History

A Presbyterian Mission to Iowa Indians was established nine miles south of Joseph Robidoux's Blacksnake Hills Trading Post (present-day St. Joseph, Missouri) on the Missouri River in 1835. Aurey Ballard and his wife operated this mission in the Platte Purchase region until Iowas and Missouri Sacs and Foxes signed a treaty giving up their lands in present-day northwest Missouri. (Little Wolf of the Iowa Tribe is pictured at left, by George Catlin, courtesy Smithsonian Institution)

In 1836 Superintendent of Indian Affairs William Clark (of Lewis and Clark fame) negotiated a treaty at Fort Leavenworth with the two tribes. The agreement stipulated that both tribes would give up all claim to lands lying between the state of Missouri and the Missouri River for $7,500. In addition to the monetary consideration, the government was to "build five comfortable houses for each tribe, break up 200 acres of land, fence 200 acres of land, furnish a farmer, blacksmith, teacher, interpreter, provide agricultural implements, furnish livestock" and a host of other small items.

The treaty ceded all of present-day Atchison, Nodaway, Holt, Buchanan, Andrew and Platte Counties in Missouri in exchange for reservations in what became northern Kansas and southern Nebraska. Each reservation consisted of two hundred square miles, which was promised them "so long as the grass on the prairie shall grow." Two hundred Iowas held the north diagonal half, Sacs and Foxes the south. At this time there were approximately one thousand Iowas, five hundred Sacs, and twelve hundred Foxes. On March 28, 1837, Congress ratified the treaty signed by the two tribes that made the Platte Purchase a legal reality.

Originally Iowas had lived north of the Great Lakes, but by the 1800s they had been pushed to Missouri River. Here they were neighbors of the Missouri Sacs and Foxes, who had split with Mississippi Sacs and Foxes over participation in the Black Hawk War in 1832.

By the fall of 1837 Iowas and Sacs and Foxes had removed to their respective reservations west of the Missouri River. Before the removal was complete Andrew S. Hughes convinced the missionaries to include both tribes in their efforts. Hughes contended that "the Sac and Fox exist in a declining fashion, and without the intervention of some supporting body, their desperate situation seems certain to worsen." The missionaries, eager to reach more people, gladly accepted the new challenge. Henceforth the mission would be known as the Iowa, Sac and Fox Mission.

The Presbyterian Mission then removed to the southern edge of the Iowa reservation in present-day Doniphan County, Kansas. Aurey Ballard, because of ill-health, resigned during the move, and in November 1837 Samuel M. Irvin and his wife, Eliza, (pictured at left) established a mission two miles west of the mouth of Wolf River. They were joined in December by Reverend and Mrs. William Hamilton. Hamilton left in 1853 when he was sent to work among the Otoes in Nebraska.

The first mission building was a one-story log structure covered with clapboards. It was a little distance from the Indian settlement and separated from it by a stream. In 1844 the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions authorized construction of a permanent building which was completed in 1846. It was three stories high with a belfry that made the total height 52 feet, and it was 107 feet long by 37 feet wide. The first story was walled with native limestone and the upper two with brick manufactured on the grounds. Shingles, doors, windows, and finished lumber were sent from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, while other building materials were obtained in the local area. The cost of the building, $8,000, was met by a $6,000 appropriation from the tribal annuities and $2,000 from the mission board. This new structure was erected on the north side of Mission Creek, apart from the old mission complex by about two hundred yards.

Lessons were taught in English and the Iowa language. This was made possible by the arrival in 1843 of a printing press on which Hamilton and Irvin published a hymnal and several grammar books in the Iowa language. Studies included spelling, arithmetic, and geography, but emphasis was placed on the industrial and domestic arts and farming.

From the 1830s - 1860s, emigrant and freighting traffic passed the mission on the St. Joseph branch of the Oregon-California Trail. For a time the Indians were able to profit from this traffic. They built a log bridge across Wolf Creek, near the mission, and charged a toll, usually twenty-five or fifty cents a wagon. With the exposure to the emigrant traffic, cholera and smallpox broke out among the Indians. Some fifteen Iowa Indians died of cholera at the mission in June 1849. In 1850 cases of smallpox were followed by another onslaught of cholera. With these epidemics, the Indians shunned contact with white emigrants and the missionaries, fearing that more disease would befall them. This further hampered the mission's efforts.

With the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, a new treaty was negotiated causing a reduction of Indian lands. The treaty took effect that same year, and white settlement began then in earnest. As a result of the loss of land, the mission became too far removed from the two reservations to make attendance at the school convenient for Indian children. Consequently, the mission closed in 1863. From 1863 to 1866 the mission functioned as the Indian Orphanage Institute, but this new role was limited by a proliferation of similar institutions in the Midwest.

After the institute closed in 1866, the mission sat empty until 1868 when the west portion of the building was razed, leaving about 40 percent of the original structure. The razed portion was to be used in the construction of a building at Highland University. This institution of higher learning was an outgrowth of the mission and was chartered in 1858, making it one of the oldest colleges in Kansas. The university facilities are now occupied by Highland Community College.

In 1937 the Northeast Kansas Historical Society organized to preserve the remaining portion of the mission building, which had been used as a residence until about 1905. It became the property of the state in 1941. Since 1963 the Kansas Historical Society has administered this property as a state historic site. In 1996 the mission was rehabilitated as a museum to showcase the arts and history of the emigrant tribes of American Indians in northeast Kansas. The grounds will be open in spring 2009 as a drive-through site.