THE HISTORY OF THE KANSAS MUNSEE…
The Munsee Tribe in Kansas descends from the Munsee, Mahican, and Delaware or Lenape people. These tribes were related in their homelands between Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey for thousands of years. Also known as the “Christian Indians”, these natives converted to the Moravian faith at the missions of Shekomeko, Freidenshutten, and Gnadenhutten in the Colonies of Southern New York and Pennsylvania between 1738 and 1754.
In the 1730's the Moravian missionaries arrived in this country and converted the Mahicans at Shekomeko in New York. Officials and settlers pushed the Moravians and Mahicans to Pennsylvania. And then, the Delaware and Munsee Tribes were pushed from their lands by the Walking Purchase of 1737 committed by William Penn's sons.
Moravian Mission Scene Pennsylvania Colony 1740’s
The Moravians’ requirement that the Christian converts practice pacifism, as well as to live in a structured and European-style mission village, alienated mission populations from other tribes. The French and Indian War of 1755-63 caused conflict between tribes and the British and French Empires. Settlers poured into Pennsylvania and violence ensued.
Rev. David Zeisberger Missionary to the Christian Indians for six decades
The Moravian missionaries David Ziesberger and John Heckewelder requested and were granted lands by the Wyandotte Tribe where they established the mission towns of Gnadenhutten, Schonbrunn, Salem, and Lichtenau in the early 1770s. The American Revolutionary War of 1774-1783 trapped the mission towns between the British Empire, their tribal allies, and the American settlers as these groups battled. (Historical grant and other documents are linked below.)
Schonbrunn Moravian Village Building from the 1770’s
The Moravian missionaries and tribal converts professed neutrality as the war raged. Lichtenau was burned. Eventually, the settler militia grew tired of attacks by British-aligned Wyandotte and Delaware warriors and instead attacked pacifist Moravian convents at the Gnadenhutten Massacre of March 8, 1782. Ninety-six unarmed Munsee, mostly women and children, were killed by the militia.
The survivors, which consisted of two boys who survived the massacre and the Moravian converts who were being held captive by the British Empire near Fort Detroit, eventually reestablished New Gnadenhutten north of Detroit.
A group of surviving Christian Munsee left that area led by Moravian missionary David Zeisberger. They eventually reestablished their community in what is today southern Ontario in 1792 at Fairfield/Moraviantown.
New Fairfield Moravian Chapel at Moraviantown First Nation, Ontario Canada
Historical Marker for the New Fairfield Church (Courtesy of Mike Ford)
The conflict between the Americans and the British Empire led to the War of 1812 and the Battle of Moraviantown on October 5, 1813. The invading Americans burned Moraviantown and the Munsee people fled for their safety.
The Canadian Government helped rebuild Moraviantown after the battle. The Shawnee leader Tecumseh died fighting the Americans at Moraviantown. The land the Moravian converts had left after the Gnadenhutten Massacre of 1782 was offered to them in a 1788 treaty with the United States. When the Moravian converts failed to return to Ohio the 12,000 acres they were offered in 1788 were sold by Congress in 1823. At the same time, the US Government offered 24,000 acres by Executive Order if the Christian Indians returned to the United States west of the Mississippi River.
1827 Chalk and Pencil Drawing of the New Fairfield Mission at Moraviantown. (Courtesy of Moravian Archives)
In 1837, around two hundred Christian Munsee left Moraviantown for The Stockbridge and Brothertown tribes near Green Bay. In 1838-39 Christian Munsee and Stockbridge Mahican people went down the Mississippi River and up the Missouri River to the Kansas Indian Agency west of the Westport area of Kansas City, Missouri.
The 24,000 acres of land that the Christian Munsee had returned from Canada to claim turned out to be a false promise. Without their own land, the Munsee people stayed on Delaware and Wyandotte lands from 1839 to 1853. In an 1854 Treaty, the Delaware Tribe sold the Christian Munsee Tribe 2,531 acres near Leavenworth, Kansas.
Between 1858-59 the Munsee Tribe was forced from that land by speculators and politicians. Some of the Munsee people followed Gideon Williams and Reverend Jacob Moonhouse south to New York Indian lands near Fort Scott. Squatters murdered these two men. The survivors returned to join others at the reservation of the Black River and Swan Creek Chippewa Tribe. This Chippewa tribe had signed a treaty with the Christian Indians on July 16, 1859, to live together on their reservation near Ottawa, Kansas..
1885 Chippewa and Munsee Reservation Map (Courtesy of Franklin County Historical Society, Ottawa, KS)
Moravian Mission Chapel in Chippewa Hills on Chippewa/Munsee Reservation.
In 1861 Kansas became a state and for the next thirty-nine years, Kansas took various measures to force Native American tribes from its borders. In 1864, facing hardships and insecurity, discrimination and lack of opportunity, the United States and the Moravian Church convinced the Chippewa and Munsee people to dissolve their reservation and become US citizens.
In 1868, the US Government unsuccessfully put forth a treaty to remove the Munsee Tribe to the Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory. From 1869 to 1878, the Chippewa and Munsee people didn't have a tribal agency to serve them until they were finally placed with The Nemaha Agency at Nadeau, Kansas.
The United States continued to assimilate Native Americans into the mainstream. Munsee children started attending Haskell Institute when it opened in 1884. The Dawes Allotment Act of 1887 pushed tribes to take allotments of reservation land as their reservations were dissolved. In 1896 US Senator Charles Curtis of Kansas proposed a bill for our ancestors to accept allotments of reservation land from the 1859 treaty and dissolve their tribal government and become US citizens. This bill became law on June 7, 1897, and was finalized on November 8, 1900, with the issuing of forty-acre patents of allotted land and $491 of tribal funds per capita.
Even after the tribe was dissolved, Munsee children were still taken to Indian boarding schools like Haskell, Wyandotte, Chilocco, Genoa, Flandreau, and Wahpeton through the 1950's. Tribal members continued to receive health services from Indian Services. John Kilbuck, whose mother was Mahican and whose great grandfather was Gelelemend, the Lenape principal chief of the Turtle Clan and the first American Indian to sign a treaty with the United States. had left the reservation to serve with his wife as missionaries in Alaska and continued that work until his death in 1922.
Locally known as Kansas Munsee, a sizable number of the tribe still live on or near the reservation land near Ottawa, Kansas. Since at least as early as the 1950s, members of the tribe have sought to re-establish their rights. Munsee descendants were participants in the US Supreme Court case Weeks v Delaware Tribal Business Council in the late 1970s stemming from an Indian Claims Commission case on awarding monetary damages from the St. Mary's Treaty of 1818 involving Delaware and Munsee lands in Indiana. Since 2005, with the help of tribal leaders, experts and volunteers, the Kansas Munsee have doubled their efforts to achieve federal recognition. With the loss of Clio Caleb, the efforts stalled but were once again picked up by tribal member Connie Hildebrandt. Today the tribe has more momentum than ever with the goal of achieving federal recognition before another of our elders leaves this world. Katherine Henry Kilbuck Beggs is 104 years old, so the time is now.
Over the past one hundred and twenty years, much has changed in our land, but the effects of the United State’s treatment of the Kansas Munsee remain. Most families are still trying to reverse some of the lasting effects of federal policies that have put them at a disadvantage for hundreds of years, some in a state of poverty and still facing discrimination. Our history, though tragic, is well documented. Our ancestry is undeniable. Our ancestors lost everything in their arduous journey to Kansas, many serving in wars and representing the same nation that failed to honor its promises. Now we look to our elected leaders and fellow tribes to do what is in their power to right the wrongs. We ask the US Congress to reverse the actions of the 55th US Congress in 1897 and re- acknowledge The Munsee Tribe in Kansas as a federally recognized sovereign nation.
George Veix and family at house on Chippewa and Munsee Reservation. Mr. Veix was employed by the BIA as a reservation law enforcement.
1788 and 1823 US Government grants of land in Ohio and west of the Mississippi River.
Karl Johansen Munsee Migration map. Jesse Vogler and Christian Indians going down the Thames River to Windsor and Detroit and into the Great Lakes to Green Bay article.
Green Bay Indian Agency Christian Indians 1839. Indian tribes of Wyandotte County map.
Section Thirteen of 1854 Delaware Treaty land sold to Christian Indians.
David Zeisberger Smith letter to President Pierce begging for the ejecting of squatters from the Christian Indians Leavenworth reservation.
Christian Indians Leavenworth reservation allotment map.
1858 Leavenworth reservation treaty. (The 1858 Christian Indians Allotment Map corresponds with this treaty)
1859 Chippewa and Christian or Munsee Indians treaty.
1868 Christian Indians removal to Cherokee Nation treaty.
1874 proposed reservation allotment and citizenship treaty.
1884 listing of Munsee children at Haskell Institute.