We do not blink at Euro explorers wandering all over the place, but somehow seem to mentally nail our Indians down in one area. Weren't so.
Years ago I read a historical account in "Muzzleloader" magazine of an 18th Century Englishman interviewing a Natchez Indian, this particular Indian had traveled alone up the Mississippi and Missouri, crossed over the mountains and encountered Russians in the Pacific Northwest. Returning from that journey he had set out again, this time ascending the Ohio River, eventually making his way to the New England Atlantic Seaboard and back.
During the sack of Ticonderoga in 1757 in Upstate NY, the scary cannibalistic Ottawas came in from as far afield as Wisconsin, and one captured and eventually adopted British soldier was paraded before his captor's relatives as far afield as Mississippi.
All through that period the Iroquois were conducting long-distance revenge warfare against the Cherokees and Chickasaws to name just two, many forays by either side taking a period of months during which time the the combatants might cover more than 1,000 mile round-trips on foot.
During the Rocky Mountain Fur Trade era the largest single contingent of trappers may have been Iroquois Indians from NY, Canada and the Midwest. The Delawares were especially mobile, originating in the New Jersey/Delaware area and in subsequent generations turning up all over the West, which is why there's the Delaware Mountains north and west of Pecos TX. In particular, one Delaware, Black Beaver, had been to California and back five times before Jedediah Smith finally found his way there.
Same period, the Ute Bandit Walkara, based in Utah, was trading slaves and stealing horses as far afield as California.
A while later, a party of Blackfeet from the Northern Plains joined up with some Kiowas and traveled far enough south through Mexico to encounter parrots and monkeys.
I suppose I should throw in that during the Great Comanche Raid of 1840, many if not most of those Comanches and Kiowas raiding clear to the Gulf Coast had doubtless come down from the big inter-tribal peace treaty brung about by the Bent Brothers way up in Southern Colorado.
The Texian Santa Fe Expedition (1841???), wherein the Texians got famously lost was spotted by Jim Shaw, a Delaware then around 21 years of age and already a veteran at crossing the Plains and had been to Santa Fe several times. Shaw could see they were lost and might have helped them but feared they would shoot him out of hand for being an Indian.
Gotta throw in those two Nez Perce who famously made their way on their own initiative from Central Idaho to St Louis (??) to ask for missionaries to come visit them.
I'm sure there's more....
Yep. Like this fellow. There’s a creek south of Abilene that runs through my nephews place that he discovered that’s named after him.
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/jim-ned
