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Native American tribes, including the Omaha, Oto, Missouri, Pawnee, Arapaho and ... 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.
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It is easy for most of us to become a citizen of the United States. For most U.S. citizens, ... Read more
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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 Spanish offered many wonderful things that Native Americans found useful or beautiful — iron for tools, weapons, glass beads, mass-produced pottery — but the most prized possession of many Indians was the horse.
In ancient North America, horses had become extinct, probably around 10,000 years ago. Meanwhile across the sea, horses were becoming common in many ancient civilizations and were establishing their place in human history. Around 3,000 years ago, horses were tamed in Europe for ... Read more
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The archaeological record in western and central Nebraska suggests that Native American people migrated to the region somewhere around 1675 CE. We think they came from further west and north. Archaeologists have found evidence of these people and named the culture after where the sites were discovered in the 1930s — along the Dismal River in the Nebraska sand hills. Dismal River Cultural sites also have been excavated in the Republican River basin. So, the Dismal River cultural complex occupied ... Read more
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From 1778 to 1871, the U.S. federal government tried to determine its relationship with the various Native tribes by creating treaties. There were hundreds of these treaties, which were formal agreements between two independent nations. So Native American people were citizens of their tribe, living within the boundaries of the U.S. The Native tribes would give up their rights to hunt and live on huge pieces of land in exchange for trade goods, yearly cash payments, and promises that no ... Read more
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Congressman Henry Dawes of Massachusetts sponsored a historic piece of legislation, the General Allotment Act (The Dawes Severalty Act) in 1887. Its purpose was to encourage the breakup of the tribes and for Indians to blend in with American society. It would be the major Indian policy until the 1930s. Dawes’ goal was to create independent farmers out of Indians — give them land and the tools for citizenship.
While Senator ... Read more
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Imagine yourself living in 1875. You’re living on a small, but beautiful part of the country between the Niobrara and Missouri Rivers. Just to the south, the new state of Nebraska is less than 10 years old.
For years, you have moved and been moved from one place to another. Then a United State government Indian inspector informs you that you have to move again — and you have to move ... Read more
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Between 1825 and 1892 in Nebraska, there were a series of 18 different treaties between Native American tribes and the U.S. government in which Indians gave up their land. Nationally, there were hundreds of treaties. These treaties were important because each made it legally possible for the United States to make land available to settlers. The treaties of the early 1800s (and later) made the settlements of the 1870s possible.
The map below is linked to the actual text of the ... Read more
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The Oto tribe gave this state its name, but they were not native to the region. "Nebraska" is an Oto word that means "flat water." Like migrant groups before and after, the Oto immigrated to the Central Plains from the east, just ahead of the Europeans.
The earliest mention of the Oto and Missouria tribes in the European historical record dates from the late 1600s. The Missouria were then in central Missouri and the Oto were in central Iowa. The Otos ... Read more
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The Omaha and Ponca Native American tribes are closely related. Both tribes speak a language called the Dhegiha division of the Siouan linguistic stock. They speak a similar language to that spoken by several tribes who lived further south during the historic period, the Osage, Kansa and Quapaw tribes.
These are the Native American tribes mentioned in early Nebraskan historic records from roughly 1770 to 1850 CE.
These language facts and the historical stories told within the tribes suggest that all of ... Read more
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When homesteaders arrived on the Great Plains, they found a challenging environment where survival was the goal. The native tribal people had been meeting these same challenges for thousands of years and had evolved complex economic, agricultural and cultural methods of coping. What was life like for the Native Americans in the mid- to late-1800s on the Great Plains?
By the mid-1800s, the Pawnee, Omaha, Oto-Missouria, Ponca, Lakota (Sioux), and Cheyenne were the main plains tribes living in the Nebraska Territory. ... Read more
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In the late 1700s, Spanish officials in St. Louis decided to expand their trade up the Missouri. To do that they needed to protect the river from incursions from competitors and they needed to build a series of fortified trading posts. In the 1790s Spain began patrolling the Missouri and Mississippi rivers with gunboats. The boats were called galiots (pronounced gah-le-OATs) were about fifty feet long and armed with cannons. A galiot could usually be rowed or sailed by their ... Read more
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In the early 1700s, Spain claimed as their exclusive territory most of the Central Plains including Nebraska. They were very concerned with protecting their rights to what they saw as a potentially enormous trade with the Native Americans on the plains. But it had been a Frenchman, Bourgmont, who had reached the Platte first and who named it. And the Spanish in New Mexico were seeing more and more evidence of French trade with tribes like the Apache, ... 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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There were many Native American tribes living on the Great Plains, competing for scarce resources. Of course, the various tribes came into conflict with each other.
The Lakota (or Sioux) is actually a broad group of people that includes the seven bands of the Western (or Teton) Lakota, the Dakota (Yankton and Yanktoni) and the Nakota (Santee). This group of tribes lived in the Plains for only a part of their known history. The Lakotas originally lived in the northern woodlands. ... Read more
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During World War I, about 9,000 American Indians served in the armed services. They fought and died in defense of a nation that still denied most of them the right to participate in the political process. Congress, as a result, enacted legislation on November 6, 1919, granting citizenship to Indian veterans of World War I who were not yet citizens.
"BE IT ENACTED . . . that every American Indian who served in the Military or Naval Establishments of the United ... Read more
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In 1714, a French explorer with a long name — Étienne de Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont — reached the mouth of the Platte. He named it the "Nebraskier River," using an Oto word that means "flat water." Bourgmont had been in North America for 27 years and was a remarkable soldier, trader, and explorer. When he reached the Missouri territory he married a Missouria Indian woman and lived with the tribe. While living with them, he began to carefully explore ... Read more
