Antoine's Legacy

“It was a spring day in Paris in 1780 and Michael Barada was 20. As he sauntered along a fashionable street very gay in the silk ribbons and ruffles of a young French gallant of the court of Louis XVI . . .” So begins the charming story of Michael Barada and his chance meeting with the lovely Omaha maiden Laughing Buffalo. This romantic fairytale was told to the US congress in 1934 in a bill granting my grandfather and other descendants of Laughing Buffalo membership in the Omaha tribe. The bill never passed but this unlikely fairytale became part of our history. Am I part Omaha? Is Laughing Buffalo my great grandmother? And if this story isn’t true what is her real story? Antoine’s Legacy is my search for the truth and to my Omaha roots.