Kansas History - Summer 2023
Summer 2023
(Volume 46, Number 2)
“How the Kaánze Homelands Became Kansas: The Treaty of 1825”
by Lisa Tatonetti, Tai S. Edwards, and Mary Kohn, with Chester Hubbard, Haley Reiners, and Kinsley Searles
Though most Kansans do not realize it, much of the state’s land was acquired by the United States through treaties with the Kanza people, today known as the federally recognized Kaw Nation. This was part of a broader pattern of U.S. colonialism that redistributed Indigenous lands to the largely white beneficiaries of empire. One group of beneficiaries were colleges and universities that received celebrated “gifts” of land authorized by the 1862 Morrill Land Grant Act, passed during the Civil War. That land includes Kansas State University and lands that Congress allocated to many public universities to resell (moneys that became seed funds for university endowments). Recognizing that reality is at the heart of the Chapman Center for Rural Studies Kansas Land Treaties Project – an open access digital resource that will annotate treaties between the Kanza and the U.S. government in 1825, 1846, and 1859 as well as the 1872 congressional act that forced the Kanza out of their ancestral homelands into “Indian Territory,” now present-day Oklahoma. Excerpted here is a version of the introduction to the Kansas Land Treaties Project and annotations of the Treaty of 1825. While the Kansas Land Treaties Project has many uses, our central hope is that this resource benefits the Kansas educational system.
“Many Crusades: Women’s Pursuits of Populism and Women’s Rights in 1890s Kansas”
by Ann Vlock
Members of the Woman’s Progressive Political League (WPPL) watched with suspense as the mostly all-male delegates at the 1894 Kansas People’s Party convention passed a controversial resolution supporting women’s suffrage. Women founded the independent WPPL in 1893 and exercised its influence to organize a mass meeting the night before the convention opened. Bina Otis, WPPL president, showcased women’s support of Populism by inviting nationally prominent Annie Diggs and twelve women community leaders from eastern and central Kansas to speak. Joined by reporter and activist Laura Lowe, this cohort of fifteen women provides a visibility into the nature of women’s participation in the Populist movement, one of the most significant reform movements of the nineteenth century. Enlarging the analysis to include local leaders, such as those of the convention cohort, challenges the view that Kansas women’s participation was an urban movement by highlighting the significant presence of rural women and the relationships they shared.
“Per Aspera: Film and Filmmaking in Kansas and the Great Plains”
edited by Tom Prasch
For the film industry, the COVID-19 pandemic presented serious difficulties. The pandemic shut down productions, many projects are yet uncompleted, and fewer venues remain open, a serious problem for both filmmakers and potential audiences. Still, filmmakers have found imaginative ways to keep the cameras running: some used crowdsourcing to fund projects, and many debuted on streaming platforms instead of in theaters. Through difficulties, they still work to bring stars to our screens. In this series of film reviews, part of our biennial series in Kansas History, authors from around the state discuss important films connected to the Western experience; topics include the Santa Fe Trail, white-nationalist terrorist threats in Garden City, Western gunslinging, the Tulsa massacre in 1921, bleak Depression vistas, and endangered species like the prairie chicken, among others.
Book Reviews
Book Notes
