Bill biography gordon lillie major pawnee w

Rather late in the book we are told parenthetically in a sentence fragment that Pawnee Bill was given the rank of major by "circus personnel." The "Bill" comes from his middle name, the "Pawnee" because the Indian tribe designated him a White Chief; he had acquired possible fluency in the Pawnee language and had been a teacher and administrator at the Pawnee tribal school in Oklahoma Territory.

In contrast to his friendliness with the Pawnee, Lillie had a prominent leadership role in the campaign to convince the congress and president to renege on Indian treaties and authorize the Oklahoma land rushes. The book doesn't really explain this dichotomy. The cattle drives from the Texas ranches to the Kansas railheads crossed Oklahoma. Perspective ranchers felt this was unfair since they were willing to lease grazing rights to the land from the Indian tribes. Perspective homesteaders in turn felt it was unfair for the gove

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