Account of provisions and supplies issued to destitute Shawnees
Creator: Abbott, James Burnett
Date: 1861
This account book belonging to an Indian agent named James Burnett Abbott lists the names of Shawnee Indian heads of household, the number of family members within their household, and the amount of pork, corn, and meal provided by the government to each Shawnee. The Shawnee had emigrated to Kansas after the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Only an excerpt is included here.

Dishes from 14JO55
Date: 1820-1869
These dish fragments were just a few of those that were recovered from the surface of a site in Johnson County in what was the Shawnee Reserve. A wide variety of patterns were recovered from the site including dish sherds with scalloped edges and hand painted sherds. Additionally, sherds were recovered that were decorated by transfer printing, called transferware, and by sponging with color, called spongeware. It is unclear whether the site was a Shawnee farmstead or the Chouteau trading house for the Shawnee.

George Washington Deitzler to Bradford R. Wood
Creator: Deitzler, George Washington, 1826-1884
Date: April 7, 1856
Deitzler, writing from Lawrence, offered recommendations to Wood, a New York State Kansas Committee representative, on the best emigration route to Kansas. Deitzler suggested that New York emigrants consider settling on Shawnee Reserve land in Kansas as soon as it was opened to settlement. He also requested monetary aid from the New York State Kansas Committee for free state settlers already in Kansas.

Johnston Lykins' Shawnee verb conjugations
Creator: Lykins, Johnston, 1800?-1876
Date: 1842
In his journal Johnston Lykins, a missionary to the Shawnee Indians in Kansas Territory, jotted down verb conjugations for the Shawnee alphabet he had developed while working at the Shawnee Mission. The notes include both singular and plural forms of the verb "to strike" in English and in Shawnee.

Johnston Lykins Journal Entries
Creator: Lykins, Johnston, 1800?-1876
Date: February 23, 1842-March 5, 1842
Dr. Johnston Lykins, a Baptist missionary to the Shawnee Indians in Indian Territory (present-day Kansas), edited the Shawnee Sun, a newspaper printed in the Shawnee language. In these journal entries from 1842, Lykins wrote about his efforts to teach Shawnee pupils how to read under this alphabet (the Shawnee language had no written system). Lykins also spent some time traveling to visit and treat the sick.

Johnston Lykins journal entry, July 18, 1831
Creator: Lykins, Johnston, 1800?-1876
Date: July 18, 1831
In his journal, Dr. Johnston Lykins, a Baptist missionary to the Shawnee Indians in northeast Kansas, recorded that many of the Shawnee villages were alarmed about an outbreak of smallpox. Lykins offered his assistance by vaccinating the natives.

Johnston Lykins journal entry, October 27, 1832
Creator: Lykins, Johnston, 1800?-1876
Date: October 27, 1832
According to this journal entry, Johnston Lykins and his fellow missionaries at the Shawnee Mission in Indian Territory (now northeast Kansas) had written to the school board requesting permission to provide meals for the students. Their request was denied, and the missionaries feared that their students would no longer attend classes.

Johnston Lykins journal entry, undated
Creator: Lykins, Johnston, 1800?-1876
Date: Between 1826 and 1842
In this undated journal entry, Johnston Lykins, a Baptist missionary to the Shawnee of northeast Kansas, gives his perspective on how the U.S. government and Indian agents have treated emigrant Indians in Kansas. He also discusses how many of these Indian tribes are suffering from starvation.

Jotham Meeker journals
Creator: Meeker, Jotham, 1804-1855
Date: September 10, 1832-January 4, 1855
The journals of Jotham Meeker, in three volumes, describe his daily activities as an Indian missionary, printer, and minister in Michigan and Kansas territories. In 1825 Meeker served as a teacher and preacher among the Pottawatomis, the Ottawas, and later the Chippewas in Michigan. The Board of Baptist Missions sent Meeker to Indian Territory in 1833 in an area that would later become Kansas. Due in part to the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the U.S. government was relocating many Eastern tribes west of the Mississippi River. Meeker was assigned to the Shawnee tribe as a printer-missionary. By February 1834 he had set up his printing press at the Shawnee Baptist Mission in present Johnson County, Kansas. In May 1837 Meeker began his own mission among the Ottawas near present Ottawa, Kansas. Meeker died at the Ottawa mission in January 1855. A full transcription (PDF) is available below under "External Links." Images of the original journals are followed by images of the typescript copies. Funding to digitize these journals was donated by Dr. A. Allan Schmid.

Jotham Meeker to Rev. Crosby
Creator: Meeker, Jotham, 1804-1855
Date: January 10, 1834
In this letter to Rev. Crosby, of the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions, missionary Jotham Meeker expressed his interest in bringing the Christian gospel to the Ottawa Indians. Meeker was currently stationed at the Shawnee Baptist Mission in Indian Territory (today part of northeast Kansas). He was particularly concerned about their opposition to missionaries. Meeker also wrote about the influx of Indian tribes who were embracing agriculture.

Jotham Meeker to Rev. Lucius Bolles
Creator: Meeker, Jotham, 1804-1855
Date: November 29, 1833
In this letter Jotham Meeker, a Baptist missionary to the Shawnee in Indian Territory, discussed the Ottawa Indians who were residing on Shawnee lands. Meeker spoke to several Ottawa chiefs about spreading the Christian gospel, and he hoped that he could work among them as a missionary. Also, Meeker discussed how the Ottawa may be forced to move once other tribes take possession of land in Indian Territory. He also mentioned the Methodist mission established among the Potawatomi. Reverend Lucius Bolles, the recipient of this letter, was Meeker's contact at the Baptist Board of Foreign Missions.

Kansas Territory versus Charles Calkins et al. for grand larceny
Date: October 26, 1857 - October 28, 1858
This witness testimony, sworn before Justice of the Peace Samuel N. Wood in 1857 and 1858, relates to the trial of Charles Calkins, William Porter, William Way, William Myers, A. J. Miller, Newell Miller, J. S. Miller, John Elliott Duffield, and Alexander Sheets for grand larceny. In October of 1857, Calkins was accused of leading a band of men who stole horses from Ned Tooly and George Blue Jacket, members of the Shawnee tribe, in Douglas County, Kansas Territory. The testimony indicates Calkins escaped from custody.

Map of Eastern Kansas
Creator: Jewett, J.P. & Company
Date: 1856
A map of Eastern Kansas by E.B. Whitman and A.D. Searl, General Land Agents, Lawrence, Kansas. The map illustrates a portion of Eastern Kansas which depicts trading posts, post offices, missions, government forts, Indian villages, roads, trails and Indian boundaries. The Indian boundaries that are featured included: the Kickappo, Pottawatomie, Kansa, Sax and Fox, Shawnee, Miami, Ottawa, Chippewa, Peoria, Kaskaskia, Iowa, Delaware, Wyandotte, Piankashaw, and the Wea. The map includes illustrations of the Eldridge House in Lawrence and the Constitution Hall in Topeka. The land discussed above was originally given to Native Americans following the passage of the Indian Removal Act in 1830.

Olathe - What the first woman saw
Creator: Millikan, Emily L.
Date: 1907
In this item, Mrs. Emily L. Millikan recounts her experiences related to her May 28, 1857 arrival in the Kansas Territory. Arriving with her brother, Dr. J.B. Whittier, Millikan explains that she was the "first woman resident" of Olathe, Kansas. Millikan also discusses such things as traveling via wagon, visiting the Shawnee Mission, and meeting Native Indians. Millikan states that the first women she encountered in Olathe were "two big squaws who unexpectedly stuck their heads through a broken pane of glass in the room where I was and greatly startled me."

Shawnee Indian reservation plat maps of 1854
Creator: Stuck, Isaac Cooper
Date: 1857
These are survey plat maps of land included in the Shawnee Indian reservation of 1854. Landownership is indicated on the maps. Isaac Cooper Stuck drew these around 1857.

Shawnee Sun (Siwinowe Kesibwi)
Creator: Lykins, Johnston, 1800?-1876
Date: November 1841
This photo static copy of the Shawnee Sun represents the first newspaper printed in Kansas (then known as Indian Territory). The paper was written in the Shawnee alphabet created by Johnston Lykins, a Baptist missionary to the Shawnee Indians. The newspaper lists John Gill Pratt as publisher. The original paper copy of this issue is held by the LaBudde Special Collections Department, Miller Nichols Library, University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Territorial Census, 1855, District 4
Creator: Donalson, C. B.
Date: January and February, 1855
This census was taken in order to determine eligible voters for elections to be held as proclaimed by Governor Andrew Reeder on November 10, 1854. The categories for information in the census were name, occupation, age, gender, emigrated from, native of United States, naturalized citizen, declarant (intention to become a citizen), Negro, slave, and voter. Only white males over twenty-one were eligible to vote. The districts used for the census were the same as the election districts. A statistical summary of the census followed the enumeration pages. For District 4, the place of election was the house of Dr. Chapman. The boundaries of each district were described in Governor Reeder's proclamation, and it is difficult to determine what counties were in each district. The description of the Fourth District follows: "Commencing at the Missouri State line, in the middle of the Santa Fe road; thence along the middle of said road to Rock Creek, near the sixty-fifth mile of said road; thence south to the line of the late Shawnee reservation ceded by the treaty of 1854; thence due east along the south line of said reservation and the north line of the existing reservations of the Sacs and Foxes, the existing reservations of the Chippewas and Ottawas and the late reservations of the Piankesaws, Weas, Peorias and Kaskaskias to the Missouri State line; thence up the Missouri State line to the place of beginning."

United States versus Timothy Donovan for numerous counts for selling liquor to the Shawnee
Date: 1855
These legal documents relate to the case of the United States vs. Timothy Donovan for selling liquor to members of the Shawnee Tribe on various days in February of 1855 on Shawnee Tribal Land in the Kansas Territory. Donovan was indicted in June of 1855 by the Second District Court in Tecumseh, Kansas Territory. The Shawnee Tribe was removed to a tract of land in Johnson, Wyandotte, and Douglas counties in 1826. Alcohol was prohibited on Native American land from 1832 to 1953.