The Enduring Indians of Kansas: A Century and a Half of Acculturation

The Cherokees’ “Trail of Tears” and the forced migration of other Southern tribes during the 1830s and 1840s were the most notorious consequences of Andrew Jackson’s Indian removal policy. Less well known is the fact that many tribes of the Old Northwest territory were also forced to surrender their lands and move west of the Mississippi River.

By 1850, upwards of 10,000 displaced Indians had been settled “permanently” along the wooded streams and rivers of eastern Kansas. Twenty years later...