The Shawnee in Kansas Try to Protect Their Reservation

Memorial of Members of Black Bob's Band of Shawnee Indians, Against any attempt to force their people to break up their tribal organization, and against a division of their lands

Notes: A plea from a splinter group of Shawnees to ensure joint ownership of the land on the Black Bob reservation in Kansas. A similarly titled pamphlet by James Abbott, the attorney for Black Bob's Band, made the opposite argument, that members of the band should be allowed to sell individual plots. These competition petitions reflected the uncertainty in the lives of the Shawnee following the Civil War. Most had been forced to flee Kansas during the hostilities, and when they returned there was disagreement about whether and where they should go. The group behind this petition wished to stay. Black Bob wanted to return to ancestral lands in the south. In the end, they were removed to the Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).

The white citizens of Johnson County, Kansas, supported this petition, on rather racist grounds. "The Indians are deriving no benefit from the sale of their lands, but squander the money they receive in drunken frolics, and are let to commit murder and other heinous crimes, and reduce themselves to vagabondage and ruin."

This pamphlet provides statements from a few members of the Shawnee band, but mostly quotes white settlers occupying reservation land.

17 pages. 41st Congress, 2d Session. Senate Mis. Doc. No. 49.

Edition + Condition: First edition (first printing). A fine copy, sewn as issued.

Publication: [Washington, DC]: (n.p.), 1870.

Item No: #307437

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