Native Americans in Nebraska
Learn more about Native Americans in Nebraska by following the thousands of years of their history covered by these markers.
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Markers 39
Genoa U.S. Indian Industrial School
The U.S. Indian Industrial School in Genoa was in operation from 1884 to 1934. Built on land that was formerly part of the Pawnee reservation, it is the only federal Indian boarding school in Nebraska…
The Ponca Villages
Present-day Ponca, Nebraska, is near the first village built by the Ponca in the early 1600s after they separated from the Omaha and became their own tribe. Like the Omaha, they lived in…
Republican Pawnee Village
Near here was a large permanent village of the Republican band of the Pawnee tribe which may have been occupied as early as 1777. On September 25, 1806, Lieutenant Zebulon M. Pike visited the village…
Indian Treaty Monument
Erected 1933 to commemorate the treaty made with the Pawnee Tribe at Rocky Ford on North Table Creek, 1000 feet east of this site, establishing permanent friendly relations with the Pawnee Indians and…
Battle of Blue Water
On September 3, 1855, the U.S. Army's 600-man Sioux Expedition, commanded by Col. William S. Harney, attacked and destroyed a Lakota village located three miles north on Blue Creek. The fight became…
Conflict of 1867
Near here are graves of pioneer whites caught up in the conflict between native Americans and white settlers. On July 24, 1867, Indians attacked the home of Peter Campbell near here. Campbell and his…
The Pebble Creek Fight
In 1872-73 white settlers were moving into the North Loup Valley. Their presence sparked occasional conflicts with Lakota Sioux wandering down from the north to hunt or raid the Pawnee Reservation…
Winnebago Scouts
In 1863, the Winnebago Indians were moved from their home in Minnesota to a barren reservation in Dakota Territory. Groups of Winnebago soon moved down the Missouri River to the Omaha Reservation in…
Susan LaFlesche Picotte Memorial Hospital
This hospital is named in honor of the first Native American woman physician. Dr. Picotte (1865-1915) was the daughter of Mary Gale and Iron Eye, also known as Joseph La Flesche, the last…
Susan LaFlesche Picotte Memorial Hospital
This hospital was built in 1912 under the guidance of Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte, the first Native American woman physician, with the financial support of the Presbyterian Board of Home Missions and…
Omaha Tribe
This was the homeland of the Omaha Tribe long before white settlers came to the Great Plains. By 1750, the Omaha occupied a large region in northeastern Nebraska and northwestern Iowa. The name…
Standing Bear and the Ponca Tribe
In 1877 the Ponca Tribe and Chief Standing Bear were forced from their Nebraska homeland along the Niobrara River to an Oklahoma reservation. Hardships followed them during the more than 500-mile…
Pawnee Woman's Grave
The Republican Valley was the center of one of the major buffalo ranges of the Great Plains. It was a favorite hunting ground of several Indian tribes. Pawnee, Sioux, Oto and Cheyenne spent much time…
Half-Breed Tract
It was an accepted custom for many early fur traders to marry into Indian tribes. As the Indians ceded their lands, the rights of the half-breed descendants were not always identified. This situation…
The Ponca Tribe
This has been the homeland of the Ponca Indians since earliest recorded history. In 1868, the federal government signed the Treaty of Fort Laramie which transferred the land to the Sioux without the…
Butte Country
Perhaps no spot in Nebraska is so surrounded by historical and geographical landmarks as this one. Numerous landmarks of the period of the Indian Wars are visible from here. The site of a legendary…
The Yutan Oto Indian Village
Spanish colonial correspondence from 1777 noting the presence of an Oto Indian village on the Platte likely refers to the Yutan site, named after the Chief Iatan. Yutan would have been the first…
Oto Mission
In November 1833 Moses and Eliza Merrill, missionaries sponsored by the Baptist Missionary Union, arrived at the government Indian agency at Bellevue and opened a mission school for the Oto and…
Oto Indians
Prehistoric Indians were the earliest inhabitants of this area. By 1760, the Oto and part of the Missouri Tribe occupied an earth lodge village near here on the west bank of the Platte River, a short…
Chief Standing Bear
The land around the mouth of the Niobrara in northeastern Nebraska is the homeland of the Ponca Tribe. In 1868 the federal government signed the Treaty of Fort Laramie that transferred this land to…
Before Creighton
Archaeological evidence shows periodic Native American residence in this general area for some 12,000 years. From the mid-1600s to the early 1700s the Omaha, Ponca, Oto, and Ioway migrated from the…
Logan Fontenelle
Logan Fontenelle, an interpreter and Omaha chief, was born at Bellevue in May, 1825. His father was Lucien Fontenelle, a noted fur trader both on the lower Missouri River and near Fort Laramie,…
Pawnee
This was Pawnee Country, the last Nebraska home of an Indian Confederacy which once numbered more than 10,000, consisting of four tribes -- Skidi, Grand, Republican and Tapage. Their domain covered a…
The Cheyenne Outbreak
On September 9, 1878, after a year of suffering on an Oklahoma reservation, some 300 Northern Cheyenne Indians began a trek back to their homeland. Dull Knife's band of 149 Indians were captured and…
Fighting in the Buttes
After escaping from Fort Robinson on January 9, 1879, the Cheyennes climbed the buttes to the south and fled through this area, pursued by Third Cavalrymen. Soldiers and Cheyennes fought sharp…
The Villasur Expedition, 1720
In June 1720 a Spanish military force led by Sir Pedro de Villasur left Santa Fe, New Mexico, to gather information on French activities near the Missouri River. The contingent included 45 veteran…
Massacre Canyon
The adjacent stone monument erected in 1930 was first placed about a mile south of this area. Originally on the highway overlooking the canyon, it was moved to this location after the highway was…
The Calamus Valley
The source of the Calamus River is spring-fed Moon Lake, 60 miles northwest of here. The river was named after a common marsh plant eaten by muskrats. Archeological evidence indicates that prehistoric…
The Flight of the Cheyennes
Just before 10 P.M. on January 9, 1879, the 130 Cheyennes held in the cavalry barracks made their desperate bid for freedom. After disabling the soldier guards, they fled across this ground to the…
Fort Robinson-Camp Sheridan-Pine Ridge Indian Agency Road
Following the 1874 establishment of military posts near the Red Cloud and Spotted Tail agencies for the Oglala and Brule Sioux, the army laid out a forty-two-mile road to transport military and Indian…
Red Cloud Agency
Red Cloud Agency was established here in 1873 for Chief Red Cloud and his Ogalala band, as well as for other northern plains Indians, totaling nearly 13,000. Their earlier agency had been located on…
The Oto and Missouri Agency
After 1854 the Oto and Missouri Indian village and agency were located near here. For many years the two tribes had been living along the lower portion of the Platte River, but when Nebraska became a…
Camp Sheridan and Spotted Tail Agency
About ten miles north are the sites of Spotted Tail Agency and Camp Sheridan. Named for Brule Sioux Chief Spotted Tail, the agency was built in 1874 to supply treaty payments, including food,…
The Tobin Indian Raid
Railroads played an important role in the settlement of the Great Plains. Their construction was particularly damaging to the Indian way of life, since railroads helped the military to patrol rapidly…
Ponca Trail of Tears - White Buffalo Girl
A marker, 200 feet to the south, recalls the death of White Buffalo Girl of the Ponca tribe. The death of this child, daughter of Black Elk and Moon Hawk, symbolizes the tragic 1877 removal of the…
The Logan Creek Site
Logan Creek was named for Logan Fontenelle, a chief of the Omaha tribe killed by Oglala Sioux in 1855. The first recorded settlers in this area were the Aaron Arlington family, 1857, who settled at…
Nehawka Flint Quarries
Flint nodules embedded within subsurface Pennsylvanian Formation limestone deposits in this vicinity were an important source of stone used for the manufacture of tools and weapons by Nebraska’s…
Prehistoric Burial Site
From 1050 - 1400 the lower Platte and Missouri River valleys were home to prehistoric Indian farmers. These people lived in small villages and isolated farmsteads, cultivated corn and beans, and…
Nebraska's Earliest Documented Burial
A distinct group of prehistoric hunter-gatherers known to archeologists as the Oxbow Complex once occupied the northern High Plains from western Nebraska to southern Canada. About 2500 B.C. a band of…Recommended reading for the tour. Awakuni-Swetland, Mark J., “Omahas,” in David J. Wishart, ed. Encyclopedia of the Great Plains. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004, 586. Barrett, Carole A., “Sioux Wars,” in David J. Wishart, ed. Encyclopedia of the Great Plains. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004, 837. Jackson, Donald. “Lewis and Clark among the Oto.” Nebraska History. September 1960: 237-248. Jensen, Richard E. “Agent to the Oto: The Recollections of Albert Lamborn Green.” Nebraska History. Winter 1988: 169-181. Moore, John H., “Cheyennes,” in David J. Wishart, ed. Encyclopedia of the Great Plains. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004, 569. Overton, Daniel W. “Spending the Indians’ Money: A Quantitative Case Study of Oto-Missouria Trust Fund Disbursements, 1855-1881.” Nebraska History. Summer 1993: 72-81. Ridington, Robin. [http://omahatribe.unl.edu/etexts/oma.0021/index.html “A Sacred Object as Text: Reclaiming the Sacred Pole of the Omaha Tribe.”] American Indian Quarterly. Winter 1993: 83-99. Ridington, Robin and Dennis Hastings. Blessing for a Long Time: The Sacred Pole of the Omaha Tribe. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 1997. Scherer, Mark R. Imperfect Victories: The Legal Tenacity of the Omaha Tribe, 1945-1995. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 1999. Starita, Joe. “Dull Knife,” in David J. Wishart, ed. Encyclopedia of the Great Plains. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004, 572. Wishart, David J. An Unspeakable Sadness: The Dispossession of the Nebraska Indians. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 1994. Wishart, David J., “Otoe-Missourias” in David J. Wishart, ed. Encyclopedia of the Great Plains. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004, 587-588. Wishart, David J., “Pawnees” in David J. Wishart, ed. Encyclopedia of the Great Plains. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004, 590-591.