ity, some of whom, like the Potawatomies, were remnants of eastern tribes transferred to new lands west of the Mississippi. It was considered an inviting and important field of labor.
Father De Smet left St. Louis by the steamboat Howard May 10, 1838, in company with the Father Superior, who wanted to visit the Kickapoo Indians near Fort Leavenworth. The rest of the party were to follow a few days later by another boat. After a brief delay at Leavenworth Father De Smet bade good-bye to the Father Superior and joined his companions on the Wilmington. They arrived at the site of the proposed mission on the 31st of May.
The outlook was discouraging. There were Indians enough, but instead of being eager for missionaries, as had been represented, they seemed wholly indifferent. Nevertheless the fathers set vigorously to work and in a short time began to arouse an interest among the Indians. They seem to have first occupied an abandoned fort turned over to them by Colonel S. W. Kearny; but Father De Smet says that they also erected a small house. The mission was named St. Joseph, although it has been more frequently referred to as St. Mary. (6) It was located within
(6) "Nous érigeames une résidence et une petite église en bois à 1'honneur de St. Joseph." De Smet Letter, Book IV, p. 133. Shea (Catholic Missions, p. 462), says that the new church was built under the protection of the Blessed Virgin and St. Joseph. This last statement may account for the confusion as to the proper name of this mission.
St. Joseph's Mission at Council Bluffs seems to have been maintained for only three or four years. Father De Smet mentions it when he passed there in 1840, but not in 1842 nor in 1846. In 1838 Father De Smet founded another mission among a band of Potawatomies, recently arrived from east of the 'Mississippi. This mission was on Sugar Creek, a tributary of the Osage on the south, and seventeen miles west of the Kansas-Missouri line. In 1847 and 1848 the Potawatomies were moved to the banks of the Kansas river and a new mission was started there September 9, 1848. It became one of the most important and influential of the Indian missions and was frequently visited by Father De Smet, who took a deep interest in its welfare.