Vestana Cadue

Vestana Cadue (Kickapoo name: Pam-o-thah-ah-quah) (January 31, 1901 – 22 June 1974) was the first female chairperson of the Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas. She was elected just months prior to the passage of House Concurrent Resolution 108 calling for the termination of her tribe. She led the tribal effort to successfully defeat enactment of a termination bill on the Kansas Kickapoo.

Early life Vestana Masquat (Kickapoo name: Pam-o-thah-ah-quah) was born on January 31, 1901 on the Kickapoo Reservation west of Horton, Kansas to Eugene (Kickapoo name: No-kah-waht) Masquat (Sac & Fox name: Wah pah qua o ke mah a quah) (October, 1869 – December, 1963) The family legend is that Vestana was a great-great-great granddaughter of Joseph Robidoux IV, founder of St. Joseph, Missouri. It was noted in her obituary that she was one of "50 descendants seeking a portion of the Robidoux estate left from the sale of the former St. Joe's "market area".

She and her siblings were taken by government agents to attend the Genoa Indian Industrial School in Genoa, Nebraska.

Tribal leader Vestana Cadue was the first woman elected to serve as chair of the Kickapoo Council. She began her term in April, 1953, and was reelected for a second term to begin in 1955. in 1961.

Within 5 months of assuming the tribal chair, Cadue was faced with the prospect of her tribe being terminated. On 1 August 1953, the US Congress passed House Concurrent Resolution 108 which called for the immediate termination of the Flathead, Klamath, Menominee, Potawatomi, and Turtle Mountain Chippewa, as well as all tribes in the states of California, New York, Florida, and Texas. Termination of a tribe meant the immediate withdrawal of all federal aid, services, and protection, as well as the end of reservations. A memo issued by the Department of the Interior on 21 January 1954 clarified that the reference to "Potawatomi" in the Resolution meant the Potawatomi, the Kickapoo Tribe in Kansas, the Sac and Fox and the Iowa tribes in Kansas. Because jurisdiction over criminal matters had already been transferred to the State of Kansas by the passage of the Kansas Act of 1940 the government targeted the four tribes in Kansas for immediate termination. Cadue and Tribal Council Members Oliver Kahbeah, and Ralph Simon traveled at their own expense to testify. One of those other tribal leaders was Minnie Evans (Indian name: ) chair of the Prairie Band of Potawatomi Nation. The strong opposition from the Kickapoo and Potawatomi tribes helped them, as well as the other Kansas tribes — the Sac & Fox and the Iowa Tribe — avoid termination. but prior to the 30 June 1925 Kickapoo census, Vestana married Albert Cadue (Kickapoo name: Ash-kah-puck-see) (17 July 1897 – 29 September 1969).

She and Abert had five children who were raised on the Kickapoo Reservation in Kansas: Alberta Ella (Mrs. J.C.) Brown (1927); Malinda Jean Kenneth Robert Jerald Allen and Albert