After 1830, nearly 30 tribes were given land in the areas. In 1829, the Delawares were the first Indians to sign a treaty giving them land in what was to become Kansas. Many of the lands in the West, including present-day Kansas, were determined to be unsuitable for white settlement. These acts were based on the belief that Indians could be moved west to make room for European American settlement. In 18, however, Congress passed specific acts that forced removal of the Native American peoples. This offer was extended to volunteers but did not prove successful. As non-native peoples became more numerous in the eastern part of the United States, plans were developed to move Indian tribes farther west.Īs early as 1803, President Thomas Jefferson proposed a plan that offered eastern tribes land west of the Mississippi River. Emigrant Indians are those people who have been moved to a new geographic region after being displaced from their original homelands. The area has also been inhabited by many emigrant tribes. The Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche, Kansa, Kiowa, Osage, Pawnee, and Wichita are tribes that are considered native to present day Kansas. The land we now call Kansas had been home to many American Indian peoples.
