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Atchison. They gave nearby
Independence Creek its name in
honor of the occasion.
In 1806, a young army lieutenant
named Zebulon Pike led a second
expedition through Kansas.
Pike journeyed through
southeastern, central, and
western Kansas. He then
followed the Arkansas
River west into Colorado.
In his reports, he described
Kansas as dry, barren, and
unsuitable for settlement.
In large part because of Pike’s
unfavorable reports, there was very lit-
tle white settlement in the area until
the 1850s. Instead, the area was des-
ignated as “Indian Country.”
As part of the Indian Removal Act
of 1830, more than 25 Indian tribes
were moved into the Kansas region.
This was done to make way for
increased white settlement in the
East. These tribes included the
Shawnee, Delaware, Potawatomi,
Wyandot, Kickapoo, and Ottawa,
among others. Later, when settlement
of Kansas began in earnest, many of
these tribes were again forced to
move, this time to Oklahoma.
By the late 1840s, interest in
Kansas began to pick up. Two of the
major transportation routes of the
19th century traveled through Kansas:
the Santa Fe Trail and the Oregon-
California Trail. Thousands of wagons
rumbled through, carrying settlers and
goods westward. Some of these set-
tlers decided to stay in Kansas, instead
of traveling farther. As their numbers
increased, there was a push to organ-
ize Kansas into a U.S. territory.
In 1854, Congress passed the
Kansas-Nebraska Act. This created
the two new territories of Kansas and
Nebraska. The bill also repealed the
Missouri Compromise of 1820, which
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Lower Plains: Kansas, Nebraska
Zebulon Pike
Henry Clay (1777–1852)
was an influential politi-
cal leader in the early
19th century. He repre-
sented Kentucky in
Congress, and ran for
president several times.
Clay helped to formulate
the Missouri
Compromise in 1820.