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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
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In the 1820s and 1830s, religious groups in the East began to look eagerly toward the lawless and “Godless West”. They decided it was their mission to convert non-believers to their faith. Churches set up "Missionary Societies" or boards to raise money for mission trips. They sent missionaries to the distant corners of the world. The churches saw missionary work as a way to bring both civilization and Christianity to the "savages." It was also a way to lessen the ... Read more
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The Redbird culture in northeastern Nebraska left an archaeological record that is similar to the Lower Loup culture, but Redbird sites were smaller villages and we find slightly different pottery styles at these sites.
Ponca and Omaha oral history suggests that the Redbird people immigrated into northeastern Nebraska about 1700 CE. Some archaeologists agree and maintain that the evidence shows that the Redbird culture descended into the Ponca. However, other archaeologists feel they are more likely ancestral to the ... Read more
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Under the reservation system, American Indians kept their citizenship in their independent tribes, but life was harder than it had been. The reservations were designed to encourage the Indians to live within clearly defined zones. The U.S. promised to provide food, goods and money and to protect them from attack by other tribes and white settlers. Also, some educators and protestant missionaries felt that forcing the Indians to live in a confined space would make it easier to "civilize the ... Read more
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"Which came first — the chicken or the egg?"
This is an age-old question that may not have a good answer. Neither may this question:
"Which came first — farming or a major increase in the Native American population during the Plains Woodland period?"
On the one hand, farming gave the native peoples a better way to feed themselves. On the other hand, more people were needed to maintain the ... Read more
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With the path wide open for cattle’s entry into Nebraska, three new markets for beef increased demand beyond the needs created by the Civil War.
In 1874, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer of the U.S. Cavalry emerged from an expedition into the Black Hills and announced that he had found gold there. Prospectors flooded into the area.
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Plains Indians exhibited great skill and ingenuity in turning the natural materials they found around them into tools and materials to help them survive. They used stones, bones, shells, clay, hides, hair, and wood to make tools and implements. But, one of their greatest natural resources was the bison.
The Native Americans of eastern Nebraska in the late 1600s and early 1700s developed a system of seasonal travel carefully planned to put them at the right place at the right time ... Read more
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For centuries before 1800, Native tribal groups had inhabited the land of the Great Plains and the West. In that sense, they "owned" it. Between 1650 and 1800, a series of European governments — Spain, Britain, France and Russia — all sent explorers into parts of the West and "claimed" to own the land.
But in 1802, ownership of a large part of the West changed, and changed fundamentally. ... 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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There are inherent conflicts in the stories of the missionaries and the tribes they were trying convert. On the one hand, the missionaries generally had good intentions, and they reflected the philosophies of the country’s leaders. On the other hand, the Native Americans generally didn’t feel that they needed to be saved. The experiences of Dunbar and Allis are a good example of this conflict.
One of the fathers of the country, Thomas Jefferson wrote at length about the problems involved ... 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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A black man by the name of York accompanied the Lewis and Clark expedition as a slave to Clark. He had been a childhood companion to William Clark and made invaluable contributions to the expedition on many occasions. Clark reported that York was especially attentive to Sergeant Floyd during his final days. York also risked his life to save Clark in a flash flood on the Missouri River near Great Falls in present-day Montana.
York participated in the hunts to bring ... Read more
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Who was "Bright Eyes"? What was her role during the Standing Bear vs. Crook Trial?
Susette was born in Bellevue in 1854, the year the Omaha gave up their Nebraska hunting grounds and agreed to move to a northeastern Nebraska reservation. She was the oldest daughter of Joseph La Flesche, the last recognized chief of the Omaha. Joseph was known as "Iron Eyes." Susette was raised on the Omaha Reservation and from 1862 to 1869 attended the Presbyterian Mission Boarding Day ... Read more
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The first accepted evidence we have of human beings on the Central Plains is around 12,000 years old. Archaeologists have found spear points near Clovis, New Mexico, and elsewhere that date from that era.There is some evidence that human beings may have lived here even earlier, but that evidence is disputed. Most scientists believe the ancestors of today’s Native Americans walked across a "land bridge" from Asia to ... Read more
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After decades of broken treaties, the Ponca continued to suffer from attacks by the Sioux, terrible weather conditions, and lack of financial support from the U.S. Government. In 1875, A.J. Carrier, the Ponca agent, visited President Grant in Washington about moving the Ponca to the Indian Territory. Grant agreed to the move if the Ponca were willing to move. Carrier stated that the Ponca would be better off moving and he returned to the Ponca reservation to confer with the ... Read more
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After Manuel Lisa died, the remaining partners signed a new contract, and Joshua Pilcher became the field representative in charge of the company’s outposts and their fur traders. It was primarily through his efforts that the reorganized company enjoyed a degree of success. He was a merchant and banker in St. Louis, but had joined Lisa’s company due to personal financial problems. He was a junior partner and served an apprenticeship as a trader among the Indian tribes in what ... Read more
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The change in the Nebraska landscape was dramatic. In just a few short years, cattle replaced the American bison as the leading, cloven-hoofed, grass-eating mammal on the Great Plains. In 1850, millions of bison ranged the grasslands and were the main natural resource for the region’s American Indians.
In 1868, the steel rails of the transcontinental railroad created a barrier that bison did not like to cross. That divided the great herd into northern and southern herds.
When the great trail drives ... Read more
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The trappers, fur traders, and river men are generally given credit for exploring the West and opening it to settlement. The Army Corps of Engineers should also be credited. Stephen H. Long was a member of this group. Like most engineers, Long was college-trained and was willing to work with the modern technology of the time. Engineers were different from the ... Read more
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In the east, there was history of Indian wars. Because of this, some white Americans new to the Louisiana Purchase area thought they needed protection from Native Americans. There were only some minor conflicts, but people still worried.
So in 1820, Fort Atkinson became the westernmost U.S. military post. The fort provided the only government authority in the huge territory west of the Missouri. It was built on the same Missouri River bluff where Lewis and Clark held their Council with ... Read more
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"The turn of the century." For many people, moving from one century to the next seems like a new beginning. In reality, the idea of a "century" is just numbers on a calendar or on a clock. (One should remember that there have been and still are different systems for telling time and counting the years.) In our western European civilization, however, a new century is ... Read more
