KANSA HARVEST
“A KANSA HARVEST”
The main village of the Kansas Indians was located at a spot two miles east of Manhattan, Kansas on the north Bank of the river. This scene shows a small group in front of one of their lodges, built of poles covered with brush and then with earth. It is time for the fall harvest and the squaws are bringing in the fruits of their long summers work. The men of the tribe did little or no farming since their time was needed for hunting and for protecting their village from plunder by other tribes. On hunting or warring trips the people lived in the cone shaped tent, or teepee, usually associated with Indians. The American Indian was outstanding among people of the world as a developer of plants. His gifts to the agricultural world include maize, pumpkin, beans, squash, potatoes, tomatoes, and many other foods.”
“A KANSA LODGE”
Before the coming of the white settler the valley of the Kaw was owned by and controlled by a small but powerful tribe of Indians called the Kanza, the Kaw, or the Kausa. Villages of these ancient people who gave our state its name were located along the Kansas and Missouri rivers within the present state lines. They were related to the Omahas in the north and to the Osages on the South and spoke the same languages as these tribes. Although they were not a warlike people, the Kansas were respected fighters and were able to protect their lands until they were removed by the white people to a reservation near Council Grove. The Kansa were later taken to Oklahoma where their few survivors now live.”
A Contemporary Perspective
At the time of European contact, the Kansa, or Kaw, lived along the Kansas and Saline rivers in what is now central Kansas. Related to other nearby tribes like the Omaha, Osage, Quapaw, and Ponca, they were a semisedentary people who both farmed and hunted. Although they used bison skin lodges during summer and winter hunting expeditions, they also constructed villages of permanent earthen lodges in river valleys that they inhabited during the spring and fall. They built these round-shaped lodges using heavy timbered framework, which they then covered with branches, grass, and earth. As many as 40 members of an extended family lived in each lodge.
As noted in the original text, the Kansa practiced a gendered division of labor. This division was not hierarchical, but rather complementary: men and women both played vital roles in Kansa society and were equally celebrated for their contributions. Women raised crops such as corn, beans, squash, and sunflowers and gathered wild roots and berries. Women also built and owned the earthen lodges. Men, meanwhile, hunted bison, deer, and other game animals. Men also took responsibility for diplomacy and warfare, which became increasingly important in the 18th and early 19th centuries as the expansion of horse culture on the Plains brought new tribes to the region. In particular, the Kansa warred against the Fox, Omaha, Osage, Pawnee, and Cheyenne, which—combined with major smallpox epidemics in the late 1820s and 1830s–substantially reduced their population over time.
During this period, the Kansa also faced increasing pressure from European and Euro-American traders and settlers, including the Spanish, English, French, and finally Americans. After the U.S. Army established Fort Leavenworth in 1827, thousands of soldiers, surveyors, and settlers poured into the region. To make way for these new arrivals, the U.S. pressed the Kansa to sign a treaty in 1846, which forced them onto a reservation 20 miles square near Council Grove. In 1859, the federal government further reduced this reservation to an area of 9 by 14 miles. As mentioned in the original text, the U.S. finally removed the Kansa from Kansas altogether. The Kansa leader at the time, Chief Allegawaho, fervently objected to the move and pleaded with Congress to allow his people to remain in their homelands. Nevertheless, by 1873, the government had resettled the Kansa on a new reservation in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).
The reservation years in Indian Territory were particularly traumatic for the Kansa. Reportedly, nearly half of their number died of malnutrition and contagious diseases in the first seven years alone. By 1888, they numbered just 188 people. The survivors subsisted by leasing much of their land to white ranchers for grazing. Eventually, in 1902, the federal government allotted their remaining lands and abolished their tribal government.
For the next half-century, the Kansa struggled to maintain their political cohesion while facing dire economic circumstances, as hinted at in the original text. They elected their last chief, Ernest Emmett Thompson, in 1934—just a few years before the creation of the dioramas. Finally, in 1959, the Kansa were able to reorganize their tribal government under the terms of the Indian Reorganization Act and gain federal recognition as the Kaw Nation.
Over the next several decades, the Kansa slowly rebuilt their population and political structure. Today, the Kaw Nation includes more than 3,000 enrolled members. In 2002, the tribe purchased lands on their pre-1873 reservation in Kansas and established the Allegawaho Memorial Heritage Park. In 2024, the Sacred Red Rock or Iⁿ‘zhúje‘waxóbe, a 28-ton red Siouxan quartzite boulder sacred to the Kaw Nation, was re-matriated from Robinson Park in Lawrence, Kansas to the Allegawaho Memorial Heritage Park. Finally, the Kansa are back in Kansas.
