Shawnee Methodist Mission

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Shawnee Mission
ShawneeMethodistMission.jpg
The historic site in 2021
Location3403 W. 53rd Street, Fairway, Kansas
Coordinates39°1′59.2818″N 94°37′26.796″W / 39.033133833°N 94.62411000°W / 39.033133833; -94.62411000Coordinates: 39°1′59.2818″N 94°37′26.796″W / 39.033133833°N 94.62411000°W / 39.033133833; -94.62411000
Area12 acres (4.9 ha)
Built1839 (1839)
NRHP reference No.66000345
Significant dates
Added to NRHPOctober 15, 1966[1]
Designated NHLMay 23, 1968[2]

Shawnee Methodist Mission is also referred to as the Shawnee Mission today but is most appropriately called the Shawnee Indian Manual Labor Boarding School. In July 1830, Shawnee Tribal leadership formally requested that the US government make arrangements to establish a mission on tribal lands for childhood education. Day schools were then established by several Christian denominations, with the first Methodist school established by missionaries in 1830 in Turner, Kansas to educate children of the Shawnee tribe of Native Americans who had been removed to Kansas.

In June 1838, the Methodist Mission Society, led by Thomas Johnson, requested and received authorization and financial support from the U.S. government to build a large boarding school “mission,” consolidating the training of Indigenous children in manual trades from different tribes, thereby reducing costs through an economy of scale. In 1839, with approval of Shawnee leadership, Shawnee Indians and others labored to build and establish the school along with supporting infrastructure of almost 2000 acres in the heart of the Shawnee Reservation (currently in the City of Fairway in northeast Johnson County). A substantial portion of the construction costs were drawn from the Shawnee Tribe’s treaty funds. In addition, Shawnee treaty funds were used at this school to educate Shawnee children, even if they wanted to go to a different mission school on the tribe’s reservation. The site contained the three large buildings and thirteen smaller ones, with a maximum enrollment of nearly two hundred Indian boys and girls. Although the Shawnee Tribe was the only tribe that provided land for the school, the school was attended by children from all tribes in the region.

The Shawnee Indian Manual Labor Boarding School was one of the first residential boarding schools established in the territory acquired by the United States in the Louisiana Purchase. For 23 years (1839-1862) it functioned as a boarding school for numerous indigenous children until the federal government ultimately revoked the Methodists’ education contract due to heavy criticism regarding how the school was being administered. Designated as a National Historic Landmark in 1968, the Shawnee Methodist Mission is operated today as a museum. The site is administered by the Kansas Historical Society as the Shawnee Indian Mission State Historic Site.

The Shawnee Indian Manual Labor Boarding School served briefly as the second capitol of the Kansas Territory, when the legislature was controlled by pro-slavery advocates,[3] holding that designation from July 16 to August 7, 1855.

The Shawnee Methodist Mission is the origin of the Shawnee Mission name used by the United States Postal Service to refer to the Kansas City Metropolitan Area suburban communities in northeastern Johnson County. The Shawnee Mission School District serves those communities.

The Shawnee[]

The "Fish" Shawnee tribe was removed from its traditional Ohio home to the unorganized territories set aside for Native Americans (in the future state of Kansas) under the terms of the Treaty of St. Louis (1825).[4] The mission was initially built on land near the American Shawnee Indian Tribe reserve in Turner by Reverend Thomas Johnson. He hoped to convert the recently relocated tribe to Christianity.

During the 1830s, some of the Shawnees' most venerated men, including Tenskwatawa "the Shawnee Prophet", frequently visited at the mission. The Prophet was the younger brother of Tecumseh, who had led a war against the United States earlier in the century. Tenskwatawa led the Shawnee in Tecumseh's absence at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811. Following defeat in this battle, Tenskwatawa took his men to the British Canadian colonies. He was placed under virtual house arrest for years following the end of the War of 1812. Tenskwatawa was eventually allowed to return to the Shawnee to help them remove from Ohio to Kansas; he died in 1836 at his village (the present site of Kansas City, Kansas).

The new mission[]

The mission was located at its original site from 1830 to 1839. In 1839, the mission was moved and built at its present-day Johnson County location, where an Indian boarding school was opened there. From 1839 until its closure in 1862, the Shawnee Mission served as a manual training school for Native Americans, principally from the Shawnee and Delaware tribes.

The Shawnee Mission also served as the second capital of the Kansas Territory. The capital was moved to the mission on July 16, 1855, after pro-slavery delegates to the Territorial Legislature voted to depart the first Territorial Capitol of Kansas at Pawnee. It served as territorial capital until August 8, when the seat of government became Lecompton.[5] While the capital was located at Shawnee Mission, the legislature promulgated the controversial pro-slavery laws that sparked Bleeding Kansas violence. During the American Civil War, the site served as a camp for Union soldiers.

The Shawnee Mission was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1968.[2]

Structures[]

  • East Building, front

  • East Building, back

  • North Building

  • West Building

  • Conestoga wagon

  • East Building sign

  • North Building sign

  • West Building sign

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. March 15, 2006.
  2. ^ a b "Shawnee Mission". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. Archived from the original on 2009-03-25. Retrieved 2008-06-28.
  3. ^ History of Wyandotte County Kansas and its people, ed. and comp. by Perl W. Morgan. Chicago, The Lewis publishing company, 1911. (cf., "When the first territorial legislature met at Pawnee on July 2, 1855, at the order of Governor Reeder in a stone building erected for its use, it unseated the free state members, seated the pro-slavery men instead, and then passed a bill "to remove the capital temporarily to Shawnee Manual Labor School." It did this because the Shawnee mission was well known as a center of pro-slavery sympathy.")
  4. ^ Shawnee treaty
  5. ^ "Lecompton, Kansas". Civil War on the Western Front. The Kansas City Public Library. Retrieved April 2, 2017.

Further reading[]

  • "Thomas Johnson's Story and the History of Fairway, Kansas". Joe H. Vaughan, Author, 2014. ISBN No. 978-63173-140-2. Two Trails Publishing Co., Inc., Independence, MO 64052.

External links[]

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