Before Their relocation to the Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma, the Kanza Indians spent twenty-seven years on a reservation near Council Grove, Kansas, on the Santa Fe Trail.
For, while encroachment, disease, and environmental deterioration exerted enormous pressure on tribal cohesion, the Kanzas persisted in Their struggle to exercise political autonomy while maintaining traditional social customs up to the time of removal in 1873 and beyond..
Parks does not reduce the Kanzas\' story to one of hapless Indian victims traduced by the American government.
As one survivor put it, "They died of a broken heart, they died of a broken spirit." But despite this adversity, as Parks\'s narrative portrays, the Kanza people continued Their relationship with the land--its weather, plants, animals, water, and landforms.
During this "Darkest period," as chief Allegawaho called it in 1871, the Kanzas\' Neosho reservation population diminished by more than 60 percent.
The Kanzas\' holy sites were desecrated and the tribe was increasingly confined to the reservation.
As Anglo-Americans invaded the Kanza homeland, the prairie was plowed and game disappeared.
Government officials and Their policies, Protestant educators, predatory economic interests, and a host of continent-wide events affected the tribe profoundly.
The Kanzas confronted powerful Euro-American forces during Their Last years in Kansas.
The result is a story of human beings rather than historical abstractions.
He addresses both the big picture--the effects of Manifest Destiny--and local particulars such as the devastating impact on the tribe of the Santa Fe Trail.
Parks makes use of accounts by agents, missionaries, journalists, and ethnographers in crafting this tale.
Parks tells the story of those years of decline in Kanza history following the loss of the tribe\'s original Homeland in northeastern and central Kansas.
In The Darkest Period , Ronald D.
Before Their relocation to the Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma, the Kanza Indians spent twenty-seven years on a reservation near Council Grove, Kansas, on the Santa Fe Trail
