The story of the Wyandot Constitution and establishing the present borders of Kansas reminded me of this 2012 story of the Wyandot people and their influence on this place we call Kansas.

“Wyandot, In the Eleventh Hour,” published earlier this month, examined the origins of our Kansas Constitution. From the time the Wyandot people moved beyond the wide Missouri, destiny was in the works.

Present-day Kansas City, Kan., occupies a historic piece of property at the confluence of the Kansas and Missouri rivers. Known more commonly as the Kawsmouth, this land had remained relatively unchanged for many generations as the homeland of the Kaw or Kansas Indians.

In 1825, the federal government identified the lands west of the Missouri River as Indian Country and began to trade the native people of the eastern states out of their land.

Tribes were forced to move to reservations in Indian Country while traditional Kaw lands were reduced to allow for the influx of new tribes. The Delaware Indians settled at Kawsmouth. The Shawnee were their neighbors on the south side of the river.

The Wyandot were among the last of the Indians in the east to move to Kansas. The Wyandot tradition held them to be political leaders among the various eastern tribes known as the Northwest Confederacy. They were uniquely advanced in culture, having been “civilized and Christianized” by the time they made the move to Kansas.

The Wyandot were actually a people of mixed culture, having absorbed many nationalities in their 200 year association with European culture.

At the time of the move to Kansas, there were no full-blood Wyandots left in the tribe. Although recognized as Indian, the people were at least threequarters European. They brought their church, the Methodist Episcopal, to Kansas. They organized schools and maintained a formal government with the council house as their capital. They also brought the first Masonic Lodge to Kansas.

A delegation of principal Wyandot men visited Indian Country in 1832 to select their own land. They chose the north side of the Kansas River at Kawsmouth. Being a small tribe, the Wyandot required a small parcel of 39 sections of land.

In times past, the Wyandot had befriended the Delaware when they were driven out of Pennsylvania into Ohio. In return, the Wyandot were welcomed to Delaware lands and an agreement was met for the purchase of the land.

That agreement had far-reaching implications. Even though the Kansas lands were proposed as a permanent Indian Country, politicians were already agitating for settlement of those lands with the idea of statehood in the future.

The Missouri Compromise held that the land west of the Missouri River and north of the 36th parallel would be free of slavery. Indian Country was attached to the State of Missouri for legal purposes. Being a slave holding state, Missouri leaders naturally looked upon the lands west of their border for potential expansion.

The Wyandot settlement at the Kawsmouth was problematic for slave-holding Missouri. The advanced culture of the Wyandot meant development beyond the realm that had been envisioned by men who had hoped to find a way around the Missouri Compromise. An influx of people opposed to slavery would limit the influence Missouri might have in overturning the Missouri Compromise.

Slavery was not a foreign idea to the incoming tribes. Many tribal members held slaves, including some of the Wyandot, but they were from northern Ohio and the very idea of the northern influence at a “key and commanding position on the border” rankled pro-slavery elements.

Their fears proved valid when the old Northwestern Confederacy was revived among the Indians in 1848. The Wyandot were reinstated to their position of “keepers of the council fire” and assumed leadership in representing the emigrant tribes along the front range of Indian Country.

Their first order of business came to light in 1852 when they petitioned the United States to establish a territorial government in Indian Country. A delegate to Congress was elected, but that institution failed to recognize the Indian delegate during the normal session in Washington. However, the Wyandot had set affairs in motion that would not be denied.

The idea of a territorial government was closely tied to an ongoing national debate over the construction of a transcontinental railroad.

Wyandot leaders moved boldly forward. A provisional territorial government was established July 26, 1853. Principal leader William Walker was elected governor. In addition to the establishment of the new territorial government, a central route for the transcontinental railroad was championed by Walker.

The actions of the confederacy of Indian nations under Wyandot leadership, while never officially acknowledged in Washington, forced Congress to address the issue. Less than a year later, President Pierce signed the Kansas Nebraska Act into law and the entire destiny of the United States was changed as the nation continued its march toward freedom and self-determination on The Way West.

“The Cowboy” Jim Gray can be reached at 220 21st Rd., Geneseo, KS 67444, (785) 531-2058 or kansascowboy@kans.com.