Viewing page 41 of 47

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

[[underlined]] MEMORIAL [[/underlined]]

OF THE OMAHA TRIBE OF INDIANS OF NEBRASKA PRAYING FOR AN APPROPRIATION BY CONGRESS AS AUTHORIZED BY THE ACT APPROVED FEBRUARY 9, 1925, - (43 STATS., 820)

To the Senate and House of Representatives:

Your Memorialists, the Omaha Tribe of Indians of Nebraska, show that by treaties between the United States and the Omaha Tribe of Indians made in 1830 and 1836, the United States obtained all rights of the Omahas to lands east of the Missouri River, and in return by the same treaties the United States acknowledged fully the title of the Omahas to the lands they were occupying in Nebraska [[underlined]]West[[/underlined]] and [[underlined]]South[[/underlined]] of the Missouri River. 

By treaty of March 16, 1854, (10 Stats. 1043) the United States purchased and paid for, with the exception hereinafter noted, all the lands of the Omahas west of the Missouri river and south of the Missouri river (the Missouri making a big bend in northeastern Nebraska). How far westward the Omaha lands extended was then unknown. No surveys had been made and no large streams or natural boundaries marked the Omaha [[underlined]]western[[/underlined]] boundary, which ran to where the Pawnee Tribe's [[underlined]]eastern[[/underlined]] boundary began (Pawnee treaty of September 24, 1857, 11 Stats. 729).

By the two (Omaha and Pawnee) treaties the United States acquired for settlers all of Nebraska north of the Platte. It at once lost interest in the boundary line between the tribes. It immediately opened the Omaha lands to settlers and the settlers paid and United States received therefor $1.25 an acre, and as to some lands $2.50 an acre.

The Omahas received, all told, for the 1854 cession, $881,000 (U. S. vs. Omaha Indians, 253, U. S. 278). The United States paid the Omahas this sum for all their lands with the exception noted hereinafter. The lands paid for totalled 4,500,000 acres (253 U. S. 278) or 19.6 cents per acre. 

The exception noted, being lands unpaid for, was this: