| Notes |
- Falls City Daily News
18 December 1932
p. 1a
Name "Barada" Has Romantic History
French Nobleman By That Name Hunted for 10 Years Over Continent For An Indian Maiden
Found Her in Nebraska in 1803
Most people if asked the origination of the name "Barada," would answer that it was probably an Indian name and let it to at that. But behind that name is one of the most glamorous, romantic and thrilling tales ever to do with the pioneering and settling of the North American continent. The story was told in Federal court in Omaha some fifteen years ago by William Barada, a direct descendant of the original Barada, and a quarter-breed Indian of the Omaha tribe who was attempting to establish a land claim on the Omaha reservation.
The story as told by William Barada described a hunt over all the northern part of the North American continent by a young French Vavalier, high in the social and political circles of France, who was seeking a fair Indiana maiden whom he had seen but for a few brief seconds in a window in Paris and with whom he had instantly fallen in love. It told of this Frenchman's hunt through the wilds of Canada and down to the great central plains of Iowa and Nebraska, how he lived with various Indian tribes, how he searched for ten long years, never giving up hope how he gave up all the luxuries and fineries of the French nobility at it height for this black haired Indian princess, how he gave up the lace and brocade of a French nobleman for the buckskin moccasins of a frontiersman, palace for a tepee, the royal hunts of a French nobleman for the slaying of animals in the wilderness for a bare existence and how he finally found and won her heart.
In the latter part of the eighteenth century, during the reign of the ill-fated Louis XVI of France, while all the interior of the North American continent belonged to France and was called Louisiana, it was the custom to take some of the native Indian Inhabitants to Paris to show the Frenchmen some of the people who lived in the possession. In 1[7]92 some members of the Oo-Maha tribe, then living in Wisconsin, were taken to Parish and among them was "Taeglena" - the Laughing Buffalo, fairest and prettiest princess of the tribe. She was then 16 years old. She stayed in Paris for a year and learned the French language and the luxuries of the white civilization but during all this time she longed for the wilds of her home in America. So in 1793 she left Parais with the other members of the tribe, came to North American landing in New Orleans and came up the Mississippi river to her home in Wisconsin.
Just one day before Taeglena left for her home, Michel Barada, a young French nobleman, just 20 years of age popular in the nobility circles and with a brilliant future before him passed under the window of the home in which Taeglena was lodged. As he walked under the window a red rose fell at his feet. He picked up the flower, smelled of it, and glanced up at the window above his head. Framed in the window he saw a flash of black eyes, the sparkle of laughing lips, the pretty face of Taeglena. For a moment Michel looked straight into the eyes of the Indian maid and in the brief moment his heart was lost and his entire future changed. He had called hopelessly in love.
Michel went on down the street and returned the next day at the same hour but the casement was closed. He found the owner of the house, only to discover that the maiden had left for her home in America. He could find out little about her. He learned her named, "Taeglena," but didn't even learn the name of her tribe. A few days later Barada was on a boat for North America to find his love. But to him America mean[t] 'Montreal and Quebec, - Canada.' H[e] little realized of the vast lands in the interior and had never heard of New Orleans. He supposed that Taglena had landed at Montreal.
Barada knew but one word of the Indian language when he landed in America - "Taeglena," and that was his sole clue to finding her. H[e] joined with a band of trappers in Montreal and journeyed deep into the wilderness of the Indian territory. He gradually learned the Sioux language from the trappers and inquired from every Indian band he met about Taeglena. He learned that in most tribes "tae" meant buffalo and when he met a tribe which had a different name for the animal, he knew she was not one of them.
For ten years Barada traversed the wilderness, the mountains, the plains in act was one of the best hunters and trappers. Always it was the vision of a fair face with laughing eyes in a window which drove him forward, into new lands, always in search of Taeglena. Finally Michel arrived on the shores of Lake Superior and heard of a tribe which spoke the French language, far to the southward. This tribe had originally lived on the lake, he was told, but had moved. He zealously followed this fragmentary clue and finally arrived in Iowa.
One day Barada entered a village of the Oo-Mahas in Iowa. While passing through the village he heard the word "Taeglena," spoken by an old squaw, seated in front of a tepee. He talked ot the squaw and she took him to Taeglena. When he saw the girl he knew his desire was fulfilled and his long search successful. For the girl to whom he was led was the girl whom he had seen in the casement of a Paris window ten years before. He was then 30 years of age and Taeglena 27. They were married two weeks later, first with the Indian medicine ceremony and later by the Jesuit Priest up the river. They were married in 1803, the year the United States purchased the Louisiana territory and a year before the Lewis and Clarke expedition.
Barada became a full-fledged member of the Oo-Maha tribe and in 1806 moved with the tribe into Nebraska settling north of the present site of Omaha. He erected a house, the first house ever built by a white man in Nebraska.
Barada and his Indian bride lived with the tribe for a few years and then moved to St Louis where they made their home. One son Louis, was born on the reservation and William Barada, who told the story in federal court was his son.
In St Louis another son was born in 1807 and named Antoine. He is the man after whom the present town of Barada in Richardson county is named. He entered the employ of the Northwestern Fur Company in St Louis in 1816 when but nine years of age and in the winter of that year, in company with a band of Indians, camped within the limits of the present Richardson County. Antoine Barada is said to be the second oldest pioneer explorer of Richardson county, Zephyre Rencontre, having been here a year before.
So it is that the name of Barada is not an Indian name but the name of a house of French nobility, a house which still exists and flourishes in France. [1]
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| Children |
| + | 1. Louis BARADA, b. Between 1803-1806, Nebraska, USA  |
| + | 2. Antoine BARADA, b. 1807, Washington County, Nebraska, USA d. c April 1885, Barada, Richardson County, Nebraska, USA (Age 78 years) |
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