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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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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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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 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 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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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 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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For Lewis and Clark, as well as the explorers who followed them, one of their main tasks was to map an unknown territory. Maps would allow trappers, immigrants and settlers to find their way west. To draw the maps, Lewis and Clark had to figure out the longitude and latitude at each point, and they relied on the best technology available at the time:
• a sextant, which cost $77
• an octant
• an artificial horizon
• a surveying compass
• and a scientific ...
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