The date of this divergence is not
fixed, but it must have been after 1723, when Bourgmont mentioned a large
village of "Quans" located on a small river flowing northward thirty
leagues above Kaw river, near the Missouri. After the cession of Louisiana
to the United States, a treaty was made with the Kansa Indians, who were
then on Kaw river, at the mouth of the Saline, having been forced back
from the Missouri by the Dakota; they then numbered about 1,500 and
occupied about thirty earth lodges. In 1825 they ceded their lands on the
Missouri to the Government, retaining a reservation on the Kaw, where they
were constantly subjected to attacks from the Pawnee and other tribes,
through which large numbers of their warriors were slain. In 1846 they
again ceded their lands and received a new reservation on Neosho river in
Kansas. This was soon overrun by settlers, when another reservation was
assigned to them in Indian Territory, near the Osage country. By 1890
their population was reduced to 214.
The Kwapa were found by De Soto in 1541 on the Mississippi above the mouth
of the St Francis, and, according to Marquette's map, they were partly
east of the Mississippi in 1673. In 1681 La Salle found them in three
villages distributed along the Mississippi, and soon afterward Tonty
mentioned four villages, one (Kappa = U{~LATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED K~}aqpaqti, "Real Kwapa") on the
Mississippi and three (Toyengan = Tanwan-ji{~LATIN SMALL LETTER TURNED K~}a, "Small Village"; Toriman =
Ti-uadciman, and Osotonoy = Uzutiuwe) inland; this observation was
verified by Dorsey in 1883 by the discovery that these names are still in
use.
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