Est. 1861
About
The operations of the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska are based on its federally established reservation covering approximately 12,038 acres across portions of Brown County and Doniphan County in Northeast Kansas and Richardson County in Southeast Nebraska. The reservation was established and modified pursuant to a series of treaties, with the current boundaries established in the Treaty of March 6, 1861. The Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska currently controls approximately 6,000 acres of its reservation with most of this land held in trust.
In 1804, the Ioway population was reduced to 800 because of many factors, but primarily because of smallpox, as Ioways had no natural immunity. In 1906, only 100 Ioways lived in Kansas and 100 lived in Oklahoma. By 1908, Iowa Tribe had recovered to approximately 1,000 people.
In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, drawing a line across the Iowa Reservation, which is how we became known as the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska. In 1870’s the tribe split into two groups. The southern Ioway moved to indian territory while the northern Ioway remained in Kansas and Nebraska.
We Are Ioway
Our History
We are best known today as the tribe for whom the state of Iowa was named. We are often called the Ioway to help distinguish us from the state of Iowa. Tribal members use both Iowa and Ioway, although the legal name used today is “Iowa.”
By the time white settlers first entered Iowa in the mid 1800s, we moved our villages into northern Missouri, due to pressure and incessant warfare in Iowa between the Sioux in the northern and western parts of the state and the Sauk and Meskwaki in the southern and eastern parts of the state.
Archaeologists call the sites of the ancestral Ioway Oneota, after one the names for the Upper Iowa River, where such sites were first located. Other closely related tribes such as Otoe, Missouri, Winnebago, and Omaha also participated in the Oneota culture. This connection is supported by tribal traditions and linguistic studies,which assert that all those tribes were once one people. The Oneota are most identified with certain types of pottery but also with the use of pipestone, copper, and small triangular arrowheads. They were guardians of the pipestone quarry in Minnesota until about 1700.
Our Offer
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