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Written by Mike Caron, published in Lawrence Journal-World, August 14, 2013

Many years ago the eminent anthropologist Frank Speck wrote that the last Lenape (Delaware) “Big House,” their traditional spiritual center, was located somewhere in the immediate vicinity of the Pine Farm in North Lawrence. The adjacent land, where the Lawrence Airport now sits, was cleared for the tribe’s primary maize field by Chief Sarcoxie’s and Chief Fall Leaf’s bands of Delaware soon after their arrival in 1830.

That “Delaware Commons” was continuously farmed until these endlessly harassed native people were forced to relocate shortly after the Civil War. In that bloody conflict virtually every able-bodied Delaware man enlisted with the Union Army.

As the Journal-World reported on Aug. 11, and an editorial reiterated on Aug. 12, the Delaware were forced by the federal authorities to “move to an Oklahoma reservation.” These veterans returned home only to learn that their tribe was being removed to land our government confiscated from the Cherokees as punishment for joining the Confederate side.

Adding insult to injury, the authorities then declared that the Delaware were to be hereafter considered “Cherokees.” The clear intent was to end the tribe’s existence by folding them into the much larger and deeply resentful Cherokee Nation, their mortal enemies in the recent war.

Chief Fall Leaf’s band resisted removal the longest. In a letter every Kansas school child should read, the old chief pleaded with authorities to stop starving his people by withholding treaty-guaranteed provisions in order to force these helpless holdouts to abandon their homes and relocate to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).

Gov. Charles Robinson was centrally involved in plotting with the Delaware agent, John Pratt, to get the tribe removed from Kansas. The rich “Delaware Commons” Indian cornfield soon became the heart of Robinson’s “best farm in the territory.”

The governor and cofounder of Lawrence received the famed property as a bribe. The rights to that highly coveted farmland were obtained fraudulently. Leavenworth railroad developers bypassed tribal leaders in favor of a Delaware woman who had no authority to sell the land. Then the land went to Robinson for selling out his hometown’s deep commercial interests in obtaining a south of the Kansas River route for the transcontinental railroad.

Your readers deserve to know that the Delaware did not arbitrarily select that property merely because it has close proximity to the Kansas Turnpike. They have purchased a land that is an important part of their history in Kansas. There is a lot of speculation that the Delaware “Return to Kansas” movement is about a casino. The tribe’s return is driven by many decades of discrimination and restrictions limiting their ability to prosper independently. Tribal sovereignty is paramount.

Mention of Delaware land purchase inquiries in Leavenworth and Wyandotte Counties, as well as Ohio, reinforce the narrative that this long-abused tribe is merely shopping around for casino land. Both counties were integral parts of the original Delaware treaty land. The Delaware initially chose the site of Fort Leavenworth for their principal village until Lt. Leavenworth, finding Weston, Mo., too swampy for his fort site, disobeyed orders and violated treaty promises by confiscating that location for a military camp intended to guarantee that these Indians would never again be harassed or invaded by squatters or dishonest traders.

The Wyandotte tribe, which had been their neighbors in Ohio, arrived after all the best land had been taken. The Delaware sold these desperate Ohio refugees some of their land, which was promptly coveted by non-Indians who developed Kansas City, Kan.

It took close to a century for the Delaware to regain federal recognition. This resilient tribe’s members, who all Algonquian peoples call the “Grandfathers,” are finally coming home to Kansas, the land they were promised they could live on undisturbed forever if they would only put their mark on our government’s paper.

— Mike Caron earned his master’s degree from Kansas University and did additional graduate work in historical geography and anthropology at Louisiana State University and KU. He has researched Nation Americans in this area for more than 40 years.

The Delaware Tribe of Indians has many departments and committees that provide services and assistance to Delaware Tribal members. Departments such as the Archives, Library, and Museum are always in need of financial assistance.

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16 September 2013 LENZY KREHBIEL-BURTON, Native Times

BARTLESVILLE, Okla. – Contrary to published reports, the Delaware Tribe is not moving north just to open a casino.

Currently considered landless, the Bartlesville-based tribe is looking at relocating to its previous reservation in eastern Kansas in an effort to expand its services for citizens and business opportunities that do not necessarily involve poker chips and slot machines.

“We’ve talked about this for 20 years,” Chief Paula Pechonick said. “We want to get our 638 (federal self-governance) funds directly and be able to get out from underneath the Cherokee Nation.”

Under a 2009 memorandum of understanding with the Cherokee Nation, the Delawares cannot exert any governmental authority over land within the Cherokee’s jurisdictional area or take any land into trust in exchange for the Cherokee Nation not opposing the tribe regaining federal recognition.

The agreement, which was required thanks to an 1866 treaty that moved the tribe onto the Cherokee’s land in Oklahoma, does not extend to Delaware property outside the Cherokee’s jurisdiction. If the move happens, the Delaware Tribe’s proposed new service area could potentially include more than 15 counties in eastern and southeastern Kansas where its citizens lived before its forced relocation to northeastern Oklahoma.

The Delaware Tribe’s current capitol and its Chelsea office are within the Cherokee Nation. The tribe also has offices in Emporia, Kan., and Caney, Kan., and has been soliciting feedback from tribal citizens for potential service expansion in Kansas. The planned relocation would not disrupt services for the tribe’s citizens in Oklahoma.

“We’re going to leave everything at this building right here,” Pechonick said. “The complex is going to remain. The services will remain for our citizens still here.

“There are almost 50,000 underserved Natives in those counties. We’re like to be able to help those Native Americans as well, along with our own people.”

The casino rumor was partially sparked by a real estate transaction tied to the Kansas move. Earlier this year, the tribe bought an 87-acre tract on the north side of Lawrence, Kan., through its business subsidiary, LTI Enterprises, and is in the process of attempting to take it into trust. Despite published reports in Lawrence area media outlets, the tribe’s trust plans for the property do not involve gaming.

“Something we’ve envisioned to show people was to take an aerial photo of what we have here at this campus and transpose it up there,” Pechonick said. “We want to be able to tell them we can have housing, child care, government offices and everything else we have down here.”

Pechonick and other tribal officials are in the process of meeting with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the four federally-recognized tribes headquartered in Kansas and the state’s governor, Sam Brownback. The tribe also plans to present a resolution at the National Congress of American Indians’ annual convention in Tulsa later this year asking for support for the move. Since the proposed relocation has to be approved by the BIA and would potentially involve switching which regional office the tribe falls under, there is not a timeline in place.

“There is a certain historical precedent being set that at issue, it isn’t just about getting federal funds, although that is a factor,” said Jim Gray, former chief of the Osage Nation and Pechonick’s senior adviser on government relations. “A tribe’s primary responsibility is to take care of its people. The purpose of a tribal government is to take care…of its people, to provide services to help ensure the safety, security and culture of its people. If you want to be sovereign, you have to start acting sovereign. If you sit on the sidelines and don’t exercise it for too long, you lose it. This is the Delawares exercising their sovereignty.”

Originally published in Native Times, September 16, 2013. Used by permission.