As was their traditional practice, the Skidi Pawnee had captured an enemy girl to sacrifice her as part of the spring
equinox Morning Star ceremony. They would care well for her before the sacrifice in the weeks or months beforehand. Petalesharo's father Knife Chief (
Lachelasharo) opposed the ceremony, but the tribe ignored his concerns. The ritual had a long tradition and the people believed that their crops and hunting would suffer if the Morning Star did not receive a human sacrificial offering.
Missionaries working in the area heard the story of Petalesharo's bravery. Another version has two members of the 1820
Long Expedition, Edwin James and Robert R. Bell, as the carriers of the news.
The news reach the major papers The 1817 story circulated around the United States, appearing in newspapers that provided a romanticized version of the rescue. Petalesharo's story first appeared in
The Washington Daily National Intelligencer on November 22, 1821. In the winter of 1821, the
New York Commercial Advertiser published an eleven-stanza poem, "The Pawnee Brave." The poem became popular and was read and recited in parlors of sentimental New Yorkers.
Petalesharo in Washington City Petalesharo was part of a delegation of Native American chiefs who traveled to Washington D.C. in 1821 on a trip organized by the superintendent of Indian affairs,
Thomas L. McKenney, and Indian Agent
Benjamin O'Fallon (it was sometimes called the O'Fallon Delegation). The U.S. officials intended to impress the Natives with the power and wealth of the white man and ideally persuade them to end their warfare against American settlers. Native Americans who participated in this delegation performed traditional dances, which drew a reported six to ten thousand on-lookers. Many businesses and Congress closed for the day to allow staff to attend the performances. During the visit to Washington, news of Petalesharo's rescue became a popular topic of discussion. At Miss White's Select Female Seminary, the young students begged to attend the Native American dance performance. Afterward, they raised funds to have a medal created for Petalesharo, to commemorate his brave act. Made of silver, the medal had images depicting his rescue, together with the inscription, "bravest of the brave". McKenney accompanied Petalesharo to the home of one of the students' parents. There the young women presented the medal to him. Petalesharo made a short speech, saying, "I did not know the act was so good. It came from my heart. I was ignorant of its value. I now know how good it was. You make me know by giving me this medal." The BIA commissioned
Charles Bird King to paint portraits of Petalesharo and others in the delegation, including Young Omahaw, War Eagle, Little Missouri and Pawnees. Petalesharo was further painted by
John Neagle, and he is also shown in the 1822
Samuel F.B. Morse painting,
The Old House of Representatives, now held by the
Corcoran Gallery of Art. During the trip, Petalesharo met author
James Fenimore Cooper, who was believed to be inspired to write his novel,
The Prairie.
Later Indian agents had warned the Pawnees against continuing their sacrifices, seemingly starting with Superintendent
William Clark in 1811. This authentic event is the basis for a story of an assumed Morning Star rite and an actually never attempted rescue in 1833. The last historic reference to Petalesharo is in 1825, when he and his father signed a treaty at
Fort Atkinson, on the west bank of the Missouri River before his death in 1836 in a battle with "Cheyenne" near the Platte river in Nebraska. The medal given by the student girls in Washington was excavated in 1883 from a gravesite in
Howard County, Nebraska. A young farm boy, Olando Thompson, dug up the medal at the former site of a Skidi village. By the 1920s, the
American Numismatic Society in New York had purchased the medal for its collection. Earlier sources often confused Petalesharo, Skidi Brave, with two other 19th-century Pawnee with the same name. The second Petalesharo who also accompanied the 1821 delegation to Washington was mistaken for the name Peskelechaco, a Kitkehahki Chief. The third Petalesharo is, in fact, the second notable Petalesharo in Pawnee Treaties...his accurate title is Petalesharo II, the head chief of the Grand Pawnees in the 1860s. Petalesharo is honored by the
United States Navy. The large harbor tug, , was named after him. ==In popular culture==