Joseph James and Joseph James Jr.

Joe Jim was a signatory to an 1825 treaty ceding Kaw land to the United States government, under the name of Ky-he-ga-shin-ga (Little Chief).

In 1846 and 1847, during the Mexican–American War, together with Peter Revard, a mixed-blood Osage, Joe Jim drove a herd of cattle from Kansas to New Mexico to feed American soldiers.

While returning to Kansas in a wagon train, he survived a Comanche attack that resulted in the deaths of two American soldiers.

… He is married to a Potawatomi woman, and lives in a good log house on the bank of the beautiful Kansas River.

This was probably in reference to the prairie turnip, cultivated by the Kaw and Osage, rather than the common potato known to European Americans.

The Kaw men sallied forth to meet them, and for four hours, the tribes staged a military pageant described as a "battle royal".

When the Cheyenne retired from the field, they took a few stolen horses and a peace offering of coffee and sugar donated by the merchants of Council Grove.

During the battle, Joe Jim galloped 60 miles (97 km) on horseback to Topeka to inform the governor that the enemy Cheyenne were attacking and to request assistance.

[8] On June 4, 1873, the Kaw, diminished to 500 people by disease, alcoholism, and warfare, from their earlier population of 1,500, packed their possessions and left for a new reservation in what became Kay County, Oklahoma.

[9] Joe Jim and his wife Margaret established a homestead on the east bank of the Arkansas River just south of the border with Kansas.