Historic site to honor Native Americans this weekend

The Fort Scott National Historic Site will honor American Indians with a series of programs on Saturday during the annual Good Ol' Days festival.

Staff and volunteers at the historic site will offer a variety of programs, demonstrations and activities focusing on the theme, "The American Indian: Then and Now." The schedule of activities for the one-day event includes American Indian dancing, quilt presentations, and a talk on tribal history.

Four of the five presenters are Native American and also regular performers at the historic site. Besides staff and volunteers, seven other people will help with the event, FSNHS Ranger Barak Geertsen said.

"We'll have modern people interpreting historic culture," he said.

As American Indians were being removed west, Fort Scott was established in 1842 to enforce the "permanent Indian frontier," where the relocated tribes' new land would be protected from white settlement, a news release said.

"Soldiers here formed a border patrol of sorts between Indians and white settlers," Geertsen said. "The soldiers had two jobs -- to keep white settlers from moving onto Indian land and to keep the peace between the Indian tribes."

Geertsen added there were about 12-15 Indian tribes within a 100-mile radius of Fort Scott during that time period.

Once Kansas became a state in 1861, many of the tribes were again forced to remove to new lands.

"When Kansas became a state, many Native Americans relocated to modern-day Oklahoma, which was still considered Indian territory," Geertsen said.

Over the years, the American Indians have struggled to adapt to a new lifestyle while retaining their culture and traditions. These traditions helped them persevere and continue to grow stronger today, the release said.

"All of the programs Saturday are presented by modern Native Americans helping to preserve those cultural traditions," Geertsen said.

Visitors can enjoy the sounds of beating drums as the Oklahoma Fancy Dancers, a group that came together to form a professional and highly-acclaimed Native American dance troupe, share their culture through dance. Chief Glenna Wallace, the first woman chief of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe, will talk about the history of the Shawnee.

Noted quilter Mildred Jordt of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara tribes will tell visitors about the significance to her people of the "Morning Star Quilt."

"We'll have a modern day quilter keeping Native American traditions alive through quilting," Geertsen said.

Guests can also visit with a park ranger from Prairie State Park to learn the importance of the American buffalo to Plains Indian tribes as a source of food, clothing, shelter and other necessities of life.

Visitors can join volunteers to try their hand at painting hides and making other American Indian crafts, the release said.

Prairie State Park is located in Barton County, Mo., near the Kansas-Missouri border near Liberal, Mo.

Geertsen said he estimates that the site will receive about 1,000 visitors on Saturday, although it is hard to predict.

"The Indian dancing draws a crowd," he said. "If the weather is decent, we might get about 1,000 visitors that day. Generally, on a Good Ol' Days weekend, we get around 2,000 visitors. But this is just a one-day event."

The historic site received about 5,000 visitors on Good Ol' Days weekend in 2008 when the Budweiser Clydesdales were the featured attraction for the annual festival and were stabled there, Geertsen said.

Saturday's schedule of activities follows:

11 a.m. -- "The American Buffalo: Supermarket on the Plains -- Prairie State Park Ranger

12:30 p.m. -- "Quilt of the Morning Star" -- American Indian Star Quilts -- Mildred Jordt of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara tribes

1:30 p.m. -- Shawnee Tribal History -- Chief Glenna Wallace

2:30 p.m. -- Oklahoma Fancy Dancers -- American Indian Dancing

3:30 p.m. - "Quilt of the Morning Star" -- American Indian Star Quilts - Mildred Jordt of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara tribes

6:30 p.m. -- Oklahoma Fancy Dancers -- American Indian Dancing

Fort Scott National Historic Site, a unit of the National Park Service, is open daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. For more information, call the site at (620) 223-0310 or visit www.nps.gov/fosc.