The End of Indian Kansas: A Study in Cultural Revolution, 1854-1871 - Softcover

Miner, Craig; Unrau, William E.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 070060474X ISBN 13: 9780700604746

Publisher: University Press of Kansas, 1977

Synopsis

When Kansas became a U.S. territory in 1854 literally all of its land area was guaranteed by treaty to Indians. More than 10,000 Kickapoos, Delawares, Sacs, Foxes, Shawnees, Potawatomis, Kansas, Ottawas, Wyandots, and Osages, not to mention a number of smaller tribes, inhabited Kansas. By 1875 there were only a couple of bands left.

The forced removal of thousands of Indians from eastern Kansas between 1854 and 1871 affected more Indians and occupied more government time than the celebrated exploits of the military against the more warlike western tribes. In this volume Miner and Unrau show Kansas at mid-century to be a moral testing ground where the drama of Indian disinheritance was played out. They relate how railroad men, land speculators, and timber operations came to be firmly entrenched on Indian land in territorial Kansas. They examine remarkable incongruities in Indian policy, land policy, law, and administration, pointing to specific cases in which legal maneuvers by the federal government—within the framework of treaties, statutes, and executive pronouncements—helped to insure the pattern of tribal destruction.

Separate chapters deal with internal factionalism in the Indian tribes, the practice of government chief-making, and the "Indian Ring"—the sub rosa alliances influencing the treaty or sale process. The authors also include revealing portraits of the individuals, from territorial governors to railroad officials, who helped engineer the end of Indian Kansas.

"The reader's perception of those brave, hard-working sod-house settlers may never be the same after reading this book."—American West.

About this title

About the Author

Craig Miner is Willard W. Garvey Distinguished Professor of Business History at Wichita State University. Among his books are West of Wichita: Settling the High Plains of Kansas, 1865-1890; Wichita: The Early Years, 1865-1880; and Harvesting the High Plains: John Kriss and the Business of Wheat Farming, 1920-1950.

William E. Unrau, Wichita State University Endowment Association Distinguished Research Professor of History, has published widely in American Indian history. He is the author of White Man's Wicked Water: The Alcohol Trade and Prohibition in Indian Country, 1802-1892, and Mixed-Bloods and Tribal Dissolution: Charles Curtis and the Quest for Indian Identity

Review

"This book recounts in detail the processes by which the Indians from east of the Mississippi were deprived of their lands in present-day Kansas. . . . There are no heroes in this narrative of fraud, corruption, and violence by the military, the executives of state and federal governments, legislators, businessmen, lawyers, settlers, and Indians."--Choice

"The reader's perception of those brave, hard-working sod-house settlers may never be the same after reading this book."--American West

About this edition

• Publisher: University Press of Kansas
• Publication date: 1977
• ISBN 10: 070060474X
• ISBN 13: 9780700604746
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 196