To the editor:

I’m pleased that there’s coverage on the Kickapoo water shortage that has occurred for many years now.

This is what’s not mentioned in that article: A U.S. Supreme Court case in 1908 established the principle known as the Winters Doctrine. The powers that be wanted the indigenous peoples of this country to practice European farming methods. This could not be done without an adequate water supply. More often than not, the water rights of tribes were established way before those of states.

For example, the water rights of the Kickapoo people were established upon their cession of lands in Missouri and acceptance of lands in Kansas in 1832. Their water rights predate Kansas water rights by 29 years. Yet they’ve been forced to cede over 85 percent of their reservation lands after the 1854 and 1862 treaties where settlers and railroads like the Atchison and Pikes Peak stole millions of acres of land from the Kickapoo people. Politicians like Samuel Pomeroy were complicit in stealing thousands of acres from the Kickapoo people. The 1862 treaty in particular took the lands now in question for the Plum Creek Reservoir.

It would be nice if the public would put aside the ignorance of indigenous history and federal law and obey the laws for once. After all, they’re supposedly the civilized race? It’s ironic that obeying the laws is such a problem for watershed districts, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, KDOT and Baker University, in indigenous issues arising all over northeast Kansas and dealing with natural resources.

Mike Ford,

Bonner Springs