Topeka — Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback has issued a proclamation apologizing to the American Indian tribes that occupied lands now within the state's borders, saying dealings with the tribes were too often marked by "a spirit of deception."
The Republican governor signed the apology Wednesday as part of Kansas' ongoing commemoration of its 150 years of statehood.
Brownback, a former U.S. senator, was behind a similar federal apology signed in 2010 by President Barack Obama.
Officials of the five tribes represented at Wednesday's ceremony say they accept the apology and hope it leads to greater cooperation with the state.
One tribe, the Kickapoo, is suing the state in federal court over water rights it says predate those claimed by Kansas.
Comments
geekin_topekan 5 years, 7 months ago
Sorry, my ars. Youd better break out that check book!
Enlightenment 5 years, 7 months ago
The "spirit of deception" is the same thing Brownback is doing with his behind the doors planning sessions.
devobrun 5 years, 7 months ago
Sorry, and $7 gets you a venti coffee at Starbucks.
Maddy Griffin 5 years, 7 months ago
You beat me to it!!
pace 5 years, 7 months ago
they deserved an apology and the state of Kansas should acknowledge that. I am glad the apology was made. I don't wish to negate the gesture just because I don't like the governor.
seriouscat 5 years, 7 months ago
+3
50YearResident 5 years, 7 months ago
I wonder when Sam will apologize to the people of Kansas for all the deception of his motovation to become the Govenor of Kansas.
Ron Holzwarth 5 years, 7 months ago
Reading some history might clarify a few things for you.
kawrivercrow 5 years, 7 months ago
This comment was removed by the site staff for violation of the usage agreement.
Lawrence Morgan 5 years, 7 months ago
Many of the comments here are ridiculous, and not funny. What the people of Kansas did to the tribes is still-evolving.
There is still racism, there is not much mixing of different kinds of people, and the tribes, as well, still have much to deal with.
The fact that the present governor signs this bill is not very important. It should have been done years ago.
OnionHead 5 years, 7 months ago
Thank you, kansasplains1, for the first words of wisdom on this topic.
squawkhawk 5 years, 7 months ago
+1000
Kat Christian 5 years, 7 months ago
They Federal Government needs to apologize by recinding all 20 Medals of Honor given to soldiers who were responsible for the cold-blooded murder of women and children and some men at Wounded Knee. Then and only then will the healing really begins.
squawkhawk 5 years, 7 months ago
Wow, either racism or stupidity is alive and well on this site. Maybe both.
funkdog1 5 years, 7 months ago
Stupidity is alive and well in all the world my friend. And it's a darn shame.
Mike Ford 5 years, 7 months ago
Firstly, the State of Kansas has repeatedly violated the Winters Doctrine which came from a US Supreme Court Case in 1908 dealing with water supply on the Milk River in Montana and the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine tribes being denied water by farmers diverting water from the tribe. The tribe's reservation and water rights predated Montana statehood. The water rights were part of a policy of practicing the arts of civilization which included farming. Both of these indigenous groups had farmed previously in their migrations west. The federal government had advocated the extermination of the buffalo and was pushing tribes to farm instead. The tribes couldn't farm without water and their water rights and reservation predated Montana statehood. The US Supreme Court ruled in the tribe's favor.
Mike Ford 5 years, 7 months ago
The Winters Doctrine applies to the Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas. After their Castor Hill Treaty in Missouri in 1824, they removed to a sizable reservation in Indian Territory (Kansas) in 1832. Their reservation extended from present day US 75 to the Missouri River above Atchison. After the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed in 1854, George Manypenny negotiated treaties of coerced land cessions with thirteen tribes in future Kansas and Nebraska ceding away 13 million of the 15 million acres of tribal land in eastern Kansas allowing Olathe, Lawrence, Topeka, Leavenworth, and Atchison to be founded on lands as soon as they were stolen. This is from the End of Indian Kansas 1854-1871 by William Unrau and Craig Miner. The Kickapoo tribe still has Missouri River water rights from the 1832 treaty but they ceded away the lands between Leavenworth and Atchison in 1854. Subsequently, another treaty for the Leavenworth, Pawnee, and Western Railroad in 1862, was basically a land grab for Agent Keith and Samuel Pomeroy who stole lands for railroads. This land grab caused some of the Kickapoo people to flee the agency corruption to go to Mexico where they still live as a recognized US tribe with dual citizenship between Mexico and Texas. This land grab took away the Plum Creek area where the Kickapoo people have been seeking potable water for their reservation which is at the mercy of the low water flow of the Delaware River. The Winters Doctrine applies to the Kickapoo Tribe because their reservation establishment predates Kansas statehood by 29 years and the local officials and the State of Kansas are culpable in denying the Kickapoo Tribe their right to practice the arts of civilization and potable water identical to the Winters Case. I confronted Jim Ryun about this a number of years ago at KU. He played the Republican dummy card and blamed the tribe. This is one of the many reasons why the State of Kansas should apologize for stealing the lands it exists on and doing a pretty good job until the 1990's of keeping average citizens of this state in the dark about this state's history of stealing Indian lands to exist. This info was written from memory of info studied concerning this case for a decade now. It was a project that Attorney Lance Burr pursued to get justice for the Kickapoo people. He introduced me to the WInters Doctrine. That's why I know about it.
Mike Ford 5 years, 7 months ago
Mr. Brownback should apologize for the actions of the squatters associations who terrorized the Miami Tribe off it's lands in the 1850's after the Kansas-Nebraska Act was passed. Parker, Kansas, was founded on these lands. All one has to do is check out the End of Indian Kansas 1854-1871, to learn about all of the crooked and murderous actions that led to the cession of Indian lands in Kansas which makes me wonder why there is any celebration of the 150th anniversary of this state. In 1825, the US Government treatied with the Kaw and Osage Nations for lands to put removed great lakes tribes on and for safe passage on the Santa Fe Trail. Between 1829 and 1849, The Delaware, Shawnee, Kickapoo, Citizen Band Potawatomi, Wea, Piankishaw, Peoria, Kaskaskia, Quapaw, Chippewa, Iowa, Sac and Fox of the Missouri River, Roche De Boeuf and Blanchards Fork Ottawa, Sac and Fox of the Mississippi River, Miami, Prairie Band Potawatomi, Wyandotte, Christian Munsee, and Otoe-Missouria peoples lived on reservations in Kansas. The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 brought on the wholesale theft of lands.
Mike Ford 5 years, 7 months ago
Mr. Brownback and the Kansas Congressional Delegation should support the congressional restoration of the Munsee or Christian Tribe of Indians In Kansas. This tribe currently based in Pomona, Kansas, is in the vicinity of their last federal reservation lands. They and the Swan Creek and Black Chippewas lived on a 2 mile wide by 6 mile long reservation between Ottawa and Pomona and Homewood, Kansas, established by an 1859 ratifed treaty. In 1864 and 1868, the State of Kansas and the US Government tried to terminate and citizenize the two tribes through treaty but was unsuccessful. At the same time, the Ottawa, Shawnee, Sac and Fox, Peoria, and Osage neighbors were all removed to Indian Territory lands taken from the Cherokee and Creek Nations for signing loyalty oaths to the Confederacy and Albert Pike and were required to enroll their former slaves as tribal citizens in 1866.
The Munsees were enumerated with the Great Nemaha Agency of the Current Four Tribes in Kansas from 1878 to their congressional termination of federal recognition in the 55th US Congress in 1897 that was finalized in November 1900. Munsee and Chippewa children along with Cheyenne and Arapaho children were the first students at Haskell Institute as documented in Mrs. Theresa Milk's book on Haskell Institute in 1884-85. The US Government used article six of the Dawes Allotment to citizenize the Chippewa and Munsee people between 1896 and 1900.
Mike Ford 5 years, 7 months ago
Currently, the Munsee or Christian Tribe of Indians still own lands within their former reservation and maintain a tribal cemetery that has existed since 1859 west of Ottawa. There are approximately 130 Munsee people in the vicinity of Ottawa, Pomona, and Williamsburg, Kansas with another 900 or so Munsee descendants throughout this country whose ancestors lived on that little reservation between Ottawa and Pomona. The Federal Acknowledgement Process (FAP) prohibits tribes that have been a target of congressional termination from going through the BIA to be recognized. Thus the Munsees should be restored by an act of the US Congress as descendants of people who attended numerous BIA boarding schools in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Nebraska. Their ancestors originially lived on Long Island and in the Hudson River Valley and were driven west by the Dutch invaders in the 17th century. The Munsees were converted to the Moravian or Bretheren faith in Pennsylvania in the 1750's by John Heckewelder and David Ziesberger. They fled west to Ohio after the French and Indian War and got caught up in the Revolutionary War in Ohio and were brutally massacred at Gnadenhutten, Ohio, in March, 1782. Ninety six men, women, and children were beaten to death by the Pennsylvania militia of Colonels Crawford and Williamson. An ancestor of many of the Pomona Munsee people, Israel Welapatchechen, was murdered there. Another Moravian convert, Gillelemend was a signer of the 1778 Delaware Treaty with the US, the first treaty between this country and a tribe. There is an almost 90 year old Munsee descendant of the man mentioned above who attended Haskell in 1937 and is still alive. Written apologies are meaningless.....do right by these Munsee people Mr. Brownback.
Mike Ford 5 years, 7 months ago
I wonder how dumb some of this countrie's citizens are....
Mike Ford 5 years, 7 months ago
actually this state was founded through Indian fraud rings that ripped off the US Government and the tribes by being the middleman for goods and services back then. The Centropolis Gang operated out of Centropolis, Kansas, through the Robideaux Dry Goods Store there and extended crazy unchecked credit to Sac and Fox tribal members whose only way to pay back the unregulated intentionally deceptive debt was by signing coerced treaties and ceding away lands between Centropolis, Quenemo, and Melvern, Kansas, leading to the removal of most of the Sac and Fox of the Mississippi River tribe in the late 1860's to an area around Stroud, Oklahoma. These Indian Rings were the Haliburtons of their day. Beyond that all of the early Kansas politicans were involved in speculating on Indian lands for railroads like the Leavenworth, Pawnee, and Western, Leavenworth, Lawrence, and Galveston, and the Union Pacific Eastern Division, all of which had people like Charles Robinson and Samuel Pomeroy doing double duty as politicians and land thieves. Read the End of Indian Kansas 1854-1871......all of this is in there.
Lawrence Morgan 5 years, 7 months ago
Tuschkahouma, this is fascinating and I am so glad you have put all this on the web. It should be a series of articles in itself! Thank you.
And by the way, where can I get the book, the End of Indian Kansas?
Ron Holzwarth 5 years, 7 months ago
Get on Ebay.com and put it in "saved search", and it's sure to show up sooner or later.
Hudson Luce 5 years, 7 months ago
And, while we're at it, there are 200,000 acres in Johnson County which were, by treaty in 1854, not to be "a part of any State or of the United States" but reserved as the sovereign territory of the Shawnee Tribe, which had been removed from the areas around Cincinnati, Ohio in 1825 and 1832. This treaty has never been abrogated by Congress. For more information, see http://www.unitedtribeofshawneeindians.org/ and http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1132384
Mike Ford 5 years, 7 months ago
Sometimes this book turns up used at Half Priced Books but It might be in the bookstore at the KU Union since it's a University of Kansas Press Book. They used to have a fairly good selection of indigenous books there but the kindle has done a number on printed books. Actually, it's probably at the Raven Bookstore downtown. You can always try Amazon or check out the copy at the Lawrence Public Library also. The Shawnee land streamfortyseven refers to is the land that was alloted after the 1854 Shawnee Treaty. Eudora, Lawrence, Tecumseh, and Topeka were all founded on Shawnee land. From an 1831 treaty the Shawnees were granted 1.8 million acres of land from the Missouri line to west of Topeka. There were three bands of Shawnee Indians. The Seneca-Shawnee people had gone to Indian Territory in the 1830's. The Loyal Shawnee were in this area affiliated with the United Methodist Church which manipulated them for land gains back then. The Absentee Shawnee went to Arkansas and Texas and went eventually to Indian Territory. The Loyal Shawnees took the brunt of the border ruffians from Missouri during Bleeding Kansas. The Shawnee leaders in this area were Long Tail, Blackbob, Joseph Parks, and Paschal FIsh. Charles Bluejacket was also in this area. The brother of the famed Muskoke-Shawnee leader Tecumseh, Tenskwataweh, or the Prophet, came to the Shawnee lands in Kansas after his brother died on Christian Munsee lands in Moraviantown, Ontario, fighting American forces during the War of 1812. Tenskwataweh's grave is now marked in the Argentine District in KCK by the Eastern Shawnee and Loyal Shawnee tribes. The Shawnees who took the 200,000 acres of allotments mostly left in the late 1860's with the exception of the ancestors of "Shawnee" Jim Oyler who lives on Shawnee Trust land operating a smoke shop on 83rd street east of De Soto, Kansas. Since the land was never alienated by the US Congress from his ancestors it's a small reservation. The concept of Indian Country legally came from the Kansas Indians case of the late 1860's in the US Supreme Court. Johnson County tried to tax Shawnee allotments and Charles BlueJacket opposed them and the case went all the way to the US Supreme Court when Mr. BlueJacket prevailed as his land was non taxable Indian land codified as Title 18, Section 1151, parts a,b, and c, or Indian Country legally defined. There's like 200 acres of Shawnee land in trust out of 1.8 million acres 150 years ago left. It looks like the civilized Christians left them with a crumb of land. America the Beautiful.
pace 5 years, 7 months ago
This could of been an opportunity to learn some of our Kansas history and about some of the cultures that make up Kansas. We learned more about racism than I expected. I am ashamed and a bit sickened. What a lousy conversation.
Mike Ford 5 years, 7 months ago
Racism is when an acquaintance and I were war whooped by Baker University students at probably the last mens basketball game scheduled between Haskell Indian Nations University and Baker University a couple of years ago in Baldwin City. Nothing like going to their basketball coach about this in the hallway at halftime especially since I attended Baker for a year two decades ago. It could've been worse.... I could've been at Arrowhead watching drunk non-Indians with face paint and headdresses doing the chop. I saw that protesting the Chiefs Redskins game a couple of years ago also.
Hudson Luce 5 years, 7 months ago
"Shawnee" Jim Oyler is the direct descendant of the Shawnee Indians, namely Newton McNeer and his wife, both full-blooded Shawnees, who were allowed by treaty to retain the 200,000 acres mentioned above. Oyler, with his extended family, is the sole Shawnee remaining on the land, and thus should be sovereign over the entire territory of 200,000 acres, the other remnants ("Loyal", "Absent". and Eastern Shawnee) having abandoned and relinquished their interest in the 200,000 acres through fraud, duress, rape, and outright murder by nightriders. Oyler and his family are the sole survivors in interest to the 200,000 acre sovereign territory delineated in the 1854 treaty.
Paul R Getto 5 years, 7 months ago
Won't be long before Muscular Sam will have apologize to all the women, the sick, the disabled, the lame and the desperate. His current policies are wreaking havoc on them now.
mloburgio 5 years, 7 months ago
Brownback and Abramoff Republican Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, who received $43,000
When the U.S. Interior Department rejected a $3 million grant in 2003 for an Indian-tribe client of lobbyist Jack Abramoff, the Indians doubled their political donations to Congress — and got their money’s worth.
A joint House-Senate committee agreed later that year to insert the grant in legislation funding the Interior Department for 2004. The Saginaw Chippewa tribe gave $556,730 to U.S. lawmakers in 2003-2004, up from $237,980 in the previous two years, and more than one-fifth went to 17 of the 30 committee members.
Burns received more money from Abramoff and his tribal clients than any other lawmaker between 2001 and 2004, taking in $136,500. Dorgan ranked fourth, with $54,000. Two other members of the conference committee were among the 10 biggest recipients: Republican Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, who received $43,000; and Republican Senator Thad Cochran of Mississippi, who got $37,000.
mloburgio 5 years, 7 months ago
Koch And Native-American Reservation Oil Theft
In the spring of 1989, a Special Committee on Investigations of the United States Senate’s Select Committee on Indian Affairs was formed to look into concerns that the path to tribal self-rule was impeded by fraud, corruption and mismanagement from all sides.
... Within a span of months, the Special Committee determined that “Koch [Oil] was engaged in systematic theft, stealing millions in Oklahoma alone.” BLM, even with a tip that Koch was behaving improperly, hadn’t done a thing. http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-news-section/69-69/5366-koch-brother-koch-industries-an-qorganized-crimeq-operation
Mike Ford 5 years, 7 months ago
I get nothing falsehope.....I'm a descendant below Miss Choctaw 1/2 blood quantum so you're full of nonsense as usual. Worked 14 years at a job caring about the society as a whole and not just myself. You just sound like an arguement baiting dumb american. Be as proud of your ignorance as the rest of your ilk are.
Mike Ford 5 years, 7 months ago
Jack Abramov still owes the Louisiana Coushatta tribe like $20 million as release terms from prison. Like any good republican he won't pay it back. Haley Barbour and Frank Wolf threatened then Interior leader Gale Norton with the loss of her job if the Schagticoke Tribe of Connecticut was fully recognized. Barbour worked with the law firm representing Kent, Connecticut that stole Schagticoke land over three centuries. Republicans are always dirty with hands in the till....right cato and snap????
Paul R Getto 5 years, 7 months ago
+1
bolshavik_vw 5 years, 7 months ago
His apoligy means as much as he does, ABSOUTLY NOTHING!
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