The New Mission
The mission was located at its original site from 1830 to 1839. In 1839, the mission was built its present-day Johnson County location, where an Indian boarding school was opened. From 1839 until its closure in 1862, the Shawnee Mission served as a manual training school for Native Americans, principally from the Shawnee and Delaware tribes.
The Shawnee Mission also served as the second capital of the Kansas Territory. The capital was moved to the mission on July 16, 1855, after pro-slavery delegates to the Territorial Legislature voted to depart the first capital at Pawnee. It served as territorial capital until the spring of 1856, when the seat of government was moved to Lecompton. While the capital was located at Shawnee Mission the legislature promulgated the controversial pro-slavery laws that sparked Bleeding Kansas violence. During the American Civil War, the site also served as a camp for Union soldiers.
It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1968.
Read more about this topic: Shawnee Methodist Mission
Famous quotes containing the word mission:
“... [a] girl one day flared out and told the principal “the only mission opening before a girl in his school was to marry one of those candidates [for the ministry].” He said he didn’t know but it was. And when at last that same girl announced her desire and intention to go to college it was received with about the same incredulity and dismay as if a brass button on one of those candidate’s coats had propounded a new method for squaring the circle or trisecting the arc.”
—Anna Julia Cooper (1859–1964)