52 Facts About William Bent

William Wells Bent was a frontier trader and rancher in the American West, with forts in Colorado.

William Bent acted as a mediator among the Cheyenne Nation, other Native American tribes and the expanding United States.

William Bent negotiated a peace among the many Plains tribes north and south of the Arkansas River, as well as between the Native American and the United States government.

In 1835 William Bent married Owl Woman, the daughter of White Thunder, a Cheyenne chief and medicine man.

William Bent was accepted into the Cheyenne tribe and became a sub-chief.

Each of the sisters left William Bent and, in 1869, he married the young Adaline Harvey, the educated mixed-race daughter of Alexander Harvey, a friend who was a prominent American fur trader in Kansas City, Missouri.

William Bent died shortly after their marriage, and Adaline bore their daughter, his sixth child, after his death.

William Wells Bent was born May 23,1809 St Louis, Missouri, a son of Silas Bent and his wife, Martha Bent.

William Bent's father was later appointed as a justice of the Missouri Supreme Court.

Later based in Santa Fe, Charles William Bent lived in Taos.

William Bent served briefly as the first territorial governor of New Mexico.

Charles, George, Robert, and William Bent partnered in the fur trade with Ceran St Vrain, a St Louis native.

The historian Grinnell suggested that William Bent was likely trapping furs before the first stockade was built.

William Bent sought a truce with the Pawnee and the return of the four sacred arrows which they had captured in a battle with the Cheyenne earlier that year.

William Bent believed that their children would represent another element of the new beginning, of peace for the Cheyenne and the region.

William Bent managed trade to and from the fort: he provided a safe zone in the area and a supply of goods for its store, as well as shipping buffalo robes back to St Louis for sale.

William Bent's cooking won her a high reputation among the fur traders and travelers.

William Bent bravely led a skirmish against a group of Taos Pueblo and other warriors.

William Bent wanted to build a new fort closer to Big Timbers, near the winter grounds for many tribes.

Unable to agree on a selling price for the old fort, after removing his inventory of goods, William Bent blew up and set fire to the old fort.

Six years later, the US government purchased the new "William Bent's Fort", renamed it Fort Wise and remodeled it for military use.

At that time, William Bent continued his trading business for new settlers lured by the Colorado gold rush.

In 1835 William Bent married Owl Woman, the oldest daughter of White Thunder and Tail Woman, in a Cheyenne ceremony.

William Bent's father was an influential Cheyenne leader and medicine man.

William Bent was the tribe's "Keeper of the Arrows," four arrows thought to have a sacred or medicinal role.

Owl Woman As a part of the marriage ritual, Owl Woman was carried into a lodge which was constructed for them in the Cheyenne village near the fort, while William Bent dispensed numerous gifts to her people.

William Bent later became a "Cheyenne sub-chief", as he was given tribal membership with his marriage to Owl Woman.

White Thunder believed the marriage would strengthen his alliance with William Bent and provide protection for the Cheyenne.

Owl Woman and William Bent had the following children, named in English and Cheyenne:.

William Bent did not want to stay in the Bents' new stone fort, nor did she want the children there.

William Bent left with their son Charley Bent, then 19, who joined the Dog Soldiers.

Adaline Harvey After Yellow Woman and Island had both left him, William Bent married Adaline Harvey, the 20-year-old mixed-race daughter of his friend Alexander Harvey, a fur trader based in Kansas City and a Blackfeet mother.

The marriage was short, as William Bent died later that year.

Pregnant at his death, Adaline Harvey William Bent was reported to have had a daughter.

Adaline William Bent inherited her husband's property in Kansas City in 1869 and sold it in 1871.

Chipita, the French-Mexican wife of a William Bent worker, made taffy for the children.

William Bent performed housekeeping and laundry services at the fort.

Later George William Bent recalled of his childhood at the fort:.

William Bent worked to negotiate a resolution to the inter-tribal disputes, and to end their raids on settlers and traders.

The trading environment improved after 1840, when William Bent's Fort became the site of a truce between the Comanche, Apache and Kiowa tribes of the north and the Cheyenne and Arapaho of the south.

For William Bent, Owl Woman, and their families and business associates, the Arkansas River as border between Mexico and the United States was an abstraction.

Black Kettle asked William Bent to persuade the Americans to negotiate peace and, briefly, it appeared possible.

Charles, Julie and George William Bent were all inside Black Kettle's village when Chivington and his forces arrived.

Robert William Bent testified in court against Chivington, who had forced him to guide the soldiers to the Cheyenne village.

Charles William Bent was later killed by scouts for the US Army.

George William Bent survived and married Magpie, a Cheyenne woman, and had a family.

William Bent moved to the Cheyenne and Arapaho reservation in 1870, where he lived the rest of his life, and worked for the US Indian agent as an interpreter and assistant.

William Bent assisted in the negotiation of the treaty with the Kiowa and Comanche on October 18,1865.

In 1869, following his marriage to Adaline Harvey, William Bent moved with her to his ranch in Las Animas, Colorado, on the Purgatoire River, south of the Arkansas River.

William Bent is interred at the Las Animas Cemetery south of Las Animas, Colorado.

Adaline Harvey William Bent gave birth to their daughter, after his death.

William Bent lived most of her life in Colorado, where she died February 26,1905, at the Pueblo Women's Hospital.