The Pawnees, Panis, and the Village at the Red River

Robin Cole-Jett
Nov 2
6 min read

Updated: Nov 2

Map of United States in 1819 — An 1819 French map depicts a Panis village along the Red River, situated between Caddo and Comanche (Hietans) settlements. Note that there are "Panis" villages along the Platte and Loup rivers in the Missouri Territory, too. Whether this map refers to these villages as Pawnee or actually Panis -- enslaved indigenous people from various tribes -- is unknown. (UT Arlington, Portal to Texas History). Link to the map.

"It is well known the advantage this colony would gain if its inhabitants could securely purchase and import Indians called Panis, whose country is far distant... The people of the Panis nation are as necessary to the inhabitants of this country for farming and other tasks as are the Negros to the Islands... we order that all the Panis and Negroes who have been bought... shall belong in full proprietorship to those who have purchased them as their slaves."

- Jacques Raudot, intendent of New France, 1709

The acquisition of the Louisiana Territory by the United States in 1803 often raises more questions than it answers, at least for me. The Corps of Discovery expeditions into the lands west of the Mississippi River; north of the Red River (of the South); south of the Red River (of the North); and east of the Rocky Mountains melded together contemporary observations and translations from French to English to figure out what and who,* exactly, the United States had purchased, but not all descriptions bear out under modern scrutiny. The translations weren't always accurate, and one such example is how Americans identified and described the Panis village at the Red River that was not necessarily Pawnee.

The Pawnees

The Pawnee tribe were people who lived along the rivers in today's Kansas and Nebraska in the early 19th century. They spoke a Caddoan language, meaning they were related to the Caddo and Wichita people, and lived a Cross-Timbers/Plains Indian lifestyle of bison hunting, winter camping, and farming. Permanent lodges in their villages were akin to the Wichita and Caddo grass/earth structures. Like their cousins, their families were matriarchal. The Pawnees were subjected to continuous raids from their neighbors, the Sioux and Osages, and these raids gave birth to the name, "Panis."

"Osages seized so many Pawnee and Wichita captives that... "Panis" became the French term of any Indian slave originating from west of the Mississippi. Although many of these slaves were not in fact Pawnees but Indians from neighboring tribes, about 68 percent of Indian slaves in French Canada who received Indian names in the documentation... appear as "Panis."

--Christopher Steinke, "Leading the Father: The Pawnee Homeland, Coureurs de Bois, and the Vallasur Expedition of 1720." Great Plains Quarterly, 2012.

The Panis

Americans of the 19th century surmised that "Pawnees" and "Panis" referred to the same people, as the English pronunciation sounds identical. This was the prevailing wisdom all the way until the early 21st century, when historians delved into colonial records. They argue that "Panis" were not just Pawnees but rather, all native people who were kidnapped and sold to the French. Because the trade was so lucrative, the tribe's name became synonymous with identification of Indian slaves. The Panis, however, could originate from any tribe where a raid took place, and were sold to European colonizers as well as to other tribes in exchange for guns.

The name "Panis," then, did not refer to a tribal identity but rather, a condition. Panis (enslaved native people) became prevalent throughout French territories, in the Canadian, Spanish and English borderlands. Before 1760, the majority of slaves in New France were identified as Panis. Afterwards, French law prohibited the enslavement of Native people, and this was like-wise reflected by Spanish law when French Louisiana became Spanish Louisiana after 1763. While these laws were initially ignored, colonial slavery gradually began relying on shipments of Africans.

Panis Villages

Native American Women** and children were subjected to enslavement just like grown men. While it is not really known if sex-based slavery prevailed before the arrival of Europeans, introducing the gun trade either initiated or accelerated this practice. Due to their gender and ages, they did not command high prices, and continuous trade was therefore rampant. French trading posts became hubs of human trafficking, and large numbers of Panis (i.e., natives for sale) peopled these forts. As power structures changed -- a slaver tribe was vanquished by disease or raids, Europeans sought forced labor elsewhere, and the territory changed governments-- the Panis continued to inhabit these posts, now abandoned, as villagers.

"In the autumn of 1740, a woman whose full name was Marie-Marguerite Gastineau Radisson Duplessis... submitted an argument to a Montreal court that explained she was not a panis (an Indigenous slave)... Many of those originally labeled panis were actually captives experiencing... inter-Indigenous warfare."

--Signa Daum Shanks. "A Story of Marguerite: A Tale about Panis, Case Comment, and Social History." Native Studies Review, 22, (1 & 2): 133-137.

One such Panis village was identified by mapmakers in the 1810s at the confluence of the Bois d'Arc, Boggy, and Red rivers. This village was most likely the short-lived trading post that was established by Bernard de la Harpe in 1720 and named Fort St. Louis De Carlorette. My research is bearing out that this Panis village was also the location where Natchez-based trader Henry Glass stole the Medicine Stone (aka the Red River Meteorite) in 1806. Glass's expedition was financed by Natchitoches-based Indian agent John Sibley and assisted by several Comanche and Wichita men from the village. See my white paper about this artifact here.

Confusion!

Glass identified the men as Wichita/Pawnees/Panis. Wichita was a tribal affiliation comprised of many inter-related tribes who lived along the Cross Timbers, a forest made up of oak trees that occupied ridges between prairies and that stretched from northern Texas to southern Kansas. Along the Red River, the Keechis, Tawokonis, Wacos, and Taovayas occupied the southern Cross Timbers (today's northern Texas). To the north, in today's Kansas, were the Pawnees. Because Americans conflated Panis with Pawnees, they also conflated Panis with Wichitas. The Taovayan villages at today's Spanish Fort in Montague County were identified as Wichita/Pawnee/Panis by 20th century historians who relied on 19th century observers.

The confusion of the Pawnees/Panis in early American documentation prevailed all throughout the 20th century. While the difference may be just by degrees of separation, it's still an important distinction and continued examination is merited. It's great to see historians taking an interest in the borderlands of the Old Southwest, namely the Red River Valley, and I've added their citations (as well as links to the maps) below.

*All people in the Louisiana Purchase were, as territorial subjects, not considered citizens. Citizenship was gradually accumulated, either by law or by constitutional amendment; Native Americans did not receive citizenship until well into the 20th century.

** While the Panis were a group of people from variously raided tribes, a subset of them were identified as Canneci. These were women from the Lipan Apache tribe who were sold to French settlements like Natchitoches and Campti inside Spanish-held Texas. The Apache women congregated with other enslaved people and made up the Indian element of the mixed-race Cane River Creoles.

For more reading:

Barr, Juliana. “From Captives to Slaves: Commodifying Indian Women in the Borderlands.” The Journal of American History 92, no. 1 (2005): 19–46. https://doi.org/10.2307/3660524.
DuVal, Kathleen. “Indian Intermarriage and Métissage in Colonial Louisiana.” The William and Mary Quarterly 65, no. 2 (2008): 267–304. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25096786.
Juliana Barr. “Geographies of Power: Mapping Indian Borders in the ‘Borderlands’ of the Early Southwest.” The William and Mary Quarterly 68, no. 1 (2011): 5–46. https://doi.org/10.5309/willmaryquar.68.1.0005.
Brett Rushforth. "A Little Flesh We Offer You": The Origins of Indian Slavery in New France. The William and Mary Quarterly 60, no. 4 (2003): 777-808. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3491699