Reclaiming The Past, Reshaping The Narrative

Welcome

On behalf of the Ancient American Indigenous Peoples Historical Society, I am pleased to introduce our organization and invite you to join a growing network committed to the ethical study, preservation, and public education of Indigenous histories across the Americas. Our purpose is to support rigorous scholarship, center Indigenous knowledge and leadership, and promote programs that return cultural authority and benefits to descendant communities.

Our society convenes scholars, cultural practitioners, tribal representatives, educators, archivists, and public historians who share a dedication to truth-telling, methodological transparency, and respectful collaboration. We prioritize community-led research, oral-history partnerships, knowledgeable consent, and culturally appropriate protocols for stewardship and interpretation. Our work seeks to correct colonial misrepresentations, elevate Indigenous epistemologies, and protect material and intellectual heritage.

We pursue this mission through a combination of activities: public lectures and symposia, community-curated exhibitions, curriculum development for K–12 and higher education, ethical fieldwork training, and support for repatriation and museum partnerships. We also provide capacity-building workshops for tribal cultural offices, grants for community research, and accessible resources for teachers and the public that emphasize Indigenous perspectives on agriculture, architecture, governance, and cosmology.

We welcome collaboration with tribal nations, cultural institutions, academic departments, schools, and funders who share our commitment to respect, reciprocity, and accountability. If you would like to explore partnership opportunities, host a program, or receive our quarterly newsletter and resource packets, please contact us at the email address above.

With respect and solidarity,

© 2025 Alim Ali Director

Ancient American Historical Society

All rights reserved

Not for reuse without written permission from the Ancient American Historical Society

Introduction

Understanding the historical names and designationsfor the regions now known as Missouri and Kansas reveals a complex interplay of Indigenous cultures, colonial ambitions, and early American governance. These names, drawn from a diverse range of sources—Native American tribes, French and Spanish colonial authorities, early American explorers, and U.S. government designations—illustrate how geography, politics, and culture have shaped perceptions and boundaries. Before Missouri and Kansas became U.S. states, the lands bore names and boundaries that reflected the people who lived, traded, governed, and sought to exert control over them. This report explores the linguistic roots, meanings, and power dynamics encapsulated in these historical designations, tracing their evolution from prehistoric times through the 19th century and providing critical context for their cultural, geographic, and political transformations.

Indigenous Names for Missouri and Kansas Regions

Missouria Tribal Name for Missouri

The state and river of Missouri derive their name not from a colonial act but from the Native people who inhabited and controlled the river's confluence regions for centuries. The Missouria tribe(self-identified as Ñút^achi or Niutachi), a Siouan-speaking people, referred to themselves as "People of the River’s Mouth," an explicit geographic marker referencing the mouth of the Grand River and the joining of riversides central to their villages, economy, and cosmological worldview. Early French interpretation, filtered through Algonquian-speaking intermediaries, rendered their name as "weemeehsoorita," meaning "one who has dugout canoes",a reference to their riverine lifestyle and technological expertise. Over time, the name passed through scores of spelling variations (Ouemessourit, Mishoori) before stabilizing as "Missouri".

Significantly, the Missouria people were part of the Chiwere division of the Siouan language family, closely related to the Otoe, Iowa, and Ho-Chunk nations. Their original language, Chiwere, persists mostly in reconstructed forms and preservation initiatives today. Oral traditions indicate they migrated from the Great Lakes region to the central plains, settling at the confluence of the Grand and Missouri Rivers by the 17th century.

The Missouria maintained pivotal trade and diplomatic relations with neighboring tribes and later with French colonial administrators, often shifting between strategic alliances with the Osage, Kansa (Kaw), and others. These shifting alliances were often marked by intermarriage, shared ceremonies, and mutual defense, but also by competition and periodic conflict, as seen with the devastating attacks by the Sauk and Meskwaki in 1730 and with smallpox epidemics that decimated their numbers.

Osage and Otoe Indigenous Names for Missouri

The Osage people were another dominant Siouan-speaking nation claiming extensive territories in present-day Missouri and Kansas. In their own language, the Osage called themselves Ni-U-Ko’n-Ska, or "Children of the Middle Waters", which symbolized both their ancestral territory along river systems and their spiritual orientation toward water as a life source. The French rendered this as "Osage," a phonetic adaptation from the original Wah-Zha-Zhe, derived from one of their moiety divisions. The importance of this designation is evident in the continued naming of rivers, counties, and geographic features in the region—a testament to the sustained cultural and spiritual connection the Osage maintain with their homelands, despite 19th-century pressures for land cessions and removal.

The Otoe tribe, closely allied with the Missouria and sharing the Chiwere language, also inhabited areas in northern and northeastern Kansas and northwest Missouri. While specific Indigenous territorial names for the broad landscape from Otoe tradition are less commonly cited in colonial sources, their presence is clear in early explorer journals, fort trade network accounts, and in their later joint designation as the Otoe-Missouria tribe after forced relocation to Indian Territory.

Kanza (Kaw) Indigenous Name for Kansas

The region that is now Kansas takes its name from the Kanza or Kaw tribe, another key member of the Dhegiha Siouan language family. Their autonym, Kaáⁿze, is variously translated as "People of the South Wind", referencing the role of wind in war ceremonies and everyday symbolism. Historically, the Kanza occupied the valleys of the Kansas (Kaw) River, with hunting grounds stretching far to the west. French and early American sources often recorded them as the “Kanza,” “Kansa,” or “Kaw”—all variations referencing the same ethnolinguistic identity.

By the mid-18th century, the Kanza were the predominant group in the area that would later take on their name. They enjoyed a reputation as fierce warriors and shrewd traders, acting as gatekeepers along the river corridors that allowed or impeded access to other Indigenous and colonial powers. The preservation of the name "Kansa" in the river and state name signifies the deep-rooted Indigenous legacy and the tangible impact of Native naming even after extensive removal and cultural disruption.

Other Tribal Names and Indigenous Peoples

The complexity of tribal occupation in prestate Missouri and Kansas belies any simple mapping of tribal names onto modern state boundaries. Numerous tribes, mobile or semi-sedentary, left their imprint on the historical record. Beyond the Missouria, Osage, Otoe, and Kanza/Kaw, prominent groups included:

• Pawnee (Paneassa/Harahey): The Pawnee (sometimes recorded as Paneassa or Harahey in Spanish texts) occupied large swaths of what is now northern Kansas and southern Nebraska. The name “Harahey” appears in accounts from      Coronado’s 16th-century expeditions, possibly referencing Pawnee settlements near the Smoky Hill River.
• Wichita (Quivira): The ancestors of the Wichita people were encountered by Coronado in the area designated by Spaniards as "Quivira," likely in central Kansas.
• Delaware, Shawnee, Kickapoo, Miami, Ottawa, Potawatomi, Sac and Fox, Wyandot, and others: By the 19th century, removal policies resulted in many tribes      from the American Southeast and Midwest being assigned      reservations—sometimes on lands still held by “native” Kansas tribes. Each group brought names, villages, and practices carried from or adapted to the new environment.
• Munsee (Christian Indians): Small bands such as the Munsee (Christian Indians) held tracts like the "Christian Indian Tract" near modern Leavenworth, Kansas.
• Ottawa (Odawa): Removed from Ohio in the 1830s, the Ottawa established communities and gave their name to present-day Ottawa, Kansas.

Indigenous Place Names with Symbolic or Geographic Significance

Many of the tribal names or place-names given by Native groups were not simply ethnonyms but signified features of the landscape, patterns of migration, or encoded aspects of cosmology. For example, the Osage's “Ni-U-Ko’n-Ska” incorporated their mythic and lived connection to water, while the Kanza’s "People of the South Wind" linked natural forces to tribal identity. The Missouria’s Ni-uta-chi or “where rivers join” signaled their dwelling at strategic river confluences and underlined their central role in navigation and trade for both Indigenous and later colonial travelers.

Colonial-Era Names and Administrative Divisions

French Colonial Designations

Pays des Illinois, Upper Louisiana, and Louisiane

French colonial ambitions classified the region west of the Mississippi in terms that reflected both geography and spheres of influence. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the region encompassing present-day Missouri, parts of Kansas, Illinois, and more was known as the Pays des Illinois (“Country of the Illinois”), referring not only to the state of Illinois but a much broader swath of territory named after the Illinois Confederation of Algonquian-speaking peoples.

By 1717, the French sought greater administrative clarity and attached the Illinois Country to their larger “Louisiane”—effectively a vast colonial province stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada, and from the Appalachian Mountains to the Rockies. The territory was often subdivided into Upper Louisiana (including present Missouri and parts of Kansas) and Lower Louisiana (centered on New Orleans).

Notably, French explorers such as Étienne de Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont built Fort Orleans along the Missouri River in 1723 and traders founded other posts like Fort de Cavagnial near present-day Kansas City in 1744. These posts served as both administrative centers and as hubs for interaction and negotiation with Native nations, rather than as mechanisms of intensive settlement or transformation of the land.

The Illinois and Kaskaskia Tribes

The Kaskaskia, members of the Illinois Confederation, established settlements along the Mississippi and Missouri confluence, and with the influx of French missionaries and traders, their names and presence marked regions that would later become Missouri.

Cartographic Milestones

French maps such as Guillaume Delisle’s “Carte de la Louisiane et du Cours du Mississipi” (1718) influenced subsequent representations of the North American interior, codifying French territorial claims and the nomenclature of major rivers and settlements. Early maps frequently used by explorers such as Jolliet and Marquette also marked the first European applications of “Missouri” and “Kansas” to rivers and peoples.

Louisiana

The claim of "Louisiane" by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle in 1682 encompassed the entire drainage of the Mississippi and its tributaries. The French generally did not use the word “Missouri” for the landmass, preferring broader regional titles (Illinois Country, Upper Louisiana) until the emergence of American territorial designation.

Spanish Colonial Designations

Transfer and Reorganization

Europe’s 18th-century wars and treaties profoundly altered the politics of the region. By the Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762), France ceded Louisiana (including Missouri and Kansas) to Spain as compensation for losses incurred during the Seven Years’ War. Spanish governance was often described by contemporaries as more “nominal” than real, particularly given the thinly staffed garrisons and reliance on French-born administrators.

Spanish authorities divided Louisiana into Upper (Luisiana Superior) and Lower (Luisiana Inferior) Louisiana after 1772, with the dividing line near New Madrid. The District of Illinois—administered from St. Louis but including (and confusingly named for) territories on both sides of the river—was the organizational focus for much of what is now Missouri and eastern Kansas.

Spanish Naming and Influence

Spanish nomenclature mostly adopted or modified French terms: San Luis de Illinois for St. Louis, and New Madrid for a prominent trading and hunting outpost on the Mississippi. Spanish administrative units occasionally retained pre-existing French subdivisions. Despite a lack of widespread Spanish immigration, the regime left a legacy in legal traditions, parish divisions, and land grant practices visible even after the region’s transfer to the United States.

A small number of Spanish missions and military presidioswere established around the periphery (especially western Louisiana, Texas, and Colorado), but their direct presence east of the plains was limited.

Early U.S. Territorial and Geographic Designations (1804–1861)

The Louisiana Purchase and American Organization

The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 transformed the political future of Missouri and Kansas. The transfer entailed dramatic shifts in naming, boundaries, and administrative practice, made official during the “Three Flags Day” ceremony in St. Louis in 1804, wherein Spain briefly returned Upper Louisiana to France before the United States took possession.

U.S. Territorial Subdivisions

The purchased lands underwent several U.S. reorganizations:

• District of Louisiana (1804–1805): The first administrative unit established by the U.S., governed temporarily under the authorities of the neighboring Indiana Territory.
• Louisiana Territory (1805–1812): District of Louisiana was renamed and given its own government with St. Louis as the capital. This territory comprised much of the future Great Plains and interior West, including both Missouri      and Kansas.
• Missouri Territory (1812–1821): Renamed from Louisiana Territory upon Louisiana's statehood to prevent confusion, Missouri Territory included Kansas as “unorganized territory” until the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.
• Territory of Kansas (1854–1861): Created by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Kansas Territory was the result of rapid American westward expansion coupled with mounting contest over whether Kansas would be slave or free territory. Its boundaries were set from the Missouri border to the Rocky Mountains, and from the 37th parallel to the 40th parallel, at one time encompassing part of today’s Colorado.
• Indian Territory (1830s–1854): Before Kansas Territory’s opening to white settlement, the area was officially reserved for removed and local Native tribes, part of a vast “Indian Country” stretching into Nebraska and Oklahoma as established by the Indian Removal Act and the Indian Trade and Intercourse Act of 1834.

“Great American Desert” and Early Geographic Myths

To European Americans, the central Great Plains, including large portions of Kansas and western Missouri, was long depicted as the “Great American Desert.” Zebulon Pike (1806) and Stephen H. Long’s (1820) expeditions, together with published maps, classified these lands as barren, infertile, and unsuitable for cultivation. The myth was not simply descriptive—it justified treating the region as a buffer zone or as Indian country and slowed white settlement for decades.

Significant Treaties and Federal Policies

• Indian Removal Act (1830): Provided the legal basis for the forced relocation of tribes from the East onto reservations in Kansas and surrounding regions, producing a complex patchwork of tribal lands and designations.
• Indian Trade and Intercourse Act (1834): Cemented the boundaries of Indian Territory, temporarily placing almost all of Kansas within “Indian country.” This was, in practice, a shifting and temporary arrangement      repeatedly undermined by new legislative priorities and white encroachment.

Designations by Early European Explorers

Cibola and Quivira

The quest for mythical cities of gold—Cibola and Quivira—drove some of the earliest European entries into Kansas and Missouri. Spanish conquistador Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, upon rumors of cities richer than Mexico City, named the lands deep into the Great Plains as Quivira (likely connections to Wichita, Pawnee, and affiliated peoples). The journey inspired generations of speculative maps and stories, placing “Quivira” in central or eastern Kansas and making it a touchpoint for Spanish and, later, French cartographers.

Cibola, meanwhile, was often associated with the Zuni pueblos of New Mexico—the imagined connection with Kansas emerged because of the migratory chase for wealth that drew explorers north and east. The legendary nature of these designations exemplifies how European explorers imposed fantastical names and expectations on unfamiliar landscapes and peoples.

Early American Geographical Descriptions

“The Great American Desert,” “Boonslick” (for early settlements in west-central Missouri), and “Council Grove” (as a landmark on the Santa Fe Trail and a Kaw village/reservation) testify to the ways in which the land itself, its appearance, and perceived economic potential or limitations, became central to naming and designation.

Key Historical Maps

• Marquette-Jolliet Map (1673): First European documentation of “Missouri” on a map.
• Colton’s Map (1855), Sanborn Insurance Maps (late 1800s): Early cartographic naming of Kansas and Missouri regions, reflecting administrative lines, tribal lands, and early counties.

Kansas as Indian Territory (1830s–1854)

From the 1820s through the mid-1850s, the area that would become Kansas was officially closed to white settlement and designated as Indian Territory. The U.S. government, following the Indian Removal Act, forcibly relocated numerous tribes to Kansas, including the Cherokee, Delaware, Kaskaskia, Kickapoo, Ottawa, Pottawatomi, Sac and Fox, Shawnee, and Wyandot, each with their own newly designated reservations and settlements.

This period produced a proliferation of Indigenous and administrative place-names—some seen only for a generation as tribes were pushed south and west again. Examples include:

• Council Grove (for the Kaw/Kanza reservation and seat of Indian Agency),
• Marais des Cygnes River (site of the Ottawa reservation),
• Delineation of Christian Indian Tracts, Delaware Reservations, and various mission sites (e.g., St. Mary’s Mission for Pottawatomi).

As white hunger for land increased and the notion of “Indian Territory” proved increasingly temporary, these names and the tribes associated with them were erased, subdivided, or forcibly removed again—leaving only a handful of federally recognized Kansas tribes today.

© 2025 Alim Ali Director

Ancient American Historical Society

All rights reserved

Not for reuse without written permission from the Ancient American Historical Society 

Welcome

On behalf of the Ancient American Indigenous Peoples Historical Society, I am pleased to introduce our organization and invite you to join a growing network committed to the ethical study, preservation, and public education of Indigenous histories across the Americas. Our purpose is to support rigorous scholarship, center Indigenous knowledge and leadership, and promote programs that return cultural authority and benefits to descendant communities.

Our society convenes scholars, cultural practitioners, tribal representatives, educators, archivists, and public historians who share a dedication to truth-telling, methodological transparency, and respectful collaboration. We prioritize community-led research, oral-history partnerships, knowledgeable consent, and culturally appropriate protocols for stewardship and interpretation. Our work seeks to correct colonial misrepresentations, elevate Indigenous epistemologies, and protect material and intellectual heritage.

We pursue this mission through a combination of activities: public lectures and symposia, community-curated exhibitions, curriculum development for K–12 and higher education, ethical fieldwork training, and support for repatriation and museum partnerships. We also provide capacity-building workshops for tribal cultural offices, grants for community research, and accessible resources for teachers and the public that emphasize Indigenous perspectives on agriculture, architecture, governance, and cosmology.

We welcome collaboration with tribal nations, cultural institutions, academic departments, schools, and funders who share our commitment to respect, reciprocity, and accountability. If you would like to explore partnership opportunities, host a program, or receive our quarterly newsletter and resource packets, please contact us at the email address above.

With respect and solidarity,

Alim Ali
Director
Ancient American Indigenous Peoples Historical Society

Introduction

Understanding the historical names and designationsfor the regions now known as Missouri and Kansas reveals a complex interplay of Indigenous cultures, colonial ambitions, and early American governance. These names, drawn from a diverse range of sources—Native American tribes, French and Spanish colonial authorities, early American explorers, and U.S. government designations—illustrate how geography, politics, and culture have shaped perceptions and boundaries. Before Missouri and Kansas became U.S. states, the lands bore names and boundaries that reflected the people who lived, traded, governed, and sought to exert control over them. This report explores the linguistic roots, meanings, and power dynamics encapsulated in these historical designations, tracing their evolution from prehistoric times through the 19th century and providing critical context for their cultural, geographic, and political transformations.

Indigenous Names for Missouri and Kansas Regions

Missouria Tribal Name for Missouri

The state and river of Missouri derive their name not from a colonial act but from the Native people who inhabited and controlled the river's confluence regions for centuries. The Missouria tribe(self-identified as Ñút^achi or Niutachi), a Siouan-speaking people, referred to themselves as "People of the River’s Mouth," an explicit geographic marker referencing the mouth of the Grand River and the joining of riversides central to their villages, economy, and cosmological worldview. Early French interpretation, filtered through Algonquian-speaking intermediaries, rendered their name as "weemeehsoorita," meaning "one who has dugout canoes",a reference to their riverine lifestyle and technological expertise. Over time, the name passed through scores of spelling variations (Ouemessourit, Mishoori) before stabilizing as "Missouri".

Significantly, the Missouria people were part of the Chiwere division of the Siouan language family, closely related to the Otoe, Iowa, and Ho-Chunk nations. Their original language, Chiwere, persists mostly in reconstructed forms and preservation initiatives today. Oral traditions indicate they migrated from the Great Lakes region to the central plains, settling at the confluence of the Grand and Missouri Rivers by the 17th century.

The Missouria maintained pivotal trade and diplomatic relations with neighboring tribes and later with French colonial administrators, often shifting between strategic alliances with the Osage, Kansa (Kaw), and others. These shifting alliances were often marked by intermarriage, shared ceremonies, and mutual defense, but also by competition and periodic conflict, as seen with the devastating attacks by the Sauk and Meskwaki in 1730 and with smallpox epidemics that decimated their numbers.

Osage and Otoe Indigenous Names for Missouri

The Osage people were another dominant Siouan-speaking nation claiming extensive territories in present-day Missouri and Kansas. In their own language, the Osage called themselves Ni-U-Ko’n-Ska, or "Children of the Middle Waters", which symbolized both their ancestral territory along river systems and their spiritual orientation toward water as a life source. The French rendered this as "Osage," a phonetic adaptation from the original Wah-Zha-Zhe, derived from one of their moiety divisions. The importance of this designation is evident in the continued naming of rivers, counties, and geographic features in the region—a testament to the sustained cultural and spiritual connection the Osage maintain with their homelands, despite 19th-century pressures for land cessions and removal.

The Otoe tribe, closely allied with the Missouria and sharing the Chiwere language, also inhabited areas in northern and northeastern Kansas and northwest Missouri. While specific Indigenous territorial names for the broad landscape from Otoe tradition are less commonly cited in colonial sources, their presence is clear in early explorer journals, fort trade network accounts, and in their later joint designation as the Otoe-Missouria tribe after forced relocation to Indian Territory.

Kanza (Kaw) Indigenous Name for Kansas

The region that is now Kansas takes its name from the Kanza or Kaw tribe, another key member of the Dhegiha Siouan language family. Their autonym, Kaáⁿze, is variously translated as "People of the South Wind", referencing the role of wind in war ceremonies and everyday symbolism. Historically, the Kanza occupied the valleys of the Kansas (Kaw) River, with hunting grounds stretching far to the west. French and early American sources often recorded them as the “Kanza,” “Kansa,” or “Kaw”—all variations referencing the same ethnolinguistic identity.

By the mid-18th century, the Kanza were the predominant group in the area that would later take on their name. They enjoyed a reputation as fierce warriors and shrewd traders, acting as gatekeepers along the river corridors that allowed or impeded access to other Indigenous and colonial powers. The preservation of the name "Kansa" in the river and state name signifies the deep-rooted Indigenous legacy and the tangible impact of Native naming even after extensive removal and cultural disruption.

Other Tribal Names and Indigenous Peoples

The complexity of tribal occupation in prestate Missouri and Kansas belies any simple mapping of tribal names onto modern state boundaries. Numerous tribes, mobile or semi-sedentary, left their imprint on the historical record. Beyond the Missouria, Osage, Otoe, and Kanza/Kaw, prominent groups included:

• Pawnee (Paneassa/Harahey): The Pawnee (sometimes recorded as Paneassa or Harahey in Spanish texts) occupied large swaths of what is now northern Kansas and southern Nebraska. The name “Harahey” appears in accounts from      Coronado’s 16th-century expeditions, possibly referencing Pawnee settlements near the Smoky Hill River.
• Wichita (Quivira): The ancestors of the Wichita people were encountered by Coronado in the area designated by Spaniards as "Quivira," likely in central Kansas.
• Delaware, Shawnee, Kickapoo, Miami, Ottawa, Potawatomi, Sac and Fox, Wyandot, and others: By the 19th century, removal policies resulted in many tribes      from the American Southeast and Midwest being assigned      reservations—sometimes on lands still held by “native” Kansas tribes. Each group brought names, villages, and practices carried from or adapted to the new environment.
• Munsee (Christian Indians): Small bands such as the Munsee (Christian Indians) held tracts like the "Christian Indian Tract" near modern Leavenworth, Kansas.
• Ottawa (Odawa): Removed from Ohio in the 1830s, the Ottawa established communities and gave their name to present-day Ottawa, Kansas.

Indigenous Place Names with Symbolic or Geographic Significance

Many of the tribal names or place-names given by Native groups were not simply ethnonyms but signified features of the landscape, patterns of migration, or encoded aspects of cosmology. For example, the Osage's “Ni-U-Ko’n-Ska” incorporated their mythic and lived connection to water, while the Kanza’s "People of the South Wind" linked natural forces to tribal identity. The Missouria’s Ni-uta-chi or “where rivers join” signaled their dwelling at strategic river confluences and underlined their central role in navigation and trade for both Indigenous and later colonial travelers.

Colonial-Era Names and Administrative Divisions

French Colonial Designations

Pays des Illinois, Upper Louisiana, and Louisiane

French colonial ambitions classified the region west of the Mississippi in terms that reflected both geography and spheres of influence. In the late 17th and early 18th centuries, the region encompassing present-day Missouri, parts of Kansas, Illinois, and more was known as the Pays des Illinois (“Country of the Illinois”), referring not only to the state of Illinois but a much broader swath of territory named after the Illinois Confederation of Algonquian-speaking peoples.

By 1717, the French sought greater administrative clarity and attached the Illinois Country to their larger “Louisiane”—effectively a vast colonial province stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada, and from the Appalachian Mountains to the Rockies. The territory was often subdivided into Upper Louisiana (including present Missouri and parts of Kansas) and Lower Louisiana (centered on New Orleans).

Notably, French explorers such as Étienne de Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont built Fort Orleans along the Missouri River in 1723 and traders founded other posts like Fort de Cavagnial near present-day Kansas City in 1744. These posts served as both administrative centers and as hubs for interaction and negotiation with Native nations, rather than as mechanisms of intensive settlement or transformation of the land.

The Illinois and Kaskaskia Tribes

The Kaskaskia, members of the Illinois Confederation, established settlements along the Mississippi and Missouri confluence, and with the influx of French missionaries and traders, their names and presence marked regions that would later become Missouri.

Cartographic Milestones

French maps such as Guillaume Delisle’s “Carte de la Louisiane et du Cours du Mississipi” (1718) influenced subsequent representations of the North American interior, codifying French territorial claims and the nomenclature of major rivers and settlements. Early maps frequently used by explorers such as Jolliet and Marquette also marked the first European applications of “Missouri” and “Kansas” to rivers and peoples.

Louisiana

The claim of "Louisiane" by René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle in 1682 encompassed the entire drainage of the Mississippi and its tributaries. The French generally did not use the word “Missouri” for the landmass, preferring broader regional titles (Illinois Country, Upper Louisiana) until the emergence of American territorial designation.

Spanish Colonial Designations

Transfer and Reorganization

Europe’s 18th-century wars and treaties profoundly altered the politics of the region. By the Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762), France ceded Louisiana (including Missouri and Kansas) to Spain as compensation for losses incurred during the Seven Years’ War. Spanish governance was often described by contemporaries as more “nominal” than real, particularly given the thinly staffed garrisons and reliance on French-born administrators.

Spanish authorities divided Louisiana into Upper (Luisiana Superior) and Lower (Luisiana Inferior) Louisiana after 1772, with the dividing line near New Madrid. The District of Illinois—administered from St. Louis but including (and confusingly named for) territories on both sides of the river—was the organizational focus for much of what is now Missouri and eastern Kansas.

Spanish Naming and Influence

Spanish nomenclature mostly adopted or modified French terms: San Luis de Illinois for St. Louis, and New Madrid for a prominent trading and hunting outpost on the Mississippi. Spanish administrative units occasionally retained pre-existing French subdivisions. Despite a lack of widespread Spanish immigration, the regime left a legacy in legal traditions, parish divisions, and land grant practices visible even after the region’s transfer to the United States.

A small number of Spanish missions and military presidioswere established around the periphery (especially western Louisiana, Texas, and Colorado), but their direct presence east of the plains was limited.

Early U.S. Territorial and Geographic Designations (1804–1861)

The Louisiana Purchase and American Organization

The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 transformed the political future of Missouri and Kansas. The transfer entailed dramatic shifts in naming, boundaries, and administrative practice, made official during the “Three Flags Day” ceremony in St. Louis in 1804, wherein Spain briefly returned Upper Louisiana to France before the United States took possession.

U.S. Territorial Subdivisions

The purchased lands underwent several U.S. reorganizations:

• District of Louisiana (1804–1805): The first administrative unit established by the U.S., governed temporarily under the authorities of the neighboring Indiana Territory.
• Louisiana Territory (1805–1812): District of Louisiana was renamed and given its own government with St. Louis as the capital. This territory comprised much of the future Great Plains and interior West, including both Missouri      and Kansas.
• Missouri Territory (1812–1821): Renamed from Louisiana Territory upon Louisiana's statehood to prevent confusion, Missouri Territory included Kansas as “unorganized territory” until the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.
• Territory of Kansas (1854–1861): Created by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, Kansas Territory was the result of rapid American westward expansion coupled with mounting contest over whether Kansas would be slave or free territory. Its boundaries were set from the Missouri border to the Rocky Mountains, and from the 37th parallel to the 40th parallel, at one time encompassing part of today’s Colorado.
• Indian Territory (1830s–1854): Before Kansas Territory’s opening to white settlement, the area was officially reserved for removed and local Native tribes, part of a vast “Indian Country” stretching into Nebraska and Oklahoma as established by the Indian Removal Act and the Indian Trade and Intercourse Act of 1834.

“Great American Desert” and Early Geographic Myths

To European Americans, the central Great Plains, including large portions of Kansas and western Missouri, was long depicted as the “Great American Desert.” Zebulon Pike (1806) and Stephen H. Long’s (1820) expeditions, together with published maps, classified these lands as barren, infertile, and unsuitable for cultivation. The myth was not simply descriptive—it justified treating the region as a buffer zone or as Indian country and slowed white settlement for decades.

Significant Treaties and Federal Policies

• Indian Removal Act (1830): Provided the legal basis for the forced relocation of tribes from the East onto reservations in Kansas and surrounding regions, producing a complex patchwork of tribal lands and designations.
• Indian Trade and Intercourse Act (1834): Cemented the boundaries of Indian Territory, temporarily placing almost all of Kansas within “Indian country.” This was, in practice, a shifting and temporary arrangement      repeatedly undermined by new legislative priorities and white encroachment.

Designations by Early European Explorers

Cibola and Quivira

The quest for mythical cities of gold—Cibola and Quivira—drove some of the earliest European entries into Kansas and Missouri. Spanish conquistador Francisco Vázquez de Coronado, upon rumors of cities richer than Mexico City, named the lands deep into the Great Plains as Quivira (likely connections to Wichita, Pawnee, and affiliated peoples). The journey inspired generations of speculative maps and stories, placing “Quivira” in central or eastern Kansas and making it a touchpoint for Spanish and, later, French cartographers.

Cibola, meanwhile, was often associated with the Zuni pueblos of New Mexico—the imagined connection with Kansas emerged because of the migratory chase for wealth that drew explorers north and east. The legendary nature of these designations exemplifies how European explorers imposed fantastical names and expectations on unfamiliar landscapes and peoples.

Early American Geographical Descriptions

“The Great American Desert,” “Boonslick” (for early settlements in west-central Missouri), and “Council Grove” (as a landmark on the Santa Fe Trail and a Kaw village/reservation) testify to the ways in which the land itself, its appearance, and perceived economic potential or limitations, became central to naming and designation.

Key Historical Maps

• Marquette-Jolliet Map (1673): First European documentation of “Missouri” on a map.
• Colton’s Map (1855), Sanborn Insurance Maps (late 1800s): Early cartographic naming of Kansas and Missouri regions, reflecting administrative lines, tribal lands, and early counties.

Kansas as Indian Territory (1830s–1854)

From the 1820s through the mid-1850s, the area that would become Kansas was officially closed to white settlement and designated as Indian Territory. The U.S. government, following the Indian Removal Act, forcibly relocated numerous tribes to Kansas, including the Cherokee, Delaware, Kaskaskia, Kickapoo, Ottawa, Pottawatomi, Sac and Fox, Shawnee, and Wyandot, each with their own newly designated reservations and settlements.

This period produced a proliferation of Indigenous and administrative place-names—some seen only for a generation as tribes were pushed south and west again. Examples include:

• Council Grove (for the Kaw/Kanza reservation and seat of Indian Agency),
• Marais des Cygnes River (site of the Ottawa reservation),
• Delineation of Christian Indian Tracts, Delaware Reservations, and various mission sites (e.g., St. Mary’s Mission for Pottawatomi).

As white hunger for land increased and the notion of “Indian Territory” proved increasingly temporary, these names and the tribes associated with them were erased, subdivided, or forcibly removed again—leaving only a handful of federally recognized Kansas tribes today.

© 2025 Alim Ali Director

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