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The first recorded contact between Europeans and native people on the Central Plains came between the Spanish and the Wichita tribe in what is now Kansas. Contact with the French and the British came decades later. Contact with the Americans came a century or more later still. Very slowly at first, but inexorably, these contacts would change the lives of native people.
Christopher Columbus landed on an island ... Read more
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Throughout the 1700s, the nations of Europe played out political dramas on the plains of Nebraska. Successive expeditions would venture forth and negotiate with the plains tribes, offering symbolic gifts — certificates heralding "peace and friendship," peace medals, canes and flags. Towards the end of the century, the gifts given by the Spanish to tribes west of the Mississippi River cost that one colonial power over $100,000 a year. The goal of the whites was to establish alliances and dominate ... Read more
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The first Europeans to see the West were soldiers, explorers, mountain men, trappers, and traders. At first they followed the rivers and streams into the West, but eventually most realized that rivers couldn’t take you everywhere you wanted to go. And so overland routes were blazed.
Fur traders were among the first white men to follow Indian trails that eventually became a blueprint for parts of the Oregon Trail. They ... Read more
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Notable Nebraskan, Julius Sterling Morton was born April 22, 1832 in Adams, New York. Morton, along with Robert Furnas, was the co-founder of Arbor Day.
At a young age, Morton knew he loved newspapers and nature. He pursued these passions throughout his life and today is known for both.
After finishing school at the University of Michigan, Morton married ... Read more
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By the 1980s, the situation in agriculture was worse. At least a third of Nebraska farmers were in danger of loosing their farms. Banks were foreclosing on loans to farmers, and auctions were increasing, selling off ... Read more
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Find out where these Protohistoric cultures are.
Around 1600 CE, the first of the Protohistoric tribal cultures to return to the Nebraska region may have been the ancestors of the Pawnee. Several archaeological sites around the present day Lower Loup River in east-central Nebraska have been found, and these sites have named for that river basin.
Precise dates are difficult, but one interpretation of Pawnee stories or oral history says that they immigrated into Nebraska from the south about 1600. Archaeologists also ... Read more
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The Oto and Missouria have left impressive archaeological sites, including the Oto-Missouria village near Yutan.
The Otos immigrated into eastern Nebraska about 1700, building the Yutan village about 1775; remnants of the Missourias joined them in the 1790s.The village was occupied until 1837. It was the first major Indian settlement seen by fur traders on the journey up the Platte to western bison-hunting and beaver-trapping ranges. Spanish correspondence from 1777 noted the presence of this site that was named after the ... Read more
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The Pawnee was one of the earliest Native American tribes to be described in the European historical record, and they were one of the largest groups to live and roam across the territory. Their name most likely comes from a Pawnee word for horn which was “Pariki” or “Parrico” and was in reference to the way they fashioned their hair to look to have a horn or horns. The French explorers recorded the term as “Pani” as eastern native groups ... Read more
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Lewis and Clark’s expedition was followed by an expedition led by Zebulon M. Pike in 1806. This expedition was General James Wilkinson’s idea. Wilkinson was a newly appointed governor of the Louisiana Territory. He sent Pike on an expedition towards Spanish territory, possibly to provoke a war or to spy.
The Spanish in the New Mexico territory became very frightened about American plans when Jefferson sent out the Lewis and Clark expedition because Spain still claimed parts of the Louisiana Territory.
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In the early 1800s, the economic reality of what would become Nebraska was based on trade between the Europeans and Indians for furs and skins. Trading companies gambled fortunes in this high-risk enterprise, but the day-to-day business of the fur trade was done in Indian camps or at far-flung posts.
The fur trade was an international business ... Read more
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Religious freedom is a right guaranteed to Americans by the United States Constitution. However, some groups in history have been denied this right. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day-Saints (Mormons) were one of these groups. Mormon leader Brigham Young and his followers were forced to leave Nauvoo, Illinois. Young led the first migration of Mormons up the Platte River Valley in 1847 to what is now the state of Utah. They followed the Platte River on the ... Read more
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At the same time that homesteaders were getting free land from the government, large tracts of land were granted to railroads by both the states and the federal government. The goal was to encourage the railroads to build their tracks where few people lived, and to help settle the country. The federal government was especially interested in creating a transportation system that would link the eastern and western coasts. Not only would a transcontinental railroad help populate the Great Plains, ... Read more
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The Ponca were very unhappy with the land and living conditions on the Quapaw Reservation. Much of the land was not suitable for cultivation; sanitation conditions were deplorable. Government agents refused to provide adequate farming equipment, and many of the people died from malaria. Since leaving Nebraska, nearly one-third of the tribe had died. In January 1879, Standing Bear’s son, Bear Shield, died. The distraught chief decided to return to his tribal lands in Nebraska to bury his son. It ... Read more
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One strange story related to the Progressive Movement involved one of the most sensational crimes in Nebraska history. In Omaha, petty crook Pat Crowe’s small butchering business had been wiped out by the mega-industrialist, meatpacking business tycoon Edward Cudahy, Sr. Later, Crowe was also fired from a job in a Cudahy store for allegedly stealing store funds. Crowe’s resulting grudge against Cudahy led him to kidnap Cudahy’s son, 16-year-old Edward Cudahy, Jr. The boy was seized as he returned home ... Read more
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The work of the Seneca Falls Convention on women’s rights did not go unnoticed in Nebraska. From the earliest days of statehood, there was a progressive contingent that argued women should be allowed to vote since the laws representatives wrote applied to women as well as men.
So when delegates gathered in 1871 to write a new constitution for the state, votes for women was one of five proposals submitted separately to the voters. There was at least enough support to ... Read more
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There were also religious figures who joined the fight to keep women out of the voting booths. After all, some of them argued, women did not belong in the political arena because their place was the:
". . . realm of sentiment and love, gentler, kinder and holier attributes, that make the name of wife, mother, and sister next to the name of God himself."
The Roman Catholic Church was the religious group that most consistently opposed women’s suffrage. In 1906 more ... Read more
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From May through September 1919, over 25 race riots rocked cities from Texas to Illinois, Nebraska to Georgia. In Omaha, the trouble began on September 25, when a white woman, Agnes Loebeck, reported that she was assaulted by a black man.
The next morning, the Bee reached new lows reporting the event. The headline was: "Black Beast First Stick-up Couple."
"The most daring attack on a white woman ever perpetrated in Omaha occurred one block south of Bancroft street near Scenic Avenue ... Read more
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The personal beliefs of some healthy men kept them from using weapons. Some men objected on religious and moral grounds to participating in violence. Some belonged to churches that have historically objected to war. In World War I, these conscientious objectors (COs) were jailed.
But as ... Read more
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John Falter was a Nebraska artist who applied his talents to the war effort, producing numerous recruiting and incentive posters while on active duty with the U.S. Naval Reserve.
Born in Plattsmouth and raised in Falls City, Falter gained fame for his cover illustrations for the Saturday Evening Post. Throughout the war, he continued to work as a free-lance commercial artist, though most of his commercial works also addressed patriotic themes.
Between 1942 and 1946, Falter produced a body of work impressive ... Read more
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1600 CE was a pivotal time in the history of Nebraska,and there are at least two compelling stories to tell.
