KANSAS, FLAG OF

U.S. state flag consisting of a dark blue field (background) with a sunflower emblem and the state seal above the name of the state in golden yellow lettering. In the flag history of Kansas an unusual distinction was made between the so-called state banner and the state flag. A state banner was first adopted on February 27, 1925, consisting of the name of the state written above the state seal and set on a background of blue. The seal was framed by a sunflower, adopted in 1903 as the state floral emblem. On June 30, 1953, the state banner was very much simplified; thereafter it was blue with a large sunflower blossom, including a brown centre and gold petals. Neither of these banners, however, was extensively used. The state flag adopted on March 23, 1927, usually represented the state on official occasions. It showed the state seal without the inscriptions on its outer rim; above was the crest of Kansas as used by its National Guarda naturalistic sunflower over a heraldic torse (wreath) of yellow and blue. Complaints were raised that this flag was so close in design to those of many other states that it could not readily be identified. Thus in 1961 the state's name was added below the seal in large golden letters. Modifications have also been made in the seal design. In 1985 it was decided that the homesteader's cabin in the seal should no longer have smoke pouring from its chimney and that the herd of bison should comprise exactly five animals. The seal, dating from 1861, is very complex to manufacture if made in accordance with regulations. Whitney Smith History Indians, explorers, and settlers Archaeological exploration has uncovered evidence of Indian cultures that existed in Kansas for many centuries before the Europeans settled on the land. From about 1200 to 1500 there had been a thriving agricultural society in the area of the Republican and Big Blue rivers. The first known European explorers were Spaniards under Francisco Vzquez de Coronado, who in 1541 rode northward from Mexico seeking the gold of the legendary Seven Cities of Cbola. Juan de Padilla, a priest with the expedition, founded the first mission in the territory, possibly north of present-day Wichita. The territory was claimed for France in 1682 by Robert Cavelier, Lord de La Salle. During the 18th century French fur traders had a flourishing exchange with the Indians in what is now the northeastern part of the state. The region passed to the United States as a part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The explorer Zebulon Montgomery Pike passed through Kansas in 1806 and described it as the Great American Deserta false image that still persists. Kansas was thoroughly explored during the following decades, but westward-bound settlers and miners passed through it without staying. From 1830 to 1854 Kansas was in an area designated as Indian Territory, where tribes who occupied lands wanted by whites were relocated. The KansasNebraska Act of 1854, however, created two territories and opened both to settlement, allowing residents to determine whether their future states would be free or slave. The rush began, and Kansas became a major breeding ground for the American Civil War as North and South each attempted to send the most settlers into the new territory. Most early settlement was near the eastern border, and free staters were harassed constantly by Border Ruffians from Missouri. One incident was the sacking of Lawrence by Southern guerrillas in 1856. The abolitionist John Brown, with his sons and a few other men, retaliated by dragging five of their proslavery neighbours from their homes and killing them. Proslavery forces attempting to avenge this massacre were captured by Brown, who became a hero to the Northern sympathizers. Hundreds of such incidents won the territory the name Bleeding Kansas. Statehood Kansas entered the Union as a free state in 1861. Before and after the Civil War sporadic fighting occurred between the settlers and the Indians. In 1867 a peace treaty was signed in which the Indians agreed to sell their land; in return, the United States agreed to build homes for them in what is now Oklahoma and to provide money, food, and clothing. The U.S. Congress did not honour the treaty, and when the Indians returned they found their land occupied by white settlers. Further sporadic battles continued until the last Indian raid, in 1878. Early settlers in wooded eastern Kansas lived in log cabins, but in the west they had only dugouts or sod houses. The unpredictable weather, the recurring Indian raids, the droughts and dust storms, and the grasshopper invasions discouraged many early settlers. One of the heroes of this era was William Mathewson, known as the original Buffalo Bill, who hunted buffalo for the settlers all of one winter without pay, providing meat by the wagonloads. The coming of the railroads in the late 1860s and the '70s made first one village and then another into boisterous cow towns. Texas cattlemen drove herds northward to Caldwell, Wichita, Dodge City, Ellsworth, Newton, and Abilene to reach the railhead. Although this development brought prosperity to Kansas and created a persistent image, the cow-town era lasted less than a decade. The Mennonites arrived in 1874, bringing trunks full of hand-selected grains of Turkey Red wheat. This excellent strain was the basis of the abundant crops that became an important part of the Kansas economy. Many of the Mennonites' descendants remain as prosperous farmers. By about 1890 most of the land was occupied, and Kansans settled into a life dominated by agriculture. World War I produced a great demand for food, and more and more prairie was plowed and put into production, which led to temporary prosperity but contributed directly to the dust storms that devastated the state in the 1930s. World War II contributed to Kansas' growing eminence in aircraft and brought many people from Oklahoma and Arkansas to work in Wichita's aircraft plants. The decades of the 1970s and '80s were characterized by a slow but steady growth in population, one of the lowest unemployment rates in the nation, and a steady increase in the number of Kansans employed in mining and in health care and other service industries. Kansas remains a Republican stronghold, but, for 20 of the 30 years between 1957 and 1987, Democrats occupied the governor's office, suggesting that some political as well as economic change has been taking place in Kansas. Charles G. Pearson