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MUNSEE INDIANS TODAY TRY TO REGAIN STATUS

STEVE BRISENDINE Associated Press POMONA, KAN

Clio Caleb Church’s ancestors gave up their American Indian identity more than a century ago. She has been trying for more than three decades to get it back.

The Munsee tribe’s official history in the state ended in 1900. Facing a forced abandonment of its reservation in Franklin County and relocation to Oklahoma, the tribe – led by Church’s great-grandfather, Ignatius Caleb – instead decided to surrender its federal tribal recognition.

In exchange, Caleb and others accepted American citizenship, land in Kansas and $491 per person – which would come to more than $11,000 today.

Now, Church and other descendants of the Kansas Munsee want to regain that recognition and the benefits it carries: federally funded health care and education, as well as the right to operate tribal businesses as a sovereign nation.

“My main intent is the education of my grandkids and their kids,” said Church, 81. “That’s what I’ve been fighting for these 35 years.

Church’s 1978 petition for restoration was rejected by the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs, meaning the Munsee will need an act of Congress. And for Rep. Jim Ryun, R-Kan., even to consider sponsoring such a bill, the tribe must first reorganize and elect a tribal council.

“Until he receives some sort of formal proposal from the tribe, he has decided not to take one position or another,” spokesman Nick Reid said Friday.

Last weekend, a committee of Munsee descendants met in Pomona to discuss issues ranging from a tribal mission statement to eligibility for enrollment.

There are about 250 descendants around the country, Church said. About 85 of them still live in the area. Some, like Church, show their heritage in their complexions. Others, like siblings Tom Plake and Kinda Sparlin, are fair-skinned.

But all of them are joined by 71 names on a list from 1900 – for final enrollment of the Munsee and Chippewa Indians who shared a hilly, 12-square-mile reservation southeast of Pomona in Franklin County.

The Munsee, like many tribes who ended up in Kansas, were not originally a plains people.

They are part of the larger Delaware or Lenape group of tribes – they prefer the latter term – and in the 1600’s, they lived in what is now the eastern United States.

The arrival of European colonists forced them into a series of moves, and they established villages in Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana. Many converted to Christianity under the teachings of Moravian missionaries, and in 1792 a number of Munsee moved to Canada to found the community of Fairfield, (Ontario).

The migration to Kansas began in the 1830s. The Munsee variously known as “Muncie, Christian Munsee, Christian Indian and Moravian Christian Munsee” – first settled in Wyandotte County, near the Kansas River.

The area, home today to warehouses, salvage yards and trailer parks, is now part of Kansas City, Kan. Several businesses and two schools – Muncie Elementary and Muncie Christian – still recall the tribe’s presence.

From there, the Munsee moved north to what is now Leavenworth County – only to see their land illegally overrun by squatters and bought up by speculators after the Kansas-Nebraska Act created the Kansas Territory in 1854.

An 1859 treaty gave them the Franklin County land, to be held jointly with the two Chippewa bands. The tribe still maintains a cemetery there, although it is owned by the Moravian Church in America. The Munsee hope to set up a nonprofit organization to take over ownership of the cemetery.

The push for restoration will take money, too, to hire attorneys and fund expert research. But Church said she won’t give up.

“It’s closer than at any time in the past,” she said. “It sure would be nice if this would happen before I kick the bucket. But even if it doesn’t, hopefully the children and grandchildren will get the benefits.”