Tribal Dispossession and the Ottawa Indian University Fraud

When Ottawa University was founded in Kansas in 1865, it was supposed to be the first major Indian university in the West - an enlightened product of the Ottawa tribe's 1862 treaty with the United States. Yet, as events demonstrated, it was always designed to serve the needs of white citizens, and the tribe was victimized by the promoters - church leaders, government officials, and tribal leaders alike. the establishment of the university was a case study in tribal dispossession.