History of the Kansas Indians

Native American History in Kansas - Page 5

The Delaware, formerly the most important confederacy of the Algonquian stock, occupied the entire valley of the Delaware River. They called themselves the Lenape or Leni-lenape (real men). The English gave them the name of Delaware, and the French called them Loups (wolves). They were divided into three bands -- the Munsee, Unami and the Unalachtigo -- though it is probable that some of the bands in New Jersey may have formed a fourth group.

About 1720 the Iroquois tribe assumed authority over the Delaware and forbade them to sell their lands. This condition lasted until after the French and Indian War. Then they were gradually crowded westward by the white men and began to form settlements in Ohio, along the Muskingum River with the Huron.

Here they were supported by the French and became independent of the Iroquois. They opposed the English with determination until the treaty of Greeneville in 1795. Six years before that treaty was consummated the Spanish government of Louisiana gave the Delaware permission to settle in that province, near Cape Girardeau, Missouri, with some of the Shawnee tribe.

Delaware Indians

In 1820 there were two bands -- numbering about 700 -- in Texas, but by 1835 most of the Delaware were settled upon their Kansas reservation between the Kansas and Missouri Rivers. Their title to this reservation was finally extinguished in 1866, and on April 11, 1867, President Johnson approved an agreement by which the Delaware merged their tribal existence with the Cherokee Nation.

In 1820 there was found an ancient hieroglyphic bark record giving the traditions of the Delaware tribe. This old record was translated and published in 1885. It gives an account of the creation of the world by great Manito; and of the flood, in which Nanabush, the Strong White One, grandfather of men, created the turtle, on which some were saved. This book is known as the "Walam Olum."

The Munsees (where stones are gathered together), one of the three principal divisions of the Delaware, originally occupied the country about the headwaters of the Delaware River. By what was known as the "walking purchase," in about 1740, they were defrauded out of the greater portion of their lands and forced to move. They obtained lands from the Iroquois on the Susquehanna River, where they lived until the Indian country was established by the act of 1830, when they removed to what is now Franklin County, Kansas, with some of the Chippewa. The report of the Bureau of Ethnology for 1885 says the only Munsees then recognized officially by the United States were 72, living in Franklin County, Kansas, all the others having been incorporated with the Cherokee Nation.

The Ottawa (traders), according to one of their traditions, were once part of a tribe to which belonged also the Chippewa and Potawatomi, all of the great Algonquian family. They moved as one tribe from their original habitat north of the great lakes, and separated about the straits of Mackinaw. Another account says that when the Iroquois destroyed the Huron Indians in 1648-49, what was left of the Huron found refuge with the Ottawa, which caused the Iroquois to turn on that tribe. The Ottawa and the Huron then fled to Green Bay, where they were welcomed by the Potawatomi, who had preceded them to that locality.

The tribe is mentioned in the Jesuit Relations as early as 1670, when Father Dablon, superior of the mission at Mackinaw, said: "We call these people Upper Algonkin to distinguish them from the Lower Alkonkin, who are lower down in the vicinity of Tadousac and Quebec. People commonly give them the name of Ottawa, because, of more than 30 different tribes which are found in these countries, the first that descended to the French settlements were the Ottawa, whose name afterward attached to all the others."

Ottawa Chief Pontiac and his council.

After a time the Ottawa and Huron went to the Mississippi River and established themselves on an island in Lake Pepin. They were soon driven out by the Sioux and went to the Black River in Wisconsin, where the Huron built a fort, but the Ottawa continued east to Chaquamegon Bay. In 1700 the Huron were located near Detroit and the Ottawa were between that post and the Saginaw Bay. The Ohio Ottawa were removed west of the Mississippi River in 1832.

The following year, by the Treaty of Chicago, those living along the west shore of Lake Michigan ceded their lands there and were given a reservation in Franklin County, Kansas, the county seat of which bears the name of the tribe. In 1906 there were about 1,500 Ottawa living in Manitoulin and Cockburn Islands, Canada; 197 under the Seneca school in Oklahoma; and nearly 4,000 in the State of Michigan.

The Chippewa or Ojibway (to roast till puckered up) formerly ranged along the shores of Lake Superior and Lake Huron, extending across Minnesota to the Turtle mountains in North Dakota. At the time America was discovered, the Chippewa lived at La Pointe, Ashland County, Wisconsin, on the south shore of Lake Superior, where they had a village called Shangawaumikong.

Early in the 18th century the Chippewa drove the Fox tribe from northern Wisconsin, and also drove the Sioux west of the Mississippi River. Other Chippewa overran the peninsula lying between Lake Huron and Lake Erie and forced the Iroquois to withdraw from that section. There were ten principal divisions of the tribe scattered through Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota, with more than 20 bands. Prior to 1815 the Chippewa were frequently engaged in war with the white settlers, but after the treaty of that year they remained peaceful.

In 1836, what were known as the Swan Creek and Black River Chippewa sold their lands in southern Michigan and moved to the Munsee Reservation in Franklin County, Kansas. In 1905 the Bureau of Ethnology estimated the number of Chippewa in the United States and Canada at 30,000, about one-half of which were in the United States.

Continued Next Page

Os Ko Bos, Chippewa Man, 1907, by A.A. Bish.

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