On a hill about four miles southeast of my childhood home of Council Grove, Kansas, lies an unknown Kansa Indian in a limestone obelisk. The tomb is unmarked and was created in 1925. Kansas was given it’s name from the native Kaw indians, who were moved from their homeland to reservations near Council Grove from 1846 to 1874. They were moved from the Kansas River Valley to a twenty by twenty mile section in the Neosho River Valley. The natives were continuously exploited and harmed. In 1959 a new treaty was made that turned the land into a nine by fourteen mile section and hellaciously overpriced housing contracts were made to force the people into stone houses. One of the houses still remains partially standing. On June 3, 1873, the Kansa were forced, yet again, to Indian Territory that was half the size of their living space. Years later, Frank Hauke grew up in one of the stone houses and watched as townspeople dug up the graves of the Kaw, looking for treasure. With no treasures, they would leave the graves exposed, to which Frank’s father would rebury them in a proper manner. A man, who was of some importance because he was buried with his belongings, was never identified and lies in the obelisk. This series expresses the vast and empty landscape where so many people were persecuted, died, or had the worst times of their live. This monument, though completely unmarked, represents a very sad part of American and Kansas history that we can never take back.
