To learn more about the Kaw Nation from historians and from Kaw tribal citizens, click on each of the descriptions below. They feature brief audio clippings from interviews done with these experts. 

Today, the Kaw Nation is headquartered in Kaw City, Oklahoma. To learn more about the Kaw Nation's history, you can visit their website and hear it directly from them: https://www.kawnation.gov/kanza-history/

Though the tribe resides in Oklahoma currently, their stamp on Kansas can still be seen. Council Grove was the last place the Kanza lived in Kansas before being forcibly removed in 1873. In Council Grove, there are many historical sites to visit: 

The Kanza were part of a large network of trade and communication between indigenous peoples, long before European contact. The Blue Earth Village was at the heart of their homeland. It was a large, bustling community, and it would be decades before local white settlements such as Manhattan, Kansas equaled it in population. 

The United States government was interested in the west, and what resources and people it could exploit. Because of this, many expeditions -- the most famous of them being Lewis and Clark's expedition to the sea -- were launched into the West. 

Primary Sources: 

James, Edwin. Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, Performed in the Years 1819, 1820, Volume 1. Cleveland, OH: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1905. https://archive.org/details/account02ofexpeditjame