History of Gage County, Nebraska; a narrative of the past, with special emphasis upon the pioneer period of the county's history, its social, commercial, educational, religious, and civic development from the early days to the present time, Part 11

Author: Dobbs, Hugh Jackson, 1849-
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Lincoln, Neb., Western Publishing and Engraving Company
Number of Pages: 1120

USA > Nebraska > Gage County > History of Gage County, Nebraska; a narrative of the past, with special emphasis upon the pioneer period of the county's history, its social, commercial, educational, religious, and civic development from the early days to the present time > Part 11

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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 reser- vation on the Big Blue river, was made March 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 gov- ernment agent for these Indians, to the Indian Bureau at Washington, under date of Novem- ber 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 hun- dred 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 prac- tically the same language. They appear never to have been numerous, like the Pawnees, Comanches, and some others of the plains In- dians. Their history as far as known con- tains 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, ap- parently locates them on his autograph map about the upper Des Moines river, and Mem- bre, 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 Mis- souri. 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 Mis- souri 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 lo- cated 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

HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY, NEBRASKA

15, 1854, was ceded to the United States, to- gether 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 prom- ised 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 stipu- lations of this instrument as they can con- veniently arrange their affairs, and not to exceed one year after such provision is made."

This reservation comprised a fine body of

AR-KA-KE-TA (tribal guardian) Head chief of the Otoes

land, ten miles north and south and twenty- five miles east and west. It extended two miles south of the state line its full length, into Washington and Marshall counties, Kan- sas. 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 twenty- two 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 town- ships 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 and 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 en- tered 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 purposes. Fine groves of timber lined all the streams. Hunting and fishing offered both sport and sus- tenance to the noble red man and his pro- geny, 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 boun- tiful 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 corn meal and graham flour could be ground. Here also was a blacksmith shop which, in addition to the Indian black- smithing, did custom work. From the sur- rounding 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 car- ried 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 Wash- ington to his dusky children, were exchanged for the hogs, cattle, sheep, and cured meats of the settlers.

The personal relations between the Indians and the white settlers were ideally friendly.

HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY, NEBRASKA

There were many members of these tribes that in point of worth of character measured up to the best traditions of the North Ameri- can Indian. They were as a rule scrupu- lously honest, returning what they borrowed from their white neighbors and friends, and discharging punctually their financial obliga- tions. 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. Gov- ernment 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 admis- sion 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, sud- denly 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. Un- dreamed 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 For- tunatus.

Under these circumstances the lands of the Indian reservation became appreciably valuable 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 pres- sure was brought, beginning with the early '70s, on the representatives of both Kansas

and Nebraska in congress, to effect the sale of the reservation and convert it into a source of wealth for the white man.

In January, 1875, Hon. Algernon S. Pad- dock, 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 at- tracted a fine class of settlers, and were soon disposed of at an average price of about three dollars and fifty cents per acre. With inter- est on deferred payments this netted the In- dians over two hundred thousand dollars.

The sale of this land, which had hitherto produced nothing to its owners and which they regarded 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 dol- lar mark. The successful outcome of this sale prompted further agitation in congress on the part of the representatives of both Kan- sas 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 In- dian territory, now Oklahoma, 129,113 acres of land as a reservation for the Otoe and Mis- souri 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 in- terior, 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

HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY, NEBRASKA

are not at hand to show the amount of this sale, but the lands brought approximately twelve and one-half dollars per acre, amount- ing approximately to the sum of one million dollars. In addition to removing an unas- similable element from the population of our county, these two sales brought within its jur- isdiction 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 hav- ing been attacked and almost annihilated, in 1720, by the Sac and Fox tribes with their al- lies, were dispersed. Five or six lodges joined the Osage, two or three took refuge with the Kansa, and the remainder amalga- mated 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 cov- ering 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 ad- jacent to both these streams, were the black- smith shop, the steam saw and grist mill be- longing 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 gov- ernment of the United States, its agents and employes, including several teachers, they made considerable progress in general educa- tion and in a knowledge of the useful indus- tries of civilized life. After ceding their lands here to the United States, they removed from our county to Oklahoma, in 1882. The last glance afforded us of the aboriginal inhabit- ants of Gage county is presented in the follow- ing extract from the report of their agent. Jacob V. Carter, to the bureau of Indian af- fairs, under date of August 20, 1882. It reads in part as follows :

Soon after forwarding my last annual re- port dated at Otoe Agency, Nebraska, I re- ceived 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 terri- tory. On the 5th of October following, hav- ing 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 ar- rived on the 16th, in good condition and with- out loss.

It is generally understood that these Indian tribes had been greatly decimated by death, in- duced partly by sloth and excess wealth, until their numbers were reduced to somewhat over five hundred, in 1881, Their number was es- timated as twelve hundred in 1833. But .. roughs gave in 1859 their number as nine hun- dred; the report of the Indian bureau at Washington for 1843 designates nine hundred and thirty-one. In 1862 the two tribes null !- bered 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 and ninety.

CHAPTER XII

NARRATIVE OF MAJOR ALBERT LAMBORN GREEN

[When Ulysses Grant became president of the United States in 1869 he adopted the policy of placing the Indian wards of the nation as far as possible in the hands of the Quakers, a policy to which he rigorously ad -. hered during hte eight years of his incum- bency in office. In June, 1869, Albert Lam- born Green, of Philadelphia, a young man affiliated with that sect, was placed in charge of the Otoe and Missouri tribes of Indians in Gage county, as the agent of the government and with the rank and title of a major in the federal army. Major Green served in that capacity several years, and became fa- miliar with the history of these Indian tribes as well as with their manners and customs. At the request of the author of this book he has prepared the following reminiscent nar- rative illustrated by pen drawings prepared by himself. Those who may feel an interest in these aboriginal inhabitants of our county cannot fail to read with keen pleasure the following context :]

Man's earliest weapon was a stone, and later a rudely chipped flint, the acquisition and use of which ushered in the paleolithic age, - the initial period of all human culture and pro- gress. It was during this earliest stage of human advancement that the region now em- braced within the limits of Gage county, re- ceived its first inhabitants, -a race whose weapons and utensils, rudely chipped from the flints of the locality, still testify to its having existed. In the course of many generations, as greater skill became acquired, the paleolithic age of roughly chipped flints gradually merged into a neolithic age of finely wrought arrow- heads and carefully finished weapons and uten- sils of stone. Such an age has likewise left its

scattered memorials throughout the region. Whether both periods pertain to an identical race may never be known, but archeologists regard it as almost a certainty that the period of roughly chipped flints long antedates the Pawnee occupancy of the region. To the per- iod of Pawnee occupancy may confidently be attributed all fragments of pottery and possi- bly all relics of a neolithic character. Prof. E. E. Blackman has definitely located the sites of at least five prehistoric villages within the county, the most ancient of which undoubtedly belonged to the paleolithic age. One that is known to have been occupied by the Pawnees long after the invasion of Quivira by the French traders and explorers, is located about a mile north of Blue Springs. Another, that is evidently of much greater antiquity, has been found a short distance south of Holmes- ville. Other village sites, both east and west of the river, bear ample evidence of the fact, that, for untold centuries, the valley of the Blue has been the abode of man.

It may have been with a people whose an- cestors were of the older, or paleolithic, period, that Coronado met in 1541, and of whom Castaneda, the chronicler of the ex- pedition, has left us so graphic a descrip- tion. It is from Castaneda's account, which historians have generally regarded as authen- tic, that we are led to believe that Coro- nado's horsemen crossed the Kansas river near the mouth of the Blue and followed the course of the latter stream northward. No other river or stream flowing into the Kansas so ac- curately meets the description given, and the fact that the principal villages and trails or routes of travel were undoubtedly along its course lends confirmatory evidence to this

HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY, NEBRASKA

conclusion. Coronado was in search of cities and towns, and the great flint deposits near the present side of Wymore had attracted to their vicinity a population whose village sites are still traceable. Thus we may safely as- sume that Castaneda's graphic description of the people met with, applied to the aboriginal inhabitants of this vicinity, hence a few quo- tations from his narrative may be in place. He says "they are very intelligent," and "able to make themselves so well understood by signs that there was no need of an interpre- ter"; he speaks of them as "a kind people and faithful friends"; he tells us that "the women are well made and modest," that "they cover the whole body and wear shoes and buskins made of tanned skins"; he tells us that when away from their villages, they travel with troops of dogs loaded with poles and having Moorish pack-saddles with girths, and that when the loads become disarranged the dogs howl, calling some one to fix them aright." Two hundred years after this account was written this region was still a part of that mystical Quivira described by Spanish writers as bounded on the east by the "Mountains of the Sun" - now known as the Missouri river bluffs. At that time the existence of the Blue river had become so well known to the French traders and explorers that when, in 1795, in- formation was being obtained for the prep- aration of an up-to-date map of North Amer- ica, showing all the latest discoveries, the Blue river was correctly located and named, at least so far as its course through Quivira was concerned, but the geographer evidently lacked information as to its further course and dis- posed of the problem by causing it to empty into the gulf of California. The Otoe name of the river was Nee-haun-chee, but the In- dians sometimes referred to it as Nee-haun- chee-toe, Big Blue river.

'This ancient map locates the "Otter Nation," probably intending it for the "Ottoe Nation"- that being an old-time way of spelling the name of the Otoe tribe. At the time the map was made the Pawnees occupied the valley of the Blue as well as that of the Republican, while the Otoes dwelt near the mouth of the Ne-

braithka (Platte) and included in their trap- ping grounds the Nemahas and bluff region of the Missouri as far south as the Great Ne- maha. Tradition informs us that prior to about 1720 the natives of this region possessed no horses, their only domestic animal being a tamed descendant of the large gray wolf. But about that time an expedition set out from Santa Fe to conquer the Otoes and take posses- sion of the region for the king of Spain, and thus head off the French, whose activities as traders and explorers had extended far up the Espiritu Santo, and Nebraithka rivers. It ap- pears that the Spanish had learned of a chronic state of warfare existing between the Osages, who lived south of the Kansas river, and the tribe they were advancing against, and decided, if possible, to engage their assistance. As the Spanish cavalcade journeyed toward the Osage domain, it met a war party of Mis- souris, and, mistaking them for Osages, in- formed them of the purpose they had in view, which was nothing less than to surprise and destroy their own kindred. The Missouris, quick to perceive the blunder the Spaniards had made, conferred together and soon in- formed the Spaniards that they really were Osages returning from a war against the Otoes and that they would willingly accom- pany them on a war-path against their enemy. Then, secretly dispatching a courier to the Otoe village to acquaint their friends as to the situation, they conducted the Spanish party thither by slow stages, giving them to under- stand that they were conducting them to the town of the Osages, where they would be en- tertained before proceeding against their com- mon enemy. It was customary with the Spaniards on all warlike expeditions to have a friar along to look after their spiritual in- terests and to act as a chronicler of their do- ings, and we are indebted to a friar's letter now in the archives of Spain for most of the particulars here given. The Otoes, posing as Osages at the village, received the visitors with a great show of hospitality. The inter- val that had elapsed between the arrival of the courier and that of the Spaniards had been employed in assembling warriors from every

HISTORY OF GAGE COUNTY, NEBRASKA

available source ; even a band of their heredi- tary enemies, the Pawnees had arrived, prob- ably from the valley of the Blue. After a night spent in feasting and dancing, the as- sembled warriors fell upon the drowsy unsus- pecting Spaniards and killed them all, except a monk. The horses and equipage of the in- vaders were secured by the Indians, and it afterward devolved upon the monk to teach them how to ride - an art in which they soon became adepts. Tradition informs us that the monk afterwards escaped on the fleetest of the animals. Thus it was that in the course of time ponies superseded dogs as beasts of burden in this region. As the pony herds multiplied they came to be regarded as syn- onymns of wealth. The war-patlı became no longer a mad adventure to secure scalps that had no economic value, for an enemy's ponies were worth more than his scalp, and it usually required as much risk and bravery to secure the one as the other. The Pawnees probably occupied the valley of the Blue until about the year 1825, when they went north to join their kindred whom the Delawares had driven from the valley of the Republican. During their occupancy of this region their principal village was situated about a mile north of the present town of Blue Springs, while their winter tepees were scattered up and down the river. The enmity between the Otoes and the Pawnees was hereditary; surprise attacks and bloody reprisals had kept alive a hatred that had been nursed from generation to gen- eration. The smoke-cured scalps of Pawnee warriors, hardened and faded with age, still adorned the Otoe medicine bags long after they had settled on their reservation.

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History of Gage County, Nebraska; a narrative of the past, with special emphasis upon the pioneer period of the county's history, its social, commercial, educational, religious, and civic development from the early days to the present time, Part 11

Author: Dobbs, Hugh Jackson, 1849- Publication date: 1918 Publisher: Lincoln, Neb., Western Publishing and Engraving Company Number of Pages: 1120

Author: Dobbs, Hugh Jackson, 1849-
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: Lincoln, Neb., Western Publishing and Engraving Company
Number of Pages: 1120