Kaw Mission

Kaw Mission (HMUAI)

Location: Council Grove, KS 66846 Morris County
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Country: United States of America
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N 38° 39.941', W 96° 29.612'

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Inscription

A School for the Kaws

"Great father, you white people treat us like a flock of turkeys. You chase us from one steam and then chase us to another stream and then to another stream. Soon you will chase us over the mountains and into the ocean
- Al-le-ga-wa-ho, Chief of the Kaws, 1872

"[The Kaw Mission School] averaged about thirty pupils, all boys. The branches taught were spelling, reading, writing, and arithmetic. None of them received instruction in the trades. The boys worked well on the farm."
- Teacher Thomas Huffaker, 1905

The Mission
In 1850, workers from the Shawnee Methodist Mission near Kansas City traveled 110 miles on the Santa Fe Trail to build this mission and boarding school for Kaw (Kansa) Indian boys. The mission opened in 1851, with funding from the U.S. government. However, the government reported that the operational costs were too high, and the school and mission closed in 1854.

The Kaws
This land was once part of Kaw and Osage homelands. In the early 1800s, the Kaws' domain extended well beyond today's state borders. By 1848, the federal government forced the Kaw people onto a twenty-mile-square reservation surrounding Council Grove. About 1,000 people, struggling with disease and starvation, lived in three nearby villages. In 1873, the remaining 600 Kaws were relocated to Indian Territory (Oklahoma).

By 1997, only one pure-blooded Kaw was alive. That year, the Kaw Nation, headquartered in Kaw City, Oklahoma, had 2,300 members. It is now stronger economically, politically, and socially than at any other time since the days of the Santa Fe Trail.

The State of Kansas was named for the Kaw (Kansa) tribe.

Details

HM Number	HMUAI
Series	This marker is part of the Santa Fe Trail series
Tags	Churches and Religion, Education, Native Americans, Settlements and Settlers
Placed By	National Park Service, City of Council Grove, and Kansas State Historical Society
Marker Condition	No reports yet
Date Added	Tuesday, October 14th, 2014 at 8:56am PDT -07:00

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Locationbig map

UTM (WGS84 Datum)	14S E 718072 N 4282659
Decimal Degrees	38.66568333, -96.49353333
Degrees and Decimal Minutes	N 38° 39.941', W 96° 29.612'
Degrees, Minutes and Seconds	38° 39' 56.46" N, 96° 29' 36.72" W
Driving Directions	Google Maps
Area Code(s)	620, 785
Closest Postal Address	At or near 456-506 N Mission St, Council Grove KS 66846, US
Alternative Maps	Google Maps, MapQuest, Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps, MSR Maps, OpenCycleMap, MyTopo Maps, OpenStreetMap