whom Joe Jim worked was Hiram Warner Farnsworth. In 1859, he was an informant for pioneering ethnologist Lewis Henry Morgan. Morgan said of him, Joe Jim’s wife was Margaret Curley, a full-blooded Potawatomi Indian. The Potawatomi had been forced by the U.S. to move to Kansas from the Ohio River valley in the 1830s. Joe Jim has been credited with naming Topeka, Kansas. Asked by White settlers what the name of the place was, he answered, "Topeka", stating that it meant "a good place to grow potatoes", probably meaning the prairie turnip rather than the common potato. In 1867, Joe Jim accompanied a Kaw delegation headed by Chief Al-le-ga-wa-ho to Washington. The Kaw were disappearing rapidly as a tribe, their lands being occupied by White settlers. They sought a new reservation free of white squatters in the Indian Territory (later Oklahoma). Joe Jim was involved in one of the most colorful and public Indian battles in the West. On June 1, 1868, about 100 Cheyenne warriors descended upon the Kaw reservation near Council Grove, Kansas. The Kaw men sallied forth to meet them, and for four hours, the tribes staged a military pageant described as a "battle royal". The Cheyenne then retired from the field, taking with them a few stolen horses and a peace offering of coffee and sugar donated by the merchants of Council Grove. Nobody was seriously hurt on either side. During the battle, Joe Jim galloped 60 miles (97 km) on horseback to Topeka to inform the governor that the Cheyenne were attacking and to request assistance. With him on the ride to Topeka was an eight-year-old nephew called "Indian Charley". This was Charles Curtis, who later became Vice President of the United States. On June 4, 1873, the Kaws, by this time diminished by disease, alcoholism, and warfare, to only 500 people from their earlier population of 1,500, packed their possessions and left for a new reservation in what became Kay County, Oklahoma. Their numbers continued to decline, reaching a low of about 200 in 1890. Joe Jim and his wife Margaret established a homestead on the east bank of the Arkansas River just south of the border with Kansas. He died September 21, 1898, the oldest of the Kaw Indians. He was buried in the Washunga cemetery now located in Newkirk, Oklahoma. References Native American leaders Kaw people Osage people American frontier People of