Historic American Indians in Kansas

Introduction

About this website

Once I worked at a state historical site in Kansas that featured American Indian artifacts. A visitor asked, "Where else in Kansas can I view things pertaining to Indians." I didn't really have a good answer. In response, I have developed this evolving website for that long-ago visitor.

To learn more about tribes that lived in Kansas, explore this site and view it as a launch site for your own research. Also visit the Kansas Museum of History and the state's many local museums. I welcome your suggestions, comments, or questions and will be revising and updating this site. Information sources often are listed and also in the Reference section on the Publications page.

Cindy Higgins

Reference citation for this website:

Higgins, Cindy. (present year). Historical American Indians in Kansas. Accessed at indiansinkansashistory.com

The term "American Indians" is used on this website for several reasons. Others often use the terms "Native Americans, First Americans, Indigenous Americans, or other descriptor.

Frequently-Asked Questions

Read elsewhere on this site for more answers to your questions!

What is the proper term "American Indians"? Native Americans? Or?

The people pertaining to these terms prefer to be referenced by their specific tribe rather than general descriptors. The Associated Press Stylebook used by journalists has long used "American Indian" but also uses "Indigenous Americans."

Have American Indians always lived in this country?

Popular thought is that people migrated crossed a long-vanished land bridge from Siberia into the far north of this continent during the last glacial period. However, recent discoveries question this origin explanation.

How many American Indians lived in Kansas?

Records don't exist that can tell how many American Indians have lived in the area now known as Kansas over time. Bill Bryson, Made in America, wrote: "At the time of the first colonists there were perhaps 50 million Indians in the New World (though other estimates have put this figure as high as 100 million and as low as 8 million. Most lived in Mexico and the Andes." (p. 22).

Which tribes are native to present-day Kansas?

The Kansa and Wichita are native to present Kansas. The Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche, Kiowa, Osage, and Pawnee hunted in the area and lived for periods in Kansas.

After the U. S. Congress passed legislation in 1830 to relocate Eastern tribes to lands further west, which tribe signed the first treaty for land in present Kansas?

The Delaware were the first to sign a treaty, followed by Cherokee, Chippewa, Iowa, Iroquois, Kaskaskia, Kickapoo, Munsee, Ottawa, Peoria, Piankashaw, Potawatomi, Quapaw, Sac and Fox, Shawnee, Stockbridge, Wea, and Wyandot.

Why didn't treaties protect the tribes' land?

According to Howard Zinn, People's History of the United States, (p. 515), the U.S. government made 400 treaties with various tribes in the United States and broke every one of them. That complex story is beyond the scope of this website. Most tribes with land in Kansas were forced to relocate because of railroads, settler encroachment, and other reasons pertaining to westward expansion and tribal dynamics.

Which tribes have reservations today in Kansas?

Although more than 20 tribes were given land in the present state of Kansas, most were forced to relocate to Oklahoma by 1870. Northeastern Kansas still is home to four reservations owned by

the state's federally recognized tribes: the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska, Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas, Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation, and Sac and Fox Nation of Missouri in Kansas and Nebraska.

Why isn't there more information about American Indians in Kansas history?

Tribes had oral histories some of which have been gathered in publications such as The Mythology of the Wichita. But written records didn't exist until trappers, traders, explorers, settlers, and others came to the area that would be Kansas. Artist George Catlin painted several American Indians in this area during the 1830s and noted the lack of recorded history about "an interesting race of people, who are rapidly passing away from the face of the earth—lending a hand to a dying nation, who have no historians or biographers of their own to pourtray with fidelity their native looks and history; thus snatching from a hasty oblivion what could be saved for the benefit of posterity, and perpetuating it, as a fair and just monument, to the memory of a truly lofty and noble race." A few explorers documented their findings, and some settlers, too, wrote of encountering individuals and tribes at the same time they were obliterating the tribes' food source, introducing deadly diseases, plowing their homelands, and, thus, quickly reducing their existence in Kansas.

If Kansas tribes depended on bison, how did they hunt bison?

Several men could isolate one from the herd and kill it. They also could drive a herd into an enclosed space such as a stream or gully and kill them. Another strategy was to stampede a herd off an edge.

What religion were Kansas tribes?

Each had their own beliefs, creation stories, and ceremonies. Often phases of life had special ceremonies as did hunting, war, death, and harvests.

What counties in Kansas are named after tribes?

Cherokee, Cheyenne, Comanche, and Shawnee. Wabaunsee County is named for the Potawatomi tribe leader "Dawn of Day" who died before he came to Kansas while negotiating a treaty. His name has been recorded as Wabaunsee, Waubonsie, Wah-bahn-se and Waubonsee, Waabaanizii, and Wabanzi.

Do schools in Kansas have American Indian names?

Yes, many have mascots such as the Chieftans or the Braves. In 2022, the Kansas State Board of Education recommended that the public school districts eliminate any names relating to American Indians to reduce harmful impacts on students.

Did any tribes join the military?

The Union Army recruited soldiers from the refugee Cherokee, Muscogee (Creek), and Seminole tribes who became the First, Second, and Third Indian Home Guards. These troops included some Delaware, Kickapoo, Osage, Shawnee, Seneca, Quapaw, Choctaw, and Chickasaw. Company L, 9th Kansas Cavalry, was comprised mostly, if not entirely, of Kanza Indians. From the spring of 1863 until July 1865, 87 Kansa enlisted and served in the Ninth Regiment Kansas Volunteer Calvary.

How many museums in Kansas have American Indian artifacts.

Many! Museum in Kansa have a variety of items and usually have projectile points known as "arrowheads" because of their easily-recognizable form and availability. These and other items from Kansas museums can be found as images elsewhere on this site.

Why do so many museums in Kansas have arrowheads?

Known as projectile points, arrowheads have long fascinated people because of their easily-recognizable form, American Indian association, and availability. Many have collected them and then donated these spear and arrow tips to a local museum. The Coronado-Quivera Museum, for instance, has some well identified collections from local collectors who diligently recorded their findings. However, often collectors don’t or didn’t record the exact location where the artifact was found, their collections contain undocumented arrowheads that delight museum visitors but contain little use for serious researchers.

How can I find my own American Indian artifacts in Kansas?

The Kansas Historical Society and the Kansas Anthropological Association host the Kansas Archeology Training Program Field School each year in different Kansas locations. Here, participants work alongside professional and amateur archeologists surveying, excavating, and cataloging, and cleaning artifacts. You can’t keep these artifacts but you do get to contribute to documented fieldwork from which all can benefit.

How can I learn more about tribes?

Brad Hamilton, former Native American Affairs Liaison and also initial director of the Kansas Office of Native American Affairs, suggested that any questions regarding “a Tribal Nations culture, traditions, religion or history should best be done by contact with that Tribal Nation.”

Timeline

Note: Kansas became a state in 1861. Image: Delaware footwear.

6000-10,000 BC: Paleo-Indians are in present Kansas

6000-AD 1: Archaic period

AD 1-900: Early Ceramic period in which agriculture to some extent employed

900-1500 AD: Middle Ceramic period

1500-1825: Late Ceramic period with Pawnee, Kansa, Wichita, and Apache in present-day Kansas

1450: Proto-Wichita population estimated at 20,000 at Etzanoa, near the modern day Arkansas City.

1541: Francisco Vásquez de Coronado visits central Kansas and encounters Wichita ancestors living in 25 villages along the Great Bend of the Arkansas River in central Kansas.

1600s: Kansa and Osage arrive in Kansas.

1650- 1750: Relatives of the Plains Apache build villages in Kansas.

1664: Taos Pueblo Indians flee Spaniards and live in Scott County.

1702: El Cuartelejo Pueblo in Scott County is built by Picuris Pueblo.

1702: Sieurd’ Iberville (Pierre Le Moyne) estimates 1,500 Kansa families live along the Kansas River.

1719: First Europeans visit Northern Pawnee.

1724: French commander at Fort Orleans, Etienne de Bourgmont, visits the Kansas River and establishes a trading post here, near the main Kansa village at the mouth of the river. Kansa also live in Doniphan County. Otoe tribe of the Sioux inhabit northeast corner of Kansas.

1740: Wichita ancestors have migrated to Oklahoma and Texas.

1780: Kansa move to current site of Manhattan.

1790: The Chouteaus begin trading furs with the Kansa.

1804: Meriwether Lewis and William Clark find an abandoned Kansa village along the Missouri River.

1815: First treaty is made between the estimated 1,500 Kansa in 130 earth lodges and the U.S. government.

1825: Osage and Kansa give up more land that will then be reserves for emigrant tribes: Shawnee begin relocation to Kansas.

1827: Daniel Morgan Boone sent to teach agriculture at Kaw Indian Agency in Jefferson County

1829: Rev. Thomas Johnson establishes Methodist mission for Shawnee by present-day Turner; Delaware move to Kansas; Delaware begin move to Kansas

1830: Indian Removal Act

1832-1833: Kickapoo, Chippewa, Wea, Peoria, Kaskaskia, and Piankeshaw relocated to Kansas

1834: Congress designates all territory west of the Mississippi except Missouri, Louisiana, and Arkansas Territory as “Indian Country”

1834: Quapaw, Arkansas, Oto, and Missouri relocate to Kansas; some Cherokee chose to come while others stayed in Georgia

1836: Isaac McCoy's 1837 Annual Register of Indian Affairs listed the following populations in Indian Territory, which was west of the state of Missouri

Indigenous Tribes

Kansa - 1,684

Osages - 5,510

Pawnee – 10,000

Otoe/Missouria – 1,600

Omaha – 1,400

Puncah 0 800

Quapau - 450

Emigrant Tribes

Potawatomie from Indiana - 444

Kickapoo - 603

Delaware - 856

Shawnee - 764

Ottawa - 81

Wea - 225

Piankeshaw - 119

Peoria and Kaskaskias - 135

1837: Iowa, Sac, Fox, and Ottawa relocate to Kansas; Rev. Jotham Meeker founds Ottawa Baptist Mission (now Ottawa University)

1843: Wyandot are forced to move from Ohio settle in eastern Kansas and many die the next year

1846: 500 Miami forced to relocate to Kansas; rest stay in Indiana

1847: Kansa relocate to Council Grove area

1854: Munsee and Delaware relocate to Kansas; "More than 10,000 Kickapoos, Delawares, Sacs, Foxes, Shawnees, Potawatomis, Kansas, Ottawas, Wyandots, and Osages, not to mention a number of smaller tribes," inhabit Kansas, according to Craig Miner and William E. Unrau (The End of Indian Kansas: A Study of Cultural Revolution, 1854-1871)

1865: Osage sell 30 x 50 miles square tract to U. S. government

1866: Delaware leave Kansas for Indian Territory

1867: Sauk and Fox, Ottawa, Miami, and Wyandot make treaty and move to Indian Territory. U.S. troops destroy village of 300 lodges on Pawnee Fork. Volunteer calvary is raised to protect Kansas frontier from Indians. Medicine Lodge Peace Treaty negotiated with five tribes.

1868: Kickapoo leave Kansas for Indian Territory

1870: Ottawa leave Kansas for Indian Territory

1872: Last of Kansa leave for Indian Territory

1870s: Shawnee left Kansas for Indian Territory

1881: Oto and Missouri leave Kansas for Indian Territory

1901: Chippewa leave Kansas for Indian Territory

Also see The Emigrant Tribes: Wyandot, Delaware and Shawnee: A Chronology

by Larry Hancks at wyandot.org/emigrant.htm