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Northeast Nebraska belonged to the Omaha nation until the white men arrived here.
When the Omahas arrived during the mid-1600s, they settled on the Bow Creek in what is now Cedar County. From that location, they spread out, displacing the indigenous tribes, until the Omahas eventually held more than five million acres. Today all that remains is a small reservation in Thurston County.
In the 1780s, the main Omaha village was located near the present town of Homer. “Tonwantonga,” as it was known, was a village of earth lodges.
The walls of the lodges were constructed of vertical poles and the roof was shingled with sod. Then the dome-shaped structure was covered with a foot or more of earth.
Indians who had the opportunity to live first in earth lodges and later in frame houses, reported the lodges were warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer than the houses of the white man.
The Indians did not spend the entire year in the village.
When the oak leaves began to uncurl in the spring, they knew it was time to plant corn. And when a certain species of purple flower began to bloom, they knew it was time for the annual hunt.
During the chieftainship of Blackbird in the late 1700s, the Omahas were feared and respected.
Blackbird also was feared by his own tribe. He was said to have obtained arsenic from white traders and used it to eliminate rivals. According to Omaha lore, a lesser chief named Little Bow, returned to Cedar County after a dispute with Blackbird. Bow Creek bears his name.
After being decimated by smallpox in the year 1800, the Omaha nation never recovered its former power.
Blackbird died of smallpox and was buried atop a high bluff overlooking the Missouri River. According to a now discredited story, Blackbird was buried astride his favorite horse with his head protruding from the earth so he could keep an eye on the traders traveling up and down the river. The site is known as Blackbird Hill.
The Lewis and Clark expedition marked a turning point for the Indians. A white invasion soon would be underway. On the homeward leg of their journey in 1806, Clark noticed a trading post already had been established near the mouth of the Vermillion River opposite what is now Dixon County. The fur trade continued under American auspices. William Clark became an agent of the Missouri Fur Company.
The Company’s first expedition was led by Manuel Lisa in 1809. Three years later Lisa established a fort and trading post a few miles north of the present site of Omaha.
In 1819, an expedition led by Major Steven Long set out to explore the region west of the Missouri River. Long traveled by steamboat as far as Lisa’s fort, where he spent the winter. Long was not impressed with Nebraska. He wrote most of the land west of the Missouri was a desert wasteland. For a number of years, the middle part of the continent was known as The Great American Desert.
Artist George Catlin didn’t see a vast desert when he came upriver a dozen years later. When he landed his canoe at Floyd’s Bluff in 1832, Catlin imagined the surrounding countryside “streaked with the plow and yellow with harvest sheaves, with houses and fences and groups of hamlets and villages.” Sixty years later, one of Catlin’s imaginary villages would become a real village named Laurel.
Catlin sat in “sad and tearstarting contemplation” as he sketched the grave of Sergeant Floyd.
