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KICKAPOO TRIBAL GOVERNMENT

The United States Government as defined by the United States Constitution has governmental relationships with International, Tribal, and State entities. The Tribal nations have a government-to-government relationship with the United States. The Kickapoo Tribe signed treaties with the United States which are the legal documents that established the Tribal homeland boundaries and recognized our rights as a sovereign government.

The Kickapoo Tribe lived in Wisconsin and Illinois in the days prior to diplomatic relations with the United States government. The Kickapoo Tribe was originally designated reservation lands in an 1819 treaty in Missouri and was later moved to Kansas with lands recognized in a treaty with the United States signed on March 16, 1854 and amended in 1864 to further reduce land holdings. This includes all rights-of-way, waterways, watercourses and streams running through any part of the reservation and to such others lands as may hereafter be added to the reservation under the law of the United States.

The Kickapoo Tribe operates under a constitution consistent with the Indian Reorganization Act of June 18, 1934 and is governed by the Tribal Council. The Tribal Council consists of a Chairman, Vice-Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer and three additional Council members, all of whom are elected by the Tribal membership.

The Tribal Council Chairman serves as the administrative head of the Tribe. The Tribal Chairman, Officers and Council members serve two year staggered terms at-large without regard to residence in a particular district of the reservation.

Land Status:

LAND:

The Kickapoo Reservation is located in Brown County, Kansas, 5 miles West of Horton, Kansas. The Reservation is six miles long and five-miles wide. Kansas Highway 20 runs east and west across the southern portion of the reservation. There are 3653 acres of allotted land and 3338 acres of tribal land. The Tribal Office is located six miles west of Horton on Highway 20, ½ Mile North, ¼ mile west at Senior Citizens Complex.

HISTORY:

The word Kickapoo comes from Kiwigapawa, meaning "he stands about" or "he who moves about, stand now here, now there," according to the Smithsonian Institution Handbook of American Indians. It is the name of a Tribe that is closely related to the Sac & Fox Tribe. Both belong to the Algonquin linguistic family and have similar customs and languages.

The Kickapoo Tribe was first encountered by the Catholic Missionary Father Allovez between the Fox- and Wisconsin Rivers in Southern Wisconsin about 1667. A few years later, they moved south into Illinois, gradually extending their area around the Sangamon River and toward the east along the Vermillion and Wabash Rivers. They played a prominent role in the history of this area up to the end of the War of 1812.

In 1795, the first treaty between the Kickapoo Tribe and the United States was signed at Greenville. Later treaties (1809 and 1819) provided for the cession of all Kickapoo land claims in Illinois which consisted of about one half of the state. In exchange they were promised land an the Osage River in Missouri.

By 1820, most of the Kickapoos had moved to the new Missouri location but not to stay for long. The area had long been the hunting grounds of the Osages, and they protested the intrusion, claiming that the Kickapoos would spread out over the Osage country and would kill the game. In St. Louis in July of 1820, the Kickapoos signed an amendment to the 1819 treaty granting them lands in Missouri, and accepted instead a reserve in Kansas. However, not until 1832 did the action to remove the Tribe get seriously underway. On October 24, at Castor Hill, St. Louis County, Missouri, the tribal leaders signed an agreement to leave Missouri for Kansas. Heading the list of signers were Pa-sha-cha-hah (Jumping Fish) and Kennakuk, the famous Kickapoo prophet.

The new reservation in Kansas consisted of 1200 square miles located in the present counties of Brown, Atchison, and Jackson. This was reduced to 150,000 acres located at the head of the Delaware River in Brown County in 1854. In 1864, another treaty was signed which further diminished their land holdings to an area measuring five miles by six miles. Land sales since then have reduced this to 3338 acres in tribal holdings and 3653.41 acres in individual ownership.

About 1852, a large party of Kickapoos together with some Potawatomi left Kansas and traveled to Texas and then on to Mexico where they became known as the Mexican-Kickapoo. In 1983, they were joined by another party of Kickapoo who had become dissatisfied with the reservation life in Kansas. Here they became a constant source of annoyance to the border settlements, and efforts were made to induce them to return to Kansas. This failed, but in 1873, a number of the Mexican band were induced to move to Oklahoma Indian Territory. Others have since returned, but those that remained in Mexico settled on a reservation granted to them by the Mexican Government in the Santa Rosa Mountains of eastern Chihauhau and western Coahuila.

In 1883, a reservation consisting of 100,000 acres was assigned to the Kickapoos that returned from Mexico. Since than, nearly all of the land which was located near Mcloud, Oklahoma has been absorbed by non-Indians.

In 1759, the Kickapoo population was estimated to be around 3,000. By 1825, it had declined to 2,200. Today, there are 1,400 Kansas Kickapoos. Approximately 780 of these live in Kansas, with the others scattered throughout the United States.

ENVIRONMENTAL SUMMARY:

Terrain: Level farmland and grassland dominate the reservation.

In 1996, Tribal environmental staff identified solid waste landfill closure, cleanup and monitoring as the major reservation environmental problem which may be hazardous to the health of reservation residents.