Timeline story
Osage Memory of the Ohio Valley
Osage Nation oral tradition: the Osage (Wazhazhe; Ni-U-Kon-Ska, "Children of the Middle Waters") and the other Dhegiha Siouan peoples, the Omaha, Ponca, Kaw and Quapaw, trace an ancestral homeland to the Ohio Valley.
The Osage Nation Historic Preservation Office also cites linguistic research that places early Siouan speakers in the Ohio Valley.
Historians debate this, and no source places an Osage town at a specific site or date in Kentucky. The first documented Osage location, on French maps of 1673, is on the Osage River in present-day Missouri.
The Osage lived in western Missouri until about 1823, then moved west to Kansas and later to Oklahoma, where the Osage Nation is based today.
Cite this story
Published . Last revised .
Chicago
Snowden, Shannon. "Osage Memory of the Ohio Valley." Kentucky History Drive. Published September 26, 2026. Last revised October 12, 2026. https://kyhistorydrive.com/stories/osage-memory-of-the-ohio-valley/.
MLA
Snowden, Shannon. "Osage Memory of the Ohio Valley." Kentucky History Drive, published 26 Sept. 2026, last revised 12 Oct. 2026, https://kyhistorydrive.com/stories/osage-memory-of-the-ohio-valley/.
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