Kihegashugah

Kihegashugah was in his late 30s when he made a long journey to France along with his two wives, Hawk Woman and Sacred Sun, Frenchman David DeLaunay, and four other Osage Indians in 1827. They faced many hardships on the way to France and when in France.^[1] The Osage were led to believe that they were traveling with DeLaunay to Washington, D.C. to meet the president. However, DeLaunay actually took them to France and the Netherlands where he displayed them in a Wild West show for European entertainment.^[2] While in France Little Chief and his band met King Charles. While there Little Chief took a ride in a hot air balloon. The hot air balloon was a recent invention of the French Montgofier brothers, and a popular attraction in France during the period.^[3]

Early sources conflated Little Chief Kihegashugah with a fellow tribesman, Little Soldier, and reported that he died of smallpox while aboard a ship when returning to America after the voyage.^[4] In fact, Kihegashugah was on the Fort Gibson Indian Territory tribal councils of 1833 and 1839.