On the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, communities across the country will host block parties, historical exhibits and other initiatives focused on America’s birthday.
Here in Kansas, the milestone has prompted local historians and others to reflect on our state’s own history.
Adam Hodge, head of reference at the Kansas State Historical Society, presented a lecture in Wichita recently titled “Kansas 1776: A Dynamic Landscape.”
“If you got into a time machine (and) went to July 1776, or five years before that, or five years after … you would see something fairly different,” Hodge said. “You strip away so many things that are fundamental to our world today that we look out a window and see, and they’re just not here in 1776.”
Things like large buildings, power lines, cattle, and wheat, says Hodge, who specializes in the environmental and Indigenous history of the American West. Even honeybees weren’t around before settlers came to Kansas.
So what would you see?
“More Indigenous people,” Hodge said. “There are very few non-native people. Maybe a few French fur traders, maybe a few of Spanish origin. And there are certainly more bison, elk, and lots of wolves.”
The land itself looked a lot different, too, he said.
“There were no large dams or reservoirs,” Hodge said. “Kansas now has over 120,000 artificial water bodies, from small farm ponds to large reservoirs. It was a land of streams in 1776.”
Some tribes, including the Comanche and Kiowa, migrated to the Great Plains during certain seasons. Others, like the Pawnee, Kaw and Wichita, were more permanent residents.
“The four resident tribes that we have today in Kansas were all later arrivals,” said Hodge, referring to the Iowa, Sac and Fox, Kickapoo and Prairie Band Potawatomi nations. “They were pushed here from areas further east.”
Traveling through parts of Kansas today, you can get a sense for what the landscape might have looked like before the westward expansion of the 19th century.
“The Flint Hills are one of the best places to do that,” Hodge said. “(But) even in a lot of those places, the original vegetation and things like that are gone. We've had invasive species move in. … But there are areas where you can come closer to experiencing what things were like in 1776.”
Kansas back then was a mostly untouched wilderness, he said. “But it wasn't just a place waiting for something to happen.”
As the Founding Fathers hammered out the Declaration of Independence more than 1,000 miles away, July Fourth of 1776 was “just another day in the life” for the people, flora and fauna of Kansas.
“They had no idea what awaited them decades down the road,” Hodge said.
America’s milestone birthday, he added, is about more than just flags and fireworks.
“It is an opportunity to look back and see everything that's happened over the last 250 years in Kansas, and in other places, and be like, ‘OK, what has been positive? What can we do better?’”
