Gage County, Nebraska - Chapter 11: First Actual Settlers, 1918

Otoe and Missouri Tribes o? Indians - History - Reservation - Relation oi' NEERS to Indians - Plans to sele Reservation - Saee - Report of Lewis AND Ceark - Indian Village - Removal of Indian Tribes -

The first actual settlers of Gage county were of course the Otoe and Missouri consolidated tribes of Indians. The treaty under which all their lands in the territory of Nebraska were ceded to the United States, except their reservation on the Big Blue river, was made Mf rch 15, 1854, and became immediately effective. Section 2 of the treaty required the Indians to vacate the ceded lands and remove to their new reservation "as soon after the United States shall make the necessary provision for fulfilling the stipulations of this instrument as they can conveniently arrange their affairs, and not exceeding one year after such provision is made.''

The report of George Heppner, the government agent for these Indians, to the Indian Bureau at Washington, under date of November 1, 1855, conveys the information that they were then occupying their new reservation, in what afterward became Gage county, and had raised a crop of corn for their support during that season. According to this report there were at that time approximately six hundred Indians on the reservation, which was doubtless their full tribal strength.

When first known to white men, the Otoe tribe of Indians were one of a group of three related tribes, the others being the Iowa and Missouri tribes of Indians, all speaking practically the same language. They appear never to have been numerous, like the Pawnees, Comanches, and some others of the plains Indians. Their history as far as known contains little more than a struggle to defend themselves against their enemies, until they came virtually under the domination of the white man. They are first mentioned by some of the French-Canadian traders, trappers, and missionaries. Father Marquette, in 1673, apparently locates them on his autograph map about the upper Des Moines river, and Membre, the companion of LaSalle, in 1680, places the tribe one hundred and thirty leagues west of the Illinois, on the Wisconsin. In 1700, Iberville, a French-Canadian explorer and the first governor of the province of Louisiana, said that the Otoe and Iowa Indians were with the Omahas. Charlevoix, in 1721, found them on the east side of the Missouri, above the Kansa tribe, on the west side of the Missouri. In 1761 they were located on the Platte, between its mouth and the Pawnee country to the west. Here they were found by Lewis and Clark in 1804, on the south side of the river, twenty miles from its mouth ; but the explorers record the fact that they had formerly lived twenty miles above the mouth of the Platte on the south bank of the Missouri river. Having been greatly diminished by war and smallpox, in 1817 they migrated to the neighborhood of the Pawnees, near the city of Fremont, under whose protection they seem to have lived for a time, and were here incorporated with the Missouris. For some time prior to 1841 the two tribes were located near the mouth of the Platte river, in the neighborhood of Bellevue. Later they removed to a reservation near Nebraska City; which in the treaty bearing date of March

15, 1854, was ceded to the United States, together with all lands in Nebraska territory save and except a reservation lying partly in the southern portion of Gage county. As before stated, Article 2 of the treaty promised that they would vacate the ceded territory and remove to the lands reserved for them by it "as soon after the United States shall make the necessary provision for fulfilling the stipulations of this instrument as they can conveniently arrange their affairs, and not to exceed one year after such provision is made." This reservation comprised a fine body of land, ten miles north and south and twentyfive miles east and west. It extended two miles south of the state line its full length, into Washington and Marshall counties, Kansas. North of the state line it extended two and three-fourths miles into Jefferson county. That portion of it which lay in Gage county was a strip eight miles in width and twentytwo and one-half miles in length, east and west. Glenwood, Paddock, and Barneston townships lay wholly within the reservation, also the greater part of Liberty township; it included the two southern tiers of sections in Elm, Sicily, Wymore, and Island Grove townships to within two and one-fourth miles of the county line on the east. Altogether it comprised 250 sections, 160,000 acres, of which 126,720 acres lay in Gage county. It was well watered ^nd timbered. The Big Blue river flowed through it in a southeasterly direction, across Wymore and Barneston townships, while Big Indian creek drained the northern and western portions and entered the river at Wymore. East of the river Wolf, Plum, and Mission creeks with their tributaries drained the land and supplied in great abundance water for grazing purf>oses. Fine groves of timber lined all the streams. Hunting and fishing offered both sport and sustenance to the noble red man and his progeny, while to the hoes, which a wise and beneficent government placed in the hands of the squaws, the rich alluvial soils of the creek and river valleys responded with bountiful crops of Indian corn, melons, pumpkins, beans, and other field and garden produce.

The pioneers profited considerably from the existence of this large reservation within the county. The United States government from the first had maintained on the reservation, at the junction of Plum creek and the river, a steam saw and grist mill where lumber of all dimensions was manufactured from native timber and where com meal and graham flour could be ground. Here also was a blacksmith shop which, in addition to the Indian blacksmithing, did custom work. From the surrounding country for miles settlers hauled their saw logs and grain to this primitive mill and hauled back lumber, slabs, meal, and cracked wheat or graham flour. The mill was afterward supplied with proper machinery for making bolted flour, and then became one of the early milling points of our county.

Considerable trade, mainly barter, was carried on between the pioneers and the Indians, in which beaded moccasins, buffalo robes, dried or jerked buffalo meat, other products of the chase, and handiwork of the squaws, as well as blankets, calicoes, and other articles issued annually by the Great Father at Washington to his dusky children, were exchanged for the hogs, cattle, sheep, and cured meats of the settlers.

There were many members of these tribes that in point of worth of character measured up to the best traditions of the North American Indian. They were as a rule scrupulously honest, returning what they borrowed from their white neighbors and friends, and discharging punctually their financial obligations. They were not pilferers or thieves. They were inclined to overstay a welcome and were great beggars for something to eat. In their domestic relations they apparently led well ordered and decent lives.

In those days of primitive life the white man rarely turned his eyes toward the landed possessions of his Indian neighbors. Government land was cheap and abundant, to be had almost for the asking. No man needed to want for land; he could take it by paying a trifling fee to the officers of the government land office at Brownville. But on the admission of Nebraska into the Union as a state; on the entry by college scrip, in 1867, of the finest portions of the public domain in Gage county, and the coming of the railroads, the situation completely changed. Land began to have a value. Soon it was impossible for a man to be land poor. A homesteader who had been accustomed to. regard his quarter section more as a liability than an asset, suddenly found, that it possessed a cash value in the open market; that when pressed for money, by resorting to an invention known as a mortgage, he could actually borrow a few hundred dollars on his homestead. Undreamed of opulence descended upon him, and the poor homesteader, whose years had been spent in poverty and want, who was often compelled to stay because too poor to leave, suddenly found his broad acres a source of wealth, as wonderful to him as the lamp of Aladdin or the purse and hat of Fortunatus.

Under these circumstances the lands of the Indian reservation became appreciably vahiable in the eyes of the white inhabitants of the two states where it lay, and in the eyes of the Indians themselves and their guardian, the United States government. Great pressure was brought, beginning with the early '70s, on the representatives of both Kansas

In January, 1875, Hon. Algernon S. Paddock, then a citizen of Gage county, was elected to the United States senate from Nebraska. Soon after taking his seat he introduced a bill providing for the sale of that portion of the Otoe and Missouri Indian reservation lying west of range VII, and prescribing a method for conducting the sale of such lands. This act, by and with the consent of the Indians, became a law August 15, 1876, and the lands affected by it, constituting a little more than one-half of the reservation, were appraised and sold for cash to active settlers at the appraised value, in tracts not exceeding one hundred and sixty acres to any one purchaser. They attracted a fine class of settlers, and were soon disposed of at an average price of about three dollars and fifty cents per acre. With interest on deferred payments this netted the Indians over two hundred thousand dollars.

The sale of this land, which had hitherto produced nothing to its owners and which they iregarded as of but little value, for practically five hundred dollars per capita, served only to whet the appetite of the Indians for that sort of tangible wealth which always bears the dollar mark. The successful outcome of this sale prompted further agitation in congress on the part of the representatives of both Kansas and Nebraska to put the remainder of the. reservation on the market, and on March 3, 1881, a bill was passed by congress for that purpose, which also prescribed a method of conducting a sale of the lands affected by it. The government having purchased in the Indian territory, now Oklahoma, 129,113 acres of land as a reservation for the Otoe and Missouri Indians, immediately after the passage of this act, the remainder of their lands, after appraisement, were placed on sale, in 1883. Under the orders of the secretary of the interior, the appraisement was ignored and the lands sold at public auction for cash to the highest bidder, but to actual settlers only, and in tracts not to exceed one hundred and sixty acres to any one purchaser. The exact figures are not at hand to show the amount of this sale, but the lands brought approximately twelve and one-half dollars per acre, amounting approximately to the sum of one million dollars. In addition to removing an unassimilable element from the population of our county, these two sales brought within its jurisdiction and added to its taxable wealth a splendid body of land which in process of time has become very valuable, and thickly populated by a splendid class of American citizens.

Tradition aside, the Otoe Indians were never warlike or aggressive. They were tillers of the soil, traders and trappers, and were usually found in the neighborhood of some more powerful tribe whose protection they sought.

The Missouri tribe of Indians, who derived their name from the great river on whose shores they dwelt for many years, after having been attacked and almost annihilated, in 1720, by the Sac and Fox tribes with their allies, were dispersed. Five or six lodges joined the Osage, two or three took refuge with the Kansa, and the remainder amalgamated with the Otoe Indians. Lewis and Clark spoke of the Otoes and Missouris whom they saw in the neighborhood of Council Bluffs, as almost naked, having in fact no covering except a sort of breech-cloth and a loose blanket or painted buffalo robe thrown about their shoulders. Their villages consisted of large earthen lodges, but when traveling they found shelter in skin tepees.

The permanent Indian village was located in Barneston township, mainly on the site of the present village of Barneston. At this point there was and still is a splendid spring of purest water, similar in quality to the well known Zimmerman spring from which the city of Beatrice draws its entire supply of water. Near this spring were the agency building, the school house, Indian tepees and burial place. To the south of the village, across Plum creek, at the point where that stream enters the Big Blue river, on the small tract of level land adjacent to both these streams, were the blacksmith shop, the steam saw and grist mill belonging to the Indians, and the residences of several of the employes of the government upon the reservation. The Indians maintained an unbroken residence in this location from April, 1855, to October 5, 1882, - more than twenty-seven years, - during which period of time, under the care and tutelage of the government of the United States, its agents and employes, including several teachers, they made considerable progress in general education and in a knowledge of the useful industries of civilized life. After ceding their lands here to the United States, they removed from our county to Oklahoma, in 1882. The la.5t glance afforded us of the aboriginal inhabitants of Gage county is presented in the following extract from the report of their agent, Jacob V. Carter, to the bureau of Indian affairs, under date of August 20, 1882. It reads in part as follows :

Soon after forwarding my last annual report dated at Otoe Agency, Nebraska, I received orders to remove the Indians in my charge from that agency to their new location in Indian Territory. Agreeable to said order, I began the work of removal at once. On September 22, 1882, I started the cattle herd, numbering two hundred and twenty-four head, in charge of competent herders, for the territory. On the 5th of October following, having completed my arrangements, I pulled out of the Agency with a train which consisted of seventy wagons and about two hundred ponies. We arrived at Red Rock on the 23d day of the same month, nineteen days out, traveling nearly three hundred miles without sustaining any loss or mishap by the way. The herd arrived on the 16th, in good condition and without loss.

It is generally understood that these Indian tribes had been greatly decimated by death, induced partly by sloth and excess wealth, un';il their numbers were reduced to somewhat over five hundred, in 1881, Their number was estimated as twelve hundred in 1833. Burroughs gave in 1859 their number as nine hundred; the report of the Indian bureau at ^ Washington for 1843 designates nine hundi-ed t and thirty-one. In 1862 the two tribes numbered seven hundred and eight; in 1867, five hundred and eleven; in 1877, four hundred and fifty-seven; in 1886, three hundred and thirty-four; and in 1906 three hundred >an.i ninety.