- published: 08 Sep 2009
- views: 19537
Kansas i/ˈkænzəs/ is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name (natively kką:ze) is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south wind", although this was probably not the term's original meaning. Residents of Kansas are called "Kansans". For thousands of years, what is now Kansas was home to numerous and diverse Native American tribes. Tribes in the eastern part of the state generally lived in villages along the river valleys. Tribes in the western part of the state were semi-nomadic and hunted large herds of bison. Kansas was first settled by European Americans in the 1830s, but the pace of settlement accelerated in the 1850s, in the midst of political wars over the slavery issue.
When it was officially opened to settlement by the U.S. government in 1854, abolitionist Free-Staters from New England and pro-slavery settlers from neighboring Missouri rushed to the territory to determine whether Kansas would become a free state or a slave state. Thus, the area was a hotbed of violence and chaos in its early days as these forces collided, and was known as Bleeding Kansas. The abolitionists eventually prevailed, and on January 29, 1861, Kansas entered the Union as a free state. After the Civil War, the population of Kansas grew rapidly when waves of immigrants turned the prairie into farmland. Today, Kansas is one of the most productive agricultural states, producing high yields of wheat, corn, sorghum, and soybeans. Kansas is the 15th most extensive and the 34th most populous of the 50 United States.
I DIDN’T LEAVE THEM DISAPPOINTED
MADE A PROMISE, AND KEPT IT TRUE
LAST TIME I SAW THEM THEY WERE POINTING
‘CAUSE I DID WHAT THEY WERE SCARED TO DO
THEY SAID IT COULDN’T BE DONE
NOBODY LEAVES WHERE I CAME FROM
YEAH, I COULD’VE TO STUCK AROUND
AND DONE THE SAME OLE STUFF
IN THE SAME OLE TOWN
THEN WIND UP WIND UP WISHING
I’D OF CHASE THOSE THINGS AROUND
I DON’T WANT BE THE ONE
WITH A WANNA DO THAT DON’T EVER GET DONE
MAYBE ONE OF THESE DAYS I’LL TURN RIGHT BACK AROUND
SETTLE DOWN INSTEAD OF CHASING SHADOWS
I STILL LOVE THREE CORNER COUNTY
AND I’M PROUD OF ALL MY ROOTS
AT LEAST MY DADDY UNDERSTANDS
THE NEED TO PUT SOME MILES BEHIND THESE BOOTS
HE SAID GO WALK THAT ROAD
WHEN YOU FIND YOURSELF THEN YOU’LL BE HOME
CAUSE YOU DON’T WANNA STICK AROUND
DO THE SAME OLE STUFF IN THE SAME OLE TOWN
WIND UP WISHIN YOU’D CHASED THOSE THINGS AROUND
YOU DON'T WANNA BE THE ONE
WITH A WANNA DO THAT DON’T EVER GET DONE
MAYBE ONE OF THESE DAYS YOU’LL TURN RIGHT BACK AROUND
SETTLE DOWN INSTEAD OF CHASING SHADOWS
YEAH, I COULD’VE STUCK AROUND
DONE THE SAME OLD STUFF IN THE SAME OLD TOWN
THEN WIND UP WISHING I’D CHASED THOSE THINGS AROUND
I DON’T WANNA BE THE ONE
WITH A WANNA DO THAT DON’T EVER GET DONE
MABE ONE OF THESE DAYS I’LL TURN RIGHT BACK AROUND
AND SETTLE DOWN