Black Dog

Black Dog (Osage, Manka-Chonka, ca. 1780–1848) was a Native American Chief of the Hunkah band of the Osage Indians that lived in an area around present Baxter Springs, Kansas. In the fall of 1803, the band moved to the village of Pasuga (Big Cedar), present day Claremore, Oklahoma.

He took his band on hunts as far away as Santa Fe, then part of Mexico, possibly earning the designation Manka-Chonka in battles with the Comanche. He is credited with engineering a trail known as the Black Dog Trail east of present Baxter Springs, Kansas to the Great Salt Plains in present Alfalfa County, Oklahoma.

On a visit to Fort Gibson in 1834, George Catlin painted Black Dog's picture, giving his name as "Tchong-tas-sab-bee, Black Dog, Second Chief".

Chief Black Dog was a contemporary of, and shared power in the tribe with, two other noted chiefs: Clermont (Claremore) and Pawhuska. It started from their winter territory east of Baxter Springs in Kansas and extended southwest to their summer hunting grounds at the Great Salt Plains in present-day Alfalfa County, Oklahoma. The Osage regularly stopped at the springs for healing on their way to summer hunting grounds. They made the trail by clearing it of brush and large rocks, and constructing earthen ramps to the fords. Wide enough for eight horsemen to ride abreast, the trail was the first improved road in Kansas and Oklahoma.

The band had a village known as Pasuga, "Big Cedar", built on an earthwork mound near what later developed as Claremore, Oklahoma. Osage tradition credits Black Dog I with having constructed a cave near his village on Claremore Mound. The cave was large enough to conceal the nearly 500 members of his band and they stocked it with enough food to survive for a year.

Black Dog I had one son, known as an adult as Black Dog II (1827-1910). He later became a chief among the Osage. Many sources refer to the father as Black Dog I and the son as Black Dog II. The son reportedly became chief in 1870. Black Dog II was a signatory of the 1870 Drum Creek Treaty.