USA > Nebraska > Douglas County > Omaha > Omaha: the Gate city, and Douglas County, Nebraska, a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 3
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During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, their territory in the Platte Valley being remote from the French and Spanish settlements and trading posts, the Pawnee escaped the influences that proved so fatal to other tribes. At the beginning of the nineteenth century their domain lay between the Niobrara River on the north and the Prairie Dog Creek on the south, extending from the country of the Omaha on the east to that of the Cheyenne and Arapaho on the west. After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, they came in close touch with the trading posts of the fur companies, and even the trading center at St. Louis.
The religious ceremonies of the Pawnee dealt with the wind, the thunder, other cosmic forces and the heavenly bodies. Their dominating deity was "Ti- rawa," whom they addressed as "father." A. C. Fletcher, of the United States Bureau of Ethnology, says: "Through the sacred and symbolic articles of the shrines and their rituals and ceremonies, a medium of communication was be- lieved to be opened up between the people and the supernatural powers, by which food, long life and prosperity were obtained. The mythology of the Pawnee is remarkably rich in symbolism and poetic fancy, and their religious system is elaborate and cogent. The secret societies, of which there were several in each
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tribe, were connected with the belief in supernatural animals. The functions of these societies were to call the game, heal diseases, and to give occult powers. Their rites were elaborate and their ceremonies dramatic."
The first treaty between the United States and the Pawnee Indians was concluded in June, 1818, and was merely one of peace and friendship. On October 9, 1833, at the Grand Pawnee Village, was negotiated a treaty, by which the tribe ceded to the United States all their lands south of the Platte River. By the Treaty of Fort Childs, August 6, 1848, the tribe sold to the United States a strip sixty miles wide on the north side of the Platte, in the vicinity of Grand Island. A grand council was held with the Pawnee at Table Creek, Nebraska, September 24, 1857, which resulted in a treaty by which the tribe ceded to the United States all their lands in Nebraska, except a reservation fifteen by thirty miles in extent on the Loup River. They continued to occupy this reservation until 1876, when it was sold to the Government and the tribe removed to Oklahoma, then part of the Indian Territory.
Early in the seventeenth century Iberville estimated the number of Pawnee Indians at 500 families. At the time of the treaty of October 9, 1833, the United States commissioners reported that the tribe numbered 10,000 people. Fire water and new diseases that came with their introduction to the white man's civilization gradually decimated their ranks until in 1912 there were only about five hundred full blooded Pawnee drawing their annuities from the Government.
THIE PONC.I
The Ponca was one of the five tribes constituting the so-called Dhegiha group of the Sionan family, the other four being the Kansa, Osage, Omaha and Quapaw. They spoke practically the same language as the Omaha and the two tribes were probably originally one people. A Ponca tradition says their home was at first on the Red River of the North, from which they were driven by stronger tribes and they became associated with the Omaha, whose migrations they followed through Iowa and Minnesota until the Missouri River was reached. There the two tribes separated, the Ponca taking up their abode in the vicinity of the Black Hills. Many years later they again joined their former allies and settled near the mouth of the Niobrara River. Here another separation occurred, the Omaha leaving the Ponca in possession of the country at the mouth of the Niobrara and migrating to Bow Creek.
According to Morgan the tribe was divided into eight clans or gentes as follows: Wa-sa-be (Black Bear), Dea-ghe-ta (Many People), Nak-o-poz-na (Elk), Moh-kuh (Skunk), Wa-sha-ba (Buffalo), Waz-haz-ha (Snake), Noh-ga ( Medicine), Wah-ga (Jerked Meat).
The first white men who came to the Missouri Valley found the Ponca living in what is now Dixon County, Nebraska. Catlin visited them there in 1832 and found their village to consist of "seventy-five or eighty lodges made of buffalo skins in the form of tents." He estimated their total strength at "four or five hundred." At that time the chief of the tribe was Shoo-de-ga-chas, or Big Smoke. Concerning him Catlin says: "He is a noble specimen of native dignity and philosophy. I conversed much with him, and from his dignified manners.
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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."
The Ponca were never a strong tribe numerically. In 1841 Dorsey says they numbered but 750, and it is probable that they never afterward exceeded that number. In 1858 they sold their lands at the mouth of the Niobrara to the Gov- ernment and went on a reservation near the Yankton band of Sioux Indians in what is now South Dakota. They could not live amicably with their Sioux neighbors and in 1865 the Government gave them a new reservation at the 'mouth of the Niobrara. Here they lived for about twelve years, when they gave up their reservation and were removed to the Indian Territory. In his report for 1878 the commissioner of Indian affairs says: "The Ponca are good Indians and in mental endowment, moral character, physical strength and cleanliness superior to any I have met."
THE PONCA LAWSUIT
In connection with the Ponca Indians occurred one of the most interesting cases in the legal annals of Nebraska. After their removal to the Indian Ter- ritory in 1877 they suffered hardships and endured privations that decided some of them to return to their old reservation at the mouth of the Niobrara River. Accordingly, in the early part of the winter of 1878-79, a party of twenty-nine men, women and children, under the leadership of Chief Standing Bear, started for their old home. Upon reaching the Omaha reservation they were warmly welcomed and given food and shelter, as well as land to cultivate upon the arrival of spring. This was considered a violation of the Government policy that all Indians must remain upon their own reservation, and orders were sent from Washington to Brig .- Gen. George Crook, then in command at Fort Omaha, to return the Ponca party to the Indian Territory. On March 23, 1879, a detachment of troops commanded by Lieutenant Carpenter went to the Omaha reservation, arrested Standing Bear and his followers and took them to Fort Omaha, intending to return them to the Indian Territory.
T. H. Tibbles, then on the editorial staff of the Omaha Herald, went out to the fort, where he interviewed Standing Bear and others of the party, and then published a full account of the affair in the Herald. The story awakened the sympathies of several of the leading ministers of Omaha, notably Rev. W. J. Harsha, of the Presbyterian Church; Rev. A. F. Sherill, pastor of the Congre- gational Church ; Rev. E. H. E. Jameson, of the Baptist Church, and Rev. H. D. Fisher, the Methodist Episcopal pastor. These gentlemen joined with Mr. Tib- bles in espousing the cause of the Indians. A. J. Poppleton and J. L. Webster, two of the leading lawyers of Omaha, volunteered their services and the follow- ing petition for a writ of habeas corpus was filed in the United States District Court :
"In the District Court of the United States
"For the District of Nebraska :
"Ma-chu-nah-sha (Standing Bear) vs. George Crook, a brigadier-general of the United States and commanding the Department of the Platte.
"The petition of Ma-chu-nah-sha ( then follow the names of the twenty-nine Indians under arrest), who respectfully show unto your Honor that each and
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all of them are prisoners, unlawfully imprisoned, detained, confined and in custody, and are restrained of their liberty, under and by color of the alleged authority of the United States, by George Crook, a brigadier-general of the United States and commanding the Department of the Platte, and are so imprisoned, detained, confined and in custody, and restrained of their liberty, by said George Crook, at Fort Omaha, on a military reservation under the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, and located within the territory of the District of Nebraska.
"That said imprisonment, detention, confinement and restraint by said George Crook, as aforesaid, are and were done by him, under and by virtue of some order or direction of the United States, or some department thereof, and which order or direction is not more particularly known to these complainants, whereby they are unable more particularly to set the same forth, save that the com- plainants are informed and believe that said order or direction is to the effect that these complainants be taken to the Indian Territory as prisoners.
"These complainants further represent that they are Indians of the nation- ality of the Ponca tribe of Indians, and that for a considerable time before and at the time of their arrest and imprisonment, as herein more fully set forth, they were separted from the Ponca tribe of Indians, and that so many of the said Ponca tribe of Indians as maintain their tribal relations are located in the Indian Territory.
"That your complainants at the time of their arrest and imprisonment were lawfully and peacefully residing on the Omaha Reservation, a tract of land set apart by the United States to the Omaha tribe of Indians, and within the terri- tory of the District of Nebraska, and were so residing there by the wish and consent of the said Omaha tribe of Indians, on lands set apart to your com- plainants by said Omaha tribe of Indians.
"That your complainants have made great advancement in civilization, and at the time of the arrest of your complainants some of them were actually engaged in agriculture, and others were making arrangements for immediate agricultural labors, and were supporting themselves by their own labors, and not one of these complainants was receiving or asking support of the Government of the United States.
"That your complainants were not violating, and were not guilty of any violation of any law of the United States for which said arrest and imprison- ment were made.
"That, while your complainants were so peacefully and lawfully residing on said Omaha Reservation, as aforesaid, they were each and all unlawfully impris- oned, detained, confined and restrained of their liberty, by said George Crook, as such brigadier-general, commanding the Department of the Platte, and as such prisoners were transported from their said residence at the Omaha Reserva- tion to Fort Omaha, where they are now unlawfully imprisoned, detained, con- fined and restrained of their liberty, by said George Crook, as aforesaid.
"Wherefore, these complainants say that their imprisonment and detention are wholly illegal, and they demand that the writ of habeas corpus be granted, directed to the said George Crook, brigadier-general of the United States, com- manding the Department of the Platte, commanding him to have the bodies of (here follow the names of the chief and twenty-nine complainants), before
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your Honor, at the time and place therein to be specified, to do and receive what shall then and there be considered by your Honor concerning them, together with the time and cause of their detention, and that the complainants may there be restored to their liberty."
Judge E. S. Dundy, of the United States District Court, granted the petition and summoned General Crook to appear and show cause why the Indians should not be released from custody. The cause came on for hearing on April 30, 1879, Poppleton and Webster appearing for the Indians and United States District Attorney G. M. Lambertson representing General Crook. Two days were spent in hearing evidence and the argument of the attorneys, when Judge Dundy handed down his decision, the principal points of which were as follows:
1-The Indian is a person within the meaning of the law, and therefore has the right to sue out a writ of habeas corpus.
2-That General Crook had custody of the relators under color of authority of the United States and in violation of the laws thereof.
3-That no lawful authority existed for the removal by force of any of the relators to the Indian Territory.
4-That Indians possess the inherent right of expatriation.
5-The relators must be discharged from custody, and it was so ordered by the court.
The case was watched with considerable interest by attorneys all over the country, because, no matter which way the court decided. it would establish a precedent in the nation's legal history. The court's decision, releasing Standing Bear and his band from custody, went into effect on Monday, May 19, 1879, and the Poncas returned to the Omaha Reservation. On Sunday before his departure, Standing Bear, accompanied by his interpreter, went to the city to say good-bye to his lawyers. He first went to the residence of Mr. Webster, whom he addressed as follows :
"You and I are here. Our skins are of a different color, but God made us both. A little while ago, when I was young, I was wild. I knew nothing of the ways of the white people. I see you have nice houses here. I look at these beau- tiful rooms. I would like to have a house too, and it may be after a while I can get one, but not so nice a house as this. That is what I want to do.
"For a great many years-a hundred years or more-the white men have been driving us out. They are shrewd, sharp and know how to cheat; but since I have been here I have found them different. They have all treated me kindly. I am very thankful for it. Hitherto, when we have been wronged, we went to war to assert our rights and avenge our wrongs. We took the tomahawk. We had no law to punish those who did wrong ; so we took our tomahawks and went to kill. If they had guns and could kill us first, it was the fate of war.
"But you have found a better way. You have gone into court for us, and I find our wrongs can be righted there. Now I have no more use for the toma- hawk. I want to lay it down forever."
Here, suiting his action to his words, he stooped down and laid his tomahawk at his feet. Then, drawing himself up to his full height, he folded his arms across his chest in all his native dignity and repeated :
"I lay it down ; I have no more use for it; I have found a better way."
He then picked up the tomahawk, placed it in Mr. Webster's hands, and
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concluded his speech as follows : "I present it to you as a token of my gratitude. I want you to keep it in remembrance of this great victory which you have gained. I have no further use for it. I can now seek the ways of peace."
After a brief but appropriate response by Mr. Webster, the old chief went to Mr. Poppleton's rooms. To Mr. Poppleton he said: "I believe I told you in the court room that God made me and that I was a man. For many years we have been chased about as a dog chases a wild beast. God sent you to help me. I thank you for what you have done. I want to get my land back. That is what I long for all the time. I wish to live there and be buried with my fathers.
"When you were speaking in the, court room, of course I could not under- stand, but I could see that you were trying very hard to release me and my people. I think you are doing for me and my people something that never has been done before. If I had to pay you for it, I could never get enough to do it. I have here a relic which has come down to my people through a great many generations. I do not know how old it is; it may be two or three hundred years old. I desire to present it to you for what you have done for me."
The relic presented to Mr. Poppleton was a sort of head dress, resembling in some respects a wig and in others a war bonnet. It was worn by the head chief in the tribal council when weighty matters were under consideration. Relic collectors had repeatedly tried to buy it from Standing Bear, but in vain. He then presented it to Mr. Poppleton as a token of his gratitude in regaining his liberty.
But perhaps the most touching incident in connection with this whole affair was the old chief's parting with Mr. Tibbles. The day before the Indians left the fort to return to the Omaha Reservation, the editor went out to bid Standing Bear good-bye. After a brief conversation, the chief announced that he had something to say that he did not want others to hear. Mr. Tibbles, Standing Bear and the interpreter therefore walked to the top of a little hill where the chief said :
"When I was brought here a prisoner my heart was broken. I was in despair. I had no friend in all the big world. Then you came. I told you the story of my wrongs. From that time until now you have not ceased to work for me. Sometimes, in the long days while I have been here a prisoner. I have come out here and stood on this hill and looked toward the city. I thought there is one man there who is writing or speaking for me and my people. I remember the dark day when you first came to speak to me. I know if it had not been for what you have done for me I would now be a prisoner in the Indian Territory, and many of these who are with me would be in their graves. It is only the kind treatment they have received from the soldiers, and the medicine the army doctor has given them, which has saved their lives. I owe all this to you. I can never repay you for it.
"I have traveled around a good deal, and have noticed that there are many changes in this world. You have a good house to live in. A little while ago I had a house and land and stock. Now I have nothing. It may be that some time you may have trouble. You might lose your house. If you ever want a home come to me or my tribe. You shall never want as long as we have any- thing. All the tribe in the Indian Territory will soon know what you have done. Vol. I-2
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While there is one Ponca alive you will never be without a friend. Mr. Popple- ton and Mr. Webster are my friends. You are my brother."
The trio then returned to the chief's lodge, where he presented Mr. Tibbles with a pair of beautiful buckskin leggings-all he had to give, but they expressed a heart's gratitude as fully as though the gift had been a coronet studded with costly gems.
THE OTOE
This was one of the three tribes forming the Tciwere group of the Siouan family. The other two tribes of the group were the Iowa and Missouri. One of the tribal traditions says the tribes forming the Tciwere group were separated from the Winnebago at a very early date, while occupying the country around Green Bay, Wis. The French called these Indians the Otontanes and some early writers claim that they and the Missouri originally formed one tribe. Their his- tory, however, shows them to have been most intimately associated with the Iowa. When Le Sueur made his voyage up the Mississippi in 1700 he found the Otoe living in the southern part of the present State of Minnesota, though Marquette's map of 1673 places them on the upper waters of the River Des Moines, not far from the site of the present City of Fort Dodge. At the begin- ning of the nineteenth century they lived in mud huts on the south side of the Platte River, though they claimed the country as far north as Omaha.
The Otoe never was an important tribe and their history during their various migrations is chiefly one of struggles to defend themselves against more power- ful tribes, though Lewis and Clark say they were once a powerful nation, which had been reduced in 1805 to about five hundred people. Catlin, who visited them in 1832, estimated their number at twelve hundred. On June 24, 1817, the Otoe and Missouri entered into a treaty of peace with the white men and the same tribes were included in several treaties of cession. In 1882 the two tribes were removed to the Indian Territory and placed under the same agency as the Ponca Indians. The number of the Otoe Indians at that time was about four hundred. They have been described as good natured, but lazy and shiftless.
THE OMAHA
Last, but not least in importance of the four tribes that inhabited the country about Omaha at the beginning of the nineteenth century, were the Omaha, who with the Kansa, Osage, Ponca and Quapaw constituted the Dhegiha group of the great Siouan family. Hale and Dorsey, of the United States Bureau of Ethnology, after studying the languages and traditions of the Dhegiha tribes, came to the conclusion that their earliest habitat was on the Wabash and Ohio rivers. About the year 1500 the Quapaw left the group of five tribes, went down the Ohio to the mouth of that stream and thence down the Mississippi, finding a new abode in what is now the State of Arkansas. The Osage a few years later took up their abode on the stream that bears their name, the Kansa went up the west side of the Missouri, while the Omaha and Ponca crossed over to the east side of that river and dwelt for some time in Iowa, their hunting grounds extending as far north as the present Town of Pipestone, Minn. They
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were driven back by some of the Dakota tribes to the mouth of the Niobrara River, where about 1650 the Ponca separated from the Omaha and went to the region of the Black Hills in the western part of South Dakota.
The Omaha are first mentioned by Father Marquette, who heard of them in his voyage down the Mississippi in 1673, and in his journal he speaks of them as the "Maha Indians." On the map of his expedition the location of the tribe is shown with tolerable accuracy-on Bow Creek, Neb. In 1761 Jeffreys located the Omaha on the east side of the Missouri River, beyond the Iowa tribe and immediately above the Big Sioux River. Jonathan Carver, who visited the North- west in 1766, says the Omaha and Sioux were then on friendly terms, as he found the two tribes living amicably together on the Minnesota River.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century their favorite dwelling place was near Omadi, in what is now Dakota County, Nebraska. When Lewis and Clark went up the Missouri River in 1804 they found the principal portion of the tribe on the south, or west, side of the Missouri River, opposite Sioux City. From their chiefs Lewis and Clark learned that some three or four years earlier the tribe had been living at a point farther up the river, where they were visited by smallpox, which greatly reduced their number and caused their removal. Then. as in later years, they were almost constantly at war with the Sioux. In 1845 they were living on the west side of the Missouri, a few miles above the mouth of the Platte.
According to a tribal tradition the name Omaha originated in the following manner: Two tribes met on the Missouri River and engaged in a battle. All on one side were killed except one warrior, who was thrown into the river. As his enemies stood upon the bank to watch his drowning struggles he arose sud- denly to the surface, threw one arm above his head, and exclaimed "O-ma-ha !" The word had never been heard before, but as the supposedly drowning Indian, immediately after uttering it, swam to the opposite shore and made his escape, the victorious tribe took it to mean that even in the face of the gravest difficul- ties one should not give up and adopted the strange word as the name of the tribe. After the Kansa and the Osage separated from the Dhegiha group and the Omaha and Ponca went up the Missouri, the name has been interpreted as "those who go against the current," or the "up river people."
TRIBAL ORGANIZATION
The Omaha men were divided into three classes. I. Ni-ka-ga-hi, or chiefs, who possessed all the executive, legislative and judicial powers of the tribe. 2. Wa-na-ce, the braves or warriors, who served as policemen, or as servants and messengers of the chiefs, and who had almost unlimited authority during a buffalo hunt, particularly at the time of surrounding the herd. 3. Cen-u-jin-ga. the young men who had not yet distinguished themselves in war, the chase, or the council. These might be called the "common people."
The tribe was divided into two "half-tribes" called the Han-ga-ce-nu and the Ic-ta-san-da, each of which was divided into five clans or gentes. The gentes of the Han-ga-ce-nu were: 1. We-jin-cte (elk), 2. Inke-sabe (buffalo), 3. Hanga (ancestral), 4. Ca-ta-da (meaning uncertain), 5. Kan-ze (wind people). Those of the Ic-ta-san-da were: I. Ma-cin-ka-gaxe (earth lodge
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makers), 2. Te-sin-de (buffalo people), 3. Ta-da (deer people), 4. Ing-ce-ji-de (cat no buffalo calf), 5. Ic-ta-san-da (thunder or reptile people). In their migrations the camp was always formed in a circle, each gens taking its proper place, the main entrance to the circle being guarded by the Wejincte or elk gens of the Hangacenu on the right, and the Ictasanda gens on the left, the others occupying position in the order named above. Inside the circle were the three sacred tents, the war tent near the Wejincte and those of agriculture and the buffalo hunt in front of the Hanga. The sacred tents of the Omaha and all the objects kept in them are now in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Eth- nology at Cambridge, Mass.
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