Kaw or Kanza is the name of the Native American people who lived in the American Midwest and gave their name to the Kansas River. The Kaw were also called the people of the water or the people of the wind. Today’s US state of Kansas is located in the central region of the Midwest and is therefore also known as the “American Heartland”. Before the immigrants from Europe settled the country around 1830, there lived nomadic peoples who mainly hunted bison. The population increased sharply in the 1850s. Anti-slavery New Englanders and pro-slavery advocates from neighboring Missouri clashed and fought bitterly over whether or not Kansas should become one of the “slave states. ” The area became a hotbed of violence, crime and chaos, and it wasn’t called “Bleeding Kansas” for nothing. After the anti-slavery eventually won, Kansas joined the Union as a free state on January 29, 1861. After the American Civil War, there was a population explosion as immigrants converted the prairies into fertile farmland. oday, Kansas has one of the most productive farms in the United States. The main products are wheat, millet and sunflower, cotton and soybeans. But cattle, sheep and pig breeding also achieve significant yields. Northeast Kansas is part of America’s “Grain Belt,” an unofficial name for a region of the United States that accounts for a significant portion of the world’s grain and soybean production. The Grain Belt includes large parts of the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri and Iowa and parts of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Nebraska and Kansas. Check topschoolsoflaw.com for brief history of the state of Kansas.