TU Professors Book Discusses First Interaction Between Plains Indians and Europeans; Book Signings Set Jan. 4, 11

Tuesday, December 17, 2002

University of Tulsa anthropology professor George Odell has written a book about the archeological study he led at a site along the Arkansas River in Oklahoma that lays claim to being the location of the first meeting more than 280 years ago between Plains Indians and Europeans.

The 369-page book, “La Harpe’s Post: A Tale of French-Wichita Contact on the Eastern Plains,” was published in August by the University of Alabama Press.

Odell is scheduled to sign copies of his book at Borders bookstore, 2740 E. 21st Street, at 1 p.m. Jan. 4, and at Steve’s Sundry bookstore, 2612 S. Harvard Ave., in Tulsa on Jan. 11, from 1-3 p.m.

In 1718, Odell says, Jean-Baptiste Bénard, known also by the title, “Sieur de la Harpe,” left Brittany and arrived at Dauphin Island off the coast of present Louisiana.

After La Harpe established a trading post on the Red River near what is now Texarkana, he ventured farther north to extend his trading sphere, arriving with nine other men in 1719 at a large Tawakoni village. During the 10-day visit, Odell says, the population of this area grew to 7,000 people. The semi-nomadic Tawakoni, affiliated with the Wichita Indians, hunted bison on the plains and farmed corn and other crops near their villages.

La Harpe kept a diary, but despite years of research, no scholar had established exactly where the meeting took place. But in 1988 Odell and his crew surveyed and excavated an area in Jenks, 13 miles south of Tulsa, uncovering evidence of the encounter. The dig was part of a required environmental study prior to construction of the Kimberly-Clark paper plant.

Items recovered included artifacts of Indian origin, such as pottery, animal bones and stone tools, and European articles, such as gun parts, metal-bladed knives and ax heads and glass beads.

Odell says the discovery documents one of the most important events ever to occur on the Eastern plains. “Although no solid alliance ever came of this encounter,” he says, “finding evidence for it sheds significant light both on the French presence in North America and on the lifeways of the indigenous inhabitants of eastern Oklahoma.”