BLACK BEAVER, Delaware Indian leader, trader, guide and scout: b. near Belle ville, Ill., in 1806; d. near Andarko, Okla., 8 May 1880. In his young manhood he spent several years in the Rocky Mountain fur trade as a hunter and trapper. He was present as an interpreter at the council held with the Com anche, Kiowa and Wichita tribes in the Red River country by Col. Henry Dodge, in 1834, and, from that time on, until the end of his life his services were in frequent demand by the government in dealing with the Indians of the Southern Plains. During the Mexican War he raised a company of Indian scouts and guides which served with General Harney's command, and he was ever afterward known as Captain Black Beaver. He served as guide with the military escort commanded by Capt. R. B. Marcy, which accompanied the large party of emigrants and gold seekers from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to Albuquerque, N. M., en route to California in 1849. His name occurs frequently in the official reports of army officers, Indian service authorities, government surveyors and explorers. Although he belonged to the small band of Delawares which dwelt in the Red River region and far removed from the main body of the tribe, he held more or less frequent communication with the latter and appeared as one of its representatives in negotiations with the government. In 1861 he was chosen to
guide the retreating Federal garrisons of Forts Smith, Washita, Arbuckle and Cobb on their march through the wilderness to Fort Leaven worth. Between 1865 and 1875 he was several times called upon to serve as a mediator and pacemaker on behalf of the government in its dealings with the turbulent Comanche and Kiowa leaders, by whom he was always re garded with confidence and respect. He claimed to have been the last custodian of a parchment copy of the treaty which had been given to the people of his tribe by William Penn at the Shakamaxon council, in 1682, and which he said was destroyed when his home on the Washita was burned by Confederate forces in 1861. In 1874-75 Black Beaver dictated the story of his life to Maj. Israel G. Vore, who wrote it down. This manuscript was acci dentally destroyed in 1906. Consult 'Hand book of American Indians,' writings of Ran dolph B. Marcy; Battey's 'A Quaker Among the Indians.' etc.