White Hair - White Hair II Through VI

White Hair II Through VI

The lineage of Pawhuska continued with his son, White Hair II, but he apparently was an ineffective chief and he was soon replaced by White Hair III, who moved most of the remaining members of the Osage tribe to the Neosho River in Oklahoma in 1822. The Osage subsequently were forced by White and Indian encroachment on their lands to move back to a small reservation in Kansas. White Hair IV (George White Hair) became chief in 1832 and served until his death in 1852, age 48. His cousin Iron Hawk became White Hair V until his death in 1861, also 48 years old. Little White Hair became the last hereditary White Hair Chief, serving until his death on December 24, 1869. White Hair VI was one of the signers of the 1865 treaty that ceded most Osage lands in Kansas to the United States and set the stage for their removal to a reservation (contiguous with Osage County) in Oklahoma in 1871. By this time the powerful Osage of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century were a beleaguered people, but in one sense they had the last laugh. They sold their old lands for a good price and huge pools of petroleum were found on their new lands in Oklahoma.