TOPEKA (KSNT) — Eight Native Americans are featured in a new web video series that explain tribal history.
The Kansas Historical Society announced in a social media post on Feb. 19. that it is hosting a new web video series titled, “Indigenous Voices,” where people from Native American tribes across Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska discuss the history and homeland of their tribes through personal storytelling.
Staff members from the museum visited tribes from across the Central Plains to meet with eight people representing the tribes to create the web series. This effort was done in preparation for the reopening of the Kansas Museum of History in November 2025 — which was closed for three years due to renovations.
Director of the Kansas Museum of History Sarah Bell stated in an email to 27 News the web series is also a video interactive in the introductory gallery of the museum.
“This video interactive centers Indigenous voices and lets them share in their own words their stories, their history, what Kansas means to them, and reminds visitors they are still here today,” Bell said. “I enjoyed working with each Tribal member we interviewed. Their stories are powerful and unflinching, and I learned something from everyone.”
The web series opened with its first episode featuring Jim Pepper Henry of the Kaw Nation, who most recently served as executive director of the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City. Henry goes into the history of the Kaw Nation and even spoke on the establishment of a language program that aimed to revive the Kaw language.
According to Pepper, the Kaw Nation is one of the original peoples from the land of Kansas.
“When I go to Kansas I’m excited in one way to return to our homelands because I feel that connection there,” Henry said in the video. “But it also saddens me to think that in these lands are the remains of my ancestors and this is their home.”
The Kansas Museum of History also has an opening section that features statements from each of Kansas’ four resident tribes, according to the museum’s Assistant Director of Education and Outreach Trae Johnson. The four tribal reservations in Kansas are the Iowa, Kickapoo, Potawatomi and the Sac and Fox.
“The process was deeply meaningful,” Johnson wrote to 27 News. “The stories shared with us were both uplifting and difficult.”
Chance of snow tonight and cool temperatures this weekend
The Kansas Historical Society is uploading the weekly web series on its YouTube channel, the Kansas Historical Society Education. The organization uploaded a second episode on Feb. 18, featuring Storm Brave from the Kaw Nation. The Kansas Museum of History is located at 6425 SW Sixth Avenue in Topeka.
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