Blue Earth Village of the Kaw

Hiking through the tall grass of the prairie reclamation park in eastern Manhattan, near the site of the Blue Earth Village

The Konza people enter my thoughts daily and it’s all because of the Blue Earth Village. This weekend in particular, because it’s the first weekend in August, I find my thoughts turning toward the native tribe who, before the arrival of Europeans, lived not far from my house. Because of the tragedy of the Kaw’s history, however, I can only reflect on the idea of the Blue Earth Village. There is nothing else left.

I’ll get back to what drives my thoughts to the Konzas, or the Kaw, and to their village, but first I should point out the significance of the first weekend in August. According to the Kaw Nation Web site, internet home of the tribe for whom the state of Kansas and the Kansas (or Kaw) River draw their names, the first weekend of August is the Kaw Pow Wow.

All I know about the Kaw Pow Wow comes from what I’ve read in the tribe’s newsletter (see page 9), but I am intrigued and hope some day to attend. The weekend’s activities are held on Kaw Lake near Kaw, Oklahoma, the tribe’s current home. The fact the Kaw live in Oklahoma and not the state that bears their name is a result of the tragic, but all too familiar, story of displacement of native tribes by a 19th-century American government.

That story is told on the cultural history page of the the Kaw’s Web site. There, you can read how the Kaw people were once a part of a larger tribal group that lived in the lower valley of what’s now called the Ohio River. The Algonquians began moving westward before 1750, forcing the Kaws downriver to the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi. The tribe then migrated upriver to the mouth of the Missouri River, near present-day St. Louis and then up the Missouri to the site of Kansas City at the mouth of the Kansas River. By 1800, the Kaw occupied most of Northeast Kansas throughout the Kaw River valley.

One village was established at the junction of the Kaw and Big Blue rivers, near the site of what’s now Manhattan, Kansas. The Big Blue River was also known as the Blue Earth River, so that’s a common name for the village.

In a side note, a short half-century later – in 1855 – a group of abolitionists followed the very same route. That group traveled on the steamboat Hartford from Cincinnati, down the Ohio River, up the Mississippi to St. Louis, up the Missouri to Kansas City, and up the Kansas River to Manhattan (called New Boston at the time). They intended to go farther upriver, but got stuck on a sand bar and ended up joining forces with a previous group of abolitionist settlers in creating the town of Manhattan. Unknowingly, the travelers on the Hartford were following the same route as the Konzas, but by the time the Hartford unwillingly hit land in the Kaw River, the Blue Earth Village was long gone.

What we know about the Blue Earth Village comes from descriptions of explorers to the region. In 1806, Zebulon Pike traversed Chase County far to the south of the Blue Earth Village, being led by members of the Osage tribe who sought to avoid contact with the Kaw. So Pike never saw the village, but he did write in his journal about crossing flint hills and having sore feet. The 202nd anniversary of his journey is approaching, so I’ll write more about him then.

Government surveyor George Sibley visited the village in 1811 and wrote that the village, “is overhung by a chain of high prairie hills which give a very pleasing effect to the whole scene.” Sibley also described the lodges – 128 in number – in which the Kaw people lived.

In 1819, a part of Major Stephen Long’s scientific expedition made it to the village. Sometimes, folks talk about Long’s party visiting the site, but Long and the majority of the party were encountering the Kaw people farther to the north along the Platte River. Thomas Say, a naturalist in Long’s expedition, led a smaller group through what’s now Wabaunsee County, past the site of present-day Alma, down Mill Creek to the Kansas River and upriver to the Blue Earth Village. Say spent several days with the Kaw before a negative encounter with the Pawnees farther north along the Blue River forced him to rejoin Long’s group. The anniversary of Say’s stay is also approaching, so look for more on him then.

In the 1820′s and 30′s, however, the story turns tragic as many native tribes, along with the Kaw, were forced to move. The Kaw were first moved south to Morris and Chase counties before finally ending up in Oklahoma.

Which brings me back to why I think about the Blue Earth Village every day. Manhattan’s Northeast Community Park, located on the eastern edge of town, is just a short walk from my house. The southern portion of this park contains a 15-acre prairie reclamation park, complete with big bluestem, little bluestem, switch grass, indian grass, and other native plants from the tallgrass prairie. The park sits along an old channel of the Blue River, so the soil is rich and deep. It’s August and the turkeyfoot has already reached 8-10 feet in height. Now, the Blue River flows farther to the east, but before 20th-century floods cut new channels, this was near the spot where the Blue and the Kaw Rivers met. The supposed site of the Blue Earth Village is about a mile to the southeast.

Every day I take a short walk around the 15 acres of tallgrass prairie and dream. In the scheme of the whole tallgrass prairie, 15 acres is nothing. Heck, even compared to the Flint Hills, 15 acres doesn’t even merit being called a drop in the bucket.

But the grass is tall and if you stand just right, you can see only grass and Bluemont Hill in the distance. With some effort, you can get a vague idea of what the area might have looked like in 1806.

The top of Bluemont Hill was the site where Manhattan co-founder Isaac Goodnow stood, looked out over a prairie-covered valley and said “eureka” because he had discovered the perfect location for his new town. Bluemont Hill was likely one of those “high prairie hills” described 40 years earlier by Sibley. Bluemont Hill, in good Flint Hills tradition, is where the word “Manhattan” is spelled out in large white letters. Bluemont Hill, however, is now covered in red cedar trees, not in bluestem grasses. The prairie on Bluemont Hill, like Blue Earth Village, is lost.

So every day I stand on one end of those 15 little acres of restored tallgrass and dream of what once was. Life moves on. Things change. Landscapes change. Heck, the Flint Hills were once at the bottom of an ancient sea, so everything changes, eventually. For one little period of history, however, this was the home of the Kaw Nation and an immense spread of prairie grass. Things change, but let’s not forget.