Kansas

The Kansas River flows eastward across the central Plains to join the Missouri. Formed by the Republican and Smoky Hill rivers, it passes through a broad valley of prairie and wooded bottoms. The Kansa, or Kaw, gave their name to the river and lived in villages along its course, cultivating crops and hunting on the surrounding plains.

In 1724 the French commander Étienne de Bourgmont visited a Kansa village near the Missouri while seeking peace and trade with peoples farther west. During the eighteenth century Kansa communities moved westward along the Kansas River. By 1804 Lewis and Clark received reports of villages upstream, and in 1806 Zebulon Pike visited a Kansa settlement during his journey across the plains in search of the headwaters of the Arkansas.

The later city of Topeka lies here.