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Kansas
is one of the richest states in historic lore of any in the
American
West, from Native Americans,
to the
Bleeding Kansas days prior to the
Civil War,
to the
wild west
days of its many
cattle towns, and beyond, the
Sunflower State
provides a wealth of history, lore, and legends within the American Heartland.
The state's heritage
and traditions go back to the nomadic
Native
American tribes who hunted the vast herds of
buffalo
to the time of Montezuma and the Spanish conquest of Mexico. In the Sixteenth
Century the Spanish conquerors extended their explorations through the land now
known as Kansas; then, the mythical kingdom of
Quivira, and claimed it by right of
conquest and discovery as a part of the domain of the Spanish Crown. Nearly two
centuries passed before the French, coming by way of the Mississippi and
Missouri Rivers, again visited the mysterious land.
After another 100 years, American explorers began to traverse the
region and
designated it as the Great American Desert, at a time when the prairies were
filled with countless herds of
buffalo and
Native American tribes including the Kanza,
Pawnee, Osage,
Kiowa, and more.
With the numerous settlers in the east, more tribes were pushed westward either
voluntarily or by government force
Before long, numerous settlers began to move through Kansas on the many
overland trails to
the west, including the
Santa Fe,
Oregon and
California
Trails, which resulted in numerous battles and skirmishes with the
Indians as their home lands were invaded and
violated.
Prior to the
Civil War, the ground of eastern Kansas became a bloody battle field when
pioneers fought the
Kansas-Missouri Border Warr in the struggle to make it a free
or slave state. Kansas
entered the Union as a "free-state" on January 29, 1861, and soldiers flocked to the
battlefields in the conflict with the south.
Afterwards, Kansas’ borders began
to fill with numerous homesteaders and more pioneers as additional trails were
opened to the
Colorado
gold fields. As the railroad pushed through, wild
cowtowns were born that created legends of
lawmen,
gunfighters and
outlaws.
As the
Old West days were winding down, Kansas spawned the Prohibition movement as Carrie Nation waged a war against
alcohol. In the 20th century, Kansas sent men into both
World Wars
and suffered through the Dust Bowl days of the 1930s. The state prospered over
time with a strong agricultural base, oil and gas wells, and aviation as it moved into modern
times.
©
Kathy Weiser/Legends
of Kansas, updated April, 2010. |
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LEGENDS
OF KANSAS
