Sitting on the Old Santa Fe Trail, the town of Shawnee Mission was originally that: a mission for members of the Shawnee tribe who were transplanted from their native territory.
The story of federal Indian policy and missions is a tale of clashing cultural perspectives. On one side, there's the story of brave, compassionate missionaries who sacrificed to provide native people with a better life through Christianity. But in the eyes of many, forcibly removing people from their land, re-settling into Kansas colonies and converting them amounted to cultural genocide.
