Chippewa and Munsee
Image: Chippewa and Munsee signing away their Kansas land in 1900. Kansas State Historical Society.
The Chippewa began arriving in Kansas through treaties during the 1830s. In 1854, one band of the Chippewa known as the Ojibway, another Great Lakes tribe, were given about a seven mile long by two and a half mile wide tract west of the city of Ottawa in Franklin County. Only a few families moved to this reservation. In 1859, the Kansas Chippewa joined with about 50 members of the Munsee, a group who had a reservation on a 2,571-acre site by Leavenworth that had been lost to legalities. Frank W. Blackmar wrote in 1912: “The Munsees (where stones are gathered together), one of the three principal divisions of the Delawares, originally occupied the country about the headwaters of the Delaware river. By what was known as the 'walking purchase,' about 1740, they were defrauded out of the greater portion of their lands and forced to remove. They obtained lands from the Iroquois on the Susquehanna, where they lived until the Indian country was established by the act of 1830, when they removed to what is now Franklin county, Kan., with some of the Chippewa. The report of the Bureau of Ethnology for 1885 says the only Munsees then recognized officially by the United States were 72, living in Franklin county, Kan., all the others having been incorporated with the Cherokee nation.” The Chippewa and Munsee retained their Kansas land longer than most other tribes but ultimately moved to the Indian Territory [Oklahoma] a few decades later.
The Chippewa and Munsee Indians: Acculturation and Survival in Kansas, 1850s-1870.
Delaware
Image: Delaware in 1860s, Kansas State Historical Society.
Settlers and the U.S. government pushed the Delaware also known as the Lenape from their northeastern homes into Ohio and Indiana, and then into southwestern Missouri. In 1829, the Delaware were offered a reservation in what is now Wyandotte and Leavenworth counties in Kansas. The reservation also included a 10-mile-wide strip of land running ran west 150 miles for hunting. Some Delaware moved to other locations such as Canada. About a thousand moved to the reservation with many building homes along waterways and on the trail to Fort Leavenworth. John Pratt, a missionary who lived with the Delaware in 1837, wrote: “That part of the country on the north side of the Kansas River was first settled by the Delaware in 1829. They brought with them a knowledge of agriculture, and many of them habits of industry. They opened farms, built houses and cut out roads along the ridges and divides. . . .” Pratt wrote other “wilder” tribes were hostile to the short-haired Delaware and would attack them when they went out to hunt buffalo and beaver.” A June 14, 1967 Kansas City Times article stated that when the Delawares came that one of their pastimes was to race their horses with the soldiers stationed at Ft. Leavenworth. Mr. and Mrs. John S. Campbell [Alexandra Township, Leavenworth County], who lived one and one-half miles from the Delaware reservation said the "Delaware Indian woman came to their home peddling baskets, shells and bead ornaments, carrying their papooses on their backs," according to the 1921 History of Leavenworth County Kansas by Jesse A. Hall and LeRoy T. Hand.
In Lawrence, according to the Lawrence Daily World, July 31, 1892: "In the early history of Lawrence there were no persons so noticeable as the Delaware Indian. No sooner had the first building been erected and occupied than scores of these Delawares were present all over the place. They retained for a number of years their Indian dress and uniform which consisted in part of furs and half dress with beads around their necks while their body was just as pictured in books of half a century ag0. . . While they had money they purchased freely of the whites what they wanted. It is doubtful whether the early merchants could have maintained a living trade had not the Indians helped them out from their annuities. These Indians occupied the country north of the river for miles up and down and for several miles out. They lived in good log houses put up long before the first settlement of the country."
In a February 15, 1868 letter printed in the Daily Kansas Tribune, Delaware Fall Leaf wrote Major General James Blunt that the Delaware were not receiving their annuities: "The whole tribe are in destitute circumstances. A portion are now living on the reserve, and the balance have broken up, and now lay in camp, south of Lawrence, Kansas, unable and unwilling to proceed further until Government fulfills the terms of the treaty. They are unable to buy necessary food for their families and stock, and, in consequence, they and their stock are starving; and unless the Government takes some steps to relieve their destitution immediately, great suffering will prevail. About 730 of the tribe utterly refuse to become part of the Cherokee nation. . . .The Delawares fear trouble and disastrous consequences. . ."
The tribe sold their Kansas land to the Missouri River Railroad Company in 1866, and merged with the Cherokee in Indian Territory [Oklahoma] in 1869. A few stayed in Kansas, and other Delaware lived elsewhere. Today the U.S. government recognizes the Delaware Tribe of Indians based in Bartlesville, Oklahoma; the Delaware Nation based in Anadarko, Oklahoma; and the Stockbridge-Munsee Community of Wisconsin.
Name origin: The following meanings have been attributed to the Lenape name: “genuine," "original,” "ordinary," and "common." Language: Eastern Algonquian
Ioway
Image: Ma-Has-Kah or White Cloud, 1784-1834, an Iowa chief. Source: History of the Indian Tribes of North America With Biographical Sketches and Anecdotes of the Principal Chiefs
Related in culture and language to the Sioux, the Ioway, a small tribe of less than a thousand individuals decimated by smallpox and other factors, received land in two states when the 1854 Kansas-Nebraska Act divided their reservation in the newly-created states of Nebraska and Kansas. One group stayed on the reservation and the other moved to Indian Territory [Oklahoma].
Alanson Skinner in 1925 article Traditions of the Iowa Indians wrote: “The Iowa Indians are a small tribe of the Tciwere branch of the Siouan stock. Their closest relatives are the Winnebago, Oto, and Missouri. They are rapidly dwindling in numbers, there being (in 1924) some 78 individuals along the Cimarron River near Perkins, Oklahoma, and perhaps as many as two hundred, mainly mixed bloods, on the old Great Nemaha Reserve along the Kansas-Nebraska line close to Reserve and White Cloud.”
Edward E. Hale, in his 1854 Kansas and Nebraska wrote: "Just south of the north line of Kansas are a body of Iowas, removed from their old homes. They number 437. They have profitted but little from the payments annually made to them; are seduced into a loitering, lazy life, by emigrants passing to the Pacific; improvident in their habits, and consequently decreasing in numbers. From 1830 they have diminished, in sixteen years, to 437; having been all that time receiving annuities from the government; and most of it under the care of missionaries and government agents. They wear no dress but the blanket. Their crops are short, and their houses, built for them by the government, have gone to decay. Of the Iowas and Sacs, nineteen girls and seventeen boys were last year (1853) at school. They live at the school, under the care of the teacher. "
The Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska currently retains 6,000 acres of reservation land in Brown and Doniphan Counties.
Name origin: The Sioux called the Iowa the “sleepy ones.” Some tribes called them "dusty ones" or “this is the place,” and the Ioway called themselves also known as Bah-Kho-Je or “Gray snow.” Language: Chiwere Siouan
Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska Iowa Traditions of the Iowa Indians
Kickapoo
The Kiikaapoi, another Great Lakes tribe, moved throughout the upper Midwest and came to their present reservation in 1834 after the 1832 Treaty of Castor Hill. Count Francesco Arese, 32, Milan, Italy, in his A Trip to the Prairies and in the Interior of North America wrote about stopping in 1837 at a Kickapoo trading station a few hours north of Fort Leavenworth: “The boat was instantly flooded with savages, to whom tobacco and brandy were given. They greeted the boss . . . affectionately, wringing his hand and calling him 'Papa, Papa’ They played cards with great enthusiasm and even passion, and remained on board very late that night; and three young Indian women remained on board all night . . . with the consent of the Kickapoo chief. . . "
According to the 1921 History of Leavenworth County, Kansas by Jesse A. Hall and LeRoy T. Hand, "The first settlement of the Kickapoo tribe on their arrival upon their new lands to take possession was at the southeastern corner of their grant or reservation, a short distance northwest of where Fort Leaven- worth now stands and near the present site of Kickapoo. As a tribe they were industrious and of extremely good habits. Like a great many Indian tribes they were prone to build their villages upon high places such as hills and bluffs. Their cone shaped lodges were closely grouped. About the individual lodges were grouped such ornaments as buffalo skulls, various hides, and bits of pottery. Occasional sacrifices might be seen in the way of some gayly colored cloth or costly stuff hung over the door of the lodge of the chief, offered by him for the good fortune that the Great Spirit saw fit to allow him to enjoy. The Kickapoos were more or less religious in a sense. They believed strongly in a Great Spirit."
The tribe in an 1854 treaty ceded over 600,000 acres of land to the U.S. government and retained 150,000 acres of land. Today, the Kickapoo consist of The Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas who have a Brown County 5-mile by 6-mile reservation as well as the Kickapoo Tribe in Oklahoma, the Texas Band of Kickapoo, and the Mexican-Kickapoos.
Name origin: Ki Ka Pua means “those who walk the earth” or “moves here and there,” or “wanderer.” Language family: Central Algonquian
Miami, Piankeshaw, Wea, Peoria, and Kaskaskia
Image: Three Piankeshaw Indians, 1861/1869, George Catlin, National Gallery of Art.
Frank W. Blackmar wrote in 1912 of Miami that numbered about 300: “The Miamis (peninsular people), one of the most important of the Algonquan tribes, was called by some of the early chroniclers the 'Twightwees.' The region over which they roamed was once outlined in a speech by their famous chief, Little Turtle, who said: 'My fathers kindled the first fire at Detroit; thence they extended their lines to the headwaters of the Scioto; thence to its mouth; thence down the Ohio to the month of the Wabash, and thence to Chicago over Lake Michigan.' The men of the Miami tribe have been described as ‘of medium height, well built, heads rather round than oblong, countenances agreeable rather than sedate or morose, swift on foot and excessively fond of racing.’ The women spun thread of buffalo hair, of which they made bags in which to carry provisions when on a march. Their deities were the sun and the thunder, and they had but few minor gods. Six bands of the Miami were known to the French, the principal ones being the Piankeshaw, Wea and Pepicokia. The Piankeshaw was first mentioned by La Salle in 1682 as one of the tribes that gathered about his fort in the Illinois country. Chauvignerie classed the Piankeshaw, Wea and Pepicokia as one tribe, but inhabiting different villages. The Miami were divided into ten gentes—wolf, loon, eagle, buzzard, panther, turkey, raccoon, snow, sun and water—and the elk and crane were their principal totems.” The Miami in Indiana signed treaties to give up their land in exchange for land south of the Wea and Piankashaw in Miami County. They also agreed to move within 5 years but many didn’t. Of those who did, several died of sickness and others returned to Indiana.
Once part of the Miami, the Piankeshaws lived in the future states of Indiana and Illinois when Europeans came in the 1600s. In the History of Vermilion County, Illinois by Lottie E. Jones, Jones wrote: “Tall and lithe, the men are dressed in a garment which extends from their waists to their knees, with moccasins for feet covering, which had been prepared from the buffalo's hide. In the winter, leggings decorated with quills of the porcupine stained in colors of brilliant contrast, together with blankets give the desired warmth. The women wear a garment which would be called at present, a one piece dress. The material from which it is made is woven from the soft wool from the buffalo's hide, or is, perhaps, made from the buffalo's hide itself. When made from woven material, these garments are dyed the most brilliant colors. The women of Piankeshaw are skilled in the choice of material to make these colors and search the bluffs to the west and south, going sometimes a long distance, to find the root or leaf or perhaps blossom that will yield the desired shade or tint. Ellsworth Park held many secrets for them in possible coloring material. The women decorate their own moccasins and do not let their leggings go plain. They are proud of their necklaces, as who would not be, when their value is an expression of the time and care it took to find and assort the clamshells and other hard substances which comprised them. A head dress, usually, is deemed indispensable by the Piankeshaw woman. Petticoats are worn for warmth during the winter. To make these garments the nerves and tendons of deer are subjected to a process that yields good thread. The wigwams along the bluff on the North Fork were busy places when this thread was being manufactured. The deer was dressed, and the nerves and tendons carefully put aside. They were exposed to the sun twice each day until they were in a state that, by beating, they would separate into fine hairs or threads. These threads were very strong and would hold any garment together.”
The Piankeshaw signed an 1832 treaty for land about 12 by 15 miles in Franklin County. They united with a couple of hundred Wea (another Miami offshoot tribe who exchanged Indiana area land in an 1834 treaty for land in Miami County by Louisburg and Bucyrus with a mission). With other small tribes who intermarried with the white population, the Wea and Piankeshaw joined the Peoria who had land south of Ottawa along with the Kaskaskia. The consolidated Peoria Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma today is a confederation of Kaskaskia, Peoria, Piankashaw and Wea who united in 1854 and in 1867 sold their Kansas land and moved to northwestern Indian Territory [Oklahoma].
Name origin: The Miami name has been said to mean "people of the peninsula" or "downstream people." It's also said they called themselves the “Twightwees,” which is the call of a crane. Language family: Algonquian
Ottawa
Image: Ottawa in Kansas. Source: Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma.
Originally from Canada, the Ottawa gave up their land by Lake Michigan in an 1832 U.S. treaty for Franklin County land about 15 x 20 miles by the Mariais des Cygnes River. Nearly half of Ottawa died within five years of moving in 1836-1837 to the new reserve. Reverend Joseph Romig, Franklin County, Kansas, wrote: “The Ottawa Indians at this time were a highly civilized Indian as compared with others. They lived in houses, and dressed like white men. They all had teams and small farms, from a few acres up to 20 or more. They were however widely scattered up and down the river and creeks. Their annuity was not so large as to do them any harm. They were therefore obliged to be more or less industrious. At that time it was possible to hire an Ottawa Indian to work by the day or by the month something which was not always the case amongst Indian. . . About 1862-3 the Ottawa made a treaty to become citizens of the United States and to sell their surplus lands, and they then soon began to draw heavier annuities, but I do not think these larger amounts tended to improve their condition much. The young men soon began to quit work and to put on style – a new saddle and bridle, and a new hat with showy hat band. Nor did the older ones all escape the injurious effects of 'too much money.' Some years later they sold out and removed to the Indian territory where they now live near the Kansas line. The number of the Ottawa as given in Indian Report of 1864 was 208.”
In 1867, the two hundred remaining Ottawa sold their land in Kansas and bought reservation land from the Shawnee in Indian Territory [Oklahoma].
Name origin: The tribe name means "traders." Ottawa call themselves Adawe or Anishinabe, which means "original person." Language family: Algonquian
A Brief Sketch of Indian Tribes in Franklin County, Kansas in 1862-1906
Ottawa Kansas History Ottawa Tribe of Oklahoma
Potawatomi
Image: Potawatomi at St. Mary's Mission, 1867, Kansas State Historical Society
Related to the Ottawa and Chippewa, the Potawatomi were first known to Europeans as inhabiting the Green Bay, Wisconsin, area. After several wars, treaties, and the Indian Removal Act, they eventually made their way to Indiana and told to exchange their land for an area in the area to be Kansas by 1838. But Chief Menominee and his band along with hundreds of other holdouts refused to sign the treaties. The Indiana governor ordered the state militia to burn their homes and remove the 859 Potawatomi people at gunpoint, and then force them to walk 660 miles to the Osawatomie area. The two-month journey resulted in the death of 42 people from typhoid and other causes, and they arrived to the without their promised houses in November. Many Potawatomi moved to the Linn County Catholic mission that was moved to Pottawatomie County in 1848.
The 1861 report to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs read: "My council with the Pottawatomies lasted two full days and was to me particularly interesting. I found them intelligent and apparently happy. They have a reservation thirty miles square, rich in soil, and beautifully located on the Kansas River, near Topeka, the present seat of government for the State. A large majority of the tribe, usually denominated the 'mission band,' are far advanced in civilization and are anxious to abandon their tribal condition and have a suitable portion of their lands allotted to them in severalty; and the remainder sold to the government at a fair price, to create a fund to enable them to commence agricultural pursuits under favorable auspices. The policy is, however, strenuously opposed by the wild or 'prairie band,' of the tribe, who look with jealousy upon any innovation upon their traditional customs."
In 1861, the Potawatomi ceded their Kansas land to the United States for a reservation near Holton, Jackson County. Gary Mitchell wrote on the Official Website of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation: “Soon after, railroad interests, religious groups and politicians got involved in new treaty negotiations. But the tribe also experienced an internal divide: 1,400 members wanted the land divided into allotments coupled with the promise of eventual citizenship. However, a small group of 780 Potawatomi stood firm for communal holdings. They were neither interested in obtaining citizenship nor rejecting their heritage, and they held firm in their belief that no single person owned the land. This group became what is now the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation.” Formerly the Prairie Band of Potawatomi Indians, this federally recognized tribe of Neshnabé (Potawatomi people), is headquartered near Mayetta, Kansas.
Quapaw
Image: Quapaw children in 1875
Once part the Dhegiha Sioux, the Quapaw were closely related to the Kanza, Omaha, Osage, and Ponca and lived in the Arkansas area during the 1600s. Explorers described the tribe then as wearing minimal clothing and living in villages with bark-covered lodges built on mounds arranged around an open area. Families grouped into clans through the male line.
By 1800, disease and wars had reduced the tribe to about 500 members. They lost their Arkansas land through a series of treaties and had an 1833 reservation that ran along the present southeastern Kansas-Oklahoma border. Based now in Quapaw, Oklahoma, the tribe retains land in Kansas.
Name origin: The traditional name of O-gah-pa means “Downstream People.” Also known as the Ogáxpa. Language family: Dhegiha Siouan
Sac and Fox
Image: Sac and Fox woman, Kansas State Historical Society
The Sac (Sauk) and Fox are closely related by language and culture but two distinct tribes grouped by the U.S. government during treaty negotiations. Shifted around by treaties, the Sauk and Fox tribes were forced by the U.S. government to move into what would be Kansas. John T. Irving, Jr. in his 1835 Indian Sketches wrote about one Sac while journeying n 1833: "I had formed but a poor opinion of the race from those whom I had already seen; but never had I beheld such a princely fellow. He stood unmoved as we came up, viewing us with a calm, cold, but unwavering gaze. His eyelid never drooped; nor was the eye averted for an instant as it met our look. A large blanket, here and there streaked with vermilion, and ornamented with hawks’ bells, was so disposed around his folded arms, that it left bare his finely-formed shoulder, and half of his high and sinewy chest. A bright, steel-headed tomahawk peeped from beneath its folds, and a quiver of arrows hung at his back. His legs were cased in leggings of dressed deerskin, with the edges cut into a rough fringe. He wore a pair of mocassins of dressed buffalo hide. The top of his head was closely shaven, and covered with vermilion; but his face was free from any colouring whatever, with the exception of a ring of black paint, which was carefully drawn around each eye. As we approached he drew himself up, and threw his head slightly backward with an air of haughtiness which well became his high stern features. He seemed to feel like a proud but desolate being. Upon his head was bound an eagle’s plume, but it was crushed and broken. Could it be emblematic of the broken spirit of his own tribe? Their power was gone; their strength was withered; they were scattered to the four winds of heaven; the bones of their bravest warriors were whitening the prairies, and their chief was in bondage in an unknown land."
W. A. Johnson wrote his The History of Anderson County, Kansas: From Its First Settlement to the Fourth of July, 1876: “When the white settlers came to this county, the Sac and Fox tribes of Indians were located on a reservation in Franklin and Osage counties, where they remained for about ten or twelve years. Roving bands of these Indians often wandered into different parts of this county hunting and fishing; and sometimes two to three hundred of them, with their squaws and ponies, would winter in this county, along the streams, and often became very annoying in setting fire to prairies to drive game out, and in that way often burning the fences and crops of the settlers. And at times they would engage in stealing and driving away the stock of the settlers, and keep it hidden until a reward was offered for its return. They would go begging from house to house, and if one was fed by the settler the whole party must be fed or there would be trouble. These Indians obtained whisky when they could find it. Rezin Porter, on North Pottawatomie, kept whiskev to sell in 1857 and 1858, and the Indians, in passing through, made it a point to camp near his house. In the fall of 1857 a party of them went into camp near Porter's, went to his house and demanded whiskev, which Mrs. Porter, in the absence of her husband, refused. So they attempted to break into the house, and, failing at the door, which she had fastened, one attempted to enter through a window, when she filled his face and bosom with a shovel full of live coals from the fireplace, which caused him to retreat, yelling, with his shirt on fire, and the others followed him. In the winter of 1860 these Indians gave a 'war dance' in Garnett, which was novel to our people, who came in large numbers from the country to witness it. It took place at the crossing of Pine street and Sixth avenue. Four of the braves had each nail kegs, covered with opossum skins. Seated on the ground, with sticks they commenced beating their nail kegs, and sung their songs, which furnished the music for the occasion. The squaws seated themselves in a circle, and the braves entered the circle and proceeded to perform the most amusing evolutions, interspersed by short speeches in their dialect, and, with sticks, bludgeons and tomahawks, they showed how they killed and scalped their victims, and drank their blood. It was a fair illustration of their savage cruelty. They also danced the ‘green corn’ dance, and the ‘snake’ dance.”
A group from Iowa arrived in 1845-46 for a reservation that included the southern two-thirds of Osage County and extended into Franklin and Lyon counties. Leaders of this group signed an 1859 treaty giving up two-thirds of their reserve. Most of the Fox disputed the treaty and left. By that time exposure, disease, and old age had reduced the 1851 population of 2,660 to 975 in 1863.
In a later treaty, the tribe majority relocated to Oklahoma in 1869 but one group stayed in the northeast corner of Kansas: The Sac and Fox of the Missouri band. Today’s Sac and Fox Reservation of Sauk (Sac) and Meskwaki (Fox) people is a 23 square-mile tract in northeastern Brown County, Kansas, and southeastern Richardson County, Nebraska, with headquarters in Reserve, Kansas.
Name origin: The Sauk name Thakiwaki is said to mean “people of the yellow earth” but also has been said to be “people from the water” or “people from the outlet.” Fox or Meskwaki means “people of the red earth.” Language family: Algonquian
Shawnee
Image, Shawnee Open Door, The Prophet, by George Catlin, 1830.
The farthest southern people of the Algonquian family, the Shawnee inhabited the Ohio River Valley, which includes Tennessee, South Carolina, Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. They lived in bark-covered longhouses in villages and met at a council house for ceremonies. The Shawnee revered the Lenape (or Delaware), shared a language with the Kickapoo, and had a long friendship with the Wyandot, and intermarried with white settlers. In the early 1830s, the U.S. government forced the Shawnee to give up their Ohio land. Some went to Indian Territory, others resisted, and many moved on to 1.6 million-acre reservation south of the Kansas River and west of the Missouri River. Most settled in present-day Wyandotte and Johnson counties.
Joab Spencer, in 1909, wrote that Charles BlueJacket (1817-1819), a Johnson County Shawnee resident, recounted, “No one was allowed to use any corn, even from his own field, until the proper authority was given. When the corn was sufficiently advanced for use, the one who had the authority fixed the date for the corn feast and dance. On this occasion great quantities of roasting-ears were prepared, and all ate as freely as they desired. After this feast, all could have what they wished from the field. This was probably the most highly esteemed peace festival. Very properly it might be called "the feast of first-fruits." Another feast was held, but probably not so universally, in the fall, - a feast of in-gathering; and another in the spring at planting-time, to secure the favor of the Great Spirit, that they might have a bountiful crop. These were all religious festivals, and were accompanied by chants and dancing.” Spencer also told of Nancy Chouteau (1831-1912), a Kansas City, Missouri, resident who said: “Once a year, at stated periods, the women carried wood and made a big fire. At midnight the chief brought out a mysterious bundle and took from it some great long feathers. The men dressed themselves in these (putting them in their hair was the usual custom) and sang. If, while they were singing, they could hear the Mother Spirit sing, that was a sign that the world was not coming to an end.”
The U.S. government in 1854 reduced the Kansas reservation to 160,000 acres and gave the rest to individual members in 200-acre allotments, which several sold to settlers. Those who stayed on the land received pressure from settlers wanting their land, and in the 1860s, most were forced to a Cherokee reservation in Oklahoma.
Name origin: Called the Sawanwaki, the name means “Southerner.”
Language family: Central Algonquian
Wyandotte
Image: Wee-Ta-Ra-Sha-Ro, Wichita, by George Catlin (1834)
Of Iroquois lineage, the Wyandotte, also known as the Wendat or Hurons, a confederacy of four or more tribes with similar languages, spread from the Great Lakes area to Ohio. Wyandot children were considered born to the mother’s family and took their status from hers. Frank W. Blackmar in 1912 wrote: “In the social organization of the Wyandots four groups were recognized—the family, the gens, the phratry and the tribe. A family consisted of all who occupied one lodge, at the head of which was a woman. The gens included all the blood relations in a given female line. At the time the tribe removed to Kansas it was made up of eleven gentes which were divided into four phratries. The first phratry included the bear, deer and striped turtle gentes; the second was composed of the black turtle, mud turtle and smooth large turtle gentes; the third included the gentes of the hawk, beaver and wolf, and the fourth had but two gentes—the sea snake and the porcupine.”
In 1843, the Wyandotte relinquished their lands in Ohio and Michigan and traveled to Kansas City where they wanted to buy land in today's Westport and Country Club Plaza area from the Shawnee. Instead, the settled for 39 square miles bought from the Delaware in what is now Wyandotte County.
William Connelley wrote: "They brought with them from Ohio a well organized Methodist church, a Free Masons' lodge, a civil government, a code of written laws which provided for an elective council of chiefs, the punishment of crime and the maintenance of social and public order." By 1855, when the Wyandot only had 600 or 700 members, the tribe dissolved; its members became citizens of the United States. Today, the U.S. government recognizes the Wyandotte of Wyandotte, Oklahoma, but does not recognize the Wyandot Nation of Kansas, headquartered in Kansas City, Kansas.
Name origin: The Wendatname may come for the word "islanders." Language family: Northern Iroquoian
