On the hearth above my gas fireplace a rusty horseshoe leans, luck side up. Square nail holes, rather than round ones, help me date it to the 19th century. Less of a guessing game is how long I’ve had it.
I eased this treasure from the smooth rocks and squishy muck of a tiny creek on the grounds of the Shawnee Indian Mission, in Fairway, Kansas. That was in 1970, the year I turned ten.
The Shawnee Indian Mission has been a state historic site for almost a hundred years, owned by the State of Kansas. It’s also a national historic site.
I grew up two blocks from its grounds and attended the St. Agnes church and parochial school within sight of the Mission’s historic buildings. We school kids treated those 12 acres as an escapist wonderland. We enjoyed its woods where we could hide and steep ourselves in its secrets. We even toured the classrooms and dormitories as part of our Kansas history lessons, led by docents who explained how other children lived, at this place, in another time.
Once, when I was very young, the Indian Mission figured into my plans to run away from home. I boldly walked to the end of my street, where I planned to turn left onto Mission Road, to cut across the St. Agnes parking lot, and to live in the woods for the rest of my life. But by the time I reached the end of my block, my dad had caught up to me and brought me (tearfully) back home.
Now much later in life, I still run away from home, lighting out for new territory every ten years or so. Moving from Kansas City to Emporia, Kansas, back to Kansas City, then to Laramie, Wyoming, and now to Decorah, Iowa, isn’t something I’ve done for any practical reason. I’ve done it because something deep within pulses me ever forward. I like to think having access to that semi-wild natural oasis, filled with stories of children living lives parallel to my own, has something to do with it.
Sometimes I wonder if the native children living there in the period of the Mission’s operation from 1832 to 1862 ever tried to run away, and if they did, where they went and how it turned out for them. I consider that question as I follow recent stories from the Kansas City news media, about competing claims of ownership.
A few years ago, the Shawnee Tribe pressed to have the land and buildings returned to them. Chief Benjamin Barnes argued that the tribe would do a better job than the state of managing the site. He argued that buildings at the site needed imminent, significant repair, and that the tribe had the resources and motivation to do that work.
Others, such as the Kaw tribe, said their own rights to the Mission property, and beyond, pre-date those of the Shawnee.
Still other stakeholders disagreed about the urgency and argued that the Kansas Historical Society, the City of Fairway, and the Shawnee Indian Mission Foundation should continue their management partnership.
Some residents of the neighborhood speculated that the effort by the Shawnee was part of a larger attempt to restore additional historic lands to the tribe. This group feared that if successful, the Shawnee could be within their rights to use the site for economic development, even including a gaming casino.
Last spring, the Shawnee were able to open the question to the citizens of Kansas, in the form of House Bill 2208. Some of the testimony given at the public hearing supported the argument that deep budget cuts and other state actions had delayed needed repairs on the site, and that immediate intervention was needed. But most who voiced their opinion supported keeping the property in the hands of the current public private partnership.
I learned about this controversy because my oldest sister still lives just a few blocks from the Mission grounds. She shared with me some of the news coverage she was seeing. Sorting through piles of news releases and public testimony, I came across a familiar name, someone else who grew up on the border of the Mission grounds. We went to the same school and church, and one of his younger siblings was in my class. He wrote as a neighbor of the Mission property who supported its continued historic restoration and preservation as a state site. He expressed concern for the Mission’s future stewardship, in the face of uncertainty. This man is someone I know and whose motives I understand. That’s probably why I found his argument credible, and persuasive. Because I “know” him, I am more likely to trust him. The Federal and State Affairs Committee of the Kansas Legislature might have felt the same way. The bill did not pass.
For now, the Mission site will remain in the hands of the Kansas Historical Society. The Shawnee—as part of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition—may continue their efforts to reclaim the site. If so, the Kaw will likely continue voicing their concern that the Shawnee are ignoring the older historical presence of the Kaw in Kansas, and that if the property goes to anybody, it should go to them. But residents of Fairway now have reason to believe that the National Historic Landmark down the block won’t turn into a casino any time soon. And the kids at St. Agnes can run away to play in the woods and dream about what could be.
I’m left to consider to what degree memory bestows a claim to ownership. I thought of “our” memory as direct, because of personal experience that is still available to people today. I thought of “theirs” as indirect, because the connection was severed in the 19th century, when the Mission closed. But now I see that the sense of being part of a place is a continuum, not a boundary.
If someone from the state or tribes knocked on my door tomorrow asking me to turn over that relic of a horseshoe, I’d give it to them. I hope they’d discover the farrier who made the shoe, where the horse who wore that shoe traveled, who rode on its back, and how the shoe wound up in my little creek.
It’s not enough say it was waiting for 10-year-old me to find it, and tell you about it, half-a-century later. We all have to declare that we’re willing to learn, and commit to it, whatever it is.
For further information, see:
An Intersection of Cultures
The National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition
We Are the Shawnee Tribe
Shawnee Indian Mission Foundation
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