UMKC is located on the unceded ancestral lands of the Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo), Washtáge Moⁿzháⁿ (Kaw/Kansa), 𐓏𐒰𐓓𐒰𐓓𐒷 𐒼𐓂𐓊𐒻 𐓆𐒻𐒿𐒷 𐓀𐒰^𐓓𐒰^ (Osage), and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ (Sioux) Peoples. Learn more about the original inhabitants of this and other areas at the Native Land website.
Read
Borrow a print book at the library Service Desk.
UMKC username and password required for eBook access.
Local History Highlight
In 1843 the federal government forced the Wyandot Native American tribe out of their Ohio homeland and relocated them to what is now downtown Kansas City, Kansas. During their first months in their new home, the Wyandots suffered terribly from various illnesses, and records indicate that up to one hundred members of the tribe died. The survivors buried the dead on a hill overlooking the Kansas and Missouri Rivers. This site eventually became known as the Huron Cemetery, since the Wyandot people descended from the larger Huron tribe. Over the years the Wyandots continued to use the Huron Cemetery as the final resting place for their deceased tribal members. In the 1890s developers began applying pressure on the Wyandot tribe to sell the land upon which the cemetery was situated, as it was prime real estate in downtown Kansas City. The developers were planning to disinter all the remains and relocate them to Quindaro, a nearby Wyandot village, and they intended to erect a city government building upon the sacred hill.
- Read more about the removal of the Ohio Native American tribes here: The Other Trail of Tears: The Removal of the Ohio Indians.
- Learn more about the Wyandot village of Quindaro here – Quindaro Ruins Townsite Project. Quindaro was a “station” on the Underground Railroad.
Lyda Conley was a local Wyandot woman and a lawyer who received her degree from Kansas City School of Law, now the UMKC School of Law, and was the first woman admitted to the Kansas Bar Association. Conley was outraged by the proposed sale of the Huron Cemetery. The burial ground was the resting place for her parents, one of her sisters, and up to eight hundred other Wyandots, although the actual number of burials is uncertain due to the passage of time, desecration, looting, and vandalism. Lyda Conley and her two sisters decided to act, and they erected a simple shelter in the Huron Cemetery so they could protect it from development. The Conley sisters maintained a vigil for over two years by standing guard with rifles, and they nicknamed their shelter Fort Conley.
- Learn more about the Wyandot people, and Lyda Conley in particular by visiting The Kansas Collection website of the Kansas City Kansas Public Library: The Wyandot People & The Conley Sisters.
- Learn more about the Conley Sisters and their occupation of the Huron Cemetery by listening to the following podcast from the Midwest Genealogy Center: Lyda Conley Podcast.
Lyda Conley the lawyer also began fighting for the Huron Cemetery in the courts, and in 1909 she became the first Native American woman admitted before the Supreme Court of the United States. Although the court was sympathetic to her plight, Conley lost the case, but she continued fighting, and in 1916, with the help of Kansas Senator Charles Curtis, the Huron Cemetery became a federal park. Even so, controversy followed the cemetery for decades, until a 1998 agreement designated that the Huron Cemetery could only be used for religious, cultural, or other sacred activities.
- View a mural commemorating the Wyandot people and Lyda Conley, situated across the street from the Huron Cemetery, by reading the following blog post: Lyda Conley Mural.
- Listen to the Kansas Chief of the Wyandot tribe speak about the history of her people by watching the following video: Kansas Chief of the Wyandot Tribe.
Watch
Participate
Events from the Mid-Continent Public Library:
- Tracing Your Native American and Alaska Native Ancestors (Hybrid) | November 13, 2024
- The People of the River’s Mouth: In Search of the Missouria Indians (Zoom) | November 19, 2024
- Perfect Faux Pottery – Native American Style | November 16 and 23, 2024
Local history highlight: Matt Lutt, Teaching & Learning Librarian, UMKC Libraries
Recommendations: Peyton Consani, Academic Library Fellow, UMKC Libraries
