Kansas

C

Judicial

The highest court in Kansas is the Supreme Court, consisting of seven justices. Supreme court justices are appointed by the governor from a list of people nominated by a committee. After the first year in office, judges must be confirmed by voters in a general election. The office of chief justice is filled by the justice who is senior in years of continuous service. A court of appeals was established in the mid-1970s. The highest state courts of original jurisdiction are the district courts, to which judges are elected for four-year terms. Probate court judges preside over the probate court in each county and are elected for two years. Kansas also has county courts and municipal courts.

D

Local Government

Each of the state’s 105 counties is governed by a board of three to five commissioners, who are elected to four-year terms. The counties are divided into more than 1,300 townships, each of which is governed by an elected board made up of a trustee, a treasurer, and a clerk. Among the 627 incorporated municipalities, the most common type of municipal government is the mayor and council form. A number of cities have the council and city manager and commission forms.

E

National Representation

Kansas is represented in the Congress of the United States by four members in the House of Representatives and two members in the Senate, giving the state six electoral votes in presidential elections.

VIII

History

A

Earliest Inhabitants

Beginning about 10,000 years ago, five different prehistoric cultures appeared in the area of present-day Kansas. They were the predecessors of later Plains peoples: the Wichita, Pawnee, Kansa (or Kaw), Osage, and Kiowa-Apache. When Europeans first arrived in the area of present-day Kansas in the 16th century, the peoples of the region were basically of two types, semisedentary and nomadic. The semisedentary peoples, including the Kansa, Osage, Pawnee, and Wichita, generally lived along the rivers of eastern Kansas, just east of the Great Plains region. They lived in semipermanent settlements of earth or grass lodges and cultivated some crops, although hunting bison, or buffalo, was their primary means of livelihood. The nomadic peoples most closely associated with Kansas, the Arapaho, Cheyenne, Kiowa, Kiowa-Apache, and Comanche peoples, arrived in the area of Kansas in the early 17th century and ranged widely over the High Plains of western Kansas as well as over other parts of the Great Plains. The Plains peoples relied almost wholly on buffalo hunting for their livelihood, and entire peoples were almost continually on the move pursuing buffalo herds. They traveled almost exclusively on horseback and were among the best riders in North America.

---

---

B

Early European Exploration

The Spanish explorer and conqueror Francisco Vásquez de Coronado was the first white person to enter the Kansas region. In April 1541 Coronado led an expedition from the region of Spanish New Mexico in search of a fabled wealthy kingdom called Quivira, which was actually only a village of the Wichita people living in what is now Kansas. The expedition was guided by a native inhabitant known as the Turk (because his headwrapping looked to the Spanish like a turban), who had promised the Spaniards the gold and silver of Quivira. After a difficult journey, Coronado finally reached Quivira in July, but finding none of the promised riches and suspecting that his guide had misled him, Coronado had the Turk killed. The Spaniards remained among the native inhabitants for nearly a month and then returned to the New Mexico region. Spain showed little interest in the Kansas area until more than 150 years later.

In 1682 René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, finished a journey down the Mississippi River by claiming all the land drained by the river for France, including present-day Kansas. The French then conducted an extensive fur trading operation along the Mississippi and its tributaries. As part of that effort, they sent traders and explorers into the lower Missouri River valley to win the friendship of the peoples there. In 1720 the Spanish, now concerned about French activity, dispatched a small force under Pedro de Villasur from Santa Fe to drive out the French. Pawnee attacked and killed Villasur’s men, and the French took undisputed possession of the Missouri Valley region. From 1744 until 1764 the French occupied Fort Cavagnial, a trading and military post, near present-day Leavenworth. From there they traded with the local peoples.

In 1763 after the French and Indian War, the last in a series of battles between Great Britain and France for domination in North America, France lost nearly all its North American territory, called the Louisiana Territory (Louisiane, in French). But in 1762 France had secretly ceded all its lands west of the Mississippi to Spain, France’s ally in the war. France then regained the land in 1800 under another secret agreement with Spain, and in 1803 the United States acquired what is now Kansas as part of the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France (see Louisiana Purchase).

	More from Encarta
	•  Presidential Myths Quiz •  Coffee break: Recharge your brain