Historic Omaha

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Meriwether Lewis.
PORTRAIT BY CHARLES WILLSON PEALE.
HISTORIC OMAHA
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Around this time, a new war chief, named
Blackbird, had emerged among the Omaha. He
had a reputation for ruthlessness and was even
accused of using arsenic and other poisons,
given to him by white traders, to destroy those
who opposed him. To supply the fur traders
and trappers, the Omaha needed more
extensive hunting grounds. Under Blackbird’s
leadership, the Omaha forced the Iowa back
across the Missouri and the Oto south of the
Platte River. However, their triumph was shortlived.
The Sioux were still coming and would
not be stopped by the Missouri River.
Others were also coming. The French,
represented by the Mallet brothers, explorers
and traders, had reached the Platte and passed
through eastern Nebraska in 1739. Though
there are no existing records, it is possible
Spanish expeditions visited the area in the
1760s. In 1800, the Spanish ceded
“Louisiana” to Napoleon Bonaparte and, in
1803, he in turn sold it to the new country
called the United States.
The same year that Spain ceded “Louisiana”
to Napoleon, the Omaha fell victim to a
smallpox plague. Almost two-thirds of the
tribe perished, including Blackbird, their selfappointed
chief. Terrible changes were coming
for the tribes of the Missouri River.
The spearhead of that change was forming
on the wharfs of St. Louis in the winter and
spring of 1804. On May 14, 1804,
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, sent by
President Thomas Jefferson, embarked upon
their historic journey into the newly
purchased territory of “Louisiana.” There were
forty-five men in their party. Two pirogues
escorted their fifty-five-foot long keelboat,
and two horses traveled the riverbank.
If there was enough wind, the keelboat
could sail. Usually it crawled north and west
along the Missouri by a backbreaking
combination of paddling and poling. In some
spots, it was even pulled upriver by men
hauling ropes. In this tortuous fashion, by
July 27, the company had reached the borders
of present-day Douglas County.
To this party of eastern woodsmen, the vistas
were spectacular. Described by frontiersmen as
a place where you can see the wind coming out
of next week, the broad expanse of the prairie
must have seemed limitless to men used to
heavily forested hills and valleys.
Shortly after entering present-day Douglas
County, as the expedition passed a large sandbar,
they spied some “curious mounds” along the
western shore of the Missouri. Clark went on
shore to examine them and found the mounds to
be “of Different height, Shape & Size, Some
Composed of sand, some of earth and sand, the
highest next to the river all of which covered
about 200 acres of land, in a circular form.”
Arthur Sorenson and other historians
believe these mounds were in an area bordered
by Eleventh Street on the west, Farnam Street
on the south, and the curve of the Missouri in
the east and north. Clark thought they were
the ancient remains of an Oto village, but