Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History, Kansas,

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Kansas,

Alaska excluded, is geographically the central State of the United States, lying between lat. 37° and 40° N., and long. 94° 38′ and 102° W. It is bounded by Nebraska on the north, Missouri on the east, Indian Territory and Oklahoma on the south, and Colorado on the west. Area, 81,700 square miles in 105 counties. Population in 1890, 1,427,096; 1900, 1,470,495. Capital, Topeka.

Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, with a force of 350 Spaniards and 800 Indians, set out from Culiacan on the southeast shore of the Gulf of California in search of Quivira. He travelled northerly to the headwaters of the river Gila, crossed the mountains to the headwaters of the Rio del Norte, and followed them to their sources, then, journeying northeasterly, came into the province of Quivira (Kansas), reaching, as he said, the fortieth degree of latitude. He described the earth as black and well watered, the best possible for all kinds of productions of Spain, and the plains full of crooked-back oxen, but he found no gold or silver, and returned in......September, 1541

French explore the Missouri River as far as the mouth of the Kansas River......1705

M. Dutisne, a young French officer, sent out by Bienville, governor of Louisiana, reaches the Pawnee country in Kansas, and, erecting a cross of wood, takes formal possession in the name of the King of France......Sept. 27, 1719

[It is now supposed that Dutisne did not come into Kansas, but visited the Osages in Missouri and the Pawnees in the Indian Territory.]

Spaniards from Santa Fe, seeking to found a colony on the Missouri, are destroyed by the Missouri Indians near the present site of Fort Leavenworth, only one settler, a Spanish priest, escaping and returning to Santa Fe......1720

M. de Bourgmont, commandant at Fort Orleans, Mo., undertakes a commercial expedition to the Paduca (Comanche) Indians in June, 1724, but, falling sick on the way, returns to the fort, on an island in the Missouri River, just above the mouth of the Osage. He resumed the journey in October, taking with him an escort of twelve Frenchmen, his son, a lad of ten, and twenty-seven Indians from the neighboring tribes. The expedition entered Kansas at the Kaw Indian village, then situated near the present site of Atchison, moved in a southwesterly direction across Kansas for about 230 miles to the nearest village of the Paducas, made a satisfactory treaty, and returned to Fort Orleans......Oct. 5, 1724

Included in the Louisiana Territory purchase of France......1803

Congress divides Louisiana into two unequal parts, the one north of lat. 33° N., called the district of Louisiana, under the governor of Indiana Territory......March 26, 1804

Lewis and Clark leave St. Louis for the Pacific, under government authority, and find remains of an old French fort near the present site of Atchison......May, 1804

District of Louisiana made the Territory of Louisiana......March 3, 1805

Zebulon M. Pike, at the village of the Pawnee republic, causes the Spanish flag to be lowered and the flag of the United States to be raised (State legislature in 1901 marks the site with a granite shaft)......Sept. 29, 1806

Territory of Louisiana admitted to the second grade of government as Missouri Territory......June 4, 1812

First steamboat, a stern-wheeler, called the Western Engineer, passes up the Missouri River, carrying Maj. S. H. Long on an expedition up the Yellowstone......1819.

Section 8 of act for admission of Missouri into the Union provides that in all Louisiana, north of lat. 36° 30′, and not included in the State, slavery “shall be and is hereby forever prohibited,” but [337] runaway slaves may be lawfully reclaimed. Act passed......March 6, 1820

Major Sibley, appointed under act of Congress, surveys a wagon-road from Missouri through Kansas to Santa Fe......1825

By treaty with Osage Indians the tribe locate on a tract of 7,564,000 acres in south Kansas, watered by the Arkansas, Verdigris, and Neosho rivers......Dec. 30, 1825

Fort Leavenworth, called a cantonment until 1832, established and United States troops stationed there......1827

Treaty with the Delaware Indians, locates them in the fork of the Kansas and Missouri rivers......Sept. 24, 1829

Baptist Shawnee mission (Rev. Johnston Lykins and wife, resident missionaries) established 4 miles west of the Missouri line under Rev. Isaac McCoy; also appointed agent by the government for colonizing the eastern Indians within the Territory......1831

Indian tribes located in Kansas, including the Shawnees, Ottawas, the Kickapoos, Kaskaskias, Peorias, Piankeshaws, and Weas......1831-32

First printing-press brought to Kansas by Rev. Jotham Meeker, set up at the Shawnee Baptist Mission in Johnson county, fall of......1833

First stock of goods landed below Kansas City, at Francis Chouteau's log warehouse......1834

Congress makes all United States territory west of the Mississippi not in the States of Missouri and Louisiana or Territory of Arkansas “Indian country” ......June 30, 1834

Harper and Brothers Publishers. . New York. 1902.

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Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History
Benson Lossing, Ed.

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Kansas,

Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History Benson Lossing, Ed.

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Kansas,

Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History
Benson Lossing, Ed.