History of the city of Omaha, Nebraska, Part 7

Author: Savage, James Woodruff, 1826-1890; Bell, John T. (John Thomas), b. 1842, joint author; Butterfield, Consul Willshire, 1824-1899
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: New York, Chicago, Munsell & Company
Number of Pages: 1020

USA > Nebraska > Douglas County > Omaha > History of the city of Omaha, Nebraska > Part 7

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Just before his death, in the fall of 1834, Samuel Allis and Rev. John Dunbar, under the direction of the Presbyterian Board of

Missions, arrived at the agency at Bellevue, in company with Major John Dougherty, Indian agent to the Otoes, Omahas and Pawnees. Major Dougherty paid to the Indians their annuities at this point, and Messrs. Allis and Dunbar opened a school among the Pawnees at a place known as Council Point, some distance up the Platte River. The hostility of the Sioux, however, caused the abandonment of this pious enter- prise, and Mr. Allis returned to Bellevue, where he taught the children of the Pawnees at the agency.

In 1835 the American Board of Commis- sioners for Foreign Missions appointed an exploring mission, to ascertain by personal observation the condition of the country west of the Mississippi, the character of the Indian nations and tribes, and the facilities for introducing the gospel and civilization among them. The Rev. Samuel Parker undertook this difficult task, and starting from New York on the 14th of March, 1835, was joined at St. Louis by Dr. Marcus Whit- man, who had been appointed by the Board as Mr. Parker's associate. They went by land, passing along the left bank of the Missouri, drew near to Council Bluffs, that is, Bellevue, on the 30th of April, and were amazed at the immense number of mounds which they were inclined to believe were not artificial.

An interesting account of this trip, which extended through Oregon, the Columbia River and the Pacific to the Sandwich Islands, was written and published by Mr. Parker in the year 1838. A few sentences follow: " We crossed the Maragine River, which, though very deep, was not so wide but that we constructed a bridge over it. Proceeding many miles through the rich bottom lands of the Missouri, we crossed this noble river over against Bellevue in a large canoe, and swam our horses and mules across; this, on account of the width of the river and the strength of the current, required much effort. I went to the agency

ESTABLISHMENT OF MISSIONS. 1295371

house, where I was happy to find Brethren Dunbar and Ellis, missionaries to the Paw- nees, under the direction of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mis- sions. There is a Baptist Mission here, com- posed of Rev. Moses Merrill and wife, Miss Brown, and a Christian Indian woman, a descendant of Rev. D. Brainard's Indians. They are appointed by the Baptist Board to labor among the Otoe Indians, about twenty- five miles from this place, on the River Platte. These Indians are away from their intended residence about half the time on hunting excursions. A little more than a half mile below the agency the American Fur Com- pany have a fort, and in connection they have a farming establishment and large numbers of cattle and horses, and a horse- power mill for grinding corn.

" We continued in this place three weeks, waiting the movements of the caravan, wlio made slow progress in preparing their pack- ages for the mountains. During our deten- tion here I frequently walked over the hills bordering upon the west of the valley of of the Missouri, to enjoy the pure air of the rolling prairies and to view the magnificent prospects unfolded in the vale below. From the summit of those prominences the valley of the Missouri may be traced until lost in its far winding course among the bluffs. Three miles below is seen the Papillion, a considerable stream from the northwest, winding its way round to the east, and uniting with the Missouri, six miles above the confluence of the Platte, coming from the west. These flow through a rich allu- vial plain, opening to the south and south- west as far as the eye can reach. Upon these meadows are seen feeding some few hundred of horses and mules, and a herd of cattle; and some fields of corn diver- sified the scenery. The north is covered with woods, which are not less valuable than the rich vales. But few places can present a prospect more inviting, and when a civilized

population shall add the fruits of their in- dustry, but few can be more desirable."

Mr. Parker's stay in Bellevne was much longer than he had anticipated, from the fact that two weeks after their arrival a disease, which Dr. Whitman called spas- modic cholera, broke out with a great degree of malignity. This disease was aggravated by the extreme warmth of the weather, by daily showers and by the intemperate habits of the men and their mode of living. Three of the company died, and it was only through the assidnousness of Dr. Whitman, and the use of powerful medicines and heroic treatment that the mortality was not much greater.

After the long delay caused by this epi- demic, the travelers with the trading party to which they were attached, recommenced their journey to the Pacific Coast on the 21st day of June, 1835. Mr. Parker noted in his diary that their route was over a rich and extensive prairie, but so poorly watered that not a single stream was encountered during the whole day, and that they encamped before night on a high prairie where they could find but little wood and it was difficult to make a fire. If these statements are literally trne, and there would be, certainly, no possible motive for misrep- resentation, the course of these travelers, who were bound for the Black Ilills as their first objective point, would have been north- westwardly from Bellevue; a direction which would have taken them very near to, if not within the present boundary lines of the City of Omaha. In no other direction conld they have traveled more than an hour or two, without finding both wood and water in abundant profusion. The fact also, that towards noon of the 24th, having been detained some forty-eight hours by a heavy, cold rain, with thunder, lightning and hail, they crossed the Papillion, would seem to point to the same conclusion.

All the tourists who traveled over the

HISTORY OF THE CITY OF OMAHA.

country about Omaha before its settlement, have noticed with a pleased surprise the salubrity of its climate and the fertility of its soil. Mr. Parker was similarly impressed with these characteristics. "No country," says he, "could be more inviting to the farmer, with only one exception, the want of woodland. The latitude is sufficiently high to be healthy; and as the climate grows warmer as we travel west, until we approach the snow-topped mountains, there is a degree of mildness not experienced east of the Allegheny Mountains. The time will come, and probably is not far distant, when this country will be covered with a dense popu- lation. The earth was created for the habitation of man, and for a theater on which God will manifest his moral govern- ment among his moral creatures, and there- fore the earth, according to divine prediction, shall be given to the people of God. Although infidels may sneer and scoffers mock, yet God will accomplish his designs and fulfill every promise contained in his Word. Then this amazing extent of most fertile land will not continue to be the wandering ground of a few thousand Indians, with only a very few acres under cultiva- tion; nor will millions of tons of grass grow up to rot upon the ground or to be burned up with the fire enkindled to sweep over the prairie, to disencumber it of its sponta- neous burden. The herds of buffalo which once fattened upon these meadows are gone; and the deer which once cropped the grass have disappeared; and the antelope have fled away; and shall solitude reign here to the end of time? No, here shall be heard the din of business, and the church going bell shall sound far and wide. The question is, by whom shall this region of country be inhabited. It is plain that the Indians, under their present circumstances, will never multiply and fill this land. They must be brought under the influence of civilization and Christianity, or they will continue to melt away, until nothing will remain of

them but the relics found in museums, and some historical records. Philanthropy and the mercy of God plead in their behalf."

It is curious to notice in the references of all western travelers of that day, how inva- riably, as they approach the region of Omaha, they devote a few sentences or pages to the natural beanties of the situation, the fertility of its soil, the charms of its climate, and the certainty of its being in some far distant future the home of a vast popula- tion. Generally, they express themselves as confidently, if not as beautifully as our own poet Bryant, who heard the murmurings of the bee upon the prairies:

"I listen long

To his domestic hum, and think I hear The sound of that advancing multitude

Which soon shall fill these deserts. From the ground

Comes up the laugh of children, the soft voice Of maidens, and the sweet and solemn hynm Of Sabbath worshippers. The low of herds Blends with the rustling of the heavy grain Over the dark brown furrows. All at once A fresher wind sweeps by, and breaks my dream, And I am in the wilderness alone."

By 1837, the date of the publication of Mr. Parker's journal, the visitors to tlie territory now called Nebraska, and the voyages up the Missouri, had become so numerous and frequent that their tales of the border had ceased to excite especial interest.

The Rocky Mountain Fur Company and the Missouri Fur Company had for many years been familiar, through their boatmen and hunters and trappers, with the entire country west of the Missouri, and it is doubtless to these men, that we owe a num- ber of French names still largely scattered over the State, despite the efforts of prosaic materialists to change and obliterate these euphonious appellations. The names of William II. Ashley, Dr. Pilcher, William ('Fallon and others were for years famous in this vicinity as distinguished travelers and traders.

GENERAL FREEMONT AT BELLEVUE.

Colonel Henry Dodge, an enterprising officer in the service of the United States, explored the Platte River to its source in 1835, and doubtless came near the town site of Omaha, but probably did not actually set foot upon the ground. General, then Lieutenant Fremont, in one of his expedi- tions, visited Bellevue, and made the acquaintance of .Peter A. Sarpy, then the head of the trading house at that place, and speaks with enthusiasm of the beauty and scenery, and the hospitality of that dis- tinguished frontiersman. At this point, the oldest settlement of white civilians in Nebraska, a trading post had been estab- lished as long ago as 1805. At its head was Manuel Lisa, a Spanish gentleman of considerable wealth, unbounded energy, and more taste than usually falls to the lot of the fur trader. Touched with the beauty of the surrounding landscape, and especially with the view from the commanding emi- nence on which now stands the buildings of the institution known as Bellevue Col- lege, he, as it is said, gave the place the name by which it has ever since that day been known. Lisa was a man of a bold and daring character, with a spirit of enter- prise and audacity, which caused him to be likened by his admirers to his countrymen, Cortez and Pizarro. We have already had some account of him in the description by Mr. Brackenridge of his travels. No one was better acquainted than he with the peculiarities of the Indian character, no one better fitted to secure their trade and overcome their prejudices. IIe had quick apprehension, a frame capable of sustaining every hardship, indomitable perseverance, and indefatigable industry. In addition to these qualities he displayed a kindness and hospitality which made him many friends; though for some reason, not now known, many of the members of the Missouri Fnr Company lacked that confidence in him

which his merits would seem to demand. It is doubtful how long Lisa remained in Bellevue. Certain it is that in 1811, six years after the establishment of his post, we find him in command of an expedition up the Missouri River from St. Louis, under- taken by the Missouri Fur Company for the purpose of retrieving the losses which that unfortunate association had, from one cause or another sustained. The fact, also, that in 1810 the American Fur Company established a trading post at Bellevue. would seem to indicate that the former trading depot had been abandoned.

Up to this period there had been no actual settlement on the present site of the City of Omaha. But in 1825, the year after Colonel Sarpy had succeeded Cabanne in the management of the trading post at Bellevue, there was erected a stockade and trading post at a point on or near the present block formed by Dodge Street, Capitol Avenue, Ninth and Tenth Streets. Up to within a few years past the remains of this defensive work were plainly visible. It was the post of one J. B. Royce, or Roye (for even his name has vanished into oblivion), who for some three years main- tained his trade with the Indians at this spot, when for some unknown cause he left. Hardly anything more than this bare fact is known of him. Father De Smet, who calls him T. B. Roye, speaks of him as a noted trader in his day, and says that he was probably "the first white man who built the first cabin on the beautiful plateau where now stands the flourishing City of Omaha."

From this time until 1854, the site of the city was uninhabited and unvisited save by wandering Indians, emigrants to the far West, Mormons fleeing from persecution, and occasionally, curious and covetous claim- seekers from the State of Iowa.

CHAPTER VI.

OUR INDIAN PREDECESSORS - CATLIN'S VISIT TO THE MISSOURI VALLEY-THE FAMOUS OMANIA CHIEF, BLACKBIRD -AN INDIAN TRADGEY-BURIAL OF BLACKBIRD.

At the time of the first formal exploration of the region about Omaha, the principal tribes or nations of Indians inhabiting the territory, now Nebraska, in the region near Omaha, were four, namely, the Otoes, the Omahas, the Poucas and the Pawnees. The first three of these belonged to the great Dakota family, which embraces also the Sioux, the Osages, the Iowas, the Kansas, the Missouris, the Minatarees and Crows. This family once occupied the larger portion of the country bounded on the cast by the great lakes, on the north by the British Possessions, on the west by the Rocky Moun- tains and on the south by the Platte River. According to their traditions they came eastward from the Pacific Ocean, meeting with little difficulty in their immigration, until they reached the vicinity of the head- waters of the Mississippi, where the Algou- kins succeeded in checking the movement eastward of the main body. One of the tribes, however, the Winnebagos, or men from the fetid water, that is, the sea, suc- ceeded in pushing through the barrier, and reached the shores of Lake Michigan.

Of the early history of the Pawnees but little is definitely known, although they were among the earliest tribes west of the Mississippi. It has heretofore been sug- gested that they may have been some offshoot of the Aztec nation, which sepa- rated from the main body as it passed to the southward. Be that as it may, they are noted on the map of Father Marquette, in 1773, as divided into various bands. They are undoubtedly the Panimahas of later

explorers. In 1803 their principal villages were on the south side of the Platte. Three years later, Pike estimated the population of three of their villages at 6233, with nearly two thousand warriors, engaged in fierce combat with neighboring tribes. In the year 1820, three of the four bands into which they had been for a long time divided, resided on the banks of the Platte and its tributaries, with a reservation on Loup Fork, now Nance County. At that time their numbers were supposed to be about ten thousand souls, living in earth covered lodges, and much devoted to the cultivation of the soil, but engaging every season in a grand buffalo hunt. The Delawares in 1823 burned the great Pawnee village on the Republican, and these Pawnees, becoming much reduced in numbers by small-pox, soon after sold all their lands south of the Platte and removed to the reservation on Loup Fork. The means were provided and many exertions made to enable them to live here in prosperity; but their inveterate foes, the Sioux, harrassed thein continually, repeat- edly drove them from their reservation and despoiled their villages. This warfare and disease soon reduced them to half their former number. In 1861 they raised a company of scouts for service against the Sioux, and a much larger force under the volunteer organization, incurring in conse- quence the increased hostility of their enemies, who annoyed them so continually that in 1874, the chiefs in general council, yielded to the suggestions of United States agents, and consented to the removal of the

CATLIN'S VISIT TO THE MISSOURI VALLEY.

tribe to a new reservation in the Indian Ter- ritory, lying between the forks of the Arkansas and the Cimarron, east of the 97th P. M. All who have sojourned long enough among the Pawnees to become familiar with their oral records, have noticed their tradi- tion of a once great city on what was, from 1859 to 1876, their reservation on the Loup. Loath to leave its site, when a Christian civilization drove them southward, they yearn in their new home for its familiar scenes, and a few remnants of the tribe yet linger unmolested, within its loved bound- aries. Their population at the present time is hardly over one thousand souls, showing a steady decrease from year to year. The deaths, it is said, largely outnumber the births. and it seems only a question of time when the tribe will become extinct.

The Poncas were a small tribe, said to have been related to the Omahas. Their home was, when they were first known, in Dixon County, in the State of Nebraska, on the right bank of the Missouri River. They are said to have lived originally on the Red River of the Northi, but being driven south- westwardly across the Missouri by the Sioux, they have seldom numbered in this State more than one thousand. Selling their lands in Dixon County in 1858, they went on a reservation near the Yanktons, in Dakota, but being too near their old foes, and unable to raise any crops, they were, in 1865, removed to the mouth of the Niobrara for a permanent home, which, however, remained permanent only some twelve years, when they were, against their will transported to the Indian Territory, where their numbers are said to be still decreasing.

Mr. Catlin visited the tribe at their home on the Missouri, in 1832. " 'They are," he says, "contained in seventy-five or eighty lodges, made of buffalo skins, in the form of tents, the frames for which are poles of fifteen or twenty feet in length, with the but ends standing on the ground and the small ends meeting at the top, forming a

cone which sheds off the rain and wind with perfect success. This small remnant of a tribe are not more than four or five hundred in number, and I should think at least two- thirds of these are women; this disparity in numbers having been produced by the con- tinual losses which their men suffer who are penetrating the buffalo country for meat, for which they are now obliged to travel a great way (as the buffalo have recently left their country), exposing their lives to the more numerous enemies about them."

Of Shoo-de-ga-chas, or the Smoke Chief of the tribe in 1832, a very philosophical and dignified man, the artist says: "The chief, who was wrapped in a buffalo robe, is a noble specimen of native dignity and philosophy. I conversed much with him, and from his dignified manners, as well as the soundness of his reasoning, I became fully convinced that he deserved to be sachem of a more numerous and prosperous tribe. He related with great coolness and frankness the pov- erty and distress of his nation; and, with the method of a philosopher, predicted the certain and rapid extinction of his tribe, which he had not the power to avert. Poor, noble chief, who was equal to and worthy a greater empire ! He sat upon the deck of the steamer overlooking the little cluster of his wigwams, mingled amongst the trees; and like Caius Marius weeping over the ruins of Carthage, shed tears as he was des- canting on the poverty of his ill-fated little community, which he told me had once been powerful and happy; that the buffalo which the Great Spirit had given them for food, and which formerly spread all over their green prairies, had all been killed or driven out by the approach of white men who wanted their skins; that their country was now entirely destitute of game, and even of roots for their food, as it was one contin- ued prairie; and that his young men, penetrating the countries of their enemies for buffalo, which they were obliged to do, were cut to pieces and destroyed in great

HISTORY OF THE CITY OF OMAHA.

numbers. That his people had foolishly become fond of fire-water (whiskey), and had given away everything in their country for it; that it had destroyed many of his warriors, and soon would destroy the rest; that his tribe was too small and his warriors too few to go to war with the tribes around them; that they were met and killed by the Sioux on the north, by the Pawnees on the west, and by the Osages and Kansas on the south; and still more alarmed from the con- stant advance of the pale faces-their enemies from the east, with whisky and small-pox, which already had destroyed four-fifths of his tribe, and soon would impoverish, and at last destroy the remainder of them."

A touching story is told by the same author of a superannuated chief left by his people to die on the prairie: "When we were about to start," he says, "on our way up the river from the village of the Poncas, we found that they were packing up all their goods and preparing to start for the prairies, further to the west, in pursuit of buffalo, to dry meat for their winter's supplies. They took down their wigwams of skins to carry with them, and all were flat to the ground and everything packing up ready for the start. My attention was directed by Major Sanford, the Indian agent, to one of the most miserable and helpless-looking objects I had ever seen in my life-a very aged and emaciated man of the tribe, who, he told me, was to be exposed.

" The tribe were going where hunger and dire necessity compelled them to go; and this pitiable object, who had once been a chief and a man of distinction in his tribe, who was now too old to travel-being reduced to mere skin and bones-was to be left to starve, or meet with such death as might fall to his lot, and his bones to be picked by the wolves. I lingered around this poor, old, forsaken patriarch for hours before we started, to indulge the tears of sympathy which were flowing for the sake of this poor,

benighted and decrepit old man, whose worn-out limbs were no longer able to sup- port him, their kind and faithful offices having long since been performed, and his body and his mind doomed to linger into the withering agony of decay and gradual solitary death. I wept, and it was a pleas- ure to weep, for the painful looks and the weary prospects of this old veteran, whose eyes were dimmed, whose venerable locks were whitened by a hundred years, whose limbs were almost naked and trembling as he sat beside a small fire which his friends had left him, with a few sticks of wood within his reach and a buffalo skin stretched upon some crotches over his head. Such was to be his only dwelling, and such the chances for his life, with only a few half- picked bones that were laid within his reach, and a dish of water, without weapon or means of any kind to replenish them, or strength to move his body from its fatal locality. In this sad plight I mournfully contemplated this miserable remnant of existence, who had unluckily outlived the fates and accidents of wars to die alone at death's leisure. His friends and his children had all left him, and were preparing in a little time to be on the march. He had told them to leave him; he was old, he said, and too feeble to march. 'My chil- dren,' said he, 'our nation is poor, and it is necessary that you should all go to the country where you can get meat; my eyes are dimmed and my strength is no more, my days are nearly all numbered, and I am a burden to my children; I cannot go, and I wish to die. Keep your heart stout and think not of me; I am no longer good for anything.' In this way they had finished the ceremony of exposing him, and taking their final leave of him. I advanced to the old man and was undoubtedly the last human being who held converse with him. I sat by the side of him, and though he could not distinctly see me, he shook me heartily by the hand and smiled, evidently

A CRUEL INDIAN CUSTOM.

aware that I was a white man, and that I sympathized with him in his inevitable misfortune. I shook hands again with him and left him, steering my course towards the steamer, which was a mile or more from me, and ready to resume her voyage up the Missouri.

" When passing by the site of the Ponca village a few months after this, on my return voyage in the fall of 1832, in my canoe, I went ashore with my men and found the poles and the buffalo skin, standing as they were left over the old man's head. The fire-brands were lying nearly as I left, them, and I found at a few vards distance the skull and others of his bones, which had been picked and cleaned by the wolves, which is probably all that any human being can ever know of his final and melancholy fate.

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History of the city of Omaha, Nebraska, Part 7

Author: Savage, James Woodruff, 1826-1890; Bell, John T. (John Thomas), b. 1842, joint author; Butterfield, Consul Willshire, 1824-1899 Publication date: 1894 Publisher: New York, Chicago, Munsell & Company Number of Pages: 1020

Author: Savage, James Woodruff, 1826-1890; Bell, John T. (John Thomas), b. 1842, joint author; Butterfield, Consul Willshire, 1824-1899
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: New York, Chicago, Munsell & Company
Number of Pages: 1020