20. Name the classes of travelers who crossed Kansas in the
’40’s, and give an account of each.
21. Name and describe the trail made by these travelers.
CHAPTER V
KANSAS AS AN INDIAN COUNTRY
=Kansas Belonged to the Indians.= During the years when the white men
were traveling back and forth across Kansas they were not making
settlements here. The country remained in the undisputed possession of
the Indians. The white men did not want it as yet. They looked upon
these vast prairies, not as a resource, but as so much land to be
crossed in reaching places farther west. But changing conditions in
the states east of the Mississippi River made people begin to look
upon Kansas in a different light. The country there was becoming
thickly settled and the people wanted the lands of the eastern
Indians.
=Removal of Eastern Indians to Kansas.= Soon after the Louisiana
purchase was made people began to talk of an Indian reserve, of a
state set aside for the Indians, and it was believed that these
western prairies would be useful for such a purpose. Nothing definite
was done, however, until 1825, when the National Government began the
“removal policy.” The eastern part of Kansas was occupied by two
tribes of Indians, the Kanzas, or Kaws as they are often called, north
of the Kansas River, and the Osages south of it. In 1825 the National
Government made treaties with these two tribes. Under the provisions
of these treaties each tribe retained only a small part of its
territory, the rest being ceded to the Government. In return, the
Indians were to receive certain annual payments and were to be
supplied with cattle, hogs, and farming implements. The Government was
also to provide them with blacksmiths and with teachers of
agriculture. With these two tribes restricted to their reservations, a
large part of eastern Kansas was left to be apportioned into
reservations for Indians from the East. In 1830 Congress passed an act
setting aside an Indian country, which included eastern Kansas. Then
the removal policy was carried out. Under this arrangement the
Government made treaties with the various eastern tribes by which they
gave up their lands in exchange for certain tracts in the Indian
country. The Shawnees had come in 1825, and during the ten or twelve
years following 1830 about seventeen tribes were located on
reservations in Kansas. Among these were the Iowas, Sacs and Foxes,
Kickapoos, Delawares, Chippewas, Pottawatomies, Wyandottes, and
Miamis. By 1850 there was not a tribe left east of the Mississippi
River. The Indians had all been moved to these western plains, and no
white man could settle on any of the reservations without the consent
of the Indians.
[Illustration: AN INDIAN IN WAR DRESS.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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