Ferdinandina Destroyed by Osages |
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Ferdinandina was a Pawnee Pict-French settlement on the west bank of
the Arkansas River just south of the present Kansas-Oklahoma state line.
In 1749, Felipe de Sandoval reported that although these Indians tilled
their fields, they were fierce cannibals and that he had seen them eat
two captives. The tribe had only a few horses, stolen from the Comanches
to the west. This Wichita trading center is believed to have existed
from the mid-1740s into the 1750s. In 1751, the Osages, equipped with
guns acquired from the British, attacked the Pawnee Pict village, that
had been decimated by measles and smallpox, and burned it. This may
have been Ferdinandina.
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