Topics in Kansas History: Cultural & Ethnic Groups

American Indians

Thousands of American Indian tribes were moved to the area that is now Kansas from the East and Great Lakes area. The Indian Removal Act of 1830 resulted in the settlement of more than 10,000 American Indians to what is now Kansas. The Kickapoo, originally from Wisconsin, were removed to Kansas in 1832 from Missouri. In 1836 the Iowas from north of the Great Lakes were assigned a reservation in Kansas. In 1838 the Potawatomis began their move from northern Indiana. Treaties with the Sak and Fox of the Mississippi Valley from 1842 to 1861 ceded Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska lands to the United States, leaving small reserves in Doniphan and Osage counties in Kansas. The Miamis were moved by barge from Indiana in 1846.

Find resources on American Indians in Kansas.

• American Indian Place Names
• "The Baptists, the Methodists, and the Shawnees: Conflicting Cultures in Indian Territory, 1833-1834," Kansas History, Autumn 1994
• Bosin, Blackbear
• Cherokee Basket Making
• Curtis, Charles
• "A Holy Battleground: Methodist, Baptist and Quaker Missionaries Among the Shawnee Indians, 1830-1844." Kansas History, Summer 1998
• "Norton Bone Bed Reveals Wealth of Insights and Bison Remains," Kansas Preservation, January/February 2002
• Pawnee Sacred Bundle
• "Steed-Kisker: A Prehistoric Colonial Outpost in Eastern Kansas?" Kansas Preservation, September/October 2001
• War Between the Pawnees and the Kaws
• The Ioway-Otoe-Missouria (Baxoje-Jiwere-Ñut^achi) Language Project and Dictionary

Letters, documents, objects, and photographs

• Cheyenne war lance
• Delaware Indian Mission bookcase
• Delaware Indian Mission communion set
• Pawnee Sacred Bundle
• Pipe tomahawk
• Plains Indian pipe and pipe bag
• Potawatomi artist Louis ShipShee's painting, Bison--Central Plains

• Kaw Mission State Historic Site in Council Grove
• Friends of Kaw Mission State Historic Site in Council Grove
• Iowa and Sac & Fox Mission State Historic Site in Highland
• Pawnee Indian Village State Historic Site in Republic
• Shawnee Indian Mission State Historic Site in Fairway near Kansas City

Bibliographies, finding aids, and guides to the collections

• American Indian Bibliography
• Bureau of Indian Affairs Records, Central Classified Files, 1907-1939
• Enrollment Cards of the Five Civilized Tribes, 1898-1914
• Indian Census Rolls, 1885-1940
• William Clark papers

Museum Store

• Books on American Indians

Kansas Interpretive Traveling Exhibit Service (KITES)

• Native American Folk Arts: Living Traditions
• A Photographic Narrative: The Indians of Kansas

Kansas Heritage, our popular history magazine

• To Have & Have Not: The Vanishing Lands of Native Americans, Summer 1996
• Earth, Wind, and Fire: Kansas Archeology, Spring 1997
• Comes A Horseman --The Native Americans--, Autumn 2001

Kansas History, our scholarly journal

• "Before Bleeding Kansas: Christian Missionaries, Slavery, and the Shawnee Indians in Pre-Territorial Kansas, 1844-1854." Spring 2001
• "The Changing Nature of the Slavery Debate: The Impact of the Wyandotte Constitution Upon Party Politics in Kansas and the Cherokee Nation," Autumn 1998
• "A Holy Battleground: Methodist, Baptist and Quaker Missionaries Among the Shawnee Indians, 1830-1844," Summer 1998, article also online
• "'How Cola' from Camp Funston: American Indians and the Great War," Summer 2001
• "A Richly Textured Community: Fort Riley, Kansas, and American Indians, 1853-1911," Spring 1998
• "A Story of Three Families," Summer 1996
• "The Whiteford Family of Salina: Mid-Twentieth Century Avocational Archeologists," Winter 2002

Kansas Kaleidoscope, our children's magazine

• "The Native American in Kansas," November/December 1997
• "Digging into Kansas History," April/May 2000

Teaching Materials

• Classroom Materials: Cultural & Ethnic Groups
• Field Trips: Cultural & Ethnic Groups