Transactions Of The Kansas State Historical Society 1905 1906

Reprint of the original, first published in 1881.

Excerpt from Transactions of the Kansas State Historical Society, 1905-1906, Vol. 9: Embracing Addresses at Annual Meetings; Early Missions in Kansas; Semicentennial of Territorial Organization; River Navigation; Political Administrations; The Soldiers of Kansas, and Miscellaneous Papers D. W. Mulvane. Topeka. Jonathan D. Norton, Topeka. C. A. Peterson, St. Louis. Sam Radges, Topeka. Bertrand Rockwell, Junction City. J. C. Ruppenthal, Russell. Eliza May Stone, Galena. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

After their first contacts with whites in the seventeenth century, the Kansa Indians began migrating from the eastern United States to what is now eastern Kansas, by way of the Missouri Valley. Settling in villages mostly along the Kansas River, they led a semi-sedentary life, raising corn and a few vegetables and hunting buffalo in the spring and fall. It was an idyllic existence-until bad, and then worse, things began to happen. William E. Unrau tells how the Kansa Indians were reduced from a proud people with a strong cultural heritage to a remnant forced against their will to take up the whites' ways. He gives a balanced but hard-hitting account of an important and tragic chapter in American history.

Since the shocking news first broke in 1876 of the Seventh Cavalry’s disastrous defeat at the Little Big Horn, fascination with the battle—and with Lieutenant George Armstrong Custer—has never ceased. Widespread interest in the subject has spawned a vast outpouring of literature, which only increases with time. This two-volume bibliography of Custer literature is the first to be published in some twenty-five years and the most complete ever assembled. Drawing on years of research, Michael O’Keefe has compiled entries for roughly 3,000 books and 7,000 articles and pamphlets. Covering both nonfiction and fiction (but not juvenile literature), the bibliography focuses on events beginning with Custer’s tenure at West Point during the 1850s and ending with the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890. Included within this span are Custer’s experiences in the Civil War and in Texas, the 1873 Yellowstone and 1874 Black Hills expeditions, the Great Sioux War of 1876–77, and the Seventh Cavalry’s pursuit of the Nez Perces in 1877. The literature on Custer, the Battle of the Little Big Horn, and the Seventh Cavalry touches the entire American saga of exploration, conflict, and settlement in the West, including virtually all Plains Indian tribes, the frontier army, railroading, mining, and trading. Hence this bibliography will be a valuable resource for a broad audience of historians, librarians, collectors, and Custer enthusiasts.

During the 1930s in the United States, the Works Progress Administration developed the Federal Writers’ Project to support writers and artists while making a national effort to document the country’s shared history and culture. The American Guide series consists of individual guides to each of the states. Little-known authors—many of whom would later become celebrated literary figures—were commissioned to write these important books. John Steinbeck, Saul Bellow, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ralph Ellison are among the more than 6,000 writers, editors, historians, and researchers who documented this celebration of local histories. Photographs, drawings, driving tours, detailed descriptions of towns, and rich cultural details exhibit each state’s unique flavor. America’s Heartland is well depicted in this WPA Guide to Kansas, originally published in 1939. Kansas, also nicknamed the “Sunflower State” because of its rich agricultural roots and the “Jayhawker State” because of its distinct role in the American Civil War, has a diverse and extensive history.

compiled and written by the Federal Writers' Project of the Work Projects Administration for the State of Kansas ... Sponsored by the State Department of Education.

A Plains tribe that subsisted on the buffalo, the Cheyennes depended for survival on the valor and skill of their braves in the hunt and in battle. The fiery spirit of the young warriors was balanced by the calm wisdom of the tribal headmen, the peace chiefs, who met yearly as the Council of the Forty-four. "A Cheyenne chief was required to be a man of peace, to be brave, and to be of generous heart," writes Stan Hoig. "Of these qualities the first was unconditionally the most important, for upon it rested the moral restraint required for the warlike Cheyenne Nation." As the Cheyennes began to feel the westward crush of white civilization in the nineteenth century, a great burden fell to the peace chiefs. Reconciliation with the whites was the tribe's only hope for survival, and the chiefs were the buffers between their own warriors and the United States military, who were out to "win the West." The chiefs found themselves struggling to maintain the integrity of their people-struggling against overwhelming military forces, against disease, against the debauchery brought by "firewater," and against the irreversible decline of their source of livelihood, the buffalo. They were trapped by history in a nearly impossible position. Their story is a heroic epic and, oftentimes, a tragedy. No single book has dealt as intensively as this one with the institution of the peace chiefs. The author has gleaned significant material from all available published sources and from contemporary newspapers. A generous selection of photographs and extensive quotations from ninteteenth-century observers add to the authenticity of the text. Following a brief analysis of the Sweet Medicine legend and its relation to the Council of the Forty-four, the more prominent nineteenth-century chiefs are treated individually in a lucid, felicitous style that will appeal to both students and lay readers of Indian history. As adopted Cheyenne chief Boyce D. Timmons says in his preface to this volume, "Great wisdom, intellect, and love are expressed by the remarkable Cheyenne chiefs, and if you enter their tipi with an open heart and mind, you might have some understanding of the great 'Circle of Life.'"

Louis Burns draws on ancestral oral traditions and research in a broad body of literature to tell the story of the Osage people. He writes clearly and concisely, from the Osage perspective. First published in 1989 and for many years out of print, this revised edition is augmented by a new preface and maps. Because of its masterful compilation and synthesis of the known data, A History of the Osage People continues to be the best reference for information on an important American Indian people.