USA > Nebraska > Hamilton County > History of Hamilton and Clay counties, Nebraska, Vol. I > Part 8
USA > Nebraska > Clay County > History of Hamilton and Clay counties, Nebraska, Vol. I > Part 8
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The history of Nebraska naturally begins with the history of the United States, or even to take the point still finer, with the history of the Continent. Wherever each individual student of history will agree that the history of the United States begins, there might we begin the history of Nebraska. But it is unnecessary to con- sume pages of the earlier history of our Nation. But there are a few events preceding the actual formation of Nebraska into a territory, or even preceding the first en- croachment of the white man upon the native possessor of this vast, fertile empire, The American Indian.
DISCOVERERS
When Christopher Columbus dared to adventure where others feared to go, and by his single voyage revealed to the astonished gaze of Europe the existence of undreamed lands of wonder and beauty, he welded the first link in a chain of explorations and discoveries that paved the way for the great Middle West of America, and the garden-spot we love to call Nebraska. So to traee the evolution of Nebraska, we will briefly dwell upon the more important of these events.
By striking from the enslaved and paralyzed mind of the Eastern Hemisphere, and banishing the chains of fear and ignorance, Columbus opened up to the descendants of European peoples the fertile plains of Nebraska just as much as any other part of the United States.
In 1493, the year following, the pope granted to the King and Queen of Spain "all countries inhabited by infidels." Of course, at that time the extent of the great continent discovered by Columbus was not known, but, in a vague way, the papal grant included Nebraska.
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Of course, other voyagers had traversed the Atlantic and in recent years, con- flicting claims have been made, tending to bestow the honor of discovering this hemisphere upon other explorers than Columbus, but to all of these hardy, daring pioneers belong the honor of opening to the world the great country.
1493-1500. About 1496, Henry VII of England, granted to John Cabot and his sons a patent of possession and trade to "all lands they may discover and claim in the name of the English crown." Between then and the end of that century. the Cabots explored the Atlantic Coast and made discoveries upon which England claimed practically all of the central part of North America.
1500-1539. Further northward, the French, through the discoveries of Jacques Cartier, Jaid claim to the valley of the St. Lawrence River and the region about the Great Lakes, from which they pushed their explorations westward toward the headwaters of the Mississippi River, and southward into the valley of the Ohio.
None of these expeditions yet affected the Missouri River region, but they laid the foundations for the struggle that opens American history, wherein three great nations-England, France and Spain-were contesting for this new "garden plot of the world." The people of all western Europe had been enmeshed through- out the fifteenth century in the feudal ideas handed down to them from centuries preceding. During the early sixteenth century, they began to emerge from this enveloping worship of the few, and for the first time since the modern Europe had arisen from the fragments of the Roman Empire were its governments coming into the hands of able rulers. The common people of each country were beginning to think for themselves along the currents that evolved the influences and motives that from one to three hundred years later drove their descendants across the broad Atlantie and impelled them half-way across the undeveloped Western Continent to the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri valleys.
In November, 1519, Hernando Cortez, with a strong force of Spanish soldiery, entered Mexico, captured Montezuma, the "Mexican Emperor," and after a two years' war succeeded in establishing Spanish supremacy. Cortez soon afterwards fell into disfavor with Spanish authorities, but he had planted the seeds of Spanish supremaey. This event is in a way far removed from Nebraska's direct history, but the stamp of Spain which he and his companions placed upon the western hemis- phere made itself felt in the earlier history of Nebraska and her neighbor states.
The Spaniards maintained their government over the Mexican region by military governors until in 1580, when Antonio de Mendoza was appointed viceroy, with almost unlimited powers. He was known as the "good viceroy." Under Mendoza and his successors, many Indians were converted to the Catholie faith and explora- tion and settlement were pushed northward into Texas, New Mexico and California.
1541-2. Hernando De Soto and his expedition came into the interior of the I'nited States. He had left Cuba, of which he was governor, on May 12, 1539, with about one thousand men, for the purpose of exploring the interior of Florida. Like all Spanish explorers, his chief object was to find rich mines of precious metals. Ite wandered on until he came to the Mississippi River in the spring of 1541. Ile died on his way to the Spanish settlements in Mexico, but his name has lived as the discoverer of the lower Mississippi, and upon the report made by those of his expedi- tion who returned to Florida, Spain claimed "all the land bordering on the Grande River and the Gulf of Mexico."
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HISTORY OF NEBRASKA
THE QUEST OF QUIVERA
1541. But it was from the far southland eame the first adventurers who came near enough, if not actually upon Nebraskan soil, to bring the white man's story up to this vicinity. It fell to the lot of the romantie Spaniard to shed poetie glamour over the first pages of Nebraska history. It was the far-famed expedition of Cavalier Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, which left Compostela, Mexico, on February 23, 1540, and reached "the 40th degree of latitude" according to tradition, in 1541. A wanderer, called "Stephen the Moor" who returned from a search in the Sierra Mountains and the plains of what is now western United States, with stories of the "seven cities of ('ibola" started the quest in Coronado's heart. Coronado left with 300 Spanish soldiers and 800 natives. Three accounts of his famed expedition, one by himself, one by his lieutenant, Jaramillo, and the third by a private soldier named Castaneda, all agree that they reached the seven cities of the fables, but found only seven insignificant villages. Chagrined by the failure of his prospects, Coronado, instead of returning, pushed forward. The winter of 1540-1 was spent in fierce warfare with Indian tribes, and upon those vanquished, the story of Spanish cruelty burns into American Indian history, a sad chapter against the Christian conquerors. At this juneture an Indian warrior appeared before Coronado with a strange story about "the great kingdom of Quivera" many leagues to the northeast. It was pietured as a wonderful land, "with its river seven miles wide, in which fishes large as horses were found; its immense canoes; its trees hung with golden bells, and dishes of solid gold." This remarkable tale had its effect on the Spaniards, who took the bait, and were led some 700 miles away into the wild interior. In July the expedition, which had been simmered down to thirty picked men before it left the Texan country, reached a group of tepee villages near the border line between Kansas and Nebraska. Coronado, satisfied at last that he had been duped by his guide, hanged that unfortunate to a tree on the banks of a stream which may have been the Republican or the Blue, in Nebraska. Farther to the north, he was told, was another large stream, presumably the Platte. But no records are left to show that he approached this river any nearer. But thus far, it is known, that he turned eastward, marching until he reached the banks of a "large tributary of the Mississippi," no doubt the Missouri. And there he set up a eross with the inscrip- tion : "Thus far came Francisco de Coronado, General of an Expedition."
Much discussion has ensned as to whether Coronado ever really set foot upon Nebraska soil. Judge James W. Savage, whose interesting paper upon this subject is published in the Nebraska State Historical Society Report, of 1880, argues that Coronado could not have failed to reach the Platte or at least the Republican in Nebraska. Coronado's own record that he reached the 40th latitude may have placed him north of the Kansas line or may not have. It is the consensus of opinion among students of this question that the Quivera Indians were probably the Wichitas-that the true site of "Quivera" is probably in the valley of the Kansas River in the vicinity of Fort Riley.
In any event, when Coronado turned his back to this portion of the United States, the darkness of barbarism settled down for more than another century.
1599. Don Juan de Onate Jed an expedition from New Mexico, which is reputed to have reached Quivera, in 1599. He described his arrival at the City of Quivera, "which is on the north bank of a wide and shallow river." If the conjecture that
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AHISTORY OF NEBRASKA
this is the Platte River is correct. a battle he described with the Escanzaques would have been upon Nebraska soil. But not much eredenee is placed in this romantic story, and no permanent effeet was left upon Nebraska history, to say the least.
1662. This was the year of the mythical expedition of Don de Penalosa, called the "Duke of Penelosa." He is reputed to have come upon a war party of the Escanzaques, in that summer, "near a wide and rapid river." These Indians were reputed to live near the 40th latitude, and his story of a village, situated in the vicinity of the Platte River, with thousands of houses, eireular in shape, some two to even four stories in height. is not credited seriously in Nebraska history.
FRENCH EXPLORATIONS
Spain had made no direct effort to civilize the vast region she already laid claim to by right of discovery. But France and England, in the meantime, were becoming rivals for the affections and possession of these new fields of conquest. England was establishing herself along the Atlantic Coast and her adventurous progress did not touch this central western region yet. But France was gaining a foothold on Quebee and pushing her hold up the St. Lawrence River.
The first men to enter upon a systematic exploration of the vast region of which Nebraska is a part were the Jesuits, or members of the Society of Jesus, a famous religious society founded by Ignatius Loyola, a Spanish knight of the sixteenth century.
1611. As early as 1611, the Jesuit missionaries from the French settlement in Canada were among the Indians who inhabited the shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior. Like the Cortez Spanish explorations, this was too far away to affeet Nebraska directly, but was paving the way for the oncoming attention.
1665. Claude Allouez, one of the most zealous of these Jesuit fathers, visited the Indians in the vicinity of Ashland Bay. on Lake Superior, and held a conference with a number of tribes. In 1668, Allouez and another missionary, Father Claude Dablon, founded the mission of St. Mary's, the oldest white settlement within the present state of Michigan. The next step forward was a council at St. Mary's in 1671. led by Nicholas Perrot. In that same year, Father Jacques Marquette, another Jesuit missionary, founded the mission at Point St. Ignace, for the benefit of the Huron Indians, a point regarded for years as the key to the then unexplored West.
On May 17, 1623. Marquette, with Louis Joliet, a young fur trader, set out on a perilous undertaking. After a month of steady pushing forward, paddling in canoes along the swift currents of unknown streams, and threading their way through dense forests, on June 12th they reached the mouth of the Wisconsin, near the present site of Dubuque, lowa. They drifted on down the Mississippi, past the mouth of the Missouri, and on down to the mouth of the Ohio. They brought the em- blazoned trail of travel a little closer to the unlocked bosoms of the Nebraska prairies.
1682. But it remained for another intrepid Frenchman to complete the work left unfinished by Marquette and JJoliet, and take formal possession of Louisiana in the name of the King of France.
The history of Nebraska is most generally and properly reputed to really begin with the voyage of this heroic La Salle in 1682. Before that, this sequence of events has read more like a romance ; from then on. it begins to elothe itself in the practical garments of reality and avowed purposes. Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La
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Salle, commissioned to continue the explorations of Marquette and Joliet, "find a port for the King's ships in the Gulf of Mexico, discover the western parts of New France, and find a way to penetrate Mexico," discharged at least a major portion of his assignment. Suffice it to say that on April 8, 1682, La Salle and his lieutenant, Henri Tonti, passed through two of the channels at the mouth of the Mississippi, leading to the Gulf of Mexico, and set up his wooden column, on which had been inscribed the following: "Louis the Great, King of France and of Navarre, King, April 9, 1682." Thus the great basin of the Mississippi eame under the scepter of Louis XIV, and standing on that delta of the river, La Salle called into existence the great territory of Louisiana, and Nebraska became a dependency of Franee. The vast territory of the northwest plains, peopled then only by savage Indian tribes, the abode of buffalo and other wild animals, received its first semblance of organized, political government.
French explorations and expansion continued for almost a century following. In April, 1689, Nicholas Perrot took formal possession of the upper Mississippi Valley, and built a fort and trading post. Antoine Crozat, under a charter given in 1712, combatted for five years with Spanish authorities to make good France's elaim to lower Louisiana. He was succeeded by the Mississippi Company, which was organized by John Law as a branch of the Bank of France. In 1720, Law's schemes of colonization failed, and are known to history as the "Mississippi Bubble." Pierre and Paul Mallet, of New Orleans, in 1738, with other Frenchmen, ascended the Mississippi and Missouri rivers and spent the winter near the mouth of the Niobrara.
The English in the meantime had not been idle. In 1620 the British Crown had ignored the Spanish papal grant and the explorations of De Soto, and issued to the Plymouth Company a charter including "all the lands between the fortieth and forty-eighth parallels of north latitude from sea to sea." As the fortieth latitude is the southern boundary of Nebraska, this grant, hy implication at least, included the present state of Nebraska. In 1868, the Massachusetts Bay Company received a charter to a strip about one hundred miles wide from "sea to sea," which if it could have been surveyed would have found the northern boundary almost coineident with Nebraska's northern boundary, and its southern boundary would have erossed the Missouri River about twenty miles above the present city of Omaha. Conflicting claims continued, until the French and Indian war materially changed the map of North America. But even after that, many people refused to submit to England's claim to territory lying outside of the boundaries of the territory she then elaimed supremaey over, and came on westward and settled within the French and Spanish territory. The capture of these British posts of the Northwest was eventually the cause of the western boundary of the United States being fixed at the Mississippi River by the Treaty of 1783, which ended the Revolutionary war and established the Independence of the United States.
NEBRASKA UNDER FRENCHI AND SPANISH RULES
The viceroys who ruled over the vast territory of New France in central America, may be said indirectly to be the first governmental administrators over this part of the continent from which Nebraska eventually sprang.
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HISTORY OF NEBRASKA
The dates of these administrations were:
Robert, Cavalier de La Salle. 1682-1688
Marquis de Sanville. 1689-1200
Bienville 1700-1212
Lamothe Cadillar 1:13-1715
De L'Epinay
1716-1717
Bienville
1218-1223
Boisbriant
1:24
Bienville
1:32-1241
Baron de Kelerec
1:53-1762
D'Abbadie 1763-1766
At this point, France was compelled by force of military necessity to yield to Spain her title to Louisiana. So for almost forty years, the administration of this region passed into Spanish hands, until in 1803, when the territory passed under the flag of the United States. The Spanish governors of that period were :
Antonio de Ulloa. 1767-1768
Alexander O'Reilly
1768-1769
Louis de Unzago. 1720-1776
Bernardo de Galvez.
1177-1784
Estevar Miro 1:85-1787
Francisco Luis Hortu, Baron of Carondelet 1789-1792
Gayoso de Lemos 1293-1798
Sebastian de Casa, Calvo y O'Farrel 1789-1799
Jean Manual de Salcedo. 1800-1803
Despite the fact that France had regained possession of Louisiana on October 1. 1800, Governor Salcedo remained until the United States took formal possession.
AMERICAN EXPLORATIONS
Immediately after American acquisition of this vast territory, men's minds began to turn to the Northwest and the great possibilities of this virtually unknown region. It was indeed a tremendous acquisition to the territory of the young republic. It. more than doubled the previous land area of the United States. In round numbers it exceeded 883,000 square miles. In addition to the State of Louisiana, out of this territory there have been carved the states of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas. Nebraska, lowa, North and South Dakota, two-thirds of Minnesota. one-third of Colorado, and three-fourths of Wyoming. When it came to the United States, its entire population did not exceed five thousand souls, nearly one-half of whom were slaves. In 1810. the first federal census showed a population of twenty thousand, of whom one-half were still negro slaves. Now it has a population. in 1920, of around fifteen million.
THE LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION
1804. When Jefferson negotiated the purchase of this vast region. it was an almost unknown land except to Indians, traders, hunters and some French priests.
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HISTORY OF NEBRASKA
Mention has already been made of some few visitors to this Nebraska region among the French missionaries and explorers. Pierre and August Chouteau, brothers engaged in the fur trade, are known to have passed beyond the forks of the Platte away back in 1762. No doubt other traders, whose visit did not reach the recorded pages of history, likewise temporarily sojourned in this Nebraska area prior to 1804. But that date marks the real beginning of opening this part of the western country up to eastern attention.
The Lewis and Clark expedition left St. Louis on the 14th of May. 1804, and spent two whole years exploring the great purchase. This party, consisting of nine young men from Kentucky, fourteen soldiers of the United States army who volunteered their services, two French watermen, an interpreter and hunter, and a black servant belonging to Captain Clark, and several other members set forth. They came in sight of the present Nebraska on the afternoon of July 11. 1804, and camped opposite the mouth of the big Nemaha.
This party recorded 556 miles of river front for Nebraska in 1804, and their journals furnish the first detailed report upon this region, and served materially in familiarizing the East with this vast region and its unlimited resources, and paved the way for commercial ventures that followed soon thereafter.
Lack of space will forbid going into detail concerning the brave work accom- plished by Lieut. William Clark and Capt. Meriwether Lewis, and their immediate successors.
1805. This year brought the first known settlement upon Nebraska soil. Manuel Lisa, a wealthy Spaniard, with a party in search of trading grounds, reached the lands north of the Platte. The beauty of the spot caused him to exclaim "Bellevue," which name was given to the spot. A trading post was established at Bellevue, and we have now reached the point of first settlements.
1806. In this year, Gen. James Wilkinson, then commander-in-chief of the United States army and also governor of the territory of Louisiana, sent forth the expedition of Lieut. Zebulon M. Pike, which resulted in the discovery of Pike's Peak, in Colorado. It has been somewhat a subject of controversy whether this party, in its travel along a route somewhat south of the Platte, really crossed north into Nebraska or stayed in northern Kansas. But it is generally thought that Lieutenant Pike in September, 1806, visited a Pawnee village in the Republican valley.
THE ASTORIAN EXPEDITION
1810. The American Fur Company, that monster monopoly under the control of John Jacob Astor, took the first real steps to exploit this northwestern country for commercial purposes. In 1810, Astor organized the Pacific Fur Corporation, a partnership including himself, Wilson Price IFumt, Robert Stuart and others for the purpose of colonization and trade at the mouth of the Columbia River. The Astorian Expedition started out in September, 1810, and founded Astoria at the head of the Columbia River in the spring of the following year.
1811. Ilunt's party of Astorians passed up the Nebraska "river coast" early in 1811.
1812. On the 28th of June, 1812, Robert Stuart started from Astoria with five of Ilunt's original party for a return overland trip. In southeastern Idaho
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HISTORY OF NEBRASKA
they were joined by four men, whom Hunt had left there the October preceding. After a journey of terrible hardships they established winter quarters on the North Platte River, not far east of the place where it issues from the mountains. Driven out of their first stopping place by hostile Indians, they came over three hundred miles eastward along the Platte River, and in December, 1812. established winter camp in what is now the Scotts Bluff country.
1813. This party came down the Platte River in spring of 1813. It is chronicled that they came down this river to "Great Island." which is probably the first official mention of the future Grand Island. At least they proceeded to a point forty-five miles from the mouth of the Platte, and there on April 16, 1813, embarked in a large canoe they secured from the Indians.
LONG'S EXPEDITION
1819. The passage of Maj. Stephen H. Long and a party of twenty men from the Missouri River up the Platte to its head waters is the next event of importance in this period of Nebraska's history. The most interesting feature of Major Long's visit to Nebraska is, perhaps, his account of the hopelessness of central Nebraska for future development.
In regard to the Platte Valley, he recorded :
"In regard to this extensive section of country, I do not hesitate in giving the opinion that it is almost wholly unfit for cultivation and of course uninhabitable by a people depending upon agriculture for their subsistence."
In his final estimate. Major Long summed up his ideas of the utility of this cen- tral Nebraska territory, as follows :-
"Although traets of fertile land considerably extensive are occasionally to be met with, yet the scarcity of wood and water, almost uniformly prevalent, will prove an insurmountable obstacle in the way of settling the country. This objection rests not only against the section immediately under consideration, but applies with equal propriety to a much larger portion of the country.
"This region, however, viewed as a frontier, may prove of infinite importance to the United States, inasmuch as it is calculated to serve as a barrier to prevent too great an extension of our population westward, and secure us against the machina- tions or ineursions of an enemy that might otherwise be disposed to annoy us in that part of our frontier."
In a somewhat similar view, another narrator of the same expedition, Doctor James, paid about as correct a tribute to Nebraska :
"We have little apprehension of giving too unfavorable an account of this portion of the country. Though the soil is in some places fertile, the want of timber, of navigable streams, and of water for the necessities of life. render it an unfit residence for any but a nomad population. The traveler who shall at any time have traversed its desolate sands will, we think, join us in the wish that this region may forever remain the unmolested haunt of the native hunter, the bison, and the jackal."
If Major Long and Doctor James could only see Nebraska in 1919-1920, don't you suppose, dear reader, they would at least request the privilege of "another guess" ?
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HISTORY OF NEBRASKA
TRAIL BLAZERS
1820-1850. In the thirty years following Major Long's trip through Nebraska, the tide of exploration kept on the rise. Space does not permit of going into detail into these various expeditions, but there are a few of these courageous prospects whose memory deserves the tribute of at least a passing mention.
Thomas Nutall and John Bradbury spent a part of 1808 in the Nebraska terri- tory botanizing.
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