The Kansas Territory, of course. The Great Plains had been the crossroads of nomadic tribes long before the Spanish explorer Francisco Vasquez de Coronado ventured into the region in 1541. Though Coronado never found Quivera's riches, he did cross paths with several native tribes, including the People of the South Wind (Kansa), the Wichita, and the Pawnee.
The Kansa, whose language was Siouan, had migrated west from the Ohio Valley. But no one knew when they had moved onto the plains and settled along the Kansas River. The migration of the Wichita and Pawnee tribes onto the Great Plains is also a mystery. But all three tribes shared a Caddoan ancestry and existed in relative peace. But that was about to change.
The deciding factors to convince the U.S. Government to relocate the Eastern Indians to the Kansas Territory were the findings of two noted explorers. Zebulon Pike reported in 1806 that the vast lands west of the great bend in the Missouri River were sandy deserts devoid of vegetation and unsuitable for cultivation. After exploring the same region in 1820, Major Stephan Long dubbed the Great Plains the Great American Desert. Unfit for human habitation.
But the U.S. Government concluded if the Kansa, Wichita, Pawnee and the newly migrated Osage tribe could exist on the Great Plains, then the Eastern tribes could adapt to it, too.
The relocation of thirty Indian tribes in the East began in 1825. The Kansa ceded their lands in the eastern part of the Kansas Territory and moved farther west up the river bearing their name. The Osage also signed a treaty, exchanging their lands around the Osage River for a strip of land near the Neosho River. With treaties drafted with the Western Indians, the U.S. Government cleared the land, between the Platte River in the Nebraska Territory and the Red River along the Texas border, of all white squatters. Still, the relocation of the Eastern Indians into the Kansas Territory lagged.
Forts were built to create a boundary between the United States and the new Indian Territory. Fort Gibson, established under the command of Colonel Matthew Arbuckle on April 20, 1824, was situated near the confluence of the Verdigris, Neosho and Arkansas Rivers. A month later, Major Alexander Cummings established Fort Towson six miles north of the Red River. On May 8, 1827, Colonel Henry Leavenworth established a fort in his name on the western banks of the Missouri River.
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