The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1859-10-15
How the Kaws wore Located.


A writer in the last Americas Sentinel
gives, We have no doubt, truthful state
ment of the manner in which the Kaw In
dams were located In our county: IL
Five years ago last spring, settlements
were commenced by the whites, In the coun-
ties of Breckenridge and Morris, upon un-
occupied Government lands, portion of
which had then recently been thrown open
for settlement, by the purchase of the Shaw
nee reservation. No doubts then existed
in regard to the Kaw reservation limits; no
mode of reasoning that could be resorted
to would ever convince an intelligent squat
ter that the Shawnee and Kaw tribes of In
dams held and owned by treaty stipulations
the same tract of land, because such state
of things would amount to mere nullity.
AS no landmarks existed, or lines run,
establishing the Kaw reserve, the people
before locating or making their claims upon
the lands now claimed for these Indians,
obtained permission from the local agents
at Council Grove to settle upon the lands
now occupied by them-thus these lands
were taken and improved, and now there
are at least seven hundred and fifty Anglo
Saxon men, women and children, residing
within the bounds of this reservation. Are
these Americans intruders or not That's
the question Let US inquire. .ar.
In the year 1886 Or 1847, Il have not
the treaty before me, the United States
Government purchased from the Kansas or
Kaw tribe of Indians, two millions acres
of, land lying on the Kansas river and ex-
tending up that river and beyond the juno
ton of the Republican and Smoky Hill riv
ers sixty miles west, and the first article of
the treaty referred to, locates the Kaws be-
yond said boundaries but it will be- seen
by reference to the 9Th article of the same
treaty, ..That as scarcity of timber ex-
ists,'' ETC., on the lands indicated in the 1st
article, that said tribe "shall be located
| somewhere near the western boundary there
off, etc. The present location, as claimed
by mistake, is sixty miles or more east and
thirt: miles south Of the point designated in
the treaty; and portion of it is actually
six mile east of the most eastern bounds of
the lands then eeded to the Government
Two years after the people had quietly
and peacefully occupied tract of Govern
ment land, by and with the permission, adj
vice and consent of the Government Agents,
an edict came from the immaculate George
w. Mannypenny, Com'r of Indian Affairs,
ordering the Kaw Agent to locate and sur
vey the Kansas Reservation, so as to in
clude one hundred and fifty square miles of
| the Shawnee purchase, upon which large
| improvements had been made in GOOD faith.
This unjust thing was done, regardless of
the spetitions>and remon strances of his fell
low countrymen, who had staked their all
upon the faith of the Government. Man
nypenny admitted the mistake, but would
not rectify it, Notwithstanding the Agent,
John Montgomery, prior to the survey, did
inform the Department. that the Kaw In
dams did not claim the tract that he had been
instructed to survey and establish for them,
but that they 1.-THE Indians) did claim a
tract of land west and south of Council
Grove, then unoccupied, and lying off of
the Santa Fe road. In the year 1847,
Agent Cummins was instructed by Maj
Harvey, then Superintendent of Indian At
fairs, at st. Louis, ''to locate the kaw tribe
of Indians entirely away from the Santa Fe
road, that no conflict might take place, and
trouble be avoided between the Indians and
merchant freighters upon that road. -
Agent Cummins tempted to carry out
these instructions, and the Kaws ever since
claim that their lands lie west and south of
Council Grove, and off of the Santa Fe
road. And it is so represented on plat
or diagram on file in the Indian Bureau at
Washington City.