Chapter-1855

J. Butler Chapman, History of Kansas and Emigrant’s Guide 1855. pp. 30-34. Read the book.

Chapter VII

   Having described a district of country along the north side of the Kansas river, showing the several water courses emptying into the Kansas, with a sketch of the resources of all these streams and of the towns, cities and settlements, actual and perspective, the writer proposes in this chapter to commence again at the junction of the Kansas and its tributaries to the south side, giving a full statement of all the important localities, towns and cities, perspective and in essee, describing only the tributaries of the Kansas.

   The emigrant starting from Westport, a town in Missouri, situated near the line of the territory and taking the Independence and California emigrant road immediately enters the Shawnee reserve made at the Treaty at Washington in 1854. The Shawnee lands previous to the treaty extended about one hundred and fifty miles west from the Missouri line, bounded north by the Kansas river from its mouth to the Potawatamie lands, a distance of seventy-five miles, then by the Potawatomi lands, and sixty miles beyond the southwest corner of these lands to the western terminus. Its southern boundary being a line nineteen miles south of the Potawatamie land and parallel with it, extending to the Missouri state line and fifty miles wide on said line, including an area of one million, six hundred thousand acres. The Shawnees ceded all this land to the United States reserving two hundred thousand acres to be selected out of a district of country thirty miles west from the state line. After the two hundred thousand acres are selected out, then the remaining part in the thirty miles will be open for settlement by the whites, which will be nearly two thirds as much as is to be selected out by the Indians. The Indians may select in two hundred acre tracks, consequently they may settle nearly all the most valuable situations and especially the timbered land; It will leave three hundred thousand acres for settlement. The other part of the ceded country is now open for settlement and the best portions occupied.

   The treaty was ratified 28th July, 1854, and the first of September the whole country susceptible of settlement was claimed and cabins raised, towns laid off and cities springing up and the hum and din of farming and mechanic’s shops pervaded the whole country laying between the thirty mile reserve and the Potawatamie land, a distance of forty miles.

   The land ceded by the Shawnees above their reserves, is the only district of country in the Kansas river open to settlement, a distance of forty miles. The Shawnees are far advanced in civilization and have a number of half breeds and some shrewd white men connected with them by marriage. The full blood Indian has his Yankee notion of trade; two of them erected a locomotive grocery where they held forth in true New York style, edibles and drinkables. Observing several bottles labeled “Lemon Acid,” we had a curiosity to see what were the real contents, and on calling for a glass found the bottle contained good vinegar and brown sugar, of which a spoonful was put into a glass with some creek water, and ten cents per glass, thermometer standing at 106d. Pies, cakes, apples, candy and a variety of notions composed the stock in trade in the wagon box.

   Four miles from the line is the Methodist Mission of the Rev. Thomas Johnson. He has a large farm and several large brick buildings. Farming is prosecuted to a large extent but the school is limited. The buildings are not all occupied and one large house is let to the Governor of the territory where he established his headquarters in November.

   A Baptist Mission is in the same vicinity, also a Quaker Mission nearby, the two latter have not such costly buildings, but are disseminating much useful knowledge among the Indians as well as moral and physical improvements.

   The Rev. Mr. Johnson is the advocate of slavery and has several slaves employed about the mission, of which he is owner; the others are anti-slavery. So far as the influence of the traders go the proclivities of the Indians are for slavery. The efforts to civilize the Indians have in the writer’s opinion been heretofore wrongly conducted. The first and principal object aimed at should not be to impose upon them a certain form of religious belief as in Missionary establishments. But the aim should be to induce them by example to adopt habits of civilized life from its superior advantages of improving their temporal condition; then when they have become educated they should be encouraged to investigate the claims of the christian religion by appealing to their reason the same as to white men. The Indian, like a child, is an adroit in reading the motives of men and in detecting hypocrisy, hence the profligacy of most of the educated Indians. They should be treated with dignity and respected and they will become dignified. It is true of them as of the anglo-saxon:

“Be noble and the noblest that lies
In other men, sleeping but never dead,
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own.”

   A colony of families should be located by the government in each tribe of Indians at a stated salary, whose business it should be to teach the Indians by example and precept, agricultural and mechanical arts. Such a colony of men, composed perhaps of a dozen families each, would be a check upon each other against abusing the power conferred, and do the Indian better justice at less expense than the employment of an irresponsible agent as at present. The people should know of the abuse of power and the wrongs of the Indians under the present policy, and petition for a change.

   Kansas territory was a free territory with the Rev. T. Johnson took his slaves there; Since that time slavery has been tolerated by act of Congress but not legalized. Does the subsequent act enslave them, or are they free? This circumstance is a strange comment on a christian church. What is their inducement to try to free one race from the bonds of darkness and while effecting that benevolent purpose, to doom another race of the human family to perpetual bondage and despair? We judge no man or set of men, but leave the acts and the motives for others to judge. How far the Indians tolerate slavery is doubtful; untrammeled, their predilections are for freedom. We ask the question, was not some power or authority accountable for tolerating slavery in a free territory.

   The Prairie through the reserve of the Shawnees is high, rolling and broken, affording a much larger amount of timber than further west, with some good springs and creeks—among them is Turkey Creek, in the vicinity of the Missouri, and Cedar, Mill, Kill, and Rock creeks, all having good timber and some bottom land—no water running, but standing in pools throughout this summer. These deep ponds and pools in the several creeks do not appear to become stagnant, but continue living water—all those above mentioned are tributaries of the Kansas river. We think many valuable claims of quarter sections may be had on this reserve as soon as the Shawnees select their several farms—but these may be immediately occupied by citizens from Missouri.

   Another methodist mission on the Shawnee reserve, under the care and patronage of Dr Sillman, is located twenty miles west from the other missions—it is said to be a mission of exemplary character. The Rev. Dr. complains of the injustice being done his mission in the distribution of the school funds by the Indian department. The Rev. Thomas Johnson, by some sham decree or other, got to be a delegate to Congress before Kansas territory was organized; how, or by what means such an office was conferred in the then Indian territory, where no white man dared to go without permission from the United States, is something to be enquired after. Every white man who had not license to enter the Indian country was a trespasser—who elected the Rev. Gentleman we never learned.

   However, Dr. Sillman complains that the Rev. Gentleman, in the plentitude of his power as such delegate, had all the funds belonging to missions appropriated to his own establishment, it being pro-slavery was favored in preference to the doctor’s free mission. However, as the writer’s opinion in regard to christianizing the Indians differs so materially from either of the gentleman he will not venture an opinion respecting the complaint.

   We say, first civilize the Indian, and then let the moral law christianize him. There is little doubt but philanthropists have begun at the wrong end.

   Trading establishments among the Indians have been a great source of immorality; they taught the Indian what is the greatest curse in civilized life, viz: the credit system. Another system adopted with the Indians has proved a greater source of immorality and corruption than the former, viz: paying the Indian’s money and goods; and yet it is astonishing that a system which is fraught with so much evil should have been persisted in for thirty years

   The government has been sounding for a long time for some safe anchorage and harbor for these aboriginese of the country; they have at last grounded without obtaining either. The only alternative is left them now that ought to have been followed forty years since, to make them a self-sustaining people. There is no authority in christendom, in the bible or in civil law, for leaving a human being to lead a savage animal life where he can be retrieved by a civil government.