News Release

Colonialism and the Osage in Kansas

The cover of "Osage Women and Empire: Gender and Power"

George Catlin

News Release Date: March 14, 2023

Contact: Carl Brenner, 620-223-0310

Saturday, March 18, 2023, from 11 am until noon in the theater of the Infantry Barracks, Fort Scott National Historic Site is hosting historian and author Dr. Tia Edwards to discuss how nineteenth century U.S. Indian policy functioned as settler colonialism, displacing Indigenous nations across the eastern United States, including the Osage who were expelled from their Missouri homelands and confined to a reservation in Kansas. 

Dr. Edwards is a historian and director of the Kansas Studies Institute at Johnson County Community College. Her book Osage Women and Empire was published by the University Press of Kansas in 2018. She is an officer in the Kansas Association of Historians (KAH) and the Kansas Association for Native American Education (KANAE). She has collaborated on many projects including recording veterans' oral histories, preserving the Quindaro ruins in Kansas City, Kansas, and rematriating a sacred boulder in Lawrence to the Kaw Nation. 
 
This is the first program in a series the park is bringing to Fort Scott including authors, historians, artisans, and Native American Tribal members continuing through the fall of this year.

From November 1-March 31, Fort Scott National Historic Site, a unit of the National Park Service, will be open for its winter hours of operation.  The site exhibit areas and visitor center are open daily from 8:30 am – 4:30 pm Park grounds are open daily from a half hour before sunrise until a half hour after sunset. To find out more or become involved in activities at the Fort, please contact the park at 620-223-0310 or visit our website at www.nps.gov/fosc.