The Darkest Period: The Kanza Indians and Their Last Homeland, 1846–1873 by Ronald D. Parks (review)

in the summer of 1873, 533 Kanza left their diminished reservation in Kansas and relocated to Indian Territory. Historian Ronald D. Parks identifies the social, political, and economic forces that led to the loss of Kanza land and population in The Darkest Period: The Kanza Indians and Their Last Homeland, 1846–1873. Parks adequately uses source materials written by government officials, missionaries, and journalists to describe the historical events and attitudes of local farmers and merchants toward their Native neighbors. Largely missing from the story, however, are the Kanza’s own understandings and interpretations.

The book situates the tribe within the Central Plains, identifying important aspects of topography and natural resources, including water, timber, and food sources that were essential for Kanza survival. These resources became increasingly necessary, and ever more valuable, as settler populations increased during the 1850s and 1860s, forcing the tribe to surrender large portions of its territory. Tragically, the Reservation’s proximity to the Santa Fe Trail also placed Native peoples in the direct path of disease and commerce. Land is at the heart of this book; the Neosho Reservation became a refuge for the Kanza.

The author carefully describes the powerful social, economic, and political forces that undermined the Kanza’s ability to retain their land and culture. Christian missionaries hoped for transformative success; several congregations built small missions and schools, but each effort failed. Settlers squatted on Kanza lands, arguing that the survey boundaries were inaccurate. Tribal efforts to retrieve stolen horses were used as demonstrations of hostility, prompting calls for military action. Newspapers fanned settler fears. Ineffective government agents came and went. Frontier violence became especially problematic as the Civil War produced “bleeding Kansas.” Rail lines cut across the Plains and the bison herds declined. Other Native groups, such as the Cheyenne and Arapaho, also hunted the remaining bison. Drought, disease, alcohol, greed, and racism all played a powerful role in shaping the Kanza’s predicament.

The strengths of this book lie in the author’s ability to illuminate the above complexity and to use newspaper articles, diaries, missionary records, and government reports in his presentation. Parks readily accepts that his work is based on Euro-American writings, but he also states that “historical records yield, in my estimation, sufficient material to construct a narrative featuring the Kanza nation’s most prominent events, personalities, customs, and subsistence strategies from 1846 to 1873” (5). Through these materials, Parks is able to identify the Kanza’s principal leaders, locations of camps, topics of treaty discussion, and economic activities, but the reader is left wanting information on changes to tribal social structure in the face of significant population decline; the roles and contributions of Kanza women as agriculture replaced hunting; internal political dissention, particularly in regards to land retention and removal; the struggles to remain spiritually balanced; and much more. Parks recognizes the limitations of his source materials, noting, “Since all the chroniclers available to us are white, readers are held hostage to how deeply the writers cared to look into the humanity of the Kanza with whom they associated—that is, how willing and able they were to relate to the Indians as subjects” (167). Parks then provides a few anecdotes to balance the presentation. But is this really all there is to the story? Are there no recorded Kanza recollections available in the archives? And what of memories, passed on within Kanza families, describing undocumented events or providing alternative explanations? Scarcity of source material is a concern for all researchers, but reliance on only written documents limits Parks’s ability to find that humanity which appears to have eluded settlers, missionaries, government agents, and newspapermen.

Despite its limitations, The Darkest Period provides a valuable framework in which to better understand Kanza relations with Euro-Americans at a critical moment in tribal history. Clearly, Americans placed significant pressures on tribal leaders and members to accommodate or acculturate. How the...