Abstract
The status land for descendants of Kaw (Kansas) women and white fathers was somewhat clearer in the 1825 Treaty with the Kansa: the United States would reserve one-square-mile sections of ceded land to twenty-three individuals (eighteen identified by name, the others simply described as the four children on one named man). A small portion of one of those sections of reserved land, never held by “Indian title” in common, eventually came to the grandson of a grantee and would finance a career in law and politics that led that grandson, Charles Curtis, to the vice presidency of the United States, after a Congressional career during which he sponsored the law that carved up tribal lands in Oklahoma and allotted small holdings in severalty to tribal members. The never-completely accepted idea that assimilation would come necessarily from landownership had finally been confirmed, led by a man whose understanding of land tenure was at its root shaped by the “Kaw half breed” grants.
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Notes
- 1.
William Unrau, Mixed-Bloods and Tribal Dissolution: Charles Curtis and the Quest for Indian Identity (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1989) pp. 70–71.
- 2.
An Act to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri river to the Pacific ocean, 12 Stat. 489. Sidney Homer and Richard Sylla, A History of Interest Rates (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1996), report that the 1861 sales of $68.4 million of twenty-year bonds came at yields of 6.7–6.73 percent—a higher rate for a shorter maturity, in other words, p. 307 and of some $500 million of 6 percent, twenty-year bonds offered in 1862, the government sold only $23.7 million, even with the sweetener of an early redemption in just five years and a tax exemption, Ibid., p. 308, which were soon discounted, as was an earlier 1858 issue, for an average yield that year of 6.12 percent, However, after Gettysburg, US bond prices soared, and investors were willing to accept yields of 6 percent in 1863 and 4.75 percent when the bulk of the 1862 bonds were finally sold. Ibid., p. 309.
- 3.
“Report of Wm. H. Combes,” in Kansas Half Breed Kaw Lands, Executive Document No. 58, 37th Congress, 2nd session, pp. 10, 12–13; Hugh Walsh, who surveyed the claimants in 1861 said fifteen of the eighteen living claimants he found asked for permission to sell their land, “Report of H.S. Walsh,” pp. 6–8; The grantees’ tenure was confirmed in 12 Stat. 21 (May 26 1860).
- 4.
Unrau, Mixed-Bloods and Tribal Dissolution, pp. 59, 78, 79, 85. James L. King, History of Shawnee County Kansas (Chicago: Richmond & Arnold, 1905) p. 151.
- 5.
Unrau, Mixed-Bloods and Tribal Dissolution, pp. 141, 172–173.
- 6.
30 Stat. 495; Gates, “The Homestead Law in an Incongruous Land System,” The American Historical Review, Vol. 41, No. 4 (July 1936) p. 662.
- 7.
Congressional Globe, 37th Congress, 2nd session (February 28 1862) p. 1030, “Regulations of the Belleview Claim Association, Douglas County, Neb.,” Deed Book H, p. 101; “Rules of the Platte Valley Actual Settlers Club,” Douglas County Deed Book A, p. 116; “Iron Bluff Actual Settlers Club,” Douglas County Deed Book A, p. 196; Edward Sayre, “Early Days in and about Bellevue,” Collections of the Nebraska State Historical Society, vol. 16, 1911, pp. 66–114.
- 8.
The Indian Question, report of the Committee appointed by the Hon. John D. Logan, Governor of Massachusetts, Boston, 1880, np; Valerie Sherer Mathes and Richard Lowitt, The Standing Bear Controversy, Prelude to Indian Reform, Urbana, 2003, p. 190; Board of Indian Commissioners, Annual Report, 1885, pp. 90–91.
- 9.
General Allotment Act, 24 Stat., 387.
- 10.
James Daniel Richardson, A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789–1897, Washington, 1899, vol. 9, p. 544; Congressional Record, 46th Congress, 3rd session, p. 1066.
- 11.
Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, October 22 1885, (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1885) pp. 3–4.
References
An Act to aid in the construction of a railroad and telegraph line from the Missouri river to the Pacific ocean, 12 Stat. 489.
An act to settle the titles to certain lands set apart for the use of certain half-breed Kansas Indians, in Kansas Territory, 12 Stat. 21.
Board of Indian Commissioners, Annual Report, 1885.
Congressional Globe, 37th Congress, 2nd session.
General Allotment Act, 24 Stat., 387.
“Iron Bluff Actual Settlers Club,” Douglas County, Neb. Deed Book A, p. 196.
Regulations of the Belleview Claim Association, Douglas County, Neb.,” Deed Book H, p. 101.
Report of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, October 22 1885.
“Report of H.S. Walsh,” and “Report of Wm. H. Combes,” in Kansas Half Breed Kaw Lands, Executive Document No. 58, 37th Congress, 2nd session.
“Rules of the Platte Valley Actual Settlers Club,” Douglas County Deed Book A, p. 116.
The Indian Question, report of the Committee appointed by the Hon. John D. Logan, Governor of Massachusetts, Boston, 1880.
Gates, Paul, “The Homestead Law in an Incongruous Land System,” The American Historical Review, Vol. 41, No. 4 (July 1936) pp. 652–681.
King, James L., History of Shawnee County Kansas (Chicago: Richmond & Arnold, 1905).
Mathes, Varlerie S. and Richard Lowitt, The Standing Bear Controversy, Prelude to Indian Reform, (Urbana, ill: University of Illinois Press, 2003).
Richardson, James D., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 1789–1897, Vol. 9 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1899).
Sayre, Edward, “Early Days in and About Bellevue,” Collections of the Nebraska State Historical Society, vol. 16, 1911, pp. 66–114.
Unrau, William, Mixed-Bloods and Tribal Dissolution: Charles Curtis and the Quest for Indian Identity (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1989)
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Ress, D. (2019). Charley’s Land. In: The Half Breed Tracts in Early National America. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-31467-5_8
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