Kanza

The Kanza, who call themselves Kaáⁿze and are also known as the Kaw, are one of the five Dhegiha peoples speaking a Siouan language. Their oral history tells of a westward migration from the Ohio valley: the Kanza halted on the Missouri River in northwestern Missouri and northeastern Kansas, the state that later took its name from them.

The French explorer Bourgmont left the first European account after visiting their large village in 1724. By the late eighteenth century they had established themselves along the Kansas River, farming, hunting bison and often fighting the Pawnee.

After the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 American expansion brought mounting pressure: in 1825 they ceded vast lands in Missouri and Kansas, and smallpox epidemics in 1827 and 1831 killed about five hundred of them, leaving the weakened tribe surrounded by settlers and rival nations.