Buffalo County, Nebraska - Chapter 1: Before the White Man Came Names of Indian Tribes Inhabiting Nebraska, 1916

Making Good, Becoming Useful Citizens Before The White Man Came

Before the white man came this land we call "Nebraska" was claimed by several tribes of Indians. The boundaries of their lands were not defined by metes and bounds, clearly outlined and made matters of record, as are the counties of the state. In the eighteenth annual report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, for the years 1896-97, J. W. Powell, director, is given an outline map of Nebraska, giving the names of the principal tribes of Indians, the location of their lands in the state and the dates when each tribe ceded such lands to the general Government. Herewith is a brief summary from said report, giving the names of the tribes and the location of their lands. The State of Nebraska is approximately two hundred miles from north to south and four hundred from east to west. Speaking in a general way, not to be understood as being exact, let us draw a line across a map of Nebraska commencing at the mouth of the Niobrara River, thence south about sixty miles, thence southeast to a point east of the City of Columbus, thence south to the Kansas State Hne. East of this line to the Missouri River and north of the Platte River the lands thus embraced were those claimed by the Omaha Indians and tribes friendly to and living within the territory described. East of this line to the Missouri River and south of the Platte River, the lands thus embraced were those of the Oto and Missouri tribes.

Next let us draw a line north and south across the state, passing through the forks of the Platte River - North Platte. The territory thus embraced between these two lines, the central portion of the state, both north and south of the Platte Rivef, were lands belonging to the confederated tribes of Pawnee Indians, viz. : Grand Pawnee, Pawnee Loup, Pawnee Republicans and Pawnee Tappaye.

West of the Pawnees and south of the Platte the lands were claimed by the Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes. West of the Pawnees and north of the Platte

It will be seen that ikitfalo County is located in what was Pawnee territory, without question the greatest hunting ground on the American continent for wild game, such as buffalo, elk, deer and antelope. The Pawnee lands south of the Platte were ceded to the general Government October 9, 1833. The Fort Kearney Military Reservation, north of the Platte, was ceded to the general Government August 6, 1848, and the remaining lands of the Pawnees, north of the Platte, were ceded September 24, 1857.

How long the Pawnee Indians had inhabited the valleys of the Platte and Loup rivers in what we now call Nebraska is not definitely known, and doubtless never wmII be, but history seems to disclose that they were living here more than three centuries before the white man came to dispossess them, about the year i860.

The following brief history of the Pawnee, whose lands we, the people of Buffalo County, Nebraska, now occupy and enjoy, is taken as an extract (kindly furnished by United States Senator George W. Norris) from the "Handbook of American Indians," Bulletin No. 30, Bureau of American Ethnology :

"Pawnee. A confederacy belonging to the Caddoan family. The name is probably derived from Pariki, a horn, a term used to designate the peculiar manner of dressing the scalp-lock, by which the hair was stiffened with paint and fat, and made to stand erect and curved like a horn. This marked feature of the Pawnee gave currency to the name and its application to cognate tribes. The people called themselves Chahiksichahiks, 'men of men.'

"In the general northeastwardly movement of the Caddoan tribes the Pawnee seem to have brought up the rear. Their migration was not in a compact body, but in groups, whose slow progress covered long periods of time. The Pawnee tribe finally established themselves in the Valley of the Platte River, Nebraska, w^hich territory their traditions say was acquired by conquest, but the people who were driven out are not named. It is not improbable that in making their way northeast the Pawnee may have encountered one or more waves of the southward movements of Shoshonean and Athapascan tribes. When the Siouan tribes entered the Platte Valley they found the Pawnee there. The geographic arrangement always observed by the four leading Pawnee tribes may give a hint of the order of their northeastward movement, or of their grouping in their traditionary southwestern home.

"The Skidi place was to the northwest, and they were spoken of as belonging to the upper villages. The Pitahauerat villages were always downstream ; those of the Chaui, in the middle, or between the Pitahauerat and the Kitkehahki, the villages of the last named being always upstream. How long the Pawnee resided in the Platte Valley is unknown, but their stay was long enough to give new terms to 'west' and 'east;' that is, words equivalent to 'up' or 'down' that eastwardly flowing stream.

"The earliest mention of a Pawnee is that of the so-called 'Turk' (q. v.), who, by his tales concerning the riches of Quivira (q. v.), allured and finally led Coronado, in 1541, from New Mexico over the plains as far as Kansas, where some Pawnee (see Harahey) visited him. The permanent villages of the tribes lay to the north of Ouivira, a name given to the Wichita territory. It is doubtful if the Apane or the Quipana mentioned in the narrative of De Soto's expedition in 1 541 were the Pawnee, as the latter dwelt to the northwest of the Spaniard's line of travel. Nor is it likely that the early French explorers visited the Pawnee villages, although they heard of them, and their locality was indicated by Tonti, La Harpe and others. French traders, however, were established among the tribes before the middle of the eighteenth century.

"How the term Pani (q. v.) or Pawnee, as applied to Indian slaves, came into use is not definitely known. It was a practice among the French and English in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to obtain from friendly tribes their captives taken in war and to sell them as slaves to white settlers. By ordinance of April 13, 1709, the enslavement of negroes and Pawnee was recognized in Canada (Shea's Charlevoix, v. 224, 1871). The Pawnee do not seem to have suffered especially from this traffic, which, though lucrative, had to be abandoned on account of animosities it engendered. The white settlers of New Mexico became familiar with the Pawnee early in the seventeenth century through the latter's raids for procuring horses, and for more than two centuries the Spanish authorities of that territory sought to bring about peaceful relations with them, with only partial success.

"As the Pawnee lay in a country remote from the region contested by the Spaniards and French in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, these Indians escaped for a time the influences that proved so fatal to their congeners, but ever-increasing contact with the white race, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, introduced new diseases and brought great reduction in population, together with loss in tribal power. When the Pawnee territory, through the Louisiana Purchase, passed under the control of the United States, the Indians came in close touch with the trading center at St. Louis. At that time their territory lay between the Niobrara River on the north and Prairie Dog Creek on the south, and was bounded on the west by the country of the Cheyenne and Arapaho, and on the east by that of the Omaha, on the north of the Platte River, and on the south of the Platte by the lands of the Oto and Kansa tribes. The trail to the southwest, and later across the continent, ran partly through Pawnee land, and the increasing travel and the settlement of the country brought about many changes. Through all the vicissitudes of the nineteenth century the Pawnee never made war on the United States. On the contrary, they gave many evidences of forbearance under severe provocation by waiting, under their treaty agreement, for the Government to right their wrongs, while Pawnee scouts faithfully and courageously served in the United States army during Indian hostihties.

"The history of the Pawnee has been that conmion to reservation life - the gradual abandonment of ancient customs and the relinquishment of homes before the pressure of white immigration.

"* * * By treaty of Table Creek, Neb., September 24, 1857, all lands north of the Platte River were assigned to the Government except a strip on the Loup River, thirty miles east and west and fifteen miles north and south, where their reservation was established. This tract was ceded in 1876, when the tribes were removed to Oklahoma, where they now Hve. In 1892 they took their kinds in severahy and became citizens of the United States. * * *

'Tn 1702 the Pawnee were estimated by Iberville at two thousand families. In 1838 they numbered about ten thousand souls, according to an estimate of houses by Missionaries Dunbar and Allis, and the estimate is substantially confirmed by other authorities of the same period, one putting the number as high as twelve thousand five hundred. The opening of a principal emigrant trail directly through the country in the '40s introduced disease and dissipation, and left the people less able to defend themselves against the continuous attacks of their enemies, the Sioux.

"In 1848 they were officially reported to have lost one-fourth of their number by cholera, leaving only 4,500. In 1856 they had increased to 4,686, but five years later were reported at 3,416. They lost heavily by removal to Indian Territory in 1873-75, ^"^ "^ ^^79 numbered only 1,140. They have continued to dwindle each year until there are now (1906) but 649 surviving."

What a sad history the foregoing is of a people who for centuries possessed and successfully defended this land in Central Nebraska which we now possess and enjoy! What a sad history of a people of whom it is written that they faithfully observed their treaty agreements with the United States and loyally and courageously fought in the armies of the United States against its enemies!

It is related that after the removal of the Pawnee to the Indian Territory in 1876 (much against their wish, many being brutally compelled to go by the soldiers assigned to their removal) that some of the number became so homesick that in the dead of winter they stole away from the reservation and journeyed back to Nebraska in order to once more visit the land of their fathers, to visit their former homes and the places where their dead were buried - and what did they find? Their former homes, the burial places of their dead, were plowed fields, the home of the white man. There was no place they could go and be welcome. They were, as it might be said, a stench in the nostrils of the white man, and the soldiers of our Government, armed with guns and bayonets, forced them to return to the reservation assigned them.

In the year 191 5, H. A. Lee, an early settler and long-time resident of Bufifalo County, now residing in Oklahoma, writes that the Pawnee are making good; tilling their farms, establishing homes, making useful citizens.

General Henry B. Carrington In Command At Fort Kearney, 1865-66

The original location of the Union Pacific Railroad iH-ovided for the road to cross the Platte at Fort Kearney, thence west up the south side of the river. General Carrington,' then in command at Fort Kearney, made a survey for a bridge across the Platte at that point, rei)orted unfavorably, and the plan of building a bridge was abandoned.