History.—Local pride has prompted some Nebraskans to begin the history of the white race in their state with the march of Coronado, in 1541, across the buffalo plains to “Quivira,” N. of the Arkansas river in Kansas; but the claim is not warranted by the evidence. Marquette mapped the Platte from hearsay in 1673; French explorers followed it to the Forks in 1739; and, after Nebraska passed to the United States in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase, successive American exploring expeditions left traces in its history. Major Stephen H. Long, in particular, followed the Platte and South Platte across the state in 1819, and his despairing account of the semi-arid buffalo plains—whence arose the myth of the Great American Desert—finely contrasts with the later history and latter-day optimism of dry-farming and irrigation. Meanwhile, fur traders who drew their goods from the country of the Platte had long been active on the Missouri. Trading posts were probably established in Nebraska in 1795, 1802, 1807 and 1812; the last two near the present towns of Ft. Calhoun (about 20 m. N. by W. from Omaha) and Bellevue. Manuel de Lisa, a noted Cuban trader and plainsman, was probably the first white settler (1807). In 1823 Bellevue became an Indian agency, and in 1849 the first United States post-office in Nebraska. Ft. Atkinson was maintained near the present town of Ft. Calhoun in 1819–1827; in 1825 the government acquired the first Indian lands, and in the ’thirties of the 19th century missionaries began to settle among the tribes; the first Ft. Kearney was maintained where Nebraska City now stands in 1847–1848, and in the latter year was re-established on the Platte, some 175 m. inland from the Missouri. Meanwhile there had begun the passage of the Mormons across the state (1845–1857), marked by important temporary settlements near Omaha (q.v.) and elsewhere, the travel to Oregon, and to California, for which depôts of supplies were established at Bellevue, Plattsmouth, Nebraska City and old Ft. Kearney, or Dobey Town.[1] Thus the country was well and favourably known before Congress organized it as a Territory in 1854.
Movements in Congress for the creation of a new Territory on the Platte began in 1844, several attempts at organization failing in the succeeding decade. In 1852–1853 Iowans and Missourians along the border of what are now Kansas and Nebraska held elections W. of the Missouri and sent delegates to Congress. A provisional Territorial government formed by Wyandot Indians and licensed white residents on Indian lands in Kansas (q.v.) forced Congress to take action. With what followed, the rivalry of the Platte and Kansas river valleys for the Pacific railway route, and the opposing interests of pro-slavery Missouri and anti-slavery Iowa, and possibly the personal ambitions of Stephen A. Douglas and Thomas H. Benton, had important relations. In the outcome Nebraska was one of the two Territories created by the Kansas-Nebraska Bill of 1854. This creative act bore evident traces of the pro-slavery sentiments of the Congress that passed it in the limitation of the suffrage to whites, and the explicit application of the national fugitive-slave laws for the last time in a federal statute. Under the provision of “popular-sovereignty” it was thought that Nebraska, as the more northerly Territory, would become a “free” state, if not a free Territory. There were slaves within its borders from the beginning, and anti-slavery ideas were embodied in several legislative bills, until a territorial law of 1861 excluded slavery. But the future of slavery was settled in Kansas, and events in Nebraska throw only a small side-light on that struggle. John Brown and James H. Lane spent considerable time in the south-eastern counties, and across these an “underground railroad” ran, by which slaves were conducted from Kansas to Iowa and freedom.
As organized in 1854 Nebraska extended from 40° N. lat. to British America, and from the Missouri and White Earth rivers to the “summit” of the Rockies; but in 1861 and 1863 it was reduced, by the creation of other Territories, to its present boundaries. By 1860 settlement had spread 150 m. W. from the Missouri, following the river valleys and the freighting routes. Many who had migrated to Pike’s Peak in 1859, stopped in Nebraska on their return eastward; and settlement was stimulated by the national Homestead Act of 1862 (one of the first patents granted thereunder, on the 1st of January 1863, was for a claim near Beatrice, Nebraska), and by the building and land-sales of the Union Pacific and Burlington railways following 1863. Thus in 1861 there were probably 30,000 inhabitants in the Territory, and 3300 men were sent into the field for the Union army in the Civil War. Until well into the sixties freighting across the plains was a great business. The “Oregon Trail,” the “Old California Trail,” and the “Old Salt Lake Trail”—all nearly identical in Nebraska—ran along the Platte across the entire state with various terminal branches near the eastern border, to the Missouri river towns; while branches from St Joseph, Missouri and Leavenworth, Kansas, ran up the valleys of the Big Blue and Little Blue rivers and joined the Nebraska roads near Ft. Kearney. The Oregon and California migration was of large magnitude by 1846. St Joseph, Leavenworth and Nebraska City (q.v.) were the great freighting terminals of the West. Over these roads was run in 1860–1861 the famous “pony express” whose service ended with the completion of the overland telegraph in the latter year; it covered the distance from St Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, in eight days, and even less. Freighting ended when the Union Pacific was extended across Nebraska between 1863 and 1867.
Political interest in the Territorial period centred mainly in a fight for the capital, waged between the towns of the Missouri river front, Bellevue, Brownville, Nebraska City, Plattsmouth, Omaha and Florence, those of the North Platte interior, and of the South Platte. This struggle engendered extraordinary bitterness, since success might mean continued life, and defeat prompt demise, to competing towns. As population increased the question of the capital was complicated by the question of statehood. Both were involved in the agitation in 1858–1859 for the annexation of the South Platte to Kansas (q.v.), which gained considerable strength; annexation promising to the former much earlier statehood than continued union with the backward region of the North Platte, and to northern Kansas also promising earlier statehood, and an advantage in the sectional struggle with southern Kansas. As the expenses of Territorial government were partly borne by the United States, statehood was voted against in 1860, and again (virtually) in 1864 after Congress had passed an Enabling Act; but in 1866 a constitution framed by the legislature was declared carried by the people by a majority of 100 votes in 7776, and Nebraska was admitted as a state (in spite of President Johnson’s veto) in 1867, after her legislature had accepted a fundamental condition imposed by Congress removing the limitation of the suffrage to whites by the new constitution. Fraud was charged in the Territorial election. At any rate the Republican party had worked for admission because it needed senators in Congress, and it got them. During part of 1866–1867 there were two de facto governments, the Territorial and the state.
The capital of the Territory remained always at Omaha, although in 1858 a majority of the legislature removed to Florence leaving the governor and a legislative rump at Omaha. In 1867 the South Platte region, having obtained a predominance in population capable of overcoming a gerrymander that had favoured the North Platte (and incidentally the Democrats), secured the appointment of a legislative committee to locate the state capital S. of the Platte. Several of the old Missouri river contestants had as representatives of their previous claims young towns located at strategic points in the interior. The committee avoided these and selected the site of Lincoln. Just ten years earlier the legislature had considered removal to another site on the Salt, to be called “Douglas” in honour of Stephen A. Douglas, then still in the heyday of his popularity.
The decade 1870–1880 was marked by the work of the two constitutional conventions described above. The first legislature under the constitution of 1875 met in 1877. The following decade was marked by a tremendous growth in population,
- ↑ In 18 months of 1849–1850 it was officially reported that 8000 wagons, with 80,000 draught-animals and 30,000 people, passed Ft. Kearney on the way to Oregon, California or Utah.
