Despite multiple vehement protests, the remaining 553 Kanza were forced to leave Kansas on June 4, 1873 for a 100,000-acre reservation south of the Kansas state-line in present day Kay County, Oklahoma. This act officially expelled the Kanza from the state that bears their name.  

In the absence of treaties, U.S. Congress was now able to unilaterally make decisions on subsequent land acquisitions. Thus, the last Kanza land cession in Kansas was the result, not of a treaty, but of congressional action: House Report Number 2503 required the appraisal and sale of the Kanza’s remaining land and expulsion from their homelands. Pushed by railroad and mining speculators and ever-increasing pressure from non-Native settlers who knew they were squatting illegally on Kanza land, Congress passed the “Kaw Land Bill”.

Historically, treaties with Indigenous nations, though coercively negotiated, were approved (ratified by) the U.S. Senate. However, the House of Representatives wanted increased power in acquiring land. To make this a reality, the U.S. officially ended its policy of formal treaty negotiations with Indigenous nations through a congressional resolution. There was no Indigenous consultation on this decision, which was hurriedly “tacked on to the Indian Appropriations bill of 1871” (Hirsch, “1871: The End of Indian Treaty-Making”).

Following the end of the Civil War, railroads rapidly expanded into and through Kansas. Corporate speculators vied with non-Native settlers to seize Indigenous homelands. Pressure on the federal government to acquire more Indigenous land also grew as more people traveled the Santa Fe Trail and Kansas settler squatting on Indigenous land expanded.  

On April 9, the Civil War ended with reunification of the United States and marked the beginning of a newly consolidated and powerful nation.  

This act was passed by U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln. The legislation redistributed Indigenous land to support the growth of higher education in the U.S. Reselling these lands for profit brought significant amounts of money to the universities (and their endowments) that received these land grants. See the linked map for a visual representation of the land allocations.  

On January 29, Kansas obtained statehood and on April 12, the U.S. Civil War began.

This treaty further reduced the Kanza reservation to only 80,620 acres, where each family retained 40 acre allotments. The 175,000 acres acquisitioned by the U.S. was sold to non-Natives in 160-acre parcels, demonstrating that a 40-acre piece would likely be too small for support a Kanza family, perpetuating cycles of debt, starvation, and illness. Furthermore, the U.S. government practice of allotment not only allowed the U.S.

This act of U.S. Congress was intended to facilitate railroad expansion through the Louisiana Purchase to the newly acquired lands from the Mexican-American war, namely California. This created two new territories, Kansas and Nebraska, which encouraged even more U.S. settlement. However, the federal government had not negotiated any new treaties with Indigenous nations and therefore non-Natives squatted on Indigenous lands, including the Kanza reservation, as they moved into Kansas territory.

U.S. Congress passed an Indian appropriations bill that authorized the president to reduce Indigenous land holdings in what is now known as Kansas in order to facilitate non-Native settlement in the region. This encouraged non-Native squatting on Indigenous reservations, including Kanza land.