Tai Edwards 00:02 

Okay, got it, cool. 

Chester Hubbard 00:04 

So my name is Chester Hubbard, and this is for the Kansas land treaties project. And I'm interviewing with Tai Edwards today about her her work with the you know, the indigenous peoples here in Kansas, including the Kaw Nation as well the, oh yeah, just the indigenous peoples including, you know, i mean, there's quite a bit of indigenous peoples that have been through Kansas with... 

Tai Edwards 00:29 

That's true. 

 Chester Hubbard 00:30 

All types of relocations of the original people, yes, but so lets see, you have anything to say for the recording? 

Tai Edwards 00:38 

Nope, I'm Tai Edwards. I'm happy to be here. And I have, I consent to recording and doing this 

Nope, I'm Tai Edwards. I'm happy to be here. And I have, I consent to recording and doing this interview, so I'm happy to be here. 

Chester Hubbard 00:45 

Okay, cool, so I'll go ahead and start then. So you said that, oh, you Well, you said I saw, I've seen, like, a lot of your work so far, and Lisa and Mary shared, like, a lot of your stuff, like I read the the Osage woman and Empire. 

Tai Edwards 01:03 

Great. Thank you. 

Chester Hubbard 01:04 

And then also, I've gone over like a rock and a hard place and several other different piece of material, right? So just kind of like regarding those, because, like, as we know, like Native American like, just now, and as well as well as our history isn't really taught in school. What should educators be sharing with their students about the histories and treaties pertaining to the land? 

Tai Edwards 01:29 

Excellent question. Yeah, go on. 

Chester Hubbard 01:32 

That Kansas State stands on as well as you know, just basically that everything stands on.  

Tai Edwards 01:38 

Yeah. So if we think about K State, or, like you're saying, anywhere in Kansas. I think, I think for educators, the biggest challenge is that they have not been taught this themselves, so it's hard to teach your students if you don't have a good background in it. And so I think that leads to these ideas that at the at least at the collegiate level, we need to think about general education, including indigenous, at least North American history, right? Or if we could be more specific, you know, K State could have a, you know, indigenous peoples of Kansas, or a course like that, that really can center people in getting a handle on these issues. And our bigger goal, of course, would be that you didn't just first confront that information in college, right? You have, you would have that knowledge in a in a K through 12 context. But I think before we can get to a K through 12 context, we do have to give teachers more information so that they because I think teachers a lot of times know that, know that they don't know, right? They're aware that they don't know things. And as a result, it makes it difficult to teach something that you don't know much, but you know enough to know it's complicated, right? And but the trouble is, and as we've talked about, the Kansas Association of Native American education, or KANAE, which is a majority indigenous educators group, especially from the K through 12 part of the state. You see through that group and a lot of the federal programs that they work with and that they use to serve students, indigenous children are in basically all of our schools, right, all of our K through 12 schools. So the problem with waiting until you're in a collegiate setting to learn this is you've harmed all the K through 12 students, but especially the K through 12 Indigenous students who see the invisibility of themselves and their families and ancestors and their histories in learning that. And so what? How can we teach that? I think your question was right, like, what? What histories can we teach? How do we teach these so I think that a lot of people, including teachers, including the public, are very hungry to know this complexity. And in my experience with my students, they want to know hard things. And the reason why I think that is because we're all living a hard, complicated life, right? So it's not that people can't manage right intellectually this complexity. They can. They live with it, and so they're hungry for the the knowledge and the baseline that can help them make sense of the world that they're in. So when we think about K State, and I would say in Kansas, K State would be a great way for us to teach this to our to our students broadly, because most young people, including young children, know what K State is, right, its role in athletics, its role as an alma mater for some of the people they might know in their community, and just its iconography, right, like you see K State stuff right around our state, it makes it a good tool for Teaching. And and if we could use K-State as an example, or we can use a lot of other things, but this place exists from, and the way I would probably explain it is speculating or flipping. It is the phrase I often use my students, right, speculating in or flipping indigenous land, right? So you get it cheap or free. And therefore don't compensate, therefore, right, the people who whose land it is, and you use this to profit and build other institutions that don't serve that population. And so I always think, and this is my bias as a historian, I study indigenous history in the context of colonialism. So, you know, I don't know if you've heard about a lot of the arguments about, like, critical race theory. Critical Race Theory and other things that have sort of been politicized in the last year, which is something that I don't teach either because I don't need to, because I teach colonialism, right? And so I think colonialism is a is often a non threatening framework to teach it in, because people don't understand it well. And once you start to understand that colonialism informs this relationship, then you start to see the things that happen inside that framework, and it helps you understand and I would argue, once you understand colonialism, which I mean, I deal with my children are elementary school children, and I've talked to them about colonialism, once you start to get that frame, then you can see how colonialism manifests even in the present, right? So what histories can we be teaching at the very baseline? We can be talking about the indigenous peoples that have lived here historically, and the indigenous people that have been forced to live here because of colonial policy, like the Potawatomis, right? And I think that young people can understand that. I think the public can understand that, but we do need to have some curriculum assistance to get teachers to be comfortable with it and then to teach it. And KANAE is doing a lot of that work. So there are people that are part of that organization, that are including myself, who are applying for grants where we can hopefully layer over the state curriculum standards to give people resources to do that work. 

Chester Hubbard 06:50 

See, yeah, just to kind of bring it back right to beginning. I forgot to mention I was a, I was a elementary education major at one point at a Haskell Indian nations. 

Tai Edwards 07:02 

Oh, wonderful. 

Chester Hubbard 07:03 

So I actually gotta see, you know, see how our school system works along with our curriculum, which, I mean, it's the curriculum. So it was a pretty good opportunity to, like, just kind of see about how, you know, we teach stuff. Because I, I mean, Lawrence is pretty progressive, and how they, you know, talk about stuff. So I had a Oh, so I have the experience to kind of like, see, like, the other side of the coin, because I was raised in a rural community, so, I mean, and they were pretty cool about about a lot of things, because my I, they, my grandparents did a lot of presentations when I was young. And so we would go to like schools or like festivals and all that. And so we would, you know, talk about, you know, our people's history and all that. Tell them some, you know, kind of like some creation stories and and along with so, like, we would talk about our regalia for Powwows and all that. You know exactly what the dances mean. And people always love loved it. Like the teachers loved it, the kids loved it. Because, like, we would also do, oh, some dances where they the crowd, participate in, like, some some round dances, and all that, they always love, that it's always fun. 

Tai Edwards 08:17 

Exactly, yeah. I mean, I think people are hungry for this, and they know, they don't know. And like you said, so I think you just have to have those kind of partnerships, like you're talking about. But that took the leadership of your grandparents probably to engage in that, right? 

Chester Hubbard 08:32 

Yeah. 

Tai Edwards 08:32 

so that burden falls disproportionately on the indigenous communities to engage, right? And how can we build that engagement to putting more work maybe on the population that needs to do more of the work, right? 

Chester Hubbard 08:46 

Yeah, and yeah, like, because yeah, there I remember, like, my grandparents would always be calling around or like, but then there's also times where, like, they would get to cause, like, there's a couple times where the I forget, like, the full name of it, the the Kansas History Museum outside of Topeka. 

Tai Edwards 09:04

Yes.

Chester Hubbard 09:05 

They, they called them a couple times, you know, asked they could come present and all, all that dance. And we also had a drum group at one, one point in my life, where we would, know, sing and all that, I would sing a song about Scooby Doo and, like, the kids would love it. 

Tai Edwards 09:24 

That's wonderful. That's really good. 

Chester Hubbard 09:26 

Yeah, because, because, yeah, like, a lot of round dances nowadays, like, you know, they have lot of English words in them, and they, they're just kind of about, oh, don't want say random stuff, but, you know, their songs... Just life, right? It's just life? Yeah. Just about fun things and like the wise would sing, would be the ones for kids and kids, kids would find it funny. It's just it was a good time. Yeah, no, you said you're like, people are hungry, and like, there's just not, seems like there's not, like, a whole lot of chances are were you know people, can, like, find out about it. Because, I mean, like, say I was, I had the fortunate luck of my grandparents presenting in all these schools, so my friends got to learn about that, or just people through that and then. But if my grandparents didn't do that, then I'm would anything have been learned through that? Or, who knows? 

Tai Edwards 09:49 

It is a good time. Right, right? 

Chester Hubbard 10:27 

But like, just kind of, seeing like the part, you know, nothing may have been learned, or if you know, if it weren't, if they didn't come through, or nothing. 

Tai Edwards 10:36 

Exactly, right? And that's a heavy burden, right for them to carry, and it's, what about all the kids that didn't have that access, right? Yeah. 

Chester Hubbard 10:45 

Yeah. And, like, it's funny because some of my lifelong friends I have had then, they're just still learning stuff about indigenous history just through me, because I'll just bring something up. They're like, they just kind of look at me. They're like, where are you talking I'm like, you didn't know this, have I not brought this up before? 

Tai Edwards 11:02 

Well, I will say this might be off topic a little bit, but I teach North American indigenous history at JCCC, and a lot of the students that take that class are actually indigenous, and they usually don't identify to me until about halfway, you know, or later in the semester. And it's because assimilation efforts, you know, have really assaulted their families and they haven't had access to a lot of the indigenous history that they also want. Because colonialism has worked, right? I mean, it has assaulted their families and their histories. So, you know, I think Indigenous students are also hungry for contextualization of their own histories. So, yeah, that's a great example. 

Chester Hubbard 11:43 

Yeah, and like, for sure, about the indigenous students who who had, like, their who are separated from their history and cultures. Because I am sure, you know, met several, multiple people like that. And every time I talk with them, they're talking like, oh, you know, I just learned that. I am oh, and so and so tribe, like one of the members of the Native American Student Body council here K State, she learned of her heritage and all that, and she was adopted. And so she found that she was from a tribe, Alaska native tribe and so, or one of the indigenous peoples from Alaska and so they and so, she's, like, it's just kind of tough trying to figure out, find out, you know, my history and culture, because, you know, such a long distance. And, like, she, she has obvious, you know, want to to learn everything about it. But like, you know, it's just such a long distance. 

Tai Edwards 12:41 

Exactly right,and that's a, that's a trauma for her, right? Like, that's kind of an assault on her identity. And so, yeah, that's, that's extremely difficult. 

Chester Hubbard 12:52 

Yeah, I mean, that's without even getting, like, called, oh, the adoption process that the government inflicted, that that became a little bit off topic. 

Tai Edwards 13:04 

Yeah, we are off topic. But it is important. Yeah, you're absolutely right. 

Chester Hubbard 13:07 

Yeah, because, like, certainly, like all these communities, because, you know, educators do have a lot, we'll, we'll have indigenous students that are disconnected from their culture and have alot, we'll, we'll have indigenous students that are disconnected from their culture and history and just don't know, like, a lot of these things, which is really unfortunate, but, you know, it's just how it is. 

Tai Edwards 13:28 

That’s right, that’s right. 

Chester Hubbard 13:30 

Because, I mean, for like, you know, everyone knows, like, I mean, I won't say that I'm the most well versed in all my people's ways, but I'm pretty, you know, knowledgeable about a lot of things. But, you know, for every one of me, there's like, you know, couple that were separated because also, large number of the native population is actually in urban areas. 

Tai Edwards 13:53 

That's right, yeah. 

Chester Hubbard 13:55 

And just as a geographer, that's interesting to me, I bet, which is actually a thing that I've my research on for my grad studies. 

Tai Edwards 14:05 

But that's wonderful, good. 

Chester Hubbard 14:07 

But, that's for another time. 

Tai Edwards 14:09 

Ah again, we're off topic. Go on, yeah, yeah. 

Chester Hubbard 14:12 

But so, like, there's always a thing, like, about how urban natives aren't as, like, well versed in their ways, which, I mean, it's true, because the reservations are, like, major cultural centers. And like, even if, like, the language, language is endangered, like the language is still there. And so if you're not with your tribe, like your family themselves aren't well versed in the language, or, you know, even just speak a couple words here and there by that's, you know, just more language, not there. 

Tai Edwards 14:43 

Right? Totally, yeah, totally. 

Chester Hubbard 14:47 

And so, yeah, just like natives being disconnected, and educators just kind of, Oh, I feel like educators just see like disconnected, or see the Native students and Like. Kind of think they should like, know, yeah. 

Tai Edwards 15:04 

There's an assumption there, yeah. And there's an assumption that that Native student might even need to educate everyone else, which is also not their job, right? So that's putting a lot of pressure on a young person who is not the teacher in the classroom, right? Yeah? 

Chester Hubbard 15:17 

Because, for a quick example, that when I was a student teacher in the public school district at Lawrence, I had an indigenous kid in my classroom. He, he's real funny. I always like talk with him, especially since we had that, you know, the the connection, the indigenous connection. 

Tai Edwards 15:37 

Yeah. 

Chester Hubbard 15:38 

And so, like, we would always talk and like, oh, the teachers would always be asking him about his, you know, culture and all that. And like, in my mind, was like, he's only in like, fourth grade, like, you know, he he knows stuff, but like, he doesn't know everything. 

Tai Edwards 15:53 

Right well, and it's just that burden, right? Like, now he's got that he's had to take responsibility for that. And, you know, are you doing that with any of the other students in the class? I bet not, right? Like, there's, there's a fine line between, you know, elevating student voices and putting pressure on them to educate everyone else. 

Chester Hubbard 16:12 

yeah. Like, it was just, yeah. Like, we certainly gone better as time has gone on. But there's still, like, you know that nano sort of like disconnects between like, educators and like, there's like, their indigenous students and just kind of like their students as well. 

Tai Edwards 16:30 

Agreed, yeah. 

Chester Hubbard 16:32 

But like, they're like, but like, like you said earlier, like, you know, there's, there's, they're wanting to learn, like, there's just like, you Know, not like and there are more like resources becoming available, but like, there's still, like, not a whole lot being done. 

Tai Edwards 16:47 

Right, and we've got to institutionalize it, right? Like it can't just be something the teacher has the burden of researching on their own. Right. Like they need access to that, and maybe required access to that. 

Chester Hubbard 16:58 

Yeah, see, but yeah, they think we may gone a little bit longer for that question, but it's just, uh, I like talking with people my me, because you're really knowledgeable about and my talk and share experiences. 

Tai Edwards 17:15 

Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. I love your teaching. You should write about your teaching experience. That would be a great piece to read, frankly. 

Chester Hubbard 17:25 

it probably was. Wouldn't be all that interesting. 

Tai Edwards 17:28 

Well, you think that I it sounds like it'd be great to use with my students, right, to sort of teach these complexities. 

Chester Hubbard 17:34 

see, but I guess we'll go see. Is there? Is there anything else that you want to say about how my educators should be sharing or? 

Tai Edwards 17:43 

I think that's good. 

Chester Hubbard 17:45 

Okay, cool. So we'll just go on, go on, go on ahead. So you worked on a rock and a hard place, and so that's, you know, a landmark for the for the Kaw people. Well, not landmark, but a sacred spot. 

Tai Edwards 18:01 

Right? 

Chester Hubbard 18:02 

I didn't even know that was in Lawrence. I lived in Lawrence for five years. 

Tai Edwards 18:07 

I didn't either. 

Chester Hubbard 18:09 

I went to Haskell, yep. So, like, just, kind of, like, it kind of really surprised me when I read that, that piece that, you know, there's like, a really sacred thing like that, because I try, like, No, I try to take those things seriously. 

Tai Edwards 18:26 

Uh huh. 

Chester Hubbard 18:27 

But, like, it really just surprised me. But so, like, like, What? What? What are some, like, other, like, landmarks and nodes in Kansas that you know of, because there's also the springs that, like, landmarks and nodes in Kansas that you know of, because there's also the springs that, uh, the Kaw, like, oh, sacred and like, good in those ways, but like that got filled up with a lake. Like, oh, why? Like, why are those landmarks important? Like, well, like, yeah, just this basic, yeah. 

Tai Edwards 18:54 

Yeah. 

Chester Hubbard 18:56 

Yeah. 

Tai Edwards 18:56 

So, why are those landmarks important? So, when I think about that, I think about what it means from the Kaw people I know, and what I've read about Kaw peoples relationships with those sacred as you're talking about the rock and then the springs that's now underneath the lake. When you think about that, I think, and I've heard Kaw people talk about this this way. So you were probably at the indigenous peoples day conference just last month, right? So when Storm from the connation was giving up prayer at the beginning, I thought it was so powerful, the way she talked about, you know, as she's doing that and talking about, this is her homeland, she immediately then went into forced removal, right? And I've heard other Kaw people when they talk about Kansas like they kind of start with that forced removal, right? And it just sort of brings home to me and many indigenous people your nation too, right? Have experience with alienation, right? Or, as some people say, right, life and diaspora, but the harm that it involves is. Intentional, right? So colonialism functions this way, on purpose, right? So colonialism, and in the United States, we live in a settler colonial empire, right? So there's different kind of colonies, but when we think about the United States as a settler colonizer, the goal is to eliminate indigenous people so that the Empire settlers can possess their land, but in so doing, there's contradiction, right? So especially for Christian colonizers, which the United States was also a part of a Christian colonization, but also a supposed, you know, Republican democracy colonizer, right? So Republican democracy is inherently opposed to colonization, theoretically, but obviously not literally, right? And so destruction of landmarks is part of elimination, all right. So when we think about indigenous people have to be eliminated, this can happen in lots of ways, right? Like genocide is, of course, right, a really disturbing way to accomplish it. But ethnic cleansing is another way, right? So, the Kaw experience in Kansas is ethnic cleansing, right? The Potawatomi experience from the homeland into Kansas is ethnic cleansing, right? And in the Potawatomi case, you're forced to be what we call proxy invaders, right? The Potawatomi were forced to be invaders of the Kaw land, you know, to make the reservation that they now that still possess, right? So that creates complexity, right? And and pain, yeah. And so when I think about the Kaw landmarks and the fact that, or the Kaw sacred sites, those two specific ones you're mentioning, I think that their desecration should be expected if we're looking at a colonial empire. So the springs and and I've read about it in Ron Park's book, which maybe you have to write the darkest period. I mean the way he explains that is really powerful and horrible, right? And so, and I love how he you can tell with language he uses how disturbed he was, right, that it was turned basically into a trash pit and a and a commercial spring site, and then, and then, literally flooded. I mean, you couldn't kill it more. And when I, when I think about that, and then the rock, right? So the rock was in the river, and it had been in the Kansas River, we think, for about the last million years, or several 100,000 years, since it was pushed down by a glacier, right? And when that rock sits there, the way I've heard some Kaw people describe it, is the rock in the water, but it was sticking up above the water, right? That's how they could see it. And it was something that they passed on, you know, annual migration, right, annual travel. And so that was a sacred, you know, thing that they visited. And then when I heard ski COVID, as you may have seen on our between the rock and hard place website in our curriculum, we did a recording with him, where he talks about the rock, right? And how the rock is is like them, right? It's from somewhere, and it's here, and it's it's withstood so much and it has so much power, and then to see it standing, as you're talking about, in a Lawrence public park with an awful plaque literally glued to it. I mean, it couldn't be worse. And that's settler I mean, that's planning the flag right, like that's that's settler colonialism embodied whenever I go to that park. I live in Lawrence too, whenever I go to that park. I mean, this is what colonialism looks like. And by the way, in my own mind, sitting right behind it, by the way, is a Spanish American War cannon. And the Spanish American War was a colonial war towards Caribbean and Latin American people and the Philippines. And so when I think about that, it's what colonizers do, right? And as our research has shown about the rock specifically, everyone knew it was well documented, that people knew it was a Kaw, sacred object at the time that it was stripped from the river. So I think that also shows you how powerful Kaw presence even was, right? And this is the 1920 almost 1930 right? This 1929 so the Kaw had been expelled from Kansas since the 1870s I mean, we're into several generations at this point, right, since the cop had been expelled. And still the power of that rock and its importance to the Kaw people was known in popular culture and then to take it. And you may know, there was even a competition between multiple cities on who was going to take it, right? And then they take it and they put it in that park, and they re identify it, right, they re identify that piece as being associated with Lawrence history. That's that's settler colonialism, right? So you take the indigeneity, right? The indigenous. Power, right? Which is this rock and the land? Right? Both things and you re identify it as part of your own creation narrative, right? So it's, it's about the creation of Lawrence, right? The founders of Lawrence, and by repurposing or appropriating that for Lawrence founding history, the reason why colonizers do that is to legitimate their place in that space, right, on that land, but also to imply that the Kaw are no longer with us, right? So you can take that sacred thing because you're implying that they don't use it, or there aren't people to use it. And of course, the Kaw weren't gone. There were Kaw people in Lawrence at the time, right? We know this, and it's, it's, I mean, it's just an act of assault, it's an act of spiritual assault, it's an act of settler colonialism, it's an act of elimination. But I guess, from our perspective today, the interesting thing about that is, this is all predictable. We know theoretically, right, scholarly. But people weren't totally saying it like this, right? Like they were saying things close because they knew it was, it was a Kaw sacred object. They knew it would make a great monument. And so it always is interesting to me when I think about that, or even the making of the lake that sits over the springs, it's, you know you're doing something destructive, right? You know that much. You know you're re claiming, right? You're You're appropriate. You know you're appropriating, even if you don't use that language to do it. And so the thing that always interests me about that is, what are we doing now that we also may feel some tension about but we somehow excuse away because of other aspects of colonialism or other systematic structures that we also accept, right even if we know there's contradiction or tension or problems, and so that's why I think, is what the is, what they Kaw, call the rock. I I think about that. And there's just to sort of turn this a little. You know, the rock has been repatriated, right? So the city and the county have agreed willingly, by the way, when, well, when I say willingly after being asked, and it might be fair to say after being asked over a series of years, they have, they were in 2020 and 2021 they were non confrontational and fully willing to relinquish the rock. And, of course, now, now you have to go through the process of figuring out how to physically move it and where to move it to. You know, there's a lot of logistics and expense involved in doing that. And I know Kaw, there were kaw citizens who were concerned about, you know, vandalism toward the rock, or, you know, what, if moving it breaks it apart, you know what? If it's unstable now, or, you know these, which are reasonable concerns, yeah, but I did hear some Kaw people be like that rock has taken care of itself for a long time, and it might be okay and and as you may know, right, like, from the Kaw perspective, when you take something, you need to put something back right, because there's going to be a hole or some consequences right from that moving. And I did have a Kaw person tell me that as lawrenceians, we need to think about, has the rock been doing things for us that we're not aware of? You know, since the 1920s when it sat in that park and without its you know, power or or protection, or, you know, whatever the rock is doing that maybe especially Western people don't understand what is going to happen when it doesn't sit there, you know. Or could there be consequences from moving it again, especially if we don't move it and replace it, at least in a in a Kaw, understanding way, right? You know, like you know, moving it means something, and so will there be consequences? And I will say, when we had, you know, for that project, we had numerous public events before the pandemic. And I remember, and I think you talked about being a geographer. So we had some geographers. We had some geologists who were non native. And, of course, Kaw citizens. And you heard from all of these people from sort of different walks of life about how the rock talks right, or how the rock vibrates, or how the rock communicate right. It has, again, it's got, there's some stuff going on there. And when you think about that, you are like, Oh, we should. Make sure that we do this moving right, because it's a sacred it's not just sacred to the car. It might be just sacred for all of us, whether we have, you know, acknowledged that or not. And and I think that's why in Iⁿ‘zhúje‘waxóbe, a story is really powerful, because we've been talking a lot about colonialism and the destruction to the rock and to the springs, and when you think about moving it or repatriating it, you know, some people might argue this is a small act of decolonization, but it is also big, right? Like it's also a powerful thing for people to come together around doing and in my experience, has been really not controversial so far. And, you know, you said that how things have changed. We were talking about how things have changed over time. It might show that we're ready to sort of confront some of the settler colonialism, you know, and we're starting to take some of those steps, and that's encouraging, right? And I will say personally, doing that work during the pandemic, the pandemic was very difficult and very difficult for me personally, and so to see these movements for the Kaw nation and the Kaw sacred in Iⁿ‘zhúje‘waxóbe was something positive to see. But I will say honest on a side note, I've seen springs like the one that the Kaw found sacred. There's springs like that in other parts accounts, Kansas, and I saw one recently, and it is a, it is a paved over drain, you know, you know, when you're at the side of the road and there's the drainage on the curb. You know, there's like the grate for draining, and there's a little pipe that just goes into the street, and there's like a small, like cement, metal marker that that's what Springs is not, not the one that's sacred to the Kaw, another one. And I just look at it, and you're just like, you know, this is so everything, you know, so discouraging to see it like that, to see it kind of destroyed like that, and but then to see the water like not give up. The water is like, you can do this, but I am coming out of that stupid pipe, you know. So it's, you know, it's just interesting to see what we do to land and what it means to us and what it means to, you know, people of the past and people of the present. You know, it's so complicated. So, yeah, that's how I think about Iⁿ‘zhúje‘waxóbe in the springs, yeah. 

Chester Hubbard 32:38 

And then I say, like, go, yeah, just going back to, like, you know, talking about, like, the rock, you know, and that, you know, is it like, you know, like, was it meant to always come here? Like, if, like, this is a good question, because, you know, like, oh, like, there's all types of different, like, beliefs between the tribes and all that. Like, it's just kind of interesting to think about. 

Tai Edwards 33:05 

100% Yeah, absolutely. 

Chester Hubbard 33:08 

Because, like, you know, did it kind of Lawrence, because it knew that, oh, the Haskell would be such a bad place for children, it was going to try and help protect the ones. 

Tai Edwards 33:18 

Yes. And the time when it comes is some of the those really trying times, yeah. 

Chester Hubbard 33:24 

Yea, so it's just kind of interesting. Just kind of think about, you know, didn't know, you know, like, was it always like, oh, trying to make its way eventually, like, the service purpose, you know, in this one spot, and then in Newton, it would eventually have to be there. 

Tai Edwards 33:40 

I mean, these are great questions. I don't know, but it's very intriguing. 

Chester Hubbard 33:44 

Yeah, yeah, just because, I mean, I know, I like falling, you know, my my own tribe's beliefs and all that. And like, you know, there's, like, you know, everything has a spirit, and, like, everything's alive, and, you know, and so it's just kind of interesting thing, think about it. Because, like, you know, that rock has its own spirit. And so, you know, if it knew, like, it would eventually make it over there, then, you know, it make its way over there somehow. 

Tai Edwards 34:13 

Right, it got there. Yeah, right, yeah. And you're right, because the other city that wanted it was Topeka, you know, and, and, I mean, you're right. Like, there's a lot of ways to think about this. The Rock has power. There's no doubt about it. 

Chester Hubbard 34:26 

Yeah, and then also, just going back to something that you said, like, just a little bit earlier, about how the Potawatomi, you know, like, you know, we didn't mean to be but like, you know, we're invaders, like, and like, you know, I've seen that as well, especially now as I learn more about relocations, and you know, just about well, like the force removal of, like, just all these tribes, because, I mean, oh, the Choctaw tribe, you know. And like, they were moved to Oklahoma, you know. So. Now there's like the band, Oklahoma band. Then there's the Mississippi version. 

Tai Edwards 35:05 

Yes, yes. 

Chester Hubbard 35:07 

So it's just kind of interesting thing, because, like, people just like, oh yeah, they were just moved. But like, they don't think about the like ramifications of like us, like being moved. 

Tai Edwards 35:17 

Yes, and yeah, it's a spiritual and a physical death. It is both of those things, yeah. 

Chester Hubbard 35:22 

And oh, I I've read some books from like Potawatomi, writers and authors, and one of them talked about how, when during our you know force removal from, you know, up north, how we removed you in several places, and when we finally got down here that were current reservation is that we were lucky because, like, it was kind of like back north, like there are trees, and it was, like the Eastern wood woodlands. 

Tai Edwards 35:52 

Yeah. 

Chester Hubbard 35:52 

so they're saying, like, you know, we were really lucky about that, because, you know, we still had a piece of home with us. And then when the citizen band got moved down to Oklahoma, they still had trees, and it was still like, up north. So they're like, you they're like, you know, we still have a piece of home and all that, and so, like, that's just kind of interesting think about. Because so, like, even though, you know, we're like, you know, this reminds me of us of home, like it's not originally our home. 

Tai Edwards 36:25 

right, totally, but yeah, absolutely, yeah. 

Chester Hubbard 36:28 

Like just kind of speaking from my own knowledge and experiences with my tribe and all that. And I mean, also, I wasn't born on the reservation. I was raised off it, but I've had plenty, you know, I've been there plenty of times. 

Tai Edwards 36:43 

Sure. 

Chester Hubbard 36:43 

But I just, like, I haven't really heard, like, my tribe, like, acknowledge that, you know, oh, oh, hey, you know, we, you know, even though the things that were done to us, like, you know, we're dreadful and, like, horrible, like, we came here, like, we've essentially, like, forcing other people off their land. And this is kind of, this is kind of interesting to think about. 

Tai Edwards 37:07 

Yeah. 

Chester Hubbard 37:08 

Because, like, I have really heard, like, a whole lot of natives like say, you know, you I've heard him say, you know, you know, we were forced from our homes, we were forced from our lands. But you know, like, I've never heard him talk about the ramifications other than, you know, our own, like cultural, like destruction, and which, I mean, is very, you know, very valid. 

Tai Edwards 37:28 

Yes. 

Chester Hubbard 37:29 

Like they, I haven't heard like about his talk about, you know, our US being moved, like causing other consequences. 

Tai Edwards 37:38 

right, right, right, of which You weren't in control, but they are, but they still happened, right? 

Chester Hubbard 37:44 

Yeah. 

Tai Edwards 37:44 

So a good example of this, by the way, so I don't know if you saw this, but in the state legislature of Kansas last year, they returned the Iowa's mission, which had been a state historic Kansas State Historical Society, you know, location and property and that they had worked with the Iowa's in conjunction, but the state legislature and they had worked this out in advance, right? So they worked to return it to the Iowa's and but the Iowas are on call land, right? So it makes these ideas of land back look really complicated, right, as you're talking about, so, yes, these are welcome to colonialism, right? It creates messes. 

Chester Hubbard 38:26 

Oh, yeah, because, like, exactly with the land back movement, especially because, like, when I first saw I was like, Yeah, I was like, that's really, you know, that's good movement and all that. Like, when I start thinking I'm like, man, like, I just, like, no, just from, like, my reservation, like, perspective, like, it'd be, it'd be kind of rough. 

Tai Edwards 38:45 

Yea, it will be kind of rough because, do the Potawatomi's need to give their land back to the car? Right? Like, what does that mean? Right? 

Chester Hubbard 38:52 

Yea, like, exactly its acting like it's just kind of like, it'd create a whole mess of, like, everything. And like, I mean, I'm still for, like, land back and all. But, like.. 

Tai Edwards 39:00 

Of course,yes, yes. 

Chester Hubbard 39:03 

Questions you know about what would need to happen. 

Tai Edwards 39:05 

Right, right. 

Chester Hubbard 39:07 

For the other indigenous peoples that live on that land now. 

Tai Edwards 39:10 

Exactly, yeah, I mean, but I think you're right about your first question, right, what could we do as an educate, as educators, right, to sort of get people to sort start to wrestle with these complexities. 

Chester Hubbard 39:21 

yeah. Yeah, lot of complexity. But okay, see oh, see, do you have anything else to say about that question? 

Tai Edwards 39:37 

No, that's good. Yeah, that's good. 

Chester Hubbard 39:39 

Okay, cool, yeah. Just, just making sure that you know there every time you know before we. 

Tai Edwards 39:44 

I get it. Yes, I've done oral history. I know exactly what you're talking about. 

Chester Hubbard 39:51 

But uh oh, so since you know, we've talked about the landmarks and kind of what educators. Should be like sharing. Do you think that there are like other, like relevant, like stories or documents related to like see oh,the histories and treaties that could give us more perspective on like these stories? 

Tai Edwards 40:15 

Yeah, that's a great question. So I will say for me, and this might be me because of what I do, Yeah, that's a great question. So I will say for me, and this might be me because of what I do, for my discipline, right for history, a treaty just handed to a high schooler, you know, or maybe a general member of the public, is something they probably feel like they have some sense of right before they get into it. But I feel like, and this is why the treaty's project at K State, I think, is so important. The annotating them is, if people don't have the colonial context before they engage with those documents, they're not going to understand everything, right? So, so as a historian, especially historian who studies colonization and its impact on indigenous peoples of North America, you can't just read a source to read a source, right? Like you have to understand, you know, what the agendas were at the time, what the history was leading up to that, what those words were used to mean at the time, right? Like there are euphemisms that are tied into or there's recent problems that they're, you know, addressing in their language, that the people at the time all knew about, but we might not. And so that's why, when, when I think about, like, annotating the Kaw treaties, this is really important, right? Because you can take even just one word, a word like half breed, right? So if you've seen the Kaw treaties, right, the half breed tracks are something that are in them, right? And the Kaw aren't unique in this, right? You see this in many treaties, you know, that's a racist term that no one should say. And it was said, you know, for a very specific purpose. You know, the way I talk to my students about it is, you know, when you talk about enslaved peoples, right? So people of African descent who are enslaved, you have the one drop rule, which is basically meaning that there will always be enslaved people, right? Because there'll be someone who's a descent. Someone who's a descendant of so the purpose of that construction is to ensure permanent, exploitable labor force, right? Like they're never going to, you know, generation out of it, if you will. But if you talk about indigenous people, you know, built into federal law and treaties, is this idea of half breeds, right? And that that construction is to imply they're less indigenous, right? And even today, right, like you have these blood quantums built into federal policy, right? And the purpose of that is to imply that you're not indigenous enough, right? So what that's doing is eliminating indigenous people. So you have these two separately colonized populations at the same time, right? Enslaved people and indigenous people. And the federal government has constructed their exploitation in these different ways because of the different relationships with those colonized populations. One is one again, an exploited labor force, and the other is elimination, right? So the settler colonial empire needs to eliminate indigenous people so that the Empire can possess their land. So by artificially telling Native people, you're not native enough, which is not a native construction, right? That is not an indigenous construction, indigenous people did not identify, and in many cases today do not identify in those ways. You're making them invisible, right? Some people call this documentary genocide. So you imply in your in your written texts, right, or in your in your documentation, your especially your legal documentation, that someone doesn't exist even though they do, right, even though they culturally exist and and so when I think about the treaties and the stories around them, you know that's just one word that is a central part, if you've seen those treaties right, a central part of even dividing up the land right. And by defining indigenous people in those ways, you're creating artificial factions amongst the tribe, right? That may never have existed before and wouldn't have existed otherwise. And this is, this is just typical colonialism. So colonialism all over the world operates this way, and what you do is you try to divide the colonized population and treat certain groups differently, right? So the federal government was, you know, enacting Land Policy differently towards the so called half breeds and the so called full blood, right? And by doing that, you're dividing them from each other. And so therefore it's going to make it harder for them to unite together, to resist. And you do that by giving benefits to some. And as you know, trickled all over this is that the cleansing and genocide which is killing people, right? And I will say some of my other scholarship is about disease. So all of this disrupts indigenous life. And because indigenous life is disrupted, people are more vulnerable to disease, to malnutrition, to other things. So literally, people are dying, right? So. And so you have this specter of death, trauma, stress, alienation from home life, from homeland, you know, disruption to spiritual practices, disruption to the families. And so underneath that's, you know, with all that stress happening, then you're treating different parts of the population differently. And so, of course, some people are going to accept that, because it makes living a little bit easier, right? Or it makes raising their kids a little bit easier. It makes it maybe the chance of their kids living to adulthood more likely. Of course, some people are going to take that, right? And so that creates these artificial factions inside the nations and in some indigenous communities, those factions exist in various ways to the present, right? Those impacted life in the 20th century. That's impacting life in the 21st century. And so when I think about the treaties, and you talked about, what are the relevant stories or documents around them, I think a person can't read a treaty without having some of that background knowledge, because then you see in the text, like, ah, like, this is what it's doing, right? And this is how it's It's crafted with an intention. It's crafted based on a history, and its assault is experienced in a specific way. And I think you got to do that. But then on the reverse, right? Treaties imply sovereignty, right? United States negotiates treaties with relative sovereigns. That's that's the way the Constitution is written, and that's the way we operate with treaties to the President. And when you think about that, back to the things we were talking about before, right? You know you're doing something wrong. You know it because you've built these contradictions and tensions into it, and it, it you can't it can't help but bubble up, right? It can't help but show itself and and so the treaties, the treaties were used to coerce and colonize, yes, but at the basic level, they did imply, we know you're sovereign. We know that that you have independence, that that this other government must recognize, right and so that's when I think about the treaties. These are the things that I want my students to understand. And I will say I use treaties actually, kind of sparingly as a primary document with my own students, because I feel like we have to get through so much material and so much subject matter before we even get to the treaty, for the treaty and how it's constructed to make sense. But on the other hand, that's why they're such a great teaching tool. They're a great teaching tool because you can just like as as this treaty annotation project is doing, you can just destroy them, right? You can just cut them up into all their relative facets and teach a lot of indigenous history about using them. And so that's why I think, if we can put treaties in context, because we are very fortunate that I think all the federal treaties are digitally available in some context in the United States. So, you know, the public can access them for free. But if you don't have this context, this colonial context, it's not going to be as powerful to you when you look at them as it could be. So I think when you put Indian policy, when you put colonialism, and it might take more than even us colonialism, maybe even European colonialism, in in with this. Then, then the treaties can be visible to you as, as something that teaches us, yeah.

Chester Hubbard 48:34

yeah. Like, as, going back to what you said about the blood quantum, like, like people, like, kind of know about that, like, because, just like, from my own experiences, like, I've had to explain, like, a lot about, like, you know, my own tribe's blood quantum to everyone, because I was talking with so I had a an American ethics class here at K State, and I brought blood quantum to my professors. It was she, she's just kind of, like, I don't think I've heard that before. I'm like, I was like, yeah, it's the blood quantum because So I explained about my own tribe's blood quantum, because, like, I believe right now. And so it's if you can't prove that you're more than, like, I I forget if it's like a quarter or like a half a Prairie Band Potawatomi from, like, the original, like, Ledger, then you know you're, you're not in the tribe. I'm, like, I and like, I was grandfathered in because, because I'm sure you're not, not enough Prairie Band Potawatomi.

Tai Edwards 49:35

Right.

Chester Hubbard 49:35

Because back then they're just, like they looked at my blood inside that was enough.

Tai Edwards 49:42

Right, right.

Chester Hubbard 49:43

And like, to me, that's always been kind of just weird concept, because, like, like, there's like, there's not like any other people like us, that was measured by their blood. And you know?

Tai Edwards 49:55

That's right.

Chester Hubbard 49:57

I'm not in the recording. You can't see if I'm using. Air quotaes.

Tai Edwards 50:00

Yes, agree, yes, agreed.

Chester Hubbard 50:03

And, like, there's only, like, a couple other things that are measured by blood, as dogs and horses.

Tai Edwards 50:10

That's right.

Chester Hubbard 50:11

And to me, that's always been messed up.

Tai Edwards 50:14

Yes, but it's colonial, right? It's colonial elimination. That's what it's settler, colonial elimination, yeah.

Chester Hubbard 50:20

And it's actually been interesting, because I've been talking to a lot of my elder relatives about the blood quantum to get their like, Id on it. And some of them have been telling me that, you know, oh, you know, the blood quantum, good thing. You know, that that way I can, you know, get my CDIB and, you know, and say that I'm, you know, I'm this tribe, and you know that, you know, can't have, you know, I'll have anyone come in saying, you know, oh, I'm Native American, you know, I'm from this tribe. And I'm just kind of saying I'm, like, like, but I wise, important for you to say it.

Tai Edwards 51:00

Right, right.

Chester Hubbard 51:02

But, and so it's just, so I've had like, a couple good, like, debates with my, like, my mesho, for example, he's, he's Prairie Band Potawatomi and Seneca and but he's enrolled with Prairie Band Potawatomi. And so, so, yeah, he, he believes that the CDIB card and, like, the blood quantum, like, it's a good thing. And so it's just kind of interesting to like, talk with like, natives. Because, like, you know, a lot of us believe it's a good thing, and you know, there's others I certainly don't agree with it, like, even though, because, like, people, like, from a tribe again, like, go scholarships and like, like, resources that help us out monetarily. And people like saying, Well, if we got rid of the blood quantum, you know why? You know why? You know you want to get any of those things. I'm like, okay, you know that that's like, to me, that's okay. Like..

Tai Edwards 51:57

Right.

Chester Hubbard 51:57

Because, like, it would mean that we would get, like, a bigger population, and that we could start, like, recognizing, you know, more like natives.

Tai Edwards 52:11

Yeah, right, right.

Chester Hubbard 52:14

And just always, kind of, it was always just kind of an interesting thing to think about, especially as I've grown grown older and kind of recognize, you know, colonization and all that.

Tai Edwards 52:27

Yeah. I mean, these are the legacies of colonialism that now native communities are forced to deal with. Which you write like, and it's hard, right? It's very hard. And, and the argument for using it from a from a Prairie Band Potawatomiperspective, I do understand, right? Like it does make sense. It's just the colonial legacies that that indigenous people still have to live with, right? You can't really throw it off. And like you said, it creates disagreements right amongst, of course, right? Because we're all just trying to navigate this colonial world, and it's super complicated, but, yeah, but you're right. Like, most non native people don't even know what you're talking about, right? So that's and that would be a really fun part of using a treaty right to teach that.

Chester Hubbard 53:13

Yeah, yeah. It'd be really interesting to, like, show non native people, like, like, the treaties, just to like, probably not like, you know, maybe not the whole entire thing. Because, you know, when people start reading like, no, like, if long, official documents, kind of like.

Tai Edwards 53:31

Right, right.

Chester Hubbard 53:32

Like, probably, you know, show them like, the more important bits, like with blood quantums, just kind of showing like, how, like, everything is worded, because, like, on the oh, gosh, I read a lot of articles this past semester just to get caught up on this project. But in a when the articles, though, the author brought how in the treaty, like, the wording was like, really, oh, it was really weird towards Native Americans.

Tai Edwards 54:02

Yeah, on purpose.

Chester Hubbard 54:05

Exactly, yeah, yes, absolutely. And, like, I never thought of that either because, because I just assume, you know, trees were treaties. But after reading that article, I was like, Oh, I'm like, maybe, you know, I should check out other treaties and at that time and so, like, I kind of like, Yeah, this is really, real weird.

Tai Edwards 54:26

Absolutely.

Chester Hubbard 54:29

So I think that would treaties would be like, real good to use to help give us more perspective. Because, exactly, exactly, yeah, because I certainly did not read any treaties.

Tai Edwards 54:42

Right, who does right? Like, it's dry reading, yeah, but once you know what you're looking for, it's powerful.

Chester Hubbard 54:48

Exactly, like it because, yeah, it's really powerful because, like, yeah, like, because I didn't realize that the wording was like, just so. Different in Sunday and like, these treaties, when compared to like, the rest is just yeah? Like, it always just blows my mind. Like, as I like, look more into like, I'll just kind of like Native Americans and colonialism, like, it's just like, I'm just like, how I just, why?

Tai Edwards 55:20

Well, if you want, why? No, I mean, we could get into that. But the way I always tell my students, if you come from a society with hierarchy already in it, right? So people of your own community, you can believe are less than you and that you deserve to exploit them because they are less than you, it is not a great leap to exploit people outside your community, and that's where the trouble comes, and then stirring some capitalism, and it all gets bad. But I'm off topic. So back to your question.

Chester Hubbard 55:53

see, but I mean, yeah, no, I think we got that one pretty, pretty well nailed down. Because, yeah, the treaties with more my just exposing people to them would be, would be great. Agreed, it was not just my exposure to them this past semester like not this held my own perspective.

Tai Edwards 56:12

100% Yeah, 100% I agree completely. That's why I can't wait for you to make these so I can use them with my students, so I don't have to make them.

Chester Hubbard 56:22

Yeah, I see just kind of like, off topic, off the interview, real fast. And, yeah, I have, like, a map and all that. Like, I'm still kind of like editing it. It's not the final map.

Tai Edwards 56:34

Yes, well, I'll wait for your final version. I can't wait. I will happily use it. Yeah, take your time. I'm I'm looking forward to it.

Chester Hubbard 56:41

Because, yeah, like I showed Charlie, and she, she loved it.

Tai Edwards 56:44

I bet, I bet, yeah, because she maybe told you about the digital project. We're proposing a grant for, I don't, did she tell you this? So, so Mary, me, Charlie, Alex redcorn, we proposed an NEH grant where we're going to do like, digital projects about the Kaw in their homeland. And my goal is that your treaty project, once it's done, is one of the resources we can just plug in as a digital resource for people to use to understand history. So don't worry, it's gonna go it's going places. Your work is going places.

Chester Hubbard 57:17

See, I'm pretty excited get one of my maps, like, just kind of out there in the scene.

Tai Edwards 57:24

I agree, I think, and maps, to me, I cannot teach or learn without a map. So I think this is a great work, really important work. Keep it up.

Chester Hubbard 57:31

Yeah, I told Charlie that I like to think is maps like, it's kind of like stories on themselves, Yeah, I told Charlie that I like to think is maps like, it's kind of like stories on themselves, because they do tell stories.

Tai Edwards 57:39

Yes, they are art and they and they are telling stories 100% I agree.

Chester Hubbard 57:45

Yeah. And so I got just to me, like, coming from, like, a place where, like, you know, stories are really important, like, it's just, like, it's just cool, by just kind of combining that.

Tai Edwards 57:55

I agree. I absolutely agree.

Chester Hubbard 57:58

See, Oh, see, but I'll see. Like, I forgot to ask before we started the interview. So I apologize anyone listening. Like, how long did you want to go for? Like, did you want to go through all the questions? Or, do you have enough time? Or...

Tai Edwards 58:15

Yeah, well, how many more do you have?

Chester Hubbard 58:17

See, well, I asked. So see, sorry I forgot which one's already asked see. So I asked three, I believe, yeah.

Tai Edwards 58:27

I've got three on my list, or four, yeah? Three, three, yeah.

Chester Hubbard 58:31

Yeah, and so there's four left. We can go through the rest.

Tai Edwards 58:35

Yeah let's go. Let's do it now. Let's see my next meeting, because I'd rather do it now, because Yeah let's go. Let's do it now. Let's see my next meeting, because I'd rather do it now, because we're going. So let's just keep going.

Chester Hubbard 58:41

Okay cool, see. So we've talked about, you know, all the work that you know, have you done so far? And I got out there with the, know, the rock and the hard plays, kind of talked about the springs. Well, just kind of, yeah, we talked about springs. We talked about, oh, well, we haven't really talked about those. But I brought brought up those Osage women and fire as well. But so are there like, Have you done any other like, work or like that? Do you think already, like, seen any stories or that people have yet to hear about or should know about the Kaw Nation, or any of the other people, just the area in general.

Tai Edwards 59:25

Yeah? So about indigenous Kansas, specifically? Yeah? Um, well, you know, there's so many stories and you know, like you're saying the Kaw are particularly ignored, which is weird, because the state is named for them, so that's, that's particularly egregious, I think, and, and it's not clear why, but a lot of that invisibility, you could see broadly, right? Like people, I have so few students that know there are four reservations in the state, right? I mean, so few of my students know that, and that always surprises me, because I'm in northeast Kansas, and the reservations are, you know, geographically, also in northeast Kansas. So you think it would come up on a highway map, you know. But Kansans don't identify as being from an, you know, sort of an indigenous state, right? So, like, if we think about, you know, Oklahoma, who loves to exploit their indigeneity for non Indigenous purposes and tourism all the time, you know? Or if you think about the Navajo, right, in that four state region, I think people stereotype those as being places of large indigenous populations, but, but they just don't think about it elsewhere. You know, again, I live in Lawrence, and whenever you talk to non native people who aren't very connected with, you know, their native neighbors, whenever you talk about like, well, we should talk to indigenous voters, or we should talk to, you know, indigenous community members, they immediately refer to Haskell as if that's the indigenous community, right? And there's a lot of indigenous people that are not high school students, that live, you know, in the area and and you know, now in Lawrence, we do have two Indigenous women on the school board, and we had an indigenous woman run for City Commission, you know, I think there is starting to be a little bit more visibility on that. There's two Indigenous women, of course, in the Kansas State Legislature, and not both from Lawrence, which is great. You know, one of them is but one of them is not. And so I think that's that's really important to think about indigenous Kansans as people of the present. But maybe one of the most impressive things, I think that is ignored, isn't is the indigenous present? So a lot of Kansas that are non native are more familiar, on just a surface level, with you know that Kansas, the idea that Kansas was an Indian Territory once, than they are with like we talked about four reservations today. You know, 10s of 1000s of indigenous people living across the state, and I think that's the problem for a couple of years, I would get calls at JCCC from like local K through 12 teachers about, you know, hey, I want to focus on indigenous history. You know. Do you have any recommendations? And I would always lead with talk about indigenous people in the 20th or the 21st century, and you will immediately be doing great work, right? Because you are busting a lot of stereotypes. And a lot of the issues that are important are 20th and 21st century, right? And they connect to the previous times, but they that's the ones that people have just no acquaintance with. And like you're saying, right, like urban indigenous life, and Wichita was a place that people were sort of forcibly, you know, encouraged to move to, or may have felt fully forced to move to during the period of termination and those kinds of things. So, so I always think that if we can talk about indigenous history in the 20th and the 21st century, we're doing a lot of the work, right? You're doing a lot of of educating yourself and also becoming aware of of other things. There's a great article though, in Kansas history, a journal of the Central Plains. It's not this volume, but this is one of them Kansas history, also published through K State, that talks about the statue of the Kaw warrior that's on the Capitol. And it does a great job of talking about how it was commissioned in the 80s, 1980s and it was by a non native artist who had minimal engagement with the Kaw Nation. And again, it's just a really great way of studying, kind of like the treaties we were talking about before. It's a great way of studying Okay, in the 1980s and the 1990s right into, you know, the early aughts, how were Americans engaging with and thinking about indigenous people? And it's just such a good teaching tool, right? So, like, if you could use the treaties for the Kaw and then the Kaw warrior on the Capitol, and kind of put those two things together. They do a lot of storytelling for you about the sort of trajectory of indigenous history in Kansas and in the United States. And so I think those are things, but all Indigenous histories of Kansas are ones that need to be elevated. You know, we do a somewhat better job on the eastern side of the state, right the western side of the state, the experience of the Shawnee and the Pawnee are, I'm sorry, the Cheyenne and the Pawnee are really good examples of stories we need to tell. Stories we can tell. You know, there's other Western indigenous nations that also, of course, used Kansas, and we can talk about them, but, but any Indigenous stories in Kansas that we can elevate we should, and if we can get to the present, the better.

Chester Hubbard 1:04:54

Yeah, for sure. Like, yeah. Just this is kind of interesting, because when I talk to people about me. Modern indigenous people's issues, like, they don't realize that, you know, we're still in here fighting for a lot of our stuff.

Tai Edwards 1:05:09

Exactly.

Chester Hubbard 1:05:10

And so, like, one issue that you know they Americans have is, like, the missing, missing Indigenous women.

Tai Edwards 1:05:17

Yes!

Chester Hubbard 1:05:18

And, like, not a whole lot of people know about that. Like, you know, then, oh, I've taken an urban geography class and, like, we were talking about, oh, kind of just like, social issues, and I brought them. And, like, no one else had heard about it totally and, like, the professor, she, she brought them. And, like, no one else had heard about it totally and, like, the professor, she, she knew a little bit about it, but, like, so, like, people just, I don't know a whole lot about our issues. It's always just kind of, oh, like, I don't want see. It's kind of sad to me, like, how, like, not a lot of people know that we're still, like, fighting and all that, see, but, uh, it's also kind of funny, just a quick little story, uh, when I was at Haskell, me and some my friends from Haskell, we went over to the KU dorm, on the KU dorms, just to visit someone.

Tai Edwards 1:06:09 

Yeah.

Chester Hubbard 1:06:09

Over there. And we were talking with, oh, just like, you know, some of the KU students. And so we were all like, you know, we're indigenous, and like, like, one of them looked at us, and they, like, they just straight up asked us, like, do you still live in teepees? We just kind of looked at him and, like, we thought he was just kind of, you know, made, like, you know, one of those jokes.

Tai Edwards 1:06:31

Right.

Chester Hubbard 1:06:33

They were kind of serious, right?

Tai Edwards 1:06:35

Yeah, yeah, no, I've had students. So I got my PhD at KU and so I taught there while I was getting my degree, and I taught indigenous North American history, and I had students who were immigrants. It's they were not born in the United States, and they were literally like, it's not just teepees, like, they're like, around the world. That's also all people know. So we're not only miseducating ourselves. We're miseducating the globe, you know, just like, God.

Chester Hubbard 1:07:05

Right, yeah. Like, not a whole lot of people know about, like, oh, like, just modern Indians in general.

Tai Edwards 1:07:13

Yes, 100% Yeah.

Chester Hubbard 1:07:16

Like to like, to them, like, we're, you know, we're still, like, stuck back in, like, the 1800s and...

Tai Edwards 1:07:23

Yes.

Chester Hubbard 1:07:24

still walk around and, like, loin cloths and yes, and teepees and hunting down everything.

Tai Edwards 1:07:31

yes, yes, yes, yes, all of those.

Chester Hubbard 1:07:35

So yeah, like it, it'd be, yeah, like a lot of modern stories, would actually be great. No, yeah. Just like, it just be great, just to, like, yep, show people.

Tai Edwards 1:07:46

That's right, that's right, yeah. I mean, if, if November, for Native American Heritage Month, was really just engage with your local indigenous community, you could really accomplish a lot. Yeah, like, never speak of the pilgrims and Thanksgiving and just talk about really anything else, and you would do better. I brought up a rabbit hole. I apologize.

Chester Hubbard 1:08:15

Yeah, I have a lot of stories about being modern Indigenous person.

Tai Edwards 1:08:19

I bet you do. Yeah, I bet you do.

Chester Hubbard 1:08:22

But to avoid that topic, keep going next question, I have to keep on moving. Okay, okay. But so, but so, you know, there's a lot of historical accounts. Oh, that now you know, people use for you know, indigenous history, and like you even, you know, some said, some of it in your book, it was so I forget the guy's name for the like, the like the Osage women as well as gender like, his accounts.

Tai Edwards 1:08:59

Are what people refer to Catlin, yeah, the artists, yeah.

Chester Hubbard 1:09:03

And so, like, so, like, how would you supplement or, like, challenge the historical accounts that, like, we have?

Tai Edwards 1:09:09

That's a great question. So, yeah, so I think you have to, and this is what professional historians are usually trained to do. If it's if they're trained right, you, you have to get training on what the person when they're writing is like, what the cultural norm is at the time. So you, when you're reading their work, you can, you can understand it more critically. And that was one of the big things I did in my own book, was I was trying to look at the sources and take out things like understand things from them that they didn't intentionally mean to be documenting, right? Or they were documenting for their own purpose, but if you read it knowing what their purpose was, you can learn other things from it. And so, yeah, that so, like, I've used a lot of missionary and government records in my in my book, and they all had very specific agendas, right? Including, like, one great example is the missionaries talking about infanticide, where babies are killed. There was a and I had to learn about this while I was researching that work is there was a whole sort of theme, if you will, among missionaries documenting false infanticides, right? So making them up in an effort to drive donations to their missionary effort to help fund it. So they would be claiming, like, look at this horrible thing that's happening. Thank goodness we're here. You better send us more money so we can keep doing this work, right? So, and a lot that's just one example, but a lot of the sort of stories about indigenous people that people that were trying to justify federal policy or justify missionization were either embellishing, lying or kind of falsifying, the things that they were reporting for these other agendas that they had. And it also can be different by person. Sometimes you got to know a little bit, you know, different people had sort of different agendas. So like in my work, I would find some Indian agents and even some military personnel who were actually, like, sort of appalled by the things that they were seeing the federal government do towards indigenous people, and who, at least for their private purposes, were documenting like, well, this is wrong because we did x, you know, and this is wrong because we did y. And there was one guy who I loved. He actually did sort of some mathematical calculations about how exploited the Osage people were based on what their land was sold for and what he knew land was going for around those areas at that same time. And you know, so again, you kind of got to know these contexts and then read the work in those contexts. You absolutely cannot ever use historical source material uncritically. You've got to know about context in order to understand what they're writing about, which is why, you know, I often tell my students this, students come to history, at least at the college level, and they think that it's, you know, we want to know exactly what happened on that day, right? And I'm always like, well, you know, that is one historical question, right? What exactly happened on that day, or at that event, or whatever that is, at a question, and that might be important, but usually the question I'm more curious about, and what I focus on in my teaching and a lot of my work, is, why did people think that this was happening, and why was it important to them? Right? Because then you're less hung up on the actual events of that day were x, y, which you can figure out if you want to but who was involved in that day? Why was it important to them, and why did they perceive it in the ways that they did? It's more useful to me because there's this old trope that people like to say, right, like, there's what actually happened, and then there's what people claim happened. Well, a lot of times what actually happened, we only can understand through the perceptions of the people that were there. That may never be a full, accurate perspective, but that's even the case now, right? So if you think about any event, even today, is the way you experience it is based on your own identity, your own stuff you're bringing to that event, and it doesn't make your perception of it wrong. It just makes your perception of it correct to your background identity experience. And so that's why I think we have to have those same understandings of the past, right? So like you're saying a treaty, for example, right? The cop people are bringing a very specific sort of perspective to the treaty. The federal agents are bringing a specific, you know, perception to that treaty, one of the Osage treaties that I write about on my book, not only do we have the Osage people right and the federal agents, but the federal the commissioner of Indian Affairs comes from Washington, DC, and invites hostile local settlers who want access to that Osage land to that treaty negotiation, right? So when you think about that, that's to intimidate and terrorize. These were sellers who had perpetrated violence towards the Osage leading up to that period, right? So when you think about that, you got to know that those people are there and were invited, because that's not in the treaty text, right? But if you know that's who's there, right, then you start to understand the things that are in the treaty and what they meant. So that's why you you always have to challenge, sort of the source material you're using in order to understand its attention. But you also got to understand like, what is it I am? What do I want to know? And why do I want to know it, that that helps you figure out your own stuff when you come to it, and the stuff that people were bringing to the event when it when it was happening. And that's a little bit easier to get at answering questions, right? So like you're doing, sort of historical. Work, you're asking, what's the history of this treaty, and how do I get to knowing it? And these annotations that you're working on are ways to getting to that, but it's you also got to think about the people there, right? What was their stuff? And how did they write referencing all that stuff that might not mean that. Now, right? When I read those words, I mean x, but when they wrote it, they were implying these other things. So, yeah, all the source material has to be challenged, right? Has to be critically analyzed. And that is what we teach in history, right? We try to teach students to do that work. You know, when I teach, I focus on identity hierarchy and role of government. So you need to understand all those things when you come to anything to study it.

Chester Hubbard 1:15:45

Yeah, like, I like, Go, you just kind of mentioning about, like, you know, like, how we view, like, historical accounts, like, because, you know, growing up, it was always, you know, like, you know, This happened on this day, you know, and all that, like you talk about, you know, like kind of looking at it from a different angle, by of just other than that, like, as kind of rather interesting. And like you kind of talked about, like, my next question, I was like, Do you think current accounts need to be a minute or changed? And I feel like that kind of answered that a little bit.

Tai Edwards 1:16:23

Yeah, yes,yeah. So my answer is yes, in the sense that you need to get a sense of of why you're studying what you're studying, right? So if someone's doing Native American history in their classes right now, because it's November and that's Native American Heritage Month, you need to ask yourself, Is this the only time of year. I need to be talking about this, right? You know, it's important to have certain things blocked off so you make sure you cover the things that are important. I think that's good planning. But you also got to think about, you know, I don't want to relegate indigenous history to one time of year, because indigenous people exist all the time, and their topics are important in many contexts, right? But also, like, if I'm telling the story of the to a K through 12 group of people, the, you know, the pilgrims and the Indians and Thanksgiving supposedly. Why is that the story I tell when I talk about indigenous history, right? So do current accounts need to be amended or changed? Yes, they do, because even the story we tell about Thanksgiving is inaccurate and and it's widely documented, you can absolutely get to the facts. And again, you can portray these events as they were experienced. Right? The English people had a certain agenda, and they viewed things in the certain context, and the Wampanoags had another agenda, and they experienced things in this other context. But you don't have to go to Massachusetts to talk about indigenous history, right? Like so if we're talking about November in Kansas, why don't you talk about right Kaw people, or the four indigenous nations that have land bases here today, or the two Indigenous women in the legislature, or, you know, like the missing and murdered indigenous women, which you were talking about, and the legislature actually took action related to that in the in the last session, thanks to Indigenous women who were part of the, you know, legislative body who advanced that issue. So I think that you do need to think about indigenous people differently in teaching and in learning, but, but to be fair to teachers, we need to help give them resources to do that effective, because a teacher doesn't want to be thrown into something like that where they don't have good resources to do that work in a way that's responsible. Because I the teachers that I know want to teach well, but they need good sources to teach well, and so we need to make sure that those kinds of things are accessible and and provided to instructors, and that they're aware of them so they can do that work.

Chester Hubbard 1:18:49

Yeah, yeah. Like, it, see, just real fast for me, I get, like, it was always funny because, or to me now because, like, like, when I was younger, like I was just like, oh, like, you know this and this happened. Like, I never questioned, like, you know, any of the historical accounts, it's like, oh, you know, like, you know, this happened and, or, like, just, kind of like, you know, just everything is as it was told.

Tai Edwards 1:19:17

Right.

Chester Hubbard 1:19:18

And right now, I'm like, I'm like, Did this really happen?

Tai Edwards 1:19:23

Well, and I should add to that. So in history, if you're a professional historian, we have something we call historiography, and that's actually the study of how we've studied stuff. So this idea that historical interpretation doesn't change is also not true. So Right? There's the things people wrote when something happened, you know? Then there's the stuff they write about a generation later, right? And then there's the stuff we people write when they when no one's living anymore, that was part of that event. And then that stuff changes over time, right? So our understanding of Kaw removal has changed over time, and historians even study how has. Understanding of that thing changed, because that tells you a lot about people and their times, right? What questions are they asking that tells you about them?

Chester Hubbard 1:20:10

Yeah, that's just pretty interesting thing about just kind of Oh, because people certainly do change, like.

Tai Edwards 1:20:17

Of course, thank goodness.

Chester Hubbard 1:20:19

Yeah. It's only natural that people change.

Tai Edwards 1:20:22

Yes, right? Well, and the questions that we ask change, the answers that we're looking for change, right?

Chester Hubbard 1:20:29

So, yeah, that's just kind of interesting to think about, just like, especially for me moving on with this project.

Tai Edwards 1:20:36

Yeah, well, so I'm sure geography has a similar thing too, right? Like, how have we mapped these things differently, right? How have we understood these spaces differently, right? Yeah.

Chester Hubbard 1:20:47

Just kind of like, oh, like, all the like, the spatial aspects between everything, like, because originally are like, oh, oh, I forget exactly when the transition happened, but like, oh, like, in urban geography fell as well. Like, there's just kind of a time when, like, you know, everyone's just kind of drawing maps and all that just kind of like, you know, show where everything is. But like, then, like, using geography in that way. But then, like, there's a transition to where, like, Oh, hey, you know, there might be spatial aspects to all this. And so I people started use, like, started to go, started looking at it from that perspective, right? And it was just kind of, it's just kind of interesting to me that, like, I was like, Oh yeah, you know, geography and photography wasn't always just like, Oh, hey, you know, we're going to view it. You know, the spatial aspects between, like, the spatial relationships between this and this. It was, it was, you know, just like, Oh, hey. And like, here's a feature. We're gonna mark it down so that we can go ahead and draw later.

Tai Edwards 1:21:52

Totally, totally well. And as you know, maps have been used as a tool of colonialism, right? So you using them for another purpose is a decolonizing act, right? And so it's interesting to take the tools of the colonizer, right, and use them for another purpose.

Chester Hubbard 1:22:07

Yeah, yeah. Certainly. Like, I've been looking at, like, articles about decolonizing geography and, like, it's really interesting stuff, yes, because at Haskell, you know, we're always, like, we're encouraged to, you know, decolonize and, you know, our thinking and which, I mean, you know, I'm all for like, because, yeah, like, but so, yeah, gosh dang it, decolonize our thinking and Like, because, you know, I mean, indigenous people are, you know, Western people. And, like, we have our own, like, you know, ways. And just like, our ways of thinking aren't the same as, you know, Western views and all that thinking can, like, is just like, I didn't really, really realize, you know, I was like, you know, the way of thinking could be colonized until, like, I went to Haskell, I was like, Huh? It's like, yeah, that makes sense.

Tai Edwards 1:23:06

Totally.

Chester Hubbard 1:23:07

But yeah, like, it's really interesting to talk about and just kind of decolonizing, like just a lot of stuff, especially as a indigenous person myself.

Tai Edwards 1:23:17

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely sounds good.

Chester Hubbard 1:23:20

See and then, okay, so for our final question, so how did you know current citizens form their opinions about land ownership?

Tai Edwards 1:23:31

So how did current say it again? How did?

Chester Hubbard 1:23:33

How did current citizens form their opinions about land owner? Sorry, land ownership?

Tai Edwards 1:23:40

Yeah. Okay, so that the way we talk about that historically is it is a legacy of the European especially the British system, right? Because a lot of the colonizers that lead to the people that will end up in Kansas and that become Americans are British descent, and we're British colonists themselves. And so the goal, the way I always explain it to my students is a lot of British colonizer colonists were attracted and Europeans in general were attracted to becoming British colonists was because of the opportunity to own land. So in most European contexts, land was already long term owned by elites, and it was set up to be inherited, right in a very specific way, so that that land would not become available for for other acquisition. And so the advantage to a lot of Europeans in becoming, you know, North Americans, even before the United States, was the opportunity to become a landowner. So becoming a landowner for them was a way to improve their status and to gain more independence and control over their lives. So again, this idea that inequalities in the European homeland is what spurs a lot of this settler colonization in the Americas and in other places on. On the planet. But that's why. And there's a famous historian, Alan Taylor, and the way he talks about this exact thing, so right? Why are these Americans who they eventually become? And it happens, of course, in the United States too. Why are these Americans willing to displace indigenous people? It's for, it's it's for their own economic improvement. And he, the way, he says, it is one person's freedom came at another's expense and, and that's sort of this. That's what land means. So to American citizens, land owning was private property, right? So it was individually owned. And this is usually, write a very masculine opportunity. Right property was often only allowed to be owned like this for men, white men specifically, and that land owning was a way for them to improve their own lives and the lives of their family and and that's there. I mean, there's so much history about this. It's funny that you're talking to me about this because I just graded my student, assigned student assignments that were about this this week. You know, the reason why you have so much displacement of indigenous people in the 19th century is this exact reason. It's It's because elites that monopolize land in eastern locations don't allow other land to be available for the next generation and for the impoverished white population. So if they want to have what is considered the status of the day, you know, independence from external masters, if you will, right, like external employers, they have to become land owning. And the way you become land owning is to squat on indigenous land and and there's this great example in the 1790s where indigenous people in the Great Lakes, Potawatomi is included, by the way, that were part of these large indigenous confederacies that we're literally advocating. I mean, they write it out. They are advocating to the federal government that you're trying to buy land from us. We don't want to give land to you. You are sending armies to kill us, and we are actually killing more of you than you're killing of us, and it is expensive and deadly for you so and they literally say we know that these poor white settlers are doing it because they're poor. Otherwise, they wouldn't put up with all this violence and all this chaos. So why don't you just take the money you want to pay us and pay them, then you don't have to send the army. No one will die, and you will compensate them, which is what they're looking for we can keep our land, and you guys will be happy. And I always have to challenge my students, because they just can't take the next step. Why won't Americans accept that? Right? Why won't they do it? And they won't accept that because leaders in government and leaders in terms of elite landowners refuse to believe that compensating impoverished white Americans was the solution to their problem. They choose colonialism. And so this desperation for land will continue, and it does, right? And so these hierarchies are the problem, right? So when you justify poverty among your own identified people, right? Your own community. It is not a great leap to exploit others outside of your community, and that's what indigenous people were, right and and the the sad story is, a lot of these settler colonizers are poor, desperate white people, and they are willing to assume a lot of risk and sometimes death, right? A lot of hardship. This is not easy work. They are going to be natural enemies of indigenous people, because they are invaders, and they will face consequences as a result. But there are more of them, right? So indigenous people never have a similar population, which, by the way, on a side note, is because white women did not have control over their fertility, right? Indigenous women controlled how many children they could have, and they made sure they had enough the population they could support. Whereas, you know, white women are dying in childbirth because they are having more children than their physical bodies can do. And so you have this ever growing population, and then there's always a surplus in Europe, right? So no matter how many Euro Americans die, there's already more Europeans who have the same, you know, exploited experience in Europe to come. And this is what drives the land loss for indigenous people. So the problem is inequality. The problem is private property. And the problem is that land was the was the way to wealth, right? So when we think about mining for gold, right, a lot of people seem to understand, like, you know, mining for gold was a way to get rich quick, right? Or so people thought, even though it almost never turned out that way, land was the gold, right. So land was the resource that you could use to improve your. Own life, but in so doing, you are assaulting indigenous life, right? So settler colonialism is also a structure of inequality inside of the colonizers own society, and so when you think about it that way, right? So there's inequality among Euro Americans, and they use indigenous land as the as the lottery or the gold that can make impoverished Americans supposedly no longer poor, right? For a lot of them, it doesn't work this way, right? But this is theoretically possible, which is why, when I teach my students, you know, eventually indigenous land ownership, indigenous land is, for the most part, colonized, right? Indigenous people are confined to what most Americans consider marginal land by the time we're into the late 1800s and so I always tell my students, because, by the way, colonization of indigenous people in the 19th century is always worse during economic collapses or other things civil war that are very expensive for the United States, that they need. You know, resource influx or stimulus is what we often call it today. By the time you get to the 1880s there's no more indigenous people to colonize. So I always tell my students, this is a moment in American history where they're confronting colonization really directly. They are even talking about it. There's even, I mean, politicians are even talking about it. They're really thinking about it in the right words. And they have to choose, will we colonize off our continent now, or will we stop and they go off the continent? Right? Hawaii, right? Puerto Rico, Philippines, right? And so I always tell my students that just shows you how deep it is, right? So that's why citizens being landowners is deeply embedded in what it means to be an American. It is deeply embedded in the way the US government functions. It is deeply embedded in the US role in the world. I always tell my students, you can't understand the war in Afghanistan if you don't understand colonialism, you can't understand the Cold War if you don't understand colonialism. And these are all tied right to the settler colonial empire and the indigenous experience of past and the present.

Chester Hubbard 1:32:19

Okay, yeah, no, that's certainly a lot to say about land ownership and colonialism. Yeah, I would say, like, I agree.

Tai Edwards 1:32:29

Right, right, but it is complex, and it is it is deeply tied to people's identities, yeah.

Chester Hubbard 1:32:39

Yeah. Because, like, like, I mean, I'm not sure about like, other indigenous but like, I don't, like, oh, you know, the colonized way of like, of just view, of looking at land and seeing like, money and all that, yeah. Like, can, like, you said earlier, like, how Native Americans were stuck on, you know, these, like, pots of land and, like, it was, you know, you know, it was given to us, but then, you know, just taken from us. And, but like, and now we're trying to buy back plots of lands originally ours. And it's just kind of, it's just kind of interesting to just kind of think about it like that way, especially like how, like, Native Americans viewed it originally, and like, now we're having to get land back from colonizers and using their ways. And it's just kind of...

Tai Edwards 1:33:34

That's exactly right. I mean, these are the the difficult legacies of colonialism, or realities of it, right? Let's not imply that it's over.

Chester Hubbard 1:33:41

Yeah, it's sincerely not going to be over for a long while.

Tai Edwards 1:33:45

I agree. I totally agree.

Chester Hubbard 1:33:47

Let's see, but well, that was my last question, though, awesome. Sounds good? Yeah, see oh, yeah. I already have anything else. I mean, I mean, oh, do you know anyone else I should like before the interview, you mentioned that you have some other people.

Tai Edwards 1:34:06

Yeah. So tell me you're trying. Is this specifically related to the Kaw treaty context?

Chester Hubbard 1:34:11

Yeah the Kaw the Kaw land or Kaw treaty.

Tai Edwards 1:34:16

Yeah. So who did Charlie tell you to reach out to? Do you remember?

Chester Hubbard 1:34:20

Oh, you mentioned her earlier.

Tai Edwards 1:34:23 

Storm?

Chester Hubbard 1:34:24

Yeah. Storm, yeah.

Tai Edwards 1:34:26

So I would definitely reach out to her, and I know Alex has contacted her before. So if you need Alex to help you reach out, I would do that. She would be great, because she works for the nation and she does the language program, so I think she would be great. And who I don't know. Who else I could ask Charlie, who else she recommended, do you remember?

Chester Hubbard 1:34:45

See, oh, gosh, I can't remember right now.

Tai Edwards 1:34:51

Yeah, well, you should definitely use the list she did. She might have told you Jim pepper, Henry, I think he's vice chair of the tribe right now. So I whoever she's going with, do it. And if you have that list and you need help reaching out, let me know, and she and I can kind of help you with that, or, like Alex knows storm, I would you, I would work with Alex to make that request, because, you know, Alex, right? Red corn, yeah. So I would work with him if you need help reaching out to her. But, yeah, let me know if you're having trouble getting people let me know, and I can help you reach out or help you get people to help you with work.

Chester Hubbard 1:35:28

Yeah, thank you very much.

Tai Edwards 1:35:30

Yeah, you're welcome. Wonderful talking to you. So let me know if I can be of help or anything else. This is a great project. Sounds like you have a lot of work, but keep it up.

Chester Hubbard 1:35:38

Cool. Thank you. I appreciate your time.

Tai Edwards 1:35:41

Yeah, no problem. Have a good day. Yeah, you too. Stay warm. Okay, okay, bye, bye.