University of Nebraska at Omaha DigitalCommons@UNO Student Work 5-1-1995 Betraying their trust: The dispossession of the Omaha Nation, 1790-1916 Judith A. Boughter University of Nebraska at Omaha Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/studentwork Recommended Citation Boughter, Judith A., "Betraying their trust: The dispossession of the Omaha Nation, 1790-1916" (1995). Student Work. 503. https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/studentwork/503 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UNO. It has been accepted for inclusion in Student Work by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UNO. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BETRAYING THEIR TRUST: THE DISPOSSESSION OF THE OMAHA NATION, 1790-1916 A Thesis Presented to the Department of History and the Faculty of the Graduate College University of Nebraska In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts University of Nebraska at Omaha by Judith A. Boughter May 1995 UMI Number: EP73141 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI Dissertation Publishing UMI EP73141 Published by ProQuest LLC (2015). Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code ProQuest’ ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 THESIS ACCEPTANCE Acceptance for the faculty of the Graduate College, University of Nebraska, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts, University of Nebraska at Omaha. Committee Name Department y / ^ f ‘5 7//Cr~Z^r ^ f X Chairman Date o? 3 , X ? 9 S ' ABSTRACT Most Americans are familiar with the Indian wars that raged on the western frontier during the nineteenth century. Images of Little Big Horn are firmly etched in the nation's collective memory and its popular culture. Wounded Knee has become a symbol for all that was wrong with United States—Sioux relations, and the Apache wars of the Southwest have been fodder for countless books and Hollywood films. Less well-known is the tragic story of the Omahas, a small Indian nation of present-day northeastern Nebraska which fell victim to geography, disease, shifting trade patterns, and white land hunger. The Omahas never clashed with the United States Army; instead, they became entangled in government "red tape" and fought a losing battle with federal bureaucrats, reformers, land speculators, and Nebraska politicians. Because their ancestral lands lay in the path of westward expansion in 1854, the government forced the Omahas onto a small reservation along the Missouri River in Nebraska's northeast comer. And because the Omaha Reservation included some of the most accessible and fertile land in the state, local white settlers and land syndicates conducted a relentless campaign to alienate Indians from their property. Most Omahas reluctantly ended their buffalo hunts and resisted adopting agriculture as their sole means of subsistence. But their peaceful nature made them prime candidates to become homesteaders, and because of the actions and words of only a few "progressive" tribal leaders, both the government and reformers overestimated the tribe's degree of acculturation. Due to this misconception, and often without their concurrence, the unfortunate Omahas became the prototype for several disastrous government programs during the assimilationist era. Omaha allotment preceded the 1887 Dawes Act by five years; whites infiltrated the Omaha Reservation by leasing Indian lands long before the Indian Department formulated a broader leasing plan for tribes throughout the nation, and the Omahas were the first tribe to begin losing their lands as the result of competency commissions. All of these "firsts" had disastrous effects on the Omaha people. But most eastern reformers and many Indian Department officials, anxious to free Native Americans from wardship and to assimilate them into the national "melting pot," ignored the tragic results of the Omaha experiments. Although forewarned by a few concerned reformers and by Indian agents in the field, the government nevertheless allotted more tribal lands and allowed more white leasing and land purchases. Unlike the Nebraska "land sharks" who preyed upon the Omahas, and Nebraska lawmakers whose primary interest was reelection, most reformers and Indian Office officials had good intentions. The Indian "problem" was a huge one with no quick or simple solution, and for decades the Department of Indian Affairs felt its way, trying to determine what was best for Native Americans, while at the same time bowing to the pressures of Manifest Destiny. Unfortunately, paternalistic reformers mistook the Omahas' desire to retain their tribal lands as a request for individual farms. The reformers' major sin was condescension; in their zeal to "help" the Nebraska tribe, they ignored Omaha traditions and made no attempt to understand the Indian concept of land tenure. By 1916, bureaucratic bungling, "special" legislation, and the misguided efforts of reformers had left many Omahas landless and facing an uncertain future. The Omahas were just one of many Indian tribes who suffered at the hands of reformers and the government in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The ultimate tragedy is found in how much the Omahas suffered, and how little government officials learned from their own mistakes. This study traces those mistakes, introduces the persons most responsible for them, and provides a better understanding of the government's overall Indian policy during this period in American history. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Illustrations .................................................................................................................... vii List of Maps .............................................................................................................................. viii Introduction ...................................................................................................................................1 1. From Rulers of the River to an Embattled Culture, 1790s-1830 ............................9 2. Making Way for Whites: Treaties and Troubles, 1830-1853 ........................................................................... 45 3. Politics and Broken Promises: The Early Reservation Years, 1854-1881 ............................................................... 84 4. A Model for Disaster: The Omaha Allotment Experiment, 1882-1887 ................................................... 138 5. A Beleaguered People: Liquor, Leasing, and Larceny, 1887-1905 ............................................................ 176 6. The Final Assault: Taxation and Land Sales on the Omaha Reservation, 1902-1916 ..................... 223 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................281 Appendix Portage des Sioux Treaty—1815 ............................................................................288 Treaty with the Mahas— 1820................................................................................289 Fort Atkinson Treaty— 1825 .................................................................................. 290 Prairie du Chien Treaty— 1830 ..............................................................................293 The Platte Purchase— 1836.................................................................................... 299 Gatewood Treaty—January 27, 1854 ....................................................................302 Preamble and Articles of the Gatewood Treaty—January 27, 1854..................311 Treaty with the Omahas—March 16, 1854...........................................................314 Treaty with the Omahas—March 6, 1865.............................................................318 v Omaha Allotment Act—August 7, 1882 ...............................................................320 The Dawes Act—February 8, 1887 ...................................................................... 323 Bibliography .............................................................................................................................327 vi ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1 The Make-Believe White Man's Village......................................................................104 Figure 2 Joseph LaFlesche ................................................ 105 Figure 3 Alice C. Fletcher.............................................................................................................141 $ vii MAPS Map 1 Migrations of the Omahas and Cognate Tribes .............................................................11 Map 2 Omaha Village Sites.........................................................................................................13 Map 3 Country Known to the Omahas .......................................................................................17 Map 4 Land in the Future State of Iowa Ceded in the 1830 Prairie du Chien Treaty .......... 48 Map 5 The Platte Purchase.........................................................................................................