he became a chief in 1853, after Big Elk's death.

In 1854 Joseph LaFlesche was among the seven Omaha chiefs in the delegation who went to Washington, DC for final negotiations and signed the treaty with the United States by which they ceded most of the Omaha territory.

Joseph LaFlesche led during the Omaha transition to the reservation and other major social changes.

Joseph LaFlesche, called E-sta-mah-za, was the son of Joseph LaFlesche, a French-Canadian fur trader, and Waoowinchtcha, his Ponca wife.

Joseph LaFlesche's father worked for the American Fur Company and traded with the many tribes: Ponca, Omaha, Iowa, Otoe, and Pawnee, living between the Platte and Nebraska rivers.

Joseph LaFlesche had been adopted into the Omaha tribe as the son of Big Elk, the principal chief, after years of interaction with the people.

Joseph and Mary LaFlesche had five children together: Louis, Susette, Rosalie, Marguerite and Susan.

Joseph LaFlesche's grown children with Mary included activists Susette LaFlesche Tibbles; and Rosalie LaFlesche Farley, financial manager of the Omaha tribe; Marguerite La Flesche Picotte, who became a teacher on the Yankton Sioux Reservation; and the physician Dr Susan La Flesche Picotte, the first Native American in the United States to be certified as a doctor.

Joseph LaFlesche helped tribal members with their finances, including managing donations sent by Americans from across the country.

Joseph LaFlesche worked with an ethnologist from the University of Pennsylvania to collect traditions and stories from the tribes.

The historians B Tong and D Hastings contend that LaFlesche did not become principal chief until after Fontenelle's death, but accounts have varied as to the true role of Fontenelle in the tribe.

Boughter writes that Hepner and Joseph LaFlesche both referred to Fontenelle as a chief after his death, but other contemporaries among the Omaha did not agree and referred to him only as the interpreter.

Joseph LaFlesche worked to gain the rights of citizens of the United States for the Omaha.

Joseph LaFlesche had supported the changes in land policy in a move toward severalty, believing that the tribe's members would benefit by adopting the ownership of land individually by patent rather than to continue to hold it in common as a tribe.

Joseph LaFlesche encouraged his people to become educated in both Omaha and American ways, supporting the mission schools.

Joseph LaFlesche was chief at a time when many of the Omaha resisted the changes that had disrupted their lives.