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The Peopling of Kansas

By
WALLACE ELDEN MILLER, A. B.

SOMETIME PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY AND ECONOMICS SOUTHWEST
KANSAS COLLEGE, WINFIELD, KANSAS.
HEAD OF GUILD HOUSE SOCIAL SETTLEMENT, COLUMBUS, OHIO.

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS
FOR THE
DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
JN THE
FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE,
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

COLUMBUS, OHIO
Press of Fred. J. Heer
1906

dp-Yk.-Ko

CONTENTS. PAGE
Chapter I — The Environment  5
Chapter II — The Effect of the Environment upon Mankind Liv
ing Within It  25
Chapter III — The Indian  28
Chapter IV — The Native White' American  40
Chapter V — The Europeans  63
Chapter VI — The Negroes  68
Chapter VII — ¦ Institutional Life  71
Chapter VIII — Aspects of the Social Mind  85
Chapter IX — • Impulsive Social Action  91
Appendix — Statistical tables — Nativity of Foreign-born by counties 95
Vita  134

(3)

CHAPTER I. THE ENVIRONMENT.
Previous to 1850, "The Great American Desert" was the
descriptive designation of the territory lying between the valley
of the Missouri river and the Gulf Coast Plain of Texas.
Little was known about this region, vast in extent. It was
known to be inhospitable to travelers, as the scarcity of water
made it an extremely hazardous undertaking even to attempt
to cross it. Great climatic extremes prevailed. In winter the
region was swept by blizzards from the northwest, in summer
hot parching winds and blinding dust storms arose from the
arid southwest. Furthermore the roving bands of red men that
made their home within the borders of the district resented with
murderous ferocity all efforts of the white men in the direction
of exploration and settlement. In consequence of these things,
unnumbered caravans of adventurers entered the so-called desert
never to return. In later times their whitened bones and those
of beasts of burden were found upon the prairie, evidences that
the travelers had succumbed to the rigors of nature, to thirst,
to starvation, to cold, to heat, or had been murdered in an Indian
attack. But with the discovery of gold in California in 1849 a
change in these conditions began to take place. Gold seeking
increased overland travel and traffic. The soldier and the trav
eler followed immediately, the former establishing forts and
the latter posts. The military stations especially became not
only places of rest and refuge, but of information regarding the
country. Ideas which had been confused and fragmentary were
set in order and clarified, and as the nature of the soil and
climate became better known to the home seeking people of the
states already organized, a population began to fill the country.
Territorial governments were erected and civilized society estab
lished itself. Until, now that fifty yeaxs have passed, every
part of this once wild region is either settled or the settle
ment of it is far advanced. Instead of being a desert it is a
rich agricultural area, capable of sustaining many millions of
people in a prosperous condition. (5)

6 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
Nearly all of the state of Kansas was included in the above
mentioned tract of country. That part which did not belong
to the Great American Desert lies in the immediate vicinity
of the Missouri river, whose sinuous course forms 150 miles
of the northeastern border of Kansas. It was this part of the
Missouri that formed the gate-way as it were, for entrance into
a seemingly boundless prairie region lying to westward.
The state begins on the 94th meridian and ends on the
102nd, being 430 miles in length from east to west. The breadth
of the state is 150 miles, lying between the 37th and the 40th
parallels north. The latitude is about that of Southern Virginia,
Southern Kentucky, the southern half of Missouri and central
California. The climate resembles that of the three former
localities. In the latitude of Kansas the rays of the sun fall upon the
earth at a high angle during more than half of the year. This
insures a higher average temperature than prevails in regions
receiving more obliquely the rays of the sun. The mean aver
age temperature of Texas is 66.3, of Oklahoma 60, of Kansas
;54.2, of Nebraska 48.7, of South Dakota, 44.6, of North Dakota
38.3. It will be observed that these states are in the same longi
tude west. The rays of the sun become less direct from Texas to
Dakota. Kansas being in the heart of the inland the action of the
sun is not interfered with by the climate upon the seas. Fogs
and mists do not invest the land as they do upon the seaboard.
Elevations of the land surface are so low that the influence of
the sun is evenly distributed, there being few disadvantages to
vegetation even upon a northern slope.
Interference with climatic equilibrium does come most often
from the Rocky mountains and the snow covered states to the
north. Against these is interposed no barrier such as a mountain
chain often forms elsewhere. But this interference is confined
to a short winter period and, while sudden, is as a rule short
lived, the atmosphere in which men, animals, and plants live
re-assuming quickly its accustomed balminess.
Kansas is often called "sunny." The description is usually
accepted as correct and arises from the large percentage of
clear days. From the subjoined table it will appear that but

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. I
one day out of each five is "cloudy." As might be expected
the summer months are less so, and yet in typical winter months
in but one out of three is the sky entirely obscured by clouds.
1899. Slij.li-tJf&tjJsJ
Clear  44 49 35 43 39 42 39 65 70 65 40 39 47.5
Partly cloudy.... 31 29 42 37 42 39 39 29 17 19 30 26 31.5
Cloudy  25 22 23 20 19 19 22 6 13 16 30 35 20.9
1900.
Clear  55 43 45 30 43 50 60 65 43 52 50 41 48.0
Partly cloudy.... 23 25 26 37 35 40 36 29 30 29 23 26 29.4
Cloudy  22 32 19 33 22 10 10 6 27 19 27 23 21.5
1901.
Clear  60 42 45 40 48 60 61 58 50 58 57 45 52.0
Partly cloudy.... 26 29 29 30 40 33 32 36 33 29 27 26 30.8
Cloudy  14 29 26 30 12 7 7 6 7 13 17 29 17.1
Kansas is a nearly treeless plain in the midst of a timber-
less region. Its physiographic environs on the west are the
Colorado foot hills of the Rocky mountains. The melting snows
of the Rocky mountains feed directly or indirectly the more
important of Kansas sivers. South of western Kansas lie great
stretches of uncultivated plain, each summer parched and dry,
whence arise the arid tendencies of southwest Kansas. South
of eastern Kansas lie the fertile farm lands of Oklahoma and
Indian Territories. The lead mining portions of Missouri and,
farther away, the Ozark Mountains are toward the southwest.
East of northern Kansas are the prairie farms of Missouri.
Nebraska, in many respects like Kansas with respect to land
surface, is upon the north.
Kansas contains no mountains. In fact, mountain forming
disturbances did not affect directly the state at any geologic
period. The surface emerged gradually from the mid-continent
sea which covered that part of the earth's surface in carboniferous
times. There was little lateral pressure to fold and crack the
surface in its plastic stage. Consequently, there are even now
few high hills. The land lies in long wave-like swells. The
sand hills which dot the southwestern counties point to the recent
retirement of the sea from that quarter.

8 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
Deposits of gypsum and salt, the result of the embayment
of ocean water, are evidences of oceanic origin as are also
vestiges of sea animal life, such as oyster shells. Since the
northeastern counties are the oldest land, emergence probably
proceeded from northeast toward the southwest.
The highest part of the state is upon the western border
where the elevation above sea level is about 3,600 feet — an
elevation which was effected by the disturbances which caused
the Rocky mountains. The point of least elevation is the mouth
of the Kansas river, which is 760 feet. Inasmuch as the general
course of the rivers of Kansas is southeastward, the earth's
surface of the Kansas region may be said to dip slightly to
that quarter. A "divide" or ridge winds across the state in
an east and west direction and serves to separate the waters of
the Kansas river drainage area from those of the Arkansas
river drainage area. As I shall point out later the ridge divides
the state into two parts that are distinct in climate, in industry,
and even in population.
The broad Missouri river, flowing along the eastern border
for 150 miles, is navigable at that part of its course by steam
boats of Mississippi river draught. It furnishes to Kansas an
outlet to the Mississippi and to the Gulf of Mexico. All the
Kansas rivers flow ultimately into the Missouri river and all
the waters falling upon the surface of Kansas are drained into
that stream, whence they find their way into the Mississippi and
the Gulf of Mexico. Thus Kansas is wholly a part of the Mis
souri drainage area, and all causes of a climatic character affect
ing either operate reciprocally on both. As I have indicated,
the Missouri river corner of the state was the gateway for the
entrance of the Anglo-Saxon population in 1855-60. It has been
ever since the center from which transportations, ideas, and
population have radiated.
The Kansas with its tributaries is a typical plains stream,
for it rises in the plains, flows across the plains, and ends in
the plains. Further, its drainage basin lies entirely within the
region of the "Great Plains." Having no mountain tributaries
it depends solely upon the rain which falls within its basin.
The mean annual precipitation varies from 40 inches about its
mouth to 10 inches about its source, the average being about

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 9
20 inches. The catchment area extending from eastern Colorado
to the Missouri is 485 miles long and nearly 200 miles wide at
the extreme points. This area is 61,440 square miles in extent,
of which 34,526 square miles are comprised in the state of
Kansas. The Solomon drains the north central counties of the state,
a large part of the river passing through the "short grass coun
try," in which cattle raising is the chief industry. There is
much rapidly drained upland about the Solomon. The drainage
area is not therefore, well adapted to cultivation, except along
the small streams and creeks where the black loam is very fertile.
The Solomon territory has never been thickly populated, and
only the hardiest and most industrious population has been able
to gain a foothold there.
The Republican river rises in Colorado, enters Kansas in
Cheyenne county, and after making a wide detour through
southern Nebraska re-enters Kansas in Jewell county. Along
its lower courses until it joins with the Smoky Hill to form
the Kansas the land is nearly all occupied with a population
which by hard work and frugality has made agriculture the
chief supporting industry. It is adapted to a thrifty, contented
agricultural people.
The Big Blue is a Nebraska river flowing directly south
along the western line of the ice invasion. Its territory is
well supplied with rain, being only about 100 miles from the
Missouri river, and more remote than the drainage area of any
other river from the aridity of the southwest. Its territory is
dotted with numerous villages and towns. The population is
relatively secure in its hold upon the environment.
In the central western counties we find the head waters
of the Saline and Smoky Hill rivers that have taken their names
from characteristics of the country through which they flow.
Along the Saline are extensive deposits of salt and gypsum,
some of which are commercially valuable. In the region about
the Smoky Hill a smoke-like haze envelopes the picturesque
low-browed hills, a haze that was formerly believed to arise
from the prairie fires that frequently swept that region, though
the phenomenon has survived the days of prairie fires. These
rivers drain the country as far south as the sand hills and

10 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
marshes north of the Arkansas. The waters of both are some
times brackish. Over their area the rainfall is from 10 to 20
inches annually. They flow through the heart of the cattle graz
ing country where there is but a sparse and relatively unstable
population. The Arkansas, the other great river of Kansas, differs widely
as a river from the Kansas in that it is a mountain-fed stream
having few tributaries, especially in its course through Kansas.
As in the case of the Red river on the south and the Platte
on the north the annual volume of water within its banks depends
upon the amount of snowfall about its source. Since much of
its course lies through an easily pervious soil, an abundance of
water in the channel results in the moistening of the earth for
several miles on either side, and a light snow fall during any
winter upon the Rocky mountain ranges in Colorado is followed
by a meagre flow of water after the melting of the snow in the
Spring time. A low stage of water in the Arkansas results in
a drier contiguous area not only because the floods are less
copious but also because less moisture seeps through to the
surface, there to attract atmospheric moisture when the latter
is essential to the growing and maturing crops. A full Arkansas
insures more frequent and more regular rains, and upon these
in turn depends the degree of prosperity that attends the indus
tries of society.
Though the Arkansas drains less of the state than does
the Kansas it is the more important river because it acts as
a barrier against the arid tendencies of the southwest. Behind
the Arkansas and dependent upon it, lie the farms and cities
of the northeastern half of the state.
The most important northern tributaries of the Arkansas
are the Pawnee river, Walnut creek, the Walnut, Verdigris,
and Neosho rivers. The first two are streams of minor import
ance, draining the southern border of the "short grass country."
They do not contain sufficient water to guarantee to the country
they drain a good economic condition. The Walnut, Verdigris,
and Neosho rivers constitute a system of drainage and water
supply that has been a basis for a degree of economic prosperity
that is surpassed only by the northeastern sixth of the state.

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 11
These rivers and the contributing streams flow through the
populous southern counties of eastern Kansas.
In the midst of the level wheat lands of Kingman, Sedgwick,
and Sumner counties flows the Ninneschah, a very winding stream
upon which borders an alluvial plain that supports a population
producing a great quantity of cereals.
The Cimmaron river, practically the only river of the south
west, — the sand hills region — rises beyond the boundaries of the
state, flows through Morton, Stevens, Grant, Seward, and Meade
counties, then following the boundary for about sixty miles turns
southward into Oklahoma. The country watered by the Cimma
ron is wild, arid, and sandy. Cultivation of the land is nearly
futile. The people of the Cimmaron region support themselves
by gypsum mining, stock raising, and a very uncertain agricul
ture. This river during the months of greatest heat sinks away
into a quicksand, though it may have been a short while previous
an overflowing flood. But the hard sandy nature of the soil
prevents its storing this water for a time of need. That there
is a most slender economic basis for society is proven by the
number of persons reported as living in 1900, in Morton county,
the extreme southwestern county of the state. The number was
3°4- The rainfall decreases from east to west, from 40 to 10
inches. In Kansas where the principal industry is agriculture, j
the density of population varies directly with the rainfall. The (I
easternmost third has sufficient to support a permanent society,
comparable with that found in Illinois or Ohio. In the middle
third where the rainfall is seldom more than 25 inches men
maintain themselves in smaller numbers by the exercise of
great energy and frugality, and at the cost of occasional suffer
ing. In the westernmost third, the semi-arid portion, occupa
tions are mostly pastoral and more acres are required for the
support of a given number of men than in any other part
of the state; in fact it is only by a wide extension of the use
of subterranean waters through irrigation that western Kansas
will become as habitable as eastern Kansas.
The soil, a fine, black, rich loam, has in it all the chemical
elements necessary for a vigorous growth of vegetation, there
being in it an abundance of decayed animal and vegetable mat-

12 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
ter. It is moreover, less unevenly distributed than in precipitous
regions. The soil is thinnest on the "Flint Hills" and on the
sandy wastes of the southwestern counties, but elsewhere the
depth is quite sufficient for plant life.
Limestone, especially of the magnesian variety, is found
near the surface, particularly in the eastern and southern counties.
It is suited to building and is quarried in considerable quan
tities for that purpose. Limestone fragments lie strewn over
1 the surface, and frequently must be cleared away before cul
tivation of the soil can be carried on. These loose stones are
used to build fences where they are sufficiently abundant.
There are few beds of gravel, the absence of which accounts
for the poor condition of rural highways. Vehicular traffic is
very difficult in the rainy winter season, interfering thus with
social and commercial intercourse.
The southeastern counties of Kansas are underlaid with a
fair quality of coal, which is profitably mined. In Cherokee
county is the "Cherokee" vein, north of that around Pittsburg
is the "upper Cherokee vein," then in order, Ft. Scott, Leaven
worth, Linn County, Cloud County, and Franklin County coal ;
at least twenty cities have coal mines in their vicinity.
Gypsum is found and milled for commerce in three prin
cipal districts : the upper valleys of the Saline and Smoky Hill
rivers, particularly in Wallace county ; near the Cimmaron river,
and near the junction of the Big Blue and the Little Blue
rivers. In Barber county it occurs as rock gypsum capping the
hills as does limestone in other counties. These mansard-like
hills are many of them precipitous, and overlook small canons.
Deposits of salt are found also in three districts, as follows :
south of the great bend of the Arkansas river ; in a tract of
the country, 35 miles by 80 miles, crossing the Republican, Sol
omon, and Saline rivers, in Mitchell, Lincoln, Republic, and
Cloud counties ; and in Reno county.
The Missouri lead and zinc fields extend into Kansas. But
the Kansas portion of this field is not extensive, perhaps not
more than 25 square miles. Empire City, Galena, Baxter
Springs, and Pleasanton are the lead and zinc mining cities,
located in the extreme southeastern part of the state.
Natural gas wells have been driven in Neosho, Wilson, Mont-

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 13
gomery, Allen, Franklin, Linn, Bourbon, and Miami counties,
all in central eastern Kansas and in the vicinity of the coal
measures. Wells yielding crude petroleum have been sunk into the
oil bearing sands found at great depth in the southeastern coun
ties. Oil territory and coal territory are nearly co-extensive.
Coal, gypsum, salt, lead, zinc, natural gas, and petroleum
have furnished scope for the speculation that is so common
a phenomenon with the founding of western society. Each one
of these minerals has upon discovery attracted a great crowd
of speculators, some of whom have continued to reside in the
vicinity of the deposit after the fever has passed with its con
sequent social disturbances.
There are no mountains, only high, rounded, and seldom
precipitous hills, and near the greater rivers are bluffs less than
a hundred feet high. Wide floor-like valleys lie along the rivers
and streams. The Kansas landscape is wanting in the noble
grandeur of a mountainous region, but on the other hand does
not give the impression of monotony as do the level prairies of
Illinois. "The counterpart of this region is not to be found in
the United States, yet there was a suggestion in it which puzzled
me considerably until I happened to recall some parts of France,
especially the valleys in the neighborhood of Epernay."*
No natural feature of the country offers an insurmountable
barrier to the freest communication, in fact it is possible to impro
vise a road at any place and in any direction. The wagon roads
lie east and west and north and south deviating not at all in
conformity to the surface of the country. Railroads usually
follow the shortest route between two given places.
The atmosphere is generally both pure and fresh. It is
cleansed by high winds that prevail almost daily so that humid
bodies do not rest for many days over Kansas as they do in
coast level or swampy regions. An invigorating quality is pre
sent in the air near the earth, due to the presence of a liberal
quantity of ozone which gives free scope to and stimulates the
vitality of men who breathe it. In its stimulating effects, Kan
sas air approximates mountain air.

Bayard Taylor.

14 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
The comparative absence of the bacilli of pulmonary affec
tion has been frequently noted by medical observers; it has in
fact been known to many who were seeking homes where this
danger would be as slight as possible. "Consumptives, persons
affected with asthma, and bronchial troubles seek these altitudes
(2,492 ft.) to receive relief, — which they gain if the ailment
is not too far advanced, "f People are occasionally met who
have remained in Kansas through a belief that to go to a less
dry climate would mean loss of health.
Further, the atmosphere is not contaminated by miasmic
swamps, there having been at any time no dense woodland of
great extent. There is not a peat-bog of 50 acres in Kansas.
Moreover, there is not sufficient stagnant water in any locality
to constitute a menace to health. "Ague, typho-malaria, and
bilious fevers, originally of a mild type, are becoming more so
each year."*
Living in the vicinity of Indian tribes, the Kansas population
is periodically exposed to whatever diseases of an epidemic char
acter that may prevail among them. Small-pox for example, is
endemic among the Indians, and annually spreads among the
white population of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, not only
endangering health, but also interfering with social activities.
Such institutions as schools and colleges must frequently sus
pend to prevent further ravages. Diseases that are common in
the lower Mississippi region and in Mexico are very likely to
affect Kansas ; of these cholera and yellow fever are illustrations.
This exposure to epidemics is due to similarity of climate,
continuous currents of air, easy, and, since railroads have come,
rapid, communication between southern peoples and Kansas
people. The most prevalent air currents are those flowing north
and south, the former being the more frequent of the two.
The wind from the south is diurnal in character; it arises
shortly after sunrise as a slowly moving body of air, becoming
by mid-day a gale, with a velocity of from 40 to 60 miles an
hour. Its temperature does not vary widely; it is usually cool,
but in summer occasionally becomes a hot wind. The dis-

fLive Stock Journal. Jan. 31st, 1888.
*A physician's letter, published in the Holton Tribune, 1884.

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 15
turbance does not commonly continue into the night. Ordinarily
a dead calm ensues at the close of a day that may have been
marked by the most furious wind. The force of this persistent
wind is sufficient to deflect permanently toward the north grow
ing branches ; it blows the soil away from sprouting grain, which
thus exposed dies; in summer dust storms are stirred up by it,
storms that are so great sometimes as to obscure the sun.
Everywhere over the unprotected country the wind sweeps during
half the days of the year, causing discomfort to men and frequent
pecuniary loss.
The steady northwind, blowing in winter, is usually cold,
but seldom as intensely cold as the blizzard bearing wind.
This north wind comes from the prairies of Nebraska and the
Dakotas. Aside from the discomfort to men and animals it
has little influence, for it blows in the winter when the economic
activities of an agricultural community are in suspension. In
summer this wind from the north often blows at night alter
nating with the above-mentioned south wind. This nocturnal
wind brings to animal life a relief from the tormenting wind
of the daytime. It reduces the asperities of the climate and
renders the habitat more comfortable to mankind.
Tornadoes, usually preceding a general cyclonic disturbance, ;
are less regular and more dangerous to life and property than
the north and south winds. The tornado, accompanied by
black clouds, which sometimes carry hailstones of great size,
usually originate in mid-air. Tihs circular storm, streaked
with incessant lightning, travels with great rapidity, dipping
at intervals to the surface of the earth and leaving devastation
and ruin in its path. Since there are no forests or high hills to
be encountered, the tornado often travels long distances before
wearing itself out. The features of the country provide the
inhabitant with no escape from its fury, except the shallow beds
that creeks have worn for themselves and where there is a
narrow belt of timber. Pits, called "cyclone cellars," have been
dug in the earth near dwellings in many places. These are not
so common as in early days. Annually crops are destroyed,
buildings torn asunder and razed, and people killed by these
tornadoes. The Kansas tornado has become generally known
as typical of the worst of its kind. It is not limited to any

16

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.

particular part of Kansas but is likely to occur at any place.
It comes more often in summer than at any other season.
However, with the growth of hedges along the boundaries of
cultivated fields, of groves of trees in the vicinity of farm
houses, and, now that prairie fires no longer occur, of timber
along the water courses, the tornado is less frequent on the
bare prairie than in pioneer days.
The blighting sirocco, of varying intensity, is a climatological
phenomenon peculiar to the southern plains, particularly to those
that have never been cultivated. This wind, much dreaded
because of its deadly effects upon vegetation is of local origin,
that is, it does not come directly, as was formerly supposed,
from the desert-like portions of Texas and Mexico, but a super
heated area within or near the borders of Kansas generates it.
The hot wind always arises after a long continued scarcity of
moisture, such as follows a low stage of water in the snow-
fed rivers, the Arkansas and the Platte. Its visitations, though
not wholly without warning, are as sudden and irregular as
those of the hail-bearing tornado. In duration, it is expected
to last from a few hours to about three days. June, July, August,
and September are the months in which this wind occurs.
From 1880 to 1890, inclusive, hot winds in Kansas were
reported as follows : *

Year.

Month.

Counties.

1880 

Rooks, Cowley.

1881 

July 

Cowley, Ottowa, Sheridan, Decatur,
Mitchell, Rooks, Smith, and Lincoln.
Norton, Phillips, Sheridan, Decatur,
Rawlins, Sedgwick, Douglas, Hodge
man, and Doniphan.

1882 

September ....
July 

1883 

Norton, Osborn, Rawlins, Rush, Lane,
Decatur, and Riley.
Marshall.

1886 

July 

August 

Shawnee.

* The Seventh Biennial Report of the State Board of Agriculture.
Kansas. Vol. XII, p. 164.

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.

17

Year.

Month.

Counties.

1887 

Marshall

July 

Morton, Atchison, Clark, Kingman,
Lincoln, Osborne, Dickinson, Butler,
Shawnee, and Stafford.

1888 

July 

1889 

Chase, Harper, Meade, McPherson,
Rice, Stafford, Marion, Reno, Sedg
wick, Harvey, and Kingman.
Kearney.Comanche, Garfield, Hodgeman, Grant,
Greeley, Decatur, Kearney, Lane,
Meade, Morton, Ness, S t a ff o r d,
Thomas, Trego, Wallace and Scott.
Cheyenne, Greeley, Decatur, Morris,
Morton, Rawlins, Sherman, Trego,
Wallace.
Morton, Rawlins, and Sherman.

July 
August 
September
Fierce storms of bitter, frosty wind, carrying fine blinding
snow, descend suddenly from the northwest, enveloping for days
those settlements situated in the northern two-thirds of the state.
A temperature of 74 F. above zero has fallen in 24 hours to
20 F. below zero. The moaning wind, appearing to blow from
all directions, drowns out all sounds and the powdery snow makes
it impossible to see 10 feet in advance. "Horsemen, lost, are
frozen to death in their saddles, men, benumbed at their work,
die suffocated before they can reach their homes, while the
shelterless cattle perish by the thousands. The historical bliz
zards of 1863, 1866, 1873, and 1888 were general, but the north
western third of the state is visited almost annually by one or
more."* Below is given a statement of the mean condition of the
weather during a twenty year period, from 1868 to 1888. The
point of observation was Lawrence, in the northeastern part of
the state, f
Mean barometer  29 . 108
Miles of wind  135,402
?Kansas Hist. Col., Vol. 7, p. 80.
t Kansas Academy of Science, Vol. XL
2
18 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
Number of fogs  12
Humidity  69.0
Mean cloudiness  44.12
Thunder storms  29
Rainy days  102
Snow (inches)  22.0
Rain (inches)  ,  35.10
Days between severe frosts  198
Zero days  9
Hot days above 90  40
Minimum temperature  12 . 9
Maximum temperature  100.5
Mean temperature  52 .25
Among the fauna of early Kansas the more important ani
mals were the American bison or buffalo, the wild horse, the
antelope, the beaver, the deer, the coyote, the wolf, the dog, the
prairie dog and the prairie chicken. Some of these animals still
live in the environment, while others, such as the buffalo, have
been exterminated or driven forth by the white men.
The plains of which Kansas was a part were a natural home
for the bison, for over their limitless area he could roam with
great freedom and in herds of many thousands. The short buf
falo grass upon which he subsisted grew everywhere as a perennial
supply of food, green in spring and summer and dry like hay in
Fall and Winter. The rivers and streams belonging to the Mis
souri river system furnished for the needs of the buffalo a suf
ficient water supply, and salt he found in the saline deposits of
Kansas and Nebraska. Furthermore the climate was so varied
that it was adapted to the habits of the buffalo, who in summer
could migrate to the vicinity of the Lake of the Woods, and in
winter back within the great bend of the Arkansas, sheltered from
the blizzards of the north. And finally, the comparatively level,
though rolling, prairies, practically without any forests in which
hunters might ambush themselves, rendered the movements of the
herds facile, and enabled them the better to escape any threatening
foe. The buffalo was to early Indians the primary food supply
and as such imparted a distinctive character to the customs and
institutions of the hordes of barbarous men that hung upon the
edges of the buffalo herds, migrating often with them from north
to south and from south to north. Without the buffalo the Indian

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 19
would have been compelled to turn to agriculture or to abandon
the environment. Herds of wild horses were found in Kansas by the early
settlers, particularly in Western Kansas. These horses probably
came from Spanish America whence, lost or stolen from their
captors, they came north into the Missouri region there to share
the habitat of the buffalo, and ultimately, as mounts for the
Indian hunters, to assist in the extinction of the buffalo. The set
tlers also found the "broncoes," as they came to be called, service
able as riding horses. The descendants of this mongrel horse are
used even to this day, by the cattle men of the plains.
The antelope, fleet and timid, was found by the early hunters
upon the plains often mingled in the buffalo herds. They too were
hunted for their flesh, but because of the difficulty in getting near
enough to reach them with the flight of an arrow the early Indians
could not depend upon them for food. With the advent of fire
arms the days of the antelope were numbered.
Particularly in northern Kansas along the smaller streams the
beaver were numerous. In one case they were sufficient in num- ,
ber to give their name to a stream. But the trapper seeking the'
commercially valuable pelt of the beaver has nearly exterminated :
the animal. The beaver dammed the tributaries of the Arkansas
and the Republican, and by so doing supplied to the grasses of the
neighborhood the moisture that made their growth certain. When
the white men came these areas were the most attractive to settle
ment. Along the larger streams where there were cane brakes
small numbers of deer were found. They seem to have been prac
tically undisturbed by the Indians, but the white men soon ex
terminated them.
The coyote, a dog-like animal with a gray coat specked with
black, was very common on the plains of Kansas, and is yet to be
found in the extreme western portions. In times of great hunger
the coyote was a terror to domestic animals which he would kill
for food. His prolonged and dismal howl was a familiar night
sound to the pioneer settlements. As a fur-bearing animal the
coyote had little value, hence his extermination did not proceed
as rapidly as in the case of more valuable animals. Since he is a
burrowing animal, wandering principally at night and very fleet

20 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
of foot besides, he is difficult to hunt. Since the buffalo is gone
he has not the food supply that the carcasses of the buffalo fur
nished him and since man protects his own domestic animals so
well, the supply of food is insufficient. Besides, cultivation of the
soil has interfered with the coyote's freedom to burrow at will.
The gray wolves when mad with hunger were a terror of the
Kansas plains, killing cattle and sheep and even threatening the
lives of men. They did not exist in such numbers as in the
extensive forests about the great lakes, but there was just suf
ficient timber along the streams in Kansas to furnish them a hid
ing place in the night time and enough animal life on the plains to
afford meat. The buffalo learned to fear him greatly.
The dog, frequently of large size, was domesticated by the
Indians long before the first white men visited Kansas, in the 16th
century. He was to the Indian a beast of burden, and as such
very useful to the nomadic tribes that had not yet learned to
what uses the horse might be put. The prehistoric dog was prob
ably a half-tamed wolf, an animal with which the Indian tribes
had long been familiar.
The prairie dog, a rodent living in burrows, was found in
the western portion of Kansas. He is a gregarious animal living
in communities, called "prairie-dog towns." These towns were
often many square miles in extent and were located near some
supply of subterranean water. Cultivation of the soil in the vi
cinity was out of the question, for these animals would not allow
grain to sprout, digging it out of the ground and eating it.
The feathered native fauna is determined in its general char
acteristics and numbers by the nature of the soil, by the climate,
and by the flora of the country. The species of birds probably
number at least 400, but of all these by far the greater number
are ground birds, of which the grouse or prairie-chicken is a well-
known specie. As has been pointed out there were few trees and
no extensive forests in Kansas. Consequently birds of flight did
not find as ready a home there as in a forest covered area. The
birds that have found a resting place in the Kansas environment
are the ground birds that can run as well as fly. Low-flying
birds are noticeably numerous, birds that not only do not rise far
above the ground but alight after a short flight, perhaps to run a
distance and then fly again. In the timber that fretted the creeks

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 21
there were a few of the larger birds, not more than a few droves
in any locality. They were soon killed by the settlers.
The flora of Kansas, it need scarcely be said, is that of the
plains. In a country so unprotected a great variety of trees, flow
ers, and grasses could not grow. Much of the state has been until
recently semi-arid, swept not only by hot winds and prairie fires
but by cold northern blasts that froze out all but the most hardy
grasses and plants.
While the tall broad-bladed grasses flourished beside the
streams, on the upland there is found only the short stemmed and
long rooted prairie grasses. These last are very hardy, and cap
able of surviving any extreme of temperature. Practically the
whole of Kansas except the sandy portions was covered formerly
with this kind of grass which the grass-eating mammals, such as
the buffalo, found very nutritious.
The trees that without the assistance of man found a home
upon Kansas soil, were the walnut, the oak, the cotton-wood, the
cedar, the elm, the hackberry, and the mulberry. There were, it
is true, other varieties, but these are the ones most often met with.
The native wood has never furnished the material for much '
of the house building of Kansas, for the trees were too small and
too few to serve any such purpose. For fuel the white races have
never relied to any extent upon the groves of trees, though there
was sufficient wood, mostly in decaying logs, to furnish material
for a camp fire and perhaps fuel for the beginnings of a small
settlement. The tinder-like grasses of the uplands were often
afire in summer time; so general did the conflagration become
that what tree growth may have gotten a start since the previous
prairie fire was burned to the ground. This accounts in some
measure for the entire absence of full-grown trees. In the shel
tered ravines the growth of young trees is vigorous. One practical
economic purpose served by the trees of Kansas has been as fence
posts for the wire fences that are so common. For this the cedar
was preferred until the supply was exhausted.
With the exception of a few widely scattered bushes and
trees bearing berries, the flora of Kansas added nothing to the
food supply of early civilized society. There were even few herbs
having medicinal qualities. The white races found it necessary to
import an entirely new flora or to draw upon the flora of other
regions.

22 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
The Rocky Mountain locust or "grass-hopper" is the insect
pest that has descended with disastrous results in 1874, 1875, and
1888. Growing crops were eaten to the roots by this ravenous
insect, and men and animals reduced to the verge of starvation.
For example, in 1875, of 529,845 Kansas people, 32,614 were in
need of food ; 8,077, of men's clothing ; 9,758, of women's cloth
ing; 16,472 of children's clothing; while forage was needed for
86,000 horses, many of which starved to death along with other
domestic animals.
The insect comes in enveloping clouds so dense as to obscure
the sun at mid-day. In a few hours devastation is complete and
cultivated areas are a desert, a conditon from which it requires
years to recover.
The country subject to the ravages of the locust embraces the
Manitoba region of Canada, Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas,
Nebraska, Colorado, Kansas, western Missouri, northern New
Mexico, Indian territory, and northern Texas.
Vast areas of unoccupied land more or less suited to agri
culture or grazing have always existed within the borders of
Kansas. This land, usually low-priced, has postponed the soli
darity of society for it has furnished an outlet for discontent, and
has been a permissive cause for the dislodgment of the unstable
and inconstant elements of society. To the imaginative, the specu
lative, and to the unsucessful, "moving out west" to start again
in a new neighborhood is attractive. Roving families called
"boomers," ever spending their savings in transporting themselves
in one or more covered wagons, or "prairie-schooners," are even to
the present seen along the rural highways. The unoccupied land
is one of the causes for this gypsy-like mode of living on the part
of a certain class. Another consequence of vacant land on the
border of every settlement is the looseness of governmental forms
and the experimental character of all institutions, governmental
included. Social and legislative coercion are almost certain to fail
of their object by resulting in the dislodgment of those who pro
test. Vacant, unkempt, and weed-grown land in cities is extensive,
often exceeding that built upon. It is a constant reminder of the
speculative hopes that have at some time pervaded society. They
are a discouragement to local pride.
The division of land is quadrangular, the lines of nature

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 23
having been entirely disregarded. This division was made by the
Federal government in advance of settlement, and individual pref- \
erence or convenience was given no scope for action, which phe- j
nomenon is exactly the opposite of that found in commonwealths
east of the Appalachian mountains.
There is a highway, either actual or projected, around every
section of 640 acres of land. All highways lie toward the car
dinal points of the compass, deviating not at all on account of any
eminence or other unevenness of the country. These highways
are seldom graded, being usually worn wagon tracks between two
lines of hedge rows. There is little gravel in the state and in
consequence the roads have little transported material on them.
Inasmuch as the drainage of the country is exceptionally good,
these soil or "dirt" roads are dry and hard save during the rainy
winter months, when they are well-nigh impassable. These thor
oughfares of black sticky mud extend even through the towns and
cities, although the larger cities and county seats have macadam
ized streets as far as they could afford.
The white races have done much in 50 years towards modi
fying the environment, thus rendering it more kindly to habita
tion by an agricultural and city building people.
Cultivation of the soil has loosened the surface so that mois
ture finds a more ready lodgment thereon. It does not evaporate
or flow away as rapidly as formerly, but is retained to assist in
the growth of plant life. New methods of agriculture, such as
"listering" corn rows have been devised to suit the peculiar nature
of the soil. Long-stemmed grasses such as alfalfa have been intro
duced; groves of fruit-bearing trees and shade trees have been
planted; hedge rows have been placed around cultivated fields;
all of which things not only help to retain moisture but break up
the force of surface currents of winds, furnishing a protection to
men and animals from the annoying aspects of the climate. Then
too, subterranean water has been brought to the surface by the
use of wind mills, or by artesian wells, and put to economic use
in keeping alive domesticated animals and in nourishing growing
crops. Hot winds, tornadoes, and drouths are less frequent be
cause of this work.
Territory adjacent to Kansas has been filled with settlers
who have likewise transformed their environment and this has
rendered the task in Kansas more easy.

24 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
Following in some cases the old trade routes overland, and
in others connecting as best they could the principal county seats,
the white races have built railroads of which there are forty-three
systems, covering in all 8,799 miles. Without these man's struggle
with nature would have been much prolonged, for they have
assisted him in bringing to his farm and town a supplementary
food and building supply, besides a new flora and fauna which is
being substituted for that which nature unassisted provided.
The more important additions made to the fauna of the state,
are horses, mules, cattle, sheep, swine, and tame fowls. To the
flora have been added wheat, corn, oats, rye, barley, buckwheat,
potatoes, beans, flax, cotton, hemp, tobacco, broom-corn, millet,
hungarian, sorghum, blue-grass, timothy and alfalfa.

CHAPTER II. THE EFFECT OF THE ENVIRONMENT
UPON MANKIND LIVING WITHIN IT.
The salient characteristics of the environment just described
may be summed up thus : it is an inland prairie far removed from
the oceans with their evaporation and violent storms, yet exposed
to other vicissitudes of climate due to a mountainous and often
snow covered region, and to vast, contiguous, and unwatered
land ; its climate is sunny ; it is nearly a level plain unprotected by
forests; the very great fertility found in eastern counties de
creases markedly toward the western and southwestern border;
its rivers are shallow and somewhat intermittent plains streams ;
salt, gypsum, and coal are its principal mineral deposits ; the at
mosphere is' pure and invigorating; it was subject especially in
remote times to exhausting extremes of temperature; its native
fauna furnished but a temporary supply of food and clothing ; its
flora required large additions for the subsistence of man; the
aspect of nature is upon the whole monotonous.
It is proper to inquire what the effect of the environment has
been upon the peopling process. Has it on the whole been an
attractive or repellent environment? And since it was peopled
has the nature of the climate, soil, and other features, operated
selectively upon the peoples who now make their home within the
state ?
The history of migration into Kansas furnishes abundant
proof that the climate, kindly and rigorous by turns, has helped
materially to determine the character of the society that has been
founded there. To battle with environmental difficulties develops
a hardy race not only by calling forth qualities of endurance but
by causing a sorting out of those who are unfit to survive. These
two processes of development and of sorting were especially
noticeable in the beginning, that is from 1854 to 1870, but their
workings have become less apparent as society and industry be
come established. In later years it is evident that the physical
environment has yielded to modification, to such an extent as to
render Kansas very like other nearby states.
The hardihood, endurance, and courage induced by the
(25)

26 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
climate communicated themselves to all phases of social life, and
the fact accounts for the moral fearlessness which Kansas people
have admired and displayed to a degree perhaps greater than any
where else. The whole of this effect can not be ascribed to climate,
since the political status of the State had much to do with deter
mining what sort of natures should seek Kansas as a home. Yet
climate has furnished the favoring medium in which fearlessness
of action has developed, has in fact accentuated that same fearless
ness. It is easy to see that men accustomed to death struggles
with the elements would not flinch when it came to expunging
their social life of some pernicious agency.
The fact that it is an inland prairie far removed from oceanic
evaporation explains in part the irregular supply of moisture
which has rendered economic prosperity precarious and permitted
recurrent extremes of heat which is most exhausting to animal
life and disastrous to plant life.
Social cohesion varies directly with the fertility of the soil.
As waves upon a rocky beach immigration has broken and re
ceded upon the barren foothills of western Kansas. No society
with any important differentiations can be built up there, though
repeated efforts have been made so to build it. Extensive plans
have been laid out but their ambitious formulators have been com
pelled to leave them unfinished and fly for their lives before a
storm, or a drouth. Western Kansas is still a sparsely settled
waste, since much of it is an unfertile sandy plain, whose shifting
surface is absolutely inhospitable to life in any form. Social life
is simple and bare and usually of a temporary character. There
has never been any surplus of energy to be devoted to the refine
ments of social life. A new flora will have to be imported, one
that will attract and hold moisture, before any of the less prom
ising parts can be reclaimed.
One writer* has observed that "Oppressed by the sedate mon
otony of the horizon, and tortured by the alternate hopes and
fears which such a climate excites, the prairie dweller becomes
sombre and grave in his conversation and demeanor. Upon that
illimitable expanse, and beneath that silent and cloudless sky,
mirth and levity are impossible. Meditation becomes habitual.
Fortitude and persistence succumb under the careless husbandry
induced by the generous soil."
* J. J. Ingalls.

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 27
"Nature furnishes farms ready made, and as we relinquish
without pain what we acquire without toil, the denizen has no
local attachments and daunted by slight obstacles, or discontented
by trivial discomforts, becomes migratory, and follows the coyote
and bison. The pure stimulus of the air brings his nerves into
unnatural sensitiveness and activity. His few diseases are brief
and fatal. Rapid evaporation absorbs the juices of his body, and
he becomes chacetic. Hospitality is formal."

CHAPTER III. THE INDIAN.
The Missouri river drainage area was occupied at the be
ginning of the historical period chiefly by the Siouan Indians,
though the Algonkian, Caddoan, Iroquoian, Kiowan, and Sho-
shonean stocks shared at various times the habitat. Especially
toward the end of Indian occupancy did the inhabiting stocks
become most numerous.
"The chief part of the Siouan area comprised a single body
covering most of the region of the Great Plains, stretching from
the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi, and from the Arkansas-
Red river divide nearly to the Saskatchewan, with an arm crossing
the Mississippi and extending to Lake Michigan. In addition
there were a few outlying bodies, the largest and eastermost bor
dering the Atlantic from Santee river nearly to Capes Lookout
and Hatteras, and skirting the Appalachian range northward to
the Potomac ; the next considerable area lay on the Gulf coast
about Pascagoula river and bay, stretching nearly from the Pearl
to the Mobile ; and there were one or two unimportant areas on
the Ohio river, which were temporarily occupied by small groups
of Siouan Indians during recent times."
"There is little possibility that the Siouan habitat as thus out
lined ran far into the prehistoric age. As already noted, the Siouan
Indians of the plains were undoubtedly descended from the Siouan
tribes of the east, (indeed the Mandan had a tradition to that
effect) ; and reason has been given for supposing that the an
cestors of the prairie hunters followed the straggling buffalo
through the cis-Mississippi forests into his normal trans-Mississip
pi habitat, and spread over his domain save as they were held in
check by alien huntsmen, chiefly of the war-like Caddoan and
Kiowan tribes ; and the buffalo itself was a geologically recent
— indeed essentially post-glacial — animal. Little, if any, definite
trace of Siouan occupancy has been found in the most recent pre
historic works of the Mississippi valley. On the whole it appears
probable that the prehistoric development of the Siouan stock
and habitat was exceptionally rapid, that the Siouan Indians were
a vigorous and virile people that arose quickly under the stimulus
of strong vitality, coupled with exceptionally favorable opportuni-
(28)

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.

29

ty, to a power and glory culminating about the time of discov
ery." *
It is impossible to do more than conjecture concerning the
number of Sioux living at any period even historic, in this ex
tensive habitat. But it is certain that the number fluctuated greatly
even during the ethnical supremacy of the stock, being often re
duced by war, famine, or pestilence. Bands and even tribes would
become nearly extinct after some visitation of death. But after
wards, in a generation perhaps, the decimated group, having been
recruited by adoption and strengthened by a high birth-rate, would
appear in a campaign greatly augmented in strength.
In the palmiest days of Indian supremacy there were probably
no more than 100,000 Sioux. In 1893 there were, it is estimated,
between 40,000 and 45,000 Indians of the Siouan stock in the
United States.
Within the limits of Kansas in 1853 there may have been as
many as 20,000 Indians of all stocks, the Sioux being in the major
ity. Below is given a tabular statement of the Indian tribes inhab
iting the country within a radius of about 400 miles of the location
of Kansas City. The data is derived from the U. S. Census of
1850, Intro., p xciv.

Tribes.

1825.

1853.

Location.

No.

1853.

No.

Missouri 
Missouri 
Ark. Ter. & Mo..
Ark. Ter. & Mo..
Ark. Ter 
Ark. Ter 

1,800
2,200 1,383 327
1,100
5,200 207
6,000 700

Ind. Ter. W
Not stated 
Not stated 
Ind. Ter. W
Ind. Ter. W
Ind. Ter. W
Ind Ter. W
Not stated 
Ind. Ter. W
Ind. Ter. W
Ind. Ter. W

1,132 475
note 2
151
437

4,941 100
note 3
314
1,375 55

8,000
* W. J. McGee in 15th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology,
pp. 186, 187.
1 15th Annual Report, Bureau of Ethnology, p. 168.
2 Numbered with Senecas, vid. Cencus of 1850.
3 Numbered with those of Georgia, vid. Census of 1850.
30

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.

Tribes.

1825.

1853.

Location.

No.

Location.

No.

Minn. Ter 

8,500

Ind. Ter. W 
165
Ottoes 
1,000
Ind. Ter. W 
Ind. Ter. W
Ind. Ter. W . . . .
1,300
4,500
Kiowas, Comanch
is, Pawnees and others... 1
20,000
It is best in studying the expansion of the Siouan tribes,
certainly from the valley of the Ohio and probably from the
Appalachian Mountains across the Mississippi and to the foot
hills of the Rocky Mountains, to keep in mind the American bison
or buffalo. The territory of the ancient Sioux was in part,
coextensive with the territory of the buffalo, which then ranged
even to the edge of the Atlantic coast plain. And it is certain
that the Sioux followed the buffalo westward, or at least drifted
westward as the easternmost boundary of the buffalo habitat
receded from the Appalachians toward the Mississippi. The
buffalo made it possible for the Sioux to spread out over the
plains. The buffalo furnished in himself three things most essential
to the growth of a people passing from the coast to the interior,
from a wooded country to a treeless plain, namely: food, cloth
ing, and shelter. His flesh was toothsome, his pelt was warmth-
giving, and his dried skin was good shelter for the home of man.
Given the buffalo herd human society needed little else. To
the natural or uncivilized group of primitive men it insured
rapid growth and, in this case, inland extension.
The bison was facile game, easily ambushed in a wooded
and hilly country like the Ohio valley, and upon the open prairie
quickly run down with the assistance of the horse. For a long
period the buffalo chase was carried on with bow and arrow,
the weapon with which the Indian attained great dexterity.
"The chief of the lower villages came to apprise us that the
THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 31
buffalo were near, and that his people were waiting for us to join
them in the chase. Capt. Clark with 15 men went out, and
found the Indians engaged in killing buffalo. The hunters,
mounted on horseback and armed with bows and arrows, encircle
the herd, and gradually drive them into a plain or an open
place fit for the movements of a horse; then riding in among
them, and singling out a buffalo, a female being preferred, go
as close as possible and wound her with arrows till they think
they have given her a mortal stroke, when they pursue another
until the quiver is exhausted. If, which rarely happens, the
wounded buffalo attack the hunter, he evades his blow by the
agility of his horse, which is trained for this combat with
great dexterity. When they have killed the requisite number
they collect the game, and the squaws and attendants come
tip and skin and dress the buffalo.*" '
Without the buffalo as game the growth of human society
would have been slow, indeed it is doubtful whether men could
have subsisted at all in the numbers they did. For no other
wild animal was as well suited to survival on the prairies where
there was so little protection from the rigors of nature and
the pursuit of the huntsman.
Again, we may believe that the buffalo contributed to the
virility of contemporaneous men. In their search for food the
barbarians of early America followed the line of least resistance.
Wild game was always, but not everywhere in the same degree,
an important element in the environment, and of all wild game
the buffalo played the most important role in the economy of
the aboriginal inhabitants. Furthermore his value for food,
clothing, and shelter, was probably known to all tribes except
those on the outermost points of the continent, since all of
Indian society was in some sort of touch with the buffalo habitat.
Fortunate, indeed, were the tribes that had a hunting ground
that contained the buffalo, for a relatively easy existence was
assured them. Their principal and almost only anxiety need
be to keep out all intruders. In this the buffalo was the occasion
for many an inter-tribal war, and confederacies often grew up
about him. The most valiant and best organized tribes were

* Journal of Lewis and Clark Expedition.

32 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
the only ones that could ultimately prevail; and the weaker
tribes were certain to be driven away from the buffalo herds,
or possibly enslaved. Warriors for the defence of the food sup
ply were indispensable members of society, and that tribe or
confederacy of tribes that had the largest number of brave,
virile men for fighters was destined to prevail longest. This
accounts for the vigor of the Siouan peoples who were re
nowned as warriors, and respected and feared in every alien
Indian lodge.
The most successful disputants with the Sioux of the
trans-Mississippi hunting ground were tribes of the Algonkian,
Caddoan, Iroquoian, and Kiowan stocks. Though these were
always in competition with the Sioux they never, so far as
history records, became dominant over them.
Before the advent of Europeans the Siouan Indians were
in possession of at least nine-tenths of the area now embraced
in the state of Kansas. The remaining tenth was in the extreme
western part, and was occupied by the Caddoan, Algonkian,
and Shoshonean tribes. The Sioux inhabited large parts, also,
of the following states : Manitoba, Montana, Wyoming, North
Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri,
Oklahoma, and a small part of Wisconsin.
Of the Siouan Indians there were eleven principal divisions,
given below :
I. Dakota-Assiniboin.
II. Cehiga ("people dwelling here").
1. Omaha ("up-stream people").
2. Ponka ("medicine").
3. Kwapa ("down-stream people").
4. Osage ("people").
5. Kansa or Kaw (referring to the winds).
III. we re ("people of this place").
1. Iowa ("dusty heads").
2. Oto ("Aphrodisian").
3. Missouri (exact meaning uncertain).
IV. Winnebago.
V. Mandan.
VI. Hidasta.
VII. Biloxi.
VIII. Monakan.
IX. Catawba.
X. Sara (extinct).
XL (?) Pedee (extinct).

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 33
Of these divisions the second and the third, the Cehiga and
the joiwe're were historically the first inhabitants of the Kansas
region and of the country immediately adjacent thereto.
The Cehiga tribes were originally one people, dwelling on
the Ohio and Wabash rivers. From this ancestral habitat,
they gradually migrated westward, probably keeping near the
buffalo herds and at the same time seeking an escape from
some stronger tribe. The first great separation took place at
the mouth of the Ohio, when those who went down the Mississippi
became the Omaha or "up-stream people." This separation
took place probably in the fifteenth century, since it preceded
De Soto's discovery of the Mississippi.
In their ascent of the Mississippi to the south of the Mis
souri and beyond, the Omaha successively left behind the Osage
and Kansa. From the mouth of the Missouri the main body sent
out to the northwestward war and hunting parties. Some of
these pioneer parties discovered the pipestone quarry which for
centuries was an important center of Indian interest, and the
larger part of the Omaha group were gradually drawn after
these exploring parties. After a time they came into contact with
ihe Yankton Indians living between the pipestone region and
the confluence of the Minnesota with the Mississippi. These last
drove them across the Big Sioux river. After this the Omaha
group gradually broke up, one part, the Ponka, pushing onward
into the Black Hills country, while the other part retaining the
original name, Omaha, gathered south of the Missouri between
the mouths of the Platte and the Niobrara. The latter separation
is believed to have taken place about the middle of the seven
teenth century.
Up to the coming of the white men the Omaha remained
within the great bend of the Missouri, their hunting ground
extending westward and southward from the mouth of the
Big Sioux, north of the Platte and north of the Elkhorn even as
far as Caddoan territory in southwestern Nebraska; and in 1766
Carver met their hunting parties on the Minnesota river.
When Lewis and Clark visited them in 1803 their number
had been reduced a few years previous by small-pox from
3,500 to 300. Subsequently they increased in numbers, and in
1890 their population was about 1,200.
3

34 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
There is little historical testimony as to the date and cir
cumstances of the separation of the Ponka from the Omaha.
Also, the matter is obscured by the fact that the name Ponka
appears in Indian annals before the probable time of separation,
the name being, according to Powell, an archaic designation
connected with the social organization and secret societies of the
Osage and Kansa. The separation did not occur before 1700.
Lewis and Clark found them nearly extinct, numbering only
about 200, small-pox having committed the same ravages among
them as among the Omaha. They recruited rapidly, however,
reaching 600 in 1829, 800 in 1842, while Dorsey found only 747
in 187 1.
The Ponka habitat extended from the Black Hills country
south to the head waters of the Niobrara. They were near
neighbors to the Omaha on the west.
The Osage and Kansa separated from the main body of
the Cehiga at the mouth of the Osage river. "Toward the
close of the eighteenth century the Osage and Kansa encountered
the Comanche and perhaps other Shoshonean peoples, and their
course was turned southward; and in 1817, according to Brown,
the Great Osage and the Little Osage were chiefly on Osage
and Arkansas rivers, in four villages. In 1829 Porter described
their country as beginning 25 miles west of the Missouri line
and running to the Mexican line of that date, being 50 miles
wide; and their number as 5,000. According to Schoolcraft
they numbered 3,758 in April, 1853, but this was after the removal
of an important branch known as "Blackdog's band" to a new
locality down the Verdigris river. In 1850 the Osage occupied
at least seven large villages, besides numerous small ones on the
Neosho and Verdigris rivers. In 1873, when visited by Dorsey,
they were gathered on their reservations in what is now Okla
homa. In 1890 they numbered 158."
"The Kansa remained with the 'up-stream' people in their
gradual ascent of the Missouri to the mouth of the Kaw or
Kansas river, when they diverged westward; but they soon
came in contact with inimical peoples, and, like the Osage,
were driven southward. The date of this divergence is not
fixed, but it must have been after 1723, when Bourgmont men
tioned a village of 'Quans' located on a small river flowing

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 35
northward thirty leagues above Kaw river, near the Missouri.
After the cession of Louisiana to the United States a treaty
was made with the Kansa Indians, who were then on Kaw
river, at the mouth of the Saline, having been forced back
from the Missouri by the Dakota; they then numbered about
1,500 and occupied about thirty earth lodges. In 1825 they
ceded their lands on the Missouri to the Government, retaining
a reservation on the Kaw, where they were constantly subjected
to attacks from the Pawnee and other tribes, through which
large numbers of their warriors were slain. In 1846 they again
ceded their lands and received a new reservation on the Neosho
river in Kansas. This was soon overrun by settlers, when
another reservation was assigned to them in Indian Territory,
near the Osage country. By 1890 their population was reduced
to 214."* De Soto met the Kwapa in 1541 on the Mississippi above
the mouth of the St. Francis, and, more than a hundred years
later, in 1673, when Markette made his map, they were still
partly east of the Mississippi. La Salle found them in three
villages. Latairie, in 1682, said they were known in early days
as the "Akansa" or Arkansa. This may have been about the
time of their migration westward from the Mississippi, since
Joutel, in 1687, located two of the villages on the Arkansas
while two yet remained on the Mississippi, one of the latter
being on the eastern side. In 1700 one authority, De l'lsle,
placed the principal "Acansa" village on the southern side of
the Arkansas river, and according to Gravier there were in
1701 five villages, the largest being highest on the Arkansas.
Our next record of them comes in 1805, when Sibley placed the
Arkansa in three villages on the southern side of the Arkansas
river. The Kwapa believed them to be the original proprietors
of the country bordering the Arkansas for 300 miles, as far as
the Osage country.
We have no information regarding the early numbers of
the tribe, but we are informed that in 1699 most of the tribe
died of small-pox. In 1829, according to Porter, they were
in the Caddo country, having partially affiliated with the Caddo
Indians, though of another stock. In 1877 the Government put
* Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, p. 193.

36 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
them upon their own reservation in northwestern Indian Terri
tory, but even from this they afterwards scattered chiefly, it
is said, into the country of the Osages. In 1890 they numbered
but 232. The Iowa, Oto, and Missouri Indian tribes occupied the
territory that is now immediately east and northeast of Kansas.
In general the Iowa country lay between the Mississippi and
the mouth of the Platte. In 1805, they dwelt on Des Moines
river forty miles above its mouth, and Pike found them in 1811
on Des Moines and Iowa rivers. In 1829 they were placed by
Porter, on the Little Platte some fifteen miles from the Missouri
line; about 1853, Schoolcraft located them on the Nemaha river,
near the mouth of which was their principal village. Finally,
while the country was being settled by the whites they were
assigned reservations which they still occupy in Kansas and
Oklahoma. In 1825 they numbered about 800. Fifteen years later the
tribe was greatly reduced by an epidemic of small-pox, and
subsequent to that lost heavily in war with the Dakota confed
eracy. Again in 1848 they were visited by small-pox, losing 100
warriors besides many women and children. In 1890 they num
bered 273.
The Oto asserted themselves to be the proprietors of the land
from their village to the mouth of the Platte, and also of the land
on both sides of the Missouri as far as the Big Nemaha. In 1673,
the French found them west of the Missouri between the fortieth
and forty-first parallels. In 1687, they were on the Osage
river, while Jeffreys, in 1761, described them as occupying the
southern bank of the Platte between its mouth and the Pawnee
territory. They occupied the same position in 1829. In 1833,
Catlin found the Oto and the Missouri together in the Pawnee
country, and in 1841, they were in four villages gathered on the
southern side of the Platte, a few miles above its mouth. In 1880,
the tribe divided, a part going to the Sac and Fox reservation in
Indian Territory, where they still remain. In 1882 the remaining
part, with a few Missouris, emigrated to Oklahoma, where in 1890
there were about 400.
In the first part of the eighteenth century the Missouri were
located about sixty leagues east of the Kansas on the river which

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 37
bears their name. They dwelt, probably, at first near the mouth
of the Missouri river and were gradually forced upstream by the
encroachments of other tribes such as the Sacs and Foxes. In
deed this inter-tribal warfare finally resulted in the dispersion of
the Missouri, when five of six lodges joined the Osage, while two
or three took refuge among the Kansa and most of the remainder
were absorbed by the Oto. Lewis and Clark found a part of the
tribe, about 300, south of the Platte in 1805. And in 1829 there
were less than a hundred survivors with the Oto, near whom they
lived on the Platte river until the removal of both to Indian Ter
ritory in 1882.1
The Spanish explorers of the sixteenth century also came in
contact with the Indians of the plains. Coronado in 1541, in
searching for the treasure cities of Cibola, lost his way and wan
dered, it is thought, as far as the Arkansas river in Kansas, and
possibly as far as the villages of Indians living on the Kansas.
He called the country "Quivera," and in writing to the King of
Spain, Charles V, he said: "The province of Quivera is 950
leagues from Mexico. Where I reached it it is in the fortieth de
gree. I remained twenty-five days in the province both to see
and explore the country. The people here are large. I had sev
eral Indians measured and found they were ten palms in height;
the women are well proportioned and their features are more like
the Moorish women than Indian. The people are as barbarous as
all those I have seen and passed before this ; they do not have
cloaks nor cotton of which to make them, but use the skins of the
cattle they kill, which they tan, because they are settled upon a
large river among these. They eat the raw flesh like the Querchos
and Teyas. There are not more than twenty-five villages in it (the
province of Quivera), and in all the rest I saw and know about.
They do not have any houses except of skin and sticks, and they
wander around with the cows. They are enemies of each other,
but are all the same sort of people, and these at Quivera have the
advantage in the houses they have and in planting corn. They
speak their own language in each village. They received me
peaceably." 2
2 1 am indebted for most of the facts relating to early Indian mi
grations to the Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, W.
J. McGee. 2 American History Leaflets.

38 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
The Indian population of ancient Kansas was exceedingly
sparse, the villages being often two and three and even ten days'
journeys apart. They lived in tribal villages; that is, each tribe
had its village and there were few if any aliens in any village,
though there may at any time have been refugees from war else
where. These villages consisted of a group of lodges or tepees, often
circular in form and built by bending together at the tops long
branches of trees stuck in the ground, and around this was thrown
a dried buffalo skin. In it lived those related to each other by
blood, by marriage, or by adoption. The government of the
family was patriarchal rather than matriarchal, though the mother
had much to say about the government of the family in the ab
sence of the father. The governmental head of the tribe, also,
was a man or chief, generally the oldest who possessed other
qualifications, such as great wisdom and renown in war. Tribes
often entered into alliances and confederacies with each other;
and, it may be believed that these alliances usually had for their
purpose some offensive or defensive operation. Confederacies did
not embrace those outside of a given linguistic stock. While the
tribal government was vested in a "chief," the religious ob
servances of which there were many, were in the care of a
"shaman." The "shaman" was as a rule a man, though the
office was occasionally held by women, who were more often
looked to for divinations. Incantations and charms were very
common among the Indians of Kansas, especially in connection
with bodily ills and imminent dangers. They had few herbal
remedies, perhaps fewer than most eastern tribes. And this ac
counts for the wide-spread devastation that death in some form
often worked. In their minds every malady was the manifesta
tion of power on the part of some inimical spirit, hence the
"shaman" or medicine man was most often appealed to.
Their religious ideas were animistic, and fetishes were very
common. The manifestation of nature were very impressive to
these barbarous tribes, some of them going even so far as to
worship the sun, though they often addressed their devotions to
other siderial bodies and to the things upon the earth that had
life or appeared to them to have life.
The culture of the Indians was of the most rudimentary kind.
They lived by the chase, a semi-nomadic life, and SO' long as the

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 39
buffalo was available the securing of food was an easy matter.
Rude forms of pictorial writing and decoration were in use among
them, and especially in the case of those tribes near the pipe stone
deposits where some attention was paid to the fashioning of useful
things from this quarry.
The chief industry of all the Kansas Indians was the buf
falo chase, although nearly all the villages had their adjacent
corn-field in which the women and old men worked. Agriculture
was only a secondary source of food supply, and as long as the
chase was profitable, there was little occasion for it to be other
wise. The causes of the decline and fall of the Indian people living
in Kansas were various, but two of them are doubtless more ele
mental than the others. One was the disappearance of the buffalo,
the other was the coming of the white race with its superior
organization. The Indian resisted valiantly but in vain. Well-nigh ex
terminated after a struggle that lasted about 30 years, as far as the
Indians of Kansas were concerned, the remnants of the tribes ac
cepted peace at the terms offered them. They are now living on
the reservations assigned them in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Indian
Territory. The residuum cf Indian occupancy in population consists of
2,130 Indians of all tribes, living almost wholly on government
reservations. Their numbers are thought to be diminishing, and
it is certain that amalgamation with the surrounding white races
has proceeded far. Indeed pure-blooded Indians are in the
minority. Indian names are found everywhere, Indian traditions are
still told at pioneer meetings and firesides, and Indian customs
and feasts have left scattered traces throughout the new society.
During pioneer days Indian modes of dress were reproduced to
some extent by the whites.

CHAPTER IV. THE NATIVE WHITE AMERICAN.
In the year 1790 there were few settlers west of the Appa
lachian Mountains. Some small settlements were located south
of the Ohio in what has since become known as the "Blue Grass
Region" of Kentucky. Also, a small Spanish trading post was
maintained on the site of St. Louis and was the westernmost
point to which European civilization had penetrated. The re
mainder of the west was the wild country of the Indians.
Ten years later population had spread from St. Louis down
the Mississippi, through on the eastern bank, to the mouth of the
Ohio. The territory was covered to the extent of not more than
six people to the square mile. A little settlement on the Wabash
had grown up, as had also, even to a greater extent, those on the
Miami ,the Cumberland, the Tennessee, the lower Mississippi,
the Mobile, and the Pearl rivers.
During the decade between 1800 and 18 10, that in which
Louisiana was purchased from the French, the incipient settle
ments of the west grew bolder and crossed the Mississippi both
at St. Louis and at New Orelans. Ohio, Kentucky, and Ten
nessee, having been partially filled up with enterprising home-
seekers, were now states. Apparently, it was a question of only
a brief time until, with footholds secured along the greater rivers
— the Ohio in particular — the Anglo-Saxon races would people
the sparsely occupied lands of the trans-Mississippi region.
By 1820 the Mississippi settlements had come, as it were,
within hailing distance of each other. Civilization at length
established communication between its advanced positions, St.
Louis and New Orleans. The country upon the Missouri from
the place where Kansas City now stands to the Mississippi began
to have a population. And people were settling along the Red
River for a hundred miles back from the Mississippi.
By the year 1830 the new population had filled up, though
sparsely, the eastern borders of the Kansas region. Here were
from 18 to 45 persons to the square mile. At the same time, in
the states formed out of the old Northwest Territory people from
the Atlantic seaboard states and from European countries were
taking up land about the upper courses of the rivers, the land upon
the lower courses having been occupied for a generation or more.
(40)

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 41
But, so great was the extent of the trans-Mississippi country
and so few were there, both desirous and capable of peopling it,,
that a score of years after 1825 was required to fill up and erect
into states the sections now known as Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri,
Arkansas, and Louisiana, the line of states touching the right
bank of the Mississippi. Arkansas was the last of these to become
a state, being admitted in 1836.
The above mentioned states having been given a good start in
population, the migration extended to the next line of states,
North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas. The latter,
however, attracted the largest share of attention during the middle
portion of the nineteenth century. This was because of the acute-
ness of the political conditons of the times. For, since Kansas was
a border state, being geographically connected with both the North
and the South, it became the prize for which both contended.
The strife — which greatly increased in bitterness after 1850 —
was for political and social supremacy. It became clear in the
later stages of the struggle that the supremacy would rest with
the faction that could extend itself farthest over the unorganized
southwestern domain. The northern people desired to determine
the character of the institutions, and particularly the system of
labor, whether free or slave, by filling Kansas with the friends of
freedom. While the Southern people expected by peopling the
state with the sympathizers with southern modes of social, po
litical, and economic action to secure to themselves an increment
of strength which would assist in maintaining southern society
as it then existed, and in extending it along the Mexican border
even to the Pacific ocean. Both sides proposed to put upon the
nearly vacant land a population. Consequently a race for terri
tory began.
Before the year 1800 but little was known of the Spanish
possessions beyond the Mississippi. Furnishing a home to many
herds of wild animals and a few tribes of barbarous men they
were untouched by civilization. But with the purchase by the
United States of Louisiana from France began a new era of
exploration and conquest. Into the interior of this region hun
ters and trappers began to penetrate, daring men accompanied by
a few soldiers conducted expeditions along its great rivers, and
a few hardy settlers found homes among its inhabitants. In the

42 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
course of time a profitable trade sprang up with the cities of
the Spanish Cession.
Other acquisitions were made from time to time after 1803.
Sometimes these were the results of war and- sometimes they
were acquired by purchase. And as knowledge of the resources
of the new possessions spread among the inhabitants of eastern
states settlers began to pour in. One after the other the new
commonwealths arose, of which Kansas was one.
Throughout the nineteenth century, the diffusion of popu
lation over western areas was at no time regular. The great
body of emigration was going now to the rich timber lands of
the Great Lakes region, then to the gold fields of the Rocky
Mountains, and at still other periods to the Dakotas, or to Iowa,
or Oklahoma. Nearly every western state, having enjoyed its
season of popularity, yields the foremost place to a newer state.
In the decade ending in 1800, Kentucky showed an increase far
in advance of any other state; from 1800 to 1810, Ohio and
Indiana led with a phenomenal increase; from 18 10 to 1820,
Indiana was first, with Illinois as a close second; by 1830 Mich
igan had become of leading interest, in fact continued thus until
1850, when it was superseded by Wisconsin and Iowa; and,
in 1854, Kansas became the goal of the majority of the enter
prising and opportunist settler-folk.
Before 1812 the routes of internal migration crossed each
other, but after that date they straightened out, running parallel
toward the west. Before 1812 many northeastern people moved
into what was then the southwest frontier, Tennessee and Mis
sissippi being settled by them. Indeed, the census of 1800 shows
that three southern states, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia,
had larger increases in population than any northern states.
The Northwest Territory too, was being peopled at the same
time, and its states were receiving a great number from the
south. One result of this interchange of population was the winnow
ing out from the southern population those who found the sys
tem of slavery repugnant. It may be believed that this sorting
process prepared the way for the growth of sectionalism of
later decades. Another result was the rise of northern dissatis
faction with the existence of slavery anywhere within the national
domain, for a wider range of facts, though possibly distorted,

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 43
came into the knowledge of northern people whose neighbors
or relatives had taken up a residence in slave territory. And,
whereas there had been little resentment at the north against
the southerners for their treatment of the negroes, a feeling of
conviction of the wrongfulness of slavery grew up as a result of
this interchange of population. The crossing of the lines of
internal migration brought out in relief, as it were, the discord
betweeen slavery and universal freedom, heated discussions arose,
and the two sections drifted apart, geographically and socially.
The violent severance of 1861 was a result of which the move
ments of population was one of the causes.
The parallelism of the migration routes after 1812 is indi
cated by the fact that people of northern nativity sought new
homes north of the Ohio river line, while people of southern
nativity were careful to keep south of this line. The northern
jeople avoided even the southern border states; for example the
proportion in 1850, was eleven of southern nativity to one of
northern, and in Kentucky it was twenty-five to one. The
disparity was even greater in the more remote southern states.
In North Carolina there were in 1850, two hundred and eighty-
eight southern born to one northern born.
Similarly, northern states show a preponderance of northern
born people. Massachusetts had for every white person born
in some southern state 414 born in the northern states, New
York 220, Ohio 12, Indiana 4, and Illinois 4.
Furthermore, for every two European immigrants received
by the south nineteen were received by the north, which fact
would indicate that the development of a distinctive type was
proceeding more rapidly then at the south, for there was not even
a large foreign element to modify the ideas there held. The
south therefore, having to expend less energy in assimilation had
more to expend in extension and development of the civili
zation in which they believed.
The active work of peopling Kansas with people from
the other states of the Union began in the Spring of 1854, at
the juncture when the experiment of "squatter sovereignty" was
about to be tried. This peopling has continued from that time
to the present, with the following results, which are taken from
the last five federal censuses.

44

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.

COMMONWEALTH NATIVITIES (EXCLUSIVE OF KANSAS
BORN) OF NATIVE WHITE PEOPLE.

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

Illinois 
Missouri 
Iowa 
Ohio 
Indiana 
Pennsylvania 
New York 
Kentucky 
Nebraska 
Wisconsin 
Virginia 
Michigan 
Tennessee 
West Virginia ....
Arkansas 
North Carolina . . .
Maryland 
Colorado 
Massachusetts
New Jersey 
Vermont 
Texas 
Minnesota 
Oklahoma 
Indian Territory . .
Maine! 
Connecticut 
California 
New Hampshire . .
Georgia 
South Dakota 
Mississippi 
Alabama 
Oregon 
Washington 
Louisiana 
New Mexico 
Delaware 
Rhode Island 
South Carolina . . .
Dist. of Columbia.
North Dakota
Montana 
Wyoming 
Utah 
Idaho 
Florida 
Arizona  > . .
Nevada 
Alaska 

9,945
11,356 4,008
11,617 9,9456,463 6,3316,556

1,3513,487 1,137
2,569

448
,234 620

,282 499 902 108 76

728650 30
466 179

128
240 2

114

35,45423,829 12,99038,00330,775 19,22018,52613,558 633
4,099
. 8,7634,2805,512
Note. 1,194
3,192 1,946 151
2,887 1,842
2,369 796 701

87
1,833 1,397 203
1,157 661

91
180
215 72

23

387550 98 11
310 65
302 363 330 181 17
35 6
208 12
24 2
31 2

106,670 53,740 55,84193,071 76,850
59,11142,70725,993 4,335
14,91213,49212,885 10,231 3,612
2,316 4.8674,217 627
5,3844,6174,914 1,593
2,775

330
3,5192,789 677
2,088 1,047

676751 198 48
482 102557608
515271 132144 517328 70 11
82

137,394 77,09166,030
116,176 97,794 61,92540,55532,563 11,01614,05815,33913,64211,728 6,580
2,624 5,0655,000 1,589
4,9864,597 4,526 2,1853,424 27
613
3,0342,360 924
1,735 1,119 200864814290 120
521228 566655525
332 354209 113126 86
101 47
121 5

113,264 93,15088,01587,912 75,11846,916
28,83925,725 18,904 11,646
10,81010,315 9,6586,452
4,382 3,9473,7563,6353,421 3,2513,1132,9882,913 2,6002,301
2,124 1,6441,2531,139 990 914 788 780
662
548517 446411391354275 274259250208 183129125 91 7

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 45
Aside from its early importance as a place for the determin
ation of political and social institutions — which attracted many
enthusiasts of an experimenting temperament — Kansas has
attracted settlers in large numbers from the outset of the peop
ling movement because of the abundance of low-priced home
stead land, because of the ample opportunity for city building,
because of the possibilities of speculation, because of relatively
easily won success of the professional class, and because of the
apparent salubrity of the climate. Possessing these character
istics Kansas became a stimulus to which many home-seekers
have responded, in particular from other commonwealths.
Except upon the eastern boundary, Kansas was surrounded
in 1850 by nearly empty territory, all population west of the
Mississippi being sparse at that date. To the west and south
the country was as yet unorganized and not regularly open to
settlement. Even Nebraska on the north had no population
to report, while Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas, — for peopling
purposes, practically contiguous on the east, — had, respectively,
per square mile, 3.77, 10.49, and 4-02 persons.
In the more remote states, those that helped most to furnish
a population to Kansas, the density of population was, in Illi
nois 13.37, m Indiana 29.24, in Ohio 49.55, in Kentucky 26.07,
in Tennessee 22.79, m Mississippi 12.86, in Pennsylvania 49.19,
in New York 65, and in Virginia 21.9.
The original Anglo-Saxon population, — for the American
born of that period may generally be designated as Anglo-
Saxon — was derived mainly from contiguous states and from
those connected with Kansas by waterways. Up to i860 natives
of Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois, migrated in great numbers to
Kansas, for from these three states wagon roads into Kansas
were direct and usually in good condition. The two-horse
wagon, with capacity for only a few household effects besides
the members of the emigrant party, was a means of transpor
tation often employed by those of very limited resources who
were willing to proceed slowly by day, camping along the
roadside at night. Even from states east of the Mississippi,
families and parties frequently traveled by this method, though
the river steamboat was more often patronized by those who
generally had more available money for passage than those

46 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
who lived nearer Kansas. People from the Ohio and lake
states and beyond, commonly made use of the river craft to
reach their destination. To such emigrants Pittsburg, Cincinnati,
St. Louis, Chicago, and Leavenworth were the main objective
points. The more important of these river routes converged at
the mouth of the Missouri, where also people who had traveled
thus far by rail or by wagon often took the steamer the rest
of the way. This waterway was in consequence much crowded
in the early days of Kansas settlement. The railroads of the
time shared in the work of carrying this traffic, but they were
quite incomplete, especially west of the Mississippi. This, coupled
with the fact that the pioneer had little money, while his time
was not valuable, threw most of the travel upon the wagon roads
and the rivers.
Trans-Appalachian people, home-seeking and opportunist
were exceedingly mobile. Still pioneer in character they re
sponded with readiness to the Kansas offer for economic better
ment, and, in order to make this economic betterment more
lasting, were prepared to form new communities and to build
new towns and cities. Consequently, when, in 1854, Kansas
was thrown open to colonization and settlement, the whole coun
try having been aroused upon the issue as to which system of
labor should prevail in the newly organized territory, the peopling
of Kansas became the question of the hour. And while the
response was general, it assumed greater volume in the northern
and western states, though the people of the southern states
were no less earnest in their desire to fill up the new territory.

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.

47

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Kansas Colonies — Concluded.

oo

Date.

Where From.

Where
Settled.

Number.

Men or
Women.

Leader.

Organizer.

Miscellaneous Facts.

Winter '56 and
'57 
Mar., '56 
May 2, '56 
Aug., '56 
Autumn '56 
Autumn '56 
Autumn '56 
'56 
'56 

Vermont

Timber Hills,
Doniphan Co..

"About 30"

Massachusetts . . .
and

Ala., Ga.
S. C...

Illinois (?)...
Massachusetts
Fremont, Ind..

Eastern Kansas . .
Lawrence (?)....

'About 400" .

200 2821

M o 1 i n e and
B 1 o o mington,
111 
Chicago 
New Haven,
Conn 

Turned back.

Wabaunsee Co.

Men ..

Men . .
Men . .
Men ..
"P e r_
sons"

W m . Hutch
ison 

W m . Hutch
ison 

Drs. Cutter
and Hoyt. ...

Vol. 7, p.
Vol. 7, p.

530.:

Maj. Jefferson
Buford 
Jas. Ridpath. .
Martin Stowell

Maj. Jef. Bu
ford 

Vol. 7, p. 527/

J. P. Wheeler

Hines

Beecher's Sharpe's Rifle
Bible Colony.

H
M M>-dW
O hjroo >
CO >
CO

'56 

Scattered from

Jos. A. Harvey

>».
Pennsylvania ....
Ohio 
76 started,
50 arrived
Summer '57 
Vol. 7, p. 117.*
Summer '57 
Wyandotte City. .
Vol. 7, p. 117.*
'58 
Milwaukee 
About 42
John B. Coffin.
'58 
300
'58 
30
Dr Weed. .
'58 
Chicago and St.
Louis 
Burlingame 
50 families
of Germans
Men and
'56 
"Co. Outing
for Kansas.''
Ohio and Indiana.
"Colony,'' Ander-
* Kansas Hist. Col.
HWwM
O f
V,O
Ow >
CO >
to
bO THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
To the people of the South, the attitude of the northern
people in the Kansas matter seemed to be an endangerment of
the economic and social system of the slave states, for the
solidarity of that system in the remoter South and in Missouri
depended upon the southernizing of Kansas. Furthermore, hav
ing won Missouri and peopled it, they looked upon all territory
immediately west of Missouri and south of its northern boun
dary as theirs rightfully. Consequently, for the North to avow
it as its purpose to settle Kansas with northern men and thus
northernize it seemed to southerners a meddling in affairs dis
tinctly southern. Finally the rumor gained headway through
the South that the North intended sending armed colonies to
take forcible possession of Kansas. These things stirred the
South to excited action.
In the columns of the newspapers and in public addresses
the colonization of Kansas by men of southern sympathies was
urged upon the South as a duty. This agitation resulted in the
forming of "Emigration Societies," "Blue Lodges," "Friendly
Societies," etc. Companies of men who promised to become
settlers were gathered together and money was raised by sub
scription to sustain them in the enterprise.
One of the best organized attempts made by the South was
that originated and led by Major Jefferson Buford, who gath
ered about 400 colonists in Alabama, Georgia, and South Caro
lina. The following broadside published Nov. 25, 1855, in the
"Spirit of the South", Eufala, Georgia, and copied by request
in southern newspapers explains the intentions of the organizer:
TO KANSAS EMIGRANTS.
"Who will go to Kansas? I wish to raise 300 industrious,
sober, discreet, reliable men capable of bearing arms, not prone
to use them wickedly or unnecessarily but willing to protect
their sections in every real emergency. I desire to start with
them for Kansas by Feb. 20th. To such I will guarantee the
donation of a homestead of 40 acres of first-rate land, a free
passage to Kansas, and the means of support for one year. To
ministers of the gospel, mechanics, and those with good military
or agricultural outfits, I will offer greater inducements. Besides
contributing $20,000 of my own means to this enterprise I expect

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 51
all those who know me and have confidence in me, and who
feel an interest in the cause to contribute as much as they are
able. I will give to each contributor my obligation that for
every $50 contributed I will within six months thereafter place
in Kansas one bona fide settler, able and willing to vote and fight,
if need be, for our section or in default of doing so, that I will
on demand refund the donations with interest from the day of
its receipt. I will keep an account of the obligations so issued,
and each successive one shall specify one emigrant more than its
immediate predecessor, — thus, No. 1 shall pledge me to take
one emigrant; No. 2, two; No. 3, three, etc., and if the state
makes a contribution it shall be divided into sums of fifty
dollars each and numbered accordingly.
"Here is your cheapest and surest chance to do something for
Kansas, — something toward holding against the free-soil hordes
that great Thermoplyae of southern institutions. In this great
day of darkness, nay, of extreme peril, there ought to be, there
needs must be, great individual self-sacrifice or they cannot be
maintained. If we cannot find many who are willing to incur
great individual loss in the common cause, if we cannot find
some crazy enough to peril even life in the deadly breach, then
it is not because individuals have grown more prudent and
wise, but because public virtue has decayed and we have already
become unequal to the successful defense of our rights."
The Buford colonists reached eastern Kansas after a tri
umphal progress through the south, during which the population
of the towns through which they passed turned out to receive
them, to present them with evidence of approval, and to cheer
them on. The colony did not long maintain its integrity after
reaching its destination, some of them returning to their homes,
while others remained in Kansas as adventurers, or as settlers
upon their own responsibility.
Another type of southern colonization schemes is exemplified
in the project of one Mr. Skinner, of Missouri. His plan was to
establish a plantation in Kansas. And in order to do this he
brought from Jackson county, Missouri, a colony composed of a
few families and some unmarried men. The men were to pre
empt claims and afterwards sell them to Mr. Skinner, the pre
emption laws making it impossible for one individual to appro-

52 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
priate more than one section. The Skinner colony remained for
some time, but the success, doubtful at best, was interfered with
by the triumph of the free-state cause.
A few planters, not members of any colony, came bringing
their slaves, but such property was too insecure to warrant any
general movement on the part of the southern planters, and those
that did come seldom remained long.
Many more, however, coming without slaves and bringing
their families with them became permanent settlers. These were
usually unrelated to any organized attempt at colonization, but
were parts of the westward home-seekers' movement. By i860
there were living in Kansas 82,889 persons who were born out
side of Kansas ; of these about one-third, or 2."], 277, came from
states regarded as southern, being slave states ; 90. 14 percent of
the southern contingent came from states on the northern border,
and it is highly probable that their going to Kansas had a motive
quite different from that which actuated the people in such as the
Buford colony. It was to seek free homes. From all the remoter
states of the south only 2,689 came to Kansas to remain beyond
i860. Missouri furnished more than a third of those of southern
nativity, or 11,356. This may be accounted for by the nearness of
Kansas to Missouri, by the Missourian familiarity with the re
sources of Kansas, and by a community of interest, thought by
the people of Missouri to exist between the two states.
The economic reason why the settlement of Kansas meant
much to the people of Missouri may be inferred from the follow
ing: "The emigration of Indian tribes from east of the Mississippi
river to the territory west of the Missouri opened the way to a
more or less permanent and growing market for the animals and
field products of western Missouri. The erection of agency and
mission buildings for the various tribes in the new settlements
greatly enlarged the local industries, and not only gave employ
ment to large numbers, but furnished markets for the products of
forests and fields and the introduction of new lines of industry.
Machinery came into vogue and the Missouri river became a
veritable highway. Money began to circulate, and it was possible
for the residents of the Missouri frontier to realize that new mar
kets had been established at their doors. Following the new
location of the Indian tribes came the establishment of the military

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 53
posts by the United States government ; and with these a greatly
enlarged market for all the products of a western Missouri farm,
so near at hand as to save excessive transportation charges. The
extra demand for transportation of animals, oxen, horses and
mules, created almost a new industry, hastened migrations, and
enlarged the area of cultivated land. The construction of build
ings, and furnishings at the government posts stimulated industry
in all directions, and gave to slave labor a new value. Following
these things came the war with Mexico and the opening up of the
fur trade with the territories recently acquired, as the result of
this war. Western Missouri now became the very center of a
commercial activity unknown elsewhere in the west. Every farm,
large or small, bristled with new activity. Every bushel of grain
and every animal found a ready and profitable market with the
recently developed demands."
In 1870 there were 61,052 persons living in Kansas who were
born in the southern states ; of these Missouri sent nearly half, or
23,829. Those southern states lying upon or near the Ohio-
Mississippi river system were the ones that contributed more than
the southern states in the heart of the cotton belt. The Civil War
was naturally a great interruption to movements of home-seekers,
but after that was over southern men again took up their part in
the work of peopling Kansas in response to the superior economic
advantages offered.
In the total of southern born in Kansas in 1880, we find that
the economic paralysis that followed the close of the Civil War
resulted in the dislodgment of large numbers. There were in
Kansas in 1880,- 123,602 persons of southern birth, of whom more
than 100,000 came from Missouri, Kentucky, Virginia, and Ten
nessee. It is likely that many left their native states because of
the social friction that grew up as the result of the embitterment
of the .South, for it is well known that there were many Union
sympathizers, particularly in the states in the vicinity of the Cum
berland mountains. They saw in Kansas, which possessed a simi
lar climate to that in which they had been reared, which offered
cheap homes, and which was committed to the kind of institutions
they had hoped to see established in their own states, a new home
in every way commendable.
In the ten years from 1880 to 1890 Kansas drew more largely
from such southern states as Georgia, though the increase from

54 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
the Cumberland mountain states was very considerable. The total
for 1890 was 116,119, a figure which received little increase up to
1900. Southern immigration of white people has scarcely held
its own since 1890. While before 1890 the chances, largely specu
lative, were very favorable to new comers, after that date, the
available resources having been thoroughly exploited, and the
city-building, railroad-building period having come to an end, the
inducements to settle in Kansas were displaced by the attractive
ness taken on by other states or territories.
Going back to 1854, it may be said that northern migration
is accounted for by the great desire of the freeholder for a landed
estate of his own, however small ; by the diminishing of oppor
tunities for gaining easily a living and a competence ; and by the
crowding of the population due in part to great natural increase
and to the influx of European immigrants. Coupled with these
was the well advertised suitability of Kansas for the accomplish
ment of the economic prosperity to which the people of the country
were devoted. Furthermore, in the earliest days, and with a few,
the sentimental interest in the establishment of "free institutions"
was an influential factor in the peopling of Kansas.
In the early northern migration there were military-political
colonies, economic colonies sometimes having political intentions,
family groups, groups of neighbors, and independent individuals.
Some of the migration in groups, and by far the least im
portant as far as numbers are concerned, was the result of agita
tion throughout the north. In Kansas in territorial days there
was some violence and many threats of violence, a phenomenon
quite commonly observed in a frontier community. But the junc
ture of political events had focused the attention of the country
at large upon the happenings of Kansas. The improvements of
the printing-press and the establishment of telegraph lines and
railroads had developed the newspapers of the country and facili
tated the transmission of intelligence to an extent quite unprece
dented in the United States. Kansas was the first new, large field
for the exercise of these new powers upon a national scale, and the
news agencies made the most of their opportunity, with the result
that Kansas gained a wider notoriety than any other western state
has done. The public mind was kept in a continual foment for
about six years after the opening of the Territory to settlement.
The "Kansas refugee" was brought forward to tell his experi-

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.

55

ences with "Border Ruffianism," the "eye-witness" sent accounts
of what he saw, thought he saw, or wished to see; members of
the national legislature delivered long and impassioned oration
on the "Kansas struggle," and the spectacle of "bleeding Kansas"
was held up before the country to be gazed upon.
Ambitious politicians took advantage of this state of affairs
to further some essentially political ends. The military-political
colonies that sprang up in many places, some of them destined
never to reach Kansas, were a result of this political activity. Of
these J. H. Lane's "Army," gathered up in Indiana, Illinois, and
Iowa, was an example. The members of such a "colony" were
at best, adventurers, few of whom became permanent settlers.
Such movements probably kept away more people than they con
tributed to the population of Kansas, for they helped to create an
atmosphere of strife and uncertainty which the bona fide settler
dreads. The economic colony, often having a political aspect, was .a
more common mode of peopling Kansas and generally effective.
It possessed the advantage of insuring the colonist against econo
mic misfortune and personal danger. The originator of this form
of colonization was Mr. Eli Thayer, of Worcester, Mass. Mr.
Thayer traveled through New England, New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, and Ohio, during the years following the entrance
of his first colony into Kansas in the Spring of 1855, speaking in
furtherance of his plans and forming local as well as national Kan
sas committees. These committees furnished colonists for Kansas
from all parts of the country. Mr. Thayer assisted in organizing
the New England Emigrant Aid Company, which sent out alto
gether about 585 persons, mainly residents of Massachusetts. The
first party left Boston March 13th, 1855, the second on the 24th
of the same month, and the third on the 27th. On April 10th and
17th the third and fourth parties were dispatched, while some
small parties went from April to July.
The Thayer plan of "business anti-slavery" was outlined in
a prospectus of the New England Emigrant Aid Co. as follows :
"The emigrant suffers whenever he goes alone into his new home.
He suffers from the fraud of others, and from his own ignorance
of the system of travel and of the country where he settles ; and
again, from his want of support from neighbors, which results in

56 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
the impossibility of combined assistance or of any division of
labor. "The Emigrant Aid Co. will relieve him from all these em
barrassments, by sending out emigrants in companies and estab
lishing them in considerable numbers. The Company proposes
to carry them to their homes more cheaply than they could other
wise go, to enable them to establish themselves with the least in
convenience, and to provide the most important prime necessities
of the new colonies. It will provide shelter and food at the lowest
prices after the arrival of the emigrants, while they make the
arrangements necessary for their new home ; it will render all the
assistance that the information of its agents can give; and by
establishing emigrants in large numbers in the territory, it will
give them the power of using at once those social influences that
radiate from the church, the school, and the press. For these pur
poses it is recommended :
"First, that the directors contract immediately with some of
the competing lines of travel, for the conveyance of 20,000 persons
of Massachusetts to that place in the west which the directors
shall select for their first settlement. It is believed that passage
can be obtained in so large a contract for half the price paid by
individuals. We recommend that emigrants receive the full ad
vantage of diminution of price and that they be forwarded in
companies of 200, as they apply, at these reduced rates of travel.
"Second, that at such points as the directors select for places
of settlement, they shall at once construct a boarding house and a
receiving house in which 300 persons should receive temporary
accommodation on their arrival, and that the number of such
houses shall be enlarged as necessity shall dictate. The new
comers and their families will thus be provided for in the necessary
interval which elapses while they are making their selection of a
location. "Third, that the directors procure and send forward steam
saw-mills, grist-mills, and other such machines as shall be of
service in a new settlement, which can not, however, be purchased
or carried out conveniently by individual settlers. These ma
chines may be leased or run by the Company's agents. At the
same time it is desirable that a printing press be sent out and a
weekly newspaper established. This would be the organ of the
Company's agents, would extend information regarding its settle-

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 57
ment and would be from the very first an index of that love of
freedom and good morals which, it is to be hoped, may charac
terize the state now to be formed.
"Fourth, that the Company's agents locate and take up for the
Company's benefit, the sections of land in which boarding houses
and mills are located, and no others ; and further, that whenever
the territory shall be organized as a free state the directors shall
dispose of all its interests there, replace by its sales the money
laid out, and declare a dividend to the stock-holders.
"Fifth, that they may then select a new field and make similar
arrangements for the settlement and organization of another free
state of this union."
Imitations of the New England plan sprang up throughout
the North. Many colonists went to Kansas in organizations such
as that founded by Mr. Thayer and his associates, though sustain
ing no organic connection with it. The response of the North was
spontaneous and quite independent of what any particular group
of promoters did in the matter. However, the New England Emi
grant Aid Company having been capitalized at $5,000,000, besides
many other similar companies with a combined capitalization of
many millions more, the impression went abroad that a great deal
of money was about to be expended in the development of the
state, by founding towns, setting up mills, building school houses
and churches, etc. Many settlers were thus influenced to go to
Kansas, though they did so of their own volition and without the
assistance of the Emigrant Company.
Families and groups of neighbors from the beginning formed
by far the largest and most important part of Kansas emigration.
These small sympathetic groups, comprising not more than a few
families or heads of families, were not participants in any crusade,
neither" did they proceed under the espionage of a land company,
but were simply home-seekers on their own account. Again and
again in personal narratives it is revealed that the idea of emi
grating originated with someone whose occupation yielded him but
a marginal return. Possessed of a strong individuality and being
of an enterprising, active, and perhaps adventurous disposition,
such a one would visit the new territory, be impressed by the
favorable opportunities there presented, and decide to avail him
self of them; upon his return home to arrange for removal to
the new field he would seek, generally with success, to interest a

58 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
congenial relative or neighbor. Shortly a small group, mutually
helpful and bound by the ties of kinship and neighborliness, or
perhaps of a common religious belief, would set out on its long
wagon or steamboat journey.
The following three narratives may be regarded as illustrative
of typical immigration into Kansas.
I. "I started for Kansas in February, 1857, from Daven
port, Iowa, in company with three brothers, one being married
and one sister of theirs, all from Nova Scotia."
2. "In the month of October, 1854, Eli Wilson, Benajah W.
Hiatt, and myself met at Richmond, Ind., at the Friends' yearly
meeting, and agreed to go west and examine these new territories,
which had been open for settlement for only a few months.
In the early Spring of 1855, Benajah W. Hiatt and myself,
having sold our farm in eastern Indiana, made preparation
for removal to the new western territory, leaving our families
behind us until we could make locations to suit us, and proceeded
by way of Indianapolis to New Albany on the Ohio river, where
we took passage on the Ohio river steamer for St. Louis. Eli
Wilson's wife and a portion of his family went with us, he
having with some of his boys, gone some time previous for the
purpose of putting in crops on lands rented of the Shawnee
Indians near Friends' missions, expecting to make location with
us when we found one that seemed suitable.
"We finally found a section of well- watered country, inter
spersed with groves of timber, and open unclaimed prairie land,
sufficient to form a large settlement, just west of Big Stranger
Creek, and lying between Fall and Walnut Creeks, some four
miles apart and from twelve to eighteen miles from the fort
or city. "The spring and summer soon passed; and after planting
sod-corn, sowing wheat, and building two cabins on the prairie
on our quarter sections, we left our claims in the care of friends,
and returned to eastern Indiana for our families. Our friend, Eli
Wilson, had removed his family during the course of the summer,
and was living on his claim adjoining ours. Also his married
sons, James and John Wilson, had arrived before us from Indiana,
and were settled on their land, and we began to have quite a
company of Friends about us.

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 59
"Benajah Hiatt moved into his cabin on the prairie; and
early in the spring Vierling K. -Stanley, a young man of our
acquaintance from Indiana, coming in, we employed him for
a teacher, and our first school, — probably one of the first
north of the Kansas river away from the principal towns, —
was opened in the cabin in the timber.
"Col. Walker went to Kansas about the time we did, with
the Barbers and others from New Paris, Ohio, only six miles
from Richmond. Jake and Joe Sinex, sons of Capt. Sinex,
were also from Richmond and I had known them from boyhood.
Uncle Charles Dickenson, George Dickenson, and Thomas Newby,
with their families, removed from Richmond and made locations
in the spring with us.
"With the Spring of this year, 1856, came many more of
our friends, — Henry Worthington and wife — the latter after
ward taught school for us, — Jesse D. Hiatt and wife, — young
married folks, — Moses Harvey and family, Willis Robards who
married Rachel Bales, — now Rachel Woodward. These all
settled pretty close together, near the head of Fall Creek. John
and Asenath Kenyon with their families also came this year.
More friends came in 1859, among them Anthony Way and
family — his wife and daughter died soon after coming — Ansel
Rogers, an old and able minister of the Gospel, with his family
and married sons, also settled with us. Lydia Butler, now
Hinshaw, came back with me on my return in i860."
3. Mr. F — talked freely of his early days. He first came to
Kansas in the late summer of 1873. He then sought out a
brother-in-law who lived at Holton, Jackson County. He had
come in response to the urging of his sons, just growing into
manhood, and of his wife, who was anxious that their sons
should have a bettter chance than that furnished in the Indiana
neighborhood. Mr. F — said, "The boys thought they would
like to try a new country, and my wife, too, wanted to come.
We had a farm in Indiana of 140 acres, but the land was worn
out. We could make a living on it, but that was about all.
Our place was four miles from the railroad and back from
the main wagon road. I had tried to sell out but nobody
wanted to buy that kind of land. While I was gone to Kansas
with a view to finding a suitable place to settle, the boys had

60 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
put up a sign at the main wagon road, "Farm for Sale". A
man in our town who had some land in Kansas saw the sign and
as he wished to get rid of his western land, called to see me on
my return. His land had no improvements at all, was near a
railroad, and was composed entirely of unbroken prairie bottom.
My farm in Indiana had on it a good house and other buildings.
He proposed to trade his 160 acres for my 140, and, to com
pensate me for the improvements, offered $250 in addition.
But I told him I guessed I could not do this, as we had no cash
in hand to improve a farm and stock it. His business interests
were in a near-by town and as he was anxious to sell he raised
the money consideration to $500. This we accepted and pre
pared immediately to move."
The northern states that participated most generally in the
peopling of Kansas were Illinois, Ohio, Iowa, Indiana, Pennsyl
vania, New York, Nebraska, Wisconsin and Michigan. Of
course, other states responded but always with a mere handful as
compared with the aforementioned states.
This group of nine states had contributed in i860, 50,228
persons; in 1870, 163,980 persons; in 1880, 466,382; in 1890,
558,590; and in 1900, 480,932 persons.
They are named above in the order of the size of their
Kansas emigration, an order which has been maintained since
i860, with the exceptions of Ohio and Nebraska. In the case
of the former which stood first and second up to 1890, there
was an apparent cessation in the movements of Ohio people to
Kansas after 1890. The reasons for this are not yet discovered,
but it may be surmised that it is due to the practically filled-up
condition of Kansas, to the attractiveness of other new fields,
and to a dimunition in the reasons for emigration. With the
falling off of emigration to Kansas from eastern states there
has been a corresponding increase in emigration from the nearby
states which began to assume considerable importance in the
eighties and has steadily increased since, surpassing that of older
states. The immigration of the white people of American birth
reached its maximum before 1890, and since that time there
has been a falling off, due to many causes, among which are
the semi-aridity of western Kansas, the great crop failures of

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.

61

1888 and 1893, the opening of Oklahoma lands about 1890, the
diminution of speculative activities in connection with natural
resources, and the end of the city building and railroad build- ^.
ing period. The white people of American birth have distributed them
selves quite regularly over the Kansas area, according to economic
opportunities. Being all of the same race, speaking the same
language, and believing in the efficacy of certain fixed forms of
institutional life, economic forces had free play in determining
the distribution and density of the American born whites. One
finds representatives of many commonwealths in any section.
And while the commonwealth nativity of their new neighbors has
meant nothing in determining the choice of a location, except
during the few years preceeding the Civil War, immigrants into
Kansas found pleasure in the fact that some natives of their
own former state were in the vicinity, a pleasure which often
led to closer social relations in after years, and tended to pro
duce in a community where there was a sufficient number of
such people of common origin, a certain degree of similarity in
thought and action.
Climate has been the great determining factor in the dis
tribution of American born whites, especially such aspects as
the rainfall and the atmospheric conditions affecting vegetation.
In the first choice of a location those conditions of soil and
climate that bore the closest resemblance to the conditions just
left behind in the old state were preferred, because the more
perfectly new conditions are understood, the greater are the
chances of success.
The old overland routes of trade and passenger transpor
tation are the arteries today along which population is densest.
And this is because the first trade routes followed the line of
least resistance very much as population is disposed to do. I
The old Santa Fe and Oregon trails lie through the parts of;
Kansas more densely populated today.
Naturally, the railroads have been the most potent artificial
factors in the distribution of people. Nearness to the line
of the railroad meant ready communication with the rest of
the world, and this communication has always been a prime
requisite to western people. The Kansans have not been only

62 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
hunters and trappers seeking to get as far as possible from the
habitations of their neighbors in civilization, but have sought
rather to extend as much as possible civilization upon what
seemed to them an improved plan.

CHAPTER V. THE EUROPEANS.
There were in 1850, about a million and three-quarters of
Europeans in the United States, coming for the most part from
England, Ireland, Germany and France. These had settled almost
entirely in the northeastern states, particularly along the Atlan
tic seaboard. Though in comparatively small numbers, their
presence was felt by those of American parentage, who were
sensitive to the economic and social competition which the arrival
of Europeans in large numbers might entail. Hence the rise of
such political parties as the "Know Nothing" in 1854. And it
is scarcely to be doubted that the presence of an increasing
number of foreigners was one of the causes for the migration
westward of many American born persons about the middle
of the nineteenth century.
But the immigrating peoples had come to make America
their home; they knew the language spoken, and they had
many ties which would bind them to their adopted country.
Consequently, they were as ready as the Americans to recog
nize in the trans-Mississippi region a good opportunity for home
building and fortune making, and they entered very largely into
the westward trend of population after the occupying races were
cleared out of the way.
The immigrants were as a rule of a hardy disposition,
having little to lose and hoping to gain much. They became
as good pioneers as their American cousins. This was notably
true of the great Irish immigration which followed the succes
sion of famines in Ireland about 1840. To about the same degree
was it true also of the English, Germans, and others that had come
to America from European states which offered to this over
plus of population only contracted economic and social oppor
tunities. From the outset, the foreign born element has been present
in the population of Kansas. When the first census was taken
in i860 there were more than 12,000 such living in Kansas.
By 1890 the maximum had been reached, being then 147,835.
Since that time the number has decreased by 20,000.
(63)

64

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.

Africa 
Asia 
Atlantic Islands 
Australia 
Austria (proper) 
Belgium 
Bohemia 
Brit. America 
Cent. America 
China 
Cuba 
Denmark 
Europe (unspecified) 
France 
German Empire 
Gibraltar 
Grt. Brt. and Ireland 
Greece 
Greenland 
Holland 
Hungary 
India 
Italy 
Japan 
Luxemborg 
Malta 
Mexico 
Norway 
Pacific Islands 
Poland 
Portugal 
Russia 
Sandwich Islands 
South America 
Spain 
Sweden 
Switzerland 
Turkey 
West Indies 
Born at sea (and other
countries) 

1860

8752

986

70
122
510
3,137

5,833

45
'l5

14
223 2
60

13 2 1
3
122
260 1
12

11,592

1870

18 6
10
40
448 199
105
5,324 1

2
502

1,274
12,775

19,923 11
300 38 9
55

103

03
588

169 4
56 38
4
4,9541,328 4
2029

48,364

1880

34 7
11
75
1,285 432
2,468
12,536 53 35
21
1,838 58
1,821
28,034 1
35,052 "i
749
291 32
167

310 9
58
1,358 2
1,200 17
8,082 4
9524
11,207 2,668 8
41
102

110,186

1890

29
127 18
96
2,384 808
3,022
11,874 10
113 30
3,136 61
2,236
46,423

41,990 4

872 721 59
616 3
32

68
1,786 25
394 15
9,801 3
62
39
17,096 3,820 5
29
130

147,937

1900

2245 9
82
3,517 985
3,0398,538 4
38 8
2,914 17
2,012
39,501

26,804 17

875 650 31
987 2
59

71
1,477 12
751 20
11,019

6439
15,144 3,337 37 29
266

122,422

The Germans and Austrians, having arrived together and
in large numbers ever since the opening of Kansas to settle
ment are found everywhere. Industrious, thrifty and not ven
turesome, they are well calculated to succeed upon a soil such
as that possessed by Kansas. While preserving in the main
their language and manner of living, they are not averse to
mingling freely with English speaking people. Even though

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. . 65
living in the midst of a changeable, radical population they still
retain their conservative habits of thought and action, with
standing the spirit of change and speculation.
With the exceptions of those in Ellsworth, Barton, Ellis,
Rush, and Rawlins counties, where they follow agriculture, the
Austrians are settled in or near large towns.
The great Scandinavian immigration into the northwest has
extended as far south as the northern half of Kansas, where there
is a large element of these people. The Swedes far outnumber the
others — the Norwegians and the Danes. They are frugal and
industrious, and, possssing these characteristics, are well calcu
lated to win a livelihood in such an environment.
The English, pentrating everywhere, attracted by all oppor
tunities for economic betterment, have accommodated themselves
to the environment much as those of American birth have done.
They have been versatile enough to survive in every condition of
industry and climate, taking readily to the isolated life of the
plains, drawn there by the unusual profits of cattle raising. They
have helped, too, in developing the gypsum deposits of the very
arid southwest. To them there appeared little need of coloniza
tion because of their familiarity with the language and institu
tions of their adopted country. Besides, Englishmen are to be
found in all counties.
As with the English, so largely with the Irish and Scotch.
The Irish, however, having as a race less capital at their com
mand, are found to prefer the counties with large towns in which
presumably many Irish people are found. But they, too, are found
in all localities of any extent. The occasional austerity of the cli
mate has not effectually driven back the characteristically hopeful
Irish, who have usually managed to retain a foothold under the
most trying circumstances.
The Scotch, accustomed in their native habitat to coping with
a rugged country out of which a bare living is won only after very
arduous toil, find Kansas relatively easy to live in.
The Russians and Poles exhibit colonization in the most pro
nounced form that exists in Kansas, a fact that is doubtless due
to the dissimilarity between these nationalities and all others, and
to the efforts of railroad companies in securing them as pur
chasers of their land grants. All the Russians and Poles are
gathered in about twelve of the 105 counties.
5

66 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
These communities, particularly those of the Russians, repro
duce as faithfully as possible the conditions and arrangements of
the fatherland. Of these nationalities the Russian "Memnonite,"
fleeing from military service, are the best known. They retain
tenaciously the language of their native country.
The Canadians, especially those who speak English, have
distributed themselves over the state in obedience to the climatic
conditions and to the productivity of the soil. Practically the
same circumstances govern them in Kansas as govern the natives
of the United States.
However, the French Canadians, knowing English less per
fectly and finding it difficult to forego certain religious customs
and forms have, as it were, clung more closely together. In three
counties, it will be observed, they present this phenomenon — in
Cloud, Rooks, and Graham counties.
Of the Swiss communities, the most important are found in
Nemaha, Marshall, Dickinson, and Saline counties, and there is
also, in the far southwest, in Hamilton county, a group of nearly
a hundred. The Swiss born element is not holding its own at the end of
the first generation; the number of new arrivals does not equal
the falling off due to death and removal.
The Bohemians live in agricultural colonies, apparently pre
ferring the soil and climate of north-central counties, though
Rawlins in the west on the Nebraska line has a colony of them.
Evidently they do not care at all for city life, since they are mostly
peasants with simple tastes and a low standard of living. They
attempt to retain their own language, mingling with other nation
alities only for commercial purposes. Their group settlements are
to be accounted for by the fact that they have been induced by
agents of some transportation or land-holding company to go to
Kansas to settle.
The people of French nativity, attracted before 1890 to any
promising part of Kansas, have been easily discouraged by ensuing
disasters. Partly because they are inclined to speculative enter
prises the French today live in those counties that contain mineral
resources, though some representatives of the race are content
with agricultural pursuits.
Nearly half the Welsh people in Kansas are found in the
counties that have deposits of coal — Osage and Lyon.

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 67
The Italians, even in this agricultural state, seldom take up
agricultural pursuits. They are employed in mining, railroad
building, and upon public works, and were found in 1900 in
greatest numbers in Cherokee, Crawford, and Osage counties. In
these localities they live in communities and work in gangs, but
are not a permanent element of the population.
The people of Holland are most numerous in Phillips, Smith,
Jewell, Leavenworth, and Atchison counties, their number increas
ing but slightly in the state as a whole. Apparently they have
receded before the excessive dryness of western Kansas.
The Belgians have avoided the semi-arid western counties.
Though, one notable exception to this avoidance is furnished by
Ness County, but even from this the Belgians have recently re
ceded. They are grouped in the central counties, choosing those
that contain some city of 10,000 or more inhabitants.
In the appendix the counties are arranged in general from
east to west, the first one, Doniphan, being the most north
eastern. Each county in the list is either farther west or farther
south than the one preceding.
From these lists of foreign population distributed by coun
ties it would appear that the following facts of general applica
tion are set forth.
(1) Density decreases toward the west.
(2) Segregation exists to the greatest degree among peo
ples whose languages are most widely different from that of the
more numerous English speaking races.
(3) For the period of forty years the counties containing
cities of 10,000 and up show the greatest increase of foreign born.
(4) Extreme aridity attracts almost no foreign born.
(5) Unless the number of any given nationality in a county
reaches the proportion of a colony, the number decreases by re
moval and by death, tending to become zero in the average life
of the immigrant in America.
(6) Foreigners have peopled Kansas by groups and colonies
rather than as individuals acting independently.
(7) A nucleus started in 1870 has had a continuous exist
ence. (8) Only those most evenly distributed have amalgamated
with the native population, thus influencing the type.

CHAPTER VI. THE NEGROES.
Up to the end of the Civil War, the movements of the negro
population of the slave states were surreptitious, for, most of them
being enslaved, the status of all was affected and freedom to
change at will their place of residence was practically non-existent.
And the negroes, the most timid and dependent of the races inhab
iting the United States, tolerated conditions often most unsatisfac
tory rather than incur the risks attending a change to a new envi
ronment. Besides, having little knowledge of the geography and
resources of the country at large, they hesitated, even when free
to go at will, to do so. In consequence, the negro population re
mained practically stationary within the slave states except as they
were influenced in locally shifting about by their white neighbors.
The movements of the negroes in the "free states" had but
one main consideration, namely, to avoid the south. They kept
carefully away from the territory within which slaves were held,
and never ventured without ample protection into any new and
unorganized part of the country. For example the population of
Kansas during its territorial days contained almost no negroes.
Only 627 persons classed as negroes were enumerated in Kansas
in i860, and of these more than one-third, or 252, lived in Leaven
worth, a town on the eastern border of the state, having a popula
tion of 7,177. In Leavenworth these negroes were undoubtedly
engaged in some form of menial or personal service, not being in
any sense immigrants as were the white people.
The history of negro migration within the United States re
cords no migration on a large scale undertaken bv them inde
pendently and in advance of any other race. Moreover, they have
never contended in arms with any occupying race for territory
which they wished to occupy for themselves. In these respects
they are quite distinct from all others, with the possible exception
of the Asiatics, who have up to the present followed the same
dependent methods in peopling American territory. The negroes
have always followed the pioneers of other races, they themselves
never becoming pioneers. It may be said that their migrations are
essentially those of a semi-servile race.
Further, the negroes followed the westward moving whites
(68)

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 69
only afar off, since the pioneers in the first few years of their
occupancy had little need of the personal service the negro could
render. The white pioneers were people of simple tastes that
needed little ministering to, their occupations were such as de
pended upon personal exertion for success, the people themselves
had been reared to work and toil even at the most arduous tasks,
they believed in the nobility of the lowliest labor, and were com
monly possessed of too small surplus to warrant expenditures for
wages to negro servants and hired laborers.
Later, however, with the increase of wealth, the passing of
the pioneer period, and the diversification of occupations the op
portunities to enter personal service are increased and result in an
inflow of negroes from all parts of the country. This usually
takes place in about ten years after the first settlement by the
whites. The number of negroes in Kansas increased from i860 to
1870 from 627 to 17,108, to 43,107 in 1880, 49,710 in 1890, and
to 52,002 in 1900.
The first seventeen thousands of negroes that sought homes
in Kansas during the Civil War period and immediately after
ward did so not only because of the economic opportunities there
open to them, but because of a feeling of security in a state which
had been a battle ground for their cause, upon which the friends of
freedom had won. The negro race felt, though perhaps uncon
sciously, that the institutions of the new state were not unfavor
able to them. And it is certain that immediately after receiving
their freedom they mistrusted their former masters and feared that
in some way they might again be enslaved. Of course this fear
was not shared in by all, especially by those who were attached to
the white families with whom they had been living, nor by those
too ignorant to appreciate the difference between freedom and
slavery. But those negroes who lived near the border of slave
territory, being more intelligent regarding the resources and pos
sibilities for them in the nearby free states, imitated the popula
tion movements of their white neighbors. They felt, too, that
they would be safer if they lived outside of the border slave hold
ing state in case there should be any reversion to slavery. Fur
thermore, the extraordinary demand in the rapidly filling new
state, Kansas, for such labor as the negro furnished, induced
many Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee negroes to go to Kan-

70 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
sas in search of a higher rate of wages than prevailed in the
economically stagnant South.
The immigration of negroes in the seventies increased phe-
nominally, aggregating in 1880 43,107, due in large part to the
need for many thousands of unskilled laborers upon public works,
in building operations in large towns, and to the demand for farm
laborers when farming is done on a large scale. Such farming,
sometimes of a speculative character, was very frequent in Kansas
betwen 1870 and 1885^ But the succession of drouths that began
in 1886 and continued, with interruptions, until 1894, put an end
to the illusions regarding the capabilities of the soil in furnishing
a basis for quickly won fortunes. These disasters had a clearly
traceable effect upon the immigration of non-land-holding
classes, who were the unskilled laborers that had been attracted
from other states by the high rate of wages. They lived in the
cities and not permanently, at least, in the rural districts. The
negroes belonged to this class of the inhabitants, which, being
unattached to the soil, is the first to recede before any unfavorable
condition of climate. They are the most mobile of all classes.
Consequently, there had been a slow rate of immigration of
negroes from other states since 1880. In 1890 the number had
increased, as noted above, to 49,710, and ten years later to 52,003.
Of the latter number 21,837 were Kansas born. The remainder,
30,102, had come from the following states in the following num
bers: Missouri  7,638
Kentucky  ¦  5,638
Tennessee  5 , 131
Mississippi  1,677
Virginia  1,441
Texas  1,336
Alabama  1,403
Arkansas  710
Louisiana  691
Georgia  599
Illinois  435
South Carolina  381
Ohio  380
Indian Territory  326
Indiana  237
All others  1 , 079
29,102

CHAPTER VII. INSTITUTIONAL LIFE.
In Kansas there are four great classes of institutions, the
legal and political, the educational, the religious, and the fra
ternal. Participation in some is voluntary, in others involuntary.
The founders of Kansas society, coming largely from the north
and committed to what were termed "free institutions" sought
to secure that balance between the voluntary and involuntary
elements in their institutional life which would yield to each
citizen the greatest degree of liberty in the pursuit of happi
ness. Hence in the educational system, for example, up to the
end of primary education each person must participate, but
from that point he may elect either to remain a participant in
those institutions founded and maintained by the state, or he
may ally himself with individualistc educational institutions; he
is free, in the third place, to leave altogether the state system,
only paying, if he possesses real property, a fiscal contribution
to its support. Further, some institutions are entirely volun
tary, as the church, while participation in others is throughout
their whole extent involuntary, as the jury system.
In the growth of the legal system there have been three
periods ; of preparation, corresponding to the territorial days ; of
establishment, corresponding to the first twenty years of state
hood; of extension, corresponding to the two decades, 1880 to
1900. Having set out on a principle of "squatter sovereignty"
the snarl in Kansas grew out of difference of opinion as to the
interpretation of this principle. To each, the North and the
South, the other seemed guilty of perversion. To the Southerner
the case stood much as Senator D. B. Atchison, writing in 1855
expressed it, "Was it right for the Abolitionists, one thousand
miles off, to come to Kansas to vote us out of the territory,
and wrong for the people of Missouri, living in sight of her
green hills and broad prairies, to go there to secure their homes?
We will protect ourselves." To such as held this view the
neighbors of a territory possessed a prior claim to fix its organic
law, which should in turn determine its institutions. The sounder
(71)

72 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
element of the South were moved by the instincts of self-preser
vation. On the other hand the northern men took the stand that
territory is a common possession in which the remotest citizen
shares equally with the nearest. To them armed invasions of
the Missourians were outrages to block the due course of law,
every one of which only "stimulated emigration and made more
firm the determination that Kansas should be free.''
As a consequence, a body of definite statute law universally
recognized, did not exist during the territorial period. But in
unavoidable litigation — mainly between rival claimants to land, —
the common law was relied upon. In administration of justice,
where personal liberty and safety were concerned, a rough form
of the Mosaic code was in vogue. Trespassers against life
often paid in kind the penalty, exacted in the most severe and
summary manner. Personal disputes, frequent in the disturbed
territory, were as a rule submitted to the arbitrament of mortal
combat. But with the adoption of the Wyandotte Constiution,
Oct. 4th, 1859, and admission into the Union Jan. 29th, 1861, the
nature of the organic law was settled.
The supremacy of the statute law is due to the thoroughness
with which legislating is done. Subjected for a period to con
fusion, the legislators who were to be governed by the laws
they were framing, wished it to be understood clearly what
their intentions were. Because the formulation of the consti
tution had been preceded by a preparatory period of discussion,
criticism, and conflict, the legal system has upon it the stamp
of certainty. Evidences of great deliberation are noticeable.
The well-digested form of the constitution is due, in great part,
to the experiences of the constitution makers in other state legis
latures, and as members of earlier territorial legislatures. Being
familiar with former experiments, the people of Kansas well
knew what they wished to avoid and what to secure.
In the Wyandottte constitutional convention, 13 were natives
of Ohio, 7 of Indiana, 5 of Pennsylvania, 5 of Kentucky, 4 of
New York, 3 of New Jersey, 3 of Vermont, 2 of Massachusetts,
and 2 of Maine. Four were foreigners, from England, Ireland,
Scotland, and Germany respectively. The 44 members from 9
older states brought together varied conceptions of a good con
stitution. In balloting on the constitution which should be used

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 73
as a basis, Ohio received 13 votes, Indiana 12, Kentucky 6, Penn
sylvania 2, Iowa 2, Massachusetts 1, Michigan 1, Maine 1, Min
nesota 1, Oregon 1. The Leavenworth constitution and the
Topeka three each. Though the Ohio constitution of 1850 was
adopted as the model, "many other constitutions were in the
hands of the delegates, and sections peculiarly adapted to con
ditions in Kansas were appropriated from them. Among those
mostly drawn from were that of Michigan of 1850, Iowa of
1857, Wisconsin of 1848, Illinois of 1848, Indiana of 1851, Min
nesota of 1857, New York of 1846, Pennsylvania of 1838, Ken
tucky of 1850, and the earlier Kansas constitutions framed at
Topeka, Lecompton, and Leavenworth."1 The constitution be- 1,
came in consequence a mosaic derived from many sources.
The executive power was strengthened by a limited veto.
A State Superintendent of Public Instruction was added to the
list of executive officers. The size of the Legislature was fixed
midway between the large assemblies of the eastern states and
the small legislature of the middle western states. The article
on the judiciary was original, being adapted to Kansas con
ditions. Following the example of other new states education
was given a separate article. For the first time in the history
of state constitutions banking and currency were accorded special
treatment. Economy and simplicity were the ends sought in
making local and general elections simultaneous. The salaries
of officials were fixed at a medium amount. Though there is
great centralization of power in the legislature, local concerns
are assigned for settlement in local tribunals, as, for example,
divorce contests. State charities as well as education are liberally
endowed with funds and land.
The state is organized rather on the county system of
Virginia than upon the township system of New England. On
account of the sparsity of population, the unusual area of
the state, the existence of much territory in the western part
of the state unorganized into counties, and the abuses and irre
gularities of county seat rivalry, the county received more care
ful attention than did the township. The township in such
an area and with such a widely scattered population was an
inconvenient and inefficient unit, too small and too numerous

1 "Sources of the Constitution of Kansas.'' Hist. Col., Vol. VII.

74 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
for state purposes, and too large for local purposes. The school
district bears to the whole the relation which the township does
in older northern states. Their enthusiasm for education led
the legislature to pay much attention to the soundness of the
organization of the educational unit. To have given equal pro
minence to the township would have seemed needless multi
plication of units. Furthermore, the social needs of the people
have been better supplied by the school district.
In territorial days there .were but two well-defined political
parties. The only issue was slavery. With the deciding of
that issue, not only did the two parties as such cease to exist,
but many of the adherents of one, the pro-slavery, left the state,
and few of its adherents helped in later days to people the
state. The emigration that secured possession of Kansas was in
sympathy northern Republican, which organization has had a
continued existence. In times of social peace and economic
prosperity the Republican party has been in the majority.
The independent political party under different names has
at times manifested overwhelming strength. Its organization
has changed continually. At ordinary times it is composed of
three or more political parties each pursuing its peculiar ends
without being connected with each other. But when a common
danger, — moral, financial, or political, — has threatened, a kind
of league has been consummated, the result of whose united
strength is an overturning of the existing regime. Such were
the prohibitory movements of 1880 and the populistic of 1890.
The new western states not only imitated the educational
policy of the eastern states, but also extended the idea of the
public school, making of it more distinctly a state institution.
In the east the free school, supported by compulsory taxation,
had been successful in achieving the ends sought, namely, a
rudimentary education which secured in the individual a measure
of economic efficiency and to the state an intelligent citizen. But
the system in the east was limited both in its scope and endow
ment. Western men, appreciating the efficiency of state educa
tion in the primary schools, reasoned that the best as well as
the most economical education, in high schools, and colleges,
could be furnished by the state. The current belief was that

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 75
complete educating of its youth was a proper function of the
state, that a well-trained body of citizens was a benefit in which
all shared, and to the growth of which all should of right con
tribute as taxpayers. Convinced of the correctness of these views
the then forming western states set about the extension and
differentiation of the system. This western plan embraced not
only the primary and high school, but as well the colleges for
classical and agricultural education, schools for teachers, and
for advanced work in the sciences.
In order properly to endow this extensive system, a portion
of the landed domain was set aside. In the Northwest Terri
tory this idea had been successfully incorporated with the land
system, — which served as a precedent and as a model for imi
tation. The western states embraced many millions of acres
of unoccupied, though potentially valuable land. Encouraged by
the national government, a liberal portion was set aside as the
inalienable inheritance of the public school. School funds, in
creased by the sale of part of lands given to railroads were estab
lished. Not only was this done but specifications were outlined,
fixing upon the purpose to which certain land or funds should be
devoted. Kansas people were in the midst of forming their institutions
when this movement was making its greatest headway, and
their educational system bears its full impress. Emigrants to
Kansas, particularly those from the north were determined upon
schools — the best within their power — which would embody
their ideas of efficiency and equality. Good schools stood next
in importance to good laws.
The first schools were those maintained as missions for the
Indians, by religious denominations. But the forerunner of the
present public school was the settlers' "subscription school", a
neighborhood enterprise initiated and supported by private effort.
In Soldier township, Jackson county, "the first school in the
township was taught by Miss Huldah Allen in 1859, m a claim-
house, and was supported by private subscription. The first
school-house was built in 1861 by private enterprise, each person
contributing his share of logs and labor". In Osage county a
subscription school of 17 scholars taught by Mrs. Seward in
her own home was held during the summer. Another was held

76 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
in the winter of 1869-70 in an Indian's deserted house, and
later in the house of Mr. Samuel Holyoke.
The institution being without a suitable house the settlers
were often at great pains in providing one. Homes were used
for its first sessions, or houses of various descriptions were
rented; the depot of a railroad was in one village used for a
time. As early as possible a building of its own was provided
for the school. Sometimes the community did this unassisted,
but frequently subscriptions from such outside sources as rail
roads were sought and employed. The great landselling rail
roads, understanding the power of an established school to
attract desirable purchasers, assisted in its establishment. "The
Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad with its usual gener
osity, came to the assistance of the people, (in an unorganized
county, the population being unable to levy taxes) and told them
that it would give them $300 and the land on which to build the
school-house if they would raise as much more money. The
money was raised and each man in the neighborhood helped in
the erection of that historic school-house."
In all sections the founding of a school followed closely
upon the establishment of the first homes. "The first school
of Whiting was organized in August, 1870, the first residence
having been erected a short time before." According to a
resident of Decatur county, the public school was the first neigh
borhood institution thought of by the people.
In order that on its financial side it might work automatically,
Kansas placed it upon as solid a foundation as possible. The
result, in 1900, is thus indicated, "State Superintendent Nelson
estimates the value of school property in the state as $2,336,158.
In round numbers $7,500,000 constitutes the permanent endow
ment for the support of the common schools. The state spends
annually for education approximately $10,000,000. "1
In addition, the institution is so systematized as to secure
the least unwieldiness possible. The administration is entrusted
to a local board of directors, usually three in number, to a county
superintendent, and a state superintendent, all elected by popular
vote for two years. In local school affairs the community enjoys
autonomy, the directors sustaining no organic connection with

'Kas. Hist. Col., Vol. VII, p. 514.

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 77
those of any other community. But a point of contact for the
communities grouped in a county is provided in county super
vision. This is an attempt to secure in one elective officer, known
as the county superintendent, unified control of the county educa
tional policy. To promote uniformity of teaching and work is his
main duty.1 In interpreting the educational needs, possibilities,
and ideals of the people the county superintendent is influenced
from above by the state superintendent, who is a high executive
officer of the state, the functions of whose office are similar to
those of the county superintendency, except over a wider field.
The State Legislature looks to him for advice in school matters,
and his influence ramifies throughout the whole system, extend
ing even into the field of private effort. The purpose of this
office is educational and social unification on a large scale, — the
guidance of every part by the whole. Uniform text-books, their
free distribution among the indigent, and equal distribution of
school funds, are examples of legislative action to secure this
end. Being in operation in all communities, whether of native or
foreign born, one of the important social functions of the public
school is assimilation. Other languages than English soon give
way. The first generation of children of foreign parents allow
the parental tongue to fall into disuse, the second forgets it.
American customs, and manner of dress are imbibed by the young.
Family relations and even religious ideas are altered by the influ
ence of the school. Similarity of tastes, of economic ideas, of
amusements, and of preferred modes of social action are without
doubt furthered by the educational system. It schools the popu
lation in social action, being the one universal instance of co
operation. Religion in the Union Sabbath school, and neighbor
hood culture in debating societies and lecture courses, owe to the
public school a meeting place and an encouraging public senti
ment. The school house is also occasionally used as a meeting
place of the people of the district for the consideration of political
matters, for the distribution of charity, and for the propagation

* Cowley county for instance, containing 1,090 square miles in 1899
had 150 school houses with a total of 172 rooms, each of which must
be visited once between October and May. The county "Normal" under
the supervision of the county superintendent promotes a uniform prepara
tion for teachers.

78 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
of ideas of public morals, reform, and policy. In short the school
system furnishes the plan and ground work of nearly all social
action. In warning the public against too great centralization the
institution has performed a noticeable service. Peculating poli
ticians, both state and local, and great book companies at times
find it easy to divert in their favor the power centralized in one
individual or group.
Educational institutions controlled exclusively by individuals
and private corporations occupy usually the fields of art, music,
and classical culture. Those in which the first two are taught
are almost solely individualistic, as the attention of the state is
concentrated upon a utilitarian education, even classical culture
being thought little of in many quarters. Higher education is, for
the most part, under the surveillance of the churches. Denomi
national colleges have been scattered throughout the state, only a
few of which maintain a vigorous existence, because those institu
tions are not adapted to the demand for a low-priced, short-cut,
practical education. The real, though often disavowed, purpose
of the denominational college, to bring its students by the influ
ence of religion into conformity with its peculiar type, militates
against its acceptability. The denominational college, being the
conservator of culture and an advocate of "Christian tone" in edu
cation, performs a valuable service for future society should there
ever be a reaction from utilitarianism. At present, however, those
institutions producing a social and economy efficiency are pre
ferred to those operating in a narrower circle.
The significance of these institutions is the gathering together
of constituent societies possessing each its peculiar characteristics
and enhancing the same from year to year. Some of these so
cieties prefer emotionalism, some rationalism, while still others
emphasize some particular attitude toward the legal or economic
system round about them. Nearly all stand for some peculiar dog
matism and social morality. Being convinced of the accuracy of
their own system even to the extent of unsociability with all
others who differ, the opposite of co-operation results.
All three classes of individualistic educational institutions are
but meagerly endowed and must in consequence keep up an ener
getic struggle for existence by solicitation for patrons and money.
Strife and competition are engendered, dividing the communitv,

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 79
and hindering the civic development of the towns where the col
leges and academies are located.
Education and culture among adults are furthered by a varie
ty of associations. Chautauqua "assemblies," promoted in the
interests of towns by local committees of citizens acting in a semi
official capacity, are one of these. Being on the one side a scheme
for advertising the town and for creating a demand for merchan
dise, they are on the other a stimulus to social and intellectual life.
Women's clubs, meeting frequently to discuss topics in litera
ture, science, and politics, and sometimes interesting themselves
directly in civic and social welfare, include the majority of the
women of culture of the larger towns, and though occasionally
giving rise to petty strife are as a rule productive of healthful
emulation. These clubs by their annual delegate meetings mingle
the people from the different towns and cities.
Farmers' "institutes," meeting annually in many counties for
the dissemination of knowledge of agricultural methods, not only
educate, but also by enabling the farmers to participate in intel
lectual life, render them more contented, and less jealous of the
town and its privileges.
Debating clubs and lecture courses perform a similar func
tion. Nearly all towns that are county seats are visited every
winter season by a series of popular lecturers and concert com
panies brought by local committees in correspondnce with the
"lecture bureau" which operates so successfully in the west.
Though partaking of the nature of amusements the lecture courses
are of educational value.
Institutions for the promotion of religion are as varied in
form as elsewhere in the United States. These branches are
found in all communities and their influence is exerted widely.
The northern population from which the Kansas population was
drawn was largely Protestant and had not drifted completely
away from New England Puritanism with which it was remotely
connected. The religion of the Northwest Territory was prac
tical, at times emotional, and always humanitarian. Indeed, out
of the humanitarian 1 movement of 1830 grew the actual strife

1 "In the summer of 1830 the waves of revolution rolled again over
Europe. The rights of man and brotherhood of man, and the soveriegnty
of the people were the principles which pressed again to the front."
"The Middle Period", p. 244.

80 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
over slavery which meant so much to Kansas. In this discussion
the churches of the north bore a prominent part, giving to response
for men and money a religious turn. As a consequence, though,
many who went to Kansas cared nothing for church or religious
tenets, those who remained to give a complexion to permanent
Kansas life included a majority of those who had denominational
attachments, and individualities strong enough to assert them.
Vigorous churches were thought by the original population to be
necessary adjuncts of a strong institutional life. The church was
in the same category as the law court and the school.
Since the day of its early establishment the church has been
the forum for the discussion of public questions, and the place of
consolidation in times of disaster and failure. The predominence
of the church is due in part, also, to the enterprise of its founders.
In the annals of Kansas one very early encounters the Methodist
"circuit rider" and the "Baptist preacher" holding revival meet
ings in winter, and camp-meetings in summer. Upon their work
the founders builded. Sharing in the prevailing optimism they
brought into existence more organizations than are warranted by
later demands.
The predominence of numbers is difficult to ascertain. In
some rural districts all but a few are members.1 Each village has
its church, often more than one.2 The proportion of church mem
bers to the population of a county is illustrated by Wabaunsee
county, as follows :
Denominations. Organizations Edifices. Members.
Baptist  5 1 150
Catholic  0 2 450
Congregational  4 3 250
Free Methodist  1 1 4
Friends  1 1 84
Dunkards  1 0 18
Lutheran  1 4 300

1 "Nearly everybody was a church member'' in a Decatur county
community. The same may be said of communities composed almost
entirely of church colonies, such as Mennonites.
2Netawaka, a village of 300 inhabitants, has three religious denom
inations and a union Sabbath school. Maple City, a village of 300
residents has two churches. Oxford, a village of 600 residents has three
churches. Lawrence, having a population of 12,000, spends annually on
churches $40,000.

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 81
Denominations. Organizations Edifices. Members.
M. E  17 11 0
Ref. Pres  1 1 89
1,345
Population of county, 1892  10,888
Population of largest city  1 , 000
Those who do not come even indirectly under the influence
of the institution are few. "A life-long familiarity with New
England, which has had a world-wide reputation for its moral
and religious character, enables the writer to say that he has never
known a community with an equal population to be freer from
open vice, and where respect for and attendance on the ordinances
of religion are more prevalent than in this city, (Holton). Its
numerous churches are capable of furnishing sittings for the
entire population." 1
During the "joint crusade" of the winter of 1900-01 the
churches were the assembling places of mass-meetings, and the
crusade led by the ministers became in certain localities a religious
one. The Methodist and Baptist churches were most often men
tioned in this connection as being the centers from which em
anated the crusading spirit.
A population variously derived and sparse, finding itself
after the recession of the tide of transients confronted with the
necessity, if it would have a church, of a* mutual abandonment of
preferences and prejudices, has found it difficult to keep intact
old lines of demarkation. Denominationalism has been generally
weakened, exclusiveness broken down, and union effort has re
sulted. "The first Presbyterian church, Dodge City, was organ
ized in 1879. There were only a few members of any church in
the town; two Presbyterians, two Baptists, one Congregation-
alist, one Methodist. This little band met together and decided
by vote to which denomination they would attach themselves.2 A
sod church without a floor was the first edifice of its character in
the neighborhood (in "Decatur Co.) and in it met a union Sabbath
school until a doctrinal split over baptism took place.3 All rural
Sunday schools, being practically a congregation, are union in

1 Newspaper correspondence.
2 Live Stock Journal, Jan. 31st, 1888.
1 Personal interview with former resident.
6

82 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
character and meet in the district school house or other public
building." As a center of social authority and instruction, and of steady
concentrated feeling ; as the preserver of social purity and human-
itarianism; and as a social critic the church has performed its
principal social functions.
Deriving its power from a source considered higher than con
ventional law, it has not hesitated, on occasion, to put even the
magistracy under a ban. The social instructions of its ministry,
heard everywhere, are attended by many as authoritative.
A habit of concentration induced by attendance upon the or
dinances of religion has been retained, rendering easy the divert
ing of intense feeling in the direction of some social action which
has to do with immediate social welfare.
Being intolerant of open degradation and corrupt practices,
the church has suppressed their manifestation. The underworld
of immorality remains the underworld, and is not allowed to tempt
openly the unsuspecting. Unusual social purity is believed to have
resulted from this. As a critic of flagrant violations of social and
moral laws the church has been uncompromising and denuncia
tory. The social regime, having been inaugurated largely by the
church, must be subjected to its scrutiny, and if all other methods
are of no avail physical force is employed in correction of any
variation of that regime. This actual and potential attitude
restrains forces which would otherwise lay siege to the social life
of the state.
The denominations which one finds most frequently are those
which from the beginning maintained the most vigorous propa
ganda. They are the Methodist Episcopal, the Baptist, the United
Brethren, the Christian, and the Presbyterian. Of these the first
two have been the most energetic in capturing the unoccupied
field. The Christian church is especialy strong in the northern
Rock Island towns, scarcely any of which are without a Christian
congregation. The Swedes and Germans have carried their
church with them without extending it. In McPherson, Harvey,
Marion, and Sedgwick counties the Mennonite church holds com
plete sway, while the River Brethren and Quakers have kept their
church unchanged, without seeking to impose it on others.
The close-federated Protestant church has survived most gen
erally because close connection with churches assured aid in times

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.

83

less emotional
doctrinal.

of disaster. Few, if any, churches exist today that do not sustain
an organic connection with similar organizations elsewhere in
the Commonwealths. With respect to the characteristics of the social mind of
the groups comprehended in the separate churches the organ
izations may be classed as follows :
M. E. "I Pres.
Baptist emotional Cong.
U. B. f moralist: Luth.
Christian J Cath.
DunkardFriends
Universalist
From the first group came naturally the most forceful social
utterances and action.
Societies and institutions which have for their object the
promotion of some phase of moral life are closely connected
with the church, being made up largely of its membership and
working often through the church. Such are the State Tem
perance Union, The Womens' Christian Temperance Union,
Local Temperance Leagues, Law and Order Leagues, Law and
Enforcement Leagues of Kansas, etc. These are often extensive
in their organization, having branches in all townships. The
Temperance Unions are permanent, while the Law and Order
Leagues spring up at a time of imminent danger.
The fraternal institutions take on many forms. They include
the Masonic Lodges, those of the I. O. O. F., of the K. of P.,
Redmen of America, Woodmen of America, the G. A. R. Posts
and the Labor Unions. The total membership of all these is
unascertained though it probably includes the majority of the
adult males.1 In the larger cities the labor unions include nearly
all men engaged in skilled manual labor.
Desire for social intercourse and recreation, and economic
betterment are the social ties which bind these groups together.
A guarantee of these benefits is, in fact, the inducement to
enroll.

1 Membership of the Masons in 1901, 20,740.
Membership of the I. O. O. F. in 1901, 25,397.
Membership of the K. of P. in 1901, 11,961.
Membership of the G. A. R. in 1901, 13,351.

84 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
Resting upou the principle of brotherhood, in times of social
stress peace between the members of a given organization is
assured; sympathy for the unfortunate and practical helpful
ness are stimulated; the value of social effort (in state-embrac
ing benevolent establishments) is impresed upon the member in
particular and upon society in general. At annual delegate meet
ings the mingling of men from different towns results in more
than local brotherhood. The tendency of the fraternal institu
tions is toward integration, homogenity, and sociability.

CHAPTER VIII. ASPECTS OF THE SOCIAL MIND.
By social mind may be understood the sum of ideas held
in common, which are simultaneously — or nearly so — suscept
ible to a stimulus, and as such give rise to similar response.
There is therefore a social mind of the people of a state, of
a river basin, of a county, of a town, of a neighborhood, of an
organization. As diversity of birth, of early training, and of
occupations increases, the number of ideas held in common de
creases, and the social mind is more simple in constitution and
less limited in its scope of action. As integration progresses,
as similarity of birth, of education, and of environment arise,
the more does the population approximate homogenity, the more
numerous do its ideas become, and the more extended are its
activities. The social mind of a Commonwealth has therefore
at all times an individuality, though changing, distinct from
that of any of its parts. The fact that large bodies of men
scattered in different communities are harder to stir into social
action than a large body in any one community is due to the
few and simple ideas composing the social mind of the former.
The Commonwealth of Kansas in its modes of action and in
the activities themselves displays characteristics which are pos
sessed only in part by any of its many constituent counties,
towns, neighborhoods, or societies.
There took place from the beginning distinctive combina
tions of inherited and educational tendencies, with differently
constituted experiences acquired in institutional life both before
and after the entrance into Kansas of the population and with
a new environment. The data are not at hand for proportioning
these elements, but their potent existence can not be doubted.
Only the issue of the battle is clear. The predominating race
is Saxon, the institutions are free, and the environmental con
ditions, once so capricious, have become less so. Neither is it
possible dogmatically to ascribe to the Kansas social mind char
acteristics continually and universally valid in the same degree.
But it is allowable to note those which at given periods have
been in actual ascendency, while others, previously or subse-
(85)

86 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
quently manifested, may have been present only potentially. Let
the attempt be, therefore, to deal solely with the social mind on
the side of its manifested characteristics, seeking in some measure
to analyse them.
The principal ideas to which the social mind has been respon
sive are infringement of statute law, opportunity for speculation,
welfare of the individual and the family, a fellow being's need
of help, legislation as a remedy for economic ills, the employment
of force as a method of settling a dispute over social practices,
participation in great waves of popular feeling, the existence of
contaminating influences, the possibility of initiating new meth
ods of social action, toleration for types of mind which vary from
the conventional worthlessness of mere precedent, and lastly,
social betterment as a duty.
There is in the first place great regard for statute law, a
trait shared by all permanent settlers, but which especially dis
tinguishes the New England contingent, who with their sym
pathizers planted themselves firmly in opposition to the "bogus"
legislature of 1857. The first concern of every community after
suffering for a time the outlawry of the criminal class domin
ating the frontier towns, was to rid themselves of these law-
breaking members of society. A resident writing from a fron
tier town of the 70's says, "Strangers gather here during the
cattle season from all parts of the United States. It is they
that commit the crimes and not our own actual citizens — the
latter have come to stay and are people of the best class." Of
the city's population of 2,000, 60 were professional gamblers.
Law-abiding citizens were much desired by the bettter elements
of society. The surreptitious, but often bold violation of the
statute prohibiting the sale of intoxicants culminated in the cru
sade of 1901. So wrathful were the correcting measures taken
that they seemed to border on anarchy. The emphasis is put
not only on the letter, but also on the spirit of the law. The
struggle over law enforcement between the larger eastern bor
der cities and the rest of the state is perennial. The former
contain the great body of those who disregard the law. In
Topeka in Aug. 1902, intoxicants were being dispensed illegally
in a hundred different places. A similar condition existed in

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 87
other cities, from which, as centers, radiate illegality, earnestly
opposed by the rural districts, which are at present in the majority.
A reception was given in Holton in July, 1894, in honor of five
young men who secured the arrest and conviction of the "jointist".
Closely connected with reverence for statute law is an eager
ness to get justice done. The social mind is courageous in
making up for the seeming deficiency of the law. Not only
have summary capital punishments been resorted to, in order to
secure punishment, but those who have figured in them have been
allowed to go unpunished.
In the presence of unusual economic opportunity the social ^
mind has been highly imaginative. At times enterprise and
speculation have gone to lengths of unreasoning extravagance.
Oberlin being started, town sites became as thick as sun flowers.
Osage Co. has been called "the Golgotha of still-born cities".
Every locality has had its "boom" period. Indeed there have
been times when the whole state was under the influence of spec
ulation, as for example the period when railroad lines were so
rapidly projected. The Santa Fe cities, Emporia, Newton,
Wichita, Eldorado, Winfield, and Arkansas City are illustrations,
cities in which for a time fabulous prices reigned. The plans of
the towns were large enough to accommodate many times their
present populations. Residences were built at great distances
from the present center of the town. College buildings, erected
to accommodate thousands of students, now have but a hand
ful in them. Men felt it an honor to have a town named
after them and to thus perpetuate a name was often one of
the motives for founding a settlement. But cities born in a
day were short-lived, for as soon as the enterprising Yankee
spirit saw farther on seemingly better opportunities, the town
of his latest making was abandoned.
Especially in its economic system the social mind has been
individualistic and familistic. The original population in seek
ing homes had for their apparent purpose to provide an inherit
ance for numerous children. Throughout their institutional life
the principal aim has been to establish such as will assist the
individual to prosper. Laws have sometimes bordered on the
paternalistic. The populistic legislation of 1890 is a case in point.
Schools for the defective and delinquent have been established

88 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
not only to secure better care for the afflicted, but also to ease
a family burden.
Humanitarianism in transient personal relations, a character
istic commonly met with among pioneer western people, is due to
the imminence of misfortune. The poor and destitute receive
voluntary neighborhood assistance. 25 out of 125 counties do
not have sufficient poverty to warrant the maintenance by tax
ation of a "poor house". Co-operative stores and "exchanges"
growing out of the "granges" and populistic movements are a
part of this mutually helpful attitude. The social attitude toward
women is most kind. They are admitted to the professions, and
in local affairs have gained nearly equal political rights. Even in
the most troubled days when the border ruffians were frighten
ing back prospective settlers, wagons containing women were
not detained. The people, frequently impoverished, displayed from the
beginning a readiness to depend upon external aid. Emissaries
have been sent to the older states to solicit help, committees have
been formed in all stricken localities to receive supplies from
abroad, and "the aid" was received by great numbers among
whom were the undeserving. Kansas in her earlier territorial
days came to be regarded as the ward of the nation, an object
of philanthropy, and the begging habit thus fostered continued
during crop failures. It has never entirely disappeared. Edu
cational institutions are founded largely on the generosity of
non-residents, who are importuned even today to continue their
benefactions.1 1 A. W. Pitzer writes to Rev. N. L. Rice, from Leavenworth, Mar.
14, 1861: "There have been, and now are, destitution, privation, and
suffering. Probably not less than $1,000,000 in cash, clothing, food, and
seed have been sent to Kansas. The basis for this estimate is this :
New York legislature  $50,000
Pennsylvania legislature  30 , 000
Wisconsin legislature  5 , 000
New York City Com. collected  40,000
Central Relief Committee  5,000
Central Relief clothing, etc  10,000
United Presbyterian church  3 , 000
$143,000
This leaves out of view the vast sums of money, clothing, and other
articles received by private gifts."

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 89
In political action the social mind has been at times so radical
as to appear erratic. Political majorities are overturned sud
denly and the whole complexion of state legislation changed.
This is due to the large independent element which is most
responsive to economic adversity. A failure of crops presages
dissatisfaction with the existing government, and a unification
of disaffected elements to secure its overthrow. Populism was
a revolt of the Yankee element. Counties that contained many
of such a conservative race as the German did not yield to the
clamor for a change. The western counties in 1890, filled with
young men of aggressive spirit, eager for any change which
promised to be beneficial, were the strongholds of political
radicalism. In the next place the social mind has been quick
to resort, in the solution of a social question, to physical force
and drastic measures. In their legal systems men began with
cowboy justice and have not wholly gotten away from its influ
ence. Against Indians and desperadoes both men and women
were accustomed in self-defense to bear arms. The bravery
and hardiness of the early pioneers is a matter of pride and
admiration with the present generation who easily imitate the
methods of the former. The Crusades of 1901 are a case in
point. John Brown is the patron saint of Kansas.
The social mind is subject to contagions, crazes, and cru
sades. During the first thirty-five years there was seen the',
craze for building cities and for free land. Crusades against
the open saloon have been resorted to at intervals since the be
ginning. A popular raid on the saloons at Topeka in which
several thousand dollars worth of liquor was destroyed took
place as early as 1857, and a similar one at Laurence in 1856.
The wide-spread temperance movement of 1873 culminated in
Kansas in 1879 m a prohibitory law, the passage of which has
been followed by a succession of agitations and crusades against
its infringement. In such homogenity the bacilli of imitation
spread rapidly and even in amusements the trend at any given
time is all in one direction. Street fairs in the later 90's and
the corn carnivals of the present day are illustrations.
The social mind is readily aroused by the existence of the
demoralization of the young, and of the weak. Perhaps few
things arouse sooner the public wrath than the threatened return

90 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
of "the brazen and remorseless saloon-keepers with their retinue
of disreputable allies". "For more than ten years nothing has
been permitted to exist openly that would be calculated to tempt
youth from the path of rectitude and virtue. If there are any
vicious practices in the community they are carefully kept from
public view, for it is a well-known fact that, once discovered,
public sentiment would not tolerate them for an instant, and the
iron hand of law would be laid heavily on those who engage in
them. The social mind has shown great confidence in its own initi
ative. In ante-bellum days, occupying a strategic position, Kan
sas became accustomed to being the center of interest. The im
portance of their own acts seemed great to the people, who con
sidered themselves leaders and champions, and exposed to pos
sible martyrdom. This was true not only in the days of slavery
agitation, but also later in the midst of moral and political reform.
The self-estimate is thus expressed, "I affirm with earnestness
and emphasis, that this state today is the most temperate, orderly,
sober community of people in the world." "Since Kansas set the
example eighteen other states have voted upon prohibition, the
aggregate vote being 1,743,329 for and 2,057,385 against."
The fact that Kansas society is yet in the experimental stage
makes it tolerant of idiosyncrasy. The population is still cosmo
politan and almost any idea is sure to find a few followers. Crit
icism of an innovation stands back to see whether something is
to come of it. This unreadiness to condemn that which is new
creates a favorable atmosphere for propagandists ; so that Kan
sas is looked upon by many as the home of odd attitudes and con
structions. The social philosophy is essentially heterodox. The people
are unworshipful of precedent set by other states. A programme
must be useful today, else it has no claim to adoption. Such a
frame of mind is consonant with the excessive individualism
everywhere apparent. Freedom of religious thought, of social life,
and economic action contributes to this.
Social betterment is to Kansas a valued privilege and an im
perative duty. That the state stands for a vigorous militant social
advance is the pride of every citizen. In this ideal the youth are
nurtured.

CHAPTER IX. IMPULSIVE SOCIAL ACTION.
Kansas people have shown a marked proclivity for impulsive
forms of social action. Their history contains notable examples
of a most courageous and even revolutionary spirit. It seems to
arise from a belief that a reform can be made out of hand if only
the people will that it be so. The ideas of people are formal and
any variation from this is regarded as a transgression against the
common good. It is more than likely that the New England con
tingent in the population furnished the impetus in this direction.
The New Englanders were people of strong individuality and suc
ceeded in impressing their ideas and modes of thinking upon the
rest of the population. A sort of social and moral orthodoxy cor
responded in Kansas to the religious orthodoxy of the early co
lonial period in Massachusetts.
The best known exponent of this social orthodoxy was John
Brown, who afterwards came to a tragic end at Harper's Ferry.
John Brown typified the public spirit of early territorial Kansas.
The John Brown methods were forcible in the extreme. He did not
hesitate to fight fire with fire and he was conscientious in it all,
always actuated by a motive which if not religious approached it
in intensity. His attitude was one of righteous intolerance for
what he believed to be wrong. And the John Brown raids and
murders carried this to an extreme.
"The very first 'women's crusade' against the liquor traffic
of which the writer has ever heard occurred at the foot of
Sugar Mound. It was, and ever has been, an unwritten law of
that community that the open saloon should not exist or prosper
there. Some time before the Civil War this sentiment was defied
by a couple of men who seemd to have the protecting influence of
the military officer then in command of the troops stationed at
and in the vicinity of Mound City. Those men opened a groggery
on Main street, in the very heart of the little town. It was not
long before it bore fruit. A drunken soldier, crazed by the liquid
lightning that had been dealt out to him, proceeded to paint the
town and camp in deep carnation colors, and several persons nar
rowly escaped death from his flying bullets. This, and other
cases of similar character, following in quick succession, aroused
(91)

92 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
the indignation of the Sovereign Squats, particularly the women,
and it soon became evident that something would be done — but
what? Most of the men able for military service were in the
army, and the remainder were too few to cope with the arbitrary
power of the military officer mentioned. Things were getting
worse from day to day. The groggery was an intolerable nuisance
to the citizens. Some of the otherwise very best soldiers that ever
served their country had already found themselves in the most
serious difficulty on account of their conduct while under the
demoralizing influence of the drinks obtained there.
"But the women of Kansas never were at a loss for a plan of
action in any emergency. One morning a wagon-load of women
from the vicinity of Moneka drove into Mound City. They were
amply supplied with axes and hatchets, and were soon joined by
a squad of their sisters of the "Mound." They marched straight
to the open door of the saloon and began filing in. Just then the
military officer rode up and, hastily dismounting, made a move to
interfere with the women. Hovering near was a Sovereign Squat,
whose keen eye and quick perception caught the full meaning of
the officer's presence and action, and just as the latter was in the
act of interfering in a rude and boisterous manner, he was con
fronted by the muzzle of the Sovereign's Squat's heavy Colt's
revolver and brought to a statue-like posture by the emphatic and,
as he well knew, direfully freighted message, 'You interfere with
those women by word or act, or move a muscle till I tell you, and
I'll blow your head off !' He knew his man, and he did not need
to be told that his sole source of personal safety lay in strictly
observing the injunction that had been given him. The women
drove out the bartenders and the loungers and then deliberately
broke every bottle, glass and decanter, and knocked in the heads of
every barrel and keg. Having completed their work, they filed out
again and proceeded to their homes."
Nothing but a powerful and sustained impulse could have
carried into effect the temperance legislation of 1879-1880, which
has stood practically as it was for 25 years. The foregoing may
be taken as one illustrative example of the events which prepared
the way for that unusual legislation which made the sale of in
toxicants wholly illegal.
Other examples were of a different kind and consisted in
visits to the saloons by bands of praying women who underwent

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS. 93
such disagreeable experiences as kneeling to pray in the rooms
used for the sale of intoxicants.
These methods of accomplishing results required a devotion
to principle which connoted a nearly complete forgetfulness of
self or of appearances. The individual and his standing in the
eyes of others were forgotten in the highly concentrated state of
mind. The comfort of the individual was as nothing, while the
welfare of society was everything. The method of furthering
this welfare was direct and positive. There was no temporizing
or evasion in it. There was no patience for the slow process of
social evolution. What was to be done could be done forthwith
and must be done.
In all such manifestations then and at later times volatility
was lacking. The purpose was a steady one, not severing from the
main path until the desired end was attained or demonstrated to
be beyond reach. Excitability was lacking, except a suppressed
tense feeling which readily passed away with the accomplishment
of its object.
This same characteristic appeared in the early nineties in the
populist uprising. This time it assumed a politico-economic form
but it was the same spirit, nevertheless. The people used the bal
lot with overwhelming force. Kansas was a stronghold of dissent
and a desire for change. The fervor was far-reaching, affecting
nearly the entire political complexion of the state during its con
tinuance. Even populist senators were sent to represent the state
at Washington. New, drastic, and revolutionary legislation was
seriously proposed and even passed. The wave of populist feeling
communicated itself to all parts of the state and swept from their
moorings many people of conservative preferences. In all respects
populism showed itself to be a kind of contagion.
Again in 1901-1902 the temperance riots are a manifestation
of the same impulsiveness. These were popularly known as the
Carrie Nation joint smashings. But really they were participated
in by many people among whom there was no comprehensive or
ganization. And while Mrs. Nation set the example there were
many others of a similar temperament who took the suggestion
and imitated her with all possible expedition. A wave of imitation
agitated the social life of the state. Riots broke out in many places
in a zone extending diagonally across the state from the northeast
to the northwest.

APPENDIX.

Statistical Tables — Nativity of Foreign-born by Counties.
95

96

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.

Blank spaces, no available statistics by counties.
% Contains capital city. J Bordering upon the Missouri river. t Nebraskan
border counties (Northern). * Oklahoma border counties (Southern). 1 Counties con
taining cities of 10,000 and up. 2 Counties containing cities of 1,000 to 5,000. Smith
to Morton, "Short Grass Country." First ten counties are eastern (Missouri) border
counties. Last seven counties are western (Colorado) border counties.
GERMANS.

§Doniphan ....
JAtchison * . . . .
tLeavenworth 1
X Wyandotte 1 . .
Johnson 
Miami 
Linn 
Bourbon '
Crawford 1 . . .
*Cherokee z ...
Jefffferson . . .
Douglas 
Franklin 
Anderson ....
Allen 
Neosho 
*Labette 
¦("Brown 
Jackson 
{Shawnee 
Osage 
Coffey 
Woodson 
Wilson 
*Montgomery .
tNemaha 
Pottawatomie
Wabaunsee . . .
Lyon 2 
Greenwood . . .
Elk 
*Chautauqua . .
"("Marshall 
Riley 
Gearv 
Morris 
Chase 
Butler 
*Cowley = 
+Washington . .
Clay 
DickinsonMarion 
tRepublic 
Cloud 
Ottowa2 
Saline2 
McPherson .. .
Harvey 
Sedgwick * . . .
*Sumner 
f Jewell 

1860

1870

526837
2,448 442 252
274 111
285 168147 165
843207 126157 114114198175
362 120 70
180 87
113
417
472 435 122 29

473 338

57
102 40 20
184 118
287 9
14
4990
147 9

37 11

1880

588
1,096
2,044 452 362 431 114
320287276237853209257252 179306
292 282 653
269200
248 117
260570744 675
382 108109 45
1,038 503

210 141
331210990 361
806400 166197165
498 368478 637
239 148

1890

655
1,569
3,2842,502 437 534 115
386
1,029 290278
1,011 308 401283242349525
452
1,304 451 317403 150
351 993
908 995665 165
115 50
1,465 820 708
303224488275
1,626 650
1,0991,519 241 293265 578
525
1,3151,643 302200

1900

531
1,189
2,9162,531 413518 122
310929385253 873231321320 197
292509
407
1,145 361279351 133
352 923 790
823 625127 96
43
1,209 655516256183
441212
1,420 533 952779 171
240233442432
1,0261,442 246 191

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
GERMANS.

97

I860

1870

1880

1890

1900

Mitchell 

5
2484

458294476 255286 87 7217
371263
1,027 216 25 14
204 90
277206 160 181

632
502 675
446589248234
406395 343
1,217 318 84
118
399 113
295 172 161177 7138
155 59
100116101
295 26
264 9973
3921 63
30215820
285 165 68
42 5233 17
200 175 55 14
42 12 10

585

488
Ellsworth 
585
Rice 
437
Reno 2 
493
175
150
f Smith 
467
1
82
333
270
1,001
Stafford 
299
Pratt 
57
*Barber 
72
fPhillips 
414
86
Ellis 
114
228
Rush 
146
23
108
175
45
30
113 58 777199
345 2
802339 14
122
51
12
85
108
98
Ford . 
35
224
*Clark 
14
207
93
48
24
22
56
16
Haskell 
11
11
35
5
57 10
228
133
31
44
11
39
19
1
4 2
18
129
80
51
14
8
1
23
11
4
3,137
12,775
28,034
46,423
39,501
98

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
SWEDES.

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

§Doniphan ....
jAtchison x . . . .
jLeavenworth *
IWyandotte 1 . .
Johnson 
Miami 
Linn 
Bourbon x
Crawford * . . .
* Cherokee1 ...
Jefferson 
Douglas 
Franklin 
Anderson 
Allen 
Neosho 
*Labette 
"("Brown 
Jackson 
{Shawnee 
Osage 
Coffey 
Woodson 
Wilson 
*Montgomery .
•(¦Nemaha 
Pottawatomie .
Wabaunsee . . .
Lyon 2 
Greenwood . . .
Elk 
* Chautauqua . .
•(¦Marshall 
Riley 
Gearv 
Morris 
Chase 
Butler 
*Cowley 2 
•(•Washington . .
Clay. 
DickinsonMarion 
T Republic 
Cloud 
Ottowa 2 
Saline ' 
McPherson . . .
Harvey 
Sedgwick 1 ...
*Sumner 
f Jewell 
Mitchell 
Lincoln 
Ellsworth ....
Rice 

99
120 85 93
5037 16
58
36 75
390 140

126
121 5464 8
189
171 45 19
119 2546
280 25 5684

171
435

46 8 5
6
19
44
105 2
31

38
108
364

5
37 7
34

7683 71
272 65
41 11
80 71
43 13
294190 8
214 126 53 99 14
332 542 17 9
127 23 37
429 117
139134 28 19
327896

195 37
44 36
245
534251 45
726
240 59
,636
,115 26 68
34
202 7161
6240

10
66
101
889 31
46 16
131172 48
25
317 187 11
279 187 9860 14
860872 1710
156 27 31
533 121179 5123 5
581
1,071 260407 4861
52
338577 145 99
798
275 37
1,775
2,680 32
106 4685 46
51 6795

12
52
106
1,054 47 64 16
91
149 60
23
213 140 8
271 173 8763
21
843704 8
27
143 29
44
424 106169 61 14 4
477958 180
415 49 53
48
284489
228 71
730
240 37
1,382
2,507 23 933085395150 71

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
SWEDES.

99

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

Reno 2 

50 7
5
32
3220 17 737
38
2722 2143 6

169 1312
7017
40 10

158

13
8
fSmith 
43
16
35
12
Stafford 
1
Pratt 
1210
22 1812 13
55
40 6
13
c
fPhillips 
40
25
Ellis 
3
Q
Rush 
H
74
27
5
i
56 6
43 34 84 2
3223 16 3
1
f Norton 
30 15
40 9
12 4 1
159 15
90 18 253
25
Graham 
4
53
Ness 
6
Hodgeman 
5
Ford 
4
9
*Clark 
2
¦f Decatur 
122
Sheridan 
5
53
Lane 
8
Scott 
5
4
1
Haskell 
26 5
*Meade 
1
*Seward 
1
fRawlins 
25 4
250 47 97 3 5
1218
59
133182 38 16
151
Thomas 
33
51
9
2
5
6
fCheyenne 
50
Sherman 
76
3
19
108
32
8
*Morton 
3
122
4,954
12,369
17,096
15,144
100

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
ENGLISH.

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

§Doniphan ....
JAtchison *
^Leavenworth 1
% Wyandotte 1 . .
Johnson 
Miami 
Linn ._ 
Bourbon *
Crawford 1 . . .
* Cherokee 1 ...
Jefferson 
Douglas 
Franklin 
Anderson 
Allen 
Neosho 
"Labette 
fBrown 
Jackson 
{Shawnee 
Osage 
Coffey 
Woodson 
Wilson 
"Montgomery . .
fNemaha 
Pottawatomie .
Wabaunsee . . .
Lyon 2 
Greenwood . . .
Elk 
"Chautauqua . .
¦(-Marshall 
Riley 
Geary 
Morris 
Chase 
Butler 
*Cowley 2 
¦("Washington . .
Clay 
Dickinson ....
Marion 
"("Republic 
Cloud 
Ottowa2 
Saline 2 
McPhersonHarvey 
Sedgwick *
"Sumner 
t Jewell 
Mitchell 
Lincoln 
Ellsworth 
Rice 

166
393 20
112
201 130114
178 82
104 70
408 146 8968
118178143 96
237
518 110 40 74
103166154 67
471 10

141146
"39 1
50 15
92
345 79 11
4257
124 82 4
'21V
"'3' 14
20

154
464 103
400 167
163121175
2ii2249 154
' 325228 117 118
100 192
274 139
631
1,239 191 60
123162
285
231 149
707 156 76
85
375234
224 121
193184
206 697
349 186
237
219298 256 125
219239239 143 168
103 131142

118
369648
984 162 123120
248623768 151
319205 125
111 166
232203 139
,025 905 118 6390
156
281
201 178
307 178 55
49
339 148
303 171152192
229
223 679
331 189
236 154
274225 131
206493
239 164110 96
145178

259
465880 130
101102
143639690121
233 132 90
116 83
142
165 108
762569 92
849 ¦58
134
231153120
232 158 4437
249 109
207 133 97
152144
141
481239 134
148 111
201 155 69
163
344 170107 87 63
100
124

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
ENGLISH.

101

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

Reno 2 

304 57
38
209 162
222 146 963229
179 57
128 68 8653
192 11
70 7664522334 6
47 191211

354 113103
169 167
150 138 9466
122 160 85
107 36 654130 16
128 54 39 68
28 72 13
656740 13 4
2221 19
12 9
71
40 57 16
27 10 14
34 5725 16
27 1213

304

65
57
fSmith 
6 6
142
116
104
97
Stafford 
77
Pratt 
41
"Barber 
83
¦(¦Phillips 
132
53
Ellis 
56
63
Rush 
25
9
41
29
21
13
¦("Norton 
60
28
5
22
40
18
Ford 
5
42
"Clark 
7
28
54
29
7
5
20
7
Haskell 
5
6
8
5
10
33
31
19
6
5
23
4
1
13
19
23
10
15
3
6
5
4
"Morton 
4
1,400
7,179
14,748
18,080
13,283
102

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
IRISH.

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

399393
2,548 371388201110
329 125
149
211
478 153
104158
294104152127
234 112 94
4740
103

304847
1,658 738
308261 95
205
236218237
314 183
169 97
269
250 131
236
479 291 123 46 85
193
284615 126
225 143 99
46
435 95

205554
1,779 1,679 266
209 61
242308266 159
213 147
143 75
215
237 163
213 656
249 119 6761 '
142
255484 120
233 117 8343
430 69
341 87
106
162

129

JAtchison 1 

387
^Leavenworth 1 
1,226
JWyandotte ' 
1,542
192
176
37
Bourbon * 
155
Crawford1 
267
"Cherokee1 
231
Jefferson 
127
142
Franklin 
101
Anderson 
95
Allen 
77
Neosho 
160
"Labette 
174
117
Jackson 
142
{Shawnee 
483
159
Coffey 
84
Woodson 
46
Wilson 
41
"Montgomery 
108
172
Pottawatomie 
203 28
103 28
333
Wabaunsee 
71
Lyon 2 
176
Greenwood 
66
59
99
¦(•Marshall 
238 83
319
Riley 
53
199
63
2721
382 65
28
147 7
2150
52
197 4
81
98
197
69
Chase 
76
104 78
Butler 
T Washington 
216 133
332 132175170
110
312 84
126
210 187144 99
170131 98
198
147
261 108 79
171 181
267 62
132
463 144136 72
122192 108
156 97
245 92
55
133 120173 4091
340 81
89 71
88
¦ 125 95
Clay ..: 
Marion 
¦("Republic 
Cloud 
Ottowa 2 
Saline 2 
McPherson 
37 o32
31
151
Mitchell 
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104

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
RUSSIANS.

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

1
3055 73 2 3
3
JAtchison a 
17
60 6 1
2
32
JLeavenworth 1 
90
JWyandotte 1 
152
2
Miami 
9
Bourbon 1 ._„ 
2
2
24
"Cherokee 1 
2
1
4
12 23
14 31
7 7
151 72
53 232
37 16 9 1
4
7
Jefferson 
10
Douglas 
38 1
9
Franklin 
4
Allen 
11
8
Neosho 
1
"Labette 
1
4
1
13
171 7
506
8
14
97 1
7
2
Pottawatomie 
71
27
88
19
64
6
Elk 
6
2 1
¦(¦Marshall 
2
Riley 
5
14
3845
86 10
56 10
115
3,116 97
22
142 34
24 2
47
28
11
Butler 
130
6
19
Clav 
4
82
2,224
255
2,860 9
2
6
37
1,654 776 70 2
56
1,183 703 7
39
47
1 259
695 69 3
29
Mitchell 
4
9
g
5
38 7
26 8
53 9
THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
RUSSIANS.

105

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

Reno2 

352

496 6
11

482

Kingman 

20
*Harper 
8
fSmith 
55
1
1
335293 2 1
7 1
Russell 
350262 4 1
989
Barton 
484
Stafford 
17
Pratt 
1
"Barber 
1
•(¦Phillips 
1
5
Ellis 
1,231 824 2
1,269 542 11 1
1,240
Rush 
762
38
3
6
5
168
1
3 1
7
1
1
1
13
6
"Clark . . 
22 1
1
11
10
9
8
3
Haskell 
1
1
il
i
 | 
6
 1 
8
 I 
3
1
i
2
1
8
3
1
1
76
120
2
3
10
1
13
56
8,032
9,801
11,019
106

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
CANADIANS (ENGLISH).

§Doniphan ....
f Atchison 1
JLeavenworth 1
JWyandotte1 ..
Johnson 
Miami 
Linn 
Bourbon 1 . . . . .
Crawford 1 . . .
"Cherokee 1 ...
Jefferson 
Douglas 
Franklin 
Anderson 
Allen 
Neosho 
"Labette 
fBrown 
Jackson 
{Shawnee 
Osage 
Coffey 
Woodson 
Wilson 
"Montgomery . .
fNemaha 
Pottawatomie .
Wabaunsee . . .
Lyon 2 
Greenwood . . .
Fxk 
"Chautauqua . .
¦(•Marshall 
Riley 
Geary 
Morris 
Chase 
Butler 
"Cowley2 
f Washington . .
Clay 
Dickinson ....
Marion 
¦(¦Republic 
Cloud 
Ottowa2 
Saline2 
McPherson .. .
Harvey 
Sedgwick 1 ...
"Sumner 
t Jewell 
Mitchell 
Lincoln 
Ellsworth 
Rice 

1860

1870

96
290 10
109147
131126
180 135112 86
219 131 5186
199196 88
138193
101 54

91
117139 41 87
53

1880

259 71

20 11
42
23
108 98
83 5
14
74
101 79

41

3
10

62
268257217 91
187 59
123
199146 57
198
121 4487
171168161130
308 174 67
104 69
161171
262 98
213146 100 38
435 145

71
65
161
198
376
397446
279 181
1,005 226302 171 165
201250230271 74
115

1890

36
186
224593 74
149 50
138183128 42
132 94
4753
115130182 67
371 107 87
5947
101187184 79
159118 6734
402 109 9776
49
134
255368348388271 140
1,038 175
249 130
138357181149132 44
126

1900

38
150157
421 50
135 30
59
138112 46 99
6124
5796
103
123 89
297 83 61
553081
144
118 52
114 76
4226
262 6774
482962
144
203 154
276 163 84
149122134 '
54
100
195119 86 9768
80

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C^CMOiOGO^OOO^U50^C010^-ttr-COCOC^CMO^lOrHCOIr-CO-^OCO^tr-tr-COCM^lr-COCMCMCM(M"Ot-HO^COCOOO *0 O <M lO lit! CO lO CO -^ .— < CiiO CM CO CM CM -tHhcOi-H""* MHIDlOHHHCMri tH t«IOCOCOH CO lO "* tH
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108

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
SCOTCH.

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

2891
162 14
5245 18
66 15
22329531
22 8
405625 18
5935 10 1
30 16
34292336 8

21 92
130 74
41 33 16
50 9267
36 6657
3029
4456 3526
115
287 19
263741 68695170
2844 16
111 25

11
89
168
244 32
31 19
63
353 309 28 64
8642293660
45 35
270609 20
26 3531575283
108 36
34 15
100 22 71
53755391
8686
301 49 76
51626138
48
145 77363539
71 15

14

72
JLeavenworth * 
146
IWyandotte * 
205
31
41
25
Bourbon T 
45
Crawford J 
413
"Cherokee1 
388
24
51
55
19
Allen 
34
Neosho 
37
"Labette 
41
21
35
217
319
23
15
24
27
37
44
Wabaunsee 
82
90
Greenwood 
23
F.t.k 
33
8
"(•Marshall 
5120
71
Riley 
18
48
7
10 76
17
2745 4
5147
484956 81
121 38 79
42548341507263
3340215030
53 63
5344 6460
112 275738574422
43 90
4728 17
31
40 16
Chase 
Butler 
"Cowley2 
¦("Washington 
Clay 
Marion 
Cloud' 
28 12
47 2
Ottowa2 
McPherson 
Sedgwick 1 
5
1
3
2 9
Mitchell 
THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
SCOTCH.

109

I860

1870

1880

1890

1900

Reno 2 

17

59 10 5
313453 1632 7
4
38 37
3921 13 10

6237 14
3329 1318 1711 8
3523 37 14 8
13 2 6
20 30 13
22 14
28 3
23 1610 3 173223
22 1810 54 3 1
24 4 2 9 61
2

45

29
4
t Smith
28
21
9
13
8
17
14
6
18
17
Ellis 
22
14
15
5
3
2
3
2026 21 9
26 17 1
16 52 1
12
19
4
7
11
9
7
12
1
23
10
8
1
5
4
1
2
1
io 3
2
8
4
2
1
1
3
1
13
2
4
7
3
5
1
2
1
1,488
3,715
5,352
4,219
r-coO"*coc~io^COOOOCMi-l

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THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
AUSTRIANS.

Ill

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

Reno * 

mo ft
O n3a

68
14

23

3
f Smith 
2
1
5
553 7
13 1
2
18
493
Stafford 
8
Pratt 
9
1
fPhillips 
3
12
116 97 1
22
7
Ellis 
7
217
Rush 
91
1
1
1
5
19
2220 18
1
12
62
16
47
9
*Clark 
15 4
16
29
5
5
Scott . 
22 1
2
Haskell 
*Meade . 
i
1
12
12 7
8
50
21
2
5
4
1
9
10
1
3
"Morton
87
448
2,384
3,517
OT
<OTZ
< &H
o oz;I— I
jowPhwS H

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THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
SWISS.

113

I860

1870

1880

1890

1900

Reno 2 

21 6
4
55 61
41 51 4
14 3
21 9 9
1011 4

32303042722329 5
9
20 21 8
1,5 6 79
8

31

Kingman 

12
12
fSmith 
26
56
7
23
19
Stafford 
8
Pratt 
11
10
fPhillips 
15
7
Ellis 
4
13
Rush 
9
1
16
14
1
fNorton 
3 6 1
30 9
5 12
1
7
13
32 29
9
8
10
36
4
Ford 
5
4
*Clark 
1
ii10 442 7 1
18
5
3
3
1
Scott 
1
2
Haskell 
*Meade 
5
5 1
1916 3 8
4
1
13
10
2
1
9 5
25 10
1
3
16
7
3
3
1
i 1
97
260
1,328
2,596
3,820
3,337
114

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
BOHEMIANS.

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

1
12 1012 4 2
10
16
JWyandotte 1  .- 
41
30
2
1
19
17
4
1 1
2
3
1
36
3
Allen 
1
"Labette 
14
10
3
29
42
3
2
4
4 1
33 20 252
5
1
23
28
4
6
8
¦("Marshall 
181 67 52 1
24
186 28
128
563 7
55 2
19
141
Riley 
44
3
1
5
3
3
168
Clav 
13
3
144
¦(¦Republic 
609
g
Ottowa 2 
54
12
7
4
111 58
9
77
52 2
107
632
83
641
THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
BOHEMIANS.

115

I860

1870

1880

1890

1900

Reno2 

1
1
3
77 9
10
7257 1
7
46
tSmith 
26
13
65
60
Stafford 
Pratt 
1
*Barber 
fPhillips 
6
59 6
82 4
1
58
Ellis 
11
Rush 
110
9
1
i6
1
5
ii
47 44
7
Ford 
* Clark 
1
60
63
1
3
2
Haskell 
*Meade 
3
149 20 1
iii
7
3
4
10 2
25
2
105
2,468
3,022
3,039
116

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
DANES.

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

§Doniphan ....
f Atchison x . . . .
fLeavenworth 2
JWyandotte 1 . .
Johnson 
Miami 
Linn 
Bourbon 1
Crawford 1 . . .
"Cherokee 1 . . .
Jefferson 
Douglas 
Franklin 
Anderson ....
Allen 
Neosho 
"Labette 
f Brown 
Jackson 
JShawnee 
Osage 
Coffey 
Woodson 
Wilson 
"Montgomery .
f Nemaha 
Pottawatomie
Wabaunsee . . .
Lyon 2 
Greenwood . . .
Elk 
"Chautauqua . .
•{¦Marshall 
Riley 
Geary 
Morris 
Chase 
Butler 
"Cowley2 
¦{•Washington . .
Clay 
Dickinson
Marion 
•{•Republic 
Clcid 
Ottowa2 
Saline " 
McPherson .. .
Harvey 
Sedgwick 1
"Sumner 
-{•Jewell 
Mitchell 
Lincoln 
Ellsworth
Rice 

34
5231 1
12 4

8
16 6
36 1
6
32202429 2 1

5
11 9
11 3
4

26 5
.... 111
19 1
33
16
29
'io'

7.5

61

43

48

26

21

202

237

8

19

8

7

5

1

11

6

7

6

16

23

6

5

26

24

34

35

9

11

14

27

21

16

28

26

37

37

104

89

45

40

116

107

11

9

3

1

4

5

10

7

29

25

27

31

61

37

87

105

47

20

8

4

3

5

98

114

63

62

59

41

39

20

8

11

46

31

30

27

101

131

40

27

53

47

99

121

97

97

187

161

86

55

78

72

59

62

5

5

29

41

30

7

54

35

40

31

179

198

9

12

12

7

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
DANES.

117

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

Reno2 

40 3
16
30 17
20 6
13 4
10
35 13
46 424 9 1
20 15 4
37
4
5
fSmith 
34
13
19
7
Stafford 
9
Pratt 
"Barber 
6
fPhillips 
40
13
Ellis 
3
25
Rush 
4
5
7
1
¦{Norton 
17
Graham 
19
1
Ness 
1
15 4
11
2
"Clark 
18 6
13
ii
5
8
Scott 
4
3
Haskell 
2
1
40 37 5
44
23
1
17
7
6
16 3 15
1
13
2
2
2
"Morton 
70
502
1,838
3,136
2,914
118

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
FRENCH.

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

§Doniphan 

6767
249 33
35 15 4
33 8 7
14
154 31 8
17
24 1915 2
4825 11 6
11 4
45 69 12 6

46 68
139 49 29 15 6
18
57 151861
41 2
12
2531 18 3
103 116 27 1
1111
40 6629 16
22 56
45 5

4621

31

|Atchison 1 

13

103
| Wyandotte 1 
105 6
12 6
28
260 149 6
4735 12 2
28 1
23 6
90
150 26 5
19 9
37 733233
92
29
Miami  , 
11
8
Bourbon 1 
15
Crawford J 
385
"Cherokee 1 
203
Jefferson 
7
Douglas 
45
32
17
Allen 
16
18
"Labette 
31
23
9
82
169
12
2
15
10
24
42
18
29
12
Elk 
5
4
31 4
5
2
24 4
25
Riley 
5
8
6
14 2295 6
19 1
9
11
41 9
16
36 1717
24 18
1639 5
48 17
45 9
25 3126 1219 7
8
21
7
27 121918
1213
47 9
51 18
52 11
395523 97
122 6
12
4
16
10
8
16
Clay 
10
6
35
6
49
6
22
9
12
39
16
3
5
Mitchell 
12
1
16
6
4
10
THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
FRENCH.

119

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

Reno2 ....
Kingman . .
"Harper
fSmith .....
Osborne . . .
Russell BartonStafford . . .
Pratt 
"Barber
t Phillips . . .
RooksEllis 
Rush 
Pawnee . . .
Edwards . .
Kiowa ....
"Comanche
tNorton . . .
Graham . .
Trego ....
Ness 
Hodgeman Ford 
"Clark 
{¦Decatur . .
Sheridan .
Gove 
Lane 
Scott 
Finney . . .
Gray 
Haskell ..
"Meade ...
"Seward . . .
f Rawlins . .
Thomas . .
Logan ....
Wichita . .
Kearney . .
Grant 
"Stevens
¦{•Cheyenne .
Sherman . .
Wallace . .
Greeley . .
Hamilton .
Stanton . .
"Morton . . .

12
"3'

29 5
11 2
15 6
17 6 16
335
"e 3

6
3 1
13

12

56 22 1

15 3 1
525 66
2 5
5 35 666
"6* 24 1
15
39 1
6
2
31

337
'iY 73
"5 42
18

44 6
14
"4 2
13 2 1
13 24

1
12 14
"7 2 1
3

509

1,274

1,821

2,236

2,012

^OCOC»«JOOCTI>CDCOCOC»COCOT^-THHo-i-TiTCO[^T-HOCO-^O^CM^CM^OiTM<MTM t-H CM O CM HOC- »-H t— I tH CO t-H CM 00 CO CO t-i t-I rH >JD hHH CO rHmHHHCM T-H CM lO T-H
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See English Table.

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coal II ¦! 1 li

£ Vh a;
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THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
WELSH.

121

I860

1870

1880

1890

1900

Reno * 

in o>a>M 3
w. en"3*Herr ciT

CT>n>w3
13. B*H
tr

22 1414 35 5
8 5 1

14

Kingman 

4

3
fSmith 
4
Osborne 
3
7
5
Stafford 
5
Pratt 
1
*Barber 
1
fPhillips 
7 3 11
3 11
2
19
2
Ellis 
1
Rush 
3
4
1
1
1
2 2 8
5
4
5
7
* Clark
23 9
2
1
14
Scott 
74
7
Haskell
2 1
1
1
1
1
3
1
2
6
1
1
24
7
2
2
3
163
1,020
2,488
2,005
122

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
CANADIANS (FRENCH).

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

10
9
31
| Wyandotte 1 
58
6
7
2
8
27
15
7
9
9
7
Allen 
9
2
"Labette 
14
5
4
35
9
9
12
11
7
25
6
19
1
5
5
¦{•Marshall 
28
Riley 
12
17
3
1
Butler 
16
17
48
Clay 
67
11
24
8
486
10
25
17
9
20
13
12
16
3
g
7
THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
CANADIANS (FRENCH).

123

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

Reno2 

18
Kingman 
5
"Harper 
5
f Smith 
19
5
2
Barton 
8
Stafford 
3
Pratt 
5
1
fPhillips 
8
79
Ellis 
1
Rush 
3
1
1
fNorton 
3
33
Trego 
1
3
Hodgeman 
1
Ford 
3
"Clark 
1
4
2
Scott 
Finney 
7
Haskell 
"Meade 
2
1
1
4
2
1,485
124

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
NORWEGIANS.

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

40
JAtchison 1 
57
^Leavenworth 1 
34
JWyandotte " 
46
7
5
8
9
"Cherokee1 
7
3
6
5
4
Allen 
4
"Labette 
6
228
2
45
11
9
3
5
6
7
12
13
112
3
6
-{Marshall 
12
Riley 
16
16
15
9
Butler 
6
H
9
Clay 
72
6
1
175
39 7
Ottowa2 
10
40
7
89
108 1218 48
THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
NORWEGIANS.

125

I860

1870

1880

1890

1900

Reno2 

3
1
*Harper 
2
fSmith 
7
Osborne 
3
5
4
Stafford 
Pratt 
4
1
tPhillips 
9
Ellis 
2
Rush 
7
15
17
1
1
4
4
2
10
2
9
1
2
6
4
8
1
4
1
5
i
1
223
588
1,358
1,786
1,477
126

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
ITALIANS.

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

15
2147 15 1
2
13
13
56
1 Wyandotte J .
16
1
5
9863
541
160
3
1
2
1
1
"Labette 
1
2
11 17
212 8
2
4
5
113
i
3
2
1
1
6
1
4
1
Elk 
fMarshall 
3
1
Riley 
1
12 6
3 1
i
i
5
3
1
11 1
24 1
1
1
i
i
13 2
14
THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
ITALIANS.

127

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

Reno 2 

4
1
¦{•Smith 
1
Stafford 
Pratt 
4
•{"Phillips 
Ellis 
1
Rush 
1
3
2
Ford 
7
"Clark 
1
2
Scott 
Haskell 
"Meade 
1
5 1
1
1
2
2
7
4
15
55
167
616
987
128

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
BELGIANS.

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

§Doniphan 

t

15 12
16
84 4

9

JAtchison 1 

9
20
J Wyandotte 1 
112
Johnson 
Miami 
1
Bourbon 1 
3
116 95
Crawford 1 
199
209
4
Douglas 
9
4
1
7
5
Allen 
14
14 3
12
6
3
3
3545 2
19
16
i
3
38 91
2
2
3
44
19
5
2
1
¦{Marshall 
2
2
Riley 
1
3 1
23
4 1
35
27 4
49 6
39 2 1
14
1
42
233
23 1
74 5
29
Clay 
¦(•Republic 
Ottowa2 
10
5
14 1
2 1
2
THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
BELGIANS.

129

I860

1870

1880

1890

1900

Reno 2 

3
11
1
fSmith .
1
1
Stafford 
tPhillips 
2 11
3 1
2
1
Ellis 
Rush 
1
10 5
8
3
33
3
1
2
1
2
1
1
8
5
3
2
2
1
52
199
432
808
985
*9
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THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
HOLLANDERS.

131

I860

1870

1880

1890

1900

Reno 2 

1
14 1
53 12 1
7
12 1 1
187 16 2 1 1
Kingman 
5
1
fSmith 
58
Osborne 
17
1
Barton 
3
Stafford 
7
Pratt 
f Phillips 
307
4
Ellis 
2
4
Rush 
1
1
2
2
f Norton 
8
11 1
36
6
3
*Clark 
4
10 55
6
3
4
1
Haskell 
i
3 1
3
1
i
2
1
45
300
749
872
875
132

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
POLES.

§Doniphan t Atchison 1 
JLeavenworth 1
JWyandotte 1 . .
Johnson 
Miami 
Linn 
Bourbon 1
Crawford x . . .
* Cherokee 1 ...
Jefferson 
Douglas 
Franklin 
Anderson
Allen 
Neosho 
?Labette 
fBrown 
Jackson 
"Shawnee 
Osaga 
Coffey 
Woodson
Wilson 
?Montgomery .
fNemaha 
Pottawatomie
Wabaunsee . .
Lyon 2 
Greenwood . .
Elk 
?Chautauqua . .
¦(¦Marshall 
Riley 
Geary 
Morris 
Chase 
Butler 
?Cowley 2 
¦{•Washington .
Clay 
Dickinson . . .
Marion 
•{•Republic 
Cloud 
Ottowa 2 
Saline 2 
McPherson . .
Harvey 
Sedgwick x . . .
?Sumner 
tJewell 
Mitchell 
Lincoln 
EllsworthRice 

1860 1870

1880

1890

2
37 59
"¥"i' 82 2

23

3 1
"i" 1
1
"i" l
64

2
12
21 3

1900

1
4
145116 3 1

1712

4
25

1
14

3 1
4
2 1
229 13 1
""4 17
25 32

THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.
POLES.

133

1860

1870

1880

1890

1900

Reno 2 

7
6
12
tSmith 
2
i
Osborne 
32 3
2
Barton 
7
Stafford 
Pratt 
1
26
3
tPhillips 
11
Ellis 
4
8
Rush 
4
2
1
1
Graham 
Ford 
2
?Clark 
3
1
Haskell 
?Meade 
4
4
1
1
69
169
1,200
394
751
134 THE PEOPLING OF KANSAS.

VITA.

The writer was born near Springfield, in Clark County,
Ohio, in 1873. He received his primary education in rural
schools and in the Preparatory Department of Wittenberg Col
lege; entered Wittenberg College in 1892, entered Ohio Wesleyan
University in 1896, and was graduated from the latter with the
degree of A. B. in 1897. The academic year 1897-98 was spent
in study in the School of Political Science, Columbia University.
During 1898-99 he was an instructor in the High School, Brandt,
Ohio. In 1899 he became professor of Economics, Sociology,
and History in Southwest Kansas College, Winfield, Kansas,
and continued as such until the close of the academic year in
1901. As a President's University Scholar in Sociology he re
sumed his post-graduate work at Columbia University in Soci
ology, Economics and American History in 1901. During this
year he was a resident worker of the University Settlement,
New York City. The year 1902-03 was spent in work upon
this dissertation, in travel in Europe, and in attendance at lec
tures in the College de France, University of Paris. Upon his
return to America in 1902, he became Head of the Guild House
Social Settlement, Columbus, Ohio, which position he now holds.
During the year 1903-04 he was temporary instructor in the De
partment of Economics and Sociology, Ohio State University.
He is Secretary of the Ohio Child Labor Committee, a member
of the American Economic Association and of the American
Sociological Society. He has written "Trades Unions and the
Settlement," University Settlement Studies, 1901, and "The
Work of the First Neighborhood Guild," 1905. He has made
the following investigations :
Tenement Life in Brooklyn, New York.
Housing and Sanitary Conditions, Cincinnati, Ohio.
Social Life of Kansas.
Social Amusements of Wage Earners, Columbus, Ohio.
Child Labor in Ohio.

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