Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/284



In the spring of 1846, what is now Southeastern Nebraska and Southwestern Iowa, was almost devoid of white settlers. Stretching back to the Sacs and Foxes, the eastern slope of the Missouri Valley was occupied only by Pottawattamie In- dians, some two or three thousand in number. A dozen years before, the Pottawattamies, "The Makers of Fire," with some Ottawas and Chippewas, had surrendered their Illinois lands to the general government, and been removed to a reservation of five million acres in Southwest Iowa. Except a few sma.ll settlements of whites near the Missouri State line, the sub- agency opposite Bellevue, and scattering posts of the Ameri- can Fur Company, the Missouri Valley, east of the river, was in the sole use and occupation of the Pottawattamies and their Ottawa and Chippewa allies.

By another treaty made with the government, June 5, 1846, the Indians again disposed of their lands, but reserved the right of occupancy two years. That year, and 1847, most of the Pottawattamies withdrew from the Iowa reservation to their new home on the Kaw, a few returning to hunt each year.

Across the Missouri, west of the Pottawattamies, the agency at Bellevue cared for four tribes, the Omahas, Otoes, Poncas and Pawnees, beside attending to the Pottawattamies, Ottawas and Chippewas through the sub-agency on the east side of the river. The Omaha tribe was to the north of the Platte, and the Otoes south of it, with a strip between them still occasion- ally disputed the ridiculous warfare of poor remnants of once mightier tribes. The Omahas were particularly miser- able. Unprotected from their old foes, the Sioux, yet for- bidden to enter into a defensive alliance, they were reduced to a pitiable handful of scarcely more than a hundred families,