The Kanza or Kaw Indians of Kansas

The Kanza (or Kaw) Indians

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From a period extending far back into the past -- far back of any written record -- the Kanza claimed, as a nation, the region that they ceded to the United States by the treaty of June, 1825.

From the time that Father Marquette inscribed the name of the "Kanza" nation on his map of 1673, a half century elapses before the name again appears; when special mention of the "Canzas" is made by Etienne Venyard, Sieur de Bourgmont, commander at Fort Orleans, who passed directly through Kansas from east to west, and north of the Kansas River in 1724, on his expedition to the Padoucas, in the West. He was accompanied by delegations from several Eastern tribes, consisting of their principal chiefs and warriors. Conspicuous among these was the "Kanza" delegation -- the general rendezvous for the other tribes being at the Kanza village on the Missouri. The hospitality of the tribe, and their generous treatment of their visitors, is especially noted by Monsieur de Bourgmont in his journal.

Conference of Kanza (Kaw) Indians with the U.S. Commission of Indian Affairs, Illustrated London News, 1857

A full account of this expedition is given in "Early Explorations:"

There were formerly two Kanza villages on the Missouri River. The lower, about forty miles above the junction of the Kansas and Missouri Rivers, was situated on the west bank, between two high bluffs; the upper was a little above the mouth of Independence Creek, on the south bank of the river, and is described as having been located on "an extensive and beautiful prairie." It was called the "Village of the Twenty-four."

When Captain Lewis, of the Lewis and Clark expedition, visited the sites of these old villages in 1804, every trace of the lower had disappeared; but on a hill, a little in the rear, were the remains of an old French fort, of which the general outline of fortification and the ruins of the chimneys were plainly discernible. A fine spring of water was found in the vicinity. There is no clue to the history of the parties who built or occupied the fort, but the supposition is that they were destroyed by the Indians.

Enough of the remains of the upper village could be distinguished to show that it was quite extensive.

The Kanza were driven from their settlements on the Missouri by the inroads of the Iowas and Sacs, who, by reason of their intercourse with the traders of the Mississippi Valley, were tolerably well supplied with firearms. The exact time at which this occurred is not known, but it was probably thirty years before the visit of Capt. Lewis, as the Osages were driven from the Missouri by the Sacs, and forced farther south, onto the Osage, about that time.

After the incursion of the hostile Indians, the Kanza, considerably reduced in number, located their principal village on the north bank of the Kansas River, about two miles below the confluence of the Big Blue.River.

The site of this village was surveyed and mapped in the spring of 1880, under the supervision of Judge F. G. Adams, Secretary of Kansas Historical Society, who described it as follows:

A Kanza Indian bark house.

"The site is in Pottawatomie County, about two miles east of Manhattan, on a neck of land between the Kansas and Big Blue Rivers. The rivers here by their courses embrace a peninsular tract of about two miles in length, extending east and west. At the point where the village was situated, the neck between the two rivers is about one-half mile in breadth, and the village stretched from the banks of the Kansas River northward for the greater part of the distance across toward the Blue. The site of the village is on the present farm of Honorable Welcome Wells, and is crossed by the Kansas Branch of the Union Pacific Railroad."

Although the Kanza and Osage were of the same nation, their language nearly identical, and their government and customs similar, they were almost continually at war, from the time they were first known to Europeans until 1806, in which year a treaty was negotiated between the two nations by the United States Government. A grand council was held September 28, 1806 at the village of the Pawnee Republic, between Lieutenants Zebulon Pike and James Wilkinson on the part of the United States, and various chiefs of the Pawnee, Osage and Kanza nations. The treaty formed between the two nations at that time, copies of which were forwarded to the several tribes through their respective chiefs, read as follows:

"In council held by the subscribers, at the village of the Pawnee Republic, appeared Wahonsongay with eight principal soldiers of the Kanza nation on the one part, and Shinga-Wasa, a chief of the Osage nation, with four of the warriors of the Grand and Little Osage villages on the other part. After having smoked the pipe of peace and buried past animosities, they individually and jointly bound themselves in behalf of and for their respective nations to observe a friendly intercourse and keep a permanent peace, and mutually pledge themselves to use every influence to further the commands and wishes of their great father. We, therefore, American chiefs, do require of each nation a strict observance of the above treaty, as they value the good will of their great father, the President of the United States. Done at our council fire, at the Pawnee Republican village, the 28th of September, 1806, and the thirty-first year of American independence.

(Signed),

Z. M. Pike
J. B. Wilkinson

The treaty thus formed was never broken by either nation, their common hostility being henceforward directed mainly to the Pawnees, and the marauding tribes that infested the Western plains.

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